Free Republic

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans are a diverse, extraordinary, resilient, and passionate group of forgiving men and women. I wouldn't be standing beside them demanding full and equal treatment under the law and speaking out against the harm caused by religion-based bigotry at the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 11 if I thought they were not created in God's image the same as myself, same as my family, as we all are—we are all God's children. And I know better than anyone, since six years ago I was one of those bigots. At that time...

He was once a revered judge, an African-American Democrat repeatedly elected in an Alabama county that was predominantly white and Republican. But then came the scandal - and Herman Thomas' world turned upside down. Thomas, former Alabama Circuit Court judge, stands accused of sodomy, kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion, assault and ethics violations, AOL News reports. The trial starts on Monday. The first charges against Thomas surfaced in 2001 when an inmate claimed that Thomas offered to help with the case in return for sex. Those charges were dismissed. But that wasn't nearly the end of it. Inmates then began claiming...

"A former judge is facing life in prison after being charged with sexually abusing male inmates in exchange for leniency. Respected circuit judge Herman Thomas, who was once the Democratic Party’s choice to be the first black federal judge in south Alabama, is accused of bringing inmates to his office and spanking them with a paddle.His trial for charges of sodomy, kidnapping, sex abuse, extortion, assault and ethics violations is set to begin today.The 48-year-old insists he is innocent and claims he was trying to mentor the inmates.

<p>MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Herman Thomas had an enviable political record as a black Democrat elected and re-elected in a county overwhelmingly white and increasingly Republican. The respected circuit judge once was the Democratic Party's choice to be the first black federal judge in south Alabama.</p>

A homosexual man is suing a third national Bible publisher for "mental anguish" after he says the company published Bibles with a negative connotation toward homosexuals. Bradley LaShawn Fowler of Canton, Mich., alleges Tyndale House Publishers manipulated Scripture when it published Tyndale's New Living Translation Holy Bible and the New Life Application Study Bible by using the term "homosexuals" in a New Testament passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9. "One Bible dictates homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God, while the other is completely void on the issue altogether," Fowler wrote in a statement on his blog.

Matthew Rolston for Rolling StoneUs Magazine Adam Lambert finally confirms his sexuality in the new issue of Rolling Stone (on stands tomorrow). "I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay," the American Idol runner-up says.

DEAR ABBY: My father is 83. My mother has been dead for more than 30 years. Since then, Dad has been involved with many women. But, since he turned 70, he has become involved with men, which he says he finds very rewarding and much less complicated. Dad and I always had an open and honest relationship. We have a lot of homosexual family members and friends. At the same time, I'm shocked that the fact that he is gay has been so difficult for me to accept. Have you any suggestions on how I might better deal with this?...

Perez Hilton is giving gays a bad name. What a scumbag. Liberals just cannot accept someone with religious beliefs. They hate it.

(UPDATED) As if it wasn't hellacious enough working customer support for Amazon.com on Easter, the online book store's reps must now explain why gay romances (and other books) are too "adult" to rank. Straight romance like Jackie Collins and straight porn like this book of Playboy centerfolds is still ranked on Amazon. But not the homosexul stuff: Gay romance publisher Mark Probst noticed hundreds of such books lost their rankings over the past two days, including Transgressions, about a 17th century liaison between a cavalry trooper and a farmer's son, and False Colors, about a 19th century naval lieutenant attracted...

A majority of Roman Catholic adoption agencies have cut their ties with the Church rather than defy gay equality laws. Five agencies have declared themselves independent - and some have changed their names - to comply with laws that say they must allow homosexual couples to adopt children.The retreat ends decades in which the adoption charities have worked in the name of the Catholic Church with support from dioceses, clergy and congregations.The decision to end the formal connection with the Church follows a deadline set by the Government for charities to comply with the 2007 Sexual Orientation Regulations. These...

Atlanta gay nightlife photographer Gary Salles was arrested in Winchester, Tenn., during an undercover operation and charged with running an international child porn operation and selling crystal methamphetamine, according to police. Salles, 57, faces federal child porn and drug charges and is currently being held without bond in Chattanooga, Tenn., said Winchester Police Department Chief Dennis Young. Arrested with Salles was Mike Lattimore, 50, who is charged with distribution of crystal meth and is being held without bond in Chattanooga. The two men go before a grand jury Jan. 27, Young said. Additional charges are likely, he added. “[Salles] runs...

Associated Press Concord, N.H. (AP) - The first openly gay Episcopal bishop will offer a prayer at the Lincoln Memorial at an inaugural event for President-elect Barack Obama. The selection of New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson for Sunday's event follows weeks of criticism from gay-rights groups over Obama's decision to have the Rev. Rick Warren give the invocation at his Jan. 20 inauguration. Warren backed the ban on same-sex marriage that passed in his home state of California on the November ballot. Robinson said last month the choice of Warren was like a slap in the face. In an...

Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the only openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, has been asked to give the invocation at the first official inaugural activity, a welcome event with the president-elect on Sunday afternoon on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Robinson had been critical of president-elect Barack Obama for asking Rick Warren, the evangelical pastor who encouraged voters to overturn same-sex marriage in California, to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. Episcopal Cafe has an e-mail from Robinson: "I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to...

Barack Obama's decision to have Pastor Rick Warren deliver the invocation at his inauguration next month has provoked anguish among some of his formerly ardent supporters. Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, upbraided the president-elect according to The Politico. "Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans. (W)e feel a deep level of disrespect when one of architects and promoters of an anti-gay agenda is given the prominence and the pulpit of your historic nomination." Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen accused Obama of condoning a man...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard says in a new documentary that he still struggles with his sexuality yet is committed to his marriage for the sake of his children. Haggard, 52, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was fired as senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs in November 2006 after a former male prostitute went public with allegations that Haggard paid him for sex and used methamphetamine. A father of five, Haggard had said he bought the drugs but never used them. He confessed to undisclosed "sexual immorality" and...

St. Jude’s, the local gay church in Wilmington, NC, is one of those churches that makes me glad I’m not a “liberal” Christian. Some years ago, they ran an advertisement that read “Whatever you believe, we embrace you.” When I saw that “whatever you believe” ad, I was tempted to go to St. Jude’s one Sunday and tell them I thought the Holocaust was a good idea and that I liked cooking cats in a microwave oven. I just wanted to see whether they actually bought into moral relativism – a philosophy so vacuous that only college professors deem it...

RESPONDING TO NEWSWEEK's DISTORTIONS OF THE BIBLE REGARDING THE DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE Newsweek magazine, one of the most influential news magazines in America, has decided to come out for same-sex marriage in a big way, and to do so by means of a biblical and theological argument. In its cover story for this week, "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage," Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller offers a revisionist argument for the acceptance of same-sex marriage. It is fair to say that Newsweek has gone for broke on this question. Miller begins with a lengthy dismissal of the Bible's relevance to...

Turning the Bible on its Head -- Newsweek Goes for Gay Marriage Posted: Monday, December 08, 2008 at 6:50 am ET Printer Version E-mail Permalink Bookmark and Share Newsweek magazine, one of the most influential news magazines in America, has decided to come out for same-sex marriage in a big way, and to do so by means of a biblical and theological argument. In its cover story for this week, "The Religious Case for Gay Marriage," Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller offers a revisionist argument for the acceptance of same-sex marriage. It is fair to say that Newsweek has gone...

The right-wing just won't let go of their "Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen" bit of nonsense. Today the Christiantist site World Net Daily is asking their readers to FedEx letters to the Supreme Court demanding they hold a hearing on the subject. They also want letters sent to Republican members of Congress saying, "Please hold congressional hearings to investigate whether Barack Obama meets the basic constitutional requirements for the highest office of the land." They are also demanding that the members of the Electoral College prove Obama's citizenship before their December 15th vote that will officially make him...

Controversial actor Rupert Everett has accused British soldiers risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan of being "whining wimps", it emerged today. --snip-- And comparing troops from now and then he said: “In Burton's day they were itching to get into the fray. “Now it is the opposite. They are always whining about the dangers of being killed. Oh my God, they are such wimps now! "The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000ft above the war zone to avoid getting hit....

MCKINNEY, TX, May 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Texas residents are alarmed that Bishop Kevin Farrell has appointed Fr. Arthur Mallinson, a priest associated with a prominent website for actively homosexual priests and religious, pastor of the newly renovated St. Michael's parish in McKinney, Texas. Fr. Arthur Mallinson's picture has appeared on the St. Sebastian's Angels (SSA) website, a now defunct online network for actively homosexual priests and religious that featured pornographic images, sexually explicit comments, and derogatory remarks about Vatican churchmen, particularly against then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. In 1999, the reform organization Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF) exposed SSA and the fifty-three...

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has learned that Makvan Mouloodzadeh, a 21-year old Iranian citizen of Kurdish origin from the city of Paveh, in the Western province of Kermanshah, has been sentenced by the government to execution. Makvan has been convicted of multiple counts of anal rape and sentenced to execution for crimes allegedly committed when he was 13 years old. IGLHRC calls for an international response to stop this scheduled execution. Imposing the death penalty for crimes committed by juveniles is prohibited under international law as well as by the Iranian legal system. In addition,...

Robinson proposes marriage of Church and State? Gay Episcopal bishop endorses Obama Washington DC, Aug 3, 2007 / 10:31 am (CNA).- Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the nation's first openly gay Episcopal bishop, has given his endorsement to presidential hopeful Barack Obama, citing the Illinois Democrat's experience with racism and discrimination. Obama's campaign put out a news release announcing Robinson’s support. It identified Robinson as "a civil rights leader and a leading voice in the faith community." The bishop says he hopes to persuade Obama to embrace same-sex marriage. Obama supports civil unions and rights for gay couples, but...

ATLANTA - The tattered cloth scraps started arriving at St. John's Lutheran Church shortly after the Rev. Bradley Schmeling took his stand against the church hierarchy, each with an embroidered or drawn message of support. "God is with you. Make fire in Atlanta," reads one of the hundreds of prayer cloths. "All love is holy," says another. Schmeling's refusal last year to resign after telling a church bishop he was in a gay relationship has earned him quite a following. More than 1,000 supporters joined an online prayer vigil to back Schmeling while a disciplinary committee was making its decision...

The man who allegedly admitted to murdering nearly two dozen men told authorities he did so to keep them quiet after raping them. Ronald Joseph Dominique, 42, of Bayou Blue, is formally charged with killing 11 men over a period spanning nearly a decade. Police say he’s admitted to killing 23, and there may be others whose deaths haven’t been discovered yet. He targeted men with a transient life-style, those who walked or relied on a bicycle for transportation and may have had drug or alcohol problems. Some of those men were gay, others performed sex acts with men or...

A Democrat community leader who would "offer a homily during worship services" and facilitated his congregation's "opening our doors to all people regardless of sexual orientation" has been given a slap on the hand after pleading guilty to extensive child pornography offenses involving children as young as six. Authorities say Andrew Douglas Reed, 53, who reported for an abbreviated jail term just a few weeks ago, had pleaded guilty to a page-long list of counts of 2nd-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. Court records in the Asheville, N.C., case said he admitted that he would "record, develop and duplicate material...

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a political conspiracy unravel as fast as this one that involves former representative Mark Foley. Let’s recap. 1. On September 29th Foley is approached by ABC NEWS about salitious Instant Messages with a former page and abruptly resigns. Four days later he turns himself into rehab. 2. Through investigation by several bloggers, including yours truly, it is discovered that during the last few years, liberal watchdog group CREW may have had specific knowlede of the IM’s existance, and of Foley’s activities, and might have possibly been in possession corospondence between Rep. Foley and former...

Life and Liberty Ministries asks that you let your voice be heard! WARNING! THIS CALL TO ACTION CONTAINS OBSCENE AND OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE! Gay Pride Virginia presented its Pride Fest at the 17th Street Farmers Market in the City of Richmond on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006. Life and Liberty Ministries was there to share the Gospel with the attendees. The event sponsors stated the following on the Gay Pride Virginia website, "The event will be family friendly so feel free to bring the kids for face painting, balloons and magic! Vendors and food and beverage stands and will be set up...

I get this a lot, from the distraught and Bush-embarrassed right, whenever I happily cough up Dubya's name in a column that would seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with our bumbling, neck-groping disaster of a whimpering leader: Hey (I'm paraphrasing here) you gay-loving yoga pervert communist! What the gosh-golly hell does George W. Bush possibly have to do with (fill in the blank) cancer rates/MS Windows/electric sports cars/Christina Aguilera? Why do you insist on sneaking in little slaps and stabs at the beleaguered monkeyman even when writing about problems and issues that (seemingly) have nothing to do with...

Kolbe says time not right to push gay immigration rightsGay GOP congressman is in bi-national relationship By JOSHUA LYNSEN | Jul 6, 12:38 AM Retiring gay Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), who is involved in a bi-national relationship, said in an interview this week that he isn't pushing gay issues in the ongoing immigration battle on Capitol Hill because it would only add "baggage" to the debate. "The immigration debate is so heavily laden and so fraught with so many issues that adding one like this into it is not terribly practical," said Kolbe, one of the leading congressional Republicans setting...

When all the fanatical Christians disappear, will traffic finally improve? Wait, did I miss it? Did it happen three days ago, on 6-6-06, a.k.a. Tea Time with the Beast, a.k.a. the Great Day of Reckoning, a.k.a. the National Day of Slayer, all the world crashing down in a heap of hissing steam and belching smoke and balmy gusty breezes sometime around noon just after lunch but not before rush hour and hitting right around siesta? I might have been napping. Did the Apocalypse finally hit? Did the deep wish of roughly a half-billion zealous believers come to pass and were...

No wait, not six. To hell with that. Make it 10. Ten bucks a gallon, no matter what the going rate for a barrel of light sweet crude. That would so completely, violently, brilliantly do it. Revolutionize the country. Firebomb our pungent stasis. Change everything. Don't you agree? Here's what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab drivers (at least initially) and metro transit systems and low-income folks, those who have to drive their busted-up '78 Honda Civics to their jobs scrubbing restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming the residual cocaine from the seat cushions of numb SUV...

Think sex and drugs destroy America? Try naive chastity. Oh, and "Purity Balls" There are these things. These unholy events called "Purity Balls" and you should probably fall to your knees right this minute and thank a merciful and lubricious and happily polyamorous God that you do not know what they are and that you have access right this minute to vast quantities of wine to deflect their nasty karmic arrows because, you know, oh my God. But hey, free country. Purity Balls. No, not some sort of newfangled spherical chastity device to be inserted using vacuum tubes and pulleys,...

It's a shockingly eco-friendly plan from the world's most toxic retailer. Did hell just freeze over? Sometimes you just have to let the possibility breathe. Sometimes you just have to allow that something grand and good and healthy might actually be born from the bowels of the dank and ravenous megacorporate world, like flowers from a dung heap, like vodka from old potatoes, even if it comes right alongside the nastiest, most abusive federal environmental policy you will see in your lifetime. Take Wal-Mart, the most famously offensive, town-destroying, junk-purveying, labor-abusing, sweatshop-supporting, American-job-killing, soul-numbing, seizure-inducing, hope-curdling retailer in the known...

Another state you should never visit passes an appalling abortion ban, because they hate youAttention all funky sexy single intelligent women of South Dakota (assuming there are any left): It is time. Pack it up. Strip the bed, box up the cat, load the U-Haul, call your hip friends over in Minneapolis, move out West, or East, or anywhere with a mind-set not stuck like a bloody nail in the moral coffin of 1845. Let this be your clarion call. Get the hell out, right now. Here is why: You state hates you. Your state, apparently run be pallid sexless...

Singer George Michael arrested in drugs probe Mon Feb 27, 2:37 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - British singer George Michael was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of possessing drugs after he was found slumped in a car in central London, a police source said. Michael, 42, who has sold more than 80 million records worldwide during a 25-year career, was arrested in the Hyde Park area of the capital early on Sunday, the source said. A London police spokesman issued a statement saying a 42-year-old man had been held on suspicion of possessing Class C drugs, a group in British...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/03/attack_at_gay_bar_leaves_3_injured/

How to address a bitter, war-torn but still somehow giddy and deeply horny nation. My fellow Americans, we're not as royally screwed as everything Bush has done during his miserable term in office would have you believe.

What do the bitter neocon nominee and the amazing Oscar-bound film have in common? There is this theory, more of a truism really, tossed about like a fuzzy beach ball by the gurus and the masters and the mystics since Jesus was but a lint ball of possibility in the Great Belly Button of Time. . . .

Former Teacher On House Arrest For Sex With Student POSTED: 6:37 am EST January 20, 2006 INVERNESS, Fla. -- A former Citrus County high school teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old female student has been sentenced to two years of house arrest. Amy Gail Lilley, 36, pleaded no contest Thursday to a charge of lewd and lascivious battery of a child under 16. She also has been sentenced to eight years of probabtion. Circuit Judge Ric Howard agreed to what he called a significantly reduced sentenced based on statements from Assistant State Attorney Rich Buxman and...

BURBANK, Calif., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- A Nickelodeon production assistant has been arrested for allegedly fondling a 14-year-old boy at the TV network's Burbank, Calif., studio. Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Ezell Channel Friday with two felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child, the Burbank Leader reported Saturday. The victim's mother filed a police complaint Tuesday after she found Channel's name on the "Megan's Law" Internet list of convicted child molesters, police said. Police told the newspaper Channel's job at the children's network did not put him in regular contact with minors. However, police said the alleged...

Dubya pouts, Cheney scowls, no one brings pie -- and why is Rove looking at Barb that way? Ah yes, it is that time again. The smell of roasting turkey and cigar smoke and Polo cologne, perfume like florid gasoline. Copious forced laughter that sounds like geese mating in a broom closet. It is Thanksgiving dinner at the Bush White House, . . .

Agents began dismantling a massive Southie drug factory yesterday where MIT graduate Kevin McCormick was found dead after an apparent wild weekend sex romp gone wrong. Police say they found hundreds of chemicals used to concoct club and date-rape drugs such as crystal methamphetamine and “Special K.” “This is probably the largest (meth) lab we’ve seen in the Northeast in the past 10 years,” said an investigating agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration who refused to give his name. “This is not a small lab. This is not a mom and pop lab.” Investigators found chemicals used to manufacture crystal...

Yes, I know you were drunk. Must've been. Either drunk or on serious meds and/or you just didn't give much of a damn about anything anyway because you're just one of those people, one of those types who comes lurching around the city like a chunk of numbed pain in your big-ass mid-'80s burgundy car with the white top and chrome bumpers -- an old Cadillac? Monte Carlo? -- early last Sunday morning to wreak casual havoc. Is that about right? Do you remember any of it? Here is what I'm guessing: probably not. Let me tell you what happened,...

The first openly gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, has called for the Roman Catholic church's attitude to homosexuals to be confronted. The Bishop of New Hampshire said the Vatican's ban on ordaining gay men was "vile", in a speech in London. He received a standing ovation after his speech, in which he spoke of how he had faced prejudice in his role. Some Anglican conservatives had called for the St-Martin-in-the-Fields church venue to be changed to a secular one. Battle for soul of church Bishop Robinson said: "We are seeing so many Roman Catholics joining the church. "Pope Ratzinger may...

Society Becomes Stranger and Stranger Tragically, many psychologists and sociologists have noted that even in same-sex “marriages,” both partners take on heterosexual gender roles. That is, one person will play a female role and the other will play a male role. Some members of the gay community have denounced this imitation of heterosexual marriage by inventing a new term. The new term for the phenomenon to be avoided is called “couple-ism.” Since marriage is thought to be an outmoded “patriarchal” institution, taking on gender roles within a same-sex marriage is to be avoided. In other words, same-sex marriage is good...

Arkansas mom gives birth to a whole freakin' baseball team. How deeply should you cringe? Who are you to judge? Who are you to say that the more than slightly creepy 39-year-old woman from Arkansas who just gave birth to her 16th child yes that's right 16 kids and try not to cringe in phantom vaginal pain when you say it, who are you to say Michelle Duggar is not more than a little unhinged and sad and lost? And furthermore, who are you to suggest that her equally troubling husband -- whose name is, of course, Jim Bob...

ASSIMILATION AND ITS MEANING. The End of Gay Culture Andrew Sullivan For ... two decades, I have spent much of every summer in the small resort of Provincetown, at the tip of CapeCod. It has long attracted artists, writers, the offbeat, and the bohemian; and, for many years now, it has been to gay America what Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard is to black America: a place where a separate identity essentially defines a separate place. No one bats an eye if two men walk down the street holding hands, or if a lesbian couple pecks each other on the...

Apparently, it wasn't just "invade Iraq and Afghanistan in my name." A special report: Scene: White House private residence, night, not long ago. President Bush present in his most favoritest guns 'n' bunnies PJs. Laura asleep, knocked out by a combination of too much Good Housekeeping and excessive hair-spray fumes. Suddenly, a burst of black smoke. A deep, resonant voice speaks: "Psst! George! God here, taking a break from supervising the well-being of eight billion troubled souls along with infinite galaxies of unimaginable vastness to speak with you directly one more time because, well, you're special, aren't you, George? Yes...