Free Republic

A bill to legalize adult prostitution in Vermont was recently introduced by female lawmakers in the state’s legislature. The bill’s text read: This bill proposes to repeal the prostitution laws while retaining felony human trafficking laws that prohibit recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a minor for the purpose of commercial sex; patronizing a minor for commercial sex; recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining any person through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of having the person engage in commercial sex; compelling any person through force, fraud, or coercion to engage in commercial sex; and patronizing any...

A transgender teen unable to change the sex listed on his birth certificate sued New York state Tuesday, claiming a discriminatory policy is forcing him to rely on a document that inaccurately portrays his identity. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Albany argues that transgender minors should have the ability to correct their New York state birth certificates, something that underage individuals with documents issued in New York City and some other states can already do. In 2014, New York state broadened who can change the sex listed on their birth certificates to include those who haven’t had gender...

The American Dialect Society has named “they” as the word of the decade, recognizing the plural pronoun’s growing use as a singular form to refer to people with a non-binary gender identity.The winner was decided in a vote by the body’s 350 members at an annual gathering on Friday. “People want to choose something that stands the test of time and sums up the decade as a whole,” said linguist and lexicographer Ben Zimmer. […] Other words on the list for word of the decade included “meme,” which came in second place, followed by “climate,” “#BlackLivesMatter,” “woke” and “MeToo.” …

The South Bend Mayor stopped by the KCCI studios Saturday afternoon to spend time with our panel of undecided Caucus-goers. Buttigieg answered their questions, including this one from Ivette Muhammad, a mother of eight. “I've heard you are wanting to start a family. Is that something you hope to do soon, perhaps in the White House?” Muhammad asked. “It is. This year the campaign is not conducive to it, but we are looking forward to it. Chasten will make an amazing dad. I'll try to hold my own and it is something we're looking forward to. I can't imagine raising...

ROME, December 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — In what many see as an effort to normalize homosexuality in the Catholic Church, the Vatican has released a new book that reduces the “sin of Sodom” (Genesis 19:1–29) to “a lack of hospitality.” “The story about the city of Sodom … illustrates a sin that consists in the lack of hospitality, with hostility and violence towards the stranger, a behavior judged to be very serious and therefore deserving to be sanctioned with the utmost severity,” the new book asserts. Sources consulted by LifeSite described the book as “utter banality” and “obviously ridiculous.” One...

Hunter Biden spent several thousand dollars at a Manhattan strip club during a pair of visits — including one that sent a staffer scrambling to buy a sex toy so strippers could use it on him, sources told The Post on Wednesday. Biden — who’s been dogged by a series of strip-club allegations uncovered by The Post this week — was accompanied by a woman both times he went to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club NYC in Hell’s Kitchen about a year ago, the sources said. On each occasion, he and his companion holed up in a private room, where they...

This week, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has risen to the top of the heap in early Democratic presidential primary polling in Iowa and New Hampshire, came under serious sustained attack for the first time in his candidacy. Buttigieg's early candidacy gained credibility thanks to the moderation he displayed compared with other Democrats. He quickly lost steam when he tacked to the left. Now Buttigieg has swiveled back toward the center, launching a series of assaults on the radical plans of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and stealing her momentum in the largely white early primary states. Normally, such...

Perhaps what Democrats really want is a presidential temperament He’s the least qualified of the top-tier Democratic presidential candidates, and the one who most clearly lacks a compelling reason for running. Yet Pete Buttigieg has somehow maintained his hold on fourth place in the 2020 nomination contest while other more heralded candidates have faded or folded altogether. And now that he has surged to the top of the polls in Iowa, it may be time to start taking his unlikely campaign seriously — and asking what exactly it is about the mild-mannered mayor of South Bend, Ind., that has endeared...

Sexuality and spirituality are the ‘same pure water’ – Catholic priest Gay priest Fr Bernárd Lynch argues sexuality is ‘total, ecstatic self-transcendence’ A gay Irish Catholic priest has told a meeting in Dublin that “as women and gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and non-binary people we remain part of the church in order to give witness to the face of God”. Fr Bernárd Lynch said, “We live in a world that is not only misogynistic, erotophobic and homophobic, but God-phobic.” It is a world “where sexuality and spirituality are seen as not only split, but in continuous and consistent conflict.” Addressing...

WHEN IRELAND VOTED overwhelmingly for the marriage equality referendum, we thought that when we have children everything is going to be equal. We were wrong. On Monday, Minister for Health Simon Harris signed regulations for the Children and Family Relationships Act. These will allow both names of some LGBTQ+ couples on their children’s birth certificate from May 2020. He said that it was a really important day and received a lot of good publicity but we are still excluded and unequal in the eyes of the law. This Act covers same-sex couples who use a non-anonymous donor through an Irish...

German Health Minister Jens Spahn sent a clear, important signal on Monday when he declared that “homosexuality is not a disease and therefore does not need therapy to be treated.” He fleshed out his plans to ban so-called gay conversion therapy in Germany. The practice purports to transform homosexuals into heterosexuals. According to Spahn, anyone still found offering such “conversion therapies” will face up to one year in jail or a steep fine. Spahn’s step is both important and, unfortunately, still rather timely. That’s because many Germans are probably not even aware that each year, thousands of teenagers and adults...

An assistant scoutmaster on Long Island has been charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy at Boy Scout retreats and meetings over an 11-month period last year.

Delta Air Lines will show unedited versions of “Booksmart” and “Rocketman” in its in-flight film offerings after critics called out the airline for censoring sexuality, including same-sex love, in previously deleted scenes. The company said in a statement Thursday that it did not ask for any “homosexual content” to be removed from the films. “We value our in-flight entertainment options as a means to reflect the diversity of the world,” the company said. “We are reviewing the processes of our third-party editing vendors to ensure that they are aligned with our values of diversity and inclusion.” The issue of censorship...

Metropolitan Community Church of Rehoboth will host a program entitled Homosexuality and the Bible, an In-Depth Study, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 26. This seminar will show that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality. For better understanding of scripture, participants will look at writings of ancient scrolls though the influences of Middle Eastern traditions, Hebrew traditions, Greek and Roman traditions and early Christian situations. Attendees also will look at the difference between translation and interpretation, the difference between historical-critical reading and literal reading, defining sexuality and spirituality, the danger of picking and choosing scripture passages and the...

In the United Kingdom, the push for LGBT-dominated curriculum in the public school system is really picking up steam with the start of the new academic year. It has become glaringly obvious that the goal of LGBT activists is not “acceptance” and “inclusivity” but rather complete domination and conversion. They aren’t looking to teach children to be “accepting” so as to create some peaceful future generation of nonjudgmental people, but rather to completely indoctrinate, brainwash, and transform all children into the next generation of gender-ambiguous, free-loving, God-denying, LGBT-identifying people. Sadly, they have been remarkably successful in their efforts thus far....

Thursday on The View, the liberal co-hosts gushed over 2020 candidate South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigeg attacking Christians about the climate, during his CNN town hall late Wednesday. The same View hosts who hate God being brought into the topic of abortion, loved that Democrats were bringing God into climate change. After talking about Marianne Williamson’s tweet saying that meditation could stop Hurricane Dorian, co-host Joy Behar tied the wacky comment to Buttigieg invoking Christianity in the climate change agenda: JOY BEHAR: Pete Buttigieg was very interesting on the subject of religion and the climate change, and I'm just...

Teddy Quinlivan is no stranger to fronting beauty campaigns, but her latest gig is not only a big career milestone, it's history-making. Quinlivan announced that she's the face of a new Chanel Beauty campaign, and is the first openly transgender model to be hired by the fashion house. The model shared the news on Instagram with a video and photo from the campaign, along with a heartfelt message about the importance of Chanel hiring her.

<p>The mayor of Barnegat Township, New Jersey has launched a campaign against a new law that will require public schools to teach LGBT history and the contributions of prominent LGBT individuals.</p> <p>Mayor Alfonso Cirulli turned some heads during Tuesday's township committee meeting with a personal opinion that he said does not represent the entire committee.</p>

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed legislation ensuring state schools teach the role and contributions of LGBT people in American history. Pritzker signed off on House Bill 346, which was recently passed by state House earlier this year, on Friday. The law requires all schools in the state include "the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the history of this country and this State" in official textbooks.

(RNS) — For the first time in its 134-year history, the Evangelical Covenant Church has voted to remove a congregation from its roster over its position on LGBTQ inclusion. The vote to expel the First Covenant Church, a prominent and historic Minneapolis congregation, for being “out of harmony on human sexuality,” took place at the denomination’s annual meeting in Omaha on Friday (June 27). The Minneapolis church has never performed a gay marriage, though a lesbian couple had an off-site wedding performed by its music director in 2014, which produced a series of conversations about its future over the past...