Daily Archives: April 16, 2009

CNA: “Georgetown University’s decision to comply with a White House request to cover up the “IHS” monogram representing Jesus’ name at President Obama’s speech on Wednesday is drawing fire from the Cardinal Newman Society and Georgetown students, who are charging the university with ‘sacrificing’ its ‘Catholic and Jesuit identity.’”

Christian Newswire: “Family Institute of Connecticut Action is running newspaper ads statewide to raise awareness about the threats posed by SB 899. The ad can be viewed at www.ctfamily.org. SB 899 claims to make the Connecticut Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage the law. But it goes much further than that. It includes totally inadequate accommodation of First Amendment religious liberty rights.”

Albert Mohler writes: “A clearer picture of the practice of aborting girl babies is also now available, thanks to the British Medical Journal. The picture is nothing less than horrifying. The arrival of ultrasound technology has made the identification of fetal gender a deadly reality for unborn baby girls. They are aborted by the millions.”

BBC: “Police in Germany have said they have broken up a child pornography network suspected of involving around 9,000 people in more than 90 countries.”

AP: “Advocates of the female condom are promoting a less costly, more user-friendly version that they hope will vastly expand its role in the global fight against AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases . . . ”

LifeNews: “While the international community holds meetings around the world to discuss global progress towards achieving the goals outlined in the 1994 ICPD program, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and pro-abortion non-government organizations (NGOs) are attempting to block pro-life participation from discussions on ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights.’”

Philly.com (AP): “Among other things, the companies argue the ordinance doesn’t allow for any districts where strip clubs or other ‘adult’ businesses can open without prior city approval.”

The Wichita Eagle: “An Abilene adult bookstore has sued Kansas, challenging a statute that restricts sexually-oriented businesses from advertising on outdoor signs near state highways. The Lions Den Adult Superstore filed a federal lawsuit late Wednesday against Kansas Attorney General Stephen Six.”

Paul Rahe writes at National Review: “Religious Americans who feel threatened by these developments may be inclined to push back, but they are thwarted at every turn. If the present trend continues, they will eventually come to occupy in America the pariah status to which they are to an ever increasing degree consigned in many countries on the continent of Europe.”

Family Restoration Blog at Regent U. by Prof. Lynn Marie Kohm: “The people of California made their voice clear at the polls; they want marriage to remain as the union between one man and one woman. But this lawsuit is asking the court to nullify the people’s voices, as well as the federal law on marriage,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Brian Raum.

The financial and political drivers of AIDS research and prevention strategies have an interest in the outcome of any such scientific inquiry . . . “The condom has long been a symbol of freedom and—along with contraception—female emancipation.”

NC Register:”Can religious beliefs be expressed on private property when part of that property is used for doing subcontract work for the government? That is the substance of a case involving a church that contracted with the U.S. Postal Service to provide convenience for local postal customers. An appeal in the case, Cooper v. United States Postal Service, was heard March 20 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Manhattan . . . The Alliance Defense Fund is an alliance of Christian attorneys and organizations working to protect and preserve religious liberty and the sanctity of life, marriage and family.”

ADF Gary McCaleb appeared on the Bott Radio Network with Dick Bott to discuss school choice and Arizona’s Tuition Tax Credits. The mp3 runs just over 30 minutes.

Patrick A. Trueman: OneNewsNow has posted this report quoting me on the problem of “sexting.” The latest on the issue is that the Vermont legislature is considering legalizing sexting for under-18 kids. Think about it: they want to legalize the production of child pornography by children!

ADF attorney Mike Johnson appeared on Knowing the Truth Radio to discuss the recent report by Homeland Security warning against right wing “extremists.” The mp3 runs just under 11 minutes.   Related: Homeland Security Report equates ‘abortion opponents’ with white …

Mike Heath writes at the Maine Family Policy Council: “First, graffiti symbolizes lawlessness and disorder. From the outset, the method in which graffiti is produced is illicit and unlawful. Its techniques are anarchic and without order, as is its finished result. Second, graffiti demoralizes the public. Those who have lived in major American cities know that in urban neighborhoods, graffiti goes hand-in-hand with crime. It also goes hand-in-hand with rundown neighborhoods and cyclone fences. Thirdly, and this is the worst threat, graffiti calls into question Maine’s reputation as a ‘place set a part’ a region which is safer and more wholesome than the rest of the nation.”

SSRN: “In this Article, we assess the role the aggregation of citizen preferences into the foreign policy choices of a democratic country might play in the legitimization of international law.”

Todd Zywicki has this post on the Volokh Conspiracy discussing Justice Thomas’ recent speech at the Bill of Rights Institute. Zywicki observes that response to the question “How does your faith or your world view impact your role as a Supreme Court Justice?” Justice Thomas says . . .

The Wall Street Journal carries letters from several readers in response to the ruling: “Absent from the article or the court’s decision is any explanation of why marriage is so important as a civil institution. Aristotle begins ‘The Politics’ not with a single individual, but with a description of a man and a woman together in the family, without which the rest of society cannot exist. Heterosexual sex in the family is normative as a matter of nature or what is known as natural law. All other sexual relationships can only ape it, and aspire to it (which explains the homosexual desire to mimic it).”

CNA: “On Wednesday, April 15, 2009, Dr. Thomas E. Dillon, the president of Thomas Aquinas College, was killed in an automobile accident in Ireland, where he was traveling with his wife, Terri, on behalf of the college,” the college announced yesterday.

Visit:
Thomas Aquinas College

Fulton County Daily Report: “Several justices of the Supreme Court of Georgia on Tuesday appeared open to a former Augusta-area teacher’s challenge of her conviction for a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student at her school. A lawyer for Melissa Lee Chase argued that a student’s consent is a defense to the statute under which the teacher was convicted . . . ”

People v. David Lawrence Dyke: First, applying a “contemporary adult standard,” the court pointed out that not all nudity and not all “portrayals of sexual activity are “necessarily obscene”; secondly, that it was impossible for the jury, based on the evidence provided, to determine whether the television clips observed contained “harmful matter” under California code and the Miller test—especially with regard to the issue of artistic merit.

CNSNews: “The founders of our nation held a deep abhorrence for democracy and majority rule. In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison wrote, ‘Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.’ John Adams predicted, ‘Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.’”

AP: “A Dutch lawmaker is planning to make a sequel to the anti-Islamic film that sparked protests among Muslims around the world. Geert Wilders said in an interview . . . ”

One News Now: “A move is under way to legalize same-gender ‘marriage’ in Minnesota. Chuck Darrell of the Minnesota Family Council says homosexual activists are promoting four bills in the legislature that would legalize it in one form or another.”

AP: “The proposal is the same bill the Democrat-controlled state Assembly passed in 2007 before it died in the Senate . . . ‘I’m introducing a bill to bring marriage equality to the state of New York,’ Paterson said to applause, surrounded by leaders including Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.”

OneNewsNow: “[What TrueTolerance.org] it does is help encounter one-sided, pro-gay messages that are coming in through these events and curriculum — and it does that by putting at their fingertips tools from legal experts,” Cushman explains. “There’s a memorandum on the website from one of the biggest legal groups in the nation — Alliance Defense Fund — that deals with these issues. There [is] social science data on there, and it’s all packaged in a professional format that parents can easily email to their school officials through this website.”

“One case was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, which is appealing the Court of Appeal’s ruling in September that found Paterson was within his right as governor to issue a directive ordering all state agencies to recognize out-of-state gay marriages. ADF argues that recognizing same-sex marriage performed in other jurisdictions is up to the Legislature, not the governor.”

Family Research Council press release: “The Family Research Council represented by the Alliance Defense Fund released a brief filed with the Romanian Parliament against proposed changes to the criminal code that would legalize prostitution and incest. FRC is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and organizations.”

Journal of Law & Family Studies: “This article is concerned with understanding the historical and theoretical origins of the concepts of “parents rights” and “family privacy.” Neither is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, but both concepts were among the earliest substantive due process rights recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1920s.”

CNSNews: “Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram ‘IHS’–symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there.”

Northwestern University Law Review: “Due to the absence of statutory protection for sexual orientation discrimination at the federal level, lesbian and gay plaintiffs frequently lose their sex discrimination and gender-stereotyping claims because of their sexual orientation, with courts relying on reasoning similar to that used by the Second Circuit in Dawson’s case.”

Jay P. Greene writes at the Wall Street Journal: “On education policy, appeasement is about as ineffective as it is in foreign affairs. Many proponents of school choice, especially Democrats, have tried to appease teachers unions by limiting their support to charter schools while opposing private school vouchers. They hope that by sacrificing vouchers, the unions will spare charter schools from political destruction. But these reformers are starting to learn that appeasement on vouchers only whets unions appetites for eliminating all meaningful types of choice.”

National Review Online: “Clinton’s speech didn’t set off shock waves among the public because Planned Parenthood is about as American as apple pie at this benighted point in history. Most Democrats and even some Republicans bow at its altar. The religious metaphor is intentional: Sanger referred to a “religion of birth control” that sought to “ease the financial load of caring for with public funds . . . children destined to become a burden to themselves, to their family, and ultimately to the nation.”

Acton Institute: “The rights of conscience, Pope John Paul II once wrote, are the “primary foundation of every authentically free political order.” If that is so, then we better redouble our vigilance. Here in the United States, where we fancy ourselves religiously tolerant, recent high-profile cases suggest that First Amendment rights are widely misunderstood.”

Catholic News Agency: “According to a Homeland Security Report distributed to law enforcement organizations, abortion opponents are as great a threat to national security in the immediate future as white supremacists.”

Las Vegas Sun: “Nevada is prohibited by its constitution from joining states, most recently Vermont and Iowa, where gay marriage is legal. But legislation is making its way through Carson City that would give same-sex couples who enter domestic partnerships the same benefits as married couples.”

After arresting a Jews for Jesus employee for handing out literature on its campus without a permit, the college will now allow access for the ministry to distribute literature and express its Christian message on its campuses without unconstitutional permit requirements.

“The fundamental rights of parents to raise children the way they see fit should not be threatened by the wishes and desires of a legal stranger,” said Nimocks.

Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: “What has been neglected in the discussion is some analysis of the way in which the Yes on 8 campaign reframed the debate over same-sex marriage from an anti-discrimination/equal rights discourse to one that emphasized the threat of state imposition on individual rights, including parental rights.”

Georgetown Journal of International Law: “Of all the factors that lead to human trafficking, government corruption is the most significant. This article recommends an economic incentive that would recruit as allies in this war the wealthy residents of countries where the abuse is most rampant, and where the governments themselves, or government officials are complicit in trafficking. The economic incentive that would be used is taxation.”