Daily Archives: June 15, 2010

White House: “President Obama also announced his intent to appoint Suzan Johnson Cook to serve as Ambassador-At-Large for International Religious Freedom at the Department of State, Felice D. Gaer to serve as Member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and William J. Shaw to serve as Member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Their bios are below.”

Christian Post: “The Reformed Church in America adopted a resolution expressing ‘concern’ over the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s controversial action to allow partnered homosexuals to be on the clergy roster . . . The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod – the second largest Lutheran church body after the ELCA – is reconsidering its cooperative relationship with its sister Lutheran denomination. RCA leaders, however, have voted to dialogue more with the ELCA on the pro-gay actions . . . ”

LifeNews: “The scene in Washington right now pits Democrats against Republicans on the annual appropriations bills that are passed to allow the federal government to function. However, the lack of any spending bills could result in passing an omnibus measure that may overturn pro-life provisions . . . ”

Indland: “From Friday in here week and Sunday is atheistic company, which has 1,200 members, hosts one of the first and largest international atheist conferences in Europe, where several of the world’s most prominent atheists who fight for a separation of state and religion, focusing on issues in religion and politics . . . Also American Dan Barker from the Association Freedom From Religion Foundation . . . ” [Google Translation]

AP: “The vote Tuesday to repeal the mandate failed 187 to 230.”

The Washington Post | DeBonis: “Handily, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance — the city’s longest-running activist group — just released its “Agenda 2010,” laying out its priorities for lawmakers. Number one is keeping gay marriage legal . . . The ‘Agenda’ also includes a number of more ambitious items. Like this one: ‘Prostitution: Legalize It, Regulate It, Zone It, Tax It.’”

Daily Mail: “Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned. In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an ‘apocalyptic’ vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money . . . ”

GhanaWeb: “The Minister of Education, says the introduction of Christian Religious Studies (CRS) in Senior High Schools (SHS) would help students to understand the role the Bible play as a source of guidance, direction and counselling.”

Catholic News Agency: “The story of Benny Abreu, a young woman from the Dominican Republic, has moved Floridians because of her testimony to motherly love. The Florida woman suffered from serious heart problems and preferred to die rather than abort the baby she was carrying.”

Washington Post: “John H. Garvey, a law school dean with a long record of scholarship on some of the most divisive issues in the Catholic Church, on Tuesday will be named the new president of Catholic University of America.”

Associated Press: “City lawyers called on local Boy Scout officials to muster “the courage of their convictions” and challenge their national group’s ban on gays as a trial over government funding opened Tuesday. . . . Chapter leaders also accuse the city of applying its lease rules selectively, since at least two other groups with limited membership rules — a Roman Catholic parish and a Colonial Dames of America chapter — also enjoy subsidized leases in city-owned buildings. Smith countered that those groups pledged to open the doors of those buildings to all.”

Politico: “House Republicans will try to force a vote on repealing the individual mandate in the Democrats’ health care overhaul, using a procedural maneuver to score political points on one of the most controversial provisions in the health care law.”

Times Union: “Senate Democrats are prepping for today’s vote on three bills that would ‘fundamentally restructure matrimonial law,’ primarily through the addition of no-fault divorce to the existing grounds for spouses to seek the dissolution of a marriage.”

WCCO (AP): “Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks gay marriage in Minnesota.”

FRC Blog reports and links to the video.

” . . . Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates . . . ”

New York University Press Release: “Campaigns on ballot measures pertaining to the legal status of same-sex couples, including gay marriage, have minimal impact on voters, a study conducted by New York University’s Patrick Egan has found. The report, Findings from a Decade of Polling on Ballot Measures Regarding the Legal Status of Same-Sex Couples, is based on the most comprehensive compilation to date of the pre-election polls available in the states holding votes on same-sex marriage and domestic partnership since 1988—a total of 167 surveys on 32 ballot measures.” |
Findings from a Decade of Polling on Ballot Measures Regarding the Legal Status of Same-Sex Couples

The Desert Sun: “A public policy and opinion researcher is expected to release a report on Tuesday that looks at the accuracy of polls on same-sex marriage in ballot measure fights across the country. Patrick J. Egan, a Politics and Public Policy professor at New York University will present his research on ‘Findings from a Decade of Polling on Ballot Measures Regarding the Legal Status of Same-Sex Couples’ in a national teleconference tomorrow morning.”

ANI: “A Hindu leader has been denied the request to read the opening prayer of Tasmania House of Assembly of Australia. Clerk of the House of Assembly Peter Alcock, in a response to the request of Rajan Zed, president of Universal Society of Hinduism, said in a communiqui: ‘The Speaker of the House is the authorised person to say the prayer each day. There is no provision for any other Member or any other person to do so. This may only be changed by a majority vote of the House’.”

Forum 18: “The seventh in a series of Protestant churches stripped of state registration in the central Uzbek city of Samarkand in the past four years is still battling to regain it. Without registration, all religious activity is illegal.”

NPR: “That’s right: The 1973 Supreme Court decision declaring a woman’s right to an abortion could be a key weapon against Obamacare. The Mississippi lawsuit (Bryant et al. v. Holder) is the first to highlight the inherent contradiction between the new law’s individual mandate and the ‘zone of privacy’ first introduced in Roe.”

Standard Speaker: “The Diocese of Scranton has received property tax assessment notices on four vacant church properties in Hazle Township. . . . The diocese on June 2 filed an appeal in Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas objecting to the proposed taxation of vacant church property. The appeal also disputes the assessed valuation. . . . State law limits tax exemption on churches to ‘actual places of regularly stated religious worship’ and the grounds on which those houses of worship stand.”

Fox News: “Cause this is a big thing for unions,” Carafano said. “The unions see it as … protecting jobs. They hate when the Jones Act gets waived, and they pound on politicians when they do that. So … are we giving in to unions and not doing everything we can, or is there some kind of impediment that we don’t know about?

AFP: “Paris police on Tuesday banned a controversial ‘pork sausage and wine’ street party planned by extremist groups to combat what they saw as the ‘Islamisation’ of a city neighbourhood. The event was planned for Friday evening at a time when the district’s streets are usually jammed with Muslims coming out of mosques and just before Algeria were due to play England in the football World Cup.

Europe News: “Norwegian judges and other court officials are to be allowed to wear religious dress including the Muslim headscarf or hijab during court sessions, the board of the National Courts Administration said Monday.”

George Leef has this post at the National Review Phi Beta Cons Blog: “Prof. Brian Tamanaha points out here that for many law students, the costs are far, far out of line with the prospective benefits of getting into the legal profession.”

AP: “The Bowling Green Daily News reports the Kentucky Court of Appeals is weighing an appeal brought by Harston after he lost two suits brought by the state, which considers the signs a nuisance that violates the 1965 Federal Beautification Act. Kentucky could lose up to 10 percent of federal road dollars if it fails to effectively control outdoor advertising.”

AP: “Spain’s government on Tuesday said it favors barring the use of burqas in government buildings, joining other European countries considering similar moves on the grounds that such garments are degrading to women.”

Catholic.net: “The French section of Aid to the Church in Need is urging people worldwide to sign a petition denouncing a ‘blasphemy law’ that allows for grave injustices in Pakistan. The aid agency explained on its Web site that 1,000 Pakistanis have been condemned because of their faith due to this law, such as a 5-year-old child who was burned alive for being a Christian, and is calling for support and worldwide prayer for the victims of this law as well as their families.”

AFP: “The government in Spain’s Catalonia region said Tuesday it was investigating a clinic in Barcelona that is allegedly offering treatments to ‘cure’ homosexuality. The Policlinica Tibidabo in the Catalan capital is offering pills and psychiatric treatment to ‘convert’ homosexuals, Spain’s leading daily El Pais reported.”

Boston Globe (AP): “Western nations rebuked Iran for its human rights record Tuesday after overcoming an attempt by Iran and its Muslim allies to block the statement from being read aloud in the U.N. Human Rights Council.”

The Christian Institute: “Hospital chaplains play an ‘important’ role in the NHS, and the Government values their work, a Conservative Peer has said. Speaking in the House of Lords, Earl Howe, who is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health, said the Government is committed to giving patients and staff in the NHS access to ‘spiritual care’.”

The Christian Institute: “The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has slammed a secular campaign to stop a local council praying before its meetings. . . . [He] pointed out that Parliament has the same tradition, and that it is helpful for both believers and non-believers. Speaking to Premier Christian Radio, the Mayor said: ‘Whatever they may think about the existence or non existence of God or whatever, it’s quite a good thing that they should focus briefly in a moment of prayer, which is a unique period of reflection’.”

ADF Attorney Daniel Blomberg writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “[A]s the Catholic Archbishop for the Military Diocese, Timothy Broglio, recently pointed out, other fundamental concerns are also at stake [in the face of DADT repeal]. Namely, the moral voice of the military is in danger of being silenced at a time when its guidance is most in need to an institution which—because it must daily make life-or-death decisions—requires a trustworthy moral compass. Shutting the mouths of chaplains—who not only provide religious services and counseling, but also regularly teach courses in ethics to military leaders and are specially tasked to provide ethical gudiance to commanders of their units—sends a message that their guidance isn’t trustworthy in the real world of the military.”

GayPolitics.com: “President Obama has already appointed more openly LGBT staffers to his administration than the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton combined, according to Shin Inouye, director of specialty media in the White House communications office.”

Keen News Service: “Only one question this year: Besides the measures on the House and Senate Defense authorization bills to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, name the other 25 LGBT-specific bills pending in Congress right now.”

“A Berlin court declined to set a precedent by recognizing a gay marriage performed in Canada, ruling Tuesday that the union would only be considered a civil partnership in Germany.”

The New American: “The case of eight-year-old Domenic Johansson, separated from his family by Swedish authorities last year over his parents’ decision to legally home school him, has prompted an international outcry from human rights groups, American home schooling organizations, and activists on the World Wide Web. . . . [Roger Kiska], legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund in Europe, is serving as international legal co-counsel for the Johansson family. ‘The state was playing Big Brother in this case in a discriminatory manner,’ Kiska told The New American in a telephone interview from Slovakia. ‘[Domenic] was being incredibly well taken care of, and his health was much better when he was living with his parents.’”

“U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday said that a vote on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act wouldn’t take place until Congress completes legislative action on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

Breitbart (AP): “Sixty-nine law school deans from around the country wrote to the chairman and top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee in praise of Kagan,herself a former Harvard Law School dean.”

GetReligion.org blogger Mollie Ziegler Hemingway and Religion Dispatches blogger Sarah Posner discuss “gay rights vs. religious liberties” at Bloggingheads.tv. Partial transcript: Posner: “Well, you know, the Alliance Defense Fund was very involved in the litigation in both of those cases you cite . . . so you could make an argument that there’s not an actual collision between the rights of these gay and lesbian couples and religion; it’s been trumped up by these legal groups who want to make a political issue out of it.”

The Food and Drug Administration today declared a new abortion drug called ella (also known as ellaOne and ulipristal) safe and effective for women.

Reuters: “Somali Islamist militants killed two people and arrested dozens of others for breaking a ban on watching the World Cup on television, residents said.”

Christian Science Monitor: “The US State Department’s annual report on modern-day slavery cites greater determination worldwide to stamp it out. But 13 nations are on the list of sluggards neglecting the issue.”

State Department Report 2010

“Between 80 and 90 percent of 18- to 24-year-old city residents, the report’s authors say, display deal-breaking deficiencies in at least one of what retired Lt. Gen. Dennis Benchoff calls “the three M” categories: medical, moral, and mental. Roughly 75 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are ineligible nationwide.”

AFP: “Human Rights Watch on Tuesday urged countries across the Middle East to end forced labour brought by visa sponsorships that the watchdog said have become a gateway for human trafficking.”

The Boston Centers for Youth and Families has notified Alliance Defense Fund attorneys that it will put an end to its problematic policy banning the use of religious content in its publicly available meeting rooms.

Google News (AP): “The nominee for the No. 2 post at the Justice Department has told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the government must use all available means in fighting terrorism.”

LA Times: “A federal judge who will decide the constitutionality of California’s ban on same-sex marriage wants lawyers during closing arguments Wednesday to discuss the meaning of “choice” in sexual orientation and a possible finding that Proposition 8 attempted to ‘enforce private morality.’”

OIF Blog (Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association): “The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal organization, has initiated a letter-writing campaign to libraries and schools around the country. The campaign targets libraries with meeting room policies that restrict the use of the library’s meeting rooms for religious services. . . . OIF is ready to advise and assist librarians and library trustees with questions about meeting room policies and the ADF’s letter.” ADF News Release

Pro-Life Wisconsin: “Emails obtained through an open records request, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Pro-Life Wisconsin, reveal that University of Wisconsin (UW) abortionist Caryn Dutton is leaving to take a position in Boston. The documents also show how the negative press surrounding the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics’ involvement in abortion was affecting its public image.”

Personhood Nevada, through many legal battles, has been denied the right to circulate their prolife petition in the state. The ACLU joined forces with Planned Parenthood, tying the petition up in court and disallowing the many ready and willing Nevada volunteers their right to circulate the petition.

“The truth is that social and fiscal issues are locked in a political and financial embrace that cannot be pried apart.”

A Wisconsin ban on judges belonging to political parties was declared unconstitutional today by the federal appeals court in Chicago.

ADF Attorney Joe Martins writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “One of the key indicators of a speech code is that it regulates speech based on its subjective effects on others. So if your university has a policy that punishes speech because of how it makes someone feel, it’s probably a speech code. The classic example of this is the policy prohibiting ‘unwelcome,’ ‘demeaning,’ or ‘discriminatory’ ‘verbal comments or statements that create an ‘intimidating,’ ‘hostile,’ or ‘offensive’ academic environment based on some protected category (i.e. race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.). The ADF Center for Academic Freedom successfully struck down such a policy at Temple University and pressured Shippensburg University to change a similar policy.”

RH Reality Check: “Indiana has only one doctor who provides surgical abortions in the state. Rather than regulate the number of hoops that women need to go through to obtain his services, the Allen County department of health has changed regulation in order to literally run the doctor out of town. . . . Dubbed the ‘Patient Safety Ordinance,’ anti-choice advocates claim it is necessary due to a high number of ‘botched abortions’ being performed by Dr. Klopfer. . . . In the wake of the lawsuit filed by Klopfer, the usual groups have come out to provide legal assistance during the case, with Center for Reproductive Rights assisting the state ACLU to represent Klopfer, and the Alliance Defense Fund offering to defend Allen County for no cost.”

LifeSiteNews: “Abortionist Caryn Dutton is leaving the University of Wisconsin and Planned Parenthood Wisconsin to take a job at Harvard University, according to documents uncovered by Pro-Life Wisconsin and the Alliance Defense Fund. Her departure means that Madison Surgery Center is, for the moment, left without an abortionist to help implement their plans to provide late-term abortions at the Madison Surgery Center.”

LifeNews: “A doctor at the University of Wisconsin who played a prominent role in developing controversial plans for a late-term abortion facility at the Madison Surgery Center, is leaving. UW abortion practitioner Caryn Dutton is leaving to take a position in Boston at Harvard University. Emails obtained through an open records request, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Pro-Life Wisconsin, reveal that University of Wisconsin is leaving.”

Idaho Press-Tribune (AP): “The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based group of Christian lawyers, contend to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that a federal judge erred when he threw out Nampa Classical Academy’s case last year. ‘A wholesale ban on books with religious content conflicts with established U.S. Supreme Court precedent,’ said [David Cortman], senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.” | ADF News Release

Wall Street Journal: When his budget for pencils, paper, and other essential supplies was cut by a third this school year, the principal of Combee Elementary School worried children would suffer. Then, a local church stepped in and “adopted” the school. The First Baptist Church at the Mall stocked a resource room with $5,000 worth of supplies. It now caters spaghetti dinners at evening school events, buys sneakers for poor students, and sends in math and English tutors. The principal is delighted. So are church pastors. ‘We have inroads into public schools that we had not had before,’ says Pastor Dave McClamma. ‘By befriending the students, we have the opportunity to visit homes to talk to parents about Jesus Christ.’”

Religion Clause Blog: “AP reports that the move responds to anger from Egypt’s Coptic Christian Church over a Supreme Administrative Court decision last month holding that divorced Copts have a right to remarry in the Church even when that violates Church law.”

Attorneys representing ProtectMarriage.com will be available for media interviews before, during, and after closing arguments in the trial of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, a lawsuit seeking to overturn the will of California voters by striking down a constitutional amendment that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Religion Clause Blog: “Under pressure from the European Union, Greece’s Justice Ministry is drafting a new law that will do away with required religious oaths for members of Parliament, witnesses at trials, soldiers and various public officials.”

NCPA Policy Digest: “In a study of more than 8,500 adults in the United Kingdom (UK) followed since their birth in 1958, researchers found that the study participants’ young children were 50 percent more likely to be overweight or obese than they themselves had been back in the 1960s. When the researchers looked at factors that could be associated with the trend, they found that mothers’ full-time employment, which was more common in the younger generation, appeared to be one, says Reuters. ”

NCPA Policy Digest: “New Jersey officials recently celebrated the selection of the new stadium in the Meadowlands sports complex as the site of the 2014 Super Bowl. Absent from the festivities was any sense of the burden the complex has become for taxpayers, says Steven Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute . . . ”

SCOTUS Blog: “The Georgetown Supreme Court Institute’s current Deputy Director, Tina Drake Zimmerman – well-known to many members of the SCOTUSblog community – is moving up in the Georgetown administration to run the law school’s LLM program. Congratulations to Tina – and this means that the Institute needs a replacement to take over management of its very active moot court program. ”

AP: “China’s holdings of U.S. Treasury securities rose by $5 billion to $900.2 billion in April, the Treasury Department said Tuesday. Total foreign holdings rose by $72.8 billion to $3.96 trillion.”

AP: “A German man is fighting to have his 2006 marriage abroad to his homosexual partner legally recognized in Germany, where the law stipulates a marriage can only be between a man and a woman.”

AP: “President Barack Obama is poised to seize the handling of oil spill damage claims from BP, his chief spokesman said Tuesday, as Obama sought to reassure people he’s up to the enormous challenge of helping them recover from the environmental disaster. He will outline his specific plans and expectations in a prime-time Oval Office speech . . . ”

Detroit Free Press (AP): “A bill scheduled for discussion in a Senate committee would require the use of the most advanced equipment available at a facility when an ultrasound is shown.”

Elle: “What happens when the girlfriend of a recently divorced father of two gets pregnant—and she wants the baby, he doesn’t? Should men, too, have the right to choose?”

Steven Menashi, Toward a “More Enlightened and Tolerant View”: Educational Choice and the Regulation of Religious Institutions. NYU Annual Survey of American Law, Vol. 66, No. 1, p. 31, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1592586

“Since the Supreme Court upheld the inclusion of religious schools in publicly funded school choice programs, the question of the extent to which states may regulate the schools that participate in such programs remains unsettled. The question is important because state regulation may implicate issues of religious belief and practice that have traditionally been outside state control. Indeed, many legal scholars have endorsed such regulation in order to bring religious institutions into line with majoritarian norms. This Article argues that those activists and legal scholars who advocate public regulation of religious schools through school choice programs ignore the serious constitutional obstacles to such regulation. Even the modest regulations that already apply to religious schools in the nation’s two choice programs that include such schools lack a compelling justification that outweighs the infringement of First Amendment rights. The First Amendment establishes a right of religious institutions to remain free of government oversight and prohibits the government from involving itself in ecclesiastical questions reserved to religious institutions. Even if a religious institution consents to government oversight, an ‘excessive entanglement’ will nevertheless render such oversight unconstitutional. Moreover, if a regulation, had it been imposed directly, would violate the school’s rights under the First Amendment, it would represent an unconstitutional condition when pressed indirectly. Because a school choice program that aims to promote educational pluralism resembles a limited public forum, the state may not discriminate on the basis of viewpoint by imposing regulations that exclude certain types of religious belief and practice. Ultimately, while the government need not empower parents to choose educational alternatives with vouchers, if a state does establish such a program it may not police those alternatives in ways that implicate religious expression.”

Josh Blackman, This Lemon Comes as a Lemon. The Lemon Test and the Pursuit of a Statute’s Secular Purpose (January 17, 2009). George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal (CRLJ), Vol. 20, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1329343

“Forging a novel research trail, this article chronicles every case in which the Supreme Court has struck down a statute for violating the purpose prong, and dissects the methodology the Court used to divine purpose. Based on this inquiry, I conclude that the Supreme Court has not taken a principled approach to interpreting these sources, and as a result, the purpose prong consistently yields inconsistent results, and allows savvy politicians to manipulate the record to avoid Establishment Clause challenges.

For these reasons, I propose two modest proposals to the purpose prong. First, I recommend that judges follow the Lemon test, and actually focus on the purpose of the statute in question, rather than some metaphysical and largely unknowable purpose of the legislature. Second, I seek to replace the ‘objective observer’ standard announced in McCreary with an original public meaning analysis. These two suggestions will allow courts to engage in a more robust establishment clause jurisprudence, and further the purpose of the Lemon test in rooting out excessive entanglement of religion in government, and keeping the wall between church and state high, impregnable, and resolute. Much like the proverbial wolf who comes not in sheep’s clothing, but in wolf’s clothes, this lemon comes as a lemon.”

Restrictive Regulation of Abortion and the Right to Health
Ronli Sifris, 18 Med. L. Rev. 185 (2010)

“Part II of this article positions the right to health in the context of the other human rights, which may be invoked to protect a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. Part III discusses the right to health in international law, specifically considering the right to reproductive health. In Part IV, I develop the argument that restricting access to abortion violates the right to health given the consequential damage to both physical and mental health and, further, violates the anti-discrimination principle, which is an integral component of the right to health.”