Daily Archives: December 16, 2009

Adventist News Network: “Religious liberty advocates in Russia say proposed amendments to a national law seek to regulate free religious expression in the country and endanger profession of faith provisions in the Russian constitution. The amendments to the 1997 law called ‘On Freedom of Conscience and Association’ specifically target so-called ‘missionary activity’ in the country, experts say.”

Assyrian International News Agency: “Turkey’s increasingly militant Islamic influence should prompt the European Union to reject its efforts to join the organization out of hand, according to Jonathan Racho, an analyst with International Christian Concern.”

Interfax: “The European Court of Human Rights often does not properly consider the church’s rights, said Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. ‘In our view, the court sometimes lopsidedly uses different interpretations of individual rights to the detriment of collective rights of traditional religious organizations rooted in the history and culture of European peoples,’ Patriarch Kirill said in a letter to Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland whose text the patriarchal press service made public on Wednesday.”

“An appeal against last month’s decision by Swiss voters to ban minarets has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.”

Times of India: “France is moving towards outlawing full Islamic veils in certain public buildings, stopping short of a broader ban that could violate the right to religious freedom, Le Figaro newspaper reported on Wednesday.”

AP: “. . . but Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont vowed it will return when the realization dawns that private insurance companies ‘are no longer needed.’”

Catholic Culture reports on the situation at Duquesne University.

Richard Grenell writes at CBS: “The answer, of course, is and has always been that America is not ready for gay marriage. Nearly every public poll taken has shown that the electorate, albeit the public at large, is not ready. ”

San Francisco Chronicle: “The Imperial County Board of Supervisors voted in favor of an emergency motion Tuesday to intervene in the case.”

NY Governor: “Governor David A. Paterson today signed Executive Order No. 33 that will prohibit New York State agencies from discriminating against any individual on the basis of gender identity and expression in any matter pertaining to employment by the State. Executive Order No. 33 directs the Office of Employee Relations, in consultation with the Executive Director of the Division of Human Rights, to develop and implement clear and consistent guidelines prohibiting gender identity and expression discrimination by all State agencies . . . ”

At some point, the text of the order should be online here.

Boston Globe (AP): “The academy superintendent, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, says the improvements are the result of a topdown campaign to foster respect and a commitment to accommodate all cadets, even nonbelievers and an ‘Earth-centered’ religious group that needed a place for a stone circle so it could worship outdoors.”

KETV.com: “The ACLU said changes to Nebraska law are keeping independent candidates and ballot initiatives off ballots, violating protected political speech.”

“Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund will appeal a New Mexico judge’s decision to uphold a ruling by the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission against an Albuquerque photography company . . . ”

LifeSiteNews: “The city of Shanghai’s efforts to reverse more than 30 years of anti-child government propaganda, and boost the city’s flagging birth rate are not being well received by the public, a report in the Washington Post says.”

LifeNews: “A Chicago police officer was cited in a report for intimidating a pro-life advocate helping counsel women outside a Planned Parenthood abortion business in Aurora . . . ”

National Post: “To bundle superstitions and cults together with authentic religions, then demand deference to all, is to discourage actual respect for any but the state religion of ‘normative pluralism,’ the real aim of the program. In its indifference to objective knowledge, in its crusade to hallow cultural relativism and a strictly Charter-of-rights based identity, ÉCR stimulates heritage students’ detachment from their own cultural touchstones, and chills critical thinking in all students.”

Eugene Volokh writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: “The decision was made two months ago, but I think the written opinion has just become available, as GW v. An Immigration Officer. Note that the decision rests in considerable measure on internal European Union regulations having to do with freedom of movement among European states . . . ”

Rifqu Bary’s case made headlines earlier in the year when it is was reported that she had converted to Christianity and was attempting to escape her Muslim parents, who she claimed might kill her. She ran away to Florida from Ohio. Eugene Volokh reports at the Volokh Conspiracy on the latest round in this litigation and includes excerpts from the text of the motion in question.

Related ADF Alliance Alert posts

Psychology Today: “The Pew Internet & American Life Project is nonprofit research group, who surveyed 800-teens, and reported that 15% of cell-owning teens (ages 12 to 17) had “received nude or nearly nude photos by phone. 4% of the teens said they had sent out sexually explicit photos or videos of themselves.” (cnn.com) Another poll reported that 1/3 of college students engage in this activity (wcbstv.com). Although many teens and young adults may be blasé about sexting, other acknowledge that it can be very dangerous and in addition to creating “drama” it has also been deadly . . . ”

US News and World Report: “Parents’ concern for their children’s risky behavior with new technologies is an untapped market.”

Washington Post: “Members of the Virginia State Crime Commission refused Tuesday to recommend legislation concerning sexting, but the issue is likely to come before lawmakers next month.”

Law.com: “One of India’s highest courts has banned foreign law firms from all forms of practice in India, a major victory for a trade group of Indian lawyers and a defeat for firms that opened liaison offices in India during a brief window in the 1990s, according to the blog Legally India.”

“The decision was handed down last Friday, but the opinion wasn’t distributed until yesterday . . . ”

On Wednesday morning, Dec. 16, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee favorably reported the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act out of committee on an 8-1 vote . . .

Religion Clause Blog: “In Council for Secular Humanism, Inc. v. McNeil, (FL Ct. App., Dec. 15, 2009), a Florida state appellate court held that plaintiffs stated a valid claim under the “no-aid” provision of Florida’s Constitution (Art. I, Sec. 3) when they challenged per diem payments by the state to two Christian ministries for prisoners placed in their faith-based substance abuse transitional housing programs . . . ”

How Appealing links to more coverage.

“. . . Nelson’s demand that taxpayer money not be used to fund abortion has still not been met. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn’t fall into line.”

“This is going to be a full court press. It’s going to lead to ostracizing different churches that have doctrinal oppositions to homosexual behaviour.”

Detroit News: “Impassioned parents demanded jail time for educators and district officials Saturday following the release of test scores that showed fourth- and eighth-graders had the worst math scores in the nation.”

Anita Ramasastry writes at Findlaw: “More generally, public officials are finding that their Facebook conduct (including their ‘friending’ practices) is being scrutinized. Since Facebook and similar sites are a mixture of public and private, this issue isn’t going to go away any time soon. Thus, state ethics bodies – including those that govern judicial ethics — are well-advised to confront the issue sooner, rather than later.”

William Saunders, Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at Americans United for Life, writing at The Catholic Thing: “While the Court should dismiss the case, there are signs this will not happen. For example, before the lower chamber reached a decision, the matter was referred to the Grand Chamber. This is a highly unusual development in the process of a case and a signal that the Court may be preparing to issue what it considers an ‘historic’ decision. After all, why gather all nineteen judges just to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction?”

The Hill: “The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) backed out of an event with other organizations promoting the Senate healthcare reform bill Wednesday over concerns about changes made to the legislation to accommodate centrist Democrats.”

“Despite the Irish constitutional guarantee for the right to life ‘from conception,’ the Supreme Court ruled that the three embryos cannot be implanted against the wishes of the woman’s estranged husband.”

“The UK Supreme Court . . . held that the admissions criteria . . . which gave preference . . . to children who are Jewish according to Orthodox Jewish law . . . were . . . racially discriminatory.”

SF Weekly: “It’s time to face facts: San Francisco is spectacularly mismanaged and arguably the worst-run big city in America. This year’s city budget is an astonishing $6.6 billion — more than twice the budget for the entire state of Idaho — for roughly 800,000 residents. Yet despite that stratospheric amount, San Francisco can’t point to progress on many of the social issues it spends liberally to tackle — and no one is made to answer when the city comes up short.”

Patrick J. Deneen, Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown, writing at his blog: “The discomfort with urging truly moral consequences that one would expect to accompany the language of moral condemnation is most often lacking because the Left has come to define itself as the ‘Party of Progress,’ in opposition to the ‘Party of Memory’ (or, ‘Tradition’), to use Emerson’s language. Morality is problematic because, more often than not, it forestalls those ‘experiments in living’ that were praised and recommended by John Stuart Mill . . . As D.C. councilman David Catania was quoted to say in the wake of the Council’s vote to legalize gay marriage, the ‘other side’ (i.e. conservatives) are wrong because they are ‘tethered to the past.’ To be tethered – restrained – is a sign of being on the ‘wrong side of history.’”

CBS4.com: “The new Rasmussen poll of likely GOP voters found Crist and his Republican opponent, Marco Rubio, are tied with 43 percent of the vote.”

Charlotte Observer: “Mecklenburg County will offer domestic partner benefits in 2011 to employees in same-sex relationships, under a plan approved Tuesday night by county commissioners.”

Idaho Press-Tribune: “The Coeur d’Alene school’s use of the Bible shows the state has singled out Nampa Classical Academy by prohibiting it from using religious texts, Nampa Classical Academy attorney David Cortman said. Cortman works for the Alliance Defense Fund, which describes itself as ‘a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth,’ on its Web site. It has taken the case for Nampa Classical Academy without charging the school for its services.”

“Do constitutional protections of free speech, free assembly and conscientious religious expression still apply in an academic environment increasingly controlled by Leftist philosophy and the legal hyperventilations of political correctness?”

Washington City Paper: “As for the legal side, King and Jackson put a lot of faith in their attorneys, from the Alliance Defense Fund: ‘I believe that we have the best legal team in America,’ King says. A hearing is set for Jan. 6 before a Superior Court judge on one suit to force a popular vote on marriage.”

Windy City Times: “With the help of the Alliance Defense Fund, a right-wing legal group that has filed many challenges against equal rights for gays, the clergymen are still pressing forward with an effort to put the issue before voters in the District.”

Townhall (Baptist Press):”The Alliance Defense Fund has filed a lawsuit on behalf of eight D.C. citizens calling for approval of the attempt to place the initiative on the ballot.”

The Hill: “Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has privately told her politically vulnerable Democratic members that they will not vote on controversial bills in 2010 unless the Senate acts first.”

National Center for Policy Analysis: “Ever wonder how effective your child’s teacher is? Officials in Albany would rather you didn’t know. At least that’s the lesson one has to take from their refusal to allow data systems to match students to teachers, though doing so would help the state compete for a pot of perhaps hundreds of millions of federal dollars.”

AP: “Maine’s only casino has withdrawn its request to offer up a new type of slot machine for its customers.”

Q-Notes: “The 80-page human resources report also included a biased white paper from the Corporate Resource Council (CRC), recommended to the human resources department by Republican Commissioner Karen Bentley . . . The CRC has been identified as a ‘non-profit consulting firm’ affiliated with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization which has mounted legal challenges to LGBT-inclusive and gay-friendly laws and policies across the nation. In fact, CRC’s web domain information shows it was registered by the Alliance Defense Fund and shares the same address as the anti-gay legal organization.”

” . . . of the 194 countries around the world, 187 retain the common understanding of marriage.”

Wall Street Journal: “It’s a sign of how deep the fiscal pathologies run in this Congress that $2 trillion will buy the federal government only one year before it has to seek another debt hike—conveniently timed to come after the midterm elections. Since Democrats began running Congress again in 2007, the federal debt limit has climbed by 39%. The new hike will lift the borrowing cap by another 15%.”

Vatican Information Service on EWTN:  ”Benedict XVI focused his catechesis during this morning’s general audience on the figure of John of Salisbury, a philosopher and theologian born in England towards the beginning of the twelfth century . . .  ’The question of the relationship between natural law and positive law, as mediated by equity, is still of great importance’, said Benedict XVI. ‘Indeed, in our own time, and especially in certain countries, we are witnessing a disquieting fracture between reason, which has the task of discovering the ethical values associated with human dignity, and freedom, which has the responsibility of accepting and promoting those values.’”

Wikipedia Entry: John of Salisbury

Associated Press: “One of the largest public charter schools in the state has drafted a plan to fix several problem areas identified by Idaho officials last month.”

San Francisco Chronicle: “About 15 percent of American teenagers have received nude or sexually suggestive photos on their cell phones, and that percentage doubles as teens get older, according to a study released Tuesday about the tech-fueled trend called ‘sexting.’”

Law.com (National Law Journal): “Justices are now independent of Parliament, so they may well become more activist.”

“Universal jurisdiction” sounds like a term plucked from obscure international law journals, but it has pernicious and profoundly antidemocratic consequences in the real world.”