Free Republic

Foreign service officer, who will be named soon, to help promote awareness of LGBT issues across the world The United States will appoint an openly gay official as a special envoy to promote the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people overseas, the US State Department said Friday. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said US Secretary of State John Kerry would “soon” make the appointment. “It will be an openly gay foreign service officer. We don’t have a finalized name yet. But we will announce soon,” Harf said. Harf said the appointment reflected Kerry’s “commitment and the administration’s commitment...

Ted Cruz claims to be a “constitutionalist,” but expects us to believe that the issue of gay marriage should be left to “debate…in the legislative chambers.” In response to President Barack Obama’s comments about gay marriage in the State of the union, the Texas senator said: I think the proper place to debate those issues is in the legislative chambers. I’m a constitutionalist…From the beginning of this country, marriage has been a question of the states, and we should not have the federal government, or unelected judges, setting aside the policy judgment of the elected legislatures and imposing their own...

Acalanes Union High School in Lafayette, California, is facing infuriated parents after freshman students were reportedly singled out–with the tacit support of teachers–and humiliated if they didn’t subscribe to politically correct views on gay and lesbian issues.

Children aged five will have sex education classes if Labour wins the election. Tristram Hunt said yesterday the subject would go on the primary school curriculum to tackle homophobic bullying. The lessons are currently given only to children of secondary school age.

<p>Matthew Aune and Derek Jones were...strolling through Main Street Plaza just east of the Salt Lake Temple, the holiest site in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.</p> <p>Aune bussed his partner on the cheek. Church security guards appeared. The twentysomething men said they were cuffed and forced to the ground. The church's official statement said the couple had been "engaged in passionate kissing, groping, profane and lewd language" on private church property, an account the two men vigorously contested.</p>

Bonding over abortion is the heart and soul of the new film Grandma, starring Lily Tomlin, which is receiving buzz after when it premiered Friday at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. The film from Paul Weitz is what Variety‘s review notes is partly a “breezy family comedy about mothers, daughters and abortions.” Tomlin’s character, Elle, is a former professor and poet who, after having a bad day when she breaks up with her girlfriend, “rediscovers her softer side when her granddaughter, unexpectedly pregnant while in high school, comes to her for help. The two women embark on a mission to...

Tonight's episode; "We Build, We Fight" - NCIS S12 E13 Gibbs and the team investigate when a Navy lieutenant who is set to be the first openly gay servicemember to receive the Medal of Honor is murdered

What does it take for a film to be a huge hit at Sundance, nab a distribution deal, and get a nationwide theatrical release? Big Hollywood stars? Mass appeal? Expensive professional equipment? Short answer -- no! Director Sean Baker's feature film Tangerine, which got picked up by Magnolia Pictures, is one of the most talked-about films at the Festival this year even though it doesn't exactly fit the profile of a buzzworthy entry. Firstly, it features unknown actors; no Kristen Wiigs, no Ethan Hawkes. Secondly, it's a story about two transgender women on a Christmas Eve odyssey through the many...

Americans support women in the pulpit and in senior leadership positions within the church. But they are more hesitant when it comes to supporting openly gay and lesbian religious leaders. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of American Adults favor women in the pulpit, while just 16% are opposed. Twenty-five percent (25%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Even more (74%) support women in leadership positions in their respective faiths. Just nine percent (9%) are opposed, with 17% undecided. Just 43% of Americans favor openly gay and lesbian individuals in the pulpit. Thirty-eight...

The Boy Scouts of America settled a sex abuse case Thursday involving a 20-year-old California man who was molested by a Scout volunteer in 2007 — a decision that will keep years’ worth of “perversion” files detailing sex abuse allegations secret from the public. The announcement of the settlement in the Santa Barbara case came after three days of trial. The terms were confidential at the Boy Scouts’ request, said Tim Hale, the plaintiff’s attorney. “I can’t go into details about the number, but it was a great result,” Hale said. Hale had won the right to use the “perversion”...

Gov. Tom Wolf stood with a small group of lawmakers Wednesday morning to rally new efforts behind bills that would extend basic anti-discrimination protections statewide on the basis of sexual orientation. For Pennsylvania, a state where in most municipalities a person can still be fired from his job or denied housing because of his or her sexual orientation, Wolf said the extended anti-discrimination bills fit the state's heritage perfectly. "Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn on the basis of tolerance. On the basis of religious freedom," Wolf noted. U.S. District Judge John Jones gave the LGBT movement a push with...

Alabama's first openly gay state lawmaker threatened to "out" fellow elected officials engaged in extramarital affairs, especially those that champion family values and traditional marriage. State Rep. Patricia Todd's (D-Birmingham) ire came to a boil after several state officials reacted negatively to a recent federal ruling that declared Alabama's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard called the ruling "outrageous" and said that the will of 80% of Alabama citizens who voted in 2006 to define marriage as between a man and a woman has been overturned by the act of "a single unelected and unaccountable federal...

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...

"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...

When the Golden Globe awards telecast was over, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation proclaimed, "It was a great night for LGBT-inclusive television." They could have added: "We run the joint." Gay actor Matt Bomer thanked his "husband" and his surrogate sons when he won an award for HBO's Reagan-bashing AIDS drama "The Normal Heart." But the bigger celebration came with a best actor award to Jeffrey Tambor, who plays Mort, a 70-year-old father of three who decides he's a woman named Maura in a show called "Transparent," or literally, "Trans Parent," since his three adult children have to...

(CNSNews.com) – Hollywood, gay activists, and the media that cover them are crowing about Amazon.com’s Transparent show getting the Golden Globe award for Best Comedy on Sunday.To have the best new show of the fall airing not on a television network, not even on a cable channel, but on a service where you can also buy underwear, that is a revolutionary moment,” Brian Stelter, CNN correspondent, said of the series. The show, created by Jill Soloway, features three grown children and their father, who is a transgender woman. One daughter is married but has a lesbian affair. Another daughter likes...

SAN FRANCISCO — As a Mexican-American woman who started her own consulting firm in Los Angeles, accountant Sonia Luna has taken advantage of programs aimed at helping minority- and female-owned businesses compete for government and corporate contracts. But increasingly, the fact that Luna is a lesbian entrepreneur hasn't hurt, either. Federal agencies, organizations such as the National Football League and more than one-third of Fortune 500 companies are trying to expand their vendor pools by explicitly encouraging bids from gay, lesbian and transgender contractors. The little-known outreach efforts mirror longstanding “supplier diversity” initiatives aimed at developing economic opportunities for businesses...

Florida's ban on marriages between same-sex couples is headed for a midnight end, with wedding vows planned around the state. A stay expires late Monday in a federal judge's ruling striking down the ban enacted in 2008 by voters. Several court clerks are planning to begin issuing....

Defense lawyers for 26 men arrested in a televised raid by police looking for gays at an Egyptian bathhouse criticized the prosecution’s case Sunday, saying it is based on a faulty investigation and only one police officer’s testimony. The raid was part of an ongoing crackdown on gays in Egypt, described by activists as the worst in more than a decade. While consensual gay and lesbian relationships are not specifically outlawed in Egypt, there is a societal taboo against same-sex couples. A private TV station’s crew filmed the men’s arrest, saying it tipped off police to a bathhouse “hosting men...

(FOX19) - A Change.org petition asking to ban transgender conversion therapy following Leelah Alcorn's death has received more than 233,000 signatures in two days. The Transgender Human Rights Institute posted the petition on Dec. 31 asking President Barack Obama and the leadership of the House and Senate to begin the process of banning transgender conversion therapy throughout the nation. "'Conversion therapies' have been documented to cause great harms and in this case, Leelah's death. Therapists that engage in the attempt to brainwash or reverse any child's gender identity are seriously unethical and legislation is needed to end such practices immediately,"...