Free Republic

Following the Democrats’ sweeping victory of statewide offices on Tuesday, the Texas Supreme Court will shift from 9-0 Republican control to 5-4 Republican control in January. As part of the shift, Ellis will be replacing the Republican Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock. Ellis previously served as a justice on the Austin-based Third Court of Appeals. In her first public statement since the election, Ellis told the Dallas Morning News that she wants to ensure that any judges who officiate weddings in Texas also do so for homosexual couples, removing the religious freedom exemptions. “One thing I’d like to do is work...

On November 5, 2026, the city of West Hollywood, California, unanimously passed an ordinance allowing throuples, foursomes, and other multi-partner “domestic relationships” to register with the city clerk. These registered polyamorous partnerships receive limited legal protections, including hospital visitation rights and certain tenancy safeguards, while the mayor and activists celebrate the expansion of “non-traditional family structures.” Attorney and activist Christina Fialho, who pushed for the measure, did not hide the trajectory.“This law is just the beginning,” she told the Los Angeles Times, adding that it could help people “envision a future they previously considered out of reach.”

WASHINGTON — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) claimed in a new interview that President Trump has a “creepy obsession” with her and is spreading “conspiracy theories” — likening the federal inquiry into her alleged immigration fraud to questions about former President Barack Obama’s birthplace. The Somalia-born progressive is under investigation by the Justice Department, which could yank her US citizenship if issues are found with her 2000 naturalization papers. The Obama DOJ previously investigated her 2009 marriage to her alleged brother, Ahmed Elmi. “Trump has an unhealthy and creepy obsession with me. I represent everything Trump and today’s Republican Party seem...

Embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar’s ex-husband and rumored brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, referred to himself as a “gay man” in an academic paper published earlier this year. Elmi’s self-described sexual orientation adds to the mounting evidence that his 2009 marriage to Omar was a sham to obtain legal immigration status for her alleged brother. “As a gay man of the East African diaspora, my fieldwork was never neutral,” Elmi, a doctoral researcher at the University of Bristol, wrote in an August 2026 paper titled, “Out in the Field: Notes on Researching Queer Violence in Kenya.” “It was a space shaped...

A deleted 2013 social media post in which Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., appeared to refer to her father by a different name has resurfaced as federal investigators examine questions surrounding her identity and immigration records. "Happy Father’s Day to my aabo Nur Said, I am forever grateful to Allah for giving me the best father …," Omar wrote in the June 2013 post, which was deleted in 2019. Several records, including a memorial post by the Congressional Black Caucus marking his death in 2020, refer to Omar’s father as "Nur Omar Mohamed." But the now-deleted X post has Omar calling...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) has denied allegations this week she fraudulently married second husband and alleged brother Ahmed Elmi — but when asked if they were related, cautiously replied “not to my knowledge.” The Minnesota congresswoman, who arrived in the US as a refugee from Somalia in 1995, has vehemently denied allegations she married Elmi for immigration purposes. But significant evidence has emerged which continues to fuel speculation that is not the case: Clue 1: The marriage certificate Omar, 45, legally married Elmi, 41, who she described as a British citizen, in the US in 2009 and they divorced in...

ISLAMIC HEZBOLLAH AND PROSTITUTION - PIMPING FOR JIHADTerrorist and organized crime groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America A Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the United States GovernmentAuthor: Rex Hudson Project manager: Glenn Curtis July 2003 [Homepage: http://loc.gov/rr/frd/] TERRORIST AND ORGANIZED CRIME GROUPS IN THE. TRI-BORDER AREA ( TBA) OF SOUTH AMERICA. Hizballah. Islamic terrorist groups have used the TBA for fund-raising, drug .... TBA for illicit activities such as smuggling, money laundering, and product piracy. ..... Ciudad del Este is an oasis for informants and spies; peddlers...

The old joke that “whoever said marriage is a 50-50 proposition didn’t know the half of it,” takes on a whole new meaning in a culture flirting with “polyamory.”... Most important in the drive to normalize polyamory is the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision. By legalizing same-sex “marriage” nationwide, the male/female distinction was treated as irrelevant for marriage, which opened the door to additional relational arrangements. In his dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts even questioned whether the arguments for same-sex marriage would justify “people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships.” The answer is unfortunately “yes.”

The Beatles told us: "All you need is love." They were right, but along with love must come marriage. But marriage rates have plummeted, especially among young men. A Pulitzer Prize-worthy story by Sean Salai of The Washington Times crunches all the numbers. To say they are worrisome would be a vast understatement. -- In 2025, nearly twice as many men ages 18 to 39 were unmarried as were married. -- There were 30.4 million unmarried men ages 18 to 39 in 2025, up 47% from 20.7 million in 2000. -- In the same period, married men in this age...

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) recently estimated that the gap between unmarried and married men under the age of 40 continues to widen—with 15 million more bachelors than husbands between the ages of 20 to 39 in 2025. The gap has widened by 12.4 million since 2000, when the gap between married and unmarried stood at 2.6 million. IFS also reports, according to a General Social Survey, 11 percent of young adults in the early 2000s said they were “not too happy.” That percentage is now at 26 percent. During the same period, the number of married men ages...

More young men in America are remaining single than ever before, with the rate almost doubling over the last quarter century, according to concerning new data released earlier this week. Statistics compiled by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) revealed that there were 30.4 million single men aged 18 to 39 in 2025 in the U.S., amounting to almost 10 million more bachelors than there were in 2000 (20.7 million). IFS further estimated that there were 15 million more single men than husbands in this age group in 2025. In 2000, there was only a 2.6 million difference. This rise...

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on Thursday asserted that Somali-born Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) “married her brother” as part of an alleged fraudulent immigration scheme — and could face deportation. Mullin made the comment to conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, as he discussed the “ongoing” federal investigation into the “Squad” congresswoman, at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas. “We know that she married her brother to try to bring him to the United States,” Mullin said confidently. “We know he lives now in London,” the DHS chief added, referring to Omar’s ex-husband.

If you’re looking to get married, the place to go might be the Provo area in Utah. Or maybe Fort Wayne and the southern suburbs in Indiana. Both locations feature some of the highest rates of new marriages over the past year in the country, according to a new project by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) called the Marriage Map. In the Provo area, fully 13.2 percent of never-married adults aged 22 to 39 got married last year. In the Fort Wayne area, the number was 10.6 percent. The Marriage Map is a newly released, interactive online map created...

WASHINGTON — The feds nabbed 11 suspects accused of operating a decade-long, multimillion-dollar marriage fraud scheme that resulted in around 1,000 sham weddings between primarily Chinese nationals and US citizens for the purpose of getting the Asians green cards. The “cottage industry” uncovered Wednesday charged foreign nationals up to $100,000 for each fake union, including submitting fraudulent applications to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on behalf of those seeking lawful permanent residency. The sham wedding ring used advertisements on social media platforms, held phony marraige ceremonies and even had both parties to the fake unions sign bizarre pre-nuptial agreements,...

Weddings are a joyous occasion, and I’ve heard of at least three in my social circles in the upcoming months. But two of these weddings are diverting from the norm of a weekend celebratory affair, choosing instead to hold their nuptials on a weekday. “A weekday?!” one might well say. “How inconsiderate! I can’t take a whole day off from work just to attend a wedding!”But perhaps that’s the whole point – not to be inconsiderate, of course, but to trim costs. After all, setting a wedding for a weekday reduces the costs of venues, caterers, florists, and other services,...

For most Virginians, three more years of Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) feels like an eternity. The mom-next-door-turned-radical-Democrat has spent the last seven months shedding her moderate skin and pushing policies that are wildly out-of-step with her middle-of-the-road state. And while voters can’t send her packing any time soon, they can deliver an emphatic rebuke to the historically unpopular governor on two issues that matter most: abortion and marriage. In November, Virginians have a chance to beat back the extremists in Richmond on a pair of ballot initiatives that could turn the Commonwealth into a deep-blue stronghold on core social values....

A majority of Americans still support same-sex 'marriage,' but a new poll reaffirms a notable decline over the past few years.

One of the most worrying trends in Western societies is the failing institution of marriage. Not only are divorce rates high, but increasingly young people are opting out altogether. A generation ago, 80 to 90 percent of the population in the United States would have been married by the age of 35; the number is now closer to 60 percent and has been falling over the past 10 years. That number matters because marriages are less likely to produce children after 35. In virtually all Western countries, the birth rate is now below replacement, which is almost certainly linked to...

For years we've been told there are certain issues that are simply too controversial to decide. So what do organizations do? They create a committee. Study it. Delay it. Hope the controversy cools off before anyone has to take a position. That's exactly what happened this week. The only problem? The organization wasn't a Fortune 500 company trying to navigate corporate politics. It wasn't Congress trying to avoid a difficult vote. It was a Christian denomination trying to decide whether its pastors should be... monogamous. Yes, you read that correctly. The Presbyterian Church (USA) postponed debate over a proposal that...

Americans age 50 and older are getting divorced—with almost half of all broken marriages in recent years coming from aging Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. Gray divorces doubled between 1990 and 2010, until they comprised about one in four of all divorces nationally... And though divorce has been dropping in most age groups across America, it has not among people 50 years and older. Michael Stutman, a top New York City divorce lawyer, thinks a “popular culture” shift around modern marriage expectations, coupled with staring down the barrel of mortality, could be playing a part. “The thing about people who...