Free Republic

As lawmakers get ready to head back to Capitol Hill, Tampa Bay Catholics are joining believers across the country to push for immigration reform. "It's really a three-prong approach, through prayer, education and advocacy," said Sabrina Burton Schultz, director of the Diocese of St. Petersburg's life ministry office. The diocese of 321,459 Catholics, which covers Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties, is encouraging parishioners to contact politicians about the issue. The diocese also is organizing a candlelight prayer vigil, Hispanic Mass and a pilgrimage of the images of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Lujan. Schultz said...

Despite his “concerns about [the] government limiting parental choice on the care and treatment of their own children,” Governor Chris Christie signed into law a ban on ex-gay therapy for minors, thereby committing an outrageous act against both the people of New Jersey and his own Catholic faith. Buying into the standard gay activist talking points, Christie explained that “on issues of medical treatment for children we must look to experts in the field to determine the relative risks and rewards,” because of which he felt this government intrusion into doctor-patient relationships was justified. As for Christie’s personal views, he...

Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill Monday barring licensed therapists from trying to turn gay teenagers straight, making New Jersey the second state to ban so-called conversion therapy, along with California. The bill passed both houses of the New Jersey Legislature with bipartisan support in June. Assemblyman Tim Eustace, who sponsored the bill and is openly gay, described the therapy as "an insidious form of child abuse." In a note accompanying the bill, Christie said he believes people are born gay and that homosexuality is not a sin. That view is inconsistent with his Catholic faith, which teaches that homosexual...

Crystal Dixon of the University of Toledo was fired for writing an editorial in a local newspaper. She referred to Exodus and mentioned people who chose to leave the gay lifestyle. The case against Dixon is based purely on wild assumption that gay men cannot stop themselves from having anal sex or engaging in fellatio. These assumptions bestialize and infantilize gay men. Dixon said that gays had the choice to leave the lifestyle (in other words, stop engaging in anal sex and fellatio). According to her detractors, such was tantamount to being anti-gay. Her detractors are following the lead of...

People with Down's syndrome are at greater risk of heart defects, leukaemia and early-onset dementia. Photograph: Getty Images Scientists have corrected the genetic fault that causes Down's syndrome – albeit in isolated cells – raising the prospect of a radical therapy for the disorder. In an elegant series of experiments, US researchers took cells from people with Down's and silenced the extra chromosome that causes the condition. A treatment based on the work remains a distant hope, but scientists in the field said the feat was the first major step towards a "chromosome therapy" for Down's syndrome....

Gay Therapy Gay conversion therapy, as it is known, supposedly helps gay people overcome same-sex attractions. But mainstream psychologists say the therapy is ineffective, unethical and often harmful, exacerbating anxiety and self-hatred among those treated for what is not a mental disorder. In 2013, two cases involving the therapy to convert gay people into heterosexuals hit the courts, with one seeking to sue counselors who offer the therapy and the other seeking to defend them. Here are five things you need to know about the therapy and the current lawsuits.

The openly gay son of a conservative Republican Congressman has stated that he benefitted from undergoing the controversial practice of reparative therapy as a teenager. Matt R. Salmon, son of Ariz. Rep. Matt Salmon, told CNN's Anderson Cooper that his taking of "ex-gay" conversation therapy helped him be more comfortable around other men. "Looking back, I don't regret it. The goal was to become straight, and it turns out what I took away from it was an increased confidence," said Salmon, who entered therapy at age 18. "A big part of it was really teaching me to make relationships with...

A conservative legal group has announced that it will file suit against the State of California over its recent passing of a law banning reparative therapy for homosexual minors. Liberty Counsel announced the suit on Monday, bringing it on behalf of families, counselors, and the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). "The California governor and legislature are putting their own preconceived notions and political ideology ahead of children and their rights to get access to counseling that meets their needs," said Liberty Counsel in a statement. "This law undermines parental rights. Mental health decisions should be left...

Broadcasting out of his native England, this evening Piers Morgan welcomes Mitt and Ann Romney for a candid and revealing conversation that comes alongside the 2012 Summer Olympic Games from London. A decade since the Romneys helped host the 2002 Olympics in their home state of Utah, the "Piers Morgan Tonight" host walks the couple down memory lane: "There was a very poignant moment, when you were asked to allow someone who was your hero, to hold the torch. And you chose your wife," reviewed Morgan. "Tell me about that."

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—A first-of-its-kind ban on a controversial form of psychotherapy aimed at making gay people straight is speeding through the California statehouse. Supporters say the legislation, which passed its final Senate committee Tuesday, is necessary because such treatments are ineffective and harmful.

Oliver's photo still hangs at the Krause Funeral Homes, but he is no longer available to help grieving families. First a Krause family pet, Oliver ended up working most of his life as a therapy dog. "I remember one little boy, maybe about 8 years old, who wouldn't talk after a sibling died," funeral director Mark Krause said. "But he talked and talked to Oliver. "Oliver worked maybe a thousand funerals in his day, maybe more," he said. "What he did was really magical. People in their suits and dresses would get down on the floor to pet him." Oliver...

After it was revealed yesterday that an increasing number of women are using the sex industry to pay their way through university, one woman has told her story of stripping while studying. Emma Green, of Glamorgan, Wales, turned to stripping on a webcam for men and earned £200-a-week to fund her studies. The 25-year-old, who studied multi-media design at Glamorgan University before spending another year at a beauty therapy college in 2009, says a normal part-time job was out of the question because of her intense course workload.

Anthony Weiner checks into treatment center as Nancy Pelosi, other top Dems call on him to resignBY Alison Gendar, Matthew Lysiak and Jonathan Lemire DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Updated: Saturday, June 11th 2011, 10:45 PM Lusty lawmaker Anthony Weiner checked into a treatment center for his randy behavior Saturday - but it may not be enough to save his job. Weiner will be seeking help in the wake of the sexting scandal that put his career on life support, just as several of the country's most powerful Democrats simultaneously called on him to quit. "Congressman Weiner departed this morning to...

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Kirk Andrew Murphy seemed to have everything to live for. He put himself through school. He had a successful 8-year career in the Air Force. After the service, he landed a high profile position with an American finance company in India. But in 2003 at age 38, Kirk Murphy took his own life. A co-worker found him hanging from the fan of his apartment in New Delhi. His family has struggled for years to understand what happened. "I used to spend so much time thinking, why would he kill himself at the age of 38? It...

An experimental cure for Type 1 diabetes has a nearly 80 percent success rate in curing diabetic mice. The results, to be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 93rd Annual Meeting in Boston, offer possible hope of curing a disease that affects 3 million Americans. "With just one injection of this gene therapy, the mice remain diabetes-free long term and have a return of normal insulin levels in the body," said Vijay Yechoor, MD, the principal investigator and an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Yechoor and his co-workers used their new gene therapy in a nonobese...

Between unresolved family conflicts, relationship struggles and his mixed-race identity, James Puckett had enough on his mind in college that he sought professional help. But after bouncing from one therapist to another, he still felt stuck. “They were all female, and they did give me some comfort,” said Mr. Puckett, 30, who works for a domestic-abuse program in Wisconsin. “But I was getting the same rhetoric about changing my behavior without any challenge to see the bigger picture of what was behind these very male coping reactions, like putting your hand through a wall.” He decided to seek out a...

Sometimes we all get stuck in a rut. Events around us seem to be ever-changing but we just can’t seem to motivate ourselves to change with them. We do the same things we have always done and we end up with the same results we always get and there just doesn’t seem to be a way break the routines with which we have saddled ourselves. If this is you, let us provide you with some ideas – gleaned from literally a fraction of an hour of research on the internet – tailored to your specific situation. Let us help you...

UK Conservative party leader David Cameron has been urged to condemn "breathtaking" comments about gay people by Tory MEP Roger Helmer. On Sunday, Helmer tweeted: "Why is it OK for a surgeon to perform a sex-change operation, but not OK for a psychiatrist to try to 'turn' a consenting homosexual?" He was responding to an article at the weekend in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper about how a British psychotherapist who tried to "convert" a gay man to become heterosexual now faces being struck off. Lesley Pilkington, 60, a psychotherapist for 20 years, faces being stripped of her accreditation to the...

Today, I want to discuss stress. We live in a time and age where stress is common, rampant, and so intense that it has become a tremendous challenge sometimes to simply maintain composure. Stress is a draining mechanism that can easily take our focus off of the Lord and dwell on our own troubles. Now, to us Christians, there are three major types of stress we should examine....... Work-Related Stress: Back in June, a friend of mine and I went to a restaurant we both like. When the waitress came to our table, she had a “brain freeze” for a...

Attention, smartphone addicts: Now you can get treatment for that addiction through the very device that enslaves you. Josh Dzieza on psychology’s new technological frontier. Plenty of people joke about their addictions to their “CrackBerries,” and there’s likely more than a bit of truth to that. (Indeed, the new DSM, the mental health bible for psychologists, may include “Internet addiction” among its many pathologies.) But while smartphones can certainly enable compulsive behavior, surprisingly psychologists are increasingly seeing them as a tool with potential mental health benefits. Capitalizing on the ubiquity of the increasingly powerful mobile devices nearly everyone carries around...