Daily Archives: December 12, 2008

The Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies on Thursday voted to amend the country’s constitution to eliminate the requirement that its Grand Duke approve legislation before it becomes law.

Overall this is a helpful document with several important updates and clarifications. It should be read by all pro-lifers who pay close attention to bioethical abuses and quandaries, or who want to learn.

After strong protest from pro-life Catholics, the University of San Francisco (USF) has dropped abortion coverage from a new student health care plan. A top USF official says the Jesuit college supports the pro-life teachings of the Catholic Church and made a mistake in including abortion in the package.

The issue that propeled Napier to join ADF made the public spotlight this week, but not in San Francisco; instead, Napier returned to his home state of Iowa, one of the last places he expected to have to defend Iowa’s long-standing law that “only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid.”

The leading Swiss newspaper, Tages Anzeiger, reports that the by next summer the Canton of Zurich will restrict homeschooling rights to parents who are certified teachers.

Amidst an ongoing debate among prolife advocates about whether to classify the Pill as an abortifacient or a prophylactic, pro-abortion advocates have published an authoritative statement declaring that the Pill prevents implantation of embryos, thereby causing an abortion.

Adults in the United States hold differing views on the topic of legal rights for gay and lesbian couples, according to a poll by Princeton Survey Research Associates International released by Newsweek. 32 per cent of respondents support the concept of civil unions, 31 per cent would offer full marriage rights to same-sex couples, and 30 per cent oppose any legal recognition for gay and lesbian partnerships.

Cardinal Avery Dulles, a scion of diplomats and Presbyterians who converted to Roman Catholicism, rose to pre-eminence in Catholic theology and became the only American theologian ever appointed to the College of Cardinals, died today died Friday morning at Fordham University in the Bronx. He was 90. His death, at the Jesuit infirmary at the university, was confirmed by the New York Province of the Society of Jesus in Manhattan.

Enduring favourites such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen are being altered by clergy to make them more “modern and inclusive”.

The Article suggests that embracing the myth of the written constitution for such instrumental purposes need not be seen as a shameful act of self-delusion, despite the fictive qualities of the myth’s claims. So long as courts and scholars maintain the necessary conditions, the American people can responsibly embrace the myth as an act of “poetic faith.”

A proposal to allow civil unions in Illinois between same-sex couples has been stalled in the state legislature and seems likely to stay that way, as gay rights activists Wednesday plan nationwide “Day Without a Gay” rallies to protest California’s Proposition 8 and other measures opposing gay marriage.

Police in Ho Chi Minh City Thursday arrested 10 suspects allegedly involved in the operation of a pornographic website and charged them with “distribution of depraved material.”

A taxi driver has been jailed for two-and-a-half years after he admitted downloading and distributing “some of the worst images” of child pornography possible.

A man who pleaded guilty Wednesday to felony possession of child pornography is facing up to seven years in prison and a $10,000 fine, said prosecutors.

A man charged Wednesday with buying child pornography over the Internet has resigned as vice president of the Bartlett park board, the Daily Herald is reporting.

When Gov. Charlie Crist legally weds his longtime girlfriend Carole Rome today, St. Petersburg’s First United Methodist Church will be packed with cheering family members, friends and the most inside of Florida insiders.

The U.N. special envoy on HIV/AIDS said here Thursday that Caribbean governments need to repeal laws against homosexuality, but a Caribbean Community official pointed out the political risks in such moves.

Nancy Sutley is a former member of Senator Hillary Clinton’s California Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender steering committee. According to an ABC report, Sutley was tapped by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in order to help transform that sprawling metropolis into “the greenest big city in America.”

Today, the UDHR [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] survives mainly as the historical artifact of a bygone consensus based on the hard lessons learned in the brutal fight against the Axis Powers.

The question is whether it can afford to compromise on the national issue that keeps serious pro-lifers in the Republican fold, and requires an abortion litmus test for Republican presidential nominees — namely, the composition of the courts. And here the pro-life movement is essentially trapped — not by its own inflexibility, but by the inflexibility of the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence.

In the United States alone, approximately 500,000 embryos now lie suspended in this frozen world. Thousands more accumulate every year. They go there because we make more embryos than are necessary for one child, and we set some aside in case we need them for a second child. They’re our backup kids. In our heads, they aren’t real yet. But in the freezer, they are.

Gay rights advocates in Virginia are concerned that a Republican with a distinctly anti-gay record could be the state’s next governor.

To authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2008 through 2011 for the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, to enhance measures to combat trafficking in persons, and for other purposes.

How Appealing links to several reports covering the story. The Providence Journal reports: “In an interview yesterday afternoon, Williams, 68, said he is retiring because he had achieved many of his goals and wanted to leave before the next session …

Americans United for Life (AUL) Americans United for Life (AUL) today released its 2009 Model Legislation & Policy Guides. With the addition of eight new guides this year, AUL now offers 23 pieces of model legislation on key issues related to abortion, protection of unborn victims of violence, bioethics, healthcare rights of conscience, and the end-of-life.

The Richmond Times Dispatch: Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell yesterday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate Virginia’s anti-spam e-mail law. In September the Virginia Supreme Court held that the Anti-Spam Act of 2003 was unconstitutional for barring all anonymous, …

Entangling intellectual explorations of Islam with governmental attempts to sanction one viewpoint over another for children’s religious education is more likely to stifle than encourage the much needed open, free public space for explorations of the meaning of Islam.

A federal appeals court is considering a Missouri dispute in which the American Civil Liberties Union challenged a school district policy that treated the Bible the same as other books and demanded the authority to veto what would be handed out to students.

A company that conducted commercial businesses to raise funds for a missionary organisation was entitled to the status of a tax-exempt charity, the High Court of Australia held today.

AP: “A daylong work stoppage during which employees were encouraged to “call in gay” to express support for same-sex marriage drew spotty participation nationwide Wednesday, with some gay rights activists praising the concept but questioning its effect.”

. . . the Vatican today issued a tough document condemning the freezing of human embryos, genetic engineering, human cloning, animal/human genetic hybrids, and a number of other procedures described as affronts to human dignity.

The state Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of a same-sex couple . . . fighting a judge’s order that the baby girl they’ve been raising since birth should be removed from their home and placed in one with a married man and woman.

The American Association of Law Schools will feature this topic at its annual meeting on January 8th (8:30 am): Hot Topic Program: Pulpit Freedom?: On Taxes, Elections, and Religious Freedom The topic focuses on issues raised by ADF’s Pulpit Initiative.  …

A federal judge says South Carolina must stop marketing and making license plates that feature the image of a cross and the words ‘I Believe.’

Many Christians, possibly most Christians, have uncritically accepted the dichotomy between public and private, between fact and value, between knowledge and meaning. These dichotomies are deeply entrenched in American religion and culture and are closely associated with what is often described, and frequently decried, as American individualism.

Helen Alvaré writes at the Culture of Life Foundation: . . . In what follows, I offer my small contribution to the question of how we as Church offer not only accurate, comprehensible answers, but also how we might “put …

It is notable that in more than thirty years of anti-discrimination legislation in Australia, the High Court has heard only three cases dealing with sex discrimination.

Diana West writes on Townhall: . . . Once again, Barack Obama is treated as though he were not even a part of this story. Those who seek to resolve the birth certificate controversy draw the fire, but not the …

Christianity Today reports: “Richard Cizik resigned Wednesday night as vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) during a week of growing uproar over his comments that he is shifting his views on same-sex unions.”

EdNews reports: Who’s playing all of these games? Contrary to what you might think, it’s mostly adults. According to the Entertainment Software Association, the average gamer is 33 years old. One-fourth of all gamers are over age 50. Surprisingly, boys …