Daily Archives: January 14, 2010

“On behalf of Pastor Harry Jackson and other voters, Alliance Defense Fund and Stand4MarriageDC attorneys will appeal a court decision issued Thursday that allows the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics to deprive D.C. voters the right to decide the definition of marriage in the district.”

Family Research Council Washington Update: “The President’s health care plan may be bottled up in Congress, but 16 blocks away, this White House isn’t twiddling its thumbs. On the contrary, it’s plotting the next wave of unpopular policies–including a repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. Sources say that the President is working on his New Year resolutions, and one of them is making good on a promise to inject some political correctness into the ranks of the U.S. military.”

Baptist Press: “Southern Baptist Convention and Catholic belief statements on homosexuality and ‘gay marriage’ were read Wednesday during the California Prop 8 trial as examples of prejudice and bias against homosexuals — a courtroom moment conservative attorneys say underscores that religious liberty is at stake. Alliance Defense Fund attorney Jordan Lorence, who was in the courtroom, called the exchange ‘chilling.’ ‘This is further proof that this case, and the very definition of marriage, is about much more than the personal relationships and the inner feelings of people who choose same-sex relationships,’ he wrote on a blog. ‘It is about imposing a different and intolerant ‘morality’ on America and eradicating opposing ideas.’”

ADF attorney Jordan Lorence appeared on the Michael Medved Show to discuss Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

The mp3 runs just over 33 minutes.

ADF Attorney David Hacker writing at the Academic Freedom File: “Yesterday, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education filed an amicus brief in support of Jonathan Lopez at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Last July, a federal district court in Los Angeles granted Mr. Lopez’s request for a preliminary injunction against Los Angeles Community College District’s speech code. LACCD appealed after it unsuccessfully asked the district court to reconsdier the preliminary injunction.”

Pat Buckley, European Life Network, writes at his blog: The council of Europe is scheduled to debate an anti life and an anti family measure in Strasbourg the week after next. The first report and resolution ‘Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity’ prepared by Andreas Gross a member of the Socialist Group will be debated on Wednesday January 27th. The second issue the Mc Cafferty report ‘Fifteen Years Since the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action’ will be debated on Friday January 29th”

UPI: “A bill requiring doctors to show ultrasound images of their fetuses to all women seeking abortions advanced Thursday in the Kentucky Legislature.”

The Hill: “A Democratic National Committee (DNC) official said Thursday that the party is tracking signatures to the conservative Club for Growth’s healthcare repeal pledge the group released Thursday.”

“Christian Legal Society has brought on board as lead counsel, former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell, now director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.”

KUOW.org: “Pharmacies have been at odds with the state over reimbursements for Medicaid prescriptions. Pharmacies have complained that Washington isn’t paying enough to cover the rising cost of drugs. Today, the Washington State Pharmacy Association will ask the court to compel the state to revert back to previous reimbursement rates.”

John C. Eastman writes at CNN: “The trial to determine the constitutionality of California’s same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, is being held in San Francisco, one of the most pro-gay marriage venues in the country. This is a decided home-court advantage for those challenging the law and, by implication, the nation’s marriage laws.”

Rush Limbaugh (Audio and Transcript): Five years after a budget-busting $3 billion was allocated to embryonic stem cell research, there have been no cures . . . ”

Reuters: “More than a dozen U.S. state attorneys general visited Washington on Wednesday threatening to sue the U.S. government if the so-called ‘Cornhusker Kickback,’ a special subsidy offered to Nebraska, is included in pen1ding healthcare reform legislation.”

NY Times: “Two days after Google announced that it would quit China unless the nation’s censors eased their grip, the Chinese government offered an indirect but unambiguous response: Companies that do business in China must follow the laws of the land.”

Mercury News carries this timeline of today’s coverage by Howard Mintz.

Christian Post: “The Coptic community has long complained that State Security has used various tactics, including arrests, to force Christian victims to ‘reconcile’ with their perpetrators. The ‘reconciliation’ process, say Copts, is nothing more than a front for forcing the victims to forfeit their rights to press criminal charges.”

Birmingham Business Journal: “The Alabama State Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution that urges the legislature to pass a charter schools law on Thursday . . .”

NJ Star Ledger: “Sitting in his transition office a few blocks from the state capitol in Trenton, Chris Christie was in full battle mode today, like a boxer who couldn’t wait to climb into the ring and start pounding away. In fact, he wasn’t waiting. His target: The 200,000-member strong New Jersey Education Association . . . ”

StarTribune.com: “The state ranked highest in a study released Wednesday by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.”

C-FAM: “A battle over leadership of the European People’s Party (EPP), the Christian Democratic grouping in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is pitting an Italian pro-life stalwart against socially-liberal counterparts from Holland and Sweden. The leading social conservative candidate is Luca Volontè, currently the chairman of the Italian Christian Democratic caucus within the Italian national parliament. He is a long-time associate of Europe’s best-known Catholic politician, Rocco Buttiglione, sharing similar political positions and collaborating in the promotion of academic workshops on Catholic social thought.”

Forum 18: “Uzbekistan continues in 2010 to punish unregistered religious activity, in defiance of international human rights standards, Forum 18 News Service has learned. On 3 January, eight police officers raided a Christmas gathering organised by an officially registered church. Asked why celebrating Christmas was illegal, police told Forum 18 that the Full Gospel Holiness Church is “not registered” in Umid village.”

Jennifer Roback Morse writing at the Ruth Institute Blog: “The news from Quebec is not encouraging for those who love liberty. In their new Quebec Policy Against Homophobia: Moving Together Toward social Equality, Provincial government of Quebec just gave itself permission to take all necessary steps to wipe out, not just ‘homophobia,’ but also ‘heterosexism’ . . . [defined as the] ‘affirmation of heterosexuality as a social norm or the highest form of sexual orientation; social practice that conceals the diversity of sexual orientations and identities in everyday representations, social relations and social institutions, in particular, by taking for granted that all people are heterosexual.’”

Mail Tribune: “‘We have to wait and see’ how the city enforces the ban, said Ralph Temple, a board member of the Southern Oregon chapter of the ACLU. ‘We will watch it closely.’”

Newsweek: “China is fighting the Internet. And like everyone else who fights the Internet, China will lose.”

Fox News: “State and local workers and union members are exempted until 2017.”

“The case is the first in the country to challenge the constitutionality of bringing child pornography charges in the context of sexting.”

Newt Gingrich and Andrew McCarthy, writing at The Daily Caller: “Since the President’s executive order, if Interpol were to act in violation of U.S. law, there is no law we can invoke to hold them accountable. And to add insult to injury, if an American citizen or official wants to find out what Interpol is up to, they can no longer do so. The Obama administration order makes Interpol’s files unreachable by search warrant, subpoena or FOIA request.”

Richard Bellamy, Democracy Without Democracy? Can the EU’s Democratic ‘Outputs’ be Separated from the Democratic ‘Inputs’ Provided by Competitive Parties and Majority Rule? (January 11, 2010). Journal of European Public Policy, Vol. 17, pp. 2-19, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1534958

“Various European Union (EU) analysts suggest that although a democratic deficit exists from the perspective of ‘input’ democracy, democratic processes such as competitive parties and majority rule are neither necessary nor suitable to secure democratic ‘outputs’ of the kind the EU delivers. This article disputes this claim. ‘Input’ arguments are vital to the legitimacy of decision-making in the EU’s policy areas, and the non- and counter-majoritarian mechanisms these analysts advocate have perverse rather than beneficial effects on the quality of ‘outputs’.”

Hege Storhaug writing at Front Page Magazine: “It is heartbreaking, even as it is unsurprising. In Britain, the authorities are now reporting the forced marriage of girls as young as nine years old on British soil. We are not talking about one case . . . ”

Salt Lake Tribune: “An unlikely group of lawmakers and organizations has come together to pitch a bill this session to change sex education in Utah. It’s a bill that has a Republican senator, a Democratic representative, the Planned Parenthood Action Council (PPAC) and the state PTA working together . . . Now, state law allows educators to teach students about contraceptives, but it prohibits ‘advocacy or encouragement’ of their use, leading some educators to avoid the topic out of fear of accidentally crossing the line. Sen. Stephen Urquhart’s bill, now in draft form, would remove that prohibition and instead require teachers to talk about the limitations and benefits of contraceptives and the importance of parental guidance in such matters.”

“D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith N. Macaluso ruled Thursday in favor of the city. She said the board’s action was justified because the initiative would in effect authorize discrimination.”

NBC Washington: “Several city businesses, that were allegedly operating as illegal brothels, have been shut down in the District. DC Attorney General Peter Nickles said the businesses operated as health spas, social clubs and massage parlors, but were found to be associated with prostitution and illegal sexually-oriented activities.”

Fosters Daily Democrat: “Assistant Superintendent Susan Austin said during a regular School Board meeting Thursday that while the health center secured $18,000 in state funds for some of the services, it did not secure at least as much in federal Title X funds because of the decision to leave out the ‘morning-after’ pill.”

The Hill: “Shadegg becomes the third Republican to announce his retirement in recent weeks. He joins Reps. Henry Brown (R-S.C.) and George Radanovich (R-Calif.)”

LifeNews: “When hundreds of thousands of pro-life advocates gather for the March for Life in Washington and the Walk for Life in San Francisco, they will encounter scores of new signs sponsored by Priests for Life . . . ”

“I think the judicial instinct at play here is the objection of U.S. Supreme Court Justices when they see lower court or state court judges intentionally fudging procedural rules to help one side in very high-profile litigation that implicates the political process.”

. . . As an advocate, you’d rather not have the ultimate reviewing court call into question your judge’s objectivity on the third day of trial.”

SF Weekly: “The Alliance Defense Fund — whose attorneys are co-counsels in the ongoing Proposition 8 trial — claims that Twitter updates from @AllianceDefense, @ProtectMarriage, @ADFmedia, and @AllianceAlert have been blocked from Twitter’s search function. While all four accounts have been tweeting over the past 24 hours, especially regarding the Prop. 8 trial, almost all of those tweets don’t show up via Twitter’s search function.”

“One of the major problems is a push by a small group that wants to censor religious information regarding historical figures from textbooks. Jonathan Saenz, director of legislative affairs at Free Market Foundation, tells OneNewsNow . . . ”

One News Now: “On Wednesday, members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted 324-34 to keep state laws on home schooling as they are . . . ”

The Enterprise: “Two separate bills on Beacon Hill would crack down on ‘sexting’ as part of proposals to curb bullying in schools . . . The Senate and House bills — S.B. 228 and H.B. 483, respectively — both require school officials to implement bullying prevention policies and develop strategies for reporting and investigating any cases.”

CWA: “On their first look at Fox v. FCC, the court sided with the media companies and protected the indecent material, saying the FCC had violated its own procedures when enacting new regulations . . . The Second Circuit now must now decide whether protecting children from indecent material through the broadcast airwaves violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

Washington Post: “News conferences were scheduled and telephone briefings were penciled in, but Washington advocacy groups were disappointed yet again Wednesday: The Supreme Court did not issue its long-awaited decision on campaign finance laws.”

Arizona Right to Life Press Release: “[T]he 37th Annual March & Rally for Life in Phoenix commemorates the day when the US Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion-on-demand through all nine months, including partial-birth abortion . . . Confirmed Speakers: Governor Jan Brewer, Senator Jon Kyl, Congressman John Shadegg, Congressman Trent Franks, Treasurer Dean Martin, Bishop Thomas Olmsted, State Senator Linda Gray, AZ Right to Life President Jinny Perron, Life Ed. Corp. President John Jakubczyk”

KFOR: “Mike Jestes, a marriage counselor and member of the Oklahoma Family Policy Council, helped a state lawmaker with the marriage counseling bill. It would require couples to obtain at least 8 hours of counseling in order to get a marriage license . . . The legislation also requires couples with young children to go through mandatory pre-divorce education classes before a divorce can be granted.”

Education Week: “Texas won’t compete for up to $700 million in federal stimulus money for education because the program ‘smacks of a federal takeover of our public schools,’ Republican Gov. Rick Perry said Wednesday.”

“The House voted 242-113 on Wednesday against the bill, which would have allowed the terminally ill to obtain lethal prescriptions, with safeguards to prevent abuses.”

City Journal: “Throughout his four years working for ‘change’ in Chicago’s Roseland and Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods, Obama ignored the primary cause of their escalating dysfunction: the disappearance of the black two-parent family . . . [T]he would-be reformers [did not] mention the all-important fact that a staggering 75 percent of Chicago’s black children were being born out of wedlock. The sky-high illegitimacy rate meant that black boys were growing up in a world in which it was normal to impregnate a girl and then take off. When a boy is raised without any social expectation that he will support his children and marry his children’s mother, he fails to learn the most fundamental lesson of personal responsibility. The high black crime rate was one result of a culture that fails to civilize men through marriage.”

Yesterday, ADF Media observed that Twitter was blocking ADF posts from the Twitter search engine and some tags. ADF has been working to resolve the matter along with many of its Twitter followers who have been actively retweeting.

More information at twitter.com/AllianceDefense and twitter.com/adfmedia.

Some of the Tweets noting the blockage are copied below.

“The end of day three couldn’t have ended better for our legal team and the seven million Californians who voted for Prop 8 . . . ”

Asia Times: “After the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Ankara, many in the West referred to a new Turkish foreign policy called ‘neo-Ottomanism,’ suggesting a revival of the intellectual, political and social influence of the Ottoman Empire, which departed the scene 92 years ago.”

Bay Area Reporter: “During cross-examination Brian Raum, a lawyer for the Yes on 8 campaign, questioned how Katami could conclude that the anti-gay group’s ads were hostile to gay people. ‘There was nothing in the ad that says Proposition 8 will protect children from you because you are bad. Would you agree?’ asked Raum. ‘It didn’t say same-sex couples are bad?’ Katami responded that the ads didn’t have to be explicit because the message was clearly implied. ‘It insinuates there is some disapproval of gay people and they should be feared,’ he said. Raum pressed Katami on the issue, stating that ‘the fact is you don’t think kids need to be protected from being exposed to same-sex relationships.’ To which Katami replied, ‘Yes. There is nothing wrong with it.’”

Voice of America: “A lawsuit challenging California’s gay marriage ban could have far-reaching implications for the entire United States . . . Austin Nimocks is senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that is co-counsel in defending the state law. He says it is a matter of whether the will of the voters who approved Proposition 8 should be upheld. ‘The primary issue at stake here is whether in America we should respect and uphold the right of a free people to make social policy choices through the democratic process,’ said Austin Nimocks.”

Margaret Talbot writing at The New Yorker News Desk: “It’s great to be able to compare blogs and tweets from, for example, the pro-gay marriage Courage Campaign and from the Alliance Defense Fund, which is providing some of the legal defense for Proposition 8. At the moment both are focussed on the cross-examination of the historian George Chauncey. The ADF reports that Chauncey ‘struggles to square’ past statements about the growing acceptance of homosexuality, and notes his ‘obvious discomfort.’ But even the Courage Campaign blogger, Paul Hogarth, is worried that Chauncey is agreeing too much with his cross-examiner.”

CitizenLink: “Chauncey affirmed that many people believe marriage is meant to be between one man and one woman. But he added a caveat: He noted there was a time when people didn’t condone mixed race marriages for that reason. ‘He is basically making the amazing comparison that the grossest kinds of racial discrimination are equal to those beliefs of people who believe marriage is one man and one woman,’ said a stunned Jordan Lorence, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.”

SCOTUS Blog has posted its list of US Supreme Court petitions to watch here.

Baptist Press: “Jordan Lorence, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund and one of the attorneys involved in defending Prop 8, told Baptist Press Monday the trial should not be broadcast so as to protect witnesses. ‘If witnesses came in here to say Prop 8 was a reasonable public policy decision and their face is then blasted all over YouTube and others, it would be an invitation for the same type of treatment that happened during the Prop 8 campaign. The videos of their testimonies also could be altered,’ he said.”

Liberty Counsel: “Today in ACLU v. Grayson County, Kentucky, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of a display including the Ten Commandments in Leitchfield, KY, on the second floor of Grayson County’s courthouse.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Yesterday’s National Post reports that Blackmore’s suit, filed in the B.C. Supreme Court, claims that the polygamy charges caused him to suffer business and other financial losses and that he and his family suffered stress and anxiety.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Malaysia, vandalism against Christian churches continue . . . Malaysian Insider today and the New Straits Times yesterday say that in fact the ban on use of certain words by non-Muslim publications is broader than previously reported. Guidelines issued to the Herald in 2007 also barred it from using three other words: Kaabah (Islam’s holiest shrine in Mecca), Solat (prayer) and Baitullah (House of God) . . . ”

“. . . the 9th Circuit rejected constitutional challenges to the University of California’s admissions policy that refuses to accept certain high school courses offered by Christian schools to qualify students for admission to UC . . .”

AP: “Religious organizations are lining up to fight legislation that would expand and tax gambling in Alabama.”

AP: “‘My daughter told me her classmates chose to become lesbians and experiment with it after they noticed that same-sex marriage, they think it is a cool thing,’ Tam said. ‘They have some problem getting dates with boys, so same-sex marriage, since it is in the air, they think, ‘Oh, why not try girls.’”

ABC 13 (AP): “In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, the in-house legal counsel for Admiral Mike Mullen wrote that ‘now is not the time’ to lift the ban. The memo noted the stress on the military during wartime.”

Citizen Link: “On Tuesday, Gov. Bob Riley said he will not be hustled into believing video slot machines are the answer to state revenue problems.”

The Hill: “President Barack Obama sought to muscle House and Senate Democrats to reach an accord on healthcare reform during a daylong White House meeting Wednesday.”

The daily summary of the California Marriage Litigation on the ADF Media website has been updated. The latest installment is by ADF attorney Jordan Lorence.

‘Do President Obama’s views of same-sex marriage reflect a moral disapproval of gays and lesbians?’ Thompson asked . . . Thompson pounced. ‘So is it possible to have that position and not morally disapprove of gays and lesbians?’ ‘It would be possible,’ Chauncey answered.”

Wall Street Journal: “To many CEOs, China seems a land of immense opportunity. That’s tempered, of course, by the many difficulties of actually doing business there—the regulatory strictures and caprice, corruption and the myriad quirks that come with operating in any developing economy. But do the benefits of being in China actually outweigh the costs? Two recent cases, one big and one small, suggest some businesses think well, maybe not.”

Steven Douglas Smith, Originalism and the (Merely) Human Constitution (January, 11 2010). Constitutional Commentary, Forthcoming; San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 10-004. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1535057

“This brief essay, written by invitation as a comment on an essay by Andrew Koppelman called ‘Why Jack Balkin is Disgusting,’ argues that Koppelman reverses roles in suggesting that originalists are repelled by the idea of a merely human Constitution. In fact, it is non-originalists who have typically expressed disdain for a merely human Constitution. Conversely, in the interest of preserving the ability of humans to make constitutional law, originalism is dedicated to resisting efforts to transform the Constitution into something more transcendent. Despite getting the roles backwards, however, Koppelman is right to note that Jack Balkin’s attempt to dissolve the division between originalism and ‘living Constitutionalism’ poses a threat to originalism. More specifically, Balkin and Koppelman underscore potential of the originalists’ too ready resort to ‘principles’ to undermine the originalist enterprise. If originalism is to be a viable alternative, originalists must resist the temptation to interpret constitutional provisions as repositories of principles, and must instead develop the idea of constitutional provisions as expressing human or conventional categories.”

Anne Bloom, To Be Real: Sexual Identity Politics in Tort Litigation (January 12, 2010). North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 88, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1535492

“Tort litigation plays a role in constructing what we perceive to be ‘real’ about sexual identity. It does so by assuming that sexual identity is naturally binary (male/female), even in cases which pose a challenge to the credibility of that assumption. Thus, to be ‘real’ in tort litigation is to have a sexual identity which appears to be naturally binary, even if you are not. Individuals who challenge this conception may find it difficult to obtain compensation for their injuries or, worse, may not be permitted to sue at all. These practices have important political effects. The most important of these is that tort litigation makes binary sexual difference appear more natural than it is. Since this outcome is at odds with lived experience, this article argues that tort litigation should take a more pragmatic approach to sexual identity issues, by making space for competing conceptions of sexual identity.”

Alicia R. Ouellette, Timothy Quill, Robert Swidler, Thaddeus Mason Pope, and Nancy Dubler, A Conversation About End-of-Life Decisionmaking (January 8, 2010). NYSBA Health Law Journal Vol. 14, No. 2, 2009; Widener Law School Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-05. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1533517

“In July 2009, five scholars and practitioners engaged in a two-hour conversation about current end-of-life health issues in New York state. Thaddeus Pope (Widener Law), Alicia Ouellette (Albany Law), Timothy Quill (Rochester Medicine), Robert Swidler (Northeast Health), and Nancy Dubler (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) discussed the Family Healthcare Decisions Act, medical futility, palliative care, and bioethics mediation. This article, part of a symposium issue of health law ‘conversations,’ is a substantially-edited transcript of the July 2009 conversation.”