Free Republic

A West Side priest pleaded guilty this morning to soliciting sex from an undercover ranger at Edgewater Park last October while failing to divulge he was carrying the AIDS virus. Under provisions of a plea bargain reached with prosecutors, the Rev. James McGonegal, 69, the former pastor of St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, will enter an early intervention program. The agreement allows McGonegal to avoid a felony conviction if he successfully completes the program. At that point, the case would be dismissed and his record expunged. He also must perform 50 hours of community service and continue out-patient treatment begun...

I warmly recommend to the readership a column by Francis Card. George, Archbishop of Chicago. His Eminence knocks this one over the fence.We enter in medias res. You can find the whole thing HERE: [...]In recent years, society has brought social and legislative approval to all types of sexual relationships that used to be considered “sinful.” Since the biblical vision of what it means to be human tells us that not every friendship or love can be expressed in sexual relations, the church’s teaching on these issues is now evidence of intolerance for what the civil law upholds and even...

A Franklin student who sexually assaulted two fellow volleyball team members on a school bus after a trip to a game in Northampton County was escorted to jail in tears after she pleaded no contest to two counts of misdemeanor sexual battery. Aerial Darden, who was 17 at the time of the offense and a senior team captain, organized a group that held down a 13-year-old teammate, placed a pillow over her face and touched her inappropriately. The victim was on her first trip with the team. The attack came after Darden and others held the arms and legs of...

NEW YORK — Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s positive reaction to this week’s decision by organizers of New York’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade to allow gay groups to march under their own banners initially drew charitable responses in many Catholic Church circles. But it didn’t take long for conservative church critics to turn. After initially signaling his grudging acceptance, William Donohue of the Catholic League came back with a revised view when he realized that more than one gay group could be allowed to march in the future.

You don’t honor a saint by encouraging a sin. No doubt there have been homosexual persons marching down Fifth Avenue every year in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. There was never any ban on their participation; there was no test of sexual orientation for marchers. But next year the parade in New York will feature something new: a group of avowed homosexuals carrying a banner, promoting same-sex unions, supporting the gay lifestyle. Next year there will be only one story-line of interest to the reporters who cover the annual parade in the world’s media capital: the triumph of the gay...

A former USC professor once on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted fugitives list pleaded guilty Friday to flying to the Philippines and having sex with several underage boys he groomed online. Walter Lee Williams, 65, admitted engaging in illegal sexual contact with minors in foreign places, entering the plea during a brief appearance before U.S. District Judge Phillip S. Gutierrez. As part of a plea, federal prosecutors agreed to recommend that the onetime eminent professor of gender and sexuality studies serve no more than five years in a federal prison. He also would be subject to 10 years supervision upon...

In a documentary broadcast August 27th on the Kurdish station STERK TV, captured "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) elements say the group has been raping men in a ceremony it describes as "marriage" and recording this to use as blackmail and force them to join. ISIL uses rape, including gang rape, as a tactic of fear to intimidate populations it seeks to control, according to an August 28th report by the Firat News Agency, a Kurdish agency based in Amsterdam. The STERK TV documentary records the confessions of more than 20 ISIL elements who were captured by...

New York City, N.Y., Sep 5, 2014 / 11:48 am (CNA).- A spokesman for the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade said the inclusion of an LGBT activist group in the traditionally Catholic parade was a “gesture of goodwill,” though concerns have been raised that some outside groups aim to remove the event’s Catholic character. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, a longtime supporter of the parade’s previous policy against political signs and advocacy, said that organizers initially formally assured him that both homosexual groups and pro-life groups prohibited under the old policy could now apply to march...

How did Cardinal Dolan ever acquire a reputation for seeming orthodoxy? He’s about as orthodox a Catholic as Katherine Jefferts Schori. And it seems if there is any crowd to be played to, any group to be appeased (save, of course, for faithful Catholics), Dolan is ever ready to surrender to the demands of the world, no matter how craven he appears, no matter how great the scandal he gives, in so doing. Of course, his short little Archie Bunker clone attack dog will always be there yipping at his heels a chorus of unwavering if incoherent support. Pathetic: The...

.... But Thursday’s ruling by 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner, which struck down Indiana’s and Wisconsin’s gay marriage bans, is a different beast altogether. In his opinion, Posner does not sound like a man aiming to have his words etched in the history books or praised by future generations. Rather, he sounds like a man who has listened to all the arguments against gay marriage, analyzed them cautiously and thoroughly, and found himself absolutely disgusted by their sophistry and rank bigotry. The opinion is a masterpiece of wit and logic that doesn’t call attention to—indeed, doesn’t seem to care about—its...

The federal government’s number crunchers believe some 21,318 same-sex couples call Georgia home, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent accounting, and new research forecasts that as many as half would jump the broom within three years if allowed by their government. I’m one-half of one of those aggrieved couples — denied, for more than five years, the social stability and legal protections of marriage. And, as a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee and adviser to prominent party figures, I’m also a professional political operative who’s helped install in government those who perpetuate marriage bias in America....

An online fundraising project to publish new LGBTQ2S picture books for children aged 4-8, with the hope of having the books picked up by schools, has recently met its fundraising target.  693 backers pledged a combined $56,793 to the project, called the “Flamingo Rampant Book Club.”  The fundraising goal was $49,000. The books will “celebrate a great and wide variety of LGBTQ2S kids, families, and communities,” according to the description of the project.  The books will also “celebrate gender-independent kids and adults.” The individual behind the project is S. Bear Bergman.  Given that his same-sex spouse, who goes by the...

“When women go wrong men go right after them.” – Mae West “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill wrote this over a century ago. During my junior year in high school, the nuns asked about our plans for after we graduated. When I said I was going to attend State University, I noticed their disappointment. I asked my favorite nun, “Why?” She answered, “That means you’ll leave four years later a communist and an atheist!” What a giggle we girls...

A stinging rejection of same-sex marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana, issued by a unanimous and unequivocal U.S. appeals court, has brought hope to those fighting the laws that the Supreme Court will feel pressure to rule soon in their favor. The ruling from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago came Thursday, the same day 32 states asked the Supreme Court to settle the issue once and for all. Fifteen states that allow gay marriage, led by Massachusetts, filed a brief asking the justices to take up three cases from Virginia, Utah and Oklahoma and overturn bans....

He was drafted late, seventh round. Homophobia was suggested. Now that he has been cut, homophobia has been blamed,

The NFL was reportedly scared of the mainstream media blowback that it would receive if Michael Sam, the league's first openly gay player, did not make a team. When the Rams cut Michael Sam last weekend, the NFL reportedly called teams to inquire if they had "evaluated Sam as a possible practice squad player," according to a report from MMQB's Peter King. Before Thursday night's NFL season opener between Seattle and Green Bay, King reported that Sam and the NFL eventually avoided a "nightmare situation" when Jerry Jones and the Cowboys ultimately signed him to the practice squad.

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday overturned same-sex marriage bans in Wisconsin and Indiana. "The discrimination against same-sex couples is irrational, and therefore unconstitutional even if the discrimination is not subjected to heightened scrutiny, which is why we can largely elide the more complex analysis found in more closely balanced equal-protection cases," Judge Richard Posner wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel. The ruling makes it the third federal appeals court to conclude that state prohibitions on gay marriage violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. Advocates for marriage equality have enjoyed many victories since the Supreme Court ruled...

The U.S. military’s ban on transgender servicemembers should be eliminated immediately, according to three retired generals, including the former chief medical officer of the U.S. Army. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced in May that the policy should “continually be reviewed,” but stopped short of saying it should be overturned. Hagel said he “would be open” to rethinking the ban, prompting some advocates to believe that a policy change could be forthcoming. Three retired generals, including Maj. Gen. Gales Pollack, the Army’s former acting surgeon general, now say that ending the ban is “administratively feasible” and will not be overly...

If reports are to be believed, a compromise is in the works that will amount to nothing less than an endorsement of the gay identity in the 2015 NYC St. Patrick's Day parade. The Irish Times reports that under pressure from NBC, not only will a group be allowed to march in the parade with a gay identity banner (something previously banned) but that none other than Timothy Cardinal Dolan will be Grand Marshal.A gay group of employees from NBC will march in next year’s New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade behind their own banner, a source with knowledge...

A day after the New York City St. Patrick’s Day Parade announced a step toward LGBT inclusion, a pastor at the Archdiocese of Washington said that it is time to end such events altogether as they have been “hijacked.” Instead of wearing green and attending St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, Monsignor Charles Pope, said Catholics should “enter their churches and get down on their knees on St. Patrick’s Day to pray in reparation for the foolishness, and to pray for this confused world to return to its senses.” The statements were published on Pope’s designated blog on the Archdiocese of Washington’s...