Daily Archives: July 22, 2010

Associated Press: “School officials say since they can’t afford a court battle, they will likely amend the wording of a banner in the Cranston High School West auditorium that the American Civil Liberties Union says is a prayer.”

Catholic News Agency: “The Institute for Family Policy issued a report this week showing that Spain has the highest rate of divorce in Europe, with more than 110,000 cases taking place each year.”

Breitbart (AP): “A House investigative committee on Thursday charged New York Rep. Charles Rangel with multiple ethics violations, dealing a serious blow to the former Ways and Means chairman and complicating Democrats’ election-year outlook.”

Independent: “Kosovo scored a significant victory in its struggle to be recognised as a full and legitimate state yesterday when the UN’s highest court ruled that its 2008 declaration of independence did not break international law. Serbia denounced the judgement – more than a decade after it fought a civil war over its former province – and warned the ruling would encourage separatist movements around the world.”

News Channel 10: “A group of people from all over the panhandle are starting a movement to put Christian monuments in front of county courthouses all across Texas. They’re pushing for monuments like the one that sits in front of the Moore County Courthouse, with the Ten Commandments on top and quotes from our founding fathers on the side.”

Arkansas Times: “The Arkansas chapter of the ACLU says it is satisfied with North Little Rock’s response to a complaint about the sectarian prayers that have routinely opened City Council meetings. … ‘The city responded to the ACLU and indicated that it would use a system of rotational prayer that would include other faiths as well as non-sectarian prayer.’”

NY Daily News: “The board of trustees of a Staten Island Catholic Church has rejected the controversial sale of an old convent building to a Muslim group to build a mosque. The sale had sparked two months of angry rallies when word got out that Father Keith Fennessy of Saint Margaret Mary church had quietly agreed to sell the vacant building to the Muslim American Society for $750,000.”

LifeSiteNews: “Blasted by representatives of Argentina’s pro-life majority, and threatened with legal action, Argentinean Health Minister Juan Manzur is distancing himself from a new ‘guide’ issued by his agency that would permit women to obtain abortions by signing an oath that they have been raped, and would allow minors to receive abortions against their parents’ will.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education: “In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday . . . Jennifer Keeton argues that faculty members and administrators at the university have violated her First Amendment rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion by threatening with her expulsion if she does not fufill requirements contained in a remediation plan intended to get her to change her beliefs. … David French, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said: ‘A public-university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform.’”

OneNewsNow: “‘It’s in essence [telling her] “you do not have the correct beliefs, we are going to re-educate you into the correct beliefs,”‘ explains [David French], senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund. ‘And unless she completes this — quote — “remediation plan” to their satisfaction, then she can be thrown out of [the school's counseling program].’” | ADF News Release

ADF Attorney David French writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Today, the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom filed a lawsuit against officials at Augusta State University on behalf of counseling student Jennifer Keeton. … You can read Jennifer’s Complaint and her Preliminary Injunction Motion to learn more. Or, you can watch her tell her story.” | Post includes video. | ADF News Release

ADF Attorney David French writing at Phi Beta Cons: “Late yesterday afternoon, the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom filed a lawsuit on behalf of Augusta State University counseling student Jennifer Keeton. Her tale has to be read to be believed. Essentially, the facts are as follows. Jennifer is a devout Christian and holds biblically orthodox views regarding sexual morality. In the context of classroom discussions of homosexual behavior, she expressed her Christian views, and has also shared those views with her classmates outside of class. … To alter Jennifer’s views, the faculty imposed a ‘remediation plan,’ that included ‘diversity sensitivity training,’ required Jennifer to read at least ten articles in peer-reviewed journals that “pertain to improving counseling effectiveness with GLBTQ populations,” and (my personal favorite) required that she ‘increase exposure and interaction with gay populations,’ including a suggestion that she attend the ‘Gay Pride Parade in Augusta.’”

ADF Attorney Nate Kellum appeared on The Drew Mariani Show to discuss the situation involving Arizona students prohibited from praying outside SCOTUS. | MP3 7:06 mins

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence appeared on In the Market with Janet Parshall to discuss the firing of Dr. Kenneth Howell by the University of Illinois. | MP3 19:05 mins

ABC 4 News: “The Hainlines were trying to clear out the work shed of items left by a previous occupant. They were instructed by the Mohave County Sheriff to place the items in a storage unit and then simply give the key to the unit to the old occupant. But as they went to work Tuesday morning, town Marshals showed up with a Temporary Restraining Order signed by the local justice of the peace. The TRO essentially barred them from their own property – namely the shed. … Before they could get answers, the Marshals returned. First, they arrested Matt without a warrant and without explanation. Then they arrested Genevive by pulling her off of the family’s pick-up truck and wrestling her to the ground.”

AolNews.: “A week after Spain’s prime minister angered many of the country’s newspaper publishers by calling for a ban on lucrative prostitution ads, one of the few national dailies that refuse to take such ads has launched a three-day front-page investigation linking the ads to sex traffickers.”

Tampa Bay Online (AP): “The country had been in the midst of highly publicized anti-pornography sweeps, and there had been no announcement of any change in government policy. Yet eight weeks later, the porn sites are still accessible. Still unanswered are questions about whether it’s an official change in policy, a technical glitch or some sort of test by the usually disapproving Chinese Internet police.”

JURIST: “Argentine President Cristina Fernandez on Wednesday signed a same-sex marriage bill into law. The signing ceremony comes one week after the bill was approved by the legislature, making Argentina the first Latin American nation to legalize same-sex marriage. The legislation, which includes adoption rights for same-sex couples, was approved after 14 hours of debate, despite strong opposition from some lawmakers who introduced an alternative bill that would have allowed civil unions nationwide without adoption rights.”

KATU: “KATU News has confirmed that an Oregon City couple, who are members of the Followers of Christ Church, will be indicted on a charge of criminal child mistreatment. A grand jury has indicted the couple and Clackamas County Prosecutors tell KATU the indictment should be filed by sometime next week.”

South Bend Tribune: “The South Bend Common Council is considering an amendment to the Human Rights Ordinance which would prohibit discrimination in employment because of sexual orientation or gender identity. The amendment should be enacted because the city has full legal authority to pass and enforce this legislation.”

Angus Reid: “Half of people in Brazil oppose allowing gay couples to adopt children, according to a poll by Datafolha published in Folha de Sao Paulo. 51 per cent of respondents share this opinion, while 39 per cent disagree.”

Rianovosti: “A Russian lesbian couple appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday after a registry office in Moscow declined to register their same-sex marriage.”

Susan Jacoby writing at Big Questions Online: “[My mother] has explicitly told my brother and me, who have the legal power to make her health-care decisions if she is no longer able to do so, that she wants nothing done to keep her alive if her mind is gone. You can’t get much clearer than that. … The bishops’ most recent health-care directives, issued near the end of 2009, make it clear that they consider it the duty of Catholic health-care providers to impose artificial nutrition and hydration on patients in persistent vegetative states. My brother and I would, of course, take immediate steps to have our mother removed from a setting where her wishes would be ignored. But what if she had no living children or, like some two-thirds of Americans, had procrastinated about putting her instructions in writing?”

Big Questions Online: “In the first installment of his monthly ‘diavlog’ for BQO, Robert Wright discusses how we reason about the human good with Robert P. George of Princeton University, a leading scholar of modern natural law theory. Their hour-long conversation covers: Chapter 1: Natural law vs. utilitarianism (12:01) Chapter 2: Why exactly is friendship good? (14:03) Chapter 3: Euthanasia and human dignity (7:22) Chapter 4: Natural law and conservativism (5:02) Chapter 5: What can be done in the name of the greater good? (12:28) Chapter 6: Just war theory (6:17).”

The Sun News (AP): “A decision on whether North Carolina’s regulatory body for lawyers should endorse anti-discrimination language has been put off until the fall after some changes were made. … The panel rejected an amendment that would have removed the words ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ from a list of characteristics that could cause bias. Attorneys have been divided whether references to gays and transgender people were necessary.”

USA Today: “Army National Guard Lt. Dan Choi has been honorably discharged, almost a year and a half after he came out on national television to join the campaign to overturn the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding the sexual orientation of members of the military, The Advocate reported.”

The Guardian: “Almost one in five girls who are sexually active at the age of 18 say they have been pregnant at least once, according to a major government study published today. … The statistics – part of wider research into the experiences of thousands of 18-year-olds in England published by the Department for Education – found that of all those who had been pregnant, just under half (46%) had given birth, while more than a third (36%) had an abortion. The remaining 18% had a miscarriage.”

CBN: “Citing a report by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said $23 million has gone to Kenyan groups who are working for passage of a new constitution. … Smith also said the new constitution was not written by Kenyans, but by U.S.-funded non-governmental organizations working with Planned Parenthood.”

Irish Times: “The numbers of women travelling to Britain each year for abortions has decreased from more than 6,500 in 2001 to just under 4,500 last year, according to the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.”

CCFON: “A baby has survived child birth after being born at only 23 week old. Amelia Hope Burdon was born in June to Miss Amanda Stapleford, whilst her brother Arthur was born just 10 days later. She initially showed no signs of life when born but doctors were able to revive her. At birth, Amelia Hope weighed 1lb 2oz and Arthur weighed 1lb 4oz.”

LifeSiteNews: “Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) is planning to introduce the ‘No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act’ on July 29. If passed, this bill would establish as permanent many of the pro-life policies that currently rely on regular congressional re-approval, and which are attached as riders to annual appropriations bills.”

AFP: “A Pakistan high court on Thursday released a mentally ill woman held without trial for 14 years on allegations of desecrating the Koran, her lawyer and court officials said. Despite ‘no evidence’ being found against 60-year-old Zaibul Nisa, she had been left to languish in the prison section of a mental asylum since 1996, the court said.”

The Christian Institute: “The decline in religious broadcasting on the BBC World Service has been branded a ‘disappointment’ by members of the House of Lords during a debate on the future of the radio station. The Bishop of Chester said that religious broadcasting has an important role to play by contributing to ‘religious understanding.’”

“Professor June Sheldon was fired after objectively answering a student’s in-class question simply because a different student claimed to be ‘offended’ by her answer, even though it comported with the official class curriculum and a district policy on academic freedom.”

Family Security Matters: “Right after the attack on the Christian brothers, the local administration deployed a heavy contingent of police and enforced Section 144 to control the situation in the town. The tension still remains high. At around 10pm, on July 19, announcements were made from mosques in Waris Pura asking people to come out to fight against Christians.” | Via Cliff May at The Corner

Christian Post: “A majority of Latino Catholics, 57 percent, say they would vote to allow same-sex marriage in their state of California, according to the poll released Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute. In contrast, only 22 percent of Latino Protestants say they support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.”

The Christian Institute: “Some Muslim bus and taxi drivers are telling blind passengers that they can’t bring their ‘unclean’ dogs on board, it has emerged. One blind man, George Herridge, said he had twice been asked by bus drivers to leave their vehicles because of his black labrador guide dog.”

The Christian Institute: “Legalising euthanasia would give a green light to ‘hopelessness’ and signal that terminally ill people would be better off dead, according to a leading end-of-life care expert. Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, who is a Professor of Palliative Medicine at the University of Cardiff and a Peer, made the warning in wake of a campaign to legalise euthanasia.”

New Zealand Herald: “The New Zealand Mental Health Survey by the University of Otago in Christchurch has found that people identifying themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or having had same-sex encounters are more likely to have experienced events such as sexual assault and violence in the home as children.”

Christian Examiner: “Forty Iranian converts to Christianity were recently baptized together in an unprecedented ceremony in Hanover, according to the Farsi Christian News Network. … Although conversions to Christianity are not rare, the network said ‘this incident in Hanover is the first of its kind where a large group have together converted and been baptized as Christians.’”

Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Michael J. Petrilli, president and vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, writing at National Review Online: “After votes yesterday in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, 28 states have now embraced the new ‘Common Core’ standards for primary and secondary education. Already, a majority — including red states such as South Carolina, Utah, and Oklahoma — have declared that they will use Common Core English and math standards in their public schools. Yet this profound, and we think positive, shift in American education is occurring with little outcry from the right, save for a half-dozen libertarians who don’t much care for government to start with. How come?” | The State of State Standards–and the Common Core–in 2010

NEWT.org: “There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer / Strange Bedfellows: “The secretary of state’s office said [Protect Marriage Washington] is again taking their arguments to Judge Benjamin Settle, who last September blocked release of the names of people who signed Referendum 71 petitions. That ruling set in motion the court case that ended up at the nation’s highest court. … Deputy Solicitor General Bill Collins, who is representing the Secretary of State in the ongoing Doe v. Reed litigation, reports that U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle has dismissed all pending motions in the R-71 public records case. He will await the official paperwork from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding its recent 8-1 opinion in the case and transferring jurisdiction back to his courtroom. At that point, Protect Marriage Washington will be able to re-file fresh motions to block release of the R-71 petitions.”

Christian Science Monitor: “Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana said on Wednesday that he would vote to confirm Ms. Kagan. The announcement came one day after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13 to 6 to endorse her nomination and send it to the full Senate for a vote before the August recess.”

CNSNews: “Dr. David Blumenthal, the Obama administration’s National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, said on Tuesday that patients can choose to omit procedures such as abortions and positive HIV tests from the electronic health records (EHR) that every American is supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the economic stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year.”

Adam Kissel writing at FIRE’s The Torch: “Today we examine the University of Illinois’ reply and ADF’s response to the reply. … As FIRE’s letter to UIUC stated, the harm at UIUC has already occurred and is ongoing; an investigation of a professor’s protected expression violates his or her rights. Further, every day without a resolution of Howell’s case deepens the chilling effect on the rest of the university’s faculty members, who must now understand that honestly stating their interpretation of the Catholic position on sexual conduct could make them the next ones getting the axe.”

Donald A. Downs writing at the The John William Pope Center: “An important free speech and academic freedom case merits attention because it appears to portend an erosion of the protection professors have traditionally enjoyed for their writings. The case is serious enough that the plaintiff, Michael Adams, has won the support of several free-speech groups: the American Association of University Professors, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, in addition to the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing him. … Tenure and promotion cases can present difficult issues of judgment and departmental discretion regarding quality of work, defying simplistic determination. I do not know enough about the facts in this case to render a confident opinion about who is right or wrong, but the methodology employed by the court reflects a growing problem in the realm of academic freedom that cries out for attention.” | Via Speak Up Movement.

The Christian Institute: “Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) Senior Counsel David French said that it is outrageous for a professor to be punished for teaching the actual subject matter of his course. The ADF has now issued a deadline for the University to fully reinstate Prof Howell. ‘The First Amendment protects the ability of faculty to speak freely, especially when the material is of direct relevance to the class’, said Mr French.”

CNSNews: “In a letter to the Alliance Defense Fund, Steven Veazie, deputy counsel for the University of Illinois, said that Howell is still on staff. … In its response to Veazie’s letter, the ADF reiterated that Howell’s First Amendment and 14 Amendment rights were violated when the university relieved the professor of his duties, due to the content of his speech. ‘While he continues to hold his appointment as adjunct professor, that title is virtually meaningless if he has no classes to teach,’ ADF attorney [David Hacker] wrote in a letter to the university.”

The Journal Gazette: “Klopfer’s lawsuit argues the ordinance violates constitutional privacy rights by giving health officials unlimited access to patient medical records. The county’s response calls this a ‘straw man argument’ because, it says, no provision of the ordinance could be construed as authority for a search of Klopfer’s or the clinic’s offices. … Lead counsel for the county health department is the Alliance Defense Fund, a group of Christian attorneys who frequently take up the causes of abortion opponents. It is working on this case at no cost to the county.”

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “Every once in a while, a judge will write an opinion demonstrating the vital importance of religious freedom. The Honorable William C. Lee in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Indiana did just that in a July 15, 2010 ruling where he rejected a former employee’s request that the court meddle in the affairs of Indiana Wesleyan University. … Because the University is controlled by the Wesleyan Church, the court found the school has complete authority to make decisions about employing those who act as ministers. Under the ministerial exception, courts have no jurisdiction over the employment decisions a church makes in this area.”

Associated Baptist Press: “Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote the IRS July 21 requesting an investigation about whether Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ violated tax law by hosting a rally for a Southern Baptist candidate. … Paul Blair, pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Okla., and founder of Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ, says he believes the IRS ban on charities endorsing candidates is unconstitutional. Blair was part of the Alliance Defense Fund pulpit initiative, aimed at challenging the IRS statute in hopes of prompting a lawsuit to get the law into the judicial system. ‘We heard nothing from it,’ he said.”

“The student, Jennifer Keeton, has been told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs in order to graduate from the counseling program.”

ACLU of Montana: “Seven committed same-sex couples, with the aid of the ACLU, are suing the state of Montana for failing to provide legal protections for their families in violation of the Montana Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection.”

LifeNews: “With two weeks left before residents of Kenya vote on a proposed constitution that would overturn the nation’s historic pro-life protections for women and unborn children, 171 pro-life leaders from 21 nations have signed a petition urging a no vote on the document. … Signers on the new petition include representatives of Endeavour Forum (Australia), Alliance for Romania’s Families, Christian Legal Centre (U.K.), Family Values Organization (U.K.), Priests for Life, Population Research Institute, Parents Forum Switzerland, Concerned Women for America and the Alliance Defense Fund.”