Free Republic

A third of Poland has declared itself to be an official “LGBT-free” zone as local municipalities sign a pledge adopting resolutions against “LGBT propaganda”.Nearly 100 Polish municipal or local governments have now proclaimed themselves to be “free from LGBTI ideology”. Local authorities in these areas pledge to refrain from acts that encourage tolerance and must avoid providing financial assistance to NGOs working to promote equal rights. An “Atlas of Hate” map created by activists reveals the extent of Poland that has signed up to this pledge – and it covers an area greater than the size of Hungary.The area...

After a campaign ad touted the ex-NYC mayor as “incredibly sensitive” to the LGBTQ community, a video resurfaced of Bloomberg referring to transgender people as “he, she or it” and “some guy in a dress” — the second time he’s been caught making such comments. Bloomberg used the language to warn 2020 Democratic hopefuls against stressing transgender issues, arguing that they wouldn’t play well in middle America. “If your conversation during a presidential election is about some guy wearing a dress and whether he, she, or it can go to the locker room with their daughter, that’s not a winning...

Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday suggested former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg wouldn't look masculine standing next to "Mr. Man" President Trump on a presidential debate stage because he is an openly gay married man. Democrats are “sitting there, and they’re looking at Mayor Pete, a 37-year-old gay guy ... loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage,” Limbaugh told his radio show listeners while discussing what he perceives as a weak Democratic field. “And they’re saying, 'OK, how’s this gonna look, a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband onstage next to Mr. Man Donald Trump? What’s gonna happen...

Switzerland goes to the polls on February 9 in a national referendum that could criminalize homophobia–and Coca-Cola has made the bold move of supporting calls to make the anti-gay hate speech illegal. If the country approves the move, it will criminalize homophobia to the same extent as other forms of discrimination based on race, gender and religion. The Coca-Cola Company in Switzerland has publicly shared support for the initiative. Early indications are that the referendum has the majority support of Swiss voters, says The Local. But the campaign hasn’t been without controversy. The youth wing of the Swiss Peoples Party...

First, it was an unexpected appearance at President Donald Trump's impeachment hearings, and now it’s a barrier-breaking debut during one of the year’s most watched sporting events. Drag queens, for the first time, will appear in a Super Bowl advertisement. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” alumni Kim Chi and Miz Cracker will make history in a commercial for hummus brand Sabra during the football championship game Feb. 2, when the Kansas City Chiefs will face the San Francisco 49ers. In the teaser for the ad campaign, which the New York-based company posted on its YouTube channel last week, Miz Cracker clumsily attempts...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee has become the latest state to assure continued taxpayer funding of faith-based foster care and adoption agencies even if those organizations exclude LGBTQ families and others based on religious beliefs. Republican Gov. Bill Lee signed the bill Friday without fanfare or an official announcement, making it the first law to be implemented in Tennessee this year. Previously, Lee said he endorsed the law because he believed defending religious liberty “is very important.” The Republican has often cited his Christian faith throughout his first term as governor. However, under the new law, current adoption practices in...

In the shadow of a nearly 200-foot cross, Central Florida Christian Academy enrolls students who live by the Bible’s commands and abstain from “sexual immorality” — meaning gay children aren’t welcome on the state-supported campus in west Orange County.... ....Florida’s scholarship programs, often referred to as school vouchers, sent more than $129 million to these religious institutions. That means at least 14 percent of Florida’s nearly 147,000 scholarship students last year attended private schools where homosexuality was condemned... The debate touches on civil rights, religious freedom, past discrimination cases and the future of Florida’s school choice programs. It comes as...

Last week, liberal media outlets latched onto the latest horrific example of bigoted Christians forcing their morality on everyone else: a Christian school expelling a girl for posting a picture of herself wearing a rainbow sweatshirt and eating a rainbow cake on Facebook. According to the girl's mother, the Christian school rushed to judgment and expelled her daughter, who isn't even gay, over a birthday cake!

THE White House has livestreamed a church service which saw the US vice-president speak and a bishop claim “the devil” causes homosexuality. After Mike Pence addressed the congregation in Tennessee, the preacher took to the pulpit to talk about same-sex relations in a sermon still available on the administration’s YouTube channel. “It is a demonic spirit that causes a woman to want to live with another woman,” he said. “It is a demonic spirit that causes a man to be attracted to another man.” The preacher, who has been named as Bishop Jerry Wayne Taylor, claimed the “devil” was trying...

Utah has become the 19th — and most conservative — state in the U.S. to ban "conversion therapy" for minors. The widely discredited practice, aimed at changing a patient's sexual orientation or gender identity, is now formally barred in the state after the new rule took effect late Tuesday. A spokesperson for Republican Gov. Gary Herbert, who directed licensing regulators to make the change, confirmed the move to NPR on Wednesday. "We want to thank Governor Herbert and his administration for not allowing this issue to be politicized," Troy Williams, the executive director of Equality Utah, said at a Wednesday...

Ron Reagan Goes Scorched Earth On 'Traitor' Trump: My Dad Wouldn't Have Voted For Him Ronald Reagan’s son lacerated Donald Trump in a scathing interview with The Daily Beast published Friday, saying his late father never would have voted for Trump. “He would have been embarrassed and ashamed that a president of the United States was as incompetent and traitorous as the man occupying the White House now,” said Ron Reagan, 61. “He’s a disgrace to the office of the presidency.” Reagan, speaking to the Beast from Italy, where he lives half the year, said if his father were alive...

Singer Boy George has barrelled back into relevancy after saying that use of pronouns is a “modern form of attention seeking”. The Culture Club singer’s tweets quickly became a lightning rod for criticism from LGBT+ circles, with countless trans and gender-diverse folk slamming the star while his words attracted support from gender-critical groups. Simply specifying your pronouns, whether on a social media bio or to in an email signature, is a small act that helps encourage inclusivity and building solidarity with the trans community. But George has kicked off the new decade with a take on pronouns labelled ‘transphobic’ by...

A group launched a 2020 ballot initiative Tuesday to expand Michigan’s civil rights law to include anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people, a step that would put the issue to voters if the Republican-led Legislature does not pass the measure. Fair and Equal Michigan, a committee backed by business, political and philanthropic leaders, submitted petition language to the Board of State Canvassers. Once it is approved, the group will have until late May to collect the roughly 340,000 valid voter signatures needed to place the initiated bill before lawmakers. If legislators do not adopt the legislation — similar bills have long...

With just over a year left in President Donald Trump's first term, another late-breaking news item barely made waves: The Interior Department — which manages the majority of the federal government's public lands — deleted "sexual orientation" from its anti-discrimination guidelines, as HuffPost first reported last week. The removal was just the latest in a nearly three-year-long effort to strip mention of LGBTQ people from the executive branch bureaucracy. Reports of such changes began the day Trump assumed office, when LGBTQ content was deleted from the White House, State Department and Labor Department websites within "minutes" of his having been...

The Hallmark Channel certainly wasn’t expecting to find itself at the center of a viral culture war controversy this weekend. But in 2019, corporations never know which move might grab the internet’s attention. The controversy started when Hallmark decided to cancel an advertisement they had accepted from the wedding planning service Zola. The ad depicted, in a humorous fashion, a lesbian wedding, and at one point, the couple kisses. The conservative group One Million Moms complained to Hallmark and launched a petition, angered that an advertisement on the family-friendly network showed a type of family arrangement not in accordance with...

"We consider two communities fundamental, the family as one man, one woman and the children," said the leader of Poland's ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) at a recent convention. LGBT+ rights have become the single biggest cultural issue in Poland's election campaign ahead of Sunday's vote. In the eyes of Jaroslaw Kaczynski's national-conservative party and the Catholic Church, those rights are a threat to traditional Polish families and values. Mr Kaczynski likes to identify threats to Polish society - during the election campaign four years ago, he said Middle Eastern migrants might bring "parasites and protozoa" to Poland. This...

.... and asked for a way out of his $15 million a year contract - while a former staffer says it will be 'telling' to see who is chosen as his replacement

Poland’s ruling conservative party has targeted gays as a campaign tactic. Its programming on state media has drawn comparisons with communist-era propaganda and it has asserted so much control over the judicial system that the European Union has declared the rule of law at risk. Yet, Law and Justice heads into Sunday’s election to the 460-seat lower house and the 100-seat Senate as Poland’s most popular party, largely thanks to generous social spending and an assertive Poland-first stance toward the EU and other countries. Concerns about democracy have made this one of the country’s most momentous election since the fall...

Protesters interrupted the CNN LGBTQ town hall on Thursday to highlight the plight of black transgender women, at one point taking the mic from a questioner. Advocates tracked the deaths of at least 26 transgender people in the US in 2018, according to the Human Rights Campaign. In 2019, at least 19 transgender people have been fatally shot or killed, according to HRC.

Have you ever heard about Tina Tchen? Most of you probably haven't but if you had, a few of you might know that she was the former chief of staff for Michelle Obama. However most of the people who are familiar with her name would have known it because of her prominent role in the Jussie Smolett case this year. This was why it was extremely odd to watch the hosts of CBS's This Morning gush over Tchen on Monday without even the slightest mention of what she is best known for. It was the elephant in the room that...