Free Republic

A New Jersey boy has become the first openly transgender member of the Boy Scouts. Just one week after the Boy Scouts of America changed its policy to allow transgender children to join, Joe Maldonado donned his uniform as the newest member of Pack 20 in Maplewood. 'I am accepted,' said the nine-year-old on Tuesday night, as his mother fought back tears. The youngster had previously been banned from Pack 87 in Secaucus because his birth certificate stated that he was born a girl.

From the Email: We have to act now! Liberals and homosexual activists are advancing their radical agenda by attempting to torpedo President Donald Trump's executive order on religious liberty that was recently leaked to the media. This is an excellent executive order that will protect your First Amendment rights. I urge you to sign the AFA petition NOW asking President Trump to protect religious freedom for all Americans. I plan to personally deliver this petition with signatures during a meeting with the Trump Administration. Help me take your voice to the White House! This is urgent! After the executive order...

In a moment of historic significance, Joe Maldonado put on a Cub Scout uniform on Tuesday night as he became a member of Pack 20 in Essex County while his mother held back tears — one week after the Boy Scouts of America changed its national policy to allow transgender children to be scouts....

According to people familiar with the issue, Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner advised Trump to reject a draft executive order rescinding Obama-era protections for the LGBTQ community. Nevertheless, as Andrew Soloman writes in The New Yorker, the United States feels like a scarier place for LGBTQ community than it did last October. He says: It was both unsurprising and traumatic to learn on Monday about a pending executive order that would take away our basic rights, and though it was a relief to learn, the next morning, that that executive order would not be issued, the stir of...

(snip) Therefore doctors should not use the expression expectant mothers but expectant people, for fear of offending all the pregnant transsexuals. Whether anyone has ever met an expectant transsexual offended by the term expectant mother is not stated; nor is the possibility aired that, if such a being actually existed, he or she should simply be told not to be so silly. The BMA now lives, or wants to live, in a world in which taking offense is its own justification: The offended, or yet-to-be offended, have taken over from the victims as the world’s heroes. In the BMA’s brave...

The United Nations envoy for gay rights has declared that when there is a clash between homosexual rights and religious liberty it must be recalled that “freedom of expression and religious freedom are not absolute rights and may be limited if necessary.” In a recent public consultation, the UN’s newly appointed “independent expert” on the defense of LGTB rights, Vitit Muntarbhorn, said that negative moral judgments on homosexual activity were a recent phenomenon, stemming from “colonial law.”

Every NHL team now has an "LGBTQ-inclusion ambassador" for a league that has no openly gay players.The NHL will host events throughout the month for its "Hockey Is For Everyone™" initiative that raise awareness about LGBTQ issues and gender equality in the all-men league."The NHL is teaming up with the You Can Play project to create more visibility for LGBTQ inclusion in the league and build a list of team ambassadors that creates a web of support reaching all 30 team locker rooms," reported Outsports.com, a website run by SB Nation."In support of their longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion...

A black tarp hangs over what used to be the Burger & Beer Joint in South Beach as well as a dark cloud over why it closed. Three months after a gay night club opened on the second floor of the country’s first Burger & Beer Joint, the Boca Raton-based franchise has revoked the local restaurant’s right to use the name, menu and concept. The locals say they are being targeted for leasing the upstairs to a longtime South Beach gay club promoter, and they point to a letter they were sent shortly after The Mix bar and lounge opened,...

A Virginia university has published an “LGBTQIA+ Terminology” handout defining terms like “cisgender privilege,” “demisexual,” “heterosexism,” and “polyamorous” relationships.

Winning the best picture Oscar doesn't just signal that a movie is regarded by Hollywood as the top achievement in the medium for the year; it can help cement a movie's status, with past winners that have gone on to become classics like "The Godfather," "Lawrence of Arabia," and "On the Waterfront." But the Academy voters don't always get it right. Tucked away in the 88 years of Oscar ceremonies are best picture winners that quickly vanished from the zeitgeist, never to be heard from again. That's often because they weren't as good as originally thought. It's probably too early...

ADF say the new law could force churches to 'violate their core religious beliefs' A religious liberty organisation is taking legal action to protect Massachussetts churches from having to open transgender bathrooms. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has filed a federal lawsuit against a new state law which they say is “punishing” the protected religious speech of churches and pastors. It comes as states are suing the Obama administration over its efforts to make hospitals, schools and other institutions change their policies towards transgender issues. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said it sued on behalf of four Massachusetts churches to protect...

The new UN expert on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues outlined a strategy for his three-year term before dozens of supportive UN bureaucrats, delegates, and activists in a meeting last week. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the newly appointed UN Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity, spoke of the Sustainable Development Goals and the work of UN agencies to further the goals as a “good entry point for us.” The Thai law professor and homosexual activist also described health, education, and religion as “soft entry points” and cautioned that “sexual orientation and gender identity” are not closed categories, promising...

Bruce Springsteen, a once proud American with his song “Born in the USA” said at a concert in Australia he's embarrassed to be an American. The 67-year-old addressed the crowd as "embarrassed Americans" referring to President Trump in the White House in a newly-surfaced clip from his show in Melbourne Monday night. He sang a cover of "Don’t Hang Up" mocking Trump’s phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Dating apps rarely encourage deep and meaningful communication but they are a minefield for people living with HIV as a series of real messages sent to gay men on Grindr reveals. The hurtful texts have been read out by HIV-positive men to highlight stigma, misunderstanding and ignorance around the virus. The messages, which include 'You're a walking disease, mate' and 'Sluts like you deserve it,' were sent to Grindr users and the Gay Men's Health Charity (GMFA) asked a group of HIV-positive models to read them out and react. ...

RUSH: Would you like an illustration of what I mean by Donald Trump not being ideological and how it’s a problem? He understands he has opposition. How could he not? (chuckles) I mean, I’m sure he knows that he’s got opposition. Don’t misunderstand me, now. And I’m sure that he may have had his eyes opened about some of these people. In his mind, they’re Democrats. Liberal, conservative, that’s not in his lexicon, folks. I’m not offering this as a criticism. It’s just a truth. It’s something that, if you want to understand Trump, then there’s no better deconstructor of...

The Oxford English Dictionary chose “post-truth” as its 2016 Word of the Year. The OED defined it as "relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief." This is an extraordinary development. Seeking restlessly for the truth has been at the heart of Western culture for more than 2000 years. Just 30 years ago, the idea of post-truth would have seemed just as absurd as “post-goodness” or “post-food”.

Members of the religious right with ties to the Trump administration say they have been lead to believe that some changes will still be coming. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump helped lead the charge to scuttle a draft executive order that would have overturned Obama-era enforcements of LGBT rights in the workplace, ultiple sources with knowledge of the situation said. A draft executive order on LGBT rights — which outlines how to roll back former president Barack Obama’s protections and expand legal exemptions based on religious beliefs — has been circulating among journalists and worried progressive groups this week. But...

Predictable as ever, Doctor’, says the Master in the Doctor Who episode ‘The Deadly Assassin’. In a similar vein, the Guardian has followed the announcement that Peter Capaldi is leaving the series with not one but two articles about how the new Doctor must be a woman, black or preferably both. Because white males are boring! After all, it’s 2017. As the Hitler Youth said to the 19th-century humanists: ‘We don’t think like that anymore.’ Of course, there is nothing wrong with having more women and black people cast in mainstream roles. The more the merrier. But when cultural representation...

Editor's Note: This piece was coauthored by Tim Graham.The Boy Scouts of America, or BSA, used to be derided as a "traditional, values-based" organization, whose oath spoke of a "duty to God" and whose law insisted the Scouts be "reverent." Now the BSA worships something else: corporate donations. It should have been expected after it folded on homosexual Scouts and then on homosexual scoutmasters. Within a month of being pressured by the case of 8-year-old Joe Maldonado, who was born a girl named Jodi Maldonado, the BSA folded on God and how he "made them male and female." In today's...

Goodbye, Boy Scouts. You fools. You invertebrates. You caved once again and will now allow “transgender boys” — also known as girls — to enter your ranks. I guess you forgot that the girls already have their own branch of the Scouts. It’s called the Girl Scouts. You know, the one with the cookies. Will the Boy Scouts start selling cookies now, too? That would be one upside to all of this, at least. Your chief executive declared yesterday that it’s “not sufficient” to use a birth certificate as reference point to determine a person’s gender. I’m certain that he...