Daily Archives: December 29, 2009

Linking to the LA Times, the Hot Air Blog reports on the ACLU’s role in opposing no-fly lists. Gabriel Schoenfeld writes at the LA Times: “We will never know whether fierce criticism from the left had any direct effect on the processing of Abdulmutallab’s file, but the political environment is important to consider going forward. The officials managing the watch lists are not eager to be hauled before a congressional committee if they blunder and bar innocent people from getting on flights. But they are also acutely aware of the potential price tag of being under-inclusive.”

Baptist Press: “Religious liberty suffered a setback in the U.S. but won a victory in Canada in December in two closely watched cases involving the legal tug-of-war between religious rights and ‘gay rights’ . . . Attorneys allied with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, are involved in both cases . . . ‘Christians in the marketplace should not be subject to predatory legal attacks for simply abiding by their beliefs,’ ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence said in a statement.”

Christian Post: “Despite what many might believe, a vast majority of home-schooled children say they have plenty of opportunities for socialization with other children and, as adults, come to excel in all measured areas of adult life, according to a new study. The study, released this month by the Canadian Centre for Home Education (CCHE), surveyed young adults in Canada whose parents responded to a 1994 study on home education. Ranging in age from 15 to 34, the study’s participants answered questions on a variety of topics with comparable data from Statistics Canada.”

LA Times: “A lawsuit alleges that the state-owned center improperly bowed to pressure from the Smithsonian Institution, as well as e-mailed complaints from USC professors and others. It contends that the center violated both the 1st Amendment and a contract to rent the museum’s Imax Theater when it canceled the screening of ‘Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record.’”

Associated Press: “A state legislator is renewing his effort to undo an administrative order requiring Virginia State Police chaplains to deliver non-denominational prayers at official events. Del. Charles W. Carrico, a retired state trooper, claims the 2008 directive from State Police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty violates the chaplains’ constitutional right to free exercise of religion.”

Huffington Post: “‘There are some questions I still have,’ DeLauro said. ‘And that’s why I want to see this side-by-side with the language. It’s not Stupak-Pitts [the House's language]. So, it’s already [an improvement]. And it would appear to be current law. I would have to look at the questions that surround it, et cetera. But if it is current law then it would be something that was my goal at the outset: let’s maintain current law and then let’s pass health care.’”

NPR: “Some say they hold the potential for medical miracles. Others claim they are a moral abomination. Either way, human embryonic stem cells captured headlines during the past decade in a way few areas of scientific research have before.”

“At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the question is not whether we will preside over the creation of a New World Order, but whether America’s decline is irreversible.”

BBC News: “Two gay men arrested in Malawi after getting engaged are to be charged with gross public indecency, police say. ‘We arrested them because they committed an offence; homosexuality in Malawi is illegal,’ police spokesman Davie Chingwalu told the BBC.”

Wikipedia: Malawi

Business Week (Bloomberg): ‘The majority of the increase is due to natural increase – - new births in the United States — and we also have new people coming in through international migration, just under 900,000′ this year, said Kennedy-Puthoff.”

Christian Post: “Malaysia’s high court is expected to announce its decision this week on a case contesting whether the government of the predominantly Muslim country can bar Christian groups from referring to God as ‘Allah’ . . . Earlier this month, Court Justice Lau Been Lan set Dec. 30 as the date he would rule on the case, which pits the federal government against the weekly publication of the Catholic Church of Malaysia.”

LifeNews: “The rift between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Catholic Church will likely grow thanks to new comments the abortion advocate made. Pelosi said in a new interview that the ‘free will’ of women wanting abortions outweighs pro-life Catholic teachings . . . ”

The Newsweek Interview by Eleanor Clift (Dec. 21): Nancy Pelosi doesn’t care if you like her. All that matters is getting the job done.

Culture and Media Institute: “Studio executives might want to make a New Year’s resolution to show less skin in their movies. A December 29 CNN article reported that a recent study found that ‘sex and nudity failed to positively affect a film’s popularity among viewers or critics and did not guarantee big box office receipts.’”

TheDailyHerald: “Married and registered gay couples will obtain legal protection against discrimination by government agencies in the BES islands Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba after the islands have obtained their new status as public entities in the Dutch Kingdom.”

Christian Post: “Malatya’s Third Criminal Court on Friday took further steps to connect the murders of three Christians in southeastern Turkey to a Turkish military plan to destabilize the pro-Islamic government.”

Assyrian International News Agency: “The program was aired in mid-November 2009, and interviewed Mr. Magdi Khalil, an authority on Coptic affairs who has made a complete field study on forced Islamization of Christian minors in Egypt. Mr Khalil explained that this phenomenon in its present form is nearly 40 years old, and most of these conversion crimes, with a few isolated exceptions, are carried out by organized Islamization gangs or ‘Islamization Mafia’, a termed coined by him, which are fully funded by the state and supported by State Security.”

Marseille Journal, New York Times: “The large new mosque, which its builders call ‘the symbol of Marseillais Islam,’ is a source of pride here in France’s second-largest city, which is at least 25 percent Muslim. But it is also cause for alarm, Mr. Geisser said, embodying the paradox that visible signs of integration set off xenophobic anxiety. ‘All these symbols reveal a deeper, more lasting presence of Islam,’ he said. ‘It’s the passage of something temporary to something that is implanted and takes root.’”

Guardian: “The baby’s name and nationality are not known. The child will grow up innocent of having a place in history. But somewhere, this year, that child became the billionth person in Africa, the continent with the fastest growing population in the world.”

Jerusalem Post: “‘It is Israel’s responsibility to make sure every believer can pray to his or her Lord without interruption,’ [President Shimon Peres] said. ‘Israel is deeply committed to protecting the holy sites for every religion. We will not tolerate any offense toward any church, mosque or synagogue.’”

2theadvocate.com: “The Sorrento Planning and Zoning Committee voted Monday to recommend changes to one of two proposed ordinances restricting ‘sexually oriented businesses’ within town limits.”

IOL.co.za: “A death notice was published in several daily newspapers on Monday for all the ‘innocent victims’ of abortion in Spain, where lawmakers earlier this month approved a bill to liberalise the procedure.”

Rutland Herald: “Abortion-rights groups – the Vermont-ACLU and Planned Parenthood among them – say the proposed legislation has the potential to undermine women’s rights by leading Vermont into a murky debate over abortion. Assigning legal status to unborn fetuses, the groups say, sets a dangerous precedent that could deteriorate women’s rights to choose.”

Christian Today: “A group of Shiite Muslims attacked an Assyrian Christian town in northern Iraq on Christmas morning, according to reports over the weekend.”

Boston Globe: “Vermont Family Court Judge William Cohen has ordered that Lisa Miller of Winchester, Va., turn over her child Isabella to Janet Jenkins of Fair Haven on Friday in Virginia.”

David French, Director of the ADF Center for Academic Freedom, writing at Phi Beta Cons: “[L]ast week, on Christmas Eve eve, FIRE stung the University of Minnesota . . . Katherine Kersten broke the story, and then FIRE was all over it, reminding the university of its constitutional obligations and alerting the larger public to a proposal that was basically a magnet for federal litigation. After just a few days of pressure, the university did the right thing. In a letter to FIRE, the university’s counsel pledged that the school would never ‘mandate any particular beliefs, or screen out people with “wrong beliefs” from the University.’”

USA Today: “In hearings across the country, defense attorneys and federal judges are asking the U.S. Sentencing Commission to allow judges greater flexibility to give lighter sentences for possession of child pornography when no other crime is involved . . . police and prosecutors want to maintain them intact to serve as deterrents to crime . . . ”

Politico: “A new poll suggests that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) seriously endangered his political prospects by becoming the decisive 60th vote allowing health care legislation to pass through the Senate.”

LifeNews: “Should pro-life Republican Governor Dave Heineman challenge Nelson for his Senate seat, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows he would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%.”

LifeNews: “. . . this time it is Edward Chen. President Barack Obama nominated the U.S. Magistrate for a federal judgeship in San Francisco. Chen is a former attorney for the pro-abortion legal group ACLU . . . ”

“. . . a Michigan federal district court refused to issue a temporary injunction against the County Road Commission’s decision to ban a private individual’s placement of a nativity scene on the median of a busy Warren, Michigan road . . . ”

AP: “Fighting between Islamic militants and security forces in northern Nigeria left at least 35 people dead as sect members armed with spears and arrows ransacked a neighborhood and set homes ablaze, a police official said Tuesday.”

AP: “The execution is the latest sign of how China’s communist government, with its rising global economic and political clout, is increasingly willing to defy Western complaints over its justice system and human rights record.”

Miami Herald: “‘Right now, we have a court system that is going to break with the volume of foreclosures,’ said Boca Raton real estate Attorney Marlyn Wiener. ‘We’re at a meltdown point and have to find new ways to manage the situation’ . . . 13 percent of Florida home loans were in foreclosure through September . . . ”

OneNewsNow: “Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is appealing a decision to permit a bad speech policy to stand while a lawsuit against Georgia State University proceeds . . . ‘Some officers affiliated with Georgia Southern said basically he could either keep quiet, stop talking about Jesus, or be arrested — and while he was trying to confer with the officers about this, they just decided to arrest him,’ Kellum explains.”

Christian Post: “‘The people of D.C. have a right to vote on the definition of marriage,’ commented Austin R. Nimocks, senior legal counsel at Alliance Defense Fund, which has filed a lawsuit on behalf of eight D.C. citizens. ‘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,’ he added in a statement.”

NBC reports that the ACLU and “Gay Rights” groups agree that pro family groups have First Amendment rights to post metro ads demanding a vote on marriage.

Washington Post: “The unions had argued that the federal Fair Labor Standards Act trumped a section of the state constitution that requires an appropriation to be passed, in most cases, before money can be paid from the state treasury. The justices agreed . . . ”

FoxNews: “In the course of less than a week this month, three Democratic representatives announced their resignations: Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.; Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii; and Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. That brings the total number of open House seats to 11 for the Democrats . . . ”

CBS: “Candidate Andy Martin launched a radio ad on Monday against Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), the current frontrunner for the GOP nomination in the 2010 Illinois Senate race. The ad calls into question Kirk’s sexuality. Martin claims Kirk “lives in some kind of ‘Animal House’ in Washington with another gay congressman,” reports CBS 2 Chicago.”

“Alliance Defense Fund attorneys sent letters to city officials of Inverness and Boca Raton urging them to restore nativity scenes in Christmas holiday displays.”

TIME: “The new poll has Crist and Rubio even at 43 points, a 10-point swing for both men since last August. It’s a sign, says Aubrey Jewett, a Florida politics expert at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, that “political gravity has caught up with Crist,” who until last summer had had approval ratings near 70%, but to many Floridians now seems at a loss about how to jump-start jobs.”

“Argentina’s Constitution is silent on whether marriage must be between a man and a woman, effectively leaving the matter to provincial and city officials . . . ”

Law.com (Legal Intelligencer): “It has been nearly eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to take a second look at the case and to consider reinstating the $550,000 in fines that the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS over Jackson’s breast-baring performance. Without comment, the justices said the 3rd Circuit should reconsider its decision in FCC v. CBS Corp. in light of the high court’s decision in FCC v. Fox Television Stations — a case that focused on the related issue of vulgar language.”

Jim Waters writes at the Bluegrass Institute: “What other part-time worker do you know that gets a fully funded pension financed by taxpayers, especially after just 20 years?”

Government Endorsement of Living on a Prayer: Religious Exemptions from the Duty to Provide Medical Treatment for Children
Ashley Dose, 30 J. Legal Med. 515 (2009)

“Religious exemptions from the parental duty to provide medical care implicate a wide variety of legal issues, but this article focuses exclusively on the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. First, the exemptions are not mandated by the Free Exercise Clause because the Supreme Court has stated that the free exercise of religion does not include a right to martyr one’s children. Second, the exemptions are not a permissible accommodation of religion under the Establishment Clause. The statutes are divided into two categories for purposes of the Establishment Clause analysis: those that grant an exemption only to recognized religions and those that treat all religions uniformly. The statutes that prefer recognized religions over nonrecognized religions clearly violate the Establishment Clause under the Supreme Court’s holding in Larson v. Valente. The statutes that treat all religions uniformly are a much closer call, and could go either way depending on which standard of analysis is employed.”

Could Government Speech Endorsing a Higher Law Resolve the Establishment Clause Crisis?
Bruce Ledewitz, 41 St. Mary’s L.J. 41 (2009)

“The crisis in Establishment Clause interpretation consists in the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to enforce the promise of government neutrality toward religion made in Everson in 1947 and its inability to offer an alternative interpretation that would gain majority support among the Justices and the American people. The crisis is symbolized by the Court’s reversal on standing grounds of the Ninth Circuit’s judgment that the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance violate the Establishment Clause, thus “ducking” the case and the principle involved. The government speech doctrine would redeem Everson’s promise of neutrality without imposing a purely secular public realm on an American people unwilling to accept that kind of public life. Government may endorse the concept of higher law, and may do so using certain religious symbols, images and language, without establishing religion. Without specifying the relationship to the Establishment Clause, the Court used the government speech doctrine to decide the Pleasant Grove Ten Commandments case, thus suggesting the doctrine’s utility in this field. The government speech doctrine suggests changes in some, but by no means all, of the caselaw in Establishment Clause jurisprudence.”