Free Republic

The same California Supreme Court that created a "right" to homosexual "marriage" earlier this year has now ruled that the state may force healthcare professionals to provide services that support an immoral and physically dangerous lifestyle. California's highest court was unanimous in its decision on Monday that Christian doctors may not refuse to perform artificial insemination for homosexual patients. (See "California court says no religious exemption for doctors") Attorney Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), reacts to the ruling. "This is a clear violation of the fundamental rights of individuals to live and practice their faith," he...

You may have signed a petition related to "keeping men out of women’s bathrooms." As a mother of two children who were born and raised in Gainesville, I agree that keeping our restrooms safe is good public policy, which is why the petition drive was framed that way. But that argument masked the true target of the petition drive and the charter amendment it proposes. The true target is to remove civil rights protections based on sexual orientation that have been Gainesville law since 1998, as well as gender identity that was added in 2008. That charter amendment is plainly...

Gay rights vs. faithful Christians' suits cite bias on job Pete Vere, THE WASHINGTON TIMES Thursday, July 31, 2008 The clash between gay rights laws and religious freedom has acquired two new fronts in recent weeks, both involving Christians who say they were punished on their jobs for actions that reflect religious disapproval of homosexuality.

OKEECHOBEE - In a move the American Civil Liberties Union is calling "groundbreaking," a federal judge has ruled in favor of students who claimed the school board discriminated against them by opposing their gay tolerance club.

Gay Activists Ascendant by: Audra Taylor, July 10, 2008 Anticipating unprecedented victories in the United States, gay rights groups in America are raising their profile at home and abroad. “It’s a really exciting time to be an LGBT American,” Rob Anderson, who edits the web site for Campus Progress, said at the group’s fourth annual national conference last week. The progressive student organization held its annual meeting at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. The panel was entitled, “Is LGBT Activism Obsolete?: Assessing the goals and methods of the LGBT movement,” and offered a particularly notable presentation. The panel of four LGBT...

Michelle Obama speaks to gay Democrats NEW YORK - Michelle Obama won a standing ovation on Thursday when she paid a campaign visit to gay and lesbian Democratic activists to promote her husband Barack Obama’s presidential quest. Obama, appearing at a dinner meeting of the Gay & Lesbian Leadership Council of the Democratic National Committee, cited her husband’s efforts to fight discrimination and promote equal rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people. She said he supported a complete repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which only recognizes marriages between men and women and upholds states’...

- Snip- Evidence from previous and pending cases indicates that the court tends to take an extremely narrow view of people's "free exercise and enjoyment of religion" when they clash with another group's need for equal protection. This would seem particularly true following the In re Marriage Cases ruling, in which the majority equated the ban on same-sex marriage to the now discredited (and unconstitutional) ban on interracial marriages. Religious liberty claims rarely, if ever, have prevailed in the face of complaints about racial discrimination. Conflicts about the rights of gays and those of religious believers demonstrate that these are...

Christian Photographer Hauled before Commission for Refusing Same-Sex Job By John Jalsevac New Mexico, January 30, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The case of a Christian photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex "commitment ceremony", was heard before the New Mexico Human Rights Division on Monday. A same-sex couple asked Elaine Huguenin, co-owner with her husband of Elane Photography, to photograph a "commitment ceremony" that the two women wanted to hold. Huguenin declined because her Christian beliefs are in conflict with the message communicated by the ceremony. The same-sex couple filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Division, which is...

Preachers give sermons. They ponder morality and seek to divine the will of God. They see stories not as narratives from which readers may draw their own conclusions, but as parables, useful for illustrating life lessons. In the Eye of the Storm, the new book by Gene Robinson, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, is not the memoir it appears to be. It is not Robinson telling his story but Robinson expounding his opinions. How does a Christian deal with the Bible's harsh judgments, contradictory messages and archaic views? What does God have to say about sexuality? How has the...

Schism is not a "catastrophic" event and is preferable to placating those who do not treat gays as equal simply for the sake of unity, a Canadian Anglican theologian says. "There are moments when treating unity as kind of absolute virtue that's higher than anything else is not necessarily the right thing," Rev. Paul Gibson said in an interview, concerning an essay he wrote that was posted on the Anglican Church of Canada's Web site yesterday. He wrote the essay in relation to the present schism in the Anglican Church over same-sex blessings, and concluded that a unified church that...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As a Christian, Elaine Huguenin is against efforts to legitimize same-sex “marriage.” So, when the Albuquerque photographer was asked via e-mail in September 2006 to photograph a “commitment ceremony” for two women, Huguenin declined. That was the end of the matter, she thought. But Huguenin didn’t take into account New Mexico’s anti-discrimination laws. Instead of hiring another photographer, one of the lesbians, Vanessa Willock, filed a civil complaint against Huguenin’s company, Elane Photography. Now, in one of the first cases of its kind in the state, a three-member tribunal of New Mexico’s Human Rights Commission is considering...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sought the support of voters in the homosexual community Feb. 28, telling them in a letter that if elected president he would work to pass laws important to that constituency and would use the "bully pulpit" to urge states to grant same-sex couples the legal benefits of marriage. The 770-word letter was posted on a section of Obama's campaign website devoted to homosexual issues. He and Hillary Clinton have worked for months to get the votes of the homosexual community, even appearing in August at a historic Democratic presidential forum devoted solely to...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Republican Mike Huckabee on Friday defended his previous remark that Mitt Romney didn't reach "political puberty" until recently, saying he was referring to his presidential rival's change of heart on key issues. Romney said humor has its place, but added that the race for president should be a more serious matter. Speaking to 600 supporters jammed into a restaurant-bar in Oklahoma City, Huckabee said he has been consistent on issues dear to conservatives such as abortion, gun control and gay rights, while Romney has shifted his positions. Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, was once "very pro...

Mitt Romney: Flip, Flop, or Slip on ENDA? A guest post by A. Harris, HucksArmy.com Even though they are fierce rivals for the Republican nomination, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have been, for a long time, two of my top choices: Huckabee number one. Romney number two or three. I have some concern over Romney’s position changes on abortion, gun control, the Bush tax cuts, etc… But for the sake of all of you who have traveled that well-beaten path many times already, I don’t want to question Romney’s sincerity here. Huckabee’s positions have simply been stronger and more consistent...

CHICAGO, December 26, /Christian Newswire/ -- Peter LaBarbera, longtime pro-family advocate and founder of the Republicans For Family Values website, is calling on pro-family leaders who have endorsed Mitt Romney to withdraw their support for his candidacy in light of his recent comments on NBC's "Meet the Press" supporting pro-homosexual "sexual orientation" state laws. "Mitt Romney's Christmas present to the homosexual lobby disqualifies him as a pro-family leader," LaBarbera said. "Laws that treat homosexuality as a civil right are being used to promote homosexual 'marriage,' same-sex adoption and pro-homosexuality indoctrination of schoolchildren. These same laws pose a direct threat to...

The Court of Appeals for the U.S. Ninth Circuit upheld this summer an Oakland, Calif., city government declaration that the phrase "marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values" was inflammatory and promoted harassment based on so-called sexual orientation. The phrase was also deemed to be homophobic and disruptive. It seems a few Christian women working for Oakland's city government formed a Good News Employee Association, and in promoting the club, included the aforementioned phrase on a flier. Later, a lesbian worker complained that the flier made her feel "targeted" and "excluded." Most recently, hate crimes...

Dr. R. Scott Hitt, an AIDS specialist and the first openly gay person to head a presidential advisory board, has died. He was 49. Hitt died Thursday of colon cancer at his home in West Hollywood, according to John Duran, the city's mayor and a longtime friend. Hitt was chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS during President Clinton's administration in the 1990s. "I think Scott's legacy was drawing AIDS to the attention of the president. He was uncompromising," Duran said. "He was not afraid of challenging the president about what would make good public policy." When...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 — Visitors to Gay.com can sign up to find the perfect dating partner, advice on sex and how-to articles on same-sex marriage and parenting. Over the course of at least two days in August, they may well also have seen banner advertisements about the Republican presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, according to an analysis of campaign Web advertising provided by the Nielsen Online, AdRelevance, monitoring service. At least 32,000 times over those two days, users clicking on the site got a Romney ad like one saying “Mitt Romney for President — Join Team...

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has used $23,000 in campaign funds to pay the top Washington ethics lawyer, Stan Brand, who is fighting his case before the Senate ethics committee, according to Craig’s latest filing with the Federal Election Commission. No additional legal expenses appear in the report, but they eventually will. Craig, according to his office, has decided to use his campaign committee for attorney fees related to his criminal defense in Minnesota as well. “A better read (of the latest report) is that Stan Brand bills more quickly,” Craig’s spokesman, Dan Whiting, wrote in an email. The report covers...

snip In the city-state's first major penal code amendments in 22 years, parliament repealed a section criminalising "carnal intercourse against the order of nature." Parliament however kept the penal code's section 377A, which makes sex between men a criminal offence, rejecting a petition by gay-rights activists and their non-homosexual supporters to abolish the law as well. snip "...if you look at Western Europe, the marriage as an institution is dead, families have broken down, the majority of children are born out of wedlock and live in families where the father and the mother are not husband and wife living together...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to veto a same-sex marriage bill for the second time in three years gathered lots of publicity. But at the same time he rejected same-sex marriage, Schwarzenegger quietly signed seven of the eight bills sponsored by Equality California, a leading gay rights organization. His record further enhances his reputation as a supporter of most gay rights. Equality California, while disappointed at Schwarzenegger's rejection of their top priority, called 2007 the most successful year in its history. The legislation signed by Schwarzenegger dealt with a variety of issues, including schools, taxes, civil rights and even...

Airline comes out with gay-themed flight Trip will feature drag queens, pink cocktails, cabaret performed by crew The Associated Press Updated: 4:42 p.m. PT Sept 14, 2007 SAN FRANCISCO - Air New Zealand is delving into the gay and lesbian market with a special themed flight that will feature drag queens, pink cocktails and a cabaret performed by the flight crew. The destination for the airline's one-time "Pink Flight," scheduled to depart San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 26, is the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia, one of the world's most well-attended gay events, said Jodi Williams,...

Very damaging video on Mitt Romney, in his own words....

Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday he wanted to tap into the "core decency" of Americans to fight discrimination against gays and lesbians, and argued that civil unions for same-sex couples wouldn't be a "lesser thing" than marriage. At a televised forum focusing on gay rights, the Illinois senator was asked to explain how civil unions for same-sex couples could be the equivalent of marriage. He said, "As I've proposed it, it wouldn't be a lesser thing, from my perspective. Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ, which supports gay marriage, but Obama has yet to go that far. All...

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — It looks like two new gay rights laws that are supposed to take effect on Jan. 1 will be suspended until Oregon voters have a chance to weigh in on them in November 2008, according to the group that's opposing the new legislation. Gay rights advocates scored major victories in the Oregon Legislature this spring when lawmakers approved laws to ban discrimination against gays in work and housing, and to give same-sex couples most state benefits of marriage through legal domestic partnerships. But a coalition of social conservative and church groups has been collecting petition signatures...

The police have announced plans to declare a state of very high alert throughout Israel and to bolster police presence in Jerusalem, Bnei Barak, and the North this Thursday to field the possible violence that may result from the Gay Pride Parade planned to take place that day in Jerusalem. Partly due to a dearth of intelligence on what to expect, police are treating the parade as an extremely sensitive event and have expressed fears that extremist elements will try to harm parade participants. Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community have strongly objected to holding the parade in the city....... On the day...

The Legislature's budget committee refused to allow domestic partner benefits for state employees. On Tuesday, the committee voted along party lines to reject Governor Doyle's plan to make health insurance and other benefits available to the partners of gay and straight state employees. Democrats were in favor of the plan but they failed to get the one Republican vote they needed to insert the policy into the budget. Democrats who control the Senate are expected to push for the benefits in their version of the budget. Representative Mark Pocan, a Madison Democrat, says UW-Madison is losing key researchers as a...

Health insurance benefits offered to unmarried same-sex and opposite-sex couples at the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville are unconstitutional, Attorney General Greg Stumbo ruled Friday. The opinion said the universities’ policies to provide domestic-partner benefits come too close to the legal definition of marriage. However, the opinion said that such benefits could be offered constitutionally if the universities broaden the way they define who’s eligible. To get around Kentucky’s constitutional amendment defining marriage only as between a man and a woman, the schools could relax the qualifications for determining a domestic-partner relationship. “They still have the flexibility...

A woman thought to be in her forties was struck in the head with an axe in central Stockholm on Monday afternoon. The attack took place at the offices of the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights (RFSL) on Sveavägen just after 3.30pm. Police arrested a man around fifteen minutes later in connection with the incident. He was still carrying the axe when he was apprehended. RFSL chairman Sören Andersson has confirmed that woman was an employee of the organization. He is in no doubt that the crime was motivated by hatred. "It's obvious that this can't...

A gay pub in the city of Melbourne has won the right to ban heterosexuals - the first time such legislation has been passed in Australia. The Victorian state civil and administrative tribunal ruled the Peel Hotel could ban patrons based on their sexual orientation. The pub's management said the move would stop groups of heterosexual men and women abusing gay people. Civil liberties groups have supported the decision. 'SAFE BALANCE' The tribunal's president said groups of straight women found homosexual men entertaining but that such attention was dehumanising, the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney says. Managers complained raucous hen...

IF YOU’RE CONSIDERING voting for either Shannon O’Brien or Mitt Romney for governor and you haven’t made up your mind yet about whom you’ll support, do the rest of us a favor and stay at home. It’s been a long time since the two leading candidates for governor have differed so sharply on the economy, housing, health care, education, the environment, crime, capital punishment, gay rights, and reproductive rights... -------snip------- Marriage rights for same-sex couples. O’Brien supports Vermont-style civil unions. She has said she would sign a marriage bill for same-sex couples if it crossed her desk. Compare that with...

WASHINGTON, D.C. May 16, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Former President Jimmy Carter issued a statement yesterday urging the United States military drop its “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military. "The nation’s commitment to human rights requires that lawmakers revisit ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the current policy that prevents lesbians, gays and bisexuals from serving openly in our armed forces," Carter said in an exclusive statement to the homosexual activist group, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). Carter told the SLDN that the current prohibition “regulates a group of citizens then prohibits them from identifying themselves and speaking up...

SCHOOL chiefs are today under fire for banning pupils from wearing crosses in class while allowing the jewel­lery of other faiths. Christian groups and politicians condemned the education bosses and accused them of ­“double standards”. The officials have told headteachers to ban jewellery except in “exceptional circumstances” when schools need to be “sensitive” towards other faiths. The “exceptions” include lockets worn by Muslims and Hindu bracelets. But even Muslim leaders have join­ed the condemnation, arguing that all religious groups, including Christian­s, should be treated the same. The guidance, issued to headteachers in Croydon, south London, has echoes of the row...

Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday flatly denied that he has offered jobs to anti-gay-marriage lawmakers to get them to change their votes on a proposed ban on gay nuptials - a tactic proponents of the ban fear could help turn the tide in the Legislature. During a press conference, Patrick offered a terse, “No” when asked if he has dangled jobs to sway votes, contradicting State House sources who told the Herald the governor has done just that in recent weeks. In an interview Wednesday night, a spokesman for Patrick refused to respond when asked whether the governor had offered jobs...

The scariest part about the bill to expand federal hate crimes law isn’t the fact that it seeks to overturn the American principle of equal justice under the law, though that is a close second. The scariest part is that it now makes the federal government a participant in hundreds more state crimes, including every sexual assault case or domestic violence case. If there were any true liberals left (instead of just partisan anti-Republicans), they would be wary of this bill. That almost no one from the left is, is an example of the vacuum of traditional, left-of-center, intellectual thought....

Students who wore attire with an offensive word in gay rights debate allowed to tone it down. Turns out there's yet another use for duct tape. Rio Linda High School students who were suspended last week for wearing offensive T-shirts to school can put them back on -- as long as they cover the word "sodomy" with duct tape. Several students were suspended last week for wearing T-shirts that said "Sodomy is sin." The shirts were a response to the national Day of Silence, a day of activism when some students take a daylong vow of silence in support of...

Just posted.You will not believe this!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mil2ohzJ6gs&NR=1

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law Saturday a measure to create domestic partnerships, giving gay and lesbian couples some of the same rights that come with marriage. The law creates a domestic partnership registry and provides enhanced rights for same-sex couples, including hospital visitation rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations and inheritance rights when there is no will. "It offers the hope that one day, all lesbian and gay families will be treated truly equal under the law," said state Sen. Ed Murray, who is one of five openly gay lawmakers in the Legislature. To be...

Annual 'Day of Silence' observed at Great Oak High (Temecula, CA) Thursday, April 19, 2007 By: JENNIFER KABBANY - Staff Writer TEMECULA -- Every year, tens of thousands of students across the nation participate in the Day of Silence, a nationwide event organized by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network that aims to fight against what the group says are common anti-gay biases in schools. While students at several Southwest County high schools annually participate in the event, Wednesday marked the first time since Great Oak High opened in 2004 that its students joined in. About 300 students at...

Gay Rights Bill Passes Oregon House Wednesday, April 18, 2007 SALEM, Ore. — Same-sex couples would receive the same benefits as married couples, and gays and lesbians would be protected against discrimination under bills approved Tuesday by the Oregon House. The Senate is expected to pass the two bills and Gov. Ted Kulongoski plans to sign both. The first bill would enable same-sex couples to enter into contractual relationships that grant them the same benefits offered to married couples under state law. The bill refers to the relationships as "domestic partnerships." Oregon would join Vermont, Connecticut, California and New Jersey...

SACRAMENTO- Supporters will renew their efforts this week to legalize gay marriages in California, but there seems to be little doubt that the outcome will be a rerun—another veto by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Assemblyman Mark Leno, the San Francisco Democrat who introduced the gay marriage bill that Schwarzenegger vetoed in 2005, said he is confident lawmakers will send the measure to the Republican governor again this year. "We're hopeful that he will understand why it's important that he end the second-class treatment of countless California families and children," Leno said. The bill is scheduled to be considered Tuesday by the...

A bill that would extend civil rights protections to gays and lesbians is stalled in the Iowa House of Representatives. Fifty-one "yes" votes are needed in the House for a bill to pass, but House Democratic Leader Kevin McCarthy of Des Moines says he doesn't have 51 Democrats willing to vote for the legislation, and Republicans who support it aren't willing to vote for it unless Democrats put up those 51 "yes" votes first. "So it's the same kind of partisanship that we've seen on a whole host of bills," McCarthy says. The bill passed the Iowa Senate in March,...

It's gay rights laws that are intolerant, says Cardinal by STEVE DOUGHTY, The Daily Mail (UK) Last updated at 23:46pm on 28th March 2007 Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor accused Labour of "legislating for intolerance" in his most outspoken attack yet on the imposition of gay rights laws on church bodies. The leader of England and Wales's four million Roman Catholics also questioned "whether the threads holding together democracy have begun to unravel". The lecture delivered in Westminster made him the first Catholic leader in nearly 180 years to place a question mark over the allegiance of his church to the...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- He's not even officially running for president, but Fred Thompson, star of NBC's "Law and Order" and a former Tennessee senator, is gaining in the polls among Republican White House hopefuls. This news comes as some of the GOP hopefuls who are already in the race recently lost some ground. What's behind the numbers, and does this mean that Republicans are hungry for a candidate who's not already running? Roughly two weeks ago, Thompson said he was considering a run for president. Since then, he has skyrocketed out of nowhere to rank third among GOP White...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said he will be taking “legal action against all those implicated in the ‘faggot’ incident.” The incident occurred when columnist and author, Ann Coulter uttered the words John Edwards and faggot in the same sentence during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) convention. “It’s not only Coulter who’s at fault here,” Edwards said. “A society that condones such slurs is equally guilty.” Edwards said he will give America 30 days to take appropriate measures against Coulter or face being named in a “class action” suit. “If appropriate remedial action has not been...

Human Rights Campaign-Hillary Rodham Clinton VIDEO Recently, Hillary Clinton told the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's leading homosexual-rights group in an unpublicized speech, "I am proud to stand by your side." She said, The marriage amendment " was wedge politics at its worst. It was mean-spirited, it was against the entire forward movement of American history. It was the first time anyone was proposing we amend the Constitution to deny citizens rights rather than widen the circle of rights and opportunities." "In the end, we stopped the Federal Marriage Amendment and we sent a strong message that we will not...

SALTILLO, Mexico – Gabby and Ana are in love. So are Marco Antonio and Juan Carlos. Under a sweeping new law allowing same-sex couples to form civil unions, they are planning to turn their love into a legal commitment. Legislators in the dusty northern border state of Coahuila have stunned Mexico by giving same-sex couples property and inheritance rights long reserved for married heterosexuals. It is a first for this predominantly Roman Catholic country, a measure so swift and so bold that it surprised even the gay community. All of a sudden, gay rights are on the national agenda. Since...

NEW YORK - Appearing on a live webcast, the Episcopal Church's presiding bishop began the painful task Wednesday of persuading members to roll back their support for gays — at least for now — so the denomination can keep its place in the world Anglican fellowship. The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, who personally supports ordaining partnered gays, told a studio audience, callers and those who submitted questions by e-mail that they should make concessions that Anglican leaders are seeking to buy time for reconciliation. "To live together in Christian community means each member takes seriously the concerns and needs...

Boy, are we a country with too much free time on our hands. Or should I say, what do a retired tennis pro, PETA, two research scientists and a herd of gay sheep have to do with each other? Plenty, according to the Toronto Star. The paper reports that two researchers -- Charles Roselli of Oregon Health and Science University and Fred Stormshak of Oregon State University -- have been studying why 8 percent of rams prefer to court other rams rather than ewes. The study had been proceeding quietly until fate intervened. You see, two university football players (you're...

NEW YORK - Anti-gay bias has flared up in Hollywood and pro basketball recently, and soon the topic will be thrust dramatically into a new forum — a reshaped Congress likely to pass the first major federal gay-rights bills. Wary conservative leaders, as well as gay-rights advocates, share a belief that at least two measures will win approval this year: a hate-crimes bill that would cover offenses motivated by anti-gay bias, and a measure that would outlaw workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Also on the table — although with more doubtful prospects — will be a measure to be...