Monthly Archives: October 2009

The September 2009 edition of the Community Defense Reporter is now available online at the Community Defense Counsel.

Christian Newswire: “Planned Parenthood sued the State of Missouri this week to challenge two pro-life ballot initiatives, in an apparent effort to stifle the people’s constitutional right to the ballot process.”

Tallahassee.com: “City Hall chambers erupted in cheers and applause Wednesday after the Tallahassee City Commission unanimously voted to change its benefits policy to include same-sex and domestic partnerships.”

Focus on the Family: “Focus on the Family Founder and Chairman Emeritus James C. Dobson, Ph.D., will leave the ministry as its primary radio voice at the end of February, the ministry announced today.”

LifeSiteNews: “A video released by the Heritage Foundation blog appears to show Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, whose efforts against the health care bill’s abortion expansion had emerged as the pro-life community’s primary strategy in the House, admitting that he would ultimately vote for the health bill even with government-funded abortion if it otherwise met his standards.”

LifeSiteNews: “Recently issued physicians’ guidelines from the UK’s Department of Health ignore the fact that abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland and presume that abortion is a legitimate form of healthcare for women say pro-life campaigners, who are in court today arguing their side of the issue.”

The Hill: “A House Democratic leader strongly hinted Friday that amendments won’t be allowed on the healthcare bill.”

Regent Law Professor Lynne Marie Kohm, writing at the Regent Law Family Restoration blog: “Well, I can tell you why ADF is more competent in this representation than most attorneys – because of the excellent litigation training provided to attorneys around the globe in ADF’s National Litigation Academies (NLA) and their annual Blackstone Legal Fellowship program. And a large number of those ADF attorneys today are Regent Law graduates.”

How Appealing links to the ruling Watson v. Geren, No. 07-2563 (2nd Cir. Oct. 30, 2009)

CNN: “‘I think President Obama has used the bully pulpit as a way to attack capitalism,’ he said, according to LegalNewsline.com.”

Tracking American Evangelical Politics: “The Alliance Defense Fund reports that the University of Florida has ended its discriminatory treatment of a Christian fraternity, thanks in large part to a lawsuit filed by the ADF and the Christian Legal Society.”

Christianity Today: “One undoubted factor in the search for better relations is that evangelicals and Mormons today unite on various moral issues and feel on the defensive, especially in shared opposition to same-sex marriage. Whatever differences they may have about the nature of God, ‘when you’ve been in the trenches together, it often generates new respect,’ said evangelical attorney David French, who leads the Alliance Defense Fund’s (ADF) campus religious freedom project. ‘The LDS commitment to core values is one that betters our country, without question.’”

OneNewsNow: “A federal judge has thrown out a Chicago lawsuit against Craigslist . . . ‘He suggests that Craigslist is without any liability whatsoever for hosting a portion of their website titled “erotic” and another one called “adult” that are filled with prostitution ads,’ Trueman explains. ‘Yet the judge says they have no responsibility for the ads that are placed there.’”

Washington Blade: “Alliance Defense Fund attorneys Cleta Mitchell and Austin Nimocks reiterated arguments made in June — that the board misinterpreted the election law and that existing city law requires the board to approve a marriage initiative for the ballot in 2010. ‘Clearly, the people still have the right to legislate on this through an initiative,’ Mitchell said. ‘The Human Rights Act doesn’t nullify the marriage law. The two have coincided for more than 30 years.’”

Knoxville News Sentinel: “‘We are disappointed in the verdict,’ Kellum said. ‘We wanted a policy change, or a court ruling, and we still do not have either. We are still very much concerned that at any point in time, a school administrator can step in and say, “You can’t do that.”‘”

SDGLN.com: “Lambda Legal sent a letter yesterday to SkyWest and Delta Airlines warning the companies that their treatment of gay employees’ spouses and registered domestic partners violates not only the airlines’ own policies, but also California law.”

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund have obtained a settlement from officials with the Rapid City Area School District in a lawsuit involving a pro-life group’s request to use a school auditorium for an after-school meeting.

A high school counselor who supports marriage between one man and one woman has been reported to a Maine licensing board because of his views.

Religion Clause Blog: “In different parts of the world this week, courts were examining the question of conscientious objector exemptions from military service . . . ”

AP: “States that allow gay marriage can’t force the federal government to provide benefits to those couples, the Obama administration argued Friday in court papers in a lawsuit by Massachusetts.”

AP: “On Friday a new U.N. Human Rights Committee report on Russia called for a series of sweeping legal reforms, saying the country is still struggling to guarantee some of the most basic rights, including to a fair trial, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”

“Teenagers may think it’s harmless, but sending sexually explicit pictures and messages over cell phones can lead to emotional problems and criminal charges that will affect them for the rest of their lives, criminal justice officials said.”

AP: “Bigamy charges against the leader of the House of Yahweh religious sect in West Texas have been dropped as part of a plea agreement.”

We have had some technical difficulties with the ADF Alliance Alert web server during the course of an upgrade. We are working to resolve those and apologize for any periodic outages and inconvenience. Thank you.

Volokh Conspiracy: “Marty Lederman has this new post up at Balkinization on why he thinks the new hate crimes legislation is constitutional.”

Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney John Mauck will be available for media interviews following his oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Friday in an important religious land use battle that heated up when the city of Chicago blocked the use of a Christian ministry’s property for Hurricane Katrina victims.

Christian Newswire: “Operation Rescue has released a three-part report documenting how late-term abortionist Martin Haskell has used his considerable influence over years of legal wrangling in order to keep his Dayton abortion clinic open even though it does not meet the safety requirements prescribed by law.”

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears appeared on the Michael Medved Show to discuss passage of the so-called “hate crimes” legislation and talk about his new book: “In Justice.”

The MP3 runs approximately 16 minutes.

Barnes and Noble: In Justice

Flint Journal: “Legal documents were filed Wednesday against Holly Area Schools, alleging the Oakland County-based school district was in violation of constitutional law in preventing an elementary school student from handing out fliers promoting a Christian youth camp last June . . . A message left with the Georgia-based [sic] Alliance Defense Fund, who is supporting the plaintiff, wasn’t immediately returned.”

CitizenLink: “Gary McCaleb, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed a friend of the court brief in the case, said the program gives parents the options they deserve.”

Denver Political Buzz Examiner: “Erik Stanley, Senior Legal Counsel for the group called the legislation ‘another nail in the coffin of the First Amendment.’ Other opponents cite cases in both Canada and Sweden, where Christians have been prosecuted for quoting the Bible on homosexuality.”

CNN Living: “Lipton and Barash, who have been married 32 years and are the co-authors of ‘Strange Bedfellows’ and ‘The Myth of Monogamy,’ said serial monogamy may be more realistic — a model in which people move from one committed long-term relationship to another and choose partners for different reasons at different stages of their life.”

Google News (AP): “But as a daughter of privilege — her dad was a powerful Democratic state senator, and she had all the benefits of a comfortable upbringing and a good education — Jenny Durkan also recalls what someone once told her: ‘You’re the most non-diverse diverse person I know.’”

Reuters: “Demand remains strongest in urban areas – and as a result, charter “market
share” is growing rapidly in cities and adjacent suburbs, even while the overall number of students remains a modest portion of nationwide enrollment. ‘Charter schools are working at scale in a growing number of American cities,’ according to Nelson Smith, President and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. ‘Chartering is becoming well-established as a key component of the public education delivery system,’ he added.” The report includes charter school statistics for various cities around the country.

Blog of the Legal Times: “The Senate Judiciary Committee today gave its blessing to Barbara Keenan, nominated for a vacancy on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.”

Religious Intelligence: “Turkish religious communities as diverse as the Alevi Muslims, Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, Protestants, and the Syrian Orthodox Church have seen no significant progress in 2009 in resolving long-standing property problems, Otmar Oehring of the German Catholic charity Missio notes in a commentary for Forum 18 News Service.”

EuroNewsa: “The Swiss government is to change the law on assisted suicide to ensure it is only used as a last resort by the terminally ill.”

Houston Chronicle (AP): “Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is being asked for an opinion on a law that a Dallas-area woman says let her ex-husband show their children pornography.”

Christian Newswire: Late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart was in Washington, D.C. today standing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in support of taxpayer funded abortion. ‘If there was any doubt that the Pelosi-Reid-Obama health care scheme would force taxpayers to fund abortions, there isn’t anymore,’ said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.”

WOAI: “Employees say a new west side club opening Thursday is exclusive. The city says it’s private. But parents say what’s going on in the club is not staying in the club.”

San Francisco Chronicle: “On Wednesday, a San Francisco judge ordered the notorious Tenderloin strip club closed for a year and directed its operator, Damone H. Smith, to pay at least $688,500 in fines after he violated a court agreement to bring the club into compliance with local and state laws.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Planned Parenthood sued the state Wednesday to object to the language in two proposed anti-abortion, anti-stem-cell funding ballot initiatives.”

Ottawa Citizen: “A man who admitted to writing stories about incest and sex with teenage girls has been sentenced to 14 days in jail for the possession of child pornography.”

AFP: “If Uganda’s recently tabled Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law it would mark a major setback in the promotion of human rights, the US embassy in Kampala told AFP Thursday.”

Google News (AP): “A new law meant to protect the voting rights of deployed troops and other Americans overseas is forcing at least a dozen states to consider holding their primaries earlier or to negotiate another plan that federal officials will accept.”

OneNewsNow: “In an attempt to be ‘inclusive,’ Kentucky’s governor has created a storm over a tree. Governor Steve Beshear is calling for a giant evergreen tree on the Capitol lawn, announcing that it will be a ‘holiday tree’ rather than a ‘Christmas tree.’ According to a spokesperson for the governor, the holiday tree is meant to be inclusive for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s.”

Heritage Foundation: “The 2009 conference ‘Religious Practice and The Family: What the Research Says’ will be held October 29th at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. Leading researchers in the field will present their findings about the role of religious practice and families outcomes. Explore this website to learn more about the conference agenda, speakers, and archives.”

“As a result of a lawsuit filed by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and Christian Legal Society, the University of Florida has changed its policy that discriminated against a Christian men’s fraternity . . . ”

Salt Lake Tribune: “In the beating case, Harrison had pleaded guilty to second-degree felony attempted murder, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. But Payne instead sentenced Harrison under Utah’s anti-abortion statute, saying a charge of third-degree ‘attempted killing of an unborn child’ better fit the facts of the case. ”

Academic Freedom File: “On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard oral arguments in Roman Catholic Foundation, UW-Madison, Inc. et al. v. David G. Walsh, et al., a case involving the viewpoint discriminatory allocation of student activity fees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison . . . ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence argued the case on behalf of the student group.”

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, writing at National Review’s Phi Beta Cons blog: “It is becoming increasingly common for universities to defend unconstitutional policies (sometimes for years), make changes at the last possible moment, and then seek dismissal of a case. Just last week, ADF Center for Academic Freedom attorneys argued a case against Arizona State University (retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor presided) in which the university changed its policies (for the second time) after ASU Students for Life filed their appellate brief and now seek dismissal for mootness.”

The Religion Clause blog quotes a substantial portion of ADF’s press release, “Everyone welcome except churches“, in its coverage of J.S. v. Holly Area Schools.

ADF attorney Mike Johnson appeared on the Frank Pastore Show to discuss this: ADF sues Milwaukee to halt harassment of pro-life advocates.

The MP3 runs 13-14 minutes.

Religion Clause Blog: “In similar opinions handed down this week in two diversity cases, a Missouri federal district court held that it is required to make its own independent constitutional analysis in clergy sexual abuse cases to determine whether allowing negligent hiring, retention and supervision claims to be brought against the Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis violates the First Amendment.”

AP: “Malaysian authorities have confiscated more than 15,000 Bibles in recent months because they referred to ‘God’ as ‘Allah,’ a translation that has been banned in this Muslim-majority country, Christian church officials said Thursday.”

AP: “Pope Benedict XVI urged Iranian authorities on Thursday to let Catholics have the priests and churches they need to freely practice their faith in the country.”

WZTV (AP): “A federal court jury has ruled in favor of Knox County Schools in a lawsuit in which a student claimed he could not read and discuss Bible passages during recess . . . The Whitsons’ case was backed by the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal group.”

OneNewsNow: “‘It’s our position, and always has been, that Christian groups shouldn’t be banned from public areas for expressing their beliefs, and we’re pleased that the city has finally recognized the First Amendment rights of ministries like Apple of His Eye and others that want to share their viewpoint on important social and moral issues,’ [Kevin] Theriot reports.”

Metro Weekly: “Cleta Mitchell, an attorney representing Stand4MarriageDC, with which Jackson and the National Organization for Marriage are affiliated, and Austin R. Nimocks, a local attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based, ‘Christ-Centered’ legal group, and Jackson got the ball rolling Monday morning at One Judiciary Square.”

Washington Times: “‘Bills of this sort are designed to forward a political agenda and silence critics, not combat actual crime,’ said Erik Stanley, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian advocacy group.”

Christian Web News: “‘Christians shouldn’t be discriminated against for their beliefs,’ said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. ‘The school district’s policies prohibiting religious speech while allowing the speech of other groups are clearly unconstitutional. The courts have clearly ruled that religious literature of this sort cannot be singled out for censorship.’”

AP: “Is Argentina ready to become Latin America’s first nation to legalize gay marriage? Gay and lesbian activists think so – and they have a growing number of supporters in Congress, which opened debate Thursday on whether to change dozens of laws that define marriage as a union between a ‘man and woman.’”

Christian Examiner: “Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, called the new law ‘another nail in the coffin for the First Amendment.’”

KTUL/News Channel 8: “Attorneys with the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund on Wednesday asked for the review by the nation’s highest court.”

KFSM (AP): “Attorneys with the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund on Wednesday asked for the review by the nation’s highest court.”

Baptist Press: “‘All violent crimes are hate crimes, and all crime victims deserve equal justice,’ ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley said in a written statement. ‘This law is a grave threat to the First Amendment because it provides special penalties based on what people think, feel, or believe.’”

CitizenLink: “‘This law is a grave threat to the First Amendment because it provides special penalties based on what people think, feel or believe,’ [Erik Stanley] said. ‘It paves the way for the criminalization of speech that is not deemed “politically correct.”‘”

Associated Baptist Press: “‘This law is a grave threat to the First Amendment because it provides special penalties based on what people think, feel, or believe.’ said Erik Stanley, senior counsel for the conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, in a press release.”

WorldNetDaily: “‘All violent crimes are hate crimes, and all crime victims deserve equal justice,’ ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley said in a statement. ‘This law is a grave threat to the First Amendment because it provides special penalties based on what people think, feel, or believe. ADF will be on the front line to defend those whose free speech or free exercise of religion rights are violated by this unconstitutional law and to ultimately overturn this attack on freedom.’”

Marci A. Hamilton writes at Findlaw: “Islamic countries recently have been pushing the United Nations to adopt a resolution that would make ‘religious defamation’ a civil rights violation. Their theory is that it should be a human rights crime for anyone to speak negatively about a religion. Their aim is to bring the world community to their side in condemning the public criticism of Islamicism in any and every context, including that of political cartoons. Their latest gambit has been to introduce a UN resolution against religious defamation. Instead of stoutly and loudly rejecting such a dangerous principle, as it should have done, the Obama Administration joined Egypt in crafting a misguided compromise resolution. The new Resolution, unfortunately, was adopted unanimously.”

“Conventional wisdom holds that two parents are better than one. Scientists are now finding that growing up without a father actually changes the way your brain develops . . . ”

How Appealing reports on the today’s ruling in U.S. v. Kilbride, No. 07-10528 (9th Cir. Oct. 28, 2009).

This post will be updated.

AZ Daily Star: “Tucson police have arrested a 28-year-old man in connection with a shooting death outside a midtown strip club early Wednesday, the second homicide outside the business in the last three months.”

“A federal judge has denied emergency requests from a group called Washington Family PAC, which wanted to suspend a ban on large campaign contributions and a requirement to identify donors.”

San Francisco Chronicle: “Most turnout estimates project that 500,000 Mainers will vote in Tuesday’s election. The No on 1 (pro-same sex marriage) campaign — in the person of senior field consultant Darlene Huntress — believes that they have found 275,000 people who will vote their way. Now, she said, it’s their job to get them to show up at the polls.”