Free Republic

Secretary of State John Kerry marked “Transgender Day of Remembrance” Wednesday, noting that these individuals are “harassed, arrested or even killed simply because of who they are and who they love.” The U.S. was joining the international event by “honoring the memory of lives lost to violence provoked by fear and hatred of transgender and gender non-conforming people,” he said. Kerry said despite “tremendous progress in advancing the rights of LGBT people” these individuals still face violence, including in the United States. …

"Transgender Day of Remembrance Lunch Join us as and discuss the challenges that the transgendered community faces in the workplace and society. Lunch is provided. This event is brought to you by the [comapanys named] PRIDE Network. Join now."

MISSION, TX, November 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Planned Parenthood facility in Texas has reopened its doors, thanks to federal taxpayer dollars it has received from the Obama administration. The office in the Texas border town of Mission threw a reopening celebration on Friday, two years after it closed down. The facility – which is named after the Rev. Bruce Galloway – gives women referrals for surgical abortions, offers chemical abortions by administering the “morning-after pill,” and performs “LGBT services.”

Washington Comes Out: Ten percent of adults in the District of Columbia identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, nearly three times the national average. What makes the city such a gay-friendly place?

October 18, 2013 (Public Discourse) - I was surprised to see the posters. As I walked into my dormitory after a morning class, I saw posters advertising Notre Dame’s participation in National Coming Out Day (NCOD). I saw that the university’s Gender Relations Center (GRC) was cosponsoring the event, along with Notre Dame’s newly formed gay-straight alliance, PrismND. National Coming Out Day has been celebrated annually on October 11—the date commemorating the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights—since its founding in 1988. According to Maureen Doyle, the GRC’s Assistant Director for LGBTQ Initiatives, Notre Dame has...

The sheriff of Houston's Harris County has adopted a sweeping policy designed to protect and guarantee equal treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender inmates, including allowing transgender individuals to be housed based on the gender they identify with instead of their biological sex. The new policy, which Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia's office believes to be one of the most comprehensive in the country, states "discrimination or harassment of any kind based on sexual orientation or gender identity is strictly prohibited," and outlines how such inmates will be searched, booked and housed, according to a copy of the policy...

SPRINGFIELD-The head of Springfield’s Roman Catholic diocese moved Tuesday to scuttle a silent protest by same-sex marriage advocates planned at the capital city’s largest Catholic church, calling their plans to pray the rosary for marriage equality “blasphemous.”Advocates for the Senate Bill 10 plan to attend a 5:15 p.m. Tuesday Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception as part of what organizers describe as a “loud Catholic Presence for marriage equality” that will wrap up a daylong rally in support of the stalled legislation.But Bishop Thomas Paprocki, head of the Springfield Catholic diocese, said anyone wearing rainbow sashes won’t be...

[Imagine a prenatal test that, like the one for trisomy 21 (Down's syndrome), could show a predisposition to gayness.] In a New York magazine piece, “The Science of Gaydar,” writer David France looks at the growing scientific evidence for innate differences between gay and straight people. France ends by gazing toward the future, and asks the question, “What if prenatal tests were able to show a predisposition to gayness?” Well, France reports, “[Northwestern University psychological professor] Michael Bailey, for one, isn’t troubled by the moral implications any more than he would oppose fetal screens for potential birth defects, though...

President Obama is expected to nominate former Pentagon lawyer Jeh Johnson as the next Homeland Security secretary, ABC News has learned. --SNIP-- Johnson has called working for the Obama administration "the highlight of [his] professional life." "I have been on an incredible journey with Barack Obama ... going back to November 2006 when he recruited me to the presidential campaign he was about to launch," Johnson said in a speech at Yale Law School last year. "I remember thinking then, 'This is a long-shot, but it will be exciting, historic, and how many times in my life will someone personally...

If we think of the gigantic progress made by the "gay liberation" movement in just a few decades or even years, we are astonished. The idea of homomarriage would have been unthinkable 20-30 years ago when homosexuals themselves were declaring their opposition to this institution, and even 5 years ago it would have been difficult for it to become part of the UK law. It has required a social re-education programme of vast proportions, a cultural war for general sexual freedom, of which homosexual "liberation" is part. One method of crucial importance and psychological effectiveness employed by the homosexual...

Starting next January, health insurance plans in California must offer coverage for fertility treatments to homosexual couples and unmarried individuals under a new law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday. The law amends the state’s Insurance Code to prohibit insurers from withholding coverage for most fertility treatments based on “age, ancestry, color, disability, domestic partner status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, sex or sexual orientation.” … A.B.460 was introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a San Franciso Democrat and LGBT rights activist who portrayed himself in a film starring Sean Penn about the murder...

What are your kids studying in school today? Public schools from California to Florida are celebrating LGBT History Month, where they highlight a homosexual or lesbian each day. Today, America’s school children are learning about Edward-turned-Gwen Araujo, who was intimate with men who allegedly beat him when they discovered that he was not a woman. “If parents think our school children should be focused on science and math, not sex and murder, they need to talk to teachers, principals, and school boards to ensure that this program is stopped,” cautions Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “The sexual...

Kaitlyn Hunt will stay in jail until mid-December.A Florida teen accused of having sex with her underage girlfriend accepted a plea deal Thursday that her attorney says is in her best interest. Kaitlyn Hunt, 19, pleaded no contest to battery, interference with child custody and contributing to the dependency of a child. Hunt was charged in February with having sex with a 14-year-old female schoolmate. Hunt was 18 at the time. A previous plea deal was withdrawn in August following allegations that Hunt exchanged thousands of texts with the girl and sent her nude photos. A judge revoked her bond,...

During its fall meeting on September 22, the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees approved the construction of The Triangle House for the College’s LGBTQIA students. The vote affirmed the Board’s commitment to the Affinity House, which was previously stated at its June 7, 2013, meeting. “The Triangle House will be a welcome addition to Dartmouth, and a tangible sign of the Board’s commitment to increase the diversity of social, intellectual, and residential options on campus,” says President Phil Hanlon ’77. “It is also part of Dartmouth’s continuing commitment to having a campus that is inclusive, respectful, and engaged.” Located at...

As opera lovers in New York City's Metropolitan Opera froze in silent anticipation of the new season's first sounds, what they heard was not the introduction to Pyotr Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin," but shouts of protest against the recently-passed legislation that bans the public expression of LGBT identity in Russia. "Putin, end your war on Russian gays," a member of a New York-based LGBT organization shouted, unfurling a rainbow flag. His three colleagues joined chanting "Anna, your silence is killing Russian gays! Valery, your silence is killing Russian gays!" The activists inside the theater were peacefully escorted out. A few dozen...

What does it take for an employee to get fired in Eric Holder’s Justice Department Civil Rights Division? Certainly perjury doesn’t do it. Neither does using a government credit card to book airfare for romantic liaisons with a Miami girlfriend — that just gets you a nice buyout. Want to use civil rights laws to protect only black victims of discrimination? Ho hum. The culture of lawlessness is so pervasive at the Civil Rights Division that a former Voting Section chief felt comfortable telephoning current DOJ employees and suggesting they turn over confidential memos … because they were worth cash...

BERLIN, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- A transgender person who gave birth to a boy in Germany is fighting to be recognized as the child's father, rather than his mother, court documents indicate. The unidentified Berlin man was born a woman, but has identified himself as a man and has undergone hormonal treatment. He still has female reproductive organs, and gave birth to a child on April 11 after becoming pregnant with a sperm donation, The Local.de reported. The hospital, which requires a mother be listed in birth documents, have listed the man as a mother, while the man claims the...

Christians who believe that being gay is a sin that violates biblical tenets now have some competition among their own ranks. As the debate over gay marriage continues to intensify at the local, state and national level, a new group has launched with the sole purpose of giving “LGBT-affirming Christians a means of proclaiming to the world” that there’s nothing sinful about being gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender. At the center of the NALT Christians Project (NALT stands for “Not All Like That”) is the claim that there’s nothing in the Bible that would contradict or condemn a homosexual lifestyle....

Virginia’s National Guard will provide health insurance and other benefits to same-sex couples, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell said Thursday, one day after a state delegate urged him to defy a new Pentagon directive to treat all marriages equally. In a letter to McDonnell this week, Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) warned that providing the benefits would violate the state constitutional ban on gay marriage. “As Commander of the Virginia National Guard[,] what will you do to secure that the spirit and letter of the [state] Constitution regarding marriage will be upheld?” Marshall wrote. McDonnell, a social conservative who has...

The last thing US President Barack Obama did during his trip to Russia for the G20 summit was meet Friday with a group of Russian human rights activists, including members of the gay community, in an encounter that attendants described as symbolic, and a signal to the Russian authorities. The group of nine activists who met with Obama for a little over an hour included three gay activists from LGBT organizations that have not traditionally been invited to take part in meetings with visiting senior US officials. Russia passed a controversial new law earlier this year banning the “promotion of...