Free Republic

As an openly gay politician who lives with her Sri Lanka-born partner in Switzerland, Alice Weidel was an unusual choice to many to lead Germany’s far-right AfD into Sunday’s elections, where it scored its best-ever result. To her legions of political foes, Weidel serves as a “fig leaf” for a party that has railed against asylum seekers, Islam and multiculturalism and some of whose top figures have voiced revisionist views on Germany’s Nazi past. On Sunday the 46-year-old, who says Margaret Thatcher is her political idol, led the Moscow-friendly AfD to a record result of around 20 percent. She told...

An LGBT advocacy group that filed an unsuccessful legal challenge to end religious exemptions to federal Title IX discrimination law for Christian colleges that receive federal funding is closing down. The board of directors for the Religious Exemption Accountability Project emailed an update to supporters on Sunday to announce that they are closing the organization's operations, citing "a serious internal issue" that affected its "financial and operational stability." "While we cannot share all details publicly, we are deeply grateful to the founders, students, alumni, volunteers, donors, and community who believed in this work from day one," stated REAP. "Founded as...

Toronto’s oldest gay bookstore kicked off Pride Month by hosting drag queens who romanticized Hamas. This is mental illness on full display. pic.twitter.com/dIBYOqtLfO — Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) August 8, 2025.https://twitter.com/EYakoby/status/1953646714067304570 Toronto’s oldest gay bookstore kicked off Pride Month by hosting drag queens who romanticized Hamas. First of all, what’s a gay bookstore? Second of all, Toronto is so gone, it’s crazy to see. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10172699426040377&id=749800376&set=a.10150283663490377 Nothing to see here, just a drag queen supporting activity.https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-honest-recruiter_nothing-to-see-here-just-a-drag-queen-supporting-activity-7342203455471534080-i5va

New York City has officially opened its first shelter for transgender and gender-nonconforming people who are homeless. Officials say it’s the only city-funded shelter of its kind in the country and will help 150 transgender New Yorkers as the Trump administration has rolled back rights for the trans community, barring access to medical care, military service and federal documents that reflect their gender identity. The city is fully funding the facility in Long Island City, which will cost $65 million to operate through 2030. “ We've watched so many other corporations and foundations and businesses just like completely turn their...

Governor Greg Abbott today filed an emergency petition in the Supreme Court of Texas seeking to remove from office Texas State Representative Gene Wu, the ringleader of the derelict Democrats who fled the state to break quorum. "I made clear in a formal statement on Sunday, August 3, that if the Texas House Democrats were not in attendance when the House reconvened at 3:00 PM on Monday, August 4, then action would be taken to seek their removal," said Governor Abbott. "They have not returned and have not met the quorum requirements. Representative Wu and the other Texas House Democrats...

I once considered pitching publishers a book called 101 Things That Are Now Suddenly Gay, cataloguing the increasing number of completely non-gay things that fanatical homos now claim are gay after all, from ball bearings to hovercraft, upon no rational basis whatsoever. Yet I have already been beaten to it by a temporary daily series from the pages of lefty U.K. newspaper The Guardian to celebrate this summer’s annual Gay Pride Month(s). This was called “My Unexpected Pride Icon” and was basically my old proposed book in short serial form—but taken seriously, not as a rainbow-mocking joke. ...

In another display of a double standard, patriotic Americans are being blocked from wearing pro-Trump or conservative gear at public concerts and sporting events. Yet, Pride and trans flags are allowed to be freely displayed. At venues like NFL stadiums, pro-Trump shirts or MAGA hats have been confiscated or banned, with fans told that political attire isn’t allowed. Meanwhile, displays of Pride and trans flags are embraced—often part of official event branding or venue-supported inclusion campaigns. In a video posted to X, a man taped himself being kicked out of a St. Louis City game for wearing a MAGA hat....

Trump administration restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender and nonbinary youth violate the Constitution and undermine state laws that require equal access to medical treatment, according to a lawsuit filed today by Attorney General Rob Bonta and 14 other states and the District of Columbia. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, targets a January executive order that makes it U.S. policy not to “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” gender transition for people under 19. The order threatens to pull federal funding from medical institutions that provide this type of care.

LONDON — Bishop Cherry Vann has been elected as archbishop of the Church in Wales, becoming the first woman and LGBTQ cleric appointed to lead any of Britain’s Anglican churches. While the broader, international Anglican Communion has had openly gay bishops before, most notably Gene Robinson in the United States, Vann will be the first lesbian to serve as archbishop globally. The Church in Wales, which broke away from the Church of England in 1920, elected Vann to the post on Wednesday. According to her official biography, Vann lives with her civil partner, Wendy, and the couple’s two dogs. While...

Most reasonable people would agree that meth-fueled orgies are a bad thing, and that having sex with groups of strangers for days on end should be discouraged. Yet some “harm reduction” advocates have suggested that these orgies should be tolerated, perhaps even celebrated. This demonstrates that the harm-reduction movement is more interested in normalizing drug use than mitigating its negative consequences. Meth-fueled orgies emerged as a policy issue in the mid-2010s, following the popularization of so-called “chemsex” (also known as “party and play” or “PnP”) within the gay community. The term refers to having sex while under the influence of...

A Colorado family has fled the US for New Zealand over concerns their nine-year-old transgender daughter could be persecuted if they stay in America. Parents Brandon and Candace, who would not reveal their last name over safety fears, left Denver earlier this month with their kids Holt and Chase.Chase, nine, came out as transgender several years ago and the family started planning a way out after President Donald Trump returned to the White House. The day he did, Trump signed an executive order stipulating that there are only two genders, the family said that within 24 hours they had decided...

When I was a college freshman studying broadcast journalism in 1978, I watched a show on PBS that made me contemplate something that I’d never thought about before: What would I do if one day the government took control of the media, rewarding those who spread the leaders’ propaganda and silencing dissenting voices?

Billionaire mogul David Geffen has rubbished his estranged boytoy husband's explosive claims that he's a sex and drug-crazed abuser. Geffen, 82, branded 32 year-old Donovan Michaels' divorce filing allegations 'false and pathetic'. Donovan Michaels, 32, alleges that his billionaire beau Geffen, 82, forced him to take drugs, subjected him to abusive sex and controlled his every move, according to the latest lawsuit in their messy divorce battle. ... The pair met in 2016 on SeekingArrangements.com, a dating website often used by rich people looking for younger partners. Geffen, a movie and music producer worth about $9 billion, allegedly paid Michaels...

Louisiana is one of 30 states with criminal penalties related to exposing or transmitting HIV. Most of the laws were passed in the 1980s during the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Since then, several states have amended their laws to make them less punitive or repealed them outright, including Maryland and North Dakota this year. But Louisiana’s law remains among the harshest. The state is one of five that may require people such as Smith to register as a sex offender if convicted, a label that can follow them for over a decade. And state lawmakers considered a bill to...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a split decision Thursday rejected an Oregon administrative rule that barred a woman from becoming a foster parent because she said wouldn’t respect the sexual orientation of an LGBTQ+ child.Jessica Bates, of Vale in Malheur County, had sued the state, alleging its policy violated her rights to free speech and religious freedom. Bates, a widowed mother of five, said on her application to become a foster parent that her religious beliefs prevented her from following a rule requiring her to “respect, accept and support” the sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression...

Kaiser Permanente plans to pause surgical gender-affirming care for patients under 19 beginning Aug. 29. The health care provider confirmed the change to SFGATE and said the decision was made due to “significant risks” stemming from escalating federal scrutiny under President Donald Trump’s administration. In January, Trump issued an executive order titled “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” which directed federal agencies to roll back funding, coverage and legal protections for gender-affirming care. In a statement, Kaiser said it made the “difficult decision” to pause surgical care for patients under 19 after consulting with internal and external experts in...

*** In 2025, lawmakers in several states introduced resolutions that urged the Supreme Court to overturn the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established same-sex civil marriage nationwide. The North Dakota House and the Idaho House passed resolutions, but both efforts failed when sent to their respective state senates. In most states, the resolutions died in committees. The limited success was in legislative chambers with overwhelming Republican supermajorities. The Idaho House, for example, has a 61-9 Republican majority and passed the resolution in a 46-24 vote. The North Dakota House, with its 81-11 Republican majority, adopted the resolution more...

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that a trans teacher in Florida has no right to refer to herself with the gendered honorific “Ms.” or ask to be referred to with the pronouns she/her under what critics have called Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. The trans algebra teacher, Katie Wood, sued her employer, the Hillsborough County School Board, in 2023 soon after Florida’s anti-LGBTQ law was enacted. A lower court found that the law likely infringes on her First Amendment free speech rights and granted a preliminary injunction. However, the conservative-leaning appeals court overruled the lower...

The Pennsylvania transgender coach who had been canned for inappropriate conduct, was rehired, but ultimately resigned over a porn video showing him smoking meth, recently admitted he was the one who had sent the incriminating video. David Yates, who coached tennis at Gettysburg High School and switched to the name “Sasha” in 2022, was not rehired following a pair of incidents which included him allegedly “stripping down to bra and panties” in the girls’ locker room. But Yates later reapplied for the position, and had the backing of many who claimed he’d been let go due to “transphobia.” A district...

... an opinion piece released at EndTimeHeadlines reveals that one [United Methodist] congregation has taken the agenda to an extreme. With an F-bomb-laden, LGBT "worship anthem" in which a performer loudly proclaims "I'm f****** gay." The commentary said, "It was once said that when the Church stops offending the world, it has stopped representing Christ. That grim warning came true again in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Zao MKE Church – an official United Methodist congregation – recently led its Sunday worship with a profane, self-glorifying anthem titled, 'I'm F****** Gay.'"