Free Republic

The Mennonite Church USA has voted to retire denomination-wide Membership Guidelines that prohibited pastors from performing same-sex weddings but will allow local church bodies to maintain the ban. The Membership Guidelines had prohibited pastors from performing same-sex weddings, defined marriage as being between one man and one woman, and labeled “homosexual, extramarital and premarital sexual activity” as sinful acts. At a special session of the Mennonite Church USA’s Delegate Assembly, held May 27-30 in Kansas City, Missouri, the official Membership Guidelines were retired by a vote of 404 in favor, 84 against, and three abstentions. Delegates at the special session...

Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.) is taking out a Spanish-language radio ad to warn voters about a George Soros-backed company's purchase of Hispanic radio stations in Miami in order to "infiltrate" the state with leftist ideology. "Warning, voters! The Left is taking control of our local media," reads an English translation of the DeSantis campaign's ad, which will run on stations set to be acquired by a conglomerate financed by the left-wing billionaire. "George Soros, known for financing extreme leftist causes, is now financing the purchase of Hispanic radio stations right here in Miami." The Latino Media Network, backed by...

The radical left has been falsely accusing Trump of inciting the Capitol riot for over a year now, and their upcoming televised hearings later this week prove that their main objective is to keep the riot in people’s minds even though Americans have long since moved on. But the Democrats and RINOs on the committee are still hoping they can exploit the riot and get people to blame Trump and the Republicans. In the year the committee has been active, they’ve failed to produce any evidence of Trump’s culpability in the riot, but that’s not stopping them from claiming otherwise....

I am old enough to remember when Pride was a parade. Activists lobbying for marriage equality organized the day-long events in cities around the nation. I attended out of curiosity and a “live and let live” approach to marriage equality as a young adult, and I was sometimes shocked by the flamboyance and blatant sexualized behavior at the events. Gradually the parades turned into festivals that went on for a weekend or a week. You may have thought once the Obergefell decision legalized marriage equality nationwide, the Pride parades would go the way of the civil rights marches of the...

Child actor, gun rights advocate and conspiracy theorist Ricky Schroder is once again an internet laughingstock after claiming demons are secretly behind LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Schroder made the claim in a post on his Instagram Story earlier this week, joining his fellow conservative conspiracy theorists—like Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene—in having a meltdown over LGBTQ+ Pride Month—a yearly tradition for 53 years and counting. The truth, Schroder claimed, is right there in the phrase itself. Take out the P, R, I, T and H and what do you get? P R I D E M O N T H That's...

HAVANA, Cuba — Marco put his home up for sale, a concrete, one-bedroom house outside the Cuban capital, just blocks from the beach. He's hoping to sell almost everything he has to fund the journey out of Cuba. "Everything is for sale. ... Everything," he says. Marco doesn't want to use his full name because he's afraid he could face government repercussions for talking about his plans to leave the country. If he gets out, he'll become the latest in the largest wave of Cubans to leave the island in decades. Many are trying to cross by land from Mexico...

JFK on parking lots & crackheads RECENT QUOTES FROM: SEN. JOHN KENNEDY, (R) LOUISIANA First of all, I’m John Kennedy, not that John Kennedy, I am the other John Kennedy, (R) senator representing the great state of Louisiana. Permit me to tell you what I believe. 1. I believe America was founded by geniuses but is now run by idiots. 2. I believe you can’t fix stupid, but you can vote them out of office. 3. When was the last time you heard of anyone trying to sneak into China. 4. America is so great that people who hate it...

After Americans survived 30 months of having our lives upended with unfair and unpredictable pandemic restrictions, we should be skeptical as monkeypox is irresponsibly pitched as the “new COVID-19” by the media, and some in the medical-industrial complex headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. In a recent interview with CNN’s Major Garrett, Dr. Fauci’s initial reassurance that monkeypox was less transmissible than COVID-19 quickly transitioned to concern for a monkeypox virus, as Fauci chose to describe it, “characterized by pustules.” Fauci then pivoted to stockpiled smallpox vaccines and antiviral drugs to treat a potential national epidemic of monkeypox. Adding fuel to...

Shoppers and diners in a crowded Buckhead business district ran screaming Tuesday afternoon when a man opened fire nearby. Investigators believe the man was firing at a car driving along Peachtree Road near Buckhead Village, missing the vehicle but sending at least one bullet through the glass door of a Sephora store about 2 p.m. No one was injured, Atlanta police said. Officers immediately began searching the area, and they located 33-year-old Henok Gebremichael hiding in a nearby neighborhood. After a short foot chase, Gebremichael was taken into custody without further incident, a police spokesperson said. He is facing multiple...

As the nation goes through its periodic soul-searching as to the causes of recent mass shootings, I fail to see one major factor discussed. This factor is the gradual weakening of consequences for bad behavior to the point of threatening the very fabric of society. The latest manifestations of this can be seen in the refusal to prosecute not only minor, but major infractions of the law in a significant number of cities. But what are the origins of these relaxed attitudes? I was an elementary school teacher for 40 years. Starting in the mid-1970s, the various school districts I...

Israeli police arrested an Arab on suspicion of violating the order, throwing stones and defecating last week on the roof of the mosque on the Temple Mount Orly Harari, 9 Sivan 5782 - 08.06.22 The Israel Police managed to get their hands on an Arab who rioted on Jerusalem Day on the Temple Mount. The suspect was documented throwing his water on the roof of the mosque and despising the place. The suspect (22) was arrested this morning at his home in Ein Rafa by detectives from the Harel station in the Jerusalem district, and he was taken for questioning...

My 5-year-old daughter is now old enough to read a lot of books and magazines aimed at children, and it’s given me a whole new perspective on the discourse wars over how we talk about climate change, conservation, and the future of the planet. As I’ve written about before, climate change is going to be bad, and it will hold back humanity from thriving as much as we should this century. It will likely cause mass migration and displacement and extinctions of many species. What it won’t do, however, is make the Earth unlivable, or even mean that our children...

Now they are trying to resume in court, calling their dismissal illegal. The Russian opposition edition of "Mediazone" writes about it, Censor.NET reports. We are talking about Rosguard soldiers. They were supposed to guard the streets of the captured cities, but instead found themselves at the forefront and refused to fight. The Kabardino-Balkarian Rosguard decided to leave Ukraine at the very beginning of the full-scale invasion. They were stormed in Kharkiv. The occupiers were dissatisfied with this, as well as with the fact that they were not provided with adequate weapons and transport. "We had AK, PKK, DSR, ammunition for...

Isabella County (MICHIGAN) Sheriff’s Office is feeling the pain at the pump as well. We have exhausted what funds were budgeted for fuel with several months to go before the budget reset. I have instructed the deputies to attempt to manage whatever calls are acceptable over the phone. This would be non-in-progress calls, non-life-threatening calls, calls that do not require evidence collection or documentation. Deputies will continue to provide patrols to all areas of the county, they will respond to those calls that need to be managed in person. Any call that is in progress with active suspects will involve...

ssian President Vladimir Putin's annual "direct line" call-in with Russia's citizens has been delayed and will not now take place in June as expected, a Kremlin spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in Moscow that the event will not occur earlier than July this year, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS. The Russian president has held the annual call-in show for all but three years since it began in 2001. It has frequently taken place in June, including last year when Putin fielded Russians' questions on June 30. Peskov was asked if Putin would...

Russia has stolen around 600,000 tonnes of grain from occupied Ukrainian territory and exported some of it, the deputy head of Ukraine’s agricultural producers’ union said on Wednesday. Ukraine will demand Russia provide compensation for both the theft of the grain and the destruction of the property of farmers, Denys Marchuk, the head of the UAC. "To date, about 600,000 tonnes have been stolen from agricultural companies and taken to the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean Peninsula and from there it moves to ports, in particular to Sevastopol, and from there, ships go to the Middle East," Marchuk said....

An armed California man was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's home between 1:00 and 2:00 am Wednesday and allegedly told law enforcement he wanted to kill the Supreme Court justice, according to reporting from multiple sources that was confirmed by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. According to SCOTUSblog, a spokesperson for the Court confirmed that "At approximately 1:50 a.m. today, a man was arrested near Justice Kavanaugh's residence. The man was armed and made threats against Justice Kavanaugh." Sources who spoke with The Washington Post provided additional details: The man was reportedly carrying "at least one weapon" when he was...

President Biden is making his late-night TV debut as commander in chief, but all signs point to his first in-studio appearance not being a typical, lighthearted opportunity to yuk it up. His Wednesday sit-down with Jimmy Kimmel will be the first face-to-face interview of his presidency on one of the comedy shows. He appeared virtually on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” in December. Biden will tape his “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” interview this week during a swing through California.

MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski on Wednesday reacted to actor Matthew McConaughey’s White House press briefing the night before, in which he pushed for a series of gun control proposals. Brzezinski said that McConaughey’s remarks cut her to the “core” and suggested that Republicans who were reluctant to change gun laws should “go to the front lines here in America and actually show that you have some bravery.”

At least 15 people were shot in Chicago Tuesday, including eight wounded in two mass shootings hours apart on the South Side. A 14-year-old boy was among four people wounded in Altgeld Gardens around 3:35 p.m., police said. They were near a courtyard in at 130th Champlain when someone approached and opened fire, police said. Four people were wounded in in Lawndale on the West Side around 8:45 p.m. They were standing on a sidewalk in the 1200 block of South Lawndale Avenue when someone approached and opened fire, Chicago police said. A man, 22, was shot and killed while...