Free Republic

Rep. Barney Frank won't seek re-election Posted by CNN Wire Staff (CNN) - Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank, a 16-term Democrat, will announce Monday he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012........

After introducing its first openly gay character in September 2010, Archie Comics continues to lead the pack with the mainstream comic book world’s first same-sex marriage. Kevin Keller will marry his military sweetheart, Clay, in an upcoming issue of Life with Archie. The character is also set to star in a pioneering solo title starting this February. An interracial same-sex marriage between two soldiers in an Archie comic? The times are no longer a-changin’, they are a-changed.

A state panel advising Gov. Cuomo wants taxpayers to foot the bill for transgender residents to get “sexual-reassignment surgery,” allowing them to change their physical characteristics from a man to a woman or woman to man, The Post has learned. New York’s costliest-in-the-nation Medicaid program would cover the tab. “Provide Medicaid coverage for transgender surgery/hormone replace-ment therapy and treatment,” read the proposal submitted by the state “health disparities work group.’’ The panel is submitting recommendations to Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team for possible inclusion in the governor’s budget plan.

Hmmmmm.....

ABC's 'Celebrity Wife Swap' has reportedly lined up two participants: Gary Busey and former New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard. Yep, you read those names right. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Haggard and Busey will swap partners ... without the sex of course. The Gazette reports the show will shoot at the GLBT Pride Center in Colorado Springs on Thurs., Sept. 22. Each episode of 'Celebrity Wife Swap' follows two couples as they switch wives for two weeks. For the first week the new wives must live by the manual left by host family. The second week, the new...

TMZ tracked down Bristol Palin's heckler -- the one who screamed, "Your mother's a whore!" at a West Hollywood bar last night, and he's not ashamed at all. Stephen Hanks is a 47-year old L.A. consultant who would not say what he consults on. He did, however, tell us this was not a setup. As for Hanks' thoughts on Bristol's comment -- jumping to what turns out to be the correct conclusion that he's gay -- he has more choice words for Sarah's little girl.

You know Bristol Palin is one tough cookie and instead of just ignoring this scumbag who called her mom a whore, she engages him and tries to find out exactly what her mom did to so upset this human piece of trash. Turns out, he’s got nothing and she makes him look ridiculous. But that doesn’t stop him from saying the most horrible things to her face. And no matter how awesome I think she might have handled herself, in all honesty what this degenerate said at the end just really pissed me off.

An honors student in Fort Worth, TX, was sent to the principal’s office and punished for telling a classmate that he believes homosexuality is wrong. Holly Pope said she was “absolutely stunned” when she received a telephone call from an assistant principal at Western Hills High School informing her that her son, Dakota Ary, had been sent to in-school suspension. “Dakota is a very well-grounded 14-year-old,” she told Fox News Radio noting that her son is an honors student, plays on the football team and is active in his church youth group. “He’s been in church his whole life and...

I was stationed on Guam in the mid-1980s. My squadron flew search and rescue while on the island and made regular deployments to sea. Aside from my duties as a naval aviator, I was also a division officer and had enlisted men and women reporting to me. Guam is only 13 degrees north of the equator—beach weather every day. Most military people used the military beaches; I was one of the folks who liked to travel around the island. That’s how I discovered one of my men was gay. He was on the beach with his boyfriend, and although there...

In August, fundamentalist preacher Dr. Michael Brown organized a regimen of red shirted Bible-thumpers to infiltrate Charlotte's gay pride event. Hundreds of zealots confronted and harassed festival attendees with their arrogant slogan "God Has A Better Way." The hatred and religious bigotry was appalling, but not surprising. What truly bothers me, however, was the lack of mainstream Christians standing up and speaking out against such fanatical behavior. Virtually every time I write about the Religious Right I'm reminded by the faithful that "not all Christians are like that." Of course, this is true and some of the most dedicated activists...

This sprawling suburban school system, much of it within Michele Bachmann’s Congressional district, is caught in the eye of one of the country’s hottest culture wars — how homosexuality should be discussed in the schools. After years of harsh conflict between advocates for gay students and Christian conservatives, the issue was already highly charged here. Then in July, six students brought a lawsuit contending that school officials have failed to stop relentless antigay bullying and that a district policy requiring teachers to remain “neutral” on issues of sexual orientation has fostered oppressive silence and a corrosive stigma. Also this summer,...

PORTLAND, Ore/SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Four Oregon men sued the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday for $20 million over childhood sexual abuse they say they suffered at the hands of a pedophile knowingly appointed as their scoutmaster in the 1970s. The four lawsuits, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, accuse the national Boy Scouts and its Cascade Pacific Council of negligence, fraud and sexual battery of a child in connection with the repeated molestation of the men, then aged 12 to 15. The suits, each seeking $5.2 million in damages, are the latest in a barrage of...

Equality is THE LAW in NY State This year the State of New York made the decision to recognize the right of same-sex couples to marry. It's now the law, and public officials must abide by it regardless of their personal prejudices. Dear xxxxxx, This weekend we demanded that the Town Clerk of Ledyard, New York, Rose Marie Belforti, sign marriage licenses for same-sex couples looking to marry -- as the law dictates she must do -- or resign. Belforti had previously stated that she would not sign licenses for same-sex couples and refused to do so for one couple...

There currently is a debate raging over public nudity in San Francisco. It’s not what you think. It’s already entirely legal to parade about in the buff on the city’s streets, and no one is discussing the resurrection of indecent-exposure laws. Rather, the question is whether sanitary behavior — namely, posterior protection for public seating — should be required of nudists by law. Reports the Los Angeles Times: Retired math teacher David Goldman and his husband, Michael Koehn, were sharing a pleasant alfresco moment at a public plaza in the heart of the Castro district this week, passing a slender...