Free Republic

Christians are often asked by gay activists why they oppose same-sex “marriage.” “How does our marriage hurt you?” they ask. Well, I can think of one significant way it will hurt us: It will destroy religious freedom and free speech rights. The handwriting is on the wall in Canada, which legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005, in effect completely changing its true meaning. Since then, as Michael Coren notes in National Review Online, “there have been between 200 and 300 proceedings … against critics and opponents of same-sex marriage.” Of course he means legal proceedings. For instance, in Saskatchewan, a homosexual...

You may recall Brendan Eich. The cofounder and CEO of Mozilla was dismissed from his company in 2014 when it was discovered that, six years earlier, he had donated $1,000 to California’s Proposition 8 campaign. That ballot initiative, limiting marriage to one man and one woman, passed with a larger percentage of the vote in California than Barack Obama received nationally in 2012. No one who knew Eich accused him of treating his gay coworkers badly—by all accounts he was kind and generous to his colleagues. Nonetheless, having provided modest financial support to a lawful ballot initiative that passed with a...

Chaplain Wes Modder spends his days basically alone in the base chapel. He is no longer allowed into his office. By order of his commanding officer, he is not allowed even to speak to the sailors in his unit. If anyone from his unit comes into the chapel, he may not speak with them. His commanding officer, Captain Jon Fahs, has taken this unusual step because of complaints lodged against Modder by a handful of sailors who claim he is “unable to function in a pluralistic and diverse Navy.” Modder ran into the buzzsaw of political correctness related to human...

In parts I and II, I focused on the substance of Christian teachings about marriage and homosexual sex. In this part, I discuss the reasons of theology, politics, and legal strategy that bring Christian sacraments and morals into direct collision with the LGBT-rights movement. As discussed in parts I and II, the arguments for excusing Christians from following Jesus’ and Paul’s teachings on marriage and on homosexual sex are grounded in unsettled science, bad history, and worse theology. The more serious argument among people who are more versed in Christianity is not what is right or wrong as a matter...

When in the course of human events it becomes clear that government apparatchiks and Rainbow Jihad trolls (apologies for the redundancy) are colluding to shut down businesses that make cake, it might be time to ask what sort of flowers we should plant on America’s grave. That would be if that brood of vipers wasn’t also coming after the florists. Sorry, they’re closed, too, due to an overabundance of tolerance and such. Just remember, kids, destroying marriage wasn’t going to change a thing except to turn up the love a little louder. Well, Aaron and Melissa Klein have had more...

It has become a common occurrence over the years for Muslims in the Middle East who have converted to Christianity to claim to have been compelled to do so after dreaming of a person who they believe is Jesus Christ. Now, one militant belonging to the brutal Islamic State that has massacred Christians has converted to his victims' religion after dreaming of "a man in white" with a startling message, according to one missionary's account. "One of our YWAM workers in the Middle East was contacted by a friend earlier this year and they met up and he was introduced...

Two Christian pastors from South Sudan who traveled north to Sudan and were arrested on charges of spying could face the death penalty when their trial begins next week, according to their attorneys. Yat Michael Ruot and Peter Yein Reith, both Presbyterian pastors from the breakaway Christian nation of South Sudan, are being held by Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services on charges of undermining the constitution and espionage. Their supporters say their arrest and pending trial is just the latest effort by the militant Islamist government in Khartoum to stamp out Christianity.

I have often maintained that threats to freedom of expression in this country come predominantly -- probably exclusively -- from the political left. The censoring of a pro-life student club in a Las Vegas high school is a recent egregious example. Angelique Clark, a sophomore at West Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas, says the Clark County School District denied her application to charter a pro-life club as a chapter of Students for Life of America, the nation's largest youth pro-life organization. The district, according to Clark, said, "It was too controversial, and it would be too exclusive, and...

Full title: Christians in Niger Forgive Muslims Who Burned Churches and Killed Believers: 'We Want Them to Know Jesus Christ' Christians living in Niger, West Africa have offered Christ-like forgiveness to the radical Muslims who destroyed their homes and churches, are are continuing to share the Gospel in the region. On January 17, hundreds of Muslims, angered by the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad published by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, destroyed 69 churches and 11 Christian homes. Ten Christians lost their lives and hundreds more were injured in the wake of the deadly rampage. "They took pews, Bibles, chairs...

(Photo: us.fotolia.com | matf16) The persecution of the Catholic Church and other morally conservative religious bodies has begun in the United States. As predicted, it isn’t—thank God—bloody persecution like the persecution of Christians in many countries. But it’s real persecution and likely to get worse. This new persecution currently has two prongs. One consists of pressuring individual religious believers to cooperate with public policies inimical to faith. The other prong is pressure targeted at religious groups and institutions to adapt their programs to the promotion of values hostile to the sponsors’ moral convictions. When and if the Supreme Court...

Canada legalized same-sex “marriage” in 2005, the fourth country in the world to do so. During the rushed public debate that preceded legalization, the Christian and traditional understanding of marriage as the union of a man and a woman had strong support. Polls showed a deep split among Canadians, and the majority (52 percent) were actually against legalization at the time that it occurred.Opponents of same-sex “marriage” were given all kinds of assurances. The preamble to the Civil Marriage Act states that “everyone has the freedom of conscience and religion,” “nothing in this Act affects the guarantee of freedom...

A new document attests to the genocide that is being ignored by the world. Every year, more than 100,000 Christians are murdered just because of their faith. This means that 11 Christians are murdered every hour. The numbers are contained in a new document presented by John McAreavey, president of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Bishops of Dublin. A genocide of Christians is under way. In many Middle Eastern cities, from Aleppo to Mosul, the Islamists have dealt with each and every Christian by displacing, killing or forcibly converting them, and just like the Nazis painted the Star...

Maranatha First Baptist Church is one of the largest congregations in Holguín, Cuba . . In early May Pastor Amado Ramírez Oliveros reported the long-awaited answer: Cuban authorities not only denied the construction permit, they announced the government is seizing the property that has belonged to the Eastern Baptist Convention since 1947. Maranatha will be forced to pay an unannounced amount of “rent” if it wants to remain in its building.

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Romans 1:26,27 (KJV) Vice President Joe Biden say today that the rights of the LGBT people are violated by “religious condemnation”. He is directly referring to Bible verses like the one posted at the top of...

Irony is defined as "the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning." The term doublespeak means "evasive, ambiguous language that is intended to deceive or confuse." There is perhaps no greater example of ironic doublespeak than inclusion of the phrase "civil liberties" within the inapt designation: "American Civil Liberties Union." Indeed, few leftist organizations in existence today can compete with the ACLU in terms of demonstrated hostility toward what the Declaration of Independence describes as "certain unalienable rights" with which Americans are "endowed by their Creator." Consider the doublespeak inherent throughout the...

Robert Chardon, mayor of the French town of Venelles, has allegedly been forced into a mental institution for tweeting, “We must ban the Muslim faith in France.” This revelation came to us via the Agence France-Presse, a highly regarded news entity that claimed Chardon was involuntarily hospitalized last Friday. Chardon also tweeted that France should revoke a centuries-old secularism law and instead “promote the practice of the Christian faith.” All this rhetoric reportedly angered Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of the Union for a Popular Movement, the same party to which Chardon belongs. “I condemn this proposal even if secularism also means...

Kirsten Powers’ new book, “The Silencing,” nails it by showing just how bad things have gotten for free speech in America. It’s going to get a whole lot worse, and I’ll explain why. Powers has dubbed today’s intolerant purveyors of leftist causes the “the illiberal left” because, as a liberal herself, she sees them as anything but liberal about allowing a voice to those who don’t toe their rigid line. Her book catalogues and analyzes the dehumanization and demonization techniques the illiberal Left applies towards anyone who dares to veer from their rigid narratives. Their sacred cows include abortion, climate...

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Federal authorities are investigating a Connecticut gun-maker after agents found nearly 3,000 assault rifle parts missing serial numbers, according to recently filed court documents. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents seized nearly 300 of the AR-15 parts from Stag Arms in September following routine inspections, prosecutors said. At the time, the father of Stag Arms owner Mark Malkowski told authorities that the employee who places serial numbers on parts was on vacation. The New Britain-based gun-maker gained a high profile in the state when Malkowski became a vocal critic of a stricter state gun-control...

Gunmen killed a church pastor and more than 70 other Christians in Plateau state in the past month, sources said. Setting fire to church buildings and houses in attacks that continued this week, Fulani Muslim herdsmen on May 2 killed the Rev. Luka Gwom of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in the town of Foron, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area (LGA).

While actions speak louder than words, words often predict future actions. Secular progressives’ words and actions rarely align. This is because the pseudo-utopian, wholly dystopian perch from which they view the world is so detached from reality that, from a cultural and public policy standpoint, they must disguise their intended actions in flowery and euphemistic language, or face near universal rejection. When they don’t like the terms, liberals redefine the terms to mean something they do not, never have and never can mean. Consider, for instance, the once meaningful words “marriage” and “equality.”Other “progressive” doublespeak includes words like “invest” (meaning...