Free Republic

As governors crack down on religious services during the coronavirus pandemic, pastors across the United States weigh in on whether Attorney General William Barr and the Department of Justice are doing enough to protect their civil liberties. The attorney general has issued multiple statements on the importance of respecting religious liberty “even in times of emergency” and intervened in cases of government crackdowns on churches and pastors. The DOJ referred the Daily Caller News Foundation to several more instances of Justice Department intervention, including an April 27 memorandum from the attorney general on balancing public safety with the preservation of...

Facing a potentially historic vote on whether to legalize medical marijuana in Kentucky, Republican lawmaker John Schickel is conflicted. A retired law enforcement officer, Schickel once steadfastly opposed medical cannabis, but his stance has softened. Now he says he’s approaching the question with an open mind. […] Schickel’s dilemma stands as yet another sign that views about marijuana are changing across the South, where efforts to legalize it have long been stymied by Bible Belt politics. While medical cannabis is legal now in 33 states, including Arkansas, Louisiana and Florida, other Southern states remain among the holdouts. Whether wavering resistance...

Drag queen story hours - events where drag performers read to children - are moving out of the big cities and coming to conservative southern US states. A group of drag queens stand in a small room at the back of a public library in South Carolina, their bright outfits in contrast with the beige walls. Children file in and quickly scan the larger-than-life characters before turning their attention to running around and playing. "There are five drag queens walking around this room and not one kid has walked up to us and said 'you're so weird'," says drag queen...

Often in history, the "White American Bible Belt" paid homage to racism while calling it "Jesus Christ," according to prominent evangelical Russell Moore. Delivering a speech at the MLK 50 Conference in Memphis, Tennessee, on Tuesday, Moore drew a parallel between America's struggle for racial equality and the ancient Israelites being told to choose between serving God or serving Baal. "Time and time again, when told they could not serve both, the people of God tragically often chose to worship Baal but to rename him God," said Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. "And...

It only takes a glance at what is occurring around the world to see Islam becoming the largest and most dominant way of life. Muslims are adhering to exactly what their doctrine ascribes, to make Islam dominant over all religions. So why then, do Christian pastors believe conversations with Muslims are so important? Do Christian pastors not have a responsibility to protect the church and its congregants from those who practice following the life of the prophet Muhammad, who was peaceful in the Meccan years, but became political and violent on his journey to Medina. “Good” Muslims are commanded to...

Nashville Tennessee usually recognized as “music city” is becoming identified now as a “welcoming city”, but not so much for the tourists but rather for refugees. As a matter of fact, Nashville was once nick named the “gateway for refugees” as groups like the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) became heavily involved with pushing for more displaced persons to enter the state. But TIRRC isn’t just about refugees, it’s about a plan for a “new south”. TIRRC is about using legal and illegal immigration to change the demographics to mutate our communities until they satisfy a leftist open-borders,...

How is it the Buckle of the Bible Belt is falling into the hands of Islamists and the apologists that embrace them? Wake up Nashville, another Muslim Brotherhood proponent is open for business and making giant strides in changing the culture of the South. Don’t be fooled by its name, Peace Ambassadors USA, it is an Islamic organization, and the peace won’t last long. As if taken directly from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Goal for North America, Muslim Brotherhood Manifesto Arab & English (a document which was evidence in a federal trial in Dallas TX in 2008 for this country’s...

If you need further evidence that Donald Trump is running for president in order to serve the best interests of Donald Trump, here it is from the Associated Press: ...

Nestled in the heart of Virginia and the Blue Ridge Mountains lies an Evangelical Mecca, where Christianity and Country music are as indigenous to the region as the seven hills of Lynchburg and thousands of students make their annual pilgrimage, every fall, to study at the largest Christian University in the world. But in the ‘buckle of the bible belt,’ some residents answer a different call to prayer. And if Obama has his way, many of the 100,000 Muslim refugees expected to arrive this year will be dumped right in the heart of America’s Bible Belt, transported and supported on...

More than a dozen same-sex marriage licenses were issued for the first time in a Bible Belt state Saturday after a state judge declared Arkansas' voter-approved ban on gay wedding to be unconstitutional. About 50 couples had lined up at the courthouse in Eureka Springs in Carroll County, Arkansas, Saturday morning seeking licenses, according to Reuters. But Carroll County Deputy Clerk Jane Osborn told The Associated Press that 15 licenses were issued Saturday. On Friday, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, saying it violated equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution. "This...

Family Research CouncilThis map shows the states where family belonging (whether or not a biological mother and father are still married when the child is 15-17) is highest and lowest in the United States. The darker the color, the more belonging.A study on family breakup as it effects children on the cusp of adulthood revealed that more children experience family breakup before adulthood in the South, well-known for its religious "Bible belt," according to the Family Research Council."The Bible belt is in deep, deep trouble on family," Pat Fagan, director of The Family Research Council's Marriage and Religion Research...

...Obama’s legacy will be the empowerment of Islam in America, especially in red states and the Bible belt, where Muslim immigrants are flocking in large numbers and are building mosques at a breakneck pace to challenge the Judeo/Christian culture of the heartland. The same has also taken place at the international arena where the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam have been empowered by the Obama administration, resulting in al-Qaeda dominating huge areas of the Middle East causing civil wars and chaos around Israel. The difference between the negative effect of ObamaCare and Obama’s fumbles with the Muslim Brotherhood penetration, both...

A fascinating interview in the Wall Street Journal with Russell Moore, the incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. This influential position was held previously by Richard Land, who became a well known face on the cable nets and Sunday shows. Moore says, in essence, that the culture war has been lost: ‘The Bible Belt is collapsing,” says Russell Moore. Oddly, the incoming president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission doesn’t seem upset. In a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Moore explains that he thinks the Bible Belt’s...

A recently released poll from The Washington Post indicates that a Bible Belt state may be moving toward majority support for same-sex marriage. According to the results, which were published on the newspaper's website Tuesday, 56 percent of Virginians polled stated that they believe gay couples should be allowed to marry; 33 percent said no and 10 percent held no opinion. This was an increase from two years earlier, when 46 percent of Virginians said yes to legalized same-sex marriage, 43 percent stated opposition, and 11 percent held no opinion. Based on 1,000 telephone interviews conducted from April 29 to...

Sorry for this unusual post. I'm probably the youngest one this site so you can imagine I've got a lot to learn in politics, but one thing has always puzzled me. I know that Republicans broke away from the Whigs to oppose the pro-slavery Democrats but the change in party demographics since then has perplexed me. I recently saw this picture: http://manwiththemuckrake.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/slavery-2012.jpg I'm just curious, what caused such a radical shift in the solid south? Some people accredit this to an 'ideological party switch' but that seems rather implausible to me. So what did cause this arbitrary shift and, also...

Simply based on CNN raw totals counted so far (no projection for votes not counted) Romney has 18,573,603 votes from Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tenessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. McCain had 18,402,511 in those states. By the way, in 2004 Bush had 17,746,072 votes in those states. Obviously there is no official definition of "Bible Belt" and PARTS of many other states would fit (Virginia, Colorado Springs, southern Indiana, etc.), and PARTS of the states I included as "Bible Belt" are definitely not full of Evangelicals. Obviously the voting age population has grown over...

WALTER KIRN'S column in GQ on Mitt Romney and Mormonism is to my mind far and away the most interesting meditation on the subject this campaign season. Unlike most commentators, Mr Kirn, who was an observant Mormon for a few years after his family converted to Mormonism when he was a teen... SNIP ...Mr Santorum obviously does not hesitate to argue for his favoured policies on narrowly sectarian grounds. In contrast, America's present wariness of Mormonism, which is indeed analogous to mid-century wariness of Catholicism, requires that Mr Romney argue his case on grounds acceptable to a relatively wide range...

Keep one thing in mind when looking at the data from Gallup’s latest poll of the Republican field. Their sample includes “Republican-leaning independents” as well as registered Republicans. That’s important, because it helps explain Donald Trump’s sudden resonance in the field: Donald Trump debuts in a first-place tie in Gallup’s latest update of Republicans’ preferences for the party’s 2012 presidential nomination among potential contenders. Trump ties Mike Huckabee at 16%, with Mitt Romney close behind at 13%. Sarah Palin is the only other potential Republican candidate to earn double-digit support.The April 15-20 Gallup poll finds Trump leading the field among...

Utah, where most surveys show just more than two-thirds of the residents are Latter-day Saints, is the 12th most religious state in the United States. Utah takes a back seat to 11 Southern states, most in the Bible Belt. According to a new analysis released by the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life, the most religious states are Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky. The rankings were based on a question about how important religion was in people's lives taken during a 2007 Religious Landscape Survey. States where religion is least important...

A recent poll of more than 350,000 Americans on the importance of religion revealed that the nation is separated into enclaves of widely divergent viewpoints on faith, with some states and regions clearly religious and others significantly secular. Gallup conducted a telephone poll of 355,334 U.S. adults, asking the question, "Is religion an important part of your daily life?" As one might suspect, states from the "Bible Belt" scored the highest, with 85 percent of Mississippians and 79 percent of Tennesseeans, for example, answering yes. The poll also revealed, however, that in addition to the Bible Belt, the U.S. also...