Free Republic

Using the same tactics used by "gay" rights activists, pedophiles have begun to seek similar status arguing their desire for children is a sexual orientation no different than heterosexual or homosexual.

Wake up, conservatives -- and Christians. We're getting our rear ends handed to us, and we'll continue to if we don't do a better job of fighting back. I'm not just talking about electoral politics. Liberal and secular activist groups are as aggressive as ever and winning, energized and enabled by this most radical of administrations -- and equally so by deer-in-the-headlights conservatives. The latest episode in this particular series of unfortunate events involves the Y's rolling over to the relentless bullying of pro-abortion activists to evict Students for Life of America from its facilities. These self-depicted arbiters of tolerance...

Egyptian security and medical officials say an American has been killed in the Mediterranean coastal city of Alexandria during clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's embattled President Mohammed Morsi. Alexandria security chief Gen. Amin Ezz Eddin told Al-Jazeera TV that an American was killed Friday in Sidi Gabr Square while photographing the battles between opposition youth and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails. A medical official told The Associated Press the American was wounded by gunshots and died at the hospital. SNIP Six Egyptians have been killed in days of clashes ahead of nationwide protests Sunday...

What do Chick-fil –A and Starbucks have in common besides food and beverages? Controversy – and lots of it – as the executive leaders of both companies have taken public stands on one of America’s most contentious cultural and public policy issues. You probably heard about the Chick-fil-A fiasco of last year. Founded by S. Truett Cathy, today the company is headed by Truett’s son Dan Cathy, and in June and July of 2012 the company and its franchisees was subject to maligning in the media and attempted boycotts by liberal activist groups because of public statements that Dan made...

I haven’t been blogging for a while, and I wonder why. One of the reasons is simple: I have had some personal and family issues to deal with. They have occupied my mind and my time. I’ve also been working hard to finish Slubgrip Instructs – the sequel to The Gargoyle Code . But today I realize that there is another reason. Maybe I should give up reading hysterical Facebook stuff, but the temperature is rising in the culture wars, and I’m scared.This week we’ve seen homosexual protesters screaming and shouting abuse at a Catholic Mass. At this Mass, celebrated...

... Filming for Lil Wayne’s “God Bless Amerika” music video in New Orleans is under scrutiny after a clip of his performance shows an oversized American flag drop to the street before Wayne tramples Old Glory as he raps ...

I've been advocating leaving the scouts since the vote, but that's the wrong approach. The BSA is worth fighting for. I went last night to the Boxwood Scout Retreat here in Tennessee to pick up my son from a week of scouting. As I looked around at the pristine property on the edge of Old Hickory Lake, and the decades of work it must have taken to build the facilities located there, I realized what a shame it was to give it all up without a fight. The BSA have assets on their books of over $1 billion offset by...

Rep. Steve King, a Republican from Iowa and the House's leading immigration hawk, complained Thursday about young immigrants who had shown up to protest his bill that would defund President Barack Obama's deferred action program. King wrote on Twitter that "20 brazen self professed illegal aliens have invaded my DC office. Obama's lawless order gives them de facto immunity from U.S. law." The congressman sponsored a measure to defund Obama's 2012 executive action that gave young unauthorized immigrants relief from deportation and a work permit if they attend or graduate high school and have no criminal record. One of the...

In the 1980s and 1990s, we heard about America’s “culture war” in which traditionalists fought a long, painful struggle against “progressives” who sought profound changes in virtually every aspect of American life. Ultimately, the traditionalists lost. American culture is now so debauched that the ideals which in the past motivated millions to vote Republican are only held true by a small and shrinking percentage of the populace.

All can agree that the Obama administration is mired in myriads of scandals, but as yet no one can quite figure out what they all mean and where they will lead. Benghazi differs from all the other scandals — and from both Watergate and Iran-Contra — because in this case administration lapses led to the deaths of four Americans. Nine months later, the administration’s problems of damage control remain fourfold: (a) there was ample warning that American personnel were in danger in Libya, and yet requests for increased security were denied; (b) during the actual attack, the American tradition of...

The traditional Marxist theory of power was a very one-sided one based on the role of force and coercion as the basis of ruling class domination. This was reinforced by Lenin whose influence was at its height after the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Gramsci felt that what was missing was an understanding of the subtle but pervasive forms of ideological control and manipulation that served to perpetuate all repressive structures. He identified two quite distinct forms of political control: domination, which referred to direct physical coercion by police and armed forces and hegemony which referred to both...

Only two of al-Qusayr's Christians remain from an original population of 20,000 residing there prior to the outbreak of events, alongside 40,000 Sunnis. This was before the outbreak of events and the take-over of the city by the opposition a year ago, at which point the majority of Christians fled, fearing instability and the beginnings of Islamic fundamentalist movements that were starting to show signs in al-Qusayr and imposing themselves on Leftist, secularist groups in the opposition. Thus, when the Syrian Army and Hezbollah fighters entered the city yesterday, there were no Christians left in al-Qusayr aside from Talal Haddad...

WASHINGTON — Two years into a civil war that shows no signs of ending, the Obama administration is considering resettling refugees who have fled Syria, part of an international effort that could bring thousands of Syrians to American cities and towns. A resettlement plan under discussion in Washington and other capitals is aimed at relieving pressure on Middle Eastern countries straining to support 1.6 million refugees, as well as assisting hard-hit Syrian families.

Do you remember the most Homeric of world trade negotiations, called the Uruguay round, which took place between 1986 and 1994? I was a teenager then and I remember that round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) vividly. I had taken to reading the austere Le Monde every day and remember the uncouth Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association in Hollywood, who particularly despised European film directors for pleading with their governments to exclude cinema, and the arts in general, from the negotiations. Valenti roared back: "Culture is like chewing-gum, a product like any other."...

For centuries, Christians thought culture would change if we just had a majority of Christians in the culture. That has proven to be a false assumption. Culture is defined by a relatively small number of change agents who operate at the top of cultural spheres or societal mountains. It takes less than 3-5 percent of those operating at the top of a cultural mountain to actually shift the values represented on that mountain.For example, this is exactly what advocates in the gay rights movement has done through the "mountains" of media and arts and entertainment. They have strategically used these...

Meeting Thursday in Grapevine, Texas, the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America will decide whether it will retain or revise its historic membership policy on the issue of homosexuality. The 1,400 voting members of the B.S.A. National Council hold the future of one of America’s most iconic organizations in their hands. In reality, they are not only deciding a matter of membership policy. They are actually deciding the future of the entire organization. The culture wars came to the Boy Scouts many years ago. For the last few decades, the Boy Scouts have had to fight battles with...

Several years ago, I was browsing the racks at Abercrombie & Fitch when a store employee approached me. “Hey, do you want to work here?” she asked, over the store’s notoriously loud (and obnoxious) music. In case you didn’t know, no one applies to work at Abercrombie. They offer jobs to good-looking, stylish patrons. For a brief moment, I felt anointed. I shouldn’t have. It turned out the store had dozens of teenaged and twenty-something employees—all of whom could expect to work five hours a week, if that. But there was a catch: in order to secure the job, you...

When I was a child, back in the Parenting Stone Age (a.k.a. the Parentocentric Era), your parents were the most important people in the family. They paid the bills, bought your clothes, prepared the food you ate, took care of you when you were sick, drove you to where you needed to be, tucked you in, and kissed you good night. They were essential. Your parents acted like they were bigger than you were too, like they knew what they were doing and didn't need your help making decisions. In fact, your opinion really didn't matter much. When they spoke...

Delusion and parochialism about marriage. Gay marriage? It came up at dinner Down Under this time last year, and the prominent Aussie politician on my right said matter-of-factly, “It’s not about expanding marriage, it’s about destroying marriage.” That would be the most obvious explanation as to why the same societal groups who assured us in the Seventies that marriage was either (a) a “meaningless piece of paper” or (b) institutionalized rape are now insisting it’s a universal human right. They’ve figured out what, say, terrorist-turned-educator Bill Ayers did — that, when it comes to destroying core civilizational institutions, trying to...

America should tax movies and games that glorify guns as one way to fight gun violence, says the Rev. Franklin Graham. “How much violence as a nation are we willing to accept?” Graham asked Wednesday in York. “We tax cigarettes, we can tax violence.” Graham was at Bethelwoods Camp and Conference Center in York for Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief training. The six-day session is to help relief workers improve their response skills. The training is as realistic as possible, Graham said, with people screaming and hollering. “We bring as much distraction as you can get. You literally have guts in...