Free Republic

Hypocrisy: Those boycotting Indiana over gay wedding pizzas have no problem doing business with an Iran that hangs gays, stones women and wants to wipe Jews off the face of the Earth. And the Hoosier State doesn't even want nukes. Righteous, if somewhat selective, indignation is a hallmark of liberals, whether ensconced in Congress or corporate America, currently up in arms over the version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) enacted in Indiana and allegedly giving business owners a license to discriminate against gays. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and potential presidential contender Carly Fiorina punctured Apple CEO Tim Cook's balloon...

For the better part of these last two years there has been coming a head on collision. In one corner is a group who define their identity by the sexual anarchy they wish to engage in. They pursue absolute societal conformity, to ensure a right that is undefined in constitutional terms. Not satisfied with merely being tolerated by the culture, the activists in their midst seek to enforce perfected preferential status permanently. In the other corner is a group who define their identity by what they believe. They pursue peace with their community, even with little belief of societal tolerance...

There are two ways of looking at the furor that has erupted over the signing into law of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act by the state of Indiana. One is to focus on the fact that this law is a bit different from a federal law of the same name that also has been passed in 19 other states in that its broader language allows claims of religious liberty to be invoked as a defense in civil lawsuits between private parties as well as those involving government action. But for anyone who has been listening to the debate about this...

The GOP’s capitulation on religious liberty was as swift as it was predictable. Republicans have talent for courting just enough controversy to generate prodigious amounts of negative press but at the same time not doing enough to accomplish anything meaningful. And few things in this world rattle your run-of-the-mill Republican more than some ginned-up outrage over “discrimination” or “bigotry.” The media’s deliberate distortion of the intention, reach, and history of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—not to mention pressure from corporations like Apple and Walmart—was more than enough to do the trick. What excuse does Mike Pence have for flubbing a...

The conventional wisdom is that moral opposition to same-sex marriage will eventually evaporate — that even orthodox religious communities will learn to accommodate new cultural realities, and those few who don’t will ultimately be irrelevant, living on the margins of society. Evangelical churches will cave. The Catholic Church will cave. Jews will cave. In just a few, short years the Christian churches in America will look back at opposition to same-sex marriage with the same kind of shame that Southern Baptists view their segregationist past. That conventional wisdom is garbage. It’s based largely on a bigoted, ignorant view of the...

All this talk about religious liberty legislation makes me wonder why they don't simply follow their own state constitutions. All of the state constitutions that I'm aware of read pretty much like Indiana's: Indiana Constitution: Article One Section 2. All people shall be secured in the natural right to worship ALMIGHTY GOD, according to the dictates of their own consciences. Section 3. No law shall, in any case whatever, control the free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience.

Last week, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed a state version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prevents the government from forcing people of faith to violate their religious beliefs. Nineteen other states and the federal government have similar laws that protect religious liberty. Pence and state lawmakers should have been cheered for their defense of human and constitutional rights. Instead, they’ve been lambasted by business leaders, celebrities, Seattle’s mayor, and the NCAA, some of whom have threatened the state with losses of tens of millions of dollars in business. According to critics, Pence’s signature is the equivalent...

INDIANAPOLIS – The governor of Indiana signed the state “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” into law on Thursday, resisting critics who asserted that the legislation would allow people of faith to “discriminate” against homosexuals. Gov. Mike Pence signed SB 101 into law in a closed ceremony, with an estimated 70 t0 80 invited guests attending the event. “Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith,” he said in a statement. “The Constitution of the United States and the Indiana Constitution both provide strong recognition of the freedom of...

My pastor shared this article today. It's about a Lake Worth, Florida church that meets in a coffee house. ***snip*** The church owns and operates a coffee house in downtown Lake Worth. For the past three months, it has used the coffee house for a weekly worship service. Prior to that the congregation rented space in other buildings in the community. Pastor Mike Olive told me there had not been any problems until early last month, when he had an encounter with Andy Amoroso, a city commissioner. “After we opened up the coffee bar and started doing services, I heard...

If you haven’t been following Barronelle Stutzman’s case in Washington State, you need to be. She is the florist being sued by the state attorney general for refusing to participate in a gay wedding. The attorney general is trying to compel her to ignore her Christian faith and to participate in gay weddings. If she refuses, he is threatening the full coercive power of the state to force her to do it. She stands to lose everything—her home, her savings, her business, her livelihood—if she does not comply. I have an article today at CNN.com explaining the situation. The conclusion...

'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...

PLANO, Texas (BP) -- Plano Citizens United, a coalition of churches and civic leaders, cleared the first hurdle this week in rescinding a city ordinance that legal experts said would stymie free speech and religious liberty, while opponents of a similar ordinance in Houston prepare to take their fight to court. With no preexisting ministerial alliance in place, Plano churches were caught unprepared when the city council, led by Mayor Harry LaRosilier, passed an ordinance Dec. 8 creating a protected class of citizen based on sexual orientation and gender identity. With help from the Houston pastors' coalition, opposition to the...

Kelvin Cochran is a decorated firefighter. He is also a devout Christian. He’s a deacon at a Baptist church and also teaches Sunday school. By all accounts – he is a decent and honorable man. And now – he is unemployed. Cochran, who served seven years as the chief of the Atlanta Fire Departmant lost his job over a book he wrote about biblical morality titled, “Who Told You That You Were Naked?” A small portion of the book contained what critics called homophobic language. .... hundreds of Christians were expected to gather at the Georgia capitol to protest the...

Law: If there really is a "war on women," it's being waged against a group of nuns who seek to honor their call to serve the dying poor without being compelled to provide contraception coverage to those who help them. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver heard oral arguments Monday in the lawsuit by the Little Sisters of the Poor challenging the ObamaCare abortion-inducing drug mandate that threatens religious liberty. The case of the feisty nuns challenges a bizarre "accommodation" offered by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Under its proposal, the Little Sisters can fill...

Lori Windham is at the vanguard of a movement to change how the legal system treats religion. Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is best known for her role representing the owners of Hobby Lobby in their successful challenge to ObamaCare’s birth control coverage mandate. That case ended June 30 with a divided Supreme Court rejecting the mandate for closely held for-profit corporations in a decision of “startling breadth,” according to one dissenting justice. The win catapulted the Becket Fund and its lawyers into the headlines and put a spotlight on the firm’s cases and approach....

In a unanimous vote earlier this week, the D.C. Council passed legislation repealing “the exemption allowing religiously-affiliated educational institutions to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.” The repealed exemption (2-1402.41) read: (3) Notwithstanding any other provision of the laws of the District of Columbia, it shall not be an unlawful discriminatory practice in the District of Columbia for any educational institution that is affiliated with a religious organization or closely associated with the tenets of a religious organization to deny, restrict, abridge, or condition — (A) the use of any fund, service, facility, or benefit; or (B) the granting...

If the left can’t get around the First Amendment one way, it will find another way around it. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley made national news last year when he fought to pass and signed a tax bill that levied a tax on Marylanders, businesses and churches for the amount of “impervious surface” they have on their property.Though the O’Malley administration calls it a “fee,” it is commonly called the “rain tax” throughout the state. It is wildly unpopular and the promise to fight to repeal the tax was a large factor in Maryland electing Republican Larry Hogan governor this...

Since the story broke about the Human Rights Campaign's slanderous persecution of the very people their group was designed to protect – bisexuals and children of same-sex couples – I have received a great deal of support from people.  While it was nerve-wracking to have the truth about the 26 months of harassment by GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, Scott Rosenzweig, Jeremy Hooper, and a host of other totalitarians circulate at my job, it has been healthy.  My colleagues and students had no idea about the extent of this campaign of suppression, censorship, and harassment.  Now they know the...

Churches have received subpoenas issued by the city of Houston demanding copies of sermons. Houston is probing opposition to a ballot referendum pertaining to an ordinance proposing a local discrimination law affecting gays. (Bryan Preston posted this summary of the lawlessness taking place in Houston.) Over 50,000 petition signatures were gathered opposing the ordinance. Now the city, run by the first openly gay mayor, Annise Parker, is retaliating and demanding that churches turn over sermons. You read that correctly. This is the sort of government behavior that used to be confined to two-bit third-world regimes. The gay rights movement was...

In the bucolic town of Schaghticoke, NY, Liberty Ridge Farm serves as a setting for family outings and events of all sorts on a family owned farm in the country. They are open to the public for a portion of each year, featuring events ranging from day camps to field trips to a corn maze. And until recently they hosted weddings. That all changed after the owners, Cynthia and Robert Gifford, encountered Melisa Erwin and Jennifer McCarthy, a lesbian couple who approached the Giffords about holding their wedding there. Cynthia Gifford declined, citing her religious beliefs.The couple tape recorded...