Daily Archives: October 15, 2009

LifeSiteNews: “Californians may have voted in November to amend their state constitution to define the institution of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, but new legislation signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now requires California to validate and recognize same-sex “marriages” performed outside the state as either legal “marriage” or marriage-like ‘unions.’”

Zenit: [Archbishop Robert Sarah] “He explained: ‘The idea of gender separates the biological sex of masculine or feminine identity in stating that it is not intrinsic to the person but is a social construct. This identity could — and must — be torn down to allow woman to reach an equality of social power with man and for the individual to ‘choose’ their sexual orientation. Man-woman relations would be governed by a struggle over power.”

Catholic Culture: “Twenty thousand Chinese Catholics– watched over by 1,000 police– attended the October 10 funeral of Bishop James Lin Xili of Wenzhou . . . ”

“Maine’s gay marriage law, if upheld by voters this November, would have no impact on educational curriculum in the state’s public schools, the Attorney General’s Office said Thursday.”

AP: “Forsyth County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey S. Bagley wrote in an order filed Oct. 7 that the money should be returned because the state hadn’t filed the necessary complaint in seven months.”

CNN: “The global economic crisis has caused a spike in world hunger that has left more than a billion undernourished, United Nations agencies said in a new report.”

Chicago Times: “School officials have issued a warning to a Geneva High School teacher who made an anti-gay comment in his classroom, but the student whose complaint prompted officials to act says the reprimand was not enough.”

LifeSiteNews: “Canada Family Action, a Canadian pro-family organization, has launched a nation-wide campaign to protect children from internet sex crimes. The ‘Child Safe Nation’ campaign aims to pressure the government for tougher legislation to protect kids, deter pedophiles and achieve justice for victims.”

NY Times: “French President Nicolas Sarkozy criticised Czech President Vaclav Klaus on Thursday for failing to sign the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty and said there would be repercussions unless he fell into line quickly.”

CNA: “A pro-life feminist group has filed suit to block the use of New York state taxpayer funds to pay women recruited to donate their eggs for embryonic stem cell research. Feminists Choosing Life of New York (FCLNY) filed the suit in the New York State Supreme Court last Friday.”

Liberty Counsel: “Today Liberty Counsel filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Victory Through Jesus Ministry Foundation against Lee’s Summit School District. Victory Through Jesus Ministry Foundation offers Victory Soccer Camp (VSC), a Christian summer sports camp program, throughout the Midwest. The District refused to include the soccer camp’s flyers along with the other information given to students about community activities for youth . . . ”

FRC Blog: “A young woman walks out into a field with a pink towel, scissors, and a plastic bag, gives birth to a daughter, cuts the umbilical cord and leaves the baby to die.”

FRC Blog: “It was barely reported in the media, but a lawsuit was filed in federal court (Sherley et al. v. Sebelius et al.) on August 19 to reverse the guidelines put out by NIH that open federal funding to more human embryo destruction . . . ”

Leonard Link: “But judging by the questioning from the bench, it appeared that many members of the court were looking for a way to give a narrow ruling that would not necessarily settle that question, pressingly aware that the State Senate might obviate their need to make a controversial ruling by voting for the marriage equality bill before the end of the year.”

Godfrey v. Spano

Lewis v. Department of Civil Service

DomaWatch: New York

Center for American Progress: “As executive director of Faith in America, Childers works full time to incorporate an inclusive message of LGBT human equality into the Christian dialogue. His organization’s mission is to educate the public about the emotional and physical harm cased by ‘religion-based bigotry.’”

Breitbart (AP): “Vaclav Havel, who led the 1989 Velvet Revolution that peacefully toppled communism in the former Czechoslovakia, accused his presidential successor on Thursday of damaging the country by refusing to sign the EU reform treaty.”

“The group Protect Marriage Washington, which collected nearly 138,000 signatures to qualify R-71 for the November ballot, says those people could be harassed, amounting to an infringement on their free speech rights.”

Boston Globe: “Legislation to make radio stations pay royalties to performers when they broadcast their music won the Senate Judiciary Committee’s approval Thursday.”

WLBT.com: “The American Civil Liberties Union is taking on the case of a gay high school student whose senior portrait is being denied placement in the yearbook.”

ACLU press release: “School officials told Ceara Sturgis, an openly gay senior at Wesson Attendance Center in Wesson, MS, that her photo would not appear in the yearbook because in it she is wearing a tuxedo, not the traditional drape worn by other female students.”

The Hill: “Fifty-three House Republicans have written President Barack Obama asking him to remove ‘safe schools czar’ Kevin Jennings from that position. The lawmakers accused Jennings of ‘pushing a pro-homosexual agenda’ and said that Jennings’s past writings exhibit a record that makes him unfit for the position.”

Associated Press: “A new international convention is needed to prevent trafficking in kidneys and other organs and potentially life-saving tissues and cells, according to a joint study by the United Nations and the Council of Europe released Tuesday.”

LifeNews: “Planned Parenthood of Indiana plans to cut 25 jobs at its abortion centers across the state. Although the abortion business claims the cuts are related to financial reasons resulting from a cut in government funds, an expose’ showing two of its centers covering up potential cases of sexual abuse likely played a role.”

Medical News Today: “The first amendment would ban insurers that receive federal subsidies from covering abortion services except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman. The other amendment would prohibit federal or state governments or health plans that receive federal subsidies ‘from discriminating against physicians or health facilities that do not offer abortion services’ according to CQ Today.”

ABC 12: “Police said that Aaron Klein left his cell phone as collateral when he couldn’t pay his bill after drinking at the bar on Calhoun Street. The bartender told police that he opened the phone looking for Klein’s name or phone number. That’s when he found several pornography pictures and called police, according to officers.”

Daily Express: “The fanatical group Islam4UK has ­announced plans to hold a potentially ­incendiary rally in London later this month. And it is calling for a complete upheaval of the British legal system, its officials and ­legislation.”

San Francisco Bay Times: “The European Court of Human Rights has combined cases stemming from Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s bans on gay-pride events in 2006, 2007 and 2008, and instructed Russian authorities to file a response by Jan. 20.”

District Notebook, Washington Post: “Two leading Republicans in the District have announced their support for efforts to legalize same-sex marriage in the city.”

Spiegel Online: “A British transexual living in Germany is taking her health insurer to court after the company refused to pay for breast implants. She argues that the operation should be covered as part of gender reassignment procedures.”

WRAL: “Appeals court judges hearing arguments Wednesday on the legality of North Carolina’s video poker ban sounded wary of negating the will of the General Assembly when it granted an exception to machines on the Cherokee Indian reservation.”

Queens Chronicle: “Elected officials and other community leaders have vowed to do everything they can to stop a strip club from opening up near Queens Plaza in Long Island City.”

TIME has this report on Yahoo News surveying attitudes of men and women. Regarding marriage it asserts: “Marriage is more important to men than to women.”

Kathryn Jean Jopez interviews Dr. Miriam Grossman, author of You’re Teaching My Child What?: A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Ed and How They Harm Your Child, at National Review Online: “People need to understand that the primary goal of sex education is not eradication of disease, it’s social change. Groups like Planned Parenthood and SIECUS inculcate students to value openness and acceptance of nearly any consensual sexual encounter.”

LifeSiteNews: “‘There was a leg and foot in my forceps, and a ‘thump, thump’ in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes.’ So writes abortionist Lisa Harris in a disturbing article relating her experiences as an abortionist, particularly her anguished and ‘brutally visceral’ experience of dismembering an 18 week gestation unborn child, while 18 weeks pregnant herself.”

LifeSiteNews: “One pro-life leader, who wished to remain anonymous, told LifeSiteNews.com, ‘If Obama was good on international peace and nuclear disarmament but favored the killing of Jews, its not likely he would get either the Noble Peace Prize or be praised by the Vatican.’”

LifeSiteNews: “The Italian parliament has rejected an attempt by homosexualist campaigners to install ‘sexual orientation’ as a privileged category in hate crime legislation. The measure was defeated by a vote of 285- 222.”

CNSNews: “Obama told an estimated audience of 3,000. ‘You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.’”

Fox News: “Ohio can take custody of a girl who ran away to Florida, saying she feared she’d be killed for converting to Christianity from Islam, a judge ruled Thursday in a decision clarifying the girl’s legal status once she returns.”

“Archbishop Apuron said Bill 185 ‘redefines the meaning of marriage’ and promotes a homosexual lifestyle.”

“Kulstad had earned the right to be known as a parent to two children because she had ‘shacked up’ with the children’s adoptive mother during the time when they were adopted.”

“The Alberta Human Rights Commission has accepted a complaint made against a local Catholic school board by a substitute teacher who says he was dismissed from teaching for changing his gender.”

Atlanta Journal Constitution: “The parent of an Oglethorpe County elementary school student is complaining after his daughter came home from school with a Bible.”

Telegraph: “Leading historians said politicians, public relations companies and even the Royal Family were guilty of peddling ‘historical myths’ to promote campaigns.”

AP: “On Wednesday, Roberts offered a new take on that argument in a Supreme Court case about whether lawyers who sued to force changes in Georgia’s foster care program could receive extra pay for their efforts.”

Patrick Deneen writing at the Front Porch Republic: “What these invocations of academic freedom end up accomplishing is a) empowering libertarians who believe that there should be no limits on speech, which in effect is to say that speech really doesn’t matter and everyone should say (and pretty much do) whatever they want so long as no blood is drawn; and b) obfuscating the actual issues that are in contention. At issue in these various instances that respectively prove offensive to the Left and the Right are substantive claims about the human good and the proper end of human life. It would be refreshing if this actual debate took place at many institutions where this were a genuine open question.”

Tony Mauro writes at Law.com (The National Law Journal): “The nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are all lawyers, but most showed little empathy for their fellow attorneys on Wednesday as they debated whether legal fee awards can be enhanced for superior performance or exceptional results under a federal fee-shifting statute. The justices heard arguments in Perdue v. Kenny A . . . ”

Religion Clause Blog: “Also no one who has been convicted of inciting inter-ethnic or inter-religious hostility or ‘other crimes of an extremist nature’ can be listed among the group’s members seeking registration. Of more concern among established groups is the proposed new restriction on missionary activity.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Hankins v. New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, (2d Cir., Oct. 13, 2009), the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals held that the constitutionally-based ‘ministerial exception’ doctrine requires dismissal of a pastor’s age discrimination complaint.”

The Guardian: “Home educators tell MPs they do not want home visits from local authorities, as recommended by a government review.”

JuristMail: “The Court of Appeals will hear arguments on Tuesday by the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Arizona.”

KOHM: “Attorney Jim Campbell of the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal group, says he wasn’t surprised by the ruling. He says the judge wants to hear the merits of the case. It’s set for trial in January.”

The School Law Blog, Education Week: “Joining briefs supporting the bonus fees are several groups that are often behind lawsuits against school districts, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund on the left, and the Alliance Defense Fund and the American Center for Law and Justice on the right.”

OneNewsNow: “The school’s policy does provide for students’ right of free speech which is protected by the Constitution. But there is one catch, according to Cortman. ‘[T]his specific policy prohibits a student from — listen to this — “seeking to establish the supremacy of a particular religious point of view,”‘ Cortman says.”

Winston-Salem Journal: “[Alliance] Defense Fund attorney Michael Johnson said that Forsyth County’s prayer policy was a ‘gold standard’ compared with other policies that have come before the courts. The policy allows clergy from any faith to give a public prayer.”

LifeNews: “Heather Gebelin Hacker, staff counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, will present oral arguments Oct. 20. Hacker said, ‘Pro-life student groups shouldn’t have a price tag placed upon expression of their beliefs. Forcing any student group to pay for insurance in order to exercise their right to free speech guaranteed under the First Amendment is unconstitutional.’”

SCOTUS Blog: “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent a night in the hospital Wednesday after experiencing an ‘adverse reaction’ to medication, the Supreme Court reported Thursday morning.”

CitizenLink: “‘The tide of public opinion in favor of religion is receding,’ he said, ‘and this probably portends public pressures for laws that will impinge on religious freedom.’ Groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and Liberty Legal Institute see a similar trend involving all faiths that hold a conservative view of marriage.”

“Since 1970, the percentage of married adults has declined from 70.3 percent to 39.6 percent in 2008.”

Religion Clause Blog: “The lower court held that under Virginia’s ‘Division Statute,’ church properties belong to the congregations and not to the Episcopal Church USA and the Diocese.”

“If Democrats really want to maintain the abortion status quo, they would drop the Capps Amendment and add a Hyde Amendment to explicitly exclude funding abortion.”

LifeSiteNews: “Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys filed a lawsuit in federal court on October 5th against the West Shore School District for prohibiting the student from wearing the T-shirt. The ADF says that the school usually allows other students to wear a wide variety of messages on their clothing. ‘Pro-life students shouldn’t be censored for their views,’ said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman in a press release.”

WINKNews.com: “The Celebration Beach Church has worshipped at Cambier Park on Sunday mornings for the past eight years . . . But, a nation-wide group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation doesn’t want their lease to be renewed.”

Citizen Link: “Lawmakers discuss expanding benefits for federal workers, but largely ignore the cost to taxpayers.”

BBC News: “The government has been ordered to publish data about the number of late abortions carried out because of disability . . . The Pro Life Alliance, which has pursued the challenge, said: ‘This is a straightforward judgement which maintains the principles that statistics do not constitute personal data, that abortion is a serious procedure and that transparency is necessary to satisfy legitimate public interest in this controversial medical practice.’”

“Ever since the federal challenge to Proposition 8 was filed, Northern District of California Chief Judge Vaughn Walker has been leading the parties toward an early trial . . .”

LifeNews: “The good news from the CDC is that the abortion rate fell more than one-third during the years studied.”

CNSNews: “When a conservative group, the American Freedom Alliance (AFA), recently contracted to premiere a new documentary titled ‘Darwin’s Dilemma’ at the Smithsonian-affiliated California Science Center, they couldn’t imagine the brouhaha that would ensue. As soon as word of the screening went public, the Darwinian thought police started complaining about a government-supported science center renting its facilities to a group showing a film that challenges Darwinian evolution . . . ”

Christian Newswire: “In a development that reopens the whole controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood’s deceptive arrival in Aurora in 2007, it has recently been disclosed that Planned Parenthood is planning an expansion in that city. They are seeking approval from the City of Aurora to boost their parking by 27 spaces, an increase of nearly 40 percent.”

Offspring and Bodies: Dependency and Vulnerability in the Constitutional Jurisprudence of Reproductive Rights
Ann Shalleck, 77 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1620 (2009)

“Through differentiating interests in bodily integrity and offspring selection, Professor Colb disentangles underlying justifications for legal advocacy and judicial decisions and offers an interpretive frame through which to consider the reasons for providing protection to reproductive rights. Additionally, in light of this symposium’s focus on intergenerational justice, she demonstrates how each interest relates to each generation’s obligations to the larger intergenerational community. In taking up Professor Colb’s insightful approach, I suggest that both interests require us to recognize how reproductive decisions reveal both the vulnerability of human beings, individually and collectively, as well as the inevitable dependency of human beings on each other, within as well as across generations, as each person, as well as each generation, faces the obligations entailed in the bearing and raising of children.”

Cain v. Horne: School Choice for Whom?
Shannon E. Trebbe, 51 Ariz. L. Rev. 817 (2009)

“This Case Note considers several questions stemming from Cain. First, what school-choice programs are currently constitutional in Arizona? Second, is there a material difference between the allowed constitutional programs and the school-voucher programs prohibited in Cain? Third, given the differences between the programs, which ones provide the greatest social benefits? The Case Note ultimately concludes that the tax credits are a fairer way of providing school choice, despite some potentially unsavory social consequences.”

Could Modern Faith-Based Prison Programs Have Survived Constitutional Scrutiny During Reconstruction?
Scott L. Tindle, 60 Ala. L. Rev. 1293 (2009)

“This Note will focus on the common understanding of the Establishment Clause during Reconstruction in the time surrounding the formation and ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, I will try and discern if the modern version of faith-based prisons, currently being implemented throughout the country, would have been considered acceptable under the Establishment Clause at the time of the framing and ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Defining the New “Species”: Recommendations for California Homeschool Legislation after Jonathan v. Superior Court
Noah Aleshire, 246 Ed. Law Rep. 607 (2009)

“The unusual legal history of home instruction in California, culminating with Jonathan L., has provided the Legislature with a unique opportunity to develop a homeschooling statute from scratch. Such a statute should fairly balance the religious and parental rights of homeschool providers with the state’s interest in providing children with a quality education.”

When Insiders Become Outsiders: Parental Objections to Public School Sex Education Programs
Emily J. Brown, 59 Duke L.J. 109 (2009)

“This Note argues that parents’ fundamental right to direct their children’s moral and educational upbringing includes the right to exempt their children from objectionable sex education programs in public schools.”

Actual Exploitation, Simulated Exploitation, and a Tin Drum: A Comparative Analysis of Child Pornography Law in the United States and Canada
Maurice “Mac” VerStandig, 16 U. Miami Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 213 (2009)

“The critical inquiry, borne out of the prolonged saga of Tin Drum as well as numerous other incidents, is twofold: Whether Canada and the United States may abrogate speech rights so as to ban child pornography and, if so, just how each nation may go about defining properly the resultant prohibited realm of material.”

The Patient Wanted the Doctor to Treat Her in the Close, But the Janitor Wouldn’t Open the Door: Healthcare Provider Rights of Refusal Versus LGB Rights to Reproductive and Elder Healthcare
Rachel Reibman, 28 Temp. J. Sci. Tech. & Envtl. L. 65 (2009)

“However, this debate also extends to whether healthcare professionals can refuse to provide medical services when they have religious or moral objections to personal characteristics of the patients. Specifically, a major issue is whether healthcare professionals can legally refuse to provide lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) individuals with medical services, such as artificial reproductive technology, where their religious or moral objections pertain to the sexual orientation of the recipient, as opposed to the nature of the services.”

Jennifer S. Hendricks, Body and Soul: Equality, Pregnancy, and the Unitary Right to Abortion (October 12, 2009). Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review (CR-CL), Vol. 45, No. 2, 2010, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1487723

“This division between the body and the social suggests that women’s liberty can be protected only by breaking it into pieces that have analogs in men’s experiences. When men are the norm, women’s rights become derivative. A woman-centered vision of these rights would stand more firmly on its own footing. The Article proposes a relationship model for theorizing pregnancy as a starting point for developing a liberty framework directly from women’s experiences.”