Free Republic

<p>Tattoos are the emblems of our age. They bristle from the biceps of men in summer shirts, from the lower backs of women as they ascend the stairs, from the shoulders of basketball players as they drive toward the basket and from every inch of certain celebrities. The tattoo is the battle flag of today in its war with tomorrow. It is carried by sure losers.</p>

Arguments were heard today in a federal district court case to determine whether a state university system can dictate that private Christian schools in the state teach their college prep courses from exclusively secular, Bible- and God-free textbooks. As WND reported earlier, the University of California system adopted a policy last year that basic science, history, and literature textbooks by major Christian book publishers wouldn't qualify for core admissions requirements because of the inclusion of Christian perspectives. Robert Tyler, who is representing Calvary Chapel Christian School and five students in the case against the University of California, told WND that...

The most effective of all morality-based arguments for same-sex marriage, the one that persuades more people than any other argument, is the one that equates opposition to same-sex marriage with the old opposition to interracial marriage. The argument, repeated so often that it sounds incontestable, is this: Just as parts of American society once had immoral laws that forbade whites and blacks from marrying, so, today, society continues to have immoral laws forbidding men from marrying men and women from marrying women. And just as decent people overthrew the former, decent people must overthrow the latter. Thanks in large part...

You've probably heard the relativist line that goes something like this: "'Gay marriage' won't hurt anyone. Live and let live, already!" Well, don't buy it for a minute. With its recent 4-3 opinion - which arrogantly presumed to redefine the millennia-old definition of legitimate marriage - the California Supreme Court daftly divined that the framers of the California Constitution intended - all along, I guess - that Patrick Henry really had a constitutional right to "marry" Henry Patrick. In so doing, four black-robed Dr. Frankensteins have loosed that paradoxical abomination tagged same-sex "marriage" on the countryside. "Abomination," you say?...

It seems that almost weekly there is another assault on true marriage. The unrelenting efforts of an activist wing of the homosexual community have succeeded in reframing the issues of the debate and now aim to enforce nothing short of a Cultural Revolution. They have been joined by eager collaborators in the Judiciary and elected officials who believe they are some kind of new “liberators”. Notice the pervasive use of the language of this new Cultural Revolution. No longer are there any news reports using the word marriage for what it ontologically is, the lifelong union between one man and...

Hollywood, Calif. – Dr. Ted Baehr, publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®, a family guide to movies and entertainment, is delighted to see that this weekend at the boxoffice family films win again. “We see it time and again,” Baehr noted. “Movies aimed for the family, without excessive negative elements of sex, violence or foul language, consistently perform higher at the box office.” This weekend KUNG FU PANDA, a family oriented animated film from DreamWorks Pictures, took the top box office spot in a head to head opening with the Adam Sander sexual innuendo drenched YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN from Sony...

At the risk of scorching my flame-retardant suit, I am posting a book summary. I am doing so because considerable hostility is directed towards Muslims on this site, and author Dinish D’Souza may serve to mollify your views a bit. The book is “The Enemy at Home”. The is from the book jacket: “ Whenever Muslims charge that the war on terror is really a war against Islam, Americans hasten to assure them they are wrong. Yet as Dinesh D’Souza argues…there really is a war against Islam. Only this war is not being waged by Christian conservatives bent on a...

They say we are tired of culture wars. Tell that to the California Supreme Court, which didn't sound tired at all when it lobbed a big, fat hand grenade into the marriage debate. Ideas have consequences. And the California court endorsed two big, brand-new, very bad ideas. The first idea is that the internationally recognized human right to marry includes same-sex marriage. In U.S. constitutional law, fundamental human rights are those deeply rooted in our traditions. Not even in Massachussetts or in New Jersey could the courts quite stomach the idea that same-sex marriage is deeply rooted in those traditions....

People gaze in disbelief at the cultural landscape — all the divorce, cohabitation, promiscuity, sexually transmitted disease, single moms, ill-mannered children, failing public schools, substance abuse, domestic violence, abortions, pornography and incivility — and can't fathom how America fell this far this fast. No one event triggered this devolution, but it undeniably was pushed along many times by the moral relativism of the last 50 years, when most of society's widely accepted norms were undermined by the quicksand of nonjudgmentalism; when the concepts of right and wrong, good and bad, were abolished in favor of differences that were to be...

Print This E-mail Link Send Letter Send Correction Groton (AP) - Connecticut's Episcopal Diocese has filed a lawsuit against the leadership of the Bishop Seabury Church, demanding it turn over control of the church property after voting to leave the national church in a dispute over theology and the appointment of a gay bishop. The Rev. Ronald Gauss was suspended from Bishop Seabury on May 3, when the diocese appointed another priest, the Rev. David Cannon, to take over. Rev. Gauss and 12 former and current church leaders were served this week with the lawsuit, which was filed in Superior...

Over the last five years, more than 4,000 brave young Americans have given their lives in the service of this country. Thousands more have been wounded, some maimed for life. More and more of their countrymen seem persuaded that they shouldn’t have been ordered into Iraq, but surely no one can deny that our troops have marched into the jaws of death believing they’re truly defending all of us, our mutual home, and its well-being. It’s tragic, of course, and we lament the deaths, the suffering, the disproportionate sacrifices our military families have made. And along with the physical costs,...

"We are living in a new time, where people are behaving in abnormal ways and calling it normal…No longer is a person embarrassed because they're pregnant without a husband. No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child" -- Bill Cosby, speaking to African-Americans at St. Paul Church of God in Christ, Detroit, July, 2007. As Mother's Day approaches, it seems a fitting moment to point out the truth of Bill Cosby's observation. Left unsaid but well understood by him: This "new time" and these "abnormal ways"...

Grand Theft Auto IV hit the stores last week like a tsunami, and is expected to become one of the biggest sellers in video game history. Commentators agree that the game, with its sophisticated graphics, sets a new standard for realistic violence and sex. News reports and game-related websites give the flavor of what avid gamers are getting for their 60 bucks. GTA IV opens with an S&M sex scene. Players can gun down ordinary citizens, beat up prostitutes, murder cops and enjoy lap dances from strippers. This mayhem is accompanied by what the Associated Press called a "nearly constant...

Bill Donohue may not be tired of the culture wars–or internecine Catholic wars. The head of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is often over the top in denunciations of anti-Catholicism, real or perceived, and of other Catholics who Donohue sees as not toeing the proper Catholic line. But even Donohue may have outdone himself, and done in his own organization, if his latest press release prompts an IRS investigation. The May 2 release is “Catholic Dissidents Advise Obama,” and it draws down on Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Committee, which includes several Commonwealers, such as Cathleen Kaveny and...

"This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper," wrote T.S. Eliot in the closing couplet of "The Hollow Men." ................ Some saw it as the whimper of a man facing the executioner's ax. Others say Eliot was referring to the middle-aged protagonist of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," who had "measured out my life with coffee spoons" and soon would "wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled." Recent reports suggest God has another end in store for us. .......... More arresting is that the white population is shrinking not only in relative but...

Viewing The 1960s From My 60s By Burt Prelutsky Even though I'm embarrassed to have been a Democrat for so many years, I'm proud that even in my 20's, I thought the 60's was the worst decade in America's history. Because I was born in 1940, I was at UCLA for some of those years and had a bird's eye view of my fellow college students. It was not a pretty sight. What makes that time the source of so much nostalgia for so many people of my age -- the incessant folk songs, the tie-dyed shirts and blouses, the...

With in-vitro fertilization (IVF) becoming more and more popular, an increasing number of children are at risk of being separated from their fathers. Ireland’s High Court recently ruled against giving any parental rights to a father whose sperm was donated and used in an artificial insemination, which resulted in the birth of his son. The father, a homosexual, donated sperm to the mother and her female partner, who are a lesbian couple. On April 17 the Irish Times reported that Judge John Hedigan held that the lesbian couple could be regarded as a de facto couple with rights under the...

Maybe I should call this Notes from the Front Line. I was a substitute assistant SPED (special ed) teacher today in a middle school in central Virginia. During first period, I was assigned to a science class where around four girls were silent because of the Day of Silence. The girls who were doing this gave me the impression of being nice, normal kids. I had brought some articles with me from the US Centers for Disease Control about MSM (men who have sex with men) and also a bit of information about Matthew Shepard in preparation for this kind...

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is grappling with growing numbers of public corruption cases and a surge in mortgage fraud investigations, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday, wondering aloud whether Americans are "becoming more crooked." In a speech to the American Bar Association, Mueller asked the assembled defense lawyers for help in "creating a culture of integrity" by reporting evidence of wrongdoing by politicians and corporate executives alike. "Anyone who follows the news these days and sees repeated references to corporate fraud and public corruption might think the nation is in the midst of a moral crisis," Mueller told the defense...

Last week in Terre Haute, Ind., Mr. Obama explained that the people he had in mind “don’t vote on economic issues, because they don’t expect anybody’s going to help them.” He added: “So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don’t believe they can count on Washington.” This is a remarkably detailed and vivid account of the political...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- During the faith forum at Messiah College on Sunday night, pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made it clear he doesn't support abstinence-only education. Instead, he wants comprehensive sex-ed that includes contraception and birth control. Though unmarried students who have signed a no-sex pledge to remain abstinent until marriage attended the event, Obama said their decision wasn't enough. "What I have consistently talked about is to take a comprehensive approach where we focus on abstinence," he said. "I do believe that contraception has to be part of that education process." Later in the forum, Frank Page...

A famous saying is that Social Security is the "third rail" of American politics (touch it and die), but there's a case to be made that gun control is an even more dangerous issue. .... For many Americans, including those in Republican-leaning districts like the one Cazaoux is seeking to represent, a candidate's position on guns serves as a stand in for whether or not he (or she) is one of them. During the 1990s, Republicans used Democrats' support for gun control to paint the party as out of touch with the average voter. Using these tactics, Republicans transformed themselves...

I don't know who played in the Super bowl this year. I don't even know when the Super bowl was or where it was. I once scheduled a seminar at a church for the Sunday evening of the Super bowl and didn't find out until the following day why no one showed up for our usually well-attended events. I almost never know who is playing in the World Series. When Brokeback Mountain star Heath Ledger's death made the headlines, I had never heard of him. Football fans, baseball fans, and movie fans could scarcely imagine that there are millions of...

Winning the Cultural War Charlton Heston delivered 16 February 1999, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot...

Charlton Heston Winning the Culture War audio and text of speech One of the best I have ever heard "God Bless Charlton"

Several U.S. mainline Protestant denominations are about to face their latest showdowns on one of the most vexing issues since slavery: whether to break from biblical morality as traditionally understood to allow clergy with homosexual partners and to sanction blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. "Mainline" groups (predominantly white, with early American roots, and affiliated with the National Council of Churches) contain vocal, well-organized liberal and evangelical combatants. The resulting dispute "certainly has taken a big toll," says Jack Haberer of Presbyterian Outlook, an independent magazine that airs varied views. "For some, it's the total compromise of all things moral. For...

After listening to these autobiographical excerpts from Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, read out loud by Obama himself, I’m left with the conviction that, in the 2008 election we are facing the mother of all cultural battles.... But it’s now evident that even a Hillary campaign would be tame by comparison to the cultural confrontation flowing from an Obama nomination. The transformation of the 2008 campaign into a full-fledged cultural battle is what is really emerging from the Jeremiah Wright flap. A president who identifies with Malcolm X? A man who grew up alienated from ordinary American life and...

Ask Candidates about the Boy Scouts Dear Member of the Media: The city of Philadelphia is a war zone. Philadelphia has the highest murder rate of all major U.S. cities and one of the highest overall crime rates. One in thirteen young black males in the city was shot or killed in the past 5 years. Over 1,000 youth under age 24 were shot in 2006 alone. Philadelphia has one of the highest high school dropout rates of all major cities and is among the highest in gang membership, gang violence and drug use. One answer to this crisis facing...

Potter Author JK Rowling Equates Christians Who Avoid Potter with Islamic Fundamentalists Says "fundamentalists across all the major religions, if you put them in a room, they'd have bags in common! They hate all the same things" By John-Henry Westen EDINBURGH, March 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The newly released edition of the Edinburgh University Student newspaper, the oldest student newspaper in the UK, includes an interview with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.  In the interview Rowling claims to have received death threats from Christians opposed to her novels, calling Christian 'fundamentalists' "dangerous" and comparing them by inference to Islamic fundamentalists....

An Oklahoma lawmaker has received an avalanche of criticism, reportedly including a few death threats, for calling homosexuality a greater threat to America than terrorism. Republican state legislator Sally Kern has apparently made the comment in more than one venue, and even now defends her statement while the condemnation rolls in from around the country. Kern has only mellowed it to insist that she meant no gay-bashing: A YouTube audio clip of a state lawmaker’s screed against homosexuality, which she called a bigger threat than terrorism, has outraged gay activists and brought death threats rolling in.“The homosexual agenda is destroying...

Robert A. Fink, MD March, 2008 Editors Note:Right Side News welcomes Dr. Robert A. Fink and his writing on critical issues of our day, in the culture wars we are engaged in. Please review his bio at the end of his article today. Boys - Casualties of the Gender Wars addresses the rise of gender feminism, and the wide use of prescription medicines in our children, especially boys. Robert A. Fink, M. D. -- Recently, educational researchers have begun to review the changes within our educational system brought about by such diverse factors as standardized testing in the schools, the...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sought the support of voters in the homosexual community Feb. 28, telling them in a letter that if elected president he would work to pass laws important to that constituency and would use the "bully pulpit" to urge states to grant same-sex couples the legal benefits of marriage. The 770-word letter was posted on a section of Obama's campaign website devoted to homosexual issues. He and Hillary Clinton have worked for months to get the votes of the homosexual community, even appearing in August at a historic Democratic presidential forum devoted solely to homosexual issues....

Q: Let’s talk about your new book, “On My Honor,” which draws on your experience as an Eagle Scout and champions the values of the Boy Scouts of America, to whom you are donating your royalties. A: Yes, to their legal-defense fund. Q: Which has been fighting the A.C.L.U., to keep gays out of the scouts. Why do you see that as a worthy cause? A: I am pretty clear about this one. Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual...

A tussle that began with a condom and a banana has morphed into all-out war at a New Jersey high school, with some parents trying to end a peer-to-peer sexual-education course taught in about 45 other public schools statewide. Parents opposed to the classes at Clearview Regional High School, in Mullica Hill, say that kids shouldn't be instructing kids about sex ---snip--- Do you want a 16-year-old boy teaching your 14-year-old daughter how to put on a condom by using a banana?" asked Lisa Westermann, whose son said the course had made him uncomfortable

On every side, one can read obituaries for the religious right. Jim Wallis’s new book, “The Great Awakening,” carries the subtitle, “Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America.” E. J. Dionne Jr.’s book, “Souled Out,” is subtitled “Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right.” The subtitle of David P. Gushee’s new book, “The Future of Faith in American Politics,” poses “The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center” against that of the religious right. Sometimes stated outright and sometimes between the lines is the hope that the decline of the religious right will ease what Americans have come...

If you don’t speak Spanish, Miami really can feel like a foreign country. In any restaurant, the conversation at the next table is more likely to be Spanish than English. And Miami’s population is only 65 percent Hispanic. El Paso, Texas, is 76 percent Latino. Flushing is 60 percent immigrant, mainly Chinese.Chinatowns and Little Italys have long been part of America’s urban landscape, but would it be all right to have entire U.S. cities where most people spoke and did business in Chinese, Spanish or even Arabic? Are too many Third World, non-English-speaking immigrants destroying our national identity?For some Americans,...

On February 24, in honor of "V-Day," the National Council of Jewish Women Seattle office is co-sponsoring two performances of the Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues at the Museum of History and Industry. To publicize the event, the group produced a print ad for placement in the Seattle Times, among other publications. But, much to the group's chagrin, the Times declined to run it unless the sponsors altered the artwork (pictured above) — which they refused to do. "The artwork was something we didn't feel was appropriate for our audience," says the Times' VP of advertising, Mei-Mei Chan. I don't know,...

There's an uproar in the U.K. over recent comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury that, given the country's growing and restive Muslim population, it is "unavoidable" that certain aspects of Islamic law would, at some point, have to be accepted in Britain. What many Americans do not realize is that there's a concerted effort by some in the American Muslim community to move slowly in a similar direction right here in the United States. While this effort is not necessarily about Sharia law, it is an attempt by some Muslim Americans to force the rest of us to enable their...

Beginning in the 1970’s, America quietly embarked on the boldest social experiment in her history. With no public discussion of the possible consequences, laws were enacted in virtually every jurisdiction that ended marriage as a legal contract and precluded couples from creating binding agreements to rear children. Regardless of the terms on which a marriage is entered, government officials can now, at the request of one spouse, simply dissolve it over the objection of the other and with no penalty to the moving party. As far as the federal and state governments are concerned, all couples are cohabiting. ... The...

Is it possible, or even worthwhile, for Christians to reach a consensus on impacting culture—from the performing arts, to music, to literature? Well, there are probably as many answers to that question as there are Christians. But theologian T. M. Moore, in his compelling new book Culture Matters, explains why it is so important that Christians reach a cultural consensus: “All culture,” he says, “is a gift from God. The challenge to us is in learning how to take what is good in contemporary culture, reclaim and retool it, and put it to work in a Christian framework for forming...

Group calls for end to Christmas Culture wars The outrage by some people over department stores using the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” is a distraction from real moral and social issues, according to a group of concerned Catholics and evangelical Christians. The group has called for a “cease-fire in the Christmas culture wars,” and challenged conservative talk-show host Bill O’Reilly and others who have lashed out against a so-called secular “War on Christmas.” In an “Open Letter to Christmas Culture Warriors” published as an advertisement in the New York Post, Washington Times and the National Catholic Reporter,...

As far as I'm concerned, a silent or waffling pastor in today's paranormal climate is about as necessary as Rosie O'Donnell is to CPAC. I don't care how much the minister likes kitty cats, candy canes and if he cries at Celine Dion concerts. Look, voiceless vicar, if you're not currently in the big middle of this crucial cultural squabble, pointing out what's putrid and cheering on what's proper, then you're Dr. Evil in my book. Given that this is an upcoming election year and that the culture-dividing issues are more obvious than Joan River's last lip implants, it is...

The war on the Boy Scouts By Al Knight Article Last Updated: 12/18/2007 07:45:49 PM MST Some topics are best left both out of sight and out of mind. The American Civil Liberties Union's war on the Boy Scouts is not one of them. The ACLU, in a rational world, might well have been expected to champion the First Amendment rights of an organization like the Boy Scouts. After all, the First Amendment to the Constitution (so dear to the ACLU) protects both speech and the right to associate. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 upheld the right of the...

Christmas in Japan can be a little lonely and isolated for the Westerner. What with the distance and cultural differences. Missing the usual things from back home, especially for one 'American in Tokyo'. This year 2007 is no different. However, in many respects there is nevertheless one little thing that is so refreshing about being stuck in Japan during Christmas—after a few years--for the occasions one cannot make it back "home". It is almost like the clock has been turned back years to a simple and brighter time in our own country. An era years before the phenomenon of "political...

In Christmases past, residents of Kingston House in West York hung a tree with Santa Clauses and decorated a common room with puzzles showing Christ in a manger. School groups and carolers came through the halls singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and other popular Christian hymns. But things are different this December. At Kingston House and other properties owned by the York Area Development Corporation, songs or decorations in common areas must be secular. The same policy applies to hundreds of tenants in York City's Delphia House and other apartments managed by the development...

This guy Huckabee is some kind of genius. A week ago, you had to be the Pope or the Queen to do your own big televised Christmas message. But now, since Huck climbed into his red sweater and hired George Lucas to do the notorious "floating cross" effect, every single-digit nickel 'n' dime presidential candidate is donning his gay apparel and trolling the ancient Yuletide carol. I haven't seen so much festive knitwear since "The Andy Williams Christmas Show" 1973. Because Mike Huckabee mentioned "the birth of Christ," he liberated the equivocal tentative finger-in-the-windy candidates and enabled them to utter...

School 1960 vs. School 2007 Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack. 1960 - Vice principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his own shotgun to show Jack. 2007 - School goes into lockdown, the FBI is called, Jack is hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors are called in to assist traumatized students and teachers. Scenario: Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school 1960 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands...

In California, a summit has been called to "close the achievement gap" in government schools. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/12/MNH8T5LTC.DTL California government school warden Jack O'Connell thinks that minority students are performing poorly because of teachers' "widespread cultural ignorance." In other words, the white teachers can't relate to the black and Latino students. Now enters a man by the name of Glenn Singleton, who runs the Pacific Education Group in San Francisco. He is a consultant for government schools. They take thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds and give those dollars to this man in return for his words of "wisdom." He is the...

NOW @ SDSU's bake sale charges men more for the same goods Imagine going to McDonald's and hearing that, because you're a white male, you pay full price for a Big Mac. Meanwhile, the girl behind you pays three-quarters of the total amount for the same thing. NOW (National Organization for Women) @ SDSU brought that reality to San Diego State yesterday at the Aztec Center by holding a pay equity bake sale. The prices for cookies reflected the difference of pay between genders and races. "It's just to raise awareness," NOW @ SDSU Co-President Amanda Whitehead said. "A lot...

The National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) is having its annual conference in Baltimore, Maryland starting today through Sunday. Now taxpayers in every state, listen up. Your money is paying for K-12 teachers from all 50 states to attend the NAME convention. The teachers can sit in on any of the workshops and determine which multicultural propaganda they would like to indoctrinate their government school with upon their return. Let's take a look at some of your workshop options: ***"The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Dismantling White Privilege and Supporting Anti-Racist Education in Our Classrooms and Schools." Designed to help educators...