Free Republic

Based on an analysis of the foundational presuppositions of Mormon theology, this writer predicted in a 2013 essay entitled, "Why Mormonism will Surrender to Homosexuality," the capitulation of the Mormon Church and by extension the Boy Scouts to inclusion of practicing homosexuals. Now with passage of the Supreme Court ruling, Obergefell v. Wade and by extension the declaration that a man (Bruce Jenner) is now a woman (Caitlyn), post-Christian America has also surrendered to the pagan ideal of transgender (androgyny).

The percentage of babies born to unmarried mothers dipped below 40 percent for the first time in 9 years in 2016, dropping to 39.8 percent, according to the final birth-data report for that year published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, there were 1,569,796 babies born to unmarried mothers in the United States during that year, according to the report. That made 2016 the 29th straight year (1988-2016) that more than a million babies were born in the United States to unmarried mothers. Over the past 30 years on record (1987-2016), according to CDC data, there have...

How long can our debt levels keep growing much, much faster than the overall economy? We haven’t had a year of 3 percent growth for the U.S. economy since the middle of the Bush administration, but we keep borrowing money as if there is no tomorrow. Much of the focus has been on the exploding debt of the federal government, and that is definitely something I plan to address once I get to Washington. But on an individual level, U.S. consumers have been extremely irresponsible as well. In fact, one new survey has found that more than 80 percent of...

Major-college football experienced its largest per-game attendance drop in 34 years and second-largest ever, according to recently released NCAA figures. Attendance among the 129 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams in 2017 was down an average of 1,409 fans per game from 2016. That marked the largest drop since 1983 when average attendance declined 1,527 fans per game from 1982. The 2017 FBS average of 42,203 fans per game is the lowest since 1997. That average attendance drop marked the second-sharpest decline since the NCAA began keeping track of college football attendance in 1948. For the first time in history, average...

Harley-Davidson Inc. announced early Tuesday with its fourth quarter 2017 earnings report that it is on track to launch its first electric motorcycle within 18 months and that it will invest more aggressively in the electric avenue in an attempt to inspire ridership. But on the flip side, the motorcycle manufacturer also revealed plans to close its Kansas City, Mo., plant and fold those operations into its Pennsylvania facility. The Milwaukee-based company's (NYSE: HOG) announcement on its significant commitment to the future of its motorcycle technology and plant closure comes as motorcycle sales fell 6.7 percent worldwide in 2017, with...

The name Mohammed and its many spelling variations are on course to become one of the most popular names in Germany going from 97th to 26th most popular in less than a decade. According to the Gesellschaft für Deutsche Sprache (Society for German Language, GfdS), often labelled as the most important language society in Germany, the name Mohammed has seen a rapid rise in popularity, though the name could be even more popular than their figures suggest, Die Welt reports.

Adulthood does not begin until 24, scientists have concluded because young people are continuing their education for longer and delaying marriage and parenthood. The traditional definition for adolescence is currently between and the ages of 10 and 19, which marked the beginnings of puberty and the perceived end of biological growth. But, writing in the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, scientists from the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne argue the timings needs to be changed. They point to the fact that the brain continues to mature beyond the age of 20, and many people’s wisdom teeth do not come through...

On Thanksgiving Day, while America ate its biggest, most famous meal of the year, The Washington Post wrote about something for which everyone ought to be thankful: more millennials are taking up farming. That’s right: For the first time in a long time, a growing number of young Americans are ditching cities and desk jobs to sow seeds and pull weeds. In fact, it’s only the second time in the last century that the number of farmers ages thirty-five and under has increased.

Those who fear Amazon is on the verge of becoming a monopoly that eats all competitors and locks up the retail market should take note of an announcement last week by Sears Holdings: The company will be closing another 100 stores this year. Some will see Sears’ downward trajectory as proof that Amazon is on the verge of assuming near-monopolistic dominance of the retail market. In fact, it proves the opposite: No one can blithely assume that kind of power, at least not for long. Just look at Sears’ history: Back in the 1960s, many feared the Sears chain would...

It has taken less than one year of Trump regulation-cutting, and just the prospect of tax reform, to create the best employment prospects for African-Americans in history, according to employment data just released this morning. Christopher Rugaber of the Associated Press reports: The unemployment rate remained 4.1 percent for a third straight month, the lowest level since 2000, the Labor Department said Friday.

January 3, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Fewer than half of 18- to 21-year-olds worldwide think others should be free to express non-violent opinions that are offensive to minorities, according to a study highlighted by The Economist. The data come from the Varkey Foundation and was released in February 2017. Only about half of the world’s young people support free speech, it revealed, but nearly two-thirds support same-sex “marriage.” The study asked two questions about free speech: whether “people should have a right to non-violent free speech in all circumstances even when what they say is offensive to a religion” and whether...

It’s true that CNN and the New York Times, among other liberal outlets, have rightly been called out for their failure to report accurately on the protests in Iran. But there’s something that not even the conservative media is telling you today, an important backstory that might be playing a role in this rising protest movement.As for the leftwing media, Caroline Glick noted in her article in the Jerusalem Post that, “Given the earth shattering potential of the protests it is extraordinary to see the liberal media in the US and Europe struggle to downplay their significance.” And here in...

<p>Bono has said that music “has gotten very girly” in recent years, with hip-hop serving as “the only place for young male anger at the moment”.</p> <p>The U2 frontman voiced the opinion during a new interview, with the 57-year-old lamenting the lack of “young male anger” in rock music in 2017.</p>

Texas marks another year where it leads the nation in total population growth, adding nearly 400,000 new residents, according to the latest figures by the U.S. Census Bureau. Between July 2016 and July 2017, the Lone Star State grew by 399,734 people, boosting its population to 28.3 million the census data showed. Breitbart Texas reported the state added 432,957 people during July 2015 to July 2016, increasing the population to almost 28 million. By comparison, the number of Texans in 2000 reflected 21 million. In 2010, the population totaled 25.1 million. The Census Bureau’s State Data Center noted that each...

With the meteoric rise of online retail in the age of Amazon, consumers have continued to opt more for shopping on the Internet in their pajamas as opposed to running out and getting their shopping done in person. The malls hit their heyday in the 1990s and the U.S. has definitely overbuilt the amount of retail needed per person. The American mall is now fighting for its life. A typical large mall in the mid-1990s entailed 142 stores spanning about 1.2 million square feet, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis on 458 malls across the states. Many retailers have...

Lookie, Lookie, Lookie, The Hollywood film industry is headed for the trash bin. Just like the Democrat Party is in self-destruction mode...so is the Hollywood Cabal of political nutcases, crumbling. Yes, Netflix, Streaming are hurting...but the downfall of the USA film industry is very much being helped to failure and poor performance in both revenue income and ticket sales by poor product and even worse poor choice of politics. Going through life as an avid Left-Wing, Progressive, Hate America, Democrat carries little positive political reward. Even Rupert Murdoch was wise enough to dump his film activity onto Disney. Murdoch certainly...

It could hardly come as a surprise to anyone who travels around the state: the number of people who are homeless in California continues to rise at a steady clip. Every year, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development releases a Point in Time count of the homeless population. This year that number reached nearly 554,000 — a 1 percent increase from last year, driven by the dramatic surge in West Coast cities. More than one-quarter of the total homeless population nationwide lives in California, roughly 114,000. The vast majority are “unsheltered” — a more bureaucratic term to describe...

And leaves academics stunned. "A study released Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports found that snowfall on the highest peak in the Alaska Range has more than doubled since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century, which researchers attribute to climate change," Valerie Richardson reported in The Washington Times on December 19, 2017. "We were shocked when we first saw how much snowfall has increased," Erich Osterberg, an assistant professor of earth sciences who led the investigation with researchers from Dartmouth, the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire, stated.

From organizing mass hexes to setting up witch-themed Etsy stores, the feminist movement and witchcraft are becoming increasingly entwined. In an article this week, feminist and author Laurie Penny documented the “boom in online occultism” and why feminists are so attracted to witchcraft. “Days after Donald Trump won the U.S. election, videos of women ‘hexing’ Trump went viral around the world, encouraging budding magical practitioners to burn images of the president-elect to bring his works to ruin,” reported Penny on Wednesday. “Meanwhile, an entire explosive industry of witch-paraphernalia is boiling out of the cauldron of digital consumer culture.” “You can...

The NFL has struggled mightily this year to get people to watch their primetime games, as the ratings from the Week 15 edition of Thursday Night Football continue to come in, it’s clear that those struggles will continue until the end of the year. The clash between the Denver Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts drew only a 7.4/13 rating in metered markets. That poor showing resulted in a new season low for TNF on both CBS and NBC and simulcast on NFL Network. According to Deadline Hollywood, “Looking at the close December 7 game between the Atlanta Falcons and the...