Free Republic

When Jack Phillips opened Masterpiece Cakeshop in 1993, he never envisioned that he would become a household name defending religious freedom against an increasingly expansive vision of LGBT rights. Yet the Christian baker has found himself, for the third time, at the center of a lawsuit over his refusal to create custom cakes that would send messages that he says are antithetical to his religious beliefs. In 2018, Phillips partially won a case before the Supreme Court over his refusal to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The high court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission...

Neither of the previous two administrations listed both the president and vice president on their main website or social media channels The White House, breaking with tradition, now lists the "Biden-Harris Administration" on its website rather than simply, "the Biden Administration." The move appears to have been one of several moves seemingly intended to elevate Vice President Kamala Harris

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Before opening statements get underway in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death, Reverend Al Sharpton is urging Americans and people worldwide to join in a moment of remembrance for Floyd. Sunday, Reverend Sharpton, while speaking at a vigil for Floyd in Minneapolis, called on people to join him along with members of the Floyd family as they take a knee ahead of court on Monday. Sharpton is planning to hold a news conference at 8 a.m. ahead of the start of court. After the news conference, and...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14

Tennessee became the third state to require student athletes to compete based on their biological sex.The state’s Republican Governor Bill Lee signed the legislation into law on Friday, joining Mississippi and Arkansas in protecting girl’s sports.“I signed the bill to preserve women’s athletics and ensure fair competition,” Gov. Lee posted on Twitter. “This legislation responds to damaging federal policies that stand in opposition to the years of progress made under Title IX and I commend members of the General Assembly for their bipartisan work.”I signed the bill to preserve women’s athletics and ensure fair competition. This legislation responds to damaging...

Vatican observes 'Earth Hour'On Saturday, along with the Vatican, symbolic monuments of cities all across the globe turn off their lights, to demonstrate the serious global climate crisis.By Vatican News staff writerVatican City State took part in the traditional international initiative Earth Hour 2021, promoted annually by the environmental organization, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).On Saturday, from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (Rome time), the lights of the dome and the facade of St. Peter's Basilica, as well as the colonnade, were turned off. Only a few lights remained on for safety reasons.Earth hourEarth Hour is billed as...

Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that he expects Major League Baseball will be able to begin relaxing its coronavirus restrictions in “late spring.” “I would expect that as we get through the summer — late spring, early summer — there’s going to be a relaxation where you’re going to have more and more people allowed into baseball parks, very likely separated with seating, very likely continue to wear masks,” Fauci told CBS’s Face the Nation.

Dueling protest groups faced off near the grounds of the Oregon Capitol building Sunday afternoon. Police tried to separate the groups, but skirmishes broke out in the surrounding blocks... ...Right-wing demonstrators initially gathered in Sandy for a “Freedom Rally” with plans to travel to the Capitol. A flier for the event said they planned a “flag wave to honor those who fought for our freedoms.” ...The plans attracted more than 150 left-wing counter-protesters, who arrived at the Capitol hours earlier, some carrying banners with symbols tied to the antifa movement. They billed their gathering as a “direct action in opposition...

Hopes have been raised that the cargo ship could be freed today after emergency crews were ordered to start offloading containers. Experts previously budged its stern and get its rudder and propeller working. The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, which were called in to work alongside tugboats already on scene, reached the Red Sea near the city of Suez earlier today. They will now help nudge the Ever Given as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side. They have so far shifted 27,000 cubic metres of sand...

After months of speculation, today The Washington Post confirmed that the Biden regime is developing a “vaccine passport” that Americans may need to present to prove they have received their COVID-19 vaccine before they will be allowed to engage in commerce in a “return to normalcy” that looks nothing like the past.According to The Washington Post, the Biden regime “and private companies are working to develop a standard way of handling credentials — often referred to as ‘vaccine passports’ — that would allow Americans to prove they have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus as businesses try to reopen.”They note...

COVID-19 MRNA VACCINE PFIZER-BIONTECH (TOZINAMERAN) 7,604 Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 15 deaths 4,636 Cardiac disorders incl. 276 deaths 22 Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 2 deaths 2,683 Ear and labyrinth disorders 52 Endocrine disorders 2,941 Eye disorders incl. 2 deaths 23,074 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 125 deaths 72,072 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 957 deaths 102 Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 12 deaths 1,928 Immune system disorders incl. 11 deaths 6,020 Infections and infestations incl. 275 deaths 2,198 Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 32 deaths 4,565 Investigations incl. 111 deaths 1,567 Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 49...

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has started to make its way into the arms of Americans, and now patients have started to talk about the side effects. What are the side effects of the J&J vaccine? * Patients who received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine recently described their symptoms to Business Insider. The symptoms ranged from chills to arm pain, among others. * One patient said she got severe chills, shakes and muscle aches hours after getting the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. * Another patient said she had chills in the middle of the night and a headache. She...

(Irish) Government now says public Mass is an offence despite earlier denialsEXCLUSIVEThe Government has now insisted that it is an offence punishable by the law for a priest to celebrate public Mass, despite months of assurances that there is no penalty attached.This stance appears to be at odds with a statement to the Dáil by Health Minister Stephen Donnelly in October dismissing concerns around the criminalising of priests and Mass-goers under the Covid-19 regulations.The Irish Catholic understands that as part of a response to Declan Ganley’s High Court challenging the ban on public worship, the Government has confirmed that the...

If you’ve felt the media has heavily emphasized bad news throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, your judgment now has some scholarly corroboration. Dartmouth College and Brown University researchers have analyzed tens of thousands of Covid-19 articles and found major US media outlets have overwhelmingly pushed negative narratives about the virus."The most striking fact is that 87 percent of the U.S. stories are classified as negative, whereas 51 percent of the non-US stories are classified as negative," according to the study by Dartmouth economics professor Bruce Sacerdote, Dartmouth’s Ranjan Sehgal and Brown University’s Molly Cook.Thwarting Public Clarity About Covid-19Though the study doesn’t...

Two 13-year-old boys are charged with two armed carjackings that occurred blocks from each other Friday night in D.C. This comes almost a week after another pair of teens were accused of a fatal carjacking also in the District... D.C. Police said that in both cases, the drivers were inside their cars... ...While exploring what appears to be a troubling trend in D.C., News4’s Shomari Stone reported that at least 19 carjackings in the District this year out of 95 have involved juveniles.

Many of us will have felt the grip of claustrophobic isolation over the past year, but the lawyer Steven Donziger has experienced an extreme, very personal confinement as a pandemic arrived and then raged around him in New York City.On Sunday, Donziger reached his 600th day of an unprecedented house arrest that has resulted from a sprawling, Kafkaesque legal battle with the oil giant Chevron. Donziger spearheaded a lengthy crusade against the company on behalf of tens of thousands of Indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest whose homes and health were devastated by oil pollution, only to himself become, as...

Once you see what they declare to be a massive rise of intolerance you will be less hysterical.The shooting in Atlanta had the media in desperate spin mode to declare that the root cause of the shooting was a white male who was perpetrating an advanced hate crime against Asians. This was being pushed by most news outlets, despite an abject lack of any hard evidence. The shooter never indicated prior to harboring an animus towards Asians, and the authorities never heard anything after the shooting to point towards the claim. The fact he attacked multiple massage parlors would also...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, has appeared to claim credit for the decision to quickly develop vaccines against COVID-19, in remarks that are sure to anger Donald Trump. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the comment in an interview with CNN for a special on Sunday, diving into the details of America's pandemic response. 'When I saw what happened in New York City, almost over-running of our healthcare systems, and that's when it became very clear that the decision we made on January 10 to go all out and...

As America grapples with troubling headlines depicting a rise in anti-Asian racism, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has apparently found its latest propaganda fodder.Pointing to the uptick in crimes against Asian Americans, the regime is telling the United States to sort out its own affairs before criticizing Beijing for its severe human rights violations.Propaganda exploiting America’s domestic problems is a well-worn tactic used by the CCP and other authoritarian regimes to deflect criticism of its own malign actions.In recent weeks, state-controlled media have been churning out reports daily framing the violence as a result of heightened Western criticism directed towards...