Daily Archives: May 20, 2010

Peter Roff writing at US News & World Report: “A recent national survey by Resurgent Republic, an organization started by former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, found that voters are increasingly concerned about the high levels of pay and benefits that federal employees enjoy, which are now on average higher than what private sector workers earn.”

Yahoo News (AP): “Obama had just begun an afternoon statement to reporters lauding the end of a Senate filibuster on his financial overhaul plan when some kind of rodent — opinions differ on which — dashed out of the bushes to his right, just outside the Oval Office . . . Moreover, rodents of all kinds are pretty common in Washington. From time to time, city officials issue alarms about surges in the rat population . . .”

CBS: “Raymond Hosier, a 13 year old student at Oneida Middle School in Schenectady, wants to wear his rosary where everyone can see it, around his neck. According to Schenectady School District rules Hosier can wear his rosary beads but they can’t be seen.”

Blog of the Legal Times: “President Barack Obama has decided to nominate Susan Carney, who spent two decades as a Washington lawyer before going to work for Yale University, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, the White House said today.”

AP: “Dennis Blair, President Barack Obama’s national intelligence director, is resigning after a 16-month tenure marked by intelligence failures and turf wars among the country’s spy agencies . . . ”

ADF attorney David Cortman writes at the Christian Post Advancing Religious Liberty Blog: “. . . The State of Idaho has ordered that ‘no religious documents or text’ may be used in any public school in the state, period. That not only includes the religious texts mentioned above, but also many canons of Western Civilization and great literary works, such as those written by Homer, Augustine, and Luther . . . I would hope that AU itself does not support such a broad ban on an entire category of books. Does anyone really want that for the future of our public schools? . . . Like most other times AU takes a swing at constitutional analysis, all that’s left is a whiff…of censorship.”

Telegraph: “The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said the new administration would allow religious organisations to run a new wave of primary and secondary schools funded at taxpayers’ expense . . . But in a move seen as a concession to the Lib Dems, the coalition’s new policy blueprint says that these new schools would be expected to run ‘inclusive’ admissions policies.”

AFP: “The EU parliament on Thursday called on Pakistan to guarantee minority rights, claiming that its blasphemy laws could be used to murder members of political, racial and religious minorities.” | European Parliament Press Release

Sun Sentinel: “Lauderhill commissioners decided at their May 10 meeting to enforce a moratorium on adult entertainment businesses. There is only one such business in the city, and the one-year moratorium will prevent any new ones from joining it while city officials work to establish new guidelines for adult entertainment establishments that may open in Lauderhill in the future.”

BBC: “Mrs May was challenged about her voting record on gay rights on BBC One’s Question Time. She voted against gay adoption in 2002 and against the repeal of Section 28 – the law which banned councils from ‘promoting’ homosexuality – in 2000. But she said the votes were ‘some years ago’ and if held again she would vote differently.”

ModernHealthcare.com: “The Rev. Thomas Olmsted, bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, said in written statements that Sister Margaret McBride was excommunicated from the church after she admitted to Olmsted that she approved of the abortion after the pregnancy was said to have threatened the life of the mother . . . A statement from 738-bed St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix said the hospital is standing by McBride, who remains on staff and has been appointed to a position focusing on strategic initiative . . . ”

Baptist Press: “The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has reiterated its opposition to congressional efforts to legalize and tax Internet gambling . . . ”

WorldNetDaily: “The fundamentals of the U.S. Constitution possibly have been shoved one step closer to irrelevance by the U.S. Supreme Court, which yesterday cited as support for its opinion an international treaty that has not been adopted in the U.S. . . . Roger Kiska, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund who is based in Europe, said the Supreme Court’s use of an unadopted precedent ‘completely overlooks the checks and balances system that is established by the U.S. Constitution.’”

National Post: “Prime Minister Stephen Harper will vote against a private member’s bill promoted by one of his own MPs that would add new Criminal Code penalties for those who coerce women to have an abortion . . . ”

Catholic Culture: “Bishop J. Peter Sartain of Joliet has removed Father Jerry Simonelli from his pastorate because he engaged in homosexual activity.”

Australian: “INDEPENDENT senator Nick Xenophon has called on the Catholic Church to remove the sanctity of the confessional for child abuse cases.”

LifeSiteNews: ” The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has pulled out of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights . . . The release stated that the bishops withdrew following the group’s published support for the pro-abortion and homosexualist Supreme Court nominee, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, which was pointed out earlier this week by Deal Hudson of Catholic Advocate and reported by LSN Tuesday.”

David Kirkpatrick quotiing Justice Clarence Thomas at Education News: “Whatever the textual and historical merits of incorporating the Establishment Clause, I can accept that the Fourteenth Amendment protects religious liberty rights. But I cannot accept its use to oppose neutral programs of school choice through the incorporation of the Establishment Clause. There would be a tragic irony in converting the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of individual liberty into a prohibition on the exercise of educational choice.”

The Christian Institute: “A Government-run Jobcentre has been forced to remove adverts recruiting webcam strippers, following a flood of complaints. Last week it emerged that jobseekers were being offered up to £100 a day to perform ‘nude or semi-nude’ in front of webcams.”

The Christian Institute: “Terminally ill patients should be allowed to commit suicide by turning down food and fluids, according to controversial new medical guidance. The General Medical Council’s (GMC’s) guidelines, released today, have alarmed critics who see them as part of a creeping ‘culture of death’.”

The Christian Institute: “A new children’s character, Charlie Condom, has been created by health chiefs in Southampton to promote condoms to 13-year-olds. Education leaders have slammed the move and others call it ‘ridiculous’.”

The Christian Institute: “The Scottish Government has launched a review of the way human remains are treated, after a Glasgow hospital came under fire for burning aborted babies alongside clinical waste. A member of staff at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said they saw aborted babies being placed in disposal bags and sent for incineration along with used bandages, swabs, dressings and syringes.”

City Hall: “Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said yesterday that she plans to sue the federal government over the Defense of Marriage Act if she becomes New York’s next attorney general.”

“Authorities say a Mojave Desert war memorial cross that replaced one that was stolen is illegal and must come down.”

BigPond News: “MP Fred Nile’s attempt to bring on a debate on his bill to ban the wearing of the burqa has been voted down by the NSW upper house.”

Pavlos Eleftheriadis, The Structure of European Union Law (May 2010). Cambridge Yearbook of European Law, 2010; Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 47/2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1610089

“Is the general structure of EU law a matter determined by its own constitutional principles? Many assume that this must be the case, because this is what we regularly expect from any order of constitutional law. A more careful look at the Treaty and the case law shows that the analogy does not work. There is no single set of constitutional principles that determines the application of EU law by the member states. Each state has its own principles. This clear division of labour between EU and national law poses a serious theoretical problem to those presenting EU law as directly analogous to constitutional law. A more careful study shows that the structure of EU law is very much like the structure of international law: dualist, not monist. Nevertheless, the dualist structure of EU law does not in any sense reduce its authority or legitimacy.”

Interfax: “The government committee of the Russian Federation has signed into law a new bill on transfer of property intended for religious use to religious organizations. The law will allow parishes that function in former cinemas and shops to obtain title for such buildings.”

CNN: Williams, who also referred to “animals of Allah,” was rebuked Thursday by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The group issued a release Wednesday calling on other Tea Party activists to repudiate Williams’ remarks . . . For his part, Williams was unapologetic toward Muslims. “In the course of the article I described the ‘god’ worshiped by terrorists as ‘a monkey god,’” he wrote on his Web site. “I was wrong and that was offensive. I owe an apology to millions of Hindus who worship Lord Hanuman, an actual Monkey God.”

“Kagan made a maximum ($500) campaign contribution to John Bonifaz, who was running in the Democratic primary campaign for Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and that donation cause Richmond particular concern.”

LifeNews: “In a new letter to members of Congress, the nations Catholic bishops urge the House and Senate to go back and fix some of the problems associated with the new health care law. They specifically want Congress to stop the abortion funding and add conscience protections . . . ”

Fr. Raymond J. DeSouza writes at the National Post: “Motherhood issues are not what they used to be. When Stephen Harper selected maternal and infant health as Canada’s signature issue for next month’s G8 and G20 meetings, he likely thought it about as controversial as maple syrup. After all, who could be against providing basic hygiene and health care to pregnant women and their offspring? For lack of basic medicines and primary health care, women in many poor countries suffer needlessly, as do their infant children. Maternal deaths in childbirth and reductions in infant mortality are among the easiest developmental issues to tackle; a relatively small investment yields significant reductions in lives lost. So how did such an apparent motherhood issue become mixed up in abortion politics?”

NY Post: “A Brooklyn federal judge said that a Staten Island teacher of 26 years acted correctly when she allowed students to use words like ‘furburger’ and ‘schmeckle’ and ‘blow job’ to teach her sex ed/HIV/AIDS class in public school and is allowing her to sue the Education Department for suspending her.”

ADF Attorney David J. Hacker writing at Speak Up Movement / university (via the Christian Post’s Advancing Religious Liberty blog): “Casey Mattox’s excellent series on Widmar v. Vincent (stay tuned, there’s more to come) inspired me to write my own mini-series on student activity fees, a topic that will consume student groups from coast to coast this summer as they prepare for the fall semester.  I will examine the constitutional principles that guide these systems, objections to paying the fees, and methods for allocating fees that violate the First Amendment.  My hope is that student groups who are entering or will enter the fee allocation season this fall will be better equipped to ensure they have equal access to student fees.  Today, we start with an overview of the constitutional principles.”

Associated Baptist Press: “With the last of 10 Southern Baptist mission volunteers released from a Haitian jail May 17, one of her ‘Idaho 10′ co-laborers is breaking his silence and blaming the whole ordeal on meddling by the United Nations Children Fund, more commonly known as UNICEF . . . Thompson said the widely broadcast video of the Haitian children crying and asking to return home was made right after a UNICEF representative told them in Creole the Baptists were kidnappers who wanted to sell the children into slavery or harvest their organs for the black market.”

Congratulations to allied attorneys Jim Bopp, Tom Brejcha, Peter Breen, Natalie Decker, Brad Abramson, Steve Fitschen, Doug Myers, Bob Tyler, Jennifer Monk, Frank Mylar, Trent Roddy, Demetrios Stratis, Steve Taylor, and Michael Tierney, for their recent successes listed below. Please take time to congratulate them!

C-FAM: “Two recent initiatives out of the Council of Europe (CoE) on sexual orientation and gender identity are seen as the first major step to codify the radical Yogyakarta Principles into the framework of international institutions. The Yogyakarta Principles (Principles) is a 2007 document adopted by a group of human rights ‘experts’ including several United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs and members of UN treaty monitoring bodies . . . Although neither CoE document is binding, Roger Kiska, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, warned the Friday Fax, ‘These CoE documents in the future would be likely quoted by the ECHR and influence its interpretations.’”

Chicago Sun-Times: “Chicago’s Howard Brown Health Center, one of the nation’s largest gay health centers, is investigating allegations that staff members mishandled federal funding for a landmark HIV/AIDS study.”

The Advocate: “Legislation that would allow adoptions by a ‘second parent’ was soundly defeated Wednesday afternoon in a Louisiana House committee under a barrage of criticisms against gay-parent adoptions.” | HB 738

“State employees in Maryland can now sign up same-sex spouses as dependents, making them eligible to receive the same health care and other benefits afforded to husbands and wives of heterosexual state employees, according to Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) office.”

AP: “Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, asked whether Republicans could support Kagan, said the nominee ‘certainly has the qualifications, and certainly has, I think, the balance in her approach – at least so far – but I’d like to wait and see.’”

“The cross apparently was put up during the night, but it was unclear whether it was the original or a replica, Slater said. There was no immediate word on whether the cross will be covered, removed or allowed to stand . . . ”

ACLU: “Senator Al Franken (D-MN) introduced an important bill today that would offer remedies for discrimination “based on actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity” in public elementary and secondary schools. The Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) . . . A similar bill was introduced in the House of Representatives in January by Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) and currently has over 100 co-sponsors. The American Civil Liberties Union strongly supports these bills and urges swift action by both chambers . . . ” | Franken’s not yet found online, the House Version is here: HR 4530

AFP: “Moscow city hall has banned a gay pride march planned for later this month, citing security reasons, organiser Nikolai Alexeyev said Thursday.”

Conchita Sarnoff writing at the Huffington Post: “A few weeks back in my continued quest to abolish child sex trafficking in America and research for my upcoming book on the same subject, Patrick Trueman introduced me to Steve Wagner in D.C. Steve Wagner, President and Founder, the Renewal Forum, and former Director, Human Trafficking Program, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Patrick Trueman, former Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Criminal Division, U. S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., are two of the great leaders driving the fight to stop child sex trafficking in America.”

ABC: “A Pennsylvania school district that was at the center of a highly publicized ‘sexting’ case was sued Thursday by a teenager who claims her principal confiscated her cell phone, found nude images she had taken of herself and turned it over to prosecutors.”

KSTP: “Edina’s city council has unanimously approved to move forward with an ordinance aimed at giving more rights to same sex couples. If the ordinance passes, same sex couples could register as domestic partners.”

Ilya Somin has this post at the Volokh Conspiracy arguing that the Bluebook has become counterproductive.

FRC: “Family Research Council released a new analytic report today showing that women who did not grow up with their biological mother and father are much more likely to engage in homosexual conduct as adults than are women who grew up in an intact family . . . Click here to download the report.”

Gazette.net: “An anti-abortion pregnancy center has sued Montgomery County over a law requiring it to post information about the care it provides. Centro Tepeyac Women’s Center in Silver Spring believes the law is unconstitutional, said the center’s lead attorney [Casey Mattox]. Mattox, with the Alliance Defense Fund, said the law restricts freedom of speech.”

ADF Attorney Dale Schowengerdt writing at the Speak Up Movement / church blog: “Some people claim that religious leaders somehow dilute the Gospel when they tackle important ‘political’ issues or candidates from the pulpit. But, in fact, Church history is chalk full with examples of religious leaders who combated secular leaders while also boldly proclaiming the Gospel. St. Leo the Great is a prime case. In fact, few popes stand out in Church history like St. Leo the Great (which is why he’s called great!). Following up on [my last post] about Pope Benedict XVI’s bold leadership in troubled times, it could be said that St. Leo set the mold for bold and faithful shepherds who live in troubled times.”

ADF Attorney Heather Gebelin Hacker writing at the Speak Up Movement blog (via the Christian Post’s Advancing Religious Liberty blog): “There was a compelling article in National Geographic last year that recently came to my attention. It is about the plight of North Korean defectors attempting to escape from the brutal regime and the Christian missionaries who come to their aid . . . Sometimes, as Americans, it is easy for us to forget about or grow indifferent to the shocking loss of basic freedoms that millions of people endure around the world. And as Christians, it is easy for us to take for granted the freedom we have in this country, and fail to take measures to protect it. But as I’ve noted in a previous post, Thomas Jefferson was right when he said that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’”

Winston-Salem Journal: “Attorneys for the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners are arguing that a lower federal court erred when it banned the saying of sectarian prayers at the start of the board’s meetings . . . ‘There is no previous federal court in America that has determined that all sectarian references are unconstitutional,’ said [Mike Johnson], an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian organization active in church-state issues. The fund is paying the county’s costs to litigate the case.”

CitizenLink: “[David Cortman] of the Alliance Defense Fund said options for an appeal are being discussed with Nampa Academy. ‘We would be requesting that the 9th Circuit would prohibit the state from enforcing the order that stops all public schools including colleges, from being able to use any of these religious texts,’ Cortman said.” | ADF News Release

LifeNews: “Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit Wednesday against Montgomery County on behalf of a Silver Spring pregnancy resource center . . . ‘The government’s enforcement of policies against pro-life pregnancy centers and its refusal to apply the same rules to abortion facilities is an unconstitutionally discriminatory practice,’ said ADF Legal Counsel Casey Mattox.”

ADF attorney David Cortman appeared on AFR Talk’s Focal Point with Bryan Fischer to discuss the Idaho textbook ruling. | MP3 14:14 mins | Related posts: ZZ: Nampa Classical Academy v. Goesling | ADF Media information page

LA Times: “The Judiciary Committee asks for letters, memos, e-mails and more, before hearings on the Supreme Court nominee begin June 28. A library official says meeting the deadline would be ‘very difficult.’”

NCPA Policy Digest: “As we close out this school year, taxpayers may wonder what kind of bang we’re getting for our educational buck, asks Michael Quinn Sullivan, President and CEO of Empower Texans . . . ”

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears appeared along with Franklin Graham and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council on Family Talk with James Dobson to discuss the Pentagon’s censorship and the National Day of Prayer litigation. This was recorded in early May. | MP3 25:05 mins

National Right to Life News: “Colombian authorities suspended the medical license of Dr. Germán Arango Rojas after he refused to abort the baby of a girl with Down syndrome. The country’s attorney general has now asked the Constitutional Court to reverse the conviction . . . ”

AP: “Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan counted the days like a nervous student anticipating a tough oral exam before she made her first appearance last year at the court she’s now seeking to join.”

AP: “The Pakistani government blocked access to YouTube on Thursday because of ‘sacrilegious’ content in a growing Internet crackdown against sites deemed offensive to the country’s majority Muslim population.”

Pacific Justice Institute: “A group of parents who filed a lawsuit against Alameda Unified School District after the District denied their requests to excuse their young children from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) instruction are dismissing their suit. The material at issue (Lesson 9) gave a monopoly on anti-bullying and diversity instruction to only one protected class – LGBT. Lesson 9 excluded all other children who would be subject to bullying because of gender, race, religion, nationality and disability. The dismissal of the appeal comes after attorneys for the District informed the Pacific Justice Institute that the board of education voted to discontinue use of Lesson 9 and replace it with materials that cover each legally protected class . . . ”

Sen. Robert Byrd writes at The Hill: “On September 30, 1788, Pennsylvania became the first state to elect its United States senators, one of whom was William Maclay. In his 1789 journal Senator Maclay wrote, ‘I gave my opinion in plain language that the confidence of the people was departing from us, owing to our unreasonable delays. The design of the Virginians and of the South Carolina gentlemen was to talk away the time, so that we could not get the bill passed.’”

The Hill: “The Pentagon’s ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy will be nothing but a memory by year’s end, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared Wednesday . . . But she made it clear ending “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is at the top of her agenda.”

Rob R. Robinson, “Still Chastened”: Assessing the Scope of Constitutional Change Under an “Obama Court” (May 18, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1610251

“For the first time since 1968, the election of Barack Obama raises the possibility of creating a liberal majority on the Supreme Court. In this article, I assess whether such an ‘Obama Court’ would lead to significant constitutional change. Drawing on research regarding both the internal dynamics of the Supreme Court and the effect of the Court’s external environmental, I develop four benchmarks that historically correlate with more rapid and significant constitutional development. Taking each benchmark in turn, I argue that an ‘Obama Court’ would lack the coherence, the desire, and the power to fundamentally reshape the constitutional status quo. Instead, the Obama Court would be a mirror image of the later Rehnquist years, drifting to the left on the resolution of some constitutional problems, but in essence remaining a ‘chastened’ institution capable of only incremental change.”

Dieter Martiny, Is Unification of Family Law Feasible or Even Desirable? (May 20, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1612157

“A few decades ago the term ‘European family law’ sounded a little bit artificial or even strange. Today there is a growing awareness that the two notions have something in common. However, family law as such is still not a matter of general concern in the development of Eu¬ropean civil law. It is often only discussed in the context of European human rights, fundamental rights in the EU or private international law. However, compared to the past, one has become more and more aware of the problems originating from the diversity of family law in Europe and the methods needed to improve the current situation. Nevertheless, the scepticism towards unnecessary attempts at legislative unification and the creation of a state of sameness still overshadows the issue.”

Belinda Bennett, Genetics and the Transformation of the Personal (May 19, 2010). Monash University Law Review, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 296-314, 2009; Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 10/53. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1612066

“The shared nature of genetic information presents new challenges for legal understandings of the self. Within traditional legal discourses the individual is conceptualised as separate and autonomous. In contrast, the genetic individual is understood as inherently relational. This paper analyses the transformation of our understandings of the personal. The transformative processes are assessed through discussion of the changing meanings of privacy in the context of genetic information within families; changing views over access to information about biological parentage by children conceived through assisted reproductive technology; and preimplantation genetic diagnosis and the changing context of reproductive decision-making.”

Ellen P. Aprill, An Overview of Tax Issues for Synagogues (and Other Religious Congregations) (May 19, 2010). Loyola-LA Legal Studies Paper No. 2010-24. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1611930

“This 9 page document discusses the issues that most often have (or should have) been asked in the many years that I have been giving pro bono advice to synagogues locally and nationally: (a) requirements for setting compensation; (b) lobbying and political activities; (c) substantiation of charitable contributions, (d) charitable fundraising, (e) payroll taxes and withholding for clergy, (f) parsonage and housing allowances, and (g) discretionary funds. The summary of the applicable rules is designed to help guide lay leaders and congregational staff, whether volunteer or professional. Each topic appears on a single page, so that a page or pages can easily be distributed to those who have need of or interest in a particular topic; congregations have my permission to do so. With a very few exceptions, such as treatment of cantors and cantorial soloists, the issues discussed and rules summarized apply to many religious congregations and not just to synagogues.”