Free Republic

Britain's voters rejected soundly the Labor Party, whose former leader Jeremy Corbyn has called Hamas and Hezb'allah terrorists "his friends" and for whom Hamas expressed reciprocal support. Americans must similarly ostracize and marginalize politicians, organizations, and religious institutions that give tacit support to Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezb'allah, and other terrorist organizations. There is a huge legal difference (no criminal liability versus up to 15 years in prison), but little moral difference, between giving material support to terrorists and seeking to damage Israel's economy through boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Jeremy Corbyn, supports BDS, as do Ilhan...

On Wednesday, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton tied President Donald Trump to mass shooting during an appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Howard Stern Show.” Stern asked, “What goes through your mind when he’s got these people revved up. You know ‘lock her up, lock her up, lock her up’? Even now, its ‘lock her up.’ Are you afraid for your own life, honestly?” Clinton said, “Honestly, I have been in the past. Remember some months ago, the guy who was inspired by him started sending pipe bombs around to me, to former President Obama and others. So clearly he just...

The totalitarian efforts to suppress and control Christian faith in China have taken a disturbing turn that reflects Beijing’s greater Orwellian aspirations of social control. In the communist nation, in which it is already quite dangerous to be a Christian, some churchgoers must now submit to facial and fingerprint scanning when they come to church. According to Bitter Winter, an online magazine exposing China’s human rights abuses and religious oppression, government thugs set up two biometric scanning stations at the entrance of the Muyang Church in Hubei. Now, before being allowed in to worship, Christians must line up to be...

Lisa Amann, pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California. | YouTube/Alliance Defending FreedomLisa Amann has attended Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California for almost her entire life. Now, she works there as a pastor.As a Christian, Lisa is passionate about protecting life—especially that of the unborn. “As Christians, we are fundamentally against the destruction of a person’s life and destiny.”And yet, the state of California wants to force Lisa and Skyline Wesleyan Church to pay for abortions through the church’s healthcare plan.Forcing a church to pay for abortions is another low for a state that lost at...

A legal group that defends religious freedom has discovered evidence that Planned Parenthood is behind an effort in California to force religious organizations to provide abortion coverage. The case centers around a California church that filed a federal lawsuit against a state health agency for forcing them to pay for elective abortions in their health insurance plans. In August 2014, Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa was notified by California's Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) that the health insurance plans they offered to employees must include coverage for elective abortions. Skyline Pastor Lisa Amann said, "As Christians, we are...

About 15 years ago, I started noticing a change in the world around me. It started out very subtly: a movie with an obvious liberal slant – the media, schools, government and even churches pushing social justice themes whenever they could slip them in without ruffling too many feathers. But this insidious march toward an unremitting takeover of our social fabric and American culture was never obstructed or even mildly opposed. As with most things in life, the reasons for the success of this situation were multi-faceted. Conservatives by nature are respectful of individuality and others’ opinions. We are the...

LA MESA, Calif. — An appeals court heard arguments Monday in a federal lawsuit filed by a La Mesa church against a state health agency, alleging violations of equal protection rights for “forcing” churches to have elective abortions covered in their health insurance plans. Skyline Wesleyan Church filed suit in response to a 2014 letter distributed by the California Department of Managed Health Care to various insurance agencies, in which the department said health plans must include abortion coverage, or be in violation of state law. The letter stated that “the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975 requires...

October 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Over the weekend, Democrat presidential candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke walked back his recent threat to eliminate tax-exempt status for churches that hold to a biblical understanding of marriage, but made clear that his stance was largely unchanged by interpreting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as requiring churches to indulge homosexuality and gender confusion. During a CNN town hall on LGBT issues earlier this month, the former Texas state representative answered “yes” to revoking the tax-exempt status of any religious institution that “oppose[s] same sex-marriage,” declaring that “there can be no reward, no benefit,...

The Chinese government has banned African international students from worshiping in Christian churches under the pretext of “preventing foreign infiltration through religion,” a persecution watchdog group has revealed. A group of over 80 African students who are residing in a city in the northeastern province of Liaoning told Chinese persecution watchdog Bitter Winter that in September, the person in charge of the Three-Self church that they attended received a government order prohibiting foreigners from participating in gatherings at the church. “We just want to have a place to congregate,” one student told the outlet. A Chinese believer at the church...

LOS ANGELES, October 11, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) -- Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, a Catholic and presidential candidate for the Democratic party, called for churches and religious institutions to lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex “marriage.” Joining other Democratic candidates in defending their respective LGBTQ platform stances on Thursday evening during a CNN televised town hall, O’Rourke said, “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone … that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.” As the audience cheered, O’Rourke continued, saying, “And so as president, we are...

Beto to Obama: Hold my beer. Barack Obama's IRS may have targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, but Obama never pledged to strip tax-exempt status from organizations that disagreed with his position on an issue. Yet on Thursday, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-Texas) said he would strip tax-exempt status from any religious organization that supports traditional marriage as defined by one man and one woman. In fact, his position essentially amounts to a government preference for pro-gay marriage religious bodies that likely violates the Establishment Clause. CNN's Don Lemon quoted O'Rourke's policy on LGBT issues, which states: "Freedom of religion...

SACRAMENTO, September 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The California legislature has voted in a resolution that blames "religious groups" who hold to biblical understandings of sex and gender as responsible for "disproportionately high rates" of suicide among homosexuals and transgenders. Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99 declares that homosexuality and transgenderism are “part of natural variations that occur in sexual orientation and gender identity” and condemns counseling services that help people resolve unwanted gender confusion or same-sex attraction.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he will sign legislation that the California Trucking Association claims "will put tens of thousands of owner-operator truckers, who service agriculture, retail and other industry sectors, out of business." Newsom called owner-operated trucking "a no longer needed vestige of the past. I know that there is a certain kind of nostalgia for these modern day 'cowboys' driving goods around the state. But in the progressive future we envision for our state and the nation independent truckers are outside of the role required for a socially cooperative model of how the economy should operate. It...

The foundational rupture in the tectonic plates of Western civilization is the breakage along the fault line of truth. The very concept of truth as we have known and inherited it is a Judeo-Christian concept. Germany became a post-Christian nation after its seminaries and universities rejected the Scriptures as God’s perfect, revealed truth. The United States has become a post-Christian nation after its best seminaries and universities—founded as teaching centers for the Word of God—rejected Scripture as God’s perfect, revealed truth. As American culture drifts further and further from anything Christian, the pressure to abandon the authority of the Bible...

A dozen churches in the Los Angeles area have declared themselves sanctuaries for migrant families as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is scheduled to begin. Guillermo Torres, with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, says more churches have become involved than ever before, which he attributes to a growing sense of indignation at the administration’s actions on immigration. […] Many houses of worship in other cities and states have also declared themselves immigrant sanctuaries. …

he California State Assembly voted 9-2 to send to the state senate a resolution calling on “religious leaders to counsel on LGBTQ matters from a place of love, compassion, and knowledge of the psychological and other harms of conversion therapy.” While no one would argue with the aim of being more loving and more compassionate in our counsel of our fellow man, the people’s representatives do not possess any authority in the arena of religious practice. Article I, Section 4 of the California Constitution reads, in relevant part: “Free exercise and enjoyment of religion without discrimination or preference are guaranteed....

Romans 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools [...] 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: [...] 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of...

From New Zealand to Sri Lanka, houses of worship are under attack. This has been an all too common phenomenon around the world. At home, there have been recent shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh and San Diego, and at churches in Texas, Tennessee, Colorado, and South Carolina. So how do we make people safer?New York City councilman Kalman Yeger will introduce a bill this week that requires the city to pay for armed security guards at any house of worship that requests protection. That is helpful, if expensive, but New York refuses to adopt the most effective policy: letting more people...

When Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) tweeted about "art and architecture" during the Notre Dame fire, I defended her against the criticism it drew from Christians who accused her of pointedly ignoring the spiritual significance of the building. I thought the tweet was perfectly normal and acceptable, and I don't really expect a Muslim woman to find any spiritual significance in a building meant for Christian worship. To my mind, that outrage — if we can call it an outrage — was overblown. But "Easter worshippers" is a different thing entirely. Responding to the slaughter of hundreds of Christians during Easter...

The bombings in Sri Lanka have once again put a spotlight on the rising tide of violence against Christians all over the world. According to Open Doors USA, an average of 105 churches and/or Christian buildings are burned or attacked every month. That is more than three per day, and almost all of those attacks get ignored by the mainstream media in the western world. In addition, an average of 345 Christians are killed for faith-related reasons every single month. Of course these numbers will soon be out of date, because violence against Christians continues to escalate all over the...