Free Republic

Award season is in full swing and the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards, celebrating and recognizing "media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the LGBT community and the issues that affect their lives," were announced this morning.

In comments at his Monday in-air interview that were totally ignored by the mainstream media, Pope Francis lamented the Western practice of imposing a homosexual agenda on other nations through foreign aid, which he called a form of “ideological colonization” and compared to the Nazi propaganda machine. Asked by a reporter to explain the phrase “ideological colonization,” the pope gave an example from 1995 when, he says, a minister of education in a poor area was told she could have a loan for building schools so long as the schools used a book that taught “gender theory.”

Every word in every State of the Union speech is vetted. And President Barack Obama’s decision to say a certain word among the 6,718 he uttered on Tuesday is reverberating through the LGBT community. That’s because Obama just became the first President to say the word transgender during such a high-profile occasion. And most advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights are thrilled.

Primary-aged pupils at a leading Christian school faced questions about homosexual practice as they became the latest target of controversial ‘British values’ rules. The principal of the school, Chris Gray, has written a formal complaint to Ofsted accusing their inspection team of adopting a “hostile” stance against the school’s Christian ethos. Children aged six to eighteen at Grindon Hall Christian School in Sunderland faced intrusive questioning by Ofsted inspectors about transsexualism, homosexuality and religious festivals. … Parents objected to questions their children were asked, including if they knew what lesbians “did” and if their friends felt trapped in the “wrong...

A dispute over a cake in Colorado raises a new question about gay rights and religious freedom: If bakers can be fined for refusing to serve married gay couples, can they also be punished for declining to make a cake with anti-gay statements? A baker in suburban Denver who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding is fighting a legal order requiring him to serve gay couples even though he argued that would violate his religious beliefs. But now a separate case puts a twist in the debate over discrimination in public businesses, and it underscores the tensions...

During Obama’s 2015 State of the Union speech – he mentioned abortion and gay marriage. In response, NARAL, the nation’s largest abortion lobby said thank you Obama: TWEETS ON LINK And a few more SOTU mentions: NARAL PP TWEETS ON LINK Apparently Planned Parenthood prez, Cecile Richards enjoyed Obama’s speech. Her twitter feed was full of praises for the abortion prez MORE NARAL/CEDIL RICHARDS TWEETS ON LINK (BARF)

While in 2014 the days of throwing Christians to wild beasts in the arena may be behind us, the persecution of Christians around the world isn't. In fact, the number of our brothers and sisters subjected to imprisonment, torture, and death for their faith in just the last twelve months dwarfs the number who suffered during the entire tenure of Nero. As a new report from a leading ministry to the persecuted church shows, last year was one of the most violent on record for believers worldwide—and 2015 could be worse. Open Doors International released its World Watch List earlier...

If selected to serve in Gov.-elect Tom Wolf's Cabinet, Dr. Rachel Levine could become the highest-ranked transgender woman in Pennsylvania state government history. Levine, who transitioned from male to female about five years ago, was announced as Wolf's physician general on Saturday. The physician general position, which was created under former Gov Tom Ridge, must be confirmed by the Pennsylvania Senate. Wolf spokesman Jeff Sheridan said Levine could become a member of the Cabinet or remain as a senior adviser to Wolf. The governor-elect has not yet formed his Cabinet. "The confirmable positions that have to pass by the Senate...

Will the Supreme Court Deal With Reality When It Makes Its Marriage Ruling? Let's be blunt. When a penis is inserted in a vagina there is a good chance that a new human being will result. When a penis is inserted in an anus, there is a passable chance of disease or defect being the result. This is reality and there is no escaping it. Only a real male and a real female can make babies. Put the two sexes together, and there's a good chance of babies showing up. To deal with reality, cultures through all of recorded history...

PLANO, Texas (BP) -- Plano Citizens United, a coalition of churches and civic leaders, cleared the first hurdle this week in rescinding a city ordinance that legal experts said would stymie free speech and religious liberty, while opponents of a similar ordinance in Houston prepare to take their fight to court. With no preexisting ministerial alliance in place, Plano churches were caught unprepared when the city council, led by Mayor Harry LaRosilier, passed an ordinance Dec. 8 creating a protected class of citizen based on sexual orientation and gender identity. With help from the Houston pastors' coalition, opposition to the...

Richard Page, a 68-year-old British Justice of the Peace and evangelical Christian, has been condemned by the country’s highest legal authorities, suspended, and subjected to a day-long re-education session to rid him of the dangerous belief that a child would be better off being adopted by a family with a mother and a father than by a same-sex couple. Page sat on a family court tribunal last summer to consider a social worker’s recommendation that a foster child be adopted by a gay couple. “I raised some questions in private with the other judges, including that I thought that because...

When he was running for president seven years ago, and appearing in a nationally televised forum held by a Christian pastor at a Christian church, Barack Obama said he believed that marriage was a “sacred union” that was “between a man and a woman.” On Tuesday night, in his State of the Union Address, Obama said that legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States is one of the things he has seen that represents “America at its best.” …

It was only a matter of time before it actually happened. In Colorado, where Masterpiece Cakeshop has been cited by the state for refusing to make wedding cakes for gay couples, a man has filed a complaint with the state that a different bakery has refused to make him a cake, violating public accommodation laws. In this case, though, the man claims religious discrimination for a bakery's refusal to make a cake that's not quite so love-affirming. ...."He wanted us to write God hates …" she trails. "Just really radical stuff against gays." "He wouldn't allow me to make a...

Oreo's latest twist on its best-selling cookie: a red velvet makeover in time for Valentine's Day. The latest limited edition Oreos, with red cookies and cream cheese-flavored filling, are set to hit shelves in early February. The red velvet variety marks the first time Oreo has had a new cookie color since 2004, when the Golden Oreo debuted. Red velvet cake has been around for decades. The cake is distinguished by its dark red color and often has a cream cheese icing. The flavor has gained a following in recent years in everything from cupcakes to whoopee pies. "It's something...

The widely circulated claim that same-sex families are “no different” from intact, heterosexual families is not settled science. New studies suggest that children do best when they are raised by their biological parents in a stable, intact marriage.

Billy Crystal Has Had Enough of Gay Storylines Billy Crystal, comedian and one of the first actors to portray a gay character on TV, has had enough of the gay storylines on television.Speaking to an audience at the Television Critics Association press tour, Crystal said: “Sometimes I think, ‘Ah that’s too much for me.’”The comedian played Jodie on Soap from 1977-1981. “It was very difficult at the time,” said Crystal. “Jodie was really the first recurring [gay] character on network television and it was a different time, it was 1977. So, yeah, it was awkward. It was tough.” He spoke...

The first school in Britain for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people could open its doors within the next three years. Based in the centre of Manchester, the specialist state school plans to take 40 full-time students from across the area and will offer up to 20 part-time places for young people who want to continue attending a mainstream school. “This is about saving lives,” said Amelia Lee, strategic director for LGBT Youth North West, the youth work charity behind the plans. “Despite the laws that claim to protect gay people from homophobic bullying, the truth is that in...

"I support the right of people to believe what they do and say what they wish—in their pews, homes and hearts." So says an influential New York Times journalist. In other words, "Keep your religion in the closet." In his Jan. 10 Times editorial, "Your God and My Dignity: Religious Liberty, Bigotry, and Gays," Frank Bruni writes, "I've been called many unpleasant things in my life, and I've deserved no small number of them. But I chafe at this latest label: A threat to your religious liberty." He finds it "absurd" that the simple act of two men or two...

Two male witches have tied the knot in the UK’s first pagan same-sex marriage. Tom Lanting, 34, and Iain Robertson, 39, who have been together for 12 years, were married in a ceremony in the 16th-century vaulted cellars of Marlin’s Wynd in Edinburgh. The couple, who live in the Scottish capital, are both described as being hedge witches, who use herbal remedies to deal with medical and spiritual ailments. The ceremony encompassed a number of pagan traditions, including handfasting, where their hands were bound together, the sharing of mead and jumping the broom.After their wedding, the couple said: “Getting married...

A SOLDIER serving in the British Army has become the first and only transgender officer. Saying she was “living an act” Captain Hannah Winterbourne, 27, decided to become a woman while on tour in Afghanistan reported The Mirror. Winterbourne, an officer in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, began her transition in 2013 and is now the highest ranking trans soldier in the British Army.