Free Republic

Another step in Charlie Crist’s political evolution is complete. On Wednesday night, the former Florida governor endorsed gay marriage. “I most certainly support marriage equality in Florida and look forward to the day it happens here,” the Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat wrote on his Facebook page. He congratulated Delaware on becoming the 11th state to legalize gay marriage.

Even knowing that there are radicals in all movements, doesn’t lessen the startling admission recently by lesbian journalist Masha Gessen. On a radio show she actually admits that homosexual activists are lying about their radical political agenda. She says that they don’t want to access the institution of marriage; they want to radically redefine and eventually eliminate it. Here is what she recently said on a radio interview: “It’s a no-brainer that (homosexual activists) should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. …(F)ighting for gay...

A columnist at Slate made waves on Tuesday after bucking the party line of same-sex “marriage” advocates by penning a column calling for “marriage equality” to extend to legalized polygamy. After opening her column by lamenting the “tired refrain” from social conservatives that same-sex “marriage” opens the door to recognizing multiple-partner unions, Jillian Keenan quickly shows that she has adopted their logic herself. Kody Brown and his four 'wives' from the TLC show Sister Wives “While the Supreme Court and the rest of us are all focused on the human right of marriage equality, let’s not forget that the fight...

In an almost-impossible-to-believe collapse of principle and political smarts, the House GOP appears committed to stalling out the bipartisan effort to repeal the onerous, job-destroying medical device tax.In an interview with me on Thursday, House GOP Deputy Whip Peter Roskam attempted to explain why the House Republicans would not be moving a stand-alone repeal bill, even though the Senate’s test vote on repeal passed by a 79-20 margin the week before the Easter recess began.The transcript of my interview with Roskam is here.A week ago Roll Call’s David Drucker had reported that House Ways and Means Committee Chair David Camp...

They made fun of Rick Santorum and other social conservatives when they suggested gay marriage would easily lead to legalizing polygamy. But now liberals see that “grander trend” on the horizon. On Thursday night’s All Things Considered on NPR, they were casually discussing how “legalized polygamy could make a comeback” with Jonathan Turley, a law professor hired by the stars of TLC’s “Sister Wives” to push for that cause. He said polygamy enthusiasts are right where the gay lobbyists were ten years ago: ROBERT SIEGEL: The Browns are known to some folks from television. JONATHAN TURLEY: That's right. The Browns...

Gay-marriage advocates have been laying it on thick these last few days, building what appears to be an unstoppable momentum that will contribute to the inevitable: legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states.It’s only unstoppable in their imagination, and if they don’t start taking a longer view of things, they are apt to be royally disappointed. Exactly five polls have come out in the last fortnight that show a majority support for gay marriage — today. Those polls also show a strong minority — more than 40% — still opposed. Such a rapid change in public opinion on an...

Rush Limbaugh: Same-sex marriage will be legal nationwide By Chris Moody, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 57 mins ago On his radio program on Wednesday, conservative host Rush Limbaugh predicted that same-sex marriage would eventually be made legal "nationwide," regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in cases on the subject later this year. From the show transcript: A lot of people have no personal animus against gay people at all. It's instead, you know, a genuine, I don't know, love/respect for the things they believe define this country as great. They get up every day and they see...

Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, issued some words of advice for fellow GOPers: Get in the 21st century with same-sex-marriage issues. “We do have a platform, and we adhere to that platform,” Mr. Priebus said in a USA Today video. “But it doesn’t mean that we divide and subtract people from our party” who favor gay marriage. “I don’t believe we need to act like Old Testament heretics,” he said in the USA Today video. Rather, Republicans “have to strike a balance between principle and grace and respect.” His statements come as the U.S. Supreme Court is...

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was questioning former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson, a pro-gay marriage Republican. She brought up a very interesting question during the exchange: If gay marriage is legal, what about polygamy? Sotomayor asked, "If you say that marriage is a fundamental right, what state restrictions could ever exist?" before referencing "polygamy and incest among adults," as reported by Matt Canham of the Salt Lake Tribune. The argument is an illustration of a broader issue about the culture of American society. To agree that gay marriage is indeed protected by the "equal protection" clause in the Constitution, wouldn't the...

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley plans to be at the U.S. Supreme Court for arguments on the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Massachusetts in 2009 was the first state to challenge DOMA, saying the law discriminated against the thousands of couples that had married since the state legalized gay marriage.

During oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Tuesday over the constitutionality of a California law that reserves marriage as a union between one man and one woman, Justice Antonin Scalia said that the effects on children who are raised by same-sex couples is not confirmed by experts or science. “There's considerable disagreement among – among sociologists as to what the consequences of raising a child in a – in a single-sex family, whether that is harmful to the child or not,” Scalia said during the exchange between the justices and Charles Cooper, the attorney representing the petitioner in Hollingsworth...

Supreme Court Decides Whether Of Not To Review Challenge Of California's Prop 8. This week the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on same California’s Prop 8 and a section of the Defense of Marriage Act which deals with benefits for same sex couples. Same sex marriage is front and center once again and I’ve heard some interesting arguments on how supporting government involvement in defining marriage is a “conservative” ideal. During the Sunday morning talk show circuit, former Bush communications adviser took the moderate position emerging within the GOP against American Values’ Gary Bauer. Nicole Wallace tried to argue...

A shot across the bow of Beltway Republicans on Gay Marriage Day at the Supreme Court.Alternate headline: "Huckabee's running in 2016." When asked if he believes the Republican Party will change its position and support gay marriage in a Wednesday Newsmax interview, Huckabee remarked, "They might, and if they do, they're going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk."..."And it's not because there's an anti-homosexual mood, and nobody's homophobic that I know of," he continued, “but many of us, and I consider myself included, base our standards not on the latest Washington Post...

Today the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for about 80 minutes in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which is the lawsuit regarding California's Proposition 8. Two gay couples brought suit on the grounds that the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Since the State of California refuses to defend Proposition 8, opponents of gay marriage sought to enforce it in Hollingsworth v. Perry. Generally, citizens do not have legal standing to enforce laws with which they agree. Several justices expressed doubt that gay marriage...

As the Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a landmark case that seeks to establish “marriage equality” as the law of the land, my thoughts turned to Kody Brown, David Epstein and Kenneth Pinyan. Brown, who appears with his four brides and 17 children in the TLC reality show “Sister Wives,” faces prosecution for violating Utah’s ban on polygamy. Epstein, a Columbia University political science professor, was charged last year with one count of incest for his three-year consensual sexual relationship with his 24-year-old daughter. And Pinyan, the subject of a documentary film, “Zoo,” which won an award at...

Hyping "growing support" for same-sex marriage, CNN's Carol Costello asked a supporter of California's Proposition 8 on Monday if he was "on the wrong side of history" for legally defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Her tone fits right with Friday's CNN panel where a traditional marriage supporter was disgustingly marginalized as a segregationist and compared to a slave owner. Costello cited GOP strategist Karl Rove admitting that he could see a Republican presidential candidate publicly support same-sex marriage in 2016. She then asked Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund, "Austin, you heard what Karl Rove...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 19, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Republican Party's inside-the-Beltway leadership has placed itself at odds with grassroots members after issuing a new report suggesting the GOP soften its stance on redefining marriage and immigration reform. “We need to campaign among Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans and demonstrate we care about them, too,” says the 100-page report of the GOP's “Growth and Opportunity Project.” “We must recruit more candidates who come from minority communities,” it says. “But it is not just tone that counts. Policy always matters.” Many read the report as an invitation to give up the...

COLUMBUS, March 22, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Republican Party of Ohio has appointed as its executive director a registered lobbyist actively campaigning to redefine marriage in the state, deepening the conflict between voters and the party elite. The move triggered swift backlash, as a coalition of 80 conservatives from across the state issued a letter warning party bosses they “will not support them” in the future. The new GOP leader is Matt Borges, a lobbyist for Equality Ohio, the group pressing to overturn the state's constitutional amendment against same-sex “marriage.” He was hand-selected by retiring state GOP chairman Bob Bennett,...

Proponents of gay marriage, as they eagerly anticipate the Supreme CourtÂ’s examination of the issue next week, are chortling over recent polls that suggest the American publicÂ’s resistance to it is fast eroding. They pointed this week to a Washington Post-ABC News poll in which 58 percent of Americans support gay marriage and 37 percent oppose it. This is an almost exact reversal from a decade ago, they say, when polls then showed 55 percent of Americans opposed gay marriage and 37 percent supported it.Meanwhile, establishment Republicans, who have always been ambivalent about the issue, appear ready to wave the...

Boris Dittrich, a former Dutch politician, was behind the gay marriage campaign in Holland (Sebastiaan ter Burg / Flickr) The politician who masterminded the gay marriage campaign in Holland says that “group marriage” is now being discussed in the country.Boris Dittrich, a former Dutch politician, gave a video interview about how he successfully introduced gay marriage. He said, “There is now a discussion in the Netherlands that sometimes people want to marry with three people and maybe even more.“But that’s the beginning of something completely new and that will take a lot of years I guess.”Dittrich was speaking to a French...

There’s an astonishing piece in Thursday’s Salt Lake Tribune, and if you haven’t been paying attention to the sudden “evolution” of the Mormon church’s leadership on homosexuality, it will make your jaw drop. Most people associate The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with overwhelming animous towards the LGBT community, heaping on the church total responsibility for 2008′s devastating Prop 8 victory. But, wait, times are a-changing, and the Mormons are now working with Utah’s LGBT leaders to help craft a statewide anti-discrimination law: Attorneys for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are in quiet discussions with...

One afternoon in May, 1990, Robert Kosilek murdered his wife, Cheryl. Brutally. He strangled her with piano wire, virtually decapitating her, and left her body in a mall parking lot in a suburb of Boston. Since his conviction, Kosilek, now 64, has been serving a life sentence at Norfolk, a high-security prison for men. For years Kosilek has been a member of the "sisters," a particularly violent, sexually deviant subset of the prison population. But in 1993, Kosilek decided to do a complete makeover, changing his name to Michelle, letting his hair grow long, and dressing as a woman in...

fter smearing movement conservative icon Brent Bozell as a "hater" who has a "sordid history of hating Karl Rove," Jonathan Collegio of American Crossroads mocked a group of prominent conservatives who wrote a letter to Crossroads GPS President Steven Law demanding Collegio be fired. “I’ve been trying to get my friends to sign it, because it’ll make for a funnier story once I get it framed,” Collegio said, in response to the letter to the Washington Examiner. “It would be flattering, if it weren’t so absurd.” In an interview with Breitbart News editor Larry O'Connor on WMAL's "Mornings on the...

Newser) – These days, it isn't that weird for a baby to have two mothers—but how about two mothers and a father? One 23-month-old girl now legally has just such a family, after a Miami-Dade judge approved a settlement in which her biological mother, her mother's wife (the two married in Connecticut), and the man whose sperm made it all possible will all sign her birth certificate as parents, the Miami Herald reports. "We're creating entirely new concepts of families," says the dad's lawyer.

Karl Rove may be trying to quell conservative concerns that his new political group is really an effort to crush the tea party. But actions will speak louder than words – and already, Mr. Rove's group may have a test case on its hands. Rove's Conservative Victory Project has a stated goal of making sure only electable candidates emerge victorious from GOP primaries. But he told Fox News Tuesday: "This is not tea party versus the establishment." So what is it? The campaign of Rep. Paul Broun (R) of Georgia, who on Wednesday filed paperwork to run for the seat...

A majority of American voters want the Boy Scouts to lift its ban against gay members and leaders, a new Quinnipiac poll finds. The Boy Scouts of America announced last week that it was considering changing its policy of banning gay scouts and troop leaders. On Wednesday the organization said that decision would be delayed until a national meeting in May. In the Quinnipiac poll, 55 percent of respondents said the scouts should drop the ban, while 33 percent said it should remain. There is a significant gender gap in the results. Women back gay scouts by a 61 to...

Young Republicans in Iowa are still split on the institution of marriage being extended to gay people. But there is a growing consensus among college-aged GOPers that in order to win elections, the party's focus should be elsewhere. Gay and lesbian campus groups and College Republicans haven't exactly been friendly to one another over the years, in Iowa or the rest of the country. But there are signs that with this coming generation the trend could be changing, and for the Republican Party that could be critical. "As a young Republican, I see where the party’s coming from with the...

As the new 2013-2014 legislative session begins, MassResistance is fighting back! We have filed and are supporting several badly needed bills. Most of them are meant to restore rights to parents and citizens, and to stop the increasingly militant homosexual and transgender movement which is targeting vulnerable children in the public schools (while parents helplessly watch from the sidelines). 1. Effective Parents' Rights Opt-In Bill Docket #: HD3179 2. Protect children from intrusive school surveys on personal issues Docket #: HD2794 3. Repeal the "Buffer Zone" around abortion clinics Docket #: HD1791 4. Eliminate the "Commission on GLBT Youth" Docket...

Why did the Tea Party–backed governor of Ohio just say yes to a key part of President Obama's health care law? Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is the latest governor to accept the hefty Medicaid expansion authorized by President Obama's health care overhaul. He's not the first Republican to do so — Brian Sandoval (Nev.), Susana Martinez (N.M.), Jack Dalrymple (N.D.), and Jan Brewer (Ariz.) have, too — but Kasich's opt-in is a bigger deal. As House Budget Committee chairman during the Newt Gingrich years, the "fiercely conservative" Kasich "built his political identity arguing for smaller government," says David Nather...

Conservative radio host Mark Levin went after former George W. Bush advisor, Karl Rove, during his radio show on Monday after Rove announced the formation of a new PAC that would aid moderate Republican politicians against tea party challengers in primary races. Levin called Rove’s effort ‘diabolical’ and listed the many GOP officeholders who would not be in power but for the tea party insurgency. “We’re being stabbed in the back,” Levin declared. “Here’s a project funded by crony capitalists, funded by corporatists — who are not conservative — funding a group called the Conservative Victory Project,” Levin began. “This...

By now all Americans—regardless of their political ideology, especially conservatives—should be fed up with the government failures produced by political operatives and big money’s influence in our elections. Election after election, powerbrokers like the infamous political Republican strategist Karl Rove and his campaign money machine are working to deprive Americans of the fundamental concept of choice in our elections. If Mr. Rove continues to have his way, conservative Americans will only be allowed to vote for candidates of his choosing in the foreseeable future. Super Pac “American Crossroads”—founded in part by Karl Rove—has branched out on a new political influence...

Here in the darkest days -so far- of the nightmarish Obama era, it seems the monstrous statist power-and-tax-grab known as 'Obamacare' is here to stay... or is it? Judge Roberts might have sold us down the river, but there's still plenty of fight left in conservatives. And it's not just us right-wingers-clingers either: fact is, Dear Leader's unwanted and unloved quasi-nationalization of the US healthcare industry has never enjoyed majority public support in this country- same as the day they rammed it through. At least half the electorate still wants it repealed. We all know we're being screwed here, yet...

With Scott Brown backing out of the special election to the Senate in Massachusetts, some wondered whether former Governor and erstwhile presidential candidate Mitt Romney might take a shot at filling the rest of John Kerry's term in office. Instead, the Boston Herald reports that the task might go to the next generation of Romneys: Tagg Romney is considering a run in the special Senate election now that Scott Brown has opted out, the Truth Squad has learned.Calls for Romney, 42, to join in the short campaign to replace Secretary of State John F. Kerry have increased since the Herald...

Establishment Republicans like Karl Rove has diluted what is supposed to be the conservative principles and message of the Republican Party. In a misguided attempt to 'appeal to moderates', Rove and his ilk have alienated conservatives within the Republican Party and sent the Democrats a clear message. They have no spine. Rove has some nerve attacking a movement that infused the right with such enthusiasm that it gave the Republican Party its biggest gains in 2010. If he wants to point the finger of blame at anyone, he needs only look in the mirror for it was Rove that was...

Discredited political consultant, blathering TV talking head, and big-bux fundraiser/PAC-man Karl Rove was once hailed by George W Bush as 'The Architect' in the wake of the 2004 campaign victory he had engineered. In retrospect, we'd probably have been better off in the long-term letting John Kerry try and deal with the earthshaking real estate collapse his Dems' own affirmative-action housing initiatives were soon to bring us. Instead, Rove -as White House Senior Adviser and Deputy Chief-of-Staff- resided over a Bush 2nd-term popularity dive so steep and so politically damaging to the GOP brand that the United States seems to have shifted...

The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stands Karl Rove and his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining conservatism. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “biggest donors in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who...

The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate. -snip- The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for Congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections.

The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate. The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races. “There is a broad concern about having blown...

On Thursday, Jan. 24, the Rhode Island House of Representatives passed the "gay marriage" bill (H5015) by a 51-19 vote, two days after the bill was passed by the House Judiciary Committee. The move was not unexpected, given that the Speaker of the House, Gordon Fox, a Democrat, is openly homosexual and has been a champion of this bill. But the bill now moves to the Senate, where its fate is very uncertain. The Rhode Island Senate has not been as monolithic in its support for this bill as the House. The Senate President is on record as opposing it,...

As the federal government moves forward to implement President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services is slated to spend millions of dollars promoting the unpopular legislation. In the face of this publicity blitz, it is worth remembering that the law was originally sold largely on four grounds—all of which have become increasingly implausible. • Lower health-care costs. One key talking point for ObamaCare was that it would reduce the cost of insurance, especially for non-group insurance. The president, citing the work of several health-policy experts, claimed that improved care coordination, investments in information technology, and...

<p>One of the nation's leading gay-rights advocacy groups, the Human Rights Campaign, has formed a coalition of major companies calling for the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.</p> <p>It's no surprise, of course, that the HRC in Washington would use its considerable clout to organize big businesses to fight DOMA, the law that excludes recognition of same-sex marriages.</p>

After the chair of the Illinois state Republican Party called on his party’s state senators to cast votes for same-sex “marriage,” members of the GOP party leadership are calling for his resignation. Pat Brady defied the Republican Party’s platform when he started making lobbying calls to his party’s senators to change their position on same-sex “marriage.” Brady told The Daily Herald that he made the calls as a private citizen and not in his capacity as chairman, but members of party leadership are still outraged. “Pat Brady is a total disgrace,” said Bobbie Peterson, a Republican state central committeewoman from...

Effort to overturn law expected to shift into high gear soon On paper, it has every appearance of a mismatched fight: The campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in Washington state has out-raised its opponents by about 13 to 1. Washington United for Marriage, which is seeking to affirm the state's same-sex marriage law through approval of Referendum 74, has nearly $6 million in a campaign war chest -- more than half of it from a few prominent local donors with deep pockets. Its opponent, meanwhile, Preserve Marriage Washington, has so far raised $438,000, about 10 percent of its campaign goal...

<p>WAUKEE, Iowa — A group of Iowa conservatives announced Saturday they will campaign to defeat Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins, who was part of the court’s unanimous 2009 decision to allow gay marriage in the states.</p> <p>But Wiggins, unlike three Iowa high court judges rejected by voters in 2010, is backed by a group of activists fighting their own campaign to defend him.</p>

Ted Cruz, the Tea Party-backed Senate candidate whose upset Republican primary win in Texas made national waves, will be speaking at the GOP convention this month, but the role of one of his biggest boosters remains up in the air. Sarah Palin has not been included on the three slates of convention speakers released by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus this week, even after he said Monday night that he wants her to play a role at the high-profile event. “I think a lot of her and hope that she does speak,” Priebus told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. The former...

Conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin lashed out at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for not “standing up” for Chick-fil-A and demanded that the former Massachusetts governor pick a conservative to be his running mate. “We want a little bit more than crumbs,” Levin asserted on Monday’s show. “We want a conservative running mate and we want some conservatives who have real speaking time at prime time.” Levin said he continues to be “very concerned” about Romney, particularly with the candidate’s public reticence in recent days to join conservatives who have made statements and appearances on behalf of the...

A spokesperson for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has advised that the former Massachusetts governor disagrees with the Boy Scout’s current policy prohibiting open homosexuals from serving as members and leaders. According to The Associated Press, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul told the news outlet in an email that Romney still stands by his beliefs that homosexual men should be able to serve in the organization. She specifically noted that Romney had outlined his views in 1994 during a political debate, and that his stance has not changed. “I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what...

Well, this doesn’t make much sense, now does it?? Back in June, we showed you a video of Mitt Romney from 1994, proclaiming his support of the Boy Scouts of America and his views on its gay members. CLICK HERE to see the video if you missed it. In the video, Romney stated: “I believe that the Boy Scouts of America does a wonderful service for this country. I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to do on that issue. I feel that all people should be able to participate in the...

When Democrats announced that their 2012 platform would include a historic first — gay marriage written in as a plank — the reaction from mainstream Republicans was near silence. There were no statements blasted out from Mitt Romney’s campaign. The same was true for the Republican National Committee. Romney has yet to address the the fact. The pushback came largely from social conservatives and evangelicals, who pledged to make same-sex unions an issue going forward and insisted the stand will hurt Democrats. But the comparative quiet from party leaders would have been unimaginable even four years ago, when public opinion...

NEW YORK (AP) -- For the physician in Illinois, the attorney in Kentucky, the arts editor in Oregon, their Eagle Scout medals were treasured reminders of youthful achievement. Yet each is parting with his medal out of dismay over the Boy Scouts' recently reaffirmed policy of excluding gays. ### In contrast to Obama, Republican candidate Mitt Romney does have a public position on the Scouts' policy -- he politely disagrees with it. Back in 1994, during a political debate in Massachusetts, Romney said this: "I support the right of the Boy Scouts of America to decide what it wants to...