Daily Archives: April 17, 2009

Fox News: “John McCain’s top adviser from the presidential campaign urged fellow Republicans on Friday to warm up to gay rights and warned that the GOP risks becoming the ‘religious party’ with its opposition to same-sex marriage.”

Christian Post: “The U.S. House Judiciary Committee will vote on a controversial legislation next week that seeks to add homosexual and transgender people to the list of classes federally protected from hate crimes.”

LA Times:
“The clash among fertility titans underscores just how intense the competition has become in the multibillion-dollar business of baby-making.”

USA Today: “Former vice president Al Gore is entering the stem cell arena with an announcement today of a $20 million biotech venture in the hot area of ‘induced pluripotent’ stem cells.”

The ACLU has issued this press release that uses the term “parent” rather loosely and argues that the former partner of an adoptive parent should be granted parental rights in the absence of a showing of abuse, dependency, or neglect. Related ADF press release: ADF attorney to argue against ACLU attorney before Montana Supreme Court

The Oregonian:

“After months of political maneuvering, threatened lawsuits and public outcry, the fate of a controversial Tualatin strip club rested in the resolve of a 79-year-old former lawmaker . . . Oregon’s constitution protects nude dancing as free expression, squelching strong resistance from city leaders and residents, but officials challenged the liquor license because of problems at the Stars location in Bend . . . ”

SJ-R.com: “Outskirts Gentlemen’s Club near Illiopolis won’t be an anything-goes place, its would-be proprietors told the Sangamon County Zoning Board of Appeals during a packed hearing on Thursday.”

Newsday: “An early morning shooting Friday at a West Babylon strip club left one victim wounded, Suffolk police said.”

WOAI.com: “Two men were shot to death near a strip club early Friday. The shooting happened around 3:00 a.m. outside the Secrets strip club near New Laredo Highway and Zarzamora on the Southwest Side.”

Baptist Press: “The Health and Human Services Subcommittee of the Tennessee House of Representatives, on a 20-7 vote April 7, approved a bill to restore the regulation of abortion to the legislature . . . The measure seeks to overturn a 2000 opinion by the Tennessee Supreme Court that invalidated all state laws restricting abortion.”

GayPolitics: “The Victory Fund has learned Mercedes Marquez, the current head of the Los Angeles Housing Department and an out lesbian, will be appointed Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.”

Christian Telegraph: “A Spanish homosexual organization has submitted a legal complaint of “homophobia” to the nation’s attorney general after a bioethics professor called sodomy a sexual perversion and said that homosexuality is a mental disorder, reports Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, LifeSiteNews.com.”

Ellen Goodman writes at the Seattle Times:
“First, Iowa joined Massachusetts and Connecticut. Then Vermont followed with the first legislative approval. And a bill was just introduced in New York, where people cringe to find themselves lagging behind Iowa. This is all part of a careful state-by-state strategy. But as a side effect, it’s producing more Americans with a strange dual citizenship: Married in the eyes of Iowa, single in the eyes of Washington. Eligible for a pension, health care, family leave in the eyes of the state; ineligible in the eyes of the feds. DOMA is doing it . . .”

Boston Globe (AP): “Defense Secretary Robert Gates says it could take years to change the U.S. military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for gay troops — if it ever happens.”

Charleston Daily Mail: “Kanawha County school board members say they’re likely to approve a policy that explicitly bans harassment on the basis of sexual orientation.”

ADF attorney Austin R. Nimmocks appeared on KGVO to discuss an important parental rights case that is pending before the Montana Supreme Court. The .wav file runs just under two minutes.

“These draft Guidelines would allow funding for research using human embryonic stem cells that were derived from embryos created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) for reproductive purposes and were no longer needed for that purpose,” they say.

Fox News has reprinted the draft guidelines.

British Medical Journal: “Older people are less likely to receive drug treatment after a stroke compared to younger people, despite the fact that treatment is equally effective, finds a study published on bmj.com today.”

Sacramento Bee: “Student leaders at American River College passed a resolution Thursday opposing today’s nationally organized demonstration in support of gay rights.”

A blogger at the Iowa Defense Alliance writes: “I realized that we would never “win” the battle over gay marriage if we don’t first “win” the battle over the sexual immorality that is rampant among heterosexuals in our country, including our children.”

CaribWorldNews: But Jamaicans CWNN spoke with say the action is outrageous. `Who are they to be imposing their beliefs on us and boycotting Jamaican products?` questioned D.C.-based national Ann Walters. `How is that going to change how people in Jamaica view homosexuality? [sic.] Isn’t there homophobic people in the US so why not attack `Made in the USA?`

Religion News Service: “The council is charged with helping shape policy in four areas—economic recovery, abortion reduction, interfaith dialogue and responsible fatherhood.”

Washington Whispers: “With President Bush out of the way, supporters of USAID’s family planning program overseas are urging President Obama to triple the annual budget to $1.5 billion and end the Republican-backed “gag rule” that barred U.S. assistance to groups engaged in abortion-related services.”

Christian Newswire: “Today the Chicago-based Thomas More Society filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and reverse a decision prohibiting the issuance and sale of “Choose Life” specialty license plates in Illinois. ”

CQ Politics: “Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania told a Republican lawyers group Friday their party should take the filibuster off the table as an option against President Obama’s judicial nominations.”

First Principles: “The special concern . . . is that modern biotechnology will destroy the social conditions and natural capabilities that make a dignified ­human life possible—a concern more classical than Christian.”

Religion Clause: “Alliance Defense Fund wants Christian students to participate in a counter-event on April 20– the “Day of Truth.” Students will wear T-shirts and pass out cards urging gay students to explore changing their sexual orientation.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In City of Jordan v. Church of St. John the Baptist of Jordan, (MN Ct. App., April 14, 2009), a Minnesota Court of Appeals interpreted a Minnesota statute that protects churches from certain takings by eminent domain.”

One News Now: “A member of President Obama’s faith-based advisory council says President Obama has yet to show any signs that he plans to follow through on his pledge to find ‘common ground’ on the issue of abortion.”

Religion Clause Blog: “The Oklahoma state Senate on Wednesday passed by a vote of 40-7 a bill that had already been approved by the House (in an 88-5 vote) which will permit public schools to use religious references from a wide array of historical documents in classrooms and school events.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Flynn v Rabbi Haskel Lookstein Middle School of Ramaz, (NY Sup. Ct., April 14, 2009), a New York state trial court held that Kevin Flynn, the former coordinator of athletics for a New York Jewish day school, stated a prima facie case of religious discrimination and could proceed to discovery.”

GlobalPost:
“The refusal of a Saudi judge to annul a marriage contract that weds an 8-year-old girl to a man in his late 40s has brought into sharp relief the tribal and religious forces complicating this country’s march to modernity.”

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas says he doesn’t want to change Vermont’s laws to lessen the potential penalties for teenagers who use their cell phones to send sexually explicit pictures and messages. The House is considering a Senate-passed bill . . . ”

To build an argument for “gay marriage” on the basis of equality is to assume a definition of marriage that does not exist. This assumption is patently false, and its assertion is tantamount to a bold-faced lie.

Nicholas Wade writing in the New York Times: “The era of personal genomic medicine may have to wait. The genetic analysis of common disease is turning out to be a lot more complex than expected.”

Baptist Press: “But the Day of Silence is not just being promoted in California, said Alliance Defense Fund attorney David Cortman. “It’s not limited to any geographic region,” he said. ” … We’ve seen where teachers actively promote the Day of Silence, where they permit the distribution of Day of Silence flyers in homeroom class, where they actively participate in the Day of Silence.”

CitizenLink: “Students across the country will stand against the homosexual agenda on Monday, the fifth annual Day of Truth. The initiative, which is sponsored by Exodus International and the Alliance Defense Fund, comes three days after the pro-homosexual Day of Silence.”

CitizenLink: “Christians shouldn’t be arrested for expressing their beliefs on public college campuses,” said ADF-allied attorney Frederick Nelson of the American Liberties Institute. “We are pleased the college will allow free speech on its campuses in accord with the First Amendment.”

Maryland Gazette: “The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland has asked the Prince George’s County school board stop its regular board prayer at the start of each board meeting, claiming the practice violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

AP: “The Vatican on Friday denounced the criticisms of the pope’s comments about condoms and AIDS during his trip to Africa, saying they marked an unprecedented attempt to intimidate him into silence.”

SSRN: “This paper deals with the conflict between Law and Religion in Europe. It analyzes various types of conflicts that arise between those two normative systems and offers a typology of those conflicts. Illustrations of those conflicts include the role played by courts in adjudicating conflicts of rights to religious freedom and other rights; the role of the newly established Muslim Arbitration Tribunal; issues of conflict of laws dealing with the validity of poligamous marriages; and relation between State and Church. After presenting those conflicts, the paper proposes innovative ways to understand those problems in order to dispel those conflicts rather than adjudicating them.”