Free Republic

Throughout history, religion has sanctioned and fueled the persecution of homosexuality. That dynamic may be drawing to an end. Polls, clerics, and denominations are shifting. Theology is adapting. Resistance to same-sex marriage is dwindling, and there’s no end in sight. For 15 years, the Ethics and Public Policy Center has hosted the Faith Angle Forum, a regular conference on religion and public life. Several weeks ago, the group met again to discuss current issues. Transcripts of the conference have just been posted on EPPC’s website. They underscore the extent of the anti-gay collapse. The first session, led by papal biographer...

A fifth grade worksheet in Florida declares that the Federalists were different than the anti-federalists because they “believed in a strong national government that would have power over the states.” The Federalists believed in a central government, but it was to be a “limited government.” The anti-federalists believed that there should be no central government, and pushed for full sovereignty of the states. The Federalists, according to the worksheet, included “John Adams, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton.” While it is true that the Federalists wanted a central, or a “general,” government, the worksheet does...

Hate to say “I told you so” but President Obama’s disinterest in enhancing our combat capability in favor of social egalitarianism and a warped sense of social justice is indeed having an impact on war readiness. According to the Washington Times, “A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs. Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues — an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment.”

A short time ago I learned of a church building in our neighborhood that was for sale. For years now Grace Fellowship Church has been looking for a building of our own, so we thought we should go and give it a look. This had once been a thriving congregation. Faithful Christians had given sacrificially to construct that building. They had consecrated it to the Lord and had worshipped there for many years. Yet now that building was deserted, decaying, and up for sale. What happened? How did that church go from thriving to dying? How did it slide from...

“Two Boys Kissing” will stay in Fauquier High School’s library. FHS parent Jessica Wilson made an official complaint to remove the book from the school library on Feb. 7, because she believed that the cover of the book condoned public displays of affection, which are against school policy. Marie Miller, a teacher at FHS and the advisor for the school publication The Falconer said that she believes that those opposing the book were doing so not because of it’s lack of appropriateness for the students, but because it is a story about gay teens. “If the focus of this book...

A preferred ploy of left-wing change agents is to ridicule critics when they point out the undeniable parallels between the goals of today’s “progressive” movement, to include the Democratic Party in general, and the goals of the early, and very much still alive, communist movement.If, for instance, one mentions the historical fact that nearly every adult who, at any time, was in any position of influence over a young, soon-to-be-radicalized Barry Soetoro was an avowed communist, to include his own parents, then one is immediately mocked and dismissed as a neo-McCarthyite hack pining for the bygone days of the Red...

Nostalgia, The Good Old Days – Who Needs Them? America needs a visionary for the future! During the past, and recent presidential election we hear the all too familiar suggestion of “returning to the good old days.” Every candidate talk about returning America to a sense of values. I don’t know about you but each time I hear, or heard that suggestion I get a little queasy in the stomach accompanied by a little bewilderment, confusion, and absolute disgust! Whenever I hear the suggestion I often wonder exactly what period in time they want to take us back to! Could...

More details are emerging about what was presented at the "White Privilege Conference" held in Madison, Wisconsin, where tax money was spent to train teachers how to annihilate "white privilege" and "white supremacy" in American schools. One session insisted that whites can never be cured of their permanent racist attitudes. On March 30, Breitbart reported on the conference, now in its fifteenth year. Over these years, teachers have been told that whites have been pushing "white supremacy" on kids since the country was created, and that whites are so infused with racism that they aren't even cognizant of their crimes....

A mother in Arkansas has expressed concern over her daughter’s recent Common Core school assignment that asked her to remove and replace two of the first ten amendments of the Constitution. The team assignment stated that the Bill of Rights is “outdated and may not remain in its current form any longer.” Here is a copy of the assignment:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE PHOTO The mother who spoke up said she was particularly troubled by the fact that her daughter’s Sixth Grade History class had received no prior training in civics or how to amend the Constitution, which may...

A preferred ploy of left-wing change agents is to ridicule critics when they point out the undeniable parallels between the goals of today’s “progressive” movement, to include the Democratic Party in general, and the goals of the early, and very much still alive, communist movement. If, for instance, one mentions the historical fact that nearly every adult who, at any time, was in any position of influence over a young, soon-to-be-radicalized Barry Soetoro was an avowed communist, to include his own parents, then one is immediately mocked and dismissed as a neo-McCarthyite hack pining for the bygone days of the...

Recently, I was a panelist on MSNBC. The topic was same sex marriage. A fellow panelist called for a Marriage Spring. We know what that means. Or we think we do. The unmarriage advocate wants us to hurry up and overthrow the existing order. Do it as the Arab Street has been doing it: Assemble a vast mass of people entering the square to insist on change. Demand an end to an oppressive old order. And it will all happen with stunning suddenness—just as the winds of change have blown through the Arab world. Or so they say. We all...

Grant Middle School workbook’s gun-rights description has some up in arms A workbook used by Grant Middle School that has generated controversy among gun-rights supporters won't be removed from the classroom. Jason Nevel Updated Mar 24, 2014 at 10:23 PM A workbook used by students at Grant Middle School that has generated controversy among gun-rights supporters has no political agenda and won't be removed from the classroom, Springfield interim Superintendent Bob Hill said Monday. Since the controversy surfaced online last week, Hill said, he's received a handful of calls and more than a dozen emails. Gun-rights supporters claim students at...

Last June, World Vision U.S president Richard Stearns stated that, “No one ever died of gay marriage,” thereby trivializing the importance of the issue, as if it contrasted with the organization’s mission of providing tangible relief to suffering humanity. Today, he went much further, claiming that this radical, unbiblical move is actually a “very narrow policy change” that should be viewed as “symbolic not of compromise but of [Christian] unity.” What? World Vision redefines the nature of marriage – the most fundamental institution of society, ordained by God in Genesis 2 as the lifelong union of a man and a...

First Lady Michelle Obama talked about America as she visited a school today in China. She talked about the American dream: And my story isn’t unusual in America. Some of our most famous athletes, like LeBron James, and artists, like the singer Janelle Monae, came from struggling families like mine, as do many business leaders -- like Howard Schultz. He’s the head of a company called Starbucks, which many of you may have heard of. When Mr. Schultz was a boy his father lost his job, leaving their family destitute. But Mr. Schultz worked hard. He got a scholarship to...

Tony Bennett doesn’t have much patience for most modern music. The legendary singer, 87, told the BBC Radio 4’s Today program that most modern songs lack a “lasting quality.” “The songs that are written today, most of them are terrible,” he said. “It’s a very bad period, musically, throughout the world for popular music.” He added that today’s music industry leaders are more concerned with making money than making quality music. “The corporations took it over and they want to make so much money and they don’t care whether the public likes it or not,” he said. “They think the...

If the United States wants to avoid falling like the Roman Empire, it must avoid “overconsumption” and distribute resources equally, according to a study funded by NASA. “The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent,” reads the NASA-funded report published in the Ecological Economics journal. “Two important features seem to appear across societies that have collapsed,” the study adds. “The stretching of resources...

The West has forgotten the foreign-policy lessons that predate 1945. Will everyone please stop talking about a new Cold War? However badly things work out between Russia and the United States and the West, a new Cold War isn’t in the cards because Russia today isn’t the Soviet Union. Sure, there are similarities. We are in a diplomatic and geostrategic conflict with Russia, which was the heart of the old Soviet Union. Also, Russia wants much of the real estate that belonged to the Soviet Union before it collapsed. And Vladimir Putin is a former KGB colonel who now waxes...

How one soldier is confronting the military's ban on transgender troops Jacob Eleazer, a 28-year-old Army drill sergeant, learned he was up for promotion this December. For seven years, he’d been an exemplary soldier, rising to the rank of first lieutenant, and now on his way to captain. But there was a problem. Within the confines of his military training center, in western Kentucky, Eleazer still went by his birth name, which was female. Outside his Army base, Eleazer lived as a man, one of 15,450 military personnel who consider themselves transgender but don’t dare come out to their fellow...

The spitfire showdown between Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa last week underscored two prevalent themes woven through U.S. sociological fabric. First, black men and white men remain polarized, perhaps more than ever. Secondly, black men still feel a need to scream to be heard, and not just because the white guy controlling the panel’s microphone silenced his feed. This United States ship lists in troubled waters. Our most recent disengagement reverts to a national election that raised Barack Hussein Obama into the White House in spite of his inability to gain major support from...

CNN co-host Van Jones, in a roundtable discussion on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopolous” on Sunday, compared Arizona’s SB 1062—which has been vetoed by Gov. Jan Brewer—to the civil rights movement, saying, “We don’t want to see ‘no gays’ signs.” “The one great achievement of the last century, we took out of American lexicon six words, ‘we don’t serve your kind here.’ We took those words out. It took the civil rights movement to do it. Dr. King got killed trying to do it. ‘We don’t serve your kind here’ is not acceptable anymore. Those ‘no blacks allowed’ signs...