Free Republic

After months of preparation, a theologically conservative denomination has broken away from the Reformed Church in America, with 43 congregations joining the new body on New Year’s Day. Known as the Alliance of Reformed Churches, the new denomination was created as the RCA continues to deal with a debate over its official stance on LGBT issues. Dan Ackerman, director of Organizational Leadership at ARC, wrote in a blog post last June that there were “three primary convictions” that led to the formation of the new denomination. “The Bible as understood within Reformed theology — its understanding of God, sin and...

Balkovec was introduced Wednesday as manager of the New York Yankees' low-A affiliate in the Florida State League. In taking over the Tampa Tarpons, Balkovec will become the first female manager in the history of affiliated baseball, an appointment 10 years in the making for the former college softball player. Nearly a decade after changing her name on resumes to disguise her gender and break into baseball, the 34-year-old has smashed several barriers en route to this title. She was the first woman to serve as a full-time minor league strength and conditioning coach, then the first to be a...

National Human Trafficking Awareness Day is January 11, the article, titled “What the public keeps getting wrong about pedophilia,” was published the day before. The piece was authored by Alia E. Dastagir, who covers topics like sexism, racism, media ethics and mental health. “When most of the public thinks of pedophilia, they assume it’s synonymous with child sexual abuse, a pervasive social problem that has exploded to crisis levels online. Researchers who study pedophilia say the term describes an attraction, not an action, and using it interchangeably with ‘abuse’ fuels misperceptions,” Dastagir wrote. She continued, “Not all people who sexually...

Twenty-six years after Israel became the first country to pass a state-supervised surrogacy law that included only married heterosexual couples, the Health Ministry has announced a change allowing same-sex couples, transexuals and single fathers to make arrangements for producing a baby with surrogate in Israel.“This is a historic day for the struggle of the LGBT community in Israel and for Israeli society as a whole. We are putting an end to years of injustice and discrimination – the surrogacy equality revolution is underway,” declared Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, who himself is openly homosexual. He made the announcement along with ministry...

Just three months ago, I wrote that the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America had appointed its first transgender bishop — in this case, Megan Rohrer, a woman who sliced off her breasts, kept her female name, and claimed to be a man. Now Rohrer has been suspended for being racist. Live by woke political correctness; die by woke political correctness.It was a big deal when Megan Rohrer, a woman who claims to be a man and insists on being referred to by the pronouns "they" and "them," was installed as bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran...

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND—According to sources, a dangerous right-wing extremist named J.K. Rowling has taken to the internet to spread hateful rhetoric. Authorities have called for decisive action to silence the bigoted fascist before she further spreads her message. "Men aren't women," said the disgusting transphobe in a recent Twitter post. She then doubled down on her controversial message by also saying "Women aren't men." "This is a hate crime," said EU Diversity Minister Günter Schreiber. "Everyone knows that women aren't a real thing, but rather a fantastical state of being that ebbs and flows through the human imagination like a wisp...

An LGBT club for kindergarteners, 'two-spirit' sexuality, and a radical leftwing understanding of sex were all promoted in the nation's second largest school district.The Los Angeles Unified School District’s Office of Human Relations, Equity and Diversity hosted a 10-week online club for LGBT elementary schoolers, down to four-year-olds. It also prepared a series of presentations that promoted leftwing gender theory and deviant sexualities including the “Two Spirit” sexuality. The club was called “Rainbow Club,” and met once a week for 10 weeks. It was advertised to students from preschool to fifth grade as a “virtual club for LGBTQ+ elementary school...

President Joe Biden's nominee for the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Senate "gender advisers" for combat troops are critical to the United States' success, a position some veterans say is nothing more than a left-wing initiative that distracts from the military's core duties. The revelation came during a Dec. 8 exchange with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.), who asked how Adm. Christopher Grady intends to implement "women, peace, and security" legislation within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Allyn Walker, a former professor at Old Dominion University who identifies as non-binary, resigned last month following criticism stemming from Walker’s views on pedophilia. Walker argued that pedophiles should be destigmatized by identifying them as “minor-attracted persons” (“MAPs”) rather than the pejorative term “pedophile,” because attraction to children is a sexual orientation and not immoral.The pretense is that pedophiles are more likely to seek treatment if their sexual proclivities are destigmatized. Instead of relying on empirical evidence to determine the reasons for those proclivities or strategies that will keep children safe, Walker relies on queer theoretical tools to argue that...

New Ways Ministry, a far-left, dissident LGBT group, has leaked to the press two letters written to them by Pope Francis. In the letters, Francis thanks the organization for their 'neighborly work' and praises its dissident founder, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, as a "valiant woman." New Ways Ministry was officially barred from calling itself a Catholic ministry and from working with homosexuals in 1999 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was serving as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. ...

LYNNE, FLORIDA –A 41-year-old truck driver and self-described “powerhouse progressive and LGBT” former Florida congressional candidate is dead after a final month of life filled with vitriol. Mr. Richard “Ricky” Rowe was already, for lack of better term, an unpleasant personality based on his Facebook and Twitter archives. The injections exacerbated it, providing more evidence that these shots change people’s personalities and psychological states of mind. Mr. Rowe was a truck driver by trade. But he ran for seats in the Florida House Of Representative and the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020. He lost in the primaries in the...

For her first Great Dickens Christmas Fair in 2015, LaToya Tooles fashioned a gown out of dollar-store hula hoops and a tablecloth. A friend had invited her to the annual event, a festive re-creation of 19th century London inspired by the works of Charles Dickens that has been running in San Francisco for nearly 40 years. Almost as soon as she arrived at the antique winter wonderland, she joined the revelers on Fezziwig’s dance floor and didn’t stop waltzing for hours. “I met some of my greatest friends at the Dickens Fair,” says Tooles, who went on to join the...

It was 2015 when I first sat down with my former MP and told him that transgenderism was a threat to civil society. He eyed me with the sort of benevolent scepticism usually reserved for people who claim Jesus sends them messages through car number plates. At the time there were just a handful of people warning that men were marching in size-10 stilettos into women-only hospital wards and on to female-only shortlists by identifying as trans.

Botswana's government on Monday lost a legal attempt to overturn a landmark ruling that decriminalized homosexuality. The country's High Court in 2019 ruled in favor of campaigners seeking to strike down jail sentences for same-sex relationships, declaring the punishment to be unconstitutional. But the government sought to revoke the ruling, arguing that the courts had no jurisdiction in this matter.

Pete Buttigieg has long been a man in a hurry. Since 2010, he has run for treasurer of Indiana, mayor of South Bend, chair of the Democratic National Committee, and president of the United States. At 39, he is one of the most omnipresent and newly-powerful members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. But he says he’s not thinking about what comes next, even as he’s buzzed about as a potential Biden heir.

Just weeks after Glenn Youngkin was elected Governor of Virginia, conservatives are already accusing him of stabbing them in the back. His communications staff includes a skirt-wearing LGBT man who lists pronouns in his Twitter biography, and Youngkin’s transition team is led by a former Bush Administration official who is pro-Black Lives Matter. Though Youngkin was elected during a statewide culture war as voters pushed back on the radical left’s LGBT agenda and Critical Race Theory, Joshua Marin-Mora, a member of Glenn Youngkin’s communications staff, appears to be fighting for the opposite side. Marin-Mora lists his preferred pronouns in his...

Loudoun Valley High School in Purcellville, Va., failed to notify parents of their ability to opt their children out of an invasive survey before giving the survey to at least 180 students, asking students as young as 12 about their sexual activity, drug use, and sex “identities.”The survey, which is billed as being “about health behavior,” asks students as young as 12 years old personal questions like “Some people describe themselves as transgender when their sex at birth does not match the way they think or feel about their gender. Are you transgender?”Students are then given the options to answer...

A discussion between pupils over the types of pronouns that could be used to describe people in the Spanish language on a bus ride home got out of hand and ultimately led to a student being suspended, with the school now being sued by the teen. The New Hampshire student-athlete together with his mother is suing his school district after he was suspended from a football game for expressing his views that there are 'only two genders.' The student is seeking nominal damages against New Hampshire School Administrative Unit 16 (SAU16) and Exeter High School Assistant Principal Marcy Dovholuk. The...

My eighth grade son recently got a “lesson” in English class that featured a video of a transgender activist making a speech that includes sexually suggestive language.As a society, we have seen this sort of thing play out time and time again in recent years. First the left asks for tolerance, then acceptance, and then they demand that you celebrate their push for full “social justice” indoctrination in every classroom in America.The results of the governor’s race in Virginia gives me hope that my wife and I are not alone in concern over schools abusing the trust we place in...

I don't speak Arabic -- though I recently ordered the beginner module from Rosetta Stone which still sits in its wrapper on my desk shelf. (I am in the Arab world a lot however and learning more each trip) Perhaps after the conventions.But a friend, Foued Mokrani, speaks Arabic just fine -- and reported on his Facebook page the following after watching a film during a flight to Paris:I watched the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and noticed they translate the word ''gay" to ''pervert" in the Arabic subtitles!! Very dumb.Mokrani responded:Somehow there is no decent word to say...