Daily Archives: April 12, 2010

Wall Street Journal (Google link to full story): “It is no accident that this sectarian violence in Nigeria has largely occurred in the predominantly Muslim part of northern Nigeria. Though Nigeria’s constitution declares that there is no state religion, twelve state governments have instituted Islamic Sharia law. Christians in the north regularly told us during our visits that they feel like second-class citizens and face discrimination.”

EdmondSun.com: “Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson Friday said his office will only enter a Florida lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal health care law if required to do so by legislative action . . . ”

LifeNews: “A Florida-based abortion practitioner lost his medical license this weekend after the state medical board evaluated his license. Matthew Kachinas was supposed to do an abortion on one of the twin babies who had Down syndrome but wound up killing the other baby in the failed abortion . . . ”

Ed Whelan reports on Elena Kagan’s at National Review Bench Memos.

NY Magazine: Journalists Start Elena Kagan Gay Dance Again

Chicago Public Radio: “Last summer, the church assembly voted to allow gays and lesbians in committed, long-term relationships to be pastors and professional lay leaders. The Church Council just OK’d new policies making that official.”

Wisconsin Rapids Tribune: “The Grand Rapids Planning Commission will consider a request this evening for a land-use permit to operate an ‘adult lounge’ at 7330 Plover Road.”

Mortimer Newlin Stead Sellers, Universal Human Rights in the Law of the United States (March, 12 2010). American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 58, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1569553

“This article discusses the relationship in United States law between State, Federal and international authorities on universal human rights. All U.S. State constitutions and the Federal Constitution recognize the ‘inherent’ or ‘inalienable’ rights of humanity. Yet despite having long accepted the binding force of universal human rights, United States courts and public officials have been hesitant to recognize non-U.S. authorities when identifying, interpreting, or enforcing these rights in practice. The U.S. government and courts view most international treaties and declarations concerning universal human rights as simple restatements of existing constitutional guarantees. United States courts and public officials have generally weighed foreign evidence of the requirements of universal human rights according to the legitimacy, importance, and probative value of the source. The undemocratic and illiberal nature of many international and foreign institutions makes it unlikely that the United States Federal or State legal systems will cede final control over such questions to non-U.S. or multinational authorities at any time in the near future.”

Samantha Besson, The Authority of International Law — Lifting the State Veil (2009). Sydney Law Review, Vol. 31, pp. 343-380, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1588040

“The legitimate authority of international law, i.e. its ability to generate moral duties of obedience for its subjects whether states, international organisations or individuals, has become a subject of growing interest among international legal scholars and legal theorists over the past fifteen years or so. The initial difficulty most accounts face has to do with the reality of international law itself qua decentralised and non-hierarchical legal order. Stemming from those complexities, a second difficulty pertains to the concept of legal authority itself. This article presents a single concept of legal authority and a set of justifications for the legitimacy of international law that can not only accommodate the complexity of contemporary international law, but also make sense of it in the context of competing claims to legitimacy made over the same people by national, regional and international legal orders. The key to the authority of international law in a pluralist legal order lies, the author argues, in lifting the state veil. This implies focusing on the individual as the ultimate subject of authority in international law. The article’s argument unfolds in three steps. It starts by presenting the conception of legal authority the article is based on, and in particular a revised coordination-based version of Joseph Raz’s service conception of authority. It then argues that this autonomy-based account of authority best explains the legitimacy of international law by focusing on four key features of legal authority in the international context: the multiplicity of international subjects and law-makers and their relationship; the role of co-ordination in the justification of international law’s authority; the piecemeal nature of authority and the role of state consent in that context; and, finally, the protection of state sovereignty and its compatibility with the authority of international law. In the third and final section, the article addresses borderline cases, and in particular relativism-based exclusions of international legal authority and exceptions to that authority based on justified international disobedience.”

Newsweek: “The fight comes courtesy of Section 1303 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (page 779 here), which reiterates states’ rights to regulate abortion coverage among their insurers. The key sentence: ‘A state may elect to prohibit abortion coverage in qualified health plans offered through an Exchange in such State if such State enacts a law to provide for such a prohibition.’”

ADF Attorney David French writing at NRO Phi Beta Cons: “Working with the Leadership Institute and Young America’s Foundation — two groups fighting the good fight on college campuses — the Alliance Defense Fund and its allied attorneys are taking the fight one step farther: sending letters on behalf of students at five public universities in the Third Circuit requesting that they comply with the law.”

AP: “A member of the Pontifical Council for the Family is welcoming a statement from the American College of Pediatricians regarding the harmful effects of reinforcing gender identity confusion in children . . . ”

“Gay rights activists say they have failed to qualify a measure that would repeal California’s same-sex marriage ban for the November ballot . . .”

“The Vatican’s second-highest authority says the sex scandals haunting the Catholic Church are linked to homosexuality rather than celibacy vows among priests . . . ”

LifeNews: “A Montana pro-life group has issued a new analysis saying the decision by the state’s Supreme Court to allow assisted suicide there didn’t legalize the practice. The Montana Family Foundation says doctors who engage in the practice may still be charged for homicides there despite the Montana Supreme Court’s decision in the Baxter case. The pro-life group hired two attorneys, Greg Jackson of Montana and Matt Bowman with the Alliance Defense Fund, to analyze the controversial decision . . . ”

AP: “President Barack Obama’s candidates for the Supreme Court include a new name, federal appeals court Judge Sidney Thomas of Montana, and at least six others who were considered contenders when Obama chose his first high court nominee last year, The Associated Press has learned . . . ”

Speak Up Church Blog: “In Yuma, Arizona, city officials denied Centro Familiar Cristiano a permit to operate a church in a building it had purchased on Main Street. The reason for the denial? According to the city, a downtown church was inconsistent with the economic development the city was trying to obtain in that area. Yuma is not alone. Churches across America have been harassed by city officials for no other reason than city officials do not see the economic value of having a church located within the town . . .”

GMA News: “Only parents should teach children about sex and reproductive health because the 1987 Constitution says so. This was claimed on Monday by Jo Aurea Imbong, a senatorial candidate of the Ang Kapatiran Party, who has been vocal about her opposition to the controversial reproductive health bill which allows sex education in schools starting Grade 5.”

San Francisco Chronicle: “Two frozen embryos and two gut-wrenching lawsuits have added up to a national controversy pitting a Pleasanton family against a suburban St. Louis family over control of what both call their ‘pre-born children.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Alberta minister in charge of the province’s human rights commission is saying now that the human rights complaint against Red Deer pastor Stephen Boissoin shouldn’t have ever gone to the commission. ‘[The commission's] not there to mediate hurt feelings caused by some words or not,’ Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett told CBC. ‘If it’s hateful, then that’s a hate crime. And that’s something for the Crown attorneys and the police services to investigate.’”

Sydney Morning Herald: “Australia’s Red Cross Blood service will review its policy which prevents many homosexual men from donating blood. Currently, a man who has had homosexual sex within the past 12 months is excluded from being an eligible blood donor.”

The Christian Institute: “David Cameron would be ‘very happy’ to consider changing the law to allow full homosexual marriage, George Osborne has said. The shadow chancellor made the remark in a private meeting with homosexual activist, Peter Tatchell, and others ahead of a pro-homosexual demo to be held outside Tory HQ.”

“A state licensing board in Maine Friday dismissed two complaints filed against public school counselor Don Mendell, represented by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Helsingin Sanomat: “Openly homosexual members the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church are complaining of widespread discrimination at the congregation level.”

LifeSiteNews: “Austin’s city council on Thursday voted unanimously to become the second city in America to force pregnancy resource centers to post signs saying that they do not provide or refer for abortions or emergency birth control. The other city is Baltimore, Maryland, which passed a similar ordinance last year.”

CNA: “A criminal court in the Spanish city of Gerona has sentenced a restaurant owner to 19 months in prison and ordered him to pay over $6,000 for pressuring a waitress to undergo an abortion in order to keep her job.”

LifeNews: “As President Barack Obama considers various potential replacements for retiring pro-abortion Justice John Paul Stevens, media outlets and political observers are floating the names of those most likely on his short list of nominees. Today, ABC News indicated former George Supreme Court chief justice Leah Ward Sears is another possibility.”

Yahoo News (AP): “The bill passed Monday now goes to Gov. Dave Heineman, who says he supports it. The bill requires women to be screened by doctors or health professionals to determine whether they’ve been pressured into having abortions. Women also must be screened for risk factors . . . ”

Eurasia Review: “Macedonia has failed to adopt an anti-discrimination law that is completely harmonised with European norms and standards, with explicit protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation a crucial missing element, local human rights experts commented after the country’s parliament adopted its first law on the subject.”

Politico: “The White House is denying a story in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, gaining traction today on the right, that Israeli nuclear scientists have been denied visas to visit the United States.”

Wall Street Journal: “As talk of a possible Supreme Court nomination for Solicitor General Elena Kagan persists, conservative activists are homing in on a high-profile stand she took on gay rights as a centerpiece of their opposition, if she gets the nod. … To drive home that point, conservative activists point to Ms. Kagan’s role in a gay-rights lawsuit. In 2005, Ms. Kagan was one of 40 Harvard law professors who signed a friend- of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to uphold an appellate ruling that permitted law schools to limit military access to campus recruiting events.” | Via Ed Whelan at NRO Bench Memos.

The Hill: “Repealing healthcare reform law will be Republicans’ ‘number one priority,’ their House leader said Monday. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that repealing the healthcare legislation passed in Congress last month and signed into law by President Barack Obama would be the GOP’s top priority if it wins back control of Congress this fall.”

LA Times: “Ballot Measure I asks whether the city should continue its policy of randomly selecting clergy from different faiths to deliver the invocation at council meetings, ‘without restricting the content based on their beliefs, including references to Jesus Christ.’”

NWF Daily News: “The Liberty Counsel has named a Milton High School senior as a plaintiff in a possible lawsuit against the Santa Rosa County School district. Chaz Riley, who regularly led the Lord’s Prayer at Milton’s football games, will join about 30 other people in the lawsuit against the district for allegedly violating the First Amendment rights of students and staff, according to Liberty Counsel Attorney Horatio Mihet.”

CBS: “The White House will try to paint the Supreme Court as being ‘out of touch’ with everyday Americans, as President Obama considers nominees to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, but it doesn’t want a fight over its nomination, CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford said Sunday on ‘Face the Nation.’”

“The judge found last month that his columns are not protected by the First Amendment simply because he made reference to them on a promotion application.”

Religion Clause Blog: “At issue in McFarlane’s case is a ruling by the Employment Appeal Tribunal that religious discrimination prohibitions were not violated when McFarlane was dismissed by a counselling service for refusing to counsel same-sex couples.”

Religion Clause Blog: “The Council on American-Islamic relations last week announced that it had filed a RLUIPA lawsuit in federal court in Chicago challenging DuPage County’s rejection of a zoning permit for the Irshad Learning Center that would serve some 30 Shia Muslim families primarily of Middle Eastern origin.”

ADF Attorney Gregory S. Baylor writing at the Academic Freedom File: “USA Today took on Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (to be heard by the Supreme Court on April 19) in a recent opinion column by Tom Krattenmaker. … First, it is misleading (at best) to suggest that this case is all about the ability of ‘gay students’ to serve as leaders and voting members of CLS. Hastings originally said that CLS could not consider religious belief or same-sex sexual conduct in choosing officers and members. In other words, it could not deny voting membership to an atheist who rejected CLS’s core religious beliefs. Hastings later said that CLS was required to admit anyone to leadership or membership. In other words, it is simply wrong to say that this case is all about ‘gay students.’”

Wintery Knight, a blog “integrating Christian faith and knowledge in the public square”: “The headline should be that these Canadian universities both continue to censor pro-life students. … The academic left uses the power of the lectern and the grading marker to impose their views on generations of students. They use techniques like speech codes, expulsions, degree denials and promotion denials. The secular left is intolerant of other points of view. … This 15-minute podcast from Jennifer Roback Morse came out a while back and it talked about free speech on campus and the work of the Alliance Defense Fund to defend free speech rights from the academic left. I’ve listened to it twice, and I found it good. You young law students should consider going to work for firms like the ADF – they do good work. Canada has nothing like the ADF.”

The Eastern Echo: “A federal judge denied Eastern Michigan University’s move for dismissal or summary judgment of former EMU counseling graduate student Julea Ward’s case March 24. … Jeremy Tedesco, Ward’s lawyer, said that while it is not a final decision, this is ‘an important win in the case.’ ‘Essentially what it means is that the defendants who remain in the case can be held personally responsible if the judge ultimately decides that Julea’s rights were violated,’ he said. Tedesco is seeking the answer to what he believes is the biggest concern of the case. ‘The question in the case is –can a student maintain adherence to their most core and fundamental religious beliefs and still get a degree from Eastern Michigan University?’”

KAJ18: “The Montana Family Foundation based in Laurel says a Montana Supreme Court decision last year did not legalize physician assisted suicide. … The foundation hired two attorneys to analyze the decision. Defense attorney Greg Jackson of Montana and Matt Bowman with the Alliance Defense Fund in Washington, DC analyzed the Supreme court ruling in Baxter v. State of Montana.”

Family Foundation Blog: “The Family Foundation of Virginia and the Alliance Defense Fund will host a discussion Tuesday, April 13, on the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court Case Christian Legal Society vs. Martinez. The Court will determine whether a public university can require recognized campus Christian student organizations to have nonbelievers and persons engaged in activities contrary to the beliefs of the organizations as voting members and officers if the club receives money from the school.”

Ozarks First: “Lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund are participating in oral arguments this morning at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in a federal lawsuit over the destruction of human embryos.” | ADF News Release: ADF providing support to lawsuit defending law that prohibits federal funding of embryo destruction

Kennebec Journal: “A state board on Friday dismissed a pair of licensing complaints that were filed last year against a Nokomis High School guidance counselor [Don Mendell] about his appearance in a television advertisement opposing gay marriage. … ‘The First Amendment,’ said [Jordan Lorence], the fund attorney who represented Mendell, ‘protects the rights of citizens to speak out on important public policy matters being voted on by the people. State governments around our nation license many professions. Holding a professional license should not permit the state to punish those who publicly advocate for marriage as one man and one woman.’”

PhillyBurbs.com (AP): “A nonprofit group’s effort to get a specialty New Jersey license plate with the tagline “Choose Life” has been revived by a federal appeals court. … The case will now be sent back to U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano for further proceedings. ‘Censoring the “Choose Life” logo on New Jersey license plates is a textbook case of viewpoint discrimination, which blatantly defies the First Amendment,’ said [Jeff Shafer], senior legal director of the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal group that backed the suit.”

Business Week: “Previous studies have also turned up a link between corporal punishment and aggression in children, but none has controlled for as many factors as the new one, published in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics.”

Catherine A. Taylor, Jennifer A. Manganello, Shawna J. Lee, Janet C. Rice
Mothers’ Spanking of 3-Year-Old Children and Subsequent Risk of Children’s Aggressive Behavior

“. . . The idea was hatched by [Kellie] Fiedorek and several other participants in the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, an annual summer school for 110 second-year law students put on by the Alliance Defense Fund. The ADF began as a fund-raising organization to support legal cases in defense of traditional marriage, the right to life and freedom of religion. Now it has 40 litigators of its own working on cases and runs both the Blackstone Legal Fellowship for students and the National Litigation Academy to train practicing lawyers in pro-life and other legal issues. ‘Several of us last summer were talking about the great support we were getting from Blackstone and went from there to what a need there was for pro-life students on campus for the same support,’ said Fiedorek, who just graduated from Ave Maria University’s law program. The Alliance Defense Fund’s Mat Bowman says Advocates for Life will be a powerful ally in the ADF’s own efforts to ‘educate the next generation of lawyers in the best legal arguments for the protection of innocent life. . . ”

George Will writes at Townhall: “Asked how the nation might address the projected $17.5 trillion in unfunded Social Security liabilities, Rubio said we should consider two changes for people 10 or more years from retirement. One would raise the retirement age. The other would alter the calculation of benefits: Indexing them to inflation rather than wage increases would substantially reduce the system’s unfunded liabilities.”

AP: “About 700 peaceful demonstrators walked more than a mile to rally outside the Hollywood Social Security Administration office, said Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center.”

EducationNews.org: “Homeschoolers have won a round in the long fight against the crackdown on family rights contained to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, but experts say they need to keep up their guard.”

AP: “Across Europe, Muslims are seeking a formula that lets them fit into their country while maintaining loyalty to their faith, and el Ksaihi’s mosque, which melds some Western secular values with deep attachment to Islam, is one solution toward resolving such tensions.”

Washington Post: “The U.S. Postal Service’s current business model ‘is not viable’ and the mail agency should make deeper job and wage cuts, hire more part-time staff and consider outsourcing operations, according to a draft of a government audit acquired by The Federal Eye.”

Barna Group: “One of the objectives of many churches is to attract people who do not participate in the life of a church. New research from The Barna Group, however, points out that most of the unchurched in America may be different than expected.”

Lyle Denniston writes at SCOTUS Blog: “Without Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced Friday that he is retiring soon, Justice Kennedy moves into position to become a frequent ‘assigning Justice.’ That is a role not well known beyond Court-watchers, but it is quite important, and can make a difference in how ambitious, or cautious, the Court is in ruling on major, hard-fought cases.”

“Former Georgia Supreme Court chief justice Leah Ward Sears is also on the short list, a senior White House official tells ABC News.‬”