Daily Archives: November 18, 2009

The Daily Journal: “Stages, the adult entertainment venue at 1045 S. East Ave., closed its doors earlier this month after a five-year zoning battle.”

Soeren Kern writing at Pajamas Media: “In the absence of a consensus candidate, the contest has degenerated into a race to the bottom. In secretive backroom horse-trading, the center-right, which controls the European Parliament, has staked its claim to the presidency; the center-left will get the foreign policy job. There are now half a dozen or more contenders for both jobs. And the one thing all the candidates have in common is that they are virtually unknown outside of Europe.”

“Reinhardt deemed the denial of healthcare and other benefits to the spouse of federal public defender Brad Levenson to be a violation of the Constitution’s guarantee of due process and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, which is prohibited by California state law.”

AFP: “Austria’s government agreed a new law Tuesday allowing civil partnerships for homosexual couples, although ceremonies at the civil registry’s office will still be banned.”

CNN: “A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday morning indicates that 61 percent of the public opposes using public money for abortions for women who can not afford the procedure, with 37 percent in favor of allowing the use of federal funds.”

Deseret News: “A bill that would make seeking an illegal abortion a second-degree felony as well as remove any immunity for Utah women seeking illegal abortions was approved by a legislative committee Wednesday morning.”

CBC News: “An anti-abortion club has had its campus rights suspended by McGill University’s student body council . . . Choose Life has been criticized on different Canadian campuses for distributing graphic anti-abortion literature, including on McGill’s downtown campus.”

SheWired.com: “Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund said the suit was filed in D.C. Superior Court. Jackson and other same-sex marriage opponents are vowing an extensive court battle over the issue.”

The American Principles Project has posted the first segment of “a detailed version shorter presentation delivered at Boston College’s March 2009 Symposium on the Jurisprudence of Marriage” by Rev. Robert John Araujo, SJ. An excerpt:

“In previous essays I have explored the question of ‘what is equality?’ within the contexts of the thoughts and objectives of the Framers of the American Republic as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal.’ The first essay was a general inquiry and presented an argument about the meaning of equality within the context of the American republic’s foundation. The second article concentrated on the equality argument made in support of abortion access and practice. I would now like to explore the question about the meaning of equality in the framework of another challenging American political and legal debate that generates passion among participants, i.e., same-sex marriage.”

“. . . by presenting legal arguments that have all squarely been rejected by the Supreme Court, yet failing to mention that each of her arguments has already lost in the nation’s highest court, Hamilton has done a grave disservice to public debate on the issue of the Stupak Amendment.”

DC Wire, Washington Post: “Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund said the suit was filed today in D.C. Superior Court. On Tuesday, the elections board ruled that an initiative to define marriage as being between a man and woman cannot proceed becaause it would be discriminatory toward gay men and lesbians.”

Christian Newswire: “The display is part of a nationwide campaign to confront the erosion and hostility toward public expressions of faith especially during the Christmas Season. The display will be sponsored by Faith and Action and the Christian Defense Coalition on Thursday, November 19, at 11:00 A.M.”

Albert Mohler writes at the Christian Post: “This is no longer an issue limited to isolated examples. Districts across the country have reported teens who have attempted to cross the gender line in dress. Many of these cases have captured media attention, with highly publicized controversies. In other cases, the challenges have been more quiet. The cases are, to say the least, both interesting and troubling.”

Spiegel: “With the Lisbon Treaty soon to become reality, the European Union is struggling to find a president and a foreign minister. The dream of an EU diplomatic service is within grasp, but will it make a difference? Members of the European Parliament are already warning of a ‘bureaucratic monster.’”

Forum18 reports on continuing persecution of Protestants and Muslims in Uzbekistan.

ACLU: “The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Connecticut and Americans United for Separation of Church and State today demanded that school officials in Enfield stop holding high school graduation ceremonies at a Christian church and instead hold them at any of a number of secular locations available in the area.”

LifeNews: “As Congress remains embroiled in a massive debate over whether to force Americans to pay for abortions through the new government-run health care programs, a new CNN poll finds 61 percent oppose government funding abortions with public dollars.”

“The people of D.C. have a right to vote on the definition of marriage,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks.

LifeNews: “Alberto Hodari owns six abortion centers in Michigan and LifeNews.com has delivered multiple reports on how he has three of them up for sale. A new lawsuit from a woman who says he forced her to have an abortion could explain why Hodari is quickly moving to divest himself of his abortion business.”

The Collegian: “Hillsdale College is getting into the public school business. The college plans to establish a charter school in the near future and possibly create more, should the first prove a success, said administrators. They have not yet chosen a location for the first school.”

Will Haygood has this post in the Washington Post covering Bishop Jackson and the DC marriage battle.

The Family Research Council Blog has a roundup piece on the same-sex “marriage” / religious liberty conflict as interpreted by President Obama’s nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision, Chai Feldblum. The post includes video and excerpts of coverage from around the internet, including the ADF Alliance Alert.

Orin Kerr writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: “As I mentioned yesterday, the petitioner’s brief in McDonald v. City of Chicago written by Alan Gura asks the Supreme Court to overrule The Slaughterhouse Cases and adopt a very different interpretation of the Fouteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause. The obvious question is, how many Justices will agree? My guess: only one.”

Eugene Volokh reports on the latest developments at Google Scholar which could eventually prove to be invaluable resources for the legal profession.

Eugene Volokh reports at the Volokh Conspiracy on the ruling in Ankeny v. Governor, No. 9A02-0904-CV-353 (Ind. App. Nov. 12, 2009).

ADF attorney Austin R. Nimocks appeared on the Bott Radio Network with Dick Bott to discuss this: Maine counselor’s career threatened for support of marriage

The MP3 runs approximately 30 minutes.

OneNewsNow: “‘But this latest study from Finland shows that at least 20 percent of the women that use RU-486, the abortion pill, they suffer from at least one significant complication, and in many cases, from two complications,’ O’Bannon reports.”

How Appealing reports on development in West Virginia including this link to the final report of the West Virginia Independent Commission on Judicial Reform at this link.

Daniel Allott and Matt Bowman write at the American Spectator: “. . . Pro-life advocates have had a year to come to terms with the most strident abortion advocate ever to ascend to the U.S. presidency. Having relied on either a pro-life president or pro-life congressional majority for 26 of the last 29 years, they confront an opposition emboldened as never before.
Nowhere is the scope of the abortion movement’s ambition more evident than in its aggressive attacks on the rights of health care providers not to participate in life-destroying procedures . . . ”

AP: “The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday.”

Religion Clause Blog: “According to yesterday’sWashington Post, Miniter claims that he was essentially ‘coerced’ into attending a Unification Church religious ceremony that ended with a mass wedding conducted by Rev. Sun Myung Moon.”

ADF attorney Mike Johnson appeared on Viewpoints with Lockwood Phillips to discuss this: Magistrate Says Forsyth Prayer Policy Unconstitutional.

The mp3 runs just over 26 minutes.

Google News (AP): “Argentina’s Congress is considering changing dozens of articles in the civil code to enable same-sex marriage. The proposal has support among ruling party lawmakers but President Cristina Fernandez has yet to take a stand. The Roman Catholic Church and other Christian groups are opposed.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted 70-29 to invoke cloture and thus end debate on the nomination of Indiana federal district judge David Hamilton to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.”

The Hill: “Keenan struck back against Stupak’s remarks last week that abortion rights activists are ‘playing with fire.’ The subject line of Keenan’s e-mail is ‘yup, we’re playing with fire.’”

UPI: “Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the federal government made improper payments of more than $98 billion in fiscal 2009, with improper payments for Medicare accounting for nearly a third of the total, CNN reported.”

AP: “President Barack Obama says the U.S. relationship with China is deepening beyond trade and economics to cover climate, security and other matters of international concern.”

AP: “A judge for an Islamic militant group in Somalia says a woman has been stoned to death and her boyfriend given 100 lashes for having an affair.”

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: “Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker followed through Monday on his promised veto of a measure aimed at extending domestic partner benefits to county employees.” Some county supervisors will push for an override of the veto according to the report.

Atlanta Headlines Examiner: “‘All murder victims – born and pre-born – deserve equal justice,’ ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden said in a news release. ‘Women who volunteer to protect our country deserve to know that the government will enforce the laws that protect their children.’”

WorldNetDaily: “The Alliance Defense Fund earlier issued an analysis calling the proposal a ‘grave threat’ to the First Amendment. Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley explained it ‘provides special penalties based on what people think, feel, or believe . . . ADF has clearly seen the evidence of where ‘hate crimes’ legislation leads when it has been tried around the world: It paves the way for the criminalization of speech that is not deemed “politically correct,”‘ Stanley explained. ‘”Hate crimes” laws fly in the face of the underlying purpose of the First Amendment, which was designed specifically to protect unpopular speech.’”

Press of Atlantic City: “‘The First Amendment protects both religious and political speech, so it doesn’t make a difference,’ said David Cortman, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is working on the case . . . ‘The teen pregnancies in that county are the highest in the state,’ Cortman said. ‘The school even has policies on this. The issue is something that’s prevalent in that area, and the school is trying to censor a message of hope.’”

Associated Press: “ADF senior counsel David Cortman says his group has intervened in dozens of cases across the country over the six years the protest has been held and has filed suits in about a dozen. He said some have been successful and others are still pending . . . When schools bar the protests, he said, they usually cite the separation of church and state — which his group says is not in the Constitution.”

Cumberland County News: “ADF senior counsel David Cortman said his group has intervened in dozens of cases across the country over the six years the protest has been held and has filed suits in about a dozen. He said some have been successful and others are still pending.”

NCPA Policy Digest: “A study conducted by California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse found that eight of the largest cities and nine of the largest counties in California spent $504.1 million to deal with lawsuits over fiscal 2007 and 2008.”

WMFD: “Shelby City Council defeated legislation Monday night to permit a moment of silence and prayer before meetings but it is expected to be addressed again, according to Mayor Bill Freytag.”

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, writing at National Review’s Phi Beta Cons blog: “The Supreme Court may be preparing to decide — once and for all — whether student groups have a right to reserve membership and leadership for those who agree with the mission and purpose of the organization.”

Stave Black, Same-Sex Marriage and Taxes (2008). Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law, Vol. 22, pp. 327-357, 2008. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1507846

“Frequently the proponents of same-sex marriage cite the difference in tax treatment as one of the reasons that same-sex couples receive discriminatory treatment. The tax code contains provisions that benefit only married individuals and families. These benefits provide hundreds to thousands of dollars in tax relief to individuals, but only if those individuals fall into prescribed categories. This article explores those categories, and the extent to which the preference for married couples with children furthers one of the goals of society, which is to perpetuate itself.”