Free Republic

In a recent disquieting article for the New York Times, Choire Sicha investigates a curious new challenge for gyms: Some men want to shower and change without ever being publicly nude, and they expect their gyms to build locker rooms that accommodate that desire. Drawing upon the experiences of gym managers and architects, Sicha explains that over the last quarter-century, men have grown increasingly uneasy with being naked in the locker room. While older men generally remain comfortable being undressed among others, younger ones insist on maximum privacy, pining for a way to strip, shower, and change clothes without even...

Every once in a while, certain people from the dominant society will act as whistleblowers on white supremacy. Especially certain white people who themselves are marginalized within white society. Recently a gay/trans white man who goes by the name of Dakota Bracciale made a bold posting on his Facebook page regarding race. He warned Melanoid people that systematic white supremacy is so deep in this society, that no white people should be trusted. Here is his post in its entirety: An Open Letter to People of Color: Please do not trust white people. Every single one of us is racist,...

San Francisco police officer whose good looks earned him the nickname "Hot Cop of Castro" was on medical leave when he allegedly hit two pedestrians with his Dodge Charger, then abandoned his vehicle and ran away, police said. Officer Christopher Kohrs turned himself in to fellow officers at police headquarters Sunday, according to the San Francisco Police Department. He was arrested and later booked on suspicion of two felony counts of hit-and-run. Kohrs, a 7-year San Francisco police veteran, was off-duty at the time of the crash and on medical leave for an unrelated medical condition, police said. If Kohrs...

Author James Dawson has received backlash from parents for his guide to growing up LGBT, This Book Is Gay, claiming they no longer feel comfortable taking their children to the library if his book is on the shelves, reports The Guardian. In Wasilla, Alaska, after a 10-year-old boy picked up the book from the juvenile non-fiction section of the public library, his mother was "shocked to find it contained frank drawings and descriptions of gay sex acts inside". The mother launched an appeal after she was told by the local librarian that it was appropriately shelved, leading to dozens of...

Well, it’s that time again – time to get out the Christmas list and start hitting the stores. The problem is – what stores? For any Christian who wants to spend hard-earned dollars with family-friendly, Christian-affirming retailers, restaurants and service providers, the list is growing shorter all the time. I stopped shopping at Macy’s in 2011 after learning about the retailer’s grossly unjust policy against women. Macy’s management said “yes” to a transsexual young man’s demand to change in the women’s dressing room and rejected a Christian employee’s attempt to block his inappropriate access, even firing her because of her...

Many around me in the coffee shop nodded in agreement in support of welcoming Christian refugees and rejecting those of other faiths. It fits their narrative that they should help persecuted Christians. After all, despite the fact that American Christians are the most entitled and privileged people in the history of the planet, many feel persecuted.One of the more endearing customs of many of our small town Iowa churches on Sunday morning is story time. The pastor welcomes elementary and pre-school aged kids up front, where he or she sits with the children, and shares a parable. Often the pastor...

The White house announced on Friday that it would hold a screening of the upcoming transgender drama The Danish Girl and Amazon's transgender series Transparent next week as part of its new "White House LGBT Artists Champions of Change" program. In addition to the screenings on Monday, November 23, the White House will honor nine individuals "for their artistry in advocating for the LGBT community," according to a White House press release. The event will also mark Transgender Remembrance Day, currently observed on November 20.

The taxpayer-funded Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery has added a photo of a transgender sex worker to its “Struggle for Justice” civil rights exhibit.The photograph depicts Sylvia Rivera--described as having been a “trans woman sex worker”--along with her partner Julie Murray and activist Christina Hayworth. The photograph was taken at a rally prior to the 2000 Gay Pride Parade in New York City.“A forerunner in the fight against gender identity discrimination, Sylvia Rivera worked the dicey Times Square district as a trans woman sex worker after she was cast out by family as a teenager,” says the description of the...

An Alabama lesbian mother is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a ruling by the state’s highest court that it will not recognize her adoption of three children in neighboring Georgia.The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that Georgia courts violated their own state laws in granting the adoptions of the children she shared with her former partner and will not order custody or even visitation with the children. Lawyers for V.L., as the woman is identified in court papers, say the decision violates the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause, which requires that states respect court judgments, including adoption orders,...

April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce, a Utah couple who married last year, went to a routine hearing Tuesday expecting to hear an update on how long it would be before they could adopt the baby girl they'd been raising as foster parents for three months. Instead, they were shocked and devastated when a judge in the central Utah city of Price ordered the child be removed from their home within a week and placed with a heterosexual couple, citing a belief that children are worse off when raised by gay couples. There were audible gasps in the courtroom, Hoagland said,...

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 12, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – President Obama says he backs "The Equality Act," which would add gender identity and sexual orientation to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. "Upon that review it is now clear that the administration strongly supports the Equality Act,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced on Tuesday. “That bill is historic legislation that would advance the cause of equality for millions of Americans. “We look forward to working with Congress to ensure that the legislative process produces a result that balances both the bedrock principles of civil rights...with the religious liberty that we hold...

John Murphy was on a conference call in April when he got a strange message.A veteran manager of nonprofit groups, the 63-year-old was busy settling into his new job as executive director at St. Francis Home, an assisted living facility affiliated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond. “You’ll be getting a visit,” he was told. And moments later, a man and woman dressed in business attire were standing in the doorway.They got right to the point: “We understand that you are in a same-sex marriage,” he recalls them saying. “That is antithetical to the church’s teachings and renders you...

The White House is endorsing pro-gay legislation that would prohibit discrimination toward the LGBT clique.  Known as the Equality Act, the bill would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964, extending protection to those in the LGBT community from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. At Tuesday's White House press briefing, press secretary Josh Earnest stated that the Obama administration "strongly supports" the act. "That bill is historic legislation that would advance the cause of equality for millions of Americans," Earnest said, "and we certainly are pleased with the many legislators in Congress that have stepped forward to try...

April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce of Carbon County, Utah said the baby they've raised for the last three months is to be removed from their home and sent to heterosexual foster parents because a judge ruled the baby would be better off.According to a KUTV report on Wednesday, Judge Scott Johansen ordered the baby removed from their house in seven days.(video at link)Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services approved the women as foster parents earlier this year after passing home inspections, background checks and interviews.The couple says the judge told them there was a lot of research that indicated children who...

Actress Jennifer Lawrence says she's "embarassed" that she grew up in the same state as Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Lawrence, who has been on a crusade on Hollywood's gender pay gap, brought up the subject in an interview with Vogue published Wednesday night. According to interviewer Jonathan Van Meter, the interview took place the day after Davis got out of jail, and Lawrence brought her up because she views Davis as the "lady who makes me embarrassed to be from Kentucky." "Don't even say her name...

Robert Oscar Lopez, a tenured English professor at California State University-Northridge, is on the verge of being suspended without pay, ostensibly due to a conference he organized a year ago. In fact, I believe this is not the real reason why this man of Puerto Rican and Philippine heritage, who knows six modern languages as well as Latin and Greek, is being hounded out of his job. Lopez’s parents divorced when he was a toddler. His mother formed an intimate relationship with another woman. His father disappeared from his life for a long time. Lopez believes that these events were...

Imagine this scene if you will.A respected doctor and medical professor serving at a large hospital becomes concerned as he documents increasing health risks related to obesity. But as he is compiling data to document this, he is astonished to see that his hospital actively supports fast-food restaurants and even encourages participation in pro-obesity events.When he protests the hospital’s actions and shares his concerns, he is fired for his lack of sensitivity to fat people. He is even accused of holding to prejudicial views and, to prevent this from happening again in the future, the hospital institutes obesity sensitivity training...

The American Psychological Association has taken the extraordinary step of retracting an in-house journal article that asserted the rate of rape and other sexual trauma among military men was as much as 15 times higher than the Pentagon’s own survey. In a press released posted Sunday night, the APA said outside scholars had examined the study, “Preliminary Data Suggest Rates of Male Sexual Trauma May be Higher than Previously Reported,” and determined that the method for randomly selecting and surveying male combat veterans was flawed.

The American Psychological Association has taken the extraordinary step of retracting an in-house journal article that asserted the rate of rape and other sexual trauma among military men was as much as 15 times higher than the Pentagon’s own survey. In a press released posted Sunday night, the APA said outside scholars had examined the study, "Preliminary Data Suggest Rates of Male Sexual Trauma May be Higher than Previously Reported," and determined that the method for randomly selecting and surveying male combat veterans was flawed. "Although the article went through our standard peer-review process, other scholars have since examined the...

Video at link. Houston Mayor Annise Parker wasn’t exactly gracious in defeat, accusing those who opposed the city’s transgender-rights ordinance of “deliberate lies” and predicting the city’s economy would suffer as a result of the measure’s repeal. In remarks shortly after Tuesday’s balloting, Ms. Parker blamed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance’s lopsided loss on “a very small but determined group of right-wing ideologues and the religionist right” for waging “a campaign of fear-mongering and deliberate lies.” The ordinance, named Proposition 1 on the city ballot, lost by 62 to 38 percent despite the strong support of national gay-rights organizations, who...