Free Republic

The Chief of the University of Nevada, Reno Police Dept. -- where Colin Kaepernick went to school -- is apologizing for an officer who mocked the QB at a Halloween party. The officer in hot water is Antonio Gutierrez -- who wore a Kaepernick jersey with a "Will stand for food" sign ... while sporting an afro wig and a fake nose in an effort to make fun of the QB. But the UNR PD ain't laughing ... Chief Adam Garcia issued a statement condemning Gutierrez saying, "For those who have seen the Halloween costume of one of our officers...

A court in Arizona has rejected arguments of evangelical Christian wedding invitation designers that a Phoenix ordinance protecting discrimination against LGBT people forces them to make artwork for same-sex couples, which is against their religious beliefs and freedoms of speech and religion. The Christians plan to appeal. Judge Karen Mullins of Maricopa County Superior Court this week ruled that the Phoenix ordinance does not violate Arizona's free speech and free exercise of religion laws, quashing an attempt by Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio, to override the ordinance, AZ Central reported. The Phoenix non-discrimination ordinance...

When the FBI finally fires up its criminal investigation of the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, there is one person the special agent in charge better be sure to interview — former White House Counsel Robert Bauer. The FBI may discover the whole IRS mess leads through the land of campaign finance “reform” and an obsession with speech regulation, an obsession shared by Bauer. Any criminal investigation identifies for further scrutiny those with motive, opportunity, and means, and Bauer deserves no quarter from FBI investigators on those three counts. The Crimes Without any doubt, crimes were committed by IRS...

Policies that punish student protesters reinforce institutionalized white supremacy, argues Charles H. F. Davis III. This month, during a meeting at the University of Wisconsin Stout in Menomonie, the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents adopted a systemwide policy that punishes student activists exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest. Specifically, the board adopted language that states students will be suspended if found to have twice engaged in violence or other disorderly conduct -- neither of which have been clearly defined -- that disrupts the free speech of other people. Students will be expelled if found to have done so three...

A three-judge court panel ruled Wednesday that a World War I memorial in the shape of a cross in Bladensburg, Maryland, is unconstitutional, a decision that a legal scholar says could imperil other similar memorials. In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the 40-foot cross erected 92 years ago violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. “The monument here has the primary effect of endorsing religion and excessively entangles the government in religion,” Judge Stephanie Thacker wrote for the majority. “The Latin cross is the core symbol of Christianity. And here, it is 40...

Football players kneel. Owners support them. President threatens owners with tax consequences. What does the First Amendment say about all this? This is not an easy question, though some of President Trump’s critics seem to think it is. The ACLU has said it is ready to defend the First Amendment rights of players and to challenge the president’s “unconstitutional efforts to bully the NFL into complying with his view of what is politically correct.” But are President Trump’s efforts “unconstitutional,” or are they constitutionally protected expression? Some Trump critics allege that the presidential threats constitute state action and chill the...

A Boise State University professor recently learned what happens when you challenge left-wing social narratives on college campuses. Scott Yenor, a tenured professor, has been under siege on campus after publishing articles with The Heritage Foundation and The Daily Signal about feminism and the transgender movement. In those articles, Yenor explained the similarity in philosophy between the early feminists and modern transgender movement and how they aim at undermining traditional family values. He wrote in a Daily Signal article on Aug. 2:

The Christian baker in Colorado who was sued for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding reception received a strange request last month: Design and bake a cake celebrating Satan’s birthday. “I would like to get a quote on a birthday cake, for a special event,” the email request to baker Jack Phillips, sent Sept. 30 and exclusively obtained by The Daily Signal, reads. It continues: It is a cake that is religious in theme, and since religion is a protected class, I am hoping that you will gladly bake this cake. As you see, the birthday...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided with a lower court that ordered a New Mexico city to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the lawn outside City Hall. Civil liberties advocates behind the case called the decision involving the city of Bloomfield a victory for the separation of church and state. ACLU of New Mexico Executive Director Peter Simonson said it sends a “strong message that the government should not be in the business of picking and choosing which sets of religious beliefs enjoy special favor in the community.” However, David Cortman, a senior counsel and vice president of...

In an email to the student body last week, University of Florida President Kent Fuchs expressed befuddlement at his recent discovery that the public university must allow free speech. “If you are like me, I expect you are surprised and even shocked to learn that UF is required by law to allow Mr. Spencer to speak his racist views on our campus,” Fuchs wrote in a statement alerting students that Richard Spencer, a prominent white nationalist, will be visiting campus on October 19.

Paper of CAIR Glossing over Hamas ties by Steven Emerson National Review Online February 8, 2008Once again, New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar has proven himself to be the chief public relations mouthpiece for radical Islamic front groups in the United States. In an article published Thursday titled, "Speakers at Academy Said to Make False Claims," MacFarquhar writes: The Air Force Academy was criticized by Muslim and religious freedom organizations for playing host on Wednesday to three speakers who critics say are evangelical Christians falsely claiming to be former Muslim terrorists. The three men were invited as part of a...

A housing benefit that saves clergy $800 million a year in taxes has been deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge. Under the law, housing allowances paid as part of clergy salary can be subtracted from their taxable income. Religious freedom advocates fear the ruling could force many churches in poor areas to close.MADISON, Wisconsin - A federal judge in Wisconsin has struck down as unconstitutional a law that gives clergy tax-free housing allowances, in a ruling that could have far-reaching ramifications for religious leaders, who could be facing new taxes which will threaten their ministry. Under the federal law passed...

A gay coffee shop owner in Seattle decided to kick out a group of Christian anti-abortion protesters, going on an expletive-laden, extremely offensive rant that was recorded and posted on Facebook. The group, Abolish Human Abortion, appeared not to be bothering anyone.  They weren't in the shop to proselytize or hand out literature.  They just wanted a cup of coffee. What they got was an obscene, even blasphemous rant from an unbalanced store owner. Daily Caller: The owner heatedly tells the Christians to leave his shop immediately in a video posted to Facebook by Abolish Human Abortion, Christian group...

California can now start jailing people that refuse to use the preferred gender pronouns of nursing home residents after Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill Thursday. The law’s effect is limited to nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, but mandates that those who “willfully and repeatedly” refuse “to use a transgender resident’s preferred name or pronouns” can be slapped with a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison, according to the California Heath and Safety code. Known as the “LGBT Senior Bill Of Rights,” the legislation also requires nursing homes and care facilities to allow residents...

Freedom of the Press has been a driving issue in the Bunkerville Standoff trials happening in Las Vegas.From the ‘First Amendment Zone’ to the incarceration of a media reporter, the government has made every attempt to keep the truth from the public.Pete Santilli has been an independent internet journalist for a number of years, reporting on government over reach and wasteful spending.Santilli was the only full-time news media that attended the Bunkerville Standoff. There were other news reporters, but not before most of them watched Pete’s reports on his YouTube channel.The government has repeatedly shown contempt for the US Constitution...

Suddenly the alt-left is very concerned about the First Amendment rights of people — some people, anyway. Specifically, George Soros et al. care about those useful idiots in shoulder pads whom they want to use in their unending attempts to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. As for the First Amendment rights to free speech of everyone who isn’t a card-carrying fellow traveler — what rights do those deplorables have? What about the Christian bakers in Oregon who were sued out of business for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding? Or the clerk in Kentucky...

The First Casualty of Culture War is Free Speech Standing for the anthem is the new counterculture. September 29, 2017 Daniel Greenfield Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. Don’t like millionaire black nationalists in the NFL refusing to stand for the anthem? Too bad! It’s freedom of speech. The same left that decided James Damore didn’t have freedom of speech at Google now insists that football players have it at the NFL. Never mind that the Google engineer was unknown until his...

A Trump-supporting student at the University of California, Riverside had his MAGA hat stolen by a peer who demanded that administrators refuse to allow him to continue to wear it.A video of the incident obtained by Campus Reform shows an enraged female student taking the hat to the school’s Student Life Department as Matthew Vitale fruitlessly attempts to explain to the young woman that the hat is his property.“So this guy thought it would be a good idea to go into a conference wearing this f***ing hat,” the student who stole the hat states. “Look at the kind of sh*t...

A Chicago-area school member says she isn’t backing down from comments she made on Facebook equating the American flag with toilet paper, saying the flag is a meaningless piece of cloth and “a false symbol of hope” for black people. In a post on her personal Facebook page supporting NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, School District U46 board member Traci O’Neal Ellis wrote, “That flag means nothing more than toilet paper to me,” The Chicago Tribune reported. “And I promise you, I would take #TakeAKnee at school board meetings if my doing so would not be disruptive...

How is this any different than Islamic law in, say, Turkey (Obama's favorite and most trusted ally)? In October, 43-year-old Fazil Say went on trial in Turkey for "denigrating" Islam for a series of tweets earlier that year. In one of his messages he had retweeted a verse from a poem by Omar Khayyám, in which the 11th-century Persian poet attacks pious hypocrisy. This is the same thing. If the DoJ pursued the vicious, offensive, racist, antisemitic tweets directed at me (and others) by Muslims and leftists, they would be pursuing little else. But they wouldn't and they shouldn't. Note...