Daily Archives: June 3, 2010

Washington Times: “Anti-Christian bigotry is rearing its ugly head again. Comedy Central is developing a new animated series called ‘JC.’ Its premise is that Jesus Christ, alienated from his aloof and bored father, God, goes to New York City and has adventures in the Big Apple. Christ will be shown as a deracinated, cynical city slicker who partakes of the temptations and weirdness of modern urban life. He will hang out with prostitutes and drug dealers. He will be shown experimenting with marijuana and gay sex. He will slaughter gangbangers in street fights, preferably using a machete. Christ meets ‘Pulp Fiction’ – but in a cartoon. This is what Hollywood considers to be ‘entertainment.’”

CBS: “[I]n documents obtained by CBS News, Kagan–while working as a law clerk to the late Justice Thurgood Marshall – made her positions clear on some of the nation’s most contentious social issues.”

Reuters: “A United Nations committee that decides which nongovernmental organizations can be accredited to the world body moved on Thursday to keep out the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.”

Associated Press: “Thirty-six years after Vermonters voted to unify the court system, Gov. Jim Douglas on Thursday signed a bill to implement those changes . . . Under the 369-page bill Douglas signed, probate court districts no longer will follow the borders of Vermont’s 14 counties; instead the courts will have five probate districts, with rural counties bunched together and the most populous, Chittenden, forming its own district. New probate judges will be required to be lawyers.”

LifeSiteNews: “While the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) readies a June public hearing for a new drug billed as an advanced form of ‘emergency contraception,’ pro-life advocates are warning that ulipristal acetate is in fact the ‘next generation’ of the abortion drug RU-486. Ulipristal acetate functions similarly to RU-486, which has been related to a number of maternal deaths both in the U.S. and abroad.”

Abby Johnson writing at LifeSiteNews: “The Iowa Board of Medicine and the FDA must take immediate action to ensure that the dangerous telemed abortions are stopped. Iowans should demand that their elected officials take swift action to strip all taxpayer funding from Planned Parenthood.”

Fairbanks Daily News – Miner: “Gov. Sean Parnell has rejected lawmakers’ plan to expand eligibility for the Denali KidCare program, citing as justification his recent realization that the program helps aid abortions.”

CNBC: “House Republican leaders cleared a logjam Thursday tied to abortion coverage in the state’s health insurance plan and have approved a nearly $5 billion state budget. Democrats voted against the proposal that passed on a 64-54 party line vote because they said it shirked state obligations for basic health and education needs. But the measure passed largely because Republicans backed down from efforts to bar the state health insurance plan from paying for abortions for victims of rape and incest.”

Chicago Tribune: “Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen’s office says state auditors should look into whether the University of Wisconsin health system is improperly funding abortion training for medical students . . . Alliance Defense Fund attorney [Matthew S. Bowman], who wrote the initial letter to Van Hollen, said auditors should investigate. ‘The UW Hospital,’ he said, ‘is breaking the law in order to promote an ideological agenda in favor of abortion.’”

Hurriyet Daily News: “Though people who download pirated music and films are running afoul of Islamic law, those who want to divorce their spouses over instant-messaging services are in the clear, Turkey’s highest religious authority has said.”

WBZTV (AP): “Police say vandals ripped a 7-foot-tall statue of Jesus from its base and dragged it into the middle of Main Street in the remote western Maine town of Jackman.”

Idaho Press-Tribune: “Nampa Classical Academy headmaster Val Bush will resign his position with the school. Terms of the resignation are not final and school officials don’t know when Bush’s last day will be.”

Forbes (AP): “A Roman Catholic church rectory in the northwest Indiana town of Merrillville might lose its tax-exempt status because a politician moved in to save money at the invitation of the pastor.”

Washington Post: “The ACLU contends the units were designed to house terrorists, but also hold inmates convicted of other offenses. Among the inmates at the CMU in Terre Haute is American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh. Both groups contend a disproportionate number of CMU inmates – perhaps as many as 60 to 70 percent – are Muslim. The Center also contends that others are assigned to the CMU because of their political beliefs. In one case, it says, an inmate was transferred out of the CMU after he agreed to drop a lawsuit against the prisons bureau.”

Christian Today: “An Afghan parliamentary secretary has called for the public execution of Christian converts from the parliament floor, according to International Christian Concern.”

“The undisputed facts of record in this case show that–whatever the Eagles’ intended message–Pleasant Grove has, since the beginning, displayed the monument for reasons of history, not religion. Moreover, there is no evidence that anyone in Pleasant Grove government had any idea what Summum’s religious beliefs were, and thus it cannot be said that the Pleasant Grove government demonstrated a preference for one religion over another.”

ADF Attorney Joe Infranco writing at Townhall: “Last month, in what can only be described as a cowardly criminal act, some unknown person or persons crept into the Mojave Desert under cover of darkness and hacked down a memorial cross honoring veterans. Now, someone is attempting to take credit for the act, and yet, as if to cement their cowardice, doing so anonymously. Here is a simple truth the perpetrators—whoever they are—will never understand: Their actions will not discourage those among us in this fight. To the contrary, it makes us more determined to stay the course.”

KING5.com: “On average, a child will have their first experience with online porn at age 11. That’s just one of the statistics on Internet porn compiled this week by the business blog Online MBA.”

Associated Press: “Eight-year-old Isabella Miller-Jenkins and birth mother Lisa Miller failed to appear for a court-ordered Jan. 1 custody swap in which Miller’s former partner, Janet Jenkins, was to get the girl.”

NY Daily News: “The state’s highest court has upheld the merger of two Bronx courts, rejecting a lower court ruling that could have jeopardized 147,000 misdemeanor convictions.”

C-FAM: “The abortion giant, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), has just released its latest financial statement. The report boasts of increased spending on youth programs and a significant increase in funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with an overall 20% boost in income as compared to 2008.”

Columbia Tribune: “In a backroom at Boone Tavern yesterday, a group of businessmen and -women sat down for a working lunch. About 30 owners of adult video stores and gentlemen’s clubs from across Missouri gathered to coordinate their response to what they’re calling a war on the state’s erotic services industry. A bill now sitting on Gov. Jay Nixon’s desk would make it illegal for dancers to perform fully nude in clubs, and this, club owners say, would put them out of business.”

CNSNews: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says she believes she must pursue public policies ‘in keeping with the values’ of Jesus Christ, ‘The Word made Flesh.’”

The Christian Institute: “The Dignitas suicide clinic is being investigated by the Swiss authorities after it was revealed that the controversial organisation had helped a mentally ill man commit suicide. Swiss law requires that every patient at the facility must be able to understand the consequences of their actions, and that they are of sound mind.”

The Christian Institute: “The controversial Irish Civil Partnership Bill has passed its committee stage and could become law before October. Churchgoers are concerned about the Bill, which contains a prison sentence of up to six months and a fine of up to €2,000 for those who fall foul of it.” | Related: Irish Civil Partnership Bill endangers freedom of conscience; Irish Civil Partnership Bill is “direct attack” on conscience

CNN: “The city clerk’s office in New York will begin conducting domestic partnership ceremonies for gay couples starting Thursday.” | Related: “New York City clerk’s offices will soon conduct civil ceremonies for gay couples”

The Trentonian (AP): “Officials will consider whether a Catholic university in New Jersey should offer a course on gay marriage. Seton Hall University’s Mission and Identity Committee will meet behind closed doors on the South Orange campus Thursday. It’s not clear how long it will take to make a recommendation.” | Related: Newark archbishop not happy with college course on same-sex “marriage”

Times of Malta: “What happens in the bedroom is, up to a point, the government’s business, because it often had to solve problems caused there, the chairman of the House Social Affairs Committee, Edwin Vassallo said . . . One of the major topics was the issue of homosexual couples and children. Even though Malta did not allow adoption by gay couples, Ms Calleja said ‘we’re creative and still find a way to have children’. These methods included surrogacy, artificial insemination and IVF and also intercourse with a member of the opposite sex.”

The Catholic Herald: “The Catholic Education Service (CES) has warned Catholic schools against taking up Government proposals to become academies. Reacting to the publication of the Academies Bill, Oona Stannard, the CES’s chief executive and director, said the proposals could jeopardise a school’s Catholicity. Miss Stannard said Catholic schools hoping to take up academy status faced losing independence over admissions, sex education, head teachers and hours spent teaching RE.” | Academies Bill | “Academies bill is about centralisation not empowerment”

Boston Globe: “State Senate leaders, setting up a clash with their House counterparts, said today that they will propose that Massachusetts license three casinos in three regions of the state but no slot machines at the state’s four ailing racetracks.”

ADF Attorney David J. Hacker writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Today, I examine the constitutional implications of melding student fee allocation with the democratic process: the student fee referendum . . . The Supreme Court has ruled that as a condition for requiring students to pay a student fee that funds disagreeable speech, universities must allocate the fees on a viewpoint neutral basis. When students vote to fund particular student groups via a referendum, they violate viewpoint neutrality . . . Recently, in Amidon v. Student Association of the State University of New York at Albany, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that student activity fee referenda violate viewpoint neutrality.” | Related: David Hacker: Allocating student activity fees based on clear standards

Catholic News Agency: “Bishop Luigi Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia, was reportedly stabbed to death in Iskendurun, Turkey on Thursday by his driver, who also served as his aide.” | Vatican Radio

Associated Press: “Police say passers-by complained after they removed their tops and revealed their surgically enhanced breasts over Memorial Day weekend. A lifeguard asked them to put their tops back on. They initially refused, but covered up before police arrived.”

Washington Examiner: “The Mexican consular office in Los Angeles issued a flier, a copy of which was obtained by The Examiner, listing the Catalina Island Country Club as the location of its satellite office. It invites Mexicans to visit the office to obtain the identification, called matricular cards, by appointment.” | Update from the Examiner: “Mexican government officials have moved their satellite consular office from the Catalina Island Country Club to a Catholic Church – citing protection under the Geneva Convention – after it was discovered that they did not have the appropriate paperwork to issue the island’s illegal immigrants identification cards.”

Ilya Somin writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “A recent poll conducted by Findlaw shows that two thirds of Americans cannot name even one Supreme Court justice.”

Press-Register: “Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, is asking the Defense Department to turn over records related to military recruitment at Harvard Law School, where U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan both taught and served as dean.”

Washington Post: “The Government Accountability Office revealed last week that 27 of the 33 federal courthouses built by the General Services Administration since 2000 contain about 3.6 million square feet of extra space — or 28 percent of the total federal court space built in the last decade. The excess space has soaked up $835 million in construction costs and $51 million in annual rent and operations costs, the GAO said.”

E.J. Dionne Jr. writing in the Washington Post: “In a remarkable speech that received far too little attention, former Supreme Court justice David Souter took direct aim at the conservatives’ favorite theory of judging. Souter’s verdict: It ‘has only a tenuous connection to reality.’ At issue is ‘originalism,’ an approach to reading the Constitution whose seeming precision has given conservatives a polemical advantage over the liberals’ ‘living Constitution’ idea that appears to let judges say our founding document means whatever they want it to mean.” | Via How Appealing.

New York Personal Injury Law Blog: “And it turns out, while at the BigLaw firm of Williams & Connolly between 1989 and 1991, Kagan actually did some First Amendment work that was interesting. In fact, of the 10 ‘most significant litigated matters which you personally handled’ that the the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her to list, five had to do with the First Amendment. And, despite being a very junior associate, she was actually given the chance to argue a couple of times in court . . . So here is Elena Kagan’s Top 10 List of private cases.”

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, Archbishop for the Military Services USA, June 1, 2010 statement regarding the potential repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”: “The effect of a repeal of the current legislation has the potential of being enormous and overwhelming. Nothing should be changed until there is certainty that morale will not suffer. Sacrificing the moral beliefs of individuals or their living conditions to respond to merely political considerations is neither just nor prudent especially for the armed forces at a time of war. Catholics believe that nothing will be done if there is a careful and prudent evaluation of the effects of a change . . . The Archdiocese for the Military Services-the only jurisdiction charged with the pastoral care of all Catholics in the military, VA Administration, and at the service of the Federal Government outside of the boundaries of the United States, which is also charged with endorsing Roman Catholic priests urges the Congress not to repeal the current policy for the Armed Forces.” | Via Religion Clause.

Detroit Free Press: “In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that if a suspect has been read and understands his or her Miranda rights, police can interrogate him or her indefinitely, unless the suspect tells them outright that he or she is not talking to them . . . The case grew out of a January 2000 shooting death outside Lou’s Deli on Greenfield Road. Van Chester Thompkins remained silent for nearly three hours . . . Hours into the interrogation, Detective Christopher Helgert asked Thompkins if he believed in God. Thompkins said yes. Then Helgert asked: ‘Did you pray to God to forgive you for shooting that boy down?’ And Thompkins said yes again. To police, it sounded like a confession, and it helped convict Thompkins of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.” | Via Religion Clause.

The Moscow Times: “Moskovskaya Troika, the company [Nikolai Maslov] launched just two months ago, has already built a dedicated following among the city’s Russian Orthodox. Its drivers are all devout believers, who are more likely to share a prayer than rant about traffic or the weather . . . But as Maslov cashes in on a resurgent interest in the Russian Orthodox Church, he also has had to parry complaints that Moskovskaya Troika is more about excluding others than catering to a few.” | Via Religion Clause.

Religion Clause: “In Mercer Island Citizens for Fair Process v. Tent City 4, (WA App., June 1, 2010), a Washington state appellate court dismissed as untimely challenges to a decision by the Mercer Island City Council to to enter a Temporary Use Agreement permitting the Mercer Island United Methodist Church to host a temporary encampment for the homeless in 2008.”

ADF attorney Jeffery J. Ventrella appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. | MP3 – 7:37 mins

LifeNews: “The Alaska Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a trial court’s finding that petitions for a parental notification initiative do not contain confusing and misleading language and are therefore valid . . . Kevin Clarkson, an attorney affiliated with the pro-life legal group Alliance Defense Fund successfully argued against Planned Parenthood’s claims on behalf of the Alaska Family Council, the primary supporter of the initiative. ‘A minor child’s well being is worth more than Planned Parenthood’s bottom line,’ said Clarkson.” | ADF News Release

CNSNews: “Last Thursday, the Grand Chamber of the [European Court of Human Rights] granted a request by the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund to intervene as a third party on behalf of the MEPs — from 11 different countries — who say the court’s decision is ‘defective for a variety of reasons.’ . . . [Roger Kiska], legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund in Europe, told CNSNews.com that the European court has no jurisdiction in the matter, and that the Italian courts are the only ones with the ability to properly adjudicate such cases. ‘Member states are the only ones who can understand their own traditions,’ Kiska said.” | ADF News Release

“The decision means that the measure, which would require parents to be notified if their minor daughter seeks an abortion, will go on the ballot for voter approval during the Aug. 24 primary.”

“[O]ur choice is between government restraint rooted in respect for nature, or government free to follow History wherever government says History marches.”

National Review Online: “Fertilization in humans and other mammals produces a new member of the species in the embryonic stage of its natural development. That is to say, the entity produced by the union of spermatozoon and oocyte is a complete, though developmentally immature, organism . . . Now, someone might object to this position on the ground that, after the sperm penetrates the ovum, it remains possible with modern technology to extract that sperm. So fertilization does not, someone might argue, result in the gametes ceasing to be. And if an embryo had been produced by their union, what happened to it? Did it die?”

Pioneer Press: “Emphasizing the suit’s potential prominence, [Jordan Lorence] of the Alliance Defense Fund would spearhead the effort. Lorence won a case at the California Supreme Court reversing San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s unilateral decision to issue same-sex marriage licenses, and he is assisting in a nationally watched California gay marriage case awaiting closing arguments in federal court. ‘They’re basically asking for a right that has no limitations to it,’ Lorence said, adding that a victory for the plaintiffs would be ‘a high-magnitude earth tremor on marriage.’”

New York Times: “At least 11 states have passed laws this year regulating or restricting abortion, giving opponents of abortion what partisans on both sides of the issue say is an unusually high number of victories. In four additional states, bills have passed at least one house of the legislature.”

Minnesota Independent: “In response to a lawsuit filed in Hennepin County last month challenging Minnesota’s ban on same-sex marriage, the Minnesota Family Council is bringing in the Alliance Defense Fund, an evangelical legal group founded by James Dobson . . . ‘We should be strengthening marriage, not undermining it,’ [Jordan Lorence] said in a [press release] Wednesday. ‘Once again, activists are trying to use the courts to force something on the people that they have repeatedly rejected.’”