Free Republic

The presidential election was so close that many factors were “but-for” causes of Donald Trump’s victory. One that’s been mostly overlooked is Trump’s surprising success with religious voters. According to exit polls, Trump received 81 percent of the white evangelical Christian vote, and Hillary Clinton only 16 percent. Trump did significantly better than the overtly religious Mitt Romney and the overtly evangelical George W. Bush. He likely over-performed among other theologically conservative voters, such as traditionalist Catholics, as well. Not bad for a thrice-married adulterer of no discernible faith.

Cosmopolitan and Buzzfeed recently discovered that the church Chip and Joanna Gaines attend, Antioch Community Church, is led by a pastor who does not support same-sex marriage and who believes that homosexual practice is a sin. In other words, Chip and Joanna Gaines attend a historically Christian congregation on the matter of sexual ethics. Now, not all Christians will agree with some of the statistics cited by the Gaines’ pastor, his linking homosexuality in most cases to abuse, or his portrayal of the “gay lifestyle.” But there is nothing newsworthy about a Christian church teaching that male-female marriage is God’s...

Chip and Joanna Gaines, stars of HGTV's No. 1 series "Fixer Upper," are being lambasted by secular media this week for attending a church that espouses the traditional view of marriage and sexual morality. Buzzfeed and Cosmopolitan magazine reported this week that the Gaines family are members of Antioch Community Church in Waco, Texas, where Pastor Jimmy Seibert has preached that the practice of homosexuality is a sin, and urged Christians not to adopt the Supreme Court's redefinition of marriage after it ruled that same-sex marriage is legal nationwide in July 2015. Cosmo called the Gaines' church attendance a "startling...

Like many Americans, HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines attend a church where the pastor thinks homosexual behavior is a sin. And somehow that’s “news.” BuzzFeed printed the original story, headlined “Chip And Joanna Gaines’ Church Is Firmly Against Same-Sex Marriage.” From there it was picked up by Cosmopolitan, Us Weekly, and my favorite, Jezebel. Why? Now to be clear, the Gaineses aren’t even quoted in the original BuzzFeed story. We have no idea what they personally think about same-sex marriage. In fact, a spokesperson for the Antioch Community Church where the Gaineses attend, specifically tells BuzzFeed “she could not...

FLUSHING, New York, July 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Macy’s department store has fired a Catholic employee because he questioned their transgender bathroom policy, even though he says he told his employer he would enforce the policy. Back in May, Javier Chavez, a senior store detective at Macy’s Flushing, New York, location got a phone call about a male accessing the ladies room along with a female. A female customer and her daughter were afraid to enter the restroom due the male’s presence there, and a security guard reporting to Chavez directed the man to leave and use the men’s room....

San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy celebrated Pope Francis’ call for Christians to apologize to gays and suggested the Catholic Church consider changing how it refers to same-sex attraction and homosexual acts. McElroy’s comments were published June 30 in an interview with the Jesuit magazine America. “I think [the Pope’s call for an apology] opens up a very helpful pathway to dialogue and hopefully healing,” McElroy said. “What we need to project in the life of the church is ‘You are part of us and we are part of you.’ [LGBT Catholics] are part of our families.” After the Orlando terrorist...

FULL TITLE: Valencia’s Card. Cañizares persecuted for defending nature, common sense against “gender theory”, homosexualist agenda I was in Spain recently, having breakfast – as one does – and, while munching the ubiquitous toast with tomato looked up at the TV only to see a discussion of Card. Canizares Llovera and the trouble he was in for giving what sounded like a really good sermon in Valencia.I shot a photo of the screen… it I can find it… Since then the Cardinal’s problems have multiplied. BTW… he had the nickname “Ratzingerino” for a while and had served as the Prefect...

Cardinal Antonio Cañizares faces hate speech charges for questioning "gay empire," "radical feminism," and "gender theory" during homily. Just in case you need more examples of why laws against "hate speech" are a bad idea, here's a case out of Spain in which a Catholic leader is under investigation for remarks he made during a religious ceremony. While giving the homily at a Catholic University of Valencia mass, the Archbishop of Valencia, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, suggested that "the gay empire" and "radical feminism" were undermining traditional family values. "The family is being stalked today, in our culture, by endlessly grave...

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch says the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been part of the “extraordinary movement” of the LGBT community that has led up to “a White House draped in the rainbow flag.” Lynch made the comments Tuesday at a LGBT Pride month event held in the Great Hall of the Justice Department. “So here and now, in this place, let us celebrate these achievements and express our own pride,” Lynch said. …

Denver, Colo., Apr 29, 2016 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The lawyers of the bakery owner who made headlines for declining to make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding is “evaluating all legal options” to preserve the man’s First Amendment rights after the state’s highest court declined to take the case. “We asked the Colorado Supreme Court to take this case to ensure that government understands that its duty is to protect the people’s freedom to follow their beliefs personally and professionally, not force them to violate those beliefs as the price of earning a living,” Alliance Defending Freedom...

The Gresham bakers who made national headlines after refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding are fighting back against Oregon regulators. In a brief filed in the Oregon Court of Appeals this week, Aaron and Melissa Klein say the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries violated state and federal laws by forcing them to pay $135,000 in damages to the lesbian couple. The legal team behind Sweet Cakes by Melissa argues the labor bureau violated the Kleins' rights as artists to free speech, their rights as Oregonians to religious freedom and their rights as defendants to a due...

You can have your opinion’ as long as it doesn’t ‘deny my existence’It’s uncommon at Jesuit universities these days for someone to openly share a traditional Catholic viewpoint. When it happened at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, the school was so spooked it called the Los Angeles Police Department. Both the police and the university’s Bias Incident Response Team are investigating the stated belief that only two genders exist, male and female, as a hate crime. A Loyola alumni office employee discussed her views on sexual orientation, which align with the Roman Catholic Church, with three students who were...

Marquette University has moved to suspend and then fire Professor John McAdams for backing a student who tried to defend man-woman marriage when a leftist teaching assistant shut the student down.

Social worker postgraduate is told quoting the Bible in Facebook discussion could cause offence A Christian postgraduate student has been expelled from his course, effectively ending his chances of a career as a social worker, for voicing opposition to gay marriage in a Facebook discussion. Felix Ngole, a 38-year-old father of four, expressed support for Kim Davis, the county clerk from Kentucky in the US who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licences after the introduction of same-sex unions in September last year. He argued that homosexual activity is against the teaching of the Bible, quoting a verse from...

Has John Kasich blown his Christian cred? Kasich has built some of his following on his reputation as a sincere (if somewhat offbeat) Christian conservative. In November, for example, he called for a new government agency to promote "Judeo-Christian values." But tonight, when presented with a question about religious liberty, Kasich seemed to advance a rather different set of priorities. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO ... While Kasich defended the right of religious institutions to practice their faiths however they please, he seemed to argue that people "in the business of commerce" should "conduct commerce, and if you don’t...

Although Manny Pacquiao quickly apologized for his remarks about homosexuals, Nike dropped him like a hot potato. In contrast, Nike never dropped Tiger Woods despite the revelations of his serial adulteries, even though those led to the destruction of his marriage and worldwide public shame. Why the double standard? Does Nike believe that it is far worse to make a passing, extremely derogatory comment about homosexuals - one for which Manny quickly apologized and asked forgiveness - than to betray one's children and cheat on one's wife, sleeping with a bevy of different women over a period of years (including...

TAMPA, Florida, January 21, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Is the procreative impossibility of homosexual activity the same as heterosexuals being biologically infertile? Stetson University law professor Joseph Morrissey is suing for a tax deduction of $36,538 for in vitro fertilization treatments and the cost of a surrogate to carry twin boys for himself and his male partner. In denying Morrissey's claim, the IRS explained that for tax deductions, the medical services must be provided to the taxpayer, his spouse, or his dependent. Therefore, a surrogate does not qualify, and neither does IVF for someone other than the filer, his spouse, or...

The State Department weighed in Tuesday on an escalating war of words between the U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic and a cardinal who has leveled gay slurs against him -- telling FoxNews.com the fight "does underscore" the importance of pushing human rights causes. U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic James "Wally" Brewster, who is openly gay and married, has been mocked over his sexual orientation by Cardinal Archbishop Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez for more than two years. It got so heated that earlier this month, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sent a letter to Pope Francis asking him to...

LJUBLJANA - More than 60 percent of Slovenian voters opposed legalizing gay marriage in a referendum Sunday marked by low turnout, according to near-complete results from the electoral commission. The outcome marked a setback for gay rights activists who had hoped to see the largely Catholic nation become Europe's first ex-communist country to give same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt. With 99.9 percent of ballots counted, 63.48 percent of voters said 'no' to approving the legislation, which already passed in parliament earlier this year. More than 1.7 million people were registered to vote on an issue that has...

The Food and Drug Administration has lifted the ban on blood donations from men who have engaged in sexual relations with another man. Now, in order to donate blood, a man will have had to have been abstinent for the period of one year prior to donation. This new policy is similar to the deferral period for a woman who has engaged in sexual activity with a man who had previously sexual activity with another man, or for someone who has traveled to a country where malaria is prevalent. The Food and Drug Administration released final rules on Monday that...