Free Republic

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Idaho was among seven states where the number of unauthorized immigrants increased between 2009 and 2012, according to a report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. The report also found the number of unauthorized immigrants decreased in 14 states, including Oregon, in that time period. The number stayed relatively stable in the remaining states, including Washington. Nationally, the number of unauthorized immigrants remained stable at 11.2 million between 2009 and 2012, the report found. The number of such immigrants peaked in 2007 at 12.2 million, the report said. But changes occurred within states. Idaho, for...

Federal wildlife officials have granted protection to the Gunnison sage grouse, a move that could to bring restrictions on oil and gas drilling and other land uses to preserve the bird's habitat in Colorado and Utah. ... They're related to the greater sage grouse, which is at the center of a separate and larger debate over federal protection across 11 Western states.

A celebration in Bowe Bergdahl's hometown of Hailey, Idaho, planned for later this month has been cancelled in the wake of a firestorm of controversy over how the Army sergeant wound up as a Taliban captive. **SNIP** Town officials on Tuesday told NBC News that they had been deluged with hateful calls from people who don't think Bergdahl should be celebrated as a hero. In the Wednesday statement, the town said they had received about "100 correspondences" per day on the issue, both positive and negative. Hailey officials say they aren't cancelling because of any threat, but because of the...

On Friday, city officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, informed Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers and proprietors of the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, that they would be required to perform gay weddings or face fines or possibly jail time under the city’s “public accommodations” statute. Their religious views are expected to adjust to the edicts of the state. So it’s official: a new religious orthodoxy is sweeping across the nation, imposed by government and backed by force. It’s a religious orthodoxy required by secular authorities for a secular purpose, but no matter. Heretics will be found out and forced...

Authorities in Coeur d'Alene Idaho have buckled under the pressureof nationwide outrage at their threat to jail two ordained ministers for not performing gay marriage in their wedding chapel and declared the "Hitching Post" wedding chapel exempt from their "non-dsicrimination" law. Boise Public Radio: The city has been embroiled in controversy ever since the owners of the Hitching Post sued the city. They say a city anti-discrimination law threatened to force them to marry same-sex couples now that gay marriage is legal in Idaho. The story lit up conservative and gay-rights blogs. Wedding chapel owners Donald and Evelyn Knapp...

Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace officer: Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge. Elected law enforcement officers from Nephi to Blanding call him an arrogant and dishonest bully who has little regard for local authority and dodges accountability, derailing a collaborative approach to police work on the state’s federal lands. Love reportedly just laughed when Garfield County Sheriff James "Danny" Perkins relayed ranchers’ complaints about federal officers removing plastic feed tubs from the range and threatening the ranchers with litter citations. He drew early controversy during...

BOISE – Idaho Gov. Butch Otter wants a larger group of judges to reconsider the recent decision that overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. “I will continue defending Idahoans’ self-determination and the will of Idaho voters who decided that traditional marriage is a core principle of our society,” Otter said. The governor on Tuesday announced that he would file a petition seeking a review at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by an 11-judge panel. A three-judge panel made the earlier decision ruling that Idaho’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Otter and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden...

Where are all the atheist freedom lovers we always hear about? It's time for them to start standing up for religious liberty. The left and militant gay movement are getting bolder and bolder, and too many Christians are stewing in their apathy. It seems that with each passing month, this senseless tyranny advances. The latest is that two Christian ministers in Idaho, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, have allegedly been ordered to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies at their chapel or face fines or jail sentences. This nightmare began Oct. 7, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals invalidated Idaho's marriage...

<p>Two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in fines, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.</p> <p>Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Donald and Evelyn Knapp, two ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene.</p>

Two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to a $1,000 fine, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene.

…and the distinction between gay rights and religious persecution just vanished. It begins with equality and ends with everyone losing their freedom.But I love all these new freedoms we’re getting. We now have the freedom to do what various pressure groups want or go to jail. I hope we don’t get too many more new freedoms or we’ll run out of jail cells. Officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, are threatening an elderly couple who run a wedding chapel with jail time unless they perform wedding ceremonies for gay couples.Donald Knapp and his wife, Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching...

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit and a motion for a temporary restraining order Friday to stop officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, from forcing two ordained Christian ministers to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. City officials told Donald Knapp that he and his wife Evelyn, both ordained ministers who run Hitching Post Wedding Chapel, are required to perform such ceremonies or face months in jail and/or thousands of dollars in fines. The city claims its “non-discrimination” ordinance requires the Knapps to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies now that the courts have overridden Idaho’s voter-approved...

How far is the tyranny over gay marriage going to go? Reasonable people can differ on gay marriage. But forcing people to go against their religious views in order to comply with one viewpoint is nothing more than harassment.  According to Todd Starnes at Weasel Zippers, Two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in daily fines, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court.

It is one of the tenets of the current movement toward gay marriage. They get to get married, Christians are forced to provide goods and services if they demand it, but — and this is the key caveat of it all — but Christian ministers will not be forced to wed gays because of their religious concerns.

Two Christian ministers who own an Idaho wedding chapel were told they had to either perform same-sex weddings or face jail time and up to $1,000 in daily fines, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court. Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Donald and Evelyn Knapp, two ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene. “Right now they are at risk of being prosecuted,” attorney Jeremy Tedesco told me. “The threat of enforcement is more than just credible.” The wedding chapel is registered as a “religious corporation” limited to performing “one-man-one-woman marriages as defined by...

An Idaho homeowner declares he welcomes criticism of the Halloween display he set up in his front yard near Boise. “I’ve got the Grim Reaper on the ATV, and Obama’s head is on the spear and he has been decapitated,” Richard Piersol proudly tells KBOI-TV. A rubber Obama mask is indeed perched on a wooden pole in front of an effigy of the Grim Reaper. Peirsol revealed that he was inspired this year by his opposition to President Obama and the videos of ISIS beheadings. “It’s like free speech. I am pretty much saying I don’t like his politics, and...

Recently, Raul Labrador pledged to make legalizing 40 million of the most liberal, most anti-gun, least educated that South America has to offer the GOP’s #1 priority in 2015. How times have not changed… "2010 Walt Minnick Campaign Ad - Illegal Immigration Good for Business" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElHqWA7LdjI Did Raul Labrador Retriever really run a website called rapidimmigration.com, with “easy to understand advice for illegal immigrants seeking amnesty”? Actually, yes… Labrador, in his role as president, created an assumed business name of rapidimmigration.com on Feb. 2 of (2005). On the website, the company sold kits that varied in price for books and...

Law360, Los Angeles (October 10, 2014, 8:14 PM ET) -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to grant an emergency stay preventing Idaho from issuing marriage licenses and recognizing same-sex nuptials from out of state, greenlighting the Ninth Circuit to enter an order allowing its ruling to go into effect. The short order included no reasoning for the decision, stating simply that the Idaho governor's application for a stay, which had been granted by Justice Anthony Kennedy on Wednesday, was denied, and that Justice Kennedy's order was vacated.

BOISE - The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order Monday lifting the stay that blocked same-sex marriage from starting in Idaho - effective Wednesday morning. Marriage licenses can legally be issued to same-sex couples statewide starting at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Deborah Ferguson, attorney for the four couples who sued to overturn Idaho’s ban on gay marriage, hadn’t even filed her reply to the state’s latest legal filings when the order came out mid-day Monday. “I guess they kind of knew what we were going to say,” she said. Ferguson filed the case on behalf of four Idaho...

<p>The Supreme Court on Friday night allowed same-sex marriages to begin in Idaho, ending a dramatic week in which the right of gay couples to marry expanded dramatically across the nation.</p> <p>In a one-sentence order, the justices denied a request from Idaho Gov. C.L. Butch Otter (R) to delay the unions so the state could continue its appeals. The court gave no reason for the action nor were there recorded dissents.</p>