Free Republic

Colorado Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation formally repealing the state’s long-unenforced ban on recognizing same-sex “marriage,” a largely-symbolic gesture for LGBT “equality” ensuring the state status quo would remain if the national one changed in the future. Senate Bill 24-014 strikes from the Colorado legal code language stating marriages can only be recognized as valid if “between one man and one woman.” It passed the state House 45-14 and the state Senate 29-6 and was signed into law on April 7. The statutory repeal follows a ballot initiative that passed last November removing the traditional definition of marriage from...

As noted a few months ago, Mozilla -- maker of the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client -- is facing an 80% revenue drop due to investigations into its “revenue-sharing” deals with Google. That revenue drop is apparently prompting Mozilla's all-out search for alternate revenue streams. Mozilla's changes last week to the Firefox browser's privacy notice and usage terms indicate that users' privacy may be sold out. Specifically, Mozilla's new use terms provide: “When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and...

The Obergefell ruling rode rough-shod over religions and dozens of state constitutions on the bases of a moral — not legal — opinion.In late January, the Idaho House of Representatives passed a memorandum calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to “reverse” its 2015 gay marriage decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, “and restore the natural definition of marriage, a union of one man and one woman.” The memo passed 46 to 24 in the House and is heading to the Idaho Senate. If it passes the senate, it will be sent on to the Supreme Court as one more formal encouragement that...

In a shocking release from the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera ahead of the release of leftist Pope Francis’ autobiography, titled Life: My Story Through History, it was shown that the pope has reaffirmed his support for same-gender civil unions. Doing so, he wrote that “it is right” that such couples “who live the gift of love can have legal coverage like everyone else.”The Amazon description of Pope Francis’s autobiography states, “For the first time, Pope Francis tells the story of his life as he looks back on the momentous world events that have changed history—from his earliest years during...

Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate: An Open Letter to President Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. — ‘The Curse on America Comes from Within Brought Down by Deep State and Deep Church’Guest post by Byzantine Catholic PatriarchateThe American people elected you both, Mr. President and Mr. Secretary, to stop the process of self-destruction of America and humanity.Apparently, your first step will be to stop the senseless war in Ukraine.But the absurdity is that the curse on America comes from within. It is brought down not only by the Deep State but also by the Deep Church, which are in unity.ADVERTISEMENTThis truth was...

Parliamentarians in Slovakia enshrined marriage as a “unique bond between a man and a woman” in the country’s Constitution May 4, with 102 National Council members backing the amendment, 18 opposing it, and three abstentions. The amendment was brought to the National Council by the Christian Democrats, and supported by the government, despite the latter being led by the socialist SMER party. A government spokesman told a press conference that the proposal simply upholds the existing situation. “The marriage amendment will not bring about any drastic changes, it only seals in the constitution what is already defined by law,” said...

Most Catholics in all seven countries want the church to allow Catholics to use birth control. In most of the countries surveyed, majorities of Catholics also say the church should allow women to become priests.Opinion is more divided on whether the church should allow priests to get married. Views on whether the church should recognize the marriages of gay and lesbian couples vary among Catholics in the countries surveyed. Ten years ago, nearly all Catholics surveyed there (98%) expressed a favorable opinion of Francis, compared with 74% today.

A beloved music director at a Michigan catholic church was fired after an unknown source informed church officials of his same-sex marriage — sparking outrage from parishioners, with many protesting and some renouncing their membership over the termination. Fred Szczepanski was canned from his position at St. Francis Church in Traverse City on Oct. 18 after the church officials discovered he had a same-sex marriage ceremony to his longtime partner in Nevada in 2020, according to Traverse City Record-Eagle. Szczepanski, known by churchgoers as “Mr. Fred,” was confronted by Rev. Michael Lingaur after church leaders received a letter from an...

So imagine that you're a conservative evangelical Christian or a traditional Catholic, and a nephew invites you to attend his upcoming wedding. And oh, by the way, he will be standing at the altar with another man. Do you go? That question presents a huge dilemma for many followers of Jesus Christ, who said that marriage consists solely of one man and one woman, united for life, for the purpose of raising a family while cherishing one another. Do you, by attending such a ceremony, thereby lend support to a practice that you view as fundamentally un-biblical and therefore sinful?...

With little-to-no deliberation, the Republican National Convention’s Platform Committee tentatively adopted a dramatically-shortened Republican Party platform that drops the GOP’s longstanding support for federal preborn protections as well as the party’s opposition to homosexual “marriage,” along with other changes to align the party’s values and priorities with presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump. WISN reports that the committee voted 84-14 to approve the platform in a closed-door session, though it still awaits final approval at the convention next week. “If you look at it, it has Donald Trump written all over it,” boasted Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chair Lara Trump, the...

Hunter Biden helped the U.S. law firm that employed him secure a lucrative retainer with Burisma Holdings a decade ago, and its lawyers proceeded to draft a 58-page plan to try to extricate the controversial energy company from an ongoing criminal investigation in Ukraine that relied heavily on trying to influence his father’s administration in Washington, according to evidence gathered by the FBI. The “legal defense plan” memo by Boies Schiller & Flexner, obtained by Just the News, was part of a collection of 3.39 million pages of evidence that federal agents seized during the 2016 election as part of...

A Catholic school in North Carolina was within its legal rights to dismiss a substitute teacher because he was in a same-sex marriage, a federal appeals court ruled.A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that Charlotte Catholic High School could fire Lonnie Billard for marrying a man.Circuit Judge Pamela Harris, an Obama appointee, authored the majority opinion, concluding that the Catholic school was protected by the "ministerial exception," noting that Billard's employment involved an inherently religious element."We conclude that the school entrusted Billard with 'vital religious duties,' making him a 'messenger' of its...

United Methodist delegates repealed their church’s longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy with no debate on Wednesday, removing a rule forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers. Delegates voted 692-51 at their General Conference — the first such legislative gathering in five years. That overwhelming margin contrasts sharply with the decades of controversy around the issue. Past General Conferences of the United Methodist Church had steadily reinforced the ban and related penalties amid debate and protests, but many of the conservatives who had previously upheld the ban have left the denomination in recent years, and this General...

The United Methodist Church General Conference voted to drop a ban on funding LGBT advocacy groups and removed a required punishment for pastors who officiate gay weddings after thousands of theologically conservative congregations left the mainline Protestant denomination in the last two years. On Tuesday, delegates approved a petition that struck from the UMC Book of Discipline Paragraph 806.9 language that prohibits the General Council on Finance and Administration from "ensuring that no board, agency, committee, commission, or council shall give United Methodist funds to any gay caucus or group, or otherwise use such funds to promote the acceptance of...

Together with my good friend and occasional courtroom adversary David Boies, I am attempting to persuade a federal court to invalidate California's Proposition 8—the voter-approved measure that overturned California's constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex.... Many of my fellow conservatives have an almost knee-jerk hostility toward gay marriage. This does not make sense, because same-sex unions promote the values conservatives prize. Marriage is one of the basic building blocks of our neighborhoods and our nation. At its best, it is a stable bond between two individuals who work to create a loving household and a social...

Former First Lady Melania Trump is helping the homosexual ‘conservative’ group Log Cabin Republicans kick off its ‘Road to Victory’ campaign at her and her husband’s Florida resort home on April 20. ... PALM BEACH, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — After an extended absence from public view, former First Lady Melania Trump is reportedly set to return to the campaign trail for her husband starting with a fundraiser for homosexual “conservative” group Log Cabin Republicans at her and husband Donald’s resort home of Mar-a-Lago. The news puts to rest unsubstantiated rumors that Mrs. Trump was distancing herself from the former president’s 2024...

Don Lemon and Tim Malone were all smiles as they headed home from their glitzy New York City wedding. The newlyweds strolled hand in hand as they exited Ralph Lauren's Polo bar just before midnight on Sunday. Lemon, 58, tied the knot with Malone, 40, in an intimate ceremony at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church before leading guests on foot over to the reception. Disgraced sex pest broadcaster Matt Lauer, fired CNN boss Jeff Zucker and alleged killer Alec Baldwin were among the high-profile attendees. The grooms appeared in good spirits as they exited their venue in the same coordinated velvet...

On Wednesday, Thailand’s House of Representatives voted 400-10 in favor of same-sex “marriage.” Only 10 lawmakers voted against the bill. Two abstained and three didn’t vote. The country’s Senate “rarely rejects any legislation that passes the lower house,” the Associated Press noted. Once it passes the Senate, it then must be approved by the majority-Buddhist country’s king. In addition to redefining marriage, the bill “extends all rights and protections contained in the Civil and Commercial Code to LGBTI+ persons,” the pro-LGBT group “Fortify Rights” said in a press release. The group’s lobbying to add the “gender-neutral language of ‘parent’ addition...

The Coptic Orthodox Church has reportedly suspended its dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church over the Catholic Church's decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples. Coptic leadership held a Holy Synod last week in Wadi El-Natrun, Egypt. The church hierarchy recommended various issues, including recognizing assorted monasteries, adding mental health topics to marital counseling and praying for unity within the Orthodox Church.Coptic Orthodox spokesman Father Moussa Ibrahim explained in a video that "the most notable" action from the annual Holy Synod was "to suspend theological dialogue with the Catholic Church after its change of position on the issue of...

In the first signals of how he’ll act on legislation approved by Virginia’s Democratic General Assembly, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a largely symbolic bill protecting same-sex marriage but took a more adversarial stance to bills dealing with gun control, reproductive rights and marijuana. Youngkin had until Friday night to take action on 84 bills the legislature sent to him on a shorter-than-usual timeline. He vetoed eight, recommended changes to 12 and signed the rest. The General Assembly finished its work Saturday without taking up any of the governor’s initial amendments and vetoes, which means they will be dealt with during...