Free Republic

Politicians and others who speak about what taxpayer-supported Planned Parenthood does are contributing to a "negative environment" that encourages some people to target the abortion provider, a Planned Parenthood executive said on Sunday."We've experienced so much hateful language, hateful speech," Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountain CEO Vicki Cowart told ABC's "This Week" with Martha Raddatz. "Such a negative environment has been created around the work that Planned Parenthood does, around the idea of safe and legal abortion."And we've seen that across the country from all sorts of speakers in the last few months. I can't believe that this isn't contributing to...

The gunman suspected of storming a Planned Parenthood clinic and killing a police officer and two others told the officers who arrested him “no more baby parts,’’ after being taken into custody, according to a law enforcement official. The attack on the clinic was “definitely politically motivated,’’ the official — who has been briefed on the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity because it is still unfolding — told The Washington Post. NBC News, which first reported the comment attributed to suspect Robert Lewis Dear, said Dear also mentioned President Obama in a range of statements to investigators that...

MADISON, Wisconsin, November 23, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A bill to stop transgender students from using restrooms and other facilities of the opposite sex faced a contentious, hours-long hearing on Thursday. But a spokesperson for the bill's sponsor in the state Senate says it is designed to protect children, and that the bill accounts for the struggles of transgender teenagers. And a state activist told LifeSiteNews that "this bill is a reasonable response to a complex problem." "It's clearly not an easy issue for public schools to deal with," said Julaine Appling of Wisconsin Family Action, who e-mailed LifeSiteNews during the...

ALFRED, Maine (AP) — A woman who stabbed a random shopper to death in the ice cream aisle of a supermarket was sentenced Monday to life in prison. Connor MacCalister had told police she was angry with life and had gone to the store to kill "several random people." According to court records, she acknowledged being "off (her) meds" when she killed 59-year-old Wendy Boudreau in August at a Shaw's supermarket in Saco, where they both lived. MacCalister, 31, entered her guilty plea in October over the objection of her lawyer, who wanted to use an insanity defense. MacCalister was...

The whole "transgender" issue hasn't shown up much on the presidential radar, but it did with Ted Cruz recently.  In a radio interview, Cruz said: ... the Obama administration’s support for trans students amounts to “lunacy!” “Look, these guys are so nutty that the federal government is going after school districts, trying to force them to let boys shower with little girls,” Cruz responded. “Now listen: I’m the father of two daughters, and the idea that the federal government is coming in saying that boys, with all the god-given equipment of boys, can be in the shower room with junior...

Appearing in a new BBC Three documentary, Young, Trans and Looking for Love, they let viewers see a glimpse of their lives as they struggle to find love. The doc shows the moment Claire, from Virginia, meets a guy that she likes, only to be rejected by him as soon as he finds out she was born a boy. She says: "In a lot of ways, I don't like telling a guy. Once I tell him all respect goes out of the window. "Straight guys just can't get over you having the male parts.

As I sit here in my kitchen sipping coffee and reading the latest news about "Caitlyn" Jenner, I can't help but reflect on the darkest time my soul has ever endured. I was a young girl when I met my husband in the mid 1990s. We were vibrant and madly in love. We got married, quickly discovered we were going to be parents, and were over the moon excited. I gave birth to a girl, and a beautiful, strong boy followed four years later. My husband was successful and I was grateful that his income afforded me the opportunity to...

The war on the pink aisle continues. The newest ad for Barbie’s Moschino doll line features a new figure for the first time ever — a boy. “Moschino Barbie is so fierce!” the boy yells before placing a designer purse on the doll’s arm. The ad features him and two girls touting Mattel’s already popular line that includes clothes and accessories from the fashion designer Moschino. The ad, released earlier this month, is the latest in a series of steps to remove gender from toy shopping. Target made waves this year when it decided to stop labeling toys as for...

The mother of a transgender student at the center of a heated national civil rights debate spoke out for the first time Thursday, writing of her daughter's devastation at being banned from the girls' locker room at her northwest suburban high school.

San Diego State University has axed its longtime tradition of naming a homecoming "king" and "queen," and this year will go with the gender-neutral term "royals," the Daily Aztec campus newspaper reports. As recently as last year SDSU named a homecoming "king" and "queen" during its annual football game, according to the university’s website. But this Saturday when the Aztecs take on the University of Wyoming Cowboys, the Royal Court will end up with the "final two Royals," the website adds. It’s unclear if those final two "royals" will be one male and one female, or some other iteration of...

A federal discrimination complaint has been filed on behalf of a Katy-area educator who says she was wrongly terminated for refusing to address a 6-year-old girl as a transgender boy, the teacher's attorneys said Tuesday. Madeline Kirksey, of Houston, who worked at the Children's Lighthouse Learning Center location on Clay Road, was fired Nov. 3 after she would not agree to treat the child as a male and call the child by a new male name, according to a copy of the filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Dallas city council voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve an ordinance allowing transgender people to use the "facilities" of the opposite sex. The measure, which opponents describe as a "bathroom" bill, adds "gender identity" to the city's 2002 anti-discrimination law alongside race, sex, and sexual orientation.  Mayor Mike Rawlings said, "We're a very diverse city. We want to make sure everyone is protected." The move comes one week to the day after Houston residents voted to repeal the transgender ordinance passed by their city council. More than 60 percent of citizens said no in a landslide defeat of the Houston Equal Rights...

Supporters of Houston’s “Equal Rights” Ordinance (HERO) are predictably crying foul after voters resoundingly rejected their ballot measure last week. Apparently it lost only because bigots poisoned the debate with “misinformation.” Sore losers that they are, its proponents can’t accept that the voters understood what was at stake and voted accordingly. The ordinance prohibited discrimination based upon a number of protected categories, most of which were uncontroversial and already covered by state and federal laws. That was the window dressing. The real issue concerned banning discrimination based on the amorphous social construct known as “sexual orientation” and the even more...

The progressive press is seething with indignation towards the voters of Houston, Texas, more than 60 percent of whom have rejected a city council ordinance that would allow transgender women (that is, biological males) into women's restrooms and locker rooms.More precisely, the media standard bearers for the never-ending sexual revolution are furious with the Campaign for Houston, a group in which pastors featured prominently, for focusing voters’ attention with the slogan, “No men in women’s bathrooms”. Their brisk and effective ad suggested that The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance would provide a cover for sexual predators to threaten the privacy and...

A few locusts were crushed under the boot of American Exceptionalism last Tuesday. The creeps in Houston, who wanted disturbed men to have access to women's bathrooms, were defeated by a 24-point margin (although it may well be argued the 38 percent who supported such a ballot measure in a major American city is cause enough to lower the flag to half staff). And two city council women in my home state of Iowa were thrown out of office after voting to remove a Veterans' Memorial cross from a public park. Two locusts do not a swarm make, though, so...

Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon and Republican presidential candidate, suggested in an interview Thursday that the U.S. should have bathrooms specifically for people who are transgender. Carson was responding to questions about a recent ordinance in Houston that would have established nondiscrimination protections for gay and transgender people. Voters rejected the ordinance after an 18-month battle in which opponents argued that allowing transgender men and women to use their preferred public bathrooms would open the door to sexual predators who wanted to enter women's restrooms. Carson's response: "How about we have a transgender bathroom?" "It is not fair for them...

SACRAMENTO, California, November 6, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – California has become the first state to not only pay for prisoners' transgender operations and treatments, but also move men and women into prisons of the opposite gender. Effective October 20, taxpayers will be on the hook for prisoners who claim to have gender dysphoria. The change to state law took place after a years-long lawsuit from convicted first-degree murderer Rodney James Quine. Quine, who was also convicted of kidnapping and robbery, is serving a life sentence for his crimes. He now wants to be considered female, and he sued to have the...

An American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer representing a biologically male transgender student in Illinois says that his client should be allowed to shower in the girls’ locker room because "as a matter of science," he is “a girl through and through”. Although the Palatine-Schaumberg Township High School District 211 allows transgender students to use locker rooms of the gender they identify with, it requires them to use private shower stalls or changing areas so as not to appear naked in the company of the opposite sex. The student filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of...

The United States Department of Education has given Palatine, Illinois School District 30 days to reach a “solution” that allows a “transgendered” boy who says he is a girl to shower with the girls. Failure to comply could result in the loss of federal Title IX funds.The young man in question “identifies” as a girl. The school district has allowed him to play on the girls’ sports team. He is called “she” by school staff who refer to him by a female name. He says his “rights” are being violated because the school district asks him to change clothes behind...

AP - The largest movement of Judaism in the U.S. passed the most far-reaching resolution in support of transgender rights of any major religious organization, saying Thursday that it's a continuation of a tradition of inclusion in the Reform Jewish movement.