Free Republic

A Christian student has been punished by his Michigan high school for demonstrating opposition to a school event celebrating the homosexual lifestyle. The boy's father, a pastor, says he's frustrated the rights of Christian students are being constantly trampled on campus. Oakridge High School in Muskegon, Michigan, is one of many schools across the U.S. that took part in Wednesday's "National Day of Silence" -- an event promoted heavily by homosexual activist groups, which view it as a day to protest alleged discrimination faced by students who identify as "gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender (GLBT)." At Oakridge High, duct tape...

High school clubs that address sexual orientation and gender identity have more than quadrupled in North Jersey since 2000. This rainbow revolution is part of a national trend that has students openly discussing gay and lesbian issues in school-sanctioned clubs. Some of the clubs adopt a purposely vague moniker, like "Kaleidescope" or "Spectrum." But most use the name "Gay-Straight Alliance" -- GSA for short. All see themselves as no different from any other issue-oriented club, such as Amnesty International or environmental clubs. There are at least 16 of these clubs in Bergen County, and 125 throughout New Jersey. What's most...

Confirmation of male anatomy makes marriage legal, judge rules By DERRICK NUNNALLY dnunnally@journalsentinel.com Posted: March 23, 2007 Despite Wisconsin's same-sex marriage ban, Barbara Lynn Terry and Nicole Winstanley carried purses into a judge's office Friday and emerged as Mrs. and Mrs. Terry. But first, a doctor had to confirm the male anatomy of Barbara Lynn Terry, who was born a man, lives as a woman and has been undergoing hormone therapy for years. "That's all I needed to hear," Circuit Judge David A. Hansher told the doctor, via speakerphone, after learning that gender-reassignment surgery hadn't been performed on the person...

A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" because that is hate speech and could scare workers. The ruling came in a case being handled by the Pro-Family Law Center, which promised an appeal of the drastic result. "We are going to take this case right up the steps of the United States Supreme Court," said Richard D. Ackerman, who along with Scott Lively argued the case for the Pro-Family Law Center. We are simply unwilling to accept that Christians...

EDINBURGH, Scotland, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nurses and other health care professionals should avoid using the terms ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ to refer to family relationships since the terms could be offensive to homosexual couples with children, a new directive published by Scotland’s National Health Service recommends. Issued in conjunction with the country’s leading homosexual activist organization Stonewall Scotland, the publication is entitled Fair For All - The Wider Challenge: Good LGBT Practice in the NHS. Americans for Truth reported Feb.11 on the publication’s release. The booklet calls for a “zero-tolerance policy to discriminatory language” among Scotland’s health care system. Included in discriminatory...

A Vote for Rudy Why Giuliani should be president RICHARD BROOKHISER I have voted against Rudy Giuliani, and I have voted for him. Voting for him is better; it’s what I hope conservatives, Republicans, and Americans will do in 2008. Giuliani formed a presidential exploratory committee after the midterm elections, formally entering campaign land, in which every utterance by and about him will be analyzed and its potential effect polled. Not that it hasn’t been going on for years. My favorite of the early reax to Rudy was flagged by columnist Deroy Murdock: An anti-Giuliani website, SayNoToRudy.org, posted by social...

Mary Cheney’s pregnancy poses problems not just for her child, but also for all Americans. Her action repudiates traditional values and sets an appalling example for young people at a time when father absence is the most pressing social problem facing the nation. With 37 percent of American children born to fatherless families, Mary Cheney is contributing to a trend that is detrimental to all Americans who will live with the ramifications of millions of children whose anger and frustration at not knowing their father will be felt in the public schools and communities of our nation. Mary Cheney is...

Mary Cheney, the vice president's openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are "ecstatic" about the baby, due in late spring, said a source close to the couple. It's a baby boom for grandparents Dick and Lynne Cheney: Their older daughter, Elizabeth, went on leave as deputy assistant secretary of state before having her fifth child in July. "The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild," spokesman Lea Anne McBride said last night. Cheney, 37, was a key aide to her father...

A seven-month pregnant woman - her belly vast - was at a supper with a friend. He, being of the family type, told her she was very lucky to be expecting a baby. He was the first person who had said such a thing, she told him. [snip] How is it that in cultures all over the world pregnancies prompt congratulations rather than anxious questions about childcare? How is it that in a culture equipped, materially and medically, to ease child-rearing, we are so reluctant to enjoy new life? [snip] The answer, I would argue, is that a bias against...

A funny thing happened to me the other day when my wife and I had, thank God, another baby (a boy). Many of my friends didn’t seem all that happy for me. Sure, they went through the motions of smiles and congratulations. But it was evident that many thought me insane. Why would a young man and his wife ruin their lives with eight children? Who could afford the day-school bills? Didn’t we want to live life a little, and not just be burdened with kids? It got downright surreal when a European film company pressed me, while my wife...

With the "hearts and minds" of 6.5 million schoolchildren on the line, a pro-family group has called a news conference today to protest a series of bills approved by the Legislature that would turn the California public school system into "sexual indoctrination centers." The event is being held by the Campaign for Children and Families, which has been active in lobbying against the changes in state law, at the state Capitol in Sacramento. "The simple message for (Gov. Arnold) Schwarzenegger will be: Veto these bad bills or turn off family-values voters," the group said in its announcement Monday. "(The bills)...

How HHS Bullies North Dakota Citizens by Stephen Baskerville and Mitchell S. Sanderson Human Events Online Aug 17, 2006 Those who work in what was once nobly known as the civil service -- and what has degenerated into the "bureaucracy" -- are required by law and ethics to be politically neutral. Presidents and members of Congress, cabinet and sub-cabinet secretaries can voice opinions. Even judges are permitted (and often abuse) a privilege of obiter dicta. But career officials are supposed to implement the policies of the people and their elected officials, not publicly advocate what those policies should be....

A day for men to hope David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Sunday, June 18, 2006 Well, just in time for Father's Day, two thick tomes have landed in my snail mail, with a third promised. They are from the courageous McGill-Queen's University Press, and I will give you their full titles, for these give a fair idea what's inside. One is Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture. The other is Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men. Both are by the team of Paul Nathanson and Katherine K. Young. Spreading...

Welcome to the matriarchy Barbara Kay National Post Wednesday, June 14, 2006 TORONTO - If you live in Toronto, you may have noticed the Bathurst Street billboards sponsored by Jewish Women International Canada (JWIC). They all display the same emotive ad, featuring a shame-suffused, Jewish-looking woman, submissively tilting her face to offer a brutalized eye to the public gaze. The caption reads: "There is a Jewish woman you know being abused." Community response has so far been equivocal, but muted. Now imagine public reaction to an alternative billboard message: an anguished man staring down from a 12-story ledge, captioned...

Gay marriage Should same-sex marriages be recognised throughout Australia?

The Portland City Council will have to ignore the recommendation of citizen advisers if it wants to accept a controversial gift of bronze statues from Portland Sea Dogs owner Daniel Burke. The Public Art Committee, an advisory group appointed by the council, voted 6-1 Wednesday to recommend that the council reject the statues, which depict a traditional family of four going to a baseball game. The vote came after Burke's attorney said no changes will be made to the sculptures. The statues generated heated public debate during the last week as issues of government intervention and family diversity clashed with...

For approximately one thousand years after the fall of Rome, European civilization comprised a religion (Roman Catholicism), a morality (based on the revealed word of God and the natural law implanted in man by his Creator), and a political hegemony (in which the Church was both a secular ruler and a moral and spiritual influence on other rulers.) This “Catholic Civilization” was not seriously threatened by numerous dissenters who, from time to time, sought to weaken the Church and obtain a greater freedom either for themselves or for one of the new Nation-States. The Protestant Revolution (to give it its...

The secret's out Desperate in the face of defeat, the Liberals ended up leaking their own hidden agenda The Western Standard February 13, 2006 Ted Byfield To adequately write anything about what could well prove one of the most pivotal elections in Canadian history, when the results are scarcely in, is not advisable. So I'll write about the campaign. It is now, at least, over. And a very curious campaign it was. Its central irony was the desperate Liberal effort to establish that the Tories harboured a "secret agenda." Instead, they inadvertently disclosed that it is they who have...

Even if one suspected that the feminists were not being entirely candid in this obeisance to traditional moms, it was hard to come up with the proof, specific statements of disdain from them for women’s traditional roles in the family. Not anymore. In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks reported on Linda Hirshman, a retired Brandeis professor who has decided the time is right to push the feminist case to the next plateau, to, as she says, “radicalize feminism.”

WASHINGTON, November 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Homosexual activists chained themselves to a display in the foyer of the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters in the US capitol today in an attempt to disrupt work there. A FRC employee said that about 12 homosexual activists, some wearing "ACT UP" t-shirts - an acronym for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power - followed a single member who gained admittance through a keyed security door by posing to be there for an interview. Once the door was opened, the dozen forced their way in, strewing condoms and fliers, chanting "condoms work, abstinence kills." The...

November 3, 2005Ninth Circuit on Slams Parental Rightsby Steve Jordahl Court rules parents do not have exclusive rights to teach their children about sex. The Ninth Circuit Court of appeals has struck again with one of the most outrageous anti-family rulings to date. Faced with a case where parents in Palmdale, California objected to a questionnaire about sex their kids were given at school, the court ruled that parents do not have the right to be the exclusive providers of sex information to their kids. In writing the opinion for the three judge panel, Judge Stephen Reinhardt said "Parents have...

The lesbian lover of a child's biological mother has equal legal rights with traditional parents, the Washington state Supreme Court ruled today. The case involved a woman who raised a child from birth to age 6 while in a "relationship" with the girl's biological mother, the Associated Press reported. The ruling means the non-biological "mother" can seek parental rights as a "de facto parent." "Today we hold that our common law recognizes the status of de facto parents and places them in parity with biological and adoptive parents in our state," the court, led by Justice Bobbe J. Bridge, wrote...

A team of scientists in Britain have been granted official approval to create a human embryo using genetic material from two women, raising the future prospect of babies with a pair of mothers. The group from Newcastle University in Britain has been given the green light by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the Government-appointed genetics and reproductive technology watchdogs for Britain, where such science is tightly regulated. The scientists will transfer the pro-nuclei - the components of a human embryo nucleus - made by one man and woman into an unfertilised egg from another woman. This technique is...

Peggy Drexler's new book, "Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men," contends that father-absent homes -- particularly "single mother by choice" and lesbian homes -- are the best environments for boys. While "Raising Boys" may seem like a harmless, feel-good affirmation for "maverick moms," it could have a damaging impact on children by affecting both the choices women make and family law. Drexler, who is in San Francisco this week for book signings and related events, contends that sons from fatherless families "grow up emotionally stronger," "have a wider range of interests...

How do sons of lesbians and single mothers develop their moral character without a father in their lives? That is the question that Drexler (psychology, Weill Medical Coll. of Cornell Univ.) tackles here, and her answer is based on extensive research: these sons develop into sensitive, caring, and communicative human beings rarely prone to aggression who are no less “all boy” than sons of traditional families. Maverick mothers, as Drexler illustrates, seek out male role models, “collect” friends to form an extended family around their sons, and often go outside their comfort zone to offer a variety of activities and...

CHILDCARE staff are using taxpayer-funded booklets to teach toddlers about gay families. A booklet called We're Here, used in more than 2000 children's centres, encourages staff to use stories, books, posters, games and dolls to actively challenge homophobia. Suggestions include: CHANGING Father's Day to "A Day for Someone Special". USING the terms Partner A and Partner B on forms instead of Mum and Dad. TELLING children that "some families don't have dads". In one suggested role playing scenario, children are introduced to Toby, a doll which has "two mums, June and Alice". The booklet has been slammed by the Australian...

Sen. Rick Santorum yesterday challenged "radical" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to a serious debate on who is responsible for raising children --the family, the government or the children. The Pennsylvania Republican and author of "It Takes a Family" -- a conservative answer to the New York Democrat's book "It Takes a Village" -- says he has had limited conversations with the former first lady regarding both works. "She made a comment to me about that it takes a village, and I responded, 'No, it really does take a family,' " Mr. Santorum said. During an appearance yesterday on ABC's "This...

The Conservatives say they won't drop the divisive same-sex issue this fall and promise to try to repeal it if they form the next government. The federal Conservatives are still committed to revisiting the controversial same-sex marriage issue when the House returns in nine weeks, even though Bill C-38 received Royal Assent last week and despite last week's public opinion poll suggesting that a majority of Canadians don't want to reopen the divisive political issue. Conservative MP Vic Toews (Provencher, Man.), his party's high-profile justice critic and a former Manitoba justice minister, told The Hill Times that the Conservatives will...

BOSTON — Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (search) says babies born to couples of the same sex should be given amended birth certificates, but supporters of gay marriage who want to change those certificates say the governor's formula for doing so is wrong. Click in the box to the right to watch a report by FOX News' Alisyn Camerota. Birth certificates (search) are supposed to establish identity and parentage. In Massachusetts, the only state in the union where same-sex marriage (search) is legal, gay rights advocates want the words "Mother" and "Father" removed from birth certificates, and put in their place...

BOSTON - The governor's office has instructed hospitals to cross out the word "father" on birth certificates for children of same-sex parents and substitute "second parent," angering municipal clerks. Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Gov. Mitt Romney, said Thursday that the certificates are perfectly legal. But municipal clerks, who register and store birth records, say the cross-outs could leave the documents open to challenges by passport agents, foreign governments and other officials. "They should not have a birth certificate that has crosses on it," said Barnstable Town Clerk Linda E. Hutchenrider, a past president of the Massachusetts Town Clerks Association....

Replacing the family with fascismBy KATHLEEN PARKER IF YOU WERE a Big Picture sort gazing at America through a wide-angle lens, you might begin to wonder: Why the big rush to fascism? For a nation that prides itself on freedom, even seeking to infect other countries, we're terribly busy undermining our own. How? Specifically, by destroying the family. Sanctity aside, the traditional family is the front-line defense of liberty, the Maginot Line against creeping totalitarianism. Without the primary, autonomous unit of mother and father — whose duty is to protect and nurture their offspring — government inevitably intercedes. Indeed, it...

A pre-school in Maryland has lost at least one customer after a student's father working on the school's newsletter was told he must change a "Happy Mother's Day" greeting in the publication to "Happy Parent's Day." David Becker of Kensington, Md., had a 3-year-old son at the Kensington Forest Glen Children's Center, which is overseen by the umbrella organization Montgomery Child Care Association. "My wife and I have always been very involved with the school and with the teachers," Becker told WND. The trouble began when Becker, while typing the newsletter, changed a hand-written greeting from "Happy Parent's Day!" to...

(AgapePress) - In comments at an Ivy League school, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union has indicated that among the "fundamental rights" of people is the right to polygamous relationships -- and that the ACLU has defended and will continue to defend that right. In a little-reported speech offered at Yale University earlier this year, ACLU president Nadine Strossen stated that her organization has "defended the right of individuals to engage in polygamy." Yale Daily News says Strossen was responding to a "student's question about gay marriage, bigamy, and polygamy." She continued, saying that her legal organization "defend[s]...

Tupelo, MS, Jun. 22, 2005 (CNA) - A West Virginia court decision that has redefined the term “parent” has “demonstrated the lethal effects of judicial activism on the nuclear family,” said Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy.On June 17, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals redefined what a parent is by declaring a lesbian partner the “psychological parent” of her deceased lover’s young child. In Tina B. v. Paul S,, the court removed custody of the child from his maternal grandparents and gave it to the lesbian partner, Tina B.“While the...

BOISE, Idaho -- An Idaho woman once held up by the Bush administration as a crusader against domestic violence has become entangled in a case that involves meth, death and many unanswered questions. Barbara Dehl, 49, was held Friday in the Ada County Jail. This past week, a grand jury indicted her on two felony counts of kidnapping and one count of trafficking methamphetamine. The charges stand in stark contrast to Dehl's life five years ago, when she stood with teary eyes next to Republican Gov. Dirk Kempthorne as he signed a law named after Dehl's deceased daughter, Cassandra Dehl....

CONCORD -- For David Parker, the first alarm went off in January, when his 5-year-old son came home from his kindergarten class at Lexington's Joseph Estabrook School with a bag of books promoting diversity. Inside were books about foreign cultures and traditions, along with food recipes. There was also a copy of ''Who's In a Family?" by Robert Skutch, which depicts different kinds of families, including same-sex couples raising children. The book's contents concerned Parker and prompted him to begin a series of e-mail exchanges with school officials on the subject that culminated in a meeting Wednesday night with Estabrook's...

The Montgomery County public school system has changed parts of its new sex education curriculum after parents criticized it as favoring a homosexual agenda and encouraging promiscuity. 'It's a teeny little step in the right direction,' said Michelle Turner, president of Citizens for Responsible Curriculum. Educators have removed a sentence in the curriculum that said: 'Sex play with friends of the same gender is not uncommon during early adolescence.' In addition, the school system has removed a statement that said students would 'discuss how you develop your sexual identity.' Curriculum coordinator Russell Henke, who reports to the school board, is...

The proposed state constitutional ban on gay marriage that supporters say will keep the issue out of the hands of a judge is likely headed for a courtroom anyway. Critics say they will sue to stop plans to amend the Tennessee Constitution, a day after the state House overwhelmingly approved the issue with the idea of putting it in the hands of voters in 2006. The ACLU of Tennessee says it will pursue litigation to stop the gay marriage ban. Right now, bans in Georgia, Kentucky and Nebraska are being challenged in court. But so far no court has overturned...

A federal court ruled the city of Oakland had a right to bar two employees from posting a flier promoting traditional family values on an office bulletin board. Employees Regina Rederford and Robin Christy posted the flier in response to an e-mail to city employees announcing formation of a gay and lesbian employee association. The two responded with a promotion of their own -- the start of an informal group that respects "the natural family, marriage and family values." But supervisors Robert Bobb, then city manager, and Joyce Hicks, then deputy director of the Community and Economic Development Agency, ordered...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuters) - Florida lawmakers considered a bill on Wednesday to ban withholding of food and water from terminally ill patients, spurred by a severely brain-damaged woman at the center of a right-to-die controversy. The bill, approved by a Florida House committee, was the second considered by state lawmakers in the case of Terri Schiavo, a Clearwater woman who has been in what some doctors call a vegetative state since a heart attack in 1990. Terri Schiavo's husband and legal guardian, Michael Schiavo, has been fighting her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, for years to remove her feeding tube....

“Man and Woman”, “Wife”, “Husband”, “Widow”, “Widower” Banished From all Ontario Law Terms, when referring to spouses, are banned from all government programs, services, documentsToronto, February 25, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With the obscenely rapid, three-day introduction and passage of its same-sex “marriage” Bill 171, the Ontario government has advanced a revolutionary change in the way all laws and government programs and institutions refer to marriage and married persons. Everything referring to spouses must now be gender neutral. No longer can a married couple be referred to as “husband and wife” or “man and woman”. The terms “Widow” and “widower” are...

CHICAGO An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can't claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep. Dr. Richard O. Phillips' accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a “calculated, profound personal betrayal'' after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant. He said he didn't find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed...

The pro-family movement has spent the winter warming up for the main event: the battle to protect marriage in 2005. Here in Connecticut, it's time for Round One. The Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly will hold a public hearing on legislation legalizing same-sex "marriage" this Monday, Feb. 7th, from 1:00 to 6:00 P.M. in Room 2C of the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. The bill under consideration, S.B. 963, is the most extremist pro same-sex "marriage" bill imaginable. It legalizes "marriage" for "any two persons…regardless of the sex." It removes the words "bride and groom" from the current...

China has created brand-new form of capitalism: Bill Gates DAVOS, Switzerland, (AFP) - US software giant Bill Gates has high praise for China, which he says has created a brand-new form of capitalism that benefits consumers more than anything has in the past. "It is a brand-new form of capitalism, and as a consumer its the best thing that ever happened," Gates told an informal meeting late Friday at the World Economic Forum in this ski resort. He characterised the Chinese model in terms of "willingness to work hard and not having quite the same medical overhead or legal...

Despite settlement, Web site cites God In a six-page letter made public Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union says a state program promoting sexual abstinence has violated a 2002 court settlement by invoking the name of God and quoting biblical passages on the program's taxpayer-funded Web site. If changes aren't made to the site in 30 days, the ACLU said it will have no choice but to take the Governor's Program on Abstinence back into federal court. Meanwhile, the site, AbstinenceEdu.com, remained up and running, telling teens, among other things, that God is standing beside them as they choose abstinence...

BREAKING NEWS Fayetteville, AR 10/28/04, 4:21 pm central A rash of vandalism has struck the campaign signes of Republican US Senate Candidate Jim Holt. Very few signs in west Fayetteville have gone unscathed. It appears the vandals have focused on Holt's "Protect Marriage" signage, placing large signs that read "Bigot" immediately adjacent to Holt's message, carving out large holes in Holt's signs in the shape of a triangle- a GLBT symbol, and in many cases using spray paint to convey their message on top of Holt's "Protect Marriage" message. Arkansas voters will soon decide proposed Amendment 3, which bans gay...

The question ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ is a well known rhetorical device to illustrate the impossible situation in which whatever answer someone gives traps them into an admission of guilt. Now the government appears to have updated this for the modern era with the question: ‘When did you stop getting beaten by your husband?’ For from next year, it is to instruct doctors and midwives to ask all pregnant women if they are being abused by their husbands or boyfriends. The implications of this are breathtaking. What kind of society presumes that all men are inherently bad?...

QUEERLY BELOVED Dobson: Senators 'cowed' by homosexual lobbyists Most prepared to vote against Federal Marriage Amendment As the Senate debates the Federal Marriage Amendment, supporters of the measure charge a number of lawmakers are afraid to vote according to their inclinations because they fear the homosexual lobby. "Many of them are bobbing and weaving from day to day," says James Dobson, whose new political lobby group, Focus Action, has taken on the proposed amendment as its first issue. "A distressing number of U.S. senators and congressmen are being cowed by the homosexual lobby and are afraid to support the amendment,"...

Ahoy, mateys, Rosie O'Donnell's going full steam ahead--her cruise line for gay and lesbian families has launched on its maiden voyage. The first cruise of R Family Vacations, a new company backed by the comic and gay-rights advocate, set sail Sunday from New York for a seven-day cruise to the Bahamas. O'Donnell was on hand in Manhattan Sunday to celebrate the first of several gay family friendly vacations planned by R Family Vacations. According to the R Family Website, the cruise is a seven-day adventure that will take its 2,100 passengers from New York to Florida to the Bahamas and...

WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - A Texas congressman is set to introduce a bill Tuesday that would take the dramatic step of legislating the digital filtering of indecent content in movies. Rep. Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House subcommittee on courts, the Internet and intellectual property, also plans to hold a hearing on the Family Movie Act Thursday. The action comes as Utah-based ClearPlay is in a dispute with the movie studios and the Directors Guild of America over a DVD player that edits movies for sexual content, foul language and violence. The studios and directors contend that such...