Daily Archives: September 30, 2008

ADF attorney Gary McCaleb appeared on the Frank Pastore Show to discuss the ADF Pulpit Initiative.  The mp3 file is here and runs just over 19 minutes. 

FRC’s Washington Weekly Update carries this report:  That’s why FRC included “strengthening state marriage laws by reforming divorce” as one of our “25 Pro-Family Policy Goals for the Nation.” One of the potential reforms would be replacing “no-fault” with a …

OneNewsNow.com has this report:  ”. . . there is great talk about what is being called “Plan B”, and Dave Ramsey has summarized ‘Plan B’ here.”

AlterNet carries this report: “The Iranian ‘Family Protection Bill,’ which is anything but protective of families, has brought together one of the largest coalitions to oppose a bill since the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  If passed, the …

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, Staff Attorney, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project has this post on the American Constitution Society Blog.  The post begins: Last Thursday, the 30-day public comment period closed on a controversial rule proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) …

ADF attorney Erik Stanley appears with Pastor Jody Hice of Bethlehem First Baptist Church on Moody’s Chris Fabry Show to discuss the ADF Pulpit Initiative.  The mp3 file is here and runs just over 18 minutes.  The record picks up …

Two Christians arrested for expressing their faith in public have been assured by town officials that their constitutional right to religious free speech will be respected in the future.

The 1st Circuit has issued an opinion in Kardi v. Mukasey, NO. 06-2599  (1st Cir. Sept. 30, 2008). Excerpts follow: TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge. Zulkifly Kadri, a Muslim native of Indonesia, came to the United States on a non-immigrant visa. He …

The Christian Post reports: A U.K. immigration court of appeals has for the first time recognized the life threatening circumstances of Muslim converts to Christianity by granting asylum to a Syrian evangelical Christian couple . . . “This is a significant …

How Appealing reports on the opinion in Golden Gate Restaurant v. San Francisco, No. 07-17370 (9th Cir. Sept. 30, 2008). 

The Becket Fund has issued this press release: “The United Nations General Assembly, now in session in New York, is about to take up another ‘defamation of religion’ resolution, which is another step toward criminalizing peaceful speech.” 

“When a student can be threatened with a citation and expulsion while peacefully sharing a Christian message, American colleges can no longer be considered a marketplace of ideas.”

PR-USA.net carries this press release from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation: “A nonreligious Kansas soldier today sued his boss, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, after being forced to attend mandatory military events where fundamentalist Christian prayers violated his constitutional rights …

Barney Frank, a Congressman who openly claims to practice homosexuality, has taken center stage in the financial bailout fiasco. The Boston Globe – Frank’s fingerprints are all over the financial fiasco The Boston Herald – Herald readers put blame on …

Advocate.com reports (dated October 21, 2008 by Neal Broverman): McNaught earns a living lecturing to companies on how to foster safe environments for LGBT employees . . .  Before the lecture, McNaught had lunch with Inglis, who made it clear the …

Gaypolitics.com reports: The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund today announced it has endorsed 100 openly LGBT political candidates in 2008, making this endorsement slate the group’s largest ever. “I think reaching this milestone is a testament to a new attitude in …

Martin Masse has this article in the National Post that carries this byline: “Marx’s Proposal Number Five seems to be the leading motivation for those backing the Wall Street bailout. ” It begins:  In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed …

The 10th Circuit has issued a ruling in U.S. v. Schene, No. 07-6177 (10th Cir. Sept. 30, 2008) that begins: Defendant Jay Martin Schene was convicted by a jury of five counts of knowingly possessing material that contained an image of …

Lambda Legal has issued this press release that reports: “Today Lambda Legal is filing a federal lawsuit in Tennessee on behalf of Kenneth Giles against Johnson City and its police chief. The lawsuit centers on the fact that the Johnson …

Have you tried entering $700,000,000,000 into your calculator? Many ordinary household calculators won’t accept that many numbers. Today Rush Limbaugh discussed this Wizbang blog post on his radio show: The Bottom Line: If the Treasury simply took the $700 Billion and …

LifeNews.com reports: “Russia has long been a world leader in terms of the percentage of pregnancies that end in abortion and experts say those figures are still high. They say the abortion epidemic is leading to a problem of hundreds …

Jonathan Adler has this post on the Volokh Conspiracy.  He writes:  The court has abandoned its effort to force the legislature to rebuild the state school funding system from the ground up, and has upheld legislative education reforms against constitutional …

LifeSiteNews.com reports: “Levi Strauss & Co. is joining with Google, Pacific Gas & Electric and Hollywood activists Brad Pitt and Steven Spielberg in the effort to push homosexual ‘marriage’ in California.”

LifeSiteNews.com reports: “In his strongest statements in support of unlimited abortion on demand in Canada, Prime Minister Harper today told reporters that his government would not only not open the abortion issue itself, but would prevent anyone else from raising …

Mark Earley has this commentary on Breakpoint. He writes:  The Boston Globe recently reported that “a number of scholars are seeking to shore up friendship in a surprising way: by granting it legal recognition.” . . .  the idea would be that …

The Washington Post carries this article by Linda Hirshman that begins: In the 1980s, when abortion was severely limited in then-West Germany, border guards sometimes required German women returning from foreign trips to undergo vaginal examinations to make sure that they …

LifeSiteNews.com reports:  The Speaker of the New York City Council announced last week a bill that would remove legal protections for those engaged in peaceful protests outside New York abortion facilities. Speaker Christine Quinn, head of the New York City …

The AP reports: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed two bills making it tougher for teachers who commit sex crimes to remain in California’s public schools. The new laws close loopholes in California’s teacher licensing system that had allowed some teachers accused …

GetReligion.org has this discussion of the Pulpit Initiative in a post by Terry Mattingly. It includes a series of links to various articles and several reader comments along with this observation:  Now, it is true that the 1954 amendment to the …

The AP reports: “The European Union said Friday it is ‘very worried’ about what it sees as a deterioration of religious freedom in Iran.” The report details various events in Iran that trigger this fear. 

St. Louis Today reports:  In comments published over the weekend in a daily Catholic newspaper sponsored by the Italian bishops’ conference, former St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke said the Democratic Party “risks transforming itself definitively into a ‘party of death.’”

The Houston Chronicle reports: “Two Iraqi doctors who fled to the United States to avoid persecution have filed a lawsuit against Texas A&M, saying they were regularly debased and that co-workers threw animal feces and urine on their prayer rug.”

The American Lawyer reports:  Twenty years ago, a father who took paternity leave was the stuff of urban legend . . .  These forces are all pushing fathers to spend more time at home. At the same time, the forces …

WDBJ7.com reports:  . . . The controversy began last week when the Virginia State Police superintendent requested the department’s 17 chaplains offer non-denominational prayers at public events like graduations. Six chaplains resigned over the change.  The Family Foundation contacted the …

The California Catholic Daily reports:  The National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, based in Berkeley, is a network of local ministries that has the reputation of taking, at best, an ambiguous stance on the moral character of …

The Independent reports:  Boys will perform better in education if they have a male teacher in their primary school, according to research published today.   A study of more than 1,000 men reveals almost half of them (48 per cent) …

The Guardian reports:  State schools are increasingly “embarrassed” to talk about God, leaving a moral vacuum which has been filled by celebrity culture and the X Factor, a leading independent school head said yesterday . . .  Separately, he told journalists …

The Post-Tribune reports:  . . . On Sunday, Johnson preached about political candidates from the pulpit in apparent defiance of a federal tax code amendment, and condemned Democratic nominee Barack Obama for his support of abortion rights and civil unions …

The AP reports:  ”A judge ruled in favor of a woman who sought parental rights to a boy and girl adopted by her former same-sex partner, a decision described as a first for Montana.” ADF attorney Austin R. Nimocks is mentioned …

The Orlando Sentinel reports:  Professional sports and political street theater intersected Sunday as opponents of a proposed amendment to the Florida Constitution vented their wrath on Magic owner Rich DeVos on the day season-ticket holders were selecting their seats. The protesters were …