Daily Archives: December 17, 2009

Compass Direct News: “Some 50 Muslim villagers armed with clubs and axes attacked a showing of the “Jesus Film” near this city in Punjab Province on Wednesday night (Dec. 9), injuring three part-time evangelists and four Christians in attendance.”

C-FAM: “A recent submission to the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) provides evidence of the potentially fatal consequences of ‘safe’ abortion promoted by UN agencies, and includes a list of 113 studies linking abortion dangerous complications such as pre-term birth in subsequent pregnancies.”

Radio Netherlands Worldwide: “A group of five foreigners, was arrested last week in Morocco on suspicion of proselytising. The Christian missionaries – two South Africans, two Swiss and one Guatemalan – were expelled from the country for holding ‘undeclared meetings’, said police. This is not the first such incident. Proselytising (attempting to change someone’s religious or political beliefs) is a crime in Morocco, even though the constitution guarantees individual freedom.”

International Christian Concern: “International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that yesterday at 3:30 PM local time, Eritrean officials released all the Christian women they had arrested December 5th . . . for praying together at a house in Asmara.”

Wikipedia: Eritrea

LifeNews: “Senator Ben Nelson, who is quickly becoming the must-get 60th vote for Democrats to pass their pro-abortion health care bill in the Senate, is rejecting a proposed compromised aimed at attracting his vote. Sen. Bob Casey drafted the compromise, which has already been criticized by pro-life groups . . . ”

Religion Clause Blog: “Newton, Massachusetts school officials have decided that 15-year old high school student Jack Summers will be excused from reading parts of the Bible that were assigned in a sophomore literature course that includes Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Antigone and works by Shakespeare.”

The Providence Journal: “The Senate Judiciary Committee has held over until the new year a vote on President Obama’s nomination of Rhode Island Superior Superior Court Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson to a vacant seat on the Boston-based First Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Religion Clause Blog: “. . . University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said that the new Center “will serve as an ideologically neutral place that will foster rigorous, unbiased scholarship and encourage conversations between diverse and even conflicting points of view . . . ”

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, writing at National Review’s Phi Beta Cons blog: “[I]sn’t Title VI aimed squarely at invidious discrimination? By its terms it’s limited to the identity-based categories of race, color, and national origin. Is it invidious discrimination for expressive organizations to ask that their members and officers agree with the group’s mission and conduct themselves accordingly? I think it’s a mistake to equate such commonsense, mission-based ‘discrimination’ with invidious racial discrimination. Of course, that doesn’t mean the individuals don’t get their feelings hurt when they’re excluded from organizations, but that doesn’t provide a pretext for state action.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Pew Forum on Religion & Public Lifeyestereday released a 72-page report titled Global Restriction on Religion . . . ”

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence writing at the Academic Freedom File: “Also, the District Court rejected the religious liberty claims under the federal and state constitutions. Again, the court diminishes the impact of the state’s actions against the photography company, with its statements that Elane Photography is merely being asked to photograph something for a fee. There is no sense that people can be asked by their customers to do something with their businesses that violate the business owners’ beliefs. A photographer who is a vegetarian might decline to create photos for the promotional materials of a meat packing plant. If New Mexico law made that an act of discrimination, the District Court opinion says that there is no First Amendment protection. That can’t be right, and that is why we will appeal this decision to the New Mexico Court of Appeals.”

BND.com (AP): “Lawmakers voted to ease Spain’s abortion law Thursday, approving a bill to allow the procedure without restrictions up to 14 weeks. The change would bring this traditionally Roman Catholic country in line with its more secular neighbors in northern Europe.”

KGUN9.com: “Gov. Jan Brewer has issued an executive order regarding the lawful celebration of Christmas and Hanukkah for many state employees while they’re at work.”

Executive Order 2009-11: Declaring Christmas and Hanukkah Celebration

One News Now: “The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted 8-1 yesterday to approve a bill that would provide the same family benefits to homosexual federal civilian employees that are provided to married heterosexual employees.”

Eugene Volokh has discussed the ruling in Elane Photography LLC v. Willock in four recent posts, beginning with: Compelling Speech by Commercial Photographers, Freelance Writers, Musicians, and So On.

WorldNetDaily: “A district judge in New Mexico has affirmed a state Civil Rights Commission order that a small photography company pay $6,600 for refusing to violate the owners’ Christian beliefs by photographing a lesbian ‘ceremony,’ even though same-sex marriage isn’t legal in the state . . . ‘Christians in the marketplace should not be subject to predatory legal attacks for simply abiding by their beliefs,’ said ADF senior counsel Jordan Lorence. ‘The Constitution prohibits the state from forcing unwilling artists to promote a message they disagree with and thereby violate their conscience.’”

TimesLeader.com: “A familiar nativity scene and menorah were removed from the Luzerne County Courthouse lawn Wednesday night because the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to get a restraining order.”

AP: “A Roman Catholic bishop in Ireland has resigned after an investigation into child sex abuse by clergymen accused him of ignoring reports of crimes by priests in his diocese, the Vatican said Thursday.”

AP: “The Vatican moved Thursday to thwart renegade African Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo from making more bishops in defiance of the pope, stripping him of his priestly functions so any further ordinations by him would be invalid.”

Citizen Link: “PhotoDNA will be used by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to identify child pornography.”

Ben Shapiro writes at Townhall: “If you were president of the United States, would you hire an alleged former spy for Fidel Castro to be ambassador to El Salvador, a country teetering on the brink of hard-core socialism? President Obama just did.”

James Bopp, Jr., Attorney and member of the Republican National Committee, writes at the Washington Times: “We got here because governing became all about power and not about Republican principles, leading to out-of-control government spending, deficits, earmarks and finally bailouts during the George W. Bush administration. It also became all about ‘winning elections,’ not about advancing the conservative agenda. It began in 2004 when . . . ”

In October, Baptist Bible College carried this spotlight interview with Glen Lavy. It begins:

A practicing attorney for nearly 20 years, Glen joined the Alliance Defense Fund in 2001. He has served there for nine years as Senior Vice President of the Marriage Litigation Center and as Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President of Allied Coordination and Funding. He is responsible for leading a marriage litigation team opposing same-sex marriage and defending marriage and values in dozens of Alliance Defense Fund cases. A 1986 graduate, Glen attended Harvard Law School after leaving BBC. In his spare time, he enjoys woodworking, running, reading, and hiking. He also teaches a Sunday school class for young married couples. He lives with his wife and their three children in Scottsdale, AZ.

Gerald P. O’Driscoll writes at the Wall Street Journal: “Wall Street fat cats are always a convenient political target, but bankers are responding to the incentives generated by the economic policies of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. First and foremost is the Fed’s policy of near-zero interest rates. What this means is that banks can raise short-term money at very low interest rates and buy safe, 10-year Treasury bonds at around 3.5%.”

Pacific Justice Institute: “The lawsuit is being brought on behalf of a 12-year-old student in Nevada City who was allegedly pulled out of class and forced to take a pregnancy test by a school counselor, without her parents’ knowledge or consent.”

The LA Times carries this editorial: “The issue for the court is whether Hastings is denying the Christian group access to university facilities because of its beliefs, not its conduct. On this point, the Christian Legal Society has a strong case.”

Mats Tunehag writes at the Varlden Idag: “Those who leave Islam run a risk of being killed by the state, their family or other Muslims. Ex-Muslims in Europe face this danger as well. One billion Muslims have less religious freedom – in one significant respect – than Christians who live in the Muslim world. Christians are allowed to abandon their faith and become Muslims, but Muslims do not have the right to change religions.”

Alfred L. Ball writes at MyCentralJersey.com: “Regardless of which side you are on in the same-sex marriage debate, it is important that we acknowledge that legalization of same-sex marriage will impact everybody, including churches and religious organizations, and at least the public schools . . . ”

National Center for Policy Analysis: “The Innovation Schools Act, passed by the Colorado legislature in 2008, permits public schools, groups of schools and school districts to escape some of the heaviest state regulations and the most restrictive collective bargaining agreements and to develop new, creative teaching models for delivering high-quality education to schoolchildren, says Liv Finne, Education Director for the Washington Policy Center . . . ”

WTOP.com: “The Archdiocese of Washington has said it might have to stop offering social services in D.C. once a gay marriage law is passed because complying with the law would mean offering same-sex benefits to employees.”

“. . . it may still face obstacles in Congress — namely the House — which oversees D.C.’s budget. Both Republicans and conservative Democrats in the House are considering a variety of legislative methods to block the bill, including adding a rider to future appropriations bills.”

“. . . and it increases the urgency for Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler to rule on whether the state is permitted to recognize same-sex marriages from other states.”

Nashua Telegraph: “And the side that successfully argued to revoke the gay marriage law last month spent $3.8 million, less than the $5.8 million spent by those supporting the law.”

ABC (includes video): “President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government ‘will go bankrupt.’”

Telegraph: “The Arab states of the Gulf region have agreed to launch a single currency modelled on the euro, hoping to blaze a trail towards a pan-Arab monetary union swelling to the ancient borders of the Ummayad Caliphate.”

Wall Street Journal: “A majority of Americans believe the U.S. is in decline. And a plurality now say the U.S. will be surpassed by China in 20 years as the top power.”

Legal Regulations of Religious Communities in EU Member States: A Human Rights Perspective, pp 67-74, in Mitna Sprava Naukovo-Analytishnii Journal, Academy of Law, Odessa, Ukraine (2009)
Willy Fautré, Human Rights Without Frontiers

“In the EU, relations between states and religions are not regulated by the European institutions but remain exclusively within the competence of each member state. Freedom of association is undoubtedly the cornerstone of freedom of religion or belief and is therefore dealt with differently from one country to another according to their historical legal framework and their present-day balance of political powers. Despite the disparity of legal management, all the EU member-states share the common value that any community of faith or belief and their members are entitled to enjoy freedom of worship, assembly, expression and education whether they have a legal status or just exist de facto.”