Daily Archives: August 11, 2010

The Globe and Mail: “The number of reported Dutch cases of euthanasia or assisted suicide rose 13 percent last year, the government said on Wednesday . . . That represented about 2 per cent of all Dutch deaths last year, based on figures from Statistics Netherlands. Of the cases, slightly over 80 percent were cancer patients and more than 80 per cent of the deaths occurred in the patient’s home.”

The Independent: “A cross honouring the victims of the plane crash that killed the late Polish president Lech Kaczynski has provoked thousands of protesters to take to the streets to demand its removal . . . Official attempts to move the cross to a church have led to violent clashes between police and Catholic pro-cross demonstrators and mass counter-protests by youthful secularists who insist the emblem must go.”

AFP: “Israeli troops arrested and evacuated some 30 Jewish rightwing militants who had illegally entered the West Bank town of Jericho on Tuesday to pray at an ancient synagogue, the army said.”

CBS 5: “A preliminary plan to add a minaret to a Santa Clara mosque was approved by the city’s Planning Commission. But the owner of a nearby business is appealing the city’s decision.”

Associated Press: “Indonesia’s best-known radical Islamic cleric was charged Wednesday with planning terrorist attacks, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death, police said.”

Fox News: “Leaders of a Christian organization are convinced a group of atheists were successful in getting annual fellowship services moved from the Missoula County Fair, but church organizers say they’re determined to make the best of their new location.”

ACLU: “The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Texas filed a friend-of-the-court brief today with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the right of a prisoner in Texas to seek monetary damages from the state under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) after he was denied access to a prison chapel for religious purposes. The name of the case is Sossamon v. Texas.”

The Christian Post: “A group of conservative congressmen and women submitted on Tuesday a resolution stating that the federal judge’s decision to strike down California’s Proposition 8 is wrong . . . The House resolution was sponsored by Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and backed by Steve King (R-Iowa) and John Fleming (R-La.).” | Related: FRC praises House Resolution condemning Judge Walker’s Proposition 8 decision on same-sex “marriage”

Blog of LegalTimes: “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) charges that the FEC has demonstrated a pattern and practice in the last two years of dismissing complaints because the Republican and Democratic commissioners divide 3-3, particularly in controversial cases. The agency frequently fails to provide a rationale for its decisions before the 60 days allowed by federal law for an appeal challenging the dismissals, the suit says.”

The Christian Post: “The superintendent of a Christian school in California that recently fired 11 employees over their religious beliefs says staff there are employed based upon her school’s decades-old statement of faith. ‘This (the school’s statement of faith) is the basis upon which we teach Bible in the classroom, and in weekly chapels, and upon which we employ staff here at Crossroads,’ noted Beth Frobisher, Superintendent of Schools at Crossroad Christian Schools in Corona, Calif., in an open letter to parents”

Duluth News Tribune: “The commission voted unanimously to recommend changes to the city code brought by City Councilor Sharla Gardner in June. Under the amendment, no strip club or adult bookstore could open within 2,000 feet of a residential zone, church, school, public park, pedestrian place or other adult entertainment business. The current code states a distance of 600 feet. A grandfather clause would exempt existing businesses such as the Saratoga Club.”

San Francisco Chronicle: “San Francisco’s largest city labor unions filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking a judge to strip a measure from the November ballot that would overhaul their pension and health care benefits.”

The Christian Post: “A Christian homelessness adviser lost his case against a London council that dismissed him after he mentioned God in the workplace. An employment tribunal ruled that Wandsworth Council had acted reasonably in dismissing Duke Amachree for gross misconduct after he suggested to a client suffering from a terminal illness that she should not give up hope but try putting her faith in God.”

Chicago Tribune: “The southern Illinois city of Marion is considering a resident’s request to put a Ten Commandments monument in the city square, and opposition is already beginning to line up . . . [Mayor Bob Butler] says the American Civil Liberties Union already has threatened to sue the city if the project goes forward, but Butler insists he’s not intimidated by that.”

LifeSiteNews: “Documents published by the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA), an abortionist organisation affiliated with International Planned Parenthood, show that the group may receive as much as 55 per cent of its funding from the Irish taxpayer, in a country with an officially pro-life constitution.”

DiversityInc: “This is the first time in American history that four different generations are working side-by-side in the workplace, bringing their own values, goals and communication approaches to the workplace. What’s the biggest difference between Generation Y (born between 1980 and 2000) and baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964)? And how do those in Generation X/millennials (born between 1965 and 1979) fit in?”

The Christian Post: “The head of the WCC’s International Affairs and Public Witness, Mathews George Chunakara, told New Delhi-based Christian Today that Christian and Muslim leaders are expected to gather this coming November in Geneva, Switzerland, to address key issues in the present context of Muslim-Christian relations.”

Judie Brown writing at Renew America: “There is a growing body of evidence that, clinically, abortion has serious consequences. It is further becoming obvious that abortion has ingrained in the culture an attitude toward others that invites all manner of violence. Perhaps part of the reason for this is society’s denial that abortion kills people. The current issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published a fascinating study regarding the various causes of premature birth. Among those causes, Professor Jay D. Iams of Ohio State reports that ‘elective terminations [abortions] in the first and second trimesters are associated with a very small but apparently real increase in the risk of subsequent spontaneous preterm birth (PTB).’”

“Today, a federal judge entered an order preventing Washington from releasing the names and addresses of individuals that signed a referendum petition to repeal Washington’s “everything but marriage” domestic partnership law.”

Ross Douthat writing at his New York Times blog: “[F]or what it’s worth, here’s what I would ask of America’s highly-educated mass upper class (more than top third of America than the ‘upper half,’ I think): A kind of noblesse oblige on some issues related to sex, at least; on others, a moral reckoning with the cost of the new equilibrium they’ve achieved; and on still others, a willingness to translate some of the more conservative habits they’ve embraced (or partially embraced) in their personal lives into law and public policy . . . What all of these proposals [regarding pornography, abortion, and divorce] have in common is an attempt to wrestle with the cultural costs of separating sex, marriage and procreation. The drive for same-sex marriage, on the other hand, involves an attempt to push that separation to its logical conclusion.”

Thaindian News: “In Connecticut the Muslim leaders have asked for police protection as the holy month of Ramzan has started. They were scared by the threat issued by a group. They were confronted by a protester group on Friday and after that they are worried about worshiping without obstruction. Reportedly the worshippers were threatened at Bridgeport’s Masjid An-Noor mosque by a group named Operation Save America and the protesters stayed there for an hour. The protesters shouted at the Muslim worshippers with a bullhorn. The protest by the group has made the Muslims in Connecticut alarmed.”

CNSNews: “A nationwide survey of 1,000 likely voters found that 59 percent of Democrats think that members of Congress should consider the opinions of homosexual advocacy groups over the opinions of top military commanders when considering a repeal of the law prohibiting homosexuality in the military.”

Reuters: “Indian demands are giving a new headache to BlackBerry maker Research in Motion after New Delhi threatened a shutdown that could affect one million of the smartphone’s 41 million users.”

ADF Attorney Douglas Napier appeared on Point of View Radio with Penna Dexter to discuss the Proposition 8 ruling. | MP3 10:31

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence appeared on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss the case of Dr. Kenneth Howell. | MP3 23:39

Dr. Martin Parsons writing at Conservative Home: “In the 2-3 years before the general election there was a significant move of practising Christians away from Labour and renewed interest in the Conservatives. However, as we will see later in this series of articles during the election itself the Conservative Party failed to seal the deal with many committed Christians . . . As to whether the perception Christians have is well grounded I would simply ask you to reflect carefully and sensitively on the examples below, which represent just a small sample of the sort of discrimination and exclusion from public life that Christians have faced as a result of legislation passed by the Labour government.”

Huffington Post: “Speaking at a Los Angeles press conference for her movie about artificial insemination, ‘The Switch,’ Aniston said that ‘times have changed’ along with the idea of the traditional family. So if that means having one without the man in the picture, that’s okay.”

Seattle Weekly: “The battle for the Washington Supreme Court seat held by Jim Johnson is rallying LGBT interests. Johnson famously wrote an opinion upholding the state legislature’s ban on gay marriage . . . Johnson’s challenger, Stan Rumbaugh, runs a small law firm in Tacoma that represents employees in workers’-comp disputes. He’s been on the board of Planned Parenthood, the Tacoma Housing Authority, and Bates Technical College.”

KATC (AP): “The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments in the ACLU’s challenge of the single-gender programs at a Kaplan middle school.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “In a joint letter, Americans United and 22 other religious, educational and advocacy groups commended U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson for introducing a House resolution supporting academically sound curriculum development and criticizing the Texas State Board of Education for politicizing the state’s social studies standards.”

Kelly Shackelford writing at Constituting America: “Today, very little debate exists over the Twenty-second Amendment and executive term limits, though various members of Congress occasionally propose legislation to repeal the Amendment. Even now, two hundred years after President Washington stepped down after his second term, Americans generally accept the two-term limit as an adequate amount of time for a President to serve.”

Forum 18: “Turkey continues to interfere in the choices made by the Jewish, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic communities of who should lead them, Forum 18 News Service notes. The government makes no attempt to hide this interference, which raises serious questions in relation to its international human rights commitments to allow religious communities to select the leaders of their choice.”

Radio Free Europe: “Reports say authorities in Tajikistan’s northern city of Panjakent in Sughd province have prohibited the ‘adhan’ via loudspeakers because they said it could cause confusion and disturbs the peace.”

Advocates for Faith & Freedom: “Today, San Francisco Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution. In doing so, Walker overturned California’s Proposition 8, which was passed by a majority of California voters in 2008. The trial in this case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, occurred in January, 2010, in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California.” | Via Religion Clause

OneNewsNow: “Geoffrey Botkin, founder of the Western Conservatory for the Arts and Sciences, and Doug Phillips, president of Vision Forum Ministries, both agree that birth-control pills are just as damaging as abortion . . . ‘As the fertilized egg tries to implant, it’s not able to do so. And so then, an abortion occurs,’ he explains. ‘The people who [were] behind the creation of the pill back in the 1950s, they knew this, but it was not their concern to preserve the life of a child.’”

LifeSiteNews: “In the face of the ‘aberrant’ Supreme Court decision declaring constitutional the ‘immoral legal reform that permits unions between people of the same sex,’ the Church ‘cannot cease to call evil, evil,’ declared Mexico City’s Cardinal Archbishop Norberto Rivera during Sunday mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral.”

LifeSiteNews: “In a 9-2 split between the court’s conservative minority and liberal majority, the court voted to require the states to accept gay ‘marriage’ based on the constitution’s article 121, which states that in ‘each state of the federation complete faith and credit will be given to the public acts, registrations, and juridical procedures of all the others’ . . . Among the two dissenting judges was Guillermo I. Ortiz Mayagoitia, the Court’s president, who warned that forcing homosexual ‘marriage’ on the states could ‘break with the harmony of the federal system.’”

LifeSiteNews: “Life Decisions International (LDI) has released a revised edition of The Boycott List identifying corporations that support of Planned Parenthood, the world’s primary abortion-advocacy group.”

SCOTUSblog: “Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal today named Assistant to the Solicitor General Leondra Kruger to the position of Acting Principal Deputy Solicitor General.”

How Appealing Extra: “The White House is not likely to rush into appointing a permanent successor to Elena Kagan as solicitor general after her elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court, according to legal sources in Washington . . . The lack of quick action on appointing a permanent successor means acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, one of two frontrunners for the position, will probably remain in his current capacity well into the court’s October 2010 term.”

Rasmussen: “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters think the agenda of Democrats in Congress is extreme. Thirty-four percent (34%) say it is more accurate to describe the Democratic agenda as mainstream.”

Terry Jeffrey writing at Townhall: “The Founding Fathers understood the laws of nature, the Ten Commandments, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to be wholly consistent with one another. Judge Walker and the same-sex marriage movement have declared war on them all.”

Washington Times: “Two key sheriffs along the Arizona-Mexico border on Tuesday called a planned visit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton a ‘political stunt’ and described as ‘pathetic’ Obama administration attempts to ‘cover up its inaction in protecting our borders.’”

Maggie Gallagher answers three questions from James Withers at 365 Gay. The questions are: “Is there really a groundswell for [a federal marriage amendment] and isn’t that premature considering how the Walker decision hasn’t made it through the entire judicial process? . . . [Ted Olson] noted that constitutional rights are not up for popular votes . . . How would respond to that idea? . . . How would you respond to people who see equivalency between interracial and gay marriage bans?”

Associated Press: “Former Secretary of State Karen Handel conceded Wednesday in her bid for the GOP nomination to run for governor in Georgia. She’s throwing her support behind her opponent, former U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal.”

The Dallas Morning News (AP): “Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office has declined to issue an opinion on whether Texas counties can issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples if one of the people had sex reassignment surgery.”

Associated Press: “Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has told priests that the Vatican has rejected the resignations of his two auxiliary bishops following their reported involvement in the Roman Catholic Church’s cover-up of child abuse.”

Associated Press: “Hundreds of Muslim guerrillas have undergone combat training and sought more weapons in the southern Philippines to bolster their military muscle in case planned peace talks with the government falter, a military report said Wednesday.”

“The Constitutional Court’s 5-2 decision released Tuesday says such a referendum would put a minority at a disadvantage in a largely Roman Catholic country. It also says gay civil unions is a legislative issue and not an electoral one.”

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted writing in The Catholic Sun: “The misguided decision of Judge Vaughn Walker, striking down as unconstitutional the California Marriage Law called Proposition 8, cannot be passed over in silence . . . We have great need to rediscover the good news of God’s plan for marriage; and we need to resist in the public square all efforts to label this plan as a ‘hang up’ of the past. Labeling homosexual ‘marriage’ as ‘a right’ is not an enlightened idea of the 21st century. It is a novel form of a resurrected falsehood from more than 2,000 years ago. It will not stand the test of time, just as it cannot withstand popular opinion now.”

CNBC: “America is a ‘Mickey Mouse economy’ that is technically bankrupt, according to Jochen Wermuth, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and managing partner at Wermuth Asset Management. ‘America today looks like Russia in 1998. Consumers, companies and the government are all highly indebted. America as a result is a bankrupt Mickey Mouse economy,’ Wermuth told CNBC.”

The Sacramento Bee: “Government statisticians have put a number on Californians’ paycheck pain last year: about $40 billion. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis said personal incomes of Golden State workers fell by that amount in 2009 compared with the previous year – the state’s first year-to-year decline since World War II.”

CNSNews: “‘Many people are asking why Congress is here today,’ Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) said on Tuesday. ‘I think the answer’s pretty simple: We’re not bankrupting the country fast enough and so we need to come back and spend more.’”

HSLDA: “As Home School Legal Defense Association member families approach the beginning of the 2010–11 school year, they may be asked by local public school officials to complete and submit various unauthorized forms. An example from the 2009–10 school year was an ‘Affirmation of Understanding’ form sent to homeschooling parents in the Jefferson City Schools.”

ADF Attorney Joel Oster writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “A federal district court rejected a lawsuit filed by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and in so doing, exposed their true anti-Christian agenda . . . [K]nowing that they couldn’t stop the prayers, they then sought to challenge prayers ‘in Jesus’ name.’ This is really what bothers them. Fortunately, the court rejected this attempt at prayer censorship. If Americans United had stayed true to their identity, they would not be asking government officials to tell local clergy how and to whom to pray. This is a matter best left to theologians, not courts of law or local governments.”

ChristianNewsWire: “The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC) joins reasonable people everywhere who were dismayed that Proposition 8, which defines marriage in California as between a man and a woman, was overturned and declared unconstitutional by a federal judge on Aug 4, 2010. Judge Vaughn Walker’s opinion within which this ruling is made provides an extensive analysis of the issue. The ethicists of the NCBC think, however, that the opinion is irreparably flawed in that it never addresses head-on what constitutes the reality of marriage. Furthermore, the opinion commits itself to a false understanding of unjust discrimination and of the ever important concepts of sexuality and gender.”

Toronto Sun: “A openly gay man who is married to his partner has won a bid for refugee status due to concerns his life may be in jeopardy if he is deported to his native Jamaica.”

IndyStar.com (AP): “The School Board voted unanimously Monday to end the weekday religious education program run by Associated Churches of Fort Wayne since 1944. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana last month filed a lawsuit for the parents of a third-grader who said she was sent to Bible classes in trailers on school property without their permission.”

OneNewsNow: “Alliance Defense Fund has helped three government entities in South Carolina with prayer policies . . . ‘They received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation demanding that they stop opening up with prayers,’ [ADF Attorney Brett Harvey] explains, ‘and asking that they either do a moment of silence or ban prayers altogether during the city council meetings.’”

“The school’s Board of Trustees has named Shreveport attorney J. Michael Johnson as founding dean of the school, which will be named after Judge Paul Pressler III, a retired justice of the Texas Court of Appeals and key leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. Johnson most recently served as senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Philadelphia Daily News: “‘The only permit we need to speak to our fellow citizens is the First Amendment,’ said [Nate Kellum], a Memphis, Tenn., attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, who argued the winning case. ‘We don’t need to go through the bureaucratic nightmare of securing a governmental permit just to hand out literature, hold up a sign or engage in conversation.’”

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal | Mr. Conservative: “On 25 June a group of high school students stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spontaneously began to sing our National Anthem . . . Last month students were stopped from praying on the steps of the United States Supreme Court building . . . [a]ccording to the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group representing the students and their Constitutional rights.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Children First Foundation (CFF) has appealed to pro-life Governor Chris Christie to intervene to get the ‘Choose Life’ license plate approved by the state of New Jersey . . . In May of 2004, attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, filed suit on grounds of a violation of the First Amendment through “viewpoint discrimination,” or the unfair censorship of speech because of its content, not because of its type.”

Baptist Press: “Nearly 50 percent of likely voters back the military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy on open homosexual military service, according to a new poll that conflicts with other surveys showing far lower support . . . [Daniel Blomberg], an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said he was encouraged by the poll’s results. ‘The majority of Americans really have a high level of respect for the religious liberty rights of our chaplains and of our service members,’ Blomberg said.”

Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Colorado Senate candidate Jane Norton at The Corner: “I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen of Jane Norton — and her husband, who does pro bono work for the good people at the Alliance Defense Fund — and I hope she pulls off a win today. Whatever happens, I hope this is not the last we see of her in politics. The mere fact that John McCain supports you doesn’t make you bad.”

The Daily You: “The Louisiana College Board of Trustees has voted unanimously to name Shreveport attorney, J. Michael Johnson, Esq., as the Founding Dean of its law school. Mr. Johnson is a nationally recognized constitutional law attorney who most recently served as Senior Legal Counsel, Allied Attorney Coach and national media spokesman for the Alliance Defense Fund. ‘Mike brings a wealth of energy, experience and expertise to the post of Dean, and the College is delighted that he agreed to accept this post,’ said Aguillard.”

“The decision by federal judge Vaughan Walker to invalidate California’s Proposition 8 both recycles and revives some of the tired, misleading clichés regarding the same sex marriage controversy. These distortions demand direct, concise correction and rebuttal.”

Court struck down unconstitutional fee scheme but allowed Southeastern La. Univ. to maintain other problematic regulations

“Why then, do we bother? . . . We bother because, in the end, we will win . . . ”

ADF attorney Gary McCaleb is a guest blogger at the Constituting America Blog: “Federalist No. 76 recognizes that every government needs a stable of civil servants, who in turn must be secured for service with reasonable dispatch and with some assurance of quality. The paper plays off a consistent theme of our founding era—to balance each grant of authority (and concomitant power) with some restraint on the authority. In a nutshell, Hamilton takes the familiar balancing of powers among the executive, judicial, and legislative branches down a notch as he considers how to expeditiously staff the government with high quality persons, while restraining the appointment power lest it be used by the President to untoward ends. ”

Jeremiah Dys writes at the Engage Family Blog: “Don’t dismiss it lightly. If the elections since 2008 are any indication, the issue of whether a candidate supports marriage as one man and one woman has received more voter attention than the economy and ‘cap-and-tax’ combined.”

The Christian Institute: “Prof Roger Scruton was appointed quarter-time professorial fellow in moral philosophy and is due to take up his new role in the spring. But the university’s students’ association has hit out at comments Prof Scruton made in 2007, where he defended the rights of children in an article about same-sex adoption, and stated that homosexuality was ‘not normal’ . . . Last month a popular professor was barred from teaching at a US university . . . But with the backing of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a US-based religious liberty organisation, Professor Kenneth Howell was swiftly reinstated . . . Also last month a Christian student in the US was told she will not be permitted to graduate unless she changed her beliefs.”