Free Republic

A BOOK RECOMMMENDATION: Many of you may already have checked out Bjorn Lomberg's devastating insider rebuttal of many of the lies of the current environmentalist movement. It's called The Skeptical Environmentalist. It makes no real difference to anything, but I felt a little less beleaguered by the discovery that this brave and smart individual is also openly gay. Just one more reason for some conservatives to revisit their assumptions about gay writers and thinkers. Yes, there are still many protected left-wing maniacs, who haven't had an original thought since 1976. But there are many many young, bright free-thinking gays and ...

Log Cabin Republicans and National Stonewall Democrats Issue Joint Comment (WASHINGTON, DC) In a display of bipartisan unity, the leading Republican and Democratic organizations in the gay and lesbian community have written a joint "public comment" to the Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning survivor benefits for those killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks. "We at LCR and NSD are united in seeking to do all we can to console and assist those whose lives were forever changed by the losses suffered during the September 11th attack on our nation," wrote Rich Tafel, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, and ...

HARVARD SIGNS UP: In a fascinating sign of the times, Harvard's new president, Lawrence Summers gave a speech last week - barely covered in the national media - that seems to me a cultural milestone. "The post-Vietnam cleavage between coastal elites and certain mainstream values is a matter of great concern and has some real costs," Summers said in an interview with the Crimson. "The United States is engaged in a conflict that is very widely seen as between wrong and right, fear and hope, and is without the moral ambiguity of Vietnam," he went on. Hard to see his ...

The president of an Ohio-based pro-family organization says one of the largest newspapers in the state is deliberately going out of its way to help advance the homosexual agenda. Linda Harvey is president of Mission America. She says The Columbus Dispatch recently published a series called "Gay in Columbus," which painted a glowing picture of homosexual life in the Ohio capital. "We have heard through the grapevine that [the newspaper published the series] because they have had falling circulation figures, and they think that they can get more circulation by going 'left' rather than being traditional," Harvey says. "So they're ...

DONATE QUEER DOLLARS TO PROTEST SALVATION ARMY'S ANTI-GAY VENDETTA Action Alert: Queer Dollar Campaign Against the Salvation Army Kicks Off Just In Time For The Holidays. Cleveland - In response to the Salvation Army's recent actions Anti Racist Action of Cleveland announces the "Queer Dollars Campaign." Queer Dollars is a grass root, totally anonymous, non-confrontational way to protest against the Salvation Army's vendetta against Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people. "We were looking for an effective way in which individuals could express their disappointment to the Salvation Army for their deference to anti-gay pressure organizations," said ARA spokesperson Marcellus Watts. ...

[Senior Editor’s note: the reporter attended “Creating Change” undercover, registering as an attendee rather than as media. This was necessary due to the Task Force’s penchant for expelling from Creating Change anyone known for opposing homosexuality. (C&F Editor Peter LaBarbera and an associate were expelled from a Creating Change conference in Pittsburgh in 1998.) As a pro-family writer, Demeris (a pseudonym) had little reason to believe that the Task Force would grant her full and fair access to the conference.] Culture & Family Report Exclusive MILWAUKEE — On Friday night, a high school sophomore attended a sadomasochistic sex party at ...

Congressman Barney Frank announced today that a bipartisan group of 45 U.S. Representatives has sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft urging him to adopt a broad interpretation in deciding who would be eligible as "survivors" of people killed in the mass murders of September 11. The House Members urged that functional criteria be applied in deciding who qualifies as a survivor, counting such factors as shared residence, shared living expenses, common membership in a health plan, etc. "This will ensure that a wide variety of valid personal relationships will be recognized in the distribution of these funds," Frank ...

A Santa Clara County judge has thrown out a $945,000 jury award to a lesbian officer who sued San Jose police claiming she was a victim of discrimination. Superior Court Judge William F. Martin cited jury misconduct and insufficient evidence as reasons for overturning the August verdict, which found in favor of Dawn Goodman. He ordered a new trial. The city attorney's office, which had expressed disappointment immediately after the trial verdict, praised the ruling. ``We're pleased, obviously,'' City Attorney Rick Doyle said Tuesday. ``I'm a true believer in the jury system, and sometimes the juries get it wrong. It's ...

ROME -- The helmet of Mychal Judge, the 68-year-old chaplain for the New York Fire Department killed while administering last rites to a dying firefighter on September 11 in New York, was presented to Pope John Paul II following Sunday mass at the Vatican. Judge was a member of Dignity, the organization that represents the interests of lesbian and gay Catholics, though there was no mention made of this during the mass. "I offer a warm welcome to the delegation from the New York City Fire Department, so many of whose members lost their lives in the terrorist attack of ...

He was the first and most famous victim of the World Trade Center attack, but the death of Father Mychal Judge, the beloved New York Fire Department chaplain, was not as extraordinary as his colorful and iconoclastic life. One month after Mychal Judge's body was pulled from the shattered lobby of 1 World Trade Center, and three weeks after his televised funeral, some of the friar's friends decided to hold a smaller memorial evening of Celtic music and storytelling. Priests, nuns, lawyers, cops, firefighters, homeless people, rock-and-rollers, recovering alcoholics, local politicians, and middle-aged couples from the suburbs all streamed into ...

The 2001 elections featured Democratic wins in two key governorships against Republican candidates who were painted as extremists, while a Republican made history in New York City with significant support from gays, Latinos and African Americans. Republican Mike Bloomberg became the first Republican to succeed a GOP mayor in the history of New York City yesterday, winning just over 50% of the vote against Democrat Mark Green. Election returns and exit polling showed that Bloomberg captured one-third of the gay vote, 25% of the African American vote and almost half of the Latino vote citywide, which combined made up more ...

LESSONS FROM MICHIGAN AND MIAMI: Another encouraging sign is that in four out of five initiatives in which gay equality was on the table, voters came out in favor of inclusion. In three votes in Michigan, an American Family Association bid to exclude gays permanently from any civil rights recognition in Traverse City, Kalamazoo, and Huntington Woods, was soundly beaten. In Miami Beach, once home to Anita Bryant's crusade, another initiative to give partnership benefits to city employees succeeded. Only in Houston was a partnership measure defeated - but by a very close call in a very conservative city. More ...

In June 1998, I was invited to speak at a rally in Fort Worth, Texas outside the GOP state convention that summer. It was a “rally for liberty,” calling for an inclusive Republican Party. When the rally got underway, trucks full of fundamentalist Christians began flooding the stage area. We’d learned some of them came from great distances. In short order they were pushing and shoving in the crowd, waving signs that said “Fag Sin” and jumping on stage to drown out the speakers, all under the watchful eyes of the police. All of the speakers, including a grandmother, were ...

WHO IS OSAMA?: One of the oddities of the saturation coverage of the last few weeks has been a remarkable lack of real data on what kind of person Osama bin Laden actually is. He has become a cipher rather than a human being. I want to know more about his family, how he was brought up, how he came to be such a borderline personality, what's with his silly outfits, and so on. I've seen almost no pictures of him as a child, yet he called his mommy to warn her of his upcoming massacre. (Which reminds me: why ...

Voters in five U.S. cities will decide gay-rights measures Tuesday - many of them put on the ballot by conservatives hoping to thwart or roll back gains by homosexuals. Three referendums will take place in Michigan, where proposed city charter amendments in Traverse City and Kalamazoo would prohibit policies granting "protected status" based on sexual orientation. In Huntington Woods, the question is whether to retain an anti-discrimination ordinance approved by the City Council. A referendum in Miami Beach, Fla., will determine whether unmarried partners of city employees will get medical benefits. And a proposed amendment to the Houston city ...

REPUBLICANS AND GAYS: Two recent stories show how deep the shift is among Bush Republicans toward greater acceptance and equality for gay citizens and their families. An Associated Press story highlights the appointment of openly gay Scott Evertz to oversee policy towards HIV and AIDS and of Michael Guest and his husband to the American embassy in Romania. In these two appointments, Bush outdid Clinton, although the number of openly gay appointees in this administration is still woefully tiny. The story also points out the Bush administration's maintenance of anti-discrimination policies in the federal government. It might have added the ...

An Atlanta-area pro-family activist says it is very satisfying that the city lost its bid for the 2006 "Gay Games." It was announced last week that Montreal, Canada, had been selected over Atlanta and two other American cities as the host for the international gathering of homosexual athletes. The Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau estimated that the games would have brought at least $350 million into the city's economy. But Ralph Barker, the vice president of American Vision, says he is disappointed that the city would even attempt to attract such an event. "I'm obviously sorry that the powers-that-be were ...

<p>Former President Gerald Ford believes the federal government should treat gay couples the same as married couples, including providing equal Social Security and tax benefits.</p> <p>Ford's views, expressed in an exclusive telephone interview, make him the highest-ranking Republican ever to endorse equal treatment for gay couples.</p>

From Texas to Michigan to Massachusetts, homosexual activists are using lawsuits and sophisticated anti-petition strategies — including direct and even illegal harassment of pro-family leaders and signature-gatherers — in a gambit designed to keep homosexual issues off the ballot. The win-at-any-cost tactics are not new — homosexual militants and others on the Left have employed them for decades — but they have been honed over the years. And their continued use by “gay” activists is in jarring contrast to the movement’s smugness over its unparalleled power in the cultural and political arena. Moreover, the “gay” strategy, which often relies on ...

When I first heard about the death threats against student Edward Drago at the College of New Jersey, my heart went out to him. It reminded me of my 1995 trip to Washington and Lee University in Virginia: A gay student had had an M-80 thrown into his dorm room the week before, and someone had gone around campus carving the eyes out of my photo on each poster announcing my appearance. Then I was stunned to read, after campuswide rallies of support for Drago had been conducted, that he was the one sending the hate mail to himself. At ...