Free Republic

A senior Cabinet minister in Ireland says he’s gay, becoming the first openly homosexual government figure in the history of the traditionally conservative Catholic country. Sunday’s announcement on state radio by Health Minister Leo Varadkar received widespread praise for its straightforward honesty. Analysts said his decision was likely to be viewed with hindsight as a landmark of social change in a country that, until 1993, outlawed homosexual acts. Varadkar said he decided to declare his sexuality in advance of government moves this year to advance gay rights. These include plans to legalize gay marriage, permit homosexual men to donate blood,...

A proposal in the Kentucky legislature would require that transgender students avoid school restrooms, locker rooms and showers that don’t correspond with their sex assigned at birth. The Kentucky Student Privacy Act, sponsored by Republican state Sen. C.B. Embry, is also designed to punish school administrators who give transgender students access to school facilities designated for the opposite sex. “Parents have a reasonable expectation that schools will not allow minor children to be viewed in various states of undress by members of the opposite biological sex, nor allow minor children to view members of the opposite sex in various states...

The fight for same-sex marriage rights in the United States has reached its final round. On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear arguments on whether state laws that ban these unions violate the constitution. More Meet the Plaintiffs in the Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Case Here’s What 5 Supreme Court Justices Have Said About Gay Marriage Charlie Hebdo Editor: Religion Should Stay Out of Politics NBC News Record-Setting Six Million Brave Downpour to Greet Pope NBC News Nabbed! Kentucky's Teen Fugitives Arrested in Florida NBC News There’s not much question which way the decision will go: same-sex...

Client: Nikon Product: NIkon D750 Date Finished: 12/23/14 Title: “Kordale & Kaleb” Editor: Paul La Calandra Director: Douglass Gautraud Production Company: Interrogate Agency: McCann Erikson Agency Producer: Kathy Love Creative Director: Cameron Fleming/Calvin Lyte ECD: Larry Platt/Thomas Sullivan

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether all 50 states must allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, positioning it to resolve one of the great civil rights questions in a generation before its current term ends in June. The decision came just months after the justices ducked the issue, refusing in October to hear appeals from rulings allowing same-sex marriage in five states. That decision, which was considered a major surprise, delivered a tacit victory for gay rights, immediately expanding the number of states with same-sex marriage to 24, along with the District of Columbia,...

High court to hear gay marriage cases in April Associated Press WASHINGTON (January 16, 2015) — Setting the stage for a potentially historic ruling, the Supreme Court announced Friday it will decide whether same-sex couples have a right to marry everywhere in America under the Constitution. The justices will take up gay-rights cases that ask them to overturn bans in four states and declare for the entire nation that people can marry the partners of their choice, regardless of gender. The cases will be argued in April, and a decision is expected by late June. Proponents of same-sex marriage said...

'A sordid tale of lesbian sex, murder and seduction in a Catholic convent in 19th-century Rome has been discovered in a secret Vatican archive. The Sant'Ambrogio scandal involves a beautiful young sister who convinced the nuns she was experiencing visions and visits from heaven - then made them engage in rampant sexual activity. Herbert Wolf, a leading scholar of the Catholic Church, learned of the Sant'Ambrogio scandal when he became one of the first allowed into the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The naughty nun also entered into an erotic relationship with a theologian on...

DALLAS (Reuters) - Membership in the Boy Scouts of America took a steeper tumble during 2014, the first year under a policy that allows openly gay youth to participate, than in recent years of a decade-long decline. About 2.4 million youth participated in the nearly 105-year-old Texas-based scouting program, representing a 7.4 percent decline over 2013 enrollment of 2.6 million youth, Boy Scout officials said in a statement on Friday. Enrollment declined by about 6 percent in 2013. BSA officials said that decreasing participation is a trend that most youth organizations are facing. "There are many factors that go into...

While reporting the breaking news that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide on gay marriage, Fox News host Shepard Smith observed that the same states that fought racial integration oppose same-sex marriage. To drive home his point, he added that among some Americans, “there is still disagreement over segregation.” “Not in every case, but in most cases, the same states which were fighting integration are fighting this as well,” Smith said. “Those states which always seem to be behind the curve for reasons which are explainable and understandable.” Is it because the inhabitants of these states are bitter, and cling...

Archbishop: "It's hard to imagine how the essential meaning of marriage ... consistent with every society throughout all of human history, could be declared illegal" Washington, D.C., January 17, 2015 (Zenit.org) | 192 hits The U. S. Supreme Court granted a request Friday to review the November 2014 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upholding the constitutionality of marriage laws in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. The decision regarding same-sex marriage is expected in June or July.Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and...

The battle over same sex marriage has brought about many legal claims – but not all from the couples themselves. Children of same sex couples often sue for the lack of family stability and denied benefits that a non recognized marital status entails. But some grown children of gay parents are now speaking out against gay marriage – based on their negative experiences. First, we need to muddle through all the hyperbole and understand what this debate is really about. Award winning author and apologist Frank Turek writes in Correct, Not Politically Correct, Activists want same sex marriage because they...

A middle school in suburban Boston clandestinely scheduled an assembly to introduce and recruit students to the school’s new “gay-straight alliance” club -- without parental notification. But after MassResistance intervened, the school relented and notified parents about the time and nature of the assembly. The school later told a parent that they were using the new “anti-bullying” laws as a reason for bringing the programming to the school. As MassResistance recently reported, a major push of the national LGBT movement is to put “Gay Straight Alliance” clubs (GSAs) into middle schools, targeting younger students (ages 11-13). These GSAs provide a...

Charlotte Catholic High School in Charlotte, N.C., recently informed one of its substitute teachers that he could not work at the school following the public announcement of his impending same-sex marriage, according to Catholic News Herald. The school’s decision is yet another instance of Catholic schools around the country taking measures to protect and ensure their Catholic identity. The teacher, Lonnie Billard, worked for 11 years at Charlotte Catholic High School as a dramatics teacher until his retirement in 2012. He was reportedly scheduled to begin substituting in January. But when officials at the high school learned of Billard’s public...

Gay Magazine Praises Jeb Bush By Julio Severo Jeb Bush, the hope for American conservatives in the next U.S. presidential elections, is flirting with the gay agenda. In an illuminating article entitled “Why the Gay Agenda Is Praising Jeb Bush,” Peter LaBarbera says, “It is becoming apparent that Jeb Bush is the favorite Republican Party presidential contender of the Washington Blade-D.C.’s ‘gay news source’ — due to his politically-correct evolution on homosexuality and same-sex ‘marriage.’ The Blade and other liberal media report favorably every time the former Florida governor moves away from the conservative, pro-family, Republican platform defending marriage as between man...

Well, not really. But maybe! Can you marry your cousin? It's an interesting question. In some states, YES, you CAN marry your first cousin! In other states - it's a no-no, forbidden. Now HOW and WHY was this state of affairs (or marriages, be it whatever) allowed to exist? How and why did states HAVE THE RIGHT to determine under what conditions marriage was allowable? Because it was RECOGNIZED by the federal government that equal protection WAS NOT VIOLATED by such marriages! Thoughts? Ideas? (btw, my cousin is kind of cute, but she's just not my type...) ;-)

Like a plastic Piggly Wiggly bag fluttering about in the alley, those untethered from God’s natural law are violently tossed to and fro by the gusting winds of moral relativism. Jenny Kutner is one such Piggly Wiggly bag. A 20-something assistant editor at Salon.com, she describes herself as “focusing on sex, gender and feminism.” By “focusing on sex, gender and feminism,” and as you will soon see, this young “progressive” means to say that she spends her days rationalizing each and every conceivable form of sexual deviancy, as well as trying to otherwise deconstruct that which she and her fellow...

Barack Obama is going to be interviewed by GloZell Green. GloZell made it big on YouTube with this video… The Cinnamon Challenge … by GloZell and her Big Behind Earrings (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Here’s another video of GloZell in action. GloZell Diet Coke and Mentos Challenge–(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Maybe he’ll do the cinnamon challenge? The Daily Mail reported: After his State Of The Union address on Tuesday, the POTUS has confirmed, he will sit down for interviews with three YouTube stars – including GloZell. The Los Angeles-based vlogger, who characteristically wears green lipstick, starts each video with ‘Hello this is GloZell! Is you ok? Is you?...

Teenager Who Has Been Dating Her Father For Two Years Reveals The Pair Are Planning To Get Married - And Have Children An 18-year-old girl is revealing in a new interview that she has been dating her father for two years The pair were estranged for 12 years, but met up again when she was 16, having sex the week they were reunited They were soon dating and are now planning their wedding After their wedding they plan on moving to New Jersey and having children, were adult incest is legal By CHRIS SPARGO 16 January 2015 A young girl...

The Texas senator might be just crazy enough to win the GOP presidential nomination.As they used to say in the old westerns, it was quiet out there-too quiet. So no one was really surprised when Ted Cruz announced to The Washington Post the weekend before the November election that his brief flirtation with civilized behavior was nearing its end. For months, the Texas senator had abandoned his "the guy with dynamite strapped to his chest" persona, as one Republican political strategist describes it, to be a team player, crisscrossing the country to campaign for GOP candidates. No filibusters on the...

VATICAN CITY – Michael Sam, the NFL’s first openly gay player, got engaged to boyfriend Vito Cammisano last week while on vacation in Italy. Popular entertainment and gossip site TMZ mentioned the news on January 8, but Michael Sam kept silent on social media until January 16, when he tweeted out the following photo: Sam popped the question atop St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.