Free Republic

The Franklin County Speedway in Callaway is known for mud bogging and even more so for its summer-time racing. Though the stands are empty now, this Sunday the owner hopes for a big crowd. Whitey Taylor, the track owner, is trying a new marketing strategy: African-Americans will get in free of charge. “Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., all African-Americans; black people, we're going to invite them to come down,” said Taylor. He's doing this in hopes of attracting more African-Americans to the race track. “We have families that come here; they love the place. But I want to open this...

The mainstream pro-family movement continues to be its own worst enemy. Back in October we wrote an article, “How the pro-family movement helped spread “gay marriage” across America.” It turns out there were more failures to come. The recent surrender on the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (RFRA) bills by the Governors of Indiana and Arkansas can be directly tied to the myriad bad decisions and compromises by well-meaning pro-family groups and individuals, who are sorely overmatched by the homosexual lobby in strategy, tactics, and funding. Last month the Indiana legislature passed a rather bland RFRA bill, similar to many around...

A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee teaching assistant is offering extra credit to his students—but only if they’re bisexual. In an email sent by Jonathan Dellinger to students enrolled in his public speaking class on April 1, the TA promised three extra credit points to any of his students who were bisexual. “I’m just writing to inform you of another extra credit opportunity (3 points),” Dellinger wrote in the email obtained by Campus Reform. “To be eligible to participate in this study, you must identify as bisexual, so not everyone will be able to do this one.” A student in the Communications...

Even if a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this spring makes same-sex marriage the law, it would leave pockets of the country where it isn't likely to be recognized any time soon: the reservations of a handful of sovereign Native American tribes, including the nation's two largest. Since 2011, as the number of states recognizing such unions spiked to 37, at least six smaller tribes have revisited and let stand laws that define marriage as being between a man and a woman, according to an Associated Press review of tribal records. In all, tribes with a total membership approaching 1 million...

An enigma pondered down through the ages – or at least since Thomas Jefferson condemned the institution of slavery while contemplating slaves toiling in his fields – Do only stupid people achieve leadership positions in the Democratic Party, or does being a Democratic leader make you really stupid? In every election cycle, the media delight in portraying Republicans, especially conservatives, as drooling idiots who refuse to accept the reality of global warming, don't understand that guns (and not criminals) cause crime, have a problem with abortion being readily available to 14-year-olds, and believe the Bible had something to do with...

One of the most outrageous – and prominent -- homosexual activist groups in the state was given permission at the last minute to march in the Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Later the parade organizer said he didn’t know they were a “gay” group when he let them in. This preposterous alibi has only served to outrage faithful Catholics even more. On Friday, March 13 (two days before the parade) the Boston media erupted with the story that a second homosexual group, Boston Pride, would be marching. Unlike OutVets, the other homosexual group given permission back in December, Boston Pride...

Former Senator Rick Santorum tells a story about his 2012 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. A group of deep-pocket donors called the Republican candidates to New York to be vetted. Santorum found it odd that all of the questions on social issues were directed at him. Finally he said to the donors: "Why are you only asking me about abortion and marriage? My opponents all have the same positions," to which one responded: "Yes, but you mean it." That's what scares the left and its media myrmidons the most about Ted Cruz – that he's not Romney '08, who...

Michael Sam reveals that he is not the only gay player in the NFL. Speaking at the 2015 Dallas Holocaust Museum Upstander Speaker series, the first openly gay player drafted into the league that other gay NFL players have reached out to him. “I am not the only gay person in the NFL,” Sam told the audience, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I’m just saying there is a lot of us. I respect the players that did reach out to me and had the courage to tell me that they were also gay, but they do not have the...

Gregory Walcott, a character actor whose résumé included numerous television westerns, several Clint Eastwood movies and prestige films like “Norma Rae” — but who was probably best known as one of the stars of “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” often called the worst movie ever made — died on Friday at his home in the Canoga Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 87. He said in a 1998 interview that the “Plan 9” script “made no sense” but that he took the job because one of the producers was a friend of his. “I thought maybe my name could...

A year after Blake Brockington was voted homecoming king at East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, the transgender teen died from an apparent suicide, The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday. Brockington, 18, was the school’s first transgender homecoming king. When he was voted king, he told local LGBT newspaper QNotes: "I honestly feel like this is something I have to do. Nobody should be scared to be themselves, and everybody should have an equal opportunity to have an enjoyable high school experience." The transgender youth activist became open about his identity when he was a sophomore. He explained to...

BOSTON (CBS) -Enough is enough. For the past eight weeks or so (starting around Jan. 23) we have experienced the harshest New England winter stretch ever recorded in our long and weathered history. This is not an exaggeration. Records haven’t just been challenged, they have been smashed, obliterated. We all deserve and NEED a break. After the snowiest and coldest February ever recorded, March came in like a polar bear and looks to be going out the same way. In fact, as of this writing, our average temperature this March is 31.8 degrees. This ties us with 1984 as the...

A Massachusetts high school is having a serious debate over the theme of a scheduled dance. According to WHDH, students at the school in Lexington said that the school administration canceled their ‘American pride’ dance because it may exclude other nationalities. The ‘American pride’ theme received the most votes from the Lexington High School dance committee. Despite this, the administration is standing behind its decision, saying it’s are willing to tweak the theme in order for ‘everyone to be included.’

Hoop skirts will go the way of Confederate uniforms as special-event attire for Greek organizations at the University of Georgia — into the past. The hoop skirt ban came after UGA Student Affairs administrators met Monday with some UGA fraternity and sorority leaders, including representatives of the UGA chapters of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Kappa Alpha fraternities, both of which have deep roots in the Southern Confederacy. The ban comes a week after the University of Oklahoma expelled two SAE fraternity members and shut down the university’s SAE chapter because of a racist video made by members. In the video,...

A girl who was reportedly recorded in a viral video that showed the brutal beating of another girl and a young boy near a playground in Indianapolis has been arrested for an unrelated incident, according to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. The 14-year-old girl was arrested for disorderly conduct in downtown Indianapolis Saturday night, police said, but she was also identified as a suspect in the earlier beating of another 14-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy in an attack that was caught on camera. Lieutenant Richard Riddle with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department’s media relations office said authorities believe the...

NEW YORK (AP) — As a rabbinic student in 1980s New York, Denise Eger lived away from other seminarians. She quietly started a group for fellow gay and lesbian students, but held the meetings in another borough. By the time of her ordination, she wasn’t formally out, but her sexuality was known, and no one would hire her. Later, she took the only job offered, with a synagogue formed expressly as a religious refuge for gays. Since then, the Reform Jewish movement — Eger’s spiritual home since childhood — has traveled a long road toward recognizing and embracing same-sex relationships....

The Elder Board of San Francisco's largest evangelical church, City Church, has announced that the megachurch will end its practice of preventing LGBT people from becoming members if they are unwilling or unable to practice lifelong celibacy. "Our pastoral practice of demanding life-long 'celibacy,' by which we meant that for the rest of your life you would not engage your sexual orientation in any way, was causing obvious harm and has not led to human flourishing," Sr. Pastor Fred Harrell writes in a letter "on behalf of the Board and for the Gospel." The pastor cites social science research, saying...

Today we saw the triumph of resolute religious believers over the homosexual lobby. All this week the Massachusetts Knights of Columbus (K of C), a prominent Catholic mens' organization, repeatedly vowed that they would “absolutely, definitely” march in the newly “gay-inclusive” Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Sunday. But the group finally bowed to the intense pressure from traditional Catholics. At 3:32 pm on Friday afternoon they sent out an email announcing they were dropping out of the parade. After reading the reports by MassResistance and the Boston-based Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, faithful Catholics and others reacted swiftly. From...

TLC is becoming the latest network to explore transgender life. The cable network has handed out a straight-to-series order for All That Jazz, a docuseries following 14-year-old transgender activist Jazz Jennings, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The 11-episode series will feature Jennings — dubbed "The New Face of Transgender Youth" — in her daily life, juggling her foray into high school while navigating how a transgender teen approaches dating and sleepovers all while avoiding male puberty. Jennings, who has been featured on 20/20, The Rosie Show and was named one of the 25 Most Influential Teens of 2014 by Time...

Stacie Laughton, the state's first openly transgender legislator who was elected to the House of Representatives and then withdrew her candidacy days later, said Thursday that she is the person responsible for calling in a hoax bomb threat at a local hospital. After spending two weeks receiving treatment at a Vermont hospital for bipolar disorder, Laughton walked into the Nashua Police Department at noon on Thursday and turned herself in on a warrant for the Feb. 27 incident. “I have had a mental illness my whole life, and I guess this was my worst break with it. I was untreated...

Public health officials across the West Coast are urging medical professionals to look out for cases of ocular syphilis – a sexually transmitted disease that can cause blindness – after two potential cases in Los Angeles recently. With more than a dozen cases – most of them among gay men – reported between Seattle and San Francisco and now potentially two in Southern California, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is calling for medical professionals to do more. “These new cases … highlight the importance of ongoing, regular check-ups for sexually active individuals who feel they may be at risk, particularly men...