Free Republic

A Maryland mayor’s decision to eliminate the city’s only rainbow crosswalks has become the latest flash point in a nationwide campaign to strip LGBTQ+ symbols from public spaces. The Salisbury crosswalks, installed in 2018 and repainted each year by volunteers, were removed on November 11 after Salisbury Mayor Randy Taylor ordered crews to mill away the paint at dawn, The Washington Post reports. Taylor, who narrowly won office in 2023, said the city must ensure “neutrality” on government property.

Madonna issued a blistering rebuke of Donald Trump after he moved to end the United States' official acknowledgement of World AIDS Day, a global day of remembrance and awareness recognized every year since 1988. On Monday, the singer and prominent LGBTQ+ ally, 67, took to Instagram with a solemn black-and-white video and a series of stark text slides, slamming Trump's directive as 'ridiculous,' 'absurd,' and 'unthinkable' while urging her fans to continue honoring those affected by HIV/AIDS. 'Today is World AIDS Day. For four decades, this day has been internationally recognized around the world by people from all walks of...

Upset father: ‘My son had no idea what any of this meant, but he knew that it was weird and sick and gross’ A 6th-grade student survey created by the Oregon Health Authority for asks participants, among other things, their “gender identity,” “sexual orientation,” and if they are “transgender.” The first question under the “Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation” section offers choices such as “Demigirl/Demiboy,” “Genderfluid,” and “Agender”; the second includes “Pansexual,” “Asexual or Aromantic,” and “Something else that fits better (Please tell us more).” “Demigirl/demiboy” is defined as someone who “partially identifies as a girl/boy or with femininity/masculinity, but...

The United Methodist Church’s financial leaders are sounding the alarm that the denomination is about to be in a world of financial hurt, declaring ‘The church’s financial house is on fire’ during the UMC’s Finance and Administration meeting last week. The ominous comments were made by Bishop David Graves, General Council on Finance and Administration board president, who added ‘My intent is not to create fear but to address the reality with honesty and urgency.” The UMC has lost more than 7500 churches over the last three years, the result of church mass departures and disaffiliations over the denomination’s all-out...

One of the “Slender Man stabbers” — who viciously ambushed and hacked a classmate when she was 12 years old in an effort to please a made-up internet boogeyman — has vanished, and cops are now hunting her. Morgan Geyser, 23, cut off her ankle monitor and escaped from the group home where she was living — and she’s currently on the run, according to cops in Madison, Wisconsin. “Her whereabouts are unknown as of Sunday morning,” police said. Geyser, along with her friend Anissa Weier, lured a fellow sixth-grade girl into a Waukesha, Wisconsin park in 2014 and stabbed...

FIRST ON FOX: One of the top teachers unions in the country is facing criticism over an upcoming training session that will instruct members on how to go through a gender transition at work, including best practices for using gender pronouns and combating transphobia, while also being provided with literature labeling conservative opposition as "villains." In a document posted on its website, the National Education Association (NEA) announced to its more than 3 million educator members a slate of training programs, including a session named "Advancing LGBTQ+ Justice," scheduled for Dec. 2-4, 2025. The union will also hold an "Advancing...

OMG. @listen2tish , the woman banned from Gold's Gym for confronting a convicted male domestic abuser who invaded the female locker room, GRILLS Democrat Scott Wiener on what he's going to do to protect women. HYMAN: "What would you say to women who are seeking assurance that their safety will be protected from men who, by California Law, can self-ID as women in women's only spaces?" WEINER: "We have trans people, both men and women, who are men and women... So if you're a trans woman-- are women." Democrats don't care about women.

The first openly trans lawmaker in the US — who was hailed as a trail-blazer — has admitted to sickening child sex charges involving young kids in a daycare. Former Democratic New Hampshire state Rep. Stacie-Marie Laughton, 41, a biological male who identifies as female, pleaded guilty to charges including sexual exploitation of children last week in a Boston federal court, WMUR reported. Laughton now faces up to 30 years in federal prison. Four pictures of children believed to be 3 to 5 years old were sent to Laughton by former partner, Lindsay Groves, who took the horrific images in...

The lunacy imposed by leftist judges is beyond parody: A federal judge has ruled that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) must provide laser hair removal, facial feminization surgery consultations, and voice therapy for a convicted pedophile who now identifies as transgender. The inmate, identified as 47-year-old Brian Buckingham, was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing his 10-year-old son and producing child pornography. For probably the first and hopefully the last time in human history, behavior like this is not considered to warrant the death penalty. These days, it warrants taxpayer-funded luxuries in...

More than 2 1/2 years ago, I wrote about the prostitution problem in San Francisco. Neighbors of one particular street, Capp St., were complaining about a sudden uptick of business on their block that was making it difficult to sleep at night.

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is the Democratic Party’s early presidential frontrunner in New Hampshire, topping California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and former Vice President Kamala Harris in a new poll. With 19% support, Buttigieg leads Newsom – his closest opponent – by 4 percentage points, according to the University of New Hampshire’s Granite State Poll, released Monday. The only other Democrats in double-digits were Ocasio-Cortez (14%) and Harris (11%). Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) received 8% support and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker garnered a 6% backing. New Hampshire traditionally is the first state to hold both Democratic...

With a week and a half until Election Day and the latest polls suggesting Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli narrowing the gap with Democratic rival Rep. Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey's race for governor, President Donald Trump is stepping in to push his GOP ally over the finish line. While not physically dropping into the Garden State campaign trail, at least as of now, Trump will headline a tele-rally with Ciattarelli on Friday night, hours before early voting kicks off in New Jersey's competitive gubernatorial showdown. "EARLY VOTING EVE TELE-RALLY with President Donald J. Trump! Join us Friday, October 24 at...

Governments began inserting the term “misinformation” into the mainstream narrative during the pandemic. The government has the sole discretion to determine what is considered factual. “Trust the science” is code for “trust the government” to dictate reality, and if you question that reality, you will be punished. Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner, Brünisholz found himself in a courtroom after posting on social media: “‘If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.” Police officers interrogated Brünisholz over the “intent”...

This time it’s Jane’s jungle Earlier this month, NYC’s largest Gothic cathedral celebrated the annual feast day of St. Francis of Assisi and his ancient Blessing of the Animals. For 11 years, until the pandemic, I hosted a similar animal’s holiday at St. John the Divine. We loved all — the young, babies, healthy, strays, police dogs, the sick, frail, old, rescues, a frog, fish in containers, turtles, horses outside, sheep, pigs, cows, camels, donkeys, chickens, goats. Even a choir and a rabbi for the Jewish animals. Police rerouted traffic. I remember His Eminence Cardinal Dolan flat on the floor...

TRENTON — New Jersey Democrats and prominent state leaders have expressed concern that Black and Hispanic voters — historically forming the backbone of the party — may not turn out for Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) in her quest to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D). Some have chalked up the apathy as lingering from last year’s election between former Vice President Harris and President Trump, as well as years of failed outreach between the two parties. Others say Sherrill simply isn’t doing enough to court their votes.“I believe that although our next governor has to represent the entire state —...

For most of us, we look back on our younger years, whether they were spent as college students, broke twenty-somethings, or something else, usually fondly. It's that time period where you leave home to get your foot in the door of life and learn how to support yourself, not just financially, but in many other ways as well. But we still carry some of that old high school baggage of just wanting to be "cool" and fit in with our friends, for whom many of us become our second family. But as our lives evolve, so do the things we...

When two transgender Utah girls and their parents sued to stop a law passed three years ago that would ban them from participating in sports with other girls, they were going into eighth and ninth grades, fighting as they entered high school to share in the same pastimes as their peers. But as they enter their final years of high school, after three years in court and amid President Donald Trump’s second term in office, their case to run and swim with classmates who are their same gender has fallen apart.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., called Netflix "demonic" for targeting children with pro-transgender content, and he wants the streaming giant’s executives to explain their intentions on Capitol Hill. Burchett penned a letter to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky, last week expressing interest in calling Netflix executives to Capitol Hill after a viral clip of a children’s show called "Dead End: Paranormal Park" showed a character coming out as trans. The show aired in 2022 with only 20 episodes. "We need to get them for the committee and ask them what their intentions are with this and if, in fact,...

LEXINGTON, MA — A Pride-parade picture book showing bondage gear and drag nuns is set to appear in Lexington’s 2025–2026 kindergarten social studies curriculum, sparking fury among parents who say the district has crossed the line between inclusion and age-appropriate teaching. The revelation was first reported by Massachusetts Informed Parents, a watchdog group that obtained lesson materials from Lexington Public Schools (LPS). According to their review, the Pride-themed book This Day in June is listed as part of a new “Social Studies” unit for five-year-olds — a class typically reserved for topics like community, geography, and basic civics. But the...

Kennedy, now 89 years old, no longer hears Supreme Court cases. He formally stepped down seven years ago during the first Trump administration. "I loved sitting on the bench," he said. Asked whether he would want to be there today, he replied, "The only reason I left – I love the Court – but I left for something that I love more, which is my wife, Mary." … And as the "swing justice" on the Court, says Greene, Kennedy cast the deciding vote on some of the most consequential political and cultural issues of his era: the 2000 Presidential election,...