Free Republic

Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a Christian-owned bakery, closed its doors earlier this year after its owners Aaron and Melissa Klein were found guilty of violating gay people's rights by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.The Kleins refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple in 2013, which resulted in the complaint against them.However, the bakery, now called "Sweet Cakes," continues to exist as an online business.According to The Advocate, the bakery recently posted a picture on its Facebook page of some goods that it recently made for the Restored Hope Network, an ex-gay organization, and added...

Georgina Bloomberg is the face of the millennials — a generation of young adults unfazed by the old rules of morality. At age 31, the elder of billionaire former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s two daughters is a professional equestrienne who, in December, gave birth to a son, Jasper Michael Brown Quintana, by her horseback- riding beau, the Argentine-born Ramiro Quintana, 37. And if you thought the arrival of a bouncing bundle of joy might propel the heiress to gallop to the nearest chuppah, you’d be mistaken. “I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever get married,’’ Georgina Bloomberg told Hamptons magazine. “It’s...

An April 2014 Urban Institute study predicts that if current marriage rates do not rebound, just 69 percent of Millennial women (and 65 percent of men) will marry by the age of 40. By contrast, in 1990, 91 percent of U.S.-born women had married by the age of 40. Almost none of this retreat from marriage will be felt among college-educated white Americans. The majority of college-educated Millennials will marry and have their children in marriages that last until the death of one partner. Meanwhile, the average American lives in a world where sex is plentiful but stable families are...

Last night, New York Times reporter Josh Barro tweeted out a disturbing message: “Anti-LGBT attitudes are terrible for people in all sorts of communities. They linger and oppress, and we need to stamp them out, ruthlessly.” This is rather shocking. Barro is no angry blogger writing manifestos in his basement. He is a respected reporter from a prestigious newspaper that prides itself on equanimity in the face of heated debate. Yet he seems, by any reasonable measure, to be fomenting a campaign to rout all dissenters from the sexual revolution. Erick Erickson wrote a brief response to Barro’s tweet, to...

California is going beyond being one of the 19 states currently allowing same-sex "marriage" by revolutionizing the sacred institution even further with Gov. Jerry Brown's (D) signing of Senate Bill 1306, which eradicates from state laws references to "husband and wife." Progressive media outlets are heralding this change as necessary and overdo. "California's same-sex couples may now be pronounced spouse and spouse after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill [last] Monday eliminating outdated 'husband and wife' references from state laws," Huffington Post reported. "Senate Bill 1306 was introduced by state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) to eliminate confusion and...

The existence of gay Republicans is hardly a new phenomenon. The Log Cabin Republicans, an organization for gay men and women within the party, was founded back in 1977 in California. But every so often, the existence of gay conservatives gets media attention, particularly during election cycles. In more recent years, gay conservatives have been getting more attention as the Republican Party struggles with its identity. American opinion has shifted significantly to support top issues among gays and lesbians, particularly in support of marriage recognition. Support for gay marriage among evangelical Christians has doubled over the past decade, according to...

Lisa Aronson Coconut Creek Russ Barley Freeport Peter Bober Hollywood Craig Cates Key West Joy Cooper Hallandale Beach David Coviello Biscayne Park Daniel Dietch Surfside Rob Downey Melbourne Village Harry Dressler Tamarac Buddy Dyer Orlando Pat Gerard Largo Samuel Henderson Gulfport Richard Kaplan Lauderhill Rick Kriseman St. Petersburg Connie Leon Kreps North Bay Village Cindy Lerner Pinecrest Philip Levine Miami Beach Sue Lynn Anna Maria John Marks Tallahassee Shari McCartney Oakland Park Ashira Mohammed Pembroke Park Lori Moseley Miramar Jeri Muoio West Palm Beach Frank Ortis Pembroke Pines Judy Paul Davie Lesa Peerman Margate Gary Resnick Wilton Manors Michael Ryan...

New Zealand’s first same-sex “marriage” is shaping up to become the country’s first same-sex divorce. Less than a year since they became the poster girls for the country’s new legal definition of marriage (last August) the NZ Herald reports that Melissa Ray, a former Ferns football player, and Natasha Vitali, a sales rep, are “believed to have split”. The main source of the story appears to be Ms Vitali’s Facebook page on which the following poem appeared yesterday: Drink it down, laugh it off, Avoid the drama, take chances, And never have regrets Because at one point everything you did...

Joel Vasquez Rojas, the mayor of San Pedro Huamelula, married the reptile – dressed in a white gown – at the city hall and then shared a dance in front of packed party of local residents. According to local tradition, the crocodile is a princess whose marriage to the town mayor will bring in an abundance of seafood for fisherman on the Pacific coast. ‘As young people, this means a lot,’ said local resident Eduardo Zarate 'It’s the greatest treasure our ancestors have left us.’ For safety, the crocodile’s jaw was wired shut for the day. ‘It is my wish...

Pakistan’s ongoing military operation may be making headway in clearing militant hideouts, but it has shattered the dream of one father of 36 children — to take a fourth wife. Gulzar Khan is one of hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the North Waziristan tribal area since the army moved in to clear longstanding bases of Taliban and other militants. Escaping the military advance meant leaving the 35-room house he shares in the North Waziristan village of Shawa with around 100 family members, including wives, children and grandchildren. The 54-year-old grumbled that paying to transport his brood used...

Nine-year-old Saneie Masilela has become the world's youngest groom for the second time after remarrying the 62-year-old woman he tied the knot with last year. Dressed in a silvery tuxedo, baby-faced Saneie clutched the hand of mother-of-five Helen Shabangu - her children are aged between 28- and 38-years-old - as they repeated their vows a year on in front of 100 guests.

We think Cheryl Cole’s missed a trick with her quickie wedding on Macaroni Beach in Mustique. Just look at what she could have had – her very own McWedding (Drive Thru or marry in). Yes, McDonald’s has the answer for all those normcore brides out there. Well, at least the ones willing to travel to Hong Kong. The fast food chain has been slowly expanding its wedding party program since 2011 and now boasts 11 restaurants that double up as budget wedding venues, all in Hong Kong. And not only can you have the wedding ceremony there, they’ll also host...

Strasbourg, France, Jul 18, 2014 / 02:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the refusal to recognize same-sex “marriages” does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. In a July 16 ruling, the human rights court explained that while “some Contracting States have extended marriage to same-sex partners,” European laws establishing the right of men and women to freely marry “cannot be construed as imposing an obligation on the Contracting States to grant access to marriage to same-sex couples.” The applicant to the high European human rights court brought his petition after Finland refused...

Q: Please help me with a matter weighing on my conscience. My husband and I married in our parish church 16 years ago, but I agreed to get married there only because that’s what my parents wanted. Unlike my husband, I wasn’t really practicing my faith, I just went through the motions… gradually I had a reawakening of faith, and now am fully committed to the Catholic Church. But I’m afraid our marriage isn’t valid because I didn’t embrace concepts like indissolubility at the time of our wedding, nor did I want children, although I later changed my mind…. What...

Attorney General Pam Bondi said she would appeal, and spokeswoman says: "With many similar cases pending throughout the entire country, finality on this constitutional issue must come from the U.S. Supreme Court." Sen. Bill Nelson: "We’ll see whether the state appeals. Meantime, as I’ve said, I believe it's wrong to discriminate against any class of people including on civil marriage.” Democratic candidate for governor Charlie Crist: "Today was a great step towards equality in Florida. It is my hope that Governor Scott and Attorney General Bondi will accept the decision of the judge and allow all Florida adults to marry...

A Finnish citizen who wanted the state to recognize her new gender after surgery and remain legally married to woman at the same time lost her case at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday (16 July). Heil Hamalainen underwent male-to-female gender reassignment surgery in 2009, years after she married her partner. But Finnish law does not recognize same-sex marriages. State authorities said that for Hamalainen to have her new gender recognized, she would need to turn the marriage into a civil partnership or get a divorce—something the couple refused. …

Blogging for the Ruth Institute, Jennifer Johnson recounted her experience of growing up with five parents. The piece responds to claims by Masha Gessen, a prominent LGBT activist who was recently honored by the state department, who has famously celebrated her own unorthodox family as the shape of things to come: I have three kids who have five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally… I would like to live in a legal system that is capable of reflecting that reality, and I don’t think that’s compatible with the institution of marriage....

The story behind a case that made headlines a few months back, from The New York Times: Father and son had always been close, from the moment Tim Schaefer was born, six weeks premature, with blood poisoning, a weak heart and lungs, and a doctor who thought he would not make it through the night.His father, the Rev. Frank Schaefer, a United Methodist minister, thought of his eldest son as a miracle child, saved by some combination of medicine and prayer, saved for something special.“We couldn’t even touch him; he was in an incubator, and we had to reach in...

CHRISTIANS should be encouraged to marry Muslims as a way of tackling Islamophobia, a senior peer claimed today. Lord Scott, a former Supreme Court Judge, cited his own family - in which two of his four children married Muslims - as an example of how interfaith families can thrive. The peer, who sits as a crossbencher in the Lords, made the comments during a debate on how to improve relations between the Muslim community and other faith groups in the UK. He said: “Of my two sons one has become a Muslim and of my two daughters one of those...

A judge in Australia has been criticised after saying incest may no longer be a taboo and that the community may now accept consensual sex between adult siblings. Judge Garry Neilson, from the district court in the state of New South Wales, likened incest to homosexuality, which was once regarded as criminal and "unnatural" but is now widely accepted. He said incest was now only a crime because it may lead to abnormalities in offspring but this rationale was increasingly irrelevant because of the availability of contraception and abortion.