Free Republic

Two Christian colleges located in states that had their same-sex marriage bans struck down by the United States Supreme Court's June 26 decision that nationally legalized same-sex marriage are offering employment benefits to legally recognized same-sex spouses of school employees. The employment practices of Hope College, a small Reformed liberal arts school in Holland, Michigan, and the nondenominational Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, will both comply with their states' new legal definitions on marriage after the high court's ruling. On Monday, Hope College President John Knapp sent an email to the Hope community explaining that while Hope will continue to...

So I've learned Democrats are pretty scared of Walker Scott Walker is a Health Care-Denying, Anti-Worker, Economy-Dragging, Education-Slashing, Marriage Equality-Opposing, Teacher-Disrespecting, Trickle-Down-Believing Anti-Choice Republican, and he's running for President. Finished laughing hysterically yet? No? We’ll give you a moment. OK, so now that you’ve had a chance to catch your breath, can we please talk about the horrific stench of desperation that’s emanating from the Dems? Because seriously. They’re flinging every last bit of poo they can squeeze out at the Walker wall, hoping something will stick. It’s truly a sickening spectacle — and par for the course with these...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pentagon leaders are finalizing plans aimed at lifting the ban on transgender individuals in the military, with the goal of formally ending one of the last gender- or sexuality-based barriers to military service, senior U.S. officials told The Associated Press. An announcement is expected this week, and the services would have six months to assess the impact of the change and work out the details, the officials said Monday. Military chiefs wanted time to methodically work through the legal, medical and administrative issues and develop training to ease any transition, and senior leaders believed six months would...

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) warned Monday that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s dissonance with his wife on same-sex marriage could cause him to be less “active” in his opposition. “Spouses matter,” Santorum said in an editorial meeting with The Daily Caller. “When your spouse is not in-sync with you — particularly on cultural issues, moral issues — [you] tend not to be as active on those issues." Walker panned last month’s Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide as a “grave mistake” where “five unelected judges [took] it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage.” But while those views...

Live Aid celebrates its official 30th anniversary today, but there’s only one star from the famous Wembley show that stands out in our minds. That’s Freddie Mercury who performed the most epic of epic sets with Queen on July 13th 1985. For a solid 25 minutes Freddie had the entire Wembley stadium on their feet, as well as 1.5 billion viewers at home, and it has gone down in history as arguably his greatest ever performance. So whether you wait until your lunch break, or stick your headphones on now, you won’t regret the time you spent watching Freddie Mercury...

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said the Mercy Sisters who run Waldron Mercy Academy showed "character and common sense" in firing a lesbian teacher who has been married since 2007 after parents of two students found out and complained. In his first direct comment since the firing became public last week, Chaput said, "Schools describing themselves as Catholic take on the responsibility of teaching and witnessing the Catholic faith in a manner true to Catholic belief. There's nothing complicated or controversial in this. It's a simple matter of honesty," he said in a statement issued Monday." "I'm very grateful to the...

The Dent County Commission voted unanimously Monday to observe one year of "mourning” over the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision that gay couples have the constitutional right to marriage. The observance will come in the form of lowering the flags at the Dent County Courthouse and Judicial Building to below half-staff on the 26th day of the month from July 2015 to June 2016. The vote came after Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles filed a letter into the public record protesting, “the U.S. high court’s stamp of approval of what God speaks of as an abomination.” The letter details Skiles’ opposition...

Last week, Pope Francis released his long awaited—and preemptively leaked—encyclical, acknowledging climate change as mostly human-induced and cause for drastic transformation on both individual and nationwide levels. It was an unprecedented move by the leader of the Catholic Church, as religiosity has long been linked to lower levels of climate concern. Fortunately, however, the Pope's message will fall on receptive ears. Researchers at the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication have found that, among religious Republicans—and Republicans are more likely to be religious than Democrats—Catholic Republicans are "more convinced that global warming is happening and human-caused, and are more worried...

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has unanimously approved a resolution to end the organisation's ban on gay adults working as leaders. The group's National Executive Board will meet to ratify the resolution on 27 July, the Boy Scouts said in a statement. It is a major step towards ending a policy that has caused deep rifts in the group, which was set up in 1910. The BSA voted to end a ban on allowing open gay boys to become scouts in 2013. Earlier this year, former US defence secretary Robert Gates, who is BSA president, told the group's national...

WASHINGTON — A key leadership panel of the Boy Scouts of America voted unanimously last week to end the ban on gay leaders in scouting, the organization told local leaders on Monday. The move — raised as a necessary step by the organization’s head in May — came from the executive committee of the Boy Scouts on July 10. A vote of the full executive board is scheduled for July 27, at which point the change is immediately effective. The resolution passed by the committee does not require councils or troops to allow out gay leaders, but lifts the prior...

County clerks across the country are resigning after the June 29 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage. Just a few days after the monumental ruling, an entire county clerk office in Tennessee resigned. Decatur County Clerk Gwen Pope and both of her deputy assistants, Sharon Bell and Mickey Butler, resigned, saying the order clashed with their religious beliefs. All three were long-time employees of the clerk’s office. Pope told The Jackson Sun they didn’t want to make the news. "It's kind of sort of like you don't want to draw attention to yourself for any reason," she said. "That's...

For those unfamiliar with the NEA, it is the nation’s largest labor union – not just the largest teacher’s union, mind you. But the largest labor union in the country. Period. It has over three million members. Its mission is “to advocate for education professionals” blah, blah, blah. In other words, they are an organization of teachers who unite to demand more money, benefits, better work environments and whatever else they can get their hands on. They also advocate for just about any left-wing liberal cause that enrages conservatives, even if it has nothing to do with teaching. One of...

I confess that I do not begin to understand homosexual or transgender issues. As life would have it, this matter has found its way into the lives of my own circle of friends and family members, people whom I love and respect most dearly. While I acknowledge that I do not fully understand the issues which formed the basis of the case before the Supreme Court, I am comfortable with the decision and fully believe the Court is right in its ruling that laws forbidding same-sex marriage are unconstitutional. Frankly, I don’t have to understand anything other than that I...

The Boy Scouts of America is one step closer to lifting the ban on gay leadership in the organization. On Friday, the Boy Scouts of America Executive Committee adopted a resolution to amend the group's adult leadership standards policy, which was unanimously adopted. The BSA policy change will allow scoutmasters and other adult leaders to serve regardless of their sexual orientation. According to the Boy Scouts, the resolution "will allow chartered organizations to select adult leaders without regard to sexual orientation, continuing Scouting’s longstanding policy of chartered organizations selecting their leaders." The Boy Scouts said that the change will leave...

The archbishop of Philadelphia said Monday that Roman Catholic school officials who fired a married gay teacher showed uncommon “character and common sense.” Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said the nuns and board members who run Waldron Mercy Academy are not seeking controversy, but simply following the church’s teaching. Chaput, in a statement, thanked school leaders “for taking the steps to ensure that the Catholic faith is presented … in accord with the teaching of the church. They’ve shown character and common sense at a moment when both seem to be uncommon.” …

President Obama on Monday commuted the sentences of 46 drug offenders in federal prisons, as part of his administration's effort to reform the criminal justice system. Obama’s clemency to non-violent drug offenders comes as the administration is working to reduce operating costs and overcrowding in federal prisons, as well as to provide relief to inmates who were sent to prison under the harsh sentencing guidelines put in place in the late 1980s as the country was grappling with the crime and violence associated with crack cocaine.

President Obama on Monday commuted the sentences of 46 drug offenders in federal prisons, as part of his administration's effort to reform the criminal justice system. Obama’s clemency to non-violent drug offenders comes as the administration is working to reduce operating costs and overcrowding in federal prisons, as well as to provide relief to inmates who were sent to prison under the harsh sentencing guidelines put in place in the late 1980s as the country was grappling with the crime and violence associated with crack cocaine. Since the Obama administation announced last year that it would grant clemency to nonviolent...

The chilling redefinition of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty by Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin and the Senate’s only lesbian, is a looming threat to religious liberty. With the possible loss of tax exemptions for churches and institutions that don’t comply with the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision, an era of religious persecution may be upon us. Baldwin made her remarks on the June 27 broadcast of Up With Steve Kornacki on MSNBC. In a transcript of her remarks posted on Newsbusters, Baldwin ignored the fact that it was religious persecution in Europe that led to people...

Months ago, I watched as some Christians took to the internet opposing R. R. Reno’s position in “A Time to Rend,” in which he calls for a separation of sacramental marriage from civil marriage. Much of the criticism made accusations of disengagement with, and abandonment of, the culture. One Protestant even went so far as to say, “church weddings detached from the civil sphere are worthless.”Leo XIII’s encyclical, Arcanum, lays out a solid argument for why the Church is the guardian of marriage, and what happens when that authority of hers is usurped. In light of the Supreme Court’s recent...

I don't get it. I honestly don't. Call me an idiot; declare me obtuse. I can't figure out the long game of the American left. I've been struggling with the thought for a while. But the answer isn't forthcoming. I don't mean to insult. I'm genuinely asking for clues. The progressive outlook seems negative. Everyone's being cheated. Everything's unfair. And offensive. Especially that. I've lived in this country for 52 years. I never knew it was such a cynical place. Instead of seeking ways to move the nation forward, spiritually and economically, the political left is on an inequity hunt....