Free Republic

A proposed anti-bullying policy for West Virginia schools acknowledges that sexual orientation and gender identity are common reasons for harassment. The state Department of Education is taking public comments until 4 p.m. Tuesday about the 75-page student conduct and disciplinary policy that the Board of Education will consider Dec. 14. If approved, changes that specifically acknowledge the targeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students would go into effect July 1, 2012.

On Saturday, October 8th in Madison, Wisconson, Scott Anderson became the first openly gay ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church. This ordination is especially poignant for Anderson who came out to his California congregation when he was in his late thirties, over twenty years ago. He resigned as a result. Nancy Enderle, the interim executive director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, told The Associated Press that the ordination was a glorious celebration that touched everyone, especially Anderson. “He’s a very dignified and poised person but you could tell he was deeply moved,” she said “The Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the...

An explosive sex abuse scandal and possible cover-up rocked Happy Valley after former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, once considered Joe Paterno's heir apparent, was charged with sexually assaulting eight boys over a 15-year period. Among the allegations was that a graduate assistant saw Sandusky assault a boy in the shower at the Nittany Lions' practice center in 2002. Sandusky retired in 1999 but continued to use the school's facilities for his work with The Second Mile, a foundation he established to help at-risk kids. The state grand jury investigation also resulted in perjury charges against Tim Curley, Penn...

Microsoft and Starbucks are among 70 corporations, financial institutions, medical centers, and other major organizations that have signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a challenge to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).The organizations are, or represent, major employers who argue that DOMA imposes significant administrative costs, and that it harms their ability to attract and retain talent."Microsoft has joined dozens of corporations, organizations and governments in support of a challenge on constitutionality grounds to the federal Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA," the company said in a statement. The amicus brief "points out the significant...

It has been 47 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, and 46 years since the passage of the Voting Rights Act. And yet the political leaders of this nation of liberty cannot seem to muster the courage and principle to sweep away one remaining example of institutionalized, government-sanctioned discrimination: The 1996 law that denies the right of marriage to same-sex couples. The law, the Defense of Marriage Act, was passed in the heat of election-year fear and bigotry against men who want to marry other men, and women who want to marry other women. It was a...

Former Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky sexually abused eight young men, state prosecutors said.

Adriane Thatcher has written a book (Savage Text) where in he offers an argument for the acceptance of homosexuality in the Christian church. His argument runs along the lines that we should look at the passages that condemn homosexuality as savage text (text that renders scripture holy) – in the same way we should look to passages in the Old Testament that show God’s predilection for child killing, his wrath and vengeful wars against local tribes as savage text. These texts should not be used by the church because they contradict the loving character and message of Jesus. It should...

HARTFORD, October 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.coom) - Several students at a Hartford high school expressed horror and left the auditorium when two male members of a city-funded school play shared a passionate kiss onstage on Friday. School officials said they opted against informing parents about the event ahead of time, saying that the students needed exposure to homosexuality, and hailed the “chaotic” reaction as a victory for raising the gay issue. The kiss occurred during Hartford Public High School’s production of “Zanna, Don’t!,” a play depicting a world in which homosexuality is normative and heterosexuals take up the role of “outcasts.”...

Like so many parents, Jessie and Cooper Odell spend their days helping their 8-year-old with homework, taking him to the park, playing football or attending church on Sundays. But their journey to becoming a typical family was anything but routine. Lake Worth "Until recently I always felt like I had to look over my back,'' said Jessie Odell, 39, a Palm Beach event planner who has cared for the boy since July and is finally able to adopt him. "God has finally given us what we've been fighting for.'' For 33 years, Florida barred gays and lesbians from adopting. That...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Toby Keith says gay marriage doesn't bother him and trying to stop it wastes time and money. The country superstar tells "CMT Insider" airing Saturday on CMT that he doesn't see the reason behind getting into people's personal lives. He says refusing a marriage license to people because they are gay won't stop them from living together, so it accomplishes nothing. Keith also weighed in on the military's now-repealed "don't ask, don't tell" policy that banned gays serving openly in uniform. He says that anyone with the training and passion should have the right to defend...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado has announced the birth of a new son, making him the only openly gay member of Congress to be a parent. While few details of the birth were made available, the Democratic congressman's press office did release the announcement that Polis and his partner, Marlon Reis, sent to friends and family.

(CNN) -- In the very early hours of this morning, "don't ask, don't tell" ceased to be U.S. policy. As a result, today is the first day I can write about being the partner of a gay military serviceman without fear that he will lose his job. ... The battle has only been half won. Gay servicemen or servicewomen can no longer be discharged simply for being gay, but they are still treated inequitably. Only by using their newly won free speech can they hope to reap the same benefits as their straight colleagues.

A few days ago, I received an email from a friend entitled “Interesting Marriages,” containing four links. The first link told the 2007 story of a Sudanese man who was caught copulating with a goat. Since the Sudanese tribal custom requires that a man must marry a woman whom he sexually violated (in order to preserve her family’s honor), the village leaders decided to publicly embarrass the man who had violated the goat, forcing him to pay a dowry to the goat’s owner before “marrying” the goat. The story, which was first reported in a light-hearted way on the website...

TORONTO, ON, September 16, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A father of a six-year-old student in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) says he was shocked to discover what the school board considers to be “Days of Significance,” reports the Toronto Sun. In the “Days of Significance”  calendar in his son’s 2011-12 daily planner, Jaak Purres discovered days devoted to transgendered people, prostitution, gender identity, and Dyke marches. “I was looking through this thing and was shocked,’” said the outraged father. “It’s just bizarre! He’s six. I want him to enjoy being six.” Purres pointed out that the planner comes from a...

This Tuesday, September 20, the Joint Education Committee of the Massachusetts Legislature is holding a public hearing on critical bills regarding the sex-education agenda and homosexual agenda in the public schools. The bills we are concerned with all aim to change two things that MassResistance accomplished several years ago: 1. In 1996 we wrote, lobbied and got passed the current Parental Notification Law (Ch 71, Sec. 32A) which is still state law. It allows parents to "opt-out" their kids on "human sexuality issues". At the time it seemed reasonably sufficient. But it's terribly out of date, the text allows for...

August 31, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Many Americans have been shocked by reports about a recent pro-pedophilia conference in Baltimore in which psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, representing institutions like Harvard and Johns Hopkins, sought to present pedophilia in a sympathetic and even positive light. But why should this surprise us? Academic articles in scholarly journals have been presenting pedophilia in a sympathetic light for years, and, as Matthew Cullinan Hoffman noted, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) released a report in 1998 “claiming that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of...

Senator David Norris claimed in public that his greatest childhood desire was to be sexually molested, according to minutes of a gay rights meeting he addressed in the Seventies. The minutes, which are stored in the National Library, say that Mr Norris made the claim in front of some 200 delegates at the conference of the Union for Sexual Freedom in Ireland. Mr Norris, who wasn’t a senator at the time, also suggested that because he had not in fact been molested, it showed that there were very few paedophiles in Ireland. The typewritten minutes show that Mr Norris was...

Former child star Corey Feldman claims that the entertainment industry in Hollywood is riddled with pedophiles who prey on the young talent: "The number problem in Hollywood was, and is, and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry." In an explosive interview earlier this month on Nightline Feldman alleges that he was molested at the age of fourteen, and his long-time friend Corey Haim who died last year after struggling with substance abuse was sexually abused by an unnamed "Hollywood mogul" who "needs to be exposed." Feldman says "there's a lot of really, really...

According to former child star Corey Feldman, child molestation is rampant in the entertainment industry, as he told Nightline in an interview. "The No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia," he said Wednesday. According to Feldman, the “casting couch” exists for children, too. Feldman asserts that directors and other adults in the industry take advantage of young aspiring actors on a regular basis. “It's all done under the radar... But it's the big secret,” the 40-year-old said. Feldman also claimed that former co-star Corey Haim's death last year was the end result of sexual...

7-14-2011 SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. announced today that he has signed the following bill: • SB 48 by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) – Pupil instruction: prohibition of discriminatory content.