Free Republic

Three bishops in the Lutheran Church of Sweden say to refuse to ordain a priest who sees marriage as a union between one man and one woman. The bishops respond to a survey by the Swedish newspaper Syre. They indicate that they do not accept that people who oppose same-sex marriage become priests in the Church of Sweden, Varlden Idag reports. EmployabilityAndreas Holmberg, a bishop in Stockholm, writes in an e-mail to Varlden Idag that he would not ordain a priest who is clear about not ordaining same-sex couples. "This is because, in practice, it would be very difficult for...

Tensions were high on the House floor on Friday night as members had to physically restrain Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) from going at Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) after the 14th failed attempt to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as speaker of the House.

(WFSB) – The Centers for Disease Control and Protection (CDC) is recommending six Connecticut counties to mask up after they reached the “High” community level for COVID-19. Hartford, Litchfield, Middlesex, New Haven, Tolland, and Windham Counties have a “High” community level of COVID-19, the CDC said. Fairfield and New London Counties are listed in the CDC’s “Medium/Yellow” category. The CDC is recommending people in those counties to wear high-quality masks or respirators in indoor spaces. The State Department of Public Health (DPH) said Connecticut is experiencing a COVID-19 surge. DPH is recommending all residents to mask up indoors. According to...

Explanation: On January 3, two space stations already illuminated by sunlight in low Earth orbit crossed this dark predawn sky. Moving west to east (left to right) across the composited timelapse image China's Tiangong Space Station traced the upper trail captured more than an hour before the local sunrise. Seen against a starry background Tiangong passes just below the inverted Big Dipper asterism of Ursa Major near the peak of its bright arc, and above north pole star Polaris. But less than five minutes before, the International Space Station had traced its own sunlit streak across the dark sky. Its...

Gregory Yee, a breaking news reporter for the Los Angeles Times, has died. He was 33. According to The Times, Yee's family attributed his unexpected death to complications from a respiratory issue. He died at his Hollywood residence Wednesday. Yee, whose coverage included heat waves, wildfires, gun violence in Oakland and controversy around robotic police dogs, joined The Times in Summer 2021 as a night reporter on the Metro staff. He had been working as one of 18 staffers on the Fast Break desk, the paper's unit responsible for breaking news.

A newly elected Georgia state lawmaker has stepped down from office after being charged with stealing prescription drugs from a retirement complex, triggering a Jan. 31 special election to fill his seat.Gov. Brian Kemp (R‑GA) signed an order over the holiday weekend setting up the special election at the end of the month for Daniel Rampey’s state House seat in the GOP-led district.Rampey was elected to represent Georgia’s District 116 state House seat in November. He was elected without opposition, securing 18,484 votes, after winning the Republican primary.He manages operations at the family-owned Magnolia Estates of Winder Assisted Living Center,...

An Ivy League women’s All-American swimmer went from pool shark to scrub after identifying as male and joining the men’s team, the opposite of the switch made by Lia Thomas. Iszac Henig, a senior on the Yale men’s swim team, placed 79th out of 83 at a men’s meet in November after earning All-American plaudits as a junior on the school’s women’s team. But in an op-ed column Henig wrote for the New York Times this week, the 22-year-old athlete, whose breasts were removed, says living as a man makes it all worthwhile. “I Chose to Compete as My True,...

How bad do things have to get before people start realizing that we are in the midst of a full-blown economic crisis? The “experts” on television are endlessly debating about whether or not we are going to have a “recession” this year, and meanwhile economic activity is imploding all around us. The number of homes being sold in this country each month has already fallen by a third. The number of job cuts in November was 417 percent higher than it was during the same month a year earlier, and at this point even Amazon is laying off thousands of...

The Biden administration had no problems aggressively draining the SPR by 1mmb/d at market prices in the immediate aftermath of the Ukraine war, in hopes of lowering the price of gasoline ahead of November's elections and avoiding an inflationary midterm rout. However, when it comes to refilling the SPR, now that US emergency inventories are down to the lowest level since November 1983 and not too far from an all time low which threatens the structural integrity of the salt caverns the oil is deposited in...... the White House has "unexpectedly" gotten cold feet.One month after the White House said...

A Texas grand jury has dropped the charges against a man accused of throwing unopened White Claw cans at Sen. Ted Cruz during the Astros World Series parade in Houston last year. The 182nd District Court in Harris County dismissed the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge against Joseph Halm Arcidiacono on Friday, January 6 after a grand jury failed to find an indictment, according to a court filing reported by the Houston Chronicle. Arcidiacono was arrested without incident at the parade in downtown Houston on November 7 after he reportedly ran up to the parade barrier wall, threw...

Sex 'n' drugs 'n' rock 'n' roll have replaced readin', writin' and 'rithmetic in Chicago schools.Dylan Sharkey reported, "Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Will Fletcher reported 470 sexual complaints against Chicago Public School employees from students in 2022."The report details students being abused, groped, groomed, assaulted and threatened by school officials."One investigation found a former Junior ROTC staff member had sex with a 16-year-old high school student for a year. When he learned there was an investigation, the staff member threatened to kill the girl and her family if she cooperated with investigators."The teacher gave the girl alcohol and...

On Thursday night, a sophomore high school student in Las Vegas, Nevada, died suddenly while playing flag football. Ashari Hughes, a 16-year-old player for Desert Oasis High School, collapsed suddenly after the team’s home game against Valley High School on Thursday night because of a “medical emergency.”

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.Did anyone remember that Friday was J-6? I know I didn’t, until I turned on C-Span and saw wannabe-Speaker, NY Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, making some grand speech on the Capitol steps and talking about how Democrats govern without violence (puh-lease), and that we must never forget what Republican extremism leads to.On January 6, 2021, our nation watched in horror as a terrorist mob stormed the Capitol grounds in a violent attempt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power.As we commemorate this dark day, let...

Fox News viewers are degenerate drug addicts, desperate for their next fix of government-hating heroin.That was the take of ex-Republican Congressman turned MSNBC analyst David Jolly on Katie Phang's show on Saturday morning. Jolly was reacting to the news that Speaker Kevin McCarthy will reportedly organize a Frank Church-style committee to investigate abuses in recent years by the FBI and CIA. Liberals loved that in the 1970s! Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

(The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.)Usually when a writer writes, “it was like a 15-round fight,” they’re engaging in hyperbole—but as RedState’s Nick Arama reported, Friday night’s vote for Speaker of the House did indeed go 15 rounds before Kevin McCarthy finally won after facing a rebellion from 20 Republicans who initially refused to vote for him. It was the longest speaker battle since 1853.California’s McCarthy finally won the speakership, but Florida congressman Matt Gaetz may have won the war. He was the leader of the pack of holdouts,...

It is finished. Or is it? On the contrary, the battle has just begun.As everyone on the planet is surely aware by now, Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy became Speaker of the House in the wee hours of Saturday morning after four grueling days, 15 ballots, back-room dealing, shouting, and near fisticuffs between two GOP congressmen. Now the real battle begins — in earnest.“That was easy, huh?,” McCarthy joked, after accepting the gavel, “We never thought we’d get up here.”I hope one thing is clear after this week: I will never give up. I will never give up [on] you, the...

God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). A true sense of identity comes from knowing that God Himself personally selected you to be His child. Many people in our society are on a seemingly endless and often frantic quest for personal identity and self-worth. Identity crises are common at almost every age level. Superficial love and fractured relationships are but symptoms of our failure to resolve the fundamental issues of who we are, why we exist, and where we're going. Sadly, most people will live and die without ever understanding God's purpose for their...

Houston police are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying a male wanted for questioning in the fatal shooting of a robbery suspect at 6873 South Gessner Road about 11:30 p.m. on Thursday (Jan. 5). Surveillance photos of the male and his vehicle, a 1970s or ’80s model pickup truck with no bed, are attached to this news release. Investigators want to speak with the man for his role in the shooting. No charges have been filed. The identity of the deceased male suspect, believed to be in his 20s, is pending verification by the Harris County Institute of Forensic...

It’s one thing to invest in people who have never hurt us. It is another thing to be moved with compassion toward people who have wronged us. Consider this biblical story. “Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, ‘Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say, “We will enter the city,” the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. Now therefore, come, let us surrender to the army of the Syrians…’” The lepers came into...

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was finally elected Speaker of the House in the 15th round of voting, which began shortly before midnight EST Friday night. And according to one report, McCarthy has Donald Trump to thank for it. Sources told Breitbart News that McCarthy’s election as speaker was facilitated by a compromise reached with the help of former President Donald J. Trump. One source was Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee. “This doesn’t get done without the support and leadership of President Trump,” he told Breitbart. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) also said that Trump...