Free Republic

Greg Ballard, the Republican mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana's largest city, has come out against a controversial religious freedom act signed into law last week by the state’s Republican governor, the Indianapolis Star reports. In a press conference Monday, Ballard announced that he had issued an executive order that "no vendor, contractor, grant recipient or anyone receiving public funds or benefits of any kind shall discriminate on the basis of...sexual orientation [or] gender identity."

In the wake of the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the media have been stacking myth upon myth in order to drive the narrative that right-wingers desperately want to harm gays and lesbians.

Gay activists and their leftist allies told us decades ago that same-sex marriage wasn’t on the agenda. All homosexuals wanted was the benefits of marriage, but not the title. That, of course, was a lie.

(Newser) – Things haven't gone too well for the former CFO who criticized Chick-fil-A in a video he posted on YouTube. Unable to find lasting work, 37-year-old Adam Smith is living on food stamps with his wife and four kids in the RV they call home, he tells ABC News. "I think people are scared," Smith says of potential employers. "I think people are scared that it could happen again." Back in the summer of 2012, as thousands of people were opposing Chick-fil-A's stance on gays, Smith rolled into a Chick-fil-A drive-thru for a free glass of water and slammed...

The climate in the state Capitol is such that you half-expect to turn a corner and find Lord Cornwallis’s fife-and-drum corps belting out “The World Turned Upside Down.” A Legislature with massive Republican majorities is on the verge of thumbing its nose at anti-tax guru Grover Norquist by raising $1 billion in new spending for transportation. It has legalized a form of marijuana. And in the midst of unrelenting hostility toward Obamacare, GOP lawmakers have brokered an insurance mandate to provide for children with autism. But none of this holds a candle to the fact that the General Assembly has...

San Francisco prides itself as a tolerant place, but it is closed off to one thing: Indiana. On Thursday, San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, a Democrat, directed all City Departments under his authority to bar publicly funded travel to the Hoosier State. The decision followed Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Pence’s decision to sign a “religious freedom” bill that critics say effectively sanctions discrimination of LGBT citizens by private businesses. “We stand united as San Franciscans to condemn Indiana’s new discriminatory law,” Lee said in a statement. “San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally-sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender...

The tide has turned for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples seeking to be married in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). Following years of debate and introspection, America’s largest Presbyterian denomination has announced a change to its constitution that allows for a more inclusive definition of marriage. Officially called Amendment 14-F, the new wording in the denomination’s Book of Order will describe marriage as being “between two people.”

While they always disguise it behind the euphemistic language of “tolerance,” “equality” and “social justice,” on occasion the homofascist left will admit to its designs on fascism. There are some who doubt those of us who have long warned that many homosexualists intend to compel, through any means possible (up to and including physical force), Christians and other dissenters to fully surrender to their radical homosexual activist agenda. Mark Charles Hardie, a Huffington post columnist and 2016 candidate for the California State Senate, is helping to make our point. In a February 25 column headlined, “Gay People Are Gods: Protecting...

Last week, Dr. Ben Carson stepped onto a political mine -- really, jumped onto it with both feet -- when he answered a question from CNN's Chris Cuomo about the nature of homosexuality. "You think being gay is a choice?" Cuomo asked Carson, after Carson rightly stated that being black and being gay are two very different phenomena. "Absolutely," replied Carson. He then went on to explain, "A lot of people who go into prison straight go into prison straight -- and when they come out, they're gay." Carson's unstated line of reasoning is perfectly logical. When Cuomo asked Carson...

Why are so many conservatives, not just Republicans but I mean social-conservatives, unable to form communicate a coherent argument against this logic in interviews and debates? The latest was Ben Carson’s meltdown where he was asked on CNN if being gay was ‘a choice’ and he replied absolutely, then he offered up prisoners who engage in same sex as his example, then later repudiated and apologized for his response, Ben Carson :” I do not pretend to know how every individual came to their sexual orientation. I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive. For...

Three gay men from Thailand have tied the knot in what is thought to be the world's first three-way same-sex marriage. Happy newlyweds Joke, 29, Bell, 21 and Art, 26, took the plunge on Valentine's Day after exchanging their vows in a fairy-tale ceremony at their home in Uthai Thani Province, Thailand. The three blushing grooms are thought to be the world's only wedded male threesome and have since become internet sensations after photos from their big day went viral. In what they described as the happiest day of their lives, the three men were suited and booted for the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hormone treatment for gender reassignment has been approved for Chelsea Manning, the former intelligence analyst convicted of espionage for sending classified documents to the WikiLeaks website. Defense Department officials said Thursday that the hormone therapy was approved Feb. 5 by Col. Erica Nelson, commandant of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where Manning is serving a 35-year sentence. The Army was providing some treatment but not enough, according to the lawsuit, including psychotherapy from a mental health specialist who lacked the qualifications to treat gender dysphoria. The Federal Bureau of Prisons and many state and...

WIBW – Gov. Sam Brownback issued an executive order Tuesday removing gender identity and sexual orientation from the protected classes of state employees. His order rescinds a prior order from former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, which expanded the protections. Brownback also issued a separate order which includes language to encourage employment practices of veterans and people with disabilities. Executive Order 15-02 reaffirms the commitment of the State of Kansas to employment practices which do not discriminate based on race, color, gender, religion, national origin, ancestry or age. It further establishes that state entities will implement employment management practices for veterans and...

GRESHAM, Ore. – A Gresham bakery discriminated against a same-sex couple who wanted to purchase a wedding cake, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries announced Monday. The owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery will have to pay the couple up to $150,000, BOLI spokesman Charlie Burr said. The exact amount will be determined at a hearing on March 10.

In the new climate of liberal intolerance, conservative Christians can’t even find refuge by agreeing with Elizabeth Warren. Just ask Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College. On July 1, 2014, he signed a letter to President Obama — writing as an individual rather than in his institutional capacity — exercising his most basic First Amendment right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” The letter, signed by a number of Christian leaders and scholars — including the CEO of Catholic Charities and Rick Warren, famous pastor of Saddleback Church — dealt with the president’s then-imminent executive order banning...

In November of 1996 First Things hosted a symposium titled “The Judicial Usurpation of Politics” in which contributors discussed the threat to American democracy posed by the Supreme Court instated imposition of abortion on America. Nothing rivals the sheer volume of innocent human beings killed by abortion and yet First Things saw fit to focus not on the babies themselves or the mothers and fathers, but on the threat to democracy and the American experiment posed by the judicial over-reach that legalized abortion.The legalization of same-sex “marriage” does not bring with it the innocent blood which cries to heaven,...

California judges will no longer be allowed to participate in nonprofit youth groups, such as the Boy Scouts of America, that discriminate against LGBT people. At the same time the justices lifted a ban on judges belonging to a military organization now that gays and lesbians can serve openly in the U.S. Armed Services. The change comes as transgender individuals are still barred from becoming service members, though the policy is reportedly under review. In the case of the scouting group, although it now allows out youth to belong, it continues to ban LGBT adults from serving as troop leaders.

In his trip to the Philippines, Pope Francis once again defended marriage, and he again edged closer to a firm, unequivocal papal statement against same-sex “marriage.” As Francis clearly continues to carefully move in that direction, liberals, both secular and non-secular, non-Catholic and Catholic, are going to feel a severe sense of betrayal and grave disappointment, contrary to the most optimistic expectations they’ve eagerly imposed upon their first “gay-marriage” pope.Before considering what Francis said last week, I want to back up and reiterate related points I made in a piece posted here a few weeks ago, which created a...

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday he hoped the Supreme Court would issue a ruling that would prevent states from banning gay marriage when it rules on the issue later this year. "I'm hopeful the Supreme Court comes to the right decision," Obama said during an interview on YouTube.

PLANO, Texas (BP) -- Plano Citizens United, a coalition of churches and civic leaders, cleared the first hurdle this week in rescinding a city ordinance that legal experts said would stymie free speech and religious liberty, while opponents of a similar ordinance in Houston prepare to take their fight to court. With no preexisting ministerial alliance in place, Plano churches were caught unprepared when the city council, led by Mayor Harry LaRosilier, passed an ordinance Dec. 8 creating a protected class of citizen based on sexual orientation and gender identity. With help from the Houston pastors' coalition, opposition to the...