Free Republic

A Winlock man was arrested Tuesday after an FBI investigation revealed that he was allegedly using a social networking site and public library Internet service to send and receive child pornography. .... Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt ordered Schnacker held on $100,000 bail. "This is clearly a community safety issue," he said. Hunt said he was particularly concerned about the allegation that Schnacker had used public Wi-Fi to access the images. .... Further investigation showed that Schnacker accessed his Kik account from an IP address assigned to the Timberland Regional Library. ....

Fernande Grudet, who under the name Madame Claude operated a deluxe call-girl ring in Paris in the 1960s and ‘70s that attracted the patronage of world leaders, business executives and playboys and made her a byword for sophisticated sex, died on Saturday in Nice. She was 92. * “Two things in life sell,” she once said. “Food and sex. And I was not meant to be a chef.” Precisely how she built her business remains a mystery, despite two memoirs, larded with colorful and eminently uncheckable stories. But build it she did, grooming a finishing school’s worth of beautiful young...

HOUSTON - Eleven months ago George Pickering II was in a very different place in his life. He was in jail, charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. "I felt hopeless," said Pickering. In January, Pickering grabbed a gun, marched into Tomball Regional Medical Center and became locked in an hours long stand-off with police. During interviews with police, hospital staff told officers Pickering threatened them. Pickering's son, George Pickering III, was in the critical care unit on life support. Pickering said his son had a history of seizures but in January suffered a massive stroke....

December 22, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Alfred Kinsey. That name ought to evoke outrage. If it doesn't, then you don't know the man, his work, or his legacy. I am one of those persons who had never heard of Alfred Kinsey, the so-called father of sexual education. I, like many of my generation, went through sex ed at school and never really thought of the reason I was learning what I was learning. My experience was with the Fully Alive program in a Catholic school in Ontario, where I learned about the detailed parts of the male and female genitalia in grade 6...

June 18, 2015 (ThePublicDiscourse) -- I’m growing weary of being told that I must either support gay marriage or disavow my own marriage. I refer not to anything my wife and I did that would violate the traditional norms of marriage, but to something we had no control over: our ongoing inability to conceive a child. My wife and I, along with all other childless heterosexual couples, often find ourselves presented as exhibit A in the court of public opinion. Our plight has become a standard response to the main reason for traditional marriage, a reason that until lately was...

BOSTON, Massachusetts, December 21, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A Massachusetts judge sided with a practicing homosexual who sued a Catholic school for acting to uphold its Catholic identity. In a first of its kind case, Norfolk Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins ruled that Fontbonne Academy discriminated against Matthew Barrett for his sexual orientation and gender in violation of State law when it withdrew a job offer in 2013. Barrett had been offered the position of food services director at the all-girls Catholic prep school in Milton, MA, but the offer was later rescinded after Barrett had listed another man as his...

The Food and Drug Administration has lifted the ban on blood donations from men who have engaged in sexual relations with another man. Now, in order to donate blood, a man will have had to have been abstinent for the period of one year prior to donation. This new policy is similar to the deferral period for a woman who has engaged in sexual activity with a man who had previously sexual activity with another man, or for someone who has traveled to a country where malaria is prevalent. The Food and Drug Administration released final rules on Monday that...

TORONTO, December 21, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Seven children and 23 years of marriage couldn't stop Stefonknee Wolscht from leaving his family. Now, six years later, the deep-voiced transgender Canadian – formerly known as "Paul" – says he's living as a six-year-old girl. In a video published by The Daily Xtra, in partnership with The Transgender Project, Wolscht says he "can't deny I was married. I can't deny I have children." But he also says that living as a six-year old child, with the support of two older friends who act as his parents, is part of how he's "moved...

December 18, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – One of the most influential evangelical Christian leaders in the United States says the sexual revolution began with the widespread availability of birth control. Dr. Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, made the remarks Saturday on David Wheaton's "The Christian Worldview" radio show. “We are clearly at a very important turning point, but you have to go back to the early twentieth century when sexual revolutionaries largely funded an effort to separate sex and procreation, and that was birth control," Dr. Mohler said. "Most Christians seem to think today...

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Not enough teenagers are being taught about condoms, artificial birth control, and other "skills" "needed to avoid HIV, other STDs, and unintended pregnancy," says a new government report. Every other year, the CDC surveys the nation's high schools and middle schools. Last Wednesday, it released the results of the 2014 School Health Profiles Survey at the National HIV Prevention Conference. The results covered a wide variety of health behaviors, including a section on sexual education. The sexual education results were unsatisfactory, said a press release, which noted that "fewer than half of high...

December 17, 2015 (P-First) – In a recent article from the Huffington Post, Planned Parenthood President, Cecile Richards, answers these two questions: Should sex education classes be taught in elementary school?What would the ideal sex education system look like? Her answers on the surface level seem harmless, with the words "age appropriate" being thrown around. There is also this quote that includes parents, "It's important for parents to talk with their kids and teens about healthy relationships with friends and intimate partners, body boundaries, and healthy communication. Children and teens need to hear about their parents' values and experiences, and we want...

OAKLAND, California, December 17, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – 13-year-old Jahi McMath went into cardiac arrest after a routine tonsillectomy in 2013. Jahi was in oxygen-deprived cardiac arrest for two hours, causing brain damage. Though Jahi lived, her doctors said she was "brain-dead," and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland and Alameda County officials issued a death certificate.  Since Jahi has been declared "dead," insurance no longer covers her health care. Jahi's mother, Nailah Winkfield, sued Jahi's doctor, Dr. Frederick Rosen, for failing to tell her that Jahi's surgery would be "complex and risky" due to Jahi's susceptibility to heavy bleeding and for failing...

According to the modern idea, marriage is merely a consenting relationship between adults, for whatever purposes those adults define. This idea has given us same-sex marriage. As many have pointed out, plural marriage is the next logical step. Why should a marriage so understood be limited to two people? Many same-sex marriage advocates characterized this “slippery slope” argument as fear-mongering while the debate over same-sex marriage was waged in the courts. Now that the debate is over, “stategery” no longer demands such reticence. The endorsement of plural marriage is baked into the cake of the endorsement of same-sex marriage—and that...

Has there ever been a marriage conference where jealousy management and STDs are on the agenda, and where cuddle parties, tantra and BDSM groups beckon from the sidelines? My guess is no, although the “marriage” scene is changing fast.The mainstreaming of “gay marriage” has been accompanied by frank admissions that the majority of gay relationships are not monogamous but at best “monogamish”. Can “plural marriage” be far behind?In America, surviving Mormon polygamists provide a (illegal) precedent. Polyamorists, who (so far) define themselves by "love" rather than marriage, have been arguing the merits of their lifestyle and their rights for some...

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- The House's new Speaker has unveiled a $1.67 trillion budget that fully funds Planned Parenthood for the next nine-and-a-half months. The budget comes five months after a series of videos showed Planned Parenthood officials haggling over the price of unborn baby parts, as well as appearing to discuss illegal partial-birth abortions and illegal modifications to abortion. While the House appears ready to pass the bill on Friday, a board member of the group that conducted the undercover video investigations said the funding shows "the corrupt, establishment Republicans are once again walking lockstep with...

AUSTIN, Texas, December 16, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Seven weeks after declaring their intention to defund Planned Parenthood, state officials haven't followed through on the threat. Instead, reports The Texas Tribune, when Planned Parenthood took the defund effort to court last week, Judge Sam Sparks canceled the hearing because state officials did not submit paperwork to take away Planned Parenthood's funding. However, the state's top pro-life group has expressed confidence in Governor Greg Abbott's "goals of cancelling the Medicaid contracts of the Planned Parenthood affiliates in Texas." The state said in an October 21 "notice of termination" that it had "reliable...

December 15, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) - Apologists for abortion-on-demand long said they wanted abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare." But Planned Parenthood just blew a hole in that slogan with a message it sent out on Twitter. On Sunday, Planned Parenthood tweeted: Imagine "life in a magical land where abortions and birth control are free and plentiful" This place exists. https://t.co/zdEYnLF0oT — Planned Parenthood (@PPact) December 13, 2015Life in a magical land where abortions and birth control are free and Now that I live in a country where women's healthcare is free, accessible, and far less politicized, it's never been...

PHOENIX, Arizona, December 15, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Arizona over a law banning abortion based on gender or race. Arizona's Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act  requires abortionists to verify that clients are not committing sex-selection abortions or race-selection abortions. The ACLU's Alexa Kolbi-Molinas is actually arguing that the pro-life law – which protects babies from abortion over gender and race – "stigmatizes" women of color. She says the law is unconstitutional. The ACLU lawsuit claims that the pro-life law "is a blatant violation of equal protection and the prohibition against...

FOUNTAIN, Colorado, December 14, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – An "unstable" pagan activist with an "irrational" hatred of Christians has been arrested for threatening to "start shooting" Republicans over a Planned Parenthood closure. On December 8, Fern Roberta DeLise called the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood to make an appointment. However, the facility remains closed following a mass shooting on November 27. Authorities say the 54-year-old was pushed over the edge when she learned she would have to make the 85-mile drive from her home in the city of Fountain to Denver. “It’s tempting to walk into a Republican Party meeting with my...

"I'm here. I'm alive. I'm human." That's what John, one of the stars of A&E's new reality show "Born This Way," proclaimed during the premiere episode last week. You see, John has Down syndrome. It seems bizarre that someone capable of formulating a sentence thinks it's necessary to defend his own humanity, but sadly, John was speaking for himself and millions of others like him who, based on a prenatal genetic test, were recommended for abortion. John survived. Most don't. The statistics are hard to pin down, but experts estimate 90 percent of babies with Down syndrome are never born....