Free Republic

A pro-abortion Democrat Senator is getting criticism for a comment suggesting that only churches enjoy First Amendment religious freedom protections, and that those freedoms do not extend to individual people. The comment is a huge concern for pro-life advocates who are worried about being forced to pay for abortions with their tax dollars or insurance premiums. The concerns also extend to pro-life medical professionals like doctors and nurses who do not want to be forced to perform or assist in or refer for abortions. Balwdin’s comments are instructive for the pro-life movement because they come at a time when abortion...

In a recent pastoral letter on marriage, Australia’s Catholic bishops reaffirmed Catholic teaching. And one of the bishops has countered a leading same-sex marriage activist who said the pastoral letter should be reported to the Tasmanian government for illegal bias. “The Catholic Church in Tasmania is exercising its right to freedom of opinion, just as opponents to the Church’s views on marriage are also exercising their rights,” Archbishop Julian Porteous of Hobart said, according to the Catholic Leader newspaper. His comments concern the booklet “Don’t Mess with Marriage,” a pastoral letter the Australian bishops’ conference released May 28. He said...

(exurpt)"On Monday, July 6, I declined to marry a non-traditional couple during my duties assignment. The declination was based upon my personal and Christian beliefs established over many years. I apologize to the couple for the delay they experienced and wish them the best. The court has implemented a process whereby same-sex marriages will be accommodated. I will continue to perform traditional marriages during my duties assignment. I am also seeking advisory opinion from the Supreme Court of Ohio at this time as to whether or not I can opt out of the rotation. Upon receipt of the advisory opinion...

snip “I believe Jesus would,” Carter said when asked whether Jesus would approve of gay marriage. “I don’t have any verse in scripture ... I believe that Jesus would approve gay marriage, but that's just my own personal belief. I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don't see that gay marriage damages anyone else." Carter, a born-again Christian and Baptist, said he still teaches Sunday school whenever he attends his home church. He. said he has never ran across “any really serious conflicts” between...

The Catholic owners of “Joe’s Hardware” in Atchison, Kansas are defending themselves against a federal lawsuit that accuses them of violating equal protection laws because they refused to sell a same-sex extension cord to a customer last month.The plaintiff in the lawsuit is Flip Rosco, a poodle trainer from Greenwich Village. During a press conference announcing the lawsuit, Mr. Rosco caused some initial confusion when he was asked what he was doing in Atchison in the first place. “Looking for a Catholic hardware store to sue,” he proclaimed, to a few raised eyebrows. “Love wins,” he quickly added, which seemed...

A gay couple was granted a marriage license Monday shortly after filing a federal lawsuit against a county clerk in North Texas who cited religious opposition when denying them a license last week. Jim Cato and Joe Stapleton filed the lawsuit Monday morning against Hood County Clerk Katie Lang. The men said they were repeatedly turned away when trying to obtain a license last week in Granbury, the county seat, following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage nationwide. The men were quickly granted a license and "are delighted" that they can get married in their home county,...

Mundelein Mayor Steve Lentz on Monday defended widely criticized comments he made about the legalization of gay marriage and other societal issues during an Independence Day speech. "If people are curious about what I said, go listen to it," Lentz said of the 11-minute speech, which can be found on YouTube and Facebook. play video video Lentz July 4 speech Near the midpoint of his remarks Saturday morning at the village's Fort Hill Heritage Center, Lentz said he wanted to "address the elephant in the room" and started talking about the Supreme Court's recent ruling on marriage equality. He called...

Evangelist Ray Comfort has many video clips on YouTube showcasing his trademark style of sharing the Gospel with strangers on the street. But Comfort's latest project, a scripted film about the biblical view of homosexuality titled Audacity, has been removed from YouTube because of violations. Over 130,000 people have viewed the trailer, but anyone visiting today will see the following message displayed: This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy against spam, scams, and commercially deceptive content. Comfort told The Blaze that he believes someone at YouTube did not like the content of the video and pulled...

Defiant Oregon bakers fined $135,000 for their 2013 refusal to make a cake for a lesbian wedding reportedly vow to "fight back" against the state labor commissioner's stiff penalty – and are calling on "Christians … to take a stand." "For years, we’ve heard same-sex marriage will not affect anybody," Aaron Klein, co-owner of Sweet Cakes by Melissa, told The Blaze. "I’m here firsthand to tell everyone in America that it has already impacted people. Christians, get ready to take a stand. Get ready for civil disobedience." Oregon's Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian on Thursday issued a final ruling in the...

Full title--- America's favorite fast food chain is Chick-fil-a while McDonald's is at the bottom of the heap in new survey The annual American Consumer Satisfaction index polled 70,000 people for their opinions on various consumer offerings, including fast food. In its first year on the index, the Southern-born, Christian-run sandwich chain debuted at the top.

Next in line to denounce Donald Trump? Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina). Trump has been the subject of intense criticism from both parties after declaring several weeks ago that Mexican immigrants are "rapists" and drug-runners. On Saturday, Graham told Business Insider that Trump was using needlessly divisive, un-presidential rhetoric. "He's running to be president of all of us," Graham said. "It takes a level of maturity and thoughtfulness and demeanor that's not being exhibited here." The Senator also made several cracks about recent decisions by businesses like NBC and NASCAR to cut ties with the real estate mogul. "As a...

A Catholic school in Macon, Ga., is facing a federal discrimination lawsuit from a former teacher whose employment was terminated in 2014 after the school found that he would be legally marrying his same-sex partner. “The argument being made in this suit—that a Catholic school’s commitment to upholding Catholic teaching on marriage is discriminatory toward homosexual employees—is a grave threat to Catholic education,” said Patrick Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society. “A Catholic school exists for the very purpose of teaching the faith and forming young people for God,” he continued. “The implication is that our religion itself, rooted...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky has filed a lawsuit on behalf of four Rowan County couples, two same-gender couples and two opposite-gender couples, denied marriage licenses by County Clerk Kim Davis, a press release from the ACLU confirms. Davis is standing firm on her decision to stop issuing marriage licenses, despite dozens of protesters who gathered outside the courthouse. "My conscience will not allow me to issue a license for a same sex couple," says Kim Davis, "because I know that God ordained marriage from the very foundation of this world to be between a man and a...

Conservative Russians Give Moral Lesson to Facebook’s Homosexual Propaganda By Julio Severo In celebration of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling favoring homosexual “marriage” last week, Facebook launched an app called “Let’s Celebrate Pride,” which allowed users to overlay an image of the homosexual rainbow over their profile picture. Facebook expected many millions of its users to celebrate, but from its 1.44 billion users, just 26 million did — less than 2 per cent. The fact is, the absolute majority of Facebook users did not want to get involved in the Facebook’s homosexual propaganda. Compounding the failure, there was an...

An image many call provocative, if not offensive, has caused an uproar on social media platforms since last week. The photo, taken by gay artist Ed Freeman of young men holding up a rainbow flag, replicates the iconic picture of Marines and a Navy Corpsman raising the American flag at Iwo Jima in 1945. The Washington Post decided to highlight the controversy July 1 and let the artist defend himself. Freeman told the Post that the image originally for a cover of the gay magazine, Frontiers, was taken over ten years ago. After the Supreme Court ruling last week, someone...

This past weekend has been heady one for our friends on the soft-core left. Without ever attending a meeting, let alone a march, or even making a donation, they got to celebrate Obergefell v. Hodges as if it were V-J day. These are the same people, of course, who protested not a peep in 1996 when Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law, the same people who voted giddily for Barack Obama in 2008 despite his avowed support for traditional marriage, the same people who cannot wait until their next water cooler encounter to dress down some...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there's not much Congress can do in the wake of the ruling by the Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. In an interview Tuesday night on Kentucky television station WDRB, McConnell restated that he still holds to the traditional view of marriage. "I’ve always felt that marriage is between one man and one woman and the Supreme Court has held otherwise. That’s the law of the land," the Kentucky Republican said. When he was asked if there is anything Congress can do, he answered: "I don’t think so. I think the courts have pretty well...

DETROIT, June 30, 2015 (ChurchMilitant.com) - Non-Western countries are getting fed up with the spread of the gay agenda in their countries. This has led one Russian lawmaker to promise that he will have the rainbow flag banned from his country after seeing it plastered all over social media. Following the U.S. Supreme Court's legalization of so-called gay marriage, he says, "[T]he United States must have gone completely mad and now its gay delirium is threatening the entire civilized world." "Billions of U.S. dollars will flood into gay propaganda all over the world, creating the grounds for 'rainbow revolutions,'" he...

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” What Winston Churchill said in 1942 following a British military victory in North Africa might also be said about Friday’s narrow 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court legalizing marriage between people of the same sex. That the majority threw a bone to religious people, their churches and institutions, saying they could continue to preach and teach that homosexual marriage is wrong, will almost certainly be challenged by gay activists and secularists whose goal is to drive...

Federal involvement seems to be the exploited niche of the motivated Left. For it is the tax code and the special tax treatments carved into the most complicated compilation in the Western World that affords the activists their openings. The gay marriage issue was essentially an equal treatment issue regarding Social Security benefits of surviving spouses, estate taxes, and joint tax returns. All the emotional scenery was fluff. It was about money and how the federal government, based on marital status, taxes some people one way and others another. Next apparently on the docket are the churches. The same thread...