Daily Archives: August 26, 2010

The Salt Lake Tribune: “Gov. Gary Herbert warned Thursday that the education plan put forward by his opponent, Democrat Peter Corroon, would likely mean the elimination of LDS seminary courses.”

Catholic Culture: “The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is facing a critical test of support among the US bishops this week, CWN has learned . . . The CCHD was established by the US bishops in 1970 to attack the root causes of poverty in America . . . Last year . . . criticism reached a crescendo, as lay Catholic groups exposed CCHD funding for organizations that promote causes inimical to Catholic teaching, such as legal abortion and same-sex marriage. While the CCHD leadership said that such grants accounted for only a small percentage of the organization’s funding for self-help groups, several American bishops announced that they were withdrawing their dioceses from the nationwide campaign to support the CCHD.”

Baptist Press: “Southern Baptist church-state specialist Richard Land and 10 Baptist college presidents joined other American religious leaders Aug. 25 in urging Congress to protect the hiring rights of faith-based organizations that receive federal grants.”

Fox 13 Utah: “The American Civil Liberties Union is raising concerns about the proposed sale of a portion of Manti’s city block to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . he ACLU says the street has historically been a thoroughfare used as a public forum for people of all religious persuasions — particularly during the annual week-long Mormon Miracle Pageant.”

Family Research Council: “This unfortunate confirmation [regarding former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman] helps explain the scandalous failure of many in the Republican establishment to vigorously uphold the values and policy positions expressed in the party’s platform in 2004 and 2008, particularly the need to protect the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman nationwide. While grassroots activists succeeded in passing marriage amendments in dozens of states across the country, they received little support and even outright resistance from Party officials at the national level, which contributed to the GOP’s electoral failures in 2006 and 2008. Now we know one of the major reasons why.”

New York Times: “Economists may assert that we’re in the early stages of a recovery, but surveys continue to show that the impact of the Great Recession on American families is deep, widespread and grim . . . The poor are getting poorer, and the rich, despite stock-market setbacks, are still comparatively rich. The most devastating losses in household wealth over the past two years have been suffered by the middle class. And families are fraying at the seams.”

Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski writing at Fox News: “The Republican Party has an official position on same-sex marriage. It’s found in the 2008 GOP platform, which is the clear and uncontestable Republican position until the 2012 convention . . . The GOP platform could not be more explicit: Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The fundamental institution of human civilization should be preserved as it has been known through the entirety of American history and Western civilization . . . You cannot have it both ways. Do you want to see Obamacare struck down as unconstitutional? Then you can’t have a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”

Las Vegas Sun: “Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto finds herself potentially stuck between the governing documents on the issue of gay marriage. And those on both sides of the volatile debate say she should wade into the legal fight in their favor.”

ABC News: “In his days as a student at the University of Utah, Chase Kimball was known as number 007, donating his sperm at $20 a pop to help infertile couples . . . He estimates that over a seven-year period during the 1970s and 1980s, he likely sired ‘hundreds of children’ . . . Most children are never told they are the product of sperm donation, according to Kimball, ‘so the vast majority of my children don’t even know I exist.’”

CNSNews (AP): “Mehlman, who was campaign manager for President George W. Bush in 2004 and then RNC chairman after Bush’s re-election, told The Atlantic in an interview published online Wednesday that he came to the conclusion he is gay recently and wanted to talk about it publicly because he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage.”

My Fox New York: “A drunk man barged into a mosque in Queens, N.Y., and shouted anti-Muslim slurs before urinating on prayer rugs, the New York Post reported Thursday.”

The Hill: “The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is appealing a federal court ruling that its indecency policy is unconstitutional, arguing the decision makes it all but impossible for the agency to enforce restrictions on broadcasting nudity or profanity.”

LifeNews: “Just days after Alaska voters approved a new law allowing parents to be notified when their teenage daughter is considering an abortion, the Planned Parenthood abortion business is preparing to push teens into using provisions, meant for abused kids, to keep all parents in the dark.”

Catholic News Agency: “A young pro-life leader from the International Youth Alliance has denounced the World Youth Conference in Leon, Mexico as a ‘farce.’ He explained that the United Nations-promoted event is working to impose an agenda on delegates that is contrary to life and the family.”

Little Chicago Review: “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Monday put the brakes on an August 18 implementation date for U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s order overthrowing the will of 7 million California voters with regard to marriage. ‘It made no sense to impose a radical change in marriage on the people of California before all appeals on their behalf are heard, so the 9th Circuit’s decision is clearly the right call,’ said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel [Jim Campbell].”

Spero News: “Two members of the alumni association of the country’s largest reformist student group have been detained by security forces in Tehran, a member of the association has told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.”

Detroit Free Press: “A group of tea party activists and Republican legislative candidates filed suit Tuesday seeking to keep candidates from what they claim is a phony Tea Party from appearing on the Michigan ballot in November.”

“[W]e conclude that the Medi-Share program does provide a ‘contract for insurance’ . . . We also conclude that Medi-Share does not fall within the Religious Publications Exemption.”

“Only candidates nominated by the Commission may be appointed by the Governor. Since all nominees allowed to move forward by the Commission may be opposed to the Governor, the Judicial Council, and not the people, has complete control over who becomes a judge in Kansas.”

The Falmouth Packet: ” The third gay pride festival will parade through the streets of Truro in a riot of colour and music on Saturday.”

Helsingin Sanomat: “If the next Finnish government makes it a part of its programme to grant homosexuals the right to marry by changing the law on marriage, the Christian Democrats may not be seen in that government, always assuming they do enough at the polls to be in consideration for a seat in the coalition that is formed after next April’s elections. ‘We will be part of a government that is in tune with Christian values’, said Päivi Räsänen, chair of the Christian Democrats, at the party’s summer conference in Varkaus.”

Mikko Heikka, Lutheran Bishop of Espoo, writing at Helsingin Sanomat: “Gender-neutral marriage laws have been passed in several European countries. There have been calls for similar legislation in Finland as well. In the debate that has taken place views have been put forward that a gender-neutral marriage law would be something negative from the point of view of the Church . . . in the Protestant Church the view that is constantly gaining strength is one that interprets marriage in the frame of reference of modern natural law, according to which the structures of natural law are not unchanging, and that they can be reinterpreted in changing cultural contexts . . . ”

Euro Weekly: “Alberto Linero Marchena, married to a gay partner, claimed last Monday that he was expelled from the Air Force after two years of ‘threats, abuse and propositioning’. Linero was stationed at the Moron de la Frontera base in Sevilla but has been on psychiatric sick leave since November 2009.”

The Moscow News: “Regular Russian protest marches on the 31st of the month will be staged in London, thanks to flamboyant exiled tycoon Yevgeny Chichvarkin. Meanwhile the original Moscow edition is set to welcome gay rights campaigners for the first time as opposition groups continue to assert their right to peaceful freedom of assembly in the face of official opposition.”

Interfax: “Wahhabism is losing support in the North Caucasus, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office Alexander Bastrykin said.”

“A new ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has prompted the Alliance Defense Fund to send follow-up letters to five colleges and universities that it contacted in April about their problematic ‘speech codes.’”

Interfax: “Representatives of the leading religions of Russia pointed out the lack of legal institutions focused on crime prevention in Russia. ‘We have overlooked morality police or conscience police,’ chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities in Russia rabbi Zinovy Kogan said Wednesday at a round table talks held in Interfax.”

Associated Press: “A federal judge says the Nebraska Supreme Court should answer a legal question about whether a Nebraska city’s ban on hiring and renting to illegal immigrants is allowed by state law.”

Associated Press: “The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of inmates in prison and 3.1 percent of inmates in jail report being victimized sexually by another inmate or staff member. Those percentages translate to the sexual victimization of 88,500 inmates behind bars nationwide in the previous 12 months, according to a study by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2008-2009.”

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: “ADF lawyers filed a federal lawsuit on Boardley’s behalf against the Department of the Interior, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In March, 2009, the court found that a portion of one of the regulations challenged in the lawsuit was unconstitutional. ADF attorneys didn’t think that went far enough because it still forced individuals, like Boardley, to obtain government permission to communicate with fellow citizens, and so they filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit two months later. On August 6, that court issued its ruling, in favor of Boardley.”

Timothy P. Carney writing at The Washington Examiner: “Brink Lindsey, a vice president at Cato and the evangelist of a libertarian-liberal coalition, was driven from the think tank, and he was followed out the door by his astute lieutenant, Will Wilkinson . . . Obama’s unprecedented and breathtaking expansion of federal control over the economy, and his continuation of military interventionism and Dick Cheney-era detention and interrogation policies, has made it clear that this administration is openly hostile to the libertarian agenda. In brief: Lindsey’s ‘liberal-tarianism,’ as he calls it, was buried by Obama . . . Obama’s excesses are making free-marketeers more partisan.”

Russell Korobkin writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “In a [post yesterday], I described why I think Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision on Monday that the Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibits the federal government from funding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research is wrong on the merits. Technically, however, the decision was not a ruling on the merits. Lamberth actually granted the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Because the issue is a pure question of statutory interpretation, and because the opinion in no way suggested that it was tentative in nature, it seems almost certain that Lamberth will eventually replace the preliminary injunction with a permanent one. But the government is entitled to another day in court before this can happen.”

E. Christian Brugger, D. Phil, Senior Fellow in Ethics at the Culture of Life Foundation: “The secret that the Ella establishment doesn’t want you to know is this: from a pharmacological perspective, Ella is not an emergency contraceptive (EC). It is an abortion drug . . . federal funds would be allowed to cover Ella abortions, and private insurance plans will be forced to pay for them.”

OneNewsNow: “Dr. Vicki Murray is the associate director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute (PJI) and director of the Women for School Choice project at the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF). She reports that reading levels for fourth-graders in the Sunshine State were close to the bottom of the barrel a little over a decade ago, but one of the changes made during that time was to give parents the opportunity to choose the best school for their children.”

OneNewsNow: “A spokeswoman for Americans United for Life says it’s obvious the Obama administration wants to circumvent the law and make federal funds available for research that requires the killing of unborn babies.”

Religion Clause: “Today’s New York Times and a press release from World Vision report that over 100 religious organizations have written to every member of Congress objecting to a provision in HR 5466, the proposed SAMHSA Modernization Act of 2010 reauthorizing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. At issue is a provision (Sec. 501(m)(2)) that would prevent grant recipients under the Act from hiring on the basis of religion.”

“Baraq [Barack] was the name of the winged horse-like creature that took Mohammed to Paradise in the Night Journey . . . . . The Arab African Muslim has always been associated with slavery because Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery . . . ”

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on the Mike Gallagher Show to discuss the recent 10th circuit decision holding that Utah Cross memorials for fallen State Troopers violates the Constitution. | MP3 7:04 mins | Related ADF Media information

ADF attorney Daniel Blomberg on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss some of the ramifications of the Proposition 8 marriage ruling.  | MP3 24:18 mins

Briefly put, marriage ― as conventionally understood ― is a bulwark of liberty. Here ― despite the bigotry of Iowa judges against the past ― I revert to history. The telling reality is that every modern totalitarian movement ― every enemy of a free society ― has moved early and aggressively to disrupt or destroy the institution of natural marriage.”

Gerard Magliocca writing at Concurring Opinions: “Last month I wrote two posts about The Gold Clause Cases, in which the Court upheld (5-4) FDR’s decision to take us off the gold standard in 1933 . . . FDR’s decision to break with gold was a bold repudiation of the consensus that had prevailed for a generation. Since consensus often turns into constitutional law (whether that consensus is in the text or not), the Gold Clause Cases in early 1935 marked the first crucial clash between the New Deal and the Court.”

Summary of Pew Research Center survey data [Google Viewer] via SCOTUSblog: “The Obama administration’s effort to paint the Supreme Court as an unacceptably conservative institution does not appear to be working. Survey data released during the summer by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press suggests that, if anything, more of the public views the Court as liberal than in the past. One reason, according to the Pew report, may be that the biggest news coming from the Court in the past year has been the addition of two Democratic nominees—Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—to its membership. The Pew report also offers yet more evidence of the public’s lack of knowledge about the Court.”

365Gay.com: “The complaint in this case was filed pro se, meaning that the parties are representing themselves. Although information about the case (including the complaint itself) is hard to find, your intrepid columnist did finally track down this exclusive interview with one of the plaintiffs, David Shupe-Roderick . . . Of course, if the judge follows the full-trial route that Judge Walker took in the Prop 8 case, Shupe-Roderick and Dupree will be at a substantial disadvantage. But the judge, Alan B. Johnson (a Reagan appointee) might simply decide the case on pure legal grounds. In that case, the playing field would be much more level, as the judge can read the cases and decide based on precedent and his own sense of what the constitution requires.”

“We face an aggressively secular political vision and a consumerist economic model that result – in practice, if not in explicit intent – in a new kind of state encouraged atheism.”

Associated Press: “Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch supporter of the mosque project, invited the taxi driver to visit City Hall on Thursday . . . A judge ordered Enright, 21, held without bail on charges of attempted murder and assault as hate crimes and weapon possession. The handcuffed defendant, wearing a polo shirt and cargo shorts, did not enter a plea during the brief court appearance.”

“If the statements on which Judge Walker based his ruling are ‘facts,’ how do we explain what is happening educationally to boys in the black community where a large majority are growing up without fathers?”

Associated Press: “Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former President Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government’s grip over the remaining news outlets.”

Bloomberg: “The Federal Reserve Board sought to delay the court-ordered release of documents identifying banks that might have failed without the U.S. government bailout while it considers an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Education Next: “Of all the innovations and policy reform proposals in education, it is online learning that is gathering public support most rapidly. In just one year—from 2009 to 2010—the percentage of Americans who think that high school students should be given credit for courses taken online has jumped from 42 percent to 52 percent.”

Eric J. Sundquist reviews Preaching With Sacred Fire, Edited by Martha Simmons and Frank A. Thomas, at the Wall Street Journal: “Ranging primarily across Christian denominations— Islam plays a small role in the book, and Judaism none at all—the editors place conventional homiletic and uplift preaching alongside the most strident black nationalism. Not every sermon is a gem, but a great many display the virtuosity for which black ministers, men and women alike, are well known. Rooted in Africa, the highly expressive oral tradition of black culture in America was forged during slavery, when black ministers preaching with ‘sacred fire,’ an idea common to many, were often proponents of emancipation. The latter-day liberation theology espoused by Jeremiah Wright and others—in his notorious sermon, Mr. Wright quoted Malcolm X’s comment about President Kennedy’s assassination, that ‘the chickens are coming home to roost’—thus follows in the tradition of resistance that flourished in slave quarters and antislavery pulpits.”

ScienceMag.org / Science Insider: “More ongoing grants will come up for annual review in the coming months, so they will also be halted if the injunction stands. In addition, Steven Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund, a co-counsel in the plaintiff’s suit, says the plaintiffs haven’t ruled out a challenge to the Adminstration’s interpretation of the ruling.”

Regent Law Family Restoration: “The case of Sherley v. Sebelius was brought by Dr. James L. Sherley, Dr. Theresa Deisher, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, and the Christian Medical Association, who are represented by Advocates International (AI), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), and the firm Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, LLC . . . When human life is destroyed, respect for family strength and stability is also dramatically weakened. How we treat our children, and particularly our unborn offspring, whether embryonic or fetal, will determine our level of honor and respect toward families.”

ADF Executive Vice-President and Executive Director of ADF-Global Benjamin W. Bull writing at The Christian Post / Advancing Religious Liberty: “The Alliance of Romania’s Families has launched the Timisoara Declaration. (Scroll down their page to see the English version.) Inspired by similar actions taken by U.S., U.K., and Australian Christians which have resulted in the Manhattan Declaration, Westminster Declaration, and the Canberra Declaration, ARF has drafted a similar declaration of its own. The declaration was drafted by prominent Christian leaders and intellectuals of Romania’s Christian community.”

ADF Attorney Joe Martins writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a resounding decision in favor of free speech by invalidating several unconstitutional speech codes. In McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands, the Court struck down campus policies banning expression that is ‘offensive,’ ‘unauthorized,’ or which causes ‘emotional distress.’”

PressTV: “‘The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments — prohibited by federal law — that destroy human life. The court is simply enforcing an existing law passed by Congress that prevents Americans from paying another penny for needless research on human embryos,’ [Steven H. Aden] said.”

Salt Lake Tribune: “Gov. Gary Herbert is continuing a tradition – started by his predecessor Jon Huntsman Jr. – by hosting a third annual governor’s reception for the Utah Log Cabin Republicans, which represents the interests of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community within the Grand Old Party.”

Washington Blade: “A gay candidate running to represent Florida’s 17th congressional district lost his bid for the Democratic nomination on Tuesday. Scott Galvin, who’s gay and a North Miami City Council member, was among nine Democratic candidates seeking the nomination in the primary.”

The Globe and Mail: “Residents of an east-end Toronto neighbourhood took on a group of Christian parishioners preaching in their street in a heated confrontation Sunday, the result of what the gospel members insist was a complete misunderstanding.”

New York Times: “Code words, secret societies, covert meetings, fake identities: these are tools that a certain set of cadets learn here at the United States Military Academy at West Point. These cadets are not spies or moles. They are gay, and they exist largely in the shadows of this granite institution known for producing presidents and generals, where staying closeted is essential to avoid discharge under the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy.”

Reuters: “Britain recorded almost half a million new cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) last year, with teenagers and those aged under 25, especially young women, particularly affected, figures showed on Wednesday.”

The Moscow Times: “City Hall closed Triumfalnaya Ploshchad on Wednesday for the construction of a 600-car underground parking garage, leaving a popular venue for opposition rallies inaccessible for the next two to three years. But the opposition insisted that an Aug. 31 rally would go forward and invited the gay community to join.”

CBS2: “It is an empty restaurant in the West Rogers Park neighborhood. Some wanted to turn into a mosque. Business leaders and the city apparently don’t agree.”

Wes Vernon writes at Renew America: “Can the judiciary be truly independent? Or will ‘we the people’ take charge?”

Politico: “Top Democrats are growing markedly more pessimistic about holding the House, privately conceding that the summertime economic and political recovery they were banking on will not likely materialize by Election Day.”

Broadening the Picture of Nineteenth-Century Baptists: How Battles with Catholicism Moved Baptists Toward Separationism
Marty McMahone, 25 J.L. & Religion 453 (2010)

“The thesis of this article is that during the early development of the United States, Baptists, while agreeing on the basic principle of religious liberty, exhibited several different streams of thought concerning the proper relationship between church and state. Baptists fought hard against the state establishments that existed at the time of the American founding. During that time (and after it as well), they did often use the phrase ‘separation of church and state.’ However, even during the last days of those battles, they expressed views different from modern separationism. To characterize Baptists as separationists during that time requires an equivocal understanding of the use of the term among early Baptists. Different streams of thought on separation were evident at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and they would widen into at least three different perspectives on church-state relations during the course of the century.”

The Many Windows of the Wall – Review Essay
25 J.L. & Religion 541 (2009)

“In this essay, I draw out three major areas effectively brought out by these various studies, including a number of issues on which they can be substantively engaged and brought into dialogue with one another. These are 1) diverse understandings of secularism and the secular state; 2) the significance of particular, controversial cases of adjudicating the proper relation between church and state; and 3) the broader challenges raised by religious diversity in redefining good citizenship, consensus values and civic belonging.”

First Amendment – Balancing Public Safety and Freedom of Speech Outside Reproductive Healthcare Facilities – McCullen v. Coakley 571 F.3D 167
Robert P. Orthman, 6 J. Health & Biomedical L. 159 (2010)

“In McCullen v. Coakley . . . the First Circuit correctly determined that the Massachusetts buffer zone law struck an appropriate balance between protecting an individual’s right to reproductive services and upholding the right of individuals to demonstrate outside those clinics.”

Is Your Bedroom a Private Place? Fornication and Fundamental Rights
Amanda Connor, 39 N.M. L. Rev. 507 (2009)

“The thesis of this note is that the Tenth Circuit failed to apply the reasoning from Lawrence in the case of Seegmiller. Part II of this note describes the facts, procedural history, holdings and reasoning in the case of Seegmiller. Part III examines the background law surrounding Seegmiller and focuses on two points. First it recounts the historical development of the fundamental rights doctrine. Second, it juxtaposes Justice Blackmun’s call for a fundamental right to privacy in his dissent in Bowers v. Hardwick with an analysis of the Lawrence majority opinion. Part IV, the analysis section, examines whether the Supreme Court should recognize a fundamental right to privacy and argues that Seegmiller was not correctly decided based on the reasoning of Lawrence.”

Rosalie Berger Levinson, Time to Bury the Shocks-the-Conscience Test (February 11, 2010). Chapman Law Review, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1551391

“The thesis of this Article is that the ‘shocks-the-conscience’ test should be rejected. First, it is historically untenable. Second, it rests on shaky precedent and has not been consistently adhered to by the Supreme Court in subsequent cases. Third, the concern cited by the Court to justify a more stringent standard for executive action — fear of converting § 1983 substantive due process claims into a ‘font of tort law’ — is unfounded and exaggerated. Fourth, the numerous circuit conflicts demonstrate that the test has proven to be an unworkable analytical tool. To replace Lewis, this Article proposes a new test with specific criteria, extrapolated from various Supreme Court and appellate court decisions, to guide courts in determining when government misconduct should be viewed as an unconstitutional abuse of power.”

Recognizing and Regulating Home Schooling in California: Balancing Parental and State Interests in Education
Paul A. Alarcón, 13 Chap. L. Rev. 391 (2010)

“Part I of this Comment summarizes the history of education in America discussing in particular the emergence of modern home schooling. Part II considers the conflict between the governmental and parental interests in education created by home schooling and provides an in-depth analysis of these dueling interests. Part III concludes with a proposal for enacting a home school exemption to California’s compulsory school attendance statute, a consideration of limitations adopted by other states, and a proposal for adopting two specific home schooling restrictions.”