Free Republic

When Reggie Love was asked to swap his job in then-senator Barack Obama’s Chicago mailroom for a gig on the candidate’s presidential campaign five years ago, there was no contract or job description — not even a loosely defined one. “Take care of stuff,” Mr. Obama’s chief of staff put it to him at the time.

Here is a better way to look at this ... the government should not be in the marriage business, and marriage is not a political issue. Gay people, for the most part, express a desire to get married for the benefits that are extended to married couple [rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children]. Government should allow people to engage in civil unions [this includes men and women], only. Marriage should be left to the churches. Then, any one can have...

David Brock is Media Matters founder, and recently, I have seen many posts ridiculing him for being homosexual. David Brock’s sexual orientation is not the issue. Making fun of it just lowers us to the level of the Left’s personal attack strategy. We can do better. There is utterly no need to mention that David Brock is a giggling little donut-puncher, or a skipping lavender-scented pillow-biter. We do not need to mention that David Brock is a pearl-necklace adorned tumblebunny, nor do we need to say he is a limp-wristed prancing knob-jockey. Never will it cross my keyboard to mention...

... Because 95 percent of gay American men and 40 percent of heterosexual American women have had anal sex at least once during their lifetimes, according to surveys, rectal versions of the gel are being developed. Tests of new, less viscous formulations that are less likely to draw water into the rectum, making use unpleasant, will begin soon, said Dr. Ian McGowan, another leader of microbicide trials at the University of Pittsburgh’s medical school. Gay and bisexual black and Hispanic men, who are now the highest AIDS risk groups in the United States, will be recruited soon in Boston, Pittsburgh...

I urge all of you to visit www.seanforcongress.com. Sean is a Conservative, Marine and successful business person. Recent polls have him within striking distance of the ever-awful Barney Frank (need I say more?). The Frank camp is getting nervous too which is why they flew in Bill Clinton over the weekend to raise money for Barney. Sean can do this! and if he does think of the trophy-like win this seat will mean nationwide. Hopefully the RNC will wake up and throw heavy resources to Sean's campaign.

Teen icon Justin Bieber caused a fuss on the set of an Australian chat show during a recent trip Down Under - he swore at a production crew member who touched him. The Baby hitmaker, who is just 16 years old, stunned staff at Sydney-based morning TV show Sunrise last month when he cursed at a floor manager who led him to the performance stage. Sunrise host David Coch tells Aussie radio station Mix FM, "We had him on and he was a thoroughly nice bloke, really decent guy. "Our floor manager was directing him to where he was about...

Eli Olivarez realized the only way to achieve the equality he wanted was to work for it. As a lifelong Democrat frustrated by what he viewed as repeated infringements on gay rights in Texas, Olivarez formed the Rio Grande Valley chapter of the Stonewall Democrats, a national organization that promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Then he set to work. In the year since he formed the chapter, Olivarez, 53, has forged the group into a strong voice for the Valley’s LGBT community. But if he’s successful in his bid for a seat on the State Democratic Executive Committee,...

NEWARK, Ohio— The man behind pop-music classics Get Down Tonight and Boogie Shoes has been arrested in Licking County and accused of having sexual contact with a teenage boy. Richard Finch, 56, co-founder of KC and the Sunshine Band, was arrested Tuesday by deputies with the Licking County sheriff's office. He is being held on a $250,000 bond on a charge of gross sexual imposition, according to court records. A boy contacted the sheriff's office last week, saying Finch had sexual contact with him at Finch's home, Sgt. Chris Slayman said.

Well, here goes. I really resent the term, but I use it because it’s recognized and accepted. I’m gay. From some seventy years of personal experience, I can tell you that there’s not much “gay” about being homosexual. For the first twenty years of my life, I had to live in the shadows, in a culture that was — at least outwardly — totally hostile to any hint of that variation of life-style. At no time did I choose to adopt any protective coloration, though; my cultivation of an abundant beard was not at all a deception, but part of...

Tea Party protesters disrupted Speaker Nancy Pelosi's press stakeout at a House Office Building, yelling "you're a disgrace to your office" and one protester yelled a gay epithet at Rep. Barney Frank again on Sunday, adding yet another layer of chaos to an already tense afternoon on Capitol Hill. In a moment of apparently unscripted political theater, Pelosi and Democratic leaders marched arm in arm — with civil rights pioneer John Lewis — across the Capitol complex while protesters yelled at them and police held a barricade. The Pelosi disruption came inside the Cannon office building, where Democrats where whipping...

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was recently interviewed by CBS’ Katie Couric for tomorrow night’s episode of 60 Minutes, a short clip of which has been released online. In the clip made available, Emanuel briefly discusses the challenges of his political foes: the Republican Party, and says that they have their “own problems and fissures” and are “at the behest of a fringe group that’s taken control of their own party.” Video below: "I think The Republicans have a level of energy but inside that energy they have their own problem and fissures. They’re basically at the behest...

With a final score that totaled $0, Cooper missed questions about world leaders, geography, and literature (among other topics). By the time "Final Jeopardy" came around, he was so stumped by a question about the author of "The Wizard of Oz" that his screen displayed simply the word "Who."

Hey, kids! Here's something I bet you didn't know: Black people? Back in 1800 or whenever? They liked being slaves. True! Many savvy, industrious Negroes actually volunteered for that fine, desirable position. It was a completely balanced, fair, hugely successful system, until those damn liberals came along and ruined everything. I know, right? What a shame. Do you know what else? America was wholly victorious in Vietnam. It's a fact! Kicked some serious enemy butt! Mission accomplished! Sure it was a little bumpy for awhile, but President Nixon, that great and wronged American hero, put us on the righteous path...

He was once a revered judge, an African-American Democrat repeatedly elected in an Alabama county that was predominantly white and Republican. But then came the scandal - and Herman Thomas' world turned upside down. Thomas, former Alabama Circuit Court judge, stands accused of sodomy, kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion, assault and ethics violations, AOL News reports. The trial starts on Monday. The first charges against Thomas surfaced in 2001 when an inmate claimed that Thomas offered to help with the case in return for sex. Those charges were dismissed. But that wasn't nearly the end of it. Inmates then began claiming...

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank called Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a "homophobe" in a recent interview with the gay news Web site 365gay.com . The Democratic lawmaker, who is gay, was discussing gay marriage and his expectation that the high court would some day be called upon to decide whether the Constitution allows the federal government to deny recognition to same-sex marriages. "I wouldn't want it to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court," said Frank. The video of the interview is available online. Frank's office...

Here is video of Rep. Barney Frank in an off-the-cuff moment admitting what we have known all along. Frank is confronted by someone as he walks to the elevator on why the Democrats are not demanding a "single-payer" Government Health Care System - in other words - total Socialized Medicine that is Government controlled. Frank said it would be "suicidal" to demand that because the votes just are not there. But he said if they can get ObamaCare passed with a "public option," it would lead to a "single-payer" system - that's the "best way" according to Frank. Frank reveals...

...The site is a venerable and storied Web forum for American arch-conservatives. Funded by member donations, it was founded in 1996 as an anti-Clinton grandstand, and soon became a place where members could post news stories and discuss them -- though "discussion" might be the wrong word. More often, it's a kind of pantomime, where the name of the game is to cheer the good guy and boo the bad guy every time he creeps on stage...

Hey, ever heard of Fannie and Freddie? Read » If we were Barney Frank and we were asked what we might've done differently in retrospect, a few obvious things would come to mind. Like, maybe, we'd regret standing athwart the regulation of Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). You know, stuff like that. Alas, the powerful Congressman was asked about this in a recent interview with GQ. Here's what he said: When you look back at decisions you made regarding banking and regulation, what would you do differently? I would have pressed harder for regulation of hedge funds and...

<p>NEW YORK - After keeping his private life out of the spotlight for years, David Hyde Pierce has announced his marriage to longtime partner Brian Hargrove.</p> <p>The former "Frasier" star spoke candidly in an appearance on ABC's "The View." Wearing a wedding band, Hyde Pierce revealed they tied the knot "very quietly" in California on Oct. 24.</p>

Rodger McFarlane, a leader in the gay rights movement during the early days of the AIDS epidemic and the first executive director of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, died Friday in Truth or Consequences, N.M. He was 54 and lived in Denver. He committed suicide, Mr. McFarlane’s brother John confirmed. In a letter that he left, Mr. McFarlane wrote that he was unwilling to become further debilitated by heart and back problems. He had broken his back in 2002. Mr. McFarlane was director of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis from 1982 through 1985. The organization, which now provides services for...

Memory eventually fails us all, but apparently the decline strikes one party far more than the other. In recent weeks, my friends across the aisle have expended a lot of breath proclaiming that the Democrats caused the present financial crisis by failing to pass legislation to regulate financial services companies in the years 1995 through 2006. There is only small one problem with this story -- throughout this entire period the Republicans were in complete charge of the House and for the most critical years they controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. In the House of Representatives, the...

The crusty ol' Repub says he has no clue how to use a computer. Isn't that cute? Dear McCain presidential campaign: You know what's funny and cute and just a little bit sad? Wacky old pre-industrial war-hungry guys admitting they don't know a computer from a microwave oven, a hyperlink from a heart med, can't turn on one of those newfangled PC things if his life depended on it and/or he wanted to see what his weird tattooed bi-curious grandson is posting on his MySpace home docking station whateveryoucallit. Adorable! Cuter still is when said wisecrackin' curmudgeon admits he depends...

California's extraordinary, newfound majority support for gay marriage? Thank the young - It's a generational thing, you could say, grinning just a little as you do so. It's because younger people today — those under, say, 45 or so — have been far more exposed to the gay "lifestyle" and to more fluid notions of gender and sexuality, to the idea of homosexuality as a common, nonthreatening, everyday, what's-the-big-deal shrug, and therefore, as a demographic, they/we understand that allowing gay people to wed doesn't actually mean our shaky notions of God and family and society will collapse like a priest's...

Are you paying attention to this moment in time? Are you reading bits and hints about the transformation, the shift, the unusual and slightly surreal energy coursing through the nation? Are you younger than 50? Then there's been nothing else like this in your lifetime. And there probably never will be again. Because it wasn't that long ago, not even a year, that Hillary Clinton's presidential nomination was pretty much a given. Indeed, going into this race, Clinton was perfect, strong and smart as hell, and even I was relatively thrilled for her candidacy, especially given how she was so...

During the final 10 minutes of many Rangers home games, the spotlights focus on Section 407 as Larry Goodman, a longtime season-ticket holder, pumps up the crowd with a goofy dance. Kevin Jennings said he stopped attending Rangers games for a month because of homophobic epithets shouted at players. As Goodman’s routine is broadcast on the giant monitors above the ice, a familiar chant picks up momentum. “Ho-mo Lar-ry!” the crowd shouts. “Ho-mo Lar-ry!” The chant is one example of what several gay hockey fans describe as a toxic atmosphere during Rangers games and that Madison Square Garden, which owns...

CNN, as part of its Republican debate with YouTube, failed to mention that retired general Keith Kerr, who announced he was gay after his retirement from the Army, is a member of Hillary Clinton’s "LGBT Americans For Hillary Steering Committee." Not only did General Kerr ask the question via a YouTube video, but he was also present in the audience, and got to ask the candidates for a "straight answer" (pardon the pun). General Kerr’s, whose question came 47 minutes into the 9 pm Eastern hour the debate, is also part of the Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network's advisory council, an...

Bogus presidents, unwinnable wars, and humiliating foreign policy, rabid homophobia, misogny, pseudo Christian agendas that seek to maul the keleidoscopic nature of the national spirit, these are issues and events we can access, things the media can report, that people can discuss with something resembling articluation.Unless you're House Majority Leader Tom Delay, a charred and black little nub of a human who stood up at the White House Prayer Breakfast last week and read a passage from the Bible that would seem to blame the tsunami's victims for their own unspeakable fate, given how the majority of them were Muslim...

Attention, liberal shoppers! Next year, screw those GOP-supportin' companies, and try buying blue Do you care much that greasy ol' Pizza Hut gave tens of thousands in PAC money to the GOP last year? How about the fact that Taco Bell stopped pumping out their happily toxic semirancid meatlike substances just long enough to write a fat check to the conservative Right? Isn't that weirdly fascinating, in a depressing and indigestible sort of way? Does it matter a whit that, say, Fruit of the Loom underwear gave nearly 100 percent of its corporate donations to tighty-whitey-wearing Republicans, nearly every one...

Legal pot? Legal gay marriage? Universal health care? What's next, free porn and candy? Did you hear the screams? Did you feel the menacing chill? Did you see the black and ominous clouds, moving north? Did you sense, in other words, the very presence of Satan himself as he laughed maniacally and tossed around bucketfuls of ultrathin condoms and little travel-size packets of Astroglide like confetti while riding his Harley Softail up to Toronto or maybe Edmonton to join the ghastly and sodomitic celebrations? Because it's happened. Canada's high court just ruled that the government can, if it so desires,...

Did you hear the screams? Did you feel the menacing chill? Did you see the black and ominous clouds, moving north? Did you sense, in other words, the very presence of Satan himself as he laughed maniacally and tossed around bucketfuls of ultrathin condoms and little travel-size packets of Astroglide like confetti while riding his Harley Softail up to Toronto or maybe Edmonton to join the ghastly and sodomitic celebrations? Because it's happened. Canada's high court just ruled that the government can, if it so desires, redefine marriage to include gay couples, which it has declared it will do almost...

As the world swoons over France's soaring beauty of a bridge, S.F. gets slapped with an eyesore And did you hear the one about how those gul-dang baguette-sucking antiwar French just completed work on this astounding new bridge, a soaring, airy, delicate thing erected in southern France, and it's all over the international press and the French people are justifiably proud and even the venerable Le Monde has deemed the new Millau bridge a "work of art," and the amazing pictures are being featured everywhere, for good reason? And you look at the photos and see the breathtakingly elegant architecture...

Maybe rock n' roll finally died, really and truly and once and for all, roughly a decade ago, when Microsoft shelled out a whopping and still quite ludicrous $10 million to Jagger & Co. for the use of the Stones' classic "Start Me Up" for the massive overblown launch of the utterly awful and terrifically bug-addled Windows 95. And maybe that sad epitaph was writ even larger a few years back when stodgy old Cadillac bought the rights to Zeppelin's manic mega-anthem "Rock n' Roll" for use in hawking the wildly mediocre CTS sedan to wealthy boho yuppies, all of...

The odds are very good that you are on drugs. Right now. This minute. As I type this and as you read this and as false Texas dictators rise and sad empires crumble and as this mad bewildered world spins in its frantically careening orbit, there's a nearly 50/50 chance that some sort of devious synthetic chemical manufactured by some massive and largely heartless corporation is coursing through your bloodstream and humping your brain stem and molesting your karma and kicking the crap out of your libido and chattering the teeth of your very bones. Maybe it's regulating your blood...

This is what you won't see in the paper. This is what you won't see on CNN or on MSNBC or CBS News or on any major media Web site anywhere and especially no goddamn way ever in hell will you see it within a thousand miles of Fox News. You aren't supposed to see. You aren't supposed to know. You are to remain ignorant and shielded, and, if you're like most Americans, you have been very carefully conditioned to think Bush's nasty Iraq war is merely this ugly little firecracker-like thing happening way, way over there, carefully orchestrated and...

So, who are they? Who are the ones who have no problem watching a Monday Night Football game in which huge sweaty steroid pakced men in cute homoerotic tights smash each other as hard as possible hoping they break bodies, induce aneurysms and draw blood during out most violent, drug addled and corrupted national televised sporting spectatcle, but actually picked up the phone to complain to ABC about the 'racy' ad promoting 'Desperate Housewives' that led into the game? They are the same people that complained about 1.5 seconds of Janet Jackson's nipple, the same ones who complain about low...

Let's see if we've got this straight: Showing Nicollette Sheridan in a pregame promotion for "Monday Night Football" wearing nothing but a towel? Bad. Showing the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders repeatedly during the game, all 38 of them dressed in costumes that, sewn together, still wouldn't be enough material for a decent towel? Good. Listening to ABC fake an apology and watching the NFL recoil in mock horror because somebody forgot the difference between league-sanctioned "cheesecake" and the unsanctioned variety? Priceless.

It's a movement. It's a phenomenon. It's a Web site. Or maybe it's far more than that. No one can really be sure. No matter what it is, it's called sorryeverybody.com and it expresses, better than any outpouring so far, a sentiment that's omnipresent and palpable and still going strong, and every single Democrat and every single Kerry supporter and every single liberal of any stripe whatsoever probably felt it like a white-hot stab in the heart the minute Kerry's concession speech hit the airwaves and it undoubtedly went something like this: Dear world: We are so very, very sorry....

Before I begin, I have a simple request for the majority of voters in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah: Bend over. It's obviously not today, and it won't be tomorrow, but at some point you'll be taking it in a way that Richard Simmons can only dream of when he's flipping through the latest Men's Fitnes. No more making nice for you people. Deliverance will seem like Mary Poppins to y'all when this is over. For anyone who was sleeping last Tuesday, the 11 above-mentioned states voted "yes" on initiatives calling for...

Oh dear God please not again. Oh dear God please don't let it be all convoluted and depressing and messy and stupid and please don't let it all embarrass us on an international level all over again even more than it already has and even more than it already is and even more than we've endured lo these past four debilitating and soul-crushing years. Hello? Please? Is it already too late? Why yes, yes it is. And lo and behold, it's apparently another completely tortuous and entirely knotted presidential election, still not finished and still not all ironed out and...

Wallow In Chaos, And Laugh A pro-Bush outcome and one enormous bitter pill and you without your vodka - By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Wednesday, November 3, 2004 Oh dear God please not again. Oh dear God please don't let it be all convoluted and depressing and messy and stupid and please don't let it all embarrass us on an international level all over again even more than it already has and even more than it already is and even more than we've endured lo these past four debilitating and soul-crushing years. Hello? Please? Is it already too late?...

Miracle worker or no, after the tyranny of BushCo, a "normal" prez will be a blessed relief There will not be a great parting of the clouds. There will not be brighter flowers and happier puppies. There will not be massive choruses of angels singing and birds chirping and dolphins finally standing upright and speaking fluent Latin and saying we knew it all along. Let's be real: Should Kerry win this election, we are most likely not in for a spectacular and unprecedented ride of shiny progressive glory that will astound the world and reignite the collective soul and float...

MONTREAL - A gay man who was called a "fifi" by a used car salesman has been awarded $1,000 by Quebec's Human Rights Tribunal. The man's name can't be revealed because of a publication ban. The man told the judge he felt dehumanized, humiliated and degraded by the comment, which happened in November 2001 at Roger Poirier Automobile in Sorel, about 70 kilometres northeast of Montreal. The salesman, Marcel Bardier, used "discriminatory words in regard to [the complainant], by revealing his sexual orientation in hurtful and vexatious terms," wrote Judge Michele Pauze in her decision, according to the Montreal Gazette....

It's so easy to get all caught up in the everyday spit and hiss and noise and blank presidential smirks. Isn't it? It is, after all, incredibly easy to get stuck in the white-hot moment, all screaming elections and bland debates and counterfeit terrorism fears and ugly obesity epidemics and Atkins-approved bubble gum and air/water pollution like an afterthought, all commingling with the mad melodrama of your last bad haircut and the scratch on your precious bumper to the point where we forget the scope of it all, the scale, the macro and the micro and the ebb and flow...

Why Don't Americans Care? Do you know who Halliburton is? Dick Cheney? How about Karl Rove? Alas, most Americans don't Let's be honest. Percentage-wise, few people in America really give much of a crap about what's going on in the hallowed halls of politics and power. This is what we in the media and maybe you in the media-consuming audience tend to forget far too easily: This country is simply jam-packed with millions of people who have no time for, or interest in, politics, or media, or environmental policy, or education, or global issues, or which presidential candidate lied his...

Let's be honest. Percentage-wise, few people in America really give much of a crap about what's going on in the hallowed halls of politics and power. This is what we in the media and maybe you in the media-consuming audience tend to forget far too easily: This country is simply jam-packed with millions of people who have no time for, or interest in, politics, or media, or environmental policy, or education, or global issues, or which presidential candidate lied his ass off about which aspect of his military career and which Orange Alert is totally bogus and how many soldiers...

You know it's true. You know if, say, San Francisco had just been blasted by not two, not three, but fully four lethal trailer-park-eating earthquakes, why, the Right-wing Bible set would be yelping with barely disguised joy. Of course they would. They'd be jumping up and down and saying I told you so and pointing to Volume 18 of "Left Behind" and claiming that this was, of course, God's wrath upon the sinners and the gays and the heathens and sodomites and the tofu eaters and the Toyota Priuses and the yoga studios and the anal sex and the incense...

He is not Bill Clinton. Just gotta say it again, right off, because it is, quite possibly, still the most difficult fact for most moderates and Demos to accept, even now: Kerry is not Clinton. Kerry is not JFK. Kerry is not quite even Al Gore. We have to accept it. Let's go from there. It bears repeating because, as tens of millions (billions, even) across the planet realize, Bush is so obviously ripe, so obviously dripping with glaring misprision, so deeply rife with flaw and bumble and moronism, and his policies are so full of gaping holes and his...

I have a good friend who believes, gloomily, bitterly, resignedly, that not only are we in for four more years of painful and cheerless BushCo-branded tyranny and misprision and aww-shucks dumb-guy shtick, but also that we are actually at the beginning of a long, brutal, fear-based Republican juggernaut that will last a good 16 more years, at least. Because this is how long it will take for the current horrific conservative cycle to play itself out, and this would resemble a more typical and historically proven 20-year pendulum swing, in this case one toward neoconservative right-wing hate and homophobia and...

Polls are the genital warts of election year. They are the swarming gnats in your Jell-O salad, the dead escalator in your shopping mall, the sour milk in your coffee. Because clearly, if you attempt to follow any of them, the AP polls or the American Research Group polls or the Newsweek polls or the ABC News polls or the CBS News/NYT polls or the Zogby polls, you can only conclude one thing: These polls are designed solely to mangle your head and confound your synapses and elate you and titillate you and then plunge you into instant despair and...

This is the great thing about rabid fundamentalism. You really just don't have to give a damn. Take the environment. I mean, isn't it just a little pointless to care so damn deeply about the air and the soil and the water and the stupid little disposable animals on this silly spinning ball of expendable rock when the Second Coming is imminent and a blood-soaked fire-breathin' Jesus who looks remarkably like Mel Gibson will return very soon to smite the heathens and the gays and the vegetarians and the Francophiles, and who will rescue all those who worship patriarchy and...