Free Republic

A federal judge Tuesday declared Pennsylvania's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the fourth such ruling on a state ban in the past three weeks. Judge John Jones III ruled in favor of 23 Pennsylvania residents who challenged the law.\ "The issue we resolve today is a divisive one. Some of our citizens are made deeply uncomfortable by the notion of same-sex marriage. However, that same sex marriage causes discomfort in some does not make its prohibition constitutional," he said. The state's Democratic attorney general, Kathleen Kane, announced last July that she would not defend it, saying she could not ethically...

After an uproar from conservative customers, SunTrust Banks announced Friday afternoon that the decision to end its relationship with real estate entrepreneurs David and Jason Benham had been reversed. Earlier Friday, The Daily Caller reported that SunTrust Banks had pulled all of its listed properties with the Benham brothers’ bank-owned property business. The move came just a week after HGTV announced it was canceling a planned home renovation show hosted by the Benhams because of their conservative views on abortion and gay marriage. By Friday afternoon, SunTrust released a statement saying the decision had been reversed. The bank didn’t go...

First they lost their television show. Now the Benham brothers say they are losing their business. SunTrust Banks is cutting ties with would-be reality stars David and Jason Benham after liberal activists attacked them for their conservative views on abortion and gay marriage, The Daily Caller has learned. In a statement provided first to TheDC on Friday, the Benham brothers confirmed that SunTrust Banks has pulled all of its listed properties with the Benham brothers’ bank-owned property business, which includes several franchisees across four states. The move comes just a week after HGTV announced it was canceling a planned home...

First they lost their television show. Now the Benham brothers say they are losing their business. SunTrust Banks is cutting ties with would-be reality stars David and Jason Benham after liberal activists attacked them for their conservative views on abortion and gay marriage, The Daily Caller has learned. In a statement provided first to TheDC on Friday, the Benham brothers confirmed that SunTrust Banks has pulled all of its listed properties with the Benham brothers’ bank-owned property business, which includes several franchisees across four states.

On CNN's Crossfire, co-host Newt Gingrich pushed back against recent recriminations against people speaking out against Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend on ESPN after he was drafted by the St. Louis Rams.

MIAMI – The Miami Dolphins have fined and suspended safety Don Jones for Tweeting his disapproval of a same-sex kiss that aired on ESPN this past weekend. ESPN carried footage of Michael Sam’s reaction on Saturday as he learned that he had been selected by the St. Louis Rams, making their 249th choice overall. Sam and his partner Vito Cammisano embraced and kissed each other on national television upon receipt of the news, drawing applause from some and disapproval from others. Miami Dolphins safety Don Jones was among those who expressed his disagreement of the public act, commenting on Twitter...

RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina Congressional candidate Keith Crisco died suddenly at his home on Monday, WNCN confirmed. MOREAdditional Links A woman at his company, Asheboro Elastics Corp. in Asheboro, confirmed that he died at his home Monday around 1 p.m. She said employees at the company were being told what had happened. Crisco had faced Clay Aiken in a tense battle for the Democratic nomination in the 2nd Congressional District.

We apologize for disappointing many people by failing to include same-sex relationships in Tomodachi Life. ... We pledge that if we create a next installment in the Tomodachi series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players.

“Why hasn’t Shepard Smith come out yet?” asks the left-leaning website Gawker. Gawker claims the popular Fox News anchor was “silenced and punished” after approaching CEO Roger Ailes last summer about going public about his homosexuality. But now Ailes and Smith are firing back, calling the story “100 percent false and a complete fabrication.” “As colleagues and close friends at Fox News for 18 years, our relationship has always been rooted in a mutual respect, deep admiration, loyalty, trust, and full support both professionally and personally,” they wrote in a joint statement. The Gawker story claims Smith approached Ailes and...

A national organization is launching a three-year, $8.5 million campaign to promote LGBT equality and push for new legal protections in three Southern states dominated by conservative politics and religion and known for resistance to change: Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. Decades after groups used boycotts, marches, sit-ins, pickets and mass rallies to end legalized racial segregation and push for equal protection for blacks, the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign is planning a new kind of civil rights movement. It’s one based on using chats and front-porch visits between relatives and friends to foster an environment more welcoming toward people of all...

In a move with major legal implications, The California Supreme Court Advisory Committee on The Code of Judicial Ethics has proposed to classify the Boy Scouts as practicing “invidious discrimination” against gays, which would end the group’s exemption to anti-discriminatory ethics rules and would prohibit judges from being affiliated with the group. “The Committee’s invitation ignores the fact that the change also encompasses other youth organizations whose membership is limited on the basis of gender, e.g., the Girl Scouts, as well as the military, which continues to practice ‘discrimination’ on the basis of gender,” wrote Catherine Short, legal director of...

WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group is planning to release, through its liberal imprint Convergent Books, a manuscript titled God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships. Is the Christian world about to suffer through another World Vision moment? The book’s author, Matthew Vines, is a homosexual activist and Bible revisionist known for manipulating Christian terminology to advance the counter-Christian homosexualist agenda. Despite his frequent use of a Christian-like lexicon, Vines surprisingly admits to running an apostate enterprise that he calls The Reformation Project. An unabashed denier of Biblical teaching on sexual morality, Vines has publicly acknowledged...

The Christian organization Focus on the Family is releasing a movie in theaters May 6 called “Irreplaceable” about the value of traditional families, the importance of fathers being engaged in their children’s lives and the healing power of forgiveness. But apparently to some advocates for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community, that’s a cardinal sin. LGBT advocates have launched an effort to disparage the movie online, petition against it and work to make sure “Irreplaceable” isn’t seen in your local theater. Focus President Jim Daly reports in a blog post that some of the more than 700...

REGINA, Saskatchewan, April 11, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A prominent U.S. pro-family activist was detained by the Canadian Border Services Agency Thursday for alleged violations of Canada’s “hate propaganda” l Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, had flown into Regina International Airport to speak at the Saskatchewan Pro-Life Association provincial conference this weekend. LaBarbera had been targeted by a makeshift group known as “Intolerance Free Weyburn,” which pressured the government to deny him access to the country. LaBarbera believes he was flagged by customs as a result. LaBarbera provided LifeSiteNews with a formal document issued by CBSA agent...

Lena Dunham feels a very strong connection to the gay community. So strong, in fact, that when she realized she was attracted to men it came as a "huge disappointment." Dunham shared her views on her lesbian sister and sexual attraction during an appearance at the Point Honors Gala at the New York Public Library Monday....

The chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit that funds the development of Firefox, last week defended the decision to pursue in-browser ads, saying that it's important to generate revenue. "To explicitly address the question of whether we care about generating revenue and sustaining Mozilla's work, the answer is yes," Mitchell Baker, former CEO of Mozilla Corp., the subsidiary responsible for Firefox, and now the chair of the parent foundation, wrote on a blog Thursday. "In fact, many of us feel responsible to do exactly this." Mitchell Baker Mitchell Baker, chairwoman of Mozilla Foundation. (Image: Mozilla.) Baker was responding to questions...

In the summer of 1992, I took my first real job, working as a graphic designer for the venerable Meier & Frank department store chain in downtown Portland, Oregon. Those three years proved to be quite educational for a fairly naïve young man fresh out of Bible college and figuring out the ways of the world in the very beautiful, exceedingly secular Northwest. Within just a few days, I found myself having long conversations—arguments, actually—about Proposition 9, a measure sponsored by the Oregon Citizen's Alliance (OCA) which sought to add the following to the state constitution: All governments in Oregon...

Just ten days after becoming CEO of web company Mozilla, Brendan Eich resigned after drawing the ire of LGBT advocates. In 2008, Eich donated money to the Proposition 8 campaign, an effort around legislation to make same-sex marriage illegal in California. When he was announced as the new Mozilla head, members of the LGBT community and even Mozilla employees expressed their dissatisfaction through social media and called for Eich’s resignation. Many have since spoken out against the backlash calling it unfair. On Monday’s “NewsOne Now,” Roland Martin was joined by a panel of guests to discuss the news, whether the...

Newt Gingrich laid it out perfectly on Sunday. The forced ouster of Mozilla co-founder and CEO Brendan Eich this week was a sign of the "new fascism" of liberalism that's sweeping American life. "People need to realize, if you're a young faculty member, in a lot of places if you're a young member of a news department and you have the wrong views – meaning conservative – you have no career," Gingrich said on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "This is just the most open and blatant example of the new fascism, which says, 'if you don't agree with us...

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from a studio that refused to photograph a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony, letting stand a New Mexico high court ruling that helped spur a national debate over gay rights and religious freedom. The justices left in place a unanimous state Supreme Court ruling last year that said Elane Photography violated New Mexico’s Human Rights Act by refusing to photograph the same-sex ceremony “in the same way as if it had refused to photograph a wedding between people of different races.” …