Free Republic

This current impasse over the "Bathroom Law" provides North Carolina with a unique opportunity to be a leader not only in standing up to the radical leftist agenda and the bullying of the gay lobby, but also in advancing liberty Recently, the state of North Carolina has found itself squarely in the cross hairs of the radical gay lobby and its social justice warrior (SJW) allies in business. The reason is a new law, passed by wide margins in both houses of the legislature and signed by Governor McCrory, which prevents local governments from passing ordinances allowing, among other things,...

ATLANTA — The Rev. Wayne Cofield says he’ll sit in a jail cell before he presides over a same-sex wedding. He would rather have the state’s legal protection in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that gays and lesbians can marry. But, he said, he will follow his convictions. “I would never — no matter what it cost — perform a same-sex marriage. Never,” said Cofield, pastor at Whitfield Baptist Church in Dalton. While it seems unlikely that Cofield will end up in handcuffs — or that a gay couple would ask him to officiate at their wedding —...

<p>Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has vetoed legislation he said would legalize discrimination against LGBT people.</p> <p>The Democratic governor signed his veto of Senate Bill 41 Wednesday morning while on WTOP.</p> <p>"We're not going to tolerate discrimination. Virginia will be open and welcoming," he said.</p>

Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday vetoed the controversial Religious Freedom bill, saying it "contains language that causes me concern." “I do not think we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in Georgia of which I and my family have been part of all of our lives,” Deal said.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Monday said he will veto legislation shielding opponents of same-sex marriage, after a groundswell of opposition from companies threatening to boycott the state if it became law.The Republican announced his decision during a news conference in his office at the Georgia Capitol, saying, “I have examined the protections that this bill proposes to provide to the faith based community and I can find no examples of any of those circumstances occurring in our state."Deal added, “I do not think that we have to discriminate against anyone to protect the faith-based community in...

In 1804 an Ursuline nun in New Orleans asked Thomas Jefferson to clarify in writing her religious community’s right to retain their property and to continue their ministries without government interference following the Louisiana Purchase. As French Catholic Louisiana was being incorporated into the Anglo-Protestant United States, the nuns were concerned about the status of their institutions under U.S. law. President Jefferson assured her that the government would not interfere with the sisters’ property, ministries, and way of life. In a letter dated May 15, 1804, he wrote: “I have received, holy sisters, the letter you have written me wherein...

Despite his hundreds of rallies, his many interviews and his hyperactive Twitter feed, it’s still really hard to tell the difference between what Donald Trump actually believes, what he says to whip up his crowds, and what he says merely because it popped into his head one afternoon. Not so with Senator Ted Cruz, the arch-right Texan who is one of Mr. Trump’s two remaining Republican opponents. Americans can be sure he believes what he says, and that is pretty terrifying. His calls for carpet bombing Muslims to punish the Islamic State, and more recently for putting Muslim neighborhoods under...

This is the kind of case the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia liked to sink his judicial teeth into -- whether the federal government can compel a religious entity like the Little Sisters of the Poor to violate their religious beliefs and acquiesce to the ObamaCare contraceptive coverage mandate. As LifeSite News reported on Wednesday’s hearing: This week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious order of women who have vowed their lives to care for the elderly poor.

If you were totally avoiding the internet today, or if you live under a particularly pleasant and comfortable rock, maybe you don’t know that the federal government and a bunch of nuns are duking it out before the Supreme Court over birth control. More to the point, they’re fighting over the Little Sisters of the Poors’ refusal to subsidize contraception and abortion-causing drugs for their employees via their health insurance coverage, all of whom, by the way, are mandated by the President Obama’s signature eponymous government overreach law to purchase their own health insurance. Well, fair’s fair, right? I mean,...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Moments ago, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, a 175-year-old religious order of women who care for the elderly poor. The Little Sisters have asked the Supreme Court for protection from a government mandate that is forcing them to provide services against their beliefs. Little Sister gives landmark statement following Supreme Court hearing The following statement can be attributed to Sister Loraine Marie Maguire, Mother Provincial for the Little Sisters of the Poor: LITTLE SISTERS POOR “Hello, my name is Sister Loraine Marie Clare. The Lord has given me...

Why I Believe Ted Cruz Is Religious Liberty's Only Hope By Todd Starnes Published March 24, 2016 America’s Christian bakers and florists and wedding planners will be safe under a Ted Cruz presidency. “I am absolutely convinced in my discussions with the senator that religious liberty will be a lot better off in America with a Cruz administration,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and Chair of Cruz’s Religious Liberty Advisory Council The council released exclusively to me its initial recommendations for both legislative and executive actions that will restore the nation’s First Freedom – the freedom...

Georgia is the latest to enter the national mayhem surrounding a state-sponsored religious freedom bill.  Its also the latest group to be the target of media obfuscation.  Several versions of #HB757, The Religious Freedom Act have been debated by the legislature of Georgia.  The most memorable was the February version that allowed businesses to cite their faith as a reason not to conduct business with lifestyles that conflict with their values..  The was a far-right version that conflated our for-profit roles in commerce with projecting our religious beliefs on our customers and clients.  If sinners are banned from commerce, then...

I suppose none of us should be surprised that the apologists for homosexuality are also capable of rampant and unrepentant hypocrisy. Nevertheless, the duplicity recently on display in Georgia belongs in the hypocrisy hall of fame. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous Obergefell decision, and after previous efforts at a religious liberty bill failed, and in order to protect its citizens from the militant homosexual agenda, legislators in Georgia felt renewed urgency to join over 30 other U.S. states which have similar religious liberty legislation or provisions.

Judge Merrick Garland, Barack Obama's choice to be the next justice on the Supreme Court, ruled against Priests for Life in a case involving the HHS mandate. He also gave ObamaCare subsidies a second chance at life in a separate case. The two rulings give a window into the philosophy of Judge Garland, whom the National Organization for Women referred to as a “cipher” with little paper trail on issues related to abortion or other feminist concerns. ObamaCare's HHS mandate opt-out does not violate the Constitution Priests for Life sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over...

President Barack Obama's nominee to fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court once joined an opinion that rejected an evangelical Christian defense based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was recently tapped by President Obama as a nominee to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. In a case decided in June 2001, Judge Garland joined an opinion authored by fellow appellate judge A. Raymond Randolph that rejected a RFRA argument for a pair of evangelical Christians who wanted to...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland, March 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Minutes after addressing a packed room at the 2016 CPAC, two leading social conservatives told LifeSiteNews that sexual agendas are putting religious liberty at risk. The Family Research Council's Travis Weber told LifeSiteNews that "for a lot of us, religious liberty's only been a hot-button issue recently, we're seeing in the news. Why is that? It's driven by agendas affecting matters of sexuality – marriage, abortion, contraception, and all sorts of other issues." "So what do we do about this? Some of these claims are going to be dealt with in the...

Let’s take a break from the primary battles and check in on the latest antics unfolding out in California. This month, having solved all other problems plaguing their state, the California legislature has taken up a new measure which would ban government funded travel to states which they deem to be insufficiently supportive of LGBT rights. The author of the bill, Evan Lowe, seems to feel that such a move will be a way to take a stand for the little guy, I suppose. (Time) A California lawmaker has introduced a bill that would ban government-funded travel to states with...

A small town bakery owned by a Christian family is under siege after they declined to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. Edie and David Delorme own the Kern's Bake Shop in Longview, Texas - known around town for their petit fours and sugar cookies - and also their custom-made wedding"> cakes. The Delormes are also devout Christians - faithful members of a nearby Baptist church - and they run their bakery according to the tenets of their religious beliefs. That became a problem on Feb. 17 when Ben Valencia and Luis Marmolejo requested the bakers make a...

Much will be written about the utter thrashing GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump took at the hands of the far-more prepared, knowledgeable, qualified and otherwise principled Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio during Thursday night's Republican presidential debate on CNN. I will, therefore, focus, instead, on another Republican candidate who's absolutely got to go: Ohio Gov. John Kasich.Many thanks to Hugh Hewitt for asking the question. In a campaign where the noise of myriad, and in many cases less critical, issues has drowned out the single greatest threat to God-fearing Americans' individual liberties - the secular left's tireless efforts to end our...

Has John Kasich blown his Christian cred? Kasich has built some of his following on his reputation as a sincere (if somewhat offbeat) Christian conservative. In November, for example, he called for a new government agency to promote "Judeo-Christian values." But tonight, when presented with a question about religious liberty, Kasich seemed to advance a rather different set of priorities. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO ... While Kasich defended the right of religious institutions to practice their faiths however they please, he seemed to argue that people "in the business of commerce" should "conduct commerce, and if you don’t...