Daily Archives: July 2, 2010

National Catholic Register: “Last week, when Missouri’s governor signed a bill sharply restricting the adult entertainment business, the state’s Catholic bishops, along with their religious and secular allies, applauded the culmination of a long battle against a corrosive local industry. … The new law prohibits the serving of alcohol, total nudity, and physical contact between employees and the customers they serve. The law goes into effect at the end of the summer.”

The Salk Lake Tribune: “While Kagan, a Democrat, has faced the greatest scrutiny on her views of abortion and gay rights, some atheist, agnostic and secularist groups aren’t convinced she is the best choice for the court. Part of the reason: She is poised to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the court’s strongest voices for a strict separation of church and state.”

The Financial Express: “A division Bench of Chief Justice J N Patel and Justice B Bhattacharjee hearing a PIL held that there was no provision for reservation [of housing built by a government agency according to religious affiliation] in the Constitution.”

TVNZ: “Labour MP Steve Chadwick wants to further liberalise the laws around abortion. The list MP who lost her seat in Rotorua during the last election is proposing a new law to legalise abortion on request up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. The need for two doctors to give their consent would be lifted, while abortions after 24 weeks would need medical support.”

Shannen Coffin writing at National Review Online / The Corner: “Elena Kagan’s explanation of her involvement in editing ACOG’s statement of policy on the abortion method was that she was merely helping ACOG put into words what they had been expressing all along in meetings with the White House. … The White House clearly meddled in the deliberations of a supposedly (but clearly not) nonpartisan medical association on a key issue of medical fact. Whether or not ACOG had ever expressed the views that Kagan put into words — and there are reasons to question that assertion — the White House crossed a line in pushing the medical debate. It politicized science — a charge that is thrown around frequently by Democrats, and practice that is used more frequently by them.” | Related: Coffin’s original article: Kagan’s abortion distortion

Lincoln Journal Star: “The state board overseeing Nebraska’s mental health counselors has decided to live with its current rules, rather than compromise on an ethics code relating to sexual orientation. That makes two licensing groups unwilling to compromise with the Nebraska Catholic Conference on the sexual orientation issue — despite assurances from the state’s chief medical officer she will delay rule proposals until a compromise is reached.” | LifeSiteNews: Stalemate after Nebraska Health Board Rejects Conscience Compromise for Christian Psychologists

CNN / Belief blog: “The Health and Human Services Department announced Friday that it is making $25 million available to states to support pregnant women and teen parents, in an initiative that the White House is framing as a way to find common ground on abortion. The new federal Pregnancy Assistance Fund will award grants to states aimed at providing pregnant women and teen parents support for completing high school or college degrees and for getting health care, child care and housing, HHS said in a news release Friday.” | Official announcement is here (via LifeNews).

Times of India: “Two graves in a Roman Catholic cemetery at Goa Velha were vandalised, prompting the police to register a case of hurting religious feelings against unknown persons on Friday.”

Paul Schratz writing a blog of the Archdiocese of Vancouver: “Unable to push the Church around to change many of its teachings, its foes are trotting out a simplistic argument that calls for ending any tax breaks for religious entities. It’s particularly rearing its head on education issues in Canada. In the case of a lesbian schoolteacher at Vancouver’s Little Flower Academy, critics argued the Church has no right to discriminate because it receives public tax dollars, even if only half the amount public schools get. … Most parents delegate the delivery of their children’s education to their chosen schools, but the state’s involvement in education ‘follows upon the natural rights and duties of parents.’ By extension, Church and families have the right to establish their own schools and educate their children independent of civil authority.”

UKPA: “The Government is considering allowing same-sex couples to include hymn singing and religious readings in civil partnership ceremonies, a coalition minister said. Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister, disclosed that the Government was committed to talks on ‘what the next stage should be for civil partnerships’.”

“New York state legislators have finished making it easier to receive a divorce. The state Assembly and Senate approved a package . . . [that] . . . establishes what’s called no-fault divorce—making New York the final state in the country to offer such a path to end a marriage.”

Reuters: “The new body will be known officially as the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, although officials say it will be referred to as U.N. Women (www.unwomen.org). It will consolidate four separate U.N. divisions now dealing with women’s and gender issues.”

Associated Baptist Press: “While houses of worship and other nonprofit religious organizations often are granted some exceptions and exemptions to legal standards that apply to other corporate entities, they still must follow legal standards in many areas. Employment laws seem to be among the most confusing for churches — especially those that deal with workplace discrimination. When it comes to employment law, maintaining church-state separation becomes a delicate balance between preventing the state from interfering in church polity and governance while still protecting workers.”

Associated Baptist Press: “As the United States enters the second decade of the 21st century, some experts in religious freedom predict challenges coming to the fore likely will cluster around a handful of new issues. One, they said, is maintaining respect for religious freedom and expression amid ever-increasing pluralism, including the rising proportion of Americans who identify with no particular religious faith, as well as the rise in Islam. A second is emerging conflicts between individuals’ or groups’ religious teachings and prevailing mores on issues like contraception, stem-cell research or gay rights. Another, the experts said, is increasing aggressiveness by evangelical Christians who feel a need to fight back against what they perceive as a bias against Christianity in the culture, particularly in public education.”

Boston Globe (AP): “As of Friday, July 2, 2010, at least 1,063 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press count.”

Claire Gillen reviews Leo Damrosch’s Toqueville’s Discovery of America in The Washington Times: “For Tocqueville, democracy could not be reduced to a mere form of government; rather, he described it as ‘a state of mind as much as a political system,’ consisting both of institutional structure and ‘habits of the heart.’ Mr. Damrosch discusses Tocqueville’s insights into the problem of the tyranny of the majority. He also touches on some of Tocqueville’s most prescient predictions, including the prophetic description of America and Russia as two nations destined to become world powers . . . ”

Reihan Salaam writing at National Review Online / The Agenda: “In a thought-provoking essay at io9, Annalee Newitz offers thoughts on how family structure will evolve: … ‘Today the revolution has to do with child rearing. Now that women can have children without needing a man to support them, it is going to become more common for women to have children outside marriage. But this doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to see a rise in single motherhood. Women will be free to experiment with many different kinds of parenting arrangements, from raising children alone or with a female partner, to raising them in an extended family.’ My guess is that intact neo-traditional families that Wilcox describes in his work ["intact families led by two-earner couples in which one partner focuses on market labor while the other focuses on household labor, but duties are shared"] will continue to yield the best outcomes with regards to educational attainment and household income and hard indicators of emotional well-being — e.g., levels of abuse, incarceration, institutionalization, etc. Of course, it is also possible that technological and cultural change will mitigate these effects.”

Breitbart: “Republican Leader Mitch McConnell saying that he wasn’t sure she could ‘constrain the ardent political advocacy that has marked much of her adult life.’ … One member of the committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, announced Friday that he would be voting against Kagan, despite his approval of her as solicitor general last year. … Hatch’s announcement was soon followed by similar statements from McConnell and GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.”

Chicago Tribune: “A Fort Wayne third-grader’s parents have sued the school district, claiming she was sent to a religious instruction program on school grounds without their permission. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which filed the lawsuit for the parents this week in federal court in Fort Wayne, is asking a judge to declare the program unconstitutional and ban it from operating on school property.”

The Christian Institute: “Legalising assisted suicide will lead to vulnerable people being killed without their consent, a leading bioethicist has warned. Professor David Jones’ warning adds to concerns that any move to legalise assisted suicide in the UK could expose vulnerable people to danger.”

The Christian Institute: “In a shocking comment piece for The Times newspaper Antonia Senior explains how, despite her belief that life begins at conception, she is still a firm believer in abortion. … The commentator goes on to describe the pro-choice movement’s denial of the essential humanity of unborn children as a ‘convenient lie’. … ‘The single biggest factor in women’s liberation was our newly found ability to impose our will on our biology. Abortion would have been legal for millennia had it been men whose prospects and careers were put on sudden hold by an unexpected pregnancy’, she continued.”

The Christian Institute: “The coalition Government has shelved controversial plans to overhaul the monarchy which would have allowed Roman Catholics to ascend to the throne. Last year former Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared his intention to abolish the 309-year-old law that bans heirs to the throne from marrying Roman Catholics. But now the new Government has declared that they have no plans to introduce any changes.”

The Christian Institute: “On the face of it, such a law holds little fear for Christians who express biblical truth in public or private. The Government Minister, Kenny MacAskill, told Parliament that the law ought not limit reasonable expression of religious belief. ‘We are aware of and have taken on board the concerns of some in the Christian community and we have changed what was proposed’, he said.”

FindLaw / Technologist: “Press reports indicate that ICM has received 110,000 pre-reservations for sites seeking to implement the .xxx designation. Use of the .xxx designation would be voluntary, not mandatory, for adult Web sites, and each such domain name would cost about $60. … If a good number of adult Web sites adopt the .xxx suffix, it could potentially become one of the most common top-level domains, perhaps someday even rivaling .com.”

Vikram David Amar writing at FindLaw: “While I am obviously pleased (and perhaps a tad surprised) that the Supreme Court embraced the position that [Michael Dorf] expertly crafted, I will attempt, as best I can, to be more detached in the observations I offer in this column. … Observation #1: At the High Court, Doctrine Truly Matters … The choice of the ‘reasonable’ and viewpoint-neutral test –that is, the choice of the appropriate doctrinal box or category on the First Amendment caselaw flowchart — was crucial to resolving the case. If a different box had been chosen, a different (and more stringent) test would have applied, and a different result might very well have obtained. … Observation #2: Concessions Made In the Course of Litigation Matter At the High Court … Observation # 3: Deference to Institutional Judgment Matters to the Justices, and Perhaps Especially So in University Cases.”

“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has scheduled a committee vote for Tuesday, July 13, according to a notice sent to reporters this afternoon.”

FRC Blog: “‘As has been pointed out while Dean of the law school she defied the requirements of a federal law, known as the Solomon Amendment. Her violation of this federal law was motivated by her vehement opposition to the military’s prohibition against open homosexuality.’”

Huffington Post: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has some advice for her Senate counterparts: Try majority rule for a change. Pelosi, in an interview with the Huffington Post, called for an end to the filibuster, which she labeled ‘the 60-vote stranglehold on the future.’ … Senate Democrats are eying January as the time to reform the filibuster, when the Senate convenes a fresh Congress and votes to establish rules.”

BusinessWeek: “‘.xxx would basically be an avenue for authorities to try and push all adult websites into a certain segment and then get rid of .com,’ Michael Klein, the president of Hustler, the brand behind websites like Barelylegal.com, said from his Los Angeles office. An unlikely alliance has formed in opposition to Lawley. Adult content providers see lost revenue from software blocks, increased stigmatization and possible censorship, while conservative groups such as the Family Research Council argue .xxx legitimizes porn.”

Rush transcript of Glenn Beck’s panel on “Religion in America.” Panelists include David Barton, founder and president of WallBuilders; Jim Garlow, chairman of Renewing American Leadership; Richard Lee, founding pastor of First Redeeming Church in Cumming, Georgia; Robert George, professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and the founder of American Principles Project; Dave Stone, senior minister at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky; Tom Mullins, a senior pastor and founder of Christ Fellowship Church in Florida; Ralph Reed, chairman of Faith and Freedom Coalition; and John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas.

They discuss religion and the Founding, definitions and criticisms of “social justice,” preaching and political speech, Proposition 8, “hate crimes,” and more.

The Advocate: “Several teachers unions filed suit Thursday to block a new Louisiana law that lets school districts seek four-year waivers from some education laws and rules in an effort to improve student achievement.”

CNSNews: “A massive gun battle between rival drug and migrant trafficking gangs near the U.S. border Thursday left 21 people dead and at least six others wounded, prosecutors said. The fire fight occurred in a sparsely populated area about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Arizona border, near the city of Nogales, that is considered a prime corridor for immigrant and drug smuggling.”

The Christian Institute: “Last night Irish politicians in the Dáil passed a controversial civil partnership bill which will leave registrars open to a fine and prison sentence for refusing to carry out same-sex civil partnerships. The Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Bill, as it is now called, was passed by TDs in the Dáil, the lower house of representatives, without a vote. The Senate, Ireland’s upper house, must pass the legislation before it can become law.”

Christian Post: “In a speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech on human rights. Not only did she talk about the right ‘to love in the way you choose,’ (an obvious attempt at making protecting gay rights a top priority for the U.S. government), she also talked about ‘freedom of worship.’ … Just this clever dissembling of words is an apparent attempt to restrict freedom of religion to freedom of worship only. Do you see the implications? Sure, I am free to attend church, sing hymns, pray over meals, offer thanks to God for my children and grandchildren. That’s my own private affair. But should the government succeed in redefining freedom of religion, how much longer can I practice my faith in public? See my Two Minute Warning to understand what this really means.” | Related: Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra (Christian Today): ‘Freedom of Worship’ Worries | Ashley Samuelson (First Things): Why “Freedom of Worship” Is Not Enough | George Weigel (Ethics and Public Policy Center): The Erosion of Religious Freedom

Breitbart (AP): “The contents of a long-illegible letter written by famed 19th century explorer David Livingstone have finally been deciphered, a British university said Friday, nearly 140 years after he wrote of his despair at ever leaving Africa alive. Researchers say that the letter—which required state of the art imaging techniques to decipher—helps round out the picture of a man traditionally cast as an intrepid Victorian hero, revealing the self-doubt that tormented the missionary-explorer in one of his darkest hours.”

Christian Post: “Known for ‘intelligent Christian conversation,’ prominent theologian and cultural commentator Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is hosting his final live radio program Friday. … ‘As I’m now struggling with issues related to my other responsibilities it has become very clear that I’m going to be unable to continue a live radio broadcast like this on the same terms and schedule that I’ve experienced for the last several years,’ he said.”

ChristianNewsWire: “The July/August 2010 issue of CHURCH LAW & TAX REPORT, a publication of Christianity Today International, will feature the article ‘How the Health Care Legislation Will Impact Your Church and Staff’ by Richard Hammar, a nationally recognized authority on church tax and law. Hammar’s article sifts through more than 2,500 pages of this new legislation and highlights the most relevant information regarding the bills’ effect on churches.”

The Alliance Defense Fund has received the support of three significant organizations in its defense of a criminology professor whose opinion columns were determined by a judge to be unprotected by the First Amendment simply because he made reference to them in a promotion application.

Leonard Link: “Custody of the children is shared, with the birth parents having various designations as primary residential parent, the children going back and forth at various times and being separated at various times. The current dispute reaches the court of appeals because of the insistence by Gibson County Chancellor George Ellis on including and enforcing a ‘paramour provision’ in the court’s order governing custody and visitation, as part of the latest round of revisions in the parenting plan. This provision says that when a child is in residence, an unmarried partner of the parent may not be there overnight. … Rather than remand for further consideration by the trial court, the court of appeals reversed outright the trial court’s ‘finding’ that a paramour provision was in the best interest of the children, and ordered that costs of the appeal be awarded to Angel.”

ADF Attorney David French writing at Phi Beta Cons: “While I fervently wish CLS v. Martinez had gone the right way, the decision has at least spawned a tremendous burst of impassioned commentary from those who value the freedom of association and understand the importance of the university as a marketplace of ideas. As always, FIRE is one-stop-shopping for those interested in penetrating and persuasive analysis. Minding the Campus has run important pieces by K. C. Johnson and John Leo. Over at the Alliance Defense Fund Academic Freedom File, [Travis Barham] has put together a comprehensive media roundup.”

WORLD Magazine: “Today Jumper and other retired chaplains are worried that Congress and top military brass may soon handcuff these uniformed pastors, forcing them to choose between serving two masters—God or their commanders in a military that condones a lifestyle in opposition to biblical teachings. … Why have Democrats ignored these pleas and voted anyway before the military has had its say? They are fearful that waiting past the November election means they may not have enough votes to move forward, says Alliance Defense Fund lawyer [Daniel Blomberg]. He adds that the homosexual lobby has made ending the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy a top goal because it understands that the military as an institution exerts an outsized influence on molding American life. ‘This is not a narrow fight just about the military,’ he told me. ‘This is just step one in achieving the goal of normalizing homosexuality in mainstream America.’”

The ADF Alliance Alert Categorical Email Digest will not be published on Mon. July 5th.  Happy Independence Day!

St. Louis Beacon: “A.J. Bockelman knew the gay-rights movement had hit a new level of political clout — and status — when he found himself with other activists in Washington this week for a special reception in their honor at the White House. … Bockelman credits the gains in clout and acceptance, in part, to the increasing willingness among gay and lesbian public figures in Missouri and the country to go public about their private lives. … [Kerry Messer], head of the Missouri Family Network, questions the premise of the White House to hold a reception that ‘uses the criteria of the way people have sex. That points to where we’re going, as a culture and a country.’”

Associated Press: “In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote the word ‘subjects,’ when he referred to the American public. He then erased that word and replaced it with ‘citizens,’ a term he used frequently throughout the final draft.”

Montreal Gazette: “Google Inc. is willing to talk to China as tensions mount over Internet policy, but will not return to censoring its search results. ‘We will not go back to self-censoring,’ Robert Boorstin, global director of public policy, said during a security conference in Ottawa Wednesday. ‘We’re going to continue our conversations with the Chinese government. I won’t talk about the conversations.’ As of noon Wednesday, the company confirmed that some features of its search engine were being blocked and were inaccessible to users within China.”

FedSoc Blog: “At this critical moment in the progress of NPV’s legislation, The Federalist Society’s Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group and The Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies will co-host a debate between Ms. Tara Ross, author of Enlightened Democracy: The Case for the Electoral College, and Hon. Jamin Raskin, Maryland State Senator and Professor of Constitutional Law at American University, Washington College of Law, over whether the Electoral College should be retained and whether the potential benefits of NPV’s solution outweigh its possible detriments. Dr. Roger Pilon, Vice President for Legal Affairs of The Cato Institute, will moderate. The event will be held at 12:00 PM, Thursday, July 8, 2010, at The Cato Institute. Please click here for further details and registration information.”

An excerpt from the conclusion of Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith’s written testimony in support of Elena Kagan’s nomination to the US Supreme Court, via Jonathan H. Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy (see also the post’s lively comments section): “The President of the United States is entitled to choose a judicial nominee whom he believes reflects his judicial philosophy; and his decision to nominate a highly qualified individual who swims in the broad mainstream of American legal life – a description that Kagan easily satisfies – warrants deference from the Senate. Some Democratic members of this Committee implicitly or expressly embrace this principle today but did not do so during the hearings for Justices Roberts and Alito. Some Republican members of this Committee implicitly or expressly embraced this principle during the hearings for Justices Roberts and Alito, but not today. The Democrats are right now and the Republicans were right then. But the opportunistic embrace of the principle, and the often-extremely-uncharitable characterization of the records of nominees of presidents of the opposite party, can only mean that neither side really believes in it.”

byFaith Magazine: “The PCA’s General Assembly answered Overtures 12, 17, and 22 in the affirmative today. The Assembly did so by approving a request of the Presbyterian and Reformed Joint Commission on Chaplains and Military Personnel; the request directs the Stated Clerk’s office to petition President Obama and other federal officials, requesting ‘the protection and meaningful continuance of the free exercise of religion within the armed forces of the United States.’ The request was prompted by the possible repeal of the U.S. military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding homosexuality.”

The Boston Globe: “Last week, Harrington, a senior, presented the Arlington School Committee with a petition, signed by more than 700 people, to require that the pledge be led in all the town’s schools each day. The committee deadlocked, 3 to 3, on a motion that would have required a daily, but voluntary, recitation of the pledge to be led over the intercom. Yesterday, after a week of controversy in town, a compromise surfaced: The Arlington High principal said he’d lead the pledge in the lobby of Arlington High School every morning five minutes before school begins.”

Associated Press: “New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the computer crimes unit has removed a child porn video from nearly 70,000 servers nationwide.”

Associated Press: “The measure, which draws from ordinances around the country, would ban gun shops in Chicago and prohibit gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or garages, with a handgun.”

ADF attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Jody Hice Show to discuss the IRS’ investigation of a South Dakota Baptist pastor. | MP3 17:19 mins | ADF Media: ADF agrees to represent SD church reported to IRS | IRS Should Investigate South Dakota Church That Endorsed Gubernatorial Candidate, Says Americans United | ADF Pulpit Initiative

ADF attorney Nate Kellum appeared on the Georgene Rice Show to discuss Pearson v. City of Stayton. | MP3 10:20 mins | ADF Media information on the case

Excerpt of Professor Joseph Weiler’s argument before the European Court of Human Rights in Lautsi v. Italy: “In today’s Europe countries have opened their gates to many new residents and citizens. We owe them all the guarantees of the Convention. We owe the decency and welcome and non discrimination. But the message of tolerance towards the Other should not be translated into a message of intolerance towards one’s own identity, and the legal imperative of the Convention should not extend the justified requirement that the State guarantee negative and positive religious freedom, to the unjustified and startling proposition that the State divest itself of part of its cultural identity simply because the artefacts of such identity may be religious or of religious origin.”

Associated Press: “Hundreds of Indian gay rights activists and their supporters celebrated the first anniversary Friday of a landmark court ruling decriminalizing homosexuality and marking their gradual acceptance in the deeply conservative country.”

Floyd and Mary Beth Brown write at Townhall: “Elena Kagan is a radical. Barack Obama and his allies in the left-wing media have made every attempt to paint Kagan as a ‘moderate,’ but this truth is evident if you listen to her answers. She has a life-long history of extreme and radical left-wing political activism and her personal history clearly indicates that she will not hesitate to pursue Obama’s far-left wing agenda from the bench.”

Pacific Justice Institute: “The case arose after a youth pastor, Matthew Snatchko, was arrested at the Roseville Galleria Mall in 2007 for striking up a casual conversation with two other shoppers about faith. Although Snatchko had first obtained the shoppers’ permission to broach the subject, a nearby store employee disapproved and called mall security guards, who arrested Snatchko. Criminal charges were later dropped, but attorneys with Pacific Justice Institute filed suit to challenge the mall’s tight restrictions on speech.”

Wall Street Journal editorial: “Reconfirming John Roberts” – full text via Google News: “Pardon us for asking, but was that really Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing this week? We’re double checking because Senate Democrats seemed preoccupied with refighting the 2005 nomination of Chief Justice John Roberts. … The list of Democrats who devoted a chunk of their camera time to deplore the Chief included [Franken,] Patrick Leahy, Sheldon Whitehouse, Ben Cardin and Chuck Schumer, rather like a political campaign.”

The Hill: “Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s confirmation vote sets up a difficult political decision for a half-dozen or so Republicans. … Republican senators will be under heavy pressure to vote against President Barack Obama’s second nominee to the Supreme Court in an election year characterized by an angry electorate fed up with incumbents.”

SCOTUSblog: “SCOTUSblog is offering live coverage of the fourth day of Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The session was expected to begin promptly at 4:00 p.m Eastern, but may begin a bit late. For the first three days we also offered a video feed from PBS’s NewsHour, but that coverage ended yesterday.”

Carson Holloway writing at Public Discourse: “This updated living constitutionalism, however, is even less compatible with a judge’s duty than the old, a problem left largely unexplored by Kagan’s Republican critics on the Senate Judiciary Committee. … In some recently reported and widely defended comments, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has gone much further, suggesting that judges may properly be guided by their own values in deciding cases. … In a 1995 review of Stephen Carter’s The Confirmation Mess, Kagan approvingly quoted Carter’s claim that ‘the interpreter’s own experience and values become the most important data’ at a ‘crucial moment’ that arises in most cases heard by the Supreme Court. Then, speaking clearly for herself, Kagan adds that ‘it should come as no surprise by now that many of the votes a Supreme Court justice casts have little to do with technical legal ability and much to do with conceptions of value.’”

CNBC (Reuters): “General Motors’ first-half sales in China, the world’s biggest auto market, exceeded sales in its home U.S. market for the first time, according to data released on Friday. GM’s China auto sales jumped 48.5 percent to 1.21 million units in January through June, compared with the 1.08 million light vehicles it delivered in the U.S. over the same period, company data showed.”

ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco appeared on radio to discuss the case of a Christian counseling student persecuted for opposing the homosexual agenda.  | The Vicki McKenna Show here: MP3 12:39 mins | Reality Check Live here: MP3 13:29 mins | ADF Media Information resource page

“[The 5th Circuit] ruled Wednesday that the principals could be held liable for taking away [students' 'Christian-themed materials']”

ACLJ: “The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled in favor of the American Center for Law and Justice’s (ACLJ) client in a multi-million dollar fraud case against Planned Parenthood (PP) affiliates in California. … The allegation in this case is that PP affiliates in California illegally marked up the supposed cost of various birth control drugs when seeking government reimbursement, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of overbilling – at taxpayer expense. State audits in both California and Washington State have found PP affiliates guilty of overbilling.”

ADF attorney Greg Baylor appeared on radio to discuss the CLS ruling. | The Michael Medved Show here: MP3 34:55 mins| KWTO Radio with Mary Reichard guest hosting here: MP3 12:29 mins

Journal Star: “Planned Parenthood of the Heartland filed a federal lawsuit Monday against Nebraska leaders, claiming a state law passed in April places requirements on abortion providers that are unconstitutional and impossible to meet . . . Dave Bydalek, executive director of Family First, said LB594 protects women by requiring doctors to screen them to determine whether they were pressured into getting abortions.” | More information from Nebraska’s NPR station and KPTM FOX 42. | LB 594

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “I recently recorded a podcast on the Pulpit Initiative with professor Anthony Gill who is professor of political science at the University of Washington and non-resident scholar at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religon. … The podcast discusses the Pulpit Initiative in-depth and Professor Gill did a great job of discussing many of the important issues surrounding the Pulpit Initiative. The podcast runs just under an hour and you can listen to it here.”

SentinelSource.com: “‘Churches shouldn’t be singled out for discrimination and penalized by a city’s zoning restrictions because of their religious viewpoint,’ said [Doug Napier], senior legal counsel for the group. ‘It was right that Saint Benedict Center was compensated for years of unconstitutional restrictions that made it impossible to finish the construction of its church and school building.’”

Christianity Today (see page 2): “[Gregory Baylor] of the Alliance Defense Fund said the constitutional issues at stake are still up for debate. ‘The conflict still exists,’ said Baylor. ‘The Hastings policy actually requires CLS to allow atheists to lead its Bible studies and the College Democrats to accept the election of Republican officers in order for the groups to be recognized on campus. We agree with Justice [Samuel] Alito in his dissent that the Court should have rejected this as absurd.’”

ADF Attorney Gregory S. Baylor writing in The Washington Times: “Groups with unpopular messages are most at risk under Hastings’ policy. Majorities can undermine or even take over small organizations with unpopular messages. Lacking the power to deny leadership positions to individuals who reject their countercultural messages, unpopular groups are perpetually at the mercy of those espousing the dominant viewpoints. Groups with uncontroversial messages usually don’t need the First Amendment, but small and unpopular groups – like theologically conservative Christians at a liberal law school in the city of San Francisco – very much do. Sadly, the court did not provide that First Amendment protection. It held that Hastings could punish CLS for dissenting from campus orthodoxy.”

The Oklahoman: “Republican John Oxendine paid his former campaign manager’s consulting firm to dispatch Christian teenage volunteers door-to-door promoting his bid for Georgia governor, a move that raises ethical and legal questions about the mingling of politics and nonprofit groups. … In 2008, pastors at six churches either endorsed or made pointed comments about political candidates from their pulpits in defiance of federal tax law. The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based conservative legal group, orchestrated the pulpit protest to invite IRS scrutiny and a legal fight aimed at finding the restrictions unconstitutional.”

ChristianNewsWire: “The highest court for criminal appeals in Texas has upheld the capital conviction of Adrian Estrada, found guilty for murdering both 17-year old Stephanie Sanchez and her thirteen-week old unborn child, citing a Thomas More Society ‘friend of the court’ brief in its decision. Representing the Texas Alliance for Life, Paul Linton, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, authored the brief.”

“In his opening statement on Monday, Sen. Kyl said that he did not see how Kagan could get a ‘well qualified’ rating when she, in his view, lacks the requisite experience in the practice of law.”

“‘The law must control the judge; the judge must not control the law,’ Hatch said. ‘I have concluded that, based on evidence rather than blind faith, General Kagan regrettably does not meet this standard . . . ‘”