Free Republic

Sorry for posting many UK articles, a Conservative friend came to stay with me for a few days, so I've inevitably been looking at UK news after we we're chatting for hours about European politics! I have posted this article to highlight the reality of ridiculous inequalities in Sharia law, Check out the last quote, and the last ditched cry for clemency from the Muslim Paedophile. The last comment reads: "Hussain had claimed that his DNA was found on saliva taken from one victim's breast because she had lifted her top and pushed it into his mouth." Do they...

The effort to make marriage defined as between a man and woman a constitution amendment, took place in Fresno. Proposition 8 supporters held a town hall rally hoping to mobilize valley opposition to gay marriage. The valley effort to pass Prop 8 got underway Thursday night at Pardini's in Northwest Fresno.

In a setback for opponents of gay marriage, a Sacramento judge Friday left intact a ballot title that states Proposition 8 eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry. Sponsors of the proposal had argued Attorney General Jerry Brown was prejudicial when he changed the ballot title – "Limit on Marriage" – that was on petitions circulated last year to qualify the Nov. 4 ballot measure. But Sacramento County Judge Timothy Frawley, who heard arguments in the case on Thursday, disagreed. "Petitioner has failed to explain why the term 'eliminates' is inherently argumentative, while the term 'limit' is not," Frawley...

Amanda Camerer and Jorge Mujica got married on such short notice that the bride had trouble finding something borrowed and something blue in time for their ceremony Thursday morning in the Kern County Clerk's Office. (snip) Like Camerer and Mujica, who are both 25 and are moving to Chicago later this summer to study art, a steady stream of couples in this Central Valley city rushed to the clerk's office Thursday to take part in the final civil wedding ceremonies offered by the county before they come to a halt today. In the wake of the California Supreme Court's ruling...

Kern County Auditor-Controller-County Clerk Ann Barnett repeatedly tried to avoid licensing and performing marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples, interviews and e-mails obtained by The Californian show. At her request, County Counsel Bernard Barmann filed a brief with the California Supreme Court opposing implementation of the May 15 ruling allowing gay marriage. She tried to resign her elected position as county clerk — while keeping her positions as auditor-controller and elections boss. “She really wanted to get rid of it,” Barmann said. And finally, when the ruling came down Wednesday that she had to license same-sex marriages, she decided to stop...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California's Secretary of State says an initiative that would again outlaw gay marriage in the state has qualified for the November ballot. Debra Bowen says a random check of signatures submitted by the measure's sponsors showed that they had gathered enough for it to be put to voters. The measure would amend the state constitution to define marriage as a union "between a man and a woman." It would overturn the recent California Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in the state if it is approved by a majority of voters on Nov. 4. California...

Opinion just released.

TAMPA — "Sex," "teacher" and "student" meet again. A 45-year-old high school honors teacher was arrested Thursday, accused of having sex with a 17-year-old boy. Police say Freedom High School English teacher Mary Jo Spack, 45, met two male students at a liquor store last Friday, then took them to a Tampa motel, where she had sex with one of them in the shower as four other students overheard in the next room. Spack's arrest, police said, was spurred by rumors at the school. The boy's boasting about having had sex with a teacher eventually caught the attention of a...

(CNSNews.com) - A 14-year-old California boy is charged with a hate crime as well as attempted murder for shooting a 15-year-old boy who "sometimes wore makeup, high heels and other feminine attire," as the Associated Press reported. The victim, Lawrence King, is brain dead, and prosecutors expect this to become a murder case very soon. They want to try the young suspect as an adult. King was shot in the head Tuesday morning while sitting in class at a junior high school in Oxnard, Calif. California has some of the nation's most liberal anti-discrimination, anti-bullying and "diversity" laws, including several...

Report says civil unions make 'second-class status' By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press Writer MOUNT LAUREL, N.J. (AP) -- A commission established to study same-sex civil unions in New Jersey has found in its first report that civil unions create a "second-class status" for gay couples rather than giving them equality. The report stops short of recommending that the state allow gay marriage. But it does find that gay couples in Massachusetts, the only state that now allows gay marriage, do not experience some of the legal complications that those in New Jersey do. The civil union law sought to give...

GRAYSON - A Grayson High School teacher and coach recently resigned after police say he locked a student in a classroom trailer and sexually assaulted her. Marcus Lancaster, 23, was arrested Dec. 21 and charged with sexual battery and sexual assault, a felony. Sloan Roach, a spokeswoman for Gwinnett County Public Schools, said Lancaster was hired this year as a social studies teacher. He resigned Dec. 19 after the school district launched an investigation into the alleged assault, Roach said. Lancaster also coached Grayson football's junior varsity team and freshman baseball team this year, according to the school. He is...

It shows Mohammed, 40, with his new 11-year-old wife, Ghulam. Taken by US photographer Stephanie Sinclair, it was named Unicef Photo of the Year yesterday. Some 60million girls worldwide are married while still under age, according to the children's rights agency. A picture of a boy lifting bricks on his head in Bangladesh, showing the life of one of the millions exploited as child labour, came second. It was taken by GMB Akash. And third prize went to one taken by German photographer Hartmut Schwarzbach. It shows nine-year-old Annalyn celebrating her birthday by jumping on a sofa in the rubbish...

PHOENIX -- Police have arrested a man who they say sexually assaulted a 4 year old girl at a playground at University Park. Suspect booked into 4th Avenue Jail Police say the girl was at the playground with her family near by. Several witnesses say they saw suspect William Speed grab the girl while she played on the jungle gym and begin sexually assaulting her. The girl screamed and her family had to fight Speed to get him off of the girl. The family and nearby witnesses restrained Speed until police arrived. Suspect William Speed is a Level 3 sex...

Making sex legal at 16 in line with rest of Britain 'would hurt the vulnerable' Gay rights campaigners have clashed with Belfast's Rape Crisis Centre over plans to lower the age of sexual consent to 16. The British government has published proposals to bring Northern Ireland's legal process, under which it is illegal for 16-year-olds to have sex, into line with the rest of the UK. The centre has joined a loose alliance with the Catholic church, evangelical Protestant churches and Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party to oppose the proposed change from 17 to 16. Ranged against them are organisations...

America's left and right are once again at odds, this time over a plan at the King Middle School in Portland, Maine, to make birth control pills available without parental approval to girls as young as 11. The school committee voted 7 to 2 in favor of the plan last Wednesday. You know kids are having sex early these days when contraception pills could be marketed as Flintstone Chewables. One side asks: Is it moral to sanction early sexual activity? The reality, the other side counters, is that teenagers are sexually active and the burden of unwanted pregnancies is too...

TAMPA - Undercover officers looking for car thieves Tuesday discovered a sexual relationship between a Middleton High School teacher and a teenage boy whom they pulled over driving the teacher's Jeep Grand Cherokee, officials said. Tampa police charged Christina Lin Butler, 33, of 3504 N. Tampa St., on Tuesday with felony lewd and lascivious battery after the traffic stop. Investigators said she and the ninth-grader had oral sex and intercourse at Butler's home during the past three weeks. A police report states the boy is 15; however, by his birth date, he is 16, police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said.

TAMPA, Fla. -- A 33-year-old high-school teacher was arrested after admitting that she had sex with a 16-year-old student, police said. Christina Butler, a ninth-grade teacher at Middleton High School, admitted to the relationship with the boy after a series of events Tuesday that began with a police stakeout targeting street crime at an apartment complex, police said. Officers first followed a group of six boys who left the apartment complex on bicycles, the report said. Later, the same group was pulled over driving erratically in Butler's Jeep Grand Cherokee.

A call is being issued to Christians who have been engaged in the culture wars in California's schools to abandon the system, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a ban on "discriminatory bias" against homosexuals and others with alternative sexual lifestyles. "We're calling upon every California parent to pull their child out of California's public school system," Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, told WND. "The so-called 'public schools' are no longer a safe emotional environment for children. Under the new law, schoolchildren as young as kindergarten will be sexually indoctrinated and introduced to homosexuality, bisexuality,...

A speech by a "parental rights" activist in Gloucester has been canceled after a gay marriage advocacy group threatened to protest what it deemed "hate speech." Cape Ann Marriage and Family, which characterizes itself as "pro-family" and has been active in advocating for a popular vote on gay marriage, had planned a meeting at a Main Street pizza parlor featuring a lecture by David Parker of Lexington. Parker is suing the state for the right to be notified when issues of sexuality, including gay marriage, are discussed in his young son's school. The case was initially dismissed but is on...

HALIFAX, September 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nova Scotia's Progressive Conservative government rapidly approved new regulations, effective immediately, allowing birth certificates to register a lesbian "spouse" of a birth mother as the "other parent." The decision was made in cabinet only four days after the couple launched a human rights complaint. Halifax scrambled to make adjustments to the Vital Statistics Act after a "married" lesbian couple, Emily and Jamie O'Neill, filed a Human Rights complaint demanding the province recognize them equally as parents to Emily's newborn daughter, Jordyn, who was conceived through artificial insemination and born August 7. Since the old...

And now we have Ahmadinejad's quote of the day! —On executions of homosexuals in Iran: In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that like in your country. ... In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this. This would be laughable if the truth was not that they execute them. I just can't understand why the left, who say they love gay rights, want to force kids to learn tolerance in third grade, etc...are so quick in defending this thug. Watch Video

In 2002 he campaigned for governor in support of gay rights.

A former candidate for political office in Nassau County was arrested Friday and charged with criminal sexual activity. Keith Lamar Sawyer, 44, 85064 Art Wilson Road in Yulee, was accused of seeking a sexual en-counter with an underage teenage girl. He was taken to Nassau County Jail and charged with solicitation of a minor for lewd and lascivious battery and lewd and lascivious conduct. Sawyer, a Democrat, has unsuccessfully sought election to various county offices, including the Nassau County Ocean Highway & Port Authority in 2006 - he lost to the late Ed Gandy that November - and to the...

The California Senate has approved a plan to replace "man and woman" in state references to marriage with "two persons," establishing a same-sex marriage procedure in the state that just seven years ago voted to limit marriage to one man and one woman. The 22-15 vote came on homosexual Assemblyman Mark Leno's proposal to open marriage to any pair in the state, not just those couples made up of a man and a woman. All Republicans opposed AB43, while all but three Democratic senators supported it. The bill now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his signature or veto. He...

Speaking in Sioux City, Iowa, moments ago, Fred Thompson endorsed an amendment to the Constitution that would prevent state judges from altering the definition of marriage without the direction of their states' legislatures. Mr. Thompson has been under fire from social conservatives in recent days for refusing to support the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would define marriage in the United States as being between one man and one woman. He's said that such an amendment would conflict with his views on federalism. Along with restraining state judges, the amendment Mr. Thompson is proposing would also mandate that no state be...

The son of Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton has been sentenced to two years probation under a plea agreement in a statutory rape case. A C Wharton III, 35, was accused of raping a 13-year-old Knox County girl he met on the Internet. He has been released from a Knox County jail where he spent four months, Knox County Special Prosecutor John Gill told WMC-TV of Memphis. “This is not to a level of defense at all, but he had some mental issues related to prescription drugs that caused him, well, contributed to his behavior,” Gill said. A C...

WBC to picket the funeral of Rev. Jerry Falwell - at Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, Virginia - in religious protest and warning: "God is not mocked!,, Gal. 6:7. God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers! Ergo, God hates Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and all such Arminian heretic preachers - from fundamentalist evangelicals to openly gay Episcopalians and pedophile Catholics - all of whom have created the Satanic Sodomite Zeitgeist wherein America has irreversibly gone the way of Sodom. There is little doubt that Falwell split Hell wide open the instant he died. The evidence is compelling, overwhelming, and irrefragable....

Disney opens Fairy Tale Weddings to gay couples Thu Apr 5, 2007 7:11 PM ET By Gina Keating LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Walt Disney Co. has changed its policy to allow same-sex couples to participate in a popular Fairy Tale Wedding program it runs mainly at its two U.S. resorts and cruise line, a Disney spokesman said on Thursday. Disney previously had allowed gay couples to organize their own weddings or commitment ceremonies at rented meeting rooms at the resorts, but had barred them from purchasing its Fairy Tale Wedding package and holding the event at locations at Disneyland...

Planned Parenthood Heroes LA mayor honored by local and national Planned Parenthood groups for helping defeat parental notification initiative; UFW’s Dolores Huerta also given award Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who describes himself as a “Catholic,” was given Planned Parenthood’s “Hero Award” on Friday, March 30, for his role in the defeat of Proposition 85, the Parents’ Right to Know and Child Protection Initiative. “The Honorable Antonio R. Villaraigosa, mayor of the City of Los Angeles, was honored with the Planned Parenthood Hero Award for his support of Planned Parenthood’s mission and contribution to the defeat in November of Prop....

The family of a molested 3-year-old girl has left College Park Church in Carmel, Ind., after it embraced her attacker — a former church elder — with support and money. The Indianapolis Star reported that the family of the girl wishes to remain anonymous, but the father spoke out, saying the church is acting inappropriately by forgiving the elder. "It's a disgrace that the church would embrace a criminal and turn its back on the victim, especially one that's a young child," the father told The Indianapolis Star. Click here to read the full story.During a confrontation with church members...

CLEARWATER, Florida (AP) -- Lawrence Roach agreed to pay alimony to the woman he divorced, not the man she became after a sex change, his lawyers argued in a Florida court Tuesday in an effort to end the payments. But the ex-wife's attorneys said the operation does not alter the agreement. The lawyers and Circuit Judge Jack St. Arnold agreed the case delves into relatively uncharted legal territory. They found only a 2004 Ohio case that addressed whether or not a transsexual could still collect alimony after a sex change. "There is not a lot out there to help us,"...

COLUMBIA - The South Carolina Constitution allows an unmarried 14-year-old woman to legally consent to sex, and some legislators want to do away with what they call an antiquated provision. A proposal set for debate Tuesday in a Senate committee would let voters decide whether the line should be deleted from the state constitution. The meeting adjourned without any vote on the legislation. "It's a relic of an era in which women married at 14 and weren't going to college - a preindustrial era when that was the norm," said the bill's main sponsor, Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Isle of Palms....

Medicaid Changes Mean No More Discounts Millions of college students are suddenly facing sharply higher prices for birth control, prompting concerns among health officials that some will shift to less preferred contraceptives or stop using them altogether. Prices for oral contraceptives are doubling and tripling at student health centers, the result of a complex change in the Medicaid rebate law that essentially ends an incentive for drug companies to provide deep discounts to colleges. "It's a tremendous problem for our students because not every student has a platinum card," said Hugh Jessop, executive director of the health center at Indiana...

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards," Ann Coulter said today at CPAC. Her audience seemed to to evince both shock and delight. The Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solomnese was not happy. “To interject this word into American political discourse is a vile and disgusting way to sink the debate to a new, all-time low. Make no doubt about it, these remarks...

AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry ordered today that schoolgirls in Texas must be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer, making Texas the first state to require the shots. The girls will have to get Merck & Co.'s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that are responsible for most cases of cervical cancer. Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating it Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government,...

SAN DIEGO -- A federal judge has upheld a suburban San Diego high school's dress code, rejecting a challenge by a student who got pulled from class for wearing a T-shirt with anti-gay language. Tyler Chase Harper sued the Poway Unified School District in 2004 to overturn a policy that says the schools will aim to reduce or prevent "hate behavior," including threats and attacks based on sexual orientation. The student claimed the policy limited free speech. The front of Harper's T-shirt read, "Homosexuality is shameful. Romans 1:27." The back read, "Be ashamed. Our school has embraced what God has...

OTTAWA, December 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A newly released report says that the age of consent for vaginal sex in Canada – currently set at 14 – has made this country a favorite destination for child-sex “tourism”. The Global Monitoring Report on the Status of Action against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, says that Canada’s age of consent has made Canada a haven for pedophiles. The report was issued by the Bangkok-based organization, End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, or ECPAT International. It gives Canada 17 recommendations, including raising the age of consent...

LONDON (AFP) - A British mother could get into the record books after she gave birth to twins and a single baby at the same time -- from two wombs -- in what is believed to be a world first. Hannah Kersey, 23, gave birth to the rare triplets -- identical twins Ruby and Tilly, and singleton Gracie -- by Caesarean section seven weeks prematurely in September. She was born with a condition called uterus didelphys, which means she developed two wombs, but doctors had warned her that she was unlikely to become pregnant in both. After their early birth...

  Teacher accused of luring 5 boys Woman allegedly had sexual contact with 5th-graders in theaters, class A flirtatious Brandy Lynn Gonzales lured five boys from her fifth-grade classes into sexual acts at movie theaters, her apartment and even her classroom, prosecutors said Thursday.At least one student was taken to her apartment, where he was sexually assaulted by Gonzales, 27, and her husband, Johnny Gonzales, 31, said Assistant Harris County District Attorney Denise Oncken."Evidently, according to the victims, she was quite a flirt in the classroom," Oncken said.A judge set bail at $320,000 Thursday for the former teacher charged with...

Mary Cheney’s pregnancy poses problems not just for her child, but also for all Americans. Her action repudiates traditional values and sets an appalling example for young people at a time when father absence is the most pressing social problem facing the nation. With 37 percent of American children born to fatherless families, Mary Cheney is contributing to a trend that is detrimental to all Americans who will live with the ramifications of millions of children whose anger and frustration at not knowing their father will be felt in the public schools and communities of our nation. Mary Cheney is...

HOUSTON, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Business has been booming for Houston area landscaping company that refused to work for a gay couple. Garden Guy Inc. owners Sabrina and Todd Farber were flooded with threats, hate mail and letters of support after their e-mail was circulated on the Internet, The New York Times said Saturday. Sabrina Farber said the company eventually picked up about $40,000 in new business while losing only two customers with about $500 each.

Update on the ballot issues around the country.

Four face charges of torturing boys Police say pair burned, starved, forced to sleep in closet BY JASON WOMACK The Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney's Office filed criminal charges on Monday against four people who police said systematically tortured, beat and starved two boys. Police said the boys' stepmother and father - 37-year-old Melissa D. Lively and 40-year-old Steve A. Lively - routinely burned the boys with a battery charger, forced them to sleep in a closet and fed them habanero peppers. They each face four counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Each charge carries a maximum punishment...

Unmarried couples will be able to claim a share of each other's wealth if they break up under new laws planned by ministers. Cohabitees could be entitled to divorce-style payments if they split, including lump sums, maintenance payments or a share of property and pensions. Family justice minister Harriet Harman said: "There is evidently a problem where a couple have lived together for a long time, brought up children together, she's stayed at home so he could go out to work and pay the mortgage, and she discovers at the end of the relationship that she's left without a roof...

A judge dismissed an indecent exposure charge against a woman accused of disrobing in front of a 14-year-old boy, saying the law only applies to men. Superior Court Judge Robert W. Armstrong said earlier in the week that the law only mentions someone who "exposes his person." "It's gender specific," Armstrong said. He dismissed a misdemeanor charge against Alexis Luz Garcia, 40, of Corona, who was cited in May after parents of a neighbor boy said she showed him full-frontal nudity as he played basketball. Prosecutor Alison N. Norton said the decision to throw out the case will be appealed...

Police say a former city resident had sex with his daughters for nearly two decades in an effort to produce what he considered a pure bloodline. Prosecutors say six children were born as a result of the sexual assaults. The man, who had since moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., is charged with nine counts of sexual assault, 13 counts of aggravated sexual assault, as well as endangering the welfare of a child, aggravated criminal sexual contact, criminal sexual contact and lewdness. His girlfriend also faces sexual assault charges. Prosecutors say the sexual assaults took place from 1985 through 2002, starting when...

An Orange County businessman was sentenced to serve 50 years to life in prison for the videotaped molestation of a preschool girl during a two-year period. David Hwang, 35, agreed to plead guilty to all charges under a deal that Superior Court Judge Gary Paer said would spare the girl and her family from reliving "the nightmare." Hwang admitted to 60 counts of kidnapping for child molestation, lewd acts on a child under 14, oral copulation on a person under 14, anal or genital penetration with a foreign object of a child under 14, using a minor for sex acts...

CNN: PAGE LAWYER DOES NOT RULE 'IN OR OUT' PRANK CLAIM... DEVELOPING... Former congressional page Jordan Edmund's lawyer Stephen Jones... BLITZER: He will join us live in the next hour. What are you hearing, Brian, about some of these Internet suggestions, some Republicans suggesting this whole thing is a prank, a hoax and there is no there, there. CNN REPORTER: "We asked him about that item in the DRUDGE REPORT. He said very clearly he cannot rule that in, he cannot rule that out. He says he is not saying it was not a prank but later in the interview,...

The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled today that California's marriage laws banning same-sex marriage do not violate the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians.