Daily Archives: March 9, 2009

Yuval Levin, writing at Moral Accountability: The president’s decision to take the unprecedented step of encouraging the destruction of human embryos with taxpayer dollars every day seems more removed from the scientific and ethical realities of the debate, and from …

Kyle Martin, reporting at Tampa Bay Online: A Brooksville man was arrested Friday on charges that he took advantage of a wireless Internet hotspot to download child pornography. Daniel Staats, 44, came under official scrutiny last December when a hotel …

Jonathan Adams, writing in the Christian Science Monitor: The battle over a ground-breaking reproductive health bill is heating up in the Philippines, a country where the influential Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to artificial birth control has long held sway. A …

Christian Post: Obama Publishes Proposal to Rescind ‘Conscience’ Rule Matt Bowman, legal counsel of the Christian-based Alliance Defense Fund, said a repeal of the current regulation could create “a situation where doctors may be forced to participate in abortions and …

“Christian and Muslim parents in London who kept their primary school children away from controversial lessons promoting homosexuality could now face legal action by the local council . . . ”

Washington Blade:  The only out lesbian in Congress intends to drop legislation this month that would benefit the partners of gay federal government employees.   U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said during a Center for American Progress conference call Thursday …

Georgia Right to Life on the Christian Newswire: “While President Obama was signing the executive order that would provide federal funds for destructive Human Embryo research today, the Georgia Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee moved SB 169: The Ethical …

Becket Fund: Arguments to be heard for American Atheists v. Duncan, No. 08-4061. Memorials for fallen troopers erected on government property by Utah Highway Patrol Association challenged by American Atheists. At risk: all roadside memorials in CO, NM, UT, KS, …

The Iowa Independent: . . . a bill proposed by Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, that would remove the words “husband” and “wife” from Iowa laws and replace them with the word “spouse.” The point of the legislation would be …

AP:  The American Civil Liberties Union is protesting a local governmental agency’s vote to rescind health care insurance benefits to domestic partners of employees. Lee Rowland, northern coordinator for the ACLU’s Nevada chapter, said her organization will consider its options …

The Barna Group has issued a report titled: Barna Survey Examines Changes in Worldview Among Christians over the Past 13 Years. For the purposes of the survey, a “biblical worldview” was defined as believing that absolute moral truth exists; the …

Ilya Somin writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: A new UCLA study finds that 56% of academics consider themselves to be “liberal” (47%) or “far left” (9%), compared to only 16% who say they are “conservative” (15.2%) or “far right” (0.7%). …

ADF attorney Mike Johnson appeared at the Frank Pastore Show to discuss the suit ADF has filed against a Tennesse school. The mp3 runs just over 23 minutes.  Related ADF press release: Tenn. school censors ‘God Bless the USA,’ ‘In God …

LifeNews: “South Dakota federal judge has received what are likely to be the last legal papers from attorneys for the state to rule on an abortion information law. The measure requires abortion practitioners to tell women that an abortion will …

LifeNews: “A Virginia pro-life group is renewing its call to pro-abortion Gov. Tim Kaine to sign a bill that would authorize Choose Life license plates. The Virginia state legislature put the final touches on the bill last month that includes …

Robert J. Ambrogi writes at Legal Blog Watch: “One major difference between publishing online and publishing in print is that the online publisher is not legally responsible for information posted by others. For this shield from liability, publishers of blogs, …

Tawfik Hamid, writing in the Wall Street Journal: Scholars in the most prestigious Islamic institutes and universities continue to teach things like Jews are “pigs and monkeys,” that women and men must be stoned to death for adultery, or that …

The Contest of Ideas with Radical Islam: The Centrality of the Idea of Religious Freedom and Tolerance Nina Shea, Hudson Institute The issue of religious freedom and intolerance is at the heart of the ideological struggle with jihadist terror. All …

Dahlia Lithwick writes at the LA Times: Last month, former U.S. Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr sent out a warning to President Obama: GOP senators won’t readily forgive the president for his Senate votes against Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. …

KYPost.com:  Attorneys in a case involving a Kentucky Baptist children’s program will appear before a federal appeals court this week to argue about the role of government funding for faith-based institutions.  The nine-year-old lawsuit alleges that the Kentucky Baptist Homes …

How Appealing links to this online book (free download) by Thomas E. Baker published by the Federal Judicial Center.

nder the proposed bill, any Catholic parish organized as a religious corporation would be required to elect a lay board of between 7 and 13 members to manage and oversee its financial affairs. A nominee of the bishop or archbishop will serve as an ex-officio member of each parish board . . . ”

Jennifer Roback Morse writes at the Ruth Institute: “Two physicians are accused of discrimination against gays—but artificial insemination is not what the doctor ordered.”

The Christian Post:  A Christian legal group, which is defending the National Day of Prayer Task Force against a lawsuit by an atheist group, has launched a campaign to rally support for the annual prayer day. On the “Save the …

ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND MEDIA RELATIONS www.telladf.org/left What’s Left of the Constitution? – March 9, 2009 – California, Marriage, and the Obama Administration Watch the new video at www.telladf.org/left For the second time in less than a year, the California Supreme …

On his first day of eighth grade at the former Holy Name Roman Catholic school last fall, Jeffrey Stone bowed his head . . . and began to recite the Lord’s Prayer. Within seconds, his teacher chided him: “We don’t do that anymore.”

“Today President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order (full text ) lifting the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.”

LifeNews: “President Barack Obama’s apparent decision to drop the protections the Bush administration put in place to protect doctors means he can no longer say he is pro-choice on abortion. That’s the assessment of respected pro-life attorney Matt Bowman of …

Amanda Bronstad writes at the National Law Journal: In response to a growing tide of pro se litigants in federal courts, legal centers in at least three districts have been set up to provide services and advice to parties who …

Rees Lloyd writes at the Record Gazette:  The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will hear and rule on the controversial Mojave Desert Veterans Memorial Cross Case. It promises to be a precedent which will affect how Americans can choose to …

Ryan T. Anderson writes at the Weekly Standard:  Of course, the stem-cell debates have never been about science. As Joseph Bottum and I argued in the November issue of First Things, the furor over stem cells was fueled by numerous factors: patients’ desperation …

Lyle Denniston writes at the SCOTUS Blog:  Dividing 5-4, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that federal voting rights law does not require the creation of a new legislative district when that would include a racial minority group that has …

AP:  The drive to make Hawaii the fifth state in the country to allow same-sex civil unions is on the verge of failing, despite support from most state lawmakers. Senate leaders had planned a vote before the full Senate as …

Michael Dorf writes at Findlaw: “Below, I shall explore the possibility that the Court’s conservatives and liberals alike only pay lip service to considerations of federalism, caring more about ensuring the outcomes that fit their ideological predispositions.”

Mat Tunehag has this post on the Varlden Idag discussing some of the absurdities of state regulation of abortion in Maryland and Sweden.

One News Now: “The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest homosexual activist group in the nation, is targeting Mormons in Illinois who support traditional marriage . . . “

Boston Globe: Hoping to quell unruly behavior and improve middle school students’ grades, school leaders in Lawrence are turning to a throwback to the old days: separating the girls from the boys. But the school system could end up on …

Reuters: “President Barack Obama lifted some restrictions on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research on Monday, angering many abortion opponents but cheering those who believe the study could produce treatments for many diseases.”

AP: “Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.” Related reports

AP: “President Barack Obama says human cloning is ‘dangerous, profoundly wrong’ and has no place in society.”

“More than $10 billion of funding to the National Institutes of Health, which will oversee the research, was included in the economic stimulus package.”

Michale J. New writes at MoralAccountability.com: President Obama’s nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services has set off a firestorm of controversy in Catholic political circles. A number of Catholic organizations, citing Sebelius’ steadfast …

ADF attorney Erik Stanley appeared in this Opposing Views discussion to argue in favor of tax exemption for Churches. American Atheists and Americans United for Separation of Church and State also made appearances.

. . . San Diego Parks and Recreation abandoned a program Thursday which would have required a homeless outreach, after several years of serving the poor at Mission Bay Park, to relocate to a dirt lot with a cramped, fenced-in area resembling a cage . . .

Telegraph: The think-tank said the Home Office would be “beyond hypocrisy” if it allowed Dr Ibrahim Moussawi into Britain just weeks after barring Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, because of his alleged anti-Muslim views . . . Mr Wilders, 45, …

Jan LaRue writes at the American Thinker: “What do President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have in common? Besides their socialist economic policies, they don’t abide media critics well. “

The lawsuit, filed by attorneys with CLS and the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom, challenges Hastings College of the Law’s discrimination against the school’s student chapter of CLS.

In addition to exploring the ways in which the Supreme Court is not supreme, and the consequences that result, this Article offers a proposal. Historically, the authority of state courts was formalized. It makes sense, the Article argues, to formalize the authority state courts exercise today in practice.

Williams v. Attorney General of Alabama: Does a Constitutional Right to Sexual Privacy Exist? Kathleen Anne Ward, 31 T. Jefferson L. Rev. 1 (2008) (An excerpt is below. To view the full text, please use Westlaw, Lexis, a law library …

Interstate Pluralism: The Role of Federalism in the Same-Sex Marriage Debate Jeffrey L. Rensberger, 2008 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 1703 (An excerpt is below. To view the full text, please use Westlaw, Lexis, a law library or alternative source.) This Article …

Abortion across state lines Joseph W. Dellapenna, 2008 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 1651 (An excerpt is below. To view the full text, please use Westlaw, Lexis, a law library or alternative source.) In this Article, I propose to analyze conflicts of …

My purpose in this Essay is to examine the deployment of religious truth-claims in electoral politics, through the lenses of Gov. Romney’s unsuccessful campaign for the Republican nomination and the LDS church’s participation in the successful Proposition 8 campaign to ban same-sex marriage in California. I will argue that in contemporary electoral politics, attacks on the truth of a religion make little sense in light of the pluralism and postmodernism that now characterize the contemporary United States, but are a likely consequence when the religion itself introduces such truth-claims into electoral politics.