Free Republic

PALO ALTO, CA, March 21, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A group of about 100 homosexual activists at Stanford University have successfully intimidated the Graduate Student Council (GSC) into withdrawing $600 in previously-approved funding for a pro-marriage conference to be held on campus in April. The university administration also tried to charge the organizers $5,000 for security costs, but backed down amidst public pressure after the organizers accused them of “impos[ing] a tax on free speech.” The Stanford Anscombe Society (SAS) is sponsoring the event, called “Communicating Values: Marriage, Family and the Media.” Featuring prominent pro-family speakers, the event’s goal is “to...

Preface:  The scientific method requires allowing a free-for-all of hypotheses, which then rise or fall based upon the results of actual experiments.  In other words, science means that you throw out theories - no matter how good they look on paper - that are disproven by experimental results, and adopt those confirmed by the results. [Economics is supposed to do that, too ... but hasn't.]For example, putting Galileo to death because he didn’t agree with the “accepted” consensus that the Sun revolved around the Earth was not a great example of the scientific method. Instead of conducting experiments to see...

To most ears, it probably sounds inoffensive. A little outdated and clinical, perhaps, but innocuous enough: homosexual. But that five-syllable word has never been more loaded, more deliberately used and, to the ears of many gays and lesbians, more pejorative. “ ‘Homosexual’ has the ring of ‘colored’ now, in the way your grandmother might have used that term, except that it hasn’t been recuperated in the same way,” said George Chauncey, a Yale professor of history and an author who studies gay and lesbian culture. Consider the following phrases: homosexual community, homosexual activist, homosexual marriage. Substitute the word “gay” in...

A wealthy gay couple has decided to launch a lawsuit to force their church to perform their wedding. The Drewitt-Barlows, a millionaire couple from the U.K, stated, “We’ve launched a challenge to the government’s decision to allow some religious groups to opt out of marrying same-sex couples.” Both attend St. John the Baptist church, a branch of the Church of England, and have been in a civil partnership since 2006. Barrie Drewitt-Barlow said that he and his partner Tony, “feel we have the right as parishioners in our village to utilize the church we attend to get married. “It is no...

“Maybe we can reach a point of reconsideration” on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Kerry said during a forum at the State Department. The Ugandan president committed to meeting with American “experts” on homosexuality to try to change his mind about the Anti-Homosexuality Act signed into law last month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday during a forum at the State Department moderated by BuzzFeed. Museveni claimed to have signed the law, which imposes up to a lifetime prison sentence for homosexuality, after being convinced no one is “born gay.” “I talked personally to President Museveni just a few...

A local official in Virginia has subpoenaed the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the SPLC Task Force on Hate in the Public Sphere for the criteria it uses to designate other organizations as “hate groups.” The subpoenas were filed February 28th in Loudoun County Circuit Court. They request "all written criteria, guidelines, bylaws or rules used by Southern Poverty Law Center to designate organizations or groups as 'hate groups' from the inception of the Southern Poverty Law Center to the present date."

The homosexual lobby is now putting a full-court press on the Massachusetts Legislature to pass H3909 which would change the state's school "anti-bullying" law -- to completely silence any negative discussion of those behaviors and threaten schools and administrators that do not comply. Their stated goal is to use the anti-bullying laws to "change the overall climate and culture" in the every school in the state by "addressing bigotry and discrimination." In other words, the goal is not to reduce bullying per se, but to punish opinions by students and staff that are critical of homosexual or transgender behaviors, or...

Inspired by Apple CEO Tim Cook, Virgin founder Richard Branson has taken to his blog to say that businesses should begin standing up against climate change deniers. "While Tim told sustainability skeptics to 'get out of our stock,'" Branson writes, "I would urge climate change deniers to get out of our way." Cook's statements came at a recent shareholders meeting, where he soundly shot down a proposal rooted in climate change denial that would have had Apple putting its bottom line above its interests in sustainability. Cook said that those who would prefer Apple do everything purely for profit simply...

Can banning one school-yard word really change the world? Sheryl Sandberg says yes. Sandberg -- the chief operating officer of Facebook and author of the best-selling book "Lean In" -- is spearheading the launch of a campaign today to ban the word "bossy," arguing the negative put-down stops girls from pursuing leadership roles. "We know that by middle school, more boys than girls want to lead," Sandberg said, "and if you ask girls why they don't want to lead, whether it's the school project all the way on to running for office, they don't want to be called bossy, and...

A Jihad Watch reader attended the Georgetown University presentation on “Islamophobia” last week and kindly sent in this report. I wrote about this presentation here before it happened, saying that it would not be a true academic inquiry, amassing the facts and training the student to make an informed judgment, but an exercise in propaganda, attempting to manipulate attendees into holding certain opinions and skewing the presentation to ensure that those opinions would be the only ones anyone could come away with. This report shows that that was indeed what it was, with professors Daniel Varisco and John Esposito openly...

from the buttle/tuttle dept We've talked a lot over the years about the attempts to get out "ahead of crime" by using computer programs and algorithms to try and predict who might commit a crime. Predictive computing can then either target specific areas or specific people that might be in need of some extra law enforcement attention. Except as we've noted repeatedly, these programs are only as valuable as the data they use. Garbage in, garbage out, but in this case you've got a human being on the other end of the equation whose life can be dramatically impacted by...

(big time BARF ALERT!)When I was a little kid, I used to hear my brothers, cousins, and friends say things like “That’s so gay!” on a pretty regular basis. I would usually laugh along, hoping with all my might that they didn’t know my secret. My parents and other adults in my life would tell me things like “Boys don’t cry” or “Be a man!” which essentially was their way of telling me that being emotional was forbidden or a sign of weakness. When I was a teenager, there were a few boys at my high school who ridiculed me,...

The UK-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) – which is noted for its support for Hezbollah – yesterday announced the winner of their risible 'Islamophobe of the Year' prize. The winner was none other than our own Managing Editor, Raheem Kassam!

Back when gay rights advocates were first pushing for gay marriage, they claimed that they only wanted equality and that no one would be compelled to participate in gay marriage events.They lied.As soon as gay marriage went on the books, and in some states where it wasn’t even on the books, religious bakeries and photographers were assaulted with demands that they participate in gay ceremonies, sued if they didn’t and ordered to take part in gay ceremonies or face fines… and even jail time.States have responded by trying to pass measures that will protect religious freedom and freedom of...

The NFL could be set for a radical rule change. The new penalty, which will be automatic 15-yards if a player uses the N-word, is set to be introduced during the league’s owner’s meetings in March, according to a CBS Sports report. John Wooten, who heads up the Fritz Pollard Alliance which pays attention to diversity in the NFL, says he expects the NFL’s competition committee to suggest creating a rule penalizing players who use the N-word. The rule would also include the potential for players to get ejected from the game, if they use the word a second time....

Scott Oak and his husband, Jamie Smith, said they heard Black Diamond Police Chief Jamey Kiblinger use the word "fag" repeatedly. "Cops can talk rough, and I understand things like that, but she used it to personally attack me," said Oak, who was a Black Diamond police officer. He left in 2012. His husband said that he heard Kiblinger use the slur in front of them at a work-related party back in 2011. "When she said that, other officers looked around, and she looked around and she put her hand over her mouth like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ She knew she...

Every two years, the National Science Foundation releases a report on the state of science in the U.S. and around the world.... The results of the most recent survey, conducted in 2012 with more than 2,200 adults, have just been released. Here's a list of the questions in the survey... As you'll see, in the words of the report, "many Americans provide multiple incorrect answers to basic questions about scientific facts." Then again, "residents of other countries, including highly developed ones, appear to perform no better." 1. The center of the earth is very hot 2. The continents have been...

Today, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in the case of Wagner v. Jones. Our friend Peter Berkowitz discussed the case in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (it’s behind a pay wall). Teresa Wagner accuses the University of Iowa College of Law of violating her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by refusing to hire her for its legal analysis, writing, and research program due to her strong pro-life views and activism. Her accusation is strongly supported by a comparison of her qualifications for the position and those of the two individuals selected by the law school. Wagner...

I've actually thought about this in a more serious way than this graphic presents. While I understand why anti-bullying campaigns have been springing up I'm noticing that like with all the other "isms" out there people are starting to misuse the term in the same way the left uses "racism" to squelch discussion they don't like.Only yesterday I was part of a Facebook thread about politics where a liberal friend whipped out the "B" word against a conservative friend in reaction to him saying something the liberal friend didn't like.My conservative friend was displaying a different "B" word...backbone. Yet rather...

A Christian college in Wisconsin is dropping its “Crusaders” nickname after nearly 50 years, claiming the moniker has become outdated in a “more global society,” university officials told FoxNews.com. Maranatha Baptist University in Watertown and its Division III athletic teams have used the name since its founding in 1968. Matt Davis, the university’s executive vice president, said no complaints have been received by the school and stressed that it coincides with its name change from Maranatha Baptist College in December. “But I also agree that times change and we understand that context changes,” Davis told FoxNews.com. “Our world has changed...