Daily Archives: June 9, 2010

Hindustan Times: “The fate of a French homosexual’s twins, born to a surrogate mother in Mumbai, rests with the judiciary in France. The French researcher has been stranded in Mumbai with his twins as he is facing difficulty in getting permission to take them home.”

Washington Times: “A study that shows favorable outcomes for teens raised by lesbian mothers is strengthening calls for acceptance of gay families, while opponents say such research is too flawed to be believed . . . The study is ‘inherently unreliable’ and ‘does nothing to undermine other studies which prove the common-sense idea that kids need both a mom and a dad,’ countered [Brian Raum], senior legal counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which defends traditional marriage in lawsuits.” | Related: “Kids of lesbians have fewer behavioral problems, study suggests”

Guardian: “Drawn up by ecumenical charity, Churchads.net, the ‘Ultrasound Jesus’ campaign is backed by a number of Christian organisations including the Church of England, the Baptist Union, the United Reformed Church, the Anglican and the Methodist churches . . . The National Secular Society (NSS) has criticised the ad, saying it gives the impression that it is politically motivated.”

DNAinfo: “Civil liberties activists criticized the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York on Tuesday for not allowing a public school in Chelsea to teach sex education in a building owned by the church. The Clinton School for Writers and Artists recently agreed to move from 21st Street to a building owned by the Catholic church at the St. Michael’s Academy on 33rd Street under the condition that no sex education classes are taught at the new location.”

South County Spotlight: “The Oregon Department of Education is asking the St. Helens School District to alter its proposed middle school sex education curriculum because the state agency says it violates state law by not adequately teaching about contraceptives.”

“The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches in the United States, released a report Tuesday showing that nearly 90 percent approve of contraception . . . ‘Our leaders indicate that contraception can be utilized if all biblical purposes of sex are upheld and that it may actually aid in keeping the balance,’ [Leith] Anderson noted.”

Catholic World News quoting Asia News:  ”Bishop Louis Pelâtre, vicar apostolic of Istanbul, described as ‘calumnies’ the assertions attributed to Murat Altun, the bishop’s driver and admitted murderer, that he had killed Bishop Padovese because he was defending himself from the bishop’s homosexual advances . . . Witnesses said they heard the bishop cry out for help. But more importantly, is that they heard screams of Murat immediately after the murder. According to these sources, he climbed on the roof of the house shouted: “I killed the great Satan! Allah Akbar!”  This call coincides perfectly with the idea of beheading, making sense that it is like a ritual sacrifice against evil. This correlates with the murders of ultranationalist groups and Islamic fundamentalists who apparently want to eliminate Christians from Turkey . . . ”

Damon W. Root writing at Reason: “Libertarians typically favor an aggressive judiciary that is willing to overturn mistaken precedents and strike down unconstitutional state and federal statutes. The Georgetown law professor Randy Barnett, for instance, has argued that the courts should adopt a ‘presumption of liberty,’ meaning that the government should be required ‘to justify its restriction on liberty, instead of requiring the citizen to establish that the liberty being exercised is somehow “fundamental.”‘ That position is almost the exact opposite of the judicial restraint advocated by Meese and other conservatives. As Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review has put it, judicial restraint ‘is best understood as a finger on the scales, tipping judges in close cases against invalidating the actions of Congress or state or local governments.’” | Via Randy Barnett at The Volokh Conspiracy

Zimbabwe Star: “Researchers have revealed that school based sex education classes have had little effect on reported sexual behaviours among African adolescents and no effect on the prevalence of HIV and genital herpes 9 years after the start of the intervention. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the Tanzanian National Institute for Medical Research’s Mwanza Research Centre (NIMR Mwanza) and AMREF Tanzania studied the effect of one such study in Rural Tanzania that was designed to provide the students with the knowledge and skills needed to delay sexual debut and to reduce sexual risk taking.”

WHEC: “When Khammanivong [originally from Laos] pled guilty he thought he was going to jail for two to three months. In fact, the deal was 10 years in federal prison. His case before the U.S. Supreme court says his 5th, 6th and 14th amendment rights were violated when he couldn’t understand his interpreter.” | Supreme Court docket: Khammanivong v. U.S., No. 09-10673 | U.S. v. Khammanivong, No. 09-0247-cr (2nd Cir. Dec. 17, 2009)

ADF Attorney Steven H. Aden writing at Baptist Press: “By the overwhelming margin of 44-5, Nebraska’s unicameral legislature passed a bill April 13 that bans abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, except when the abortion would preserve the life or physical health of the mother. Gov. Dave Heineman signed the bill into law that same day . . . For its part, the Alliance Defense Fund and its alliance of more than 1,600 attorneys will be standing by to defend Nebraska’s new law from Carhart’s attacks, as we have before.” | LB 1103

“While others — such as Surreybased Wiccan priest Sam Wagar . . . contend that they have a religious right to practise polygamy, the polyamorists say that for them it’s a matter of freedom of expression . . . ”

The Christian Institute: “Prisoners are converting to Islam to gain better food and the protection of fellow Muslims, according to an official report released today . . . Muslim Prisoners’ Experiences, which is written by Dame Ann Owers the Chief Inspector of Prisons, reveals that 30 per cent of the nation’s 10,300 Muslim inmates have taken up the faith whilst in prison.”

“The Commission’s draft guidance indicated that the charitable status of churches and Christian charities could be threatened if their membership rules were not ‘sufficiently open’.”

The Christian Institute: “An assisted suicide advocate has been appointed as the sole adviser to the Holyrood committee responsible for examining a bill that would legalise assisted suicide in Scotland. The End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill, proposed by Margo MacDonald MSP, would allow the terminally ill and people who are ‘permanently physically incapacitated’ to seek assistance in ending their lives.”

Boston Globe: “US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz announced yesterday that she is forming a team of prosecutors to focus on civil rights cases, including hate crimes, human trafficking, police misconduct, damage to religious property, and employment discrimination . . . She made the announcement after the FBI hosted a conference in Boston to educate some 160 law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and community organizations about changes in the federal hate crimes law that expanded it to include protections for gays, lesbians, and transgender people. The law had already been used to prosecute crimes based on race and religion.”

EU Observer: “The European Commission’s internal gay rights policy has been described as ‘quite impressive’ by campaigners. But activists would like to see more EU policing of homophobia in member states. The commission, which employs around 25,000 people in Brussels, and which sees itself as a model ‘modern working environment’ outlined its staffing policy in a statement prepared for EUobserver in June.”

“In an application to have the complaint dismissed, Les Molnar said ‘to allow a gay couple to share a bed in my Christian home would violate my Christian beliefs and would cause me and my wife great distress.’”

LifeSiteNews: “North Carolina schools are preparing to implement the ‘Healthy Youth Act,’ signed on June 30, 2009 and set to take effect in the 2010-11 school year. It states that students from 7th to 9th grade should be taught ‘about the effectiveness and safety of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods in preventing pregnancy.’”

LifeSiteNews: “As homosexual ‘marriage’ legislation is being debated in the Argentinean senate, a group of adopted children is speaking out against adoption by gay couples, according to ACI Prensa. Speaking on Radio Cultura, a station in Buenos Aires, the teens said that children should have the same opportunity as they have had to grow up with a father and a mother . . . ”

“The National Parent Teacher Association has denied a pro-family organization that advocates for the ex-gay community, Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and Gays, the right to exhibit at the PTA’s national convention, June 10-13, in Memphis, Tenn.”

Washington Post: “According to the General Social Survey, 15 percent of U.S. households were mixed-faith in 1988. That number rose to 25 percent by 2006, and the increase shows no signs of slowing . . . But the effects on the marriages themselves can be tragic — it is an open secret among academics that tsk-tsking grandmothers may be right. According to calculations based on the American Religious Identification Survey of 2001, people who had been in mixed-religion marriages were three times more likely to be divorced or separated than those who were in same-religion marriages.”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060402011.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Dorothy Rabinowtiz writes at WSJ: “A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.”

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled Wednesday in a 2-1 vote that the permanent injunction barring McCreary and Pulaski counties from posting the display can remain in place.

Adam Cohen writes at Time: “Judicial activism” is the No. 1 conservative talking point on the law these days. Liberal judges, the argument goes, make law, while conservative judges simply apply the law as it is written. It’s a phony claim. Conservative jurists are every bit as activist as liberal ones . . . ”

http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2010/ps100609.html FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 9, 2010 Press Office: 202-712-4320 Public Information: 202-712-4810 www.usaid.gov WASHINGTON, D.C. – June 9, 2010 – Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator, made the following statement on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month: As the …

AP: “South Carolina’s surprise Democratic nominee to challenge U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint is facing a pending felony charge. Court records show 32-year-old Alvin Greene was arrested in November and charged with showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student. The felony charge carries up to five years in prison . . . ”

Washington Post: “Same-sex marriage opponents are gearing up to try to influence Saturday’s D.C. Democratic Committee straw poll, Tim Craig reports at D.C. Wire.”

LA Times: “The early returns are in, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor is proving herself to be a reliable liberal vote on the Supreme Court.”

LA Times: “It has been six years since California voters, awed by Proposition 71′s list of potential cures for cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and more than 70 other conditions, approved $3 billion in funding for stem cell research in the state . . . But there have been no ‘miracles’ — no paralyzed people abandoning their wheelchairs or diabetics throwing away their needles. There hasn’t even been a human trial of embryonic stem cells, those amazing shape-shifters that can grow into any cell in the body . . . So were Californians duped?”

LifeNews: “Tuesday’s primary elections saw the political landscape in a few states move in the direction of pro-life women and one pro-life organization is delighted by the results. With Carly Fiorina’s Senate victory in California and Sharron Angle’s in Nevada, pro-life women are now on center stage.”

Roger Scruton writing at New Humanist: “In the world that we are now entering there is a striking new source of false hope, in the ‘trans-humanism’ of people like Ray Kurzweil, Max More and their followers. The transhumanists believe that we will replace ourselves with immortal cyborgs, who will emerge from the discarded shell of humanity like the blessed souls from the grave in some medieval Last Judgement. The transhumanists don’t worry about Huxley’s Brave New World: they don’t believe that the old-fashioned virtues and emotions lamented by Huxley have much of a future in any case. The important thing, they tell us, is the promise of increasing power, increasing scope, increasing ability to vanquish the long-term enemies of mankind, such as disease, ageing, incapacity and death. But to whom are they addressing their argument? If it is addressed to you and me, why should we consider it? Why should we be working for a future in which creatures like us won’t exist, and in which human happiness as we know it will no longer be obtainable? . . . ”

One News Now: “Instead, says the PJI attorney [Brad Dacus], at issue is whether people want government to place its ‘endorsement and formal blessing and encouragement’ upon homosexual relationships. ‘And clearly the stats show that such relationships do not further the public interest in terms of health, safety, [or] stability, or the development of healthy rearing of children and family life,’ he adds.”

ABC: “Abortions provided via video conference have raised new questions in a contentious debate.
As reported in today’s New York Times , after a video consultation, abortion doctors in an Iowa Planned Parenthood clinic are providing women in far-flung parts of the state with the drugs needed to end their pregnancies.”

Eugene Volokh write at theVolokh Conspiracy: “Reader Jeff Semenak, who lives in Lansing, reports that the Lansing State Journal courthouse notes occasionally mention that someone has been convicted of ‘seducing an unmarried woman.’ I checked and indeed found over 30 such notes from 2002 to 2008.”

City Pulse: “It has been more than a year since an Arizona-based Christian legal defense fund sued the ‘radical queer’ Lansing activist group Bash Back! for a 2008 protest at a Delta Township church, but the case is not close to being resolved, and City Pulse has been subpoenaed for records relating to coverage of the protest . . . In April, City Pulse was served with a subpoena by Alliance Defense Fund attorney Dale Schowengerdt for ‘all documents, pictures, video, email, correspondence of any kind, text messages, audio records, or other tangible things in your or City Pulse possession (sic)’ related to the Mount Hope incident.” | Order Imposing Sanctions | Protective Order | ADF News Release of May 13, 2009

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on radio to to discuss this: Specialist for NASA mission demoted, threatened with termination for sharing views on intelligent design. | The Georgene Rice Show, MP3 13:05 mins | AFR Focal Point with Bryan Fisher, MP3 11:14 mins.

Religion Clause Blog: “Various aspects of the decision are reported on by The Hankyoreh (May 28); Korea Times (May 27); JoongAng Daily (May 28); and CathNews (May 31).”

LifeNews: “A memo the Clinton presidential library turned out last week showing Elena Kagan opposed a ban on assisted suicide gave pro-life groups even more reason to oppose her nomination.”

Hartford Courant: “Board member Donna Szewczak said she voted Tuesday night to approve the appeal — after voting against it last week — because ‘we needed to take a strong stance’ and strengthen the district’s defense against a May lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”

ACLU: “The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Kentucky today asked a judge to rule without trial that implementing sex-segregated classes in Breckinridge County Middle School is illegal and discriminatory.”

Religion Clause: “Alliance Defense Fund announced yesterday that it has written to 151 governmental entities operating libraries, parks, schools and community centers urging them to end policies that restrict or exclude groups from using their public meeting rooms and facilities for religious purposes.”

The News-Sentinel: “The Allen County commissioners appear willing to accept free help from a Christian legal group in defense of a new patient-safety ordinance challenged in court. The Washington, D.C.-based Alliance Defense Fund two years ago offered to defend the county should it pass an ordinance seeking to provide additional emergency safeguards for patients of out-of-town doctors who lack admitting privileges at local hospitals.”

The Columbus Dispatch: “U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman ruled Monday that Scott Savage didn’t prove that Ohio State had made his working conditions intolerable. The judge noted that at least two of Savage’s superiors supported his right to his views . . . David French, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that advocates for religious freedom and has supported Savage in the case, wrote in an e-mail, ‘We are disappointed that the federal district court applied Garcetti to further limit academic freedom,’ refering to an earlier Supreme Court case.”

Winston-Salem Journal: “A number of foundations and other nonprofit groups have filed statements of support for Forsyth County as it appeals a federal judge’s decision in May to ban prayers that mention Jesus or make other sectarian references at county meetings . . . The county is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that supports public expressions of Christianity. Many of the groups filing friend-of-the-court briefs have similar goals.”

WorldNetDaily: “[L]etters have gone out from ADF to more than 150 other government jurisdictions across the nation asking them also to correct policies that illegally target the religious content of community activities. ‘I think it’s finally gotten to a head,’ ADF senior legal counsel [Joel Oster] told WND today. ‘The Supreme Court in 2001 in the Good News case sealed the deal on this issue. It should not be litigated any more.’” | ADF News Release

CitizenLink: “The Alliance Defense Fund has filed a complaint against Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in a case involving freedom of speech in the workplace. A NASA specialist working for JPL was demoted and threatened with termination for discussing Intelligent Design with willing co-workers. Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel [Joseph Infranco] said JPL deemed the discussions to be ‘religious.’”

AP: “An unemployed military veteran who raised no funds and put up no campaign website shocked South Carolina’s Democratic Party leadership by capturing the nomination Tuesday to face Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint in November . . . ”

AP: “Americans donated $303.75 billion during 2009, the second-worst year since 1956, when the Giving USA Foundation started conducting its surveys. The worst year was 1974, when giving fell an inflation-adjusted 5.5 percent . . . ”

AP: “In winning the Senate primary Tuesday, Lincoln overcame a flood of outside money from labor unions and liberal groups that had backed Lt. Gov. Bill Halter’s challenge. She’ll fight for her seat against Republican Rep. John Boozman in the fall.”

Julie Hilden writes at Findlaw: “On June 3rd, an en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit re-heard two First Amendment cases that involve speech by public-school students. In each case, the speech occurred off campus, but it still resulted in the school’s suspending the student involved. The original panel opinions in the two Pennsylvania-based cases — Snyder v. Blue Mountain School Dist., and Layshock v. Hermitage School Dist. — were both issued on February 4th of this year. The positions of the two sides, upon re-hearing, are quite clear. The ACLU, arguing on behalf of the students, contends that speech that occurs outside a public school is also outside the school’s jurisdiction: ‘While children are in school, they are under the custody and tutelage of the school. Once they leave the schoolhouse gate, you’ve got parents that come into play.’ In contrast, the school districts claim that ‘It’s not a matter of where you throw the grenade, it’s where the grenade lands.’ In other words, the districts argue that when students’ speech targets the school, it doesn’t matter whether the speech itself occurs on-campus or off-campus. In this column, I’ll contrast the facts and holdings of the two Third Circuit panel decisions that were issued on February 4th, and comment on the First Amendment issues they raise . . . ”

AP: “The 55-year-old Fiorina rolled to victory Tuesday after a campaign that focused on convincing conservatives she is one of them – opposing abortion, gay marriage and steps the government has taken to prop up the economy . . . ”

AP: “Nevada Republicans Tuesday picked tea party insurgent Sharron Angle to take on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid . . . ”

AP: “A survey by Quinnipiac University of 1,133 registered Florida voters shows Crist’s independent bid slightly ahead of Republican Marco Rubio. Crist received 37 percent to Rubio’s 33 percent while Democrat Kendrick Meek received 17 percent . . . ”

WHTM.com: “House Bill 1502 would require all state contractors use the database called E-Verify, while House Bill 1503 would mandate that all construction employers use the federal program. E-Verify allows employers to check on employees and applicants with data in the Social Security Administration’s database and a Department of Homeland Security database.”

Canada.com: “Fewer than one in 10 Canadian brides-to-be believes in abstaining from sex until their wedding night, despite a ‘save yourself’ drumbeat that in recent years has reverberated through everything from school programs to pop-culture phenols such as Twilight and Glee. The 1,241-person survey, published this month by Canada’s Weddingbells magazine . . .’We’ve lived too (long) on the myths of good girls and bad girls, virgins and whores, the Virgin Mary and Madonna, when most women, like most men, live somewhere in the middle,’ says Samantha Brennan, a professor at the University of Western Ontario in London. ”

AP: “Four Christian lawyers who vowed to be God’s ambassadors on the bench have lost their bids to oust four San Diego Superior Court judges.”

The Hill: “Tuesday could mark a turning point in the midterm campaign season as two incumbents avoided going down in defeat despite facing a still-simmering electorate. On the Republican side, conservative candidates prevailed, showing the Tea Party’s strength in this election cycle . . . ”

The Hill: “Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) survived a hard fought primary against Democratic challenger Bill Halter . . . With 80 percent of precincts reporting, Lincoln had 51.7 percent of the vote to Halter’s 48.3 percent.”

The Hill: “‘I intend to vote for Senator Murkowski’s Resolution of Disapproval because I believe we must send a strong message that the fate of West Virginia’s economy, our manufacturing industries, and our workers should not be solely in the hands of EPA,’ Rockefeller said in a statement.”