Free Republic

The head of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is awaiting reply from Hampshire College to his letter deploring the college’s decision to cancel a performance by an Afrobeat band because some deemed the band “too white” to play African music. Shokazoba, an Afrobeat ensemble that blends jazz, funk and African rhythms, was scheduled to play on Halloween at Hampshire. However, the band was canceled after some students voiced concerns that the band, which has a black singer but is predominantly white, was appropriating black music. The college’s Hype Committee broke the news on its Facebook, saying:...

As Christmas nears, two local school districts find themselves being drawn unwillingly into the battle against religion in the public square — but both districts maintain that allowing students to participate in traditional Christmas concerts does not violate anyone’s rights. Choirs from Glacier, Flathead and Whitefish high schools will perform as planned today and Friday during the “Peace on Earth Community Christmas Celebration” despite receiving requests from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union of Montana to cancel. The event in question is billed as a celebration of “the birth of our savior Jesus Christ,” featuring hundreds...

Pro-life demonstrators in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Lansing, Mich., Dec 3, 2013 / 05:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A lawsuit charging that the U.S. bishops’ ethical standards for hospitals caused negligent care of a pregnant woman wrongly claims that abortion was medically necessary, a doctor and professor of medicine has said. “Abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother,” said Dr. Brian C. Calhoun, a professor and vice-chair in the obstetrics and gynecology department at West Virginia University-Charleston. Calhoun, who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, rejected the deliberate killing of an unborn patient in a medical emergency....

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a sweeping federal lawsuit against the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops over its ethical guidelines for Roman Catholic hospitals, arguing the directives were to blame for negligent care of a pregnant woman who went into early labor and whose baby died within hours.The ACLU alleges the bishops were negligent because their religious directives prevented Tamesha Means from being told that continuing her pregnancy posed grave risks to her health and her child was not likely to survive. She was treated at Mercy Health Muskegon, a Catholic hospital in Michigan."It's not just about one woman,"...

The American Civil Liberties Union and its Michigan affiliate are suing the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops charging that its anti-abortion religious dictates resulted in a Michigan woman’s dangerous miscarriage. The ACLU filed the lawsuit Friday on behalf of Tamesha Means, a pregnant woman whose water broke 18 weeks into her pregnancy and who sought medical aid at Mercy Health Partners in Muskegon, Mich., a Catholic hospital. According to the ACLU, while Means’ baby had virtually no chance of survival, the hospital sent her home twice without offering termination as an option, “even though [Means] was in excruciating pain; there...

Although conspiracy theories abound as to who orchestrated President John F. Kennedy’s murder 50 years ago, there is little doubt regarding who actually pulled the trigger and shot the 35th president: left-wing radical Lee Harvey Oswald. He was involved with a number of liberal causes and had been a member of the American Civil Liberties Union; he had officially joined just weeks before he took Kennedy’s life, and when questioned after murdering Kennedy, Oswald specifically asked for an ACLU attorney. Savodink said that Oswald’s fellow marines called him “Oswaldskovich” because of his fascination with communism and the U.S.S.R. Whatever theories...

Where is the slack for Martin Richard, youngest victim of the jihad bombers? How about cutting some slack to his younger sister Jane, who has undergone no fewer than 11 operations on her left leg, which she lost below the knee? We demand slack for the hundreds of victims of the devout Muslims who blew up the Boston Marathon. The ACLU is a dangerous and depraved organization whose mission by objective is to destroy these United States. Huge props to the judge that booted the litigious jihad jackboots from weighing in on jihad Tsarnaev’s trial. ACLU fights for Boston...

A Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Christian pastor and school bus driver was terminated last week after he violated two warnings issued by the school district and the subcontractor company that he worked for in which he was asked to refrain from leading students in prayer. George Nathaniel, who pastors the Elite Church of the First Born and Grace Missionary Baptist Church, received separate complaint letters from the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage district and Durham School Services, a school bus operating company, in addition to his reassignment for different bus routes. However, Nathaniel dismissed their reprimands and continued his daily prayers during the children's school ride....

A federal trial to determine whether Wisconsin's controversial voter identification law discriminates against minorities is scheduled to begin on Monday in a case seen as a possible precedent for similar laws in other states. Voter ID laws - which require government-issued identification before voting - have become a political and racial flashpoint across the United States. Democrats generally oppose the measures and many Republicans back them. The trial in Milwaukee combines two federal lawsuits filed on behalf of dozens of individual voters by several organizations including the League of United Latin American Citizens, Milwaukee Area Labor Council and the American...

Gun rights groups are throwing their weight behind efforts on Capitol Hill to rein in the National Security Agency (NSA). The National Rifle Association (NRA) is among a number of groups that have signed on to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit against the secretive government agency. The NRA has also endorsed bipartisan legislation proposed by House and Senate Judiciary committees that would end the NSA’s collection of bulk phone records. Another Second Amendment advocate, the Gun Owners of America, expects to back NSA legislation as well. “There are issues that, maybe at first blush, wouldn't seem like a...

DENVER (CBS4) – There’s more controversy over legalized marijuana after some members of the Denver City Council want to limit open consumption. Marijuana advocates say the city may be violating the spirit of Amendment 64. Under the proposal smoking marijuana at a park or other public places could lead a fine of almost $1,000 and a year in jail. But what’s causing alarm to marijuana smokers is how Denver might be defining how much is too much in the privacy of a person’s property. People were passing out free joints in Civic Center Park last month and Denver Mayor Michael...

Early Monday morning it was revealed supervisors within the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms have censored whistleblower John Dodson by denying an outside work application to publish a book about Operation Fast and Furious. The family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry is expressing their support for Dodson and want his book to be published. "The family of slain U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry stands behind ATF whistleblower John Dodson and supports his attempts to publish his manuscript pertaining to the flawed gun trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious. Recently, ATF officials told Dodson that...

An Ohio school district has agreed to keep a portrait of Jesus Christ off school property and pay a $95,000 fine in the face of legal pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union. The Jackson City School District, located in Jackson, reached a deal on Friday after the ACLU, along with the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation, sued the district in February, citing “unconstitutional” actions and charging that students and visitors to the school “will continue to suffer permanent, severe and irreparable harm and injury,” according to the lawsuit. The picture had been hanging in Jackson’s high school since 1947...

That was awkward. In the clearest sign yet of the potent effect of the government shutdown on the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli avoided being photographed with Ted Cruz at a gala they headlined here Saturday night—even leaving before the Texas senator rose to speak. Backstage, a source said, Cuccinelli urged Cruz to work with Democrats to end the federal shutdown. But he did not make that point, or even acknowledge Cruz, in short public comments to some 1,100 social conservatives. Cruz has become the face of GOP intransigence, and the conservative attorney general’s effort to distance himself from...

On Jan. 16, Jagjeet Singh, 49, a long-haul truck driver from California on his way to pick up chickens for delivery in Texas, was pulled over for driving with a flat tire in Pike County, Miss. Officers at a weigh station operated by the Department of Transportation demanded that Singh turn over his "kirpan," a 3-inch ceremonial blade carried by all Sikh men and frequently sewed into the waistband of their trousers, according to the ACLU. "Contending, wrongly, that his kirpan was illegal, the DOT officer demanded that Mr. Singh turn it over. Mr. Singh tried to explain that he...

More than a dozen women’s health care providers in Texas sued the state Friday, attempting to block as unconstitutional key provisions of a strict new abortion law that drew massive protests and threw the Legislature into chaos before it was approved this summer. The 32-page complaint was filed in Austin by the providers and Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union. The new law requires doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, only allows abortions in surgical centers and bans the procedure completely after 20 weeks, while also limiting medical abortions. …

"Take your DACA and shove it!" - by John HillStand With ArizonaArizona Governor Jan Brewer is under fire from pro-illegal alien "rights" groups like the ACLU and La Raza for refusing drivers licenses to illegal alien "youth" granted virtual amnesty under Barack Obama's DACA program. They have sued repeatedly to try and stop her. But rather than back down, Brewer has doubled down. Brewer has now directed her Department of Transportation to expand her denial of drivers licenses to ALL illegal aliens granted a reprieve from deportation by the Obama DHS or ICE, regardless of circumstances. The left has erupted...

If I told you that one out of three African-American males is forbidden by law from voting, you might think I was talking about Jim Crow 50 years ago. Yet today, a third of African-American males are still prevented from voting because of the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs has disproportionately affected young black males. The ACLU reports that blacks are four to five times more likely to be convicted for drug possession although surveys indicate that blacks and whites use drugs at similar rates. The majority of illegal drug users and dealers nationwide are white, but three-fourths...

The National Rifle Association said on Wednesday it supports a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups to strike down the U.S. government's broad telephone surveillance program, citing potential violations of gun owners' privacy rights. In a brief backing the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against senior U.S. government officials, the NRA said the collection of vast communications threatens privacy and could allow the government to create a registry of gun owners. Civil rights groups filed the lawsuit earlier this year after documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed a massive government program to collect and store...

A year after taking over the troubled Highland Park School District, the charter school management company now overseeing the district is reporting improved scores in reading and math. The Leona Group cited improved reading and math testing scores for grades 2 through 8 from the fall of 2012 to the spring of 2013 in the new Highland Park Public School Academy System. The improvement is significant because Highland Park is at the center of an ACLU class-action lawsuit that claims the state failed to ensure students were reading at grade level and the state "should know" the Leona Group "is...