Daily Archives: December 21, 2009

LifeSiteNews: “Nearly half of women using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA), commonly known as the birth control shot, will experience high bone mineral density (BMD) loss in the hip or lower spine within two years of beginning the contraceptive, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.”

Belfast Telegraph: “The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, will ask the Vatican to remove four Irish bishops from office if they refuse to step down over the Murphy report into clerical child sex abuse cases in the Dublin archdiocese.”

The Observer: “When a new equity policy kicks in next year, students of other religions will get areas to pray in local Catholic schools, but homosexual students hoping for a gay/straight alliance at their high school may have to wait . . . Esposito said the board has not examined whether the new policy will mean gay student groups at H-SCDSB schools, as is presented as an example in provincial guidelines for the policy. The Ministry of Education guidelines hold up the Toronto District School Board’s program for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered students who may be victims of homophobia.”

Virtue Online: “The pressure on the Church of Uganda to respond to legislation that will be placed before the Ugandan Parliament on homosexual behaviour is not restricted to Uganda. This issue is affecting other democratic nations in Africa and Asia . . . The West will not leave Africa alone. It portrays the continent as either primitive and lawless or fashionably progressive. However, this ambivalence ensures two particular victims, religion and the family.”

Assyrian International News Agency: “It’s been another difficult year for Christians in Turkey and it is finishing just as it began, with problems. Early in December, three Muslims entered the Meryem Ana Church, a Syriac Orthodox church in Diyarbakir, and confronted the Reverend Yusuf Akbulut, according to a Dec. 15 report by Compass Direct News, an agency specializing in reporting on religious persecution.”

European Voice: “Boris Tadić, the president of Serbia, is to submit his country’s application for EU membership tomorrow (22 December).”

Balkan Insight: “Speaking at a meeting of the National Committee Against Human Trafficking, Basha said the government was engaged in a campaign to improve its ranking in the US State Department human trafficking report while the EU also considers a bid to include the country in the so-called White Schengen list in 2010.”

European Voice: “Croatia and Turkey today took steps towards eventual EU membership. Croatia wrapped up accession talks in two policy areas – right of establishment and freedom to provide services, and social policy and employment – while Turkey opened talks on the environment chapter.”

EuropeNews: “In a decision many hope will lead to greater religious freedom in Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that a Turkish court ruling barring a church from starting a foundation violated the congregation’s right to freedom of association.”

Islam Online: “Muslims activists from 26 European countries have come together to launch the first rights council to enlighten European Muslims about their rights, monitor rising Islamophobia and defend Muslim rights in European courts of law.”

Rianovosti: “‘People who attached great significance to European cultural and religious identity as an important element of pan-European wellbeing were among the EU originators,’ Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said in a message to the European Union’s first President Herman Van Rompuy, who will take office from January.”

Church Executive: “The only hope of stopping the legalization of ‘gay marriage’ in the district appears to be through the courts. The Alliance Defense Fund has filed a lawsuit on behalf of eight D.C. citizens calling for approval of an attempt to place an initiative on the ballot to prohibit the unions. An effort to put such a proposal before voters failed when the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics turned it down Nov. 17.”

Blog of the Legal Times: “The 46-page document, filed the same day Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a bill to allow same-sex marriage in the District, argues that that D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics was right when it rejected the initiative, finding that it would violate the D.C. Human Rights Act by discriminating against gays and lesbians.”

“The paradox of needing a dead donor with a live body was first addressed in 1968 . . . Moving past a binary concept of life and death is, for most of us, an uncomfortable process . . .”

Christian Post: “Pastors in Uganda recently chided evangelical pastor Rick Warren after he urged them to speak out against the country’s Anti-Homosexuality bill.”

The AP is reporting that lawmakers in Mexico City have voted to redefine marriage.

ADF attorney Doug Napier appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the battle over federal funding of abortion.

The MP3 runs just over 8 minutes.

TuscaloosaNews.com: “Gov. Bob Riley will ask the Legislature to pass a charter school law to boost Alabama’s chances at getting some of the $175 million in federal stimulus money that will be competitively available beginning next month.The conservative Alabama Policy Institute backs the idea of charter schools. API vice president Michael Ciamarra is working with the Riley administration on the issue.”

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a notice of appeal Friday in the case of a Christian man arrested for sharing his faith in the “free speech area” of Georgia Southern University.

CBC: “Marriage commissioners on P.E.I. have been able to perform same-sex marriages since June 2006, but many pieces of provincial legislation still referred to married couples as ‘man and woman’ or ‘husband and wife.’”

SeaCoastOnline.com: “They also are planning to take a more personal approach with voters than they did in the months leading up to November — an approach that focuses less on identifying likely voters than it does on having conversations with people in the more rural, small-town pockets of Maine.”

Breitbart (AP): “A leading Cairo university will appeal a court decision allowing female students to don the full face veil on campus dormitories, a university official said on Monday.”

New Mexico Independent: “The bill proposing a constitutional amendment was filed by Sen. William Sharer, R-Farmington . . . ”

Washington Post: “Mali in some sense has become a test case as its government has accepted tens of millions of dollars in American aid intended to stave off what U.S. officials say could be a growing threat of radicalism in parts of Africa where Muslims make up the majority.”

Becket Fund: “Today the United Nations adopted a resolution that empowers governments to punish its own citizens for expressing their religious beliefs and speaking out against a particular faith. In a vote of 80 in favor, 61 against, and 42 countries abstaining, the concept of ‘defamation of religion’ received yet another nod of approval from the U.N. General Assembly. This vote attempts to solidify into international law a concept that restricts basic human rights.”

Eugene Volokh responds once again to David French at the Volokh Conspiracy: “Likewise, it seems to me that there is an eminently conceivable, and legitimate, state interest in denying government funds to groups that discriminate based on religion, sexual orientation, and such, even when the discrimination is “commonsense” and “mission-based.” It is reasonable and legitimate for the state to say that public funds, to which taxpayers and students of all religions and sexual orientations contribute, not be spent in any fashion — even noninvidious fashion — which subsidizes religious or sexual orientation discrimination.”

Part VII: French: And Yet Another Response to Professor Volokh
Part VI: Volokh: The First Amendment and the Race Discrimination Bogeyman
Part V: Volokh: Should access to public university property and funding be treated differently from access to other public property and funding?
Part IV: French: Responding to Professor Eugene Volokh (the sequel: CLS v. Martinez)
Part III: Volokh: Christian Legal Society v. Martinez and the Court’s University Speech Decisions
Part II: French: A Preliminary Response to Professor Volokh
Part I: Volokh: No Duty To Subsidize Student Groups’ Discriminatory Officer and Member Selection Decisions

OneNewsNow: “Microsoft has developed PhotoDNA, software technology that helps calculate the distinct characteristics of a digital image to match it to other copies of that same image . . . Trueman says that ‘if the National Center has perhaps a thousand new child pornography photos that come in on one day, they might be able to identify ten children in those photos. With the Microsoft software, the other photos will be looked at for characteristics which the software can identify and tie to particular children.’”

Leesburg Today: “Exercising his request to the Board of Supervisors, Leesburg resident Richard L. Wingrove has put up a banner on behalf of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.”

Chicago Tribune: “The manger scene was removed from Fire Station 12 after city officials received a letter from the group Freedom from Religion Foundation, which works for the separation of church and state.”

Washington Post (AP): “A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night.”

“But Major General Anthony Cucolo, who runs US operations in northern Iraq, issued the new orders because he said he was losing too many women with critical skills.”
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The Press Association: “A Christian teacher dismissed from her job after offering to pray for a sick pupil said she felt she had been treated like a criminal.”

The Hill: “You have to compliment Ben Nelson for playing the price is right,” Burr said. “This isn’t the Louisiana Purchase. This is the Nebraska windfall.”

“The Obama administration refused Friday to follow a federal judge’s order to provide insurance benefits to the wife of a lesbian court employee in San Francisco and said its hands were tied by a discriminatory law.”

Des Moines Register: “Dianne and Dale Schwerin feel as if they almost have to sneak around to see two of their grandchildren. Dianne once made the six-hour round-trip drive from Minnesota to Parkersburg just to eat school lunch with one of the boys. Almost four years after the death of the Schwerins’ 30-year-old daughter, Amy Guldager, a popular Parkersburg teacher, their son-in-law has cut off contact with them.”

Taiwan News (C-FAM): “According to Roger Kiska, European legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, Lautsi is flawed on a number of grounds, including overreach – the ECHR is not a constitutional court – and its disregard for ‘the cultural sovereignty of each Member State.’ The Constitutional Court decision – which deals with civil service matters entirely unrelated to the crucifix case – signals that Italy may be prepared to break with the ECHR if it were to lose its appeal.”

OneNewsNow: “Brian Raum of the Alliance Defense Fund tells OneNewsNow the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that the First Amendment rights of its clients will be protected . . . ‘The communications and the thoughts of a campaign and their strategy and the messaging that goes along with that are all things protected by the First Amendment,’ Raum notes. ‘The fact is that the people of California voted [in November 2008] to restore the definition of marriage as one man and one woman, and that’s what’s important here.’”

Robert’s US Government Info Blog (About.com): “The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a religious rights advocacy group, has appealed the decision. ‘Christians in the marketplace should not be subject to predatory legal attacks for simply abiding by their beliefs,’ said ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence in a press release. ‘American small business owners do not surrender their constitutional rights at the marketplace gate, nor can the government make people choose between their faith and their livelihood.’”

The Oklahoman (AP): Defense Fund president Alan Sears says public universities remain the most intolerant places in America. ‘We intend to bring as many actions as necessary until folks decide to conform to the Constitution,’ he said. He said his group has had success. In 50 concluded legal cases involving universities, colleges have changed some policies or a court has ordered changes, he said.”

Times-Leader: “A Nativity and menorah will be returned to the Luzerne County Courthouse lawn – likely by Monday – as part of a holiday display featuring other secular objects, county Commissioner Chairwoman Maryanne Petrilla said Friday . . . Minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said he didn’t support the removal and learned about it from a news article. He said he spoke with other organizations that are willing to help the county in its defense, including the Alliance Defense Fund and the Pa Family Institute.”

LifeSiteNews: “According to Roger Kiska, European legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, Lautsi is flawed on a number of grounds, including overreach – the ECHR is not a constitutional court – and its disregard for ‘the cultural sovereignty of each Member State.’ The Constitutional Court decision – which deals with civil service matters entirely unrelated to the crucifix case – signals that Italy may be prepared to break with the ECHR if it were to lose its appeal.”

Mercator.net: “Dr Shim: ‘This movement is the Korean Gynecological Physicians’ Association, or “Gynob”, and is an organization consisting of obstetricians and gynaecologists. Currently we have about 680 listed members. Of course, Gynob is not an organization designed only to resolve the problem of abortion, but is intended to improve the distorted medical enviroment in which OB/GYNs work. It does not mean that all of the members of Gynob actively participate in Gynob activities. Our movement is led by a group of about 30 activists.’”

Associated Press: “The Alliance Defense Fund is stepping up a campaign on the nation’s college campuses aimed at freedom of religious expression.”

How Appealing links to this NY Law Journal report that asks: “Has the Second Circuit’s reluctance to rehear cases en banc gone too far?”

WorldNetDaily: “A new Islamic mosque will open its doors just steps from Ground Zero where Muslim terrorists murdered 2,751 people in the name of Allah on Sept. 11, 2001 – and its leading imam, who conducts sensitivity training sessions for the FBI, has reportedly blamed Christians for starting mass attacks on civilians.”

WorldNetDaily: “One day after the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao snubbed President Obama at the United Nation’s Copenhagen Climate Summit, the Chinese warned the United States that China’s ability to continue buying U.S. Treasury debt was limited.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Moss v. Spartanburg County School District No. 7, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117744 (D SC, Dec. 17, 2009),a South Carolina federal district court refused to dismiss an Establishment Clause challenge to the released time program for religious instruction that was set up by the Spartanburg County (SC) School District.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Currently Scheduled Caste status is available only to Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs. The report also calls for continuing Scheduled Caste status for Dalits who convert from Hinudism to other religions.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In McFarlane v. McFarlane, (OH Ct. App., Dec. 17, 2009), an Ohio appellate court was faced with two questions involving the relationship of parents’ religious views to the award of child support. The parties’ original divorce action also found its way to the state court of appeals three years ago . . . ”

“The chairman of Nebraska’s Republican Party declared Nelson’s decision to be the end of his political career in Nebraska . . . ”

“. . . some Democrats in the House of Representatives put the sanctity of human life first and foremost, not one Senator from the Democratic Party could be bothered to stand up for mothers and their unborn children.”

Baptist Press: “Coptic Christian women in Egypt are being forced to marry and convert to Islam and that oppression is part of a larger pattern of persecution against Christians facilitated by the Egyptian government, according to two recent reports.”

LifeSiteNews: “British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has pledged to attempt to force Eastern European countries to accept as legally valid homosexual civil partnerships contracted in Britain. Brown told Attitude, one of the UK’s leading homosexualist magazines, ‘I’m fighting to get all the countries in Europe to recognise civil partnerships carried out in Britain.’”

LifeNews: “Pro-life groups have spent most of Saturday morning furiously analyzing the Nelson-Reid compromise language on abortion funding in the Senate health care bill. Their conclusion is that the language undermines the amendments they wanted to ban abortion funding.”

NBCChicago: [Sen. Lindsey Graham] “You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan. And it’s really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes.”

LifeNews: “Senator Ben Nelson announced today that he will become the crucial 60th vote that Democrats need to pass a government-run health care bill.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) latest health care “manager’s amendment” would STILL levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans under the Democrats’ health care plan.”

Baby Doe and Beyond: Examining the Practical and Philosophical Influences Impacting Medical Decision-Making on Behalf of Marginally-Viable Newborns
Craig A. Conway, 25 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 1097 (2009)

“Advances in technology and medical education in the past century have allowed doctors to save some of these extremely premature newborns who previously would have most certainly died. However, the philosophical, ethical, and legal concerns raised by attempting to preserve these infants are being weighed by an increasing number of decision makers. Whereas, prior to the 1970s, decisions regarding the infant’s treatment plan were primarily in the hands of the parents and physicians-that is no longer the case. What was once a private decision made by these grief-stricken parents with the advice of their physicians has since become a matter for the public domain.”

The Dueling First Amendments: Government as Funder and the Establishment Clause
Carol Nackenoff, 69 Md. L. Rev. 132 (2009)

“The Supreme Court of the United States has recently been exhibiting a good deal of deference to other branches of the federal government in arenas in which government speech is held to be taking place. Government speech can include selective funding with tax dollars. This Essay will contend that an expansion of the government speech doctrine is likely to have a significant impact on Establishment Clause jurisprudence. The Supreme Court may be poised to return a number of Establishment Clause challenges to the political process.”

Bret Boyce, Equality and the Free Exercise of Religion (November 11, 2009). Cleveland State Law Review, Vol. 57, p. 493, 2008. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1504297

“The most contentious issue in constitutional free exercise doctrine is whether exemptions for religiously motivated conduct are constitutionally required or permitted. For decades, the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence in this area has been in considerable disarray. In recent years the Court has increasingly rejected the notion of constitutionally required religious exemptions, but shown considerable indulgence for legislative exemptions. This Article argues that while the Free Exercise Clause confers the highest protection on religious belief, expression, and association, it requires equal treatment of all in the regulation of conduct, regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof.”

Culture, Religion, and Indigenous People
David Bogen and Leslie F. Goldstein, 69 Md. L. Rev. 48 (2009)

“The Constitution treats culture, religion, and government as separate concepts. Different clauses of the First Amendment protect culture and religion from government. For several decades, the Supreme Court of the United States interpreted the First Amendment as offering religion greater protection against interference than was offered to culture, but the Supreme Court largely dissolved these constitutional differences when confronted with issues posed by the religious practices of Native Americans. With some indigenous Americans, the lines between culture, religion, and even government blur–challenging the Supreme Court’s assumptions about the Constitution. The uniqueness of the claims of Native Americans pushed the Supreme Court toward recognition of a common constitutional standard for religion and cultural protection, but also justified political exemptions targeted at tribal behavior that do not extend to other religions or cultures.”

From Pre-School Aides to Presidents: Themes and Scenes of the Abortion Debate
Andrew Draxton and Jessica Andrew, 11 J. L. & Fam. Stud. 457 (2009)

“His opinion of the subject of abortion, though expressed in simple terms, carries with it the same logic, emotion, and persuasive appeal that ornaments one opinion of the debate sounded in any number of circles. Indeed, everyone from construction workers to Congressmen has a moral, medical, social, or political opinion on the topic. These themes have been debated just as vigorously in living rooms, barber shops, community centers, and cyber space as they have in the halls of Congress and the courtrooms of the United States. As Greg and his mother share their own voice on the matter, this note examines similar themes as propounded by the mighty voice of the United States Executive Branch.”

Kathryn Harvey, The Rights of Divorced Lesbians: Interstate Recognition of Child Custody Judgments in the Context of Same-Sex Divorce (November 18, 2009). Fordham Law Review, Vol. 78, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1508477

“This Note explores the issue of interstate recognition of child custody, which arises in the context of same-sex divorce. The Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA) requires states to grant full faith and credit to all child custody orders; on the other hand, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) allows states to deny full faith and credit to judgments “arising out of” same-sex marriage. This Note argues that DOMA partially repeals the PKPA, such that states need not grant full faith and credit to divorce and child custody decrees in the context of same-sex marriage. Further, this Note argues that, because same-sex divorce does not raise the same concerns as same-sex marriage, sister states should recognize same-sex divorce and custody orders as doing so is in the best interest of the child and supports interstate comity.”

Kimberly Mutcherson, Making Mommies: Law, Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis, and the Complications of Pre-Motherhood (September 26, 2008). Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1274361

“The article focuses on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (‘PGD’), a technology that allows health care providers and potential parents to screen embryos for a range of characteristics prior to implanting them in a woman’s uterus. Many potential parents use the technology to screen out life-threatening diseases, but many have expressed concerns about the technology’s potential use to screen for benign characteristics such as sex. Recognizing the potential for future regulation, this article focuses on three major topics 1) the potential for legal regulation of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis; 2) the relationship between such future regulation and the existing legal landscape attendant to parenting, procreation, and pregnancy; 3) and the specific consequences for women of legal incursion into PGD decision-making.”

LifeSiteNews: “The final clear obstacle for President Obama’s health care overhaul suddenly toppled Saturday morning as news broke that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) had agreed on a series of compromises on abortion and other issues that would allow him to support the bill.”