Daily Archives: December 31, 2008

How Appealing links to the ruling and provides this key quote: Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain has issued an opinion dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc that begins: Today, our court promulgates an astonishing new rule of law …

ADF has produced this video featuring ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears and highlights from 2008.  It runs just over four minutes. Visit: www.alliancedefensefund.org

John Tierney writes in the NY Times: This is an awkward question for a heathen to contemplate, but I felt obliged to raise it with Michael McCullough after reading his report in the upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin . …

Fox News: “A San Antonio teacher plans to sue her former employer, a Catholic high school, saying she was fired for marrying a man who had been divorced, a proceeding not recognized by the Catholic Church, the San Antonio Express-News …

ADF Attorney Jim Campbell writes on Townhall: Unbelievable. The only word to describe the efforts of California Attorney General Jerry Brown to muzzle the voice and votes of the more than seven million Californians who voted in favor of Proposition …

Fr. Rutler, who holds a pontifical doctorate in sacred theology, and a master of studies from Oxford University, said that homosexual activists and secular liberals do not understand the relationship between the human race and nature because they are essentially Gnostics, they see the natural world – the material world – as contrary to anything divine and “the result of energies other than God.”

The AP reports: “The state of Louisiana says it will appeal a federal court order to put the names of two adoptive fathers on their son’s birth certificate . . . “

The National Law Journal: ” . . . According to figures compiled by the National Association for Law Placement, 5.6 percent of U.S. attorneys work part-time, and about 74 percent of them are women. That represents only a slight increase …

Religious Intelligence: “The Church of England’s Church Commissioners have gone green, investing £150 million with former US Vice-President Al Gore’s environmentally minded investment firm, Generation Investment Management . . . “

AP: “President-elect Barack Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation drew one kind of protest. Whether the evangelical pastor offers the prayer in the name of Jesus may draw another . . . “

It is distressing to see so many young conservatives rely on their own personal preferences and emotions rather than starting to the core principles and wisdom of tradition in making decision that could reshape society forever. Perhaps if they spent a bit more time taking their cues from Kirk and Weaver instead of Will and Grace they’d understand the concerns of those who want to retain the traditional definition of marriage.

A Cerro Gordo County District Court judge has ruled that Clear Lake’s adult entertainment ordinance is constitutional.

OneNewsNow.com reports: David Miller, vice president for public policy at Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values, says the United States really needs statesmen. “There is a selfish pursuit that goes on,” he notes. “It’s a sad day that we have a very …

OneNewsNow.com reports: llinois pharmacists have been granted legal permission to challenge Governor Rod Blagojevich’s executive order that forces them to dispense “emergency contraception” against their wills. The pharmacists sued because the order violated their religious beliefs against selling certain abortifacients …

Russia Today: “The Muslim community in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region is opposing plans to include church bells in a proposed new regional anthem. Local authorities had earlier set a competition to compose an anthem for the region.”

One purpose of these and other such proposals is to make all medical professionals potentially complicit in a bioethical culture of death. One answer to this threat is the so-called conscience clause that would permit healthcare professionals to refuse participation in such practices. Accordingly, the Bush administration has just promulgated rules prohibiting job discrimination against medical workers who refuse to perform abortions or engage in other medical acts based on moral or religious beliefs.

Much as Mr. Motley might want to claim that prenatal screening is not about a category of citizens, the practical result of what he advises is indeed to eliminate an entire group of persons.

Using a variety of sources, including recently discovered letters and notes in James Kent’s law library, this essay will demonstrate that although Kent and Joseph Story agreed about the desirability of a strong Congress, an independent federal judiciary, and the need to control juries, they disagreed about the shape of each of these institutions.

CWA carries this audio report discussing this topic:  “The fire that gutted the Wasilla Bible Church in Wasilla, Alaska, the church home of Alaska Governor and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, has received very little main stream news coverage.”

Black Christian News reports: “Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics has released data on Christians in the nation compiled in 2007. According to a report in YNet News, there are 154,000 Christians living in Israel of whom 80% are Arabs. Christians, …

The distinctive function of a constitution, after all, is to constitute the political organs, the governing structure, of a state. . . . it is a mistake to think that the Bill of Rights is the defining, or even the most important, feature of American democracy.

The ADF Alliance Alert Email Digest will not be published on Thursday, January 1st.  It is possible that a few new posts may appear on the website. Happy New Year and a Merry Christmas Season!

Walter E. Williams writes on Townhall: “. . . Learning how to think straight, as opposed to what values and opinions to hold, is the crucial part of education. Part of that learning is to be able to understand the …

. . . if theological claims, including the claim that natural rights and natural law have their grounding in God, can be items of knowledge, then there is no a priori reason to exclude theologically informed public policy proposals from the public square . . .

The problem of religious learning is that religion–including the teaching about religion–must be separated from liberal public education, but that the two cannot be entirely separated if the aims of liberal public education are to be realized.

Kathryn Jean Lopez writes on Townhall: The National Abstinence Education Association disputed the whole premise of the study, using this obvious tack. Its executive director, Valerie Huber, remarked to me in an e-mail interview: “The author inaccurately equates the holistic …

Mission Network News reports: “A report by ASSIST News Service states that while attempting to escape ongoing persecution in Egypt, a Muslim convert was raped and tortured . . . ”

AFP: “As Norway rings in the new year it will introduce a new law making the purchase — but not the sale — of sex a criminal act, threatening even to put Norwegians who buy sex abroad behind bars . …

Christopher Booker writes in The Telegraph: Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great …

LifeNews.com reports: “An Arkansas legislator plans to bring back the ERA bill that pro-life advocates narrowly defeated last year because it would promote abortion. Though pro-life advocates don’t oppose equal rights for women, Arkansas’ approving the federal Rights Amendment (ERA) …

LifeNews.com reports: “A leading attorney and author who is one of the top bioethicists in the U.S. says he’s very disappointed that the Montana Medical Association has said it will take no position on assisted suicide. The MMA is refusing …

Maricopa Unified School District officials have changed the district’s literature distribution policy and now allows equal treatment of Christian groups on campus. ADF filed suit in July after a church and its pastor were told that they would not be permitted to distribute their fliers to students.

Benjamin Clapper writes on LifeNews.com: . . . A Serious Threat: The Termination of the Hyde Amendment The Hyde Amendment, originally enacted in 1976, is a pro-life limitation amendment in the annual appropriations bill that restricts the direct federal funding …

The Chicago Tribune: Emanuel Miller Jr., 28, of Loyal, has been charged with a civil forfeiture for failure to comply with the state livestock premises registration law. He faces a fine of up to $5,000 . . . The 2005 …

The Religion Clause Blog reports: “In Kammerling v. Lappin, (DC Cir., Dec. 30, 2008), rejected a federal prisoner’s free exercise challenges the government’s taking of a required DNA sample from him pursuant to the DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act. Russell …

The optimal law stipulates a single penalty for knowingly or unknowingly transmitting HIV, and no penalty for exposing another individual to risk of infection without transmitting the virus. The optimal expected penalty is estimated to be approximately 1-2 years of prison.

By highlighting the brief’s implications for issues beyond marriage, we also aim to illustrate the point that law reform litigation, especially regarding contested social issues, often implicates not only the specific claim before the court but also other far-reaching questions about the jurisprudential status quo.

The right to make important medical decisions for an incapacitated partner, the right to make decisions regarding admission to and release from healthcare facilities, the right to inherit through intestacy after the death of a partner, and the right to file a wrongful death lawsuit upon the death of a spouse are just some of the tangible rights or benefits that are denied to same-sex partners but granted to opposite-sex partners in Iowa.

Cortez is a Seventh-day Adventist and observes the Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday as a day of rest and worship . . . the problem arose in 2005, when he went on the swing shift but would not take his turn in the Friday night rotation . . .

This Article first addresses what the Court said about morality and lawmaking and also what it must have meant. It concludes that the Court held that morality can still play a role in lawmaking but it cannot be the sole or dominant rationale for a law. This Article next turns to Lawrence’s implications for First Amendment doctrine, focusing in particular on obscenity and “hate speech.”

This Article analyzes activity in virtual worlds that would constitute crime if they were committed in the real world. It reviews the evolution of virtual worlds like Second Life and notes research which indicates that more and more of our lives will move into this realm.

Part V suggests a test that can be uniformly applied to any situation giving rise to possession of child pornography and discusses how the analysis of previous cases might have been different under the proposed test.

The Baltimore Sun reports: The Court of Appeals decided yesterday to reduce vacation days for judges and allow them to buy back leave time, a cost-saving plan that some judges grudgingly backed amid concerns that it would burden those in …

The Washington Post reports: group of atheists, led by a California man known for challenging the use of the words “under God” in recitals of the Pledge of Allegiance at public schools, filed a lawsuit yesterday to bar prayer and …