Free Republic

**SNIP** Late last week, it came to light a class of seventh-grade female students at Stephen Decatur Middle School had been required to make clay models of male genitalia as part of the Family Life and Human Development program taught in county schools to students in grades 5-11. While most agree the course, which teaches students about their changing bodies and making good decisions, is an important one for the students, few agreed making clay models of the male reproductive organs was an appropriate component of the program. **SNIP** Luzier said the girls in the class made life-size male genitalia...

Half of all Americans believe that gay men and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll in which a large majority also said businesses should not be able to deny serving gays for religious reasons. Fifty percent say the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection gives gays the right to marry, while 41 percent say it does not.

Rhythm is life giving. We function according to days, weeks, months and years. We celebrate anniversaries and birthdays, dread tax time and look forward to time off. The cycles we go through help us move forward and stay in sync with the people around us. They increase both our productivity and our enjoyment of life, and they are essential to the health of our society. We see this truth throughout the natural world as well. Our calendars and timetables are based on seasons and phases, the perfectly predictable movement of our planet and moon through space. Rhythm is a form...

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England (PPNNE), which scored $2.75 million in federal grants during 2012, has used a portion of its taxpayer funding to produce and post online “…a video specifically aimed at teenagers that promotes bondage and sadomasochism.” On its “For Teens” page, PPNNE claims the organization is “…dedicated to protecting the sexual health of teens by providing accurate information, opportunities to explore and establish beliefs and attitudes, and the skills to communicate their needs.” And what better way to “protect sexual health” than with a video which exalts sexual perversion, especially when hosted by giggles groupie Laci...

SONORA (CBS SF) — Three third-grade students at a Sonora elementary school were busted for smoking pot in the school’s bathroom last week. Two 8-year-olds and a 9-year-old were caught by another student, who immediately informed school administrators. Those officials then alerted local police. The students were questioned by officers, and later released to their parents on February 27th. Sonora Elementary School Principal Chris Boyles would not speak with CBS SF regarding the case, but Superintendent Leigh Shampain confirmed that the students were caught smoking marijuana in the school’s bathroom. He would not discuss how the students might be disciplined.

EVIDENCE has emerged that the views of the Paedophile Information Exchange influenced policy-making at the National Council for Civil Liberties when it was run by former Labour Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt. PIE members were lobbying NCCL officials for the age of consent to be reduced and campaigning for “paedophile love”. Their view that children were not harmed by having sex with adults appears to have been adopted by those at the top of the civil liberties group. Today we publish extracts from an NCCL report written for the Criminal Law Revision Committee in 1976 when Mrs Hewitt was general secretary....

The winners have accepted their statuettes at the 86th Annual Academy Awards show at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. This is the complete list of Oscar award winners:

Bill Clinton has really whore'd himself out this time -- surrounding himself with real prostitutes. Slick Willie probably had no clue ... but the women Bill posed with at an L.A. charity event Thursday night are two star hookers at the famed Nevada Bunny Ranch brothel. The brunette goes by Ava Adora and the blonde goes by Barbie Girl. According to her bio on the BR website, the blonde is very flexible and specializes in de-virginizing.

Walt Disney World has jumped on the bandwagon of businesses pulling their funding from Boy Scouts of America, as the organization still refuses to end its ban on openly LGBT adults. Charitable contributions will no longer be made to BSA or local troops as part of Walt Disney World's "Ears For You" grant program. SNIP As the straight son of a lesbian couple, Wahls has been working to reverse the BSA's policies of discrimination and exclusion. Since its inception in 2012, Scouts for Equality has succeeded in influencing seven major corporations - including Lockheed Martin, Caterpillar, Major League Soccer, Merck,...

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer sent cheers rippling through a group of protesters gathered outside the state capitol on Wednesday evening when she vetoed a controversial bill that would have protected business owners who cited their religious views in denying service to gays. Ohio spiked a similar measure on Wednesday. Kansas lawmakers created the same kind of firestorm earlier this month when the House passed a bill allowing private and public employees to refuse to serve same-sex couples (the state Senate later killed that measure). And this could still be just the beginning. These two high-profile legislative debates are just part...

I have been quite appalled at how so very lost the supposed leaders of most of the churches of today are. They purport to represent Jesus' teachings, yet their is outright denial of the very powerful message that satan's grip on us to cause us to sin, is indeed broken. No, rather the ministers of today all over teach a watered down and lying ministry that Jesus merely has saved us from the aweful results of going to hell. Yet, in one simple sentence and act with Mary, when he told her to go and sin no more, he proved...

Less than two weeks after a federal judge declared Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, a new effort has been launched in the South seeking to build wider acceptance of gay and lesbian couples in the hope of overturning similar bans across the region. The $1 million effort will be focused on field organizing and sharing the stories of gay couples through local community and business events as well as social media in 14 Southern states. The key, supporters say, will be to share stories like those of Linda Ellis and her partner, Lesley Brogan, who appeared at Monday’s event....

There is now little doubt that the Girl Scout cookie boycott is having an effect on cookie sales this year. Girl Scout spokesman Kelly Parisi went on The O’Reilly Factor this week to try and defuse the mounting controversy, and Girl Scout executives have sent threatening letters to their critics. Girl Scout CEO Anna Marie Chavez took to YouTube on Thursday to deny all charges leveled by the boycotters and to deny at least one charge they haven’t even made. “Recently, various individuals and organizations announced their intention to boycott GS cookies this year, based on mistaken beliefs about our...

Fire, brimstone, eternal suffering — hell is not a pleasant concept. But research has pointed to the societal benefits of a belief in supernatural punishment, including higher economic growth in developing countries and less crime. But there are also drawbacks, even in this life. A new study links believing in hell, and perhaps even thinking about it, with lower levels of happiness and satisfaction in life. "It seems there is this trade-off," said Azim Shariff, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. In research published in January in PLOS ONE, Shariff and a colleague looked at international...

It’s one thing to be tolerant of what once were known as “alternative lifestyles.” It’s another thing to be asked to celebrate them, as the exuberant mythologizers of Michael Sam and Johnny Weir ask us to do. And it is way beyond the pale to hold forth on any sort of sex life — perhaps apart from self-restraint — as if it’s a form of heroism. Yet the culture of the professional Left, enthusiastically aided by the establishment media, is going bonkers in pushing active homosexuality (or any one of several exotic variants thereof) as an absolute virtue. One can...

(big time BARF ALERT!)When I was a little kid, I used to hear my brothers, cousins, and friends say things like “That’s so gay!” on a pretty regular basis. I would usually laugh along, hoping with all my might that they didn’t know my secret. My parents and other adults in my life would tell me things like “Boys don’t cry” or “Be a man!” which essentially was their way of telling me that being emotional was forbidden or a sign of weakness. When I was a teenager, there were a few boys at my high school who ridiculed me,...

In 2006, 57 percent of Virginia’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Last week, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 76 percent of Oklahoma’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. On January 14, 2014, U.S. District Judge Terence Kern ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 66 percent of Utah’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman....

Lawmakers in Utah and Colorado are promoting legislation to raise the legal age for tobacco use to 21, a higher standard than imposed by any other state, saying they want to discourage young people from picking up a lifelong smoking habit. Supporters say keeping tobacco out of the hands of young adults will save thousands of lives, even as critics complain that Americans who are old enough to vote and serve in the military should not be deemed too young to decide on their own if they should smoke. In a dramatic display of the risks of smoking, lawmakers in...

“The University of Houston-Downtown has about 14,000 students and, while Wikipedia says UHD students are 39% Hispanic, 29% African American, 20% white, 9% Asian American, the percentage of transgendered students is evidently unknown,” according to College Insurrection. Nevertheless, with the encouragement of “the university’s new Center for Student Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” UHD is now creating “gender-neutral” restrooms to accommodate the, uh, gender neutral. And this regime is “coming soon to a college near you,” as Aleister at College Insurrection says. Questions: Why does a campus with such a diverse student body need a “Center for Student Diversity”? Doesn’t the...

Just read this and weep for our future. David Wise is at the top of his sport. He’s always smiling among his friends and competitors, however, he’s not like the rest of the field. He is mature. Not to say the rest of the freestyle skiers of halfpipe are not mature, but Wise is mature far beyond his years. At only twenty-three years old, he has a wife, Alexander, who was waiting patiently in the crowd, and together they have a two-year-old daughter waiting for them to return to their home in Reno, Nevada.At such a young age, Wise has...