Free Republic

Do Americans Know What the First Amendment Includes? When asked to name the five specific freedoms in the First Amendment, 57% of Americans name freedom of speech, followed by 19% who say the freedom of religion, 10% mention the freedom of the press, 10% mention the right to assemble, and 2% name the right to petition. Thirty-three percent of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Over the past year, those naming freedom of speech decreased from 68 to 57%, freedom of religion decreased from 29 to 19%, and freedom of the press declined from...

It wasn’t like we didn’t see this coming but it’s certainly arriving faster and harder than even some of the more conservative estimates would have predicted. Now that gay marriage (or just any old marriage if you prefer) is a “constitutionally assured right” in the United States, Left side proponents are taking their victory laps. But at the same time they’re going to stick to the established talking points of telling everyone not to worry… nothing bad is going to happen to anyone else. You’re just not adjusted to the New and Improved Post-Homophobic Christianity. (From the Daily Beast) The...

Lost in the celebrations over universal gay marriage, like abortion, being deemed a right found in the “penumbras and emanations” of the Constitution is the chilling effect the ruling has on religious liberty. In a telling exchange between the Obama administration’s Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. and Justice Samuel Alito, detailed by Tom Blumer at Newsbusters.com, in which Verrilli admitted that churches could lose their tax exemptions if they refuse to perform gay weddings: Justice Alito: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax­exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage...

Now that same-sex marriage is legal nationwide, religious conservatives are focusing on preserving their right to object. Their concerns are for the thousands of faith-based charities, colleges and hospitals that want to hire, fire, serve and set policy according to their religious beliefs, notably that gay relationships are morally wrong. The Republican Party’s 2016 presidential candidates are already campaigning on the issue. And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is urging President Barack Obama and the nation’s governors “to join me in reassuring millions of Americans that the government will not force them to participate in activities that violate their deeply held...

Governor Greg Abbott today released the following statement regarding the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling: “The Supreme Court has abandoned its role as an impartial judicial arbiter and has become an unelected nine-member legislature. Five Justices on the Supreme Court have imposed on the entire country their personal views on an issue that the Constitution and the Court’s previous decisions reserve to the people of the States. “Despite the Supreme Court’s rulings, Texans’ fundamental right to religious liberty remains protected. No Texan is required by the Supreme Court’s decision to act contrary to his or her religious beliefs regarding marriage....

If you doubt that Christians are fair game for ridicule by the cultural left, take a look at the hit piece on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia by Jeffrey Tayler for Salon. I can't decide which is worse, the title or the subtitle. The title: "Antonin Scalia is unfit to serve: A justice who rejects science and the law for religion is of unsound mind." The subtitle: "The justice claims to be an originalist, but his real loyalty is to religion and a phony man in the sky." The writer is trying to be cute, but don't conclude that any...

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) (CNSNews.com) - Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, has delivered a sermon warning that religious liberty is under attack in the United States and that American Christians “are being increasingly subject to a soft despotism.” A transcript of the archbishop’s sermon--which was delivered at a special mass for Catholic lawyers in Broward County, Fla.--is now linked to a page on the USCCB’s website that is dedicated to the issue of religious liberty. “While atrocities are...

Concerns are arising among Christians and online commentators after a homosexual activist recently told a national publication that churches “must be made ‘to take homosexuality off the sin list.'” Mitchell Gold is the founder of Faith in America, an organization that aims to “end the harm to LGBT youth and families from misguided religious teaching.” He served on the board of directors for the Human Rights Campaign for seven years, and was named on of the “Top 50 Most Powerful Gay People in America” in 2007 by Out Magazine. In an article written by Frank Buni of the New York...

Senator Ted Cruz, who appeared in Georgia over the weekend at the Republican state convention in Athens, sees his candidacy for President of the United States as Reaganesque. Comparing the 1980 and 2016 election cycles, he noted the similarity between incumbent Democratic presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. And in an interview late Friday afternoon, he told me how he hopes to win the presidency in 2016. Cruz noted that since World War II, the GOP has only won the presidency when they ran on all three legs of the proverbial Republican Stool. The winning candidate has been a fiscal...

Many Republican politicians are afraid to engage in the debates over religious freedom and gay marriage, Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz told a gathering of pastors in Washington, D.C., adding that some of them are even running for president in 2016. Over 600 were in attendance at the Watchmen on the Wall conference hosted by the Family Research Council. Cruz, who represents Texas in the U.S. Senate, was discussing the recent debate over passage of a Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana. Most Democrats opposed the bill while also, as The Christian Post reported at the time, misrepresenting it....

Great news about one of my favorite Republican governors, Mary Fallin.Excerpt: If the U.S. Supreme Court decides to overturn the millennia-long definition of marriage, Oklahoma clergy will not have to be concerned that they will be forced to perform such ceremonies.On May 1, Governor Mary Fallin signed a law that would allow ministers to exercise their religious beliefs on marriage and decline to “wed” same-sex couples.Governor Fallin’s office said in a press release that H.B. 1007 is “a bill protecting religious leaders from being compelled to perform marriages that are in direct contradiction to their religious beliefs.”The law says that...

ATHENS – The fight over religious liberty legislation in Georgia is about to get much hotter. Ted Cruz is almost sure to make it so. At 7 p.m. tonight, the Texas senator will address a dinner gathering of the Georgia GOP here. His remarks will come roughly 15 hours before the convention takes up, as a platform resolution, an endorsement of SB 129, the religious liberty legislation sponsored by state Sen. Josh McKoon. A floor fight is anticipated. What will Cruz say tonight about the issue? He just gave us a preview. Said the senator: “It is sad. It wasn’t...

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Religious liberties were a hot topic at the Citizens United Freedom Summit Saturday, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal taking particular offense at a remark made by Hillary Clinton on the issue. Jindal wondered how Clinton could actually change an individual’s religious views saying, “And by the way the speech in this conference where she said those of us who are pro-life should need to have our religious beliefs changed. She didn’t say how. What does it mean? Re-education camps? She proposed to have our religious beliefs changed.” “You have to see her most recent comments on religious...

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...