Free Republic

CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett took the witness stand Monday at his trial on charges of staging a racist, anti-gay attack on himself and lying to Chicago police about it. On the witness stand Monday, Smollett told the jury how he grew up in a close-knit family of six children and started performing as a child actor before getting more into music. He said he “came to terms with my sexuality” in his early 20s, when he got involved in charity organizations, including a group that fights AIDS in the Black community

In 1967, after shooting Mutiny on the Bounty, Marlon Brando bought the atoll of Tetiaroa in French Polynesia as his secluded getaway from the dreaded klieg lights of Hollywood. Fifty years later, after Barack Obama staged a mutiny against his party by refusing entreaties to lead the “Resistance” to Donald Trump, he flew to a luxury resort on Brando’s island to evade the partisan clashes in Washington. It seems fitting that Obama would end up at The Brando, as the resort is known, since the two men have much in common. Marlon Brando is considered to be one of the...

Defense lawyers for 26 men arrested in a televised raid by police looking for gays at an Egyptian bathhouse criticized the prosecution’s case Sunday, saying it is based on a faulty investigation and only one police officer’s testimony. The raid was part of an ongoing crackdown on gays in Egypt, described by activists as the worst in more than a decade. While consensual gay and lesbian relationships are not specifically outlawed in Egypt, there is a societal taboo against same-sex couples. A private TV station’s crew filmed the men’s arrest, saying it tipped off police to a bathhouse “hosting men...

Now the cardinals have red faces to match their red hats. Church leaders gathering for Tuesday’s papal conclave picked up the paper to learn the Holy See is the majority owner of an apartment block that houses Italy’s largest gay bathhouse. Even more shocking, Ivan Cardinal Dias lives in a swank 12-room apartment one floor above Europa Multiclub, and mere yards from the phallic shrubbery at the entrance of the gay Xanadu, La Repubblica reported. RELATED: CARDINAL O'BRIEN COPS TO SEX Dias is known for reviling homosexuality, calling it “unnatural” and arguing that gays can be “cured.” That cure certainly...

Obamas enjoy multi-course tasting menu By Jonathan Easley - 12/29/11 07:35 AM ET President Obama enjoyed a five-to-seven course tasting menu Wednesday night at a dinner in Honolulu with first lady Michelle Obama and 10 friends. The dinner at Alan Wong's restaurant in Honolulu comes as the president enjoys his annual holiday break in Hawaii, a vacation nearly cut short by the fight over taxes with Republicans in Washington. The Obama's are regulars at Wong's restaurant—both gave head chef Wong a hug upon entering before being taken to their “traditional table,” which Wong describes as the “feng shui” seat in...