Free Republic

This letter to the editor appeared in the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News. The letter is self-explanatory. After you finish reading this there will be no need for any further commentary:Modified community needs civil rights protections Because of my body modifications, including tattoos and piercings, I consider myself to be a member of the modified community. Due to my modifications, I not only have to deal with the daily routine of turned up noses and annoying questions from those without any body modifications, but I have to fight even harder to get a job than someone without any visible modifications.So this...

SAN DIEGO -- There was a surprise in a downtown San Diego courtroom Thursday, as an illegal immigrant changed his plea and admitted to luring a boy into a canyon near a school and raping him. [...] Nava pleaded guilty to committing a lewd act by force on a child under 14, admitted to being a stranger to the child when the crime was committed, and acknowledged that the act involved force and or fear to the child, prosecutors said.

Transgender is quietly becoming a protected class in South Florida as cities vote to prohibit discrimination against a group that faces tremendous challenges fitting in. Palm Beach and Broward counties may extend the protection next, which could leave the broadest imprint by affording civil rights to people for their gender identity or expression. The movement accelerated with the March firing of Largo City Manager Susan Stanton, who transitioned from male to female this year. "It shined a light on what this discrimination is," said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Stanton's attorney. "It really...

...Eight years earlier, he and I had met at a restaurant in Boston where we both worked late nights. We were each in the midst of deteriorating relationships and through our commiseration became close friends, confidants and eventually a couple. Our relationship was brief, intense and tumultuous, more addiction than love — a scalding hot bath that feels like comfort but in reality is scorching you. I think we both knew we were wrong for each other but didn’t care. We were young, lost and unmoored, each secretly terrified of the phrase, “your whole life ahead of you.” Depressed and...

Salem, Mass. (AP) -- A self-proclaimed high priestess of Salem witches and a second person were accused of tossing raccoon parts on the doorsteps of businesses, allegedly as part of a Wiccan community feud. Sharon Graham, 46, and a fellow Wiccan, Frederick Purtz, 22, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of littering and malicious destruction of property. Graham also was charged with intimidating a witness. They were accused of putting a racoon head and entrails on the doorsteps of Angelica of the Angels and the Goddess' Treasure Chest in May. The historic seaport, famous for holding witch trials in the...

WELLINGTON (AFP) - They say you are what you eat, and growing numbers of vegans are shunning sex with meat-eaters because they see them as "a graveyard for animals", a New Zealand researcher says. These vegans not only refuse to eat meat or animal products but refuse to have sexual contact with meat-eaters because their bodies are made up of dead animals, the researcher was reported saying in The Press newspaper on Tuesday. Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre of Human and Animal Studies at New Zealand's Canterbury University, said she coined the term vegansexuals during her research....

Green Dating – Are You An Ecosexual? Heather Buchanan Friday, July 13, 2007 The “green” buzzword has infiltrated our consciousness in terms of what we eat and how we recycle and when we drive to the store or walk. Now it’s even entered the equation of “Your carbon-footprint-free place or mine?” The question is: Are you an ecosexual? The concept of green dating used to be restricted to SWM seeks SWF to share life in yurt with long walks in protest rallies and vegan restaurants. But even if you don’t throw around words in personal ads like “family oriented pagan...

I've got to give it to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- he does not suffer from low self-esteem. But then, as he owns a 68 percent share of the $20-30 billion, privately held, self-named Bloomberg L.P. firm, that yields over a billion dollars of after-tax yearly income personally to him, why should he? In the full flush of his flushness, the mayor of Gotham has announced that he probably will run as an Independent for president of the United States -- and is prepared to spend $1 billion on the project. In fact, according to the reporting of Ralph...

How many homeless shelters does your town have that are "intended specifically for transgender youth"? If you live outside New York, the answer almost certainly is a big goose egg. Here in the Big Apple, on the other hand, one of the city's leading newspapers regards it as newsworthy that there is only one. In case you're wondering what "transgender" means, here is what we took away from the story: The residents of this shelter are young men who go to extraordinary lengths to appear as if they were women. They wear dresses, high heels and feminine makeup; they carry...

Gay rodeo shows South Florida how West was fun By Elizabeth Baier South Florida Sun-Sentinel April 15, 2007 Davie -- They wore Wrangler jeans and Stetson hats. Some sported decorative belt buckles to boast of former rodeo triumphs. But at Saturday's Sunshine Stampede, some of the spectators and participants also waved a symbol not typically associated with rodeos -- the rainbow flag. What's a gay rodeo without a little color? Thousands of people converged on the Bergeron Rodeo Grounds for the state's second gay rodeo, hosted by the Florida Gay Rodeo Association. The Florida group is one of the newest...

Former state legislator David Clarenbach says he can quote almost verbatim the words spoken by Lee Dreyfus when the Republican governor signed the nation's first civil rights law for gay men and lesbians. "It is a fundamental tenet of the Republican Party that government ought not intrude in the private lives of individuals where no state purpose is served, and there is nothing more private or intimate than who you live with and who you love," Clarenbach recalls in a phone interview from his home in Washington, D.C. "Even reciting it gives me goose bumps," adds Clarenbach, a Democrat who...

The National Council on Organized Resistance is a gathering of liberals, progressives, and anarchists. This year they were joined by a select group of conservatives from across the D.C. area who posed as radicals and went undercover.

It's a brilliant Sunday morning, but the sunshine deceives. Step outside and the air is frigid, still below the freezing point. South University Avenue looks like a mirage in the windy cold. The winter just refuses to give up. The detritus of our national day of alcohol abuse - pardon me, St. Patrick's Day - litters the streets and yards of campus. Cracked green knickknacks are blown about. Partially-filled beer cans roll down South U. One block away, the Campus Chapel on 1236 Washtenaw Avenue opens its doors for Sunday service. On campus, the sacred and profane maintain an uneasy...

As war protesters marched toward Arlington Memorial Bridge en route to the Pentagon yesterday, they were flanked by long lines of military veterans and others who stood in solidarity with U.S. troops and the Bush administration's cause in Iraq. Many booed loudly as the protesters passed, turned their backs to them or yelled, "If you don't like America, get out!" Several thousand vets, some of whom came by bus from New Jersey, car caravans from California or flights from Seattle or Michigan, lined the route from the bridge and down 23rd Street, waving signs such as "War There Or War...

If there was a danger to the dark side that welled in music in the 1960s, it was perhaps best represented by what happened to one of its icons, Beatle John Lennon.  His was a life that symbolized, and took to an extreme, the spiritual struggles -- and confusion -- of a generation.  As previously reported [click here for story], after years of casting about -- swerving as a youth from Christianity to agnosticism to atheism and then all the way to Eastern meditation -- the famed songwriter settled, in the end, on the occult, as sort of a harbinger...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.</p> <p>The rally on the Mall unfolded peacefully, although about 300 protesters tried to rush the Capitol, running up the grassy lawn to the front of the building. Police on motorcycles tried to stop them, scuffling with some and barricading entrances.</p>

Focus On: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgendered Persons ( 825 KB, 2pp) Teaching Tolerance or Attacking Religion: How far can schools go in teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians? Safe Schools for Everyone: An interview with Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) School Employee's Guide to GLBT Issues The Safe Zone: Links to bullying resources, a brief glossary of bias terms, and a downloadable poster NEA believes that a great public school is a fundamental right of every child—free from intimidation and harassment, and safe for all students, including those who identify as...

In a story unusual even for a soap opera and believed to be a television first, ABC's "All My Children" this week will introduce a transgender character who is beginning to make the transition from a man into a woman. The character, a flamboyant rock star known as Zarf, kisses the lesbian character Bianca and much drama ensues. The storyline begins with Thursday's episode of the daytime drama. There have been a handful of post-surgical transgender characters in television shows, including a college professor in the 2001 prime-time CBS series "The Education of Max Bickford" and a model in the...

PARIS (AFP) - The Church of Scientology provides for several kinds of wedding ceremony for its followers, but according to the most traditional the husband "may promise to provide her (his wife) with "a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat." US actor Tom Cruise and actress Katie Holmes will provide perhaps the most high-profile Scientologists' wedding to date this weekend. And according to unconfirmed reports in the Italian media, American Scientology leader David Miscavige will fly in from Los Angeles to preside over the event. According to the Scientologists' book "The Background, Ministry, Ceremonies and Sermons of the Scientology Religion",...

Drudge Siren: ALLEN'S REVENGE: EXPOSES RIVAL'S NOVEL WRITINGS; UNDERAGE SEX SCENES