Free Republic

Some on the left are criticizing Senator Ted Cruz’s recent comments about how the drive to redefine marriage may threaten religious freedom — but a closer inspection of the issue reveals his worries were accurate, prescient, and maybe even too cautious. In an interview with Cruz, David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network raised the concerns that many Christians are now expressing: “A lot of Christian scholars, when they talk about the marriage issue, they see it as a religious-freedom issue . . . as in essence going down this line toward potential ‘hate speech’ from the pulpit,” Brody...

Supporters of traditional marriage often fear the free speech ramifications that could emerge as as result of increasing support for gay marriage in the United States. But are these worries really legitimate? In an interview with CBN’s David Brody, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, joined in this chorus, warning that the push in favor of same-sex unions could, indeed, put First Amendment protections at risk. “If you look at other nations that have gone down the road towards gay marriage, that’s the next step of where it gets enforced,” he said of hate speech regulations that are in place...

In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he believes the legalization of same-sex “marriage” may lead to those who express religious objections to homosexuality being prosecuted for hate speech.

White conservatives often criticize Black people for being too quick to play what they call "the race card." On the other hand, many Black people criticize America for not being sensitive enough to the reality that race plays in American life. George Zimmerman’s trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin clearly validates the Black community’s point of view. Trayvon Martin is dead for no other reason than he was born Black in America. That’s a non-debatable fact. Had he been a White kid, Trayvon would have still been alive today. Yet, even as the jury is out deliberating Zimmerman’s fate,...

Free speech advocates are hailing a move by the Canadian Senate this week to abolish a highly controversial section of Canada's Human Rights Act which, critics say, has been used to stifle the opinions of right-leaning journalists such as Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant. The Sun Media Corporation, Canada's leading newspaper publisher, said: "Section 13 ostensibly banned hate speech on the Internet and left it up to the quasi-judicial human rights commission to determine what qualified as "hate speech." But, unlike a court, there was no presumption of innocence of those accused of hate speech by the commission. Instead, those...

The public meeting in Manchester, Tenn., about 70 miles from Nashville, was supposed to address and tamp down discrimination toward Muslims there. But instead it turned into a shouting match. Bill Killian, the local U.S. attorney who organized the meeting, told the people in attendance that hate speech was not protected by the First Amendment. Over the last few years, there have been tensions between Muslims and many Christians in Tennessee. A Coffee County commissioner recently posted a picture on Facebook of a man with one eye looking down the sights of a shotgun, with the caption: "how to wink...

Last Tuesday, Bill Killian, U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Tennessee, FBI Special Agent Kenneth Moore, and Zak Mohyuddin of the American Muslim Advisory Council hosted an event called “Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society” in the town of Manchester, Tennessee. My American Freedom Defense Initiative colleague Pamela Geller and I called for a protest of what was clearly an event designed to intimidate Americans into being afraid to criticize the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and supremacism – and patriots turned out in numbers far beyond what we expected.

Snip: U.S. Attorney Bill Killian gave a PowerPoint presentation on hate crimes and hate speech. From beginning to end, it was full of condescension, smears, charges that the crowd was racist and thinly veiled threats that truthful speech about Islam could be prosecuted. Never once did he address the fact that people aren’t concerned about Muslims because of racism and xenophobia, but because of the reality of jihad terror and the uniform denial and obfuscation, and victimhood posturing that follows from Muslim communities after every jihad attack. Killian even stooped so low as to claim a sharp rise in “religiously...

In perhaps one of the most shocking police brutality videos of recent years, police in Cotati, California respond to a call about “domestic violence” by kicking down the door of a man’s home before tazing him and his wife as they scream in agony.

Dan Savage is an author, advice columnist, and founder of It Gets Better, an anti-bullying project. If you’ve ever seen one of those videos of a celebrity telling gay teens “it gets better,” that was Dan’s idea. A noble goal, to be sure. But when he says things like this, it makes me wonder just how noble he is: Woke up to Sarah Palin’s voice. She’s taken up chewing tobacco now cuz LIBRULS or Bloomberg or something. Now seeing upside of oral cancers. — Dan Savage (@fakedansavage) May 4, 2013 And yes, that’s the real Dan Savage. His Twitter handle...

“Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”

“Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation’s armed forces.”Those words were recently written by Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), in a column he wrote for the Huffington Post. Weinstein will be a consultant to the Pentagon to develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops. Weinstein decries what he calls the “virulent religious oppression” perpetrated...

A CBS blogger who commented on the perceived weight problem of NBA Oklahoma City Thunder cheerleader, Kelsey Williams, has come under fire for labeling her 'too chunky' to perform. Under the pen name 'Claire Crawford,' blogger Anna-Megan Raley wrote: '[Mrs Williams] has been criticized by some folks in [Oklahoma] for having “pudginess” around her waistline... Is this chick “too chunky” to be a cheerleader?'

Tea partiers wouldn't have done it, because victims weren't 'black' The reason it’s unlikely a tea-party, patriot or right-wing group perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombing is because the victims weren’t “black people or Jewish people or gay people or Muslims,” claimed a senior fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center earlier this week. The SPLC – a left-wing, nonprofit organization that describes itself as dedicated to fighting “bigotry” and monitoring domestic “hate groups” – keeps an eagle eye on tea-party, patriot, Christian, gun-rights and right-wing organizations, often insisting their fires are fueled by racism and hatred, rather than politics or...

<p>A University of Buffalo professor was apparently so incensed by a campus display erected by a group of pro-life students that she engaged in a profanity-laden rant which attracted the attention of the authorities. Being lectured by the police to tone down her tirade apparently incensed the professor even more and she proceeded to rage against the pro-life students’ display with even more vitriol. The event, captured on a student’s cell phone, ends when the authorities detain the professor.</p>

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 1, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A student pro-life group has been silenced on the campus of Johns Hopkins University – one of the nation's leading medical schools – after being likened to an alleged “hate group.” The JHU student senate rejected Voice for Life's application to become an officially recognized student group during meetings on March 12 and March 26. According to Students for Life, officials with the Student Government Association (SGA) said the group's history of writing pro-life messages on sidewalks in chalk “clearly violates the JHU Harassment and Code of Conduct policies.” One student senator stated,...

There are some crazy people out there misusing firearms, all right. But they aren’t the kind of people who will be unable to murder, maim and commit mayhem under the new proposed restrictions on the possession of firearms. They are, interestingly enough, irrational leftists – if that’s not a redundancy. Take the example of Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles cop who has killed at least four people and swears he will continue his war on the LAPD until he dies. Have you read his manifesto? Have you seen his grievances? He actually seeks to use his violent actions with...

The Family Research Council shooter, who pleaded guilty today to a terrorism charge, picked his target off a "hate map" on the website of the ultra-liberal Southern Poverty Law Center which is upset with the conservative group's opposition to gay rights. Floyd Lee Corkins II pleaded guilty to three charges including a charge of committing an act of terrorism related to the August 15, 2012 injuring of FRC's guard. He told the FBI that he wanted to kill anti-gay targets and went to the law center's website for ideas. At a court hearing where his comments to the FBI were...

DoJ email to Morris Dees: July 23, 2012 – “I will pick you [Morris Dees] up at the airport July 30. Would you go out to dinner with my wife and me and our two teenage daughters that first night? The girls need some inspiration from a master of inspiration.” This is a jawdropper. The communists over at the Southern Poverty Law Center are among the gravest threats to freedom in the United States, and are named as such in the AFDI Threats to Freedom Index. The enemedia eagerly laps up and repeats their designation of pro-freedom groups as "hate...

Any serious discussion of “hate speech” laws should start with a consideration of George Orwell’s prophetic look into the future—specifically the book Nineteen Eighty-Four. Recall that in Orwell’s book, Big Brother sought to control not only all thoughts but also to language used to form thoughts. To that end, he created the language of “Newspeak,” described as “the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year.” In a separate essay, Orwell explained that Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. In the book, this suits the totalitarian regime...