Daily Archives: April 6, 2010

ABC: “Activists on both sides of the abortion debate are carefully eyeing a Nebraska bill that’s wending its way through the legislature this week. They wonder if a proposed ban might end up as the subject of the next Supreme Court abortion battle.”

Boston Globe (AP): “A prosecutor has filed child endangerment charges against a Texas man accused of forcing his two daughters to watch online pornography . . . ”

Citizen Link: “Congress has ordered the president’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to find a way to pay for the $63 million a year in new spending for benefits of sex-sex partners of federal employees.”

Catholic Culture: “‘The majority of the abusive acts were homosexual in nature,’ notes Margaret Smith. ‘That participation in homosexual acts is not the same as sexual identity as a gay man.’”

The Christian Institute: “Christians feel marginalised and pushed out of public life while other faiths are handled with kid gloves, according to a flagship BBC documentary aired on Easter Sunday. The film was fronted by Nicky Campbell and featured two cases backed by The Christian Institute: Lillian Ladele, the registrar disciplined for her stance on civil partnerships, and Ben & Sharon Vogelenzang, the Christian hoteliers charged with a crime for criticising Islam.”

The Christian Institute: “A top Tory MP has been slammed by Labour and the Lib Dems for saying Christians who run B&Bs in their own homes should be allowed to exercise their conscience over who is allowed to stay. Chris Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, was ‘secretly’ recorded making the comments at a mainstream think tank and the Observer newspaper splashed the story on its front page on Sunday.”

Patrick Deneen, Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, writing at Minding the Campus: “It’s not enough to state that higher education should consist of an exposure to the Great Books and leave it at that: students will need some way of negotiating their way through the philosophical thicket into which they are being thrown . . . Where they exist, contemporary arguments on behalf of the Great Books are often as pernicious, and even indistinguishable from, the forms of value relativism that they purport to combat. Many conservative academics have become lazy in the defense of the Great Books, content to let the phrase stand in for a deeper and potentially more contentious examination of the various arguments within those books and the West itself, and of the need for university faculties to provide some kind of organized and well-formed guidance to students on how best to approach these texts.”

Reuters: “Taiwan is scrambling to raise its birthrate, among the world’s lowest, before the sinking number of newborns threatens productivity for its export-driven $390 billion economy. Taiwan fears it will lack the manpower or brainpower in 10 to 15 years to keep up with industrialized Asian peers and the blooming economies of some Southeast Asian countries.”

This commentary by ADF attorney Doug Napier appeared in the Gilbert Edition of the Arizona Republic. It was not made available online.

The Aegis: “Harford County Public Schools’ decision to allow access to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Web sites in every public school in the county does not sit well with one local legislator. Harford Del. Rick Impallaria sent a letter March 29 to the school superintendent and board of education members stating he does not approve of the decision to unblock lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Web sites for any reason.”

CBN: “CBN News recently traveled to one small town in Austria where residents are up in arms over the newest local attraction: a multi-million dollar Islamic center.”

Europe News: “Turkey is today considered a rising power in the Middle East and Europe. But just a few centuries ago, the Turks ruled large chunks of both regions under the banner of the Ottoman Empire. Turkish-led forces drove deep into Europe, even reaching the gates of Vienna twice before being defeated. Now they’re back . . . So far, Austrian officials have yet to comment on the Turkish government’s expanded influence. ‘They close their eyes because they want to be elected again and the growing Islamic population is for them a target group for the next election,’ said Zeitz.”

Ottawa Citizen: “A well-known student supporter of Israel at Carleton University and an Israeli engineering student at the university say they are counting themselves lucky to have survived an attack with what they say was a machete near a Gatineau bar early Monday . . . ”

News-Medical.net: “Today, Family Research Council Action and the Oklahoma Family Policy Council released a radio advertisement supporting State Representative Rebecca Hamilton’s Oklahoma House Bill 3077, currently being reviewed by the Oklahoma State Senate. H.B. 3077 would put an end to the financial lure that draws young women into donating their eggs to fertility clinics . . . ”

Courier Journal: “Western Kentucky University officials announced Friday that the school will begin offering health insurance to qualifying dependents — including domestic partners — of its employees, starting next year.”

Bismark Tribune: “Tom Freier, a spokesman for the North Dakota Family Alliance, opposed the change, saying North Dakota’s present anti-cohabitation measure has important symbolic value. ‘When you as a Legislature pass bills … you influence our society, you influence what people in this state are going to do,’ Freier said during Tuesday’s hearing. By changing the law, Freier said, ‘we will be sending a message to the people of North Dakota, and I don’t think that’s the correct message … I think when we stand up for our principles and our standards, I think that’s something to be admired, as opposed to being ridiculed.’”

Nathan Hitchen writing at Center for a Just Society: “Promoting religious liberty is at once less complex than democracy promotion and more to the point of America’s agenda. Middle Eastern regimes can make concessions to religious freedom without committing to elections that will disturb their ruling elites. As a moral center for American diplomacy, the call to religious liberty is a mutually inclusive value because it draws on the best of European, American, and Islamic history. Structuring the overall problem of the Middle East as a lack of a particular liberty rather than systemically flawed governments lowers the stakes for possible reform and improvement. Presenting religious liberty as the solution gives potential friends of America a more compelling moral reason to join her cause, and consequently opens a way to rehabilitate her badly entrenched reputation.”

Telam: “‘Daniela Ugolini, Prosecutor of the Administrative Disputes Chamber, who will hold or not the appeal by the prosecutor Mariana Pucciarello’ said Telam Canevaro, who yesterday [requested] an interview with the Attorney . . . in downtown Buenos Aires . . . Ugolini, who is responsible [for] the decision to hold or discontinue the action at first instance and raise it to the Court of Appeals, so far [has] not responded to the request of the [couple's request for an interview].” [Google Translation]

CNSNews: “California legislative committee has narrowly advanced a bill that would repeal a state law designed to find the causes and cures for homosexuality.”

“The primary question in this appeal is whether Palm Beach County and one of its Fire Department officers violated a firefighter’s First Amendment right to intimate association when they demoted him for an extramarital affair with one of his subordinates.”

RGJ.com: “‘This health care nationalization plan is illegal because it is unconstitutional,’ Gibbons said. ‘The arrogance of this administration to force all Nevadans to purchase something (health insurance from private companies) or face IRS penalties is outrageous and wrong.’”

AP: “The religious massacres have stopped, but ‘secret’ killings of Christians and Muslims continue on a smaller scale across central Nigeria, claiming more than 30 lives this year, police said Tuesday.”

FRC: “Ignoring federal and state laws defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, the U.S. Census Bureau released videos on Monday encouraging homosexual couples who consider themselves “married” to list themselves as such on this year’s census forms. The videos also urge cross-dressers to identify themselves with whatever sex they prefer. ”

Washington Post: “Births among U.S. girls ages 15 to 19 fell 2 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to the federal analysis of birth certificates nationwide, reversing two consecutive years of increases that had interrupted a 34 percent decline and caused alarm that one of the nation’s most successful social and public health successes was faltering . . . ”

ACLU: “The Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee today voted against legislation to amend the state constitution to ban same sex marriage. The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania hailed the vote as a victory for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in the commonwealth . . . ”

ACLU: “The ACLU of Virginia is sending letters to all public university presidents warning them against taking any action that would permit discrimination against gay and lesbian employees or student.”

Breitbart Big Government: “The Obama Administration is putting the best face on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) recent March 2010 jobless numbers report, touting the steady nationwide jobless number of 9.7%. But for minorities, the news is bad and getting worse . . . African Americans, ages 16-19, of both sexes, show a mind-boggling 39.3% unemployed.”

The National Law Journal (Law.com): “Three nominees for federal appellate judgeships have hardly been living hand-to-mouth, and one who’s married to a Big Law partner has a net worth of $4.5 million, according to newly released disclosure reports.”

CBS: “Constance McMillen Says Prom She Was Told She Could Attend had 7 People, While Rest of School Partied in Secret.”

Boston Globe (AP): “A bill to set up a dispensary and distribution system under Maine’s medical marijuana law is awaiting a final Senate vote . . . ”

Christian Newswire: “. . . The new board members are Care Net President Melinda Delahoyde, speaker and radio host Cheryl Martin, HCJB President Wayne Pederson and World Vision President Richard Stearns. Mark Holbrook, president/CEO of Evangelical Christian Credit Union, was reappointed. ECFA members serve three-year terms . . . ”

Las Vegas Sun: “Las Vegas adult club figure Michael Powers sued Clark County on Monday in a challenge to the constitutionality of an ordinance regulating sex clubs and defining them as ‘public nuisances.’”

FRC Blog: “The nation’s largest abortion provider is now administering the dangerous medical abortion regime, RU-486, via Skype, instead of in-person consultations with doctors.”

Bay Windows (“GLBT Newspaper”): “In Christian Legal v. Martinez, a Christian law students’ group contests a decision by the University of California’s Hastings College of Law, headed currently by acting chancellor Leo Martinez. The case also includes a gay student group, Outlaw, at the same school as a party to the defense . . . ‘Like every other student group on Hastings’ campus, it too has a choice,’ say GLAD and Lambda. ‘It can adhere to Hastings’ general nondiscrimination policy or forego school funding.’ The federal district court in San Francisco and the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with that logic and ruled for the university and Outlaw. Christian Legal, with the aid of the right-wing Alliance Defense Fund, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in agreeing to hear that appeal, at least four justices had to indicate a willingness to consider their arguments.”

ACLU: “The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida filed a motion for summary judgment today in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU against the School Board of Nassau County, Fla. in 2009 on behalf of plaintiff Hannah Page. The motion seeks a final order from the court – without the need for a trial – that both the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act protect the right of middle school students to form a gay-straight alliance . . . ”

Wired: “The real question isn’t about having a smart phone or not, the real question is what are you as a parent doing to ensure your child’s security and/or appropriate behavior? Whether parents want to accept this fact or not is up to them, but teens are still children and their security and well-being is the responsibility of not only themselves and their school – but primarily of their parents . . . Parents are the ones who set the tone for behavior, parents are the ones who teach (or don’t teach) responsibility and morality . . . Sadly, a good portion of the current youth populace seems to have little regard for the privacy and personal safety of their peers, as evidenced by the articles linked above. With reckless abandon they have no problem sending a naked picture to everyone in class, disregarding the implications of that action (in some cases unfortunately, suicide.) This is behavior, not technology.”

AP: “Utah and Arizona authorities are serving search warrants on government offices in a pair of border towns dominated by a polygamous sect . . . ”

LA Times Blog: Her commander at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, Lt. Gen. Robert R. Allardice, could have discharged her under the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Instead, he determined in February that she should remain in the Air Force because she acknowledged her sexual orientation for the purpose of ‘avoiding and terminating military service.’ . . . the general’s reasoning has the flavor of a Catch-22: If you admit to being homosexual you can be discharged from the military, but if you admit it for the purposes of being discharged you won’t be . . . ”

Daily Globe and Mail: “Canadian researchers have uncovered a vast ‘Shadow Network’ of online espionage based in China that used seemingly harmless means such as e-mail and Twitter to extract highly sensitive data from computers around the world.”

Razib Khan writing at Gene Expression: “If Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens retires, and is replaced by Elena Kagan (the favorite), then the Supreme Court of the United States of America will have no Protestants on the bench. This in a nation which is 50% Protestant . . . Religion in the United States by and large has become a personal label which serves as a marker toward one’s origins and one’s current loyalties, rather than a confession which indicates identity with a ‘thick’ and exclusive subculture (the Amish, Hasidic Jews and Fundamentalist Mormons being exceptions) . . . It is correct that many of the Founding Fathers, most famously Thomas Jefferson, were not orthodox Christians. But they were cultural Christians, more specifically cultural Protestants, and particularly of the denominations of their ancestors.”

The deadline for entry in this year’s William Pew Religious Freedom Scholarship Competition is April 15th. This is a writing competition for law students. The winner will receive a cash award in the amount of $2,500. More information is available …

FoxNews: “Senate Republicans on Tuesday slammed one of the Obama administration’s most controversial judicial nominees for failing to initially disclose more than 100 of his speeches, publications and other background materials — an omission the Republicans called unprecedented and a possible attempt to ‘hide his most controversial work.’”

LifeNews: “Backers of the personhood amendment in Nevada are appealing in front of the Nevada Supreme Court today to make their case for the measure that could ban abortions . . . ”

LifeNews: “Two pro-abortion groups in Alaska have appealed a judge’s decision saying the language of the parental notification proposition on abortion should be rewritten . . . ”

North Carolina Family Policy Council: “Students in North Carolina are encouraged to join thousands of young people nationwide in countering the promotion of homosexuality in schools by participating in the sixth annual ‘Day of Truth’ sponsored by Exodus International. The ‘Day of Truth,’ which is scheduled for Thursday, April 15 this year, was established in 2005 by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) as a response to the pro-homosexual ‘Day of Silence,’ an annual event created by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) that encourages students to remain silent throughout the school day to show support for students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.”

LifeNews: “Tennessee Governor Phil Bredensen received a bill the state legislature gave final approval to that helps stop forced abortions. The Freedom from Coercion Act will require abortion facilities to prominently post non-coercion policies and impose penalties against facilities which do not comply.”

OneNewsNow: “A Michigan woman [Julea Ward] denied a Master’s degree in counseling will have her day in court . . . ‘The school said, ‘Well, you have to.’ And Julea said, ‘Well, that would violate my fundamental religious beliefs to do that’ — and they said, ‘Sorry, you’re dismissed from our program,” [recounts] Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney [Jeremy Tedesco]. ‘And so the real fundamental question here is, can Christians maintain adherence to their core beliefs and still get a degree from a public school?’”

The Underground: “The city of Gilbert, Arizona is now allowing in-home Bible studies that were banned from taking place earlier this year . . . On March 22, the Gilbert Town Council held a meeting to discuss changes to the Land Development Code which disallows religious assemblies in private homes. The Alliance Defense Fund was present to represent the Bible study leaders from Oasis of Truth Church.” | For more information on this issue, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/adf-media-clips+state-arizona/

LifeNews: “Tens of thousands of pro-life students will wear pro-life t-shirts to their middle school, high school and college campuses later this month. As they wear shirts with messages against abortion, they will be educating and informing their peers about the way abortion has killed 52 million Americans . . . Some students have encountered problems from school officials in wearing the shirts and they have been forced to remove them or sent home from school. However, pro-life legal groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society have provided free legal support for students and their families.”

“Genetic defects in sperm from a sperm bank cannot form the basis for a products liability suit, a federal appeals court has ruled, because allowing such a claim would be tantamount to recognizing a claim of ‘wrongful life.’

Candace de Russy writes at Breitbart Big Journalism: “Liberal pundits are racing to heap praise on the Obama Administration’s award of hundreds of millions of dollars in education grants to Delaware and Tennessee – the result of the first round of the Race to the Top competition among states . . . The Wall Street Journal bothered to dig deeper, noting that the two winning states have some of the nation’s more anemic charter laws and that Education Secretary Arne Duncan didn’t even mention charters in his announcement of the awards.”

Las Vegas Sun: “In their new book, The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex, and Sin in the New American Heartland, UNLV academics Barbara Brents, Crystal Jackson and Kathryn Hausbeck examine Nevada’s brothel industry through the lens of history, economy and sociology, drawing their conclusions from a decade of research. It’s a high-toned academic discussion of legal prostitution — a book about sex that doesn’t use the subject to sell itself. Brents, a UNLV sociology professor, sat down with the ‘Las Vegas Weekly’ to talk about the state of sex . . . ”

SCOTUS Blog has posted its notable petitions which includes a commerce clause case and this:

Title: Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children, Inc. v. Pedreira
Docket: 09-1121
Issues: (1) Whether the “legislative enactment” nexus test–requiring a nexus between a taxpayer’s status and the type of “legislative enactment” he is challenging–applies to state taxpayers as it does to federal taxpayers; and (2) whether Article III confers upon federal courts broader authority to address alleged Establishment Clause violations by state legislatures than to address such violations by Congress.

Opinion below (6th Circuit)
Petition for certiorari

Education Week: “Although overshadowed by other issues in the health-care debate, a controversial abstinence-only approach to sex education that recently saw its federal support severed is getting a new lease on life—a five-year lease worth $250 million, to be precise—under the final legislative package signed by President Barack Obama . . . ”

“. . . churches receive a tax exemption as a matter of constitutional right, not legislative grace.”

Pat Buchanan’s latest commentary on Townhall concludes: “As the Catholic League’s Bill Donahue relates, 80 percent of the victims of priestly abuse have been males and ‘most of the molesters gays.’ And as the Times’ Richard Berke blurted to the Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association 10 years ago, often, ‘three-quarters of the people deciding what’s on the front page are not-so-closeted homosexuals.’ Is there perhaps a conflict of interest at The New York Times, when covering a traditionalist Catholic pope?”

AP: “Mexico City’s officials say 88 same-sex couples have gotten married in Mexico’s capital since a law allowing such unions took effect last month.”

AP: “A federal judge in Minnesota has approved a $1,000 restitution award in a child pornography case.” Apparently, the order was entered per a stipulation.

AP: “A federal appeals court has ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks.”

Thomas Charles Berg, Religious Displays and the Voluntary Approach to Church and State (2010). Oklahoma Law Review, Forthcoming ; U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-13. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1584982

“This article, from a keynote talk for a symposium on Ten Commandments monuments and other government religious displays, argues that the distinctive constitutional approach to church-state relations in America has been the ‘voluntary’ approach, under which government leaves religious practice to the free decisions and energies of individuals and groups. Several principles within that approach call for invalidating official displays that endorse the religious truth of propositions such as the Ten Commandments. But another key component of the American constitutional approach is that religion remains important to public life: indeed, in America a primary argument for religious freedom and other human rights has been a religious argument that rights are God-given and therefore have priority over government authority. Thus, although religious voluntarism calls for invalidating many government-sponsored religious displays, the rationale for doing so must recognize multiple ways in which religion is relevant to public life at the most fundamental levels. The paper concludes with three suggested means of recognizing that relevance.”

Julie A. Oseid, The Power of Metaphor: Thomas Jefferson’s ‘Wall of Separation between Church & State’ (2010). U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-14. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1584966

“[The goals of this article are]: to examine how Jefferson’s understanding of metaphor differed from the modern understanding of the use of metaphor in a legal context, to study how Jefferson came to use the ‘wall of separation’ metaphor, to consider how the metaphor developed into a doctrinal metaphor substituting for the language and meaning of the First Amendment religion clause, and to glean lessons for legal writers from Jefferson’s ‘wall of separation’ metaphor. The article concludes that Jefferson’s use of the ‘wall of separation’ metaphor should serve as both inspiration and encouragement to modern legal writers as we craft our own metaphors.”

Thomas Charles Berg, What Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty Claims Have in Common (2010). Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy, Forthcoming; U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-12. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1584965

“This Article, from a symposium keynote talk, presents a case for adopting significant religious accommodations for objectors to same-sex marriages. My thesis is that there are important common features between the arguments for same-sex civil marriage and those for broad protection of religious conscience. Even though the two are pitted against each other in disputes, the strongest features of the case for same-sex civil marriage also make a strong case for significant religious-liberty protections for dissenters. One implication is that there are good reasons for recognizing same-sex civil marriage. But the other implication is that if a state does so, it should enact strong religious accommodations too, as a matter of consistency and even-handedness.”

Michael Young, In Defense of the Constitutionality of Critically Discussing Religion and Ethics in Schools in Light of Free Exercise and Parental Rights (2009). Ohio State Law Journal, Vol. 70, p. 1565, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1584202

“This paper assesses whether a state could constitutionally mandate the critical discussion of religion and ethics in schools in a way that did not exempt religious objectors from participating. Such broadly critical courses have been proposed by numerous others; and such proposals and courses frequently meet protest from (especially fundamentalist) religious parents fearing an attempt to undermine their children’s particular religious faith. Imagining that a state mandated participation in a course of ‘Critical Discussions,’ and attempting to take up the strongest imagined form of such a religious challenge, this paper concludes that the legitimate interests of the state in promoting skills of open discourse (and especially on ethical and religious topics) argues conclusively against any First Amendment or parental rights (14th amendment) need for religious exemptions from mandatory participation.”

Erlangga Agustino Landiyanto, Abortion Policy in Indonesia: Rights, Law and Religious Perspectives (April 2, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1583403

“Abortion became major issue in Indonesia. There are a lot of controversies behind the policy of abortion, but generally there are two poles of perspectives, pro-choice and pro-life. This paper tries to see abortion from different way and discuss macro-perspective of abortion from religious and legal perspectives as well as provides micro-analysis from individual perspectives to find the reasons why the women need to do abortion. With concerning to local and rights perspectives, this paper attempts to provide alternative or third perspective of abortion in Indonesia and provide alternative policy recommendation for this issue.”

Ann Laguer Estin, Families Across Borders: The Hague Children’s Conventions and the Case for International Family Law in the United States (January 1, 2010). Florida Law Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, January 2010; University of Iowa Legal Studies Research Paper No. 10-14. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1561998

“In our globalized world, as families form and dissolve across international borders, domestic family law does not adequately address the needs of parents and children with ties to multiple legal systems. For these cases, the Hague Children’s Conventions provide a useful legal framework developed and implemented through the cooperative efforts of more than one hundred nations. Currently, the United States participates in the 1980 Child Abduction Convention and the 1993 Intercountry Adoption Convention, and has taken steps toward ratification of the 2007 Family Maintenance Convention and the 1996 Child Protection Convention. This Article surveys the emerging Hague system of international family law, evaluates the United States’ participation in the Abduction and Adoption Conventions, and argues for ratification of the remaining conventions.”