Daily Archives: May 13, 2008

The danger to parents is compounded by a growing movement among American and international academics to prevent parents from “indoctrinating” their children with religious beliefs . . .

“Military recruitment tools aimed at youth under 18, including Pentagon-produced video games, military training corps, and databases of students’ personal information, have no place in America’s schools,” said Jennifer Turner of the ACLU Human Rights Project.

“A Houston restaurant operator was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison Monday for his role in a sex trafficking ring that lured women and girls from Central America and Mexico and forced them into prostitution.”

This is the first case brought to court in South Africa since provisions governing human trafficking in the law came into effect in January . . .

Ee Chin Kai pleaded innocent in a court in southern Malaysia on Monday to two charges of bringing in the 27-year-old women and exploiting them to work as prostitutes, said Ee’s lawyer, Noordin Hussin . . .

The young woman, known only as Julie for legal reasons, was kept prisoner, beaten and made to work 19-hour days as a prostitute earning her bosses £8,000 a month, the court was told.

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Monday accusing a man and woman of training the woman’s child to be a dominatrix, selling her sexual services and photographing some of the acts.

“It is not a problem of illegal aliens, it is not a problem of immigration. It is an issue of domestic servitude, which is a sex trade.”

One of those surveyed in the study said about a third of those selling sex in the Spokane area had been sold into prostitution by their mothers . . .

This is the House of Yahweh: a different, even darker sect that the state has been investigating for years. Authorities in February charged the group’s 73-year-old leader with performing polygamous weddings and forcing about 40 children — some as young as 11 — to work jobs at his 44-acre compound.

But ever since the chief judge sued the state legislature for a pay raise, a number of the state’s jurists have been recusing themselves from hearing cases involving state lawmakers and the law firms that many are affiliated with. Now the state Commission on Judicial Conduct has, in effect, told the judges to knock it off, according to the New York Daily News.

For the few Assembly Republicans who ultimately supported the bill, the vote was potentially far more risky: a public break with their own party on an issue that at the time was still considered in some quarters to be radioactive, potentially even career-killing.

A California bill proposing a 25 percent tax on revenues from adult entertainment would do little to ease the state’s budget shortfall and would cost the state money by encouraging its pornography industry to move, opponents said on Monday as lawmakers reviewed the bill . . .

A Muslim high school student’s intolerance for a service dog needed by a student teacher with a disability has reportedly prompted the student teacher to abandon the last 10 hours of his scheduled assignment at Technical High School in St. Cloud, Minn.

For almost the first 180 years of American history, pastors routinely addressed political issues and candidates from the pulpit.

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is seeking attorneys with at least five years federal court experience in litigation or appellate work.

Operation Rescue has obtained court records, which were unsealed last week, that show Attorney General Stephen Six actively undermined District Attorney Phill Kline’s prosecution of 107 criminal charges against Planned Parenthood.

The Religion Clause Blog reports: Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in St. John’s United Church v. Chicago, IL, (Docket No. 07-1127) (Order List). In the case, the 7th Circuit had rejected a challenge to Chicago’s use of eminent …

College-age and 20-something Christians may be leaving the GOP, but only 5 percent of young evangelicals have joined the Democrats, according to the Pew survey. The other 10 percent are wandering the political wilderness, somewhere between “independent” and “unaffiliated.” . . .

Almost one in every five pregnancies ends in abortion. The marriage rate fell by 24 per cent between 1980 and 2006 . . .

When does a public school employee cross the line between acceptable “supervision” of student prayer sessions and impermissible “participation?” Is the line crossed if a high school football coach takes a knee and silently bows his head with his players as they pray before taking the field? According to the District Court for the District of New Jersey, the answer is no.

Christian Horizons, the non-profit, Christian charitable organization has dropped its requirement that employees sign their basic morality statement, in compliance with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal’s ruling against them.

“If you literally believe in a literal hell where you are going to burn and fry and be in excruciating pain not just for a moment but for eternity because you’re a gay person, then how do you go to psychotherapy in which somebody like me would be telling you that to have a happy life, in this life, you need to learn to accept who you are?” he asks . . .

Colombia’s Attorney General, Edgardo Maya is insisting that the nation’s private medical institutions will have to provide abortions, despite conscientious objection.

Corliss faces 10-20 years in prison.

“Just over half of 88 hospitals got top marks under a new rating system created by two national gay-rights organizations which hope the standards will result in more compassionate treatment of gay and lesbian patients.”

“The White House is being realistic knowing that it’s the end of the [presidential] term, and they are not going to get their people,” says Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond Law School professor. “Maybe it’s better to get somebody than nobody.”

A campaign to wipe out Christians and ethnic minority groups in Myanmar is creating a refugee crisis and new challenges for the U.S. government.

A principal takes the stand Monday, for allegedly violating the civil rights of some students. David Davis, the principal of Ponce de Leon High School.

It’s tough to run a college these days. It’s tougher still when you set high standards. And it’s toughest of all when those standards reflect an Ozzie and Harriet morality in a Sarah Jessica Parker world.