Free Republic

For 50 years, historians, diplomats and state department officials have touted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as a great secular leader in a predominantly Muslim region, whose policies modernized and democratized Turkey, shaping it into a Western-style state. But Ataturk was western only insofar as he implemented the Turkification of Gobineau, wherein he substituted the Turks for the Aryans, whose ideology had terrible results in the rise of European Nazism. Regardless, in 1955, barely 17 years after the dictator's death, a little-known pogrom, driven primarily by Islamic fanaticism, targeted the Greek population of Istanbul, with the intent of driving non-Muslims from Turkey....

PARMA, Ohio — It had all the makings of a classic Balkans tragedy. A father survives the Nazis, but is executed for his faith by the Communists. The son, surviving on a young boy's memories of a loving parent, must deny the father publicly lest the same authorities put him to death. After immigrating to America, the Rev. Vasilije Sokolovic continued to be haunted by all that he did not know of the fate of his father, who was dumped in a shallow grave in an unmarked field in Serbia in 1945. But the longtime pastor of St. Sava Serbian...

There was an older thread disproving the charge that the Roman Catholic Church ever sanctioned homosexual marriage.

Robert Hart on the Real Robinson Affair Last August the Episcopal Church’s General Convention approved the election of V. Gene Robinson to be the bishop of New Hampshire. Many protests have been made, meetings held, resolutions passed, and stands taken by conservative Episcopalians and other Anglicans because of this man’s open and unrepentant life of homosexual sin. In protesting his elevation to the episcopate on these grounds alone, many conservatives have only advanced the agenda of his supporters, and have shown that their understanding of the issue is little better than that of the liberal wing of the Episcopal Church....

<p>LUBBOCK, Texas — A judge has ruled that a group of gay high school students cannot meet on campus, saying parents and school officials should determine what subject matter is allowed at school.</p> <p>The Lubbock Gay Straight Alliance claimed in a July lawsuit that the school district violated students' constitutional rights and federal law by refusing the group's requests to meet at a high school in 2002.</p>

<p>And while these figures come as no surprise to those watching the trends, it does suggest a serious "religion gap" going into the 2004 presidential elections. Critics say that spells bad news for Democrats if they can't convince voters they aren't afraid of the "R" word.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — President Bush said Tuesday that he could support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.</p> <p>The Massachusetts Supreme Court last month struck down that state's ban on same-sex marriage, saying it is unconstitutional and giving state lawmakers six months to craft a way for gay couples to wed.</p>

<p>Want to buy a cookie? If you are a white male, that'll be $1; for white females, 75 cents; blacks, 25 cents. The price structure is the message.</p> <p>Through Affirmative Action Bake Sales, conservative groups on campuses across America are satirically and peacefully spotlighting the injustice of AA programs that penalize or benefit students based solely on gender and race. The cookie rebels are being slammed by such a backlash that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) -- dreaded by many university administrators -- just shot "an opening salvo" in the rebels' defense.</p>

Few would fault the clarity of the Orthodox response to the September marriage of Denis Gogolyev and Mikhail Morozev in the Mother of God Chapel in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. The bishops defrocked the priest, bulldozed the church and burned the wreckage. "Father Vladimir Enert, who married the gay couple, committed a sin in doing so," a church spokesman told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. "He desecrated the place. We therefore needed to destroy the chapel." They call it the Orthodox Church for a reason. This is why ecclesiastical politicos gasped when they read that an Orthodox bishop attended rites consecrating Bishop...

Many gay men and lesbians claim that the Christian faith is the guiding rule of their lives. Some of them hold that their sexual orientation is given by God, that it is good, and that there is nothing wrong or sinful with their homosexual activities. These persons say that the Bible and Church Tradition do not condemn homosexual behaviour, but have been misinterpreted and misused, sometimes unknowingly and other times quite willfully, by prejudiced and hostile people who hate homosexuals. Those who believe in this way obviously want others to agree with them, and many are now working hard to...

<p>CHICAGO — Marriage (search) has its advantages -- but some think the nation’s laws give married couples too much favorable treatment, and the only way to even the playing field is to de-legalize the institution.</p> <p>A group of legal scholars and gay advocacy groups are calling for marriage to be de-legalized in order to make the distribution of benefits more fair for people who aren’t married, including gay couples.</p>

<p>MOSCOW — The Russian Orthodox Church has demolished a chapel where a priest conducted a "marriage" ceremony between two men.</p> <p>The Chapel of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God was torn down apparently after local churchmen decided it had been defiled.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — Between a recent Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay sex, news of a gay public high school, a gay Episcopal priest becoming bishop and five gay fashionistas making television history, some conservatives say straight Americans are suffering from overload.</p>

That leftist suck-up, Bill Marr, has our lovely Ann Coulter sitting between some unknown loser named Hughley and meat-whistle-loving author Clive Barker as he bashes our President under a ton of nonsensical leftist lies!Thank you, HBO, for reminding me why I no longer have cable.And Marr, you piece of used Charmin, I don't care how loud you turned up the mic, you couldn't shut down the truth that Ann spoke.You loser!

Archpastoral Message on the Conflict in Iraq March 21, 2003 To the Reverend Clergy, Monastics and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America Dearly Beloved in the Lord: Shortly before His death, Our Lord comforted His disciples with these words: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you" (John 14:27). Today, as the United States of America and its allies go to war with Iraq, these words take on a new and special meaning. People of faith find comfort in praying to the One Whom the Prophet Isaiah calls "the Prince of Peace," as thousands of men...

<p>MOSCOW ? A bitter rift has opened in the Russian Orthodox Church over a campaign to canonize Rasputin and Ivan the Terrible.</p> <p>The campaign, which leading Orthodox officials have sought to quash, is spearheaded by a growing revisionist movement in the church.</p>

Does anyone know? Microsoft is not forthcoming! ;) Thanks.

<p>"Stevie" isn't like other 5-year-old boys. While his peers are into karate and video games, Stevie tiptoes around the house like a ballerina and plays with Barbie dolls. His favorite colors are pink and red.</p> <p>The psychiatric world calls this behavior sex nonconformity or sex confusion.</p>

Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending me. Now when I read of the war on terrorism or the coming conflict in Iraq, it cuts to my heart. When I see a picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name very carefully. Sometimes I cry. In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way. John was headstrong, and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with straight backs...

Those Who Would Separate Jesus from St. Paul In my files is the newsletter of a famous Episcopal parish in New York City. On one page is a sermon by its recently retired rector, in which he spoke of worship as "but the means of bringing us close to the source of our faith, and that source is very simply Our Lord Jesus Christ." He then not only proclaimed his belief in the Virgin Birth but in the Immaculate Conception as well. On the facing page was a response by the parish?s trustees to the assertion of the 1998 Lambeth...