Free Republic

The Irish Catholic boy who came of age in Sacramento after World War II is an unlikely candidate to be the author of the Supreme Court’s major gay rights rulings. But those who have known Justice Anthony Kennedy for decades and scholars who have studied his work say he has long stressed the importance of valuing people as individuals. And he seems likely also to have been influenced in this regard by a pillar of the Sacramento legal community, a closeted gay man who hired Kennedy as a law school instructor and testified on his behalf at his high court...

The Reformation was a return to the Word of God unencumbered by rationalist, a priori assumptions about what the nature of things must be. The church had always read the Word of God but it had done so under the control of a set of assumptions chief among which was that God can only call a human “righteous” if he is, in himself, properly, inherently, intrinsically righteous. So, the medieval church set up a scheme whereby a sinner might progressively become righteous by medicinal grace and cooperation with that medicine infused into us by the sacraments. In the medieval and...

Former US President William J. (Bill) Clinton stepped down from his position at Laureate International Universities, part of Laureate Education Inc., Friday. His 5-yr term as “Honorary Chancellor,” the company and Mr. Clinton’s staff said expired. But Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer suggests a different explanation: Mr. Clinton actually resigned in order to avoid more negative publicity. The book describes what Mr. Schweizer presents as a “troubling” co-mingling of official State Department business with the private financial affairs of Bill Clinton and a nonprofit run by Laureate’s Chairman, Douglas Becker. Laureate, which runs for-profit colleges, hired Mr. Clinton just...

We are witnessing a homosexual juggernaut that will settle for nothing less than their own interpretation of the relations between the sexes In 1973, the Supreme Court looked into the Constitution, found that it approved of abortion and overruled laws banning it. Other laws have since addressed late term abortions and those resulting from rape or incest, but killing human life in the womb has been lawful since then. . According to the Guttmacher Institute from 1973 through 2011, nearly 53 million legal abortions occurred in the U.S. By dismantling the fundamental traditions and beliefs of a nation piece by...

Dear FRiends, We need your continuing support to keep the lights on. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who enjoy and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No one trying to control us. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks. We are self-funded, fiercely independent and enjoy our freedom to speak plainly in the support of God, family, country, liberty!! But we cannot exist...

The P5+1 group has accepted to remove all Iran's sanctions immediately after the comprehensive nuclear deal, Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali-Akbar Salehi said. Speaking in a televised program on Saturday night, he said that Iran and P5+1 have reached a consensus on the framework of agreement and they are now discussing the details. Iran has a full-scale knowledge of the complete cycle of peaceful nuclear technology, Salehi added. He said that Iran has a stockpile of 90 tons of heavy water and it is producing 20 tons per year which give the country, ability to become...

"Stay with us, Sir. Night is falling.” It seems that each passing day is getting worse in America and Western Society in general, where night is now falling. Perversion of every kind now infiltrates the pop culture; the kind of perversion that is increasingly difficult to protect children against. Lies masquerade as truth. The dragon of worry and anxiety is keeping us awake nights and many are feeling so alone. At 9 o’clock EST tonight Canada Free Press (CFP) is starting an ongoing, every night ‘Nightly Prayer Vigil’ (NPV). Why 9 o’clock? What better time to call on the Almighty...

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen acknowledged that the number of employees assigned to assist taxpayers understand and file tax returns for 2014 was “less than it could’ve been.” Statistics bear out his assessment. It is estimated than less than half of those who phoned the IRS to ask for help actually got through. And of those who did many waited on hold for more than 30 minutes before speaking to an IRS agent. Koskinen defended the shortage of taxpayer help, saying that “we had higher priorities. For one, we had to implement the penalty enforcement phase of the Affordable Care Act....

esday, Delaware County sheriff’s deputies arrested Timothy Wade Miles, 49, after he reportedly sold 1 gram of cocaine to a confidential informant. It was, in fact, the third time Miles had sold cocaine in monitored buys, according to the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office. Miles works as the assistant director for the Muncie Indiana Transit System (MITS), and was driving his MITS vehicle, when he met with the informant at the Muncie Civic Center, according to a police report. Of course, Miles is also the president of the Muncie chapter (Unit #3063) of the NAACP. ABC 6 reported: During one buy,...

The new mayor of a Missouri city [next to Ferguson] had a tough first day on the job when she was met by police at City Hall and informed she had been suspended over allegations of voter fraud. Betty McCray, the newly elected mayor of the city of Kinloch, was met in the parking lot at City Hall Thursday by police officers and the city attorney holding articles of impeachment, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. “You can’t come in as mayor,” attorney James Robinson told McCray. “You have been suspended.” McCray, however, was defiant, telling Robinson, “You may be the...

The German laity confirm their desire for evolution in the Church: according to a document made available on the Episcopal Conference site, the answers to the questionnaire between the Synods show that the Catholics of Germany are expecting major openings from the Synod on the Family. Mainly on the thorniest issues: “they are asking for the admittance of the divorced and remarried to the Eucharist, a “development” of moral doctrine for the pastoral acceptance of homosexual people and a form of “church blessing for second civil-marriages.” Are these requests an expression of serious discernment or, do they show a watered-down,...

CNN host Wolf Blitzer praised actress Jane Fonda and acting U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf on Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “Nothing better than Jane Fonda,” the CNN host said of his guests. “Can you believe I’m here with Jane Fonda and Marie Harf, acting spokeswoman of the State Department?! How cool is that?” Harf joined in to gush about Fonda. “I was looking forward to meeting Jane Fonda, so this was a dream come true,” Harf said. “We’ve already done selfies in the car.”

Bill and Hillary Clinton are to money what the Gulf of Mexico is to the Mississippi River: the inevitable destination of a large and never-ending flow, which is sometimes polluted. The latest example comes in the form of donations of $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation by the chairman of a Canadian uranium company that needed, and got, U.S. government approval to be taken over by a Russian firm that enjoys the favor of Vladimir Putin. Maybe you can guess who was secretary of state at the time the State Department reviewed the deal. Oh, and those contributions were not...

How bad will the upcoming Papal encyclical on the environment be? Maybe this bad: As the world celebrates Earth Day on Wednesday, Pope Francis is planning to use one of the highest forms of papal expression — an encyclical — to promote climate action to save the planet as a moral and religious imperative. In recent weeks, Vatican officials have outlined what the document will say and are choreographing its release — perhaps as early as June — for maximum global impact beyond the Roman Catholic Church’s 1.2 billion members. Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who chairs a panel dealing...

Campaigning in Renfrewshire, he said the nationalists want an SNP vote in the general election in order to "force" a second poll. Launching the SNP's "women's pledge", Nicola Sturgeon said this election was "not about independence". Meanwhile the Lib Dems set out plans for green laws and the Scottish Conservatives focused on jobs. As the penultimate weekend of campaigning got under way, SNP leader Ms Sturgeon joined female activists and actor and campaigner Elaine C Smith in Glasgow to launch the party's women's pledge, which commits the SNP and its members to delivering policies that promote equality... As part of...

The super-strong bots – built by mechanical engineers at Stanford University in California – will be presented next month at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Seattle, Washington. The secret is in the adhesives on the robots' feet. Their design is inspired by geckos, which have climbing skills that are legendary in the animal kingdom. The adhesives are covered in minute rubber spikes that grip firmly onto the wall as the robot climbs. When pressure is applied, the spikes bend, increasing their surface area and thus their stickiness. When the robot picks its foot back up, the spikes...

The Nerd Prom is always highly anticipated around here. Will BO’s joke writers be as good as Jon Stewarts? Will TOTUS scroll them slowly enough for Big Guy to read? Who will Lady M wear and will she make both the “Best” and “Worst” dressed lists? Although that anxiety has eased considerably with the passing of Joni.So let’s spend a few moments reviewing the transformation of Lady M at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.2009: before the discovery of industrial schtrenght Spanx:Immortalized by Cripes Suzette’s famous “hump, slump, bump and plump” shot:H/T Cripes Suzette2010: the age of elegance (and DOD...

The Clinton Foundation is now admitting that mistakes were made. "[Y]es, we made mistakes, as many organizations of our size do, but we are acting quickly to remedy them, and have taken steps to ensure they don't happen in the future. We are committed to operating the Foundation responsibly and effectively to continue the life-changing work that this philanthropy is doing every day," says Clinton Foundation acting CEO Maura Pally in a blog post.

Presidential hopefuls Marco Rubio and Scott Walker exchanged fire over foreign policy in Iowa on Saturday, hours before the two are scheduled to appear together at a Faith and Freedom Coalition summit outside of Des Moines. Speaking to The Des Moines Register editorial board on Saturday morning, Rubio said his seat on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees lends him a distinct advantage on “the most crucial obligation the president faces, as commander in chief.” “Governors can certainly read about foreign policy, and take meetings and briefings with experts,” the Florida Republican said, “but there’s no way they’ll be...

In the 25 years since queer students at UC Santa Cruz were given a space by university officials for a resource center, it has grown into a lively place with staff members, an extensive library and weekly programs. “For many of our older alums, there was never a queer center for them when they were undergrads,” said Deb Abbott, director for the center. “So this space is really meaningful.”