Free Republic

GRIMES, IA, August 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Christian couple is facing a state complaint, business cancellations, and vulgar, harassing, and threatening e-mail messages after refusing to rent out a business facility for a gay “wedding.” Dick and Betty Odgaard said they could not in good conscience allow a homosexual couple to use their business, the Görtz Haus Gallery, to conduct the ceremony itself. Betty Odgaard Betty Odgaard “To us, [marriage] is a sacrament,” Betty Odgaard said, that exists only “between a man and woman.” She told Billy Hallowell of The Blaze their rejection was “totally a faith-based issue,” adding...

Hannah Gastonguay, holding her baby Rahab, is followed by her husband Sean and the couple's 3-year-old daughter Ardith, as they disembark in the port city of San Antonio, Chile, Friday, Aug. 9, 2013. The northern Arizona family was lost at sea for weeks in an ill-fated attempt to leave the U.S. over what they consider government interference in religion. But just weeks into their journey the Gastonguays hit a series of storms that damaged their small boat, leaving them adrift for weeks. They were eventually picked up by a Venezuelan fishing vessel, transferred to a Japanese cargo ship and taken...

Once more we learn of military personnel being punished for causing homosexuals in the military to feel bad. From Fox News: An Army chaplain’s assistant said she was accused of creating a “hostile and antagonistic” environment after she posted a message on her personal Facebook page calling homosexuality a sin. The soldier, who asked not to be identified, said her commander ordered her to either remove the Facebook message or face a reduction in rank and pay. “I haven’t taken it down and I won’t take it down,” she told Fox News. “It is frustrating that people are trying to...

Vladimir Putin has urged the world’s political leaders to stop the violent persecutions against Christians that have erupted in many Middle Eastern countries. Speaking at a meeting with Orthodox Christian leaders in Moscow last week, the Russian President said he noted “with alarm” that “in many of the world’s regions, especially in the Middle East and in North Africa inter-confessional tensions are mounting, and the rights of religious minorities are infringed, including Christians and Orthodox Christians.” “This pressing problem should be a subject of close attention for the entire international community,” Putin said. “It is especially important today to make...

Wealthy gay dad, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, says he and his civil partner Tony will go to court to force churches to host gay weddings. He told the Essex Chronicle that he will take legal action because “I am still not getting what I want”. A Government Bill legalising gay marriage passed Parliament recently but it included measures to protect churches from being forced to perform same-sex weddings. Challenge Mr Drewitt-Barlow said: “The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church. “It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into...

Wealthy gay dad, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, says he and his civil partner Tony will go to court to force churches to host gay weddings. He told the Essex Chronicle that he will take legal action because “I am still not getting what I want”. A Government Bill legalising gay marriage passed Parliament recently but it included measures to protect churches from being forced to perform same-sex weddings. Challenge Mr Drewitt-Barlow said: “The only way forward for us now is to make a challenge in the courts against the church. “It is a shame that we are forced to take Christians into...

If President Eisenhower were alive today, the five-star general may be shocked to know that his own speeches are too offensive to be quoted in the military he used to command. A military chaplain has been taken to task for fulfilling the job description that most spiritual leaders (until recently) were hired to do: talk about faith. In a harmless post for his online website, "Chaplain's Corner," Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes (USAF) of the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska wrote an inspirational piece called, "No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II." The phrase, which President Eisenhower...

President Obama's Defense Department is waging a private war. While our Pentagon is entrusted with the duty to "protect and serve" a secular zone is growing within the ranks of the Military. A little over a year ago then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the Military would honor through "Gay Pride Month" the contributions of homosexual service members. This announcement came just a few months after the Department of Defense had begun its subtle campaign against the Bible. 1) The Air Force Services Agency through its spokesman Michael Dickerson stated the Air Force has "no requirement to have Bibles in...

Churches are beginning to add a stipulation in their bylaws that their ministers perform only traditional marriages on their premises, in response to the Supreme Court's same-sex marriage decisions in late June. Greg Erwin, a Baton Rouge attorney who represents the Louisiana Baptist Convention, the Baptist Message state paper and several Louisiana Baptist entities, said it is hard to speculate on what the decisions may mean for churches. "The ruling means the same for Louisiana churches as for churches in all states except that in states where they have banned discrimination based upon sexual orientation, churches are more at risk...

If you go to the D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, you will see a moving tableau, a series of statues of the brave young Americans who stormed ashore on June 6, 1944 to liberate a continent from the grip of Adolf Hitler. One of these statues is called “Death on the Shore.”It shows a soldier who was cut down as he left his landing craft. His Bible is seen falling out of his rucksack.