Free Republic

LANSING, MI — Private faith-based adoption agencies that receive state funding but choose to deny service to gay parents on religious grounds have won the blessing of Michigan's Republican-led Legislature. The state Senate, in an unexpected and unannounced move, took up religious objection adoption legislation on Wednesday, approving the three-bill package in a series of 26-12 votes.

[caption id="attachment_1500" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Image source: WENN[/caption] I was reading on Quora, which I like to do in the mornings to increase my knowledge of random subjects like WWII’s greatest atrocities or how astronauts aboard the ISS keep the toilet clean. I came across this piece titled “If Jesus forgives all sins what is the point in not sinning?”  Johnnie Lockett makes a really strong argument for living a righteous life. It’s actually the best, most concise answer I have seen, backed up with personal experience. And when people do such things well, those who watch are greatly impressed. We...

Defense Secretary Ash Carter extended equal opportunity protection to sexual minorities at the Pentagon’s fourth Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Pride event Tuesday. Gay and lesbian troops can now make claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation to the Military Equal Opportunity program, rather than inspectors general, USA Today reports. According to Carter, what matters in the military is meritocracy. Discrimination has no place, as excluding LGBT troops, especially from serving their country, threatens national security. “Anything less is not just plain wrong, it’s bad defense policy that puts our future strength at risk,” Carter noted. “With this policy revision, we are now ensuring that...

Sao Paulo (Brazil) – Tens of thousands participated at the annual Gay Pride march. Participants marched through the heart of Brazil’s business metropolis, this year slogan was:”I was born this way, I grew up so I will always be like this: respect me.” Organizers said they expected upwards of two million people to attend the event, the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. Some marchers carried rainbow flags while one held aloft a giant banner proclaiming “proud to be a transvestite.” Brazilian broadcaster Globo indicated the city authorities had spent in the region of $500,000 on helping to...

The Miss USA organization has invited Caitlyn Jenner to judge this year’s beauty pageant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Is the Obama administration moving to require Christian nonprofits that receive government grants to follow LGBT non-discrimination rules in hiring? A May 29 blog post by Austin Ruse, president of the Center for Family & Human Rights (C-Fam), claimed that an "unnamed source within the federal government" informed him that "the White House is quietly moving forward" with an LGBT non-discrimination policy for nonprofit organizations receiving government grants. Since then, however, a White House official has assured another religious freedom organization that no decisions have been made about federal grantees. The White House, Ruse wrote, "has recently directed federal agencies...

Always forward! Not resting on its gay-marriage laurels, and while still celebrating the bravery of a man in drag, the house organ of crazy modern “liberalism” now stamps its high-heeled combat boots...[snip]...Let’s face it: we’ve wandered into the realm of barking insanity at this point, as the Left tries to linguistically (and thus politically) redefine the most elemental aspect of our physical nature. All part of Critical Theory: attack everything and anything. And with America’s defenders now running away even faster than the Iraqi Army, who is left to stop them?

Lindsey Graham says he'd welcome Caitlyn Jenner as a political ally. He'd work with Democrats on entitlement reforms. And he'd lower climate-harming emissions to address global warming. As long as you agree there's "too much debt, too many terrorists," the South Carolina senator and 2016 presidential contender says there's room in his Republican Party for you. "Here's what I would say to the talk show hosts: In the eyes of radical Islam, they hate you as much as they hate Caitlyn Jenner," Graham said. "They hate us all because we won't agree to their view of religion. So America, we...

The new report issued Monday is the first to tackle LGBT rights since Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein was named U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, called for all countries to provide legal protections for same sex couples and their children in a report issued Monday. Hussein stopped short of recommending countries to call those protections “marriage,” but the report suggested that whatever these partnerships are called, they should make all the same protections available to same-sex couples. “States should address discrimination by: …. Providing legal recognition...

There may be evidence that the government agency in charge of enforcing Oregon anti-discrimination laws colluded against Aaron and Melissa Klein, former owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, with the pro-LGBT group Basic Rights Oregon. The Daily Signal, the news arm of The Heritage Foundation, exposed the communications contact between officials at the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and Basic Rights Oregon, obtained through a public records request, in their story titled, "Emails Raise Questions of Bias in Case Against Bakers Who Denied Service for Same-Sex Wedding." The communications between the two groups raises questions of the impartiality...

The Daily Signal has exclusively learned that the government agency responsible for enforcing Oregon’s anti-discrimination law appears to be working closely with a powerful gay rights advocacy group in its case against Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa. Communications between the agency, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and the LGBT organization, Basic Rights Oregon, raise questions about potential bias in the state’s decision to charge the Kleins with discrimination for refusing to make a cake for a same-sex wedding. In April, a judge for the agency recommended the Kleins be fined $135,000. Communications obtained...

WASHINGTON DC, May 28, 2015 (C-Fam.org) -- A source within the federal government has informed the Friday Fax that the White House is quietly moving forward with a policy change that will require charitable humanitarian groups to accept LGBT applicants in order to qualify for government funding, even those religious groups that might have religious objections.The policy change is linked to an executive order President Obama issued last July that prohibits federal contractors from discriminatory hiring practices based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Faith-based groups were already wrestling with that order.Things are about to get exponentially worse for faith-based groups who...

Concerns are arising among Christians and online commentators after a homosexual activist recently told a national publication that churches “must be made ‘to take homosexuality off the sin list.'” Mitchell Gold is the founder of Faith in America, an organization that aims to “end the harm to LGBT youth and families from misguided religious teaching.” He served on the board of directors for the Human Rights Campaign for seven years, and was named on of the “Top 50 Most Powerful Gay People in America” in 2007 by Out Magazine. In an article written by Frank Buni of the New York...

Exhibit and Sponsor Manager for World Meeting Of Families is LGBT Activist Pope Francis is set to visit the United States for the first time this September, just prior to the second half of the Synod on the Family meetings, which conclude the following month. According to the World Meeting of Families 2015 website, “The theme of the World Meeting of Families – Philadelphia 2015 is “Love Is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive,” emphasizing the impact of the love and life of families on our society.” For at least one gatekeeper at this event, the definition of “family” includes...

It never ceases to amaze me when I come across reports of problems in our society which I had no idea were even issues. One of these cropped up last night while reading the latest blog entry from Washington Post editor Jonathan Capehart, where he discusses a peculiar aspect of demographic data collection. We’re apparently having a tough time accurately counting the number of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in the United States and it’s not because of too many people being in the closet. (Though I’m sure that’s still an issue as well.) No, the problem currently under examination...

In less than two years, transgender rights have gone from a non-issue to non-negotiable in the Democratic Party. Rather than dismiss this change as a politically irrelevant story that belongs in the tabloids, Republicans should view it as a case study in the political power of principle. For it was principle, not a political campaign, that has advanced transgender rights so far so fast. If Republicans would likewise put principle before policy, they would not only have the power to win elections but also the power to bring America back into fidelity with our country’s founding vision.

As the calendar slips toward the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, there’s a storm cloud hanging over America that will release its thunder in late June. That’s when the U.S. Supreme Court is widely expected to declare a constitutional right to same-sex “marriage.” We are at a moral precipice. America’s Founders could scarcely have imagined a handful of people in black robes becoming so powerful and arrogant that they could defy natural law with the stroke of a pen. The question is: Will they do it? The drive to radically redefine marriage didn’t happen overnight. It’s the rotten fruit...

“For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.” Romans 1:26,27 (KJV) Vice President Joe Biden say today that the rights of the LGBT people are violated by “religious condemnation”. He is directly referring to Bible verses like the one posted at the top of...

A scene stands out to me from my graduate program in social work. A lesbian professor visited our class to tell about her experience of being same-sex attracted in a small, Midwestern, devoutly Protestant town in the latter twentieth century. As expected, her story was heart-rending. Afterward, during the Q&A, a black woman in her 40s raised her hand. “I’ve noticed that the high school girls today go through phases where they say that they like girls, and then change their minds and say they like boys again, like it just goes back and forth. And I don’t know if...