Free Republic

By Susan Jones | April 27, 2015 | 10:24 AM EDT Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking during the sixth annual Women in the World Summit, Thursday, April 23, 2015, in New York. (CNSNews.com) - Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton says women won't have full access to "reproductive health care" until "deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases" are changed. She urged every woman to be a "champion for change" in the world around them. Clinton made the remarks last Thursday at the 2015 "Women in the World Summit," a three-day gathering in New York that examined the "struggles and triumphs...

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case to determine whether the Constitution requires states to issue same-sex marriage licenses and requires other states to honor same-sex marriages performed in those states. A primary argument by the plaintiffs is that gay marriage is covered under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and that if straights can marry, then so can gays. The counterargument is that marriage is a privilege and not a right, a union of one man and one woman sanctioned over millennia by virtually every culture and country over time as the stable...

The IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups prior to the 2012 election was an unconscionable abuse of power for which accountability and punishment have been noticeably absent. But this was and is not the only use by the Obama administration of the power to tax to attempt to destroy its political opponents. The IRS is also involved in targeting what President Obama has called “less than loving” Christians through the mandates of ObamaCare and its attack on the free exercise of religion through the attempted coercion of mandated health insurance coverage This administration’s war on religion is...

Religious Liberty Threats: Two Recent Incidents Raise Serious Concern and Show the Road Ahead May be Rocky By: Msgr. Charles PopeTwo stories recently in the news illustrate that the path for religious liberty is going to get increasingly rocky in the days ahead. Up until now, the main dispute of the Church with the federal government has been over the “HHS Mandate” requiring us to provide contraception and abortion coverage. We have seen some legal victories on this front, but the battle is far from over and the cost in terms of money, time, and other resources has been enormous.The...

I am a very committed, very public advocate of marriage as a gender-based institution. Many of my fellow proponents of man/woman marriage cite religious liberty as an argument against redefining marriage. While I have great respect for those who promote this view, I must respectfully disagree with their assessment.The uproar over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act demonstrates that religious liberty arguments don’t work anymore. I take no pleasure in saying this. But religious liberty arguments are not compelling enough to induce our fellow citizens to sacrifice something they value, namely, sexual liberty.I can think of three reasons for this.An...

In its latest attack on religious liberty, the American Civil Liberties Union, wants to force Roman Catholic organizations to provide contraception and abortions to unaccompanied immigrant children pouring over America’s southern border.The ACLU is suing the Department of Health and Human Services to obtain documents that it claims show that Catholic relief agencies are not providing abortions or referrals for abortion.

Last week, as radical Islamists slaughtered 148 Christian students at a Kenyan university, America’s faithful celebrated Easter and Passover in tranquility, demonstrating why religious liberty is not the eccentric uncle in the human-rights family — it’s the matriarch. Yet with demonic evil spanning the globe, and religion a life-and-death matter, punishment for defending one’s faith is now acceptable in America. Our “live and let live” ethic is increasingly imperiled. Witness the firestorm after Indiana became the 20th state to enact its version of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In our morally upside-down world, we accommodate the nuclear ambitions of...

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...