Free Republic

Most reasonable people would agree that meth-fueled orgies are a bad thing, and that having sex with groups of strangers for days on end should be discouraged. Yet some “harm reduction” advocates have suggested that these orgies should be tolerated, perhaps even celebrated. This demonstrates that the harm-reduction movement is more interested in normalizing drug use than mitigating its negative consequences. Meth-fueled orgies emerged as a policy issue in the mid-2010s, following the popularization of so-called “chemsex” (also known as “party and play” or “PnP”) within the gay community. The term refers to having sex while under the influence of...

An enormous, 515-mile-long flash of lightning that crossed at least three states has been named the longest in recorded history in the world. The 2017 “megaflash” stretched from eastern Texas to near Kansas City — a distance that would take at least eight hours by car or 90 minutes by commercial plane, according to the World Meteorological Organization. In comparison, the average bolt of lightning usually measures less than 10 miles, according to the National Weather Service.

The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, is taking its LGBTQ equality message on the road with a multicity tour focused on changing more hearts and minds, particularly in red states. The “American Dreams Tour” will kick off Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, and travel to cities in predominantly Republican-led states through November. The tour’s goal, according to HRC, is to amplify LGBTQ people’s stories “at a time of rising political attacks and cultural erasure” and “celebrate the communities pushing back against hate and fighting for a future of equality for all.” “For half a century, our movement...

Louisiana is one of 30 states with criminal penalties related to exposing or transmitting HIV. Most of the laws were passed in the 1980s during the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Since then, several states have amended their laws to make them less punitive or repealed them outright, including Maryland and North Dakota this year. But Louisiana’s law remains among the harshest. The state is one of five that may require people such as Smith to register as a sex offender if convicted, a label that can follow them for over a decade. And state lawmakers considered a bill to...

A horror story worthy of Edgar Allen Poe or Stephen King has been documented by Lila Rose, the noted pro-life activist who runs Live Action, among other endeavors. It involves two homosexual men who contracted with a surrogate for a baby, but when she needed to deliver early because of a cancer diagnosis, they insisted that their "property" die. A report at Not The Bee...documented how the homosexuals could not force the surrogate to abort, but once the baby was born, it became their "property." They simply allowed no life-saving efforts at all, and the baby died.

Sugar-free treats have taken over the shelves. You’ve probably seen erythritol listed on sodas, protein bars, and even toothpaste. It’s everywhere. Almost zero calories, no sugar spikes, and perfect for keto diets. Sounds like a win, but maybe not. A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder has cracked open a side of erythritol that few expected. It’s not about weight gain or tooth decay. It’s about what this sweetener does to your brain’s blood vessels that may elevate the risk of a stroke.

Felix Baumgartner, the daredevil who made a record-breaking parachute jump from the stratosphere in 2012, died Thursday in a paragliding accident in Italy, a local mayor confirmed. Firefighters who responded to the scene said they found a paraglider that had crashed into the side of a swimming pool in the city of Porto Sant Elpidio, on central Italy's eastern coast. "Our community is deeply affected by the tragic disappearance of Felix Baumgartner, a figure of global prominence, a symbol of courage and passion for extreme flight," the town's Mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said on Facebook. Baumgartner, 56, made global headlines in...

The United States Army plans to phase out most of its ceremonial cavalry units and put the horses up for adoption. Officials hope the move will “align more resources with warfighting capability and readiness,” according to a July 2 announcement. Shrinking its “military working equid” programs—which also include mules and donkeys—is expected to save the Army roughly $2 million per year, reports Tara Copp for the Associated Press. Soldiers who work with horses will also be reassigned to new duties.

When several countries endorsed the notion of some high-risk people taking the antibiotic doxycycline after unprotected sex to lower their chances of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, as the U.S. did last year, there was a theoretical concern the shift could drive antibiotic resistance in some bacterial infections. That risk no longer appears to be theoretical. In a newly published letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reported a steep rise in resistance to tetracycline — the antibiotic class to which doxycycline belongs — in gonorrhea isolates collected from across the country since results of the studies investigating...

An Iowa law removing gender identity as a protected class from the state’s civil rights code took effect Tuesday, the first action of its kind in the United States. The new rollback of protections is the latest attack on trans people in the US and part of a broader movement across conservative-led states working to restrict LGBTQ rights.

merica’s kids are anxious, depressed, and falling behind academically. The problem isn’t just lackluster test scores or TikTok addiction. Public education is a system designed to crush kids’ instincts for curiosity and independence, molding them into compliant and uncreative future adults. In this fifth installment of “The Poisoning of the American Mind,” I break down how our public schools have become factory farms for children. From worsening mental health to replacing academic rigor with woke indoctrination, today’s schools don’t just fail to educate — they actively harm kids.

Some advice fades with time. What sounded wise in one decade can feel laughably outdated in another. But every now and then, a piece of old-school wisdom sneaks up and reminds you—it’s still rock solid, even if the world around it has changed.

... an opinion piece released at EndTimeHeadlines reveals that one [United Methodist] congregation has taken the agenda to an extreme. With an F-bomb-laden, LGBT "worship anthem" in which a performer loudly proclaims "I'm f****** gay." The commentary said, "It was once said that when the Church stops offending the world, it has stopped representing Christ. That grim warning came true again in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Zao MKE Church – an official United Methodist congregation – recently led its Sunday worship with a profane, self-glorifying anthem titled, 'I'm F****** Gay.'"

The end is nigh. That seems to be the message this week from the three liberal justices at the Supreme Court when faced with the nightmarish prospect of parents being able to remove their young children from mandatory classes on gay, lesbian and transgender material. … Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared that there “will be chaos for this nation’s public schools” and both education and children will “suffer” if parents are allowed to opt their children out of these lessons. She also worried about the “chilling effect” of the ruling, which would make schools more hesitant to offer such classes in...

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is irredeemable and must be eliminated through legislation. Failure to do so leaves the door open for future administrations to reinvigorate it and reintroduce destructive ideas and agendas into U.S. foreign policy. The idea of “development” has become too obtuse and colonized by progressives to keep the agency limited in scope beyond the Trump administration.

A report on the largest survey ever of trans Americans’ health was released on Wednesday, June 11, and its findings reaffirmed what many academics, health care providers and trans people already know: gender-affirming care saves and improves lives, but transphobia often dissuades people from pursuing or continuing it when they need it most. Over 84,000 trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming people aged 18 and up responded to the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, spearheaded by Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). Of respondents who had transitioned, 9% had gone back to living as their sex assigned at birth at some point in...

I’ve done online searches to see if there is any veracity to this seemingly strong tendency in the black population to fail to note, remember, or use names of others who come across their path, at least not people who are celebrities. I call it “name blindness,” after another psychological phenomenon known and “face blindness.” This tendency doesn’t seem to be limited to specific sociological strata in the black population, but seems to be extant throughout. I’ve noticed this in college classes, where professors names are not remembered or used, on online forums and in debates and speeches, where black...

Statistics show that men who have sex with men— whether they identify as gay, bisexual, or other— have a higher risk of contracting an STD than any demographic, but many factors other than the specifics of how sex goes down in the bedroom contribute to this increased risk. Economic and societal factors such as income, the effects of emotional support on risk-taking, and the power and privilege structures of society have all been found to play a role in the likelihood of succumbing to an STD, especially HIV. Approximately 4.1 percent of Americans identify as gay, bisexual, or other, according...

Graduating students of color at Harvard University and other colleges across the country would end their semester by attending affinity graduation ceremonies — but this year, they had to organize the celebrations without the school’s financial backing. Harvard, currently battling the Trump administration over a range of issues, halted all of its affinity ceremonies for students this year. Alumni stepped in to raise funds, and students scrambled to find new spaces. Members of the Harvard Black Alumni Society raised $46,000 for this year’s event after the university announced April 28 that it would no longer fund the ceremonies.

Just a few days from the start of June, there has been virtually no acknowledgment of Pride month by federal government agencies this year, a striking departure from recent policy and practice under the Biden-Harris administration and even under President Donald Trump’s first term. Some limited and more localized observances have been preserved or renewed in 2025, for example by the U.S. courts’ webpage celebrating history-making LGBTQ jurists like Judges Deborah A. Batts and J. Paul Oetken of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which notes on its...