Daily Archives: November 20, 2009

AU press release: “Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging official prayers during public ceremonies at a Southern California community college.”

LifeSiteNews: “‘The people of D.C. have a right to vote on the definition of marriage,’ said Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that helps defend religious liberty through legal action, whose attorneys are representing Jackson along with attorneys from Stand4MarriageDC.”

Catholic Courier: “‘State and local officials should not use marriage laws from outside jurisdictions to subvert the legislature,’ ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum said in a statement. ‘We are disappointed that the court did not address the real issue in this case: whether New York law requires the recognition of same-sex “marriages” from outside the state. In New York, the only relationship recognized as marriage is the committed union of a man and a woman.’”

Catholic News Agency: “The Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys, has sent a letter to the Office of Staff Judge Advocate at Fort Hood requesting that the murder of Velez’s child be included in the case against Malik.”

Leonard Link reports on the recent Ninth Circuit orderes by Judges Kozinski and Reinhardt.

Related:

U.S. agency ordered by 9th Circuit to provide same-sex benefits

9th Circuit judge orders compensation for denial of same-sex “spousal” benefits

Cardinal Justin Rigali writing in the Catholic Standard Times: “Caring about our children is a challenge with many levels. The values that society puts forth and encourages; the removal of morality from schools and public settings; the desire of those who profit from the multi-billion dollar pornography industry to make money; and the collapse of the traditional family with its security and support system all combine to leave children in a very vulnerable state when it comes to pornography. The statistics of the numbers of children and young people who view pornography and the ease with which they do so is truly shocking.”

Case sent back to lower court to decide whether town ordinance unconstitutionally favors non-commercial signs that aren’t religious.

Blackstone Legal Fellow Nathan Fox has written an article in the Federalist Society’s State Court Docket Watch (Fall 2009) that begins (citations omitted):

In a case that is of great consequence to education law, as well as to religious liberties issues more broadly, a New Hampshire state court judge recently removed a girl from home schooling by order. On June 14, 2009, Judge Lucinda Sadler of the Laconia Family Division ordered a ten-yearold girl out of religious home schooling and into public school against the wishes of her mother. In The Matter of Martin Kurowski and Brenda (Kurowski) Voydatch, “the parties reserved for the court the issue of whether Amanda would attend public school for the 2009-2010 school year, or continue to be home schooled by Ms. Voydatch.” The portion of the case discussing the background and decision of the judge ordering Amanda Voydatch into public school is summarized below . . .

Related ADF Media Information Page: NH court orders home-schooled child into government-run school

The new website can be found at:
http://www.blackstonelegalfellowship.org/

About the Fellowship: “Named in honor of Sir William Blackstone, the noted English law professor, the Blackstone Legal Fellowship is a leadership development program designed to provide a rigorous nine-week summer legal internship. Our goal is to train law students who will rise to positions of influence and leadership as legal scholars, litigators, policy makers and judges . . . ”

The recent pastoral letter concerning marriage by the Catholic Bishops can be found here.

Detroit News: “The City Council delivered an early holiday present to strippers today, taking no action on proposed rules to require them to wear pasties and keep their distance from patrons.”

Breitbart (AP): “The University of Nebraska’s governing board on Friday voted down a proposal to restrict the school’s rules governing embryonic stem-cell research beyond what the federal government allows.”

Forum18: “The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR) has recently made a very dangerous judgement for freedom of religion or belief in the Bayatyan v. Armenia case which puts it out of step with the international standards on conscientious objection to military service and with the Council of Europe’s own human rights agenda, notes Derek Brett of Conscience and Peace Tax International http://www.cpti.ws in a commentary for Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org.”

Washington Times Exclusive: “According to documents obtained exclusively by The Washington Times, Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, No. 3 official in the Justice Department, had to recuse himself on at least 13 active detainee cases and at least 26 cases listed as either closed or mooted . . . And Mr. Perrelli is just one official; a number of other Justice Department officials apparently did private-sector work on detainee cases.”

Ledger-Star: “Following a dust-up over gay marriage in which he said he was taken out of context, Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney said it would be irresponsible for Democrats to bring a bill to vote if they are not sure it will pass.”

The Hill: “Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Clifford Stanley held back from saying what his recommendations would be to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on the Clinton-era policy known as ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’”

“It was only when he learned that his ex-wife was about to marry the man who she said actually was the girl’s biological father that Mike flipped. Supporting another man’s child suddenly became unbearable.”

Some 90 percent of U.S. college dorms are now coed . . .

Economist: “As our briefing shows, the fertility rate of half the world is now 2.1 or less—the magic number that is consistent with a stable population and is usually called ‘the replacement rate of fertility’. Sometime between 2020 and 2050 the world’s fertility rate will fall below the global replacement rate.”

Sacramento Bee: “Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Thursday ordered the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to quit interfering with health care benefits for federal judicial employees just because they are married to a person of the same sex.”

Although we conclude the provision of the ordinance directly regulating Good News’ signs does not of itself violate the First Amendment, the district court did not address Good News’ claim that the ordinance unfairly discriminates among forms of noncommercial speech

CBC: “Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery.”

Robert Knight writes at Townhall: “Jesus clearly limited Caesar’s reach. But government has a huge appetite for power and does not particularly like limits.”

Law.com (The National Law Journal): “The federal judiciary saw a huge spike in online applications for clerkships from last year, according to a release from the judiciary. The Web site used by about two-thirds of all federal judges to find clerks saw 401,576 electronic applications between Oct. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2009.”

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Newark, NJ writes in the Star-Ledger: “Despite concerted and well-financed efforts to establish same-sex marriage in numerous states in recent years, most Americans know better. They won’t support it. In every state where same-sex marriage has been put to a vote of the people, the people have said ‘No.’ In fact, only a minority of Americans wants to redefine marriage, according to a CBS News/NY Times Poll conducted this past summer and reported on by both organizations. And support is falling, down almost 10 percent this year.”

Huffington Post: “Ohio state representative Tyrone K. Yates (D-Cincinnati), Kentucky state representative Mary Lou Marzian (D-Jefferson), and Michigan House Speaker Pro Tem Pam Byrnes (D-Washtenaw County) have all introduced legislation to repeal their state’s respective marriage amendments.”

Naples News: “The Collier County School Board approved changes to the district’s health education policy by a 3-2 vote Thursday night. Board members Pat Carroll and Steve Donovan dissented. The district’s old policy read that the curriculum should address an awareness of the benefits of sexual abstinence as the expected standard and the consequences of teenage pregnancy. But a majority of board members thought that policy was too vague.”

Harold James writes at Public Discourse: “Is the current financial crisis simply a technical failure, or does it derive from some more basic problem? Economists may need to begin addressing fundamental questions concerned with value, and for that, they may turn to the natural law tradition.”

HotAir.com: “Controversy has exploded onto the Internet after a major global-warming advocacy center in the UK had its e-mail system hacked and the data published on line . . . those e-mails expose a conspiracy to hide detrimental information from the public that argues against global warming . . . ”

ADF attorney Gary McCaleb appeared on The Michael Medved Show to discuss the ADF Pulpit Initiative.

The MP3 runs just over 32 minutes.

“It is only to begin debate and an opportunity to make improvements. If you don’t like a bill why block your own opportunity to amend it?”

The Hill: “The Senate Ethics Committee has issued a ‘qualified admonition’ of Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) for making false and misleading statements in response to questions about his appointment to the Senate.”

Desoto Times: “The DeSoto County School District has asked a federal judge to reject the ACLU’s request to lift the suspension of a student accused of using gang signs at Olive Branch High School.”

The National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Columbia University has published this paper:

182. Parental Choice in the Netherlands: Growing Concerns about Segregation. 2009
Author: Helen F. Ladd, Edward B. Fiske, & Nienke Ruijs

The Netherlands has a long history of parental choice and school autonomy. This paper examines why segregation by educational disadvantage has only recently emerged as a policy issue in the Netherlands. In addition, we document the levels and trends of school segregation in Dutch cities. We find segregation levels that are high both absolutely and relative to those in the U.S. cities. Current efforts to limit segregation in Dutch cities inevitably confront the deeply held Dutch value of freedom of education.

EWTN: “In an irenic Washington Post op-ed, Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington called upon city council members to change the language in impending same-sex marriage legislation so that Catholic Charities could continue to offer adoption and foster care services without compromising Catholic moral teaching.”

North Carolina Family Policy Council: “Facing more than 700 charges related to prostitution, drug violations, alcohol violations, and nudity, the owner of a strip club in Alamance County has reached a settlement with the county commissioners that requires him to ‘cease and desist’ current operations of the strip club, and prohibits future ownership, operation, or affiliation with a sexually oriented business (SOB) in the county.”

Washington Times: “Senate Democrats’ health care bill would create a new marriage penalty by imposing a tax on individuals who make $200,000 annually but hitting married couples making just $50,000 more . . . a married couple in which each earner makes $150,000 would be hit with the tax, whereas an unmarried couple living together with the same incomes would not.”

LifeSiteNews: “At least fifty-nine US Catholic bishops gave financial support – either personally or through their dioceses and diocesan offices – to the battle to defeat the legalization of same-sex “marriage” and for that the Catholic bishop of Maine is grateful. ”

Politico: “Sen. Joe Lieberman’s threat to filibuster any health care bill with a public option could kill health reform this year — and embolden Democratic challengers who’d like to send him packing in 2012.”

Alliance Defense Fund President, General Counsel, and CEO Alan Sears joined with more than 145 Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars in Washington Friday to sign the “Manhattan Declaration,”

“The 4,700-word document, called ‘The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,’ sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.”

First Things: “Tolerance toward dissenters of what might be called the ‘new medicine’ is quickly eroding. Courts, policymakers, media ­leaders—even the elites of organized medicine—­increasingly assert that patient rights and respect for patients’ choices should trump the consciences of medical professionals. Indeed, the time may soon arrive when doctors, nurses, and pharmacists will be compelled to take, or be complicit in the taking of, human life, regardless of their strong religious or moral objections thereto.”

C-FAM: “Next week in Europe, a committee of human rights ‘experts’ will discuss a draft recommendation on measures to ‘combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity to ensure respect for human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons and to promote tolerance towards them.’”

City Room, Chicago Public Radio: “An lllinois law requiring doctors to tell the parents of teen-aged patients’ before performing an abortion won’t come into effect this year. That’s after a circuit court judge decided to uphold a restraining order preventing enforcement of the law until at least January.”

Daily Mail: “Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee, said that teachers are witnessing ‘disgusting’ behaviour in the classroom by pupils who are too young to know what they are doing.”

TIME: “Between gay marriage, decriminalized abortion and all that pornography on TV, you’d think that the Spanish would be impossible to shock. After all, theirs is a country that in the past couple of decades has not merely evolved from its conservative, Catholic past but has rushed dramatically away from it. But teen masturbation workshops funded with public money? Turns out some Spaniards may not be quite ready for that.”

BBC: “A Church of England committee has backed away from a concession which would give traditionalists their own male bishops with independent powers.”

Telegraph: “A poll he conducted at his own university showed that 62 per cent of Muslim professors and students believed evolution to be an ‘unproven theory’, compared with 10 per cent of non-Muslim professors.”

Pink News: “Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund had challenged the case, saying that gay marriage was akin to incest and polygamy and should not be granted benefits.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Yesterday’s Lincoln (NE) Journal-Star reports that the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission had found reasonable cause to believe that religious discrimination had occurred. Plaintiff settled for $40,000 . . . ”

Religion Clause Blog: “In United States v. Islamic American Relief Agency, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107541 (WD MO, Nov. 18, 2009), a Missouri federal district court rejected defendants’ argument that their indictment for illegally transferring funds to Iraq violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

OneNewsNow: “ADF attorney David Cortman explains to OneNewsNow that the case in Bridgeton is a clear example of why educators need to inform themselves on students’ rights provided by the Constitution. ‘Even though the county this high school is located in has the highest rate of teen pregnancies in the entire state, they censored this young student’s pro-life speech opposing abortion because they didn’t agree with the point of view,’ the attorney says.”

RocNow.com: “‘In New York, the only relationship recognized as marriage is the committed union of a man and a woman,’ the group’s counsel, Brian Raum, said in a statement. ‘State and local officials should not attempt to use marriage laws from outside jurisdictions to place their political agendas ahead of the law.’”

WorldNetDaily: “‘The people of D.C. have a right to vote on the definition of marriage,’ said Austin Nimocks, a senior legal counsel
for the Alliance Defense Fund. ‘The D.C. Charter guarantees the people the right to vote, and the council cannot amend the charter for any reason, much less to deny citizens the right to vote.’”

Gothamist: “The lawyer for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which challenged the benefits In New York, had argued that ‘the only relationship recognized as marriage is the committed union of a man and a woman. State and local officials should not attempt to use marriage laws from outside jurisdictions to place their political agendas ahead of the law.’ The state Assembly passed a bill earlier this year to legalize same-sex marriage, but it stalled in the Senate.”

Baptist Press: “‘The people of D.C. have a right to vote on the definition of marriage,’ ADF senior legal counsel Austin R. Nimocks said in a statement. ‘The D.C. Charter guarantees the people the right to vote, and the council cannot amend the charter for any reason, much less to deny citizens the right to vote. ADF will defend the right of the residents of our nation’s capitol to participate in a legitimate democratic process in the district.’”

Tips-Q: “We continue to enjoy a representative system of government in the best tradition of our founding fathers. However, the real objective of ADF [in DC] is to replace that representative system of government with a theocracy.”

Times Online: “In an authoritative report, Quilliam, a think tank funded by the Home Office, claims ‘mismanagement’ by the Prison Service is helping AlQaeda gain recruits and risks ‘strengthening jihadist movements’.”

Outcome Buffalo: “The ruling comes in cases in which Lambda Legal intervened on behalf of two married same-sex couples after the Alliance Defense Fund, an antigay legal group, tried to do away with longstanding New York law recognizing out-of-state marriages.”

Times Online: “Evolution is to become a compulsory subject for study in all state primary schools. The Government announced yesterday that Darwin’s theory of how life evolved through natural selection would be a legal requirement in science teaching from September 2011, although it will be left to schools to decide how this is done.”

CCFON: “The Government’s Department of Health has launched an extraordinary High Court bid seeking to maintain secrecy over the statistics on abortions of babies with cleft palate and club foot. It is now taking its own Information Tribunal to the Court to overturn a recent landmark Freedom of Information Act ruling.”

AP: “Rev. Vladimir Vigilyansky, a spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchy, said the killing could have been linked to Sysoyev’s missionary activities but wouldn’t elaborate.” Other reports indicate that the murdered priest preached among Muslims.

New England Prison Ministries: “The Massachusetts Department of Corrections is planning to layoff Prison Chaplains of all faiths within the next week or month.”

City Desk, Washington City Paper: “As expected, pushers of a marriage initiative have filed suit in Superior Court seeking to overturn the elections board’s rejection of the measure . . . ‘The people of D.C. have a right to vote on the definition of marriage,’ said Austin R. Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, the conservative legal group representing Jackson.”

FoxNews (includes video): “The Byam Elementary School has decided to ban Santa, candy canes, stockings, and all Christmas, Hanukkah and other ‘religious items’ from being sold at the annual holiday gift shop.”

AP: “The University of Nebraska’s governing board was expected to vote Friday on a resolution that would limit stem-cell research at the university system’s facilities to rules approved under former President George W. Bush.”

AP: “A top Obama administration official on Thursday praised the new Senate health care bill’s attempt to find a compromise on abortion coverage – even as an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Sen. Harry Reid’s bill is the worst he’s seen so far on the divisive issue.”

“On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for ‘certain states recovering from a major disaster’ . . . the section applies to exactly one state . . . ”