Free Republic

States that allow gay marriage can't force the federal government to provide benefits to those couples, the Obama administration argued Friday in court papers in a lawsuit by Massachusetts. The Justice Department is at odds with Massachusetts - the first state to allow gay marriage - over a 1996 federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Massachusetts sued in July, saying that law is discriminatory and deprives gay couples in the state of some federal spousal benefits. The Obama administration agrees the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is discriminatory and wants it repealed,...

Why is thought, being a secretion of the brain, more wonderful than gravity, a property of matter? It is our arrogance, it is our admiration of ourselves… — Charles Darwin, age 29, in his notebook This is an incredible comment. It is difficult to understand how anyone with a brain could not observe that thought produces such things as symphonies, literature and mathematics, while gravity just makes things fall down and holds planets in their orbits. Furthermore, thought does not secrete like insulin from a pancreas, it is willed (at least that’s what I do, and I assume others do...

Would Larry David Urinate on the Koran? by Jamie Glazov In a recent Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, Larry David accidentally urinates on a picture of Jesus while he is a guest in someone else’s home. This, in turn, leads to a misunderstanding in which the homeowners think they have a miraculously weeping Jesus.Some Christians are understandably upset.Just some thoughts on what this episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm has revealed:Are producers of this show, or Larry David, or anyone else connected to it fearing for their lives right now? Are there Christian groups calling for the death of anyone in connection...

It may not surprise parents that the head-banging, string-shredding world of heavy metal can seriously damage your health. But now Tony Iommi, the British guitarist who helped to invent the genre, has revealed that he is undergoing stem-cell treatment to save the hand that inspired a generation. The number of rockers suffering from repetitive strain injuries is on the increase, and medical specialists have warned that their careers will come to an end unless they seek professional help. As a founder member of Black Sabbath, the Birmingham rockers fronted by Ozzy Osbourne, Iommi, 61, hit on the distortion-heavy riffs that...

Note: There has been much discussion lately among pro-life leaders about the chronic lack of resources the movement has had to endure during its existence while fighting the great battle against the Culture of Death. This article is one I believe has been needed for some time, and now more than ever. 40 years of this battle is a long time. It will be won, but certain things must finally happen to bring that about. This article addresses some of those needed developments.October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Mother Teresa said, "The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion."...

See Movie Trialer HEREAlso Article HERE

Remnant Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - OCTOBER 20, 2009CONTACT: H. M. OWEN (U.S.), noevolutioninfo@gmail.com or PETER WILDERS (Europe), wilderspeter@gmail.com The Scientific Impossibility of Evolution November 9, 2009 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. St. Pius V University (Rome) In Response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Call for Both Sides to be Heard The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s "Origin of the Species" in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov...

A pro-life organization is blasting a Switzerland-based cosmetics manufacturer whose website openly admits some of its products were developed from the tissues of an aborted baby. Children of God for Life is a non-profit organization focused on the bioethics of embryonic tissue use in medicine and manufacturing. One of its current campaigns includes petitioning pharmaceutical companies to produce safe, effective alternatives to vaccines derived or cultivated from aborted fetal tissue.

Her name is Somer Thompson. She was 7 years old. She's dead. In her last minutes of life, this beautiful little girl suffered inhuman acts of brutality. She was taken and murdered by one of the monsters who live and work among us – one of the pieces of human debris, the living mounds of filth, who are allowed to breathe the same air, live in the same apartment buildings and work the same jobs as genuine human beings. They look like us, but they're not human at all; they're animals who walk on two legs, with hearts full of...

FRANKFORT, Kentucky -- Gov. Steve Beshear has angered some Christians with his yuletide terminology. A giant evergreen that will brighten the Capitol lawn this winter won't be called a Christmas tree. Instead, the Beshear administration has dubbed it a "holiday tree." The Rev. Jeff Fugate, pastor of Clays Mill Baptist Church in Lexington, said Christians find the change troubling. "If you call it a holiday tree," Fugate asked, "which holiday are you talking about? We don't put up a holiday tree for Easter or New Year's or Thanksgiving. We put a tree up for Christmas." Beshear administration spokeswoman Cindy Lanham...

Human eggs and sperm have been grown in the laboratory in research which could change the face of parenthood. It paves the way for a cure for infertility and could help those left sterile by cancer treatment to have children who are biologically their own. But it raises a number of moral and ethical concerns. These include the possibility of children being born through entirely artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of making babies.

The More They Know Darwin, The Less They Want Darwin-Only Indoctrination According to an international poll released by the British Council, the majority of Americans — 60% — support teaching alternatives to evolution in the science classroom. The percentage is the same for Britons, despite the fact that both countries have been inundated with pro-Darwin media coverage in this super-mega Darwin Year. Of course, the British media reporting this are chagrined. Britain is the birthplace of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, and the official-sounding British Council, the UK group behind the “Darwin Now” campaign that commissioned the Ipsos...

Switzerland announced plans yesterday to crack down on “suicide tourism”, signalling that it might close the Dignitas clinic that has helped hundreds of terminally ill people to take their lives. The plans — in the form of two draft Bills that will be offered for public debate — are likely to set off a rush of patients from Britain and elsewhere in Europe since Switzerland has become the main destination for those seeking assisted suicide. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the Justice Minister, said that two options would be presented to parliament. Either clinics such as Dignitas and Exit, which deals chiefly with...

BERKELEY, California, October 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The University of California Berkeley campus erupted into a hotbed of controversy earlier this week after the Genocide Awareness Project set up an immense two-day display of graphic abortion images in the midst of what is considered one of the most liberal universities in America. The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform teamed up with the on-campus group Berkeley Students for Life on Monday and Tuesday to set up the large images of aborted children, juxtaposed with the images and words of President Obama.  The huge billboards quickly attracted curious onlookers and angry local...

Children of God for Life announced today that Neocutis, a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on dermatology and skin care is using aborted fetal cell lines to produce several of their anti-aging skin creams. "It is absolutely deplorable that Neocutis would resort to exploiting the remains of a deliberately slaughtered baby for nothing other than pure vanity and financial gain," stated Executive Director Debi Vinnedge. "There is simply no moral justification for this." ...

(CNN) -- If you were to judge the success rate of monogamy by the sex lives of public figures, perhaps couples should change their marriage vows to say, "Till a tempting new partner do us part." Talk-show host David Letterman recently joined former presidential candidate John Edwards, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer on a long list of politicians and entertainers (think Jude Law) who have admitted having sex outside their marriage or committed relationship. But do they just illustrate the realities of modern life? In the age of hookups, friends with benefits and...

Cass Sunstein, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, proposes to abolish traditional marriage as a state-sponsored institution. As many feared, same-sex marriage may become the wedge to destroy the religious and political institutions of marriage and family. Each new day brings to light additions to the torrent of liberal-progressive-socialist attacks upon the basic social and political institutions of Western civilization and its foundation in Judeo-Christian morality. Reducing marriage to no more than issuance of a civil certificate acknowledging the partnering of any two people is exactly what the Soviet Union did. The aim was, and...

The war on conservative speech has moved from the White House to your neighborhood pews. Left-wing church leaders want the Federal Communications Commission to crack down on "hate speech" over cable TV and right-leaning talk-radio airwaves. President Obama's speech-stifling bureaucrats seem all too happy to oblige. Over the last week, an outfit called "So We Might See" has conducted a nationwide fast to protest "media violence" -- specifically, "anti-immigrant hate speech, which employs flawed arguments to appeal to fears rather than facts." Their ire is currently aimed at Fox News and conservative talk-show giants. But how long before they target...

Does HIV mean certain death? In the quarter century since the world was introduced to the idea that a new sexually transmitted virus was the cause of Aids, HIV has been generally regarded as one of the biggest killers of our time. HIV/Aids has not been the mass disease in Britain that people were led to believe in the 1980s, but the death toll from immune deficiency diseases ascribed to HIV in Africa has been staggering. The scale of death there is an ongoing tragedy that tests the moral resolve of the rich world. How much do we care? Enough...

Patients with terminal illness are being heavily sedated by doctors before their deaths in a form of “slow euthanasia”, research suggests. A poll of nearly 3,000 doctors found that almost one in five had administered infusions of drugs to keep patients unconscious for hours or days at a time. In appropriate doses, sedatives and strong painkillers are considered a valuable way of easing the pain and anxiety of patients who are dying with conditions such as cancer. But 18.7 per cent of British doctors polled said they used drugs to invoke “continuous deep sedation” in a dying patient, a practice...

Rep. Bart Stupak said Speaker Pelosi is not pleased with his effort to change abortion-related provisions in the healthcare bill being crafted by the House. During an interview on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" show, Stupak (D-Mich.) said he is undeterred in trying to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not pay for abortions. Stupak, who opposes abortion rights, acknowledged that some in his party are upset with his public campaign to change the bill. "The Speaker is not happy with me," Stupak said. The Energy and Commerce subcommittee chairman said he has been working with Democratic leaders on a compromise, but they...

Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Advocated ‘Queering Elementary Education’ Wednesday, October 28, 2009 By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama’s safe schools czar wrote a foreword to a book in 1999 that called for elementary school children to explore their sexual identities, for teachers to incorporate homosexual themes in grades K-5, for discarding a “hetero-normative” approach to education and for “acknowledging children as sexual beings.” Kevin Jennings, now the assistant deputy secretary for education who heads the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, began the foreword to Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling (Rowan...

When President Obama was asked about whether abortion was in his health care plan, he answered elliptically. He didn't say it was or wasn't. He said there was a "tradition in this town of not paying for abortion." But isn't he the One elected on a platform of hope and change? Isn't he the One who wants to re-found the American experiment? Liberals would never have supported him for President if he said -- as Sen. Al Gore once said -- that abortion should not be federally-funded. Gore was running for President in 1988. He faced a buzzsaw of criticism...

Rep. Bart Stupak said Speaker Pelosi is not pleased with his effort to change abortion-related provisions in the healthcare bill being crafted by the House. During an interview on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" show, Stupak (D-Mich.) said he is undeterred in trying to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not pay for abortions. Stupak, who opposes abortion rights, acknowledged that some in his party are upset with his public campaign to change the bill. "The Speaker is not happy with me," Stupak said. The Energy and Commerce subcommittee chairman said he has been working with Democratic leaders on a compromise, but they...

Prominent antitheist and self-styled “atheist” Richard Dawkins has written a new book, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Ironically, he admits about all his previous pro-evolution books: “Looking back on these books, I realized that the evidence for evolution is nowhere explicitly set out, and that it seemed like a good gap to close.”. Naturally, CMI is preparing a book to answer Dawkins’ latest. In a chapter about alleged bad design, Dawkins had a section about the loss of wings and evolution of features like halteres, the little drumstick-like stabilizers behind the one pair of wings on...

While organizing our filing system, I ran across my adoption papers. My mother gave them to me a couple of years ago for my own records. The cost of my adoption was a 300.00 donation to Catholic Charities in Chicago, I was six days old. I am blessed to be in the family, in which I was placed. My mother tells me there were lots of rules to comply with. The agency wanted to make sure I had a stable and secure home. In reality, no one can predict how a family will one day turn out. Ours certainly had...

In America we are a century and a half away from the "Know-Nothing Party", a secret political society that fulminated against the Catholic Church and Irish immigrants. (Asked about its composition, members would say, "I know nothing;" hence, the moniker.) Formed in public as The American Party, the party's hateful, nativist politics took a long time to expunge from our shores. But we now have an Englishman, Richard Dawkins--one of society's "Brites" according to his fellow-Darwinist, Daniel Dennett--in a screed against the Catholic Church that proclaims the same frothing bigotry exemplified by the Know-Nothings. This and Dawkins' various other attacks...

Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, said the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and, even though they’re being recommended for girls as young as nine, there have been no efficacy trials in children under the age of 15. “I came away from the talk with the perception that the risk of adverse side effects is so much greater than the risk of cervical cancer, I couldn’t help but question why we need the vaccine at all,” said Joan Robinson, Assistant Editor at the...

NEW YORK, October 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While the American Catholic Church once failed to diligently promote human dignity in the era of slavery, Catholics can now take pride that its leaders are taking a stand against the civil rights atrocity of abortion, said New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan last week.In his column at Catholic New York Online, Archbishop Dolan reflected on October as Respect Life Month by pointing out the similarities between slavery and abortion in America - two assaults on human life, he notes, that were both deemed "constitutional."Dolan writes: "That 'right' to own a slave was...

RICHMOND, Calif. — Police believe as many as a dozen people watched a 15-year-old girl get beaten and gang-raped outside her high school homecoming dance without reporting it. Two suspects were in custody Monday, but police said as many as five other men attacked the girl over a two-hour period Friday night outside Richmond High School. "She was raped, beaten, robbed and dehumanized by several suspects who were obviously OK enough with it to behave that way in each other's presence," Lt. Mark Gagan said. "What makes it even more disturbing is the presence of others. People came by, saw...

American Life League 27 October 2009 CONTACT: Katie Walker540.659.4942| kwalker@all.org  Washington, DC (27 October 2009) – The Senate version of America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009 may transform the nation’s largest abortion chain into a quasi-government entity for sex education. Section 1803, page 503, creates a National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Resource Center and states: The Secretary shall award a grant to a nationally recognized, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that meets the requirements described in clause (ii) to establish and operate a national teen pregnancy prevention resource center (in this subparagraph referred to as the ‘Resource Center’) to carry out the purpose...

Doctors who support the legalisation of assisted suicide are more likely to withdraw or withhold treatment from dying patients, a study has found. Actively helping someone to die remains illegal in Britain but more than a third of GPs and hospital doctors report making decisions which they expected would accelerate the death of a terminally-ill patient. A significant minority — 7 per cent — said that they had taken steps such as withdrawing medications, foods or fluid, with the intention of hastening a patient’s death. But doctors who actively support a change in the law to allow assisted suicide are...

A longstanding ban that prevents gay and bisexual men from giving blood is being reviewed and could be overturned as early as next year, the Government has said. Men who have had sex with other men are currently banned for life from donating blood, under measures designed to reduce the risk of passing on infections such as HIV. But gay rights campaigners have condemned the policy as being irrational. The Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs (Sabto) meets today to discuss evidence for and against exclusion of high-risk donors as part of an official review of...

Almost one in five girls (19 per cent) also think a boyfriend may expect them to take sexual risks because they have had the jab. One in four girls having the cervical cancer jab would not tell a boyfriend they had been vaccinated while one in five think the vaccine is embarrassing because it is for a sexually-transmitted infection. However, 79 per cent of girls said having the vaccination reminds them of the possible risks of sexual contact and 93 per cent think it shows they are serious about their own health. The survey of more than 500 12 and...

WASHINGTON, DC, October 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Last Friday's episode of Law & Order on NBC, entitled "Dignity," has infuriated pro-abortionists while pleasantly surprising pro-lifers with an unexpectedly even-handed treatment of the issue of abortion.  Ripping its plot from recent headlines, "Dignity" begins with the murder of late-term abortionist Dr. Walter Benning (Matthew Boston) during a church service.  Although the episode has a disclaimer stating that the story is fictional, its initial outline closely matches the case of the late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller, who was shot and killed in a church in Wichita, Kansas, on May 31st.  After the...

VANCOUVER, October 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Unitarian Church of Vancouver has stepped in to provide a Canadian venue for Australian right-to-die activist Philip Nitschke after he was refused workshop space to hold a seminar on how to commit suicide by the Vancouver Public Library.Rev. Steven Epperson of the Unitarian church said he believes Nitschke, director of the suicide advocacy group Exit International, has the right to free speech, even if he's telling people how to kill themselves."Historically, we have provided a forum, a space, for controversial, difficult ideas to be presented," Epperson told the Vancouver Province.The Vancouver church has a...

Commentary by David Bereit, National Coordinator, 40 Days for LifeOctober 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The words a sidewalk counselor spoke to a woman entering the abortion center in Dallas, Texas summed things up so accurately. "I know the baby is not the problem," the counselor said, "but it's the situation you are in."The woman took information from the counselor but continued into the clinic -- while 40 Days for Life vigil participants prayed for her and her child.An hour later, the woman came out of the clinic in tears. She was married, she said, but thinking about abortion -- though...

Obama’s “Safe Schools” czar, Kevin Jennings, founded and led GLSEN for 18 years. A current GLSEN lesson plan for “LGBT History” -- intended for schoolchildren – celebrates gay and lesbian activists from the 1950s and ’60s. It recommends the film “Gay Pioneers” which profiles several practitioners and promoters of pornography. GLSEN recommends “Gay Pioneers” for classroom use, for showing at a Gay-Straight Alliance club meeting (invite other clubs!), for a school assembly, or for donation to the school library. (In the past, GLSEN’s website has recommended readings for children describing -- and implicitly endorsing -- adult-child sex and sexual experimentation...

Many people have said or thought this since Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, invented the term ‘eugenics’ in 1883.[1] Since then, the cheerleaders for this offspring of evolution have included racists of many different nationalities, such as Hitler’s Nazis, as well as enthusiasts for the ‘right’ to abortion, euthanasia, and now in the 21st century, human destruction for embryonic stem-cell research. This is of course consistent with the belief they all share, namely that people are all just evolved animals. The many violations of human rights, and the killings and genocides which are the result of eugenicist beliefs are well documented...

[Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I) told CNSNews.com that the Catholic Church is doing nothing but fanning “the flames of dissent and discord” by taking the position that it will oppose the health-care reform bill under consideration in Congress unless it is amended to explicitly prohibit funding of abortion.] Bishop Tobin's rejoinder: “Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s statement about the Catholic Church’s position on health care reform is irresponsible and ignorant of the facts. But the Congressman is correct in stating that “he can’t understand.” He got that part right. As I wrote to Congressman Kennedy and other members of the Rhode Island Congressional...

Editors' Note: the following column contains graphic language.Dear People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (http://www.peta.org/): This Friday, I will turn 45 years old. I’m planning to celebrate my birthday by arranging a small demonstration in front of Randall Library on the campus of The University of North Carolina at Wilmington. I realize this is short notice but I need a favor. Since we’re old friends I figured you could do this for me as an early birthday gift. I’m looking for three cats that have been discarded by their owners because they were either unable to afford them or...

A University of Nebraska Medical Center research team led by Iqbal Ahmad, Ph.D., professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, has reprogrammed regular body cells to resemble embryonic stem cells without the use of potentially harmful foreign genetic material. The research, published in STEM CELLS, suggests that cells taken from a patient's eye can be "reprogrammed" to replace or restore cells lost to degenerative diseases. The research is the first proof in principle that somatic, or body cells, can be transformed into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) simply through the influence of the microenvironment in which the sampled cells are cultured....

A 13-year-old boy is set to become a father after his 14-year-old girlfriend became pregnant. The two children, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, attend the same school. But the girl, who is several months pregnant, is in the year above the boy, report the Daily Mail. It is the latest in a history of under-age pregnancies in Poole, Dorset. In 1997, Jenny Teague became the country’s youngest mother when she gave birth, aged 12, to daughter Sasha. Two years later, sisters Charlene, 17, and Miranda Way, 15, from Poole gave birth within months of each other. The local...

(CNSNews.com) – Abortion kills more black Americans than the seven leading causes of death combined, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2005, the latest year for which the abortion numbers are available. Abortion killed at least 203,991 blacks in the 36 states and two cities (New York City and the District of Columbia) that reported abortions by race in 2005, according to the CDC.  During that same year, according to the CDC, a total of 198,385 blacks nationwide died from heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and chronic lower respiratory diseases combined.  These were the seven leading causes of death for black Americans...

Oct 22, 2009 — “We have kept the creationist barbarians from the gate,” announced a professor at Hong Kong University triumphantly. A news article in Science this week described tensions in the city over the teaching of evolution. The Darwinists won a vote over a change in wording in the science curriculum that would have “opened the door to teaching creationism and intelligent design in secondary schools.” The door must be shut tight, apparently. Even the possibility of this happening created a furore. Reporter Richard Stone said, “As a year of honoring Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution draws...

The Silence of the Lambs - - Obama Style Farewell, Free Speech - - Part 991 bythelastcrusade.org So much for free speech and 1st Amendment rights. A hate crimes bill, which was passed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday and sent to President Obama for his signature, will serve to muzzle Christian writers, preachers, and teachers who still possess the temerity to advocate Biblical values. Mr. Obama has made a pledge to the gay and lesbian community that the bill will become law before the end of October. Matt Barber, an attorney for Liberty Counsel, says that the President...

Approximately 40 House Democrats are prepared to block healthcare reform legislation from coming to the floor should the bill include federal subsidies for abortions, said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) Friday. Stupak, who is conservative on social issues, told CNS News that he has organized the voting bloc to support his amendment that would strip the abortion provisions from the legislation. House Rules Committee chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), according to Stupak, said that there is "no way" her panel would provide a vote for his amendment. The group of 40 would join House Republicans in voting against procedural measure that would...

On October 17, the National Abortion Federation held a "Remembering Dr. Tiller" event at the Westin Hotel in Denver, with 200 abortionists from around the world attending. I simply can't imagine being in a room full of abortionists. Their hands, yuck. What did they talk about? Although the thought of all this truly creeps me out, this is the sort of event where I'd like to be a fly on the wall.Jeanne Tiller accepted the award on behalf of her husband George, who was murdered May 31.American Right to Life got wind of the event beforehand and were able...

(For all these stories and more, click on the excerpt link below) 1. BBC News: “Primate Fossil ‘Not an Ancestor’” Remember “Ida,” the missing link that wasn’t? In a Nature letter, scientists attack the lofty claims that surrounded the announcement of the fossil primate. 2. Did the Baby Mammoth, Lyuba, Suffocate in a Dust Storm? In a special guest news analysis, creationist (and mammoth expert) Michael Oard considers the well-preserved mammoth “Lyuba” (whom we first discussed in A Mammoth Discovery). The occasion? Lyuba’s worldwide debut. 3. National Geographic News: “Chimps Display Humanlike Good Will” Chimps, especially mothers and their offspring,...

LOS ANGELES — Hugh Hefner leaned back on a red loveseat, the saggy one in the study of his infamous mansion here, and interlocked his fingers behind his head. A visitor had asked — more like shouted, since he has trouble hearing — a question about mortality. At 83, does he think about it? In a word, no. Mr. Hefner, the legendarily libidinous founder of Playboy, the prophet of hedonism, does not believe that his denouement is at hand. He doesn’t act like it, either. He still works full days on his magazine, flies to Europe and Las Vegas, pops...