Daily Archives: May 26, 2010

Chicago Breaking News Center: “Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who recently was barred from practicing medicine in his native Great Britain, is expected to tell a ‘vaccination choice’ rally this afternoon that he will resume his autism research in the U.S., even though his work linking a childhood vaccine to the disorder has been widely discredited.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “An administrative court in Istanbul has ruled that the child of an atheist couple can be exempt from compulsory religion classes at a primary school, Anatolia news agency reported Tuesday . . . Along with Christian and Jewish citizens, atheist people should have the right to be exempt from religion classes, the court said, adding that the Turkish Constitution and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms protect freedom of belief.”

CitizenLink | Drive Thru: “The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to review a case involving an Arizona school choice program could have huge ramifications nationwide. And in Arizona alone, more than 27,000 school children could be impacted by the decision . . . So now the Alliance Defense Fund and other groups have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. It’s great news that the Court has chosen to do so. But there’s a lot at stake.”

NBC New York: “An Upper West Side conservative blogger has placed ads on at least 30 city buses which read ‘Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam?’ Pamela Geller, who is also affiliated with ‘Stop the Islamization of America’ and the movement against the planned mosque two blocks from ground zero, paid several thousand dollars for the ads, which also include the URL for a website entitled ‘Refuge From Islam.’”

Chicago K-12 Examiner: “Illinois House Rep. Joyce just filed yet another amendment to SB 2494, the voucher bill. Amendment 4 was sent today to the Rules Committee, which can mean just about anything,”

Telegraph: “Doctors will be allowed forcibly to sedate the 55-year-old woman in her home and take her to hospital for surgery. She could be forced to remain on a ward afterwards. The case has sparked an intense ethical and legal debate. Experts questioned whether lawyers and doctors should be able to override the wishes of patients and whether force was ever justified in providing medical care.”

Telegraph: “The database, which goes live on Wednesday, discloses those who refused to conform to the doctrine of the established Anglican Church including Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers . . . The digitised papers originally come from the London Metropolitan Archives, which is run by the City of London authority and were compiled by Ancestry.co.uk, a family history website.”

The Gospel Herald: “Two well-known female converts in Iran were acquitted of all charges and arrived safely in another country on Saturday. Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh were cleared of apostasy, anti-state activity, and participating in illegal gatherings, reported Elam Ministries, an Iran-focused ministry that has followed the case since the beginning. But Iranian authorities warned them that they will face serious consequences if they continue their Christian activities in Iran.”

The Christian Institute: “BBC television is in the hands of ‘secular and sceptical’ executives who ignore religion, a Radio 4 presenter has said. Bosses at the Corporation’s TV channels ‘view religious coverage as a rather tiresome obligation to be minimised rather than a rich and promising area to explore’, Roger Bolton said.”

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Several months ago I was reviewing a policy at Penn State-Erie when I stumbled upon the ‘Safe Zone’ at Penn State-Behrend (the Erie campus). I finally got around to blogging about the school’s decision to extend its “Safe Zone” coverage to atheist and vegetarian students – something I had never seen before . . . Surprisingly, someone at Penn State – Behrend evidently read my blog and the school quickly altered its “Safe Zone–Behrend” to remove atheists and vegetarians. (You can also view the same website here, with a delicious treat added). This means that these woebegone classes have now been cast back to the lions (seriously, that’s their mascot) of Penn State–Behrend alongside the Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic (who evidently were not convinced enough of the non-existence of God for the ‘Safe Zone’), omnivorous, and other students who must fend for themselves in the wilds of Erie, PA.”

Cleveland Plain Dealer: “Kids sending other kids naughty cell-phone pictures could become a juvenile crime with its own name–sexting — under a bill the Ohio House passed Wednesday in an 84-12 vote. Under the legislation, minors sending other minors nude pictures of themselves through a cell phone or a computer would be classified as an ‘unruly child,’ meaning that juvenile authorities could get involved . . .”

Great Falls Tribune: “The Montana Foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union believes an invocation and benediction that occurred during graduation ceremonies at Montana State University-Northern in Havre earlier this month were unconstitutional . . . The ACLU charges that MSU-Northern asked a local pastor — Tim Zerger of Community Alliance Church — to give the invocation and benediction, and that he was clearly ‘proselytizing’ by invoking the image of Jesus Christ during the ceremonies, which the ACLU said violates the separation of church and state . . . ”

ADF attorney David Cortman appeared on the Michael Medved Show to discuss the Arizona tuition tax credit litigation at the U.S. Supreme Court. | MP3 22:54 mins | ADF Media Information

One News Now: “The Rutherford Institute is urging the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm legislative prayers in Forsyth County, North Carolina, as constitutional.”

AP: “Sen. Ben Nelson says he will vote to repeal the law that bans gays from serving openly in the military. The announcement raises the chances for the measure’s passage.”

ADF attorney David Cortman appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the Arizona tuition tax credit litigation at the U.S. Supreme Court. | MP3 5:31 mins | ADF Media Information

Boston Globe: “House budget negotiators told the Senate on Wednesday they cannot agree to legalizing video slots in New Hampshire to fix a $295 million budget hole.”

Yahoo News: “The nation’s top uniformed military officer told graduating Air Force Academy cadets they need to support a changing military as Congress nears a vote on repealing the military’s ban on openly gay servicemembers.”

Judicial Watch Press Release: “Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Justice Department to obtain documents related to the agency’s decision to dismiss the claims against several members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense who were accused of engaging in voter intimidation during the 2008 presidential campaign (U.S. v. New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense).”

North Carolina Right to Life: “Pro-lifers from across the state, as far away as Charlotte and Asheville in the west to Wilmington in the east, converged on the Legislature today for the Rally for the Choose Life License Plate . . . Dorothy Yeung, the last speaker, read a statement from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) expressing their solidarity with the efforts to get a hearing for the Choose Life Plate. ADF indicated that they would ‘evaluate the group’s legal options in the event that the legislature continues to deny pro-life persons their right to free expression.’”

Washington Times: “A crisis pregnancy center in Silver Spring has become the second group in Maryland to sue a Washington-area government over laws that pro-lifers say are part of a national campaign to snuff out anti-abortion speech . . . The Alliance Defense Fund, which is part of the legal team involved in the Montgomery County lawsuit, said NARAL’s investigations are part of a nationwide strategy by pro-choice groups to force crisis pregnancy centers nationwide to post signs so that women intending to get abortions will not unwittingly enter. ‘The CPCs are taking away their clients,’ spokesman [Matt Bowman] said.”

Christian Science Monitor: “Germany reports its birthrate is at a historic low. To raise it, the country needs to make some practical changes, such as daycare that is more widely available. But it also needs to change attitudes.”

LifeNews: “Louisiana lawmakers today moved a bill forward that would have the state become the next to opt out of at least some of the abortion funding in the health care bill President Barack Obama signed into law. Three states have turned their bills into law and three other states have passed them . . . ”

Christian Science Monitor: “Don’t ask, don’t tell doesn’t fly with NATO members, except Turkey and the US. NATO nations now allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. But 53 nations, including North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria, ban homosexuals from military service.”

AP: “Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday that they had broken up a major online international child pornography ring that operated as a hierarchy and at its peak had more than 1,000 members trading millions of sexually explicit images.”

BlueRidgeNow.com: “People who think the County Commission should say a Christian prayer before its meetings came out in force Tuesday night. They think a majority of the residents in Henderson.”

The Raw Story: “A Fort Wainwright soldier who posted a video mocking Iraqi children on Facebook is being investigated by the Army . . . The boys are also asked if they engage in homosexual acts and they appear to nod and smile.”

“Health statistics show that men who have sex with men have a higher rate of diseases including HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B. Gay men who would be likely to donate have an HIV prevalence that is over 15 times higher than that of the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . . .”

AP: “The prediction came after several lawmakers on the panel signaled their support, including Sen. Ben Nelson, a conservative Democrat from Nebraska who had been considered a holdout.”

Boston Herald: “Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley is asking a judge to strike down a federal ban on gay marriage because it interferes with state’s rights to define marriage . . .”

. . . homosexuals in the military are about three times more likely to commit sexual assaults than heterosexuals are, relative to their numbers . . .

Hartford Courant: “A federal judge Tuesday toured First Cathedral, the mega-church at the center of a church-state legal battle prompted by Enfield’s plans to rent the church for two high school graduations next month.”

NY Post: “Angry relatives of 9/11 victims last night clashed with supporters of a planned mosque near Ground Zero at a raucous community-board hearing in Manhattan. After four hours of public debate, members of Community Board 1 finally voted 29-1 in support of the project. Nine members abstained, arguing that they wanted to table the issue and vote at a later date. The board has no official say over whether the estimated $100 million mosque and community center gets built . . . ”

The Hill: “House Republicans are preparing to mount a vigorous defense of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy President Bill Clinton implemented in 1993. GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber are poised to vote en masse against the defense authorization bill if it includes an amendment to repeal the law barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military . . . ”

ADF attorney Mike Johnson appeared on the Frank Pastore Show to discuss the AZ tuition tax credit case and Idaho’s censorship of the Great Works of Western Civilization in public charter schools. | MP3 – 20:47 mins | ADF Media information in the AZ case | ADF Media information in the Idaho case

Society of American Law Teachers Press Release: “Chief among the rankings’ ill effects is their impact on admissions decisions in general, and on diversity in admissions in particular. Because LSAT scores figure so prominently into the computation of a school’s rank, few schools are willing to compromise their ranking by accepting ‘nontraditional’ students whose merit is measured in ways other than a single test score . . . The U.S. News rankings’ emphasis on LSAT scores directly undercuts a school’s ability to admit a diverse class.”

Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. writing at First Things | On The Square: “In O’Bryan v. Holy See, currently being heard in the U.S. district court in Kentucky, plaintiffs’ attorneys are seeking to depose Vatican officials—including, potentially, the pope himself—to determine what they allegedly ignored or covered up about the handling of clergy sex-abuse cases by American bishops. The plaintiffs’ legal argument hinges on the premise that bishops are, in effect, Roman-controlled employees or officials. That argument is not merely false in practice. It is also revolutionary in consequence. In effect, it would redefine the nature of the Church in a manner favorable to plaintiffs’ attorneys but alien to her actual structure and identity. To put it another way, plaintiffs’ attorneys want a federal court to tell the Church what she really is, whether she agrees or not, and then to penalize her for being what she isn’t.”

Times of India: “Having emerged as the hottest destination for surrogacy, it is but natural for India to take the lead in evolving a law that safeguards the interests of all the parties concerned, including the child born through assisted reproductive technology (ART). There is no precedent to the proposal under consideration that foreigners or NRIs seeking to rent a womb in India be made to give evidence that their country of residence recognized surrogacy and would give citizenship to a child born through agreement.”

“This case concerns the crime of neonaticide, which is the killing of a newborn child on the first day of life. This crime is practically unknown in the federal courts. Neonaticide is a crime relating to family and domestic concerns and, thus, federal courts do not generally deal with these crimes.”

ADF Attorney Daniel Blomberg writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “The battle over whether chaplains’ and Service members’ First Amendment rights to religious liberty will be sacrificed to make room for normalized homosexuality in the military is reaching a critical phase this week . . . Thankfully, chaplaincy organizations are keeping up the fight. Many of these organizations, which supply the brave men who make up the chaplaincy corps and provide them official endorsement so they can serve as military chaplains, have released strong statements against repeal. The organizations that oppose repeal include the North American Mission Board (which is the endorsing organization for the Southern Baptist Convention), the Evangelical Free Church of America, Grace Church International, and the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.”

ADF Attorney Daniel Blomberg writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “While churches need not fear, hundreds of thousands of small non-profits groups nationwide, including para-church ministries, may find their tax-exempt status at stake come next year. That’s because of an IRS deadline by which small charities had to file some required information–which came and went on May 17, 2010. If you missed it, though, you’re in good company–over 200,000 other charities missed the deadline, too.”

OneNewsNow: “Italy wants to keep crucifixes in public schools — and in its fight for that right before the European Court of Human Rights, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has filed a motion to intervene . . . ‘The Italian courts had decided that they were a symbol of the history and culture of the country, and they went to Strasbourg to the European Court of Human Rights where they ruled that the presence of the crosses indoctrinated the children,’ [Roger Kiska] reports.” | For more information on the case, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/country-italy+court-european-court-of-human-rights/

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 says the law is unconstitutional, said [Casey Mattox], the center’s lead attorney. Mattox, with the Alliance Defense Fund, said the county law restricts freedom of speech.”

WHIO: “The Alliance Defense Fund, a national organization, has volunteered to cover any litigation that may occur from putting the monument back.”

Arizona Republic: “The Potter’s House Christian Fellowship Center has been shut down by the city of Glendale. Under a cease-and-desist order issued April 26, the church’s pastor, the Rev. James Martinez, could be cited and thrown into jail if he returns to the sanctuary. Simply put: Glendale doesn’t allow churches in industrial areas and even if it did, Martinez’s church doesn’t meet city safety standards . . . That raises the eyebrows of [Daniel Blomberg], of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group. ‘Why are they going to allow a drive-in movie theater but not a church?’ he asked.”

Baptist Press: “The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) appealed the opinion to the Supreme Court on behalf of ACSTO. It denied Arizona’s program violates the establishment clause, since it deals with private choices and donations. ADF asked the high court to overturn the Ninth Circuit decision because the foes of the program have suffered no injuries and have no legal standing to challenge it. ‘This program is neutral; the state never touches the private money involved…,’ ADF senior legal counsel [David Cortman] said in a written statement.” | ADF News Release

Blog of the Legal Times: “But it was a former Harvard Federalist Society president, now a Republican political consultant, who captured most of the spotlight. Sarah Isgur, a 2008 graduate of the law school, had high praise for Kagan’s assistance in ‘helping me get the Federalist Society to the level I felt was needed.’ According to Isgur, Kagan encouraged the conservative student group to give an award that would bring conservative leaders to campus so students could interact with them and build relationships.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In a press release yesterday, Americans United said that it has written officials in the three states urging them to refuse to send prisoners to Corrections Concepts. The identical letters argue that state funding for prisoners in religious facilities would violate the Establishment Clause. The Oklahoma Department of Corrections has already decided not to send prisoners . . . ”

AP: “Sixteen percent of U.S. married women say they use the pill. That compares to 29 percent in the United Kingdom and more than 40 percent in the Netherlands and France.”

“The Ranking Member on the House Armed Services Committee today called the rush by the White House and Congressional Democrats to repeal the Clinton-era ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law and policy as an affront to military personnel and their families.”

Foreign Policy: “Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein shares his hate mail with both friends and strangers the way elderly people show off photos of their grandkids. He has plenty of it to share. For the past four years, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has been doing battle with a Christian subculture that, he believes, is trying to Christianize the U.S. armed forces with the help of a complicit Pentagon brass. He calls it the “fundamentalist Christian parachurch-military-corporate-proselytizing complex,” a mouthful by which he means holy warriors in contempt of the constitutional barrier between church and state . . . ”

Hat tip: Religion Clause Blog

SCOTUS Blog: “The law provides that those who opt for public funding get escalating subsidies if their non-subsidized candidates raise significantly greater amounts of private money. The candidates without subsidies contend that this curbs their First Amendment right to raise and spend money, penalizing them by turning their added campaign efforts into further underwriting for their opponents. Their application (09A1133) in McComish, et al., v. Bennett, et al . . .”

Financial Times: “Adm Willard said the US viewed China’s growing influence in Asia as positive . . . ”

Drudge linked to this site this morning which offers detailed statistics on government debt. Learn about the site here.

MYFoxDC.com: “A 58-year-old British transsexual Tuesday lost her court battle over the state-funded health service’s refusal to pay for a breast enlargement, which she claimed violated her human rights.”

Thaddeus Mason Pope, Reuniting Human Rights and Bioethics to Address End-of-Life Medical Futility Disputes (May 24, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1615015

“The fields of bioethics and human rights should be reunited and harmonized. Each can benefit from the other. Human rights can supply a language and framework to articulate arguments mooted and invisible in bioethics vocabulary. Bioethics has, for too long, focused on a too-narrow range of high-technology issues affecting few people. Human rights’ focus on globalization and public health can be used to beneficially reorient bioethics to address broader issues. Similarly, bioethics can benefit human rights. While end-of-life issues have been thoroughly examined in the bioethics world, they have just started coming onto the human rights agenda. Human rights law can gain a rich vocabulary and conceptual toolkit from bioethics.”

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and Mega-Churches: Demonstrating the Limits of Religious Land Use Exemptions in Federal Legislation
Heather M. Welch, 39 U. Balt. L. Rev. 255 (2010)

“This Comment uses the phenomenon of mega-churches as a vehicle to illustrate the common criticisms RLUIPA opponents have raised and to demonstrate the significant impact RLUIPA has had and has the potential to have on local land use regulations as well as on the communities coping with the impact of mega-churches. This Comment concludes that RLUIPA and similar federal legislation that applies broad First Amendment protection to all religious land use is ill equipped to address secular land use by religious institutions like mega-churches. The substantial disconnect between the land use challenges that local governments currently face and the authority that they retain under RLUIPA compels the conclusion that RLUIPA is both impractical in application and unconstitutional. Locally developed land use regulations are better equipped to meet the demands of a developing religious society and account for all of the interests at stake when a land use dispute arises.”

The Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act: Does It Really Work?
Christa E. Laneri, 16 Tex. Wesleyan L. Rev. 457 (2010)

“This Article will begin with a background of the TRFRA by exploring the developments in federal law that led to its adoption. It will then examine a proposed definition of ‘substantial burden’ given by a Texas court, followed by examples of similar definitions from courts outside of Texas. This Article will then provide current examples of how Texas courts could benefit greatly from a definition of ‘substantial burden.’”

Keep It Clean: How Public Universities May Constitutionally Enforce Policies Limiting Student Speech at College Basketball Games
Jonathan Singer, 39 U. Balt. L. Rev. 299 (2010)

“This Comment will approach the issue from a different angle. A consideration of the university’s basic educational mission will be necessary to provide the appropriate context under which potential policies must be analyzed. Student codes of conduct from the University of Oregon and the University of Maryland will be relied upon as examples of policies that inadequately tackle poor fan behavior.”

Selling the Government Property Beneath a Religious Monument That Violates the Establishment Clause: A Constitutional Remedy or Infringement?
Jonathan R. Slabaugh, 29 St. Louis U. Pub. L. Rev. 301 (2009)

“This note will analyze whether the sale of a constitutionally infringing monument and the government property beneath it is sufficient to cure the Establishment Clause violation and whether it is permissible under the Constitution. Section II briefly surveys the Supreme Court’s turbulent Establishment Clause jurisprudence pertaining to religious monuments in public parks. Section III analyzes possible remedial options for curing an unconstitutional display of a religious monument in a public park. Section IV provides this author’s analysis of whether the overwhelming presumption that a sale of government property beneath an unconstitutional monument is sufficient to protect religious equality and whether the presumption, as applied, conforms to the principles of the Constitution. Section V concludes with this author’s proposal for a standard that is not prone to manipulation and that would provide more protection for the sacred right of religious equality.”

Gilbert A. Holmes, The Conversations About the Intersecting Institutions of Marriage (Spring 1998). Texas Wesleyan Law Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1998. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1564966

“At the 1998 Association of American Law Schools (“AALS”) Annual Meeting, the sections on Family and Juvenile Law, Gay and Lesbian Issues, Minority Groups, and Women in Legal Education jointly sponsored a program entitled, The Intersecting Institutions of Marriage: Conflicts and Consequences. The goal of the program was to identify and explore the various ways in which the intersections of marriage as a legal, religious, social, and economic institution created and possibly determined important legal and social issues. The program included legal scholars who provided interesting, thoughtful and provocative reflections on the institution of marriage and on the reverberations flowing from the intersecting issues.”