Daily Archives: March 19, 2009

Karin Hamilton, Beliefnet (Religion News Service): Indiana officials have dropped a provision that bans references to religions or deities on personalized license plates after a woman sued when her “BE GODS” personalized license plate was not renewed. “Christians shouldn’t be discriminated against for expressing their beliefs,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), in a release. “We believe the state’s decision to scrap their problematic policy eliminates that discrimination and respects the First Amendment rights of Ms. Ferris and all Indianans.”

Christian Post: “A Christian schoolteacher’s lawsuit over a UC Berkeley website on evolution has been appealed to the Supreme Court. Sacramento-based Pacific Justice Institute, which is representing Jeanne Caldwell, a Sacramento parent, announced in January that it had filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court after a lower court’s dismissal of the case was upheld last fall. ”

Catholic News Agency: “The secretariat of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community has welcomed a proposed EU law that would safeguard Sunday as a day of rest from work.”

Christian Telegraph: “Two female Christian students of Fatima Memorial Hospital’s nursing school in the Pakistani city of Lahore, have been accused of desecrating verses of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, days after their Muslim roommates desecrated a picture of Jesus Christ which they had hung in a shared hostel room, reports Dan Wooding and Sheraz Khurram Khan, special to ASSIST News Service.”

Christian Telegraph: “A Spanish judge removed from the bench for refusing to approve a homosexual adoption says that before his trial the prosecutors attempted “extortion” against him, and persecuted him for his Christian beliefs, reports LifeSiteNews.com.”

ABA Journal: “After a debate that lasted more than 90 minutes—the longest so far today—the ABA’s policymaking House of Delegates adopted Resolution 109, an ethics rule that allows a firm to “screen” a lawyer who joins it from any participation in a case that might create conflicts for clients represented by the lawyer at his or her former firm.”

Albert Mohler: W. Bradford Wilcox of the University of Virginia has written a must-read article in the “Houses of Worship” column of The Wall Street Journal. Wilcox, whose research and analysis is consistently top-notch and relevant, considers the impact of the expansion of the government sector in American society.

Penna Dexter, Baptist Press: “Medical science has ushered in a brave new world in childbearing. A fertility clinic in Los Angeles recently announced it was ready to offer would-be parents designer babies.”

LifeSite: Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, has said that the evidence confirms that the Pope is correct in his assessment that condom distribution exacerbates the problem of AIDS. “The pope is correct,” Green told National Review Online Wednesday, “or put it a better way, the best evidence we have supports the pope’s comments.”

Jacksonville Progress: “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit was correct to uphold a Texas law requiring students to observe a minute of silence following the Pledge of Allegiance . . . The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed briefs in opposition to the law, according to the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case last year. The ADF also reported several courts have upheld similar challenges to moment-of-silence laws.”

Catholic.net (NC Register): “In a hearing here March 5, California Supreme Court justices seemed strongly inclined to uphold Proposition 8 . . . As for the outcome of the case, Joe Infranco, an Alliance Defense Fund lawyer working on the Prop. 8 issue, said his group is “confident the justices are going to recognize the democratic process and do the right thing.”

Tampa Bay Online: “A Lakeland man was booked into the Pinellas County Jail this morning on charges he videotaped himself inappropriately touching an 8-year-old girl.”

The News & Tribune: “I think it’s unconstitutional and has violated the zoning rules,” attorney Joan B. Henderson said of the ordinance. “There are certain procedures that have to be followed with an ordinance of this nature, and [Clarksville Town Council] they did not follow those.”

U.S. News: “Over the past few days, George and Kmiec have engaged in a rigorous E-mail debate on the nature of human cloning and other thorny issues surrounding embryonic stem cell research—like whether Catholics who use medical treatments developed from embryonic stem cell research are complicit in what the Roman Catholic Church calls the evil of embryo destruction.”

Liberty Counsel press release: The Alabama Supreme Court accepted review of a case involving a child caught between two same-sex partners split between California and Alabama. The Alabama Court of Appeals ruled that the state must recognize and enforce a California decision, declaring that a former same-sex partner with no biological or adoptive relationship has parental rights.

The 6th Circuit has certified a number of questions regarding Ohio Revised Code § 2907.31(D)(1)–which prohibits the “dissemination or display of material harmful to juveniles”–to the Supreme Court of Ohio.

Christian Today: “The Roman Catholic Church in Spain has launched a campaign against abortion following the government’s announcement earlier in the month that it intends to liberalise the country’s 1985 abortion law.”

“It’s high time someone asked: where in the U.S. Constitution are so many angry people finding the legal right not to be offended?”

“Advocates for LGBT rights have the same right to claim religious and traditional values as motivating factors in their advocacy. The same Bible that is a weapon in the hands of our opposition may become an instrument of healing as we discover its deeper and truer meaning when applied to political questions.”

OneNewsNow: “Atheists continue to challenge the Utah Highway Patrol over roadside memorial crosses honoring slain state troopers. In the case of American Atheists v. Davenport, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Byron Babione is defending the state troopers association. He says the crosses can easily be seen from the highway.”

Wesley J. Smith at First Things: “[T]hat the Huffington Post considers this a legitimate and acceptable argument to run on its site—it would never countenance a racist utilitarian rant—shows precisely the dark place where the utilitarian left is more than happy to go.”

Mary Rose Ryback at First Things: One look at the data reveals the porn-star life is as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short as you get.

Mark Strasser: The Court’s more recent applications of the test have conveyed a message far different from the one previously communicated, and the former difficulties surrounding the test have been replaced by new, related difficulties.

Eugene Volokh reports at the Volokh Conspiracy: “A federal district court has just upheld another religious exemption claim for the use of hoasca.”

The ruling in Church of the Holy Light of the Queen v. Mukaseyn, No. 08-3095 PA (D. Ore. March 18, 2009) begins . . .

Randy Barnett writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: “Next week, I will be giving my talk on ‘Was Lochner Right? Natural Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment’ at Georgetown Law on Tuesday at noon and at GMU Law on Thursday at 5pm. In my talk, I explain the original meaning of the Privileges or Immunities Clause and its connection to the Ninth Amendment. In response, people are very curious as to whether whether I think there is any chance for a revival of the Privileges or Immunities Clause in the Supreme Court. My answer is that we stand poised on the threshold of a possible shift when the constitutionality of state restrictions of the right to keep and bear arms is confronted by the Court in the wake of DC v. Heller.”

Seattle Times: “The Senate Human Services Committee voted unanimously to recommend a measure that would require clinics to give a woman a chance to look at an ultrasound image of her fetus before she has an abortion. The House Human Services Committee endorsed a separate bill that requires abortion clinics to post a sign saying women cannot be forced to have an abortion. The sign would be posted in a counseling room.”

Newsmax: “The Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN) is now a ‘national partner’ with the U.S. Census Bureau, soon to help the White House find 1.4 million workers to canvass for the country’s 2010 census. If the acronym rings a bell, it’s because the organization has a history of voter fraud charges in the last election cycle, according to a report by FOXNews.”

The Governor of New Mexico issued the following statment:
“Governor Bill Richardson today signed House Bill 285, Repeal of the Death Penalty. The Governor’s remarks follow: ‘Today marks the end of a long, personal journey for me and the issue of the death penalty. Throughout my adult life, I have been a firm believer in the death penalty as a just punishment – in very rare instances, and only for the most heinous crimes. I still believe that.’”

Miami Herald: “A measure that would require women seeking an abortion to get an ultrasound exam and have the option to view the scan was revived Wednesday, after the state Senate rejected a similar proposal last year in a dramatic 20-20 tie vote. Following more than an hour of debate, the House Health Care Regulation Policy Committee cast a party-line vote in favor of the bill, with Republican supporters saying the ultrasound provision helps women make informed medical decisions and helps doctors prevent complications.”

The Wall Street Journal carries this report: “Will Gay Couples’ Marriage Vows Survive California Court Review?”

“The California Supreme Court is weighing an incendiary question: Should it recognize the gay couples who married last year, when same-sex marriage was briefly legal? . . . The wording of Proposition 8 is concise: ‘Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.’ So interpreting the intent of that law depends, as Justice Carlos Moreno noted in court earlier this month, on what ‘is’ means.”

Posted: 03/19/2009

|

Category: Marriage & Family

|

Source: online.wsj.com

Tags: Category: Marriage and Family, State: California, Topic: Homosexual Agenda, Topic: Marriage

WorldNetDaily: “Some teens in rural America are now self-inducing abortions with chemicals intended to abort livestock, reports one of the nation’s oldest and most influential pro-life organizations.”

LifeNews: A coalition of pro-life groups has launched a new web site to respond to President Barack Obama’s proposal to rescind protections for pro-life medical centers and professionals. The new Freedom2Care.org makes it easier for pro-life advocates to respond to the decision . . . Matt Bowman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, tells LifeNews.com the web site “provides a portal whereby you can register your comments at HHS, in accordance with the criteria that HHS is collecting.”

WorldNetDaily: “One of the nation’s most prominent dictionary companies has resolved the argument over whether the term ‘marriage’ should apply to same-sex duos or be reserved for the institution that has held families together for millennia: by simply writing a new definition.”

“Private Christian entities shouldn’t be censored for displaying information about their own religious ministries, on their own properties, simply because they participate in contracts with the government. The First Amendment does not call for that,” said Shafer.

The Religion Clause Blog: “Monday’s Elizabeth City, North Carolina Daily Advance reports that a lawsuit was filed in a North Carolina federal district court last week challenging Elizabeth City’s refusal to permit Albemarle Teen Challenge to operate a residential addiction treatment center for women in an historic district in the city.”

AP:

A western Pennsylvania Amish farmer was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail after refusing to bring a pair of outhouses into compliance with state sewage laws.

Posted: 03/19/2009

|

Category: Religious Freedom

|

Source: www.google.com

Tags: Category: Religious Freedom, State: Pennsylvania

The Religion Clause Blog: “Last week, Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs along with the Center on Faith & International Affairs jointly issued a 65-page report titled The Future of U.S. International Religious Freedom Policy: Recommendations for the Obama Administration. ”