Free Republic

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has offered florist Barronelle Stutzman a deal: She can cater to same-sex weddings or she can stop doing weddings altogether. Of course, there’s always a third option: She can go out of business. Ms. Stutzman, the 70-year-old owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, is opting for none of the above. “Your offer reveals that you don’t really understand me or what this conflict is all about,” Ms. Stutzman said in a letter to Mr. Ferguson. “It’s about freedom, not money. I certainly don’t relish the idea of losing my business, my home, and everything...

Images of Mohammed in Islam are more common than fundamentalists claim. ....Muslim demands related to the visual representation of Mohammed have become familiar—and today, they are usually accompanied by threats of violence. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons depicting Mohammed, sparking violent riots and threats and prompting most other Western papers to refuse to run the cartoons...in response to apparent threats against the creators of the TV show South Park, the cable network Comedy Central censored an episode that mocked Mohammed.... ...Islamic history is full of examples of paintings—particularly miniatures, one of the glories of Islamic art—of...

Not that long ago, most Americans didn’t know much or care to know much about Islam. It was just one more exotic but irrelevant religion that missionaries and National Geographic occassionally talked about. One scholar noted, “Less than a year before September 11, 2001, the consensus of expert opinion was . . . that [Islam’s] impact had ended long before the Renaissance.” It took a massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil to abruptly bring Islam squarely into the center of the American consciousness.Since that day, questions about violence and Islam have lingered in the American mind: do these violent terrorists truly represent...

Liberals are very fond of trying to conflate the teachings of the Bible with those of the Quran. It is an attempt to destroy the foundations of our liberty by indicting Christianity with the atrocities of Islam. For liberals, violence is only religious if it impunes Christians. The Bible is a threat to liberal, leftist dogma because it is truth that diametrically opposes the humanist statism that is the utopia of the American left. Atrocities committed by Islamists are met with only nervous smiles or with blathering inanities about jobs for ISIS because Islam is not an American institution to...

"..........In June,2012, Gallup asked,"Do you happen to know the religious faith of Barack Obama?" Forty-four percent said they did not know,while 36 percent said he is a Christian, 11 percent said he is a Muslim, and eight percent said he has no religion. The "don't know" group included 36 percent of Democrats.(A larger number of Republicans, 47 percent, said they didn't know Obama's religion,as did 46 percent of independents.).............Whenever the issue pops up, Obama's most ardent supporters are quick to blame conservative media for misperceptions about Obama's religion. But it's possible something in Obama's public presentation of himself has also...

For those who had any questions, Rob Bell has now made himself totally clear: He is willing to trash parts of the Bible as "letters from 2,000 years ago" when God's Word contradicts his views on same-sex "marriage." Bell appeared on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday program together with his wife Kristen to promote their new book The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage. In an interview last December, Bell explained that on page 16 of the book, he and Kristen give their "whole hearted affirmation" to same-sex "marriage." That was no surprise in light of his announcement...

'You chose to attack my faith … to threaten my very means of eating' A Washington state florist facing “ruin” for her decision not to support same-sex “marriage” through her business has rejected out of hand an offer to settle a state claim of discrimination against her. As WND reported this week, Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom authorized the state and the homosexual plaintiffs to pursue the business and personal assets of Barronelle Stutzman, including her home, in payment of damages and attorneys’ fees. The Alliance Defending Freedom confirmed Ekstrom granted a summary judgment in the case against...

Reports Patrick Howley at the Daily Caller: State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf wrote her college honors thesis on “how conservative evangelical support for Israel complicates U.S. foreign policy,” according to Indiana University records. This doesn’t appear to be a stretch of the source material by any means. Howley precisely quotes the article “College ‘Luminary’ Marie Harf followed father to IU, political science” which was published on November 10 last year on an Indiana University website: She credits her IU professors — and especially her undergraduate honors advisors, political science professors Mike McGinnis and Marjorie Hershey, and English and Jewish studies...

A Washington grandmother and florist of 40 years who refused to service gay weddings because of her faith will now be forced to arrange flowers for gay ceremonies, a judge ruled Wednesday. On top of that, the woman, Barronelle Stutzman, will have to pay the legal penalties imposed by the judge as well as attorney’s fees. Benton County Superior Court Judge Alex Ekstrom ruled in a summary judgement that Stutzman violated anti-discrimination and consumer protection laws. Ekstrom ruled that the gay couple could collect penalties not just from her business, but also from her personally, according to Alliance Defending Freedom,...

Editor’s note: This is another post by my (imaginary) guest author, the Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the great State of Confusion Utopia. He is a founding member of CCCEB (Climate Change Causes Everything Bad), a charter member of President Obama’s Go For it Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. Senator Librul is also justly proud of his expertise in interfaith dialogue, on the basis of which he has explained to the entire world that Islam is the religion of peace, grossly distorted by the non-Islamic Islamic State and other textual deviants. He was recently awarded...

Former Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Mayor Kasim Reed and the city, saying he was fired last month because of his religion. Attorneys with faith-based nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom are representing Cochran in the federal case, which was filed Wednesday.

On Monday's Morning Joe on MSNBC, Joe Scarborough suggested that having a literal interpretation of the Bible could lead Christians to violence in a similar manner as radical Islam. Oddly enough, Scarborough hoped to avoid being "torn to shreds online" by equating the two, but made the comparison anyway. The morning's panel centered on the violence of ISIS and its undeniable ties to the tenets of Islam, but Scarborough felt compelled to find a link between Islam and Christianity. He said: “A very crude way to put it is, this would be the ultra fundamentalist Christians who believe every single...

In the name of anti-discrimination, the City Council of Charlotte, North Carolina is poised to discriminate against people of conservative moral values, also imposing the struggles of a tiny minority on every man, woman, and child who lives or works in Charlotte or might happen to visit the city. It’s wake up time, Charlotte! It’s not too late to make a change. According to an in-depth review by a team of lawyers with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a new bill, which the City Council will vote on after a public meeting on Monday, February 23rd, “does not contain adequate safeguards...

I don't write vanities. This isn't intended as one. But I've been wrestling with the question of "why won't they call it Islamic Radicalism?" But today was an epiphany. After listening to Marie Harf explain that "extremists need jobs" I realized that the violence that won't be named is only an example of the ongoing culture war in our own country. Fundamentally, Marxists of whom Obama is an adherent attribute historical movements the material dialect. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism) Essentially matter precedes thought. People, as groups, are motivated not by religion, which is a mere epiphenomenon of matter, but by material need. I...

The Bible speaks at length about our uniqueness. We are created in God’s image and are matchless, just like a snowflake. We are also commanded to use our unique combination of skills and abilities to glorify God and serve others. Our unique skills allow us to make a special contribution to the world we live in, not just in the church or on the mission field, but through our work. Because we are uniquely created, we are endowed by Christ with a specific set of gifts. We can further the Kingdom of Christ by knowing our gifts and pursuing them...

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson One evil man had the audacity to attack Christianity and defend Islam in the midst of 3,500 Christians at the recent National Prayer Breakfast. Many criticized and complained about Barack Obama’s speech afterward, but not a single Christian in that room had the courage to speak “truth to power.” Why is that? Evil operates through people, and it does what it’s supposed to do. Evil lies, seduces, divides and gives false illusions in order to conquer. God is greater than Satan. If we were truly God’s children, we would have...

The Greater Miami Jewish Federation is honored to welcome one of Israel’s founding fathers, President Shimon Peres, at its largest yearly community gathering, The Main Event. Join us on Monday, February 16 at 5:00 p.m. at the Hilton Miami Downtown, 1601 Biscayne Boulevard, for this rare opportunity to hear from one of Israel’s longest serving and most distinguished politicians. This year, The Main Event is being chaired by Tammy and Jorge Woldenberg. President Shimon Peres is an Israeli statesman, Jewish leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate whose public service career has spanned 70 years. Peres is the first Israeli leader...

(CNSNews.com) – An administrative law judge in Oregon has ruled against Melissa Klein’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a lesbian couple after Klein declined to make their wedding cake because of her biblical belief that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman. A hearing in March will now determine what fines will be levied against Klein for “damages” suffered by the lesbians. Attorneys for Klein, owner with her husband Aaron Klein of Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, Ore., had sought to have the case dismissed and to be awarded $200,000 in legal...

...Al-Muhallab said, “You must use deception in war, for it is more effective than reinforcements.” Some methods of deception include: a. Planting spies. b. Reconnaissance. c. Feigning an intent to attack an area other than the actual target, for when the Prophet (sallallāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) wanted to attack one area, he would give his army the impression they were going to attack another. “If a man’s chest is too narrow to hold his own secret, then the chest of the one with whom he stores the secret is even narrower” [Poetry]. And be on guard against your enemy at...

Truth-Telling and the News Media from Lee Webb Feb 13, 2015 Category: Articles NBC announced Tuesday that it suspended its lead news anchor Brian Williams for six months without pay. Network brass concluded that Williams embellished his experiences covering stories over the years; most notably that he was in a U.S. Army helicopter that was hit by enemy fire during the Iraq War in 2003.I’ve taken more than a passing interest in the story since I share a couple of things in common with Mr. Williams. First, before coming to Ligonier Ministries, I spent nineteen years in a position similar to his,...