Free Republic

To most ears, it probably sounds inoffensive. A little outdated and clinical, perhaps, but innocuous enough: homosexual. But that five-syllable word has never been more loaded, more deliberately used and, to the ears of many gays and lesbians, more pejorative. “ ‘Homosexual’ has the ring of ‘colored’ now, in the way your grandmother might have used that term, except that it hasn’t been recuperated in the same way,” said George Chauncey, a Yale professor of history and an author who studies gay and lesbian culture. Consider the following phrases: homosexual community, homosexual activist, homosexual marriage. Substitute the word “gay” in...

In recent times, there has been a development quite odd and unprecedented in the annals of the sexual “revolution.” When America’s traditional sexual mores started to break down, it always took the form of slouching toward “tolerance.” For example, consider fornication. Two unmarried opposite-sex individuals cohabitating was once known as “living in sin” and was not something any couple could do in their community. But as pedophile Alfred Kinsey’s fraudulent science and the phenomenon whereby, as Confucius said, no one likes “virtue as much as sex” eroded moral barriers, this started to change. And then one thing led to another,...

A taboo is something that is vehemently “forbidden based on moral judgment and religious beliefs.” When confronted with a taboo, we do not consider breaking it. The line is drawn so clearly that we dare not cross it. Incest is a good example. It is condemned in every culture. The idea of sexual relations with a sibling or one’s child is abhorrent and rejected as a matter of course. We are horrified by it. We recoil from it. It is off the table. We totally close the door to it. This keeps us out of trouble. The power of taboos...

In 2006, 57 percent of Virginia’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Last week, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 76 percent of Oklahoma’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. On January 14, 2014, U.S. District Judge Terence Kern ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 66 percent of Utah’s electorate voted to amend their state’s constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman....

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi offered marriage advice to single women this past Valentine’s Day: “Why would you get married? Why would anybody?” NowThis News published the video where Pelosi did the “do as I say, not as I do” liberal thing considering she’s been married for 50-years. Making it abundantly clear to which demographic she was speaking to – single women who overwhelmingly voted for President Obama in 2012, Pelosi frowned and shrugged about the whole marriage thing: “But I would say, you know, if you’re getting married…why are you getting married? Why would you get married? Why would...

I’m sorry to arrive late to this controversy — explanation forthcoming in a later posting — but my impression is that the word “blacklist” has not been mentioned much in the debate over the Robertson family, GLAAD, and the A&E channel. Or if it has been mentioned, it certainly hasn’t had the central role that it should have had in this row. For what GLAAD has been operating is a classic blacklist operation. Its object is not to persuade those who disagree with it over the morality of same-sex relationships to change their minds. Nor is it principally intended to...

Over the past several decades, America has witnessed a profound change in the way women view men and marriage. It began with the baby boomer adage “never depend on a man.” This message resulted in a generation of women who turned their attention away from the home and onto the workforce. They did what their mothers told them to do: they became financially independent so they’d never have to rely on a husband. In time, “never depend on a man” turned into the full-blown belief that men are superfluous. In 2010 Jennifer Aniston claimed women needn’t “fiddle with a man”...

A push by activists to ease the 30-year-old blanket ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men faces a key test this week as a federal panel hears results of the latest research. The findings will be released amid growing pressure from politicians and advocates, including college students, to change the policy. Critics say the ban is a hangover from the early, fear-filled days of AIDS, stigmatizing gay men and ignoring advances in treatment and detection in the decades since...

OAKLAND, Calif. — The weekly meetings of Mouthing Off!, a group for students at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, always start the same way. Members take turns going around the room saying their names and the personal pronouns they want others to use when referring to them — she, he or something else. It’s an exercise that might seem superfluous given that Mills, a small and leafy liberal arts school historically referred to as the Vassar of the West, only admits women as undergraduates. Yet increasingly, the “shes” and “hers” that dominate...

CHELSEA, MICH. — Kristi and Michael Burns have a lot in common. They love crossword puzzles, football, going to museums and reading five or six books at a time. They describe themselves as mild-mannered introverts who suffer from an array of chronic medical problems. The two share similar marital résumés, too. On their wedding day in 2011, the groom was 43 years old and the bride 39, yet it was marriage No. 3 for both. Today, their blended family is a sprawling, sometimes uneasy ensemble of two sharp-eyed sons from her two previous husbands, a daughter and son from his...

The owners of a Christian guesthouse who were ordered to pay damages for turning away a gay couple have lost their UK Supreme Court fight. Hazelmary and Peter Bull refused to let civil partners Steven Preddy and Martyn Hall stay in a double room at Chymorvah House in Marazion in Cornwall in 2008. The couple, who had already lost cases at Bristol County Court and the Court of Appeal, said they were "saddened". Mr and Mrs Bull have said they regard any sex outside marriage as a "sin". Steven Preddy (l) and Martyn Hall Steven Preddy (l) and Martyn Hall...

Dr. Donna Freitas, perhaps the nation’s leading expert on university hookup culture, has being doing research among college students and on college campuses regarding sex, the hookup culture, and student religiosity for several years.  She has produced many scholarly publications and studies.  One consistent finding she has observed is that evangelical college students are significantly less likely to hookup than any of their counterparts (Catholic or secular).  Why?  An excerpt from an interview: The attitudes toward sexuality on evangelical campuses were remarkably different from everywhere else. Everyone is struggling with sex, but they do it in very different ways.It’s impossible on...

If Signorile and other "LGBT" activists get their way, this would mean that churches, mosques, synagogues, religious schools, Bible bookstores, as well as any and every other business in America with 15 or more employees, would be forced, under penalty of law, to abandon the biblical and traditional-values viewpoint on human sexuality, and hire (and otherwise not offend) those who openly flaunt expressly sinful and demonstrably self-destructive sexual behaviors.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America has just announced a new insidious Internet presence referred to as “mobile interactive tools to help teens make healthy decisions.” STOPP’s national director, Rita Diller, joined ALL’s Jim Sedlak on his Radio Maria “Armed for Battle” broadcast November 1 to warn about what lurks within the many webpages of this new “tool” for indoctrinating both children and parents. “By ‘mobile interactive tools,’ Planned Parenthood means it is on its website so that kids can access this stuff from their smart phones or their computers when their parents aren’t looking,” Diller said. “And by ‘helping teens...

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, November 7, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The New Zealand Family Planning Association is trying to save face after public backlash over the Association’s plan to release a sexuality resource for children aged 5 to 8 later this month. The resource has drawn attention to the fact that “sexuality” is already included right through each year level of the health curriculum. Even in Catholic schools “sexuality” education is compulsory, although parents do have the right to be informed and are given the option of removing their children from these classes. The Ministry of Education’s 2002 document “Sexuality Education –...

In true Marxist form, the ludicrously named "Affordable Care Act" mounts an all-out attack on marriage. In 2010 the Heritage Foundation pointed out under the bill couples would face massive financial penalties if they marry or remain married. Conversely, couples who cohabit without marriage are given highly preferential financial treatment. If the Senate bill becomes law, saying 'I do' would cost some couples over $10,000 per year.

<p>NEW YORK (AP) Actors Jonah Hill, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kristen Bell are among a batch of celebrities donning Russian-language "Love Conquers Hate" T-shirts to show support for gays in Russia alarmed by a new law banning pro-gay "propaganda."</p> <p>It's part of an initiative launched Monday by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest U.S. gay-rights group.</p>

Note: I did not write this. Rather it was posted on Facebook by the good folks at Monergism Books. _____________________________________________________ I have not historically spent much time, if any, obsessing on the various sexual liberation agendas in our culture. But it has come to my attention that perhaps the most troubled people in our current society are those who accuse Christians of hate speech and homophobia for simply wanting to share the gospel with them. Such groundless declarations of hate betray the speakers themselves as a people driven by irrational prejudice. in doing so they are creating a cultural, educational...

A new survey suggests that marriage is actually more important to men than it is to women. In fact, just since last year, the number of women who say their definition of success is not linked to marriage (or relationships at all) has nearly doubled. According to the third “Professional Women Report” (h/t the Atlantic), a survey of over 1,000 male and female professionals released yesterday by LinkedIn and Citi, 9 percent of women say that marriage and relationships do not factor into their consideration of success, compared to 5 percent last year. It turns out that men are more...

I'm pretty sure I'm bisexual. I say "pretty sure" because I was raised Mormon, a religion that proclaims homosexuality is a terrible sin, so I never really experimented until my twenties. Residual guilt kept me from fully exploring that side of myself that had been so repressed all those years. Mormon hangover, I call it. So I had a few encounters with women in my twenties and then fell in love with and married my husband. So that's that. Except we all know that marriage doesn't stop us from being attracted to other people, it's part of life. I often...