Free Republic

Here's a poll to Freep. A 'marriage equality' group on Facebook has been hard at work...let's outdo them. How do you feel about gay marriage? I'm opposed due to moral beliefs. 51 Votes ( 2% ) I'm opposed due to religious beliefs. 60 Votes ( 2% ) I just think it's wrong. 114 Votes ( 4% ) All of the above. 488 Votes ( 18% ) I'm "OK" with gay marriage. 2039 Votes ( 74% )

Fr. Michael Rodriguez, pastor of San Juan Bautista Catholic Church. El Paso, Texas, Aug 3, 2010 / 06:01 am (CNA).- Warning of the possibility of a corrupt democracy, Texas priest Fr. Michael Rodriguez has written that Catholics have the “absolute duty” to oppose abortion and all government attempts to legalize same-sex unions.The parish priest of El Paso’s San Juan Bautista Catholic Church, Fr. Rodriguez published a short essay in the Sunday El Paso Times urging all Catholics to take the teachings of the Catholic Church to heart.Every Catholic, out of “fidelity to charity and truth,” must oppose “the murder...

Washington D.C., Oct 9, 2009 / 05:35 pm (CNA).- A new survey shows that a majority of Americans continue to oppose same-sex “marriage” and consider homosexual behavior immoral. However, opponents of same-sex “marriage” may have become more favorable towards allowing legal arrangements for homosexual couples.The Washington, D.C.-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life reported that 53 percent of Americans say they are opposed to same-sex “marriage,” with only 39 percent saying they favor legal recognition for the practice.While only 30 percent of regularly churchgoing non-Hispanic white Catholics favored same-sex “marriage,” 54 percent of those who attend less than...

The juxtaposition of same-sex "marriage" being approved in California with the raid on the Texan polygamists seems to have made a few people ponder the logical connection between homosexuality and polygamy -- and, in some cases unhappily, reflect that former senator Rick Santorum was right when he said the Supreme Court's Lawrence decision would lead to sexual arrangements few people now approve.   And if so, the Unitarians will have gotten there first. A few years ago, a group called Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness declared that they wanted to "take their place beside the divorced, the intentionally single,...

The United States has responded vigorously to this crisis. In 2003, I asked Congress to approve an emergency plan for AIDS relief. Our nation pledged $15 billion over five years for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care in many of the poorest nations on Earth. In the years since, thanks to the support of the United States Congress and the American people, our country has met this pledge. This level of assistance is unprecedented, and the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in human history.

A FRENCH gay group has been ordered to pay one euro in damages to Notre Dame cathedral in Paris for staging a mock "gay wedding" to protest against what it called the Catholic Church's homophobia. The Paris court that issued the ruling said the group, Act Up Paris, had violated the freedom of religion by staging the fake ceremony without permission from the cathedral.“The provocative act of June 2005 and the unrest it caused shocked many people of different faiths, whether believers or not, both in France and beyond,” the Paris archdiocese said.Act Up Paris said it was considering appealing...

In the continuing debate on same-sex “marriage,” proponents commonly highlight the 1,049 benefits extended by the federal government to couples united in marriage. They claim that such benefits and those of the states should also be extended to homosexual couples.  Indeed, this was the reasoning of the New Jersey’s Supreme Court judges who ruled that the state must extend state benefits to same-sex couples by the mere fact that they are analogous couples. In the name of a supposed equality of relationship, they mandated same-sex “marriage” or its exact equivalent on the Garden State.In face of this ruling, some fundamental...

Mexico City, Nov. 13, 2006 (CNA) - The Bishops’ Council of the Archdiocese of Mexico said last week a new law passed by the Mexico City legislature legalizing gay unions is a farce intended to placate minority groups.  The council also expressed support for Cardinal Norberto Rivera, who was harassed recently at the Cathedral of Mexico City. In a statement, the Council said the new norm, which opens the door to gay marriage, is a response to “minority and radical groups” and “shows contempt for the view of the majority of Catholics,” who “represent more than 80% of our city’s...

Washington DC, Jun. 12, 2006 (CNA) - Cardinal Theodore McCarrick issued a clarification Friday on remarks he made during an interview on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. The interview had generated some concern among many Catholics. The cardinal said he recognized that his remarks could have given the wrong impression to people who took them out of context. “I’m afraid that I misspoke last Wednesday when I was being interviewed on CNN,” the cardinal wrote, referring to the June 7 interview. The cardinal explained that he and Blitzer were discussing the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment that had yet...

The Vatican today published a sweeping condemnation of contraception, abortion, in-vitro fertilisation and same-sex marriage, declaring that the traditional family has never been so threatened. The document was issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, whose head, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, is a strong opponent of the use of condoms under any circumstances. Gay activists in Italy condemned the report as a grotesque attack against modern life, freedom and social redemption.The 57-page document does not break any new ground but summarised traditional Vatican positions."Man of modern times has radicalised the tendency to take the place of God and substitute him," it...

VATICAN, January 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an address to the leaders of the Christian Associations of Italian Workers Friday, Pope Benedict XVI warned, "As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism." Benedict was in fact making his own the statement first uttered by his predecessor John Paul II, who made the statement in 2000. (see coverage: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2000/feb/00022501.html ) Benedict XVI highlighted how, in our time, science and technology "present huge possibilities for improving everyone's lives," but warned that "the misguided use of such power can provoke grave and irreparable threats to the...

Tens of thousands of Italians protested on Saturday demanding legal recognition for gay unions and the right to abortion, two days after Pope Benedict condemned homosexual marriage and the use of the abortion pill.Clutching banners reading "We will no longer be silenced," the demonstrators, many women and gay couples, crammed into squares in Rome and financial capital Milan."We thought the church had withdrawn from interfering in Italian politics ... but instead there is a terrible resurgence. These are ugly signs for freedom of expression," Nobel literature laureate Dario Fo, a social campaigner, told reporters at the Milan protest.Police said 50,000...

CALGARY, September 29, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Calgary’s Bishop Fred Henry has come out swinging again, this time warning that the normalization of same-sex “marriage” will “usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before.”In a pastoral letter published in the Calgary Sun on September 11, Bishop Henry warned that “Same-sex marriage proponents use the language of openness, tolerance and diversity, yet the foreseeable effect of their success will be to usher in an era of intolerance and discrimination the likes of which we have rarely seen before.”He warned that same-sex “marriage” and...

Every once in a while, a case comes along that makes me truly grateful to be a Catholic. Our Holy Mother Church has been looking out for us and trying to keep us out of trouble, even when we chafe at her constraints. But when I see the trouble people get themselves into, I am grateful for our Holy Mother’s foresight. That is how I felt when I read the California Supreme Court’s ruling on the April 22 case, K.M v. E.G. Perhaps you don’t remember a case by that name, but surely you remember the headlines: “California Establishes Lesbian...

SACRAMENTO, August 11, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The California Supreme Court said Wednesday that it would not hand down a ruling on the constitutionality of same-sex “marriage.” The decision means the issue remains open – a ruling welcomed by a pro-family group that is pushing for a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex “marriage” for the state.Executive Director of Campaign for California Families, Randy Thomasson, told the Associated Press, “It's very good that the high court declined to hear this case.” Thomasson had asked the court not to rule on the issue. “The high court should never turn marriage upside down...

Bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada agreed not to encourage same-sex union blessings but fell short of placing a moratorium on such ceremonies. The House of Bishops also sidestepped a request that the church voluntarily withdraw from a key international Anglican meeting because of the same-sex marriage blessing issue. The Anglican Church of Canada, alongside its US counterpart, was asked to refrain from attending the Anglican Consultative Council in 2005 by churches worldwide. The U.S. Church decided to abide by the request last month but the Canadian church had not yet responded. During the House of Bishops' meeting in...

In a recent hour-long interview on the Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio, I praised Catholics worldwide for their unwavering stand on the right to life. Catholics have been among the leading voices behind saving countless numbers of God's most precious from a horrible, tortuous death in of all places — their mothers’ wombs. An Evil Agenda Puts the Pedal to the Metal Catholics, along with people of other faiths, have stood out in the rain, in the snow and the burning sun faithfully for decades, pleading with mothers not to do the unthinkable and murder their own children....

People who understand how bad an idea same-sex “marriage” really is owe a debt of gratitude to New York City trial court Judge Doris Ling-Cohan. Just when interest in a constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage seemed to be flagging, Judge Ling-Cohan's in-your-face ruling that homosexuals have a right to marry in the state pumped energy into the amendment drive. That aside, nevertheless, Bush's reading of the current situation must be taken seriously. He put it like this:The point is...that senators have made it clear that so long as DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act] is deemed constitutional, nothing will...

TIMMINS, ON, February 9, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In conjunction with Campaign Life Coalition Timmins, a local pro-life and pro-family organization, Timmins Ontario Bishop Paul Marchand will participate in a peaceful, prayerful demonstration in front of the constituency office of Charlie Angus, Member of Parliament for Timmins - James Bay tomorrow. According to local organizers, the purpose of the demonstration is to protest Mr. Angus' position in favour of same sex legislation and to stress the importance of keeping the traditional definition of marriage as a union of one man and one women. A press release from the diocese notes that...

Deborah Chymyshyn and Tracey Smith found just the hall they wanted to rent for their wedding reception. It was located behind a church in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam and managed by the Knights of Columbus, an organization they thought was the same as the Elks.That mistake -- confusing the Elks with the Knights -- has taken them into the epicentre of the national debate on same-sex marriage, with Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives citing the couple as Exhibit A in the Tories' declaration that government legislation unveiled yesterday permitting homosexuals to marry will result in severe assaults...