Free Republic

Members of the conservative gay rights group GOProud are demanding an apology from Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum for what they call his disrespectful comments directed at a gay soldier in Thursday night's GOP presidential debate. "Tonight, Rick Santorum disrespected our brave men and women in uniform, and he owes Stephen Hill, the gay soldier who asked him the question about Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, an immediate apology," said GOProud's Christopher Barron and Jimmy LaSalvia in a Thursday night press release. During the Fox News/Google-sponsored debate, which took place in Orlando, Florida, a gay soldier deployed in Iraq asked...

An honors student in Fort Worth, TX, was sent to the principal’s office and punished for telling a classmate that he believes homosexuality is wrong. Holly Pope said she was “absolutely stunned” when she received a telephone call from an assistant principal at Western Hills High School informing her that her son, Dakota Ary, had been sent to in-school suspension. “Dakota is a very well-grounded 14-year-old,” she told Fox News Radio noting that her son is an honors student, plays on the football team and is active in his church youth group. “He’s been in church his whole life and...

Dear Mr. President: I write with a growing sense of urgency about recent actions taken by your Administration that both escalate the threat to marriage and imperil the religious freedom of those who promote and defend marriage. This past spring the Justice Department announced that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in court, a decision strongly opposed by the Catholic Bishops of the United States and many others. Now the Justice Department has shifted from not defending DOMA-which is problem enough, given the duty of the executive branch to enforce even laws it disfavors-to actively...

(CNN) -- In the very early hours of this morning, "don't ask, don't tell" ceased to be U.S. policy. As a result, today is the first day I can write about being the partner of a gay military serviceman without fear that he will lose his job. ... The battle has only been half won. Gay servicemen or servicewomen can no longer be discharged simply for being gay, but they are still treated inequitably. Only by using their newly won free speech can they hope to reap the same benefits as their straight colleagues.

The Interfaith Alliance, a far-left religious advocacy group in Idaho, has accused Scott Lively, a scheduled speaker at this weekend's "Shake the Nation" conference in Boise, of "bearing false witness" and of being "mean-spirited and hurtful." Lively's crime? In his book, "The Pink Swastika," Lively exposes a secret homosexual activists don't want you to know about Nazi Germany: that although the Nazis did persecute homosexuals, the homosexuals the Nazis persecuted were almost exclusively the effeminate members of the gay community in Germany, and that much of the mistreatment was administered by masculine homosexuals who despised effeminacy in all its forms....

Hundreds of United Methodist clergy are expressing deep concerns over a pledge made by a large group of fellow ministers to marry same-sex couples. They argue that if the pledge is carried through, the future of the denomination is in jeopardy. "We do not know how many, if any, marriages or 'holy unions' of same-sex couples will be performed by UM clergy in the near future," reads a letter, currently signed by more than 400 pastors, to the Council of Bishops. "But we do know the destructive effects that will result in our local churches and throughout the denomination if...

At this past July's Comic-Con International in San Diego, Archie Comics announced that not only would its exceedingly popular new character, Kevin Keller, the first openly homosexual member of the iconic Riverdale Gang, will star in his own ongoing series, but that readers would also see Keller get married in a future issue of Life With Archie. The publisher announced this week that the happy event will take place in Life With Archie #16, on sale in January.

TAKE ACTION NOW: a new homosexual web campaign is urging the internet payment company PayPal to drop AFTAH and other pro-family organizations as so-called “extremists” that “promote anti-LGBT hate.” Please help defend Americans For Truth from being dropped by PayPal in response to this anti-Christian pressure campaign. 1) Go to PayPal’s website and make a much-needed gift to AFTAH to support our work. Or do so through the AFTAH website at www.americansfortruth.com/donate/. Mail a check to AFTAH, PO Box 5522, Naperville, IL 60567-5522. 2) Write or call PayPal and urge them to STAND FOR FREEDOM and NOT give in...

This sprawling suburban school system, much of it within Michele Bachmann’s Congressional district, is caught in the eye of one of the country’s hottest culture wars — how homosexuality should be discussed in the schools. After years of harsh conflict between advocates for gay students and Christian conservatives, the issue was already highly charged here. Then in July, six students brought a lawsuit contending that school officials have failed to stop relentless antigay bullying and that a district policy requiring teachers to remain “neutral” on issues of sexual orientation has fostered oppressive silence and a corrosive stigma. Also this summer,...

PORTLAND, Ore/SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Four Oregon men sued the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday for $20 million over childhood sexual abuse they say they suffered at the hands of a pedophile knowingly appointed as their scoutmaster in the 1970s. The four lawsuits, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, accuse the national Boy Scouts and its Cascade Pacific Council of negligence, fraud and sexual battery of a child in connection with the repeated molestation of the men, then aged 12 to 15. The suits, each seeking $5.2 million in damages, are the latest in a barrage of...

It's an issue that has been discussed - and continues to be discussed. Last Friday, the UK decided to lift the ban on prohibiting gays from donating blood. From Times Of India: UK Lifts Ban, Says Gays Can Donate BloodLONDON: Britain said Thursday it was lifting a ban on gay men giving blood providing they have had not had sexual intercourse within a year. A lifetime ban on blood donation by gay men was introduced in Britain in the 1980s as a response to the spread of AIDS and HIV.But a review by a panel of leading experts and patient...

Top leader of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Moderator Cynthia Bolbach, addressed the first national gathering of More Light Presbyterians since the denomination began allowing the ordination of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. ...Meeting at Third Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York, September 2-4, Moderator Bolbach encouraged the listeners to be the church by working together. Using the biblical story of the friends who cut a hole in the roof of a house to get a friend to Jesus to be healed of paralysis, the Moderator urged lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their allies to be as...

The leader of Scotland's Catholic community has warned that moves by MSPs to legalise gay marriage will be "strenuously opposed" by the Church. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, in a strongly worded homily delivered at a mass for politicians in Edinburgh last night, claimed that allowing gay people to wed through a civil or religious ceremonies would be a "direct attack" on the institution of marriage. However, the intervention sparked criticism from MSPs, with the openly gay leader of the Scottish Greens, Patrick Harvie, attacking the Cardinal's remarks as "absurd" and as an attempt to "suppress" the freedom of gays, lesbians and...

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 6, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While surveying the landscape for inroads to push the homosexual agenda into Poland, American embassy officials under the Obama administration complained that the Catholic Church teaching is a major source of “homophobia” in the heavily Catholic country, according to private cables recently published by Wikileaks. The cables from the American embassy in Warsaw, marked “sensitive but unclassified,” were part of a dump of over 250,000 official government documents last week by Wikileaks. One cable from the American embassy in Warsaw dated August 2009 pointed to the Catholic Church as central in promoting “homophobia”...

Mike Weatherley, the Conservative MP for Hove, has called for churches to be banned from holding marriages if they refuse to perform civil partnerships for gay couples. He says that the idea will bring more equality for gay couples. In a letter (see below) to prime minister David Cameron, Mr Weatherley wrote: “As long as religious groups can refuse to preside over ceremonies for same-sex couples there will be inequality. “Such behaviour is not be tolerated in other areas, such as adoption, after all. “Until we untangle unions and religion in this country we will struggle to find a fair...

With the official end of the U.S. military’s ban two weeks away, gay-rights activists are pressing the Pentagon for more than just the right to serve openly. An underground group of gay personnel says it has won permission from at least two military branches to let it distribute its magazine, Outserve, on bases. In addition, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which led a long fight in Washington to repeal the ban, has written to Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta urging him to extend military housing and other benefits to the same-sex spouses of personnel. “Provisions in the Defense of Marriage...

Just months after being fired from Cisco Systems in California over an anti-gay marriage book, Christian consultant Dr. Frank Turek was also given the boot from Bank of America. "I get a lot of flak for just actually agreeing with what a majority of Americans agree on and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman," Turek said this past week on American Family Radio. Turek was doing work on and off for Bank of America for about 15 years, mainly conducting leadership and team building programs, he said. Other clients have included Coca Cola, Home Depot...

WASHINGTON — US officials have approved the distribution of a gay-themed magazine at Army and Air Force bases for the first time, coinciding with the end of a ban on openly gay troops, according to activists. OutServe Magazine, which caters to gay members of the armed forces, said it would deliver a special "repeal issue" on September 20, the day the prohibition against openly gay US service members is due to officially end. The upcoming edition will feature photos and biographies of nearly 100 service members who will be openly acknowledging their sexual orientation, the magazine said on its website...

Piers Morgan interviews Rick Santorum on CNN. September 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the course of drilling Rick Santorum on homosexuality, CNN’s Piers Morgan accused the presidential candidate’s views of “bordering on bigotry” and challenged him as a fellow Catholic with different beliefs on the issue. “I guess one of the reasons it’s troubling and difficult for people to come out [as gay] is because of the level of bigotry that’s out there against them. I have to say that your views you espoused on this issue are bordering on bigotry, aren’t they?” Morgan asked the candidate. “I think just...

Obama administration lawyers will ask a federal appeals court on Thursday to vacate a judgment declaring "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" unconstitutional now that the ban on openly gay men and women in the military is about to be repealed. But attorneys for opponents of the ban argue that the court decision striking it down should be left intact, preserving a legal precedent for anyone discharged under the policy who is seeking reinstatement, back pay or other recompense. President Barack Obama in December signed a repeal of the 17-year ban into law, and he announced last month that the repeal would...