News round up - March 5th

In case you missed it:

• Back in Illinois, Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D-Chicago) has told County Clerks they can immediately begin issuing "marriage" licenses to homosexual couples. As written and passed, the ill-named Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act does not take effect until June 1, 2014, but last month a federal judge ruled that there is no need to wait. Much like the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, one wonders why effective dates are legislated at all if they do not actually mean anything.

• You likely won't have heard that Pope Francis recently said there is no need to change the Church's teaching on contraception 

• Some parents in Italy are gently fighting back against the progressives who, as in many parents of the world, have legal forms to include spaces for "Parent 1" and "Parent 2" instead of
  "Father" and "Mother".

•  We've all noticed a curious increase in police presence on the highways near the end of each calendar month, though many police districts have long denied the existence of an actual monthly ticket quota as linked to performance evaluation. One Illinois legislator doesn't believe that claim and has introduced legislation to put an end to the quota system in the Land of Lincoln.

• Niagara Falls has frozen for the second time this winter.

• A state legislator in Hawaii has caused a bit of a ruckus when she commented on a bill in Hawaiian, and refused to translate her words in English.