Free Republic

As we watch Roy Moore thumping his Bible to defend himself from accusations of child molestation, let me toss out a verbal hand grenade: To some degree, liberals practice the values that conservatives preach. This is complicated terrain with lots of exceptions, and the recent scandals involving Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. and Al Franken underscore that liberals can be skunks as much as anyone else. Yet if one looks at blue and red state populations as a whole, it’s striking that conservatives champion “family values” even as red states have high rates of teenage births, divorce and prostitution. In contrast,...

Seyi Hunter one of Nollywood uprising actress said women should not walk out of their marriage simply because their husband’s cheat.She said this in a recent discussion with Vanguard The actress told VANGUARD Allure, “It isn’t right for any lady to walk out of her marriage for any reason, except domestic violence is involved. I am not talking about occasional slaps here and there. If he beats you like he’ll beat a thief, my dear sister you need to run for your life because he might kill you one day or disfigure you. But if you leave because of cheating,...

EW YORK (JTA) – Conservative Rabbi Seymour Rosenbloom has been expelled from the Rabbinical Assembly, the movement’s rabbis’ association, for performing interfaith weddings. An ordained Conservative rabbi for 44 years, Rosenbloom was expelled by unanimous vote last month after a hearing of the R.A.’s Executive Council. Since 1972, the Conservative movement has prohibited its rabbis from officiating at or even attending intermarriages. Rosenbloom told JTA the council offered to retain his membership in exchange for a promise not to perform any more intermarriages. Rosenbloom declined the offer.

Men with more than one wife will qualify for extra benefits under the new welfare system, according to official House of Commons research. Under the universal credit welfare system, which is not expected to be fully introduced until 2021, polygamous households will be rewarded with higher benefits, The Sunday Times reports. In the UK, it is illegal to marry more than one person. Polygamous marriages, largely confined to Muslim families, are only recognised in Britain if they took place in countries where they are legal, such as Middle Eastern states, Pakistan and Zambia.

CANBERRA, December 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a unanimous ruling today the Australian High (Supreme) Court stuck down the same-sex "marriage" law passed less than a month ago by the parliament of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The Australian Capital Territory is a statutory territory created to house the federal seat of government, and is mainly associated with the national capital, Canberra. It has internal self-government, but lacks the full legislative independence enjoyed by the Australian states. The Court ruled that the Australian Capital Territory's Marriage Equality (Same Sex) Act 2013 was inconsistent with the Federal Marriage Act, which defines...

A notary in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo has sparked controversy by accepting a civil union between three people. Public Notary Claudia do Nascimento Domingues has said the man and two women should be entitled to family rights. She says there is nothing in law to prevent such an arrangement. But the move has angered some religious groups, while one lawyer described it as "absurd and totally illegal". The three individuals, who have declined to speak to the press, have lived in Rio de Janeiro together for three years and share bills and other expenses. Ms Domingues says they...

BANGOR, Maine — The Sabattus woman who enlisted more than a dozen other Mainers, including family and friends, to enter into sham marriages with immigrants was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court to 10 months in prison. Angela Roy, 37, sobbed as a federal judge described her role as a recruiter and wedding planner in the state’s first spouses-for-hire conspiracy as “extremely significant.” Roy was recruited more than seven years ago by two Massachusetts men, who are natives of Africa, to find men and women willing to marry foreign nationals for a fee so the immigrants could more easily achieve...

Newt Gingrich is a phoenix. He's risen again and again from political ashes and appears to be ascendant once more. Rumored to be running for president in 2012, Gingrich is an icon in the Republican Party, an eminence grise at a time of lost leadership. His fall from grace in the late 1990s seems a blip, rather than a political ending. Thus the cover story in Esquire Magazine, September issue, written by John H. Richardson. If anyone knows something about Newt Gingrich, it is his former wife, Marianne, and Richardson scored an interview with her. She is someone with a...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger weighed into the same-sex marriage legal battle Friday, filing a motion demanding gays and lesbians be allowed to resume tying the knot immediately. Schwarzenegger's legal bid came as a federal judge who overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage mulled a request by supporters of the ban to bar further homosexual weddings until the appeals process had been exhausted. "The Administration believes the public interest is best served by permitting the Court's judgement to go into effect, thereby restoring the right of same-sex couples to marry in California," Schwarzenegger's motion said. "Doing...

"Miss Rawlins, I Need Help"In 1999 the British Labour Party, in one of those boneheaded acts that the left excels at, made a seemingly minor adjustment to it's immigration policy that doomed many thousands of young girls to death, beatings, and a nightmare life. In January 2000 The Independent reported that thousands of young U.K. Muslim girls were being forced into marriages to foreigners, primarily Pakistanis. Many of these girls were third generation Brits, with only a rudimentary understanding of their new language. The groom was often a cousin, a visa seeker--or something worse. And it is not only her...

SOMETIMES when the earth shudders it doesn’t make a sound. That’s what happened in Harrisburg, Pa., recently. On April 30, a state Superior Court panel ruled that a child can have three legal parents. The case, Jacob v. Shultz-Jacob, involved two lesbians who were the legal co-parents of two children conceived with sperm donated by a friend. The panel held that the sperm donor and both women were all liable for child support. Arthur S. Leonard, a professor at New York Law School, observed, “I’m unaware of any other state appellate court that has found that a child has, simultaneously,...

Sin City bills itself as a New York "upscale cabaret club." Don't look for it in Times Square, or even in Manhattan. It has a Park Avenue address, but in the South Bronx. And when it chooses to promote itself, it describes itself as a "Las Vegas-style cabaret." You can still have a good time in New York, of course, but it's no longer synonymous with a term like sin city, the characterization it deserved and shared at times with, among other dens of unbounded bawdiness, Las Vegas, Tangiers, and, yes, upstate Utica. These days, you can't smoke in New...

Empire State Pride Agenda executive director Alan Van Capelle described Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) as "a complete disappointment" in a memo published on The New York Observer's Politicker website, because of her opposition to same-sex marriage, and refused to "lend [his] name and sell tickets" to any fundraiser for Clinton's Senate re-election campaign.

Ban Asian marriages of cousins, says MP By Marco Giannangeli (Filed: 16/11/2005) Marriages between cousins should be banned after research showed alarming rates in defective births among Asian communities in Britain, a Labour MP said last night. The report, commissioned by Ann Cryer, revealed that the Pakistani community accounted for 30 per cent of all births with recessive disorders, despite representing 3.4 per cent of the birth rate nationwide. "We address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity and we say it's a public health issue, therefore we have to get involved with persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle," the MP...

Identifying communities of frequent churchgoers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber found higher incomes and education levels and less welfare participation, along with more marriages and fewer divorces than in the general population. Comparing national statistics on religion and income, Gruber found higher income and education levels in communities densely populated by a particular religion. In communities where the church attendance rate was double that of the general population, incomes were 9 percent higher, for example.

BOSTON, June 16 - More than a year after gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts, Gov. Mitt Romney said Thursday that he would support a newly proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would overturn that right. "My view is that marriage should be defined as a relationship between a man and a woman," Mr. Romney said at a news conference, adding, "I hope that this amendment will ultimately be the one which the citizens have an opportunity to vote on." Mr. Romney's endorsement of the amendment is likely to inject new vigor into the efforts of gay marriage opponents,...

BIRDS do it, bees do it. But not necessarily all of them. Among bees the sisters of queens do not engage in sex. And in certain species of birds - Florida scrub jays, for one - some individuals, known as helpers, do not breed but only help the breeders raise their offspring. But could indifference to sex extend to humans, too? An increasing number of people say yes and offer themselves as proof. They describe themselves as asexual, and they call their condition normal, not the result of confused sexual orientation, a fear of intimacy or a temporary lapse of...

Rojda was 13 when she was raped two years ago by a neighbor in this hardscrabble Kurdish province. In order to "cleanse" her honor, she was forced to marry her attacker in an unofficial Islamic-style ceremony. He later was convicted of raping a 7-year-old boy and has been imprisoned. But Rojda's troubles were far from over, according to an account of her ordeal provided by her family and attorneys. She allegedly was raped again in March by her father-in-law, who she said demanded she prostitute herself to earn her keep. When Rojda refused, the relatives and attorneys charge, a group...

Connecticut is seriously considering giving gay couples the ability to have their relationships legalized in civil unions. A civil union bill took a critical step toward passage when it was approved, 25 to 13, by the Legislature's powerful Judiciary Committee recently, and supporters believe they have the votes in the House and Senate. Gov. M. Jodi Rell has said she supports at least the concept of civil unions. Gay rights advocates have mixed reactions, since they had hoped for a law that would give them the same rights and privileges as any married couple, and call it a marriage. Love...

OP-ED COLUMNIST Leo Tolstoy wrote a lovely novella called "Family Happiness," narrated by a young woman who goes out for a walk with a man she loves. They talk about nothing in particular - frogs, actually - but exchange looks and gestures. "He said goodbye as usual and made no special allusion; but I knew that from that day he was mine, and that I should never lose him now." They are married but grow apart. She likes parties, while he doesn't. Then one day they are sitting at home and her heart suddenly grows light. She looks around and...