Free Republic

After 500 comments about his prison-sex theory of orientation, I figured you’d be interested in an update. Having taken a ferocious beating in the media for the better part of a day, Carson finally says no mas: “I also believe that our Constitution protects everybody, regardless of their beliefs, and that includes people who are gay,” Mr. Carson continued. “I have no problem with them doing whatever they want to do. I’m just not willing to change the definition of marriage for anybody, because once you do that, you have to change it for everyone else who comes along....

Washington (CNN)Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson apologized for commenting Wednesday that prisoners' changes after they leave jail proves being gay is a choice, but said that the science is still murky on the issue. In a statement, Carson said he "realized that my choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues." "I do not pretend to know how every individual came to their sexual orientation. I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive. For that I apologize unreservedly to all that were offended," he added. 

By Fox News. Potential 2016 presidential candidate Ben Carson apologized Wednesday for saying homosexuality was a lifestyle choice.“I do not pretend to know how every individual came to their sexual orientation,” Carson said on his Facebook page late Wednesday afternoon. “I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive. For that I apologize unreservedly to all that were offended.” Carson, a neurosurgeon, was attempting to clarify comments he made earlier in the day to Chris Cuomo on CNN’s “New Day” show. “A lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and...

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential candidate, said Wednesday that “a lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay.” The remarks were made on CNN’s “New Day” in response to a question from host Chris Cuomo, who asked if Carson thought being gay was a “choice.” “Absolutely,” Carson replied. Asked why, he went on to explain his prison theory. “So did something happen while they were in there?” he said. “Ask yourself that question.”

Kathleen Matthews, Marriott International’s executive vice president and chief global communications and public affairs officer, and wife of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, is planning to run for the seat of Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Van Hollen announced Wednesday that he’ll seek the seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Mikulski. ... Matthews, who has long talked about running for office, advocated Marriott’s move toward more progressive policies, including sustainability and LGBT friendliness. ... She’s on the boards of Catholic Charities Foundation, Ford’s Theatre and

APRC withdrew its participation from Amplify Austin, a large 24-hour fundraising drive for non-profits this week, after the organization placed restrictions on faith-based groups. The restrictions included that funds from the event could not go to groups that communicate their faith while helping others or “promote religious doctrine or instruction.” Funding for the non-profit pregnancy centers is vital to their ability to help pregnant women and babies. However, their purpose to minister to both the physical and spiritual needs of these women appeared to be restricted by Amplify Austin’s new policies. APRC has chosen instead to engage in its own...

Utah lawmakers introduced a landmark bill Wednesday that bars discrimination against gay and transgender individuals while protecting the rights of religious groups and individuals. The measure has a rare stamp of approval from the Mormon church and stands a high chance of passing in Utah, where the church is based and many state lawmakers and the Republican governor are members of the faith.

Wesleyan University is now offering housing for LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM students. That is not a typo or an intentional over-statement of what they are pushing for. Instead, "LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM" is the exact acronym that Wesleyan's Office of Residence Life actually used to talk about how open their housing is, aptly named "Open House." "Open House," they explained, "is a safe space for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderf*ck, Polyamourous, Bondage/Disciple, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism (LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM) communities and for people of sexually or gender dissident communities." Now, according to Wesleyan, being gay or transsexual is the equivalent to being into sadism and...

Quietly on Christmas Eve, the Obama administration changed the rules on handling refugee children who enter the country without their parents and report being victims of sexual assault. All refugee aid groups, including Catholic and other Christian groups, will now be required to refer those girls to facilities that provide abortions. Religious groups that work with refugees are concerned that the new rules may require them to give up federal funding. Dr. Susan Yoshihara of the New York and Washington DC-based Center for Family & Human Rights (C-Fam) first reported the change last week: “Faith-based groups say this is a...

Shortly after the 2012 election ended, David Kochel, the top-flight Iowa Republican strategist who had run Mitt Romney’s campaign in the state, decided to stop keeping his opinion of marriage equality to himself. He had spent years helping presidential candidates court the conservative Christian voters who dominated Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, but he had grown increasingly convinced that his party was on the wrong side of the marriage debate, both morally and politically. With the campaign over, Kochel — who declined to comment for this story — began turning up at gatherings for pro-gay Republicans, calling on the GOP to modernize...

Disappointing progressives yet again, Pope Francis has now condemned contemporary gender theory as denying “the order of creation.” In an interview published in a new book, Pope Francis: This Economy Kills, by Andrea Tornielli and Giacomo Galeazzi, (portions of which were also published last month in the Italian daily La Stampa), Pope Francis appears to reject the postmodern conceptualization of gender as a moveable point along a spectrum that is fluid and changeable. He does not accept the progressive claim that gender is socially constructed rather than God-given and instead appears to embrace gender in a traditional “binary” category of...

Campus housing specifically for 15 alternative sexualities, including sadomasochists, is acceptable, but fraternities that just allow men are not, at Wesleyan University. Wesleyan University housing has an option for students who want to live with others identifying with one of 15 categories — LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM. The university's inclusiveness excludes, however, male-only fraternities. Delta Kappa Epsilon sued Wesleyan University after the liberal arts college ordered all of its fraternities to admit women, charging sexual discrimination and false and deceptive practices. Wesleyan, a Connecticut college, was founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named after 18th century evangelical theologian John Wesley, but is...

(CNSNews.com) – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is advancing federal regulations that require federally funded organizations caring for illegal alien minors who are in the United States without their parents (Unaccompanied Children or UC) and who may have been sexually abused access to “emergency contraception” services. “Emergency contraception” includes abortion-inducing drugs. These care providers currently include Catholic and other faith-based organizations that oppose abortion, according to the Center for Family and Human Rights or C-FAM, a Catholic advocacy group. The Interim Final Rule was published in the Federal Register on Dec. 24,...

The State Department has appointed its first special envoy to promote LGBT rights globally. Randy Berry, a senior U.S. Foreign Service officer will oversee the government’s efforts to end violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people around the world. Secretary of State John Kerry said that too often, in too many countries, LGBT people are threatened, jailed and prosecuted. “That’s why we’re working to overturn laws that criminalize consensual same-sex conduct in countries around the world,” he said in a statement. “It’s why we’re building our capacity to respond rapidly to violence against LGBT persons, and it’s...

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has offered florist Barronelle Stutzman a deal: She can cater to same-sex weddings or she can stop doing weddings altogether. Of course, there’s always a third option: She can go out of business. Ms. Stutzman, the 70-year-old owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, is opting for none of the above. “Your offer reveals that you don’t really understand me or what this conflict is all about,” Ms. Stutzman said in a letter to Mr. Ferguson. “It’s about freedom, not money. I certainly don’t relish the idea of losing my business, my home, and everything...

The White House on Monday backed Defense Secretary Ashton Carter's remark that transgender people should not be precluded from military service because of their sexual identity. “The president agrees with the sentiment that all Americans who are qualified to serve, should be able to serve,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said during a press briefing. “For that reason, we here at the White House welcome the comments from the Secretary of Defense,” he added. On Sunday, Carter said he was “very open minded” about the idea of transgender people serving in the military. “I don't think anything but their...

Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene's Flowers, poses for a photo outside of her Richland, Washington, floral shop. Putting florist, grandmother and devout Southern Baptist Barronelle Stutzman out of business was not enough for some Washington state officials. She could lose her home and life savings as well after a Washington superior court judge ruled that she violated the state's anti-discrimination law because she declined to provide flowers for a same-sex couple's wedding due to her religious convictions.After Benton County Superior Court Judge ruled on Wednesday that Stutzman violated the law when she refused to provide floral arrangements for the wedding...

A Washington grandmother and florist of 40 years who refused to service gay weddings because of her faith will now be forced to arrange flowers for gay ceremonies, a judge ruled Wednesday. On top of that, the woman, Barronelle Stutzman, will have to pay the legal penalties imposed by the judge as well as attorney’s fees. Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom ruled in a summary judgement that Stutzman violated anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws. Ekstrom ruled that the gay couple could collect penalties not just from her business, but also from her personally, according to Alliance Defending Freedom,...

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A prominent American Catholic gay rights group was given VIP treatment for the first time at an audience with Pope Francis on Wednesday, a move members saw as a sign of change in the Roman Catholic Church. "This is a sign of movement that's due to the Francis effect," said Sister Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, which ministers to homosexual Catholics and promotes gay rights in the 1.2 billion-member Church. Gramick and executive director Francis DeBernardo led a pilgrimage of 50 homosexual Catholics to the audience in St. Peter's Square. They told Reuters in...

If you are reading my column, you are familiar with the claim that campus administrators often seek to deprive young conservatives of the ability to defend their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. But you may not have heard the claim that campus administrators often deprive young leftists of the ability to defend their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. The latter contention is the subject of the present column. It begins with a salient example from my own campus, UNC-Wilmington. Here on my campus, a bold Christian organization called Ratio Christi often seeks to open up the marketplace of...

New York City, N.Y., Feb 13, 2015 / 04:02 am (CNA).- Questions are being raised over two U.S. foundations that have poured more than three million dollars into abortion rights, LGBT activist, and legal groups to push the message that exemptions based on religious beliefs are “un-American” and an abuse of liberty. The Arcus Foundation and the Ford Foundation have spent over $3 million in combined spending against religious liberty exemptions since 2013, according to a CNA review of tax forms and grant listings. John Lomperis of the Institute for Religion and Democracy – a D.C.-based ecumenical Christian think tank...

(CNSNews.com) – An administrative law judge in Oregon has ruled against Melissa Klein’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a lesbian couple after Klein declined to make their wedding cake because of her biblical belief that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman. A hearing in March will now determine what fines will be levied against Klein for “damages” suffered by the lesbians. Attorneys for Klein, owner with her husband Aaron Klein of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, Ore., had sought to have the case dismissed and to be awarded $200,000 in legal...

The Irish are a people known for their pithy proverbs. Well, here’s one the committee that organizes the New York City St. Patrick’s Day parade should take to heart: There’s nothing so bad that it couldn’t be worse.As part of a well-publicized “compromise,” the committee has said it will allow both a gay advocacy group and an explicitly pro-life group to march in this year’s parade. The gay advocacy group was selected back in September. The 2015 parade is five weeks away. As of this writing, the identity of the pro-life group remains a mystery.Last fall, the parade gave...

This is so expected.  First, the “gay pride” flag was flown over the U.S. Embassy in Madrid.  Then it was Israel’s turn to hoist the rainbow ensign over the embassy in Tel Aviv.  Now, Secretary of State John Kerry will appoint an LGBT special envoy. 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. Resume qualifications for this position:  be openly gay.  It’s not like there’s any discrimination going...

A new study published in the February 2015 issue of the British Journal of Education, Society, and Behavioural Science appears to be the largest yet on the matter of same-sex households and children’s emotional outcomes. It analyzed 512 children of same-sex parents, drawn from a pool of over 207,000 respondents who participated in the (US) National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) at some point between 1997 and 2013. Results reveal that, on eight out of twelve psychometric measures, the risk of clinical emotional problems, developmental problems, or use of mental health treatment services is nearly double among those with same-sex parents...

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed an executive order Tuesday rescinding a protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender state workers put into place eight years ago by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius’ executive order in 2007 said state workers could not be discriminated against, fired or harassed because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Brownback, a Republican, issued an additional executive order affirming that state employees could not be discriminated against because of their race, religion, gender, age or country of national origin. “This Executive Order ensures that state employees enjoy the same civil rights as all Kansans without creating...

...owners of an Oregon bakery who declined to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding celebration were found guilty last week...will have to pay up to $150,000 for violating the Oregon Equality Act of 2007. ...Aaron said the fine would bankrupt the couple and their five children.

Teenagers at a California high school were publicly shamed for disagreeing with speakers allowed to push an LGBT agenda during an English class, according to several upset parents. The Queer Straight Alliance at Acalanes High School, in Lafayette, lectured students in several ninth-grade English classes on Jan. 29 about LGBT issues, according to Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which is representing the parents. During the class, the students, ages 14 and 15, were instructed to stand in a circle. Then, they were grilled about their personal beliefs and their parents’ beliefs on homosexuality, PJI alleges.“The QSA...

Dear Mr. Jenner, You probably don’t know who I am and certainly have no obligation to read on. Even so, I pray you will. As the great Olympic champion God gifted you to be, you were an inspiration to me as a boy and endured as such when I grew into adulthood and professional athletics. I hope you will serve to inspire many more generations of young people. As it stands now, however, you instead appear poised to lead them astray. I implore you to reverse course. I am a follower of Christ Jesus. That is to say, though in...

At the end of 2014 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its sexually transmitted disease surveillance data for the previous year, 2013, showing the rates for primary and secondary syphilis, which is the most infectious stage of syphilis, increased by an alarming 10 percent. “This second year of double-digit increases of syphilis rates is completely unacceptable and also significantly intersects with our HIV epidemic,” says William Smith, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “This continues to affect populations already disproportionately impacted by all STDs, including HIV, most notably gay men and other men who have...

<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>

It’s official: the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries has found that Aaron and Melissa Klein, the Christian bakers who gained national attention after they refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2013, were guilty of discrimination — and could be forced to pay up to $150,000 in damages. “A Gresham bakery unlawfully discriminated against a same-sex couple by denying them full and equal access to a place of public accommodations,” read a statement released by the agency on Monday. The government has found the Kleins — owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa — guilty of...

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently announced it will review a November decision by the Sixth Circuit Court—which represents Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee—that upheld marriage as between a man and a woman. Will the Supreme Court side with the two judges in the majority, or with the one dissenting judge? The majority ruling dismisses any possibility of a constitutional right to gay marriage, while the dissent focuses on an entirely different question of whether gay parents are as good as straight ones. The latter controversy is something that the majority decision explicitly refused to weigh in on, so...

  Sometimes the worst ideas are tried just to show how bad they are.  Like the Pontiac Aztek, or Sylvester Stallone in one more action flick.  Here’s a really bad one:  myfrienemies.com.  It describes itself as a site that “allows you to connect with people who pretend to like the same people as you”—and if you use the site, you’ll meet the other sixteen people who also pretend to like it.  Palestinians and the LGBT community:  frienemies for life.  The only thing they have in common is a hatred for Israel: a country where gays and Arabs serve in the...

I knew I was attracted to the same sex when I was seven — in some capacity, anyway. I don't think it's physiologically possible to truly feel sexual attraction at such a young age. But I knew there was a drawing in me toward the same gender – and drawing that was more than what some would say is "natural" or "normal." As I grew up in a rural Louisiana town and teenage hormones began to surge throughout my body, my drawing toward the same gender intensified — sexually and emotionally. While I was definitely not engulfed in the life...

“Now, many experts view it as a sexual orientation as immutable as heterosexuality ... a deep-rooted predisposition ... that becomes clear during puberty and does not change.”The above idea was expressed with respect to homosexuality decades ago and since has become left-wing dogma. The thinking is that if someone was “born that way,” if the behavior is “natural” for him and he didn’t choose his feelings, how could it be wrong?Yet the opening quoted line wasn’t penned decades ago — it’s only two years old. And homosexuality wasn’t the focus.It was about pedophilia.Here is the complete quotation, as published by...

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender aren’t universal in their support of their own right to marry, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. The survey found that, while support is overwhelming in all segments of the community, seven percent of a nationally-representative sample said they oppose same-sex marriage.

His changing look has been a much-buzzed-about topic for months, and now PEOPLE has confirmed that Bruce Jenner has been quietly making a very personal change. The former Olympian will soon be living life as female. "Bruce is transitioning to a woman," says a source close to the family. "He is finally happy and his family is accepting of what he's doing. He's in such a great space. That's why it's the perfect time to do something like this." And according to a different Jenner insider, the 65-year-old reality star is filming his momentous journey, to be shared with viewers...

In what has been described as a new front in the battle over same-sex marriage, legislators in several states under judicial orders to confer marital status on same-sex couples have introduced bills to forbid state or local officials from issuing marriage licenses to couples of the same gender. The bills would also strip the salaries of employees who issued the licenses, the New York Times reported Thursday.The bills have been introduced in the legislatures of Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas, with South Carolina also considering a bill that would allow officials to opt out of issuing such licenses if it...

Minnesotans are currently facing a fast and furious onslaught by the transgender lobby, which seems to be dictating policy to the Minnesota State High School League. The MSHSL decides policy for all extracurricular activities in public, private, religious, and home schools. It’s currently in the process of outlawing all sex distinctions in high-school sports. On December 4, it plans to install an athletic policy granting transgender students the choice to play on either boys’ or girls’ teams. In this scheme, there would be no accounting for sex differences in high school sports on the field or in locker rooms, bathrooms,...

A few years ago the NFL discovered female fans. Now, apparently, the league has discovered that gays also enjoy watching men in tight pants jump on top of one another. Because in what is believed to be a first, an LGBT publication has received a credential to cover the Super Bowl. Outsports writer Cyd Zeigler is headed to Arizona today to cover the big game — and he gets a seat in the press box. Unfortunately, Cyd missed yesterday’s Media Day circus and the chance to ask Tom Brady questions like, “Where is Gisele?” (Answer: “Home with the kids.”)

If you thought everyone in the LGBT community wanted gay marriage, you would be wrong. It's much more nuanced than that.A new chart from Pew, based on 2013 data, shows that 7 percent of LGBT Americans said they oppose same-sex marriage. And another 18 percent said they favor it, but that they didn't feel strongly. Perhaps most striking, 39 percent of the LGBT community said the marriage fight was taking focus off other issues of import to them.Opposition to gay marriage in the LGBT community, such as it exists, is driven by three groups: LGBT blacks, LGBT Republicans, and bisexual...

Azucar Bakery owner Marjorie Silva refused to make a Bible-shaped cake complete with strong anti-gay wording and imagery. Azucar Bakery found itself in hot waters over the message that was meant to go on a Bible-shaped cake, reported Out Front Colorado. The staff at the South Broadway spot refused to write "God hates homosexuality" and other anti-LGBT text and imagery on a cake that a man attempted to order. The man came in and began ordering a cake. After he found an image of a Bible-shaped cake to his liking, he showed the bakery employees the message he wanted displayed...

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.

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...

Word is now circulating around the Catholic world that conservative hero Gary Sinise, along with Fox News anchor Bret Baier, both publicly professed faithful Catholics, cancelled their appearances at a Legatus Summit at the last minute under pressure from the LGBT crowd. Legatus is the organization of Catholic CEOs founded by pizza billionaire Tom Monaghan to advance the spirituality of Catholic men and women in the higher echelons of American business. The primary work of Legatus and its members is the increased holiness of the members and spreading the gospel within corporate America. Certainly there is a conservative tinge to...

Like a plastic Piggly Wiggly bag fluttering about in the alley, those untethered from God’s natural law are violently tossed to and fro by the gusting winds of moral relativism. Jenny Kutner is one such Piggly Wiggly bag. A 20-something assistant editor at Salon.com, she describes herself as “focusing on sex, gender and feminism.” By “focusing on sex, gender and feminism,” and as you will soon see, this young “progressive” means to say that she spends her days rationalizing each and every conceivable form of sexual deviancy, as well as trying to otherwise deconstruct that which she and her fellow...

Arizona University's Canyon Coffee shop is now offering a marshmallow "gender neutral snow being" instead of a marshmallow snowman so as not to offend women or the LGBT community. The "gender neutral snow being" has actually been a selling point for several months, but only now has been released. This picture, taken in September, promises the snow being "coming soon:" That gender neutral snow being has now arrived, according to the Arizona Student Union's twitter feed: How snowmen are exactly offensive is not explained in the advertisement.

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...

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — Members of San Francisco’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community are marching Christmas Eve morning and plan to shutdown Highway 101 at Octavia Street in a protest over recent police violence.