Free Republic

AUSTIN - Judges in Texas are now able to refuse to perform marriages for religious reasons, the state's highest court decided Friday. While the Texas Supreme Court's addition to the judicial conduct code does not include reasoning for the change, it follows a years-long debate over whether judges within the state are obligated to perform same-sex ceremonies. Texas Supreme Court ruling What we know: The ruling, amending Canon 4 of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct, was signed Friday, Oct. 24. Click to open this PDF in a new window. The comment reads as follows: "It is not a violation...

Lance Twiggs, the transgender partner of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk, has seemingly vanished from his hometown just six weeks after the killing. Twiggs has kept a low profile since reports revealed that Robinson had informed him of the plot in text messages between the two. He has reportedly avoided his $1,800-a-month apartment on the outskirts of St. George, Utah. Authorities say Twiggs has cooperated fully with investigators but has declined to speak publicly about the incident. Robinson, on Monday, made a brief court appearance, where the judge ruled on his request to appear in court...

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...

Check out this headline: Why was he pressured? Well, because people found out he was convicted of sexual abusing teen boys a few decades ago. You'd think they would include that in the headline. Here's Spotlight Delaware on the Democratic Party Chair in Sussex County, who balked (ironically, as you'll see in a moment) at the initial calls for him to resign. The Sussex County Democratic Party Chair, Jeff Balk, who was the subject of recent controversy over his decision to remain in leadership despite his past sex crimes against minors, resigned Sunday night ... His resignation comes amid a...

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...

A Texas doctor has surrendered her medical license after being sued by Attorney General Ken Paxton over her prescribing of so-called cross sex hormones to children in the state. In October 2024, Paxton sued May Lay, a Dallas-based doctor, for providing "high-dose cross-sex hormones to twenty-one minor patients for the direct purpose of 'transitioning' the child’s biological sex," using false diagnoses and billing codes. This went against a bill passed in Texas in 2023 that prohibits medicinal and surgical procedures for the purposes of changing a child’s gender. Lau had previously entered into a Rule 11 agreement, which prohibited her...

Helen Andrews' address delivered at NatCon 5 in Washington, DC on Sept. 2, 2025.

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...

The legal defense to "save women's sports" scored a big win in its Supreme Court battle over transgender athletes this week. After an Idaho trans athlete tried to have the potential landmark SCOTUS case dropped, a federal judge struck down the attempt to dismiss it and ruled that the case should proceed. U.S. District Judge David Nye, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017, rejected former Boise State trans athlete Lindsay Hecox's motion to dismiss the case. The trans athlete started the legal battle in 2020, but tried to have it dismissed in September after the Supreme Court agreed in...

The Left continues to try and make any bizarre argument they can that transgender athletes should be able to compete in women's sports, despite the mountain of biological and results-based evidence that men have an advantage. And somehow, those arguments get even more insane, with California Gubernatorial candidate — and person I feel confident saying doesn't watch a ton of sports — Betty Yee just dropped one of the wildest. She thinks that the idea of making the Olympics gender-neutral is "a conversation worth having." Let's hear her out, maybe it's not as nuts as it sounds… …Even though we...

A devout Christian couple in Massachusetts lost their foster care license after refusing to sign a state policy requiring them to affirm foster children’s fake gender identities. It’s a decision the pair says forces them to choose between their faith and caring for vulnerable infants. Lydia and Heath Marvin, who have fostered eight children under age 4 since 2020 — many with serious medical needs — were told by the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families in April that their license would not be renewed because they declined to agree to the policy’s clause promoting LGBTQ. The requirement mandates that...

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,...

Zao MKE Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is led by Rev. Jonah P. Overton (they/them) and Cameron Overton. Married in 2018, they present as a gay homosexual couple, when in reality, both are biological women, making them a gay, lesbian couple. Describing themselves as “Jesus Rooted, Justice Centered, Radically Inclusive,” a Q Worship Collective describes them as “a church that is being recreated and reimagined by people who were historically denied access to traditional Christian leadership.” We’ve covered them before after their pastor set a record for the most amount of times saying “crap” in a sermon, and after the worship...

OMG.. you cannot make this up.. These are some of the things the Democrats are demanding we fund: - $3 million for circumcisions and vasectomies in Zambia - $833k for transgender people in Nepal - $4.2 million for lgbtq people in the Western Balkans and Uganda - $3.6 million for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti - $500k for electric buses in Rwanda - $6 million for media organizations for the Palestinians - $300k for a pride parade in Lesotho - $882k for social media and mentorship in Serbia

Esperanza High School in Anaheim, California, is a magnet high school with about 1,406 students, fairly small by California standards, and the school prides itself on a teacher to student ratio of 20-1. Sadly, Anaheim is one of the bluer portions of Orange County, so the woke has overtaken certain members of the school board and the administration. In 2013, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law AB1266, which allows anyone to use the bathroom that they feel connects to their gender identity. In terms of public schools, this is a clear violation of Title IX, yet the Esperanza administrators have...

On September 5, the Trump administration released its “Initial Report by the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,” completed three months ago. The actual title of the 48-page document is “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias within the Federal Government,” and was mandated by President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14202 tasking the Attorney General with ensuring that “any unlawful and improper conduct, policies or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.” The author of the report, presumably a Justice Department official, notes that it is “not the end of the inquiry,” but that a “detailed report with findings and recommendations” will...

The NFL is facing growing boycott calls after announcing its decision to tap anti-Trump pop megastar Bad Bunny as the headliner for next year’s Super Bowl halftime show. Social media erupted this week when the Puerto Rican rapper, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, was announced as the main attraction for Super Bowl LX coming up next February. Photos began circulating showing the singer dressed in a pink mini skirt and high heels and another in a voluminous white dress as football fans blasted the NFL for once again not understanding their own audience. Now a boycott is...