Free Republic

Last week the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision that Lorie Smith, a Colorado-based Christian graphic artist and web designer, did not have to create content that violated her beliefs. In response, Clara Jeffery, editor-in-chief of Mother Jones, tweeted, “perhaps gay stylists, designers, caterers, and planners should start withholding services from Christian conservatives and see where that goes.” After all, Jeffery reasoned, if a Christian can create content for a gay couple, surely gay professionals can decline services to Christian conservatives.More extreme was the reaction of actor Michael Imperioli who posted on Instagram, “I’ve decided to forbid bigots and homophobes...

Enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is the right to freedom of religion. This right is the freedom that is listed first in the Bill of Rights. At America’s core, the ability of every individual to seek truth and choose their own religious beliefs – or none at all – affords everyone equal footing to live by their faith or live by the dictates of their conscience. In 1791, Baptist minister John Leland wrote, “Every man must give an account of himself to God, and therefore every man ought to be at liberty to serve God in...

Back during the 2020 election and the “Summer of Love” BLM riots, a group of Proud Boys was seen tearing down a Black Lives Matter sign outside of a predominantly Black church in Washington. Arrests were made, though not of the rioters, of course. And a lawsuit was brought against the group. Now a Superior Court judge in Washington has ordered the group to pay more than a million dollars in reparations. Since the entire thing was caught on video, there is little doubt as to who was responsible, but this case raises a couple of immediate and obvious questions....

Democrats run the state government of Michigan, with majorities in the House and Senate of the state Legislature and Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer with the ability to sign bills into law. That's why a bill already passed by the state Legislature's House and assigned to committee in the state Senate is so dangerous. Can you believe five years in prison for speech based on someone's feelings about it? H.B. 4474 (official summary of text here, revised language of the bill here) has a good chance of becoming law, despite its obvious unconstitutionality.Michigan State Capitol in Lansing.Wade Vellky of the Michigan...

School administrators were not infringing on a student’s constitutional rights when they ordered him to remove a shirt that said “there are only two genders,” a district judge ruled on June 17.A Massachusetts boy in a file image. (Courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom)Massachusetts middle-schooler Liam Morrison’s lawyers said the order violated his First Amendment rights to free speech and his Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process, but U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said the violations have not been proven.The school “permissibly concluded that the Shirt invades the rights of others,” Talwani, an Obama appointee, said.Schools can bar speech that is...

Today, America First Legal (AFL) and co-counsel Christopher Mills won our lawsuit to stop establishment politicians from silencing the South Carolina Freedom Caucus. In a forty-page opinion, United States District Court Judge Cameron Currie permanently blocked the enforcement of state statutes that sought to limit the expressive and associational activities of the Freedom Caucus and other “legislative special interest caucuses,” finding them to be “a ban on speech.” The court held that these laws, written to favor the House Democratic Caucus, House Republican Caucus, the Black Caucus, and the Women’s Caucus, violated the Freedom Caucus’s First Amendment and Equal Protection...

Criticizing the law by calling for people to break it is an American tradition.Federal law prohibits encouraging or inducing unlawful immigration for private financial gain. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case, United States v. Hansen, that asks whether that law unconstitutionally abridges freedom of speech. The law deserves to die on First Amendment grounds. As the Rutherford Institute and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression observed in an amicus brief they filed in the case, "expressing disagreement with laws through advocacy of their violation" is "part of a deeply rooted American tradition." That...

SAN DIEGO – The man whose livestream caught two Navy ships nearly colliding in the San Diego Bay has been ordered to take the cameras down. The Navy Criminal Investigative Service says the camera’s livestream shows military activity in the area, but the camera owner says he has the right to film. “It might be the San Diego Web Cam today, but if you don’t stand up and call foul, we don’t know what’s it going to be tomorrow,” said Barry Bahrami who runs a group called San Diego Web Cam which provides livestreams across the city. It was Bahrami’s...

The Biden regime hates traditional religion and the Catholic Church in particular because of its strong stance against the centerpiece of the Left’s secular religion, abortion. However, Old Joe and his henchmen are not exactly marching confidently from victory to victory. In a tremendous indication that there is still hope for America, the Department of Health and Human Services has backed down from its demand that a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma put out its sanctuary candle, which signifies the Eucharistic presence of Christ in the Church. Biden’s handlers discovered, to their shock and sorrow, that there are still Americans who...

As outspoken as Tucker Carlson has been over the years, it was conspicuous that after being suddenly fired by Fox News, he didn’t hit them immediately. After a few days went by without him lambasting the network he has carried for a few years, some speculated they had too much leverage over him. A new report from Axios tells us he’s ready to go to war in order to secure his future. According to the leftwing outlet (edited for format): [snip] "Axios has learned that Carlson and Elon Musk had a conversation about working together, but didn’t discuss specifics. Carlson...

Former President Donald Trump has been banned from talking — or posting — about certain evidence uncovered in the Manhattan District Attorney’s “hush money” criminal case. Justice Juan Merchan handed down the ruling Thursday during a Manhattan Supreme Court hearing after prosecutors sought a protective order to restrict Trump, 76, from publicly revealing any evidence handed over to his legal team as the case unfolds. The judge — who insisted he was not imposing a “gag order” — said Trump was prohibited from talking about evidence specifically obtained by the DA’s Office and turned over to the defense to prepare...

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey joined 21 other Republican attorneys general in filing a legal brief urging the Colorado Supreme Court to hear an appeal by a Christian cake artist who lost a First Amendment case in a lower court. Last month, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips and the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a petition with Colorado’s highest court to overturn a state Court of Appeals decision. It found Phillips violated Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act when in 2012 he refused to make a blue and pink cake for attorney Autumn Scardina who stated in a phone conversation it was to celebrate...

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is a bigger problem for the Democrats and their media arm than they realized. The blowback from an interview with Linsey Davis that aired Thursday on ABC demonstrates the nature of the problem. You see, before airing the taped interview, ABC censored his comments attacking the effectiveness and safety of the Covid vaccines. Zachary Stieber of The Epoch Times (paywalled but available to AT readers by special arrangement) reports:ABC News cut off a presidential candidate when he started talking about COVID-19 vaccines, raising concerns about censorship.Robert Kennedy Jr., who recently announced his presidential run as a...

Elon Musk and Bill Maher took aim at Great Britain on Friday night, with Maher criticizing British libel laws and praising instead the free speech protections under the First Amendment. Musk, 51, was eagerly welcomed on to Maher's show, with the host tweeting that the Twitter owner was 'the guest I've wanted to have on more than any other.' The pair discussed Musk's concept of a 'Woke Mind Virus' infecting the nation, and Maher asked for his thoughts on censorship.

A Manhattan federal judge blasted Donald Trump’s “entirely inappropriate” posts on Truth Social Wednesday — as witness testimony began in E. Jean Carroll’s civil rape case against the former president. Trump, 76, took to his social media platform about an hour before the second day of the trial began, claiming Carroll’s case was “a made up SCAM” and accusing her lawyers of being “political operatives.” He also called for the dress the former advice columnist wore on the day of the alleged rape to be brought into the trial — something that Carroll sought to do early on in the...

The Soros-funded prosecutor of Albemarle County, Virginia has had multiple men indicted nearly 6 years after the mostly peaceful “Unite the Right” rally for the newly-invented crime of “carrying a tiki torch with the intent to intimidate.” James Hingeley, the Soros-funded prosecutor of Albemarle County, Virginia has unsealed the indictments of at least 3 men who have been charged with “carrying a tiki torch with the intent to intimidate,” a whopping 6 years after they marched in Charlottesville in support of Civil and Revolutionary War monuments.

Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems said Tuesday that they have reached a settlement agreement just moments before opening arguments were set to begin. The deal ends a monthslong legal battle over whether the media company had defamed the voting machine maker when they broadcast election conspiracy theories in 2020. The terms of the settlement were not immediately available. Dominion sued Fox News in 2021, demanding $1.6 billion in damages. They said the network defamed it when it broadcast baseless claims that it was tied to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, that it paid kickbacks to politicians and that...

A judge ruled Friday to have a church in California pay $1.2 million in fines—including interest—for defying COVID-19 rules during the pandemic by holding large religious services where attendees were not wearing masks. Calvary Chapel in San Jose was dealt the fine, including 10 percent interest, on April 7 by Evette Pennypacker, a Superior Court of California judge in Santa Clara County, for having exhibited “egregious conduct” in flouting the mask-wearing rules of the county between November 2020 and June 2021. Calvary Chapel was one among several large churches in California that ignored the state and local mask-wearing and social...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Washington state man accused of entering the U.S. Capitol with a pro-Trump mob during the Jan. 6 deadly insurrection has pleaded guilty to entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds. Jeffrey Grace, 64, entered the plea on Monday and had three other charges dropped as part of a plea agreement, KGW-TV reported. Grace could face up to six months in prison for the misdemeanor crime when he is scheduled for sentencing in August. Grace’s son, Jeremy Grace, pleaded guilty to the same charge and had three others dropped last year and was sentenced...

This is a pre-enforcement action by journalists Sandra Rodríguez-Cotto and Rafelli González-Cotto to enjoin, under the First Amendment, Article 5.14(a) of the Law of the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety, Law No. 20 of 2017, P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 25, §§ 3501, et seq. (“Law 20”), which criminalizes some types of speech after the Governor has decreed a state of emergency or disaster in the Commonwealth. 1 For the reasons explained below, the challenged provision cannot be enforced. As drafted, it does not pass muster under the First Amendment. BACKGROUND Law 20 creates the Puerto Rico Department of Public...