Free Republic

There is one particular thing that illustrates better than anything else the unreasonableness — and some would say gall — of homosexuality activists. It’s not demanding that bakers, shirt printers, and wedding planners be party to events and expression deeply contrary to their principles, as offensive as that is. What I speak of is something even more fundamental, something again brought to light by the recent Vatican synod on the family. As many know, the synod made news with an unwisely released and widely misrepresented mid-term report containing language that the secular media interpreted as signaling church capitulation on the...

It long ago became clear to me that, despite all the pretense, protesting and politicking, no one who has ever seriously thought about equality actually believes in it. When making this case, one could point to how Eric Holder’s DOJ is currently suing the Pennsylvania State Police for treating women equally (how dare they!), but there’s perhaps no better example than a recent BBC writer who asks, “Is sport sexist?” The author, Aimee Lewis, poses the question because there are still sports where the women’s categories don’t precisely correspond to the men’s; for example, she mentions how women gymnasts and...

There is this notion, one we hear more and more, that the Republican Party has to shed the social issues to seize the future. "Social issues are not the business of government!" says thoroughly modern millennial. It's a seductive cry, one repeated this past Tuesday in an article about how some young libertarians dubbed the "Liberty Kids" are taking over the moribund Los Angeles GOP. Oh, wouldn't the political landscape be simple if we could just boil things down to fiscal responsibility? But life is seldom simple. If you would claim to be purely fiscal, or assert that "social issues"...

10. Look, the Ukrainians have a country; they didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. 9. I’m just fulfilling the dreams from my father. 8. I can’t help myself; I’m a typical white person. 7. For the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of your country. 6. Yes, we can. 5. No, you can’t. 4. No matter how this turns out, Barry, I’ll R-S-P-E-C-T you in the morning. 3. I promise never to threaten any of your 58 states. 2. If I had a new province, it would look like Ukraine. And number 1… If you...

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,...

Take a look at the following list and tell me if anything strikes you: Prudence Justice Temperance Courage Faith Hope Charity Viewing these, the Seven Cardinal Virtues, anything make an impression? Okay, now try the Seven Heavenly Virtues of: Chastity Temperance Charity Diligence Patience Kindness Humility Anything? What strikes me is that equality is not among them. Scour great works, such as the Bible, and you won't find much talk of equality – that is, unless you consider The Communist Manifesto a great work. One thing about virtues – which are defined as "good moral habits" – is that their...

If you had told someone in the 1950s that, in about two generations, homosexuality would largely be normalized and faux (same-sex) marriage would be gaining widespread approval, they’d have called you crazy. Never, ever under the stars and stripes. Why, pugnacious pundit Bill O’Reilly himself opined as recently as 10 to 15 years ago that faux marriage would never be accepted in America. Ah, what a difference a decade makes in the (mis?)information age, where ideas can be transmitted worldwide at a button’s touch. I can’t tell you exactly when I knew faux marriage would gain traction — not in...

Every so often the wonks of wishful thinking give us an article about how blacks are becoming Republicans, how Hispanics are supposedly a natural GOP constituency, or, as is the subject here today, how the millennial generation is turning "conservative." Perhaps pundits asserting the last thing recall Winston Churchill's observation, "If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no brain." And perhaps they overlook that it's possible to raise a brainless generation. Don't think, as one might, that this will be a typical analysis sneering at the proverbial...

Every so often there's that obligatory article asking, "Are Women Superior at_____?" or "Do Women Make Better ______?," with politicians often being the focus. Of course, the question is always asked rhetorically. No matter the facts of the case, you'll never hear, "We examined the issue exhaustively from all perspectives, consulted with premier authorities in the discipline, collated the data, and have determined that in..."... --snip-- Lawrence is fair to the not-fairer sex, though, writing that "some men" are "trying to make things work better"; these would be "[a]spiring deal-makers in today's Senate" such as "John McCain, South Carolina Republican...

In another case in the annals of conservative "adaptation" to yesterday's liberal innovation, Ohio Republican senator Rob Portman has just announced that he now supports faux marriage. The change was motivated, he said, by his son having come out to him and his wife as a homosexual. Well, it's a good thing his son didn't announce that he was involved in bestiality. Talk about a pandering parent. We can also talk here about letting your personal life influence your public policy. If I were a statesman and learned that a child of mine were hooked on cocaine or had joined...

You've got to hand it to bloviating Brit Piers Morgan. While he got most of the facts wrong in his recent targeting of the Second Amendment, it hasn't stopped him from moving on to even more formidable targets. Such as the Bible. He says the book is "inherently flawed" -- and needs to be amended. Piers handed down his decree while interviewing Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren on the December 24th "Piers Morgan Tonight." Yes, on Christmas Eve. When other hosts might be discussing love, brotherhood, salvation, and all things ethereal, Captain Morgan was giving us the world according to...

When Barack Obama called Mitt Romney a bull******* in a Rolling Stone interview recently, it was reminiscent of something involving a man who truly fits that description. What I’m referring to has to do with the 1990s, an intern, and America’s increasingly interned morality. After Bill Clinton said that he didn’t consider Monica Lewinsky’s services to be sex as he “understood it,” many observers pointed out that his lawyering of lasciviousness was influencing the young. “Hey, even the president, a Rhodes Scholar, says it isn’t sex!” It’s what you call trickle-down decadence. And now what Clinton did for intimate relations,...

It wasn't just that ABC's Brian Ross was wrong in suggesting that the "Jim Holmes" he found on a Tea Party website was the same man who committed the heinous crime in Aurora, Colorado. It's that it was indicative of stupidity and corruption. --snip-- So there can be only two reasons why ABC would mention a possible Holmes/Tea Party (TP) association: either its people want to demonize conservatives every chance they get, or they think traditionalist thought constitutes a pathology. It turns out that Effluent Stream Media leftists are deeply involved in doing the former and generally believe the latter....

It’s always amusing when secularists speak of traditionalists being on the “wrong side of history.” We heard this recently after the vote in North Carolina upholding marriage; liberals said that the state was on the wrong side of history. Now, these people are circling around something that is absolutely true, and it's only charitable to help them understand exactly what it is. What they really mean is that traditionalists are on the wrong side of fashionable trends, and the polls on marriage certainly bear this out. But as G.K. Chesterton said, “A fallacy doesn’t cease to be a fallacy because...

When a big lie is repeated often enough and becomes “truth,” there can be serious consequences. For reality is like a jigsaw puzzle: If too many pieces (little pictures) are wrong, you’ll never be able to assemble them and see the big picture. The result is dislocation from reality. What follows are 10 big lies that have gained currency — and the actual truth behind them. 1. Pope Pius XII was a Nazi Collaborator According to Rabbi David Dalin in his book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, Pius saved at least 800,000 Jews from extermination at the hands of the...

So another mask has dropped. Barack Obama made history Wednesday in becoming the first president to announce support for faux marriage. And on January 20th, 2009 he made history in becoming the first president who supports faux marriage.

When I was 12 years old, I played tennis at a certain public park in the Bronx. One day it got back to me that a black fellow at the courts, whose name I forget, said "Selwyn doesn't like black people." This raised my eyebrows. You see, I had never really thought about the man one way or the other. And what occupied my mind were forehands, backhands, topspin and volleys, not race. So the only thing I could figure was that I was probably in a funk one day and didn't hear and acknowledge a greeting he might have...

Here's a question: how can we expect to have small government if we condemn Congress for not growing it? It's always a disturbing experience when you're accosted with a picture of Harry Reid, as I was upon logging on to Drudge last Monday afternoon. But at least his image bore a fitting caption: "MOST FUTILE EVER." I then clicked the link and found myself at The Washington Times — normally a quite sane organ of the media — and learned the meaning of the caption: the Times was lamenting a do-nothing Congress and presented Reid as its poster boy. Writes...

I’m not sure why ex-Senator and current Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee keeps getting elected, but I’m quite sure he offends me. I truly can’t stand seeing his face, and you don’t have to ask why. You see, that’s the way offensiveness is: It’s completely subjective and not constrained by rhyme or reason. Along with a lot of other people, however, I now certainly have one very logical reason to chafe at Chafee: His decision to call the 17-foot-tall blue spruce Christmas tree in his state capitol’s rotunda a “holiday tree” despite opposition from residents and lawmakers. This, mind you,...

Okay, you can lift your lower jaw off the floor. I haven’t joined the dark side: My problem isn’t economic but lexical. I do hate capitalism — the term. As you know, in the eyes of many, “capitalism” has become both a four-letter word and the target of such. For example, New York Magazine questioned a group of Wall Street protesters on October 2 and found that 37 percent believed capitalism was “inherently immoral.” If you find this unremarkable for Woodstock-meets-Wall Street rabble, consider a 2009 Rasmussen poll showing that “only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than...