1.   But why was Pope Gregory so hot to ban marriage?

2.   Chapman, a retiring lawmaker who often differed with Clinton, said the president scored points by signing legislation to ban homosexual marriages and overhaul welfare.

3.   Defended Hawaii in challenges to a state law banning gay marriages.

4.   He lets his audiences know that he would have opposed the bill that effectively banned marriages between homosexuals.

5.   In Massachusetts and several other states, mean-spirited advocacy groups are actively campaigning to ban gay marriage and block or take away domestic partner benefits.

6.   In the third century A.D., the Roman emperor Claudius II banned marriages because he wanted single men for his armies.

7.   Massachusetts Senate President Thomas Birmingham, another gubernatorial canadiate, blocked a vote on a ballot initiative that would ban gay marriage.

8.   More than two dozen states have already banned gay marriages and Congress has passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents federal recognition of marriages between homosexuals.

9.   Most states have now banned gay marriages, but Vermont lawmakers are poised to define a new legal status called civil unions for gays and lesbians.

10.   Slowly those lines began to blur, though, as the last of the legal barriers banning interracial marriages were dismantled more than two decades ago.