Daily Archives: March 12, 2010

LifeSiteNews: “The government of Sweden is taking a hard line against homeschoolers, proposing a bill that will only allow home education under ‘extraordinary circumstances,’ reports the Home School Legal Defense Association. The bill is expected to pass in the Swedish parliament, following a review by the Supreme Administrative Court, and will allow for homeschooling families to face criminal charges . . . he news of the socialist government’s hardening attitude toward homeschoolers comes following the state seizure eight months ago of seven year-old Dominic Johansson . . . The U.S.-based HSLDA and Alliance Defense Fund are assisting the family.”

Christian Post: “By the invitation of a Virginia lawmaker, a controversial Muslim cleric delivered the opening prayer on Thursday at the start of the House of Delegates’ session. About a dozen delegates did not attend the prayer of Johari Abdul-Malik.”

WorldNetDaily: “A measure in the Massachusetts statehouse to allow jail time for criticism of homosexuality has been pulled abruptly after a conservative group publicized the move by lawmakers . . . WND reported during the run-up to the 2009 “hate crimes” plan that opponents were alarmed by the potential of prosecutions for Christian pastors and others who preach the biblical condemnation of homosexuality. Rick Nelson, an Alliance Defense Fund lawyer who has worked on cases of Christians’ speech being repressed, told WND at the time, ‘Right now it’s like ‘Let’s silence and move the Christians away from these events.’ The next step is, ‘Well, your speech, whatever it may be, is not palatable, we’re going to do the same thing to you.’”

New York Times: “After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday voted to approve a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the role of Christianity in American history and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light. The vote was 11 to 4, with 10 Republicans and one Democrat voting for the curriculum, and four Democrats voting against.”

ADF Attorney David Hacker writing at the Academic Freedom File: “A few weeks ago, Heather Hacker and I sat down with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, President of the Ruth Institute, to talk about campus censorship. The podcast is now online and can be found here.”

Gallup: “Gallup analysis of U.S. public opinion trends on abortion shows that generational differences in support for broadly legal abortion have diminished over the past decade. In the mid-1970s, when Gallup started polling on the issue, adults aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 were the most supportive of legal abortion under any circumstances, and those 65 and older the least, with 50- to 64-year-olds falling in between. That pattern continued through the late 1990s. Since 2000, however, all age groups with the exception of seniors have shown similar levels of support for broadly legal abortion.”

Associated Press: “Under White House pressure to act swiftly, House and Senate Democratic leaders reached for agreement Friday on President Barack Obama’s health care bill, sweetened suddenly by fresh billions for student aid and a sense that breakthroughs are at hand.”

Reuters: “Attorney General Eric Holder failed to tell the Senate about seven legal briefs he signed when lawmakers considered his nomination to his current job, according to a letter released on Friday.”

York Dispatch: “The district has agreed to pay the family $16,140 to cover legal fees. The family has been represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian-based attorney organization defending the right of people to live out their faith.”

The Times of India: “A Muslim mathematics teacher in a municipal school in Belgium won her legal battle to wear a veil in class on Thursday when an appeals court overturned a lower court decision.”

OneNewsNow: “Fort Wayne City Council members rejected a proposed ordinance which would have granted special behavior-based protections to people with gender identity disorders. The city already has non-discrimination ordinances for sexual orientation on the books, but the proposal would have expanded that protection.”

FBC: “The Acting DPP, Aca Rayawa has clarified that the new Crimes Decree does not allow for gay marriages in the country. Rayawa made the statement after Communication Fiji Limited’s Viti FM station ran a talk back show last week stating that the new Crimes Decree had approved gay marriages.”

Christian Web News: “Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed an appeal Wednesday with the Arizona town of Gilbert’s zoning Board of Adjustment to overturn a decision banning churches from meeting, holding Bible studies, or having any other activities in private homes . . . ‘Christian church groups shouldn’t be singled out for discrimination and banned from meeting in their own homes,’ said ADF Litigation Counsel Daniel Blomberg. ‘The interpretation and enforcement of the town’s code is clearly unconstitutional. It bans 200,000 Gilbert residents from meeting in their private homes for organized religious purposes—an activity encouraged in the Bible, practiced for thousands of years, and protected by the First Amendment.’”

Michael Gerson writing in The Washington Post: “Just 20 years ago, opposition to abortion and opposition to homosexual rights seemed to overlap entirely. They appeared to be expressions of the same traditionalist moral framework, destined to succeed or fail together as twin pillars of the culture war. But in the years since, the fortunes of these two social stands have dramatically diverged. A May 2009 Gallup poll found that more Americans, for the first time, describe themselves as ‘pro-life’ than ‘pro-choice.’ A February CNN-Time poll found that half of Americans, for the first time, believe that homosexuality is ‘not a moral issue.’ This divergence says something about successful social movements in America.”

Wall Street Journal: “Churches in Phoenix can once again ring their bells without fear of criminal prosecution thanks to a ruling last week by U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Bolton, who found the city’s noise ordinance to be an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of religion.”

Tracy Clark-Flory writes at Salon: “Last week, I wrote about how the Endangered Species Project, which is backed in part by Georgia Right to Life, alleges a “black genocide” at the hands of Planned Parenthood and uses African-American babies as anti-abortion propaganda. Both the bill and the ad campaign are built on the same false premise: That the higher abortion rate in the African-American community is the result of a racist conspiracy by medical providers and pro-choice activists . . . ”

Boston Globe: “But some advocates for students, while happy to see a bill passed, raised concerns that senators watered down the bill to save school districts money. The Senate softened language that required that all school staff receive training on how to identify and respond to bullying . . . ‘We believe training of education staff is essential to the success of this bill,’ said Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay & Lesbian Political Caucus.”

AP: “In that case [if Google stays], however, it would have to comply with Chinese regulations requiring censorship of search results for sensitive material or ‘bear the consequences’ for not doing so, the minister warned. ‘It would be irresponsible and unfriendly for Google to insist on doing something that goes against China’s laws and regulations,’ he added. ”

Denver Post: “Want proof that the times they are a-changin’? A lawmaker who once worked for former U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave attended a gay-rights luncheon Thursday. . . ”

“The U.S. Census Bureau has changed its interpretation of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to allow it to tabulate same-sex couples who self-identify their union as a marriage, even though DOMA prohibits legal recognition of same-sex unions as marriages. ”

Christian Post: “Efforts by local officials in this city in West Java to close a church met with stiff resistance this month, as a defiant lawyer and weeping women refused to allow it . . . The church had applied for a worship building permit in 2006, but local officials had yet to act on it, according to the church’s pastor, the Rev. Luspida Simanjuntak.”

Christian Post: “Thousands of Nigerian women dressed in black and carrying Bibles, wooden crosses, pictures of victims, and branches symbolizing peace marched in a central Nigerian state on Thursday to protest the massacre of about 500 villagers, who were mostly women and children.”

Naomi Cahn and June Carbone write at the Christian Science Monitor: “But moral panic won’t help lower divorce rates and teen pregnancy in conservative states; education will . . . In the United States, states that emphasize abstinence-only education, limit public subsidies of contraception, restrict access to abortion – and, yes, oppose gay marriage – have higher teen birth and divorce rates.”

“So, why do I constantly see arguments in the LGBT press extolling tolerance of us from the larger community or suggestions that we should be tolerated? What I want, and I hope the community at large wants, is acceptance. That’s right, approval and respect of my sexual orientation. Acceptance says a lot more about what we want to achieve as a movement. We want our enemies and detractors to accept that we exist, accept that our sexual orientation is not changeable, accept that we have loving relationships and accept that we too are normal . . . ”

govtrack.use: H.R. 4808 “To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, and for other purposes.”

Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “In a formal move to join the legal battle over religion at their school, several families at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) have asked a judge to let them intervene as parties in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.”

NCPA Policy Digest: “Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) is showing the way on how states can implement cross-state selling of individual health insurance, says Ronald E. Bachman, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. States can voluntarily enter into reciprocity agreements with like-minded states. Together they can create a multi-state market attractive to insurers selling new lower cost comprehensive products . . . ”

Catholic News Agency: “Rather than passing two bills headed by abortion supporters which aimed to impose restrictions on pregnancy centers, Virginia legislators chose to pass a resolution this week that praised the pregnancy centers work.”

HB 452: Limited service pregnancy centers; Department of Health to promulgate regulations for registration.

SB 188

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed an appeal Wednesday with the town of Gilbert’s zoning Board of Adjustment to overturn a decision banning churches from meeting, holding Bible studies, or having any other activities in private homes.

Associated Press: “The latest buzz word in the clubby world of British politics is ‘hung Parliament’ . . . It means an election so close that no party receives more than half the seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament.”

Associated Press: “A British court has barred a far right, anti-immigrant political party from accepting new members until it stops discriminating against nonwhite people.”

LifeSiteNews: “An international coalition of pro-life organizations reminded the United Nations yesterday that it cannot dictate abortion policy to sovereign member states, specifically highlighting Mexico in its defense of the right to life.”

macon.com: “Senate Bill 364 passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously, and Staton, R-Macon, said he hopes to see the bill before the full Senate next week, or the week after. The bill strengthens current massage laws on several fronts, and makes it clear that local governments can regulate parlors and spas.”

SB 364: Massage Therapist; conviction for sexual offense; license suspended for certain time periods; penalties

LifeSiteNews: “Scientists have discovered that unborn babies respond to their mother’s mood while she is watching a movie, becoming quiet and still if the film is sad and very lively if the film is happy. Dr. Kazuyuki Shinohara and colleagues in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior of Nagasaki University in Japan showed 10 pregnant volunteers . . . ”

LifeNews: Bart Stupak: Nancy Pelosi Lacks Votes for Pro-Abortion Health Care in House
“But Rep. Bart Stupak, the top pro-life Democrat in the House, told Fox News last night that Pelosi lacks the votes she needs for passage.”

LifeNews: Democrats: We Have Votes for Health Care Bill Without Fixing Abortion Funding
“Top House Democrats who are intimately involved in the discussions over the Senate health care bill and its provisions funding and promoting abortion claims Democrats have enough votes in the House to pass the Senate bill without changing the pro-abortion language.”

Cathleen Kaveny writing at Commonweal: “The Baxter decision is radical: it says that intentional killing isn’t always a matter of public concern. It is stealthy. By refraining from finding a state constitutional right to assisted suicide, it avoided immediate criticism for judicial activism. It is politically canny. It put the burden of action on opponents. Most troubling of all, its strategy is portable. There’s no reason its contorted logic can’t be exported to other states by euthanasia activists.”

Washington Post, Georgetown / On Faith: “Almost 14 months into the Obama presidency, the ambassador at large for international religious freedom — a position mandated by the International Religious Freedom Act — has not been named, even though other positions of less weight and importance to our national interests have long been filled . . . Other new Obama foreign policy initiatives, from outreach to Muslim communities to the normalization of gay rights in international law, are getting serious policy attention and resources. But religious freedom — which enjoys broad support among the American people and can contribute both to justice and national security — is, in effect, being sidelined.”

Clifford Bob writing at The Immanent Frame: “Should the U.S. government employ American civil society to engage religious communities overseas in promotion of a ‘religious freedom agenda’? Scott Appleby, the Chicago Council’s Task Force Report (TFR), and the Obama administration think so. But there are serious problems with NGOs playing this role, either as an express supplement to, or possibly a covert screen for, U.S. foreign policy.”

New York Times: “The man, Dahiru Adamu, 25, was crouching on the floor in the sprawling police headquarters here, summoned to give an accounting of the terrible night of March 7, when, he said, he and dozens of other herdsmen descended on a slumbering village just south of here and slaughtered hundreds with machetes, knives and cutlasses in a brutal act of sectarian retribution.”

Spartan Daily: “Jim Campbell, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization fighting to uphold Proposition 8, said the argument isn’t valid because gays have yet to be proven as a suspect class in federal court . . . ‘It’s a very unworkable standard to set that as a suspect classification,’ he said. ‘Most suspect classifications we deal with in the law, such as race, are very cut and dried, not as something as complex and debated, as unclear and undefined as sexual orientation is.’”

“Some pro-life Democrats appear to be weakening on their stance on the pro-abortion Senate health care bill . . . ”

Dakota Voice: “Fortunately, this critically important institution has a powerful ally: the Alliance Defense Fund. The Alliance Defense Fund was started in the early 1990s and has proved itself more than a match for its much older nemesis, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). ADF has been turning the tide which has threatened religious liberties, and is at the forefront of the defense of marriage.”

Law.com (The Recorder): “Stephen Reinhardt and Dorothy Nelson have been simpatico on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for 30 years. One former Reinhardt clerk says they have a good personal relationship. But Nelson handed Reinhardt a bitter defeat by siding with conservative Judge Carlos Bea in an opinion upholding the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. The ruling, handed down Thursday, is the latest episode in a case that has brought scorn on the 9th Circuit from across the country, and has highlighted Reinhardt as an unapologetic — yet increasingly solitary — iconoclast. In a 132-page dissent, Reinhardt said he doubts the constitutional protections at stake will evoke much concern in the political world. ”

Law.com (Legal Intelligencer): “Now lawyers on both sides of the issue are urging the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate two recent — and seemingly conflicting — decisions by two different three-judge panels, and to hold rearguments before the full court. Both cases involved high school students who were suspended for creating fake MySpace pages on their home computers to ridicule their principals.” The article links to the opinions in question.

Blog of the Legal Times: “In its March 11 order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit let stand a ruling from November, in which a three-judge panel found that police had the right to arrest an entire group of marchers once some members of the crowd began to riot, even if officers never ordered the crowd to disperse.”

The earlier panel ruling: Carr v. D.C., No. 08-7083 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 20, 2009)

Religion Clause Blog: “The complaint (full text) in Eagle Cove Camp & Conference Center, Inc. v. Town of Woodboro, Wisconsin, (WD WI, filed 3/10/2010), alleges that the refusal to allow the camp on plaintiffs’ Squash Lake property violates RLUIPA, the ADA, and constitutional equal protection and free exercise protections.”

Edward Feser writes at Public Discourse: “Seeing that scientism is unsustainable, we must embrace a return to philosophy. The second article in a two-part series. As I argued in part I, scientism—the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge—is either self-refuting or trivial. Moreover, consistently pursued, it leads to the ‘eliminative materialist’ position that the human mind itself is a fiction—that there are no such things as thinking, perceiving, willing, desiring, and so forth. This position is not only incoherent, but undermines the very possibility of science itself—the very thing scientism claims to champion.”

EducationNews.org: “The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) today released the first official public draft of the K-12 standards as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative . . . The NGA Center and CCSSO encourage those interested in the standards to provide further feedback by Friday, April 2, 2010, at www.corestandards.org . . . ”

Becket Fund: In a stunning reversal of its 2002 rejection of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco today ruled, in a 193-page opinion, that the words ‘one nation under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance do not violate the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. The challenge to the Pledge was brought by atheist activist Dr. Michael Newdow. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a non-profit civil rights law firm, argued the case to the Court two years ago, along with the Department of Justice and attorneys representing a Sacramento-area school district . . . ”

9th Circuit: Teacher-led recitation of the pledge of allegiance is constitutional

Washington Times: “House Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Rep. Roy Blunt, Missouri Republican, said they worried that a ‘new litmus test’ was created in the wake of the Air Force’s decision to retract the long-standing invitation to Mr. Perkins – a former Marine and an ordained minister – to speak at a prayer luncheon because his views were ‘incompatible’ with those of military personnel who answer to Mr. Obama. The lawmakers explained their case in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates obtained by The Washington Times.”

Citizen Link: “U.S. District Court Judge Roger T. Benitez ruled that the San Diego, Calif., teacher’s constitutional rights were violated. Johnson’s signs had been hanging in his classroom for more than 25 years . . . .”

Religion Clause Blog: “The U.S. State Department yesterday released its 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, covering conditions in 194 countries around the world . . . ”

Religion Clause Blog: “In a surprise decision yesterday, the Board defeated by a 10-5 party line vote a proposal by Democratic member Mavis Knight that government classes teach about the Establishment Clause . . . ”

The Layman Online: “Citing conflicting interpretations of the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Order, and affirming that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits civil court interpretations of ecclesiastical documents, Indiana Judge Carl Heldt of the Vanderburgh Circuit Court has rejected PCUSA claims to a local church’s property.”

AP: “A global Internet oversight agency has deferred a decision for at least 70 days on whether to create the ‘.xxx’ domain name as an online red-light district.”

Christopher Hitchens writes at Slate: “I have just finished reading one of the most astoundingly stupid and nasty documents ever to have landed on my desk. It consists of a letter from a law firm in Saudi Arabia, run by a man named Ahmed Zaki Yamani, to a group of newspapers in Scandinavia. I quote directly from its main paragraphs . . . ”

“. . . House leaders will try to ‘peel off’ some of the members allied with Rep. Stupak. ” If the bill passes with the abortion provisions, one can only imagine how that will escalate the culture war in the long term.

Sen Tom Udall (D-NM) writes at the Hill: “Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states, ‘Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings…’ And at the beginning of the 112th Congress I will call on the Senate to exercise its constitutional responsibility to adopt its rules of procedure by a simple majority vote.”