Daily Archives: April 14, 2010

Google News (AP): “Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said Wednesday the ACLU is considering taking Lancaster to court if the prayers keep singling out Christianity over other religions . . . ”

Freedom from Religion Foundation: “The city of Milwaukee illegally closed administrative offices, municipal courts and public libraries and stopped garbage and recycling pickup on Good Friday, the Freedom From Religion Foundation said in an April 13 letter to Mayor Tom Barrett . . . ”

First Amendment Ctr. (AP): “A constitutional proposal designed to protect religious school vouchers and other state-funded faith-based programs from legal attack is being revived by the Florida Legislature a year and a half after the state Supreme Court took a similar measure off the ballot . . . House and Senate committees yesterday approved identical versions of the proposed state constitutional amendment (H. 1399, S. 2550) on straight party-line votes — Republicans in favor and Democrats against . . . ”

Blaine Amendments

Google News (AP): “A plan to create what could be the first U.S. public charter schools run by a Roman Catholic archdiocese is meeting resistance from those who worry about whether religious messages and icons will really stay out of the classrooms and hallways . . . ”

ACLU: “On March 11, 2010, the ACLU of Indiana filed suit on Eric’s behalf challenging the constitutionality of Greenwood High School’s practice of having its seniors vote to have a graduation prayer . . . ”

Cal. Health Line: “On Tuesday, the Legal Aid Society’s Employment Law Center filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court alleging that the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the IRS violate civil rights by barring same-sex domestic partners from receiving coverage under state-run long-term care plans . . . ”

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a way of life that has an entire vocabulary to describe older men (chicken hawks) going after young men (chickens) has a problem with targeting adolescent boys for abuse . . . ”

The Raw Story: “‘The conservatives and the liberals, they both like to spend,’ Paul said, according to Think Progress. ‘Conservatives spend money on different things. They like embassies, and they like occupation. They like the empire. They like to be in 135 countries and 700 bases. ‘Don’t you think it’s rather conservative to say, ‘Oh it’s good to follow the Constitution. Oh, except for war. Let the President go to war anytime they want.’ We can do better with peace than with war.’”

2theAdvocate.com: “A Louisiana House committee advanced Wednesday morning legislation that would prohibit insurance companies from covering the cost of abortions.”

KC Star Prime Buzz: “Gov. Mark Parkinson has until tomorrow to decide whether to sign or veto legislation tightening late-term abortion laws in Kansas.”

News Leader (AP): “The Episcopal Church on Tuesday asked Virginia’s highest court to overturn a judge’s decision allowing nine breakaway congregations to keep church property worth an estimated $30 million to $40 million. The northern Virginia congregations split from the Episcopal Church in a disagreement over acceptance of gays, the ordination of female clergy and theological issues.”

LifeSiteNews: “A measure to prohibit physicians from decapitating and crushing the skulls of live unborn children during abortions is seeking clearance to begin gathering signatures for the November ballot, a North Dakota grassroots pro-life organization has announced.”

LifeNews: “Senate Democrats have some advice for President Barack Obama on choosing a replacement for retiring pro-abortion Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. They say he should ignore Republicans and simply nominate the most stridently pro-abortion activist to the high court while they still have a 59-41 vote advantage . . . ”

Chicago Sun Times: “In a divorce case that’s drawn national attention, a Chicago man who claims he has returned to his Catholic roots will be allowed to take his 3-year-old daughter to church, despite the objections of the girl’s Jewish mother, a Cook County judge ruled this afternoon.”

Bangor Daily News: “The Maine Human Rights Commission is backing away from controversial plans to issue new guidelines for how schools should accommodate transgender students . . . Among the draft advisory’s recommendations are that transgender students be allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of the gender with which they identify.”

Sky News: “Anastasia Beaumont-Bott, who was previously head of the Tory’s gay campaign, accused the party of an ‘elaborately executed deception’ on gay rights . . . David Heathcote has also joined Labour after being a Tory supporter for 20 years and becoming an approved parliamentary candidate.”

The Body: “Metro Nashville Public Schools may consider disciplinary action against a teacher following a parent’s complaint about a sex education presentation . . . Rodrick Glover said his daughter, a senior at Hillsboro High School, recapped a presentation given to the class. He was shocked as she described sexual techniques that the speakers allegedly demonstrated using models of male and female genitalia. Glover said students were also offered HIV testing without parental consent.”

Religion Clause Blog: “Plaintiff had alleged, among other claims, that FBCC had been overpaid for property it sold as part of the development plan, and that the housing units would have a “religious overtone” because they would be on church land and would share a lobby and entrance with the church itself.”

Glassman v. Arlington County, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35745 (ED VA, April 12, 2010)

Geoffrey R. Stone write at the NY Times: “. . . constitutional law is not a mechanical exercise of just ‘applying the law.’ Before there can be a serious national dialogue about our Constitution, our laws and the proper role of our judges, that myth must be exposed.”

The Catholic League has issued this press release: Obama Anti-Catholic Rips Vatican. It includes this: “The fact is that there is an undeniable link between the growth of homosexuals in the priesthood and the incidence of sex abuse (see our home page for more information). It is high time we had an honest discussion about this issue . . . ”

Related: Is the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church a “gay” scandal?

“‘. . . pedophilia in the strict sense’ accounted for 10 percent of the cases, 60 percent of cases involved adolescents in homosexual relations, while the other 30 percent of cases involved adolescents in heterosexual relations . . . ”

ABC Action News: “Florida Lawmakers are debating a bill that would lessen the penalties for teens who send or receive nude picture of themselves or another minor.” | For more information see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/wordpress/tag/state-florida+topic-sexting/

AP: “Italy’s constitutional court has rejected bids to have gay marriages recognized in two Italian cities.”

Today in a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah confronted Attorney General Eric Holder about his policy of enforcement of Federal laws against illegal adult pornography or “obscenity” as it is known in the law

AP:  ”Arizona voters may get to decide in November whether to legalize marijuana for medical purposes.”

City said no to church, yes to non-religious assemblies, leaving church with mortgage on property it can no longer use

Wednesday, the Alliance Defense Fund officially launched its Church Project, a new legal effort to protect churches from excessive and unconstitutional government intrusion prohibited by the First Amendment.

“CampusReform.org is composing a growing list of 2010 commencement speakers. So far the list includes more than 160 names — and the ratio of speakers known to be left of center to those known to be right of center is nearly 4-to-1.”

AP: “Some Nevada conservatives want Republican Sen. John Ensign to resign amid a federal investigation stemming from an extramarital affair, with one critic calling him ‘the political equivalent of a suicide bomber.’”

National Law Journal (Law.com): “For months, the list of hopefuls has been thought to include Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Judge Diane Wood of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit, as well as Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that Sidney Thomas, a judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ‘was one of about 10 people under serious review.’ The AP confirmed that Wood, Garland, Kagan, Granholm and Napolitano were on the list.”

ADF attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the Pulpit Initiative.

The MP3 runs just over 5 minutes.

$1 Million Matching Grant for ADF Church Project

The Christian Institute: “Police are investigating the case of a woman who did not have a terminal illness but committed suicide at Swiss ‘clinic’ Dignitas. The son of Kathleen Dobson says he was not told she was about to commit suicide, and if he had known he would have intervened.”

The Christian Institute: “A school receptionist who was suing her employers for religious discrimination following a dispute over a prayer email has secured an undisclosed payment and settled out of court . . . The dispute began in January last year when Mrs Cain’s daughter Jasmine, then aged five, was reprimanded by her class teacher for talking about her Christian faith to another child. On hearing that her daughter had been reprimanded for expressing her faith, Mrs Cain sent a private email to church friends and family asking them to pray about the incident.”

The Christian Institute: “Scots are facing a massive threat to their freedom of speech and religious liberty in the form of a controversial amendment to the Scottish Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill. Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has brought an amendment which could make ‘threatening, alarming or distressing behaviour’ a crime with a prison sentence of up to five years.”

Americans United for Life: “Last Friday, Advocates for Life, AUL’s new initiative for pro-life law students across the country, in conjunction with Columbia Law Students for Life, sponsored a daylong legal symposium, ‘Looking Back, Looking Forward: Pro-life Strategy and Jurisprudence for the 21st Century’ . . . Alliance Defense Fund’s Matt Bowman and Steve Aden, as well as Pierro Tozzi, formerly with the Catholic Family and Human Right’s Institute, addressed ‘Legalized Abortion in the Medical Profession: Protecting the Conscience Rights of Health Care Providers.’”

The Mountain Press interviews several candidates for the Sevier County Commission: “GREG BULLOCK: There is never a place for compromise when it comes to issues regarding the Lord and prayer. That is the foundation we were built on long ago. As for money being spent there is a fund called The Alliance Defense Fund. This was founded by a group of lawyers trained specifically to defend such cases of separation of church and state.”

WorldNetDaily: “Dr. Mike Adams was on the academic fast track while serving the University of North Carolina-Wilmington as an atheist, but after the professor converted to Christianity in 2000, he alleges, the college put the clamps on his career . . . ‘Christian professors should not be discriminated against because of their beliefs,’ said [David French], senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Adams in the case. ‘Disagreeing with an accomplished professor’s religious and political views is no grounds for refusing him promotion.’” | ADF News Release

“‘This is an unacceptable linkage and we condemn this,’ said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Bernard Valero.”

CitizenLink: “Maine school counselor Don Mendell has been cleared of complaints that he violated his professional ethics by appearing in a political ad in favor of one-man, one-woman marriage . . . ‘It was somebody who said that it’s discrimination,’ [Jordan Lorence] said, ‘for a social worker to make a public statement in favor of marriage defined as one man, one woman.’” | ADF News Release

ttorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund are prepared to offer free legal assistance to students whose First Amendment-protected rights are violated while participating in Thursday’s “Day of Truth.”

LifeSiteNews: “A state licensing board in Maine Friday dismissed two complaints filed against public school counselor Don Mendell for publicly supporting marriage as being between a man and a woman . . . ‘The government should not punish people because they believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and because they say so during a political campaign,’ said ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. ‘The licensing board was right to dismiss these complaints. The First Amendment protects the rights of citizens to speak out on important public policy matters being voted on by the people.’” | ADF News Release

Baptist Press: “A Maine licensing board has dismissed all complaints against a high school counselor who came under fire last year for appearing in a TV commercial opposing ‘gay marriage’ . . . ‘The government should not punish people because they believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman and because they say so during a political campaign,’ ADF attorney Jordan Lorence said in a statement.” | ADF News Release

LifeNews: “The Wisconsin state Justice Department will not release a report revealing more details about how the Obama administration improperly conducted a threat assessment on pro-life and pro-abortion groups in Wisconsin . . . In response to an open records request by the Alliance Defense Fund and Pro-Life Wisconsin, the Middleton Police Department and the Wisconsin Department of Justice, along with the Department of Homeland Security all refused on February 4 to release copies of the threat assessment.”

“If you’re a student in New Hampshire’s public schools, you will not be allowed to recite the Pledge of Allegiance with the words ‘under God’ if the Freedom From Religion Foundation has its way in an appeal being heard at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit.”

“Massive government means government control, the strings attached to money, to participation and even to expression as the government goes beyond the original purpose of its multitude of programs and attempts to alter social outcomes, favor certain viewpoints and – most ominously – suppress others . . . ”

“Gay groups and politicians condemned Pope Benedict’s number two on Wednesday for calling homosexuality a “pathology” and linking it directly to sexual abuse of children . . .”

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys will participate in a law school debate in the District of Columbia and a panel discussion in California Thursday on the subject of free speech and the U.S. Supreme Court case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. Attorneys with ADF and the CLS Center for Law & Religious Freedom, who are litigating the landmark case, represent a student chapter of CLS, which Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco refused to recognize because the group requires its officers and voting members to subscribe to its basic Christian beliefs.