Free Republic

The headline in the Arizona Republic (5/21/04), “Bishops won’t link politics, Communion” misrepresents my position. Abortion is the killing of a completely innocent life and thus bad news for both unborn children and their mothers. It is a horrible wrong. It is intrinsically evil. We have a serious obligation to protect human life, and especially the most innocent and vulnerable. Whoever fails to do this, especially when they are able to do so, commit serious sins of omission. They jeopardize their own spiritual wellbeing and they are a source of scandal for others. Should they be Catholics, they should not...

Truth Teller Joseph Darby is being lauded for sounding the first alarm on the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. (ABCNEWS.com) Truth Teller Spc. Joseph Darby, Iraq Prison Whistle-Blower, Followed His Conscience By Peter Jennings May 7, 2004 — Army Spc. Joseph Darby, 24, is the man who sounded the first alarm about the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison — by people in his own 372nd Military Police Company. The New Yorker magazine was the first to report that after seeing the pictures we are all so familiar with now, Darby put an anonymous note under the door of his...

US 'soldiers of conscience' take Sixties route to Canada By Marcus Warren in New York (Filed: 19/04/2004) Two American soldiers opposed to the war in Iraq have abandoned their units and fled to Canada in a desertion evoking the exodus of young men north of the border during the Vietnam era. The two soldiers are seeking asylum as refugees, arguing that they face persecution for their beliefs - and in theory the death penalty - if they return. Their decision to run may not yet herald a mass migration but no one expects the pair to be the last to...

"I am a Catholic businessman but I don't let the Church influence what I do at the office or in the boardroom;" but Jesus says (Mt 7:21), "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven." "I am a Catholic politician but I don't let my Catholicism impact on how I vote or what legislation I promote;" but Jesus says (Mt 7:26-27), "Everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who...

(CNSNews.com) - A Denver man is suing AT&T Broadband after he was fired for refusing to sign off on "tolerance" portions of the company's employee handbook that he felt violated his religious beliefs. The handbook contained a provision that "each person at AT&T Broadband is charged with the responsibility to fully recognize, respect and value the differences among all of us," including "sexual orientation." Albert Buonanno said his religious beliefs prevented him from condoning or approving of homosexuality. Attorneys for the Rutherford Institute are presenting testimony in federal court in Washington on behalf of Buonanno, who worked as a quota...

James Madison in writing the Bill of Rights, and what was later to become the First Amendment to the Constitution, in his original proposal to the House of Representatives on June 8, 1789, wrote this Freedom of Religion Amendment, "the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious beliefs or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full in equal right of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretense, infringed." We have the inalienable right of conscience in the affirmative and the negative

You are cordially invited to attend the AIM/McDowell Luncheon "The Laogai: We Must Know" presented by Harry Wu Harry Wu is the foremost U.S. campaigner against the human rights violations committed by the Laogai system, as well as one of the founders of the Laogai Research Foundation. Harry Wu personally experienced the horrors of the Laogai prison system. Beginning when he was 23 years old, Harry Wu served 19 years in the Laogai for simply criticizing the policies of the Chinese Communist Party. Since his release he has taken it upon himself to expose the human rights abuses of...

If Dave Kelly is dead, he is dead because of something that happened in journalism which means that we all have to look to our consciences," said Tom Mangold, a television journalist and friend of the Ministry of Defence scientist at the centre of the "sexed up" dossier row. But the BBC was adamant yesterday that its conscience was clear. The Today correspondent Andrew Gilligan admitted that the allegation on May 29 that the Iraq dossier had been "sexed up" came from a single source. The Government immediately accused the BBC of shoddy journalism. It also criticised the corporation for...

Documentary was shown on various PBS stations this week... (you know PBS--will be on again, surely--got to get something out of those tax dollars spent). It's worth taping... Very good portrayal in my opinion...but downplayed his theology, mainly highlighting the social consequences of what Luther discovered in the Bible. Understandable when telling about such an important historic figure in just 2 hours.Personally, I think, but for Luther's courage, there would have been no eventual United States of America...and we'd live in a very different world...Here's the speil from PBS's site: Martin Luther (#101) "Driven to Defiance/The Reluctant Revolutionary" Driven to...

Conscience Conservatism: Because 'Compassion' Alone Is Not Enough President Bush deserves credit. Not only has he proven himself to be a strong leader of our nation in the post-9/11 era, but the president has also demonstrated that he is a savvy political leader also, as exemplified by his masterful effort in leading his party to victory in the 2002 midterm election. Moreover, the phrase that is often used to describe his brand of politics is "compassionate conservatism," which resonates well in today's political climate, particularly as Americans start focusing more of their attention on domestic politics after our victory in...

The Conscience of a Conservative - The Conservative 1960's From the perspective of the 1990s, it's the big political story of the era by Matthew Dallek The year 1960, though, brought a turning point for the conservative movement. That year Barry Goldwater published The Conscience of a Conservative. Generally dismissed in the national media, the book stands today as one of the most important political tracts in modern American history. As the historian Robert Alan Goldberg demonstrates in Barry Goldwater, his fine new biography, The Conscience of a Conservative advanced the conservative cause in several ways. Building on William F....

WITH the first volleys of missiles to surgically strike at Iraq's military command structure, Australians found themselves in a just war to disarm the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein – so despicable a regime that even men and women of goodwill who oppose this conflict have no words of praise or even apology for its deeds. No Australian welcomes this war, but by defying the UN for a decade and seeking to hold the world to ransom with an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, Hussein created the conflict. Now that it has begun, all Australians must unite in the hope...

News - March 6, 2003 Files: Church understood priest abuse in 1950s By KATHRYN MARCHOCKI Union Leader Staff BISHOP JOHN McCORMACK applies ashes to the forehead of a youngster during yesterday's Ash Wednesday service at St. Joseph Cathedral in Manchester to mark the beginning of the 40 days of Lent. (Bob LaPree/Union Leader) The late Rev. John T. Sullivan pursued an endless cycle of madness and human destruction, preying on young and teenage girls from Laconia and Claremont to Michigan and Texas for at least 35 years. “What he’s done goes on into infinity,” said Pat Poling, 53, of Biloxi,...

<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The war vote in the early morning hours Friday was, to Sen. Mark Dayton, like an unwelcome true-or-false test where neither choice was correct.</p> <p>"It's not one way or the other," Dayton said later, after only an hour's sleep. "It's more nuanced."</p>

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Thauriya Hamamreh changed her mind about carrying out a suicide bombing when orders to disguise herself in provocative clothes for the attack in Jerusalem made her do some soul-searching. The petite, headscarfed 25-year-old Palestinian woman told her story to Israeli journalists from a prison cell where she has been kept since Israeli forces arrested her on May 20. Hamamreh, a devout Muslim, said her handlers in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group linked to President Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) faction, wanted her to disguise herself as a modern Israeli...

Can Atheists and supporters of the theo-pseudo-scientific theory of evolution, and of the random cosmic creation of the very first molecule, atom, planet, and cell kindly explain the dervivation and chemical composition of the human conscience?Furthermore, even if we accelerate the timeline from sheer nothingness to beginning our baseline for life as a rock asteroid or gaseous matter, just how can science explain in all intellectual honesty any mega-quantum leap into life conscienceness, much less a human conscience?