Free Republic

A measure allowing some court officials to refuse to perform gay marriage responsibilities because of their religious beliefs became law in North Carolina on Thursday, with the state House voting to override the governor's veto of the bill. The Senate had voted to do the same with Republican Gov. Pat McCrory's veto a week ago. Thursday's House vote of 69-41 was just over the three-fifths majority needed. Ten House members were absent and didn't vote. The law, taking effect immediately, means some register of deeds workers who assemble licenses and magistrates to solemnize civil marriages can decide to stop performing...

While seven GOP presidential contenders were in Boone, Iowa for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) Roast and Ride over the weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was in North Carolina organizing his campaign in the state and meeting with party leaders. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) wasn’t in Iowa either, as he had events in New Hampshire. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also skipped the Roast and Ride. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, Cruz needled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) from afar, saying they “don’t fit naturally into any bracket.” “Either or both could choose to...

How did life on Earth begin? It's been one of modern biology's greatest mysteries: How did the chemical soup that existed on the early Earth lead to the complex molecules needed to create living, breathing organisms? Now, researchers say they've found the missing link. Between 4.6 billion and 4.0 billion years ago, there was probably no life on Earth. The planet's surface was at first molten and even as it cooled, it was getting pulverized by asteroids and comets. All that existed were simple chemicals. But about 3.8 billion years ago, the bombardment stopped, and life arose. Most scientists think...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Gov. Pat McCrory says he has signed legislation that makes North Carolina one of several states with 72-hour waiting periods for an abortion. McCrory's office sent an email Friday evening which announced that he had signed pardons for two brothers wrongfully imprisoned for three decades in the killing of an 11-year-old girl. At the bottom of the email, it was noted that McCrory had also signed nine bills, listing each bill by their number without referring to their specific title.

RALEIGH — Hasan Harnett upset Craig Collins, the choice of Sens. Burr and Tillis and Gov. McCrory, in a surprise victory tonight at the N.C. Republican convention. Harnett, a self-described constitutional conservative from Cabarrus County, ran on a generic platform of raising money for candidates, bettering relationships with elected Republicans, and other efforts to build the Republican brand. But behind the generic party language was a fierce debate that pitted Tea Party and grassroots types against well-known Republican rainmakers. Outgoing chairman Claude Pope, who endorsed Collins, tried to remain upbeat about the outcome. “It was a close race, but I...

William Penn once said, "A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably." People of faith that have sincere religious objections to same-sex marriage have every reason to question whether they have a friend in the Governor's office, and, perhaps in certain lawmakers. Recently, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory vetoed SB 2 – Magistrates Recusal for Civil Ceremonies. The bill simply establishes procedures that magistrates may recuse themselves from performing all lawful marriages, based upon a sincerely held religious objection. The same accommodation would be made for assistant register...

The New York Times has revealed what some of us already knew: billionaire convicted felon George Soros is bankrolling attacks on election integrity laws in advance of the 2016 election. He is funding efforts to attack laws designed to aid election integrity in Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio and perhaps elsewhere, according to the New York Times. Mr. Soros is prepared to spend $5 million or more on the effort, Mr. Vachon said. Two suits that he is supporting were filed in Ohio and in Wisconsin last month, and he is also funding a case Mr. Elias is involved with in...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who is in Raleigh this weekend organizing his campaign in the state, sees some parallels between the crowded GOP presidential primary and the NCAA basketball tournament. With the GOP primary becoming increasingly crowded, Cruz said it is useful to break down the field into brackets. Candidates must win their brackets in order to advance. “I think of the Republican primary very much like an NCAA tournament bracket,” Cruz said in an interview at the Raleigh Convention Center on Friday. The typical Republican primary, Cruz said, is composed of 35 percent of self-identified moderates, 15 percent libertarians,...

<p>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's governor says he'll sign a bill that would make the state one of several with a 72-hour waiting period for abortions.</p> <p>The state House gave final approval to the bill Wednesday, sending it to Republican Gov. Pat McCrory's desk.</p>

North Carolina may not be “First in the South,” but the so-called “valley of humility betwixt two mountains of conceit” has become an increasingly competitive state in general elections (to the extent there’s really a “contest” between Democrats and “Republicans” anymore). Of more immediate relevance to GOP presidential campaigns is North Carolina’s role as one of twelve states holding primaries or caucuses on March 1, 2016 – a.k.a. “Super Tuesday.” Looking to boost his Tar Heel State support is U.S. Senator Ted Cruz – who will spend part of the coming weekend in Raleigh, N.C. as the state’s “Republican” party...

<p>A pioneering lesbian activist who called heterosexuality “the ideology of male supremacy” and condemned marriage as “slavery” for women is now working as a math teacher in North Carolina.</p> <p>As a graduate student in 1969, Margaret Small helped begin what became the Women’s Studies program at the State University of New York’s Buffalo campus and in 1972 co-taught a course called “Lesbianism 101″ recognized as the first such class taught in the United States. Since 2009, Small has been employed as a K-12 Mathematics Curriculum Specialist for Buncombe County Schools in Asheville, N.C., according to her LinkedIn profile. However, in the 1970s, she was a member of a radical lesbian collective known as The Furies, co-founded by legendary feminist Charlotte Bunch. Small’s 1975 essay “Lesbians and the Class Position of Women” offered a Marxist interpretation of “lesbian consciousness” as part of a “revolutionary struggle” to end women’s “oppression” in the “relationship of slavery,” as she called marriage.</p>

Saudi Arabia’s unwillingness to follow its longstanding policy of propping up oil prices means North Carolina might have to wait for offshore energy exploration. That’s the assessment of Daniel Fine, associate director of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy and project leader of a group developing New Mexico’s state energy policy. Fine described a Saudi-led oil “price war” during a presentation to the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society. In the video clip below, Fine explained how falling oil prices tied to Saudi Arabia’s new policy affect North Carolina’s energy options.

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...

On and off the campaign trail in the Carolinas, voters say they have ‘no hard feelings’ toward Hillary Clinton. They say the opposite about Republicans.Bryan Burns could not make up his mind. Here was this African-American voter in khaki shorts, a v-neck T-shirt and black-rimmed eyeglasses, browsing shops at the Crabtree Valley Mall, on a swelteringly hot Friday in the not-yet summer of the American south. And there was Hillary Clinton, who needs to win the minds of exactly this kind of voter, a 30-year-old Virginia native who has spent the last decade living in North Carolina, a state that...

Republicans in the state Senate have added provisions to an abortion bill that are drawing strong criticism from a key Democrat in the Senate. The bill has already passed the House and would extend the waiting period for abortions from 24 hours to 72 hours. The purpose is to give women more time to consider the decision in the hope it will lead to fewer abortions. The proposal, House Bill 465, passed the House in a 74-45 vote last month. Now, in the Senate, a substitute bill is set for discussion on Wednesday. That substitute abortion bill now includes language...

The words of the former New York Governor and Democrat icon Mario Cuomo rang out loud and clear some 30 years ago. "I am personally opposed to abortion but" would pretty much sum up Cuomo's message. Yesterday that message was echoed on the issue of gay marriage by the Republican governor of North Carolina in a statement entitled "Governor McCrory defends Constitution". Governor Pat McCrory noted his own 'sincerely held religious beliefs that marriage is between a man and a woman'. But then we got this: "Whether it is the president, governor, mayor, a law enforcement officer, or magistrate, no...

As the debate over First Amendment Freedom of Religion laws raged back in May with Republican Governors backing down under business pressure in Indiana and Arkansas, the Republican governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, said his state didn't need such a law. The legislature has been acting, though, the House passing a bill to allow government officials to object to gay marriage, the bill now in the Senate as Senate Bill 2. But today Governor McCrory says he will veto the bill. A news release describing it is headlined "Governor McCrory defends Constitution". McCrory speaks of 'sincerely held religious beliefs...

The N.C. House passes a bill allowing magistrates to recuse themselves from performing same-sex marriages if they have a religious objection. Despite accusations of hostility toward homosexuals and discrimination on the level of Jim Crow, the North Carolina House of Representatives approved a bill that allows magistrates to recuse themselves from performing marriages due to sincerely held religious objections to same-sex marriage. After more than two hours of passionate debate, the House passed Senate Bill 2 in a 65 to 45 vote Wednesday. The bill was sponsored by Sen. Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) after the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts...

Before we get into the meat of this story from the National Journal, let me just note that this – “One of the most underappreciated stories in recent years is the deterioration of the Democratic bench under President Obama’s tenure in office” – has always been properly appreciated by me. I noticed this issue a while back. Sorry, but I felt the need to establish that. Moving on… …less attention has been paid to how the shrinking number of Democratic officeholders in the House and in statewide offices is affecting the party’s Senate races. It’s awfully unusual to see how...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — A federal judge in South Carolina has partially upheld the practice of Christian prayers during high school graduation ceremonies. As previously reported, an anonymous couple contacted the American Humanist Association (AHA) in 2013 to complain that Mountain View Elementary School had held its graduation ceremony at the chapel on the campus of North Greenville University, a Christian institution in Traveler’s Rest. They also cited that prayers had been presented at the event. The prayers, according to reports, had been written by the children and were reviewed by school officials before being presented. In response to the complaint,...