Daily Archives: October 7, 2009

FOX News: “Days before President Obama is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at the annual gathering of the Human Rights Campaign, White House officials say the President is ‘intent’ on making progress on issues important to the gay community.”

ABC: “Science tells us that humans have evolved over the years to make better decisions about whom to choose as a spouse, but a growing body of research suggests that women could undo all that evolution with a simple pill many are already taking.”

Christian Post: “Leaders in the U.S. House plan to slip the hate crimes bill into the 2010 Defense Authorization bill that could be voted on as early as Thursday, [the Family Research Council] warned.”

“State law against ‘unreasonable or loud’ noise used to arrest Christians sharing gospel but not enforced against town-sponsored concerts.”

“Political associations exist to enable us to develop a civic friendship whereby we will discover moral excellence as a community.”

Robert Costa writing at National Review Online: “The couple’s film (co-produced with Citizens United), which documents the history of religion in America from the 17th century until the Civil War, is what Gingrich calls an ‘oral-history project,’ in which he hopes to give ‘the facts’ about the powerful role of religion in early America, told through the words of the Founding Fathers, ‘in their own words, for themselves.’”

ADF attorney Doug Napier appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the Mojave Desert cross case, Salazar v. Buono.

The mp3 runs just over 20 minutes.

Reuters: “French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand faced calls for his resignation on Wednesday over a 2005 autobiography in which he wrote about paying ‘young boys’ for sex during trips abroad.”

Washington Post: “Maryland’s state university system will be the first in the nation to adopt rules governing the acceptable use of pornographic movies on campus, under orders from state legislators who objected to the screening of [an "adult film"] at the University of Maryland last spring.”

Deseret News: “U.S. House and Senate Democratic leaders are afraid to take a vote over same-sex marriages in Washington, D.C., says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah . . . As the creator and overseer of the district, Congress has 30 days after any new district law is passed to overturn the measure. But congressional Democrats are afraid to take that vote, Chaffetz said.”

LifeNews: “A Texas man who became the second person convicted under the state’s unborn victims law is challenging the pro-woman, pro-life statute in court. The law allows two charges when a criminal attacks a pregnant woman and kills her unborn child.”

TopNews.in: “Egyptian students on Wednesday protested their exclusion from university dormitories because they wear the niqab, a veil that covers the full face.”

Guardian: “Maria Miller said the Conservative party ‘unashamedly supports families and unashamedly supports marriage’, rallying around the tax pledge, a policy that has come in for criticism from liberal members of the Tory party and opposition parties but remains one of David Cameron’s highest profile promises.”

American Spectator: “House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Domestic Policy Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) have requested that controversial Obama “czar” Kevin Jennings appear before the Oversight committee.”

IslamOnline.net: “Switzerland’s Federal Commission against Racism banned on Wednesday, October 7, a racially prejudiced poster, part of a campaign by a far-right party against the building of minarets in the central European country.”

“Our curriculum at kindergarten, and first grade, and second grade – every grade until students have graduated – should be ‘you must respect every human being regardless of sexual orientation.’”

Hartford Courant (AP): “Two Connecticut physicians and end-of-life advocates have filed a lawsuit seeking to clarify whether doctors can help terminally ill patients with dying.”

WJZ 13: “An HIV-positive sailor who had consensual unprotected sex with two women has been sentenced to three months’ confinement.”

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom appeared on The Michael Gallagher Show to discuss the Mojave Desert Cross and the ADF’s $9.2 million grant to defend religious freedom on college campuses.

Washington Examiner: “Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is weighing a plan to bring the final health care bill to the floor without a public option — making it much easier to get the 60 votes needed to prevent a Republican filibuster — and then adding the provision later as an amendment. The public option amendment would be there waiting, but the 60-vote test would technically be on a bill without the government plan. Then moderate Democrats could drop out for the vote on the public option, which requires just 51 votes for passage.”

Newsmax: “Several pro-life groups, including Operation Rescue and the Christian Defense Coalition, have launched the ‘I Am 71′ project to draw attention to the 71 percent of Americans who are opposed to allowing taxpayer-funded abortions in the current health care reform legislation.”

Chicago Tribune Clout Street blog: “The Chicago City Council today voted 27-11 to pass an ordinance creating a so-called bubble zone requiring anti-abortion activists to keep their distance from people entering clinics.”

Wisconsin Radio Network: “The Weston prayer death parents will spend 10 years on probation, but they’ll also spend some time in jail. Marathon County Judge Vincent Howard sentenced Dale and Leilani Neumann to serve a month in jail for the first six years of probation.”

UPI: “Students at Maryland’s public universities are raising free speech concerns over a mandate that regents enact a pornographic film policy, various groups say.”

Reuters: “A German publisher said Tuesday it had canceled the printing of a murder mystery about an honor killing because it contained passages insulting Islam and may have prompted Islamist retaliation.”

Legal Blog Watch: “The business-news network Bloomberg will launch a new legal research service later this month, Bloomberg Law, to compete head-on with those other giants of legal research, Westlaw and LexisNexis.”

BBC: “The Conservatives are monitoring their new partners in Europe for evidence of homophobia, a gay rights chief says. Stonewall chief Ben Summerskill said he had been assured that the party was studying past statements by Poland’s Law and Justice Party.”

Chicago Daily Observer: “We write to express our concern regarding a proposed change to the City’s Disorderly Conduct Ordinance [Sec. 8-4-010(K)] restricting freedom of speech within 50 feet of health care facilities . . . We agree with the intent of the ordinance: no person should be subject to acts of violence. Unfortunately, the ordinance would, in many cases, criminalize peaceful activities such as silent prayer and distributing pregnancy assistance information on a public way.”

KIRO TV: “People angry over nearly nude baristas at some Snohomish County espresso stands promised action during a heated town hall meeting Tuesday night, demanding a stronger response from police and politicians.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “[Jonathan Escobar] says an assistant principal at North Cobb High School told him last week he needed to dress more ‘manly’ for school, or consider being home-schooled. He had only been a student at the school for three days . . . The district lists the dress code on its homepage. The rule states that students should ‘refrain from any mode of dress which proves to contribute to any disruption of school functions.’”

Voice Online: “A Christian council worker, sacked for posting alleged ‘homophobic’ comments on a gay Christian website, is taking her former employer to court for unfair dismissal.”

Jeremy Tedesco ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco appeared on The Don Kroah Show to discuss the ADF University Project, “the nation’s largest-ever campaign to eradicate unconstitutional public university and college policies designed to silence religious speech and expression.”

“The Supreme Court is taking up a long-running legal fight over a cross honoring World War I soldiers that has stood for 75 years on public land in a remote part of California.”

Ted Cruz and Kelly Shackelford, writing in the Wall Street Journal: “This case is part of a disturbing pattern. Like lawsuits seeking to stop the Pledge of Allegiance from being recited each morning in our public schools or to remove ‘In God We Trust’ from our currency, the ACLU’s argument in Salazar v. Buono is based on a misconception of the Constitution—that the government must be hostile to religion.”

Yuma Sun: “In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, the operator of Oak Tree Inn in Yuma is being charged with religious discrimination for unlawfully permitting a manager to impose his personal religious beliefs on other employees, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced.”

State Bar of Wisconsin: “Church property used as a residence for the congregation’s custodian can be taxed, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held today. In Wauwatosa Ave. United Methodist Church v. City of Wauwatosa, 2009AP202, the court rejected the church’s argument that it is entitled to the tax exemption of Wis. Stat. section 70.11 (4) because its custodian is ‘integral to the functioning of the church.’”

Cincinnati Enquirer: “A Lockland resident has filed a lawsuit against the village, claiming a display of the Ten Commandments outside the town hall is unconstitutional.”

Religion Clause: “[A] California state appellate court refused to overturn a murder conviction of James Morris, [who on appeal] complained that during trial the prosecutor wore what the trial court described as ‘a very thin, metallic cross measuring about an inch by one-half inch on a delicate chain.’ The court of appeals concluded that this did not compromise Morris’ right to a fair trial, nor did it constitute an Establishment Clause violation or inject religion into the trial.”

ACLJ: “The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) – which represents 15 members of Congress in its amicus brief – said the Supreme Court of the United States has an important opportunity to reject a troubling legal challenge and uphold a long-standing display of a cross that represents a war memorial in California’s Mojave Desert. The Supreme Court today heard oral arguments in the case of Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, et al., v. Buono. (08-472).”

EWTN: “The Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino, remarked to Catholics recently that the Venezuelan government decided long ago to expel religion from schools, and therefore they should avoid the temptation to fall into secularism or yield to its onslaught.”

Baptist Bulletin: “The Alliance Defense Fund, after filing suit following the denial of a campus pro-life group to stage a demonstration on campus, reports that Spokane Falls Community College in Washington has changed its policy.”

WNCT 9 (AP): “A federal appeals court in New Haven, Conn. has heard arguments about New York school officials’ refusal to rent public school buildings to churches for weekend worship services . . . [Jordan] Lorence says a loss could have widespread implications for religious groups meeting in schools elsewhere in the country.”

OneNewsNow: “The National Forest Service has reversed its policy banning religious oriented decorations on the White House Christmas tree . . . Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Jonathan Scruggs says some of the ‘controversial’ ornaments displayed manger scenes and the words ‘Merry Christmas.’ ADF immediately sent a demand letter outlining why the ornament ban was unconstitutional — and received a speedy response.”

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum: The Supreme Court Finds a Public Display of the Ten Commandments to be Permissible Government Speech
Patrick M. Garry, 2009 Cato Sup. Ct. Rev. 271 (2009)

“While the Court’s decision rested solely on the government speech doctrine and the Free Speech Clause, Part IV analyzes the implicit Establishment Clause issues the decision did not resolve. This analysis will include a discussion of how the endorsement test might apply to similar factual settings. It will also examine in depth how the nonpreferentialism model of the Establishment Clause might be violated by a monument refusal of the kind that occurred in Summum.”

Scott C. Idleman, A Legal Perspective on Conflicts Involving Religious Communities (July 27, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1483790

“Within any given state or society, numerous factors can influence both relations among religious communities and relations between these communities and other institutions or value systems, including scientific communities, schools of economic or legal thought, and various ideological or political movements. Though some of these factors obviously arise from within the beliefs and structures of the religions themselves, many arise from the history, political culture, and legal framework of the state or society in which a given religious community is situated. This paper discusses the potential role of law and the legal system in influencing these relations and addressing conflicts among these communities and institutions. After explaining in general terms the relevance of a legal perspective to the assessment and resolution of such disagreements, the paper specifically examines characteristics of the constitutional framework and political culture of the United States that appear to prevent or minimize conflicts involving religious communities.”

Kathy L. Cerminara, Federico Gustavo Pizzetti, and Watcharin Photangtham, Schiavo Revisited? The Struggle for Autonomy at the End of Life in Italy (September 24, 2009). NSU Shepard Broad Law Center Research Paper No. 09-013. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1477957

“Politically strident debates surrounding end-of-life decisionmaking have surfaced once again, this time across the Atlantic in Italy. Eluana Englaro died early this year after a prolonged court fight, causing the international press to compare her case to that of Theresa Marie Schiavo, who passed away in 2005 in Florida after nearly sparking constitutional crises on both state and federal levels. In many respects, the facts of Ms. Englaro’s case are similar to Schiavo, but a close analysis of Englaro leads to the surprising conclusion that the Italian Court of Cassazione in that case actually enunciated a broader, stronger right to make end-of-life decisions than has the United States Supreme Court thus far in America.”