Free Republic

SHILOH, Ill. - A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents who worry about the book's availability to children - and the reluctance of school administrators to restrict access to it. The concerns are the latest involving "And Tango Makes Three," the illustrated children's book based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City's Central Park Zoo that adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own. Complaining about the book's homosexual undertones, some parents of Shiloh Elementary School students believe the book...

UCPD officers shot a student several times with a Taser inside the Powell Library CLICC computer lab late Tuesday night before taking him into custody. No university police officers were available to comment further about the incident as of 3 a.m. Wednesday, and no Community Service Officers who were on duty at the time could be reached. At around 11:30 p.m., CSOs asked a male student using a computer in the back of the room to leave when he was unable to produce a BruinCard during a random check. The student did not exit the building immediately. The CSOs left,...

LARGO - A veteran Gibbs High School teacher with a long history of work troubles had falsified hundreds of student ballots in an attempt to get her niece elected homecoming queen in September. A wave of chuckles rose during Tuesday's School Board meeting, where Lerner and other board members were asked to approve a 25-day unpaid suspension for the teacher, Sharion Thurman, 56. So why not fire the teacher, who earns more than $50,000 a year? Her 20-year record includes numerous reprimands for poor judgment, insubordination and misconduct. Superintendent Clayton Wilcox said firing was an option. But he looked at...

(CBS4) FT. LAUDERDALE An art teacher at a Fort Lauderdale charter school is facing indefinite suspension after showing a self-made documentary on ‘good and evil’ to a group of 10 and 11 year old students, featuring gory abortion scenes. Some students and parents complained, and the school objected, but teacher Marc Greenblum says he has no regrets in showing the graphic video. The film was shown approximately two weeks ago in Greenblum’s art class at the Downtown Academy of Technology and Arts, a charter school funded with tax dollars and under the oversight of the Broward County School Board. The...

Minutemen Project founder Jim Gilchrist was attacked by angry, violent protesters last night who stormed the stage during his speech at Columbia University in New York City, forcing an abrupt end to the event. An African-American member of the Minuteman board who spoke prior to Gilchrist was taunted with the "n-word," according to WND columnist Jerome Corsi. Corsi had been scheduled to follow Gilchrist with a speech of his own, but after university security personnel whisked the Minuteman leader offstage, the New York Young Republican Club meeting was shut down. A video of the chaos at Roone Arledge Auditorium, shot...

Overruling a prominent dean, the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, yesterday withdrew an invitation to the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dean of Columbia's school of international and public affairs, Lisa Anderson, had independently invited Mr. Ahmadinejad to speak at the World Leader's Forum, a year-long program that aims to unite "renowned intellectuals and cultural icons from many nations to examine global challenges and explore cultural perspectives." In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, Mr. Bollinger said he canceled Mr. Ahmadinejad's invitation because he couldn't be certain it would "reflect the academic values that are the hallmark of a University...

Scores of students, activists and others marched through Portland on Friday carrying the reproduced artwork of the imprisoned radical Thomas Manning and scolding the University of Southern Maine for canceling an exhibit of his work. Staff photo by Gregory Rec David Bidler, Rebekah Yonan and Ryan Edwards hold works of art by Thomas W. Manning at the University of Southern Maine in Portland on Friday. About 100 people walked from USM to Congress Square with Manning's art to protest its removal from a USM gallery show last week. Manning is in prison for killing a New Jersey state trooper. Some...

'Animal-rights' promoter asserts actual birth makes no difference An internationally known Princeton "bioethicist" and animal-rights activist says he'd kill disabled babies if it were in the "best interests" of the family, because he sees no distinction in the child's life whether it is born or not, and the world already allows abortion. The comments come from Peter Singer, a controversial bioethics professor, who responded to a series of questions in the UK Independent this week. Earlier, WND reported that Singer believes the next few decades will see a massive upheaval in the concept of life and rights, with only "a...

PRINCETON, September 12, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a question and answer article published in the UK's Independent today, controversial Princeton University Professor Peter Singer repeats his notorious stand on the killing of disabled newborns.  Asked, "Would you kill a disabled baby?", Singer responded, "Yes, if that was in the best interests of the baby and of the family as a whole."People who oppose Singer's position have maintained that Singer is the logical extension of the culture of death and that society will eventually embrace his stance if there is no shift to the culture of life.  Alex Scadenberg, Executive...

A group of leading American historians today sent the following letter to Mr. Robert Iger of ABC. Stressing the significance of the "traumatic" events of 9/11, the signers of this letter are calling on Mr. Iger to stand up for responsible media treatments of such important historical moments and withdraw the program from circulation. The growing list of signatories will be updated at openlettertoabc.blogspot.com. The text of the letter follows. Dear Robert Iger: We write as professional historians, who are deeply concerned by the continuing reports about ABC's scheduled broadcast of "The Path to 9/11." These reports document that this...

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, September 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In May this year, a group of pro-life students at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) set up a display of white crosses to memorialize those children killed in the US by abortion. Such displays are popular with student groups as an affordable means of emphasizing the loss of life brought about by abortion, and are often vandalized by abortion supporters.True to form, a feminist professor incited a group of students to destroy the Northern Kentucky University display and its accompanying sign. Unlike Canada, however, the story at NKU has a happy ending for...

The fallout from an opinion piece published in Berkeley's twice-weekly community newspaper has mushroomed well beyond the confines of the nation's first designated Nuclear-Free Zone. And while it is not unusual for the Berkeley Daily Planet's executive editor and owner Becky O'Malley to publish controversial, far-flung opinion pieces and wacko reader responses, the decision to run a commentary headlined "Zionist Crimes in Lebanon" is being questioned by scores of critics. The article, which appeared as commentary on the opinion pages of the newspaper's Aug. 8 edition, was more an attack on Jewish people than a logical argument against Israel's massive...

This fall, Barrett, a Muslim, who believes the September 11 terrorist attacks were secretly conducted by U.S. government, will be paid $8,247 by the University of Wisconsin to teach a course titled, “Islam: Religion and Culture.” Barrett recently told Sean Hannity that he thought it was “really important to cover these political issues and one of them, of course, the so-called ‘war on terror.’ Now, the fact is that the great majority of the world’ Muslims believe that 9/11 was an inside job.” Since this appearance on the Hannity Show, the University of Wisconsin conducted a search on Barrett’s record...

The U.S. interstate highway system was built to give military tanks easy access to the inner cities in order to put down the expected revolution by black militants. The technocrats who died in the Twin Towers were the equivalent of little Adolph Eichmans. The United States government orchestrated the 9/11 attacks for its own benefit. The above three statements were all theories proffered by college professors: the first at Chicago State University in 1969, and the second by professor Ward Churchill of the University of Colorado in 2001. The third and most recent is by professor Kenneth Barrett at the...

Disciplining a student for wearing a $5 T-shirt five years ago could end up costing the Warren Hills Regional School District close to $1 million. The Warren County district has been ordered to pay nearly $600,000 in plaintiffs' legal fees incurred during the 5-year-old free speech rights battle over whether a high school student could wear his "redneck" T-shirt. That tally does not include the amount the district has paid its own lawyers. Thomas Sypniewski Jr. was suspended for three days during his senior year in 2001 for wearing a T-shirt that listed blue-collar comedian Jeff Foxworthy's Top 10 reasons...

SACRAMENTO-– A California legislative committee passed a bill yesterday that would force all public schools to promote transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality on campus. The California Senate Education Committee approved AB 606 on a 7-to-2 party-line vote, Democrats for, Republicans against. The author is Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, a Los Angeles Democrat. AB 606 would authorize the California Superintendent of Public Instruction to arbitrarily withhold state funds (around 2/3rds of a school district’s budget) from any district that does not adequately promote transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality in its school policies. AB 606 repeals the current state law prohibiting transsexual, bisexual, and homosexual...

LAS VEGAS, June 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The name of Christ is so offensive to modern secular ears that Clark County School District officials, who knew it was coming, cut off the microphone during a valedictorian address before they or anyone else could hear it.   Brittany McComb is a Christian and a top student graduating from Foothill High. She knew that her valedictorian address would probably be cut short, but was determined to go ahead and mention the one name that is for her above every other name.   "I went through four years of school at Foothill and they taught me...

Teacher's union begins plans to promote homosexual marriage in public schools The National Education Association is set to endorse homosexual marriage at their convention coming up in Orlando June 29 through July 6. The new NEA proposal essentially says schools should support and actively promote homosexual marriage and other forms of marriage (two men and one woman, three women, two women and three men, etc.) in their local schools. The new proposal, expected to pass overwhelmingly, is found under the B-8 Diversity paragraph: The Association... believes in the importance of observances, programs and curricula that accurately portray and recognize the...

FRAMINGHAM -- Leaders of the student group that protested a production of"The Vagina Monologues" at Framingham State College on Wednesday say administrators squelched their right to free speech by forcing them into shrinking the size of the picketing. They claim the restrictions placed against them are part of a larger suppression of free speech on campus. "It just seems like the campus is afraid of free speech and the administration wants to do whatever is necessary to avoid bad publicity for the college," said Thomas Lincoln, a member of the College Republicans. In the weeks leading up the protest, school...

Ward Churchill, the professor who called some of the World Trade Center victims “little Eichmanns,” should be fired because of “repeated and deliberate” infractions of scholarship rules, a University of Colorado committee said today. The recommendation, which came on a 6-3 vote, now goes to university officials for a final decision.