Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) -- For the combatants in America's long-running culture wars, the triumph of Donald Trump and congressional Republicans was stunning - sparking elation on one side, deep dismay on the other. Advocates of LGBT rights and abortion rights now fear setbacks instead of further gains. But the outcome emboldened the anti-abortion movement and breathed new life into the religious right's campaign for broad exemptions from same-sex marriage and other laws. Kelly Shackelford, head of First Liberty Institute, a legal group that specializes in religious freedom cases, said that, for his cause, the environment will transform from "brutal" under...

“Nov. 8 was a game changer – and not for our essential work.” So lamented husband and wife atheists Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the so-called Freedom from Religion Foundation, which is based in Madison, Wisconsin and which claims 23,500 members nationwide. In fact, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth within the nation’s anti-God community in the wake of Donald Trump’s seemingly improbable election this past week as America’s next president. “Mr. Trump has made a number of statements,” decried David Silverman, president of American Atheists, “that has given millions of Americans who value constitutional...

Amir uses Ezekiel 34 to explain what is at stake in this election.

https://youtu.be/kwJZukmWpM0

This past summer, Hillary Clinton made this stunning and chilling statement in an interview on CNN: "deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs have to be changed." She did not specify in that interview which faith's religious beliefs had "to be changed." But now, thanks to WikiLeaks-released emails from the John Podesta's server, we have the context and intent of this statement. Mrs. Clinton was specifically referring to the religious beliefs of the Catholic Church.  The Democratic Party is on record via Podesta exchanges that it would like to and is already working to sabotage the Catholic Church from within to...

Many of you know that for more than 4 years, I have been one of the leaders of the team representing religious organizations, mostly Catholic (including Bishop David Zubik, Bishop of Pittsburgh’s Catholic Diocese) in his case which was consolidated in the U.S. Supreme Court with the case brought by The Little Sisters of the Poor and cases brought by others, against the government over Obamacare’s “contraception mandate.” A great number of religious groups of all denominations filed “friend of the Court” briefs supporting our position that while contraception is and could be available to all who choose to use...

ADF say the new law could force churches to 'violate their core religious beliefs' A religious liberty organisation is taking legal action to protect Massachussetts churches from having to open transgender bathrooms. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has filed a federal lawsuit against a new state law which they say is “punishing” the protected religious speech of churches and pastors. It comes as states are suing the Obama administration over its efforts to make hospitals, schools and other institutions change their policies towards transgender issues. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said it sued on behalf of four Massachusetts churches to protect...

MEMPHIS, Tennessee, September 29, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — An all-boys Catholic high school in Memphis, Tennessee, is being sued for $1 million by a former student who claims the school caused him “severe injuries and damages” by refusing to allow him to bring his same-sex date to a homecoming dance last year. The suit, filed Sept. 20 in Circuit Court on behalf of Lance Sanderson, states that Christian Brothers High School (CBHS) caused the teenage boy who identifies as “gay” to “suffer severe injuries and damages which include, but are not limited to disability, past and future emotional distress, past and...

Nearly 225 years after the ratification of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the cause of conscience protected by the principles of “no establishment” and “free exercise” may be losing support in the minds and hearts of the American people. Appeals by religious individuals and groups for exemption from government laws and regulations that substantially burden religious practice are increasingly unpopular and controversial. So much so that many in the media have taken to using scare quotes, transforming religious freedom into “religious freedom.” Now the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights appears to be recommending that we make it official:...

CHAMPAIGN, Illinois, September 15, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A Christian's 14-year career is being threatened because he refused to watch a training video on lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, and queer "diversity and inclusivity." In April, the Social Security Administration announced all employees must be trained in LGBTQ "diversity and inclusivity." Longtime information technology employee David Hall, whose Christian convictions do not consider sodomy healthy or normal or good for people, believed that the “training” was against his sincerely held beliefs. Specifically, Hall, 42, was told by his superiors to view a 17-minute video that includes "tips for increasing cultural awareness in...

Mr. Castro is chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, a venerable institution dating to 1957 that has helped America kill Jim Crow and make good on our founding promises. An Obama appointee, Mr. Castro last Wednesday made public a report on nondiscrimination protections—increasingly about gender preference and sexual orientation—that in its crassness rivals Hillary Clinton’s belittling of Donald Trump supporters. (Snip) The commission report is called “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling nondiscrimination principles with civil liberties.” Its top finding is this: “Civil rights protections ensuring nondiscrimination, as embodied in the Constitution, laws, and policies, are of pre-eminent importance in American...

What would happen if the government got out of the business of protecting the First Amendment rights of Americans and instead, decided to start attacking them? The chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission believes that "religious freedom" and "religious liberty" don't really exist. They are "code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance,” Be afraid. Be very afraid.

‘Religious freedom,’ ‘liberty’ just ‘code words’ for intolerance, U.S. Civil Rights chairman says By Mark A. Kellner - Special to The Washington Times - - Thursday, September 8, 2016 The chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said that “religious freedom” and “religious liberty” have become merely “code words” for intolerance, “Christian supremacy” and committing every form of identity-politics sin, and thus they must yield before anti-discrimination laws. The remarks, released Thursday in a report on “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties,” is the latest example of an increasingly hostile reception in liberal circles to one of...

On Wednesday, August 17, the Wyoming Supreme Court heard a case that has huge implications for each and every one of us. The case involves Judge Ruth Neely, who has served with distinction for twenty-one years as the municipal judge in Pinedale, Wyoming. Since municipalities have no authority either to issue a license or solemnize a marriage, you would think that she’s unaffected by all the hoopla over same-sex marriage. But you would be mistaken. Because of her beliefs about marriage, the Wyoming Commission on Judicial Conduct and Ethics (CJCE) wants to remove her from her job and disqualify her...

The very best thing we can do is recognize that Trump is less than what we'd like in a candidate, so we should just sit this one out and NOT work our butts off to help him get elected. This strategy worked very well for us when McCain was our candidate. And again when Romney was the man. Obama was not that bad as president. Hillary can't be much worse. /sarcasm WAKE THE HELL UP, PEOPLE!!

An Air Force major, who was accused of civil rights violations for having a Bible on his work desk, has been cleared of any wrongdoing, according to military officials at the 310th Space Wing in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Maj. Steve Lewis, a supervisor at the Reserve National Security Space Institute, agreed to voluntarily remove the Bible pending a military review. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation had filed a complaint against Maj. Lewis -- accusing him of "harboring and encouraging a truly abhorrent example of First Amendment civil rights violations." But a public affairs spokesman told me late Tuesday that Maj....

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, when in fact the results never change, is one definition of insanity. That definition works for economic insanity, too. Over the past seven-and-a-half years, President Obama has maintained a steady course of burdensome new regulations, significant tax increases, and massive federal spending on so-called infrastructure. He has unconstitutionally ordered executive actions, favored labor over business, attacked banks, insulted successful corporate leaders, and backed federal-government mandates on business. And with all this, strong economic recovery from a deep recession -- which has been an American tradition -- never came...

An Iowa church just wants to be free to preach the gospel, but the state’s so-called nondiscrimination requirements could block the house of worship from doing just that. Lawyers for the church are asking a federal court to prevent Iowa from censoring what the religious group can say about homosexuality, same-sex “marriage,” transgenderism and other related topics. The case erupted when the state’s Civil Rights Commission first claimed the authority to control the content of sermons and then to define what’s religious. At issue is the state’s nondiscrimination requirements that specify any “public accommodation” can be ordered not to say...

More disturbing revelations about the DNC continue to come to light as hacked emails continue to be published online, exposing the radical left for who they really are for the whole world to see. One of the latest developments to surface are emails that show the Democratic Party was working with anti-religious freedom groups to get around religious liberty laws that protect our First Amendment right to believe what we want, worship where we want, and live out our beliefs both publicly and privately. This is truly atrocious.

I had a very weird college experience. My memories aren’t of frat parties, of slugging down drinks in games of quarters or beer pong, of losing my voice cheering at big football games, and of hearing how evil Western civilization is in the classroom. Instead, when I think of my four years at Thomas Aquinas College, I think of drawing Euclidean propositions on a chalkboard, of lively debates about Aristotle’s claims about ethics, of earnest discussions about things as obscure as the nature of being.