Free Republic

As a former restaurant critic, I don’t get to go to dinner on assignment much anymore. But last week, I spent a grueling few hours in the private back room of a restaurant in North Beach, listening to a crowd gnash their teeth about “parental rights,” and the Trans Conspiracy to Destroy the American Family, while noshing on very dry garlic bread. Hosted by the San Francisco Republican Party, the event was billed by the group’s chairman John Dennis as “a reasonable conversation for parents who have concerns.” Speakers included Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, a Bay Area-based former social worker and a...

President Biden was in New York Friday for the grand opening of the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center on the 55th anniversary of the historic riots that birthed America’s gay rights movement. The 81-year-old, still licking his wounds after his abysmal performance during Thursday’s presidential debate with Donald Trump sent shockwaves across the country, was joined by Gov. Kathy Hochul and legendary musician Elton John at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. The 1969 Stonewall Riots “marked a turning point for civil rights in America and inspired the hearts of millions of people around the world,” Biden said, adding that...

On the final day of Pride month, anti-Israel agitators disrupted the New York Pride parade by blocking the route and vandalizing and destroying floats. Video posted on social media shows a group of anti-Israel agitators sitting in the street with posters and shouting "Free Palestine" and "From the sea to the river, Palestine will be free." "It is certainly a more active presence this year in terms of protest at Pride events," Sandra Pérez, the executive director of NYC Pride told the Associated Press. "But we were born out of a protest." Another video shows anti-Israel protesters vandalizing floats and...

Hypersexualized ‘pride’ parades function as humiliation rituals and an excuse to push sexual deviancy in people’s faces.Warning: This article contains sexual imagery.It’s that time of year again. The time when, for 30 seemingly never-ending days, rainbow flags (or whichever new convoluted color-coded version they’ve conjured up this year) take over entertainment, corporate logos, and the streets of cities across the country. Not even ruby-red states can escape the influence of “Pride Month.”The centerpiece of this debauched revelry is the “pride” parade. Now there are so many of these in the U.S. that some outlets feel the need to rank them,...

For years, a peaceful, million-dollar farm in Indiana hid a dark secret: It was a serial killer’s playground. When cops finally raided Herb Baumeister’s 18-acre property in Westfield, north of Indianapolis, they uncovered some 10,000 pieces of human remains — mostly crushed and burned skeletal fragments of the teenage boys and young men whom he had abducted and murdered in the 1980s and ’90s. Nearly 30 years after Baumeister killed himself while on the run from police, authorities are still sifting through the remains and identifying victims.

Target has announced plans to substantially reduce the number of stores that carry Pride Month merchandise in June. The decision comes after a fierce backlash against the company for plastering its stores with LGBTQ-themed material. This development highlights the challenges companies face when trying to drive revenue while avoiding moves that could alienate its customer base. The Minneapolis-based retailer will limit the Pride-themed items to select locations based on historical sales performance and availability. The full collection will also be available online.This decision comes after a rather contention Pride season in 2023, when the retailer was barraged with criticism of...

In a shocking development, an acclaimed Penn State professor, Themis Matsoukas, who was previously charged with animal cruelty after being caught engaging in bestiality with his pet dog, is now facing additional charges following the revelation of further disturbing acts captured on videos, New York Post reported. The case has now escalated with the emergence of new footage that allegedly shows Matsoukas inserting a tree branch and a lollipop into his anus in a public park. According to reports from Fox 43, authorities discovered 55 videos on Matsoukas’ electronic devices that depicted acts of indecency. These devices were seized under...

City Councilor Erin Murphy has filed a hearing order to look into whether street cleaning equipment used in the area of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue is spreading infectious diseases to other parts of Boston. Murphy said the city uses the same cleaning equipment on Southampton, Atkinson and Topeka streets as it does in other neighborhoods, including the South End, Back Bay, Beacon Hill and Bay Village. This creates the potential for contamination traveling from Mass and Cass to those other neighborhoods, Murphy said. She plans to discuss the hearing request at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. “It’s scary what...

If only the Navy could repair subs as quickly as its transgender teams castrate sailors.On June 16, 2023, a date which will live in infamy, the Pearl Harbor base featured the story of Lt. Nick Grant, an “out gay cisgender man” who was a co-chair of the Naval Medical Force Pacific Transgender Care Team (NMFP TGCT). The title of the Pride Month feature was “serving with pride”. The Navy’s medical service, which can’t seem to do anything about active duty personnel killing themselves, has multiple “transgender care teams” for different regions composed of multiple specialists for different areas to “oversee...

In Massachusetts, acting principal Heather Tucker and Middleborough Public Schools Superintendent Carolyn Lyons barred 12-year-old Liam Morrison from wearing a T-shirt with the words "there are only two genders." Since other T-shirts saying "celebrate gay pride" are permitted at the school, Morrison sought attorneys to help him defend his right to freedom of speech. Lyons defended suppressing the shirt, saying "it targeted students of a protected class; namely in the area of gender identity. This is hate speech that cannot be permitted. Liam's return to school wearing a shirt saying 'there are censored genders' mocked our authority and also had...

Throughout the month of June, Americans from all walks of life have gone about their business surrounded by rainbow Pride flags. They are everywhere you look, from restaurants to online shopping to even everyone’s favorite escape, sports. As the alphabet mafia set their sights on major league sports, how are these teams responding to the other portions of their customer base? Are they giving in so they don’t become the next Bud Light or Target? Some are, but some are actually listening to their fan base. One of those teams is the Texas Rangers. The Rangers are the only team...

Democrats have always demonstrated a sense of "ownership" of certain communities of color. So when the 28,000-strong Muslim-majority city of Hamtramck, Michigan passed an ordinance declining to wave gay pride flags from city buildings, they couldn't believe their eyes. According to The Guardian:In 2015, many liberal residents in Hamtramck, Michigan, celebrated as their city attracted international attention for becoming the first in the United States to elect a Muslim-majority city council.They viewed the power shift and diversity as a symbolic but meaningful rebuke of the Islamophobic rhetoric that was a central theme of then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.This...

The recruiting crisis within the U.S. military is a very real thing, and while senior military leaders and “military experts” have been putting the blame squarely on young people, all signs point to the bigger issue boiling down primarily to one thing: the federal government’s dangerous obsession with all things woke. From my perspective as a civilian, there is also the issue of how there seems to be a deemphasis on taking pride in America (which of course goes along with wokeness), with the focus being more on placating those with hurt feelings that go along with their long list...

Despite growing backlash against the “pride” movement in 2023, there has been a noticeable increase in allegedly religious groups showing public support for homosexuality, transgenderism, and other aspects of the LGBTQ agenda. According to NPR, the rise in ostensibly religious groups’ support for pride is due to a nationwide initiative called Faith for Pride, run by the far-left group Interfaith Alliance. The group consists of multiple religions and denominations, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and others. “We are not going to let this happen to our LGBTQ siblings,” said Baptist minister Paul Raushenbush, president of the Interfaith Alliance. “Not on...

No human has the power to make ugly what God has made good.As I write, our children’s schoolroom is festooned with rainbows. Christina Rossetti’s poem is on one shelf, Frederic Edwin Church’s painting on another. Hand-painted rainbows — colored with enthusiasm if not with Church’s skill — by our 5- and 3-year-olds hang on the walls. Are we taking a cue from the president, professional sports, and all the nation’s most powerful corporations and doing our part to celebrate pride in our little homeschooling way? No. Our lessons follow the seasons, and because it is spring, we have a week...

June is gay pride month. The homosexual community has adopted the rainbow as their symbol of God’s acceptance of their actions and lifestyle. But what does the Bible say about this?The only place in the Bible that addresses the rainbow is in Genesis 9 after the Noahic flood that destroyed the earth because the world had become so violent and sexually promiscuous in Genesis 6.After the flood, God re-established his covenant with humanity through Noah and his family. The Message Bible says it like this, Genesis 9:1-4 God blessed Noah and his sons: He said, “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill the Earth!...

According to several ‘Chosen’ actors, tolerance is apparently a one-way street.I have never been one to jump on the boycott bandwagon. Sure, if I have a choice between a seller that shares my values and one that doesn’t, I will choose to do business with the former. And if I turn on a program or walk into a store that assaults me from every side with the demand that I embrace something I can’t, I will turn around and leave.However, until recent backlash efforts like those against Bud Light and Target, I haven’t seen boycotts accomplish much. And I find...

Disney’s The Little Mermaid star Melissa McCarthy had a starring role at Sunday’s West Hollywood Pride Parade where some participants engaged in explicit BDSM sex acts in full view of the public. One report claimed that children were present on the parade route where the BDSM activity took place. On Sunday, Melissa McCarthy wore a headpiece with the words “Say Gay” as she rode her own float during the parade, which took over a large section of Santa Monica Boulevard running through the heart of West Hollywood. Her headpiece was apparently a reference to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law,...

As a proud American who happens to be gay, I say it's time to end gay pride month.Last week the Los Angeles Dodgers came under intense criticism, including from a number of the team's players, for inviting a group of "queer and trans nuns" with a long history of anti-Catholic activities to its "10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night" on June 16th.This is just the latest controversial virtue signal on gay alphabet-soup identity politics, following close on the (high) heels of Bud Light's decision to promote a flamboyant transgender influencer on its cans and Target and Kohl's stores marketing transgender children's...

While at least nine Americans have been killed in the war, alongside hundreds of other foreign volunteers, Campbell was the very first and only to be buried in Ukraine.In just over a year, Ukraine and its struggle became everything for Campbell, who drew upon his experience serving in the U.S. military to fight with distinction among some of the war’s toughest battles, training and sharing experience with Ukrainian soldiers on the way.