Free Republic

Child bridegroom: Eight-year-old boy marries 61-year-old woman after 'dead ancestors told him to tie the knot'An eight-year-old schoolboy has married a 61-year-old woman because the ghost of his dead ancestor told him to. Sanele Masilela tied the knot with Helen Shabangu, who is already married and a mother-of-five. The boy, from Tshwane, South Africa, said he had been told by his dead ancestors to wed and his family, fearing divine retribution, forked out for a wedding. They paid £500 for the bride and a further £1,000 for the big day, which was organised in just two months. Dressed in a...

An evangelist who visits Russia frequently believes the move afoot there to ban the public display of homosexuality is because the nation's leaders -- both political and religious -- have seen the damage American culture has suffered from the homosexual movement. Russia is preparing to debate and act on legislation barring homosexuality from the public arena, including homosexual "pride" parades. The country is moving to ban same-sex "marriage" and even public acts of affection between homosexuals. The Associated Press reports that the bill, which comes up for a vote later this month in the Russian parliament, is "part of an...

Fewer young men in the US want to get married than ever, while the desire for marriage is rising among young women, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew recently found that the number of women 18-34 saying that having a successful marriage is one of the most important things rose from 28 percent to 37 percent since 1997. The number of young adult men saying the same thing dropped from 35 percent to 29 percent in the same time. Pew’s findings have caught the attention of one US writer who maintains that feminism, deeply entrenched in every segment of...

They used to call them “swingers.” Not anymore. These days, like most “alternative lifestyle” groups, they’ve adopted a new, more clinical-sounding description – polyamorist – and incorporated it into the names of a small but growing number of advocacy and social networking organizations. As the battle over the true definition of marriage heats up nationwide, they want a place on the front line. Polyamorists now want a seat at the table of "equality" and "tolerance." “Polyamorist” means “lover of many,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Polyamorists maintain more than one sexual relationship at a time, with the full...

British actor Rupert Everett says he “can’t think of anything worse” than two gay men bringing up a child together—an opinion that is probably held by vast numbers of people who would not dare to say so in public. But, thanks to the magic shield of celebrity, actors can get away with speech “crimes” that the rest of us would (metaphorically) hang for. Being gay himself also deflects criticism—Everett came out as a homosexual 20 years ago and has said that this damaged his acting career. His comments on gay parenting were made in an interview with the Sunday Times...

In 1974, the American Psychiatric Association revoked its prior judgment of homosexuality as a mental illness. This was after a protest against the association four years earlier in today’s cauldron of repulsiveness, San Francisco. Of course, the APA’s decision would set the stage for most of the gay agenda’s winnings in decades to come: no new evidence, no facts, just a bunch of gays getting their panties in a bunch and annoying people into submission. Then there’s AIDS, which in the 80′s used to be called GRID (gay related immune deficiency), gay cancer, and gay plague. Fast forward to present...

After introducing its first openly gay character in September 2010, Archie Comics continues to lead the pack with the mainstream comic book world’s first same-sex marriage. Kevin Keller will marry his military sweetheart, Clay, in an upcoming issue of Life with Archie. The character is also set to star in a pioneering solo title starting this February. An interracial same-sex marriage between two soldiers in an Archie comic? The times are no longer a-changin’, they are a-changed.

November 8, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)  - This week’s episode of Fox Television’s prime-time musical comedy show “Glee” featured two teenage couples, one heterosexual and one homosexual, engaging in sex for the first time. Titled “The First Time,” the episode depicted two couples - a young man and woman, Finn and Rachel, and two young men, Kurt and Blaine - each losing their virginity. The development occurs after a fellow student and school play director tells Blaine and Rachel, who are practicing their roles as Tony and Maria for a production of West Side Story, that they won’t be believable as...

Gay Couples To Be Allowed Civil Ceremonies In Church Homosexual couples will be able to take part in civil partnerships in church and other places of worship from next month, it will be announced. It is estimated that about 1,500 civil partnerships a year would take place in religious settings once the ban is lifted. By Andrew Porter, and Martin Beckford 01 Nov 2011 Lynne Featherstone, the equalities minister, will say that the ban on the ceremonies in religious surroundings will be lifted on Dec 5. The move has been championed by David Cameron but is likely to be opposed...

Would you attend a same-sex wedding ceremony? That question was posed recently to Houston pastor Joel Osteen, and Osteen said that he would attend, if the wedding involved friends. This came just after Osteen indicated that he could not perform a same-sex marriage ceremony, since he believes that homosexuality is a sin. I recently wrote about this exchange, suggesting that Osteen’s position is morally and theologically incoherent. As I said:This is beyond mere incoherence. It is moral and theological nonsense. More than that, it is a massive statement of ministerial malpractice. . . . You cannot celebrate what you say...

The same people who say I shouldn't impose my morality on them, are imposing immorality on me and my children to the point that I literally have a hard time even leaving my home anymore to do something as simple as visit the park. And this is freedom? I am a Catholic stay-at-home mother of seven, and I live in the state of Massachusetts where "gay marriage" has been legal for seven years and it's just one aspect of the larger secular agenda. Because we have so many little children, it takes a phenomenal effort to go anywhere. We have...

When I wrote about an objectionable spread of photographs in Paris Vogue – a spread that featured 10-year-old fashion model Thylane Blondeau styled in provocative ways — I fretted that such a magazine feature might, in some way, normalize the concept of sexual attraction to minors: "It’s often said, but bears repeating, that the TV, magazine and advertising images we absorb train our minds as to what is considered attractive — and, yes, specifically sexually attractive — in our culture. So, what does a magazine feature like this say? That it’s OK, even encouraged, to look at a child in...

I'm penning this column from Australia where I was privileged to speak a few days ago at an event at Parliament House celebrating Australia's National Marriage Day. As in America, marriage in Australia is under attack by homosexual activists who seek to shoehorn their lifestyle choices into a shoe that will never fit: marriage. They want the law-and public opinion--to redefine marriage to include homosexual sex as something good, the moral equivalent of marital sexuality expressed by a husband and a wife. Pro-family Australians are blessed with charismatic leaders like MP's Bob Katter and Kevin Andrews, and pro-family advocate Babette...

One of the few issues on which opinion has moved left over the last few years is same-sex marriage. In 1996, Gallup found that Americans opposed it by a 68 percent to 27 percent margin. Last May, Gallup found Americans in favor by 53 percent to 45 percent. That’s a huge change in 15 years. Other polls have shown similar movement. Pew Research reported last week that 45 percent favored same-sex marriage and 46 percent were opposed — a dead heat. Pew polls in 2008 and 2009 found only 35 percent to 40 percent in favor. This is an issue...

News reports on August 20, 2011 A.D. said that country singer Chely Wright was married to her girlfriend, Lauren Blitzer, at the bride’s – well, one of the brides’ – aunt’s house, because Connecticut allows gay marriage. So, if your source for the news is a marriage license duly issued by a government bureaucrat, or a People Magazine article online, then you can be forgiven for believing the story. It’s certainly likely that many of the two hundred guests believe it. But that doesn’t make it so. Now, I’m a huge fan of Chely Wright, as are most country music...

<p>EDITORIAL A Gay-Wedding Crasher A law professor attempts to use a homosexual rights ruling to defend a polygamous family in Utah.</p> <p>In this file photo, (pic in URL) Kody Brown poses with his wives Janelle, Christine, Meri, and Robyn for TLC's reality TV show, "Sister Wives." The Browns' attorney, Jonathan Turley, filed a lawsuit challenging the Utah bigamy law that makes their lifestyle illegal.</p>

Just like any other couple, Mitch Lee and Ryan Lowry want the perfect wedding. And just like any other couple, money is an issue. So, in what Lee calls a "somewhat greedy act," he entered the Journal Star's Ultimate Wedding Giveaway contest, which offers more than $20,000 in invitations, catering, cake, reception hall, honeymoon, photography and more from local vendors. You can find the full prize list here. They won.

Children are so sexualized in our society that it seemed plausible a mother would give her sevenyear-old daughter Botox injections to give her an advantage at baby beauty pageants. The story, which went viral last month, turned out to be a hoax. But it's not a stretch to imagine it happening. Watch a few minutes of Toddlers and Tiaras - the reality show on cable TV about these pageants - or even its ads. Toddlers and preschoolers strut like strippers and smile like pros. They are made-up, hair-sprayed, spray-tanned, shaved and waxed. It's a pedophile's paradise. Last week, a British...

As a nation we have been going down the drain quickly. Over the last several years we have been bombarded everywhere we look with all kinds of evil. The Libertarians say “close your eyes if you don’t like it after all it’s my choice to see and do as I please”. Over the last few years on my Facebook page I have been arguing with them over the fact they want to make drugs & prostitution legal. Our nation slips ever so slowly into more and more filth and no one seems to see it or care. Now the courts...

The Internet has been abuzz with reports that Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna, Austria has made some rather unusual statements. The one that has been getting the biggest headlines is that he criticized (explicitly or implicitly, accounts seem to differ) Cardinal Angelo Sodano, accusing him of blocking an investigation of Viennese Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer in the 1990s, when then-Cardinal Ratzinger wanted to initiate an investigation regarding allegations that Groer had committed sexual abuse. The investigation wasn’t held, but Groer was soon replaced as the cardinal archbishop of Vienna by Schonborn himself. (Read about Groer here.) He’s also allegedly said...