Free Republic

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Pride in the Street is expected to draw protesters to downtown Pittsburgh Saturday, prompting police to make “sight and sound locations” available to demonstrators. “The purpose for these locations is to provide a safe venue for the expression of dissenting perspectives while securing reasonable separation between groups to prevent violence from occurring. It is the role of police to maintain reasonable separation to ensure the safety of all,” police Chief Cameron McLay said in a statement. --snip-- Protesters within the LGBT community are upset over the Delta Foundation’s leadership because they believe people of color and other...

Former talk show host Rosie O’Donnell was ready to adopt her second child, until she got some unexpected news from the doctor. That’s when the birth mother, Jami Weaver, said the child was rejected. Jami Weaver claims that the agreement fell through when she learned her unborn child was diagnosed with gastroschisis (a congenital deformity where the bowel protrudes through the abdominal wall) last summer. 'Rosie told me she could not handle having a special needs child,' she said. Perhaps if she’d have done some research, O’Donnell would have discovered that babies with gastroschisis have a 90 percent survival rate,...

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. Pot divides the real estate industry -- Colorado may have legalized recreational marijuana, but not all landlords are on board with pot on their property. According to Dan Slover, a broker at Cedar Creek Property Management, it comes down to landowner preference whether or not they will allow the possession, consumption, and production of marijuana in their rentals.

Writing online, author Elisa Gabbert answered one of her reader's questions about whether he should stop writing because of his "privilege" of being white and male. An anonymous reader asked Gabbert: "I am a white, male poet—a white, male poet who is aware of his privilege and sensitive to inequalities facing women, POC, and LGBTQ individuals in and out of the writing community—but despite this awareness and sensitivity, I am still white and still male. Sometimes I feel like the time to write from my experience has passed, that the need for poems from a white, male perspective just isn’t...

The restaurant, named Tallywackers, hires attractive men and serves comfort food including steaks, pizzas, pasta, and hot dogs. Tallywackers says their restaurant is a “bar, restaurant and entertainment destination for everyone. There is eye-candy — for boys and girls — great food and a really good time.” Just as the “Hooters” name is a play on a euphemism for women’s breasts, “Tallywackers” is a not-so-subtle nod to men’s genitals. Owner Rodney Duke told the hosts of the Kidd Kraddick Morning Show last month that “he has pondered for 10 years why there wasn’t a male equivalent of this type of...

What do you do if you throw a big party but nobody shows up? That wasn’t quite the case for Hillary Clinton this week, but it was close. It seems that one of her high profile, Big Apple supporters set up a private, “women only” event where the ladies would get some one on one face time with the presumptive Democrat nominee for the bargain basement price of only $2,700. Sadly, as the deadline approached, it became clear that not enough of Gotham’s ladies were up for the trip. Hillary Clinton had trouble attracting high-powered women to a New...

A Muslim woman who claimed over the weekend–in a social media post that has since gone viral–that United Airlines discriminated against her because of her faith, has a history rife with deep connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Imams. 31-year-old Tahera Ahmad, who serves as the Muslim chaplain at Northwestern University, claimed over the weekend that she was discriminated against because a United Airlines flight attendant allegedly refused to give her a full can of unopened Diet Coke. When asked for an explanation as to why she had been refused her unopened Diet Coke, the flight attendant allegedly told...

A scientist and his wife who used to work at a high-level U.S. energy laboratory were arrested Friday after an FBI sting operation and indicted on charges of conspiring to help develop a nuclear weapon for Venezuela. After their arrest, the two appeared in federal court in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They dealt with an FBI undercover agent posing as a Venezuelan agent. The government did not allege that Venezuela or anyone working for it sought U.S. secrets.

If you’re applying to Harvard and your last name is Wong or Liu, changing it to Lopez or Luciano might just make the difference you need to get in. Harvard routinely rejects “Asian” applicants in favor of whites and sought-after minorities with lower test scores and grades. Enrollment data reveal that Harvard limits Asian-Americans to a flat 15-18 percent of the student body, year after year, though they increasingly dominate the top of the applicant pool. To smoke out ethnicity, Harvard requires applicants to provide their parents’ place of birth, mother’s maiden name and whether their family has ever changed...

Linky only.

While conservatives in Indiana and Arkansas were explaining last month why their new religious objections laws weren’t invitations to discriminate against gays, the leaders of Wisconsin’s capital city were busy protecting the rights of another group: atheists. In what is believed to be the first statute of its kind in the United States, Madison banned discrimination against the non-religious on April 1, giving them the same protections afforded to people based on their race, sexual orientation and religion, among other reasons. It’s hardly surprising that such a statute would originate in Madison, an island of liberalism in a conservative-leaning state...

The new policy is phrased neutrally, as a ban on donations for anyone formally accused of “discriminatory acts,” but it’s obvious who the target is. Last week they shut down fundraising pages for Sweet Cakes by Melissa and Arlene’s Flowers, two Christian-owned businesses facing discrimination charges for declining to provide services to same-sex weddings, and caught hell for it from conservatives online. With good reason. Until this week, GoFundMe banned fundraising “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts,” but Sweet Cakes and Arlene’s Flowers weren’t accused of crimes. They were accused of...

Businesses should not discriminate, liberals proclaimed loudly in explaining their opposition to religious freedom laws. Three recent actions supported by liberals demonstrate that is not true. 1. Bakeries Should Be Able to Refuse Bible Verses Christian activist Bill Jack was denied service when he went to Azucar Bakery in Denver and asked for two cakes in the shape of open Bibles. He asked for the words, "God hates sin — Psalm 45:7," "Homosexuality is a detestable sin — Leviticus 18:22," "God loves sinners," and "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us — Romans 5:8," on each of the...

The sign read: “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Dice” at this All American Burger in Redondo Beach. Jeff Spicoli, who says he’s a regular customer, told reporters that he and his two friends were asked to leave if they didn’t put their shirts back on. “The manager went, like, totally fascist on us,” said Spicoli, a senior at Ridgemont High School. “He wouldn’t take our order until we put our shirts on. It was bogus, man.” Spicoli and his friends are now accusing All American Burger of discrimination. Assistant Manager Brad Hamilton said, “I just pointed to the sign. Everyone...

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee teaching assistant is offering extra credit to his students—but only if they’re bisexual. In an email sent by Jonathan Dellinger to students enrolled in his public speaking class on April 1, the TA promised three extra credit points to any of his students who were bisexual. “I’m just writing to inform you of another extra credit opportunity (3 points),” Dellinger wrote in the email obtained by Campus Reform. “To be eligible to participate in this study, you must identify as bisexual, so not everyone will be able to do this one.” A student in the Communications...

Last week, as radical Islamists slaughtered 148 Christian students at a Kenyan university, America’s faithful celebrated Easter and Passover in tranquility, demonstrating why religious liberty is not the eccentric uncle in the human-rights family — it’s the matriarch. Yet with demonic evil spanning the globe, and religion a life-and-death matter, punishment for defending one’s faith is now acceptable in America. Our “live and let live” ethic is increasingly imperiled. Witness the firestorm after Indiana became the 20th state to enact its version of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In our morally upside-down world, we accommodate the nuclear ambitions of...

Lawmakers want to further protect immigrants The same California legislators who helped get undocumented residents drivers licenses unveiled a package Tuesday of 10 bills that would also provide them with subsidized health care and other benefits, including protection from fraud and discrimination. Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, said the flurry of bills “unequivocally state California’s commitment to immigrants.” During a news conference in Sacramento, de León and others switched between English and Spanish to tout the proposed laws they said mark a “historic moment” for the state. One proposal was floated last year: a bill by...

Bake me a cake, or go to jail! Sadly, that is the new message from "inclusive" America. If you don't want to cater, photograph, preside over, sell pizza at, sell flowers to or otherwise participate in a gay wedding, you will be punished. If you don't want your business to pay for a kind of birth control that you consider murder, you will pay fines until your business is bankrupt. Personally, I think both birth control and homosexuality are just fine, and gay marriage is as valid as straight marriage. But forcing everyone to act as if they think that...

Before we begin, allow me to clear up one common misconception for those of you who aren’t regular readers of the site and just followed a link here because of the awful, offensive title. Most of you in the latter category always seem to assume that I’m opposed to gay marriage because I have no problem with – and actually support – the RFRA laws currently under discussion. If you take a moment to check with our commenters you will be quickly disabused of this notion, as they will immediately tell you I’m one of those big ole’ RINOs...

If the crowds clamoring about legalized discrimination in Indiana this week, calling for boycotts of the state, want to see what real prejudice looks like, they should take a look at the laws on the books in a city few of them would ever consider denouncing: New York City. That’s where real discrimination can be found, and it’s a great example of why religious Americans need stronger legal protections along the lines of Indiana’s. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a federal appeals-court decision that upheld a New York City policy that prohibits worship services in public-school...