Free Republic

As one who loves America -- not only because I am American, but even more so because I know (not believe, know) that the American experiment in forming a decent society has been the most successful in history -- I write the following words in sadness: With few exceptions, every aspect of American life is in decline. "Decay" is the word. The Decline of the Family: Nearly half (48 percent) of American children are born to a mother who is not married. Forty-three percent of American children live without a father in the home. About 50 percent of Americans over...

GOP Presidential Hopeful Ben Carson Blames Hip-Hop For The Deterioration of Black Communities – on an R&B radio station Called for a return to faith-based values during an interview on a channel that describes itself as 'America’s most recognizable black radio station' Hip community was defined by Carson as an 'aspect of modern society that pretty much dismisses anything that has to do with Jesus Christ' 'As we allow the hip-hop community to destroy' our values, he said, 'we continue to deteriorate' Long-shot 2016 contender is currently on a campaign swing through New Hampshire; his exploratory committee says its raised...

I believe that we are in a war, a war that we have no idea how to fight. We don’t understand the rules of engagement. Our opponents have a take no prisoners attitude and we just want to be nice to everyone. On top of that, most of us are too busy taking care of ourselves and our families to want to engage in warfare with people that we have no animus towards. Additionally, we are much too comfortable to risk what we have to run off tilting at windmills. So the slide into totalitarianism continues. It is, however, reaching...

If I visit a kosher restaurant and order a pork chop, am I being discriminated against when the waiter says they don't serve pork? If an establishment requires that men wear jackets and women dress in what that establishment defines as an "appropriate way," does that constitute discrimination? When I visit the Vatican, the Swiss Guards won't let me in if I'm wearing shorts. They offer a cover-up. It is the same for women, if they bare too much flesh. Is that discrimination? What about the sign "no shoes, no shirt, no service"? Is that bigotry against the shoeless and...

You might think Ben Carson’s recent comments suggesting that prison turns people gay have hurt his presidential campaign. I don’t buy it. In fact, I suspect they’ll improve his chances. First, Carson’s supporters agree with what he said. According to a March 2014 Washington Post poll, 48 percent of conservative Republicans think being gay is something you choose while only 39 percent disagree. If you polled the activists on the Christian-right most likely to back Carson’s campaign, that figure would probably be even more lopsided. Second, it won’t exactly shock Carson’s backers to hear that he’s anti-gay. Last March, Carson...

Governor Palin wowed the crowd as she arrived on the "red carpet" for Saturday Night Live’s 40th Anniversary 3-hour special.She stopped on the "red carpet" to talk with actor Alec Baldwin, quipping that she likes his brother, Stephen –a conservative– better. NBC anchors Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer intereviewed the two of them, and it may be me, but it seemed as though Baldwin was doing his best to keep Gov. Palin from talking. After Guthrie asked her a direct question, Baldwin was forced to listen, while chomping on his gum (or could it have been leftover food from dinner?)Twitchy caught some of the...

Yesterday was the official kick-off of the 2015 Sundance Festival. And good news, Robert Redford is still heading it up. So – for whoever requested new pictures of wrinkly old Bob – I’ve got you covered! In fact, take your pick: man spreadingHollywood foldingBobby obviously doesn’t own a comb, since he’s still workin’ that boyish tousled hair look. Butt I think we can all agree that he’s had a bit of machine grooming (dermabrasion, Botox, fillers). While still age-appropriately weathered, at least his face doesn’t look like crater lake any more. So there’s that. And just trust me; it is...

[SNIP] The exchanges are just the latest eruption in a long culture war, analysts said, with lines clearly demarcated. “As screenings have sold out, conservative media has manned barricades against liberals who have attacked the movie or the idea of lionizing Kyle,” conservative David Weigel wrote for Bloomberg. He noted that much of the controversy involves the extended battle over guns — and gun control — and pits pro-Iraq war conservatives against anti-war liberals. But it also hints at another gulf in American politics: the plummeting number of Americans who serve in the armed services, which has given rise to...

The United States started out mainly Protestant -- however due to the schisms in Western Europe, with a strong bent towards religious tolerance of other denominations. Coupled with this, the American War of Independence gave a strong bent to non-hierarchical thinking...therefore a suspicion of stratified, formalized churches (primarily Catholic) as Orthodox churches were concentrated in Russia and Eastern Europe and demographically underrepresented among the settlers. Coupled with this, historical ignorance (America as a “melting pot” formed explicitly upon socio-political theory rather than accidents of blood, war, and geography) coupled with dependence upon breakaway denominations (Lutheran, Calvinist, Evangelical) led to a...

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear several Appeals Court cases on gay marriages, which resulted in bans on gay marriage being struck down in numerous states across the country. Following the Supreme Court's decision to punt on the issue of gay marriage, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd saw this as a sign that social conservatism was declining and obnoxiously asked "it is time for conservatives to surrender in the culture wars?" After playing a pre-packaged segment on the evolution of social conservatism in the United States, the NBC host did his best to portray social conservatives as...

Many reject the notion that a good segment of our popular culture and of our political class is at war with Christianity. But this is a real war — not a phony one, such as the left's manufactured "war on women." This hostility toward Christianity is a global phenomenon. Radical Muslims are targeting, persecuting and, in many cases, slaughtering Christians in numerous countries around the world. But I want to talk about a softer form of hostility — though nevertheless of serious concern — that is occurring in the United States. I filled an entire book with examples of discrimination...

When the fight for gay marriage began to gain traction back in the early years of the last decade, social conservative critics usually went beyond denying that marriage could be redefined to include same-sex couples. Many of them argued that homosexuals were much less inclined than heterosexuals to valorize the ideal of monogamy. Allowing gays and lesbians to marry would therefore introduce a polyamorous option into the institution, and adultery would come to be viewed as an acceptable option for all marriages.A spate of recent articles explicitly making the case for polyamory would seem to vindicate those conservative predictions and...

From behind a smoking sniper rifle high atop his ivory tower peers the secular-”progressive.” He surveys his many victims, strewn across the American landscape below and mockingly sneers, “War on Christianity? What war on Christianity?” He then resumes shooting, all the while insisting that those uncooperative Christians who scatter for cover behind the word of God and the U.S. Constitution somehow suffer from a “persecution complex” (the baker, the photographer, the florist, the innkeeper, the Christian school administrator, etc.). Though there are many, it is plain for all to see that abortion and “sexual liberation” remain the two principal...

From behind a smoking sniper rifle high atop his ivory tower peers the secular-”progressive.” He surveys his many victims, strewn across the American landscape below and mockingly sneers, “War on Christianity? What war on Christianity?” He then resumes shooting, all the while insisting that those uncooperative Christians who scatter for cover behind the word of God and the U.S. Constitution somehow suffer from a “persecution complex” (the baker, the photographer, the florist, the innkeeper, the Christian school administrator, etc.). Though there are many, it is plain for all to see that abortion and “sexual liberation” remain the two principal theaters...

As a Christian lawyer — even when I was engaged in the “commercial” practice of law rather than the nonprofit, constitutional work I do now — I always drew moral lines around my representations decisions. I was not going to use whatever meager talents God gave me to advance or celebrate causes or principles I knew to be wrong. In other words, I discriminated. But not on the basis of race, gender, disability, or sexual orientation, but rather on the basis of the action or legal principle the case would advance. I’d happily represent anyone, gay or straight, in a...

The counter counterculture uprising social conservatives promised us after the Supreme Court's neutering of the Defense of Marriage Act never quite manifested.... But in the days before the high court delivered its rulings on DOMA and California's Proposition 8, Tony Perkins, the president of the Christian conservative Family Research Council, was desperately admonitory that the country's top jurists not invite ruin on America by accurately interpreting the Constitution. "If the Supreme Court steps in and says, 'We're redefining marriage, same-sex marriage will be the law across the land,' it will create a firestorm of opposition," Perkins' Magic 8-Ball warned. "This...

Gallup is out with its latest “moral acceptability” survey. On 19 issues, Americans were asked, “In general, do you find the following morally acceptable[?]” The responses were ranked on a scale from “highly acceptable” to “highly unacceptable.” There was one issue – birth control, with 90% approval – that rated “highly acceptable” and nine, with approvals from 57% to 69%, that rated “largely acceptable.”Of those 10 issues, the response to seven of them is Exhibit A in the case of the collapse of the family in America. On two of the other three issues – wearing animal fur and medical...

. To Rev. Franklin Graham "Watchmen on the Wall Conference" 2014 Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, J. Vernon McGee, Dr. James Dobson ... all great Christian leaders and bible teachers of America in the 1960s thru 1990s ... Or were they ? For all the great works they did for Christ's church in America, IS IT POSSIBLE they made one (1) grave mistake ? I declare that they did, to the detriment of at least TWO American generations ... And I respectfully challenge Rev. Franklin Graham (and the other Conference speakers) to ACKNOWLDGE THEIR MISTAKE and APOLOGIZE to their Church Congregations....

There's an old saw about standing on the shoulders of giants and thinking you're tall. In other words, you take full advantage of what came before you while pretending, or even wrongly believing, that it sprang fully-formed from your own head or just materialized out of the ether. As militant secularists try to scrub Christianity out of Western culture, they're engaged in a fundamentally dishonest pursuit, which requires a great deal of rewriting and revising of history. They're also actively turning their backs on, or only vaguely comprehending, huge chunks of art, music and literature inspired by biblical stories and...

Has Chick-a-fila turned their backs on God by apologizing for their position against same-sex marriage? Also support your local Militia.