Free Republic

Editor's Note: Today NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell publicly dared The Daily Show host Jon Stewart to desecrate either the Koran or the Torah on national television in the same manner he offended millions of American Christians by portraying the Nativity as an accessory for female genitals. (Snip) Come on, Jon. We dare you to prove you are an equal opportunity bigot. Your grotesque stunt displaying a Nativity scene in a vulgar manner to take a jab at Fox News is but the latest in a long line of unacceptable behavior and hypocrisy when it comes

Dani Gilbert, newly appointed Jewish outreach liaison and staffer Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), is facing a growing firestorm of controversy after a number of publications picked up on a picture posted to her Facebook account where Gilbert refers to herself and her friends as “Jewbags” and the “Jew cash money team.” The picture dates back to 2006 – but is enjoying new life today as a number of publications have picked up on the derogatory caption beneath the photograph.

Bill Maher: "If Irish Americans can manage to celebrate their heritage in just one day then Southerners should be able to do also. That's right, instead of spending the whole year flying the Confederate flag and saying 'the South will rise again,' you get just one day. We'll call it 'St. Cracker's Day.'"

I’m not. Gay, I mean. I’m not gay. Nor do I have a personal opinion on your gayness. Or half gayness. Or exploratory gayness. Or lack of gayness altogether. It’s a lifestyle choice–to not spend time dwelling upon who may or may not be operating at varying levels of gay. But this piece isn’t about being gay, or straight. If you are a TrueCon© purist in the mood for a brawl over the virtueless life of the American homosexual, the door is right behind you. If you’re one of those allegedly virtueless American homos looking for a forum to air...

In a piece titled, “When white people lack “bourgeois values,” the Salon Editor at Large manages a race and class-baiting exacta, covering an alleged economic disdain shown by Republicans towards African-Americans, and charging the GOP with promoting policies which “shackle women to the home.”

(To see Cal Grondahl’s cartoon that goes with this post, click here) The LDS Church Library no longer allows access to the Nauvoo City Council and High Council minutes from 1839 to 1845. That’s a shame, but the minutes, when accessible, were recorded. Signature Books, with the assistance of historian John Dinger, has published the minutes, along with notes, and they’re just plain fascinating for enthusiasts of history. Without spin, they lay out the controversy that swirled in Nauvoo prior to Joseph Smith’s murder and the LDS exodus west. The documents lend credence to the belief that the then-secret doctrine...

Go to any Ron Paul event and the audience is part of the tale. They’re younger, rowdier, more socially diverse than Republican rally regulars. Any one of them might have driven across the state to see Paul speak or be able to riff at length about Austrian economic theory. Any one of them also might be a Democrat or an independent, a fact that’s poised to play a big role in Paul’s story in 2012. ...The fact that roughly half of Paul’s primary supporters are Democrats or independents is probably an asset in selling his general election viability, which his...

(The following is a transcript of a Ron Paul article from 1990 in his newsletter, The Ron Paul Survival Report. Links to the scanned copies are here: http://i43.tinypic.com/2rylfv7.png http://i44.tinypic.com/wgqgeh.png David Duke received 44% of the vote in the Senate primary race in Louisiana, 60% of the white vote and 9% of the black vote!. This totaled 100,000 more votes that the current governor when he won. Duke lost the election, but he scared the blazes out of the Establishment. If the official Republican hadn’t been ordered to drop out, he might have won. Certainly there would have been a run-off....

We have a new kind of bigot today, the virtuous bigot. You can find a virtuous bigot by reading the writings of just about any apologist for Islam. It seems that it almost impossible for an apologist to resist proving the point of the beauty of Islam, by saying that those who find fault in Islam are bigots, racists, haters, and Islamophobes. All of those who use fact-based arguments against Islam or reveal the enormous suffering caused by Islam are attacked by being called members of the KKK and worse. Any criticism of Islam is treated as hate speech. bigot_-_behead-those-who-insult-islam2...

Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Mormon church that practises polygamy, is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars after he was given the maximum sentence for taking girls as young as 12 to be his brides. SNIP ...a Texas jury took just 40 minutes to hand him the toughest sentence open to them – life in prison for aggravated sexual assault and 20 years in prison for sexual assault of a child... SNIP The polygamist Mormons, under Jeffs's leadership, refused to renounce plural marriages and now have about 10,000 followers. The jury heard that Jeffs...

Many conservatives and Tea Party activists across the country are eagerly anticipating the entry of Texas Governor Rick Perry into the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Yet Fox Business correspondent Charlie Gasparino suggests that many New Yorkers on Wall Street, presumably of both political parties, are not at all excited about the possibility of a Perry presidency. Gasparino warns: “I talk to a lot of Wall Street guys . . . you know I don’t think a guy from Texas can win again. I just think there’s a Texas taint to it all. And I know the big money...

In a recent letter to the editor, the author of “The right vs. the law (5/26)” compared illegal immigrants to the early leaders of the church. He observed the early church members violated the law to practice polygamy and those men were still doing what was right, therefore there are cases when it isn’t wrong to break the law. This is all true. But then he implies by this same reasoning, illegal immigrants may not be doing something wrong. This is a false analogy, because the two situations are not the same in the relevant way. What made the church...

When journalist and media consultant Gil Robertson first moved to Marietta from Los Angeles eight years ago, he found himself frustrated by not being able to find a African-American general physician. “Just like a female often feels more comfortable having a female gynecologist, many African-Americans like to have African-American doctors because you feel like they understand the health risks you both face as African-Americans,” Robertson said. “And there are other professions that culturally you may feel you have more in common with and will just naturally trust more if they share in your culture, like a lawyer or an insurance...

As can be expected from a book published by Greg Kofford, Craig L. Foster’s A Different God? is well researched and engaging. This book begins by examining the rise of the religious right and the power it exerts on the current political landscape. Foster presents a good deal of information that most Latter-day Saints will not be well acquainted with, such as the difference between evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, the emergence of the charismatic movement, the rise and fall of the Moral Majority, and the subsequent establishment of the Christian Coalition. This background is particularly pertinent to the majority of...

In last week’s issue I explained that even if evidence for an early Christian community in Mesoamerica could be found, that still wouldn’t satisfy most critics or prove that the Book of Mormon is true. The task of finding the evidence of a real ancient community of New World Christians becomes difficult once we understand the complexity and nature of what might be found.First, it’s important to remember that the Nephites were “Christian” for, at the most, 400 years. Second, the Nephite-Christians were a small group of persecuted believers among a sea of non-Christian believers in the ancient Americas. Some...

They are more than the people who go door-to-door asking to talk about religion. They are not the polygamists pictured in reality TV shows. That’s what the University’s student branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wanted students to know at their Meet the Mormons event at the Institute of Religion on Wednesday. Set up like a small career fair with colorful posters, the hosts of Meet the Mormons aimed to provide an open forum to religious and non-religious students alike. “A lot of people are curious about Mormons, but reluctant to actually talk to them because...

SALT LAKE CITY— Utah’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force arrested 39 suspects on suspicion of dealing in child pornography after a month-long investigation. It is part of Operation FrostyLime Squeeze. The unique name stems from FrostWire and LimeWire.com, two of many file-sharing websites local police, the FBI and the Utah Attorney General cracked down on from February 28 to March 31. The most arrests came out of Utah County with many of the suspects in positions of trust and lived a double lifestyle, according to investigators. “These are your next door neighbors, pastor, scout master, teacher, the coach....

In a recent survey by pollster Gary Lawrence of how Americans view "Mormonism," a whopping 77 percent said they were not sure Mormons are Christians. Understanding how the public views us can improve our responses to gospel questions. SNIP 2. Ditch the lingo. Gary Lawrence is a respected pollster and adviser to the missionary department. He suggests we use simple terms to which our Christian friends will relate: Use "Christianity" instead of "gospel," "re-established" instead of "restoration," and "men changed" instead of "apostasy." 3. Stay on message. Only 12 percent of Americans know our central message. It is this: We...

SNIP Teach of faith to keep all the commandments of God, knowing that they are given to bless His children and bring them joy. 4 Warn them that they will encounter people who pick which commandments they will keep and ignore others that they choose to break. I call this the cafeteria approach to obedience. This practice of picking and choosing will not work. It will lead to misery. To prepare to meet God, one keeps all of His commandments. It takes faith to obey them, and keeping His commandments will strengthen that faith. Obedience allows God’s blessings to flow...

Introduction If Mormonism itself is not the "one true religion" as it claims to be, then that claim, of course is not true, and is a lie. If Joseph Smith did not really see angels, and if he did not really translate the Book of Mormon with divine help, then those claims are lies.But the purpose of this article is not to deal with those broad issues, since the amount of evidence that would be required to demonstrate the falsity of those claims (and the other broad claims of Mormonism) is more than can be dealt with in a small space. Rather,...