Free Republic

<p>That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage.</p> <p>“We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.”</p>

Arguments over same-sex marriage played out in the U.S. Supreme Courton Tuesday, but many religious groups opposed to gay marriage aren’t waiting for a ruling. A court ruling expected two months from now could sanction same-sex marriage nationwide. In anticipation, some congregations and religious advocacy groups are re-emphasizing their teachings on marriage, fine-tuning their approach to gays and lesbians and bracing for legal battles and public criticism. “The outcome of this decision will shape the landscape of the church’s ministry in the U.S. for generations to come,” wrote Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the...

Former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is pretty bullish on the Supreme Court recognizing a national right to same-sex marriage, he told Seth Meyers on Tuesday's Late Night, though he said he hadn't read much about the oral arguments that took place earlier in the day. He's excited, Frank added, because he has a husband, and because "I cannot wait to see Justice Scalia's reaction. I'm speculating that like Rumpelstiltskin he will stamp his foot and go up in a puff of smoke." Meyers laughed, "That would be something to see."

CNN published an inane hit-piece by Tim Holbrook yesterday, in which he argues that there is indeed bullying and denigration of gays and lesbians today, and therefore all the extreme measures to protect these wilting flowers is justified. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community has long had various epithets hurled against its members. There are the well-known "f" and "d" words thrown at those perceived as gay or lesbian, respectively. And, of course, the line "that's so gay," which is meant to denigrate something or someone. So, the first argument is summed up as "words exist."  Here, I'll use them:...

The young couple wanted really special invitations made up for their wedding, something that looked like a train ticket to fit with the railroad theme of their big day. So bride-to-be Paige Beckwith turned to a Suwanee printer who’d been recommended to her. But the printer rejected the job because of his religious beliefs, the parent company of the printing business said Monday. Beckwith is gay. *** However, a company spokesman at AlphaGraphics confirmed Beckwith’s story. The company also released a statement: “We do not condone discrimination of any kind, and wish to make clear that customers of any race,...

LGBT activists view Saudi Arabia’s beheadings as equal to the smallest microaggression by American Christians, while ruining someone’s life for their political views or their blog posts is perfectly acceptable (as long as it’s done to those who disagree).  They see moral equivalence for the smallest slight or limitation of their lifestyle versus instigating your complete financial and personal ruin. Don’t believe it?  Here’s objective proof. Let’s compare three cultures and how tolerant each one is regarding LGBT rights:  Saudi Arabia, American Christians, and LGBT activists. Saudi Arabia.Gays are banned from even attending school, never mind teaching at one.  It’s pretty...

Gay-Rights Advocates Torpedo GoFundMe Campaign For Christian-Owned Bakery By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - April 25, 2015 A crowdfunding campaign that had raised more than $109,000 for the Christian-owned bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Oregon was removed Saturday after complaints from gay-rights advocates. The website GoFundMe said in a statement Saturday that it took down the page because the campaign violated the policy against raising money “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts.” “The campaign entitled ‘Sweet Cakes by Melissa‘ involves formal charges. As such, our team has determined that...

Ian Reisner, one of the two gay hoteliers facing boycott calls for hosting an event for Senator Ted Cruz, who is adamantly opposed to gay marriage, apologized to the gay community for showing “poor judgment.” Mr. Reisner put the apology on Facebook, where a page calling for a boycott of his properties, the gay-friendly OUT NYC hotel and his Fire Island Pines holdings, had gotten more than 8,200 “likes” by Sunday evening. “I am shaken to my bones by the e-mails, texts, postings and phone calls of the past few days. I made a terrible mistake,” wrote Mr. Reisner. The...

The Irish Catholic boy who came of age in Sacramento after World War II is an unlikely candidate to be the author of the Supreme Court’s major gay rights rulings. But those who have known Justice Anthony Kennedy for decades and scholars who have studied his work say he has long stressed the importance of valuing people as individuals. And he seems likely also to have been influenced in this regard by a pillar of the Sacramento legal community, a closeted gay man who hired Kennedy as a law school instructor and testified on his behalf at his high court...

The owners of an Oregon bakery learned Friday that there is a severe price to pay for following their Christian faith. A judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) recommended a lesbian couple should receive $135,000 in damages for their emotional suffering after Sweet Cakes by Melissa refused to make them a wedding cake. As a result - Aaron and Melissa Klein could lose everything they own — including their home. The Oregonian reports the recommended penalty is not final and could be raised or lowered by State Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian. The controversy started in 2013...

The LGBT-Gestapo adapts rather quickly.  After Memories Pizza raised $842,432 in just a few days, and Arlene’s Flowers raised over $173 thousand on GoFundMe, the Gaystapo couldn’t let Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of the now-shuttered Sweet Cakes by Melissa, use that fundraising platform. A GoFundMe account was established for the Kleins, and raised over $6,000, until the website took it down. The website GoFundMe said in a statement Saturday that it took down the page because the campaign violated the policy against raising money “in defense of formal charges of heinous crimes, including violent, hateful, or sexual acts.” “The...

The gay New York City hoteliers who recently played host to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have their own controversy to deal with: Activists are calling for the boycott of their properties, including a gay hotel and establishments on Fire Island. Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass (pictured with Cruz), two gay real estate moguls who run numerous vacation properties marketed towards the LGBT community, spoke with The New York Times yesterday about the reception they held for the presidential candidate. During that meeting, they mainly discussed foreign policy, while alluding to a possible shift (or private opinion) in Cruz’s thoughts about...

LGBT activists are urging a boycott of two openly gay New York hoteliers who hosted a controversial campaign event for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. The “Boycott Fire Island Pines Establishments & Out NYC Hotel” page on Facebook, which had amassed nearly 4,000 likes by Friday, questions the conservative company that OutNYC owners Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner chose to keep. The page quotes a critical profile of Cruz written by the Human Rights Campaign. Weiderpass, the co-owner of the Hell’s Kitchen hotel, enraged LGBT activists when he posed for a photo with the Republican presidential hopeful during the Monday affair....

The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry (BOLI) completed its case against Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a Gresham bakery that refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple planning to marry. The bakery was fined $135,000. Following the decision Sweet Cakes immediately started a GoFundMe page and raised over $100,000 before it was shut down. As for the decision, BOLI issued the following statement on Friday regarding the agency’s Proposed Order in the Sweet Cakes case: “The facts of this case clearly demonstrate that the Kleins' unlawfully discriminated against the Complainants. Under Oregon law, businesses cannot discriminate...

The Left’s fascist rampage against anyone who holds the same opinion on same sex marriage Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did less than two years ago, marches on. Not content to steal a man’s livelihood or a near-successful attempt to destroy a small business owner, the venomous Gaystapo is now sending a chilling warning to apostates by calling for the boycott of two gay hoteliers who hold the unapproved opinion of not-hating Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Mati Weiderpass and Ian Reisner are two openly gay, Manhattan-based hoteliers who own a gay-oriented hotel in the city and other commercial properties in...

The successful shutting down (or at least shutting up) of non-groupthink-compliant wedding cake and floral businesses has given gay-marriage agitators and their backers a taste of the vast power of ideological extortion in 2015 America. I’m optimistic that the law will eventually come to its senses and give wide berth to Christians in the wedding trades, or even to non-Christian libertarians who simply don’t want to be told who they have to do business with. Perhaps James O’Keefe will covertly record owners of a black-owned florist shop being asked to create an arrangement for a “KKK” event, or a Muslim-owned...

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters may be showing up on television with increasing regularity, but they are still a relative rarity in mainstream movies released by the major Hollywood studios. In its third annual report about LGBT representation on film, GLAAD, the gay advocacy group, found that of the 114 releases from the major studios in 2014, only 20 of them, or 17.5 percent, included characters identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual. [Snip] Among the inclusive films, the report found, 65 percent of them featured gay male characters, less than a third featured bisexuals and about one tenth included...

(Reuters) - The 20-year-old former student sought in the fatal shooting of an employee at a North Carolina community college was arrested on Tuesday after being found sleeping on a beach in Florida, police said. Stancil is accused of killing Wayne Community College print shop director Ron Lane not long after Lane arrived for work Monday morning. Lane was an employee at the school for 18 years, officials said, and Stancil had worked for him when he was a student.

A CBS4 investigation has learned that two Transportation Security Administration screeners at Denver International Airport have been fired after they were discovered manipulating passenger screening systems to allow a male TSA employee to fondle the genital areas of attractive male passengers.

A worker-owner of a Fargo coffee shop who instituted a tongue-in-cheek ban on North Dakota lawmakers for opposing an anti-discrimination bill says the response has been “99.9 percent positive” and that he made his point, even if a few people didn’t like it. Joe Curry, one of the worker-owners of the Red Raven Espresso Parlor, posted a newspaper page in the shop earlier this month that showed the 55 Republican state House members who rejected a bill that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, government, public services and the workplace. It was accompanied by a sign...