Free Republic

A man whose speech defending same-sex marriage went viral in 2011 has announced his bid for an Iowa State Senate seat. Zach Wahls, who was 19 when he made the viral video, gave a powerful speech to the Iowa House of Representatives’s Judiciary Committee about growing up with two moms. The video was YouTube’s most-watched political video that year. Wahls, now 26, is running as a Democrat to fill the Iowa State Senate seat for the 37th District, which will be vacated by Democrat Bob Dvorsky, who is not seeking reelection. Wahls announced his campaign on Twitter on Dec. 21,...

Almost half of us are okay with the idea of two people getting married to avoid inheritance tax. In a study carried out by Amarách Research for RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live, 48% of people said they would support two people getting married where the sole purpose is to avoid inheritance tax. […] The poll comes after two friends went on RTÉ’s Liveline on Friday afternoon and said they were marrying for tax reasons. The show heard from 85-year-old Matt, who told Joe Duffy that Michael O’Sullivan was his best friend and that he planned to leave him his house when...

A flagship liberal Orthodox synagogue in New York will stop congratulating same-sex couples on their weddings following a complaint by the Orthodox Union. The Hebrew Institute of Riverdale in the Bronx will no longer announce the weddings of its LGBT members in its newsletters in accordance with a policy dictated by the OU, the largest association of Orthodox synagogues in the United States. The policy was set out this month in response to complaints from other member synagogues, which take a harder line on opposing same-sex marriage. Orthodox Jewish law, or halacha, prohibits same-sex marriage, and Orthodox rabbis are not...

Doug Jones, the Democrat who pulled off a stunning upset victory in Alabama's nail-biter Senate contest on Tuesday, is considered a champion for civil rights in a state that played a seminal role in the 1960s movement for racial equality. Jones' supporters erupted in cheers and jubilation as it became clear their portly, balding candidate had become the first Alabama Democrat to win a US Senate seat in 25 years. It came at the bitter end of a vitriolic campaign centered on Jones's Republican rival, Roy Moore, a Christian conservative accused of preying on teenage girls years before. Moore was...

SYDNEY, Australia, December 11, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Christians in Australia who uphold the sanctity of one-man, one-woman marriage are feeling threatened after the country legalized same-sex “marriage” last week. After a volunteer mail-in survey, lawmakers in both houses of Parliament passed a law legalizing homosexual “marriage” last week. But as Pastor Mark Powell put it in The Spectator Australia, “Let it be known that on the December 7, 2017 – the day in Australian Parliamentary history when "love won" – the hate campaign truly began.” Angry, intolerantPowell was referring to a “deluge” of hate mail and social media posts from...

The Mississippi Supreme Court heard arguments last week about whether a boy born to a lesbian couple should be legally considered the biological son of his mother's female partner. Because of the nature of the child’s conception and the relationship of the adults in his life, the story is complicated. The two women who were “married” chose to have a child that would be conceived in one of them via anonymous sperm donation. The boy is now six years old. His mother’s “ex-spouse,” who helped raise the child from birth, sought to be recognized as a biological parent when the...

Australia's first legal same-sex marriages will go ahead in January after a marathon session of parliament passed laws. Same-sex couples will be able from this Saturday lodge a notice of intended marriage to start the minimum notice period required before their marriages can be solemnised from January 9. Only four MPs in the House of Representatives voted against a private bill on Thursday, just more than a week after it was agreed to by the Senate. It went through unchanged, after 56 hours of parliamentary debate despite a push from conservative politicians for additional exemptions, including for religious organisations, civil...

Austria's top court has ruled that same-sex couples can get married from the start of 2019, declaring a previous law discriminatory. The Constitutional Court overturned a law that restricted same-sex unions to civil partnerships, according to court documents seen by CNN. The decision brings Austria into line with many other European nations including Germany, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the UK.

You need the First Amendment precisely when your ideas offend others or flout the majority’s orthodoxies. And then it protects more than your freedom to speak your mind; it guards your freedom not to speak the mind of another. Thus, in classic “compelled speech” rulings, the Supreme Court has protected the right not to be forced to say, do or create anything expressing a message one rejects. Most famously, in West Virginia v. Barnette (1943), it barred a state from denying Jehovah’s Witnesses the right to attend public schools if they refused to salute the flag. In Wooley v. Maynard...

It’s astounding how many defenses of the state’s position in Masterpiece Cakeshop depend on misrepresentation and misconceptions. Last week I wrote about the most common misrepresentation — that Jack Phillips discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation when he refused to design a custom cake for a same-sex-wedding celebration. After all, he served all customers — regardless of race, sex, or sexual orientation. He just consistently refused to design cakes that advanced messages he disagreed with. No person of any identity has the legal authority to compel an artist to use his talents to advance a cause the artist...

It took a couple of months and was filled with charges and countercharges of dirty tricks and the suppression of free speech, but the Australian plebiscite on gay marriage is finally finished. The people responded in large numbers and in the end, the tally ran fairly close to what the current polling had indicated. More than sixty percent of respondents voted in favor of legalizing gay marriage and now the Parliament is vowing to bring it to a vote before Christmas. (Associated Press) Australians supported gay marriage in a postal survey that ensures Parliament will consider legalizing same-sex weddings...

An evangelical Christian couple from Alberta, Canada, said that their application to adopt a child was rejected by the government because they do not agree with gay marriage. The couple, who weren't named in the legal documents, have filed a discrimination case against Alberta, claiming that their religious views on marriage being a union between a man and a woman were targeted, CBC News reported. "The casework supervisor explained that our religious beliefs regarding sexuality were incompatible with the adoption process," an affidavit calling for a judicial review of the government's decision said. "The casework supervisor said this stance was...

The latest video by Australia's "no" on gay marriage campaign has been banned from prime time TV in the country until 8:30 p.m., as it was deemed too explicit — for featuring quotes that students are taught in school. Yahoo7 News reported that the 30-second ad has been given an MA rating due to "depictions of implied sexual activity and verbal sexual references." The Coalition for Marriage used passages from the controversial Safe Schools sexuality education program to showcase just what pupils are being taught. "Penis-in-vagina sex is not the only sex, and certainly is not the ultimate sex," one...

A group of African-American rights activists have spoken out in defense of Colorado Christian baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop as his religious freedom case will be argued before the United States Supreme Court in December. Three conservative African-American public policy groups — the Frederick Douglass Foundation, Star Parker's Center of Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) and pro-life activist Ryan Bomberger's Radiance Foundation — launched a new website titled WeGotYourBackJack.com in support of Phillip's First Amendment right. The website was announced at a press conference outside the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. on Monday in which a handful...

An online database launched Wednesday singles out churches opposed to homosexuality ostensibly to encourage clarity in whether various churches support LGBT lifestyles. The database, called Church Clarity, scores churches on whether they are “clear” or “unclear” in their message of being “affirming” or “non-affirming” toward LGBT relationships. Church Clarity takes aim specifically at evangelical churches and accuses them of having a dangerous “capitalist mindset” and of being purposefully unclear in their policies toward LGBT relationships .

Sadly, Harvey Weinstein's act isn't the darkest in Hollywood's repertoire – at least that we know of. As has been reported, the women Harvey sexually abused were adults. But did Harvey rape or sexually abuse any minors? Corey Feldman? Corey Haim? Drew Barrymore? The Olsen twins? In 2011 interview with ABC News, Corey Feldman stated: "I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry. ... It's the big secret[.] ... I was surrounded by [pedophiles] when I was 14 years old....

Even as Democrats publicly and loudly decry corporatist political “dark money,” billionaire Democrats and other donors funnel hundreds of millions to radical and violent causes.   Barely a week had passed after Donald Trump’s historic upset in the November 8 presidential election, but some of the world’s richest individuals were already launching a counteroffensive. George Soros and his fellow deep-pocket funders of the Democratic Party and left-wing causes gathered with a lineup of party activists and luminaries from Hollywood, K Street, and Wall Street for a three-day “investment conference” (November 15-17) at the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C....

Germany celebrates its first gay marriages on Sunday as same-sex unions become legal after decades of struggle, but campaigners say the battle for equal rights isn't over yet.Wedding bells will ring out in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover and other German cities where local authorities will exceptionally open their doors on a Sunday to allow gay couple to say "I do" on the day the law comes into effect. Bodo Mende, 60, and his partner Karl Kreile, 59, who have been together since 1979, will be the first to tie the knot in the German capital. "It will be an emotional but...

"But more important for the donors who put up the money and the corporatists who put up the money your day of reckoning's coming too.....the corporatist, donor, consultant, K Street, lobbyist, influence peddler, politician class, Washington DC. Seven of the nine richest counties in the country surround it...Its a business model that works, cause every year they get to spend 4.2 trillion dollars of your money that's going to be a burden on your kids and grandkids and great grandkids....they know the price of everything but the value of nothing." Steve Bannon speaks at Roy Moore rally on September 25th,...

At this point, you’re probably already familiar with the case of baker Jack Phillips who declined to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding on the grounds that it went against his beliefs as a Christian. In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case which suggests the legal issue here isn’t as simple as it might appear (to some) at first glance. Today the NY Times published a sample of the 4,500 responses to the story written on the website or on Facebook by their readers. To the Times’ credit, they didn’t use this as an...