Free Republic

What is wrong with polygamy? Nineteenth-century Americans coupled it with slavery, calling both "the twin relics of barbarism." Today, it is used as a scare image to deter people from approving same-sex marriage, lest it lead down a slippery slope to that horror of horrors. But what, exactly, is bad about it? Looking at the Texas sect at the Yearning for Zion ranch, so much in the news, will not tell us, because that sect allegedly forced underage girls into marriage. The case then becomes one of child sexual abuse, a crime hardly unknown in the monogamous family, although it...

A SOUTH Australian father and daughter have revealed they are a couple, and have had a child together. John and Jenny Deaves reunited 30 years after Mr Deaves separated from Jenny's mother.

Man On Trial For Sex With Dog TACOMA, Wash. - Jury selection began this week in Tacoma for the trial of the first person charged in Washington under a new law that made bestiality a felony. Twenty-six-year-old Michael Patrick McPhail is accused of having sex last October with his family's dog, a pit bull named Sarah. He has pleaded innocent to animal cruelty. If convicted he could be sentence to a year in jail. The bestiality law took effect in June. It was passed by the Washington Legislature because of the death of a man who had sex with a...

Face it. With the exception of March of the Penguins, few of us actually head to our local Blockbuster to rent a documentary. Most of us want to watch something a little lighter; something that doesn't really add more to our overly stressful lives. We want to laugh and we want to relate. Nothing more. I have thought about this on several occasions, and each time, I experience pangs of guilt for not using my free time to better educate myself. But today is a new day, and after reading David Ansen's review of "Zoo" in Newsweek, I have come...

he best-known goat in Sudan has died months after being "married" to a man in the South Sudan capital, Juba, the BBC has learned. Local elders ordered a man found having sex with the goat, later called Rose, to "marry" her last February. "The idea was to publicly embarrass the man," says Tom Rhodes, editor of the Juba Post, which first ran the story. The BBC's story of the "wedding" caught the public imagination and became one of the best read internet stories. Rose, black and white, is believed to have died after choking on a plastic bag she swallowed...

WHEN THE BBC invited me onto one of its talk shows recently to talk about the day's hot topic -- legalizing adult incest -- I thought of Rick Santorum. Back in 2003, as the Supreme Court was preparing to rule in Lawrence v. Texas, a case challenging the constitutionality of laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy, then-Senator Santorum caught holy hell for warning out that if the law were struck down, there would be no avoiding the slippery slope. "If the Supreme Court says you have the right to consensual sex within your home," he told a reporter, "then you have the...

Hypocrisy of Hating Homosexuality, While Ignoring Cohabitation and Adultery Contact: Phil Magnan, Director, Biblical Family Advocates, 011-36-1-246-2587, phil@bfamilyadvocates.com BUDAPEST, Hungary May 2/Christian Newswire/ -- Statistics show that 25% of unmarried "born again" Christians are living together. This reveals an apparent hypocrisy in condemning homosexuality, while not condemning heterosexual immorality. Sad to say, co-habitation is on the increase and its participants also include the Catholic and Christian community. BFA believes there is also a need to condemn not only adultery in its blatant form of cheating on a spouse, but its camouflaged form by easy divorce to pursue second and third...

The new head of the Italian bishops conference has made political waves by asking on what basis may incest and pedophilia be denied if Italy legalizes same-sex unions and other alternatives to the family. Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, who was appointed last month to lead the Italian Bishops Conference, is spearheading efforts of the Catholic Church in Italy against legislation giving unmarried unions – including same-sex ones – legal status and benefits. “Why say 'no' to forms of legally recognised co-habitation which create alternatives to the family? Why say 'no' to incest?” the Archbishop said at a meeting of...

State’s attorney general says there’s no reason to deny them recognition. PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch says his state should recognize the gay marriages of state employees performed in Massachusetts. A letter dated yesterday from Lynch says Rhode Island prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and also extends benefits such as health insurance to domestic partners of state employees. And because there’s no Rhode Island law banning gay marriage — Lynch says there’s no reason to deny recognition of same-sex unions performed in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is the only state where gay marriage is legal.

'Embryo Bank' Stirs Ethics Fears Firm Lets Clients Pick Among Fertilized Eggs By Rob Stein Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 6, 2007; A01 A Texas company has started producing batches of ready-made embryos that single women and infertile couples can order after reviewing detailed information about the race, education, appearance, personality and other characteristics of the egg and sperm donors. The Abraham Center of Life LLC of San Antonio, the first commercial dealer making embryos in advance for unspecified recipients, was created to help make it easier and more affordable for clients to have babies that match their preferences,...

Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests. Disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations on dismembered tiny bodies raises serious questions about what happened to them. Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world. There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases. But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies. The BBC has spoken to mothers from the city of Kharkiv who say...

A city bus driver who complained about a gay-themed ad got official permission not to drive any bus that carries that ad, according to an internal memo confirmed Tuesday by Metro Transit. Transit authorities call it a reasonable accommodation to the driver's religious beliefs. Amalgamated Transit Unit Local 1005 officials at the bus company say it condones intolerance; besides, drivers never have been excused from other buses carrying ads they found objectionable - from political candidates to pink bras. Requests for religion-based considerations are increasingly in the news, as workplace observers say more Americans bring their faiths to their jobs....

As Chad Kingsbury watches his daughter playing in the sandbox behind their suburban Chicago house, the thought that has flashed through his mind a million times in her two years of life comes again: Chloe will never be sick. Not, at least, with the inherited form of colon cancer that has devastated his family, killing his mother, her father and her two brothers, and that he too may face because of a genetic mutation that makes him unusually susceptible. By subjecting Chloe to a genetic test when she was an eight-cell embryo in a petri dish, Mr. Kingsbury and his...

DENVER -- Democrats pounced on Colorado's Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez and his newly chosen running mate Janet Rowland on Tuesday for comments she made five months ago comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality. In a March 17 broadcast of the Rocky Mountain PBS program "Colorado State of Mind," Rowland said homosexuality is an alternative lifestyle, adding, "For some people, the alternative lifestyle is bestiality. Do we allow a man to marry a sheep?" Democrat Bill Ritter's campaign called the remarks "insensitive, close-minded, derogatory and crude" and demanded an apology. "This shows just how far to the right and out-of-touch the...

The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects. Late terminations have been performed in recent years because the babies had club feet, official figures show. Babies are being aborted with only minor defects. Other babies were destroyed because they had webbed fingers or extra digits. Such defects can often be corrected with a simple operation or physiotherapy.

You’ve got to hand it to Mitt Romney and the Massachusetts Legislature. Last week they adopted a plan that will attempt to solve the health insurance problem by requiring people to buy insurance.  If it were any other state, Ralph Nader and Barbara Boxer would already by howling at the moon. Solving healthcare by mandating people buy insurance! Why don’t we just reduce unemployment by mandating people get jobs or solve poverty by mandating people stop being poor? However, because it’s the reliably liberal Massachusetts Legislature, liberals have to hold their fire. The Cato Institute has raised objections, but everyone else...

WASHINGTON — And now, polygamy. With the sweetly titled HBO series “Big Love,” polygamy comes out of the closet. Under the headline “Polygamists, Unite!” Newsweek informs us of “polygamy activists emerging in the wake of the gay-marriage movement.” Says one evangelical Christian big lover: “Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights battle.” Polygamy used to be stereotyped as the province of secretive Mormons, primitive Africans and profligate Arabs. With “Big Love” it moves to suburbia as a mere alternative lifestyle. As Newsweek notes, these stirrings for the mainstreaming of polygamy (or, more accurately, polyamory) have their roots in the increasing legitimization...

Oil's Slippery Slope By Donald Luskin February 10, 2006 DAYS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA struck the Gulf Coast and sent energy prices skyrocketing, I called the top in oil1. A month later, just after Hurricane Rita hit, I called the top in natural gas2. I stand by both calls. Last month, crude oil tried to rally back to the post-Katrina highs, but failed without even penetrating the $70/barrel level. For an essential commodity that we're supposedly running out of, this is pretty poor performance. Natural gas did trade higher last December than when I made my top call, but by...

BREAKING ON THE AP WIRE: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court has upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die.

British scientists are seeking permission to create hybrid embryos in the lab by fusing human cells with rabbit eggs. If granted consent, the team will use the embryos to produce stem cells that carry genetic defects, in the hope that studying them will help understand the complex mechanisms behind incurable human diseases. The proposal drew strong criticism from opponents to embryo research who yesterday challenged the ethics of the research and branded the work repugnant. Plans for the experiments have been put forward by Professor Chris Shaw, a neurologist and expert in motor neurone disease at King's College London, and...

HOUSTON, October 27, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An experiment has been underway for a month in a Houston Texas where parents are permitted to ask scientists for a child with the gender of their choice. The procedure involves preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) which is able to detect the sex of embryos created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) prior to their implantation in their mothers' wombs. While sex selection via PGD has been allowed in some cases where sex-linked diseases are concerned, the clinical trial is seeking to gage the impact of sex selection at the whim of the parents. According to...

The Netherlands and Belgium were the first countries to give full marriage rights to homosexuals. In the United States some politicians propose “civil unions” that give homosexual couples the full benefits and responsibilities of marriage. These civil unions differ from marriage only in name. Meanwhile in the Netherlands polygamy has been legalised in all but name. Last Friday the first civil union of three partners was registered. Victor de Bruijn (46) from Roosendaal “married” both Bianca (31) and Mirjam (35) in a ceremony before a notary who duly registered their civil union. “I love both Bianca and Mirjam, so I...

The Netherlands and Belgium were the first countries to give full marriage rights to homosexuals. In the United States some politicians propose “civil unions” that give homosexual couples the full benefits and responsibilities of marriage. These civil unions differ from marriage only in name. Meanwhile in the Netherlands polygamy has been legalised in all but name. Last Friday the first civil union of three partners was registered. Victor de Bruijn (46) from Roosendaal “married” both Bianca (31) and Mirjam (35) in a ceremony before a notary who duly registered their civil union. “I love both Bianca and Mirjam, so I...

LOWRY CITY, Mo. -- Someone beat a disabled man. It's a crime that people don't expect to happen in a small town. Some of the man's painkillers have disappeared, but clues are nowhere to be found. We want to warn you some of the video is disturbing. The man’s family wants you to see the video, in hopes of finding the person or people responsible for this brutal attack. The beating happened at the Castle Court Complex in Lowry City, a place for disabled people and seniors. Juanita Miller’s husband runs the place but she was asked to check on...

CLEARWATER - Michael Schiavo has asked a court to waive the two-year statute of limitations on filing a medical malpractice lawsuit against one or more of his deceased wife's caregivers. Terri Schiavo, 41, died March 31 after her feeding tube was removed after a seven-year court battle. Schiavo's attorney in this case, Mark Perenich, said he was not able to discuss the proposed lawsuit behind Tuesday's request for an extension of the two-year statute of limitations. By law, medical malpractice lawsuits must be filed within two years of the alleged misconduct unless an extension is granted. In October 2003, Terri...

How do prevent the stop-n-go jihad that is currently going on in London from happening here? Should we have an El Al if-you're-a-Muslim-you-don't-ride standard for our planes and trains? At the very least will those traveling on subways in this country have to carry their things in mesh, see-through carry bags like they do in many public high schools-- in reaction to Columbine-- in this Country? Clearly, their are many terror cells, native and foreign born , in this country. Monitoring mosques, forbidding muslims entry into certain engineering programs at our universities, massive deportations of problem muslims and ,gasp, a...

A Monona (WI) woman is likely to remove the feeding tube of her Marine husband, who is in hospice care with a severe brain injury. Staff Sgt. Chad Simon, 32, was wounded by a roadside bomb Nov. 8 near Fallujah, Iraq. Simon's wife, Regina, had his feeding tube removed last Friday. It was reinserted Monday, but friends say the family plans to honor Simon's living will, which specifically states he does not want to be kept alive in a vegetative state. "He listed very explicit instructions concerning his care," said the family's attorney, Jack Schuster. Schuster said he couldn't divulge...

Wife Plans To Uphold Monona Marine's Living Will; Friend Believes Chad Simon Is Responsive MADISON, Wis. -- When you think of right to die cases, the name Terry Schiavo comes to mind. Now a similar situation is brewing with a Monona Marine who was badly injured in Iraq last year -- and now is in hospice care. Staff Sgt. Chad Simon, a member of the 2-24 Marines Company G, suffered a severe brain injury following an explosion of a roadside bomb in Iraq. He was was treated in Iraq, Bethesda, Md., and in Madison while community fundraisers for the family...

The audience was eager for the governor to put pen to paper. Some drooled. Catching the spirit of excitement, a few even lost control and barked. Canines of all sizes and a spotted rabbit named Roxy were among those gathered Friday at the Capitol to watch Gov. Linda Lingle sign into law a measure that allows residents to leave a trust for the care of their dog, cat, or other domestic animal. ADVERTISEMENT Lingle's two cats, Nani Girl and Stripes, were not in attendance. "As you know cats don't do as well in public settings like this as dogs do,"...

New tragedy for Lesley Martin 14 May 2005 By DON KAVANAGH Euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin and her family have had to make the agonising decision to turn off her brother's life-support system after a truck crash. Michael Charles Martin, 43, suffered serious head injuries after the meat truck he was driving and a lime tanker collided near the Waikato town of Pirongia two weeks ago. Ms Martin – who served nine months of a 15-month sentence for giving her terminally ill mother an overdose of morphine and then suffocating her with a pillow in 1999 – said the decision to...

Tonight on Hannity & Colmes at 9 PM EDT, the family of Terri Schindler Schiavo will appear. In their first interview since her death, Terri Schiavo's family speaks out about life without Terri, their private battle, and their message to America. Don’t miss this emotional interview with the Schindlers! Oliver North will also be on from Fallujah in Iraq and Chris Simcox, organizer of the Minutemen Project will also be on the program.

Sylvia Ponce had already suffered two miscarriages and lost three babies to premature birth when she went into labor on Aug. 30, 1999. Her labor again had come dangerously early, and at 2:10 a.m. on Sept. 1, David Ponce entered the world weighing less than 11/2 lbs. When Sylvia heard him cry, her heart jumped. "I asked, 'Is he alive?'" she recalls. He was, replied the obstetrician attending the delivery. "I was so happy," says Sylvia, "and I was begging that they try to save my son." But what happened next thrust Sylvia, 44, and her then common-law husband Manuel,...

Devaluing lives By Nat Hentoff While the media focused on religious groups and pro-lifers (not all pro-lifers are religious) engaged in trying to save Terri Schiavo, largely ignored were many disability-rights organizations. Andrew J. Imparato, head of the largest of them, the American Association of People with Disabilities, emphasizes there are more than 56 million American children and adults with disabilities, and I would note that many of the rest of us may unexpectedly join their number. This past March, Mr. Imparato, speaking to CNN regarding Mrs. Schiavo's plight, said that he feared that "when we start devaluing the lives...

S.A. hospital won't cut off man's life support Web Posted: 04/30/2005 12:07 AM CDT Nicole Foy - Express-News Medical Writer An agreement was reached Friday that ended a standoff between the family of an East Texas man and a local hospital that planned to remove him from life support. Spiro Nikolouzos, critically ill and in a persistent vegetative state, will be returned to Avalon Place, a long-term care facility that came to his aid after a Houston hospital also decided to end life support. Nikolouzos was transferred from Avalon to Southeast Baptist Hospital at the end of March after he...

-snip- A St. Cloud area man who suffered a brain injury in an April 8 altercation at a St. Cloud nightclub died Tuesday afternoon, more than a week after he was removed from life support. Justin W. Smiley, 28, of Sauk Rapids, died about 1 p.m. at the St. Cloud Hospital, his aunt, Pam Heldt, said Tuesday. "We're feeling a lot of relief right now that he's finally at peace," Heldt said. -snip- Janelle Kendall, the Stearns County Attorney, said an autopsy is scheduled for today. She said her office is awaiting the results of the autopsy before making a...

Brussels – Nearly half the newborn babies who died in Flanders over a recent year-long period were helped to die by their doctors, a new study reported yesterday. Paediatricians in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium either discreetly stopped treating the babies or, in 17 cases, illegally killed them with lethal doses of painkillers. The study, published in The Lancet, examined the deaths of every baby who died within a year of birth in Flanders between August 1999 and July 2000. The results of a survey on the causes of death were stark: paediatricians who responded to the survey admitted they...

To: Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 4:01 PM Subject: NewStarvingCaseinGeorgia.PressRelease.Mullinax(205)408-7598 Media Release For Immediate release! To: All media, and supporters of life. From: The Family of Mae Magouirk Date: April 6, 2005 Contact: Kenneth Mullinax Shiavo case revisited in Georgia Mae Magouirk…not comatose …not vegetative …not terminal Why is Hospice LaGrange, Ga. withholding nourishment? (LaGrange, Georgia) Mae Magouirk is being withheld nourishment and fluids and the provisions of her Living Will are not being honored at the Hospice-LaGrange, (1510 Vernon Street, LaGrange “Troup County” Georgia, 706-845-3905) a subsidiary of the LaGrange Hospital in LaGrange Georgia. Her family is desperately seeking...

Washington, DC: The White House will sponsor regional summits this spring to encourage middle and high-school officials to enact random, student drug testing in public schools. The taxpayer-funded summits will take place in Dallas, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Portland. The announcement of the summits comes just weeks after the White Houses' 2005 "National Drug Control Strategy" proposed increasing federal funding for student drug testing by more than 150 percent to a record $25.4 million annually. NORML Director Allen St. Pierre criticized the White Houses' push for the expanded use of suspicionless, student drug testing. "Random drug testing of students is...

I am convinced God uses trials like the Terri Schiavo case to test men. Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George Greer was tested – and found wanting. He had seven years to consider this case and got it wrong every time. I don't know Greer personally, but I know many people like him. They go to church on Sunday and then between Monday and Friday lead lives with no seeming connection to what they hear preached in the pulpit, what they read in the Bible, what they claim to believe of the Christian faith. This may be the biggest single...

March 26, 2005 Whose Life Is Worth Living? By Orson Scott Card It wasn’t that many years ago when I happened to be in Raleigh at a gathering of literary folk who were quite full of their own superiority. They started talking about people who (gasp!) let years go by without reading a single book. “Why do they even bother being alive?” asked one of them. Almost everyone laughed. They went on and on about the worthlessness of the lives of non-intellectuals. Shopping in malls. Eating at McDonald’s. Driving their gas-guzzling cars. I did ask where they shopped, and which...

Are you being targeted for euthanasia? By Mary Therese Helmueller, R.N. In 1984, while working as charge nurse in the intensive care unit, a 20-year-old man asked, “Can you give my mother enough morphine to let her sleep away?” I was horrified. “I can not kill your mother,” I responded. That was only the beginning. Recently, an 80-year-old was admitted to the emergency room and the physician said, “LET’S DEHYDRATE HER”; one more patient was sentenced to die in hospice with NO TERMINAL DIAGNOSIS and once again, THE LIVING WILL determined the death of a 70-year-old man regardless of how...

Editor's Note: Since this column was written the federal appeals court has turned down the appeals of Terri Schiavo's family. --- Prospects for saving Terri Schiavo appear increasingly dim. Unless a federal appeals court acts immediately to instruct the district court to order a feeding tube re-inserted, she will die of dehydration and starvation in a matter of days. A surprising number of Americans believe this is a good thing, at least according to some polls taken over the last few weeks. An ABC poll taken this week showed that 63 percent of Americans favored the removal of Schiavo's feeding...

As an attorney and a former law professor, I have never been so disgusted with the legal process in my life. By that, let me be clear - I mean the court system. Throughout nearly twenty years of being an attorney, I have always defended "the process," even when I disagreed vehemently with the results. But that is because the process, to me, always seemed to have a certain basic integrity. The Terri Schiavo case has changed all of that. I have heard the most appalling lack of concern for basic legal procedures on the part of Judge Greer in...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3286878 RememberTheCoup (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-17-05 08:06 AM Original message Why SHOULDN'T siblings be allowed to "marry" or enter civil unions? Why do we so often hear about such a situation as a "slippery slope" result of allowing same sex unions? Why does a marriage/civil union have to imply a sexual relationship? Almost all of the rights and responsibilities of marriage are economic or legal in nature and not sexual. "Right of consortium" is one of the few I can think of that are sexual in nature. What if a man with a wife and a couple of small children...

Schiavo in 48 hour window By: Bill McGinty Video Story Supporters like the Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition say they expect people to try to enter the Woodside Hospice to “rescue” Terri Schiavo if her feeding tube is removed. The Pinellas Park Police has officers stationed in the parking lot and inside the front doors of the hospice in case those threats are attempted. The Florida Legislature is now working on a bill that Governor Bush says he will sign into law that would prevent the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. The bill should be on...

Unless there is a last minute intervention from Florida's Legislature or Congress, Terri Schiavo will stop being fed on Tuesday, and within days will be starved to death...

OFFICE FOR COMMUNICATIONS News Release March 14, 2005 CARDINAL RIGALI'S STATEMENT REGARDING THE CASE OF TERRI SCHINDLER SCHIAVO "Americans are watching with concern the plight of Terri Schindler Schiavo in Florida. It is a tragic situation that has grave implications for the future treatment of those who are vulnerable and reliant upon someone else to provide their sustenance and decide the level of medical care they receive. In the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, where Terri Schindler was a parishioner and a graduate of one of our high schools, we watch and pray with particular interest in her case. I urge most...

Terri Schiavo supporters fight to keep her alive Terri Schiavo Video Story This week will be a critical one for the parents and supporters of Terri Schiavo. A judge cleared the way for Schiavo’s feeding tube to be removed on Friday. Terri Schiavo is the brain-damaged woman at the center of a “Right to Die” battle. She suffered brain damage in 1990, after her heart stopped, now her supporters hope to keep her alive. People prayed outside a hospice facility where Terri Schiavo’s staying. Sil Olding says, praying is not enough to keep Schiavo alive. Sil Olding / Schiavo Supporter:“I...

St. Maximilian Kolbe VOLUNTEERED To Be Starved To Death; Terri Schiavo Did NOT By Michael J. GaynorMichNews.com Mar 13, 2005 Michael Schiavo wants to starve his wife Terri to death as soon as possible. Michael claims he is fulfilling Terri's wish. And turned down $1,000,000 to let Terri be cared for by her loving parents instead of starved to death and cremated. Judge Greer claims to believe Michael. He supposedly doesn't suspect that Michael is determined to cover up something that is more important for him to cover up than $1,000,000. If Michael succeeds, he will go down in history...

With time growing short, activists rally to save Terri Schiavo PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) - Buoyed by encouragement from actor Mel Gibson, the family of Terri Schiavo joined a rally today pleading for her life, just days before the court-ordered removal of her feeding tube. Video Story About 200 people prayed and sang outside the hospice where the 41-year-old brain-damaged woman lives. Schiavo can breathe on her own, but depends on a tube in her abdomen for food and water. She has been at the center of a long and bitter court battle: Her husband says she wouldn't want to...