Free Republic

Award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates came under intense fire from social media users on Sunday after tweeting that she has only heard “puritanical & punitive” things about the Islamic State and wonders whether there is anything “celebratory & joyous” about the terrorist group. "All we hear of ISIS is puritanical & punitive; is there nothing celebratory & joyous? Or is query naive?"

Well, it’s that time again – time to get out the Christmas list and start hitting the stores. The problem is – what stores? For any Christian who wants to spend hard-earned dollars with family-friendly, Christian-affirming retailers, restaurants and service providers, the list is growing shorter all the time. I stopped shopping at Macy’s in 2011 after learning about the retailer’s grossly unjust policy against women. Macy’s management said “yes” to a transsexual young man’s demand to change in the women’s dressing room and rejected a Christian employee’s attempt to block his inappropriate access, even firing her because of her...

Many around me in the coffee shop nodded in agreement in support of welcoming Christian refugees and rejecting those of other faiths. It fits their narrative that they should help persecuted Christians. After all, despite the fact that American Christians are the most entitled and privileged people in the history of the planet, many feel persecuted.One of the more endearing customs of many of our small town Iowa churches on Sunday morning is story time. The pastor welcomes elementary and pre-school aged kids up front, where he or she sits with the children, and shares a parable. Often the pastor...

The White house announced on Friday that it would hold a screening of the upcoming transgender drama The Danish Girl and Amazon's transgender series Transparent next week as part of its new "White House LGBT Artists Champions of Change" program. In addition to the screenings on Monday, November 23, the White House will honor nine individuals "for their artistry in advocating for the LGBT community," according to a White House press release. The event will also mark Transgender Remembrance Day, currently observed on November 20.

THE Australian Army is removing the motto "In this sign conquer" from the 102-year-old hat badges of army chaplains because it is offensive to Muslims. The move comes after an imam approved by the Grand Mufti was appointed to join the ­Religious Advisory Committee to the Services in June. Australian Army chaplains have had the motto on their hat badges since 1913. ..... The Defence spokeswoman said: "There are 102 ADF permanent members who self-identify as Muslim. In addition there are 40 Active Reservists who have declared as Muslim."

Considering the Freedom Center’s aggressive political work, poetry may not be something one would expect to find as part of its intellectual arsenal. But as many conservative writers such as Andrew Klavan and myself have noted for years, reclaiming America means reclaiming the culture, and that means engaging in the arts. As Finch writes in his introduction, “[I]f as a people, and a nation, we can return to something lost, recovering something from our culture that has been torn, then it can only happen through art.” The art of Finding Home is Michael Finch’s deeply personal contribution to the culture...

This is what is happening in Europe, and maybe soon to come to our shores. It is sobering.

Terrorism has vaulted to the nation's No. 1 issue as Americans say they are as concerned about attacks as they were after the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, according to a new poll. A Reuters/Ipsos poll said that virtually everybody has heard of the ISIS attacks in Paris, pushing terrorism into a tie with the economy, not global warming as Democratic candidates have claimed. The poll also found that 60 percent of Americans want Washington to do more to attack ISIS, though they prefer air strikes over troop involvement. The details of the poll:

Have you looked around lately? Our kids live in a dangerous generation. They are constantly bombarded by seductive imagery. Innocence is threatened at a young age. And our culture isn’t doing anything to stem the tide. In fact, it’s pulling our teens away from purity and pushing them toward promiscuity. Sexual images are not just in an occasional movie or magazine—they are everywhere! While many teens understand and welcome their parent’s “messages” about modesty and abstinence, the overwhelming influence of their peers and their culture easily dwarfs those positive messages. There is a near constant pressure forced on teens to...

Revelations 33:15—Yea, though it came to pass that those refusing to believe in the word of the Lord grew in number, and the fatted calves were slaughtered less frequently thanks to the Mark Of The Beast (a.k.a Weight Watchers), it did happen that shepherds keeping watch o’er the network television landscape did espy a need for new content. And so, in the year of our Lord 2015, it did transpire that Deadline reports Alcide Bava, a production company founded by Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki, is developing a sitcom based on bestselling 2007 book The Year Of Living Biblically. Said...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Tuesday that it is investigating reports that a supervisor used government time to recruit workers for private sex swinger parties at his home. An internal misconduct investigation is looking into the claims centered on workers in San Diego, ICE spokeswoman Lauren Mack told NBC News in a statement. It follows a report by the San Diego Union Tribune that an accusation of gross sexual misconduct was made in a complaint submitted to the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year. The newspaper said employees at the ICE Enforcement Removal...

Men have it rougher in America than most people realize. In part, that’s because they’re one of the few groups (along with white people, conservatives and Christians) it’s cool to crap on at every opportunity. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a non-stop assault on masculinity in America. Just to give you an idea of what I mean by that, here are articles written that show up on the first three pages of Google when you do a search for “masculinity.” Mass Killings in the U.S.: Masculinity, Masculinity, Masculinity Die Like a Man: The Toxic Masculinity of Breaking Bad Why...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Two years ago, Augustus Sol Invictus walked from central Florida to the Mojave Desert and spent a week fasting and praying, at times thinking he wouldn't survive. In a pagan ritual to give thanks when he returned home, he killed a goat and drank its blood. Now that he's a candidate for U.S. Senate, the story is coming back to bite him. The chairman of the Libertarian Party of Florida has resigned to call attention to Invictus' candidacy in hopes that other party leaders will denounce him. Adrian Wyllie, who was the Libertarian candidate for governor...

On Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum went on the left-wing talk show The View, where the debate turned to one of the more persistent myths about Planned Parenthood’s services. In response to Whoopi Goldberg asking of Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding, “What will you replace it with if you take it away?” Santorum answered: Well, first off, I’m for reallocating every dollar that goes to Planned Parenthood and put them in women’s health centers that actually provide more comprehensive services than Planned Parenthood does. Planned Parenthood, for example, doesn’t provide mammograms. Now, I know people say...

Women don’t have the capacity to receive the sacrament of holy orders because they lack maleness. That is the case for both the priesthood and the diaconate. Not male? No ordination.During the during his flight back to Rome from these USA, Pope Francis was asked by a female reporter if there could be women priests.Of course, the Pope said “No.” He said “No.” again, of course.Over at the non-Catholic National Schismatic Reporter (aka Fishwrap), there is a piece entitled: Francis again rejects women priests without specific reasoning“Without specific reasoning”?Here’s what Francis said: On women priests, that cannot be done. Pope...

Update: Hall ignored the deadline and proceeded to issue unconstitutional marriage licenses. As reported by The Denver Post: "This was not a hard decision. I'm proud to do this for my community," Hall said Tuesday afternoon, adding, "it's not about politics. This is about people who love each other." Hall's office has issued 88 marriage licenses to same-sex couples since Wednesday, when the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals struck Utah's ban on gay marriage.

You know that grunt-like scream that Miss Piggy makes when she’s really made and frustrated? That’s pretty much what the American Family Association offshoot One Million Moms is doing right now as they boycott ABC’s The Muppets TV show premiering this Tuesday at 8pm Eastern. The organization touts a mission statement saying that they are trying to “stop the exploitation of our children, especially by the entertainment media” and “stand against the immorality, violence, vulgarity and profanity the entertainment media is throwing at your children.” Or more succinctly put, “We want our children to have the best chance possible of...

In 2003, Senator Rick Santorum was widely criticized for making a slippery slope argument about what can happen to a society and country once we turn away from Biblical morality. A mere 12 years later the former-Senator’s prediction has come tragically true. It is only Tuesday and yet already this week Salon has published a lengthy article written by a pedophile asking for our understanding. Although he claims to have never acted on his impulses (but spent years in a chat room with those who have), the entire piece condemns society — you and I — as bigots for ostracizing...

The first San Francisco elementary school to make bathrooms gender neutral has proudly removed the circles, triangles, and stick figure signs from the kindergarten and first-grade bathrooms that delineate the differences between the sexes.Principal Sam Bass of Miraloma Elementary said the change at the beginning of the school year was prompted by the needs of six to eight students who are outside calling themselves simply boys or girls, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Bathrooms for children older than first grade will be altered in coming years, even outside bathrooms that have multiple stalls.Bass told the Chronicle, “There’s no need...

If you’re constantly bundling up against your office building’s air conditioning, blame Povl Ole Fanger. In the 1960s, this Danish scientist developed a model, still used in many office buildings around the world, which predicts comfortable indoor temperatures for the average worker. The problem? The average office worker in the 1960s was a 40-year-old man sporting a three-piece suit. But fear not, those for whom the “work sweater” has become a mandatory addition to office attire: Researchers say they have built a better model.The biggest problem with Fanger’s approach—which assumes a 21°C (70° Fahrenheit) office would be the most comfortable—is...