Free Republic

Her next book could be Harry Potter and the prisoner of Trans-kaban. JK Rowling is daring police in her native Scotland to arrest her for misgendering transgender people after a new woke hate crime law took effect Monday. “Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal,” she wrote on X. “I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offense under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the...

Paul Banfield was given an 18-week prison sentence which was suspended for two years in 2015. It came after he admitted inappropriately touching and kissing a 17-year-old girl in Shrewsbury town centre. He had pleaded guilty to sexual assault at Shrewsbury Crown Court. The court was told last year that it was the third young girl that Banfield had approached and behaved with in a similar manner. It was told that the police had growing concerns for the risk he posed to the community.

Washington -- The leading champion of gay rights in Congress ripped into what he called self-defeating ideological purists on the left who are unhappy with the Democrat-led Congress over issues such as the Iraq war and dropping transgender people from a job discrimination bill. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is gay, is under ferocious attack from gay rights organizations for his decision to strip transgender people from a long-sought bill to protect gays, lesbians and bisexuals from job discrimination. Clearly angered by unaccustomed criticism from his most ardent allies, Frank called a press conference Thursday - which coincided...