Monthly Archives: September 2009

LifeSiteNews: “Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) called on Arizona state and federal officials on Monday to stop enforcing a requirement prohibiting the state’s schoolchildren from expressing religious viewpoints through Christmas themes while decorating ornaments for the 2009 Capitol Christmas Tree . . . ‘Banning Christmas from the Capitol Christmas tree is just absurd. Christian students shouldn’t be discriminated against for expressing their religious beliefs,’ said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Jonathan Scruggs.”

Liberty Counsel: “Today the Christian Action Network (CAN) filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Maine for censoring a fundraising letter state officials claimed contained ‘an inflammatory anti-Muslim message.’ Maine officials fined and banned CAN from mailing any future letters under the threat of criminal prosecution. Liberty Counsel represents CAN . . . ”

“Salazar vs. Buono . . . Erwin Chemerinsky and Joseph Infranco debate the case and its possible implications, including whether any religious symbol should be permitted on government land and who should have the standing to sue over such displays.”

Federal court denies Tucson Women’s Center attempt to stop act protecting women, state court allows Planned Parenthood assault on new state law that fully informs women.

Catholic News Agency: “A law professor [Chai Feldblum] nominated by President Obama to become a commissioner for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was a signatory to a radical 2006 manifesto which endorsed polygamous households and argued traditional marriage should not be privileged ‘above all others.’”

Judie Brown, president and co-founder of American Life League, responds to Clarke Forsythe, senior legal counsel at Americans United for Life, on personhood amendments and the correct interpretation of Roe v. Wade.

On October 7th, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Salazar v. Buono, No. 08-472.

“China appears to be at the edge of an historic demographic transition, setting the country on a path to grow old before it becomes prosperous.”

“Based on this research, it is not time for the administration to reexamine the issue; rather, it is time for the administration to examine how to implement the repeal of the ban.”

The paper, The Liberty, had its distribution bins–containing copies of the latest issue of the paper– thrown next to a dumpster by university officials . . . the other student newspaper was left untouched.

Republican Rep. Dan Itse . . . said Wednesday he will sponsor two constitutional amendments when the Legislature reconvenes in January.

LifeSiteNews: “The attorney representing the pro-lifers arrested while protesting Obama at Notre Dame today repeated his request that the judge in the case, who is married to a pro-abortion Notre Dame professor, be removed from the case.”

Tim Samuels writes in The Guardian: “One of the unforeseen consequences of globalisation is the shocking effect that western porn is having in parts of the developing world.”

LifeNews: “On a 13-10 vote, the Senate Finance Committee rejected amendments from Sen. Orrin Hatch that would have the bill conform to current federal law prohibiting direct abortion funding.”

LifeNews: “A bipartisan group of 183 members of Congress sent House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a letter on Monday urging her to allow a vote on an amendment to cut the massive abortion funding and subsidies from the main health care ‘reform’ bill in the chamber.”

David Kopel writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: “An opinion released today by the Arkansas Attorney General says ‘no.’ Like most states, Arkansas allows adults to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun for lawful purposes, after passing a background check and safety class. Like a few states, Arkansas prohibits licensed carry in ‘Any church or other place of worship.’”

NBC New York: “More than 75 percent of New York voters mistakenly think sex ed is a part of the required school curriculum, while 85 percent want comprehensive sex education to be taught in school, according to a new study from Planned Parenthood of New York.”

Media Newswire: “The University of Scranton’s Schemel Forum will host a special session of its course on the separation of church and state. U.S. District Court Judges Thomas Vanaskie and John E. Jones III will join Morey M. Myers, Esq., for a class on Sept. 30 at 6 p.m. in the Pearn Auditorium on the 2nd floor of Brennan Hall at The University of Scranton.”

Gallup: “Americans now show a clear preference for the government’s promoting of ‘traditional values,’ a change from recent years, when the public’s views were more divided, but a return to the prevailing view from 1993 through 2004.”

“A state judge on Tuesday blocked implementation of several key parts of a new Arizona law restricting abortions, while allowing a few provisions to take effect.”

David Kopel reports at The Volokh Conspiracy: “The website for all the Chicago case filings is here. For 19th century history, Stephen Halbrook is by far the most important scholar. His articles include . . . ”

McDonald v. City of Chicago

Religion Clause Blog: “Trustees of Gallilee Pentecostal Church, Inc. v. Williams, (NY App. Div., Sept. 22, 2009), is a case in which plaintiffs sought a declaration as to who are the legal trustees and members of the Gallilee Pentecostal Church in Poughkeepsie, New York . . . ”

Religioun Clause Blog: “In the first ruling of its kind in Germany, the Berlin administrative court has ruled that Diesterweg High School in Berlin-Wedding must allow a Muslim student known in the litigation as Yunus M. to pray 10 minutes each day in a separate classroom. Deutsche Welle reported yesterday . . . ”

Religion Clause Blog: “Two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term, Graham v. Florida and Sulivan v. Florida, appear to have become vehicles for those filing amicus briefs to duel over the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child which conservative Christian groups fear the U.S. Senate may ratify. They claim the Convention would infringe parental rights.”

LA Church & State Examiner:”The Sacramento Bee is reporting that Hansen said, ‘I’m leaning toward having an opportunity for any individual to offer a prayer prior to the council meeting, and the prayer would be uncensored.’ Hansen said also he is leaning toward following a policy suggested by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which would specify that the prayer is not part of the council agenda.”

One News Now: “A California woman has settled a lawsuit against her former doctors who denied her artificial insemination based on her sexual orientation, attorneys for both sides said Tuesday.”

Sacramento Bee: “The question is: Should the City Council allow invocations that call on Jesus at its public meetings? . . . ‘[The Freedom From Religion Foundation] is on a search-and-destroy mission for all things religious,’ Johnson said. ‘They don’t hide that fact. For whatever reason, they have targeted one of our oldest and most cherished traditions, the opening of public proceedings with prayer, which dates to the Continental Congress.’”

East Valley Tribune: “Sen. Linda Gray, R-Glendale, a supporter of the law, said part of the reason for Planned Parenthood’s victory was the refusal of Daughton to let two anti-abortion groups and their allies to actively participate in the case and defend the laws. The judge rejected arguments by attorneys for the Center for Arizona Policy and the Alliance Defense Fund that the interests of those who support the restrictions would not be adequately represented by the state Attorney General’s Office.”

Associated Press: “A state judge has blocked implementation of key parts of a new Arizona law restricting abortion . . . There is no word if the state will appeal the decision, but the reason they don’t agree with it is ‘it’s a battle against bad medical practice,’ according to Steven Aden, Alliance Defense Fund.”

CitizenLink: “On Sunday, more than 80 pastors across the nation openly defied a 1954 amendment by then-Senator Lyndon Johnson, that restricts political speech from the pulpit. The Pulpit Initiative is sponsored by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF).”

SC Magazine: “According to a report on BBC News, members of ICANN, which oversees the net’s naming system, will vote on a plan to relax the strict rules on so-called top-level domain names. If approved, it is likely to mean that X-rated adult sites could soon start to use the name .xxx alongside .com for the first time.”

The Hill: “House liberals, challenged by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to prove they can pass their preferred public option, are surveying the rest of the Democratic caucus Wednesday.”

The Hill: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has cancelled the Senate’s Columbus Day recess so that lawmakers can focus on passing healthcare reform legislation during the week of Oct. 12.”

SCOTUS Blog links to the court order and highlights the cases granted review.

Click here to view the Community Defense Counsel abstract for 729, Inc., et. al. v. Kenton County Fiscal Court, No. 04-212-DOB (E.D. Ky., Sept. 24, 2009)

SCOTUS Blog: “Taking on a major new constitutional dispute over gun rights, the Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to decide whether to apply the Second Amendment to state, county and city government laws.”

McDonald v. Chicago (08-1521)

Chattanooga Times Free Press: “Community members are rallying around Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School cheerleaders after they were banned from displaying signs with Bible verses urging fans and players to ‘commit to the Lord’ and ‘take courage and do it.’”

Nicolette M. Priaulx, Testing the Margin of Appreciation: Therapeutic Abortion, Reproductive Rights and the Intriguing Case of Tysiąc v. Poland (September 7, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1469456

“In Tysiac v. Poland (2007) the Strasbourg Court ruled in favour of the applicant (who had been denied access to a lawful therapeutic abortion), finding that Poland had failed to comply with its positive obligations to safeguard the applicant’s right to effective respect for her private life under Article 8. Exploring this controversial judgment, the author assesses the claim that Tysiac marks a ‘radical shift’ on the part of the Court in creating a ‘right to abortion’. The author argues that while Tysiac makes an important addition to abortion jurisprudence, the notion it founds such a ‘right’ greatly overstates the legal significance of this case.”

HSLDA: “Home School Legal Defense Association assisted eight member families in Butte at the beginning of this school year when the county superintendent of schools rejected their notice of intent. In a letter sent to each of the families, the superintendent stated that she was unable to ‘register’ the children to be homeschooled because of insufficient information contained in the notices of intent.”

Times of Malta: “MGRM activists yesterday greeted parliamentarians returning to the House after the summer recess with an appeal to discuss same-sex marriage, also handing out copies of a speech by left-wing Spanish Prime Minister Josè Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.”

LifeSiteNews: “On Friday this week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will vote on a pro-abortion report that says that all states should offer abortion by 2015.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Conference, which serves as the official public policy voice of the Florida bishops, released an email alert Friday afternoon, alerting supporters that, ‘although the bishops of Florida clearly share the desire for our state laws to recognize all life from its very beginning to natural end, after careful consideration and deliberation with legal counsel, the bishops do not support this current amendment effort.’”

The Guardian: “The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was ‘busy cleaning its own house’ and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger. In a defiant and provocative statement, issued following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, the Holy See said the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not paedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males . . . ‘Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17.’”

Related post at Catholic Culture: Vatican Official: Most Clerical Abuse Not Pedophilia, But Homosexual Abuse of Adolescents

Virginian-Pilot: “Debates over allowing gay men and women to serve in the military quickly get complicated. That’s because there are two seemingly contradictory regulations governing gay military service: the policy known as ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ and the federal law declaring homosexuality incompatible with military service.”

Atlanta Journal Constitution: “All four leading mayoral candidates — Lisa Borders, Mary Norwood, Kasim Reed and Jesse Spikes — sent statements urging city officials to conduct a fair investigation into the Sept. 10 raid at the Atlanta Eagle and punish any police officers found to have violated the bar patrons’ civil rights.”

“It is the keystone that holds up the whole bunch, and so we need to focus our energies and attention there’ . . .”

LifeNews: “The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will hold a debate on vote on Friday on a report that pro-life groups tell LifeNews.com. The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) and the British pro-life group SPUC are asking for calls and emails in advance of the vote.”

LifeNews: “The lawsuits highlight the problems of fertility clinics having such a direct control over the life and death of people in their earliest days.”

LifeSiteNews: “California has joined the race to recognize human rights and personhood for all human beings from the biological beginning of development. Some of the state’s most outspoken pro-life advocates submitted the California Human Rights Amendment to Attorney General Jerry Brown following a press conference Monday in Sacramento.”

U.S. News & World Report “Paper Trail” blog: “Tufts University has taken a bold step toward regulating sexual activity in dorm rooms. The school, whose main campus is in Medford, Mass., instituted a new policy for students with roommates in on-campus housing: No sex while the other roommate is in the room, and no sexual activity should interfere with a roommate’s privacy, study, or sleep.”

Washington Post: “The Senate Finance Committee voted down a government-run ‘public option’ as part an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system Tuesday, rejecting the first of two amendments offered by Democrats.”

Ben Bull, ADF Chief Counsel and Director of Global Activities, appeared on TruNews with Rick Wiles to discuss efforts in Canada to muzzle a pastor through “hate crime” allegations, because he spoke against homosexual behavior.

The MP3 runs just over 16 minutes.

Related ADF Media

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, appeared on the Michael Medved Show to discuss leftist indoctrination in public schools.

The MP3 runs just under 15 minutes.

LA Times: “Joseph Infranco says it would be ludicrous to infer an endorsement of religion from a cross-shaped memorial. Erwin Chemerinsky says religious symbols belong in homes and places of worship, not on publicly owned property.”

WRCB: “The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) sent out their ‘Know Your Rights: Religion in Public Schools – A Guide for Administrators and Teachers’ to public school superintendents across the state in response to concerns about religious activities in Tennessee public schools.”

The Daily Reveille: “The organization Atheists, Humanists and Agnostics will participate in Blasphemy Day International for the first time this year. Matthew Shepherd, AHA president, said the organization’s main goal in Wednesday’s event is to promote freedom of speech, not to offend religious groups.”

Dutch News: “Religious schools will be able to continue refusing to employ homosexual teachers, despite home affairs ministry plans to amend discrimination laws, it emerged on Tuesday . . . The Netherlands has dozens of fundamentalist Christian schools which oppose homosexuality on Biblical principles. While funded by the government, they are run independently. Such schools may not discriminate but are free under European rules to determine their own ‘professional demands’ for teachers, the paper says.”

Religion Clause Blog: “George Washington University Law School has announced the 2010 National Religious Freedom Moot Court to be held February 5-6, 2010 in Washington, DC.”

OneNewsNow: “A report . . . indicates that investigations of employee misconduct . . . grew sixfold last year when cases of porn access by workers began to surface . . . Pat Trueman, special counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), tells OneNewsNow that in one case, a senior executive spent 331 days accessing pornography on his government computer, often chatting with women who disrobed, before he was discovered.”

CNSNews: “British health officials temporarily suspended a vaccination program in an English city Tuesday after a 14-year-old girl died a few hours after being vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer.”

CNSNews: “A showdown is looming in Geneva as the United Nation’s main human rights institution grapples with an explosive report accusing Israel of war crimes and laying the groundwork for its possible referral to the International Criminal Court.”

Law.com (NY Law J.): ” . . . a federal appeals court has ruled that a prisoner who founded a religion that requires martial arts sparring but forbids eating meat or appearing nude in front of non-members was properly barred from leading a prison congregation. But a unanimous panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Keesh v. Smith, 08-2816-pr, concluded that denying the inmate his religion-mandated dietary regime might not be the “least restrictive means” to address security or administrative concerns, and remanded that issue to the court below.”

How Appealing carries this article by Lawrence Hurley from the Daily Journal: “When Los Angeles-based American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Peter J. Eliasberg first heard about a controversial cross erected on federal land, it didn’t seem like a case that …

The most recent edition of SCOTUS Blog’s Petitions to Watch is available here. The list includes this entry:

Docket: 09-154
Title: Florida Association of Professional Lobbyists, Inc. et al. v. Division of Legislative Information Services of the Florida Office of Legislative Services et al.
Issue: Whether a state law that requires disclosure of the identities of those paying for grassroots lobbying – “opinion articles, issue advertisements, and letter writing campaigns” – facially violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments due to vagueness and overbreadth.Whether a state law that prohibits all gifts for the purpose of lobbying facially violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments due to vagueness and overbreadth.

Opinion below (11th Circuit)
Petition for certiorari
Brief in opposition
Brief amicus curiae of American Center for Law and Justice
Brief amicus curiae of Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association, Inc.
Brief amicus curiae of Foundation for Free Expression

ADF is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2008-2009 William Pew Religious Freedom Scholarship Competition is Michael J. O’Connor. ADF extends special congratulations to Michael. He will receive a cash award in the amount of $2,500.00.

LifeNews: “New Hampshire state Representative Charles Weed is introducing a measure that would not only expand assisted suicide to New Hampshire but allow it for residents of surrounding states. The language of the Weed amendment would turn the Granite State into a suicide haven.”

Washington Times: “Employee misconduct investigations, often involving workers accessing pornography from their government computers, grew sixfold last year inside the taxpayer-funded foundation that doles out billions of dollars of scientific research grants, according to budget documents and other records obtained by The Washington Times.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Today’s London Guardian reports on changes in admission policy made by Britain’s publicly-funded Jewish schools after a Court of Appeal decision in June held that using the traditional Orthodox Jewish definition of who is Jewish amounts to impermissible racial discrimination instead of a permissible religious criterion.”

Law.com (New Jersey L.J.): “Spell PACER backwards and you get RECAP, a no-cost alternative to the federal courts’ electronic documents database. Its creator says the new service is ‘turning PACER around’ with the goal of ‘build[ing] the nation’s most comprehensive public archive of freely-available federal judicial records.’ Though federal court officials are skittish about security, more than 7,000 downloads have been made since Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology launched the site, www.recapthelaw.org, on Aug. 14.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In ACLU of Minnesota v. Tarek Ibn Ziyad Acadamy, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88425 (D MN. Sept. 24, 2009) . . . the court held that the ACLU had taxpayer standing to bring an Establishment Clause challenge to funding of the school by the state and that plaintiff had sufficiently pleaded the elements of a “state action” by the sponsor, Islamic Relief.”

AP: “A federal appeals court has ruled that members of the military can be required to be vaccinated against anthrax.”

Rempfer v. Sharpstein, No. 08-5117 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 29, 2009)

AP: “Archaeologists say they have unveiled what they believe to be remains of the ‘dining room’ of the Roman emperor Nero, part of his palatial residence built in the first century.”

City Journal: “Each year, thousands of New York City parents pray that their children get offered a seat in a charter school, and a new study confirms that they have good reason to do so—the children will do much, much better. New York State should make this life-changing alternative available to any family who wants it.”

Associated Press: “The Alliance Defense Fund’s Erik Stanley says most of the sermons were preached this past Sunday, with a few scheduled this coming Sunday.”

LifeNews: “Community Colleges of Spokane and Spokane Falls Community College officials agreed to a court order Thursday that settles a lawsuit filed after they attempted to unconstitutionally silence the pro-life message of a student group. ‘Christian pro-life students shouldn’t be silenced, discriminated against, and threatened with expulsion for attempting to share their beliefs on public college campuses,’ Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin Hacker said.”