Free Republic

The first openly gay man in a major American team sport may turn out to be former Middle Tennessee State kicker Alan Gendreau, who hopes to get a shot at the NFL this year. And, if he’s successful, that could translate into millions of dollars in endorsements and speaking engagements, experts say. Whether it’s the Sun Belt Conference’s leading scorer or someone else, the athlete who makes sports history by coming out will likely be sought after by companies that want to appeal to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population, whose annual buying power last year was estimated at...

Carla Hale, a teacher in Clintonville, Ohio, was fired just days after an anonymous parent informed the school that her partner's name had appeared in her mother's obituary. Update- April 24, Hale's grievance has been denied.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis has reaffirmed the Vatican's criticism of a body that represents U.S. nuns which the Church said was tainted by "radical" feminism, dashing hopes he might take a softer stand with the sisters. Francis's predecessor, Benedict, decreed that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), a group that represents more than 80 percent of the 57,000 Catholic nuns in the United States, must change its ways, a ruling which the Vatican said on Monday still applied. Last year, a Vatican report said the LCWR had "serious doctrinal problems" and promoted "radical feminist themes incompatible with...

Citing the recent controversy over his comments on same-sex marriage, neurosurgeon and rising conservative star Dr. Benjamin Carson has voluntarily stepped down as commencement speaker at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The Baltimore Sun reported that Carson, who heads the department of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, informed medical school Dean Paul B. Rothman in a letter that he didn't want to "distract from the celebratory nature of the day." "Given all the national media surrounding my statements as to my belief in traditional marriage, I believe it would be in the best interest of the students for...

Dr. Ben Carson on Friday apologized to Johns Hopkins University for “poorly chosen” comments he made last week in which he seemed to compare gay relationships to pedophilia and bestiality. The pediatric neurosurgeon’s message to the Hopkins community came after a top university official issued a statement calling Carson’s words “offensive” and saying he would meet with students who want Carson removed as commencement speaker.

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson apologized Friday for comments he made about gay marriage on Sean Hannity’s TV show earlier this week. “I think in terms of what was said on Sean Hannity’s show, that was taken completely out of context and completely misunderstood in terms of what I was trying to say,” Carson told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “As a Christian, I have a duty to love all people and that includes people who have other sexual orientations, and I certainly do, and never had any intention of offending anyone… If anyone was offended, I apologize to you.” The John Hopkins doctor...

One student recently decried the fact that universities are participating in the degradation of their students with the continued focus on sex.Now, it being reported that a church in now helping fund the sexual scholarship at one school: The University of Tennessee’s controversial and explicit sex week plans were in jeopardy after campus leaders recently announced they were pulling about $11,000 in funding for the event, so a church near the campus has decided to raise money for the cause.WATE reports: Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church is located just down the street from UT’s campus, and during their services Sunday...

With that said and meant, this shift is altogether unsurprising. The new mark of being culturally acceptable is affirming homosexuality as virtuous (not merely okay, but virtuous, even exemplary). This is the litmus test. I don’t think many of us expected that it would so quickly fill this role, but it has. The mark of being a progressive, kind, socially courageous person today is simply this: affirming same-sex marriage. There are other cardinal virtues of a contemporary au courant identity, but this is the lodestar, the one that hangs one’s personal moon. This shows us that the cultural middle is...

'Love Wins' Author Rob Bell Supports Gay Marriage CBNNews.com Tuesday, March 19, 2013 Rob Bell, the former "rock star" pastor of Michigan's Mars Hill Bible Church, has come out in support of same-sex marriage. Speaking during a forum at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral Monday, Bell said the ship of traditional marriage "has sailed." "Yes, I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it's a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man," he said. "I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people...

Appearing on Monday's NBC Today as part of the Today's Professionals panel discussion, the network's chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman urged the Catholic Church to abandon its opposition to contraception: "Here's one thing I really would implore the Catholic Church to do on a global issue.... poverty without birth control begets more poverty....So this is a chance to take the humility and the poverty and say now we're really going to talk about this in a civilized way and move it forward." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump] Advertising executive Donny Deutsch chimed in: "Well...

Many times in my ministry, a conversation with abortion clinic staffers that began with talking about the spiritual needs of patients ends on a far more personal note…. An office manager told a colleague of mine that she braces herself every time she checks the mail, wondering how many hate letters she’ll come across, and wants a sacred community to turn to for support. One clinic counselor said she misses the rituals and music of her faith community, and often thinks about trying to find a church, but worries about being judged or shunned when small talk leads to questions...

NEW ORLEANS -- San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver created quite the ruckus this week when he intimated that anyone with a homosexual predilection would not be welcome on his team. Now, he's doing everything he can to get past that. According to his publicist, Theodore Palmer, Culliver will be working with "The Trevor Project," an organization that provides crisis and suicide intervention to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. "He's so passionate about youth and people being comfortable with who they are and accepted by all," Palmer said in a phone interview with the Associated Press on Saturday. "He's...

(CNSNews.com) - The Department of Health and Human Services on Friday set the stage for a massive showdown between the federal government of the United States and American Christians who believe the government has no right to force them to act against their faith by mandating that they buy, provide or facilitate health-care coverage that includes sterilizations, contraception, or abortion-inducing drugs. HHS released a new proposed regulation under the Obamacare law that the department presented as an accommodation to religious “organizations” that object to providing sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in their health care plans. However, the proposal does not...

WASHINGTON — When Mark Takano ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice in the early 1990s, his opponents tried to smear him as a “homosexual liberal” and a “nutzoid.” One of them even had pink fliers printed that asked, “A Congressman for Riverside ... Or San Francisco?” When he ran again last year, he won by almost 20 points. “Flash forward 18 years,” Mr. Takano said recently, “and the very macho building tradesmen are behind me. I’m getting pictures with them in their hard hats.” For decades, the words “gay” and “Congress” were usually seen together only in stories of scandal and...

President Obama began his Inauguration Day by attending worship services at St. John’s Episcopal Church in the Nation’s Capital along with his wife Michelle and their daughters Sasha and Malia. It was a rare church appearance for the First Family. During, during their first four years residing in the White House, they found time for the Lord not even half as many times as they managed to get away for family vacays. After services yesterday at St. Johns, during which the president stood to receive a blessing from Bishop Vashti McKenzie, the First Family’s next stop was the U.S. Capitol,...

Tim and I met a few years ago at a 24 watch party. His natural intelligence, unabashed geekiness, and “Snaps” skills made us quick friends. Plus, he managed a Starbucks so there was free coffee in it for me. Before long, I needed a new place to live and so did he. With a third friend, we rented a house together. Our friendship grew. Soon, I discovered that Tim is a serious Christian whose poignant reflections on faith and life set him apart from the pack. He was an usher in my wedding. One day, Tim told me that he...

The Prime Minister’s plans for gay marriage could leave churches facing legal action unless they agree to same-sex unions, it emerged today.Legal advice reportedly sent to David Cameron warns that church could be sued under human rights legislation if they refuse to allow the services to proceed. Exemption granted to the Church of England by the Coalition Bill to prevent it having to conduct gay marriages is “eminently challenge-able” in the European Court of Human Rights. It also warns that the Government's insistence that protections put in place for other religious groups who don't want to marry homosexuals could be...

Following Pope Benedict XVI's repeated messages denouncing same-sex marriage, more Dutch Catholics are seeking ways to leave the Catholic Church. And one website is helping people to "de-baptize" themselves. According to Reuters, the website ontdopen.nl ("de-baptize.nl") has gained significant traffic this month after the pope took the time in his Christmas speech to the Vatican bureaucracy to condemn gay marriage. "They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves," he said. "The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man's...

<p>More than 250 Illinois clergy — most of them in the Chicago area — have endorsed a gay marriage bill that could come up for a vote in Springfield before Jan. 9.</p> <p>On Sunday, rabbis and pastors from denominations that support gay rights in varying degrees unveiled a declaration supporting equality for same-sex couples. Fostering faith, justice and compassion is a key component of their jobs, they said.</p>

I don’t believe Timothy Kurek. He’s the alleged Christian, alleged heterosexual who told ABC News he spent a year “pretending” to be gay. Why did the 26-year-old Nashville man, a graduate of Liberty University (the so-called evangelical “West Point”) decide to go undercover? Because, he said, he wanted to “walk in the shoes” of a homosexual. So Kurek went all in. He “came out” as gay to all his family and friends. He got a job in a gay café. He hung out at a gay bar. He joined a gay softball league. He even got a gay bud of...