Free Republic

March 21, 2014, 11:47 am Biden: After healthcare rollout pains, Obama fit 'for sainthood' By Justin Sink Vice President Biden told healthcare workers that "patience and empathy" are required to deal with frustrated ObamaCare enrollees and that the president demonstrated saint-like levels of both during the rollout. Speaking to a conference of community health centers in New York, Biden conceded that enrolling in ObamaCare could be "tedious," and early problems with HealthCare.gov worsened the problem. "We didn't help you much at the front end here, man," Biden said, adding that he wanted to recommend President Obama "for sainthood" because he...

A national gay rights organization has taken issue with a Roman Catholic Archdiocese's recently implemented "morals clause" added to their private school teacher contracts. "As support for LGBT equality continues to grow, particularly among Catholics, the Cincinnati Archdiocese is enacting draconian restrictions on Catholic school employees," Paul Guequierre of the Human Rights Campaign wrote in an entry on the group's website Tuesday that calls for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati to reconsider its new rule. "HRC is calling on Diocese leaders to model Christian values and not discriminate against LGBT teachers or straight allies in their employment practices." Guequierre argued that...

The Dalai Lama will lead the US Senate in prayer on Thursday as the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader meets leaders of Congress, his office said.

This from WSJ: President Says ObamaCare Volunteers Doing ‘God’s Work’ [?!?] Barack Obama speaks to his old campaign comrades [That's the right word.] at Organizing for Action.HOLY OBAMACARELast night in Washington President Obama addressed the national meeting of Organizing for Action, the outfit formerly known as his re-election campaign. [If he can't be re-elected to the White House, why is this organization still around?  For this sort of dreck.] Young OFA volunteers have been redeployed to the task of persuading Americans to sign up for new health insurance plans created by the President’s Affordable Care Act. ["Affordable"... right.  Have you lost...

In the second installation of a three-part series on "gun violence in Mexico," the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) continues to blame the U.S. for gun violence in Mexico, while viewing Fast & Furious as a legitimate attempt at law enforcement which just happened to go wrong. According to NCR, Obama tried to reinstitute an "assault weapons" ban in the U.S. as a way to keep Mexico safer. He also pledged to "keep increasing the pressure on the gun traffickers." NCR claims part of the pressure on traffickers included Operation Fast & Furious, which turned out to be a "botched 2009...

The phrase “Separation of Church and State” is not in the language of the First Amendment, and the concept was not favored by any influential framer at the time the Bill of Rights was drafted. So how did it become part of the jurisprudence surrounding the First Amendment?As Jim Lindgren, a law professor at Northwestern, explains, the Ku Klux Klan had something to do with it . . . 7. The first mainstream figures to favor separation after the first amendment was adopted were Jefferson supporters in the 1800 election, who were trying to silence Northern clergy critical of the...

Gay and lesbian rights activists are seeking to be the new “moral enforcers” and it is Christian religious conservatives who now need protection to be allowed to dissent against “the new orthodoxy”, it was claimed. Core Issues Trust, a Christian charity, is challenging a ban on its London bus advertisement reading: “Not Gay! Ex-Gay, Post-Gay and Proud. Get over it!” It was a response to a bus poster campaign by gay rights group Stonewall carrying the message: “Some people are gay. Get over it!” Paul Diamond, for the charity, told appeal judges that at the heart of the case was...

Trenton, N.J. - Jesus was the "divine immigrant" who lived his life "traveling from place to place," Bishop David O'Connell of Trenton told the congregation at a midday "Justice for Immigrants" Mass Oct. 11 at St. Mary of the Assumption Cathedral. "Sacred Scripture tell us where he was from and what his ancestral lineage was," the bishop said in his homily. "But nowhere in the Bible do we find his permanent address, the location of his house, where he lived after beginning his public ministry. "He lived and worked as an immigrant, an itinerant preacher, on many levels," the bishop...

or Clothing Should free speech and religious rights be restricted the moment a person begins working for the government? This is the very question that some politicians in Quebec, Canada, are asking. Leaders in the province could soon make a definitive decision that would essentially ban public workers from wearing discernible religious symbols. The regulation would be part of the proposed “Charter of Quebec Values,” a set of laws that would ensure a strict line is drawn between church and state. In what can only be described as sweeping, civil servants, teachers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, police and public day care...

Memphis mother Erica Shead said she was angry after her 10-year-old daughter Erin, told her Wednesday, she wasn’t allowed to write about God for a school assignment. “It was so cute and innocent. She talked about how God created the earth and how she’s doing the best she can,” said Shead. Shead said Erin was told she can’t use God as an idol for the assignment.

A judge is allowing a San Diego-area school district to teach yoga, rejecting the claims of disgruntled parents who called it an effort to promote Eastern religion. Yoga is a religious practice, but not the way that it is taught by the Encinitas Union School District at its nine campuses, San Diego Superior Court Judge John S. Meyer said in Monday’s ruling. Meyer said the school district stripped classes of all cultural references including the Sanskrit language. He noted that the lotus position was renamed the “crisscross applesauce” pose.

A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that a man can sue the state of Oklahoma over its license plates. The man, Keith Cressman, has argued that the state's standard license plate, which depicts a Native American shooting an arrow into the sky, goes against the separation of church and state, according to a report from Tulsa World. He sued a number of state officials in 2011. That lawsuit was initially dismissed in 2012 but has since been reinstated by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to Tulsa World, the court ruled that the image of Allan Houser's...

A church-state separation group touting its access to Defense Department officials is taking credit for the removal of a painting from an Idaho Air Force base on Friday that featured a Bible verse within an hour of making the demand. The organization, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has called for the court martial of military personnel for “proselytizing,” having met with Pentagon officials in the past. The group is citing this victory in Idaho as proof of its influence over the U.S. military. The painting in the Wagon Wheel dining hall at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho showed...

A longtime substitute teacher in Phillipsburg, NJ, has been fired after he shared a Bible verse with a student – and upon request gave the child a Bible. The Phillipsburg School Board voted Monday night to terminate the employment of Walter Tutka. He was accused of breaking two policies – distributing religious literature on school grounds and another policy that directs teachers to be neutral when discussing religious material. “It’s unfortunate the Phillipsburg School District chose the path of religious hostility and intolerance against a retired man serving his community and simply responding to a student’s intellectual curiosity,” Hiram...

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...

An Egyptian magazine claims that six American Islamist activists who work with the Obama administration are Muslim Brotherhood operatives who enjoy strong influence over U.S. policy. The Dec. 22 story published in Egypt's Rose El-Youssef magazine (read an IPT translation here) suggests the six turned the White House "from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood." The story is largely unsourced, but its publication is considered significant in raising the issue to Egyptian readers. The six named people include: Arif Alikhan, assistant secretary of Homeland...

“Wicked.” “Crazy.” “Extremist.” Those are the words Americans United For Separation of Church and State uses in reference to the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. But the organization, which claims to fight to “ensure religious freedom for all Americans,” is not using those words to describe Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who shot and killed 27 innocent souls. No, its reproach is directed at the “religious right,” including such figures as Mike Huckabee and William J. Murray, for daring to suggest that the eviction of God from the nation’s public schools just might have contributed to the rise of school-related violence and...

A decade ago, a British philosopher put forth the notion that the universe we live in might in fact be a computer simulation run by our descendants. While that seems far-fetched, perhaps even incomprehensible, a team of physicists at the University of Washington has come up with a potential test to see if the idea holds water. The concept that current humanity could possibly be living in a computer simulation comes from a 2003 paper published in Philosophical Quarterly by Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at the University of Oxford. In the paper, he argued that at least one of...

While pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey today, President Obama absolved it with what he called a "special dispensation," making the Sign of the Cross over the gobbling turkey. It appears that Obama made a left handed, backward sign of the cross.

A federal judge has issued a ruling siding with the Obama administration saying that it has the right to force Hobby Lobby, a Christian-owned and run company, to pay for drugs for women that may cause abortions.The privately held retail chain with more than 500 arts and crafts stores in 41 states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration over its HHS mandate. The company says it would face $1.3 million in fines on a daily basis starting in January if it fails to comply with the mandate, which requires religious employers to pay for or refer women for abortion-cause...