Free Republic

Vice President Biden applauded the Supreme Court's rulings earlier this week overturning the Defense of Marriage Act and California's Proposition 8, saying that "we're on the verge of seeing America move even further" on same-sex marriages.

Statutory rape is legally defined as: “The criminal offense of statutory rape is committed when an adult sexually penetrates a person who, under the law, is incapable of consenting to sex. Minors and physically and mentally incapacitated persons are deemed incapable of consenting to sex under rape statutes in all states. These persons are considered deserving of special protection because they are especially vulnerable due to their youth or condition.” If you are a male, say age 18 and you have sex with a 14 year old girl, in most states that constitutes statutory rape. In all but three states,...

(Online Translation from Dutch/Flemish) Spring pierces through the dry leaves carpet in the Royal Park, but here and stabs also something else: a used condom, a tube of lubricant. During the day, but especially at dusk and at night here intensively gecruiset by gay men looking for sex partners. On the Internet the tourist quickly towards this Burgundian hunting ground: cruising is widely promoted in the front yard of the House and Senate. "Between the waffles and the wall behind the catwalk parade on July 21, the place to be, sir: the two small woods." (© Bart Dewaele) The Royal...

Homosexual activists sometimes claim that, for the bulk of Church history, homosexual acts were not condemned. In fact, the term homosexual did not even exist until the nineteenth century, so Church condemnation of such acts is really only that recent.In an earlier post I discussed the contention that Jesus was silent on the issue of homosexual acts, but what about his followers? Many activists claim that although Paul's writings condemn activity that today is considered homosexual, he stood alone in this regard. They attempt to dismiss much of his teaching, painting him as a rebel of sorts who also...

Tulsa’s largest United Methodist church is considering dropping its scouting program after the Boy Scouts of America decided to allow homosexual boys to participate. “We’re leaning in that direction. I don’t know exactly what we’ll do,” said the Rev. Tom Harrison, senior pastor of Asbury United Methodist Church, 6767 S. Mingo Road. The Boy Scouts’ decision can be troubling for troop-sponsoring churches whose denominations oppose the practice of homosexuality. The United Methodist Church, a major supporter of Boy Scouts, has maintained that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. “We find this to be a very troubling decision,”...

WHITLEY CITY — Five years after church officials ordered Carroll Howlin to stop functioning as a missionary priest in southeastern Kentucky, leaders of the Diocese of Joliet, Ill., received a letter from a suburban pastor that illuminated just how little the diocese had done to enforce its own protective measures amid a crippling sex abuse scandal. Howlin, an avuncular-looking priest who moved here more than 30 years ago, had been suspended in 2002 after he was accused of molesting a teenage boy — the second of four such allegations he would face in his career. The Joliet diocese later substantiated...

Why is there so much anti-gay prejudice nowadays? For example, Dave Blount at Moonbattery says only “a sick, demented society” would ”facilitate” adoption by same-sex couples. I can’t imagine why anyone would say that, can you? George Harasz and Douglas Wirth, a married couple from Glastonbury, Conn., were arrested in November 2011 following allegations by two of their nine adopted children of sexual abuse. But these are merely allegations! It’s not as if these two guys have shown any unusual interest in young boys, right? The case of a same-sex Connecticut couple accused of repeatedly raping and abusing two of...

Erica Moore of Forest Hill says she was laying in bed one night when she decided to walk-around her house to check on her kids. She found the door to her 15-year-old son’s bedroom shut. When she opened it, she got quite a surprise to see her son wasn’t alone — her teenage male cousin was in the room with him. “My cousin at the time he was 18. My son he was 15 and I had walked in the room on [my cousin] giving oral sex to my son and I started whooping my son, and I’m the one...

The Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation’s largest private youth organizations, is actively considering an end to its decades-long policy of banning gay scouts or scout leaders, according to scouting officials and outsiders familiar with internal discussions. If adopted by the organization’s board of directors, it would represent a profound change on an issue that has been highly controversial -- one that even went to the US Supreme Court. The new policy, now under discussion, would eliminate the ban from the national organization’s rules, leaving local sponsoring organizations free to decide for themselves whether to admit gay scouts....

A second man has come forward saying he had sex with Kevin Clash, the voice of “Sesame Street” character Elmo, when the accuser was a teenage minor, according to a report. -snip- Cecil Singleton, who is now in his 30s, said he and Clash hooked up on a gay phone sex line in 1993 when he was 15 and the muppeteer was 32, according to a new $5 million lawsuit reported by TMZ. Singleton said Clash “trolled” phone sex lines to meet boys and wooed him with gifts of cash and fancy dinners, the lawsuit said, according to TMZ. Clash...

The politician implicated in an alleged child sex ring at 10 Downing Street was Sir Peter Morrison, one of Margaret Thatcher's closest advisers, IBTimes UK can reveal. Morrison was the mystery "senior aide" MP Tom Watson alluded to at Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs). Watson's allegation of a paedophile ring close to Downing Street stunned the House of Commons. Morrison was a Conservative politician who acted as Thatcher's parliamentary private secretary while she was prime minister. He also masterminded her failed bid to hold on to the leadership in 1990. Morrison left office in 1992 and died in 1995. The sexual...

The thousands of men expelled from the Irving-based Boy Scouts of America on suspicion of molesting children came from all walks of life — teachers and plumbers, doctors and bus drivers, politicians and police officers. They ranged in age from teenagers to senior citizens and came from troops in every state. As the Scouts have long said, the files suggest no single profile of a predator. But a close look at nearly 1,900 confidential files opened between 1970 and 1991 revealed a pattern: Many suspected molesters engaged in what psychologists today call “grooming behavior,” a gradual seduction in which predators...

An Oakdale priest has been charged with criminal sexual conduct involving a 12-year-old boy. The boy reported to his mother that Curtis Carl Wehmeyer, 47, pastor of the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul, had been sexually abusing him in a camper trailer in the church parking lot, according to a criminal complaint.

Secret files kept by the Boy Scouts of America reveal the organization's leaders may have helped hundreds of suspected child molesters "cover their tracks" by often hiding the allegations from parents, the public and police, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation. Documents obtained by the newspaper detail a paper trail of abuse where volunteers and staff were sometimes allowed to quietly resign to spare their reputation and that of the Scouts. "We are making no accusations and will not release this information to anyone, so our action in no way will affect your standing in the community," stated a...

First, some background: Minnesota Democrat state lawmaker Kerry Gauthier is involved in a sex scandal involving oral sex with a 17-year-old boy at a rest stop, and solicitation for the same on Craig's List. Go HERE for more. Of course, the MSM has not picked up much on this story - if it was a Republican, we'd be "Foley'd". While part of the problem is MSM bias, the other part is the relative silence of GOP lawmakers on the subject. In fact, only Democrats have really called for his resignation. This can, and must, be remedied with a few simple...

State Democratic leaders are increasing pressure on a DFL legislator not to seek re-election after authorities said he had a sexual encounter with a 17-year-old boy at a rest stop in Duluth. "I am deeply disappointed with Rep. Kerry Gauthier's conduct," said House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis. "The conduct was wrong and ... I believe he should withdraw from the race for re-election." Last week, the St. Louis County attorney's office decided not to pursue charges against Gauthier, a first-term legislator from Duluth, for allegedly engaging in oral sex with a 17-year-old boy in a wooded area behind the...

What a fool I was. In 1986, I spent a week in State College, Pa., researching a 10-page Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year piece on Joe Paterno. It was supposed to be a secret, but one night the phone in my hotel room rang. It was a Penn State professor, calling out of the blue. "Are you here to take part in hagiography?" he said. "What's hagiography?" I asked. "The study of saints," he said. "You're going to be just like the rest, aren't you? You're going to make Paterno out to be a saint. You don't know him....

Jerry Sandusky wants “people to know that he’s not guilty,” a lawyer for the retired Penn State assistant football coach said Monday. Sandusky—once considered Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno’s heir apparent—was convicted Friday of 45 counts for sexually abusing 10 boys over 15 years. Karl Rominger, who helped defend the 68-year-old retired defensive coach, visited him at the Centre County jail, where he is being kept under observation and away from other inmates pending a psychological review that will help determine the next step toward his sentencing, which is in about three months. “He’s defiant and wants the truth...

A high-profile member of the Boy Scouts of America's governing board says he doesn't support the Scouts' policy of excluding gays and will work from within to seek a change. Ernst & Young CEO James Turley, whose accounting firm has welcomed gays and lesbians in its own work force, becomes the first member of the Scouts' Executive Board known to publicly disapprove of the policy.

Gay marriage and homosexuality were part of the moral landscape faced by the first Christians in Ancient Rome.Given that the gay marriage agenda will be increasingly pressed upon Catholics by the state, we should be much more aware of what history has to teach us about gay marriage—given that we don’t want to be among those who, ignorant of history, blithely condemned themselves to repeat it. Contrary to the popular view—both among proponents and opponents—gay marriage is not a new issue. It cannot be couched (by proponents) as a seamless advance on the civil rights movement, nor should it be...