Free Republic

On Jan. 27, 1986, Allan McDonald stood on the cusp of history. McDonald directed the booster rocket project at NASA contractor Morton Thiokol. He was responsible for the two massive rockets, filled with explosive fuel, that lifted space shuttles skyward. He was at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the launch of the Challenger "to approve or disapprove a launch if something came up," he told me in 2016, 30 years after Challenger exploded. His job was to sign and submit an official form. Sign the form, he believed, and he'd risk the lives of the seven astronauts set...

A Catholic school in Macon, Ga., is facing a federal discrimination lawsuit from a former teacher whose employment was terminated in 2014 after the school found that he would be legally marrying his same-sex partner. “The argument being made in this suit—that a Catholic school’s commitment to upholding Catholic teaching on marriage is discriminatory toward homosexual employees—is a grave threat to Catholic education,” said Patrick Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society. “A Catholic school exists for the very purpose of teaching the faith and forming young people for God,” he continued. “The implication is that our religion itself, rooted...