Free Republic

Barack Obama's "safe schools czar" is coming under renewed attack. Fox News has picked up on reports that Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), has been surrounded by controversy concerning his organization as GLSEN has been accused of visiting middle and high schools where spokespersons engage in explicit sexual discussions with students. In conjunction with the controversial talks, it has been uncovered that GLSEN has recommended an alleged pornographic reading list for underage students. Exact details of the reading list are too explicit for print, but the material includes frank descriptions and the glorification...

Ellen Goodman is morally troubled. The liberal columnist for The Boston Globe surveys the moral landscape and laments "there's no shame in the game." Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, whose observations are predictably liberal and feminist, but also marked by a keen eye for cultural detail. I still remember a column she wrote almost thirty years ago about an abandoned church being transformed into a condominium. In "Whatever Happened to Shame?," published in the December 18 edition of the Boston paper, Goodman reports that The New York Post has hired Ashley Dupre, the prostitute at the center of the...

Madison, WI (LifeNews.com) -- A Wisconsin state senator is expanding his call for an investigation of a Planned Parenthood abortion center shown on an undercover video misleading women about abortion and fetal development. Live Action's latest video has an abortion practitioner and staffer saying abortion does not kill a human being. The video also shows the staff misleading two women posing as potential abortion customers by telling them that the heart of the unborn child doesn't begin to beat until late in pregnancy -- instead of at about 22 days as is the case.Senator Glenn Grothman has already called...

GALVESTON, Texas, December 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nearly half of women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commonly known as the birth control shot, will experience high bone mineral density (BMD) loss in the hip or lower spine within two years of beginning the contraceptive, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The study, reported in the January 2010 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was the first to show that women on the birth control shot who smoke, have low levels of calcium intake and never gave birth are at the highest risk for BMD loss....

The country is slowly waking up to the threat that Islam brings to America, but Muslims also see this and now they are looking to manipulate the media. By “teaching” them what Islam is about using the knowledge of Islamic scholars. Scholar Bukhari and those at Al-Azhar (the highest learning Islamic school in the world), teach us that Islam is a religion of war that allows the taking of sex slaves. Will they teach the journalists these aspects of Islam? Of course not.

The political advocacy group "Rock the Vote" has a new video out encouraging young people to abstain from having sex with folks opposed to healthcare reform. Sadly, this isn't your run of the mill call for celebacy, for the video also instructs youth to use sex to get people to change their minds on this issue.

Elmira, N.Y. - Bobby Schindler watched his sister die in one of the most publicized end-of-life cases in the nation’s history. Now, he’s hoping a similar case in Chemung County has a different ending. Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo, was in Elmira Monday to show his support for Sara Harvey, who is attempting to regain custody of her injured husband, Gary Harvey. “We’re trying to support her efforts to bring her husband home,” Schindler said. Chemung County is the guardian of Gary Harvey, who has been in a persistent vegetative state since he fell down his basement steps in...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is headed to Nebraska. Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, will headline an Omaha rally Sunday afternoon to try to persuade U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson to change his mind on health care reform. The rally will be at 3 p.m. at the Civic Auditorium Music Hall, 17th Street and Capitol Avenue. Doors will open at 2 p.m. The rally was put together quickly Saturday after Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat, said he would support a health-care reform bill in the Senate. Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Terry of Omaha is expected to attend, as well as state...

(Warning: This story contains content that may offend some readers.)Elderly people are now buying their loved ones suicide kits as Christmas gifts, according to a prominent euthanasia physician nicknamed "Dr. Death." Dr. Philip Nitschke, founder of Exit International and author of "The Peaceful Pill Handbook," has explained the use of legal drugs, inert gases, plastic bags and other methods for committing suicide to audiences all over the world, including in U.S. cities such as San Francisco, Calif., and Anaheim, Calif. He told Australia's Herald-Sun a so-called "peaceful pill" is being developed from Nembutal, the favored drug for ending life. Nembutal...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Pro-life groups have spent most of Saturday morning furiously analyzing the Nelson-Reid compromise language on abortion funding in the Senate health care bill. Their conclusion is that the language undermines the amendments they wanted to ban abortion funding. The compromise language appears in the manager's amendment Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is offering to shore up the 60 votes he needs to overcome the filibuster against the pro-abortion health care bill. The language is not similar to the Stupak and Nelson amendments approved by the House and defeated in the Senate. Instead, Section 38 adds a...

About 20 high school kids (including myself) from my school’s Live Action chapter went to a Planned Parenthood in the Bay Area. We got there around 10:00 AM, and met with a few more activists with signs picturing abortion victims. We split up into a couple of groups of 7 or so each, and each group gathered in a circle near one of the 3 driveway entrances to the parking lot of the clinic. We prayed for a while, each sharing his/her own prayer, and then we read aloud from the Psalms. Then we prayed again. The whole time, children...

Pueblo, Colorado - Nicholas Coke, a baby boy from Pueblo is a living miracle. He was born with no brain. He can’t see, hear, crawl or suck, but still managed to make a history. This week he has completed his one year’s tough fight for survival.The disease Nicholas was born with is called Anencephaly. It’s a genetic disorder in which a person has no brain, just a brain stem. Anencephaly is a defect in the closure of the neural tube during development in the womb. The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and closes between the third...

SOLD: Sen. Nelson’s Bribeby Publius We’ll be blunt. The ‘health care reform’ legislation under consideration in the Senate is the most corrupt piece of legislation in our nation’s history. Yes, we understand that is a strong statement and there have been other abominations throughout our nation’s life. But never before did corrupt legislation threaten to radically and forever change the live’s of every American.Exhibit A is the outright bribe extracted by Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Corn Huckster State) from Sen. Harry Reid. As a result of Nelson’s performance in his role of Hamlet in the health care deliberations, we will...

In a submission to a consultation on relaxing the rules on assisted suicide - which ends today - a coaliton of five disabled groups, said that “to see suicide as the right solution is to abandon hope. Severely ill and terminally ill people do no deserve society to give up on them.” The group, which is lead by Baroness Campbell, accused others who were pushing for the change as “seeking to change the law by the back door by creating the impression that those who assist in a suicide will be immune from prosecution”. Over the past 10 years 100...

Regular BreakPoint listeners know about the inhumane lengths some environmentalists are prepared to go to “save the planet.”Some have proposed taxing the parents of newborns several thousand dollars to discourage child-bearing, and thereby reducing CO2 emissions. Others have spoken of “culling” the human herd.What these proposals have in common, besides their cold-bloodedness, is that mainstream environmentalists keep insisting that they are “fringe” views. Well, recent statements from sources that couldn’t be more “respectable” put the lie to those claims. And they should remind Christians why the sanctity of human life must be our highest priority.During the recent U.N. global...

I just received a sad, two line E-Mail letter from a woman whose dedication to the fundamental human rights issue of our age is second to none: “In the week before Christmas my country gave to me, abortion, paid for by me.I guess Senator Nelson didn't read your article about him. Bart Stupak is our last hope.” She had apparently read the same report from the Washington Post which I had: ****** “Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill,...

Abortion clinic escort strikes Planned Parenthood investigator Lila Rose Lila Rose San Jose, Calif., Dec 19, 2009 / 03:37 am (CNA).- Legal charges are pending against a male Planned Parenthood escort who struck pro-life activist Lila Rose on the hands on Thursday outside an abortion clinic. She warned that the surprising attack should not help create a “double standard” that hinders clinic protesters’ free speech rights.Rose, the president of Live Action Films who has led undercover investigations into the abortion provider, was not injured in the attack.She was on a public sidewalk outside a Planned Parenthood affiliate in San Jose,...

The American Library Association (ALA) supports intellectual freedom and opposes censorship in any form, including the suppression of information that some may find controversial or objectionable.  Libraries and librarians give substance to intellectual freedom by acquiring and providing information without prejudice or restriction and supporting each person’s right to read and speak freely, regardless of their opinions or beliefs.There are those who challenge the right to read and speak freely, believing that certain ideas and opinions have no place in our common discourse because they find them to be offensive, harmful, or even dangerous.  They believe that certain institutions, even...

NEW YORK, NY, December 18, 2009 (C-FAM) - A recent submission to the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) provides evidence of the potentially fatal consequences of "safe" abortion promoted by UN agencies, and includes a list of 113 studies linking abortion dangerous complications such as pre-term birth in subsequent pregnancies."The encouragement by [the UN Population Fund] UNFPA and [the World Health Organization] WHO of the use of mifepristone (RU-486, Mifegyne) and misoprostol (Cytotec) as ‘safe’ abortifacients in medically resource poor nations is unconscionable" the paper says, "and a violation of the human...

COPENHAGEN, December 18, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a front-page commentary in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano yesterday, the President of the Vatican Bank took the Copenhagen summit to task over its "nihilism," and consequent emphasis on population control and de-industrialization. "Nihilistic thought, with its rejection of any objective truth and values causes serious damage when applied to economics," wrote Ettore Gotti Tedeschi.  He recalled as an example the "disastrous consequences" of Malthus' argument that population growth causes poverty, as well as the theory that the economy is morally autonomous, which he said has led to an "overly consumerist and materialistic"...

This may be the worst story of the year, at least in reference to domestic policy and crime. How bad is it? When Matt of Creative Minority Report tipped me to it this morning, I had to track it down to make sure it was on the level. A woman in Campbell County, Virginia smothered her newborn infant, and police are powerless to do anything about it: CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR VIDEO The caller said a woman in her early 20s was in labor. When deputies arrived, they discovered the baby had actually been born around 1:00a.m., about ten hours...

I warn you, this story is very disturbing. In Virginia, a mother gave birth to her baby and then suffocated it. Virginia law enforcement is powerless to charge her. As Investigator Tracy Emerson put it: "In the state of Virginia, as long as the umbilical cord is attached and [the] placenta is still in the mother, if the baby comes out alive, the mother can do whatever she wants to that baby to kill it," Emerson reports. "She can shoot the baby, stab the baby or anything as long as it is still attached to her in some form by...

Lila Rose has made a name for herself exposing the abuses at Planned Parenthood centers, such as staffers misleading women about abortion or hiding cases of sexual abuse. Rose became a victim herself Thursday morning as a Planned Parenthood staff member attacked her. Late Thursday morning at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility located at 1691 The Alameda in San Jose, California, Rose led a group of pro-life advocates.... According to a police report filed at the scene and numerous witnesses, a uniformed Planned Parenthood escort engaged in a short exchange with Rose and eventually struck her on the hand, knocking...

Four words in a proposed Rapid City school district discrimination policy have ignited a passionate debate among community and school board members. A proposed change to add the words "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the policy drew a record number of community members and five legislators to the board's meeting Thursday night. The district's current policy was most recently revised in September to add the words "pregnancy" and "student marital status" to the policy of what it won't discriminate against to stay in line with state accreditation rules. A majority of the community speakers Thursday night asked board members...

Mexico City, Mexico, Dec 18, 2009 / 01:07 am (CNA).- The Abortion Fund for Social Justice, “Women, Abortion, Reproduction and Accompaniment,” announced this week the launching of the “Maria Network,” a program which finances abortions for poor women in Mexico City using U.S. dollars. The network operates by sidestepping legal roadblocks to abortion implemented by numerous Mexican states by bringing low-income pregnant women to Mexico City where they can obtain legal abortions. The Abortion Fund for Social Justice is part of the National Network of Abortion Funds, based in the United States. Eugenia Lopez Uribe, the network coordinator, told reporters...

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty will sign legislation Friday to legalize same-sex marriage in the District at a bill-signing ceremony so historic that his staff scrambled to find the perfect location Thursday. Would it be All Souls Unitarian Church, a Northwest house of worship known for its diversity, liberalism and welcoming of same-sex couples? Would it be Covenant Baptist Church, a predominantly black church in Southwest where husband-and-wife team of Dennis and Christine Wiley serve as co-pastors and support gay marriage? Or would it be a secular site? Late in the day, Katie Loughary, executive director at All Souls, said it...

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson says he won’t vote for the “health care” bill if it has any support for killing womb babies. Will he cave? If he’s an opportunistic politician, of which they are legion, then we do not know if we can trust him. If he’s a totally committed biblical believer, no matter what the politics, his allegiance to God’s Word will not waver. Time will tell.

A coalition of human rights groups is condemning a proposed amendment to Rwanda's criminal law that would criminalize homosexual behavior and advocacy. Meanwhile, Rwanda's northern neighbor, Uganda, is receiving heat for a "draconian" anti-gay bill being debated in its legislature. The coalition Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders says the draft language to criminalize homosexuality could be voted on in the Rwandan lower house of parliament by Friday.  The draft code would then pass to the Rwandan senate for approval. The amended language for Article 217 acquired by the group would give offenders - those who "practice," "encourage,"...

Thursday December 17, 2009 Appeal to be Filed in Case of Photographer Fined for "Discrimination" ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., December 17, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) will appeal a New Mexico judge's decision to uphold a ruling by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission against an Albuquerque photography company. The commission ruled that the company, run by a young Christian husband and wife, was guilty of "sexual orientation" discrimination under state antidiscrimination laws for declining to photograph a same-sex "commitment ceremony."   "Christians in the marketplace should not be subject to predatory legal attacks for simply...

Demand for the removal of homosexual advocate Kevin Jennings from his position as chief of the Department of Education's Office of Safe Schools is growing, with the Washington Post saying the appointment was wrong and thousands joining a petition. WND reported efforts by the organization Jennings founded, the Gay, Lesbian Straight Education Network, to indoctrinate young children into the homosexual lifestyle when a conference later dubbed "Fistgate" was held in Massachusetts in 2000. At GrassrootsNation.com, several thousand people have signed a new petition addressed to Obama, demanding Jennings' dismissal. "As a citizen of the United States of America I respectfully...

A little-reported phenomenon is spreading in holiday resort areas of the developing countries, largely unreported by international or local press, and which goes under the benign name of “child sex tourism” (CST). This euphemistic term for a different brand of pedophilia has moved its focus, in the eastern hemisphere, from the tsunami-prone areas of Sri Lanka and points east to the coast of Kenya. To be scrupulously fair, however, pedophiles seek out and travel deliberately to those places where they’re sure of finding children and young people ready for sexual relationships. Whereas many “child sex tourists” –men and women- are...

GEORGE WEIGEL COLUMN   December 16, 2009 The many moral questions in health-care reformThe Catholic Church in the United States has done a public service during the recent health-care debate by keeping a crucial proposition in play: no reform should reverse the 32-year-old national consensus that keeps the federal government out of the business of funding abortions. Defending that proposition will not get any easier in the weeks ahead, but it must be done. The defense of the inalienable right-to-life is not the only moral principle involved in the health-care debate, however.  There are several other such principles and social...

New guidelines on assisted suicide prosecutions issued following the case of Debbie Purdy, the multiple sclerosis sufferer, will ‘legalise killing’ a group of MPs and peers have warned. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Dying Well has written to Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, protesting about interim guidelines he was forced to draw up after Mrs Purdy won a legal challenge demanding that he make explicit the grounds on which those who assist someone to die would be charged with a criminal offence. The group, who include Ruth Kelly and Lord Patten, Labour and Conservative former education secretaries,...

LifeNews.com Note: Bryan Kemper is the president of Stand True Ministries, a pro-life group that reaches out to youth and young adults. He is the author of a new book, Social Justice Begins In The Womb.  I'm against abortion, but...I think the statement that bugs me most when talking to people about abortion is, "I'm against abortion, but..." I can actually respect someone's total pro-abortion position more than someone who tells me, "I'm against abortion, but..." It just makes no sense to me at all; how can they be against something as vile and deadly as abortion and have...

With headlines screaming of a golf great’s links to porn stars and others who make a living off male fantasies, it’s a good time to talk about pornography and its consequences. The following words are mainly for men, but women (especially wives) may want to listen in. Let’s be clear from the start. Porn destroys love, breaks up marriages, exploits women and hurts children. Yet it has respected defenders in the media and in government. Indeed, these are boom times for pornography, thanks to the Internet, which flashes suggestive images with virtually every click. Men are especially susceptible to these...

The Vatican (LifeNews.com) -- In a Wednesday address, Pope Benedict XVI spoke out against abortion, euthanasia, and casual genetic testing that could lead to abortion decisions. The pontiff said more legislation is needed to protect human life form these very real threats and that laws are only just when they protect the vulnerable. The only just laws "are those laws that safeguard the sacredness of human life and reject the acceptance of abortion, euthanasia and unrestrained genetic experiments," Benedict said. Failure to recognize a respect for human life in the law leads to a "dictatorship of relativism which does not...

Atheist lawyer Michael Newdow, who has unsuccessfully challenged religious trappings of presidential inaugurations past, took his latest dispute--this one involving Barack Obama's inauguration--to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today. A little background: Last December, Newdow and his fellow plaintiffs sued the Presidential Inaugural Committee and Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., among others, in an effort to block Roberts from feeding then President-elect Obama the line “so help me God” at the end of the oath of office and Obama from repeating it. The plaintiffs say the phrase violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The...

MILWAUKEE, December 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The incoming Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome Listecki, has responded to a campaign by "Young Catholics for Choice" to promote use of contraception and abortion among Catholic youth. Using media advertising the group is, says the Archbishop-Designate, "attempting to convey the message that Catholics can disregard Church teaching regarding contraception, abortion and human sexuality in general and remain Catholics in good standing." However, "Nothing could be further from the truth." "While people can call themselves whatever they want, it is my duty as a bishop to state clearly and unequivocally that by professing and disseminating...

“…Over the past month there has been a great deal of discussion about the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts amendment in the House health care reform bill. Unfortunately, much of this discussion has been driven by misinformation about what our amendment does and does not do. I would like to set the record straight: Our amendment maintains current law, which says that there should be no federal financing for abortion.

An 8-year-old special-needs child was suspended from school and forced to undergo psychiatric counseling over a picture he drew of Jesus Christ dead on the cross for a Christmas assignment. School officials in Taunton, Mass., said the picture "violated the code of violence in the school handbook," said Toni Saunders, an educational consultant on special-needs children with the Associated Advocacy Center who is working with the boy's family. "I couldn't believe what they were telling me," the boy's father, Chester Johnson, who also works for the school system as a substitute custodian, told The Washington Times on Tuesday. "I asked...

OTTAWA, Ontario, December 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Last week, National Post editor-at-large Diane Francis sparked an international controversy when she wrote a column calling for world depopulation based on China's one-child policy. Her remarks were made in the context of discussions surrounding the climate change summit in Copenhagen. But Canadian Member of Parliament Maurice Vellacott (CPC - Saskatoon-Wanuskewin) has now responded to Francis her in a column for the same paper, expressing shock at Francis' support for China's coercive population control regime and criticizing her claim that the world faces overpopulation. "A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is...

Melissa Ohden's 19 month old daughter, Olivia, was not supposed to have a chance at life because of abortion. Not because Melissa ever considered aborting her, but because Melissa, herself, was aborted at approximately 24 weeks of gestation and survived. Abortion attempt survivors, in and of themselves, are rare in our society. Having an abortion attempt survivor become a mother, herself, and speak out against the intergenerational impact of abortion, is certainly even more of a rarity. But by all appearances, Melissa is up for the challenge that faces her in her ministry. "It's my calling," states Melissa. "This...

December 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Population control groups have been using the hype surrounding the Copenhagen climate change conference to promote their solution to hypothetical impending environmental catastrophes. Earlier this month, two pieces appearing in the same edition of the Guardian revisited a report by Britain's Optimum Population Trust (OPT) that suggests that people in wealthy first-world countries should "offset" the carbon cost of their jet-setting lifestyles by paying to prevent the births of poor children in the developing world. John Vidal, the Guardian's environment editor, wrote that the OPT's report suggesting a "radical" plan to cut carbon emissions was...

The lawyer who handled the years-long battle by Pastor Stephen Boissoin over "hate speech" charges for a letter he wrote to the editor of a local newspaper that cited the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality is forecasting a nationwide "witch hunt" in the U.S. prompted by an expanded "hate crimes" law signed by President Obama. Gerald Chipeur,  who supervises law offices across Canada, worked from his Calgary headquarters on the defense of Boissoin, who was accused by a university professor of instigating hate against homosexuals with his letter to the editor. As WND reported, an appellate court in Canada recently reversed...

Radical plan to cut CO2 argues that paying for family planning is developing world is the best bet ___ Consumers in the developed world are to be offered a radical method of offsetting their carbon emissions in an ambitious attempt to tackle climate change - by paying for contraception measures in poorer countries to curb the rapidly growing global population. The scheme - set up by an organisation backed by Sir David Attenborough, the former diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell and green figureheads such as Jonathon Porritt and James Lovelock - argues that family planning is the most effective way to...

Fairly often I’m taken to task by some of my friends for suggesting that state-sanctioned eugenics is alive and well in the 21st century. I have a question to ask them:Explain to me that what I’m about to report is not eugenics in its purest, simplest, and ugliest form.First, a standard definition of eugenics: the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics). The Nazis took eugenics...

The election of a second openly-homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church hardly came as a surprise. Given the actions of the church in its General Convention this past summer, the question was clearly not if there would be more openly-gay bishops, but when. The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles answered that question on Saturday, electing the Reverend Mary D. Glasspool of Baltimore as an assistant bishop. She is expected to be consecrated as bishop on May 15 in Los Angeles.Ms. Glasspool was elected on the seventh ballot, winning 153 clergy votes and 203 lay votes. Her election followed the election...

AMSTERDAM, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to Dutch member of parliament Boris van der Ham, of the liberal Democrats 66 party, the government should mandate that all schools, including religious schools, include homosexuality as a topic in their sexual education classes. "Too many children are raised with a homophobic morality," said Van der Ham. "Although this is more common in urban immigrant families, rural Dutch families also have such prejudices. Schools should correct that image." The MP's statement was timed to coincide with a Thursday debate upon that subject. Six pro-homosexual organizations have sent a joint letter to the Dutch parliament...

The president has packed his economic team with Wall Street insiders intent on turning the bailout into an all-out giveaway Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but...

A controversial NHS pilot is providing the contraceptive pill to teenage girls without prescription in pharmacies. Southwark and Lambeth, two inner-city areas in London with the highest teenage pregnancy rates, are the first to try the approach. Experts have warned the government is struggling to meet its target of halving teenage pregnancies by 2010. But opponents said there was no evidence providing the pill over the counter would make a difference.