USA: Is Trump Marriage In Trouble? : Conservative Pundit S.E. Cupp Tells Melania Trump to Leave ‘Jerk' Husband Over Affair Claims - by Tierney McAfee

Conservative pundit S.E. Cupp is calling on First Lady Melania Trump to leave husband Donald Trump over explosive allegations that the now-president cheated with porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal in 2006.

Both of Trump’s alleged mistresses spoke out in bombshell interviews this past week, offering up intimate details of the alleged sexual encounters, which they claim took place when Melania was pregnant and shortly after she gave birth to their son, Barron, now 12. The White House has denied both affairs.

During her HLN show on Tuesday, Cupp compared Trump’s alleged affairs to those of then-President Bill Clinton the 1990s and urged Mrs. Trump to do what Hillary Clinton failed to do 20 years ago: “leave her jerk of a husband.”

“While feminists trotted [Hillary Clinton] out as a role model for strong women, all I saw was a woman who was humiliated time and again,” the HLN host said of Clinton’s decision to stand by her husband through multiple sex scandals.

“Melania may not have a political career to consider, but as first lady, she is an inherently important figure in American politics, and women are watching ― particularly young women,” Cupp added. “Melania should do for this generation of girls what Hillary Clinton did not do for mine and leave her jerk of a husband.”

Read mor: S.E. Cupp Tells Melania Trump to Leave ‘Jerk' Husband Over Affair Claims | PEOPLE.com

Lovers head to 'Europe's Vegas'

Denmark is becoming known as the Las Vegas of Europe, where Germans dodge red tape for quick, easy weddings.
 
When Benjamin and Natsuko met in Berlin two years ago, they had no idea their budding romance would lead them to tie the knot in what has become known as "Europe's Las Vegas".

Benjamin Krause is a 37-year-old German who met his Japanese girlfriend Natsuko Kubota, 32, while she was "couch surfing" at his Berlin flat via an informal bed and breakfast network.

As their relationship blossomed and talk turned to a life together, they quickly learned that Germany has some of Europe's highest bureaucratic hurdles to marriage, particularly if one partner is not German.

They may lack the drive-thru wedding chapels and Elvis-impersonator pastors of the US gambling mecca, but many cities and towns of southern Denmark have collectively won the nickname "Europe's Las Vegas" for offering a quick, simple alternative to couples getting hitched.

And because Denmark is an EU country, the marriages are subsequently recognized abroad, usually with little fuss or red tape.

Read more: Lovers head to 'Europe's Vegas' | News.com.au

Islam in Europe: In the Firm Grip of Honour

The setting: A Muslim family somewhere in Berlin. The father meets his son. The two have not seen each other for some time and it is a warm reunion. The son tells of his plans to get married. The father is overjoyed – until he hears what sort of woman his son has chosen. His fiancé is a Miss Anna Schmidt from Sweden. But worst of all, she is not a Muslim.

Upon hearing the details, the father flies into a rage. "I can't believe what you are saying," he screams. He cannot even imagine having a non-Muslim daughter-in-law. "Do not force me to decide between you and her," begs the son in an unsteady voice. Yet, this only infuriates the father even more. "I made you what you are today. I have given you everything," the father continues. "And you dare to tell me about your decision?"

This encounter is fictional, but it could easily reflect a real-life conflict. The dialogue was conceived by young Muslims from the Heroes project in the Berlin district of Neukölln, home to a large number of Muslim immigrants.

Read  more: In the Firm Grip of Honour - Qantara.de

guardian.co.uk: Gay people don't need marriage - by Mark Simpson

For the complete report from the guardian.co.uk click on this link

Gay people don't need marriage - by Mark Simpson

Miss California, a practizing Christian, was last week denounced by Miss America gay judge Perez Hilton on his blog as "a dumb bitch" and unworthy of the Miss America crown because she gave the "wrong" answer to his chippy question about gay marriage. Like most Americans – including the current Democratic president of the United States – she believes that marriage is "between a man and a woman". Boo! Hiss! Rip her to shreds! President Obama expressed the exact same view during the Presidential Election: "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it's also a sacred union. You know, God's in the mix." Of course, instead of being scorned as a bigot and a dumb bitch, Obama was handed the Mr America crown by liberals and probably most gay voters. But I suppose that being president of the United States is a rather less important title than Miss America. Branding Christians and traditionalists "bigots" for being Christians and traditionalists and thus none too keen to fundamentally revise the definition of marriage is a highly unattractive exercise in liberal self-righteousness that makes Miss America look quite sophisticated.

New ways of living and loving require new institutions. Or in the words of the famously unmarried Galilee carpenter and fisher of men: put new wine into new wineskins. And keep the flippin' Pharisees out of it. Or else you'll end up with a tacky mess.Fully-recognized, open-to-all civil unions are a secular institution that helps to shore up a fragile secular society. And make no mistake, it is secularism on which most of the – historically very, very recent – freedoms enjoyed by lesbians and gays are based, along with those of women. Note EU-Digest: If you are Gay or Lesbian and profess to be a believer in the Christian or Muslim faith you better brush up on your Bible and Koran. The bottom line remains, if you can't make babies together or at least try and make it happen as man and a woman, you might be o.k to the secular world, but you ain't doing what you were created for. Even Darwin would have told you so. So dear Gays and Lesbians, go for the civil union, and be happy ever after.

University of Utah: Marriage and General Health - Heart Hazards of Woeful Wives

For the complete report from the University of Utah click on this link

Marriage and General Health - Heart Hazards of Woeful Wives

Women in strained marriages are more likely to feel depressed and suffer high blood pressure, obesity and other signs of "metabolic syndrome," a group of risk factors for heart disease, stroke and diabetes, University of Utah psychologists found. The same study found men in strained marriages also are more likely to feel depressed, yet - unlike women - do not face an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, which is characterized by five symptoms: hypertension, obesity around the waistline, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and low levels of HDL, which is "good cholesterol.""We found this was true for wives in this study, but not for husbands," says Henry, who was scheduled to present the findings Thursday, March 5 in Chicago during the American Psychosomatic Society's annual meeting. "The gender difference is important because heart disease is the number-one killer of women as well as men, and we are still learning a lot about how relationship factors and emotional distress are related to heart disease," she says.

ChicagoTribune: Married women's cheating hearts beating faster -- having more affairs than ever before - Joel Hood

For the complete report from the chicagotribune.com click on this link

Married women's cheating hearts beating faster -- having more affairs than ever before - Joel Hood

A study of infidelity sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Chicago indicates that the percentage of women who say they have been unfaithful is growing faster than the percentage of men who admit the same. Data collected since 1972 and due to be presented next month at a behavioral studies conference show that 15 percent of women over 60 confessed to having an affair in their lifetime in 2006, compared with 5 percent in 1991. The rate for men over 60 increased from 20 percent to 28 percent.Some suggest modern innovations such as e-mail, cell phones and instant messaging are opening doors to intimacy that didn't exist in the past.

Interchurch families: CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM MARRIAGES

For the complete report from Interchurch families click on this link

CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM MARRIAGES

Gé Speelman of Utrecht University in the Netherlands spoke on Christian-Muslim marriages during the Graz European Ecumenical Assembly in 1997. By clicking on the above link you can read a shortened version of her paper. The Muslim partner is often confronted with what most people around him think is natural, obvious, self-evident; he/her is the other, the one who has to prove him/her self. Many Muslim partners find they have to defend their faith against attacks which associate Islam with intolerance, backwardness and irrationality. In reaction, many Muslims become very much aware of their cultural and religious heritage. As one Muslim man said: “I would never have known so much about Islam if I had stayed at home and married an Egyptian girl.”

Another factor is that interfaith partners are seen as representatives of their communities. The Turkish Muslim represents the “terrible Turks” who have shaped the history of so many Eastern European countries. The German wife is the “imperialist European” whose community has been responsible for so much repression and bloodshed. Many problems in an interfaith marriage are exactly the same as those experienced by many other couples. But in their case, family and friends are looking out for problems; when they occur, they are defined as arising from differences in culture. A Dutch woman said she did not want to recognize the serious communication problem in her relationship because she was determined to prove to those who said it would never work that her marriage was fantastically successful. The partners had put off talking about their problems until it was too late.

Loved ones want to be more than merely “that Christian”, or “that Muslim”. Of course, they are also “a Christian” and “a Muslim” – much of what we are ties up with our religious traditions. German theologian Ulrich Dietzfelbinger, who described, in a lecture he gave in 1989, his relationship with his Turkish Muslim wife. He describes his tendency to reduce the differences in their beliefs to minor points, the pull to reduce their faith to the lowest common denominator. “After all, we both believe in Almighty God.” In the end, he recognizes that this way of reducing their differences is a way of denying them, leaving both partners with very little faith at all. What he learns is that one should not try to make the other the same as oneself. With new eyes he looks at the doctrine of incarnation. It is strange that God has community with a human being (and therefore with all human beings) in such a way that God is in his/her utmost being qualified by that humanity, while at the same time human beings are not deified and God remains God. Is there not in this strange incarnation something analogous to his marriage, where only love is the guarantor that he respects his partner as being inalienably other, different, and yet at one with himself? Maybe we should just let this question stand.

This is London: Marriage is on the rocks in Great Britain

For the complete report in This is London click on this link

Marriage is on the rocks in Great Britain

"The number of couples marrying in Britain has fallen to a record low, official figures have shown. The annual wedding count dropped by more than a tenth last year - the biggest peacetime decline since records began more than a century ago.

The increasingly marginal importance of marriage to millions means that for the first time married people are set to become a minority. The proportion of married people among the adult population is now only a fraction over half at 50.3 per cent. That compares with 54 per cent in 1997 and more than two thirds in the 1970s. Experts blamed the fall on political indifference to marriage, which means there are no longer tax or benefits advantages to getting married."