Free Republic

Regard this essay as a qualified mea culpa. I have long maintained that there is no point in arguing against “gay marriage,” because there are no arguments for it. To argue that a “homosexual” has no right to marry another man is not unlike arguing that a unicorn has no right to be a computer programmer. The proposition is absurd on its face, and so to argue against it is to offer it unwarranted credibility. As evidence, I have remarked that at no time before the late twentieth century—at least within the boundaries of Western civilization—had anyone contemplated marriage between...

(CNN)—President Barack Obama on Saturday lectured Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta about his country's gay rights record. "When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode," Obama said at a joint press conference with the Kenyan leader in Nairobi. "And bad things happen."

President Barack Obama on Saturday lectured Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta about his country's gay rights record. "When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, that's the path whereby freedoms begin to erode," Obama said at a joint press conference with the Kenyan leader in Nairobi. "And bad things happen." Under Kenyan law, sexual activity between men is illegal and punishable with a maximum imprisonment of 14 years. Obama equated legalized discrimination of gays to legalized racism in America. "And when a government gets in a habit of...

Members of the Berlin faction of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) voted against gay marriage in a poll on Friday, denting hopes the Chancellor’s staunch opposition could be swayed. The Berlin faction of the CDU announced on Friday that 45 percent of its members voted against gay marriage while 35 percent voted in support in a survey, newspaper Tagesspiegel reported. The survey was conducted over the past three weeks, asking members whether they would support gay marriage in Germany. About 40 percent of the CDU's roughly 12,500 members sent in their votes. While same-sex couples in Germany...

The White House has shrugged off demands by some leaders that President Barack Obama steers clear of support for gay rights while in Kenya on July 25. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that Obama was not expected to back away from addressing any particular tropic while in Kenya. He was answering a question on the matter while addressing journalists during a daily briefing at the White House on Tuesday. "I had not been made aware of that particular announcement from Kenya. Obviously, we have been clear that when the President travels around the world, he does not hesitate...

John McCain will spend next weekend campaigning around New Hampshire with his pal Lindsey Graham. The Arizona senator, who twice won the state’s Republican primary, will headline a barbecue at the VFW post in Littleton on Aug. 1 for the dark horse GOP presidential candidate and South Carolina senator, according to the Graham campaign. Then the duo will travel to additional events, which campaign officials said are still being planned. McCain’s trip will be his first foray out on the campaign trail since Donald Trump, leading in the national polls of Republicans, suggested he is not a true war hero...

Oh damn. Of course the very first question put to Obama at the press conference this morning in Kenya was about gay rights. He went on and on about Kenya’s lack of gay rights, but the president soundly slapped down his suggestion to impose his values on the African country.Watch below:(video at link)Notice the applause too.It should be too surprising that Kenyans aren’t open to his gay-mongering – before his visit a coalition made a statement that they would tell Obama to shut up and go home if he pressured them on gay issues. Funny how far left liberals like...

This country talks a lot about terrorist attacks—and rightly so. Almost anybody in America can give you some kind of a listing of the most destructive acts of terror that have happened in our country. But let me suggest to you this: The two greatest attacks of terror on America were perpetrated by the Supreme Court. Not by any Muslim, but by the Supreme Court of the United States. The first one was the legalizing of abortion. Subsequent to that, there have been millions of babies slaughtered in the wombs of their mothers. It’s incalculable to even comprehend that. The...

The Supreme Court's recent decision to make gay marriage legal nationwide was a significant victory for liberals. In next year's election, however, the decision will hurt Democrats. Success, after all, presents it own set of challenges. As sociologists Mayer Zald and Roberta Ash pointed out in their classic 1966 study of social movement organizations, the two biggest challenges of a social movement are complete success and complete failure (Social Forces 44 (March)). The ideal situation for maintaining a social movement, they wrote, would be to "over time always [seem] to be getting closer to its goal without quite attaining it."...

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., and almost every Democrat in the House proposed a bill this week that would extend federal anti-discrimination protections to the LGBT community. The Equality Act would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identify in areas like housing, employment, federal funding, education, credit and jury service, according to Cicilline's website. Cicilline's bill in the House has the support of 165 other House Democrats, and a Senate bill from Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., has 39 other Democrats on it. "In most states, you can get married on Saturday, post your wedding photos to Facebook...

The secular war against San Francisco Archbishop Cordileone continued Thursday with the city holding a California State Assembly judiciary hearing that argued over the legality of Cordileone's making teachers working at four diocesan high schools sign "morality clauses" classifying them as ministers who must uphold Catholic teaching regarding same-sex "marriage," homosexuality, contraception and artificial insemination in the classroom as well as in their private lives. Kathleen Purcell, a constitutional lawyer representing sides opposed to the morality clauses, argued that since the San Francisco archdiocese follows a curriculum approved by the state, actively recruits non-Catholic students, has promised not to proselytize...

Members of the Berlin faction of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) voted against gay marriage in a poll on Friday, denting hopes the Chancellor’s staunch opposition could be swayed. The Berlin faction of the CDU announced on Friday that 45 percent of its members voted against gay marriage while 35 percent voted in support in a survey, newspaper Tagesspiegel reported. […] The recent passage of same-sex marriage in Ireland and a US Supreme Court decision in favour of gay marriage has put more pressure on Merkel and her conservative Union (CDU and Christian Social Union parties), who...

US President Barack Obama has told the BBC he will continue to deliver his "blunt message" to African leaders about gay rights and discrimination."I am not a fan of discrimination and bullying of anybody on the basis of race... religion... sexual orientation or gender," he said. Mr Obama is on his way to visit his ancestral home of Kenya and he will also go to Ethiopia. He said the trip showed US commitment to fighting terror in East Africa. In the wide-ranging interview with the BBC's North America editor Jon Sopel before he left Washington, President Obama also said: â—¾His...

In the wake of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, many serious legal analysts are suggesting that the same “constitutional” justifications for legalizing homosexual "marriage" relied on by the Supreme Court in that controversial case could be used next to force states to sanction polygamous relationships, as well. An op-ed published July 21 in the New York Times makes the case for pulling polygamy into the sphere of legalized unions: With same-sex marriage on the books, we can now ask whether polyamorous relationships should be next. There is a very good argument that they should. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion...

A tenured university professor in Pennsylvania who previously questioned the Holocaust and called for Israel’s destruction is under fire again for incendiary remarks about Jews, women and gays. Kaukab Siddique, an English professor at Lincoln University outside Philadelphia, asked on Facebook this month whether Bill Cosby’s accusers took so long to come forward because “many women are sluts.” Another recent post on Facebook attributed the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage on “Obama’s homo uprising,” while a third post referred to “dirty Jewish Zionist White Supremacist thugs.” Lincoln University condemned Siddique’s remarks but said it does not plan to...

I was born into a family of famous gay pagan authors in the late Sixties. My mother was Marion Zimmer Bradley, and my father was Walter Breen. Between them, they wrote over 100 books: my mother wrote science fiction and fantasy (Mists of Avalon), and my father wrote books on numismatics: he was a coin expert.

The Texas Supreme Court gave Friday the Houston city council 30 days either to repeal a civil-rights ordinance allowing opposite-sex bathroom use or place it before the voters on the November ballot. The 12-page decision says that the council ran afoul of the city charter when it refused to act after the city secretary certified a year ago the signatures submitted by a pastor-led coalition, which had moved to force a vote on the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). Houston Mayor Annise Parker came under fire last year after the city moved to subpoena sermons and other documents from five...

Editor's note: This article was co-authored by Tim Graham.The end of the Supreme Court term was depressing for conservatives. The double-whammy of a 50-state mandate for gay marriage and the upholding of Obamacare sounded the alarms for religious freedom. All that unease is measurable. Credit The Washington Post for doing precisely that. The polling team has just reported, "Liberals have won a string of victories on gay marriage and health care reform this year, but a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds a large majority of Americans are unhappy with where the nation is headed on social issues." They found...

Common sense seems to have eluded those who placed the following hypersensitive editor's note on an article in the UCLA student newspaper about gender inequality in health care. The author's argument for free or government subsidized tampons was silly to begin with but the note placed it way over the top. Editor’s note: This blog post refers to individuals who menstruate as women because the author wanted to highlight gender inequality in health care. We acknowledge that not all individuals who menstruate identify as women and that not all individuals who identify as women menstruate, but feel this generalization is...

President Obama said he will voice support for gay rights during his Friday trip to Africa, despite warnings from some leaders to steer clear of the issue. In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Obama said he has delivered a "blunt" message on gay rights to African leaders in the past and the topic will be "front and center" when he visits Kenya and Ethiopia.