Free Republic

TORONTO (AP) - Canada is set to become the third country to legalize gay marriage, with Parliament likely to pass landmark legislation Tuesday despite strong opposition from Conservatives and religious leaders. Although gay marriage already is legal in seven provinces, the bill would grant all same-sex couples in Canada the same legal rights as those in traditional heterosexual unions. The Netherlands and Belgium already allow gay marriage. The legislation, drafted by Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government, needs at least 155 members of the House of Commons to gain a majority of the 308-seat House. While some of his Liberal...

Same-sex marriage bill passes in Commons CTV.ca News Staff Canada will become the third country in the world to officially sanction same-sex marriage. In a 158 to 133 vote, the House of Commons adopted Bill C-38 -- the controversial legislation legalizing same-sex marriage from coast to coast -- on its third and final reading Tuesday night. The Liberals had the support of almost all New Democrat and Bloc Quebecois MPs for the vote. The bill will become official once it receives approval in the Senate. An earlier Conservative motion to send the bill back to committee was voted down 158...

NASHVILLE - Most Southern Baptists send their children to public schools, but some leaders in the faith are urging members to yank children out of schools deemed too tolerant of homosexuality. The issue is expected to be prominent at the annual Southern Baptist Convention next week in Nashville, where Houston lawyer Bruce Shortt and popular Christian speaker and writer Voddie Baucham Jr. are co-sponsoring a resolution that says churches should look into whether schools are teaching acceptance of homosexuality. Advertisement If they find that's the case, the resolution says, churches then need to inform parents and encourage them to remove...

Cross-dressing teen snatches man's wallet on 'date' ISESAKI, Gunma -- A teen who dressed up in a miniskirt, posing as a woman so he could get close to a company worker and steal his wallet was arrested Wednesday, police said. Gunma Prefectural Police arrested the 16-year-old youth on suspicion of theft, along with an accomplice who helped him carry out the crime. Investigators said the teen conspired with a 24-year-old man, and on an evening in February, he dressed up in a miniskirt and put on makeup to go on a "date" with a 46-year-old company worker. When the youth...

HONG KONG: Some 350 people from Hong Kong's gay community gathered on Monday in the city's first parade to raise public awareness about homophobia and promote gay rights and sexual diversity. Waving flags of rainbow colours, 16 gay and gay-friendly organisations rallied through one of the busiest streets in Hong Kong to mark the first International Day Against Homophobia. Some people wore coloured masks during the rally, symbolising sexual minorities which live under the shadow of homophobia. One group was waving a banner saying: "Make Love, Not War", another asked "Should the Law Protect Everyone Equally?", while a third simply...

SASKATOON, SK, May 18, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Saskatchewan man has been charged and ordered to pay $17,500 in damages to several homosexuals as a result of a flyer he distributed in Regina, containing warnings against the dangers of a homosexual lifestyle that a human rights tribunal ruled was “hate speech.” On May 2, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal ordered William Whatcott to pay homosexual Guy Taylor $2,500 and $5,000 each to homosexuals Brenden Wallace, James Komar and Kathy Hamre for damages. The four had sued Whatcott for a flyer he had distributed in mailboxes between September 2001 and April...

I am very sad to report --- the story IS true. The pornographic books were distributed to youth. Below are Official Statements, more will be added as they come in. Fenway Community Health expressed regret for accidentally making available HIV prevention materials designed for people over 18 years of age at an April 30 conference attended by middle school and high school-age students, educators, public health workers, college students and others. "Fenway Community Health regrets accidentally making available a small number of copies of the Little Black Book, an HIV prevention publication for gay and bisexual men over the age...

THE screen's first official gay bar," as it was labeled by the film historian Vito Russo, appeared in the 1962 political potboiler "Advise and Consent." Its most prominent visitor was a conservative United States senator. As sheer coincidence would have it, Otto Preminger's adaptation of Allen Drury's best seller about a brutal confirmation fight was released on a sparkling new DVD last week just as the John Bolton nomination was coming to its committee vote. Like Hollywood's other riveting political movie of 1962, "The Manchurian Candidate," "Advise and Consent" is fallout from the McCarthy era: the controversial nominee for secretary...

“Man and Woman”, “Wife”, “Husband”, “Widow”, “Widower” Banished From all Ontario Law Terms, when referring to spouses, are banned from all government programs, services, documentsToronto, February 25, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With the obscenely rapid, three-day introduction and passage of its same-sex “marriage” Bill 171, the Ontario government has advanced a revolutionary change in the way all laws and government programs and institutions refer to marriage and married persons. Everything referring to spouses must now be gender neutral. No longer can a married couple be referred to as “husband and wife” or “man and woman”. The terms “Widow” and “widower” are...

Cops are probing if a Brooklyn teenager whose severed arm and legs were dumped inside a subway tunnel last week was killed by a man he met over the Internet, law enforcement sources said yesterday. Rashawn Brazell, 19, was hacked to pieces after he vanished from his Bushwick apartment on Gates Ave. on Feb. 17 where he lived with his parents, cops and friends said. ...Cops believe Brazell, an aspiring fashion designer, may have gone to meet a man he met on the Internet for a romantic liaison, the sources said. ...

Homosexual men share the same relatively poor map reading skills as heterosexual women, according to a new study.Earlier research found men better than women at finding their way around in a 'virtual reality' maze, relying on geometric cues while women rely more on landmarks.Yesterday, the University of East London's Dr. Qazi Rahman reported in Behavioural Neuroscience Magazine that homosexual men used more landmarks during map reading than heterosexual men, adopting a blend of male and female navigational strategies.They investigated map reading by 20 homoesexual men, 20 heterosexual men, and 20 lesbains.The group memorized routes and was then asked to provide...

Valentine's Day Rally in Annapolis Featuring Maya Marcel-Keyes, daughter of Alan Keyes and a self-described young queer anarchist who grew up in Darnestown, MD. Maya is speaking publicly for the first time about LGBT issues. Don’t miss this important rally at 5 p.m. in front of the state house on February 14, also featuring Judy Shepard and other community leaders.

The manager of Manhunt.net on the HIV “super-strain,” unsafe sex, crystal meth, and corporate—and personal—responsibility. The news that a New Yorker had contracted what appears to be an especially fast-acting, medically impervious form of HIV put the three-year-old gay-personals site Manhunt.net on the front page of the Times, and on the defensive. Along with AOL chat rooms, the popular site was repeatedly cited as a place where men arrange to have sex with other men (although the actual site, or sites, where this man met some of his “hundreds” of unsafe-sex partners while bingeing on crystal meth, has not been...

ROME (Reuters) - Homosexual marriages are part of "a new ideology of evil" that is insidiously threatening society, Pope John Paul says in a new book published Tuesday. In "Memory and Identity," the Pope also calls abortion a "legal extermination" comparable to attempts to wipe out Jews and other groups in the 20th century. He also reveals that he is convinced the Turkish gunman who shot him in 1981 did not act alone and suggests that the former Communist Bloc may have been behind the plot to kill him. The 84-year-old Pontiff's book, a highly philosophical and intricate work on...

Tony Venenum (we’ll call him), 26, reasons that he has always taken risks in life. He was raised by a single parent and made his way in a neighborhood where toughness was a requirement for survival. He discovered, in his teens, that he had solace in male companionship, and before he was 20, had been seduced, and had lived then with Guido, an older man. Both had jobs in establishments that required conformist behavior — Tony even wore a jacket and tie to work, but then Guido took sick and the diagnosis was AIDS. But the retrovirus inhibitor kept him...

The Log Cabin Republicans, a lobbying group for gay Republicans, is regrouping after an election proved a national consensus against gay marriage has broadened its legislative goals this year. The group is reaching out to conservative organizations and vowing to be a partner with the Bush administration. The group, which claims thousands of dues-paying members, paid $3,000 to co-sponsor the Conservative Political Action Conference, marking the first time a gay rights group has been officially recognized by the nation's annual gathering of conservative activists. They've also begun to lobby members of Congress about Social Security reform, changes to the tax...

The House of Delegates is expected to vote on the "Gay Insurance" bill on Tuesday. If you haven't contacted your Delegate about this critical bill, you've got one more chance. Use the ACTION ITEM near the end of this email BEFORE noon Tuesday. Homosexuals gaining marriage benefits despite Marriage Amendment success? (Richmond) - The same Virginia legislature that voted to preserve the definition of one-man, one-woman marriage has rejected a ban on gay adoptions and is now poised to give insurance benefits previously reserved for married spouses and dependants to homosexual "couples” and anyone else who wants them. On February...

U.S. Drug Enforcement agents started getting information in November 2003 that a network of gay drug dealers was selling the powerful stimulant crystal meth, also known as "ice," to gay and straight drug users and other drug traffickers in Philadelphia. The following month, a DEA snitch made two ice purchases, each one totaling about seven grams, from members of the network, inside a South Philadelphia rowhouse, on McKean Street near 5th. Later that month, DEA agents and U.S. Postal inspectors intercepted a package that had been shipped by Federal Express from Arizona to Philadelphia, en route to the home of...

Kentucky too? School sued over homosexual tolerance training ASHLAND, Kentucky. (BP)--The homosexual agenda apparently has made its way to small-town America. A federal lawsuit filed Feb. 15 alleges that middle and high school students in Boyd County Public Schools -- a school district in Kentucky -- are forced to participate in diversity training, are told homosexuality cannot be changed and are warned not to say otherwise. Parents are not given an opt-out option for their children, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed by the pro-family legal group Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of three families who have children in...

I have been getting an exceptional quantity of mail — paper mail, not e-mail — about a piece I wrote for National Review last December. The piece, titled "Our Crisis of Foundations," was a loose rumination on current metaphysical confusions in the Western world. Not many of my correspondents were interested in metaphysics. What mainly caught their eyes, and what they wanted to take issue with, were the following two sentences: It is now taken for granted, for example, that homosexuality is a biological attribute of the human organism. "I was born this way!" the modern homosexual tells us, and...

The Church of England is to grant partners of homosexual clergy who have registered under the Government's new civil partnership scheme the same pension rights as clergy spouses. The disclosure, made at the General Synod last night, could prove an embarrassment to the bishops because sexually active homosexuals are theoretically barred from the priesthood. Only a few homosexual clergy have so far risked facing censure by publicly declaring that they are living in same-sex unions, but the prospect of gaining pension rights for their partners may prove an incentive for many more to "come out". The bishops plan to issue...

The Church of England is to grant partners of homosexual clergy who have registered under the Government's new civil partnership scheme the same pension rights as clergy spouses. The disclosure, made at the General Synod last night, could prove an embarrassment to the bishops because sexually active homosexuals are theoretically barred from the priesthood. Only a few homosexual clergy have so far risked facing censure by publicly declaring that they are living in same-sex unions, but the prospect of gaining pension rights for their partners may prove an incentive for many more to "come out". The bishops plan to issue...

NEW YORK - Using a young readers' novel called "The Misfits" as its centerpiece, middle schools nationwide will participate in a "No Name-Calling Week" initiative starting Monday. The program, now in its second year, has the backing of groups from the Girl Scouts to Amnesty International but has also drawn complaints that it overemphasizes harassment of gay youths. The initiative was developed by the New York-based Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, which seeks to ensure that schools safely accommodate students of all sexual orientations. GLSEN worked with James Howe, the openly gay author of "The Misfits" and many other...

Despite Gripes About Gay Themes, 'No Name-Calling' Initiative Spreads in Middle Schools By David Crary The Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) - Using a young readers' novel called "The Misfits" as its centerpiece, middle schools nationwide will participate in a "No Name-Calling Week" initiative starting Monday. The program, now in its second year, has the backing of groups from the Girl Scouts to Amnesty International but has also drawn complaints that it overemphasizes harassment of gay youths. The initiative was developed by the New York-based Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, which seeks to ensure that schools safely accommodate students...

A certain quiet seemed to gather over Berkeley on Thursday morning. As President Bush was inaugurated for his second term, it seemed many in Berkeley could only sit and watch in displeasure. The same was not true for a group of protesters who gathered at the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Armed with the poem, “Let America Be America Again,” by Langston Hughes, those gathered at the BART read the poem again and again, played music and read their own work and that of others. “We are listening to dea d language from D.C.,” said Al Young, a Berkeley poet and...

Homosexuals Should Pay More Insurance By Nathan Tabor With the big flap over so-called “gay marriage” temporarily on the back burner — now that their fearless but feckless leader John Kerry has gone down in flames, and with the first government-sanctioned same-sex unions already ending nastily in divorce courts and bitter custody battles — this just might be an opportune moment to discuss some rarely mentioned health problems inherent within the allegedly avant garde homosexual lifestyle. Some would say it is a known fact that most homosexuals, and especially gay men, are promiscuous. Their rhetoric is carefully crafted to give...

I have read many messages which object to same-sex marriage but I am still waiting to learn what specific adverse consequences opponents of gay marriage anticipate to result from its legalization. In other words, suppose same-sex marriage becomes law during 2005. By 2010 or 2015 what specific indisputable adverse consequences to society do opponents predict to occur? With respect to those critics of same-sex marriage who refer to "God's law" and "procreation" --- do they believe that heterosexual couples who cannot have children, or who do not wish to have children, should also NOT be allowed to marry? The essence...

A North Carolina National Guard member thought to be the first U.S. soldier convicted of murdering an Iraqi said he "snapped" and shot the 17-year-old boy after they had consensual sex, according to court-martial records released this week. Pvt. Federico Daniel Merida, 21, of Biscoe, a tiny town south of Asheboro, pleaded guilty during a court-martial in Iraq to shooting the Iraqi national guard private, whose name the Army withheld. Merida was sentenced Sept. 25 to 25 years in prison and reduced in rank. He will be dishonorably discharged. Army officials at Forward Operating Base Danger, where the court-martial was...

Piscataway, N.J. — Researchers at Rutgers University have developed a trio of drugs they believe can destroy HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to a published report. The drugs, called DAPYs, mimic the virus by changing shape, which enables them to interfere with the way HIV attacks the immune system. Tests conducted in conjunction with Johnson and Johnson have shown the drug to be easily absorbed with minimal side effects. It also can be taken in one pill, in contrast to the drug cocktails currently taken by many AIDS patients. “This could be it,” Stephen Smith, the head of...

Dale (l) and Chris Liuzza read to Seth before putting him to bed for the night -- a ritual they have shared since he was born. (Photo by Kathy Anderson)  Gay Dads, Bringing Up Baby BY BARRI BRONSTON NEW ORLEANS -- With $70 in gift cards to spend, Chris and Dale Liuzza zip through a suburban Babies 'R' Us, filling their shopping cart with everything from onesies and socks to diapers and wipes. It is February 2004, and a great adventure is just beginning. "I want to make sure we get the softest ones," Dale says, trying to decide...

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/11/112204senWeds.htm (Boston, Massachusetts) Massachusetts state Sen. Jarrett Barrios has married his longtime partner, Doug Hattaway, a former spokesperson for Vice President Al Gore. The two were wed in a weekend ceremony at First Parish Church in Cambridge. Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts last May. (story) Barrios and Hattaway have been together for 10 years and have two children.

WASHINGTON -- A nude painting of President George W. Bush is a little too funky for the "Funky Furniture" exhibit. The City Museum of Washington had scheduled a "living room art" exhibition called "Funky Furniture." A cartoonish painting, called "Man of Leisure, King George," showed a nude President George W. Bush reclining on a couch with his head propped up by pillows. It's a take-off on Manet's Impressionist masterpiece, "Olympia." Instead of the female servant who stands behind Olympia's couch, a man in suit and tie resembling Vice President Dick Cheney stands nearby, holding a cushion with a crown and...

Just saw a melee on the convention floor. Some protestors infiltrated and started putting up anti-Bush banners and just got the crap kicked out of them on live TV...

NEW YORK -- Gay pride parade-goers danced down Fifth Avenue and waved rainbow flags Sunday in celebration of a movement that has made huge strides this year with the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. "Even 10 years ago I would have said that's the wrong issue," said Ed Glorius, arms entwined around his partner, Dwight Pollard, whom he married in an unofficial ceremony at a Manhattan restaurant last week. "And now I feel very differently." While Massachusetts became the only U.S. state to legally recognize gay marriages following a ruling by its Supreme Judicial Court last November, gay pride...

Teacher busted in pupil sex rap By SCOTT SHIFREL, WARREN WOODBERRY Jr. and BILL HUTCHINSON DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Wednesday, March 17th, 2004 A married teacher at a Queens religious school has been busted for carrying on a seven-month lesbian romance with a teenage student, cops said yesterday. Cheryl Reyna, 31, a Spanish teacher at Martin Luther High School in Maspeth, was arraigned yesterday in Queens Criminal Court on charges of sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. Reyna, who has taught at the Lutheran school for seven years, was suspended with pay on Friday after the...

Exercise is as addictive as booze and fags, say scientists Tim RadfordMonday December 1, 2003The Guardian It's now official. Some joggers may become addicted to running just as other people become hooked on cocaine, tobacco or booze, according to new research today. The proposition that exercise can trigger a "high" based on brain chemistry has been around for decades. But there has been less research into what happens when the trainers are locked away and the tracksuit sent to the cleaners. Now a team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has confirmed that not pumping iron or pounding the pavement could...

Come May, no fags for schoolkids NEW DELHI : Under an Act which will be notified in the next few days, selling cigarettes to children below 18 years will be an offence. That's not all. Under the stringent anti-tobacco law, smoking in public places anywhere in the country will invite penalty. So, the airports, railway stations and bus stops will hopefully wear a sanitised look without the familiar tobacco smell.   Already, tobacco selling is prohibited at stations. But health minister Sushma Swaraj wants to go a step further. When the notification becomes part of the government gazette next week,...

<p>With the closing of Pinstripes Sports Cafe on Dec. 24, some other bar owners in the city are concerned that they will be next.</p> <p>Pinstripes closed as a direct result of the state public places smoking ban, according to Frank Bokoff, who said he was a spokesman for F and J Management, the group that owned and operated the bar and grill.</p>

Transgender, gay and feminist groups at the University of Chicago are asking officials to consider creating more gender-neutral bathrooms, saying some people aren't comfortable selecting a gender-specific facility. "Persons who are not easily legible as male or female often experience various forms of intimidation in these places. If a woman in a women's-only restroom is assumed to be a man, there may be real threats to her comfort and even safety," warns the Coalition for a Queer Safe Campus, a student group comprised of various organizations supporting equality on campus. "Students have faced gay-baiting comments in our university's sex-segregated bathrooms."...

<p>AST week's ruling by the highest court in Massachusetts legalizing gay marriage was perfectly timed in many ways.</p> <p>It feels like a snowball effect, coming only months after Canada legalized marriage and three years after Vermont allowed civil unions for gay couples. And it comes just in time for same-sex couples to begin planning a June wedding.</p> <p>It also makes one think that same-sex weddings may soon become nearly as commonplace as the traditional black tie, country club and limousine kind.</p>

Culver Pictures In an 1862 lithograph, a slave is depicted fleeing toward Canada before the Civil War.VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Heaven was the word for Canada and the Negro sang of the hope that his escape on the Underground Railroad would carry him there," the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once noted in describing the codes American slaves used in their spirituals to fool their masters before taking flight. Canada is heaven again for Lance W. Bateman and William E. Woods, two American men who were married here recently. The wedding on Aug. 31 looked like a typical Hawaiian...

While the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts strained to produce a gassy, weaselish decision on so-called "gay marriage," I was occupied with other things. Our dog Cody was dying, succumbing rapidly to what the vet called an "aggressive" form of cancer. It had started with a tumor on his heart, and then the awful cells had gotten into his bloodstream, started breaking out on his skin, and, the way it looked at the end, had infested his lungs. Every day, I spent as much time with him as I could. I took him on all his favorite rides, on his...

Religious group from Kansas to protest at Mepham H.S.   Play the video (10/17/03) BELLMORE - There's a bizarre new development in the Mepham High School hazing scandal. A religious group from Kansas is planning a controversial protest at the school on October 27. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church claim Mepham High School encourages homosexuality and that's what caused three football players to allegedly sexually abuse teammates at a Pennsylvania training camp. A few years ago, Mepham High School created the gay-straight alliance and other civil right's groups. Principal John F. Didden says the clubs help foster tolerance...

George W. Bush's grandfather helped finance the Nazi Party. Karl Rove's grandfather allegedly helped run the Nazi Party, and helped build the Birkenau Death Camp. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian father volunteered for the infamous Nazi SA and became a ranking officer. Together, they have destabilized California and are on the brink of bringing it a new Reich. With the Schwarzenegger candidacy they have laid siege to America's largest state, lining it up for the 2004 election. The Bush family ties to the Nazi party are well known. In their 1994 Secret War Against the Jews, Mark Aarons and John Loftus use...

THIS THREAD IS FOR ADULTS ONLY. THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT WHEN THEY SAY GAY "PRIDE". THIS IS WHAT YOUR TAX DOLLARS AND THE PC PARTY SUPPORTED. Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 5:18 PM Subject: public indecency: some photos from Saturday and Sunday's Gay "Pride" Parade http://members.rogers.com/liberty.ca1/nudemen.html (300 K) http://members.rogers.com/liberty.ca1/dykemarch.html (3 MB) > List of parade sponsors> ----------------------- > Toronto Arts Council > > Labbatt Blue > Government of Canada > Delta Chelsea > VIA Rail Canada > Show Case TV > Woody's > Rogers > Montclair natural spring water > Trojan condoms > Ikea > Schick > pur...

When gays rose up against police during the Stonewall Riots in 1969, they were living in a country that considered them criminals. But when their descendants in the struggle for equal rights march down Fifth Ave. in today's Gay Pride Parade, they will do so in a nation whose Supreme Court has forcefully ruled that they are "entitled to respect for their private lives." In the matter of Lawrence vs. Texas, the justices ruled 6 to 3 Thursday that the sodomy law in Texas, which criminalized consensual sexual activity between homosexuals, was unconstitutional. But the court didn't leave it at...

Saturday, June 28, 2003 · Last updated 7:33 p.m. PT Gay pride events become family gatherings By LISA LEFF ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Lyn Shimuzu, left, and her partner, Silvia Castellanos, right, play with a train set with their children, 6-year-old twins Che, left, and Liana, right, at their home in San Francisco, in this photo taken June 25, 2003. An estimated 1 million to 9 million U.S. children have gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual parents, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. These parents are making their influence felt beyond once-a-year gay pride events, transforming social dynamics both...

In one of those meaningful coincidences that Jung called "synchronistic events," Senator Rick Santorum's controversial comments about sexual morality came mere days before the Sabbath whose Torah-portion addressed the very topic. For anyone who may have been in a wine-induced stupor over the entire week of Passover, the Pennsylvania Republican, discussing a Texas sodomy statute currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, told a reporter that if the Court endorses a fundamental "privacy" right to homosexual acts, "then you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." A furor, predictably, ensued. The...

With 30,000 gay revelers expected for this weekend's "White Party" in Palm Springs -- a festival famous for sex and substance abuse -- public health officials and some gay leaders worry openly that it will fan an epidemic of syphilis. For the last two years, cases of the sexually transmitted disease have risen dramatically in the Palm Springs area and throughout the state, driven almost exclusively by gay and bisexual men.

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE JAN 21, 2003 17:59:25 ET XXXXX MAG: 25% OF NEW HIV CASES IN USA ARE MEN WHO SOUGHT OUT VIRUS New ROLLING STONE Managing Editor Ed Needham is set to hit complete controversy with a 4-page report: "Bug Chasers: The Men Who Secretly Long To Be HIV+." Filed by Greg Freeman, the shock story claims some men with HIV are deliberately having unprotected sex with those who want to be infected! MORE "The men who want the virus are called 'bug chasers,' and the men who freely give them the virus are called 'gift givers.'...