Daily Archives: June 4, 2009

Jay Vise reports at WWL: “A Northshore jury could soon hear the case of a nurse who claims she was fired because of a principled stand on her religious beliefs . . . An attorney for Toni Lemly says the she was a productive employee of St. Tammany Hospital in Covington, when she was asked to distribute the ‘morning after pill.’”

“A federal judge refused Wednesday to grant motions by the Maryland State Police, Harford County, and the city of Bel Air to dismiss a lawsuit brought against them by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys on behalf of three young pro-life women.”

Baptist Press: “Jim Campbell, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, another religious liberty legal organization, said a statute would be more likely to be overturned in court if it did nix previous marriages. But he agreed that New Hampshire could, if it wanted, reverse course on the overall issue of ‘gay marriage’ legalization. ‘Assuming the government has the authority to redefine marriage, it also has the authority to restore it to its traditional definition,’ he told BP.”

David L. Schindler, writing in Communio Magazine: “I nevertheless do mean to ask quite literally whether there is not resident in America’s dominant liberal culture a peculiar tendency toward a ‘compassionate’ and ‘subtle’ violence driven by techno-science that rivals the worst evils of history.”

“The justices noted they have taken no position on the gay adoption ban, ruling only on the narrow issue of whether the bar can take a position.”

Courthouse News Service: “A Lithuanian woman’s fear that she or her daughter would be abducted and forced into prostitution does entitle them to asylum in the United States, the 1st Circuit ruled.” The opinion is here.

The questionnaire completed by Judge Sonia Sotomayor is available at the website of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Via How Appealing.

Al Mohler writing in the Christian Post: “Homeschooling is now a major force in American education, and Christian parents have been in the vanguard of this movement. For many Christian parents, homeschooling represents the fulfillment of the biblical mandate for parents to teach their children. These parents deserve our respect, our support, our advocacy, and our prayers. This movement is a sign of hope on our educational horizon, and a phenomenon that can no longer be dismissed as a fringe movement.”

Associated Press: “The Easton Town Council has passed a nine-month moratorium on adult businesses in a step toward banning them entirely.”

Amy Worden reports in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “Hoping to capture the pro-gay-marriage momentum in other state legislatures, Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Montgomery) yesterday introduced the state’s first bill to legalize same-sex marriage.”

WZTV reports: “The superintendent of the Knox County schools says a glitch has been fixed, allowing access to educational Web sites on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.”

LifeSite reports: “The leading pro-family organisation in Romania has warned that the European Union is setting a ‘dangerous precedent’ with efforts to include ‘sexual orientation’ into a new equality directive.”

Nate Silver reports at FiveThirtyEight: “States with higher numbers of adults who identify themselves as “pro-life” have lower rates of abortion among both teenage and adult women.”

Liberty Counsel press release: “Nearly 400 graduating seniors at Pace High School stood up in protest against the ACLU and recited the Lord’s Prayer during their graduation ceremony on Saturday. Many of the students also painted crosses on their graduation caps to make a statement of faith.”

Jonathan Wynne-Jones reports in the Telegraph: “The first poll of Britain’s churchgoers, carried out for The Sunday Telegraph, found that thousands of them believe they are being turned down for promotion because of their faith.

One in five said that they had faced opposition at work because of their beliefs.”

Maggie Creamer reports in the Lodi News-Sentinel: “Mayor Larry Hansen said Wednesday night that the council wants to make a decision when all of the council members are present, and they want the opportunity to hear from the public.”

“The county has clearly responded in the right way to this incident so far, demonstrating a desire to protect the constitutional rights of this family,” said ADF Senior Counsel Joe Infranco. “We look forward to a positive outcome from its internal policy review.”

Gregory A. Hall reports in the Courier-Journal: “Gov. Steve Beshear yesterday did not include a proposal to expand gambling in the state in his call for a special legislative session, but he said the issue could be added to the agenda in the next several days.”

Greg Toppo writes in USA Today: “Parents who home-school children increasingly are white, wealthy and well-educated — and their numbers have nearly doubled in a decade, a new federal government report says.”

Mallory Simon reports at CNN: “The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the bill for the first time Wednesday, after 10 previous attempts to have hearings on the Uniting American Families Act. The bill has 102 co-sponsors in the House and 17 co-sponsors in the Senate, including Judiciary Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont.”

Margie Hyslop reports in the Gazette: “It is likely to be late June before Maryland Sen. Richard S. Madaleno Jr. learns [from the Maryland Attorney General] whether same-sex couples who marry in states where it is legal will have their unions recognized in Maryland.”

Associated Press: “A Senate panel approved a bill taking sides in a pending federal court case, voting that Louisiana should not be forced to provide a birth certificate listing a same-sex couple from another state as a child’s parents.”

Associated Press: “Arizona state workers who just won health benefits for their domestic partners will lose them under a proposed budget lawmakers are considering.”

Catholic News Agency: “‘We face today the prospect of a law in New York which would radically change the timeless institution of marriage. As pastors of citizens from every corner of our great state, we stand unified in our strong opposition to such a drastic measure,’ the bishops said, urging Catholics to contact their senators.”

Michelle A Vu reports in the Christian Post: “Most of the respondents said they believed the number of Christians in the US would stay the same at best, but will more likely decline. However, they expressed hope for a national spiritual awakening spurred by the current economic difficulties and political uncertainties.”

Christian Today: “Rev Ian Galloway, Convenor of the Kirk’s Church and Society Council, stated it would be wrong for laws made to protect the most at risk from harm and exploitation to be abolished . . . The tabled amendment states that a person will not be prosecuted if they enable or aid a terminally-ill patient bent on committing suicide go to another country where euthanasia is legal.”

Chris Bristol reports in the Yakima Herald-Republic: “Responding to the proliferation of sexpresso coffee stands, the Yakima City Council approved minor changes to the city’s indecent exposure ordinance Tuesday night. The changes prohibit see-through apparel and G-strings in public. The revised ordinance also defines something known in legal parlance as ‘cleavage of the buttocks.’”

Mark Barna reports in the Colorado Springs Gazette: “In a marathon mediation session, the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado agreed to drop its lawsuit against 18 Anglican parish members being sued for damages. Also several motions, including an appeal of the March 24 court decision upholding the diocese’s ownership of the Tejon Street church property, were quashed.”

“Islam . . . carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment.”

W. James Antle, III writing at The American Spectator: “At the state level, the results are starting to look less like bandwagon or backlash than whiplash. California’s voters have twice defied both their legislature and the state supreme court to vote against same-sex marriage. Last week, the California state supreme court disappointed opponents of the second marriage ballot initiative by refusing to overturn Proposition 8. Same-sex marriage supporters may now try to repeal Proposition 8 by initiative, ironically boosted by not having Barack Obama on the ballot to boost black voter turnout.”

ADF attorney Erik Stanley took part in a publicsquare.net podcast debate with Frederick M. Lawrence on the “hate crimes” bill pending in Congress.

Politico: “President Barack Obama’s promises of change are falling short for one core Democratic constituency: gays and lesbians, whose leaders say Obama’s administration isn’t keeping up with the times.”

CitizenLink: David Cortman, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, called it a clear violation of the First Amendment. ‘This assignment was titled ‘All about me,’ not ‘All about the school,” he said. ‘The student’s freedom of religion should’ve been respected.’”

“The resolution was passed in response to the Vatican’s directive that Catholic social service agencies should not place children in same-sex households.”

ADF Senior Legal Counsel Douglas Napier appeared on the J.D. Hayworth Show on KFYI with Terri Gilberg to discuss the Phoenix bishop convicted for ringing church bells. The mp3 runs about 33 minutes.

Associated Press: “A Phoenix church leader has received a suspended 10-day jail sentence for violating a city noise ordinance because of his church’s bells . . . Painter has retained attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund to pursue legal options to defend his rights.”

David Cortman, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), explains that the school initially capitulated to the ACLU’s demands . . .

‘[The] ACLU tends to pick on smaller communities throughout the country and basically looks to completely eradicate any mention of religion at all in the public square,’ the attorney explains.

‘And so we sent these letters to give some push-back to the ACLU to basically tell the school regardless of what they want you to do in their zeal to eliminate all mention of religion, what the law actually requires is that you allow the Christian clubs to meet on the same terms as other clubs.’”

Reuters: “New Hampshire’s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives endorsed gay marriage in a 198-176 vote, hours after the state Senate approved the legislation 14-10 along party lines, making the state the fourth this year to back gay marriage in the United States.

Governor John Lynch, a Democrat, signed the bill, which goes into effect on January 1.”

New York ACLU press release: “The New York Civil Liberties Union today filed a formal freedom of information request for records regarding Suffolk County’s recent rejection of a local LGBT rights group’s attempt to place advertisements expressing support for same-sex marriage on county buses.”

Leanne Larmondin, Religion News Service: “The Rev. Tad Pacholczyk, director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, said Christian ethicists have been predicting disaster for years as they watched the growth of the ‘multibillion-dollar’ fertility industry. He describes the 500,000 stored embryos — the equivalent of the population of Tucson, Ariz., — as ‘caught in a frozen orphanage.’”

Balkan Insight reports: “Bosnia’s Inter-Religion Council, representing the country’s Catholic, Islamic, Jewish and Orthodox communities, has made an exceptional unified stand in protest against a law that could legalise gay marriages, local media reported on Wednesday.”

Tony Hicks reports in the Contra Costa Times: “Hallmark, the world’s largest greeting card company, has started marketing cards for same-sex weddings and civil unions. The company began developing four same-sex union cards in July 2008, just two months after California’s state Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional not to allow same sex couples the right to marry.”

University of La Verne Law Review: “Supreme Court approval for a law that criminalizes the pandering of illegal materials, even when the actual materials are not illegal, represents an unprecedented change in the law. This Note first addresses the the statutory regulation of child pornography. Next, the rationale and reasoning behind Williams are covered. Finally, the Note explores the doctrinal significance of Williams.”

University of Hawaii Law Review: “The Supreme Court has struck down every attempt to exclude private religious speakers from limited public forums. In every such case that has reached it, the Court held that the particular exclusion at issue violated the First Amendment Speech Clause, and that the inclusion of religious speakers did not violate the First Amendment Establishment Clause.”

Cardozo Public Law, Policy and Ethics Journal: “In this Article, I explore judicial discretion under Halakhic law, Anglo-American law, and Israeli law. In Part I, I compare the differences in treatment of judicial discretion between the Palestinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud.”

Pepperdine Law Review: “While similar cases have arisen in this country and abroad, nothing on the books is binding in the situation where a veiled Muslim woman testifies against a criminal defendant. Unsettling as this may be, the good news is that the United States Supreme Court has already laid out all of the rules necessary to formulate an answer. Yet in reaching that answer we tread on fragile grounds. The inevitable clash still remains: on one side we may have a Muslim woman who would rather sacrifice her liberty than remove her veil, while on the other we have a defendant who deserves the constitutional protection that this country’s laws guarantee. This Comment will analyze the veiled witness’s effect on the criminal defendant’s right to confrontation and will ultimately argue that such veiled testimony violates the Confrontation Clause.”

“In Janice M. v. Margaret K., the Court of Appeals of Maryland considered whether de facto parent status was a recognized legal status in Maryland and, if so, whether de facto parents could seek custody or visitation of a child over the objections of legal parents based solely on a determination of the child’s best interests.”

University of Hawaii Law Review: “The “individualized assessments” to which RLUIPA refers can potentially encompass many types of land use regulations. However, this paper focuses on zoning exceptions-specifically, the special use permit and the variance. Decisions regarding special use permits and variances are typically made on a case-by-case basis, thereby triggering the individualized assessment jurisdiction of RLUIPA.”

Human Rights Quarterly: “This article argues that universal jurisdiction also serves another, less articulated purpose. It has a constitutive function as well. It is partly a process through which the identity of the international community is imagined and enacted. It is an expression of a sense of ourselves (a community of humankind) at given moments of time. This article argues that neglect of this constitutive dimension leads to an incomplete analysis of universal jurisdiction.”