Free Republic

American combat troops will get sensitivity training directly on the battlefield about the military’s new policy on gays instead of waiting until they return to home base in the United States, the senior enlisted man in Afghanistan said Thursday. The Pentagon is launching an extensive force-wide program to ease the process of integrating open homosexuals into the ranks, including into close-knit fighting units. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill, the top enlisted man in Afghanistan where 100,000 U.S. troops are deployed, said that the sessions on respecting gays’ rights will go right down to the forward operating bases, where troops...

Every day before he left for work, Richard Dennis would kiss his partner on the forehead as he slept, knowing each kiss could be their last. That's because Dennis' partner, Jair Izquierdo, was in the United States illegally and the pair's civil union wasn't recognized by the federal government. So the New York couple of more than five years lived their lives in constant fear that Izquierdo, a Peruvian citizen who had overstayed his visa, would be deported. Then, in October, it happened. Izquierdo, 33, was at his job as a cosmetician at a hair salon in New York's East...

The world is wickedly insane, and America is not far behind. I have watched for years as inch by inch our country has marched steadily toward immorality that would shock the Americans of only 60 years ago. Things that would never have been accepted in the mainstream then are ho-hum routine today, and the rallying cry of the immoral left is, “We must move into the 21st century like the rest of the world!” I’ll never buy that tripe, because I know that the foundation of truth and morality will never change, no matter what all the forces of hell...

Shock at conference on climate change and creativity Clerics in the South Pacific have fingered the key cause of climate change - homosexuals. The revelation came at a conference at the University of the South Pacific considering the implications of Climate Change and Creativity. Academics were apparently thrown off their consideration of "Arts in the Age of Global Warming" and "Ecology in Poetry / Poetry in Ecology" by reports of Church Ministers who maintained that climate change in Samoa are clearly attributable to to homosexuals. The revelation prompted one attendee USP student, Shaiza Janif, to opine: "We need to educate...

Researchers say that rising rates of syphilis along HIV among young gay men suggests risky sexual behaviour was to blame.. Public messages and campaigns about the dangers of unsafe sex do not appear to be getting through to men who have sex with men, the researchers say – particularly the young ones.

As far as tailgate parties go, this one was a bit more swank than usual. Under purple tents, sommeliers from Barefoot Wine & Bubbly in Modesto poured their latest Pinot Noir while fans mingled and grooved to dance music. Guests were invited to play beanbag toss. Thursday marked the first time the Golden State Warriors basketball team hosted an LGBT night - adding the gay community to its long roster of diversity-themed games that include everything from Bollywood dancing on Indian culture night to horn-blowing rabbis on Jewish heritage night. "Generally in sports the gay issue is a touchy one,...

7 protesters ousted from Fort Worth City Council meeting By DEANNA BOYD dboyd@star-telegram.com FORT WORTH -- Seven protesters were removed from Tuesday night's City Council meeting after they repeatedly demanded to be moved up on the agenda to speak about last month's police raid at the Rainbow Lounge. "Hear us now! Hear us now!" five men chanted in a hallway outside City Council chambers. The men, believed to be members of Queer LiberAction, a Dallas-based gay rights group, were led out of the building by city marshals. Inside the meeting, the group's founder, Blake Wilkinson, repeatedly interrupted Mayor Mike Moncrief....

A pro-family advocate has posted some very disturbing audio recordings on his website. Brian Camenker of MassResistance.org posted the audio that was recorded several years ago at a Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) seminar, where members graphically instructed students as young as 12 years of age in the how-to of homosexual sex. According to Camenker, Scott Whiteman, who was executive director of MassResistance at the time, attended the seminar with a tape recorder in his pocket. "You know the tape recordings are not [professional]; you know, they look very amateurish. GLSEN could have claimed that they were fake,...

I've spoken to an Amazon.com employee who works closely with the systems involved in the glitch. The employee asked me not to share his name because of company policies on talking with the media. On Sunday afternoon at least 20 Amazon.com employees were paged alerting them that items, possibly many, were incorrectly being flagged as adult. The employees also received links to the Twitter discussion AmazonFail. Thousands of people were angry that gay-themed books had disappeared from Amazon's sales rankings and search algorithms. The number of Tweets on Sunday afternoon that had the term "AmazonFail" surpassed even those with the...

Midtown lounge denies it discriminated against homosexual customers left waiting outside in the rain Owners of a Midtown lounge and the organizers of Houston’s first “guerrilla gay bar” met Monday to try to mend fences after a botched weekend event left both sides feeling mistreated. The “guerrilla gay bar” event was planned as an impromptu mixer of the city’s gay and straight communities at the Union Bar on Bagby. Instead of mingling with the bar’s typically straight customers, however, about 100 gays and lesbians were left standing out in the rain on Friday. Some who waited said it felt like...

WILKES-BARRE – Harlow Cuadra slumped in his chair when he heard the jury foreperson say “guilty,” convicting him for the brutal slaying of Bryan Kocis in January 2007. The verdict, which came after more than three hours of deliberation on Thursday, carries 12 convictions, including first-degree homicide. The jury will return today to determine whether Cuadra, 27, should be sentenced to death or spend the rest of his life in prison. Cuadra showed little emotion other than slumping in the chair. He appeared withdrawn and said nothing when escorted out of the Luzerne County Courthouse about an hour after the...

Tuesday February 24, 2009 Homosexual Republican Group Calls Pro-Family Activists "Domestic Terrorists" By Kathleen GilbertATLANTA, Georgia, February 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A homosexualist Republican group is lobbying GOP chairman Michael Steele to turn a deaf ear to pro-family activists, who the group leader labeled in a letter "Anti-American" and "domestic terrorists." James Ensley, President of the Georgia Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), made the comments after the pro-family group, Americans for Truth, petitioned Steele to work to return the GOP to its conservative roots and protect true marriage."I want to urge you not to allow small biggoted [sic], anti-American and anti-Christian fringe...

Liberal American bishops threw the Archbishop of Canterbury a lifeline in his efforts to avert Anglican schism by agreeing to halt appointments of gay bishops and same-sex blessings, at least temporarily. The compromise will, however, fail to appease many conservative leaders as it offers no guarantee that the American Church will maintain the moratoriums for more than a couple of years. It also falls far short of agreeing to provide an independent safe haven for American conservatives who have rejected the authority of their own liberal bishops. advertisement One conservative insider said it represented "two fingers to the Communion." Liberals,...

t has always been a burning question for me: does size matter to lesbians. Unfortunately for the lesbian fire chief of San Diego, Tracy Jarman, we know the answer is yes because when she ordered that four straight firefighters to endure hours of sexual harassment for the enjoyment of the gays lining the gay pride parade route all bets were off. After all, she did not want her fire department to be outshined by the gaily marching San Diego police chief. So now we know the answer, but it is going to be an expensive lesson to learn because while...

They say everything is bigger in Texas. But the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas makes one Texas-sized claim that few would expect in the conservative Bible Belt state - it says it is the world's biggest gay church. "I think this shows that God has a tremendously great sense of humour," says senior pastor and rector Jo Hudson. On a more serious note, she says the church, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, is a spiritual refuge for gay people of faith in a region associated with more conservative brands of Christianity. "Because we are in the Bible Belt...

City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. said a recent push to force the Cradle of Liberty Boy Scouts Council to denounce the national organization's antigay policy had nothing to do with his own homosexuality. "My own sexuality, my own sexual orientation, has never been hidden and never played into my decision," Diaz said in an interview yesterday with The Inquirer. "It has, perhaps, made me more sensitive to the issues." Diaz said he sent another letter yesterday morning seeking a meeting with William T. Dwyer III, council chief executive officer and president. Diaz, the city's first openly gay solicitor and...

Public display of affection was inappropriate Thursday, July 13, 2006 My family enjoyed our first visit to your clean and beautiful city on June 24 and 25, as we arrived to deliver our daughter to a summer camp. After a much longer than anticipated drive, we arrived at our destination at 10:30 p.m., unloading our bags at the only possible spot at the hotel: curbside at the Courtyard Marriott on Spring Street. My three children were treated to an eyeful of amorous behavior by the lesbians seated on a public bench, not 10 feet away from us and directly in...

U.S. Immigration Law Inhumane to Same-Sex CouplesHRW via BBSNews - Washington, D.C., May 2, 2006 -- Thousands of U.S. citizens and their foreign same-sex partners face enormous hardships, separation and even exile because discriminatory U.S. immigration policies deprive these couples of the basic right to be together, Human Rights Watch and Immigration Equality said in a report released today. As Congress debates immigration reforms, it must end the discrimination that lesbian and gay Americans and their foreign partners endure under U.S. immigration law. The 2000 U.S. Census estimated that in the United States there were almost 40,000 lesbian and...

In today’s column, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the Alliance Defense Fund has now officially heard that Scott Savage has been cleared of sexual harassment charges. The bad news is that his clearance letter is quite strange. In fact, it raises new concerns about free speech at OSU-Mansfield. The letter clearing Mr. Savage is dated April 6th but the envelope in which it was sent is postmarked April 18th. This raises some interesting questions. First of all, why would the university wait for twelve days – well after the case got...

PANORAMA CITY, Calif. -- A man who barricaded himself with two hostages in a Panorama City condominium for about three hours surrendered to police early Friday.