Free Republic

CARY, N.C. – The Wake County school board believes the decades long tradition of naming class valedictorians and salutatorians creates “unhealthy competition,” so they voted to end the practice. Board members voted unanimously Tuesday to ban high school principals from recognizing the top students with the titles and move to the Latin system that uses designations including cum laude, magna cum laude and summa cum laude starting in 2018, The News Observer reports. “We have heard from many, many schools that the competition has become very unhealthy,” board chairman Tom Benton told the news site. “Students were not collaborating with...

....Obama, the titular head of the LGBT movement, has added to the firestorm of confusion...by threatening schools with loss of federal funding unless they allow students to join the sex-segregated restroom, locker room, and sports teams of their chosen gender, without regard to biological reality. ....As someone who underwent surgery from male to female and lived as a female for eight years before returning to living as a man, I know firsthand what it’s like to be a transgender person.... What has arisen is a new breed emerging among young people that falls outside the purview of the LGBT: the...

President Barack Obama, the titular head of the LGBT movement, has added to the firestorm of confusion, misunderstanding, and fury surrounding the transgender bathroom debate by threatening schools with loss of federal funding unless they allow students to join the sex-segregated restroom, locker room, and sports teams of their chosen gender, without regard to biological reality. I know firsthand what it’s like to be a transgender person—and how misguided it is to think one can change gender through hormones and surgery. His action comes after weeks of protests against the state of North Carolina for its so-called anti-LGBT bathroom bill....

resident Obama and other politicians are taking a wide stance over the nation’s public restrooms. Important bathroom policy will finally be determined at the highest levels. In early May, public school educators nationwide received a legalistically-worded joint letter from the Departments of Justice and Education explaining how to legally treat transgender students under Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. CNN boiled it down to “Fall in line or face loss of federal funding.” Friendly federal “guidance” comes after dueling lawsuits between the Feds and North Carolina over that state’s House Bill 2, which establishes statewide restroom regulations. Those regs...

On the second day of her dream vacation on exclusive Bald Head Island, Julie Mall went with her family to the beach to catch the sunset. Her 11-year-old son asked to drive the golf cart back to their $1,000-a-day rented cottage. It was dusk, no traffic on the path and his father would sit next to him. A two-block, 30-second ride. She said sure. What could go wrong? In the next four hours, Mall says she was pinned to the ground by police, repeatedly accused of being drunk, frogmarched barefoot aboard a ferry in handcuffs, jailed in leg irons and...

Maroon 5 are the latest band to cancel shows in North Carolina because of the state's anti-LGBT bill. "We have announced that we will be canceling our upcoming shows in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina because of the recent passage of the HB2 legislation," the band said in a statement on their website. "This was a difficult decision for us to make as a band. We don't want to penalize our fans in North Carolina by not performing for them, but in the end it comes down to what we feel is morally right."

A shocking editorial in the Charlotte Observer counseled young girls to get over the "discomfort" they feel at the sight of male genitalia when transgender facilities are allowed in North Carolina. The newspaper assumes the law will eventually be repealed or declared illegal. While that may or may not happen any time soon, it is the justification for this position used by the Observer that reveals the true nature of this battle of the bathroom. (snip) So, biological men enter the bathroom used by biological women and this is not threat to the privacy of women? What spaceship brought this...

Thursday afternoon at approximately 4:57pm ET , North Carolina Police detained a man, later to be identified as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, for using the men’s restroom in the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. Police say they received a complaint from numerous bystanders and patrons inside the bathroom complaining of a person who didn’t belong there. When asked how police recognized that the man who they received complaints about may have been a women, they pointed towards the Cowboys apparel Romo was wearing at the time. “It was a dead giveaway,” said officer Mike Roseman. Under the state law, Romo was...

World-renowned violinist Itzhak Perlman said he canceled his Wednesday performance with the North Carolina Symphony after he was told he would not be able to include a personal statement opposing the state’s new law limiting antidiscrimination policies for LGBT people in the event program. In an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Perlman said he will not perform in North Carolina until the law is reversed. “If I’m invited, I will come once the law’s repealed. But as long as this thing is there, I have to take a stand,” Perlman said. …

Following the lead of progressive cities such as San Francisco, the San Jose City Council on Tuesday is poised to vote on banning city workers from traveling to North Carolina and Mississippi. The San Jose City Council resolution suggests that the city bans all non-essential city travel and business to those two states, and also to refrain from buying goods headquartered there until there's a change to "overturn existing discriminatory policies on sexual orientation. Both southern states approved legislation preventing anti-discrimination protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people. North Carolina passed House Bill 2, or the "bathroom law," and Mississippi...

The a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock is protesting North Carolina’s law addressing LGBT rights and bathroom use by transgender people during its concerts in the state this weekend. The group performed as scheduled but protested in song at the Paramount Theatre in Goldsboro, North Carolina, on Friday, and plans to again at the High Point Theatre in High Point, North Carolina, on Saturday night. …

A woman who wasm reported missing this week after she went hiking in North Carolina's Blueridge Mountains was reportedly found alive and tied to a tree. The unnamed 64-year-old woman was reported missing near the Blueridge Parkway on Thursday after a friend called 911 in the early afternoon. According to reports, the friend received texts messages from the woman, who said she was having some sort of emergency, according to the Citizen-Times. After about an hour, the woman was reportedly found tied to a tree near a trail, according to a fire department dispatch radio recording obtained by WLOS. Crime...

Despite the moral and legal implications, the fact is that this is a local issue, and big corporations and the federal government are doing all they can to bully local governments and State governments into compliance...or else. Is that freedom? Baseball Great Curt Schilling was fired by ESPN for daring to share the image and message shown on his personal social media page. The sports network considers Mr. Schilling’s personal opinion about the perverted mental illness of transgenderism to be discrimination. I don’t care how nice these people may seem to liberals, and how much they want to pat themselves...

Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) in upstate New York has a solid baseball team this season. In fact, player Kyle Bestle believes “I think we have a real shot at going to the national championship.” It would be the culmination of years worth of work, practice, and dedication to reach the nationals. A dream come true. Alas, it is not to be. Why? Is it because of a player injury? An unfortunate outcome in the qualifying tournament? Not quite. The HVCC baseball team will not be going to nationals because of Governor Cuomo’s ban on non-essential travel to North Carolina,...

U.S. immigration officials are planning a month-long series of raids in May and June to deport hundreds of Central American mothers and children found to have entered the country illegally, according to sources and an internal document seen by Reuters. The operation would likely be the largest deportation sweep targeting immigrant families by the administration of President Barack Obama this year after a similar drive over two days in January that focused on Georgia, Texas, and North Carolina. Those raids, which resulted in the detention of 121 people, mostly women and children, sparked an outcry from immigration advocates and criticism...

Some of us care little about the debate over public bathrooms. We do, however, care about the ongoing destruction of federalism, individual choice, and good-faith debate. One reliable way to quash dissent and force moral codes on others is to liken your cause to that of the civil rights fight. Every liberal issue is situated somewhere on the great historical arc of “equality” and “justice.” If a person stands against even one of these causes—which were once great but are increasingly trivial—they have, according to the cultural imperialists of the Obama administration, aligned themselves with the Klan. Literally. After U.S....

Burr calls NC GOP governor 'off base' for seeking congressional action North Carolina's senior senator said his state's Gov. Pat McCrory is "off base" in calling for congressional intervention to resolve a state dispute over restroom access for transgender people. "I've never seen Congress get involved in judicial matters and this is turned over to the court system now," Republican Sen. Richard M. Burr said Tuesday. "So, I think the governor's off base."... Burr said he would rather see the issue remain in the courts. "That's where they chose to put it,” he said. “I would have preferred that they...

By adding to an already challenging legal environment in North Carolina, HB2 could cost the state almost $5 billion a year, according to a new report by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. "The repeal of HB2 would not only reverse the threat to over $5 billion in economic activity for the state, but would also begin to bring North Carolina some of the economic advantages that come when a state embraces diversity and its LGBT citizens," said Christy Mallory, Senior Counsel at the Williams Institute and co-author of the new report. While prior reports have focused on...

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has suspended all city-sponsored travel to North Carolina and Mississippi due to the states’ new transgender laws. Rawlings-Blake made the announcement Tuesday in a letter to city officials, saying she hopes the city’s efforts combined with those of other governments and companies “will push North Carolina and Mississippi” to change. …

Sue Googe is a 2016 Republican candidate who hopes to represent the 4th Congressional District of North Carolina in United States Congress. Also, her surname looks like the Google logo — especially as it's written on her campaign signs, which use a font that's identical to Google's bespoke sans-serif typeface. [She's the one in the middle) [Lots more article and pics at The Verge article] ...