Michigan won’t yet recognize gay marriages
DETROIT – Michigan state agencies won’t immediately recognize hundreds of same-sex marriages performed in the hours before an appeals court put on hold a judge’s ruling that tossed out a state ban on gay marriage, the governor’s office said Sunday.
About 300 couples wed Saturday in four Michigan counties before a federal appeals court placed a stay on a Detroit federal judge’s decision overturning the state’s 2004 constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Health law birth-control coverage before justices
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration and its opponents are renewing the Supreme Court battle over President Barack Obama’s health-care law in a case pitting the religious rights of employers against the rights of women to the birth control of their choice.
Two years after the entire law survived the justices’ review by a single vote, the court is hearing arguments Tuesday in a religion-based challenge from family-owned companies objecting to covering certain contraceptives in its health plans as part of the law’s preventive-care requirement.
Health plans must offer a range of services at no extra charge, including all forms of birth control for women that have been approved by federal regulators.
Some of the nearly 50 businesses suing over covering contraceptives object to paying for all forms of birth control. But the companies involved, led by Hobby Lobby, in the high court case are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude drugs or devices the government says may work after an egg has been fertilized.
Associated Press
