SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a watershed ruling on Wednesday by recognizing same-sex marriage in states where it has been legalized, striking down Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which restricts the definition of wedlock as between a man and a woman for the purposes of receiving federal benefits. But anti-gay conservatives derided the ruling as a "dangerous precedent set by activist judges that will cripple the economy and immigration reform." Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dissenting opinion, blasted the decision. Legalizing gay marriage, he declared, discriminates against people who are opposed to it. In that same vein, he also cried foul on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 for overturning segregationist Jim Crow Laws. Scalia deemed those decisions equivalently abhorrent because they discriminate against racists who don't wants blacks treated as equal citizens.

RICHMOND, Va. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- With Lent nearing, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell says he is poised to sign controversial "conscience clause" legislation that would allow faith-based adoption agencies to discriminate against families for religious and political differences. The bill protects private agencies from legal retaliation for denying placements based on sexual orientation, age, disability, gender, family status or political beliefs. It passed the state's Senate Tuesday, having previously been approved by the Republican-controlled House of Delegates earlier in the month. Virginia Catholic Conference Executive Director Jeff Caruso noted that "the bill does not change adoption or foster care law in any way, and it doesn't change who can or cannot adopt or be foster parents." Despite backlash from affirmative action and civil rights groups, the bill comes as welcome news to a number of Satanic cults that have previously been forced to place children of "liberated, carnal beasts" into Christian homes, which they describe as "prisons of guilt, oppression and anti-individuality."