Free Republic

The court’s decision represents a victory against authoritarianism, but censorship by Covid scaremongers should still trouble Americans. ... Afederal judge halted California’s attempt to censor doctors when, last Wednesday, the court enjoined the state statute that banned medical professionals from spreading purported “misinformation” or “disinformation” to their patients about Covid-19. The decision represents the latest victory against the authoritarian edicts that quickly followed the outbreak of the pandemic three years ago but continue to this day. In August of 2022, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 2098 (AB 2098), adding a new provision to California’s extensive regulations...

The Supreme Court allowed this unconstitutional and anti-freedom regime to proliferate while pretending to check it.Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips is going on 11 years of being harassed by LGBT activists and government authorities for being a practicing Christian. It was 2012 when Phillips was first hauled before his state’s speech tribunal for telling a gay couple he’d happily sell them anything in his shop but he couldn’t create a custom wedding cake celebrating sexual activities that his religion says are wrong. Last Thursday, Colorado’s Court of Appeals ruled he must bake a transgender celebration cake or face legal consequences...

Last Updated on January 30, 2023 The left-wing outrage mob that’s moved America’s Overton window further to the left than it’s been at any point in history has forced yet another NCAA football program to pull a scholarship offer from one of the best high school quarterbacks in the country after he sang along with rap lyrics in a social media video. Late last year, Marcus Stokes, the 24th-ranked high school quarterback in the country, was committed to playing college football at the University of Florida before his scholarship offer was revoked in the wake of a manufactured social media...

Last week, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis (N.C.) bragged to The Washington Post that he doesn’t “vote for anything” that he thinks “will have a serious political consequence.” They were glib words for a man who’d just put his name behind a bill rewriting marriage for every American. Like the 11 other Republican senators whose moral courage collapsed before the nation’s eyes, Senator Tillis would have you believe there’s no fallout from his vote for same-sex marriage. But a young Georgia policeman who’s out of a job over his beliefs would beg to disagree.“Christians should not be fearful of this...

A Georgia police officer has resigned after he was told by superiors that he could not share his personal religious views on social media. “If someone somewhere considers an opinion I have—that isn’t a direct quotation from Scripture—to be offensive, then that would be a fireable offense,” Jacob Kersey, the former officer, told The Daily Signal. Kersey, 19, who began working last May at the Port Wentworth Police Department, in a jurisdiction just outside Savannah, says “everything was going well” until the start of the new year. On Jan. 2, Kersey posted a 20-word message about his view of marriage...

Liberty Justice Center (LJC), a “national free speech law firm,” filed an appeal against Arizona State University (ASU) Thursday after a former student was convicted of trespassing by handing out constitutions on campus, according to Friday’s press release. Tim Tizon, a now-former Arizona State University student, was arrested in March 2022 after he refused to stop passing out pamphlets of the United States constitution at ASU Tempe’s campus on behalf of the libertarian student organization Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), the press release explained. He is appealing the conviction at Maricopa County Circuit Court and is represented pro bono by...

Denver, Colo., Jan 26, 2023 / 15:45 pm A Colorado appellate court has ruled against a baker who appeared in court once again for declining to make a cake that contradicts his religious beliefs. While Jack Phillips’ successful U.S. Supreme Court case concerned his refusal to make a same-sex wedding cake, he now faces a civil lawsuit for declining to make a cake celebrating a purported gender transition of a transgender-identifying attorney. In a Thursday decision, a Colorado Court of Appeals three-judge panel sided with Autumn Scardina, a man who identifies as a transgender woman. Scardina said Phillips and his...

Meta will be ending former President Trump's suspension across its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram, "in the coming weeks," according to a blog post from the company. In a blog post on Wednesday, Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, said that Trump's suspension on both Facebook and Instagram will be lifted. "To assess whether the serious risk to public safety that existed in January 2021 has sufficiently receded, we have evaluated the current environment according to our Crisis Policy Protocol, which included looking at the conduct of the US 2022 midterm elections, and expert assessments on the...

Des Plaines Councilwoman Alderman Carla Brookman slammed censor-happy leftists and hecklers during a recent city council meeting, proclaiming, “If you don’t allow discussion, that is a real problem in our society.”

Public educational institutions are constitutionally forbidden to retaliate against faculty members because of their speech. A professor can’t be fired, demoted, or otherwise penalized just because he or she has said something that bothers administrators. There have been numerous cases fought on that issue, and freedom of speech always comes out on top. One might think that school officials would learn from that, but they seem strangely obtuse about the legal ramifications whenever they want to go after someone who has gotten their goat. Two such cases have recently been resolved, and a new one has just arisen here in...

Priscilla Villarreal's case will be heard again tomorrow at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. She has attracted some unlikely supporters.Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is most known for its work taking up controversial religious freedom cases. They famously defended Jack Phillips, a baker who was the subject of a high-profile suit after he declined to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. More recently, the organization argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Lorie Smith, a website designer who preemptively challenged a Colorado law so that she would not have to design wedding...

In March 2022, hundreds of students at Yale Law School disrupted a panel with Kristen Waggoner, a conservative lawyer who has argued religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court, arguing that her presence was a "slap in the face" to "queer students." Yale's response to the incident left the school with egg on its face: Though the protest clearly violated Yale's free speech policies, which do not allow protesters to disrupt speakers, not a single student was disciplined. Now Waggoner is returning to Yale Law for another talk. And this time, administrators aren't leaving anything to chance, banning press and...

New Zealand's incoming prime minister has vowed to protect his family from what he called the "abhorrent" abuse that his predecessor, Jacinda Ardern, received while in office. Chris Hipkins, who was speaking on Sunday after MPs from his ruling Labour Party voted unanimously to endorse him, said a "small minority" of Kiwis were responsible for abusing Ms Ardern. He said that "it does not represent who we are as a country". Men had a responsibility to call out misogyny, he added. He said he realised that putting himself forward as leader meant that he was "public property" - but that...

The Opponents of Free Speech Are Gaining Ground. Here’s How We Can Fight BackWhen we break down the core institution of free speech, we lose a lot of what made America so successful in the first place.Free speech used to be held up as one of the core American institutions. It was enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights for a reason: while other countries have also adopted free speech, it is a fundamentally American tradition.More than that, free speech is essential on its own terms. It is the single best way for humans to make progress....

At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week, a European Union official predicted to a U.S. congressman that the U.S. would “soon” enact laws on “illegal hate speech” similar to those in the EU. Věra Jourová, the vice president of values and transparency for the European Commission, tapped Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton on the arm and laughed as she made the prediction. It came as she discussed whether AI is capable of moderating online hate speech. “For hate speech, well, we need the people who understand the language and the case law in the country, because what...

The Gateway Pundit reported on Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov decision to boycott his team’s “Pride Night” on Tuesday night. Provorov, a devout Russian Orthodox Christian, refused to wear his team’s gay pride jersey saying he made a choice to stay true to himself and his faith, “I respect everybody and I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion.”

It took $44 billion of Elon Musk’s money to uncover how national-security agencies like the FBI and Homeland Security — as well as Adam Schiff — conducted censorship on Twitter. Those revelations are still continuing, even while not much else seems to be changing on that platform. But what about Facebook? Who’s got $100 billion or so to buy out Mark Zuckerberg and get a peek under Meta’s hood? Reason Magazine certainly doesn’t, but it turns out that all Robby Soave needed was a lawsuit and a court order or two. Internal documents show that Facebook essentially allowed the CDC...

The United States will soon follow Europe in implementing laws against so-called hate speech, a top Eurocrat claimed at the World Economic Forum’s meeting in Davos. The vice president for Values and Transparency for the European Commission, Věra Jourová predicted on Tuesday that hate speech laws will be imposed upon the American public, despite longstanding case law at the Supreme Court protecting such speech under the First Amendment. “Illegal hate speech, which you will have soon also in the U.S. I think that we have a strong reason why we have this in the criminal law,” Jourová said.

On Tuesday, disgraced former CNN anchor Brian Stelter took to the stage at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting to chair a panel on "disinformation." The panelists claimed that the spread of fake news was among the greatest threats currently facing society, and praised Europe for its strict internet regulations. "How does this discussion of disinformation relate to everything else happening here today in Davos?" Stelter asked the panel, which included the New York Times' Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, European Commission VP Věra Jourová, Rep. Seth Moulton, and Internews CEO Jeanne Bourgault. "If you look at this question of disinformation," Sulzberger...

While political speech is heavily censored in China, everyday social speech is now curtailed by pervasive taboos in Anglo-American societiesIn the often hilariously insightful TV series Silicon Valley, a horrified tech start-up owner told his Chinese-born and culturally maladaptive programmer to put out his cigarette at the office of a venture capital boss. “Jian Yang, we are not as free as you were, here in America!” In mainland China, and increasingly in Hong Kong, you would likely get into trouble if you publicly challenge the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party or the central government. In Western societies, you can...