Daily Archives: October 12, 2009

ABC 13: “Regulating strip clubs and tattoo shops is an issue getting attention in Stone County. County supervisors held a public hearing Monday morning on an adult entertainment ordinance.”

NBC 4: “A controversy is brewing between some churches and the very well-known Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization. Several churches have asked their congregations to stop donating money to the breast cancer charity and to stop participating in the Race for the Cure, NBC 4‘s Mike Bowersock reported . . . Some conservative Christian groups are upset that money donated to Komen goes to Planned Parenthood.”

Sydney Morning Herald: “A pharmacist has stopped selling contraceptives because of his strong religious beliefs. Trevor Dal Broi is telling women using oral contraceptive pills for birth control to take their scripts to another chemist.”

Washington Post: “For the most part, though, the candidates’ voluminous legislative records of almost 40,000 votes show a stark contrast in their philosophies, especially regarding social issues such as abortion and gay rights. McDonnell supported bills that banned a procedure some of its opponents refer to as partial-birth abortion, required minors to obtain parental consent before getting an abortion and mandated a 24-hour waiting period for women seeking one.”

North Carolina Family Policy Council: “Belmont Abbey College has retained The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to aid in its appeal of an U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ruling that the school’s health insurance policy constitutes gender discrimination.”

CNSNews: “One day after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops vowed to ‘vigorously’ oppose the health care bill under consideration in Congress if it is not amended to explicitly prohibit federal funding of abortions, the White House for the second time in a week said the bishops are wrong to assert that the bill permits funding of abortion.”

California Stem Cell Report: “California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed legislation aimed at promoting stem cell science and training in the state’s schools.”

Billings Gazette: “Planned Parenthood of Montana has announced it is closing its Kalispell clinic next month due to a decline in patients.”

“Federal district court Judge Patricia A. Gaughan ordered DeWeese to remove the display as it unconstitutionally endorsed particular religious views over others.”

Mail Online: “A grandfather who beat cancer was wrongly told the disease had returned and left to die at a hospice which pioneered a controversial ‘death pathway’. Doctors said there was nothing more they could do for 76-year-old Jack Jones, and his family claim he was denied food, water and medication except painkillers. He died within two weeks.”

“Alliance Defense Fund allied attorneys have reached a major milestone, having donated more than $100 million worth of pro bono litigation work toward the fight for religious liberty across the globe.”

CBS News: “Citing an Obama administration adviser, [NBC's John] Harwood said because the president is ‘doing well with 90 percent or more of Democrats,’ the White House ‘views this opposition as really part of the Internet left fringe.’”

New York Times: “Together, these street activists make up an assertive minority of a few thousand people within the larger anti-abortion movement. Neither the best financed nor largest element in the mix, they are nonetheless the only face of anti-abortion that many Americans see. Indeed, persistent provocation is their defining attribute: day after day on street corners from California to Massachusetts, they stand like town criers, calling to women walking into abortion clinics, or waving graphic signs as disturbing as they are impossible to ignore.”

Anchorage Daily News: “A state prosecutor who handles child pornography cases wants sexually explicit drawings of children — even computer-generated cartoons — to be as illegal as photographs of actual abuse.”

Associated Press: “Catholic and evangelical Protestant leaders hope to push Hawaii politics rightward, preparing an election-year effort in 2010 to organize their parishioners into voting blocks that can help elect like-minded candidates.”

Irish Times: “The most common age for a lesbian, gay or transgender young person to become aware of their sexual identity is 12, while they are most vulnerable to self-harm at the age of 16, a new guide issued to schools today shows.”

Angus Reid: “People in Spain are divided in their assessment of a government proposal to modify existing abortion regulations, according to a poll by Instituto Noxa published in La Vanguardia. 44 per cent of respondents support the proposed changes, while 46 per cent oppose them.”

New York Times: “Last week, Ms. Etienne joined other transgender residents, including victims of hate crimes, and advocates to push the State Legislature to include gender identity in the hate crime law. Such an expansion of hate crime categories has come up before, but it has failed to become law. This year could be different, with some high-profile cases involving transgender victims.”

Fox News: “‘It’s going to be very difficult to defeat at this stage,’ said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a law firm that works on religious freedom cases . . . Staver said his groups is ‘strongly considering’ filing a lawsuit based on the broad language of the bill that he says would allow federal intervention into past cases, including ones of alleged rape.”

KSFY: “A juice bar with nude dancers is scheduled to open next week in Mansfield, South Dakota and many people in town are upset about this.”

Politics on the Hudson: “A Poughkeepsie nurse who is suing Dr. Richard Daines, state health commissioner, over the H1N1 vaccine is also a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services.”

EU Observer: “Polish President Lech Kaczynski signed the Lisbon Treaty at a ceremony in Warsaw on Saturday (10 October). But Czech head of state Vaclav Klaus put a dampener on the occasion with attempts to revive World War II-era tensions from his castle in Prague.”

Los Angeles Times: “California Chief Justice Ronald M. George, in a speech prepared for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, said the ease by which Californians can pass new laws at the ballot box has ‘rendered our state government dysfunctional.’”

Associated Press: “Bills requiring healthier school lunches and parental consent for sex education classes are being considered by Massachusetts lawmakers.”

Harry R. Jackson, Jr. writing at Townhall: “Another negative impact same-sex marriage would have on our families is that schools would be required to offer information about homosexuality as a choice to students . . . Finally, the conscience of each citizen and our religious liberties would come under attack if same-sex marriage became legalized.”

Everett Herald: “The Everett 40 Days for Life campaign began on Sept. 23 and will go through Nov. 1. Nationally, 212 cities in 45 states are taking part in the fall 2009 campaign. Local campaigns are also occurring in Bellingham, Bremerton, Olympia, Renton, Seattle, Tacoma, the Tri-Cities and Vancouver.”

Monterey Herald: “Before Monterey replaces the Portol -Crespi cross on Del Monte Beach, it wants to raise a war chest to defend the city’s action against possible lawsuits — a move an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer calls ‘a very bizarre decision.’”

Telegraph: “All Nations Centre in Kennington, south London, could now be forced to close after Lambeth Council ordered it to turn the volume down. The pentecostal church, which has a congregation of 600 people, has been told that it cannot amplify its music or sermons after a complaint was made to the town hall.”

Associated Press: “Rep. Barney Frank, an openly gay member of Congress, says he’d rather see gay rights supporters lobbying their elected officials than marching in Washington this weekend, calling the demonstration ‘a waste of time at best.’”

“One honor[s] late activist Harvey Milk and another recogn[izes] same-sex marriages performed in other states.”

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Brian Raum will be available for media interviews Tuesday following his arguments before New York’s highest court in Lewis v. New York State Department of Civil Service and Godfrey v. Spano. ADF attorneys appealed both lawsuits, arguing that state and local officials have attempted to recognize out-of-state same-sex “marriages,” contrary to state law.

“These are highly unconstitutional policies that demonstrate that there’s a widespread need for schools to be educated about the First Amendment.”

Christian Newswire: “Stand True, Christ-Centered Pro-life, will hold its sixth annual Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Last year students from over 4,700 campuses in 25 countries participated in the event, and Stand True expects even more this year . . . Over the past few years many schools have tried to stop students from participating and have tried to quash their First Amendment rights. Every year, attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund defend these students and file lawsuits to protect their rights.”

Mid Hudson News (AP): “The New York Court of appeals Tuesday will hear oral arguments in Albany Tuesday on a case recognizing out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples in Westchester County . . . the Alliance Defense Fund, representing purported New York taxpayers, sued the county executive claiming that he did not have the right to issue the order.”

“A longtime champion of homeschooling rights around the globe, Home School Legal Defense Association Senior Counsel and Director of State and International Relations Christopher J. Klicka was called home by his Lord on October 12, 2009, at age 48, following a 15-year battle with multiple sclerosis.”

Zvi H. Triger, The Gendered Racial Formation: Foreign Men, “Our” Women, and the Law (October 8, 2009). Women’s Rights Law Reporter, Vol. 30, No. 3/4, 2009 . Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1485650

“This article analyses the paradox relating to the tension between cultural perceptions and legal norms. Throughout history, countless nations have instituted limitations on marriage and prohibitions on intermarriage. While many of these prohibitions were, for the most part, gender neutral, meaning that both men and women members of the community were barred from marriage outside the community, cultural norms have treated women marrying foreign men less forgivingly than the opposite case.”

Contra Costa Times: “The legal showdown over California’s ban on same-sex marriage heats up again this week as a federal judge considers an attempt to short-circuit the challenge to Proposition 8, the voter-approved law putting a halt to same-sex weddings in the state . . . ‘They simply can’t win under relevant controlling law here,’ said Jim Campbell, a staff attorney with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund.”

American-Statesman: “‘People think Texas, that’s a conservative state, they’re not likely to have a judge strike down their marriage law. But all it takes is one lawsuit, one judge, and it can really happen everywhere,’said Jim Campbell, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a coalition of Christian attorneys that plans to oppose the Texas ruling. ‘There’s always a fire to put out somewhere.’”

Telegraph: “Miss Mogahed [appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships] appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir’s national women’s officer, Nazreen Nawaz. During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular ‘man-made law’ and the West’s ‘lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism.’”

“‘I will end ‘don’t ask-don’t tell,’ Obama said Saturday night to a standing ovation from the crowd of about 3,000 at the annual dinner of the Human Rights Campaign.”

Times Online: “An 80-year-old grandmother who doctors identified as terminally ill and left to starve to death has recovered after her outraged daughter intervened.”

The Daily Beast: “Samson, a native of India, started Surrogacy Abroad in 2006, when one of his sisters was having trouble getting pregnant . . . [his] agency is one of the few to specifically target gay couples . . . Of course, using Indian surrogates raises ethical issues. An article in a recent issue of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics called into question some of the assertions by clinic operators and surrogacy agencies regarding the women who are surrogates.”