Free Republic

...U.S. Ambassador James "Wally" Brewster brought one thing with him this week that's a first for a male U.S. ambassador in the Caribbean nation: a husband. High-profile Catholic Church leaders have decried the new diplomatic appointment as a sign of a lack of respect from Obama. "He has not considered the particularities of our people. The United States is trying to impose on us marriage between gays and lesbians as well as adoption by these couples," said Father Luis Rosario, director of youth ministries for the church. A major fundraiser for Obama's 2012 campaign who most recently worked as a...

Iran has reached an agreement with world powers over its nuclear activities. In a televised address, the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, welcomed the deal, saying the country had the right to continue its uranium enrichment programme.

WASHINGTON – Reports of the Russian government abusing its gay citizens are based upon false propaganda by gay rights groups in the United States, Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, claimed at a Nov. 15 symposium hosted by The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society. "Please understand what's really going on in Russia and cast aside all of the propaganda that you hear in the United States and elsewhere. It's just not true," Ruse urged. He was the main speaker at the symposium, "Family Policy Lessons From Other Lands: What Should America Learn?" and...

WEST POINT, N.Y. Two West Point graduates were married Saturday in the military academy's first wedding between two men. Larry Choate III, class of 2009, married Daniel Lennox, class of 2007, before about 20 guests. Choate, 27, taught Sunday school at the U.S. Military Academy's Cadet Chapel and said he always thought of it as the place he would get married if he could. West Point hosted two same-sex weddings of women in late 2012, more than a year after New York legalized same-sex marriage. But Saturday's wedding was the first time two men wed at West Point.

The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) decision to once again reclassify pedophilia has led to further concerns that the professional organization is attempting to legitimize the disorder, paving the way for its defense and the recommendation of removal of age-of-consent laws.In a press release Friday, Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit organization that promotes the causes of religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, and the family observed that in its newly published Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), APA “changed the classification of pedophilia from a ‘disorder’ to a ‘sexual orientation,’ but, following the public outcry, APA released...

Gay rights advocates from both parties are newly upbeat about the prospects for Senate passage of legislation that would bar employers from discriminating against workers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. … In a sign of the times, the anti-bias legislation has traditional proponents such as the Human Rights Campaign, the largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, plus the backing of a relatively new group, the American Unity Fund. That organization has the financial support of big-name Republican donors—hedge fund billionaires Paul Singer, Cliff Asness, Dan Loeb and Seth Klarman—and former GOP lawmakers Norm Coleman of Minnesota...

A California legal group says The Golden State needs to learn a lesson from an incident in Colorado where a male student, who occasionally self-identifies as a female, is being permitted to use the girls' restrooms.Earlier this month, attorneys with Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) sent a legal demand letter to officials at Florence High School in Colorado, asking them to respect the privacy rights of students. The letter was sent in response to the school's decision to allow a teenage boy to enter the girls' bathrooms. According to the female students, the boy also made sexually harrassing comments to the...

Last week, anti-LGBTQ group the Pacific Justice Institute started a conservative media firestorm with its claim that a transgender teenager in Colorado was “harassing” her classmates in the girls’ bathroom. The allegations, after being picked up by Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, were quickly debunked by a transgender advocacy group that reached out to the school’s superintendent, who explained that no harassment had occurred. In reality, the complaint stemmed from one area mother who objected to the school’s policy allowing transgender students to use facilities that correspond to their gender identity. After having its lie exposed, PJI issued...

The day Corey Feldman met Corey Haim, when they were 14 years old and preparing to work together on the film “The Lost Boys,” they bonded instantly. Both were young Jewish actors who often competed for the same roles. They shared a first name and even a favorite number, sort of. Haim’s was 222. Feldman’s was 22. As they spoke, it became clear that they also shared horrific histories of abuse. Haim confided in his new friend that on the set of the 1986 film “Lucas,” “an adult male convinced him that it was perfectly normal for older men and...

Almost no elected Republicans support giving gays the right to marry. The party’s influential social-conservative wing sees “traditional marriage” as a defining issue. And while most major Democrats are rushing to embrace same-sex marriage, none of the most prominent potential Republican presidential candidates have taken that step.But a powerful group of Republican donors, who see the GOP’s staunch opposition to gay rights as a major problem, is trying to push the party toward a more welcoming middle ground — where candidates who oppose marriage rights can do so without seeming hateful.The behind-the-scenes effort is being led largely by GOP mega-donor...

Just days after the first round of global nuclear talks with Iran, a rift appears to be emerging between Israel and its closest ally, the United States. Israel's prime minister on Sunday called on the U.S. to step up the pressure on Iran, even as American officials hinted at the possibility of easing tough economic pressure. Meanwhile, a leading Israeli daily reported the outlines of what could be construed in the West as genuine Iranian compromises in the talks. Convinced Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes the Iranians are trying to trick the West into easing...

Pedophilia advocacy groups, including the tax-exempt B4U-ACT founded by a convicted sex offender, are trying to “groom the public” into accepting adult-child sexual relationships, child trauma expert Dr. Joyanna Silberg told CNSNews.com. “There is no legitimate scientific work that could justify the action of an adult with a child in a sexual relationship, because by definition a child cannot consent,” said Silberg, executive vice president of the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.“If you look at their backchannel communications,” Silberg continued, “they have clearly stated... that the B4U-ACT public persona is to kind of seduce or groom the public...

Traditionally, letters to the editor are the vehicle for a newspaper's readers to voice their disagreement with an article appearing in the paper. The Los Angeles Times has announced that it won't print any letters from readers who differ with their positions, using climate change as an example: Regular readers of The Times' Opinion pages will know that, among the few letters published over the last week that have blamed the Democrats for the government shutdown (a preponderance faulted House Republicans), none made the argument about Congress exempting itself from Obamacare. Why? Simply put, this objection to the president's healthcare law is...

Nathan, born Nancy, Verhelst, 44, was given legal euthanasia, most likely a lethal injection, on Monday afternoon on the grounds of "unbearable psychological suffering". Wim Distelmans, the doctor who carried out the euthanasia, is the same doctor who late last year gave lethal injections to deaf twins who were frightened they were also going blind. "I was the girl that nobody wanted," Mr Verhelst told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper in the hours before her death. "While my brothers were celebrated, I got a storage room above the garage as a bedroom. 'If only you had been a boy', my mother...

While reading from the teleprompter in front of the Business Roundtable headquarters in Washington DC, President Obama suggested that raising the National Debt Limit would not increase the Nation’s Debt. Well – actually – he didn’t suggest that. . . He simply said it: "Now, this debt ceiling -- I just want to remind people in case you haven't been keeping up -- raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt.” Um. . . Ok. I mean, well, it has increased our debt every other time it’s been raised. . ....

Bryan Eberly presented with rainbow flag as mark of service: 'It took everything in my power not to burst into tears' ... He did not officially come out in the marines until repeal day, when he brought cupcakes into work and said: "Oh, by the way, I'm gay. Happy repeal day!" His announcement received nearly as big a reaction as the arrival of surprise cupcakes in the office. ... The flag will be framed and put on the wall of his or his father's living room. When his dad first saw the photo of the flag, he said he was...

[] He the egoist sparingly uses “I”; our president the supposed consensus builder does so promiscuously. He reminded us of the demonstrably true fact that there are Islamists in the Syrian opposition and of the probably false fact that the Assad government is not using WMD. In general, Putin has conveyed a tougher military stance that has the president of the far more powerful U.S., a more humanitarian image than our smart- and soft-power leadership (do we still remember Hillary’s public chortle over Qaddafi — “We came, we saw, he died”?), and a more internationalist pose than our Nobel-laureate internationalist....

Before leaving for home after the Group of 20 summit, President Barack Obama sat down with Russian civil society activists on Friday evening to assure them that he would keep pressing Moscow to respect human rights, some of the activists said. But Obama also explained to them why this wasn't always possible. The meeting was held several hours after two dozen of gay activists rallied in St. Petersburg to protest Russia's new law banning gay propaganda, which prompted some activists to call for the boycott of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. Igor Kochetkov, the head of LGBT Network, who...

President Obama will meet with several LGBT groups during his trip later this week to St. Petersburg, a move likely to ruffle Russian President Vladimir Putin after the recent passage of a series of anti-gay laws. The president will meet with human rights activists Lev Ponomarev and Lyudmila Alexeyeva, legal aid NGO director Pavel Chikov, and Coming Out, a St. Petersburg-based LGBT organization, according to a report in BuzzFeed. The decision to meet with the activists in not unprecedented — Obama also met with human rights leaders in 2009 — but comes amid a period of heightened tension with the...

A host of Israeli celebrities are taking part in a unique project that is meant to raise awareness to the string of strict anti-gay laws that have recently become a reality in Russia. The project, led by David and Jonathan Marketing, consists of a series of images showing celebrities dressed as Soviet soldiers, with blood running from their mouths. This is a play on the iconic Pierre et Gilles photograph depicting a soldier with a tear streaming down his cheek. Titled RED FLAG, the project is a response to the seeming anti-gay crusade Putin has been spearheading in Russia. …