Free Republic

Houston elected an openly gay mayor. Inauguation live on C-Span. She was just sworn in with a female at her side.

Supervisor Bevan Dufty met manthing sweeping up outside a nightclub While San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is all about policy and results now, and not personality and process, mayoral hopeful and Supervisor Bevan Dufty's new relationship might prove that the personal is still political. Dufty announced at a fundraiser -- his campaign for mayor, still in its early days, has raised $50,000 so far -- that he's in a new relationship with local realtor Pat Patricelli. "I was sweeping up broken glass outside Moby at 5:30 in the morning when he walked by with his dog, Luna," Dufty told...

Thursday, March 12 PITTSFIELD — A woman who allegedly intended to artificially inseminate her wife with her brother's semen has been charged with domestic assault and battery. Pittsfield police responded to a call shortly before 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in the city's Morningside neighborhood, where the assault allegedly occurred. Stephanie K. Lighten, 26, was released on personal recognizance after denying the allegations in Central Berkshire District Court Wednesday morning. Jennifer A. Lighten, 33, told police that Stephanie Lighten, her wife, was "all liquored up" when she returned to their Lincoln Street apartment, where the defendant then allegedly tried to use a...

The bitterness toward the tea party movement continues to go on and on. Case in point - Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, who on the Dec. 27 broadcast of "The McLaughlin Group," deemed it "The Most Defining Political Moment" of 2009, but refused to call it the "tea party." Instead, he granted the movement the preferred name by the left-leaning cable network MSNBC, the "teabaggers" and somehow devised the notion that the movement "asked for" the derogatory name. "The backlash movement known as the ‘teabaggers,' who kind of asked for that name and now they regret it," Page said. ...more...

Minnesota’s next U.S. Marshal will be Minneapolis’ openly gay Assistant Police Chief Sharon Lubinski. Her confirmation by the U.S. Senate was announced Monday morning by Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, who recommended her. Lubinkski was formally nominated for the post in October by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in a flurry of pre-holiday legislative activity last week.

In the week after the Fistgate audiotapes were made public and the first articles on the incident had appeared in Massachusetts News, a defense of the fisting workshop appeared on a website called “Bridges Across the Divide.” The author, Cindy Beal, claims to have spoken directly with Margot Abels (consistently misspelled “Ables”), the DOE employee who led the teen “gay sex” workshop..... ....the instructors led the kids to “resources” at the conference, and “peer support groups for gay youth.” That would be Boston GLASS, Youth Pride and BAGLY. See our recent report on the X-rated materials those groups handed out...

Gay Candidates Get Support That Causes May Not By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. December 27, 2009 HOUSTON — When an openly gay woman won the mayor’s race here this month, it was the latest in a string of victories by gay candidates across the country, a trend that seems to contradict the bans on same-sex marriage that have been passed in most states in recent years. Charles Pugh said his sexuality did not play a role in his race for Detroit’s City Council. Lupe Valdez won a bitter race in Texas in 2004, a year before the state banned same-sex...

A decision to ordain actively gay clergy has caused deep fissures in the nation's largest Lutheran church group, with some traditional Lutherans saying they have been subjected to threats and retaliation as they consider breaking away. Several disaffected members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) say the decision made at the church's national convention in Minneapolis in August could prompt a major exodus from one of America's biggest Protestant denominations. "I wouldn't even begin to tell you how many thousands [of calls] I've gotten," said Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran Coalition for Renewal, or CORE, a national coalition...

In Kevin Jennings’s keynote address at the GLSEN-Boston Fistgate conference (March 25, 2000), he related a Bible story of the “widow’s mite,” but gave it a perverted meaning. He twisted it from an exhortation to give all you can to God, to give all you can to the homosexual community. Also at that conference, a GLSEN national board member, Leif Mitchell from Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, led a workshop “exposing” the “Religious Wrong.” At that time, Mitchell “train[ed] teachers and children about sex education in the classroom and how to integrate homosexuality into the curriculum of public schools.” As a...

The chairman of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee has launched a defense of Kevin Jennings and the sexually explicit books recommended for children by the homosexual advocacy organization that Jennings started, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network.

The American Library Association (ALA) supports intellectual freedom and opposes censorship in any form, including the suppression of information that some may find controversial or objectionable.  Libraries and librarians give substance to intellectual freedom by acquiring and providing information without prejudice or restriction and supporting each person’s right to read and speak freely, regardless of their opinions or beliefs.There are those who challenge the right to read and speak freely, believing that certain ideas and opinions have no place in our common discourse because they find them to be offensive, harmful, or even dangerous.  They believe that certain institutions, even...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Obama administration refused Friday to follow a federal judge's order to provide insurance benefits to the wife of a lesbian court employee in San Francisco and said its hands were tied by a discriminatory law. "This issue shows exactly why Congress needs to repeal" the law, which prohibits federal benefits to same-sex couples, government lawyer Elaine Kaplan said in a message to attorneys for court employee Karen Golinski. One of Golinski's lawyers, Jenny Pizer of the gay-rights group Lambda Legal, said Kaplan's response was "something we might have expected from the Bush or Reagan administration, and...

Albuquerque, N.M., Dec 18, 2009 / 04:12 am (CNA).- Attorneys for a small photography company charged with violating anti-discrimination laws for declining to photograph a same-sex “commitment ceremony” are planning to appeal a New Mexico judge’s decision to uphold the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission’s ruling against them.The Albuquerque company, Elane Photography, is co-owned by Elaine Huguenin and her husband Jon. They are being represented by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).In 2006 a woman named Vanessa Willock asked them to photograph a “commitment ceremony” that she and another woman wanted to hold in Taos, N.M. State law does...

Over a hundred years ago the homosexual act was considered Sodomy and it was identified as an act. It still is Sodomy. IT WAS REFERRED TO AS THE HOMOSEXUAL ACT. BUT IN THE 1960’S IT WAS THEN CONDITIONED. The condition of homosexuality was redefined as a condition rather than an act. It did not change, it was just redefined. What really happened here was while you can criticize an act and you can even say it is a criminal act, how do you criticize a condition that someone suffers with? How can you criticize the act that one commits who...

A spokesman for the American Family Association says a Republican homosexual activist group doesn't belong at a popular conservative political conference in February. The homosexual activist group GOProud, an offshoot of the Log Cabin Republicans, boasts on its website that it will be a co-sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on February 18-20. Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, says taking part in CPAC "is one of the most important things [GOProud] will do all year," and affords the homosexual activist group "an incredible opportunity to deliver [its] message." GOProud advocates same-sex "marriage," a repeal of...

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” had his first three books published by Alyson Publications, known for its gay and lesbian pornography, and also for its pro-pedophilia books. The publisher actually sought out Jennings to write a book of gay and lesbian readings, Becoming Visible (1994). In that book – intended for high school and college students – Jennings is careful to credit the author of the selections. Otherwise, the writing is apparently is his own. That would mean that Kevin Jennings deserves the (dis)credit for the hideous “heterosexism questionnaire” that’s been used all over the country since the mid-1990’s....

NEW BRUNSWICK -- Bruce Springsteen doesn't share Chris Christie's views on gay marriage and he won't play at the governor-elect's inauguration, but Christie says there's no hard feelings about the Boss' politics or his State Street freeze out.   "Obviously, two bad decisions on his part," Christie joked Monday after a meeting at Rutgers University with the leaders of several New Jersey colleges and universities. "Bruce and I don't agree on certain things politically -- big shock," the Republican added. "But it doesn't diminish at all my enjoyment of him as an artist and a performer."   For the record, Springsteen is...

According to a recent statement from the White House, President Obama “strongly opposes efforts, such as the draft law pending in Uganda that would criminalize homosexuality and move against the tide of history” (Is “tide” the most appropriate word, since ocean tides are beyond man’s control? History is made by man, for better or for worse). Is this the same Obama who, when recently in China, murmured some generalities about human rights, in a country where a one-child policy has murdered millions of babies and freedom of expression is tightly controlled? Or is interference in and action on the affairs...

Mayor’s comments on homosexuality lead to turmoil in Vallejo When Vallejo Mayor Osby Davis told the New York Times in November that homosexuals are “committing sin and that sin will keep them out of heaven,” little did he know his remarks would continue to reverberate in the Bay Area city of about 120,000 and lead for calls that he resign. The pro-family lobbying group Capitol Resource Institute reported Dec. 10, “Vallejo is the site of an escalating battle involving public statements and private morality.” As a consequence of Davis’ remarks, said CRI, “the community is divided in their reaction to...

Mecklenburg County will offer domestic partner benefits in 2011 to employees in same-sex relationships, under a plan approved Tuesday night by county commissioners. The board vote split 6-3 along party lines to begin offering the benefits during its next open enrollment period, which would start next fall. Democratic commissioners said the change could help the county recruit and retain workers who are in same-sex relationships by offering them the same benefits given to married, heterosexual workers. The board's three Republicans opposed the policy, saying there appeared to be no demonstrated demand among county workers for the benefits and that offering...