Free Republic

In the eight years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may not criminalize private homosexual conduct, courts and legislatures across the country have struggled to define gay rights. The debate changed for both sides after a watershed 2003 Supreme Court ruling in a case that originated in Houston. The court voted 6-3 to guarantee privacy rights for gay men and lesbians - reversing a 1986 decision that permitted states to outlaw homosexual acts, even in homes. The Houston man at the center of the groundbreaking decision died last month of a heart condition. John Geddes Lawrence was 68....

Andy Rooney, whose prickly wit was long a mainstay of CBS News and whose homespun commentary on “60 Minutes,” delivered every week from 1978 until 2011, made him a household name, died Friday in New York City. He was 92 and lived in Manhattan, though he kept a family vacation home in Rensselaerville, N.Y., and the first home he ever purchased, in Rowayton, Conn. CBS News said in a statement that Mr. Rooney died after complications following minor surgery. In late September, CBS announced that Mr. Rooney would be making his last regular weekly appearance on “60 Minutes” on Oct....

Gerry Ferraro dead at 75, per statement from her family.

Perry Kucinich, brother of Rep. Dennis Kucinich, was found dead Wednesday morning at his east-side home. Perry Kucinich was found by another brother, Larry Kucinich, at about 9 a.m. The county coroner said that an autopsy is set to be performed to determine the exact cause of death. There were no signs of foul play. Rep. Kucinich is in Washington, D.C. and his spokesman said he is on his way home to Cleveland. There are seven children in the Kucinich family.

MAYBE it's summer doldrums, maybe it's something in the water . . . whatever . . . each week brings talk of another couple curdling. Last week's whisper had Mr. & Mrs. Caroline Kennedy no longer as blissful as, say, Brad and non-wife Angelina. Per best-selling Kennedy author C. David Heymann: "The Schlossbergs always lived separate lives. Ed's not keen on charity functions. He's rarely at her ballets and municipal art things. As for her attending his events, it's debatable what this poet philosopher does, although he's in demand. He works with museum directors programming interactive installations. "They're married 20...

Neurologist Dr. Ronald Cranford, one of the nation's leading medical ethicists and right-to-die advocates, died Wednesday at a hospice in Edina, from complications of kidney cancer. He was 65. Cranford was thrust into the public spotlight by the case of Terry Schiavo, a Florida woman he diagnosed in 2002 as being in an irreversible vegetative state. He defended his diagnosis throughout her husband's court battle to remove her feeding tube in 2005. Cranford's daughter, Kristin Cranford of Long Beach, Calif, said her father was a "down to earth, easy going, non-pretentious man who told it like it was. He was...

HOUSTON (AP) — Lloyd Bentsen, a courtly Texan who represented the state in Congress for 28 years and served as President Clinton’s first treasury secretary, died Tuesday morning, his family said. He was 85. Bentsen, also the Democratic 1988 vice presidential nominee, died at his home in Houston. His distinguished political career took him from the humble beginnings of a county office in the Rio Grande Valley in the 1940s to six years in the U.S. House, 22 in the U.S. Senate and two in the Clinton Cabinet, where he was instrumental in directing the administration’s economic policy.

Just breaking on Fox News.

Former Senator and Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, a courtly Texan who as the Democrats' vice presidential nominee in 1988 famously told rival Dan Quayle he was "no Jack Kennedy," died Tuesday. He was 85.

The former University of California, Berkeley student known as the "Naked Guy," who gained notoriety for attending class in the buff in the early 1990s, died of an apparent suicide while in jail, authorities said. Andrew Martinez, 33, whose stripped-down campus strolls got him expelled from UC Berkeley and prompted the famously liberal city to adopt a strict anti-nudity ordinance, was found dead Thursday in the Santa Clara County Main Jail, said jail spokesman Mark Cursi. Martinez was found under his bed covers with a plastic bag cinched around his head, Cursi said. Officials are investigating the death as an...

Per WVAH Fox11 news, Senator Byrd's wife Erma passed away this morning after a long illness.

Frank Wilkinson, a Los Angeles housing official who lost his job in the Red Scare of the early 1950's and later became one of the last two people jailed for refusing to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee whether he was a Communist, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 91. Mr. Wilkinson, whose experiences inspired a half-century campaign against government spying, had been ill for several months and was recovering from surgery and a fall, said Donna Wilkinson, his wife of 40 years. "It was just the complications of old age, " Mrs. Wilkinson said.

Corwyn (Cory) William Zimbleman Tucson, AZ (formerly of Champaign, IL) Age 53. Born April 18, 1952 to the late Willard and Gilda (Ebert) Zimbleman, died June 10, 2005. Throughout his life Cory was an extraordinary artist. His artistic talent and imagination would bring awe to all who viewed his work. His works grace an LP cover and numerous books; using Computer Aided Design (CAD) he designed home and business exteriors, interiors, and furniture for several architectural firms. His talent went beyond the fine arts as he added sculpturing, woodworking, metals, and other mediums to his repertoire. Having never gained the...

DENVER - Hunter S. Thompson, the "gonzo journalist" with a penchant for drugs, guns and flamethrower prose, might have one more salvo in store for everyone: Friends and relatives want to blast his ashes out of a cannon, just as he wished. "If that's what he wanted, we'll see if we can pull it off," said historian Douglas Brinkley, a friend of Thompson's and now the family's spokesman. Thompson, who shot himself to death at his Aspen-area home Sunday at 67, said several times he wanted an artillery send-off for his remains. "There's no question, I'm sure that's what he...

Hunter S. Thompson's attorney tells the Boston Globe the reporter's suicide had nothing to do with the results of the 2004 election. Thompson wasn't happy about President Bush's re-election of course.He compared him unfavourably to Richard Nixon and seemed terrified that the American people might want George W. Bush to be their president.Thompson predicted that Kerry would beat Bush in November, and feared what the alternative would say about America. The cynical among us might say it's the first time something bad hasn't been blamed on President Bush.

Pioneer Author, Journalist Thompson Dies at 67 By CATHERINE TSAI, AP ASPEN, Colo. (Feb. 20) - Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67. The Life of Hunter S. Thompson "Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News. Pitkin County Sheriff officials confirmed to The...

Esther Howe Wescott, a lifelong Democrat who idolized Franklin Roosevelt, died on Dec. 24 shortly after expressing her fierce opposition to President Bush. Mrs. Wescott, who was 100, was born in Portland on Nov. 10, 1904, 16 years before American women had the right to vote. "She was a very, very, very staunch Democrat," said her son, William H. Cousins, her only child. She died while visiting Cousins at his home in Bethel. In her last words, she said she had wanted anyone but Bush to be president, he said. Snip

ASPEN, Colo. — Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

Legendary US author Hunter S. Thompson commits suicide LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) - Legendary US author and sharp-witted icon of the 1960s counter-culture, Hunter S. Thompson, is dead, apparently after shooting himself in the head, police and his family said. The 67-year-old writer and journalist, best-known for his 1972 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," apparently shot himself at his rural home in Woody Creek, in the western US state of Colorado. "The sheriff's department can confirm the apparent death by a self-inflicted gunshot wound of Hunter S. Thompson at his home," Tricia Louthis, a spokeswoman for Colorado's...

AP News Alert ASPEN, Colo. (AP) -- The son of Hunter S. Thompson says the author shot himself to death at his Aspen-area home.