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OLYMPIA, Washington, January 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Washington State will now require public buildings, including schools, to allow individuals to use bathrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex. Having taken effect on December 26, the transgender bathroom rule was created by the State Human Rights Commission and has been in the works since 2012. It eliminates a previous separate standard for schools, which allowed them to look at locker room use for transgender students on a case-by-case basis. Human Rights Commission executive director Sharon Ortiz, along with ACLU staff attorney Margaret Chen, said the rule clarifies law that previously...

Raising the bar for other cities throughout the country, New York City announced "strong" and "bold" protections for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. The new legal guidance, issued Dec. 21 by the New York City Commission on Human Rights, came as part of an expansion of the city's 2002 Human Rights Law, which protects against discrimination in a range of categories. The updated policy specifically protects transgender and gender non-conforming individuals from discrimination in areas of employment, public accommodation, and housing.

Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court on Wednesday issued an order that the state’s probate judges, the only ones in the state who are allowed to issue marriage licenses, are to follow the state's Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and the state's Marriage Protection Act until the full state Supreme Court rules on the issue. In other words, stop granting marriage licenses to same-sex duos, even though that was the intent of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision last summer. "Until further decision by the Alabama Supreme Court, the existing orders of the Alabama Supreme Court that Alabama...

Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico who became the Libertarian Party's 2012 presidential nominee, will officially announce his 2016 campaign on Fox News on Wednesday.

Bolick is a veteran litigator whose long record includes arguing and winning cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Arizona Supreme Court, and various state and federal courts. In 1991, along with William H. "Chip" Mellor, Bolick co-founded the Institute for Justice, a national public interest law firm. In 2007 Bolick joined the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, where he most recently served as vice president for strategic litigation. It's no exaggeration to describe Clint Bolick as one of the central figures behind the rise and success of today's libertarian legal movement. Bolick's legal theories and litigation strategies—some of which...

A dissenting voice from the Church of Greece has emerged amongst the harsh criticism leveled against the government's passing of a law that grants some rights to same-sex partnerships in Greece. Chrysostomos, the Metropolitan of Messinia, whose diocese covers southern Greece, said in an interview with a local news site TharrosNews.gr, that homosexuals, like all humans, are a creation of God and they deserve the same respect and honor-- and not violence and rejection. Chrysostomos' statements came after another bishop of the Church, from nearby Kalavryta, Metropolitan Ambrosios issued a caustic call to his faithful to spit on and beat...

On December 23 it became known that the law on "free cohabitation" of sodomites had been adopted by majority vote at the plenary meeting of the Greek Parliament. The European Court of Human Rights pressured them to bring Greek legislation into conformity with European law. Athanasius Zoitakis. Athanasius, please, tell us how the legalization of same-sex "unions" has become possible in such a country as Orthodox Greece where there is no separation of the Church and state?! It was quite natural to expect it, though until the last day we hoped that would not happen. The fact is that for...

While appearing on Alan Colmes' radio show some months ago, former presidential candidate Ron Paul expressed his belief that Trump is "almost the opposite of a libertarian" candidate. Trump, according to Paul, never expresses his desire to "give you your freedom and your liberty to run your life as you choose." Rather, he in effect assures us: "I know the answers and I'm going to do this and I've done this, I've done this, this and this."Surely, Paul is on to something. That being said, the following considerations should be borne in mind. First, that Paul rejects Trump for not being a...

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Wednesday blasted Ted Cruz after a POLITICO report quoted the Texas senator telling a donor that fighting gay marriage wouldn't be a "top-three priority" for his administration. "Conservatives are being asked to 'coalesce' around yet another corporately-funded candidate that says something very different at a big donor fundraiser in Manhattan than at a church in Marshalltown," Huckabee said in a statement released by his campaign Wednesday afternoon. "Shouldn't a candidate be expected to have authenticity and consistency, instead of having to look at a map to decide what to believe and what to say?"...

As President Obama prepares to announce new executive actions on gun control Monday, a newly released Gallup Poll shows that "guns/gun control" ranked near the bottom of Americans' most pressing concerns in 2015. In fact, guns/gun control ranked 19th out of 23 top problems facing the country last year.

Which is obvious to anyone not intentionally misreading it. The real news here is not that Antonin Scalia said this, but that it’s the slightest bit controversial. But that’s not something that happened overnight. The secular left and their media servants have spent decades pushing the idea that the establishment clause is about protecting the non-religious from maniacal Jesus freaks - especially the nightmare scenario in which the Jesus freaks get a job with any public entity and are guided in any decision by biblical principles. Scalia is a man who actually knows about the founding of the nation and...

ISIS terror thugs killed a teenage boy for being 'gay' - but the man who raped him was just demoted and sent to the front lines. The 15-year-old boy was arrested by ISIS militants on charges of homosexuality and he was thrown from the top of a building in central Deir ez-Zor, Syria. “The horrific execution took place in front of a large crowd,” a local media activist who witnessed the killing told Syrian news agency ARA . The teen was reportedly captured "in the house of an ISIS leader" on Thursday.

The Old Bailey yesterday heard the terrifying story of two schoolgirls who were groomed and raped by an Aylesbury paedophile gang, when aged just 12 and 13. Eleven members of the gang, who are accused of carrying out the crimes between 2006 and 2012 face 49 criminal charges between them including child rape, child prostitution and ... The court heard how the two girls came from broken homes and were easily manipulated because the men gave them excitement, bought them gifts such as drugs, DVDs, and alcohol, and made them feel adult. Girl ‘A’ said in a police statement: “You...

The results are in for one Illinois university's famous mock presidential election, but the clear winner may surprise some. Western Illinois University's mock election predicted a landslide victory for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, with running mate Martin O'Malley, in 2016. The predicted Sanders-O'Malley ticket garnered 404 electoral votes to Jeb Bush-Marco Rubio's 114 votes. In the popular vote, Sanders earned 741 votes (49 percent) to Bush's 577 (38 percent). The famously accurate mock election correctly predicted the outcomes of the 2008 and 2012 elections, and the university claims it's the "largest and most elaborate mock presidential simulation in the nation."...

tate Rep. Jim Gooch became the second member of the House Democratic caucus to change his party affiliation on Monday, informing leaders of both parties in the chamber of his decision to seek re-election as a Republican earlier in the day. Gooch, of Providence, has served in the legislature since 1995, chairing the House Committee on Natural Resources and Environment. In a lengthy statement, Gooch said he informed House Speaker Greg Stumbo and House Minority Floor Leader Jeff Hoover of his decision in an email, calling his move "a personal one, free of any negotiation for personal benefit to me."...

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are two candidates who happen to both have the populous support of their respective parties in the upcoming presidential primary elections. However different they may be, they also have many commonalities. Can you tell who said what? Quiz Many in the business community have argued for guest worker programs as the answer to the immigration issue. This concerns me very much. If you ask me about my views on the environment, on women's rights, on gay rights, I am liberal. I don't have a problem with that at all. Some of my best friends are...

Ted Cruz interviews Dick and Betty Odgaard during his religious liberty rally in Des Moines. Photo credit: Dave Davidson (Prezography.com) Yesterday, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) released a new ad that lacks any spoken narration, but highlights court victories he had as a private attorney and as Solicitor General of Texas. The ad that will air statewide in Iowa through January 3rd highlights Cruz's victories defending the Mojave Memorial Cross, the Texas Capitol Ten Commandments monument, the Second Amendment, and the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.You can watch the :30 second ad entitled “Victories” below:Victories (Video)Cruz...

Shocked onlookers watched Monday night as a man took a sledgehammer to a Center City crosswalk celebrating Philadelphia's LGBT community -- but it turns out the entire incident was a simple misunderstanding. Officials said two men first believed to be vandals actually worked for the Philadelphia Water Department and were looking for a possible problem. The water department said it was investigating a leak nearby at Broad and Locust streets when it fanned out crews to find a possible root of the leak. That led workers to a rainbow-colored crosswalk at 13th and Locust streets, in what's commonly called the...

Billionaire philanthropist and Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch blasted the hypocrisy of pot criminalization’s disproportionate enforcement in an October interview on CBS This Morning. In the interview, which can be seen in the above-embedded video, Koch said, “Some poor kid in the inner city smokes a joint, goes to prison, ruins his life, where we have a president who is more privileged, who smoked a joint, becomes president. We have a candidate who admits smoking a joint — he’s running for president. Now, where is the justice in that?”

Recreational marijuana use would be legal in Kentucky in 2016 if proposed legislation becomes law. State Sen. Perry Clark, D-Louisville, is sponsoring a bill called the Cannabis Freedom Act. The bill proposes to legalize recreational marijuana use for those 21 years or older, decriminalize offenses such as unauthorized growing and distribution and consuming cannabis in public and place an excise tax on the drug. "Originally what inspired me was a group of retired Teamsters," Clark said. The Teamsters knew that using marijuana was a cheaper alternative to costly prescription painkillers they needed, he said. "They didn't want to be criminalized...