Free Republic

Though deadbeat dads and high-school dropouts might pervade some communities, there are still far more models than mess-ups across our country, and some stand head and shoulders above the rest. Let me tell you about a few stellar examples. I understand that the fact that 1 in 4 U.S. students do not receive a regular high-school diploma is not good enough, with that number increasing to 1 in 2 students in New York City and other places and among Native Americans. And I understand that, as First Things First reported, in Richmond, Va., 60 percent of families are single-parent households,...

Anyone who doubts that the Republican Party can attract black voters needs only look south to Louisiana. At a conference held in Baton Rouge at the end of May, called @Large and aimed to attract black conservatives, black Democrat Elbert Guillary, a member of the state legislature, announced that he was switching party and becoming a Republican. Less than two weeks later, just up the road in Central City, Louisiana, black Democrat city councilman Ralph Washington – who attended this same @Large conference, made the same announcement – he’s becoming a Republican. It’s really not such a mystery. The mystery...

Hey, Dad. If you’re going to send your kid to a public school or a state run university, then you’ve got to teach your child not to just sit there in class, like a nice boy, and take whatever propaganda the “progressives” shove down their pie hole. The Conservative/traditionalist is the rebel of our day. “The Man” and “The Machine” on campus to rage against is not stodgy traditionalism, but rank socialism and its moral and political vacuity. Meet the new boss — it’s not the same as the old boss. For Dads who want their kids to make a...

After all the fuss about an Oregon baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, the state says there is "not an investigation into this issue." The dispute involves a Portland woman, her fiancee and fiancee's mother. In February, the mom and one of the brides-to-be went to Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham to order a wedding cake. Aaron Klein, who runs the bakery with his wife, says same-sex marriage goes against his Christian faith so he would not make a wedding cake for the couple. After that, the small bakery gained international attention with...

As Republicans ponder how to win over Hispanics in future election cycles, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. A poll of Illinois Hispanics conducted by pollster Mike McKeon found that a majority shared views generally considered to be sympathetic to the Republican party. The poll found Hispanics in the conservative camp on social issues in particular. Fifty-one percent said they opposed legalizing gay marriage, compared to just 40 percent who favored legalization. Fifty-six percent called themselves pro-life, while just 33 percent said they were pro-choice. A small plurality of those surveyed said they did not...

There is a controversy brewing at the London Olympics and it doesn't involve judges, steroids, or tanking matches (we're looking at you Badminton) - it involves bikinis. Critics are claiming that not only are the women's beach volleyball uniforms too sexy, but that photographers seem to be focusing an inordinate number of their images on certain parts of the female anatomy. Are the Olympics women's beach volleyball photos too sexy? That is the claim being made by some people who find that too many pictures of these female Olympians are filled with crotch shots and close-ups of women's derrieres in...

I jump on every opportunity to respectfully challenge my 84-year-old black dad's loyalty to Obama. Dad has been a Christian pastor over 50 years. He lives in Maryland, and I live in Florida. I called Dad to ask if he participated in Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. He said no, he had not heard about it. Then, he added, "All I know is Chick-fil-A discriminates against gays." Folks, I was outraged. Struggling to keep my composure, I passionately said, "Dad, that is a lie! You have got to stop getting your news from the mainstream media!" I went on to explain to...

Who knows whether or not Cathy’s remarks will create risks for his sales over the long term—a temporary boost appears to be underway, and customers can have short-term memories. But at a time when young people increasingly support same-sex marriage, what kind of risks do they create for the company’s pool of potential employees?

As November gets closer, with few options open to him, Barack Obama has elected to gamble that he can walk on a very narrow plank to victory. In May when Obama “evolved” back to being for Gay “marriage” he was taking a calculated risk. He knew, or should have known, that he would face a strong backlash from his African American base. When the backlash came, was a lot stronger than anyone would have expected. In 2008 Blacks flocked to the polls to vote for Obama at a 95% rate. That surge was enough put him over the top and...

Owners object to brands' support of National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce "The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce is an entity that collects money from major corporations to further promote policies for the gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders, and as Christians, we don't support that," said owner Mike Fuller. Fuller has even updated his restaurant's bare-bones website to include a notice about the boycott: Why Waha Bar & Grill is currently not carrying Coors, Miller, or Pepsico products: Miller/Coors, Pepsico, and many other companies (see list below) have taken a political stance by becoming corporate founders of...

Created for OMG! For America

It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: more than half of births to American women under 30 occur outside marriage. Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white women in their 20s who have some college education but no four-year degree, according to Child Trends, a Washington research group that analyzed government data. Among mothers of...

According to historian Paul Johnson, many analysts of American society consider the decline of the family and of family life — and the growth in illegitimacy — to be the decisive single development in America during the second half of the 20th century. It’s easy either to decry that decline in dramatic terms or to dismiss it as unimportant, a mere illusion in the minds of cultural conservatives. No need exists to overstate the case, to issue dire warnings of degeneracy and immorality or to primly utter hints at history repeating itself, to darkly allude to the collapse of the...

I finally had to sit down with my 11-year-old daughter for “the talk.” Despite my best efforts to preserve her innocence and protect her from growing up too quickly, I simply had to tell her some important facts of life. No, we didn’t have a talk about how babies are born. This talk was about America’s assault on girlhood. The time finally came for me to explain to my daughter the relationship between media and marketing and money, and why some people think nothing of exploiting girls if it increases their ratings, sells advertising and beefs up the bottom line....

Yesterday - less than three months after Kenneth W. Starr and I appeared in the California Supreme Court on behalf of our ProtectMarriage.com Campaign to defend Prop 8 - the Court finally issued its decision... all 185 pages of it! By a 6 to 1 vote, a nearly-unanimous majority of the Supreme Court upheld the vote of the people by which Prop 8 was passed into law to protect traditional marriage in our State Constitution. You can read the decision here as it appears on the Court's website. While there were no real surprises in the decision, and it looks...

Last week, I took my wife to see the Zac Efron flick "17 Again." I didn't expect much. After all, I think High School Musical and its endless sequels are insipid. I certainly wasn't expecting any morality tales about the virtues of abstinence until marriage. But that's what "17 Again" was -- a tribute to the value of chastity before wedlock. For those who haven't seen the movie, Matthew Perry plays Mike O'Donnell, a former high school hotshot who passed up a college athletic scholarship to marry his high school sweetheart Scarlet, whom he had impregnated before marriage. It's been...

Although liberal groups and even courts protect HIV and AIDS victims from having to divulge their condition on any records, for fear they might be denied public activity and employment, innocent school kids are scrubbed, fumigated, and isolated lest they spread the deadly virus of Christianity. ....Wade was given a fourth grade assignment to choose a “hero,” write a description of his hero and portray the chosen hero as part of a “live wax museum.” He would then give an oral report in front of the class. When 9-year-old Wade chose Jesus as his hero, school officials immediately insisted that...

To my Conservative Friends: I have been receiving emails and phone calls over the past week from my Conservative and liberal friends alike saying to me - "Mike - You gotta see Gran Torino!!" So, in the middle of the snow storm on Saturday night, I trekked out to see the film I had heard so much about... The film is about a man named Walt Kowalski, a 70-something, cranky Korean War Vet who lives in a mid-west neighborhood that has been steadily changing to a Black/Asian community. Walt, living alone now after his wife's death, is one of the...

December 23, 2008, 4:00 a.m. Gross Dereliction of DutyBy the Editors As attorney general of California, Jerry Brown has a duty to defend the state and its laws in court. That duty requires him to offer the best grounds in defense of any law that may reasonably be defended. In a brief he filed last Friday in the case challenging Proposition 8 — the ballot measure that amended California’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage — Brown grossly violated that duty. On Election Day, California voters approved Proposition 8. Opponents of Proposition 8 then rushed to court to invalidate it...

The cause of gay rights has made enormous progress in the last couple of decades, but the more specific cause of gay marriage continues to be battered. In the same election that voters helped bridge the United States' racial divide by electing the country's first African-American president, voters in California overrode a ruling of that state's Supreme Court and effectively rebanned gay marriage. Reliably Democratic-voting California — home to those much-mocked "San Francisco values" that tolerate gay lifestyles — has now joined 29 other states, including Ohio, banning gay marriage. Protests in reaction to the vote popped up across the...