Free Republic

President Barack Obama finds Indiana’s religious freedom law and others like it “unthinkable,” the White House said Wednesday. “I do think in the mind of the president, the thought that we would have state legislatures in the 21st century in the United States of America passing laws that would use religion to try to justify discriminating against people for who they love is unthinkable,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. Critics say Indiana’s law now allows for businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

The president of a black pastors coalition has expressed his anger that President Barack Obama compared the civil rights movement to that for same-sex marriage at the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march, when black American citizens were beaten while demanding voting rights they were being denied. “Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was 30 years ago,” Obama said in Selma, Alabama, on Saturday, as he characterized the movement for same-sex marriage as another civil rights struggle. “I marched with many people back in those days and I...

March 6, 2015 (ThePublicDiscourse.com) -- When running for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama misled the voters about his true position on the question of same-sex marriage. This is not an accusation made by one of the president’s political enemies, but an admission made by one of his closest political advisors: David Axelrod. According to Time magazine, Axelrod’s new book about his career in politics reveals that candidate Obama really believed in same-sex marriage, but he publicly said that he opposed it because he feared the electoral consequences of his real convictions.In response to the mini-burst of commentary and indignation that this...

Feb. 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – The Obama Administration is heightening its already-heavy focus on promotion of its “LGBT rights” agenda overseas, creating a specific ambassador slot to champion the cause. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the first-ever Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBT Persons Monday, opening his statement on the appointment saying, he “could not be more proud.”“Defending and promoting the human rights of LGBT persons is at the core of our commitment to advancing human rights globally – the heart and conscience of our diplomacy,” Kerry said, after naming Randy Berry as the LGBT envoy.Berry is an...

President Barack Obama says the Supreme Court’s recent gay marriage orders may have the biggest impact of any ruling of his presidency. Obama told The New Yorker that the court’s Oct. 6 rejection of appeals from states seeking to preserve gay marriage bans is the best of his tenure. …

Having already lifted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on gays in the military, the Pentagon “likely will” allow transgendered Americans to serve openly in the military where 15,500 now secretly serve, according to a new report issued by top former generals. Three of the top brass, endorsing the deployment of transgendered troops, also said their effort has the support of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and President Obama. In a statement accompanying the 29-page report issued Tuesday, they said, “Our conclusion is that allowing transgender personnel to serve openly is administratively feasible and will not be burdensome or complicated. Three...

President Barack Obama has helped kick off the international Gay Games in Cleveland with a surprise video message shown at the opening ceremonies. […] The president said the United States has come a long way in its commitment to equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. He also noted that some athletes come from places where publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation can put them at risk. …

President Obama made a surprise video appearance at the opening ceremonies of the 2014 Gay Games in Cleveland on Saturday. Joining Greg Louganis, Lance Bass, the Pointer Sisters, and Broadway’s Andrea McArdle and Alex Newell in celebrating the event, Obama said, “Since 1982 the Gay Games have given lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender athletes and supporters around the world a chance to come together to compete, celebrate, and inspire others.” President Obama, who is vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, noted how the country has changed since the games began in 1982. “We’ve also seen America change in that time, even since...

Yesterday the Messiah Most Miserable issued a dictatorial fiat executive order stating that no federal contractor can "discriminate" in its personnel practices based on employees' gender identity and/or sexual orientation.  Churches and related organizations are NOT exempted.  The USCCB pitched a fit.  My question is, "would this order of Obama's had been a blip on their radar screens if they had been exempted?"  Given prior behaviors, I must opine that had Obama exempted churches, they wouldn't have given a rat's rump regarding the matter. But since the USCCB and so many of the dioceses are officially on the federal...

The counter counterculture uprising social conservatives promised us after the Supreme Court's neutering of the Defense of Marriage Act never quite manifested.... But in the days before the high court delivered its rulings on DOMA and California's Proposition 8, Tony Perkins, the president of the Christian conservative Family Research Council, was desperately admonitory that the country's top jurists not invite ruin on America by accurately interpreting the Constitution. "If the Supreme Court steps in and says, 'We're redefining marriage, same-sex marriage will be the law across the land,' it will create a firestorm of opposition," Perkins' Magic 8-Ball warned. "This...

National Security Advisor Susan Rice said on June 24 that “America’s support for LGBT rights is not just a national cause but it’s also a global enterprise.” “President Obama has specifically directed that American diplomacy and American assistance promote and protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender men and women, all around the world,” she said in an address to the first White House Forum on Global LGBT Human Rights. “Universal human rights are not bestowed by governments or powerful majorities, they are God’s gift and the birth right of all people,” she added. “They belong to lesbian,...

On Thursday, Kirtland Air Force Base will host an event that just three years ago could have cost many airmen their careers – the first-ever Team Kirtland LGBT Pride Picnic. “The significance of this event is, for me, the normalization of us (the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community) as part of the Air Force community,” said David Hardy, the civilian director of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland and head of the event’s coordinating committee. “I like seeing that, finally, openly, it is recognized that the LGBT community is part of the Air Force family.”...

Obama to sign executive order protecting job rights for gay employees Order would ban federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity Suren Gambino 16 June 2014 After years of pressure from gay rights groups, President Obama is set to sign an executive order that would ban federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, a White House official has told the Associated Press. The Obama administration has said it would prefer Congress to pass legislation that broadly extends workplace protections to all US employees. Such...

President Barack Obama will sign an order banning federal government contractors from discriminating against gay and transgender workers, officials have said. The executive order follows years of pressure from gay rights groups. Mr Obama cannot extend the protection to all American workers, however. The order comes after far broader anti-discrimination legislation stalled in the Republican-led House of Representatives. The executive order will apply only to federal contractors, which employ nearly one-quarter of the US workforce.

The Attorney General of the United States told a homosexual advocacy group on Tuesday night that the Boy Scouts of America "preserves and perpetuates the worst kind of stereotypes" by refusing to allow homosexuals to serve as Boy Scout troop leaders. "Today, courageous lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals routinely put their lives on the line as members of America's armed services," Holder told Lambda Legal Tuesday night. "And if these men and women are fit for military service, then surely they are fit to mentor, to teach, and to serve as role models for the leaders of future generations." In...

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LGBT rights just got another big push from the president himself. The White House on Friday issued a proclamation by President Barack Obama calling on Americans to eliminate prejudice “everywhere it exists,” declaring June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) President Barack Obama congratulated Michael Sam on Saturday for being the first openly gay football player taken in the National Football League draft, the White House said in a statement. "From the playing field to the corporate boardroom, LGBT Americans prove everyday that you should be judged by what you do and not who you are," Obama said. He also congratulated the NFL and the St. Louis Rams, the team that drafted Sam. Sam, an All-American defensive end who played for the University of Missouri, made history when he was picked by the Rams in the seventh and final...

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Robert Papp said that in 2010 Obama told U.S. military leaders to accept his push for gays in the military, and that if they didn't, they could take the "opportunity to resign [their] commissions." Papp said these things in a video BuzzFeed obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The video shows a speech Papp delivered to Coast Guard Academy cadets during which he was asked how he would deal with enforcing an order with which he didn't agree. He used the story of his 2010 meeting with Obama as an example of how service...

President Obama worked successfully to end discrimination against gays in the military and moved swiftly to implement a Supreme Court ruling protecting married gay couples from federal discrimination. But gay rights advocates are upset about something he has not done that they say he could accomplish with a pen stroke: an executive order banning federal contractors from discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Advocates say an order would provide employment protections for about 11 million workers who currently have none. Many of the nation's largest companies and 21 states, including California, already have policies or laws against sexual-orientation...