Free Republic

It's a tough call which accidental placement of Mitt Romney's online campaign ads, as reported by the New York Times, is funnier: The irony of the same-sex marriage-opposing former governor unintentionally urging readers of Gay.com to "Join Team Mitt!" is pretty strong. But in the end we're going to have to go with the Mormon family man, desperate for Americans not to perceive his religion as some kind of weird cult, advertising on FanFiction.net. In case you're not familiar, that's where users can write their own plots about their favorite fictional characters or read the work of others "including pornographic...

The Republican party’s having a gay identity crisis as of late - and the ideological winner could change the party’s political fate, not to mention the election. As Kerry Eleveld eloquently explains in the Advocate, three of the presidential contenders oppose a federal amendment against gay marriage: John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, although the latter wants to make sure no one state has to endorse another’s married gays. Regardless of Thompson’s middle ground, his and his peers’ moderate stances show that the Republican party’s facing an important decision. Will they stick to their guns and give the once...

Most Republican presidential candidates can brag about attracting followers with their valiant stances on important issues. Rudy Giuliani's followers support him because they think he can beat Hillary Clinton. In and by itself, the reasoning of Giuliani's supporters is not illogical. Many people do take into account electability when voting for a primary candidate (although most will not sacrifice their basic principles in the name of an election victory). The problem is, this perceived electability is the only thing going for Giuliani. But here is the real kicker: Giuliani is not electable. In fact, he is far less electable than...

Printer friendly E-mail this story Alex Whitney out for votes as a gayRepublican In the deep-blue DFL election precincts around Minneapolis' Lake of the Isles, a young Republican legislative candidate with strong GOP bloodlines is trying on a new campaign color: lavender. "My name is Alex Whitney and I am a Gay Republican," reads a campaign mailing sent Tuesday by the GOP-endorsed opponent of state House DFL Leader Margaret Anderson Kelliher. "There ... I said it." Whitney, 26, is making his first run for office in a district that hasn't been friendly to Republicans of any orientation for decades.

MY REVIEW of C.A. Tripp's The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln for THE WEEKLY STANDARD has caught the attention of several bloggers--but Andrew Sullivan seems to have been the most irritated. Indeed, his website contains half a dozen angry references to my essay--and that's not counting the drive-by blast he fired off in a column for the New Republic.Perhaps Sullivan deserves some answer, for he insists THE WEEKLY STANDARD must apologize for my calling Tripp's book a hoax and a fraud--although one would have more confidence in Sullivan's complaints if he gave a stronger sense of having actually read my...

THE PASSION OF IRAQ: Iraq has been a free country for a single year after decades of fascism, mass murder, communal paranoia, hysteria, random violence, and economic collapse. Did we expect the place to become Toledo overnight? The closer we get to transferring power, the more the extremist factions need to prevent a peaceful transition and establish their own power bases for the next phase. The closer we get to a self-governing Arab state, the more terrified Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest will be that their alternatives - theocratic fascism and medieval economics - will look pathetic in...

<p>BATON ROUGE - The national debate over gay marriage is headed for the Louisiana Legislature this spring.</p> <p>The religious right is gearing up for a state ban on gay marriage and an outlaw of any state or local taxpayer dollars spent on domestic partner benefits, whether they are extended to straight or gay couples.</p>