Free Republic

In response to same-sex marriage, hundreds signed a pledge endorsed by First Things to separate civil and Christian marriage. LifeWay Research found that 1 in 4 pastors (and 1 in 3 Americans) support such a move.Here’s how theologians and other experts answered the question. Answers are arranged on a spectrum from “yes” answers at the top to “no” answers at the bottom. "For a long time, Christianity has sewn its teachings into the fabric of Western culture. That was a good thing. But the season of sewing is ending. Now is a time for rending, not for the sake...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush declared Wednesday that 11 million immigrants in the country illegally should have an opportunity to stay, wading yet again into his party's contentious immigrant debate. In tone and substance, Bush stands out among the many Republicans lining up for the GOP's next presidential primary, where conservatives who oppose an immigration overhaul often hold outsized influence. As he moves toward a presidential campaign, the brother and son of former presidents has not backed away from his defense of immigrants in the country illegally and a policy that would allow them to attain legal status under certain...

HOUSTON — Jeb Bush said undocumented workers should be able to come out of the shadows, pay a fine, work, and eventually gain earned legal status in a speech to a major Hispanic evangelical organization Wednesday. Speaking to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) with his parents George H.W. and Barbara Bush in the audience, the former Florida governor focused on his work in education in the state — but got big applause for talking about immigration and Israel. “We have to fix the broken immigration system and that means controlling the border and making sure legal immigration is...

Full title: Sheriff Clarke: Why are we surprised at sub-human behavior in American ghettos? Lib policies created it........Outspoken Milwaukee Sheriff David A. Clarke, Jr. blasted Baltimore rioters and the left-wing agenda he says created the powder keg that blew up into violence. On Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” Clarke told the host that liberal policies, not the death of accused drug dealer Freddie Gray, are responsible for the violence in the city.

The thing that always irks me about their "water the tree of liberty" types is their sheer stupidity. Seriously, you think you and your buddies are going to play Red Dawn against the full might of the U.S. government? Where do you suppose all that defense budget money went, folks? And now we have Ted Cruz, egging them on. Dear sweet Jesus, this man has no conscience. Via Talking Points Memo: WASHINGTON — It's a given that every Republican presidential candidate will run for president as a strong supporter of gun rights. But Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is arguing that...

From the Pope's mouth to God's ear. The head of the Roman Catholic Church made a passionate appeal for financial equality in the salaries of women and men. "Why is it taken for granted that women must earn less than men? No! They have the same rights," said Pope Francis Wednesday during his general audience to tens of thousands gathered in St. Peter's Square. His voice rising, the pontiff said "The discrepancy is pure scandal." U.S. figures show women earn 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. In European Union countries, females are paid an estimated 16%...

Kafka & Keynes Mania in financial markets has raged so far out of control as to place them outside the realm of rationality, says former White House budget director David Stockman. “There are no markets left in any meaningful sense of the word, just a raging casino infected with the madness of the crowds and the central bank pied pipers who mesmerize them,” he writes on his blog. That madness is illustrated in the months-long rise of Chinese stocks and the rebound of McDonald’s shares last week, Stockman says. As for China, the Shanghai Composite Index has soared 121...

Chief Justice Roberts has long been troubled by the idea that courts might short-circuit a democratic debate over marriage equality by imposing a constitutional right to marry by judicial fiat. In his dissent from the Windsor case in 2013, he wrote that he was reluctant to “tar the political branches with the brush of bigotry” without convincing evidence that a law’s “principal purpose was to codify malice.” He might vote to uphold same-sex-marriage bans on the grounds that the people, not judges, should decide the future of marriage.

The players of the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox lined up for the national anthem this afternoon in front of an empty stadium, in unprecedented scenes never before witnessed in the history of baseball. With the National Guard posted outside Camden Yards and debris still being cleaned up off the streets, the Orioles played the first ever MLB game behind closed doors. Just before the players took the field The Beatles 'Day Tripper' blared out the PA system to an otherwise eerily silent stadium and 45,000 empty seats.

The Baltimore mom heralded for smacking her 16-year-old son at the Monday riots says she doesn't feel like a hero. In a CBS News exclusive, Toya Graham explained why she angrily confronted her son in an incident captured on a video that went viral. "To see my son come across the street with a rock in his hand, I think at that point, I just lost it," Toya Graham said Wednesday on "CBS This Morning." “He knew he was in trouble,” says Baltimore mom. The single mother of six was unofficially dubbed "mom of the year" by many on social...

A new CBS series will be testing the compassion and values of a dozen struggling families this summer, by presenting them with briefcases containing more than $100,000, and giving them an option to either keep it all, or share it with someone who might need it more. The Briefcase will feature hard-working American families, who are feeling the impacts of financial setbacks, when they are presented with a briefcase containing $101,000. Every week, two families will have 72 hours to learn details about each other’s taxing circumstances and make the difficult decision of what to do with the cash. The...

The past week was a very good one for Ted Cruz in South Carolina, as he swept the straw polls at four bi-annual Republican county conventions, and one county GOP Executive Committee bi-monthly meeting. The first came as Cruz won the Anderson County GOP convention straw poll as follows: Cruz 27%, Walker 25%, Rubio 15%, Huckabee 9%, Graham and Perry 6% each, Santorum 5%, Bush, Paul and Carson 1% each. But the biggest prizes came for Cruz as he won Greenville, Spartanburg and Aiken GOP convention straw polls all on the same day as follows: Greenville: Cruz 28%, Walker 22%,...

Two months ago, Michigan Capitol Confidential broke the story that the Lansing School District had allowed the president of the state's largest teachers union to remain on its payroll for years as part of a “pension spiking” scheme. Last week legislation was introduced in the state Senate to prohibit such schemes. As reported by Michigan Capitol Confidential, under an arrangement with the Michigan Education Association, the Lansing School District contributed $51,976 annually to the state-run school pension system on behalf of union president Steve Cook, and was then reimbursed by the MEA. The deal will let Cook collect a much...

The charity run by the Clintons has raised $2 billion since it was founded in 2001 -- $144.3 million in 2013 alone -- but only a small fraction of the take went to its “life-saving work,” according to analysts who monitor non-profits. The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation claims 88 percent of the money it raises goes to actual charity work, but experts who have looked at the books put the number at about 10 percent. The rest, they say, goes mostly to salaries, benefits, travel and fund-raising. “That claim is demonstrably false, and it is false not according...

President Barack Obama has failed live up to a campaign promise to push through immigration legislation, but he has met a post-election pledge to slow deportations with or without approval from Congress. Since October, the Homeland Security Department has sent home the fewest immigrants in the country illegally since Obama took office in 2009, according to internal government data obtained by The Associated Press.In fact, with 127,000 removals though the first six months of the government’s fiscal year that started in October, the administration is on track to remove the fewest immigrants since the middle of former President George W....

As I do every morning, I was flipping through the news shows when I came across a CNN panel advertised as objective journalism. Nevertheless, The Washington Post’s Nia-Malika Henderson and Errol Lewis never once brought up the fact that Baltimore has exclusively been run by Democrats for a full half-century. Instead, both just called for more government to “end decades of poverty and discrimination.”

The drug war means never having to say you’re sorry. A Houston-based federal judge ruled that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration does not owe the owner of a small Texas trucking company anything, not even the cost of repairing the bullet holes to a tractor-trailer truck that the agency used without his permission for a wild 2011 drug cartel sting that resulted in the execution-style murder of the truck’s driver, who was secretly working as a government informant. The Houston Chronicle story also points out that the ruling will spare the DEA a “potentially embarrassing trial.” Another way to phrase...

The Vatican has gathered religious leaders, scientists, politicians and businessmen under one roof to agree that acting on climate change is a "moral and religious imperative for humanity". This was the essence of a declaration signed by the attendees of a one-day meeting hosted yesterday by the Holy See. It outlines a vision for the future of the planet, including the adoption of low-carbon energy systems, a shift of investment away from the military and towards sustainable development, and the transfer of money from the rich to the poor. The meeting was organised by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and...

As I write this article, the ancient city of Sodom is being excavated on the Northeast tip of the Dead Sea in Jordan. The Site is called the Tell el-Hammam Excavation Project, led by Dr. Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University, College of Archaeology. The excavation project has uncovered evidence of an advanced society replete with Greek architecture, art, and an advanced economy. There is also evidence of a cataclysmic event, similar to a nuclear type explosion, that leveled the city at one point in its history. After the cataclysmic event, perhaps the most significant finding is the relation to...

Microsoft expects its newest operating system, Windows 10, to be running on 1 billion computers within two to three years. The figure, which includes desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones, was repeatedly touted Wednesday at Microsoft’s annual conference for application developers. Microsoft has struggled to get companies to make apps for Windows mobile devices, part of a self-perpetuating cycle that makes Windows smartphones less attractive to consumers.