Free Republic

A sexual-harassment lawsuit against Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., was dismissed in federal court on Tuesday, but the legal battle isn’t over yet for the embattled lawmaker. U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein dismissed the charges against Hastings by Winsome Packer, an employee of the Helsinki Commission, which Hastings once chaired. But Rothstein said the case could continue against the commission itself. The lawsuit, filed last year, has also evolved into a House Ethics Committee probe. In the lawsuit, Packer claims she was “forced to endure unwelcome sexual advances, crude sexual comments, and unwelcome touching” by Hastings. She sued last year,...

The Hollywood Sign as it appears today. Hollywood’s most disgusting secret has recently been revealed and the story is a devastating indictment of the entire entertainment industry. Most moms are willing to fight like a tigress to protect kids from pedophiles, but unfortunately, there is a culture in Tinseltown that believes in looking the other way. California has been rocked in the last year by the prosecution of a prominent Hollywood businessman for molesting his young clients. This story grew as others acknowledged similar problems among the Hollywood elite of managers and agents

Berwyn, IL — After years of declining membership, two Lutheran churches in Berwyn recently were forced to merge. While the new church faces many issues as it struggles to adapt to modern society, no one seems to have any qualms about the new pastor, the Rev. Julie Boleyn, who was ordained Jan. 14. Calm, charismatic and serene in the strength of her faith, Boleyn also is the first lesbian to be ordained in the Greater Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. For several years, both the United Berwyn Lutheran Church and the First Lutheran Church of...

Representative Rob Andrews (D-NJ), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, defended Congressional repeal of the military ban on bestiality, calling it a “humanitarian measure.” “Look, if we don’t want our troops to rape enemy women we’ve got to let them have the barnyard animals,” Andrews reasoned. Andrews hastened to add that he personally was not advocating or condoning bestiality, “but, then again, I’ve never been a soldier and wouldn’t want to presume I could judge his needs, especially on a battlefield far from home. If cozying up to a sheep or goat helps take the edge off, who...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The New Mexico Attorney General's Office cautioned parents against an Internet image they said is really a sexual menace called the "pedobear." It started out as a joke, but authorities said the bear has spiraled into something much darker and more evil than they could've imagined. Some images depict the pedobear snatching a little girl, dangling a carrot over two children and joking about not using condoms. "This is the most disturbing one of all, it has the bear and it says, 'Too young to talk, too young to testify,'" said Lynn Southard with the AGO. Authorities...

This probably won’t shock most people because we live in an age where the envelope has been pushed so far it’s disappeared over the horizon.  According to the Daily Mail, pink and leopard-print thong panties with no crotches sized to fit a seven-year-old were being sold at Kids N Teen in Greeley, Colorado.  The panties were yanked after a mortified mother complained. As one writer put it: “It’s a new kind of memory: A daughter’s first pair of crotchless panties.” It’s also a sign of the times when a retailer decides there’s nothing wrong with selling sleazy leopard-print thong panties...

After introducing its first openly gay character in September 2010, Archie Comics continues to lead the pack with the mainstream comic book world’s first same-sex marriage. Kevin Keller will marry his military sweetheart, Clay, in an upcoming issue of Life with Archie. The character is also set to star in a pioneering solo title starting this February. An interracial same-sex marriage between two soldiers in an Archie comic? The times are no longer a-changin’, they are a-changed.

The state Senate followed the House this morning in passing a transgender civil rights bill. Unlike the House, where the bill drew vocal opposition, the Senate passed the bill by voice vote with only one speaker, the sponsor. Governor Deval Patrick said Tuesday that he would sign it. “Sure,” Patrick told reporters. “I think we have hate crimes on the books today. They, in the case of transgender people, don’t go far enough.” The bill would protect transgender people in housing, credit, and the workplace, and would include transgender people under hate crimes protections. Opponents have called the bill an...

A sexual threesome turned violent Sunday, resulting in an East Naples man's arrest — accused of punching his wife, swinging a big-screen television at her and whipping her with a belt. Jorge Daniel Silva, 22, of the 6400 block of College Park Circle, faces a felony battery charge after Collier deputies say he became enraged before a planned threesome with his wife and another woman Sunday afternoon.

In his 46 years on the job, coach Joe Paterno has never quite faced a crisis like the one now hovering over Happy Valley like a dark cloud. Indeed, scandal has hit State College. Retired Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky has been charged with sexually assaulting eight boys. Paterno's boss, athletic director Tim Curley, and another school administrator, face charges of perjury and failing to report to state and county officials that a witness told them he saw an alleged instance of abuse in 2002. All at a tradition-rich school which proudly boasts the slogan "Success with Honor." "If...

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

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...

Interview with the Most Reverend John C. Nienstedt, Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, by Michael Drake Archbishop John Clayton Nienstedt was born in March 1947, in Detroit, Mich. Following his studies at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he was ordained to the priesthood in July 1974, at Sacred Heart Church, Dearborn, Mich. In May 2008, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Since June of this year, Archbishop Nienstedt has being urging support for an amendment to the constitution of Minnesota to protect marriage as the union...

When the New York state legislature rammed through a law “legalizing” same-sex “marriage” this last summer, countless New Yorkers disagreed with the decision. Among them were Christian town clerks who could not in good conscience sign marriage licenses for a union they consider sinful. Clauses were written in the law that supposedly protect clergy from being forced to act against their faith. However, such clauses do not apply to town clerks or any other government official. Clerks are told point blank, either accept the law, or resign. Town clerk Rose Marie Belforti of Ledyard, New York found out the hard...

Is being lesbian, "gay," bisexual, or transgender a special talent? FRC's Peter Sprigg says a church-affiliated college in Illinois apparently thinks so. Elmhurst College in suburban Chicago has added to its application form a question regarding sexual orientation, making it the first school in the U.S. to do so. Reportedly in an effort to increase campus diversity, the 3,000-plus-student school is asking applicants: "Would you consider yourself to be a member of the LGBT community?" (See earlier story) Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council says the school is treating those who identify themselves as homosexual as a privileged class....

Four years ago, the BBC decided to capitalize on the immense popularity of the long-running Doctor Who series by creating a spin-off called Torchwood. Whereas Doctor Who is, apart from the intensity of its stories, safe for the whole family, producers said that Torchwood would be “dark, clever, wild, [and] sexy.” Doctor Who for adults” is what they called it. As a colleague wrote at the time, a better word to describe the show is “nihilistic” — it’s a judgment that’s reinforced by the show’s newest character. [...] For the fourth season, entitled “Miracle Day,” the writers ratcheted up the...

As gay couples began marrying on the day New York became the sixth and largest state to recognize same-sex unions, politicians Sunday made clear whether they were wedded to the policy or not. Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said he didn’t think “all domestic relationships are the same as traditional marriage,” on CNN’s “State of the Union.” After host Candy Crowley reminded the former Minnesota governor that gay marriage had been legal for a year in Iowa, a key campaign battleground state in which Pawlenty is heavily invested, he said: “We want to maintain traditional marriage elevated in the eyes...

Frank Furedi, writing for Spiked Online, offers this solid and rather chilling analysis of the passage of "same-sex marriage" legislation in New York State:From a sociological perspective, the rise of the campaign for gay marriage provides a fascinating insight into the dynamics of the cultural conflicts that prevail in Western society. Indeed, over the past decade the issue of gay marriage has been transformed into a cultural weapon, which explicitly challenges prevailing norms through condemning those who oppose it. This is not so much a call for legal change as a cause, a crusade – and one which endows its...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's "evolving" stance on gay marriage was headed for a high-profile test Thursday as he prepared for his first-ever fundraiser for gay donors just as New York lawmakers maneuvered toward a historic vote legalizing gay nuptials. The outcome of the negotiations in Albany, the state capital, remained uncertain, but the vote could occur just hours before Obama's event Thursday evening in New York City.

Things are going from drag to worse for Anthony Weiner. Photos emerged Wednesday of the creepy congressman vamping in a bra and pantyhose - on the same day porn star Ginger Lee, one of his computer conquests, spilled the beans on the raunchy rep's obsession with his "package." The latest embarrassing Weiner shot was splashed on the cover of the National Enquirer and dates back to his college days at the State University of Plattsburgh... "It was never quite clear whether one of Anthony's challenges was to become a cross-dresser or if it was just some bizarre stunt he decided...

The Rep. Anthony Weiner sexting story refuses to stop escalating to higher levels of impropriety with each passing day, and with the news last night that the Congressman had been speaking to a 17-year-old girl surfacing, calls for him to resign are at a fever pitch. On this morning’s Fox & Friends, Andrew Breitbart confirmed there was one underaged girl with which he spoke, and even before that news broke, the heads of the Democratic Party were calling for Rep. Weiner to resign. Breitbart noted that the news was not exactly surprising to him given the information he had received,...

A week after claiming a hacker had posted a lewd photo to his Twitter account, U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner on Monday apologized for lying about the ordeal and admitting carrying on inappropriate relationships with several women he'd met online. Weiner, a New York Democrat, said he is not resigning his seat, nor is he planning on separating from his wife. But he said he took responsibility for his actions -- both the relationships and for lying about sending the photo of his bulging underwear on his Twitter account. "To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it....

Reporting from Sacramento -- As the battle over same-sex marriage makes its way through California's courts, another gay rights fight is smoldering in the Legislature. Democratic lawmakers have revived a plan to require state schools to teach about the contributions of gay, lesbian and transgender Americans. They are reigniting a movement that halted five years ago when legislators approved such a requirement only to run into opposition from then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now, with a Democrat in the governor's office, the lawmakers and gay rights activists are more hopeful that school curricula will be revised.

Four branches of the military have begun sending training material to 2.2 million active and reserve troops as a prelude to opening the ranks to gays, with instructions on, for example, what to do if an officer sees two male Marines kissing in a shopping mall. Key themes are that sexual orientation will no longer be a bar to service, that all service members must respect each other, and that the partners of gay troops will not receive the benefits of heterosexual spouses. “We are going to make [gay ban] repeal training expeditiously,” said Maj. Joel Harper, an Air Force...

It doesn't get more locavore than this. Ice cream made from human breast milk. Or what about mom's milk cheese? It's the most natural of foods and yet, human breast milk is lumped in with bizarre and controversial foods, unless, of course, it's a suckling baby drinking it. The latest human breast milk product is Baby Gaga ice cream, sold in London, England, in a shop called The Icecreamists. The restaurant buys milk from mamas to make into ice cream flavoured with vanilla and lemon zest that it serves in a martini glass for about $22.50. "The Baby Gaga tastes...

Northwestern students and administrators are defending an explicit after-class demonstration involving a woman being publicly penetrated by a sex toy on stage in the popular Human Sexuality course last week. The optional presentation last Monday, attended by about 120 students, featured a naked non-student woman being repeatedly sexually stimulated to the point of orgasm by the sex toy, referred to as a "f**ksaw." The device is essentially a motorized phallus. The 600-person course, taught by psychology Prof. John Michael Bailey, is one of the largest at NU. The after-class events, which range from a question-and-answer session with swingers to a...

In the news: Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Wednesday signed into law a bill that will legalize civil unions for same-sex couples in the Aloha State. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for federal purposes as only between a man and woman, according to a statement Wednesday from Attorney General Eric Holder. ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies. According to its mission statement, “GOProud...

President Barack Obama has determined that a federal law that barred gay marriages was unconstitutional and told government lawyers to stop defending it in court, the U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday, a move that will likely anger some conservative voters. A U.S. judge had ruled that a key provision of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) banning gay marriages was unconstitutional, but the administration had appealed, stating that it was obligated to defend federal laws when challenged. The hot-button issue of same-sex marriage is the focus of a number of judicial and political battles. It is banned in...

One night, in March 2006, I was getting ready for bed when my fiancé and boyfriend of 10 years, Aaron, called me into the living room and said, “Kiri, we need to talk.” I thought he wanted to apologize for a little tiff we’d had earlier. Aaron was a musician who had booked a gig in upstate New York. I wanted to go, but he’d asked me not to. Instead, he said he was “confused” about his sexuality. As an episode of “Sex and the City” droned in the background, he burst into tears. My life had changed forever. We...

Two Wisconsin men, one of them a twice-convicted sex offender, have denied in court that they used a live snake to rape a woman in a home in Eau Claire. John Bullock, 24, of Altoona, and Damonta Jones, 25, of Eau Claire, pleaded not guilty Monday in Eau Claire County Circuit Court to first-degree sexual assault of the 32-year-old woman. Both men remain jailed in lieu of $30,000 bail.

President Obama and his friends in the media want the public to think Americans serving in uniform are just fine and dandy with homosexual conduct in the military. This view is being spread through a series of selective leaks from the Pentagon's Comprehensive Review Working Group, which is putting the finishing touches on a report regarding the future of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Mr. Obama has promised the fringe special-interest activists who helped him win the 2008 election that he will deliver what for them is the symbolic victory of opening barracks to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and the...

Across the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, congregants and clergy today reacted with heavy hearts to word that Bishop V. Gene Robinson is retiring. Robinson, 63, whose consecration seven years ago as the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church divided the Anglican Communion worldwide, yesterday announced at the annual convention of the New Hampshire diocese that he plans to retire in January 2013, short of the mandatory 72-year-old retirement age for Episcopal bishops. He cited death threats and the considerable strain that the worldwide rift has placed on him, his family, and the church.

Thursday October 28, 2010 Countries Slam Attempts to Create New “Right” to Sexual Education at UN By Samantha SingsonNew York, October 28, 2010 (C-FAM) - Angry delegates took to the UN floor this week to denounce a report that promotes a new human right to explicit sexual education for young children.The African and Caribbean blocs led the widespread hostility toward the report by registering their “strong rejection” and “strong disapproval.” The report claims a new human right to sexual education citing non-binding recommendations and other UN reports including the controversial UNESCO guidelines on sexual education and the Yogyakarta Principles....

A Wisconsin prison guard allegedly coerced male inmates into letting him give them oral sex in exchange for bringing them contraband, and his superiors initially failed to stop the assaults despite warning signs, according to previously confidential records obtained by The Associated Press. Now the Wisconsin Department of Corrections' handling of the three-year-old case involving Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution guard James Trentin is costing taxpayers money. The state this year paid $150,000 to avoid a lawsuit by a former inmate who says Trentin gave him oral sex four times, according to documents obtained by the AP under Wisconsin's open...

Last month we did an expose on the upcoming "Gay Day" at the Six Flags New England amusement park. It was to be a day where homosexual and transgender activists descended over the park and took it over for their own activities. We described what had happened in previous years, and showed some fairly disturbing photos. Our observation was that their obsession with children's activities is a disturbing part of that lifestyle. The homosexual movement's fanatical push to get into the public schools (including elementary schools) and have special kids' events such as "Youth Pride Day" and a kids' "Transgender...

Or will your children or grandchildren? Before you scoff at the possibility, recognize that it has already been happening to people.The homosexual lobby is relentless and is not seeking tolerance. It is seeking coerced social approval of homosexual behavior. That includes forcing non-homosexuals to participate in homosexual “pride” celebrations. It happened right here in San Diego, where four fire fighters men were ordered to participated in the local “San Diego Pride Parade” (notice how even the word “gay” is missing from the name of the event? That’s evidence of what linguists sometimes call the “euphemism treadmill”—where a euphemism for something...

Friday October 8, 2010 Christian College Teaches Dorm 'Sex Etiquette' During Freshmen Orientation By Kathleen GilbertST. PETER, Minnesota, October 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An Evangelical Lutheran liberal arts college in Minnesota has raised eyebrows after videos were published exposing the school's sexually-explicit freshman orientation, which includes lessons on dorm “sex etiquette” and some of the finer points of sexual perversion. Portions of freshman orientation presentations this fall at Gustavus Adolphus College, which is associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), were caught on video and posted by Gustavus student Phil Cleary on the Gustavus.campusreform.org website. The videos...

Bingo in the Buff By Parker T. Williamson, The Layman, Posted Wednesday, October 6, 2010 “This is not your grandmother’s bingo,” says Marcus Wise, a writer for ArtVoice, a Buffalo, N.Y. area Web publication. Wise’s article, written in 2008, refers to Saturday night games that are now being played at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, home of “Buff Bingo.” The players’ pitch is clearly intended to attract Buffalo’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender population. But – true to management’s professed inclusiveness – “the crowd averages half and half,” according to the event’s hostess and drag queen Gladys Over. Wise describes Gladys as...

Mr. Spillane, I have to admit that I'm puzzled by one of your recent columns accusing me of a “cheap shot” on Barney Frank. You said: “So today, Bielat is out with a press release announcing that Barney Frank 'cooked the books' for House Financial Services Committee member Maxine Waters but he offers no fair-minded evidence that that was the case.” I know you're an intelligent man, and even the smartest of us make mistakes. So let's go look again at the evidence, shall we? Last week, The Washington Post broke the story that OneUnited Bank received special treatment from...

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist announced Wednesday afternoon he will cease enforcing the state's 33-year-old gay adoption law, which was declared unconstitutional by a Miami appeals court Wednesday morning. Crist lauded the court ruling as ``great'' and told reporters at a 2:30 news conference he would immediately stop enforcing the ban. Crist said he wanted to confer with the adoptive father at the center of the case before deciding whether to appeal. He said, however, that he believes the state Supreme Court wouldn't overturn the court rulings. Crist once supported the ban. But the U.S. Senate candidate reversed himself after he...

In the history of war, we can observe many cases of battles where someone mistakenly sounds the retreat when victory was in sight. This seems to be the case against same-sex “marriage. Traditional marriage has never been defeated. Thirty-one times it has been taken to the polls and thirty-one times it has won. Even in the bluest of blue states—California—it won against all expectations. In Maine, pro-family activists overturned the decision of the legislature. In New York, a same-sex “marriage” measure was defeated despite every effort by the Democratic majority in both houses to force it through. Homosexual activists in...

Controversy in Saudi Arabia over Fatwa Permitting Breastfeeding of Adults By: Y. Admon* Introduction Sheikh 'Abd Al-Muhsin Al-'Obikan, an advisor at the Saudi Justice Ministry, recently issued a fatwa allowing the breastfeeding of adults. The fatwa is aimed at enabling an unrelated man and woman to be secluded in the same room, a situation which Islam considers forbidden gender mixing. The rationale behind the fatwa is that breastfeeding creates a bond of kinship between the man and woman, rendering the man her mahram,[1] thus making it acceptable for them to be together in seclusion. The fatwa created a stir...

Within the perspective of the nation’s Cultural War, Americans felt the full force of two actions favoring the homosexual movement in May 2008. Same-sex “marriage” is now being imposed upon the nation by government fiat. On May 15, 2008, California’s Supreme Court declared the unconstitutionality of Proposition 22—ignoring the voices of 61% of California voters who approved the measure in 2000—and all other California statutes restricting marriage to the union of one man and one woman and imposed homosexual “marriage” on the Golden State. Concomitantly, New York Governor David Patterson unilaterally ordered all government agencies to revamp their rules, procedures,...

News that several "gay" and lesbian-identified college and university presidents met recently to organize a push for the homosexual agenda is drawing the ire of pro-family organizations. Nine presidents of higher-education entities recently gathered in Chicago and decided to form a new organization called LGBTQ Presidents in Higher Education. The group agreed that a top priority should be "to push higher education to include issues of sexual orientation when talking about diversity." Matt BarberMatt Barber, director of cultural affairs with Liberty Counsel, calls the meeting "bizarre," but he is not surprised by the strategy. "This group of higher-ups within academia...

U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker's Aug. 4 ruling striking down California's Proposition 8 asserted far more than was necessary to redefine marriage as being between any two persons. Judge Walker's decision included controversial "findings of fact" that amounted to a massive new salvo in the culture wars over sexuality. Drawing up his judicial robes, Judge Walker rejected "stereotypes and misinformation" that "have resulted in social and legal disadvantages for gays and lesbians." He denied that there is "any rational basis" for distinguishing the marriage of man and woman from same-sex relationships. For example, Judge Walker found no reason why...

Judge Walker’s fervent ideological bias in favor of same-sex marriage has been clear from the outset of the anti-Prop 8 case, and more recent reports that he is gay and has a same-sex partner have merely added some possible explanatory detail. As law professor...Gerard Bradley explains in this essay, the very manner in which Walker wrote his opinion reveals his bias: "We can now look at Judge Walker’s opinion and ask: is this the handiwork of an impartial and open mind on the subject of same-sex marriage? Or does the opinion rather resemble an ad hoc rationale for conclusions reached...

Most of a new health studies curriculum currently on the table inside the Helena, Montana, school district is a virtual nonissue going into the 2010 school year. But the sex education component dominating the news in the past week or so is still as contentious as ever, inspiring parents from all across the Big Sky capital to descend on the school board in a collective voice of strong opposition. While those in support of the curriculum are arguing its value in light of society’s judgment that k-12 students are learning about sex from all the wrong sources—such as their peers...

A Catholic priest stole $1.3 million from his Waterbury, Conn., parish to finance a gay old time in New York, authorities charged yesterday. The Rev. Kevin Gray allegedly blew the money he looted from his financially struggling parish over seven years on male escorts, rooms at hotels, including the Waldorf, designer clothes, trendy restaurants and tuition for several young studs. Gray, 64, regularly shacked up in an Upper East Side apartment that he rented for a 35-year-old man, court documents charge. The priest not only paid for the apartment, but also the Harvard tuition for his male friend, authorities said....

Michael Griffin, who headed NASA during the last four years of the Bush administration, says the space agency’s new goal to improve relations with the Islamic world and boost Muslim self-esteem is a “perversion” of NASA’s original mission to explore space. “NASA was chartered by the 1958 Space Act to develop the arts and sciences of flight in the atmosphere and in space and to go where those technologies will allow us to go,” Griffin says. “That’s what NASA does for the country. It is a perversion of NASA’s purpose to conduct activities in order to make the Muslim world...

Portland, Ore. (AP) - Police explained Thursday why they reopened a sexual assault investigation into Al Gore, saying an extra review was needed because detectives looking into the matter last year failed to notify high-ranking officials of their decision to drop the case. A massage therapist to the stars has accused the former vice president of repeatedly groping and kissing her during a late-night, alcohol-fueled attack in a luxury hotel suite in October 2006. Gore adamantly denies the allegations. Detectives investigated the claims in 2006 and 2009 but decided not to pursue the case amid a lack of cooperation and...