Free Republic

It is 2009's quiet story -- quiet because it's about what didn't happen, which can be as important as what did. In this highly partisan year, we did not see a sharpening of the battles over religion and culture. Yes, we continued to fight over gay marriage, and arguments about abortion were a feature of the health-care debate. But what's more striking is that other issues -- notably economics and the role of government -- trumped culture and religion in the public square. The culture wars went into recession along with the economy. The most important transformation occurred on the...

One of Hollywood's most enduring relationships has ended – Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have broken up after more than two decades together, PEOPLE has learned exclusively. "Actress Susan Sarandon and her partner of 23 years, actor Tim Robbins have announced that they separated over the summer," her rep Teal Cannaday tells PEOPLE in a statement. "No further comments will be made."

Why let a holiday season come between the White House and making some political statements? The White House pegged controversial designer Simon Doonon to oversee the Christmas decorations for the White House. Mr. Doonon, who is creative director of Barney’s New York has often caused a stir with his design choices. Like his naughty yuletide window display of Margaret Thatcher as a dowdy dominatrix and Dan Quayle as a ventriloquist’s dummy. For this year’s White House, he didn’t disappoint.These photos of ornaments on the White House Christmas tree in the Blue Room were taken just days ago. Of course, Mao...

Albuquerque, N.M., Dec 18, 2009 / 04:12 am (CNA).- Attorneys for a small photography company charged with violating anti-discrimination laws for declining to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” are planning to appeal a New Mexico judge’s decision to uphold the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission’s ruling against them.The Albuquerque company, Elane Photography, is co-owned by Elaine Huguenin and her husband Jon. They are being represented by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).In 2006 a woman named Vanessa Willock asked them to photograph a “commitment ceremony” that she and another woman wanted to hold in Taos, N.M. State law does...

Hi all. My 11 year old daughter has joined the girls chorus at her school. The chorus just decided its name will be "Las Chicas de Moda." My daughter doesn't like the name. She wanted it to be "Voces Scholasticae" (Latin for School Voices). Question: does this name sound inapproriate? To me it sounds slutty. I've told her teacher we don't like the name but they are pretty much saying it's a done deal (the first concert just happened). Any thoughts/comments/suggestions/linguistic or cultural analysis of "Las Chicas de Moda" would be great!

I'm not sure which is funnier about this Miami Herald story; that Adultery 101 was published in that newspaper or the fact that it was actually written by Herald staffers. It is so bizarre of a story that it should be marked down as a sign of desperation to attract readers in the midst of a calamitous circulation plunge. So let us now join the Miami Herald staffers as they present their readers with "helpful tips" on how to commit adultery with a celeb shoutout to Tiger Woods: So you're left scratching your head, wondering how a guy like Tiger...

The landmark election Saturday of America's first big-city lesbian mayor in Houston represents more than just a milestone in identity politics. It also signals an unmistakable evolutionary step in national politics, one that provides further evidence of a trend that helped make Barack Obama president: growth-oriented communities like the Texas metropolis, rather than aging big cities or nostalgia-inducing small towns, are setting the course of the country's political direction. Houston is one of a set of fast-growing cities and expanding suburbs whose changing face and increasingly post-racial politics helped make Barack Obama president. Their politics are defined by some of...

WASHINGTON — Washington D.C.'s City Council has voted to legalize gay marriage in the nation's capital. Mayor Adrian Fenty has promised to sign the bill, which was co-sponsored by 10 of the council's 13 members. The final vote Tuesday was 11-2. The bill now goes to Congress, which has final say over the district's laws. Opponents say they'll try to get Congress or voters to overturn it. Passage of the bill is a victory for gay marriage supporters, who have been dealt a recent string of defeats... Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont. New Hampshire will...

Folks, this according to the Thomas More Law Center: ANN ARBOR, MI – Tomorrow, December 16, 2009, at 10 AM PST, a panel of eleven judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in San Francisco will hear oral arguments concerning the constitutionality of San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s virulent resolution attacking the Catholic Church for its teachings against homosexual adoptions. The en banc panel will review the earlier opinion of a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit that upheld the resolution. Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise will argue the case on behalf of the plaintiffs in...

<p>Houston became the largest U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor, with voters handing a solid victory to City Controller Annise Parker after a hotly contested runoff.</p> <p>Parker defeated former city attorney Gene Locke with 53.6 percent of the vote Saturday in a race that had a turnout of only 16.5 percent.</p>

A controversial NHS pilot is providing the contraceptive pill to teenage girls without prescription in pharmacies. Southwark and Lambeth, two inner-city areas in London with the highest teenage pregnancy rates, are the first to try the approach. Experts have warned the government is struggling to meet its target of halving teenage pregnancies by 2010. But opponents said there was no evidence providing the pill over the counter would make a difference.

Do you have a a Negro friend and are you having trouble finding just the right gift to get him dancing and singing on Christmas Day? Well, the New York Times has come up with one of the great ideas of the 1950s: a holiday gift guide for the colored folk. You’ve probably struggled with what to give your doorman, or valet, or housemaid as an appropriate present. You want something not too expensive but something they can really use. This colored folk gift guide takes the worry out of your holiday shopping for servants and others who are complexion-challenged....

A former Duke University employee and adoptive gay father charged with molesting his five-year-old son--and offering the boy as a sex object to pedophiles online--is expected to make a plea bargain, according to a Dec. 1 article in local newspaper the Durham Herald Sun. Frank Lombard faces charges stemming from alleged instances in which he molested his young adopted son and chatted about the deeds online even as he carried them out. It’s thought that the U.S, Attorney’s Office is positioning the case for a plea arrangement because the Office is set to file an "information," which allows the prosecution...

WARNING: This editorial includes discussion of topics that are sexually graphic. Under usual circumstances, we would never entertain these subjects or the rancid language involved. In this case, however, a very unusual exception must be made because the issues are central to the background of a senior presidential appointee at the U.S. Department of Education who is in a position to influence how and what our children are taught in our nation's schools. Thus far, out of fear or squeamishness, there has been public hesitance to examine closely the beliefs of this individual because many are afraid even to touch...

On Wednesday, November 24, Iranian demands that female nurses don the hijab in response to Iran’s providing $1.2 million for funding of the new El Alto city hospital in Bolivia sparked a national outcry among women’s rights advocates within Bolivia. In an international teleconference in La Paz held between Bolivian President, Evo Morales, and Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to celebrate the hospital’s opening, nurses were shown wearing hijabs as part of their new uniform regulations.

When Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis told the New York Times in a recent interview that gay people don't get to heaven, he broke not one, but two cardinal rules of politics in a single sentence. With a simple phrase, Davis breached the separation between church and state and grabbed the electrified "third-rail" in Bay Area politics with both hands. He told the reporter that gays are "committing sins and those sins will keep them out of heaven." After the Nov. 20 article, the mayor claimed his words were taken out of context. The Times responded by providing an audio link...

.... here's another one for the bulging files: Two Cambridge academics have voiced their dismay at the news that all references to Christmas have been dropped from the switching-on ceremony for Dundee’s festive lights. Instead of the traditional Christmas Lights switch-on, The Times newspaper reported that residents will be attending the 'Dundee Winter Light Night'. Council officials have also decided that rather than a retelling of the Nativity story there will be a disco, a contemporary circus, a continental market and a seven foot fairy on stilts.That's another reason to resist this stuff - not merely because it's an act...

Now that the holidays are upon us, it’s time to get annoyed with the consumerism, secularism and political correctness that continue to whittle away at the meaning of the holiday season. The secular and consumption-driven nature of the season has become so routine that one has to work hard to remember to take time for the traditions and religious observances that once defined the season. I thought I had seen every example of how religious meaning has been stripped out of Christmas until a friend showed me the label on a festive seasonal bottle of Coca Cola the other day....

Milwaukee Public Schools' health officials want to make condoms freely available to students in many of the district's high schools, as part of an effort to combat the health risks that sexually transmitted infections and other communicable diseases pose to young people. If the proposal wins the support of the School Board, the new policy could take effect as early as next school year, making MPS one of a few districts in the nation that provide contraception to students. Kathleen Murphy, the district's health coordinator, said that data continues to show that middle and high school students are engaging in...

NORTH ANDOVER — First it was the menorah on the town common. Now it's the Merry Christmas sign on the fire station. The town has put an end to a longtime holiday tradition ordering firefighters to take down their homemade Merry Christmas sign from outside the fire station after people complained. The sign had been up for a week before it was taken down Friday. Fire Chief William Martineau said the sign was made by firefighters some 50 years ago and was never an issue before. "I think Christmas is officially a religious holiday. But to all of us, it...

President Barack Obama ... ... is slated to deliver a prime-time address on Tuesday night in which he'll lay out his plans for the American war in Afghanistan. The address before the United States Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday night will not only be used to announce the immediate order to deploy roughly 30,000 more troops, but the administration will also use the occasion to convey how it intends to turn the fight over to the Kabul government, the New York Times reported. But the administration may also face an unforeseen enemy as it lays out its long-awaited...

Downtown Savannah and Broughton Street will transform into a winter wonderland Friday, complete with holiday movies, cookies and milk with Santa Claus, a skating rink and snow. Savannah Holly Days is a two-day event that offers both visitors and locals a chance to enjoy the city and all of its beauty and offerings during the holidays. "When you think about what makes a great city, it's when the locals and visitors can come together and enjoy the same thing," said Joseph Marinelli, president of the Savannah Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

First on TVNewser: American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert won't be appearing on "Good Morning America" tomorrow. TVNewser has learned ABC News canceled the concert after Lambert's sexually charged performance at the American Music Awards Sunday night. Lambert led men on leashes, dragged a woman by her foot, and smashed a man's head into his crotch, all while singing his new single "For Your Entertainment." ABC, which aired the awards show, received about 1,500 phone calls from people complaining about the performance, a number ABC calls "moderate." An ABC News spokesperson tells TVNewser, "given his controversial live performance on the AMAs...

Since the ACLU doesn't like the word "Christmas", let's send a Christmas Card to them in New York. Make sure the card is all about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ! Address: ACLU 125 Broad Street 18th Floor New York, NY 10004 Merry Christmas!

Starry eyed children around the world are writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole, but this holiday season they'll not likely to get a response from Santa or his helpers. The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular effort begun in 1954 in the small town of North Pole, in Alaska's interior, where volunteers tackle up to 150,000 letters addressed to Santa. Postal Service officials cite privacy concerns loomed last winter when a postal worker in Maryland recognized a volunteer in the agency's Operation Santa program as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the...

American squeamishness about talking about sex has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday. Latest statistics on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis show the three highly treatable infections continue to spread in the United States. "Chlamydia and gonorrhea are stable at unacceptably high levels and syphilis is resurgent after almost being eliminated," said John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world," Douglas added in a...

A California man wants divorce outlawed. John Marcotte has filed for a ballot initiative to protect traditional marriage in the state of California as an extension of the work related to Proposition 8, the voter-approved constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. In essence, Marcotte's project would legally ban divorce. "Marriage is an important and sacred institution, and I'm just trying to safeguard it in really the most direct way possible," he states. He says he needs the help of California's registered voters in acquiring "700,000 valid signatures, which likely translates into 1,000,000 [signatures] total."...

Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow are to play husband and wife in a new film about the world's first post-operative transsexual. Kidman will play Einar Wegener, the Danish artist who was born a man and married illustrator Gerda Gottlieb in 1904. Charlize Theron was originally attached to play Gottlieb, but Paltrow has now signed on for the role, according to Variety. The film, The Danish Girl, will be produced by Kidman's own company, Blossom Films. It is based on the international best-seller of the same name by David Ebershoff. Eimar was said to have discovered his true inclinations when he...

My Life of Drink and One-Night Stands Left Me Feeling Hollow, Now I've Found The Answer: I'm Going To Be A Nun KATIE COLBRAN 05th November 2009 New order: In a few weeks, Katie Colbran will become a trainee nun For the past four years, I've led the kind of glamorous life some people only dream about. Regularly jetting off to exotic destinations such as Rome, Istanbul and Marrakech, I've been fortunate enough to stay in some of the most exclusive hotels and see some amazing sights. I've made dozens of friends, partied until the early hours in some of...

Tuesday November 3, 2009 Scottish Gay Rights Activists Found Guilty of Pedophilia Sentenced to Life Imprisonment By Thaddeus M. BaklinskiEDINBURGH, Scotland, November 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An influential gay rights activist and youth group leader, and another homosexualist activist, have been jailed for life for their involvement in the largest pedophile ring ever uncovered in Scotland.James Rennie, one time co-coordinator of the homosexual rights group LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Youth Scotland and a former teacher, and Neil Strachan, the former secretary of a Celtic boys club and campaigner on homosexual issues, were convicted in May on charges including sex attacks...

POLIWOOD: D Tonight at 7:30 on Showtime. Director Barry Levinson’s 90-minute “Poliwood” is billed as a film essay. That’s like calling the back of a cereal box a novel. Say what you will about Michael Moore, but at least he knows how to spin a story. Levinson (“Rain Man”) aims to explore the crash of politics, celebrity and media. He’s fascinated as to why performers are greeted with hostility when they become politically active. He trails famous members of the Creative Coalition, Hollywood’s nonprofit, nonpartisan lobbying group for arts funding, through the 2008 Democratic and Republican presidential conventions. The coalition’s...

A report released last week reveals that most of us believe only teens from poor or single-parent families get pregnant. And we are wrong. According to research conducted for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, only 28 percent of those who report having given birth or fathered a child as a teen lived in families with incomes below the federal poverty line.

President Obama’s highly controversial Safe Schools Czar, Kevin Jennings, is concerned about the heterosexual indoctrination of children in our public schools. In his bizarre view: “we all know what’s promoted in our schools: Heterosexuality is promoted in our schools. Every time kids read Romeo and Juliet or they’re encouraged to go to the prom or whatever it is, kids are aggressively recruited to be heterosexual in this country. And you know what, it doesn’t work. The reality is that if schools could affect your sexual orientation there would have been no gay people in the first place. But they’re still...

A 1970s-era Texas law that allows parents to show “harmful material” to their children has come under fire after a prosecutor said he couldn’t file charges against a man accused of forcing his 8- and 9-year-old daughters to watch hardcore online pornography.

The father of Colorado's so-called Balloon Boy may not have gotten his reality TV scheme off the ground, but Richard Heene is at least getting his own action figure. Connecticut-based toymaker Herobuilders.com is adding Heene to a quirky collection that includes the Sarah Palin Super Hero and the Obama Joker doll. There's also a Bernie Madoff Action Figure with a fistfull of hundred-dollar bills and a Dick Cheney doll hoisting a shotgun. Heene's mini-me wears an "I'm with Stupid" t-shirt with the arrow pointing upwards. It sells for 34.95. Heene and his wife, Mayumi, called 911 earlier this month to...

(CNN) -- If you were to judge the success rate of monogamy by the sex lives of public figures, perhaps couples should change their marriage vows to say, "Till a tempting new partner do us part." Talk-show host David Letterman recently joined former presidential candidate John Edwards, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer on a long list of politicians and entertainers (think Jude Law) who have admitted having sex outside their marriage or committed relationship. But do they just illustrate the realities of modern life? In the age of hookups, friends with benefits and...

Plenty of celebrities issued crazy statements in their efforts to defend director and rapist Roman Polanski but none went as far as author Gore Vidal did when he labeled Polanski's victim a "young hooker." In an Oct. 28 interview with The Atlantic's John Meroney about a variety of topics, Vidal claimed he didn't "give a f---" about the Polanski case. "Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she's been taken advantage of?" Vidal claimed "there was a totally different story at the time that doesn't resemble anything that we're now being...

ANGELINA Jolie's brother has turned on her after she reportedly told him about having sex with her mother's boyfriend, according to a new biography. author Andrew Morton alleges Jolie slept with Marcheline Bertrand’s live-in lover when she was just 16. the two women struggled to rebuild their relationship after Jolie confessed to the alleged night of passion. "When Ange admitted the story to her brother James just a few weeks ago, even he turned on her. "She has hardly anyone left in life who likes or trusts her."

So now the cat is well and truly out of the bag. For years, as the number of immigrants to Britain shot up apparently uncontrollably, the question was how exactly this had happened. Was it through a fit of absent-mindedness or gross incompetence? Or was it not inadvertent at all, but deliberate? The latter explanation seemed just too outrageous. After all, a deliberate policy of mass immigration would have amounted to nothing less than an attempt to change the very make-up of this country without telling the electorate. There could not have been a more grave abuse of the entire...

Hotel Owner to Workers: No Spanish! By MELANIE DABOVICH, AP TAOS, N.M. (Oct. 26) -- Larry Whitten marched into this northern New Mexico town in late July on a mission: resurrect a failing hotel. The tough-talking former Marine immediately laid down some new rules. Among them, he forbade the Hispanic workers at the run-down, Southwestern adobe-style hotel from speaking Spanish in his presence (he thought they'd be talking about him), and ordered some to Anglicize their names. No more Martin (Mahr-TEEN). It was plain-old Martin. No more Marcos. Now it would be Mark. Whitten's management style had worked for him...

Obama’s “Safe Schools” czar, Kevin Jennings, founded and led GLSEN for 18 years. A current GLSEN lesson plan for “LGBT History” -- intended for schoolchildren – celebrates gay and lesbian activists from the 1950s and ’60s. It recommends the film “Gay Pioneers” which profiles several practitioners and promoters of pornography. GLSEN recommends “Gay Pioneers” for classroom use, for showing at a Gay-Straight Alliance club meeting (invite other clubs!), for a school assembly, or for donation to the school library. (In the past, GLSEN’s website has recommended readings for children describing -- and implicitly endorsing -- adult-child sex and sexual experimentation...

[Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I) told CNSNews.com that the Catholic Church is doing nothing but fanning “the flames of dissent and discord” by taking the position that it will oppose the health-care reform bill under consideration in Congress unless it is amended to explicitly prohibit funding of abortion.] Bishop Tobin's rejoinder: “Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s statement about the Catholic Church’s position on health care reform is irresponsible and ignorant of the facts. But the Congressman is correct in stating that “he can’t understand.” He got that part right. As I wrote to Congressman Kennedy and other members of the Rhode Island Congressional...

Trouble was on the agenda when the aging provocateur, infamous for his tough remarks on Israel, visited a Jewish cultural hub last night. But as Lloyd Grove reports, Vidal charmed the critics. There were moments at the 92nd Street Y Tuesday night when Gore Vidal was just a sweet old man, reminiscing. “What do you miss most about Ravello?” asked his literary executor, Middlebury College English professor Jay Parini, reading an audience question about the Amalfi Coast palazzo where Vidal had lived with Howard Austen, his companion of 53 years. “Hmmm, Howard, I suppose,” Vidal mused sadly—and the answer just...

Is anyone frightened by the prospect of millions of little Barry Obamas running around the country “organizing” their “communities” around petty causes instead of holding real jobs that do something other than increase government control over every aspect of our lives? I am. And so is Kimberly Legendre, a junior at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). This semester, Kimberly is taking an absurd course called “Foundations of Civic Engagement.” Remarkably, it is a required course at FGCU. After reading the course syllabus and learning more about Kimberly’s experience from my friends at Campus Reform (see www.CampusReform.org) I know two things...

Josie Romero loves the colour pink, braiding her hair and having her fingernails painted. But life has not always been easy for this sweet and charming eight-year-old, who was born in the body of a boy. The transgender youngster, then called Joseph, knew at the age of four that she was the wrong sex and even told her parents: 'I am really a girl.' At five, she was refusing to have her hair cut and only wore colours like orange which were nearest to girly pink. By the time she reached six, Josie had been diagnosed as transgender and was...

Belgrade police charged Serbian President Boris Tadic for allegedly violating anti-hooligan laws by opening a bottle of champagne to celebrate Serbia's World Cup qualification, they said today. Tadic and a number of other officials uncorked the champagne in a VIP lounge at Red Star Belgrade stadium last Saturday after Serbia's victory over Romania qualified them for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Police filed charges to a magistrate in Belgrade against Tadic, Serbia's Football Association chief Tomislav Karadzic, Sports Minister Snezana Markovic-Samardzic and other officials for "violating the law preventing violence and indecent behaviour at sports matches," the statement...

A Georgia judge has blasted attorney Orly Taitz, who has handled a number of court challenges to President Barack Obama's eligibility under the constitutional demand the Oval Office be occupied only by a "natural born" citizen, fining her $20,000 for what he called "frivolous" court actions, and he then mocked the concern over Obama's background. "Although counsel's present concern is the location of the president's birth, it does not take much imagination to extend the theory to his birthday," wrote U.S. District Judge Clay Land in an order released today. "Perhaps, he looks 'too young' to be president, and he...

President Obama delivered an unprecedented message to the Human Rights Campaign Saturday night. Sounding more like a homosexual activist than a sitting president, Obama went well beyond his expected message of “I’m here with you” on the homosexual agenda. “My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see a time in which we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians -- whether in the office or on the battlefield,” Obama told an estimated audience of 3,000. “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men...

1. Fear of Man: your regard for God and His opinion must trump the trepidation of the creature God created from spit and mud. Come on, man of God, don’t fear the crowd ... 4. Last Days Madness: Many ministers do not get involved in political issues because they believe that “it simply doesn’t matter” since “the end has come.” These defeatists believe that any change in the jet stream, war, earthquakes, a warming globe, the success of a corrupt politician—or even a new Shakira video—are “proof” that God is getting really, really ticked off and that His only recourse...

I just wanted to warn people thinking of taking their kids to see Miley Cyrus. My daughter took my two grandchildren yesterday to her show in Milwaukee. She received no warnings from Ticket Master when buying the tickets and sure wishes she would have. Thinking she is a Disney star and with no warnings she was SHOCKED at the show. She told me that her brother opened the show and was disgusting removing clothing and simulating sex acts. When Miley appeared she told the audience she did a lot of growing up, mind you the audience was filled with kids...