Free Republic

WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, gay rights advocates have grumbled about a federal policy that forbids blood donation by men who have had sex with men. They say that the policy, originally intended to keep HIV-positive blood from entering the nation's blood supply, implies gay men are inherently ill and that it prevents healthy people from donating. Occasional protests and talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees blood banks, have brought no change. Now, some college students have taken up the cause, and they're taking a new tack. Instead of pressuring the FDA directly, they...

Lawsuit asks federal court to strike down Michigan's gay-marriage ban 6/9/2005, 8:26 p.m. ET By JAMES PRICHARD The Associated Press GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — A new federal lawsuit seeks to strike down Michigan's constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, saying it violates the U.S. Constitution. Bangor attorney Jessie Olson is named as a co-plaintiff with her lesbian partner, Tabitha A. Flatau, in the suit she filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Kalamazoo. She said the amendment is stripping away job benefits such as health insurance from homosexual and unmarried heterosexual...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two gay Israeli men have installed a huge double bed in a New York art gallery and are inviting Arab men to become their "lover" as part of an exhibition called "Sleeping with the Enemy." But the artists who like to be known simply as Gil and Moti talk about the project in romantic terms, saying it's about "falling in love" rather than sex. Gil said visitors should not come to the show expecting to see pornography. "The bed is there for us to live in. Artistically there are three pillows to symbolize unity of three...

West faces allegations of molestation, misuse of office. SPOKANE, Wash. - Mayor James West, the subject of an FBI probe into accusations he offered municipal jobs to men he met in gay online chat rooms, is complaining he is the victim of a “brutal outing.” In an e-mail sent to nearly 140 people affiliated with a race relations task force, West wrote that the group is responsible for making Spokane a community where “harassment, intimidation, discrimination” are unacceptable.

San Francisco -- A bar owner in the predominantly gay Castro neighborhood violated numerous city civil rights codes by discriminating against black patrons, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission announced Tuesday. The case has been closely watched by the city's gay community, many of whom said they were incredulous that an establishment in what's considered one of the country's most progressive and socially liberal neighborhoods would actively keep black customers out of the popular nightspot Badlands. In particular, the commission said club owner Les Natali referred to blacks as "non-Badlands customers" who should be discouraged from patronizing the club. "The...

INDIANAPOLIS -- The City-County Council on Monday night rejected an ordinance that would have prohibited businesses with at least six employees from considering sexual orientation and gender identity in employment decisions. The ordinance, which also would have prohibited the refusal of housing and real estate opportunities for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, was turned down by an 18-11 vote. Conservative groups and gay-rights advocates had lobbied council members about the proposal. Some opponents of the proposal said current laws were adequate. Before Monday's meeting, council member Scott Schneider said he opposed the plan because it elevated a...

A student-led effort to oppose homophobia at Homewood-Flossmoor High School may have backfired Tuesday when hundreds of students donned shirts with Christian and anti-gay slogans. Student activists who wore shirts emblazoned with the words "gay? fine by me" said they were outnumbered by peers wearing hateful messages and were targeted for harassment. The T-shirt drive was intended to create a safe place for gay students and to put a human face on gays, lesbians and their allies. But student journalists covering the event described the atmosphere as "tense." "It was crazy. There were all these students with gay shirts and...

  Gay football player talks about his life Jesse Fanciulli April 19, 2005 Esera Tuaolo isn't the man you might expect. He weighs 310 pounds, and says he feels light as a feather. He spent nine years as a defensive lineman in the manly-man world of the National Football League. And he's gay. Tuaolo spent most of his life trying to be the man everyone expected: The man who laughed at fag jokes in the locker room and bedded women he met at bars. "I made sure my teammates saw me kissing women and going home with them," Tuaolo told...

Many argue that communism will never be possible because of "human nature". The essence of this false argument is the belief that a communist society would consist of an all-powerful central government that would tell everybody what to do--and would therefore undermine the creative initiative of individuals and the search for happiness. • This argument is based on two false assumptions: (1) It assumes that a communist society will look like the former Soviet Union, or the current China, North Korea, etc (ie: corrupt police states with a feudal-style ruling class) (2) It assumes that people will only work in...

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Argentine soccer legend Diego Maradona said on Thursday he was "in love" with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whom he admires for his left-wing political policies. "I like women, but I've fallen in love with Chavez," Argentina's former World Cup winning captain told reporters after having lunch with the Venezuelan leader at the presidential palace. The two embraced afterward. The 44-year-old soccer celebrity, considered one of the greatest players of all time, is also an ardent admirer of Fidel Castro, the Communist President of Cuba where Maradona has lived since 2000 while fighting cocaine addiction.

Gas costs so much. I cant afford it. Why want Bush do something? Don't say he can't. His daddy or his handlers could be on the phone in 2 minutes with the Rothchilds and by 1 week, oil prices would be under $20 and gas would be 1 dollar a gallon. You know it and I know it. Why want he? Do you know? Is there sombody we can call? Plaese advice.

The Media CIA CONTROLED MEDIDA AND/OR MEDIA MANIPULATION IS A VIOLATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO A FREE PRESS CONCERNING ALL 50 STATES AND EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN PLEASE REVIEW: http://government.rantnetwork.com/usgovcoverups (read website on "operation mockingbird") Journalism is a perfect cover for CIA agents. People talk freely to journalists, and few think suspiciously of a journalist aggressively searching for information. Journalists also have power, influence and clout. Not surprisingly, the CIA began a mission in the late 1940s to recruit American journalists on a wide scale, a mission it dubbed Operation MOCKINGBIRD. The agency wanted these journalists not only to...

God wants oil. This is the message. This is the belief. God wants more oil and also uranium and coal and iron and nuclear waste and whatever the hell else we want to pump into or out of this godforsaken lump of floating space rock. Word to the GOP. In other words, God wants us, if the happily bleak and decidedly nasty interpretation of Bible verse currently extolled by the rabid evangelical mind-set now mauling the American political and social landscape is to be believed, to use up the Earth however we see fit and stomp all over this pointless...

I post on several forums and avidly and sternly denounce the war crimes of the Bush Administration. I received an email yesterday saying I better watch it as the Bush Administration is arresting those critical of them under the Patriot Act stating they are supporting terrorism. I was told I could be detained indefinitely without arraignment. Is this true? What has this country come to.

conversions ar hatters

IF YOU DELETE MY SCREEN NAME THE WAR WILL BEGIN I AM THE AMBASSADOR...We will plague your message boards My Fellow Soldiers will strike back

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Less than seven months after same-sex couples began tying the knot in Massachusetts, the state is seeing its first gay divorces. Newlyweds seeking to renounce the vows they so recently took have been trickling into probate courts across the state, filling out obsolete forms that still read "husband" and "wife." Josh Friedes, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Freedom to Marry Coalition, said the rapid divorces are no cause for concern. "It would be wonderful if every marriage lasted until a couple lived to a ripe old age, but unfortunately we know from our heterosexual peers that...

Here's my suggestion: let them have it. Just do it. Let the sexually bitter and morally frantic conservative groups now dictating governmental policy and FCC agendas and paranoid media attitudes have their time, their brief cultural burp, their little speed bump on the great and beckoning highway that will still lead us all, inexorably, irreversibly, though often agonizingly, toward grinning open-thighed progress. Because here's the fabulous thing: no matter what these faux-Christian groups do, no matter how hard they oppress and protest and clamp down, this is a road that leads, despite all dour headlines and sour prognostications otherwise, toward...

They're calling it the gay drain. Hundreds of well-heeled gay and lesbian lawyers, professors, educators and film directors from the United States are moving to Canada, drawn by the country's recognition of same-sex rights, unions and benefits. Craig Lucas, who wrote the popular Hollywood movies "Prelude to a Kiss" and "The Secret Lives of Dentists," contacted a Toronto immigration lawyer after the re-election of President Bush. "Our rights are slowly being eroded," said the award-winning screenwriter, who plans to move to Vancouver with his partner, a set designer. "It happened in Nazi Germany, the incredible brain drain of artists, scientists...