Free Republic

When is it OK to break the law? When can you disobey the authorities? Should you be punished for meaning well? Before reflexively answering, let’s imagine some possibilities. Say the government came looking for spies hiding in your house. Is it OK for you to have allowed the spies to hide there? Isn’t it even worse if you cover up by denying the spies are hiding? Should you compound your treason by helping the spies escape? Next hypothetical: Should you disobey a law legitimately enacted and legally upheld by the highest court in the land? Last hypothetical: Do you think...

Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has announced that she has signed the Commencement Order for the Gender Recognition Act 2015. It will enable transgender people to be formally recognized in their preferred gender for all purposes by the State for the first time. The Tánaiste said that from next Tuesday, it will be open to any transgender person to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate and subsequently to obtain a new birth certificate that reflects their preferred gender. …

Not only is jailed Kentucky clerk Kim Davis citing her religious beliefs for denying marriage licenses to gay couples... In other states, according to USA Today:  In Alabama, as many as 10 counties have stopped issuing licenses altogether as of Wednesday. State law says that probate judges "may" issue the licenses rather than "shall."And in North Carolina, more than 30 county magistrates have refused to perform gay marriages under a law that says officials can refrain from conducting marriage-related activities.

ASHLAND, Ky. — Following yesterday’s jailing of a county clerk for stating that it is not possible for her to obey an order to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals against God’s law, it is now being noted that the same federal judge also once ordered Kentucky students to be re-educated about homosexuality despite their objections. In 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)—the same group that filed suit against Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis—sued the Boyd County Board of Education to force it to agree to allow a “gay-straight” alliance club to meet at Boyd County High School. A number...

Did our founders, after drafting a Declaration of Independence, fighting a war with England, and then sitting down to pen a national governing document (the Constitution) put in that document the right of a majority of federal judges to make laws for the entire nation? Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk Kim Davis is testing the claim that five unelected Supreme Justices have the authority to overrule a state constitution that she took an oath to uphold and a federal Constitution that says nothing about same-sex marriage. Robert Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The...

When a transgender high school student in Missouri received backlash for her request to use the girls’ bathroom and locker room, she found one very important ally: the school board, which granted her permission to use the facilities. According to Kelli Hopkins of the Missouri school board’s association, 17-year-old Lila Perry has been granted her request because of recent guidance issued by the US Department of Education. While there is no “policy per se on transgender students use of bathrooms”, Hopkins said, there is a policy that says “districts cannot discriminate against students based on their gender”. “The Office of...

Dr. Sudi Namir, who was fired from the Israel Medical Association Ethics Committee for controversial comments he made about homosexuals on an internet forum, has defended his comments in an exclusive interview with Arutz Sheva.

The Denver City Council has stalled a deal to renew the lease of a Chick-fil-A restaurant at Denver International Airport, citing the company's reputation as an opponent of same-sex marriage. The Business Development Committee on Tuesday stalled the seven-year deal with a new franchise of the popular chicken chain for two weeks. "I think the airport also has a question about our reputation," said Robin Kniech, a Denver City Council Member, during Tuesday's meeting. "It has been the corporate philosophy [of Chik-fil-A] to use the dollars they earn to fund discriminatory lawsuits and to fund discriminatory political rhetoric. So that's...

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky County Clerks Association will propose removing clerks’ names from the document in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage. Overturning the state’s ban on same-sex marriage has prompted Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and two others to deny licenses to all couples, drawing a federal lawsuit against Davis as well as calls to change the licensing process. Leslie County Clerk James Lewis, chairman of the association’s elections committee, told reporters Tuesday that his group is drafting “a simple solution” to the matter. “You would have the county and the county seat listed...

By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS June 28, 2015 GOP Gov.: "Time To Move On" From Same-Sex Marriage Possible Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich believes it's "time to move on" from the same-sex marriage issue in the wake of the Supreme Court's landmark ruling. "I do believe in traditional marriage and the court has ruled and it's time to move on," Kasich said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday, adding that there's "so many other things now that we have to focus on." Gov. John Kasich talks issues ahead of possible 2016 run Kasich, who has not yet...

DES MOINES — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and actress Ellen Page, of “Juno” fame, got into a testy and free-wheeling discussion Friday over gay rights here at the Iowa State Fair. “I’m happy to answer your question but not to have a back-and-forth debate,” Cruz told Page, as she pressed him about discrimination against LGBT citizens, approaching him as he flipped pork chops over an open grill. But the two then proceeded to have a spirited exchange over gay rights and whether private businesses — florist companies, for example —can refuse to cater gay weddings in the name of their...

A recently released poll shows significant public support for the protection of religious liberty—especially when special rights based on sexual orientation are being advanced at its expense. The results reveal hope for the classical liberal vision of America: they indicate that most Americans still appear to want maximum freedom and individual rights protection. […] Support for religious freedom jumps even higher in the context of wedding vendors. 82 percent said “yes” when asked whether a Christian wedding photographer with “deeply held religious beliefs opposing same sex marriage” has “the right to say no” to a same-sex couple asking him or...

Michael Sam will step away from professional football, he announced via Twitter on Friday night. Sam, the 25-year-old who began the season with the CFL's Montreal Alouettes, cited a tumultuous past year for leaving football at this time. The Alouettes confirmed in a release that Sam has left the club for "personal reasons" and that he has been added to the team's suspended list. Sam made the announcement in a series of three tweets.

TOLEDO, Ohio, August 14, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Judge C. Allen McConnell is a Christian. As such, he said he could not officiate a homosexual "wedding," because it would go against the teachings of his religion. Now, the Ohio Supreme Court advisory board says McConnell's position violates judicial ethics and that all Ohio Christian judges must relinquish their religious freedom and perform same-sex "marriages." When he refused to marry two lesbians last month, the 71-year-old Toledo judge apologized to the women, and they were "married" a few minutes later by another judge. But McConnell also officially asked for the Ohio Supreme Court's...

During Thursday’s GOP presidential debate, liberal Sally Kohn tweeted, “If bakeries are so worried about their religious freedom, they can become churches. #GOPDebate”

The Republican National Committee’s resolutions committee quietly rejected a pair of resolutions critical of homosexuality Wednesday. The controversial resolutions dealing with sex education and same-sex marriage threatened to cast a shadow on the first GOP presidential debate Thursday in Cleveland, as the party looks toward expanding its base in the key swing state. According to a member of the committee, both failed to gain support to be recommended to the full 168-member party governing body on Friday.

Maine’s highest court on Tuesday rejected a national anti-gay marriage group’s latest bid to shield the identities of the donors who contributed to its effort to defeat the state’s gay marriage law in 2009. The National Organization for Marriage had sought permission to delay submitting a campaign finance report that the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices ordered it to file last year when it fined the group $50,250 for its involvement in overturning the law supporting same-sex marriage six years ago. But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court said Tuesday that NOM can’t put off filing the report...

One hundred and twenty-five members of Congress asked Secretary of State John Kerry in a letter Monday to deny visas to diplomats’ spouses if the envoys come from a country that doesn’t recognize same-sex spouses of State Department personnel. House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) led the letter, which got one GOP signature — Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), who has a transgender son. The lawmakers argued that countries not granting accreditation to same-sex spouses of American foreign service...

On Sunday morning the American Flag on top of City Hall in Downtown Reno was replaced by the LGBT Flag following a gay pride celebration this weekend. By Sunday evening, the LGBT flag was taken down and now the American Flag is back up. The decision to replace the flag has been controversial. Many locals have expressed concerns over the American flag's removal. Around 9:00 p.m. our Channel 2 News crew was able to confirm the LGBT flag was taken down around 9:00 p.m. Sunday, and the American Flag was put back in its place. The City of Reno released...

SEATTLE--“They’ve taken an area that was formerly a home for gay people, for queer people, for artists,” says John Criscitello while showing me around Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, “and they’ve turned it into a destination drinking spot.” Criscitello, an artist who lives and works on Capitol Hill, is 48 years old but looks a decade younger. He’s tall and muscled, with tattoos covering most of his skin and blue eyes that stand out against the gloomy Seattle sky. He hasn’t been in the city long — he moved from New York just four years ago — but in that short...