Free Republic

It’s official: Britain is no longer a Christian nation. In banning Eunice and Owen Johns, a devout Christian couple, from fostering children, Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson declared that we live in a secular state, and that the Johns’ religious convictions disqualified them from raising citizens of that state. We’ve outgrown Christianity, the judges professed. Instead, we have graduated to the status of a multicultural nation, blessed by a plurality of faiths. Ironically, the justices who have pronounced that Britain is no longer Christian did so in a court where witnesses swear on the Bible and invoke God’s...

Germany has hit back at explosive remarks by Turkey's prime minister, who told his compatriots that they should learn Turkish before German and resist assimilation into German society. During a visit to Germany, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told 10,000 members of Germany's large Turkish community of his "growing unease" about the way immigrants are treated in Germany. "You must integrate, but I am against assimilation ... no one may ignore the rights of minorities," he said, adding that individuals should have the right to practise their own faith. "Our children must learn German but they must learn Turkish first," said Erdogan....

...Check out these statistics from the "Crime and Enforcement Activity in New York City" report for the first six months of 2010. Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter victims are most frequently Black (67.0%) or Hispanic (28.1%). White victims account for (3.2%) of all Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter victims while Asian/Pacific Islanders account for (1.8%) of all Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter victims. The Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter arrest population is similarly distributed. Black arrestees (53.8%) and Hispanic arrestees (36.4%) account for the majority of Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter arrestees while White arrestees (7.1%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (2.2%) arrestees account for the remaining...

The phrases “states’ rights” and “porous border” may be uttered in an unlikely place next session: the offices of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. Last week’s GOP rout included the election of five Hispanic Republicans to the Texas House, including several who prevailed over members of MALC. As Latinos, the winners are automatically eligible for membership in the group, which is focused on "matters of interest to the Mexican-American community," according to its bylaws. MALC chairman Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, says he has reached out to four of the five thus far: Larry Gonzales, who beat Round Rock's Diana...

The owner of Antietam Gallery is fighting back after the management of Francis Scott Key Mall asked him to stop selling "Maryland stands with Arizona" T-shirts, he said. The shirts have been on sale at James Kehoe's custom framing gallery for about three weeks in support of a new law in Arizona aimed at enforcing federal immigration law. Below the slogan, an illustration shows the Maryland and Arizona state flags crossing. In a letter dated Sept. 2, mall management asked Kehoe to immediately remove the T-shirts from the shopping center, saying they constitute a nuisance or project an unwholesome image...

A group probing whether President Obama is addressing matters of concern to African Americans will discuss the issue Saturday at the annual conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation hours before Obama is scheduled to address conference attendees. Political scientist Ron Daniels formed the Shirley Chisholm Presidential Accountability Commission in late 2008 as a mechanism for black leaders to hold the nation's first black president accountable. Eventually, the group hopes to issue a report card that grades the administration on how well it is doing in closing racial disparities. The commission is named after the first African American woman elected...

Dick Armey’s conservative organization FreedomWorks is readying for the launch of a comprehensive political program aimed at debunking the NAACP’s race-charged attacks on the Tea Party movement. FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe said the organization will roll out Diverse Tea, a platform and advertising campaign that will showcase diversity in the Tea Party movement, sometime this week or early next week. “The idea is to create a platform for African-American Tea Party leaders, Hispanic Tea Party leaders and Jewish Tea Party leaders to get out there and talk about why they’re involved and why these issues matter so much...

A federal civil rights agency sued Abercrombie & Fitch on Wednesday on behalf of an 18-year-old woman who said she applied for her first job at the company's store at the Great Mall in Milpitas and was turned down because she wore a Muslim headscarf. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission went to court against Abercrombie & Fitch last year over a similar incident in Tulsa, Okla. In Wednesday's suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, the agency again accused the Ohio company of discriminating on the basis of religion. "This retailer that targets a youth market is sending...

The gathering of rowdy teens on the Country Club Plaza Saturday evening was planned and not a random event, Kansas City police said this morning. Students from different high schools throughout the area had been using Twitter and Facebook to plan an “unruly gathering” last week, said Officer Darin Snapp, a police spokesman. “Unfortunately there were people who knew about it but didn’t call us until after it was over,” Snapp said. ( More from Bob Cronkleton: Police Chief Jim Corwin is expected to be briefed about the gathering that attracted large crowds — totaling an estimated 500 to 1,000...

Somali refugees have resettled in America to escape the chaos of their homeland. But the transition isn't going smoothly in one town.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIYYd476H1k&feature=player_embedded

One of the witnesses of last month's gang rape of a 15-year-old girl at her homecoming dance said that while he could have stopped the attack that he watched for 20 minutes he didn't feel accountable for what happened. I feel like I could have done something, but I don't feel like I have any responsibility for anything that happened," the unidentified 16-year-old witness told ABC's San Francisco affiliate KGO-TV. Two witnesses told the television station they didn't call police during the more than two-hour-long assault on the girl because they didn't want to be called a snitches. For the...

Eenie, meenie, minie, moe - Here's Donald Cross' tale of woe. The 65-year-old drug counselor was fired by a Long Island town this month after he recited a children's rhyme and offended an African-American co-worker. Cross said he was blindsided by the Town of Babylon's decision to can him for racially motivated harassment. He has filed a complaint with the state Division of Human Rights to win back the job he had held for 15 years. "I am astounded and dumbfounded that I received such an overreaction to such a seemingly innocuous question," Cross said in the complaint. Cross said...

Honk if you love Hispanics. A license plate that touts "Hispanics Discovered Florida" may soon join the 109 specialty tags drivers can choose from. The idea to celebrate the contributions of Hispanics came from National Hispanic Corporate Achievers, a Longwood group that sponsors minority job fairs. The plate would become a fundraising tool to support job and mentorship programs. Danny Ramos, the group's president, said the tag's message is about cultural pride for Florida's 3.6 million Hispanics -- even if not all of Latin American or Spanish descent identify with the term.

He asked them to stop smoking in Munich's subway station. They brutally beat up the 76- year-old pensioner. Last Thursday, the 20-year-old Turk Serkan A. and his Greek friend Spiridon L. admitted that they critically wounded the former schoolmaster Bruno N. and offended him by calling him: “Crap German.” When the victim was lying motionless on the floor, the two took the old man's rucksack and quickly fled. The victim suffered a triple fractured skull with dangerous brain bleeding. At first, his life was in jeopardy, but his physical condition is stable now. The motive: “Why was he so stupid...

They opened the show with a song about Hanukkah and paid homage to Kwanzaa with a South African tune. Then, students at Bethune Elementary School in Atlanta hammed it up on stage in hula skirts. Yes, Christmas made an appearance. With antlers on their heads, students sang the classic "Up on the housetop, reindeer pause ... " For the finale, a chorus of children holding cardboard red hearts sang, "We all come together during the most wonderful time of the year." Bethune's choice of "Paint the Town December," a musical written for school-age children, reflects a change many parents and...