Free Republic

June 25, 2015 (ThePublicDiscourse) -- It seems that the Supreme Court will probably strike down the conjugal marriage laws of our states. It seems Anthony Kennedy may have finally made up his mind that Aristotle was wrong in the first book of his Politics. Things are beginning to feel like a game of chicken: get out of the way now, or face being on the wrong side of history. For young people who have any proclivity to think the nature of marriage is rooted in sexual complementarity and generational renewal, the inevitable judgment of the ages can sting.The phrase “the wrong side...

June 24, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- I was a law student when I first learned of the consequences of not being politically correct concerning homosexuality. A former Miss America’s contract as the citrus growers’ brand-ambassador was allowed to lapse because she had successfully campaigned for the repeal of a pro-homosexual ordinance in Miami-Dade County. She was quoted as saying, “What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable, alternate way of life.” She was publicly humiliated -- "pied" on national television -- and her name -- Anita...

Australia’s leading gay activist claims that a booklet defending natural marriage by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference clearly breaches an anti-discrimination act. Worse, it exposes “vulnerable children” to “damaging messages”.Rodney Croome, national director of Australian Marriage Equality, is angry that Catholic schools in the state of Tasmania are distributing “Don’t Mess with Marriage”. Archbishop Julian Porteous plans to give 12,000 Tasmanian Catholic school children copies to pass on to their parents.Some teachers were horrified at the prospect of Catholic schools distributing Catholic literature, says Mr Croome: “The Catholic Church has every right to express its views from the pulpit but...

June 23, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- Perhaps as early as Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether America should become the 18th nation in the world to redefine marriage. Most observers expect the Court to strike down laws defining marriage as it can only be -- between a man and a woman.However, no matter what the Court decides, marriage can never change. Furthermore -- for the sake of children, other marriages, people with same-sex attractions, liberty, and society as a whole -- governments have a vested interest in promoting marriage, not abandoning it.As we head into the final...

NEW YORK, June 19 (C-Fam) The World Health Organization jumped into the culture wars this week and issued a report telling every country to remove restrictions on abortions – including for adolescents – provide sex change surgery, and remove criminal restrictions on sexual conduct such as extramarital sex, prostitution, and homosexual behavior. WHO’s controversial policy prescriptions, such as sex counseling and advocating cheap and unsafe abortion, have been previously exposed by the Friday Fax. However, this report was hailed as “major and long-awated [sic]” by an Australian intersex advocacy group because it “contains a specific section on intersex people, as...

June 22, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- The Dutch Pediatric Association says that allowing teenagers to ask for euthanasia discriminates against younger children and is asking that the age limit for doctor-assisted death be removed.Current Dutch law permits children 12 and older to ask for euthanasia with parental approval while 18-year-olds fall under the regulations governing adults."We feel that an arbitrary age limit such as 12 should be changed and that each child's ability to ask to die should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If a child under 12 satisfies the same conditions, pediatricians are currently powerless. It's time to address...

Gay and lesbian couples could face legal chaos if the Supreme Court rules against same-sex marriage in the coming days. Same-sex weddings could come to a halt in many states, depending on a confusing mix of lower-court decisions and the sometimes-contradictory views of state and local officials. Among the 36 states in which same-sex couples can now marry are 20 in which federal judges invoked the Constitution to strike down marriage bans. Those rulings would be in conflict with the nation's highest court if the justices uphold the power of states to limit marriage to heterosexual couples. A decision is...

Peter Singer is in hot water in Germany again over his controversial views.The Australian utilitarian philosopher began his royal progress through Europe well. In late May he added another two honorary doctorates -- from the Universities of Athens and of Bucharest -- to his extensive collection of awards and distinctions. From there he went to Berlin to receive the inaugural “Peter Singer Prize for Strategies to Reduce the Suffering of Animals”. He was introduced in glowing terms by Maneka Gandhi, Indian Minister of Women and Child Development, who is president of People for Animals in her own country. A German...

With same-sex marriage and the transformation of Bruce Jenner into Caitlyn Jenner in the world headlines, it’s time to ask what LGBT bioethics would look like. Timothy Murphy, of the University of Illinois College of Medicine,  foreshadows some of the major themes in the journal Bioethics.Bioethics benefits. “Bioethics is better than it would otherwise have been, because people queer in their sexual interests and identities have challenged misconceived concepts of health and disease, challenged obstacles to access and equity in healthcare, and forced attention to professional standards in clinical care, among other things.”Defending LGBT parenting. To show that the battle...

HONOLULU, HI, June 18, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A state education board ruling will force all public schools in Hawaii to teach "comprehensive sex education" – but one activist told LifeSiteNews that they haven't even figured out what they're going to teach yet."Hawaii's BOE voted to change the policy for sex ed without having any curricula to show parents," said Susan Duffy of the Hawaii Parent Coalition. "Neither were they able to provide parents with some idea as to what the standards would be. A couple of parents asked but were told that they could only 'testify' and not ask questions...

June 16, 2015 (ThePublicDiscourse) -- In a recent mini-documentary, the New York Times investigates the unrealized horrors of population explosion, especially those predicted by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb. Despite the failure of his forecast, Ehrlich remains undaunted. “The end is still nigh,” he says according to the Times, and population control ought to be implemented, “preferably through voluntary methods.” But, Ehrlich continues, allowing women to choose to have as many children as they desire is like allowing everyone to “throw as much of their garbage into their neighbor’s backyard as they want.”In our view, Ehrlich fundamentally misunderstands the value of...

For forty years as the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School—twenty-six of which were also spent as Psychiatrist in Chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital—I’ve been studying people who claim to be transgender. Over that time, I’ve watched the phenomenon change and expand in remarkable ways.A rare issue of a few men—both homosexual and heterosexual men, including some who sought sex-change surgery because they were erotically aroused by the thought or image of themselves as women—has spread to include women as well as men. Even young boys and girls have begun to present themselves as of...

Aristotle once said, “Men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.” Is there a link to Karl Marx and his own abysmal failure as a family man and the all-out assault on the traditional family today? Yes, says New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Paul Kengor, in his brand new book called Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. If you saw Dinesh D’Souza’s first movie on Obama, then you have seen a cameo of Paul Kengor. He was discussing his book The Communist, which documents that President Obama as a...

Angel Soft Commercial Feminism Viciously Attack Fathers Day Masculinity! VIDEO ONLY ON LINK

Michigan has moved to protect the religious freedom of adoption agencies. Both houses of the Michigan legislature passed the bill in recent days and Gov. Rick Snyder signed it into law Thursday. Gary Glenn, a state representative and head of the American Family Association of Michigan, says the law protects faith-based adoption agencies so they can continue to provide adoption referral services to the state and to local governments without violating their religious convictions.

American culture, through generations of inherited ignorance, perpetuates many false ideas about the Catholic Church's teachings about women. You can find the caricatures in almost any television series or movie with so-called Catholic characters: the crotchety ruler-wielding nun, the kilted Catholic high school student who is secretly a "bad girl," the denim-jumper-clad homeschooling mother of a dozen who lacks personality and purpose, and the forward-thinking "cultural Catholic" who ignores almost all Catholic moral and social teaching. Modern Catholic women, at least those who genuinely believe and follow the teachings of the Church, are portrayed as backward, oppressed, or both. While...

ALDERGROVE, British Columbia, June 15, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- A mother of a young daughter with Downs syndrome said she was “infuriated” when she unwittingly discovered last week that her daughter’s image was being used by a Swiss genetics testing company advertising an “early” and “accurate” prenatal testing kit. About 90 percent of parents who discover their pre-born baby has the non life-threatening genetic abnormality of Downs syndrome choose abortion.“To know that this happened infuriated me, but when I saw with my own eyes… her sweet face on that ugly banner, it broke my heart. While my girl courageously fights...

Email Print Anne Nicol Gaylor, one of the founders of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, died Sunday. Gaylor, 88, formed the group with her daughter Annie Laurie Gaylor in 1976 in Madison and is credited with expanding the small group to a large national association of atheists and agnostics while serving as its president from 1978 to 2004. The foundation often courted controversy and filed lawsuits challenging religion in schools, government and social programs. She died at a Fitchburg hospice after she was hospitalized May 30 following a fall at her Madison apartment, according to a news release posted Monday...

The death toll in Syria continues to rise.  According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights about 231,000 people have died since war broke out in 2011. Of these, 69,500 were civilians, including 11,500 children and 7,500 women. It must be one of the first wars in which children are suffering more than adults.In recognition of these appalling figures, aid agencies launched a #NOlostgeneration campaign last year to keep Syrian children from a life of despair, diminished opportunities and broken futures.The children of Western countries are infinitely better off, but can we afford to be complacent? Some of them...

If the view of the “converts” to same-sex marriage and the acceptance of homosexual partnerships is “ultimately destructive to society, to the church, and to relations between men and women,” how can that distance be avoided? The reality is that it cannot. This is a moment of decision, and every evangelical believer, congregation, denomination, and institution will have to answer. There will be no place to hide. The forces driving this revolution in morality will not allow evasion or equivocation. Every pastor, every church, and every Christian organization will soon be forced to declare an allegiance to the Scriptures and...