Free Republic

The man accused of bashing a gay couple with a chair in a Chelsea barbecue restaurant surrendered to cops Tuesday — but hasn’t been arrested on hate-crime charges because he’s gay, too, police sources said. Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin, 41, surrendered to NYPD Hate Crime detectives at the Seventh Precinct with his attorney and was charged with assault and attempted assault. His arraignment was pending Tuesday night. A police source said El-Amin wasn’t charged with a hate crime because the Bronx man was gay and the attack wasn’t motivated by hatred of homosexuals. El-Amin allegedly slammed a chair over the heads of...

It looks like Spike TV didn’t find Clint Eastwood’s joke about Caitlyn Jenner during the Guys’ Choice Awards taping on Saturday very funny. A rep for the male-centered network said the reference will be cut from the telecast. “We will remove the reference in the version that will air,” David Schwarz, Spike TV senior vice president of communications, said in a statement. During the taping, while presenting “San Andreas” star Dwayne Johnson with a special award, Eastwood compared Johnson to other athletes-turned-actors like “Jim Brown and Caitlyn Somebody.” Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner, made her debut as a...

A young man in Delta, Utah alleges he was robbed, had “Die Fag” carved into his arm with a knife, and was forced to drink bleach on a Saturday night in late April, but it doesn’t stop there. Five days later, the words “Die Fag” were spray-painted on his and his family’s house. And this week, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through his window and his house was spray-painted again, this time with “You’ll Die. Burn Fag.” ... “I went out to take out the trash, and when I came back in, I thought it was strange that I didn’t...

The Duggar family sowed the seeds for their own downfall nearly a year ago when they sent out a hate-filled robocall to their entire town, Daily Mail Online can reveal The sequence of events which ended with son Josh being revealed as a child abuser began last August when they sent out the message to all the residents of Tontitown, Arkansas. The call urged them to vote against new laws preventing anti-gay discrimination laws and among those who heard it was Tandra Barnfield, a lesbian whose family know the Duggars. In protest Barnfield posed outside the Duggar home kissing her...

I am not normal. This, I learned from a news story 35 years ago. The details have faded with the passage of time, but the gist of it remains clear. Some expert had crunched a bunch of numbers in search of the “average” human being, the planetary norm, and found that she was an 8-year-old Japanese girl, living in Tokyo. I don’t fit that profile; I’m willing to bet you don’t, either. So as a matter of statistical fact, I’m not “normal” and neither are you. I went to church with Bruce Jenner. Here's what Caitlyn Jenner taught me about...

In discussing the scandal engulfing former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who is due in court this week, one thing must be made absolutely clear. What he is alleged to have done to young boys has absolutely nothing to do with being gay or gay rights. * Almost immediately after the news broke of Hastert’s indictment, folks looked to Congress for signs of hypocrisy. Former representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, made an assertion during an appearance on Huffington Post Live last Monday that was flat-out inappropriate. “Dennis Hastert twice as speaker tried to get the house to pass a...

Benjy, the bull in Ireland who had an international campaign launched in his name after his original owner threatened to send him to the slaughterhouse due to his lack of interest in mating, appears to be exploring new options in his sanctuary home. His new owner, Wendy Valentine of the Hillside Animal Sanctuary in Frettenham, Northfolk, told the BBC “Judging by what he was trying to do the other day with one of the cows… he isn’t gay.” …

It’s hard to decide what’s more frustrating about Bruce Jenner’s decision play-act a woman named Caitlin: that we’re all supposed to ooh and aww over his new feminine face or curvy breasts (that look perkier than most), or that we’re supposed to act like this is at once fantastic and normal, brave and routine. Unfortunately for Jenner and society, it is neither. This is not only devastating for him, but for our culture—and the fact that few people will view it that way, and this publication will most likely get slammed for saying so, proves the point even more. What’s...

At the 1976 summer Olympics in Montréal, Bruce Jenner won the gold medal for the men’s decathlon, setting a world record with 8616 points. In July, Jenner will be honored with another award, this time for a much different “achievement.” On Monday, Time reported that at ESPN’s ESPY Awards, the former world’s greatest male athlete will receive the acclaimed Arthur Ashe Award for coming out as a transgender.

The current main pop-culture headline involves former Olympian Bruce Jenner “transitioning” into a woman. He’s on the cover of Vanity Fair as “Caitlyn,” and he’ll be receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2015 ESPY Awards. Sadly, a large segment of our culture celebrates that which shouldn’t be celebrated. Jenner needs compassion — he obviously has a significant mental affliction — but he certainly doesn’t deserve an award for courage. There’s nothing courageous about a man living as a woman. On a related note, transgender activists in Canada are now lobbying to abolish gender references from birth certificates. From...

In April, Bruce Jenner spoke about her transition to woman in a television special that drew nearly 17 million viewers. On Monday, that woman revealed her new identity, appearing as Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair. The photograph of Ms. Jenner in a revealing outfit, shot by Annie Leibovitz and accompanied by the headline “Call Me Caitlyn,” immediately became a sensation on social media when the magazine posted the article online. Ms. Jenner, 65, who won an Olympic gold medal in the decathlon, has had a long public life. As Bruce Jenner, she had been on the cover...

A worker-owner of a Fargo coffee shop who instituted a tongue-in-cheek ban on North Dakota lawmakers for opposing an anti-discrimination bill says the response has been “99.9 percent positive” and that he made his point, even if a few people didn’t like it. Joe Curry, one of the worker-owners of the Red Raven Espresso Parlor, posted a newspaper page in the shop earlier this month that showed the 55 Republican state House members who rejected a bill that would have prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, government, public services and the workplace. It was accompanied by a sign...

The Army made her feel “like a joke” — but they couldn’t keep her silent. Chelsea Manning — formerly known as Bradley E. Manning — the ex-Army intelligence analyst sentenced to 35 years for leaking a treasure trove of secret documents to WikiLeaks, has given her first public interview with the press from military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Speaking through the mail to Cosmopolitan magazine, Manning opened up about her recent experience behind bars and her lifelong desire to live as a woman. “I don’t know how [this struggle] shaped my life and who I am, but it’s absolutely...

How can the religious community live in peace and harmony with the LGBT community? New York Times columnist Frank Bruni has the solution. Just rewrite the Bible. In his April 3rd column, “Bigotry, the Bible and the Lessons of Indiana,” Bruni, himself gay, recognizes that Christian beliefs are not necessarily grounded in hatred. The problem, he claims, is that, “Beliefs ossified over centuries aren’t easily shaken.” Bruni, for his part, wants to shake us free from our fossilized faith. According to Bruni, who evidences little or no understanding of how believers view the Scriptures (namely, as God’s inspired Word), if...

<p>Sissy Goodwin calls his cross-dressing lifestyle 'gender independence' After nearly seven decades in Wyoming, for much of that time facing heartbreak, discrimination and even physical violence, the cross-dresser has finally decided to leave the Cowboy State.</p> <p>Sissy Goodwin, who was profiled in the Los Angeles Times in 2013 for his insistence, despite an often-macho Western ethic, to lead the life he chooses -- as a man who prefers to dress in women's clothing -- is retiring in May from his job as a college science instructor in Casper.</p>

For a few days there it appeared that if a resident of Indiana had chosen to refrain from commerce with another person and was sued for discrimination, this resident could have found legal recourse to defend himself against the suit. This legal recourse was made possible by the passage on March 26th of IndianaÂ’s Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. Such was the media hysteria and attendant calls for economic sanctions against Indiana, however, that a few days later the RFRA was drastically amended. During the four days of hysteria, however, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill...

Her -- I think her -- twitter page says that her interests include "helping the world." Helping the world includes reporting as fraudulent a crowdfunding effort for a Christian family put out of business by leftwing hate.

The Boy Scouts' New York chapter said Thursday that it has hired the nation's first openly gay Eagle Scout as a summer camp leader, which is in public contrast to the national scouting organization's ban on openly gay adult members.

Update, April 3: The Indiana man who claims to have been hacked now admits that he wasn't, but says he was "joking" about robbing Memories Pizza, and is threatening to sue those who exposed his (ahem) public comments. Those of us following the Memories Pizza story won't have trouble remembering it as the years go by, thanks only partially to the Walkerton, Indiana store's fairly unusual name for a pizzeria. What will also easy to recall are the "memories" of the unhinged and threatening leftist behavior that accompanied its owner's simple statement that, if the request ever arose, they would...