Free Republic

HONG KONG, January 2, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A priest in Hong Kong canceled a planned ‘LGBT’ Christmas Midnight Mass at the last minute after the diocese’ auxiliary bishop reminded him that homosexual acts are “sinful” and “serious violations of chastity.” Auxiliary Bishop Rev. Joseph Ha, OFM, at the urging of Hong Kong Bishop Michael Yeung, investigated the planned event before speaking to the priest, according to a report in the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP). Compassion HK LGBTQ Catholics Union, the group sponsoring the Mass, stated on Facebook that bishops in other countries permit LGBT Masses, so “Why is it...

A former Union High School teacher who in 2011 called homosexuality a "perverted spirit" that "breeds like cancer" has agreed to a three-year suspension of her teaching certificates. The posts on Jenye "Viki" Knox's personal Facebook page eventually caused the special education teacher and faculty adviser to the school's Bible study group to resign. She later filed a federal lawsuit claiming school officials had violated her free speech and religious rights.

January 3, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Fewer than half of 18- to 21-year-olds worldwide think others should be free to express non-violent opinions that are offensive to minorities, according to a study highlighted by The Economist. The data come from the Varkey Foundation and was released in February 2017. Only about half of the world’s young people support free speech, it revealed, but nearly two-thirds support same-sex “marriage.” The study asked two questions about free speech: whether “people should have a right to non-violent free speech in all circumstances even when what they say is offensive to a religion” and whether...

Vice President Pence arrived in Aspen, Colo., this week for a holiday vacation — but not without encountering a silent protest from his neighbors in the liberal ski resort town. “Make America Gay Again,” reads a rainbow banner posted on the stone pillar at the end of the driveway of the home where Pence and his wife, Karen, are staying. A dispatcher with the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office referred The Washington Post to the White House press office Saturday, but Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Buglione told the Aspen Times that Pence’s next-door neighbors posted the banner shortly after the vice president...

Starting in January, Illinois will bar a rare criminal defense allowing the use of a victim’s sexual orientation as justification for violent crime, a ban gay rights advocates say they will attempt to replicate in about half a dozen states next year. Defense attorneys will no longer be able to mount the so-called “gay panic defense” in Illinois, the second state after California to prohibit the tactic. It isn’t common, but one study shows it has surfaced in about half of all U.S. states and has been used with some success. Advocates say bans are necessary because crimes against gay...

As a queer femme of color, I keep close relationships with people who go beyond allyship; they’re true accomplices in the fight against white supremacy, queerphobia, and misogyny. If you’re not going to support marginalized folks, then we can’t be friends, let alone date. The personal is political. Beyond the lovely cushioning, happiness and support that we receive from our platonic relationships (which are, in all honesty, soul-feeding and essential), feminists also date! But there are questions we have to ask before we get close to someone.

<p>Bobby Berk will serve as the show’s design expert, Karamo Brown (of MTV’s Are You the One: Second Chances) will handle all matters of “culture,” Antoni Porowski is the go-to guy for questions about food and wine, Jonathan Van Ness will be on top of personal grooming, and last but definitely not least, Tan France will lead the charge in the fashion department.</p>

It’s astounding how many defenses of the state’s position in Masterpiece Cakeshop depend on misrepresentation and misconceptions. Last week I wrote about the most common misrepresentation — that Jack Phillips discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation when he refused to design a custom cake for a same-sex-wedding celebration. After all, he served all customers — regardless of race, sex, or sexual orientation. He just consistently refused to design cakes that advanced messages he disagreed with. No person of any identity has the legal authority to compel an artist to use his talents to advance a cause the artist...

That case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, takes aim at a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on perceived sexual orientation in places serving the public. Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, says the law violates his free speech rights by forcing him to “create expression that violates his sincerely held beliefs about marriage.” The dispute has attracted a lot of attention from the business community, including an amicus brief signed by 35 companies including Amazon (AMZN), Pfizer (PFE), and Apple (AAPL), which asked the court to rule against Phillips. Another group with an interest in the...

This coming Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court has the chance to set the record straight on religious freedom for everyone in the U.S. In 2012, Jack Phillips of Colorado's Masterpiece Cake Shop refused to provide a cake for a same-sex "wedding" based on his faith convictions. That case – Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission – is now before the nation's high court. Jack Phillips doesn't design cakes for all events-he never has. He has a set of values based on his religious beliefs-a moral code-that guides his life, including his work. When an event conflicts with Jack's...

Are you a straight man who likes women? Do you kiss and cuddle with your male friends just for funsies? No? Well apparently, you’re the weirdo. Because according to Attitude Magazine, it is totally normal – common, even – for straight men to canoodle with their straight male friends. To the confusion of straight men and people of logic everywhere, Attitude ran a befuddling article entitled: "New Study Finds Straight Men in Bromances Often Kiss and Cuddle." (For those unfamiliar, a "bromance" is a slang term for a close friendship between two heterosexual guys.) Attitude claims:

RUSH: By the way, I’m told Twitter is blowing up. I’ll tell you, folks, some of this stuff, I’m just getting sick of it. There is apparently a children’s book depicting a gay Santa in a biracial marriage, and now a gay nativity scene is being popularized called gaytivity, two Josephs kneeling over the baby Jesus. And there’s an article in a feminist publication called Refinery 29, describing the scene. “What if it wasn’t Mary and Joesph who met their child that night, but instead Murray and Joseph? Or Marty and Joseph?” Because, after all, they say, Jesus had two...

Australia's "marriage equality" campaign triumphed in this month's referendum under the slogan "Let's Get It Done". In other words, it's inevitable, so why waste another five years arguing about it? Let's get it done, and over, and move on to transgender bathrooms or whatever's next. That's how "progressives" think about progress. As a certain author wrote long ago in a certain bestselling book: We assume that social progress is like technological progress: it can't be reversed. Just as you can't disinvent the internal combustion engine, so you can't disinvent women's rights. Just as the horse and buggy yielded to the...

British singer Morrissey said in a new interview he would kill President Trump if given the option. During an interview with Der Spiegel, Morrissey, the former The Smiths frontman, was asked: “If there was a button here and if you pressed on it, Trump would die dead [sic]– would you push it or not?” The musician responded that he would push the button. “I would, for the safety of humanity," Morrissey said. "It has nothing to do with my personal opinion of his face or his family, but in the interest of humanity I would push.”(continued)

Muscles and money are qualities that straight women and gay men typically find attractive in men, according to an analysis of Tube Crush—a website where people post unsolicited pictures of men seen on the London Underground. The study at Coventry and Aberystwyth universities in the United Kingdom, published in Feminist Media Studies in August, analyzed images over a period of three years since 2014. The “guy candy” posted on the website were mostly white men—despite London being a multicultural city—indicating that white male privilege is still an attractive quality.

Title: The disturbing questions raised by the fate of baby Elsie Gay fitness instructor Matthew Scully-Hicks, who with his husband Craig adopted a baby girl they named Elsie, has been found guilty of her murder in the UK and jailed for a minimum of 18 years. I can’t bring myself to recount every detail of this poor little girl’s ordeal, but a chronology of events and the repeated trauma that Elsie suffered at the hands of her adoptive "father" is outlined here. A Serious Case Review is in the offing and already the apologists are out, keen to point out...

Apple’s diversity chief is stepping down after only six months on the job — after causing an outcry by saying that being a minority or a woman are not the only criteria for diversity, according to reports. Denise Young Smith, who was named vice president of diversity and inclusion in May, made controversial comments last month during a One Young World Summit in Bogotá, Colombia. “There can be 12 white, blue-eyed, blond men in a room and they’re going to be diverse too because they’re going to bring a different life experience and life perspective to the conversation,” the inaugural...

Just how much of the inflammatory rhetoric from the nation’s political leaders harms young people isn’t precisely known, but two recently released surveys show that groups scapegoated in public run greater risk of being bullied.

A group of feminist professors will publish a new anthology in November extolling the merits of the emerging field of “queer feminist science.” The anthology, Queer Feminist Science: A Reader, will be released on November 16, and is edited by a team of Women’s Studies professors including New York University’s Cyd Cipolla, Wake Forest University’s Kristina Gupta, South Florida University’s David A. Rubin, and Mount Holyoke College’s Angela Willey, who specifically teaches “feminist science.

<p>In light of Anthony Rapp’s allegation that Kevin Spacey made sexual advances towards him when he was 14 years old, many are looking at Spacey in a totally new light. But while there are people that are shocked by this news, there’s also a chorus of “finallys” going around online.</p>