The city of Woodruff adopted an invocations policy Tuesday recommended by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys, which ensures local officials can continue their constitutionally protected practice of prayer before public meetings despite recent threats from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

"Judge Vaughn Walker ruled, among other things, that not one single person who voted for Proposition 8 had any rational reason for so doing. Yes, if you voted in favor of marriage in any of the states that have taken up this question, you’ve now been officially labeled as an irrational bigot, your voice being 'nothing more than a fear or unarticulated dislike of same-sex couples,' according to Judge Walker."

New York Times: "'We’re working very closely with the county clerk’s office to make sure that everybody who wants to get married Friday, if the stay is removed, can do so,' Mr. Ting said Thursday in an interview . . . [Jim Campbell], a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which defended Proposition 8, said that if a stay was not issued, 'uncertainty' from any same-sex marriages would be 'harmful to the public interest' while the case was under appeal. That could include the administrative burden if government officials had to annul marriages, he said."

"Perhaps the most surprising thing in the judge’s opinion is his declaration that 'gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage.' This line, quoted everywhere within hours with evident astonishment, appears to be the sheerest ipse dixit - a judicial 'because I said so'- and the phrase 'no longer' conveys that palpable sense that one is being mugged by a progressive."

"The Mexican Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a fledgling law allowing same-sex marriages in Mexico City is constitutional, rejecting an appeal by federal prosecutors who argued that it violated the charter's guarantees to protect the family."

'Hogamus higamus, men are polygamous; higamus hogamus, women monogamous' . . . . Rebarbarization is just around the corner. Courtship, anyone?"

"Democrats voting for Kagan along with the chamber’s two independents and just five Republicans: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Judd Gregg (N.H.), Richard Lugar (Ind.) and Olympia Snowe (Maine)."

Round-up of The Volokh Conspiracy commentary on Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

'Judge Walker makes little or no reference to the fact that nearly all of plaintiffs' "experts" are political activists for gay causes and that many or most are in same-sex relationships. They're just neutral experts.'"

"One San Francisco judge ordering it so was an arbitrary, heavy-handed act with no other basis than a demand from a powerful activist group. Unless this is overturned, the same playbook will be used to try to institutionalize group marriages, polygamy, and every other iteration of human relationships until marriage is utterly obliterated."

The order is here.

“In America, we should respect and uphold the right of a free people to make policy choices through the democratic process--especially ones that do nothing more than uphold the definition of marriage that has existed since the foundation of the country and beyond,” said ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum.

“It is disturbing that the trial court, in order to strike down Prop 8, has literally accused the majority of California voters of having ill and discriminatory intent when casting their votes for Prop 8."

"For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves."

" . . . federal judge has overturned California's same-sex marriage ban in a landmark case that could eventually land before the U.S. Supreme Court."

"Under local court rules, it could be more than a month before the stay request might be acted upon, and the Proposition 8 backers argued that same-sex marriages could be performed during such an interval."

"The appeal asks the court to determine whether a state that permits any legal stranger to seek custody of a child over the objections of the child’s fit parents violates the parents’ constitutional right to raise their own children."

"What if Democratic leaders are saving their most controversial issues until after November when voters are powerless to do anything about it? That's a question more insiders are beginning to ask as big ticket legislation on spending, the military, global warming and campaign finance sit curiously idle."

"Attorneys associated with the Alliance Defense Fund and National Lawyers Association point out that about three-quarters of American lawyers don’t even belong to the ABA, and many actively work to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

"With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1. The measure, which seeks to exempt Missouri from the insurance mandate in the new health care law, includes a provision that would change how insurance companies that go out of business in Missouri liquidate their assets."