Free Republic

A new color graces the gay pride rainbow flag: fire engine red. Members of the Austin Fire Department Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered and Friends will take part in the Austin Pride Parade today, riding on a fire truck and marking the organization's second appearance in the annual event that celebrates the gay community in Austin. Lt. Jan Wesson, who leads the group, said it received great support last year from attendees, who named the truck "Best Vehicle." "That was just the highlight of my career," said Wesson, who has served in the Fire Department for 24 years and came out...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite low approval ratings and hard feelings from last year's elections, Democrats and Republicans in the House are reaching out for an approximately $4,400 pay raise that would increase their salaries to almost $170,000. The cost-of-living raise endorsed Wednesday evening gets lawmakers back on track for automatic pay raises after a fight between the parties last year and again in January killed the pay increase due this year. That was the first interruption of the annual congressional pay boost in seven years. The blowup came after Democrats last year fulfilled a campaign promise to deny themselves more...

Hundreds of northwest Houston high school students walked out of class Monday to protest in the streets over efforts in Congress to crack down on illegal immigrants, KPRC Local 2 reported. Students at Eisenhower High School started their protest march at their school, located at 7922 Antoine, and planned to end it at Interstate 45. The House passed measures that would make being an undocumented immigrant a felony and erect a 700-mile fence along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Many of the students said immigration reform hits close to home and they believe that it would be unfair. "This is a...

Teen Says He Lost Virginity At 9 CLEVELAND -- Research shows 16 percent of girls and 20 percent of boys have engaged in sexual intercourse by the time they reach their 14th birthday. For some fourth- and fifth-graders, sex is the topic of school lunch room conversations almost daily. In a special report, NewsChannel5's Deb Lee explored the troubling statistics. Lee talked with a 15-year-old Cleveland-area girl who is enrolled at the Pepper Pike Alcohol Treatment Center for kids about her experiences with alcohol and sex. The teen said kids are having sex as young as 11 and 12 years...

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found. Those and other assertions are examples of the "false, misleading, or distorted information" in the programs' teaching materials, said the analysis, released yesterday, which reviewed the curricula of more than a dozen projects aimed at preventing teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease....

The Washington Post is running this story today about how misleading abstinence-only education is. The claim is that abstinence-only curricullum contain mis-leading, distorted, and sometimes flat-out false facts. Some of their examples of this are: Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person’s genitals “can result in pregnancy,” a congressional staff analysis has found. Okay, so what’s wrong with any of...