Daily Archives: March 18, 2009

The Scrooge Report: “After the ruling, David Cortman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case last year, stated, “A moment of silence is not a government endorsement of religion just because someone might use the time for prayer.”

ADF Press Release: Alliance Defense Fund attorneys have reached a favorable settlement with the city of Modesto, freeing a Christian man to share his faith in a popular downtown public plaza . . . “Christians shouldn’t be discriminated against for peacefully expressing their beliefs in a public area,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin Hacker.

KTVB.com: “A House Committee has approved a bill to give pharmacists the ability to refuse to dispense birth control and other medications. ”

Angus Reid:
“Most adults in the United States appear to support medical research that uses stem cells obtained from human embryos, according to a poll by Gallup released by USA Today. 52 per cent of respondents would either place no restrictions on federal funding for this type of research or ease current limits.”

If this law passes, Serbia will diminish the rights of Christians to express their moral beliefs in the name of defending special ‘rights’ for people engaged in homosexual behavior. That’s not a precedent we want U.S. courts to start citing . . .

ADF has created a new web page covering the “Fight for Marriage” that also includes this Same Sex “Marriage” Q&A.

ADF attorney Kevin Theriot appeared on Reality Check with Mike and Clairie Monokian to discuss the attack on the National Day of Prayer. The mp3 runs just over 9 minutes.

Liberty Counsel: “Today Liberty Counsel argued before the Second District Court of Appeal in Florida against recognition of an out-of-state, same-sex adoption. The case involves a woman who wants to be recognized as a second parent of the biological child of her former same-sex partner.”

MassLive.com Blog: A speech by conservative columnist Don Feder at the University of Massachusetts entitled, “Hate Crimes Laws and Other Forms of Censorship” was canceled after Feder left the event mid-speech, citing unruly behavior from protesters.

PressofAtlanticCity.com: “The state Department of Education wants to make the school choice program available to every public school district in the state, potentially giving thousands of students more options for where they will attend school. If approved, the expansion also could be a way for small or struggling school districts to generate more students and revenue . . . ”

Tony Mauro writes at the Legal Times: “Political scientist Helen Knowles thinks Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has gotten a bad rap as a ‘flip-flopper’ and as a somewhat unpredictable swing vote. ‘He is much more consistent than people give him credit for,’ says Knowles, who teaches at the State University of New York-Oswego.”

Dan Levin writes at the Recorder: “The speculation over who will fill California vacancies on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shifted into a higher gear Tuesday, after the Obama administration made its first appellate pick.”

Lambda Legal: “At the Superior Court in Hartford, Connecticut on Friday, Lambda Legal filed a friend–of–the–court brief seeking to ensure that Connecticut’s laws protecting employees from discrimination in the workplace are properly applied . . . ”

The Hill: “Sen. Arlen Specter said Tuesday that he will not run for reelection in 2010 as a Democrat, but might run as an Independent. The Pennsylvania Republican has been under tremendous pressure from the GOP base since being one of just three Republicans to vote for the Democratic-led stimulus package last month . . .”

Marcia Coyle writes at the National Law Journal:
Controversy over the American Bar Association’s ratings of potential judicial nominees is likely to continue with the announcement that the bar group will resume its role of evaluating candidates before their nominations. In fact, a soon-to-be-released study by political scientists concludes what conservative groups have long charged: The ratings are biased against potential conservative nominees.

Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Joined by Byron Babione, an Arizona attorney representing Family Council Action Committee, the conservative Christian political action committee that championed the law, Cordi contended that the ACLU was trying to fabricate a constitutional right that doesn’t exist, a right by children to be adopted or placed in foster care . . . “There’s no deep-rooted right in this nation’s laws or history to adopt or foster,” Babione told the judge . . .

A federal judge has ordered a pair of southern Kentucky counties to pay $393,798 in attorneys fees stemming from their defense of posting the Ten Commandments in courthouses.

KTAR.com: “An openly gay eighth grade student in Peoria claims his principal made him turn his rainbow colored wristband inside out or stop wearing it to school. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the Peoria Unified School District Wednesday demanding action. ”

Bioethics Defense Fund: “Bioethics Defense Fund has compiled the following educational resource highlighting the facts that President Obama should have relied on to bring the nation together behind the breakthrough alternative method of induced pluripotent stem cell research which provides cells virtually identical to embryonic stem cells, but without the need for embryos, cloning or egg harvesting. ”

OneNewsNow: “The nation’s largest veterans group warns there will be negative moral and practical ramifications from President Obama’s plan to charge ‘wounded warriors’ for the medical treatment they need for service-related disabilities or injuries . . . ”

Robert Knight writes at the Washington Times: “Under President Obama, it was expected that porn pushers might find a sympathetic ear, given the smut industry’s generous support of liberal politicians and causes. But the fox is no longer circling the henhouse. He’s made it inside. ”

AHN: “Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking Republican in the Senate Judiciary Committee, is facing the loss of GOP support for his re-election bid next year but at the same time is being wooed by Democrats and labor unions for his recent votes for Democratic bills.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSA) is in the process of revising its Standards of Practice code and may be considering implementing a policy which would force physicians to refer patients for abortion, even if they believe this to be morally wrong.”

The deadline for the Alliance Defense Fund’s 2008-2009 William Pew Religious Freedom Scholarship Competition is April 15th, 2009. Law students of any faith currently enrolled and in good standing in a J.D., LL.M., or S.J.D. program at an American law school or its international equivalent are eligible to participate. Papers must have been started and completed between June 1, 2008 and April 15, 2009. The winning law student will receive a cash award of $2,500.

AP: “Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard University, is building a God-free model of community that he hopes helps humanists increase in numbers and influence. Epstein sees potential in research showing that there are more people with no religion.”

AP: “The birth rate rose slightly for women of all ages, and births to unwed mothers reached an all-time high of about 40 percent, continuing a trend begun years ago. More than three-quarters of these women were 20 or old . . . ”

Boston Globe: “Patients who rely heavily on their religious faith to cope with terminal cancer are more likely to receive intensive life-prolonging measures in their last week of life, Boston researchers reported yesterday.”

CNSNews (AP): “. . . The bill now needs the approval of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who has repeatedly vetoed anti-abortion bills in the past. Anti-abortion groups are opposing her appointment by President Barack Obama to serve as U.S. secretary of health and human services, but the bill’s backers are hopeful she’ll sign it to ease her confirmation in the Senate.”

CNSNews: “Advocates of legislation that would authorize federal funding for ‘comprehensive and medically accurate’ sex education in public schools declined to specify during a press conference Tuesday the age at which they believe public school should begin teaching students about sex.”

Becket Fund: “Today (March 18, 2009) a coalition of a dozen religious and civil rights groups asked a Michigan appeals court to release a Christian minister put on house arrest because he claimed God would punish the judge who sentenced him.”

NYT: The Alliance Defense Fund, a group of Christian lawyers who litigate religious rights cases, joined its arch foe, the A.C.L.U., in opposing the new rule. The groups are usually on opposite sides of thorny issues like the role of religious expression in schools and same-sex marriage.

“The Obama administration will endorse a U.N. declaration calling for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality that then-President George W. Bush had refused to sign, The Associated Press has learned.”

Information on the March 25th Family Research Council policy lecture is here (pdf).

SCOTUS Blog:
Among the changes adopted by the Conference is a definition, for the first time, of judges’ duty to avoid “the appearance of impropriety.”

OneNewsNow: Pro-life students and the administration at some Washington state community colleges are at odds with one another . . . Heather Gebelin Hacker is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). “The students wanted to have a pro-life event on January 22, which is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade,” explains. “They simply wanted to pass out fliers regarding abortion to their fellow students, and they wanted to put abortion-related information in the display case in the student center.”

WorldNetDaily: ADF ally Liberty Legal Institute also filed a brief and represented school children in the case . . . “A moment of silence is not a government endorsement of religion just because someone might use the time for prayer,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “No student is compelled to pray under the Texas law. The 5th Circuit was right to uphold the district court’s determination that the law is not an establishment of religion.”

WorldNetDaily: A message that challenges readers to consider where they will spend eternity – with or without Jesus – has been given permission to remain alongside a New York highway through a legal settlement obtained by the Alliance Defense Fund . . . “No Christian should be singled out and penalized for sharing his beliefs,” said Matt Bowman . . . “After reaching this settlement with NYDOT, we are pleased Mr. Burritt can now freely enjoy his First Amendment right to display a religious message on his own property.”

The Alliance Defense Fund has joined with many other Allied Organizations to launch www.Freedom2Care.org, a movement to preserve the federal Conscience Protection Regulation

Inside Higher Ed: A federal appeals court on Tuesday gave a major win to public universities and advocates for gay rights who have wanted to preserve in full the institutional anti-bias policies that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation . . . The Alliance Defense Fund, which supports Christian groups seeking recognition in such cases, last week asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of the school case.

OneNewsNow reports:
Byron Babione of the Alliance Defense Fund provided arguments in the case of Kutil v. Blake . . . “The judge in the circuit court ruled that it would be in the best interest of the child in the long run to be placed with an adoptive family consisting of a married mother and father.”

CitizenLink: David Cortman, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said no student is compelled to pray under the Texas law . . . “A moment of silence is not a government endorsement of religion just because someone might use the time for prayer,” he said. “The 5th Circuit was right to uphold the district court’s determination that the law is not an establishment of religion.”

Both rulings allow public schools to “require religious organizations to include people in their groups who disagree with what the religious groups believe,” said attorney Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization that is involved in both cases on behalf of the student groups. “That’s a violation of the First Amendment, free speech and freedom of religion.”

Hamilton was the author of two related 2005 opinions holding that the Indiana House of Representatives, in opening its sessions with sectarian prayer, violated the Establishment Clause.

Houston Chronicle: “With two locations, several Web sites, dozens of apparently satisfied employees and perhaps thousands of loyal, well-heeled customers, the service business that Debbie and Charles Turbiville nurtured over the last few years was impressive for a pair of young and inexperienced entrepreneurs. Some say it was the largest of its kind in Houston.”

Reuters:

The Vatican on Wednesday defended Pope Benedict’s opposition to the use of condoms to stop the spread of AIDS as activists, doctors and politicians criticised it as unrealistic, unscientific and dangerous.

Posted: 03/18/2009

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Category: Global

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Source: www.alertnet.org

Tags: Topic: Contraception, Topic: Vatican

a href=”http://www.sun-sentinel.com/community/news/bocaraton/sfl-flphospice0318pnmar18,0,5601993.story”>Sun-Sentinel.com:
A chaplain at Hospice by the Sea in Boca Raton has resigned, she says, over a ban on use of the words “God” or “Lord” in public settings . . .

. . . the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles refused to renew the plate . . . because it violated its policy banning references to religion or a deity . . .

This Article specifically focuses on the recent public uproar over the increasingly violent and lewd content of death-metal and gangsta-rap music and its alleged negative influence on children.

In this article, I argue that in order to remove the cloud of confusion over broadcast indecency, the Supreme Court must address and clarify the substantive rights afforded to broadcasters by the Constitution.

SSRN: The risk that children’s present internet activity could irreparably harm their reputations in the future as they pursue higher education, professional careers, and even personal relationships, is sufficiently weighty that the government should step in as parens patriae to combat it and protect our children’s long-term freedom.

This article demonstrates that even when ID is given the benefit of the best scientific, philosophical, and legal arguments it is unequipped to take advantage. This is because, in part, ID is a response to several important cases decided under the Establishment Clause, and the form the ID movement has taken reflects a plan to avoid the legal defeats that creationism and “creation science” faced.

NY Law Journal:
A New York Assembly committee Tuesday approved a bill that would give victims of sexual abuse a year to revive currently time-barred civil suits but defeated for now a new alternative bill that is favored by the Roman Catholic Church to provide victims with far more limited statute-of-limitations relief . . .

Legal Times:
The American Bar Association has resumed its role of evaluating possible choices for the federal judiciary before the president nominates them, reversing a decision made eight years ago under President George W. Bush.

Dakota Voice (Christian Post): After the ruling, David Cortman, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case last year, stated, “A moment of silence is not a government endorsement of religion just because someone might use the time for prayer.