Free Republic

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Obamacare’s special protections for transgender individuals and women who choose to have abortions violate religious freedom. Judge Reed O’Connor of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, a George W. Bush appointee, overturned the protections by vacating the Obama-era rule that banned health insurers and providers who receive federal taxpayer funds from denying coverage or treatment to any individual based on sex, gender identity, or termination of pregnancy. As the Hill noted, Reed is the same judge who ruled last December that Obamacare in its entirety is unconstitutional. In January 2017...

Trans-species Dinosaurs & Gender Neutral Uteruses...?! It should come as no surprise that committed pro-choice activists disconnect themselves from things as they really are, opting to live in a made up fairy tale rather than deal in facts. On college campuses across the U.S., Created Equal sees individuals that are the most disconnected from reality in America. Unfortunately the views expressed by the trans-dinosaur in the video are not uncommon. Watch as Seth expertly unpacks the worldview of the left and exposes the foolishness of pro-choice rhetoric. ***VIDEO IS 6 MINUTES LONG***

Beto O’Rourke, innovative for interpreting a failed Senate campaign as a steppingstone to the presidency, is now famous for (1) his use of profanity on the campaign trail, (2) his pledge that “hell, yes” he wants to confiscate AR-15s and (3) his proposal to tax religious institutions that don’t approve of gay marriage. This is not the normal substance of presidential ambitions. Few young people nursing political dreams say: “When I grow up, I want to be a foul-mouthed, overreaching, anti-religious culmination of every exaggerated liberal stereotype and the embodiment of every fevered conservative nightmare.” Perhaps O’Rourke was just precocious...

The issue of gay rights and recognition and acceptance of the LGBTQ community has moved at warp speed—in political terms anyway—this past decade. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage,” said the candidate Barack Obama in 2008. At Thursday night’s nationally televised forum on LGBTQ rights, candidate Beto O’Rourke showed how far, and how quickly, the Democratic Party has moved. The former Texas congressman caused quite a stir when he said he would support revoking the tax-exempt status of religious institutions—colleges, churches, and charities—if they opposed same-sex marriage. (snip)...

Anyone wondering why religious people still support Donald Trump, despite his flaws, need only watch a recording of the Democrats’ fanatical LGBTQ town hall last week. From Elizabeth Warren mocking religious males as incapable of finding a wife to Beto O’Rourke’s promise to strip tax benefits from religious institutions, or Cory Booker’s assertion that Catholics use religion to justify discrimination, you see the ugly face of militant secularism and coercion. It is frightening that every one of the nine Democratic candidates who took part in the CNN event has signed up to extreme policies that attack religious liberty and radically...

David Carr Attacks Street Preacher David Carr owns King of King’s radio network out of Somerset Ky. David attacked the street preachers who were trying to preach the truth. He publicly called Chris McComas of West Virginia voices a dumbbell and he said to Rich Penkoski of Warriors for Christ that he hopes he doesn’t preach because it doesn’t do anything. Apparently David wants to just stand there holding a sign while stepping aside to allow children to go into a bar to watch a drag show. David’s actions are a good example of why perverts and child predators are...

Glenn Davies, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, has a message for people who disagree with him, and his diocese, about same sex blessings – they should leave the church rather than fight. “My own view is that if people wish to change the doctrine of our Church, they should start a new church or join a church more aligned to their views – but do not ruin the Anglican Church by abandoning the plain teaching of Scripture,” he told his Synod (church parliament) in his final address to them. “Please leave us. We have far too much work to do in...

Melbourne City Council member Nic Frances Gilley has introduced a proposal to require Catholic churches to comply with the province of Victoria's new mandatory abuse reporting laws or have signs posted outside warning parents that the houses of worship might pose a danger to children. The Age reports that Gilley is requesting the state "write to all churches and places of worship requesting assurances that all staff and associates will abide by the law of mandatory reporting," and if they do not provide those assurances the state should erect appropriate signage. In September, Victoria passed the Children Legislation Amendment Act...

Amazon took the extraordinary step of laying out its positions on nearly every hot-button topic in the world in a web page that unveiled Thursday, bringing new clarity to the tech company’s public policy agenda. The page, which is simply titled “Our Positions,” states where the Seattle tech giant stands on eleven issues -- several of which have a direct impact on business in America.

A Christian school governor with decades of service has been suspended after saying that she would not have wanted her two sons to read books with LGBT themes. Maureen Griffith, 73, who worked as an NHS nurse for 40 years, was a governor at Alperton Community School in Brent, northwest London, for more than 20 years. In May she received a letter telling her that she had been suspended from the governing body after two complaints alleging that she had made “homophobic comments at a public meeting”. She now fears she will be sacked. The row comes days before the...

[Catholic Caucus] Norbertines Promote ‘Coming Out’ Week on Campus Concerned Catholic students push back gay encroachment on their faith DE PERE, Wis. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A Catholic college in Wisconsin was about to kick off its first LGBTQ-themed week with a "Coming Out" Mass on Oct. 13. But, after a number of the college's concerned Catholic students pushed back, the Coming Out Mass was canceled. The St. Norbert's College (SNC) in De Pere, Wisconsin, is nonetheless scheduled to host a variety of gay-related activities from Oct. 11–18 to honor LGBT History Month and National Coming Out Day, which was Friday, Oct. 11. SNC Coming Out Week schedule The Coming Out...

He says this will include historically black colleges and mosques Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke doubled down on his proposal to revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that do not support same-sex marriage. The former Texas congressman reiterated his support for punitive tax measures against churches or affiliated services that believe marriage is between a man and a woman, a position he introduced at CNN's Equality Town Hall on Thursday evening. NBC host Geoff Bennett asked O'Rourke how he would implement this plan given that the government "can't just dole out punishments on theological grounds." "You are free to...

[Catholic Caucus] Did the Vatican Denounce Scalfari? The column published yesterday by Eugenio Scalfari led to a brief reaction from the Vatican Press Office. Scalfari revealed in the daily La Repubblica that Francis entrusted him, in a personal conversation, with the conviction that Jesus Christ was "not God at all". But how did the Holy See react to this nuclear bomb of atomic bombs?Strictly taciturn. So far, only the new Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni has reacted. He said: "As has been said on other occasions, the words that Dr. Eugenio Scalfari ascribed to the Holy Father in conversations with him, are not as a faithful representation of what has actually...

CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter brought on "Legendary Journalist" Sam Donaldson to unload the usual liberal mantras on Sunday. That's how CNN tagged Sam -- "Legendary Journalist" -- not only on screen, but even in the CNN transcript. Donaldson raised eyebrows much smaller than his by claiming that Trump fans are "fixated" on narrowing the country: "They want to return this country to the white Christian country that they believe it should be again. They don't want the diversity." DONALDSON: I'm telling you something, if public opinion is strongly for the impeachment and the conviction of President Trump, he...

Economist Paul Krugman, the longtime defender of global free trade and a member of the failed “Never Trump” movement, now admits that globalization has failed American workers. In a column for Bloomberg titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” Krugman admits that the economic consensus for free trade that has prevailed for decades has failed to recognize how globalization has skyrocketed inequality for America’s working and middle class workers. Krugman, though, writes that he and his fellow free trade economists “had no way to know” that globalization of the American economy or a surge in trade deficits “were...

Many airlines are making efforts to be more inclusive. For example, earlier this year we saw airlines for the first time add a non-binary gender option when booking travel, including the option to select “X” as your gender (rather than “M” or “F”). Air Canada is largely a progressive airline, and La Presse reports on an internal memo that has been sent to employees. Currently Air Canada’s flight attendants, gate agents, and pilots, refer to passengers as “ladies and gentlemen” when making announcements, but they’ll soon be updating their phrasing to be more gender neutral.

Three women and two men are dead in a shooting in a condominium building on Chicago’s Northwest Side by a neighbor who was known to have “anger management issues,” police said. A woman who had been in critical condition after a gunman opened fire in two units of a Dunning condo building died Sunday from her injuries, bringing the death toll to five from the Saturday night shooting rampage, police said. Authorities said the man left his condo in the 6700 block of West Irving Park Road in the Dunning neighborhood, went to a neighbor’s home in the same building...

[Catholic Caucus] The Evidence Suggests The Francis-Scalfari Connection is No Accident Since the news broke early this week that the nonegenarian atheist socialist editor of Italy’s La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, claimed that Pope Francis told him during one of their many conversations that he did not believe Jesus was God, the Catholic commentariat has been engaged in a rhetorical battle to the death over who to believe, whether it’s true, and what it all means.For those willing to look objectively at the matter, it becomes clear that the confusion is the result of an intentional strategy on the part of the...

The controversial television host, who revealed earlier today that he’ll be debating whether or not he should be fired from his position on tomorrow’s show, has asked his 6.8million Twitter fanbase to show their support by adding their signatures to a Change.org appeal. ‘BREAKING: There is now a rival petition to save me on @GMB,’ Piers wrote. ‘Thank you Margaret Lowry! Please sign it if you wish to repel the snivelling snowflakes & keep me in my job.’ In another post, he added: ‘Spread the word, my people… Sign, RT, and save me as your voice against the shriekingly illiberal...

Exit polls show that independent law professor Kais Saied has won Tunisia's runoff presidential election against Nabil Karoui, a media tycoon recently freed from jail... Saied secured 72.53% of the vote while media mogul Nabil Karoui got 27.47%, the polling firm Emrhod Consulting says, citing exit polls... Karoui is a 56-year-old media tycoon, who up until Wednesday had been jailed on charges of tax evasion and money laundering, and Saied is a 61-year-old jurist and law professor with no political party but backed by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda. In the first round, Saied took 18.4% and Karoui 15.6% among...