Free Republic

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The Obama Health and Human Services Department is finalizing a regulation requiring insurers under Obamacare to pay for genital reconstruction surgery. A sweeping "Nondiscrimination Mandate" applies federal civil rights laws to the Affordable Care Act, calling for medical plans that receive federal funds to cover gender reassignment surgeries, under the guise of helping gender-confused individuals. It is unclear whether the Obama nondiscrimination mandate will also force private insurers, such as companies that run their own employee health plans, to cover surgery attempting to change one's gender.  Under federal law (referred to as ERISA),...

Editor's note: You can watch the documentary at the bottom of this article. GILBERT, Arizona, March 23, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- If you’re a parent who’s been told that your child’s sex-ed program at school is comprehensive, evidenced-based, age-appropriate, and that it promotes healthy relationships, then you, and every other parent who’s been sold the same message, have essentially been lied to. That is, according to a powerful new documentary that’s exposing what producers say is a “deceptive agenda” behind sex-ed programs being pushed not only in schools across the globe, but also by multiple United Nations entities and government bodies. ...

Zoos with humans on display; an academic who wishes publicly that 90 percent of humans would perish from ebola; suicide tourists; “after-birth abortions” – what is the world coming to? In a new book, The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life, history professor Richard Weikart examines the intellectual currents that produce these shocking phenomena and defends the sanctity of human life. Here, Professor Weikart answers some questions from MercatorNet. ‘The Death of Humanity’ is a sombre title. Are things really that bad? What do you mean by it?My title refers to the way that many intellectuals and scholars...

I grew up believing myself to have been born gay having always, and only, had the most powerful, all-consuming, erotic attraction towards my own sex.Teenage years were hell. I often thought of suicide, occasionally self-harmed and had a growing problem with alcohol. I lived in a rural mining community in the north of England believing I would never be accepted among my own as a gay man, particularly as I watched a male cousin some ten years older than me – now deceased from a drug overdose – struggle to find his place as a gay man in the late...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – The National Survey of Family Growth concludes that while more and more Americans support homosexual "marriage," they simultaneously support marriage less and less. The U.S. Health and Human Services survey, using data from 2011 to 2013, revealed increasing apathy toward marriage in general and a disconnect from the positive role marriage should play in families and individuals. Sixty percent of women ages 15-44 say sodomy is "all right" (up from 42 percent in 2002). Seventy-five percent of women say gay couples should be able to adopt vulnerable children (up from 55 percent). Among...

You might think that this is grotesque. I certainly think it is grotesque. But should we be so judgemental about the unorthodox connubial arrangements of Anna and Lucy Decinque, 31-year-old identical twins who are sharing a bed with their 32-year-old electrical mechanic boyfriend Ben Byrne? The trio have lived together for the last four years in Perth, Western Australia, with the girls’ mother. The girls are inseparable, so much so that they have spent A$240,000 on various cosmetic improvements to look even more alike. They imitate each other and share everything. Even their boyfriend. When Anna and Lucy appeared on...

TORONTO, March 18, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- In the name of “dismantl[ing] systemic transphobia” a Toronto public school teacher has announced he is now using all-gender cabins for students on school camping trips, stating explicitly that the school did not obtain parental permission for the move.  Stating that the province’s new 2012 transgender law (Bill 33) made “schools legally responsible for eliminating barriers to inclusion based on gender identity and gender expression,” the teacher stated that parents simply had to accept the new “cultural mind shift.” “Here, adults had to grapple with a new legal reality; this meeting was not a...

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once asked a rhetorical question with a not so far-fetched answer. He wrote, “Why are those who are notoriously undisciplined and unmoral also most contemptuous of religion and morality? They are trying to solace their own unhappy lives by pulling the happy down to their own abysmal depths.” If that sounds like a question and answer exam about the culture of death, then you know where I am going with these comments. Every day holds another tragic example of the twisted thinking of those who claim that somehow the act of abortion is a good thing....

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 17, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- A new poll that alleges teenagers are gender-fluid is getting panned by pro-life researchers, a media expert, and a polling professor. Last week, The Innovation Group, part of the international trend forecasting and data analytical group J. Walter Thompson Company, released a study of Millennials and "Generation Z" Americans that they claimed shows teenage Americans were more gender-fluid in self-identity, and in their choice of clothing and other product purchases. "We did a survey of Gen Z for a report released in May 2015 and found that 81 percent said that gender doesn't...

So many organizations and entities have noble and good beginnings. For instance “The Ivies” and the Seven Sisters colleges, most of which were either Christian schools or seminaries that, over the last century, have departed faith moorings.Other organizations have nothing but evil inceptions; case in point Planned Parenthood.The original intent of Planned Parenthood has been veiled with a facade of honorable work, but the truth is despicable to the core.Planned Parenthood’s predecessor, The American Birth Control League, was founded by Nazi-inspiration Margaret Sanger, the godmother of modern eugenics, in 1921. As I wrote in the article, Margaret Sanger’s Dream Come...

It’s no secret that Western campuses are dominated by progressivism. But certain indices of academics’ love affair with the far left still have the power to shock. The University of Victoria is inviting applications from students in its Pacific and Asian Studies program for two awards “in memory of the late Mao Tse Tung” — one to be applied for a study tour of China, the other to promote the study of modern China.Now the Mao Tse Tung Memorial Course and Travel Awards don’t amount, in monetary terms, to a hill of beans — a few hundred dollars together, barely enough to...

Life expectancy has increased significantly over the past several decades and people live longer now than they did even 50 years ago. The average American now lives to almost 79 years old, nearly double the life expectancy for the average person in 1900. Yet, despite the number of older folks in our society, lack of respect and care for the elderly has become an increasing problem. As our society embraces a “throwaway” and materialistic mindset, we see a decline in the birth rate as well as a greater aging population. As society loses respect for the human person at even the...

BOSTON, March 14, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) - A bill that would allow adult biological males to shower or change alongside young girls has earned the endorsement of two prominent teachers unions in Massachusetts. State legislators are considering a bill that would specifically open all public restrooms, shower facilities, and locker rooms to transgender people. "An Act Relative to Gender Identity and Non-Discrimination" (H.B. 1577) would add "gender identity" to the state's protected classes able to access all public facilities, such as private changing areas. Lawmakers specifically exempted "lawfully sex-segregated facilities" when it passed a 2011 ordinance granting transgender people protected legal...

NEW YORK CITY, March 11, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- New York Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an executive order giving men the right to use women's bathrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa. The mayor's edict is called, "Access to Single-Sex City Facilities Consistent With Gender Identity and Expression."  It means that all New York City single-gender facilities must accommodate both sexes, including city buildings and offices, parks, children's playgrounds, swimming pools, and more, all access given without showing identification or any proof of gender. Mayor de Blasio declared that transgenders using opposite sex bathrooms and locker rooms "is a fundamental...

In the wake of the huge controversy last year about the use of fetal tissue obtained from Planned Parenthood abortion clinics, the US Congress held hearings last week about “Bioethics and Fetal Tissue”.Here are excerpts from the testimony of G. Kevin Donovan, Director of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics and Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington DC.********I am a physician trained in both pediatrics and clinical bioethics. I have spent my entire professional career caring for infants and children. It was this interest and concern that led me to further study...

UNITED KINGDOM, March 10, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – British organ transplant specialists want the country's National Health Service to encourage parents considering aborting their disabled unborn children to carry them to term so their parts can be harvested. While proponents say the harvesting won't happen until the baby is dead, that could mean "brain-dead," raising the prospect of other bodily functions being intentionally terminated at the optimum moment for removal of organs. The practice has generated strong criticism from ethicists, and though pro-life advocates appreciate that officials would encourage parents to carry their children to term, they are criticizing the underlying...

You’re a pro-life family. You teach your kids about the sanctity of every human being from an early age and help them explore the beauty of God’s creation at the earliest moments of life. You treasure the “wow” moments that your child experiences while learning about the culture of life. You know that teaching your child about the value of every human being is important. But what happens when your child is exposed to the horrors of abortion—through a cemetery of the innocents display, a pro-life memorial to honor deceased preborn children, or even during a church sermon? At American...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Marco Rubio is staunchly pro-marriage, but he’s facing questions after the revelation that he is appointing Paul Singer, a major gay “marriage” proponent, as his campaign finance chairman. Politico speculated that the choice is part of a Wall Street campaign to stop Donald Trump.  Merco Press claimed the choice "shows just how willing Rubio is to risk voter backlash in order to continue raising money for his campaign march." Singer founded the hedge fund Elliot Management Corporation, and is worth about $2.2 billion according to Forbes. In 2012, he started a Super PAC...

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland, March 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Minutes after addressing a packed room at the 2016 CPAC, two leading social conservatives told LifeSiteNews that sexual agendas are putting religious liberty at risk. The Family Research Council's Travis Weber told LifeSiteNews that "for a lot of us, religious liberty's only been a hot-button issue recently, we're seeing in the news. Why is that? It's driven by agendas affecting matters of sexuality – marriage, abortion, contraception, and all sorts of other issues." "So what do we do about this? Some of these claims are going to be dealt with in the...

WOONSOCKET, Rhode Island, March 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – A Rhode Island Catholic school has instituted a policy against enrolling transgender students. However, in the face of backlash the school says it is open to rethinking the policy. “Mount Saint Charles Academy is unable to make accommodations for transgender students,” the school’s handbook states. “Therefore, MSC does not accept transgender students nor is MSC able to continue to enroll students who identify as transgender.” The policy against admitting students identifying as transgender has been in effect at the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, prep school as of October of last year, according to...