Free Republic

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...

AFP - With Thermos bottles, sleeping bags and a few good books, about a dozen people lined up Friday to be among the first to attend oral arguments at the US Supreme Court on gay marriage. Never mind that the hearings don't begin until next Tuesday. They said they were determined to have front-row seats at one of the year's most anticipated sessions of the highest court in the nation.

They hear that their cause is lost, that demographics and the march of history have doomed their campaign to keep marriage only between a man and a woman. But the young conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage — unlike most of their generation — remain undaunted. They identify themselves as part of the “pro-marriage movement” and see themselves at the beginning of a long political struggle, much like the battle over abortion. If they can begin shifting the terms of the debate away from gay rights and toward the meaning of marriage, they say, they have a chance to survive short-term...

At least 10 venues have canceled previously scheduled Michelle Shocked concerts following homophobic speech made by the former alt-folk icon at a San Francisco show on Sunday night. During her second set at Yoshi's, she took the time to comment on California's controversial Proposition 8, which invalidated the momentary legality of gay marriage in the state, and which is currently under review by the Supreme Court."When they stop Prop 8 and force priests at gunpoint to marry gays, it will be the downfall of civilization, and Jesus will come back," she said according to USA Today and others. She was referring...

A YouTube video that features a teenage girl delivering a poem about why homosexuality is not God’s design for relationships has gone viral, while also meeting opposition from homosexual advocates who have criticized the production. The video, entitled Rated T for Tolerance, was posted last Summer, but for an unknown reason, has suddenly garnered a significant amount of attention. In the short, two-minute production, a teenage girl is seen standing in a wooded area sharing a spoken word production on the issue of homosexuality from a Christian viewpoint. “Don’t propagate your hate because I have a higher standard on who...

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...

The College of Cardinals met in conclave on Tuesday to begin the process of electing a new pope. The cardinals have been getting plenty of advice from American journalists. The Catholic Church, they say, should open up the priesthood to women and allow priests to marry. It should abandon its ban on contraception and endorse same-sex marriage. It should stop being so dogmatic about its dogmas. As a non-Catholic, I don't presume to offer any advice. The church has managed to exist for nearly 2,000 without my counsel. But I do have some observations. The journalists' advice is based on...

RALEIGH, N.C. — A civil liberties group is suing a North Carolina county that uses Christian prayers to bless its meetings. The complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court by the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina names the Rowan County Board of Commissioners as plaintiffs. The lawsuit accuses the board of violating the First Amendment provision ordaining the separation of church and state by routinely praying to Jesus Christ to start its meetings.

If you think by abstaining from teaching about sex within a moral framework that Planned Parenthood is not teaching a definite belief system to children, think again. ETR Associates—a sex program clearinghouse and offshoot of Planned Parenthood of Santa Cruz—admits on its webpage that a program being taught in North Carolina schools and elsewhere across the nation teaches toward four major “outcome expectancies or behavioral beliefs.” Belief number 4 is described in the ETR overview as “Hedonistic Beliefs.” Hedonistic philosophy places pleasure above everything else—as the greatest good. For more than 13 years, North Carolina mandated that its schools teach...

Singer Josh Groban left the set of Jenny McCarthy’s new TV talk show earlier this month after discovering that go-go dancers would be a part of the taping. The 31 year-old star, who just released his fifth album, was scheduled to make an appearance on the debut episode of McCarthy’s VH1 show, but walked out just a few minutes before taping began, saying it was too racy for his tastes. “He did show up, [but] I think the go-go dancers [his team] took a look at and thought they were a little too sexy for their taste,” McCarthy told Access...

On Thursday, dozens of American corporations, including Apple, Alcoa, Facebook, eBay, Intel, and Morgan Stanley will submit an amicus brief in the landmark Hollingsworth v. Perry case broadly arguing to the U.S. Supreme Court that laws banning same-sex marriages, like California's ballot initiative Proposition 8, are unconstitutional under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses. According to a draft copy obtained by Fortune, the companies argue that such laws "send an unmistakeable signal that same-sex couples are in some way inferior to opposite-sex couples, a proposition that is anathema to amici's commitment to equality and fair treatment to all." At...

If you stopped watching network television awhile ago because it had gotten so bad, you made the correct decision. It has continued to get worse. A few years ago, network television became dominated by cheaply made reality TV shows and talent contests, sitcoms with hyperactive manic characters, and socially liberal themes. Television has always pushed the edge when it comes to socially progressive themes. But at what point does it go too far? Perhaps when there are no other options left during prime time network TV. The top ten most popular TV shows last fall contained few choices for traditional...

Journey back with me, if you will, to a simpler time. To a dark and ominous period known as American history up until now. An oppressive period when society actually believed the genitals you left your mother’s womb with determined your gender. A tyrannical time when parents actually parented according to the acknowledged moral standard of the universe, rather than enabling and validating their offspring’s unhealthy tantrums and desires. Thankfully we’ve progressed past that now. We are entering a brave new world. A world where a 6-year old boy in Colorado Springs demanding he’s actually a girl isn’t thought to...

A professor at Georgetown University wrote a piece in the NY Times advising Catholics to resign from the Catholic Church in light of Pope Benedict's resignation. Paul Elie is a senior fellow in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown, and he says that Catholics should boycott Mass (a mortal sin) as a way to instigate change, namely selecting a Pope that would introduce radical change. This is just so fitting of a Georgetown professor and the New York Times. Here's some of the most outrageous parts: AT 8 p.m. last night in Vatican City, Benedict...

LOUISVILLE, Ky (WHAS11) -- After two decades in front of the camera as an actress and more recently as an activist, Ashley Judd has been unguarded in her comments -- a candor which might cause complications if she runs for U.S. Senate from Kentucky. As Judd inches closer to a decision, her outspoken nature is yielding decades of pointed and controversial comments which Kentucky Democratic strategists concede are a gold mine for the campaign of potential opponent, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R). Judd's essays and speeches are easily accessible on her website. In one, she criticized the tradition of a...

The Queen James Bible, the Gay Bible by Matt SlickThe Queen James Bible, also known as the Gay Bible, is a new assault on biblical orthodoxy and sexual purity.  This is to be expected in a world of moral relativism.  In it, the 1769 King James Bible has been reproduced with only a very few select verses altered - the ones that relate to homosexuality.  Those verses are listed below and analyzed.  I hope you will see that the Queen James Bible is a perversion of the original text and is the result of obvious prejudices against the original Hebrew and...

America's got some serious problems to solve. Our Obama Economy is still stuck in a ditch by the side of the road. Our campaigner in chief is running around the country pushing for higher taxes and no spending cuts and crying, "The federal sky will fall!" if Congress doesn't stop the puny 10 percent sequester from happening. In Washington the incompetents and cowards in Congress can't get our fiscal house in order, and they're too stupid or self-serving to realize they are wrecking the greatest economic machine humans have ever created. We have a budget to balance and an immigration...

The scene opens with an "inner city yute" regarding the side of a building. In compressed time we then see the yute -- with several dozen spray paint cans magically appearing -- transforming the wall of a building into an enormous, incoherent "mural" of some creature vomiting colors. The yute then stands back, admiring his work, while the announcer praises him and offers the viewer the opinion that being a city-class vandal is the key into getting into college. This piece of visual trash is brought to us by knowhow2go, which informs us: "Young people in all socio-economic groups have...

The following is what passes for entertainment on NBC. Saturday Night Live aired this sketch last night — just four days into Lent. The segment was a fake movie trailer depicting a Quentin Tarantino-style Jesus returning to get revenge. It’s called, “Djesus Uncrossed.” “Critics are calling it a less violent ‘Passion of the Christ,’” the announcer said. “I never knew how much Jesus used the N-word.” The trailer featured Jesus and the Apostles gunning down scores of Romans. At one point the Jesus character slices a man’s head in half.

Since the recent State of the Union address, President Obama has been touting his proposal to offer free preschool to everybody. The White House cites studies that claim all manner of benefits to sticking young children into the zoo early on, including later “success.” And Obama claims one of his main motivations is to close the test score “achievement gap” between poor and rich kids.[snip] If you truly want to give your child an educational head start, turn off the TV and make him crack a couple of books every week.