Daily Archives: September 11, 2009

Brisbane Times: “Proud mother of two Shelly Argent believes one of her sons is being treated as a second-rate citizen because he is gay and can’t get married. In a new national television advertising campaign she calls on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to give same-sex couples the right to legally tie the knot.”

Houston Chronicle (AP): “A proposal for new social studies curriculum in Texas public schools removes a mention of Christmas in a sixth-grade lesson, replacing it with a Hindu religious festival, a change that’s riled conservatives who say it’s another battle in the “war” against the Christian holiday.”

AP: “The Census Bureau on Friday severed its ties with ACORN, a community organization that has been hit with Republican accusations of voter-registration fraud.”

Tampa Tribune: “Anti-abortion conservatives are proposing a new constitutional amendment that critics claim would make it a crime to take birth control pills in Florida.”

Guardian: “Woman wins court battle for father’s approval to marry schoolfriend who has undergone sex-change operation”

JournalStar.com (subscription): “Of 5,214 marriage certificates issued statewide between April 27 and July 27, 676 were for same-sex couples. Gender was concealed on 339 marriage certificates. Of the 676 same-sex couples, 312 were not from Iowa . . . ”

John W. Whitehead writes at the Rutherford Institute: “The only way to truly combat sex trafficking is to expose its seedy underbelly, harshly punish perpetrators and bring justice to the victims. Yes, as collective communities and as a nation, we must make sexual trafficking a priority. The future of our country hangs in the balance.”

Christian Post: “According to research by Baylor University, 3.1 percent of adult women who attend religious services at least once a month have been victims of clergy sexual misconduct since turning 18. In other words, seven women in every congregation of 400 adults have been victimized.”

Orlando Sentinel: “Gov. Ted Strickland’s office says Ohio officials can protect Fathima Rifqa Bary, who ran away from her Muslim parents to Christian evangelists in Orlando.”

North Carolina Family Policy Council: “North Carolina’s education leaders have asked the Obama Administration to rethink its emphasis on charter schools in making determinations for the distribution of federal funds for innovations and accountability in education. In a letter dated August 27, State School Superintendent Dr. June Atkinson and State Board of Education Chairman Dr. Bill Harrison joined representatives from the NC Association of Educators, NC Parent Teach Association, NC School Boards Association, and NC Association of School Administrators to ask Education Secretary Arne Duncan to reconsider putting North Carolina at a disadvantage to receive a portion of $4.35 billion in Race to the Top grant funds because of the state’s cap on charter schools . . . ”

Proposition 8 and the Right to Marry Blog: “Raquel Guillory, director of communications for Gansler’s office, said Tuesday that a decision is ‘expected in the next few weeks.’”

Washington Blade: “Equality California and Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) delievered close to 40,000 petitions . . . ”

WXOW.com (AP): “A Milwaukee man accused with his father of pimping teenage girls has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors . . . ”

Boston Globe (AP): “The former stepfather of a slain 12-year-old Vermont girl was sentenced Friday to nearly 17 years in prison on child pornography charges that surfaced while authorities investigated her disappearance last summer.”

WCNC.com: “Two men are charged with murder in connection with a shooting at a west Charlotte strip club on Thursday.”

Times Online Article of Faith blog: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has blamed education and pluralism for Britain’s loss of Christian culture. He said the Church does still have its foot in the door but the foot is being ‘squashed very painfully’. Writers in the past such as PG Wodehouse could assume knowledge in the reader of the Bible and Hymns Ancient & Modern. No longer. ‘It’s all gone, gone because of shifting patterns of education not just religious education, it’s gone because of a much more anxious awareness of a plural society and not wanting to privilege one religious tradition over another.’”

Associated Press: “Conflicting Supreme Court rulings on homosexual rights make it difficult to predict whether any new laws protecting gays who want to serve openly in the military would be upheld, a congressional report concludes.”

Homosexuals and the U.S. Military: Current Issues
Congressional Research Service, David F. Burrelli and Jody Feder, 7.22.2009

Bob Witeck writes at the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “It is time for Gov. Kaine to lead. It is time for all leaders in Virginia to become part of the solution. This is not about ideology or politics. It is about keeping our universities competitive nationally — and our commonwealth having the decency to enable our employees to buy this coverage.”

Los Angeles Times: “The logic goes like this: Most of the proposals for expanding coverage include a provision for people who can’t afford private health insurance. They could receive federal subsidies to help them buy insurance. Abortion foes say that if a private plan offers abortion coverage and a federal subsidy is used to purchase it, this would mean taxpayers are subsidizing abortion.”

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin: “City Council members are unsure if they can limit when three anti-abortion banners are displayed. The banners protest the Family Planning Associate Medical Group on the northwest corner of San Bernardino Street and Fremont Avenue.”

ABC News: “A local church switched from Pepsi products to Coca-Cola, but it’s not because they don’t like the taste of the product. The Bell Shoals Baptist church in Brandon got rid of the products as part of the American Family Association’s boycott.”

Science Daily: “Parenthood is pushing mothers and fathers in opposite directions on political issues associated with social welfare, from health care to education, according to new research from North Carolina State University.”

The Hill: “But the more likely scenario is that Republicans will continue to oppose Obama’s plan, and the president later this fall will be able to note he tried to strike a deal with the GOP but could not. That will set up a Democratic argument that Senate leaders have been forced to use a partisan budget tool known as reconciliation to pass a health bill through the Senate by a simple majority, instead of 60 votes. Under the budget plan they passed earlier this year, Democrats could invoke the reconciliation process on Oct. 15.”

“The House Where Jesus Shines was forced to stop operating its church ministry to parolees after the city of Bellmead learned about it and immediately passed a zoning ordinance that prevents the ministry from operating anywhere within the city.”

“The Advocate has learned that Democratic representatives Jerrold Nadler of New York, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and Jared Polis of Colorado will be introducing legislation to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act next Tuesday.”

Prop 8 proponents, represented by Charles Cooper of Washington, D.C.’s Cooper & Kirk, sought permission to file a 98-page summary judgment motion late Wednesday . . . This raised the ire of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Theodore Olson . . .

“The Washington state attorney general’s office says it is appealing a federal judge’s decision to keep secret the names of people who signed petitions calling for a public vote on expanded domestic partnership benefits.”

LifeNews: “Steven H. Aden, the senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, represented Pouillon several years ago to defend his free speech rights in a case where local police unjustly arrested him. ‘Jim Pouillon was a courageous friend of both unborn children and the First Amendment right to speak up on their behalf, and he will be sorely missed,’ Aden told LifeNews.com.”

Roscommon Herald: “Township planning commission officials contend a proposed amendment to the township’s zoning ordinance, regarding adult regulated facilities, is a proactive move and not prompted by any potential adult-oriented business moving into the area.”

Miami Herald: “U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administrators have written an e-mail backing the efforts of Wayne LaRue Smith, the first openly gay person in Florida to legally adopt in decades, who is seeking a federal subsidy given to Floridians who adopt a foster child.”

Reuters: “German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions. Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina Whalley show corpses prepared using a technique invented by von Hagens called ‘plastination . . . ‘”

BBC: “A Belfast church has won the right to legally challenge a decision to ban a newspaper advertisement which described sodomy as an abomination.”

“Is using democracy to fight for shared values somehow an act of war against our neighbors? ‘Agree with me or you’re a hater’ is not the authentic voice of peace and tolerance.”

Religion Clause Blog : ” . . . a RLUIPA lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Connecticut on Wednesday by Chabad Lubavitch of Litchfield County and its rabbi, Joseph Eisenbach, challenging the refusal by the town of Litchfield to allow Chabad to restore and add onto a Victorian house on the edge of the town’s Historic District.” (links omitted)

Religion Clause Blog: “Yesterday’s London Jewish Chronicle reports that for the first time London’s Jewish Free School has admitted a student who was not considered Jewish under Orthodox religious law as interpreted by the Office of Britain’s Chief Rabbi . . . Earlier this year, Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled that the school’s traditional admission criteria amounted to unlawful racial discrimination . . . ”

Politico: “Abortion funding in health care right now is our main priority, a top priority,” said Ashley Horne of the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family. “We are very deeply concerned, as are our constituents. We will do everything we can to ensure this bill either goes down or excludes abortion funding. We are that serious about it.”

Google News (AP): “Cases of euthanasia in Belgium’s Flanders region soared to nearly 2 percent of all deaths in 2007 after the country legalized the practice a few years earlier, a medical study has shown.”

http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/2009/09/07/genocide-how-islamic-colonisation-destroys-your-heritage/

Florida Sun-Sentinel: “Abortion opponents want to put a proposal on next year’s Florida ballot that would give human rights to embryos.”

Fox News: “Democrats had threatened to censure Rep. Joe Wilson unless he apologized on the House floor for accusing President Obama of lying during his address to a joint session of Congress. Wilson refused to do so.”

“We are no longer dealing with differences of political opinion, you see, with matters of mere ratiocination on which intelligent persons of good will might disagree. We are dealing with the deep-down psyche-shaping forces of culture. With matters of Purity.”

“The District is poised once again to become the battleground for a divisive social issue as the D.C. Council moves a step closer to legalizing same-sex marriage, an action that could force Congress and White House to take sides in the debate.”

Pipeline News: “ADF attorneys and ADF-allied attorney Andrew Pugno submitted a motion to intervene Thursday on behalf of the campaign committee for Proposition 8, ProtectMarriage.com, and the former proposition’s official proponents, asking the court to allow it to become a defendant in the lawsuit. ‘In America, we respect the results of fair elections. But once again, those who want to redefine marriage are using a lawsuit to attempt to achieve what they have not been able to obtain from either the people of California or the California Supreme Court,’ said ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum.”

On Top Magazine: “After a heated six hour debate on the issue, the Goshen, Indiana City Council voted last week against altering its civil rights ordinance to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity (transgender protections), local broadcaster WSBT reported . . . ‘This newly proposed ordinance has not passed public scrutiny and caters to political special interests,’ Lavy said in a statement before testifying. ‘Laws should protect rights, not grant special privileges based strictly on someone’s sexual confusion.’”

Law.com (National Law Journal): Washington and Lee University School of Law has thrown out its traditional third-year curriculum and replaced it with a series of legal simulations meant to prepare students to practice law in the real world . . . The movement to incorporate practical skills into legal education isn’t new, but legal educators and researchers report that the floundering economy is increasing incentives for law schools to revamp their curricula to prepare students for the realities of the legal profession.

Christian Post: “The grant, given by a family whose name was not disclosed, is matched by the recipient group, Alliance Defense Fund, so nearly $20 million will go towards its University Project. ‘Christians on public university campuses shouldn’t be discriminated against for their beliefs,’ said ADF Senior Counsel David French, director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom.”

“Locals say that the victim, James Pouillon of Owosso, was well-known in the area for his pro-life activities.”

“U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma granted the preliminary injunction involving petitions for Referendum 71 . . . ”

Washington Independent: “Cass Sunstein, President Obama’s pick to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, was confirmed handily by the Senate just now by a vote of 57 ayes to 40 nays.”

“In what sense are we one nation and one people anymore?”

MLive.com: “State police at the Corunna post have confirmed a well-known anti-abortion activist was shot multiple times and killed this morning in front of Owosso High School. The victim’s identity has not yet been released . . . ”