Free Republic

A comprehensive study of traditional children’s book characters has determined that Pooh Corner may be rife with gender inequality. Dr. Janice McCabe, a sociologist at Florida State University, examined nearly 6,000 children’s books between 1900 and 2000 and determined the stories have a definitive gender bias and a disproportionate representation of genders. “We found that males are represented more frequently than females in the titles and the central characters in the book,” McCabe told Fox News Radio. Fifty seven percent of the children’s stories featured male characters, 31 percent featured female characters and the remainder had animal characters of unknown...

LONDON, November 16, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A British Christian pediatrician has applied to be heard at the European Court of Justice after she was forced out of her position on the Northamptonshire County Council Adoption Panel because of her belief that adoptive children are best off placed with a mother and a father. Sheila Matthews, a physician with 18 years experience, is being represented in her legal challenge by human rights barrister Paul Diamond and the Christian Legal Centre. Matthews has mounted the legal challenge to determine whether professional medical advice regarding the child’s “best interests” is “negated” by “homosexual...

Teachers are being forced to report children as young as three to the authorities for using alleged ‘racist’ language, it was claimed last night. Munira Mirza, a senior advisor to London Mayor Boris Johnson, said schools were being made to spy on nursery age youngsters by the Race Relations Act 2000. More than a quarter of a million children have been accused of racism since it became law, she said. Spied upon: 'Racist language' by children must be reported. (Posed by models) Spied upon: 'Racist language' by children must be reported. (Posed by models) Writing in Prospect magazine, she said:...

A history teacher in Dahlonega was placed on administrative leave Monday after she let four students wear Ku Klux Klan outfits in a historical reenactment. Catherine Ariemma, a five-year veteran with the Lumpkin County school system, teaches an advanced placement history class at Lumpkin County High. Her students were filming reenactments of various historical periods last week, and four donned Klan outfits, superintendent Dewey Moye told the AJC. Students from other classrooms saw them as they walked through a hallway while wearing the costumes to an outdoor shoot, he said, adding that the parents of an African-American child later complained...

Two homosexual activists posed proudly in front of cameras as the first same-sex parents in Britain to jointly sign a birth certificate, reports Christian Concern for our Nation. Natalie Woods, 38, gave birth to Lily May Betty Woods in Brighton earlier this month through the use of sperm given by a registered donor. Her lesbian partner, Elizabeth Knowles, 47, is named on the certificate instead of the biological father. The couple were able to take advantage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 which came into effect at the beginning of this month. The Act entitles people in same-sex...

The court is poised in coming weeks to seal Lawrence's fate, along with that of nine other convicted murderers seeking freedom. The justices are expected to answer some difficult questions: When should a killer be set free? What are the limits, if any, on the governor's power to decide? Are such factors as an inmate's prison record and age ever more significant than a horrendous crime committed decades ago? The state parole board had approved Lawrence's release four times since 1993, but three governors vetoed those decisions. Schwarzenegger blocked Lawrence's release twice before judges on the state Court of Appeal...

Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism. In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity". Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam. Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

PC publishers ban dragon from breathing fire in children's book... because it's too dangerousBy KURT BAYER and JAMES TAPPER - More by this author » Last updated at 00:35am on 18th November 2007A leading children's author was told to drop a fire-breathing dragon shown in a new book - because the publishers feared they could be sued under health and safety regulations. It is just one of the politically correct cuts Lindsey Gardiner says she has been told to make in case youngsters act out the stories. As well as the scene showing her dragon toasting marshmallows with his...

EDINBURGH, Scotland, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nurses and other health care professionals should avoid using the terms ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ to refer to family relationships since the terms could be offensive to homosexual couples with children, a new directive published by Scotland’s National Health Service recommends. Issued in conjunction with the country’s leading homosexual activist organization Stonewall Scotland, the publication is entitled Fair For All - The Wider Challenge: Good LGBT Practice in the NHS. Americans for Truth reported Feb.11 on the publication’s release. The booklet calls for a “zero-tolerance policy to discriminatory language” among Scotland’s health care system. Included in discriminatory...

Daniel Burke is the owner of a minor league baseball team – the Portland, Maine, Sea Dogs. He thought it might be a nice touch to commission some public artwork to rest outside Hadlock Field where the Sea Dogs play and offer it to the city for free. So he commissioned Rhoda Sherbell, a Long Island, N.Y., artist to create bronze statues of an American family – mom, dad and two kids – headed off to watch a game together. Can't get much less controversial than that, can you? That's what you think. Portland's Public Art Committee had other ideas....

A traditional-values organization in California is warning the state's residents that a bill pending in the Legislature, if approved, could remove all references to gender in public schools – threatening even references to "mom" or "dad" in textbooks. If the bill, SB 1437, were to become law, warns the Capitol Resource Institute, "it could potentially require gender-neutral bathrooms in our schools and all references to 'husband' and 'wife' or 'mom and dad' removed from school textbooks as the norm." Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Sheila Kuehl – a lesbian actress best known for playing Zelda in "The Many Loves of Dobie...

BERLIN A German man will go on trial February 23rd for printing the name of the Quran on toilet paper and offering it for sale to mosques and media organizations. Authorities say the man called Islam's holy book a "cookbook for terrorists" which he said calls for acts of violence. He said he wanted to use money from the toilet paper sales to fund a memorial for victims of what he called Islamic terror. The offer led to telephone death threats against him. Prosecutors say the man's actions overstepped the legally guaranteed freedom to criticize other religions.

University Administrator Declares Christmas 'Forbidden' By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Correspondent December 16, 2005 (CNSNews.com) - An administrator at California State University, Sacramento has banned decorations pertaining to Christmas and the 4th of July, among other holidays, from her office because they represent "religious discrimination" and "ethnic insensitivity." "Time has come to recognize that religious discrimination, as well as ethnic insensitivity to certain holidays, is forbidden," Patricia Sonntag, director of the Office of Services to Students with Disabilities, stated in the directive she e-mailed to members of her staff on Dec. 9. Cybercast News Service obtained the directive from the non-profit...

SEATTLE -- Two suburban school districts have had to do some backtracking over holiday religious issues, one for lunch menus with the words "Merry Christmas" and the other for a "giving tree." In Federal Way, between Seattle and Tacoma, December lunch menus for all 23 elementary schools were recalled and reprinted with the words "Happy Holidays" at a cost of $494 after a new nutrition services employee mistakenly prepared them with the greeting "Merry Christmas," spokeswoman Diane Turner said. The 11,500 misworded calendar-style menus were never distributed and were recycled, Turner added. Using "Merry Christmas" on the menus violated school...

After the devil went down to Georgia, it seems, he got censored in Prince William County. In preparation for a guest appearance at the Peach Bowl in Atlanta, the marching band at C.D. Hylton High School had a logical and seemingly innocuous idea: play a Georgia-themed song. They decided on "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," by the Charlie Daniels Band. But early this month, a local newspaper, the Potomac News, published a letter by a Woodbridge resident who, after having seen the C.D. Hylton Bulldawg Marching Band perform the country-western hit at a football game, wondered how a song...

A pre-school in Maryland has lost at least one customer after a student's father working on the school's newsletter was told he must change a "Happy Mother's Day" greeting in the publication to "Happy Parent's Day." David Becker of Kensington, Md., had a 3-year-old son at the Kensington Forest Glen Children's Center, which is overseen by the umbrella organization Montgomery Child Care Association. "My wife and I have always been very involved with the school and with the teachers," Becker told WND. The trouble began when Becker, while typing the newsletter, changed a hand-written greeting from "Happy Parent's Day!" to...

It was going to be a night to remember. Ushers dressed in World War II military uniforms, vintage cars pulling up to the curb, Pearl Harbor survivors and a recently restored 1940s military searchlight would be on hand Dec. 7 to greet the crowds at a special anniversary showing of “Tora! Tora! Tora!” at San Pedro’s historic Warner Grand Theatre. The 1970 film — a joint American and Japanese production — is considered one of the most accurate depictions of events leading up to the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Expected to attract hundreds, the showing on the 61st...

Being sidelined by outpatient surgery, I have had the opportunity to channel-surf in that great wasteland that is daytime television. I saw two segments that just made me shake my head: First, I came across CourtTV just after the Dog-mauling verdict had been read and a lawyer was on there making the statement that the old hag dog-owner was found guilty because the jury had an intense dislike for her husband, therefore, transferring that dislike to her! Anytime a woman commits a heinous crime, there is always SOME reason why it is not her fault! Second, while waiting for Judge...