Daily Archives: July 27, 2009

Nathan Black reports in the Christian Post: “Gerald Marszalek, who coached wrestling for 35 years, claims his contract with Fordson High School was terminated because of his association with a Christian volunteer coach, who the principal accused of converting a Muslim student to Christianity.”

“As part of his health-reform effort, [President Obama] is seeking to launch the Independent Medicare Advisory Council, or IMAC, a bland title for a body that could become as much an arbiter of medicine as the Fed is of the economy or the Supreme Court of the law.”

FOX News (NY Post): “A New York nurse claims she was forced to choose between her religious convictions and her job when Mount Sinai Hospital ordered her to assist in a late-term abortion against her will.”

In Waeschle v. Dragovich, No. 08-2228 (6th Cir., July 22, 2009), a 6th Circuit panel held that “Michigan law as presently developed does not clearly recognize that . . . a custodial right to body parts ["originally retained as part of a lawful criminal investigation"] exists.” Karen Waeschle sued the Oakland County’s Medical Examiner after learning that her mother’s brain, retained by the ME following an autopsy, “had been incinerated as medical waste.” Waeschle argued that the ME “violated her right to dispose of her mother’s brain when he did not give her the opportunity to recover it for the purpose of burial or cremation.”

An excerpt from Ron Paul’s weekly Texas Straight Talk column: “Forcing pro-life taxpayers to subsidize abortion is evil and tyrannical. I have introduced the Taxpayer’s Freedom of Conscience Act (HR 1233) which forbids the use of any taxpayer funds for abortion, both here and overseas.”

CNN: “A key U.S. Senate committee will hold a hearing on the military’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians, according to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat.”

Christian Post: “Another Christian imprisoned for his faith in Eritrea has died from authorities denying him medical treatment, according to a Christian support organization.”

“Maine’s highest court ruled last week that a woman’s adoption of her same sex partner was legal, which makes the adopted woman potentially eligible to receive a share of a family fortune.”

AP: “The Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has sent a letter to Nebraska schools regarding military recruiting.”

Christian Newswire: “Dr. Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life and the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, will join with other African American leaders to demand that abortion and the funding of Planned Parenthood not be included in any health care legislatio

ACLU: “At a celebration today of the 19th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), President Obama will announce that the U.S. will sign the most comprehensive international treaty on the rights of persons with disabilities.”

LifeNews: “The House of Representatives, today, voted 247-183 against an amendment that would stop sending taxpayer funding to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.”

LifeSiteNews: “Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) chaired a joint briefing of the Congressional Caucus on Human Trafficking and the Congressional Victims’ Rights Caucus last week which featured the unveiling of a new report on sex trafficking of minors in the United States.”

Boston Globe (AP): “Vermont Freedom to Marry says it spent more than $293,000 lobbying lawmakers and the public . . . ”

AP: “Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky said Monday he will not run for a third term in 2010, citing a lack of campaign money and interference from Senate Republicans who were pushing for him to exit the race.”

ProtectMarriageWA: We had a very good day at the Capitol in Olympia with over 138,000 R-71 signatures turned in! The required number of signatures is 120,577.

Reuters: “. . . In the new study, researchers found that middle-aged and older Americans who were currently married tended to give higher ratings to their health than their never-married counterparts. They also reported fewer depression symptoms and limits on their mobility . . . ”

The Tonko staffer seems to be implying that counseling for Medicare patients will have a more than “explanatory” effect–indeed, that it might go so far as to “solve the prolonging of life issue” by introducing policy priorities into end-of-life decision-making.

Caroline Gammell reports in the Telegraph: “Dr Matthews, a paediatrician, will continue to examine potential adoptive parents for Northamptonshire County Council to ensure that they are medically fit. But she will no longer have a say in whether the child should be adopted by the couple, regardless of their sexual orientation.”

NY Times: “Discouraged by stubborn poll numbers and pessimistic political consultants, major financial backers of same-sex marriage are cautioning gay rights groups to delay a campaign to overturn California’s ban on such unions until at least 2012.”

Christian Legal Centre: “A Christian paediatrician, dismissed as a medical adviser because she could not professionally recommend the placement of children with same-sex couples, has been reinstated by Northamptonshire County Council following media and public support.”

The Blog of the Legal Times: “The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider Sotomayor’s nomination Tuesday, and only one Republican member — Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) — out of the seven on the committee has said he plans to support her.”

Matthew Franklin reports in The Australian: “Kevin Rudd has guaranteed he will resist any attempt at this week’s Australian Labor Party conference to allow gay marriage or civil unions that mimic marriage.”

momlogic reports: “Providing legal advice for her action is the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian group seeking to put a national spotlight on the case. The suit also seeks to force Mount Sinai to give up federal funding it receives, because it failed to uphold a federal rule protecting employees who have moral objections to controversial procedures.”

Washington Post: “Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) announced today [last week] that he would support Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court, making him the first Judiciary Committee Republican to do so and potentially paving the way for several more GOP senators to back her.”

McClatchyDC.com: “Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and John Cornyn of Texas, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced Friday that they’ll vote against Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court . . . ”

Mike McKee writes at the Recorder (Law.com): “‘Someday at some point my dissent will be the majority view in California,’ he said during an interview in his San Francisco chambers late Wednesday. ‘I think that’s where the law is headed.’ ‘Equal protection is either equal or it’s not,’ he added. ‘It’s not the kind of thing you can chip away at.’”

Haaretz: “Senior Hamas officials had claimed, in the wake of Hamas’ June 2007 Gaza takeover, that the organization did not have any intention to turn the Sharia, Islamic religious law into official state regulations. Two years later, however, it seems that the Hamas government is slowly introducing more and more regulations in the spirit of the Islamic decrees.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Alberta v. Hutterian Brethren of Wilson Colony, (Sup. Ct. Canada, July 24, 2009), Canada’s Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision rejected a constitutional challenge brought by the Hutterites to Alberta’s requirement that all drivers licenses contain a photo of the license holder . . .

Religion Clause Blog: “On July 17 the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development issued issued a report titled Audit of USAID’s Faith-Based and Commuinty Initiatives . . . ”

Fox13Now.com (report includes video): “On Friday, Orrin Hatch said he would vote against Sotomayor.”

Sally Satel writes at the Wall Street Journal: “Even by New Jersey standards, Thursday’s roundup of three mayors, five rabbis and 36 others on charges of money laundering and public corruption was big. But what put this FBI dragnet head and shoulders above the rest are the charges of trafficking in human body parts.”

AP: “The United Nations granted official status to a gay and lesbian organization from Brazil on Monday, allowing it to participate in U.N. meetings ranging from health to human rights.”

One News Now: “Alaskans may have a chance to overturn a state Supreme Court decision on parental notice for a minor’s abortion . . . Jim Minnery of the Alaska Family Council tells OneNewsNow that did not last.”

Jay Heiler writes in the Arizona Republic: “When Arizona is $3.5 billion and more than 30 percent short on its budget, this question ought to be called by the state’s political leadership. Arizona’s racing industry has now called it, seeking permission to operate casinos on existing racetracks and give the state 45 percent of the profits.”

Parents Who Would Prefer Their Daughters Not Seek Careers In The Hardcore Pornography Business Should Ensure They Aren’t Watching CNBC’s Family Hour Special, ‘Porn: Business of Pleasure’

North Carolina Family Policy Council: “The guidelines were sent to every school district, but they didn’t always make it into the hands of school administrators, teachers, parents, and students,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. “As a result, some schools have practices that are in direct violation of the guidelines and the U.S. Constitution. This campaign will help schools improve their practices.”

GLAAD Press Release: “The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) today released its third annual Network Responsibility Index, a report that maps the quantity, quality and diversity of images of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people on television. Primetime programming on the five broadcast networks was evaluated as well as original primetime programming on 10 of the highest-rated cable networks.”

Via the American Future Fund, the text of a letter to the United States Senate sent by “156 conservative and constitutional cause leaders” regarding the nomination of Judge Sotomayor.

Bloomberg: “Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he will vote against confirming Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

“The association doesn’t even represent half of all U.S. lawyers anymore . . .”

Tim Dunkin writes at Renew America: “My intention here is not to aim any blue-on-blue friendly fire at libertarians. Instead, I want to point out that the belief that you can have liberty without a foundation in Judeo-Christian biblical morality, or even that you cannot have liberty unless you toss this morality aside, is completely contrary to reality. I have a saying about libertarians — about 85% of the time, they’re right on the money, but the other 15% of the time, they are way, way off base.”

Times Online: “A former glamour model who wed five men without divorcing any of them was today allowed to walk free with a suspended prison sentence by a judge who said she had ‘undermined the institution of marriage’.”

Omaha World Herald: “At least three Nebraska lawmakers want to send a message to the federal government: Butt out of state business. Next year they will see if a majority of their colleagues agrees. The senators are working on resolutions asserting Nebraska’s sovereignty under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.”

Tabitha Kelly reports in the Idaho Press-Tribune: “The American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho will investigate Nampa Classical Academy’s use of the Bible as a classroom text to see if it violates separation of church and state rules.”

OneNewsNow: “‘This hospital has known of her objection for almost five years,’ he notes. ‘And even though it receives federal funds that require it by law not to force employees to participate in abortion, it forced her over her strenuous objection to assist in this abortion of a 22-week-old child.’”

OneNewsNow: “‘The domestic partnership law clearly violates Wisconsin’s marriage amendment, which precludes any kind of legal status which is substantially similar to marriage,’ [Raum] explains. ‘And the way that the law reads, it creates a legal status that in almost every way is an attempt to mirror marriage.’”

Andrew Dowd reports in the Leader-Telegram: “‘What the Legislature has done is a direct challenge to the will of the people and the marriage amendment,’ said Jim Campbell, a lawyer at the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization that takes up religious liberty cases.”

“. . . the pro-life movement leads America in putting women first, and that putting women first is precisely why pro-lifers seek to make abortion illegal.”

Mailee Smith of Americans United for Life writes at the Culture of Life Foundation: “This year marks the tenth ‘anniversary’ of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the ‘emergency contraceptive,’ Plan B. A decade later, Plan B is not only just as unsafe, but now the drug manufacturer is targeting our children.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions writes in USA Today: “During three days of careful questioning, Judge Sotomayor renounced the pillars of activist thinking . . . Judge Sotomayor’s attempt to rebrand her previously stated judicial approach was, as one editorial page opined, ‘uncomfortably close to disingenuous.’”

“Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo’s case against Mount Sinai Hospital comes as Republicans and Democrats battle over the Obama administration’s efforts to overhaul federal ‘conscience rules’ that protect medical workers. . . ”

“The suit also seeks to force Mount Sinai to give up federal funding it receives, because it failed to uphold a federal rule protecting employees who have moral objections to controversial procedures.”

American University Law Review: “If it becomes accepted that Tinker supplies the standard for review of school regulation of students’ speech on Saturday in their own bedrooms, then that standard must necessarily stand for something more than ‘reasonableness-minus.’ Otherwise, courts will have created a constitutional underclass who must graduate, or drop out, to be treated as full-fledged citizens.”

Medicine and Law: “In this paper, I propose the enactment of guidelines for implementing the mental health indication to improve access to safe abortion. Such guidelines should enable providers to consider a woman’s social and economic circumstances in determining the risk of pregnancy to her mental health. This approach is supported by global health authorities and psychological research. I also present empirical and legal support for the notion that abortion can lead to favorable mental health outcomes, as is implicit in the mental health indication.”

Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine: “Abortion is a constitutional right that should not be revoked or limited upon entering prison.”