Daily Archives: March 23, 2009

“While the battle’s not as pitched as it was in 2000, the specter of having to face voters is on the minds of lawmakers.”

“The bill, which passed the 30-member chamber by a 26-4 margin, moves to the Vermont House, where it is also expected to be approved. Republican Gov. Jim Douglas, however, has said he doesn’t support the bill . . .”

Law students, lawyers, and all other pro-lifers are invited to learn about the role of the legal profession in turning back the culture of death. Presenting will be Mr. Mark Rienzi, an attorney in private practice with WilmerHale in DC who has built several pro-life pro bono cases into his legal career. A former editor of the Harvard Law Review, Mr. Rienzi previously clerked for the Hon. Stephen F. Williams at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

AP: “Employers across the adult entertainment industry say they’re seeing an influx of applications from women who, like Brown, are attracted by the promise of flexible schedules and fast cash. Many have college degrees and held white-collar jobs until the economy soured.”

Rebecca S. Green reports in The Journal Gazette: “A federal judge banned Bible trailers from an area school district, granting a request by a woman who claimed the religious education program violated her child’s civil rights . . .”

The Blog of the Legal Times: “President Barack Obama’s first nominee for the federal bench, Judge David Hamilton for a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, has been alternately described as a ‘moderate’ and as an ‘ACLU liberal.’ Likewise, those who follow judicial nominations have different ideas about what the choice means for future vacancies . . . ”

The Cardinal Newman Society and CatholicVote.org have sponsored a petition opposing “Notre Dame’s decision to host and honor President Barack Obama at commencement.”

Everyone involved in the debate over same-sex marriage understands that the Constitution is centrally involved. We believe that under current doctrine, the Constitution affords some protection to gay marriage, but not in the manner that most would imagine.

The Associated Press reports: “United Nations officials said Tuesday that Muslim-backed references to ‘defamation of religion’ and criticism of Israel have been dropped from a draft being prepared for next month’s world racism meeting.”

Sharon Osorio reports at WKBW: “The Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office has arrested Matthew Lahnen, 20, from the Town of Sheridan, and Wade Vosburgh, Jr., 20. from Silver Creek, plus five minors, in connection with “sexting” nude photos via their cell phones. At least one of the minors is 15 years old.”

redOrbit reports: “Agents and computer experts over the past decade have gone after hundreds of predators who solicit sex from kids or trade child pornography online. However, experts say the number of cases involving online sexual predators has quietly multiplied across the nation, with arrests more than quadrupling in 10 years.”

Fort Mill Times reports: “Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright says he has fired one of his deputies who admitted he looked at child pornography.”

Associated Press: “A central Ohio schools superintendent has resigned after records surfaced showing he used his office computer to view pornographic Web sites.”

Penny Starr, reporting at CNSNews: “Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said . . . that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a ‘homophobe.’ . . . Frank also predicted that Obama and a Democratic majority in Congress will pass three pro-homosexual laws in the coming months and years . . .”

Nicole C. Brambila, reporting in The Desert News: “It’s very difficult to predict outcomes to Prop 8 on the basis of arguments,” said David B. Cruz, a University of Southern California law professor and constitutional law expert. “I don’t think we can be confident one way or the other. I think it’s (the decision) likely to be split.”

Matthew Cullinan Hoffman reporting at LifeSite: “According to Fr. Edson Rodrigues, a Catholic priest from the child’s hometown of Alagoinha was present during much of the ordeal, the girl’s parents both clearly stated their opposition to abortion in general and the abortion in particular proposed for their own child. However, after the child was admitted to the Institute of Children’s Medicine of Pernambuco (IMIP), she and her mother were isolated by hospital staff, who declared that an abortion was necessary to save her daughter’s life.”

Stephanie Simon reporting in the Wall Street Journal: “The Texas Board of Education will vote this week on a new science curriculum designed to challenge the guiding principle of evolution, a step that could influence what is taught in biology classes across the nation.”

Peter C. Glover, First Things: “Jeremy Vine is a highly visible BBC broadcaster and a practicing Anglican. In a recent interview, Vine explained how difficult it had become to speak of his faith on air. It is, he claimed, now “socially unacceptable” to mention one’s Christian faith in public.”

“A federal court on Monday ordered the Food and Drug Administration to reconsider its decision preventing minors from purchasing the morning after pill without a prescription.”

AP:
“Alaska’s House Judiciary Committee on Friday heard testimony on a measure that would expand the state’s animal cruelty law to include sexual conduct. It would make the practice a class A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine. In Florida, a bill that would make sex with animals punishable by up to five years in prison has been unanimously approved by two Senate committees and has two other committee stops before reaching the full chamber.”

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued this press release on March 19th that reports:
“The Obama Administration has a constitutional duty to enforce laws protecting religious freedom and the right of conscience, according to comments by Anthony Picarello and Michael Moses of the Office of General Counsel of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).”

FoxNews: “If you’re an anti-abortion activist, or if you display political paraphernalia supporting a third-party candidate or a certain Republican member of Congress, if you possess subversive literature, you very well might be a member of a domestic paramilitary group. ”

“No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is worthless. Utah’s new laws are simply common-sense measures to protect innocent, viable children and their mothers in line with rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden.

Allen Hunt writes at Townhall: “From the defective idea of ‘same-sex marriage,’ to the increasing disregard for marriage as the birthplace for children, and to a malformed desire to make marriage contractual and disposable at will, family and marriage stand battered and bruised by a ceaseless bombardment of attack.”

Jeff Ventrella, Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning and Training at ADF, appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss various legal and cultural issues. The mp3 file runs just under 15 minutes.

Ken Conner writes at Townhall: “Americans appear to be losing faith in God and in our cultural institutions. Is the loss of confidence in one related to a loss of confidence in the other? The answer is unequivocally yes.”

LifeSiteNews: “In 2004, the United States of Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approved a policy statement called ‘Catholics in Political Life,’ which says, with reference to pro-abortion politicians, ‘They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their action.’”

“‘I don’t think we’ve made significant progress at all,’ Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said. ‘Our community leaders don’t even know how bad the problem is. The general population has no idea.’”

Michael Dorff writes at Findlaw: “Although it has long been accepted that children have constitutional rights, the law also acknowledges that, contrary to their sometimes creepy depiction in medieval art, children are not simply miniature adults. Rather, children differ from adults along multiple dimensions, and thus children’s constitutional rights should not simply be a ‘lesser’ version of adults’ rights. The fact that a case involves schoolchildren thus can be a ground for granting children different rights from those we would grant to adults, but it should not automatically be a ground for granting children fewer rights than adults enjoy.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer: “A principal’s decision to remove a magazine from a middle-school library has drawn criticism for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school board from the American Civil Liberties Union.”

Catholic Culture reports: “Carrying signs that called Pope Benedict XVI an assassin, the militant activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) threw condoms as worshippers left Sunday Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral at Paris . . .”

The Hon. Wallace B. Jefferson writes at The Houston Chronicle: “We should adopt a system for judges that has two primary components. Judges should achieve office by merit rather than whim, and voters should hold judges accountable, based on their records, through subsequent retention elections . . . ”

Religion Clause Blog: “In McComb v. Crehan, (9th Cir., March 20, 2009), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the action of Clark County, Nevada school officials in cutting off the microphone at high school graduation ceremonies when the class valedictorian departed from her approved speech and began reading from a version that contained religious and Biblical references.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Cornerstone Christian Schools v. University Interscholastic League, (5th Cir., March 20, 2009), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit by a high schooler and his parents who claim that their free exercise, equal protection, and due process rights were infringed when UIL denied Cornerstone Christian Schools an opportunity to apply for league membership.”

The St. Augustine Record reports:

Parents of two elementary school students last week filed a lawsuit against the St. Johns County School District, saying their children’s constitutional rights were violated when teachers required them to rehearse a song that declares “there’s no doubt” the United States is a Christian nation.

Posted: 03/23/2009

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Category: Religious Freedom

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Source: staugustine.com

Tags: Category: Religious Freedom, State: Florida

The Religion Clause Blog reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a petition for certiorari filed in Caldwell v. Caldwell, (Docket No. 08-858). The suit challenged “certain content on an “Understanding Evolution” website created and maintained by the University of California Museum of Paleontology and funded in part by the National Science Foundation.”

“Jessica Logan’s nude cell-phone photo – meant for her boyfriend’s eyes only – was sent to hundreds of teenagers last year in at least seven Greater Cincinnati high schools . . . On July 3, Jessie hanged herself in her bedroom. She was Albert and Cynthia Logan’s only child . . . ”

BBC: “A seriously ill baby, whose parents lost a court battle to keep him alive on a ventilator, has died.”

YumaSun:
A retired FBI agent who specialized in obscenity and sexual crimes against children for 23 years while with the bureau, said the investigation and prosecution of illegal adult pornography in many instances could reduce the number of children getting sexually exploited . . .

Chuck Colson writing in The Christian Post: “ProtectMarriage.com and the Alliance Defense Fund have gone to court to protect the privacy and free speech of those who contribute to future campaigns—and to protect them from harassment. They are challenging state campaign finance laws that force disclosure of personal information of those who donate even small amounts of money to political campaigns.”

Hudson Valley Journal News: “In a couple of weeks, lawyers will begin taking depositions in the federal lawsuit filed by The Children First Foundation, based in Eastchester, to get New York state to issue license plates that say “choose life,” according to Jeff Shafer, a lawyer for the organization.”

LifeNews: “At least one member of Congress is misleading his constituents on the so-called Freedom of Choice Act — the radical pro-abortion bill. The congressman is telling his constituents that they have nothing to fear because the bill will not be introduced . . . Matt Bowman, a pro-life attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, estimates that FOCA could result in an increase of 125,000 abortions or more annually throughout the country.”

Catholics For a Common Good: “This afternoon, appearing slight and gaunt from his 40-Days-for-Life fasting, Rev. Walter Hoye was calmly led from the Alameda County courtroom to begin a thirty day jail sentence. The judge denied the defense’s motion to stay the sentence pending appeal and remanded Walter into custody.”

“A Vermont state Senate committee unanimously approved a gay marriage bill, moving the state one step closer to allowing same-sex couples to legally wed.”

This article will analyze the legal and statutory models for the disposition of cryopreserved embryos to a third party for purposes of family building. Part I will present an overview of the debate and its importance in the current legal, bioethical, and political climate. Part II will present an overview of the “two” models for disposition, donation and adoption, and will demonstrate that other than through the different use of terminology, there is no meaningful difference in the current methodology for disposing of frozen embryos to third parties for purposes of family building.

Law Review: “One of the principal legal issues of ART, at the moment, regards the disposition of embryos and whether a couple that uses assisted reproductive technologies should be governed by the laws of contract or by the right to procreate. More specifically, when the couple decides to divorce and cannot agree on the disposition of the embryos that they created through ART, the following questions must be asked: who should have the right to procreate and who should not? Should the couple’s informed consent contract, which was signed before the creation of the embryos, trump the rights of the parties individually after the embryos are already in existence?”

This article explores the question of whether or not the Hill-Burton Act may be used by those persons, like Ms. Benitez, who are denied access to assisted reproductive technologies for non-medical reasons, such as marital status or sexual orientation. After documenting the discriminatory treatment of potential ART patients, and then looking at the history and language of the Act along with judicial interpretations thereof, I conclude that Hill-Burton may provide a tool to challenge discrimination in provision of ART services.

The ubiquity of heterosexual marriage means that virtually all of those who have been in married relationships and those who have been close to married relationships–in widely different times and circumstances–have understood heterosexuality to be an important, perhaps a necessary, component of marriage.

This article will examine: (1) the development of feticide legislation; (2) the divergent approaches currently utilized throughout the country in addressing feticide; (3) the specific applications of feticide legislation that have led to calls for reform; and (4) some of the constitutional challenges surrounding this legislation. Finally, the article concludes with an analysis of the quandary that is created by feticide legislation that protects the fetus from its mother.

This article will examine the influence of educators and their positions as role models, the legal applications of statutory morality provisions for secondary and postsecondary school teachers, and the implications of contractual morals clauses for secondary and postsecondary school teachers. Finally, the paper will analyze the overriding constitutional implications of imposing these morals clauses upon teachers.

Chuck Missler at Worldview Times: “The Alliance Defense Fund has reached a settlement with the New York Department of Transportation over a tractor trailer with a Christian message on private property in Binghamton, NY. Business owner Daniel Burritt had been told by NYDOT that his tractor trailer would be removed for him if he did not take it out of view of the highway.”

Hagerstown Church of the Nazarene: “The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) announced that it has reached an agreement with the New York Department of Transportation to allow a tractor-trailer owned by Daniel Burritt to remain on his private property that sits beside a public highway.”

The Gaytheist Agenda: “The finance disclosure law was a voter approved measure. The people spoke! How dare ProtectMarriage.com and the Alliance Defense Fund try to get Activist Judges to overrule the Will of the People?!?!”

Religion Clause: In People v. Mendelson, (NY Nassau Co. Dist. Ct., March 19, 2009), a New York state trial court dismissed criminal charges brought against a “Jews for Jesus” missionary for distributing literature at a concert in an Oyster Bay (NY) park without obtaining a permit . . . A release by Alliance Defense Fund discusses the decision.

Ronald L. Caravan writing in The Valley News: “Last week, the ADF announced that its attorneys “reached a favorable settlement with the New York State Department of Transportation, which agreed to allow Daniel Burritt’s trailer donning a gospel message to remain on his private business property along a public highway.”

Atheism Examiner: “I pointed this out in a previous article in response to what the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) (which seems to be responsible for the “Save the National Day of Prayer” Web site) said of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).”

Alice Click to the editor of the Point Pleasant Register: “The Freedom from Religion Foundation has filed a federal lawsuit saying the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional and creates a “hostile environment for nonbelievers.” The Alliance Defense Fund will defend the National Day of Prayer Task Force.”

OneNewsNow: Indiana has scrapped a problematic policy that deals with personalized license plates . . . Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Erik Stanley tells OneNewsNow that his organization represented Liz Ferris of Indianapolis in the suit.