Free Republic

At least 13 mayors have been arrested for sexual crimes against children since 2021, according to a review of news articles and police reports. College Park, Maryland, Mayor Patrick Wojahn is the most recent mayor to be charged with child sex crimes and has been arrested for 56 counts of possession and distribution of child pornography, according to NBC Washington; Wojahn submitted his letter of resignation Thursday. On February 17, Prince George’s County Police Department (PCPD) was notified that someone in the county was uploading child pornography. The images and videos were traced back to Wojahn, ... However, Wojahn is...

Today's quiz!! How many words in English have the double letters uu? I can only find three. 1. vacuum 2. Hyundai Equus and a third word ?? See, if you know what is the third "uu" word. and, are there any more double "uu" words? PS Don't ask Biden.

MINNEAPOLIS, July 30, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Nothing so calls to mind the spirit of innocence than a child’s summertime lemonade stand. However, at one church in Minneapolis, young Sunday school children donated the proceeds of their childhood business venture to a group dedicated to redefining marriage in the November election. On July 15, children in grades 1-5 at First Universalist Church of Minneapolis charged a quarter a glass during their church-sponsored fundraiser to support same-sex “marriage.” The church dubbed the event, which took place in the church social hall, “Lemonade Stand-ing on the Side of Love,” to match the title...

Visitors to the Unitarian Universalist Association website will see a rainbow chalice in the listing for the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva (UUSG), recognizing the church’s recent certification as a welcoming congregation to those in the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning) community. According to Bruce Fackler, a gay man who joined UUSG in 2007, the certification simply makes official what he experienced when he was introduced to the church five years ago. Fackler said he had moved here from Minnesota and was searching for a congregation that could be a supportive family. “I found more than I was...

On Vancouver Island, pagans are lighting cauldron fires and dancing through giant evergreen hoops to symbolize being reborn In Vancouver, pagans are bowing to stag antlers, revering pentangles and burning cinnamon incense to mark Yule, which celebrates the "rebirth of the sun" at winter solstice...There are roughly 400,000 pagans in the U.S. and Canada, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. Their numbers have more than doubled in the past decade. ..Despite many pagans' inclination to privacy, one spiritual organization in B.C. that won't be carrying out its Yule ceremonies in secrecy is the Vancouver Unitarian Church. The large congregation...

...Theo Hobson wrote about his first experience of a Unitarian Universalist church in Brooklyn on this website, finding it "harmless" but edging towards the vacuous. The service itself offered "as much sense of dangerous otherness as a tots' singalong at the local library". Yet as a movement, at times it has been the Unitarian attitude to otherness that has taken them into dangerous territory. ...Unitarian Universalism is sometimes referred to as America's "other" religion – one that offers a reverse of the stereotype of American religious conservatism. US census data shows it to be a significant minority religion with between...

Over the last two years at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury (UUCD), as we continue to settle on "the Ridge" (Clapboard Ridge Road), we have had a great focus on growing our membership and growing our church....In this idea of shared ministry we view everything -- from leading Sunday worship, to religious education, to balancing "the books," to making sure the carpets are clean -- as a form of ministry. Each of these activities serves the greater purpose of our spiritual community, serves each of our own spiritual journeys, and is thus a ministry....In his book "Moving On from...

At the Unitarian Universalist Village Church on Sunday, the congregation will hear a presentation on “Understanding What and Who We Are as Natural Beings.” A question-andanswer session will follow. This will be the first in a three-part series exploring what and who we are as individuals and as a congregation...

A recent Sunday service at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore ended with an apology. Laurel Mendes, a neo-pagan lay member who led the service, feared that a reference to God in the hymn “Once to Every Soul and Nation” might have upset the humanists in the pews. So, Mendes explained to the congregation that religious doctrine had been duly scrubbed from hymns in the Sunday program. “I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable by reciting something that might be considered a profession of faith,” Mendes, 52, said after the service. “We did say ‘God,’ which you don’t often hear...

Much of the vocal opposition to gay marriage in New York state has come from folks with reverend as their title.Some Hudson Valley religious leaders see same-sex marriage in a different light."When any commentator says religion is against gay marriage, it really rankles me," said the Rev. Jan Carlsson-Bull of the Unitarian Univeralist Congregation of the Catskills. UU ministers presided over hundreds of gay weddings in New Paltz in 2004 after Mayor Jason West was barred from doing so.Nothing in the old or new testaments suggests to Carlsson-Bull that marriage must be between a man and a woman."(The Bible) is...

Reflections On Ministry is the topic for the morning to be presented by Interim Minister Rev. Tracey Robinson-Harris at The First Unitarian Universalist Society of Middleborough, 25 South Main Street, on Sunday, May 1. The service begins at 10:30 a.m. Joining Robinson-Harris for this service is the Rev. Judy Campbell, Ministerial Settlement Representative for the Ballou Channing District. The shared sermon will offer reflections on ministry and what it means to be settled. The service will also include New Member Recognition honoring five new members of FUUSM: Sophia Rose, Barbara Bancroft, Louisa Place, Jeremy Place and Jeff Giddings. Following the...

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Joseph Santos-Lyons is this city's first homegrown minister of color in the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, the church that proudly represents the far left pole of American religion. During the UUA's recent national General Assembly here, Santos-Lyons was "fellowshipped" (the equivalent of a large-scale ordination), a milestone for the liberal UUA, which is 92 percent white, by its own estimates. But as he assumes his minister's mantle, Santos-Lyons is speaking out about the elephant in the room: Liberals embrace multiculturalism in theory, he says, but there's a reason the UUA and other progressive movements, from anti-war...

Columbia’s Unitarian Universalist Fellowship congregation has gone on record as opposing a proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. The Heyward Street congregation adopted the resolution Sunday, saying passage of the amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot “will jeopardize the physical, emotional, legal and financial well being of same-sex couples and their children.” Noting that constitutional amendments have historically expanded human rights, the congregation’s resolution warned the amendment would relegate homosexuals to second-class citizenship and “further polarize us as a community.”

On the flight home this morning, I was unfortunate enough to have a bleeder sit next to me. By bleeder, I mean he was invading my space because he was large and his body was spilling over into my seat. I've seen worse cases than what I had today but let's hear your experiences.

U.S., North Korea Begin Low-Level Talks on Nuclear Program Amid Warnings Not to Expect Breakthrough Stephanie Hoo/Associated Press Jun 20, 2004 BEIJING (AP) - Diplomats from the United States, North Korea and four other nations began low-level talks Monday on the North's nuclear program, amid warnings by host China against hoping for any major breakthrough. The two days of so-called "working-level" talks are meant to help create an agenda for a third round of high-level talks due to start Wednesday. In addition to China, other participants include South Korea, Japan and Russia. The high-level talks would be the third time...

BOSTON -- Its Beacon Hill headquarters are within earshot of the gay marriage protesters that swarmed the Statehouse steps, but inside the Unitarian Universalist Association the debate is long over. While other churches remain split over gay marriage, the tiny denomination has staked a claim as a leading religious voice in favor of same-sex unions. Ministers in San Francisco have presided over gay marriage ceremonies and two in New Paltz, N.Y., were charged after performing ceremonies. The church's official Web site offers a "Same Sex Wedding Planning Guide." And on May 17, the day the nation's first state-sanctioned gay marriages...