Daily Archives: August 4, 2008

A Florida court ruled Monday that voters have a right to decide whether to end public funding discrimination against religious individuals and groups for non-religious social services and programs.

The Edmonton Sun reports: He’s challenging the constitutionality of Criminal Code sections outlawing common bawdy houses and living off the avails of prostitution. Young argues the current, Byzantine regime –where selling sex is legal, but the rules governing prostitution make …

Reuters reports: A global AIDS conference that opens in Mexico City on Sunday is meant for people infected with HIV, but transsexual sex worker Elma Delea cannot get inside. She will be protesting on the fringes of the six-day biennial …

The Christian Newswire reports: Deportation Comes Two Weeks after King Abdullah Calls for Reconciliation between Muslims and Christians at Saudi Hosted Interfaith Dialog The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has learned that Saudi Arabia is …

ProtectMarriage.com reports on the Christian Newswire: “Today, ProtectMarriage.com announced the endorsement of the California Catholic Conference.”

Leonard Link reports: “Different Connecticut trial judges issued decisions on July 9 and July 10 in lawsuits seeking full enforcement of gestational surrogacy agreements between gay male couples and married women who had agreed to bear children for them.”

The Leonard Link Blog reports: “Deciding what appears to be a question of first impression in New Mexico, the state’s court of appeals, an intermediate appellate court, ruled on July 25 that a written agreement excusing a sperm donor from …

HSLDA reports: A homeschooling family in Southern Germany spent six hours in a grueling German Family Court session this week with the hopes of regaining custody of their six homeschooled children, who have been held in state custody since January. …

WKRN reports: “A Nevada grand jury has indicted the man accused of shooting three people in a strip club melee involving former Tennessee Titans’ cornerback Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones.”

The Independent Online reports: “A Capetonian sex worker, known as Kylie, is considering steps to appeal against a labour court ruling that she does not have any labour rights because her job is illegal.”

The LA Times purports to publish a database tracking donors for and against Proposition.

We are seeing a dramatic shift in education from “effective” education, meaning concrete academics, to “affective” education, meaning the teaching of attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviors.

In a brief filed Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Attorney General Abbott argued that Texas’ moment of silence statute is entirely constitutional.

The AP has this report on fundraising efforts by same sex couples.  “But cake toppers and pamphlets aren’t the only way same-sex couples are fighting Proposition 8, which would amend the state’s constitution to recognize only marriage between a man …

LifeNews.com reports: “After a panel of physicians weighed in on the case, the Bombay High Court on Monday denied a request from a couple who wanted a late-term abortion on a baby who is supposedly physically disabled.”

Baptist Press reports: On one side of the debate are Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo, two evangelicals who want language placed in the Democratic Party platform calling for a reduction in abortions. Campolo sits on the platform committee. On the …

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has issued this press release that warns: If these amendments are voted into law, they will permit voucher subsidies for religious and other private schools in Florida and eliminate the state constitution’s …

The AP reports: Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church is appealing a 2006 decision by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula, who ruled against the church and its lawsuit challenging a decision by the state commissioner of political practices. The …

Bloomberg reports: “Discrimination against men who have sex with men must end, and countries must gear up prevention programs against AIDS in this high-risk group, the secretary general of the United Nations said yesterday.”

Jeremy Hodges reports on Legal Week: Shearman & Sterling has dismissed an associate in its London office after a vacation scheme student (the U.K. equivalent of a summer associate in the U.S.) made a formal complaint about his behavior during …

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit Monday upheld a federal judge’s ruling against Temple University’s former “speech code.”

The 5th Circuit has denied rehearing en banc; thereby, upholding its earlier ruling which found a Texas ban on the promotion or sale of “sex toys” to be unconstitutional.

Religion Clause reports: [Sen. Shane Massey] . . .  says that the inclusion of the Lord’s Prayer, added through an amendment offered by Sen. Brad Hutto, a Democratic opponent of the entire bill, is a “poison pill” that now makes …

Vikram David Amar and Alan Brownstein has published this commentary in Findlaw. They write: . . . The same law that causes no problem from a Protestant’s point of view may substantially burden the religious practices of a Jew, or …

The Washington Post reports: ANYONE LOOKING for a symbol of the contempt that D.C. officials show toward charter schools need go no further than 2501 11th St. NW. There sits the shuttered Meyer Elementary School. Three blocks away is a …

The Orlando Sentinel reports: “A proposed state constitutional amendment offers what sounds like a simple and painless remedy for improving public education in Florida — require every school district to spend at least 65 percent of its money on classroom …

In a remarkably facile bit of reporting, Patricia Cohen, writing in The New York Times (July 3, 2008), claims that the young faculty slowly replacing Baby Boomers in the contemporary university are creatures of a decidedly more “moderate” political stamp.

What I have shown, I hope, is that it is reasonable (pdf), and not at all arbitrary, to take fertilisation as an ethical starting point, just as it is a scientific and legal starting point.

Unveiled in 1960, the birth control pill revolutionized contraception. Yet despite an abundance of birth control options today, almost half the pregnancies in this country are unintended, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than in any other developed nation. What’s the reason?

Reuters reports: Russians on Monday mourned Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the author and dissident whose criticism of the tyranny of Soviet rule made him one of the bravest figures of the 20th century. Solzhenitsyn, a Nobel literature laureate, died of heart failure …

The LA Times reports: “The teen whose death led to calls for parental notification in abortion cases was married and had a child. Critics of California’s Prop. 4 file a suit asking to remove her story from the voter guide.”

The Houston Chronicle has this report: “Texas. It’s like a whole other country.” Coined to promote tourism, that wry verbal wink at the state’s mythic image has assumed a literal meaning as Texas finds itself in defiance of the United …

The idea of a constitutionally protected realm of academic freedom is controversial and judicially unsettled.

The paper argues that globalization has had a significant impact on international law but that, in turn, international law could have a significant impact on globalization.

How Appealing reports and links to the opinion: “Making jokes and comments about a person’s religion can create a ‘humiliating and painful environment’ and be a form of on-the-job discrimination, the state’s highest court ruled Thursday.”

This inquiry conducts such an examination and concludes that the relationship between an international delegation and federalism values depends upon what would happen in the absence of the international delegation.

The recent Supreme Court decision in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. provides a compelling case study of judicial minimalism.

. . . But how does allowing persons of the same sex to marry harm the institution of marriage? As advocates of same-sex marriage (SSM) are quick to point out, “the sky hasn’t fallen” since SSM became legal in Massachusetts in 2004 . . .

This Essay analyzes the effect of the Rehnquist Court on Supreme Court precedent, using a network of all Court citations to other Supreme Court cases.

Part II illustrates how current immigration law runs counter to United States pro-marriage policy, promotes separation of spouses in mixed-status marriages, and has a negative economic impact.

365Gay.com reports: “Democrats crafting the party platform were told Friday to include LGBT issues . . . A record number of LGBT delegates are expected at this year’s convention. “