Daily Archives: August 27, 2010

Telegraph: “Graham Miles, 66, said that through sheer willpower he regained the use of his body after he was left completely paralysed except for his eyes by a stroke in the stem of the brain which connects it to the body.”

Associated Press: “Muslim leaders in the United States are criticizing New York Gov. David Paterson for his description of the developers of a mosque planned near ground zero as peaceful, ‘almost westernized’ Muslims.”

Deroy Murdock writing in The Washington Times: “Far more important is what would happen inside this mosque. That should determine if it should be even closer to Ground Zero or if it even should open anywhere in America . . . Does Mr. Rauf embrace such brutality? Who knows? But the fact that he wants the United States to be ‘Shariah-compliant’ rather than Shariah-free should worry every liberty-loving American.”

Reuters: “The U.S. government told staff at its consulate in Monterrey to send their children out of the northern Mexican city where drug violence has been escalating, the consulate said on Friday.”

ChristianNewsWire: “Yesterday, Thomas More Society attorneys filed a lawsuit to compel disclosure of public records that indicate why a doctor in Michigan was not punished for tossing aborted fetuses and patient records in the trash. Robert Fleming, local counsel for the Chicago-based Thomas More Society, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Monica Migliorino Miller, Ph.D. and Citizens for a Pro-Life Society (CPLS) in Ingram County Circuit Court.”

ChristianNewsWire: “Today, the Power of Praise Worship Center Church (PPWC) filed a lawsuit against the Village of Dixmoor for violating a Federal land use law . . . The suit alleges that Dixmoor’s Code Enforcement Officer, Fred Cody, took matters into his own hands when he forced the church out of the building they were renting, citing that the church was in an area not zoned for religious use. This was after Dixmoor’s Village Board of Trustees agreed that PPWC could lawfully use a facility it rented.”

Colleen Carroll Campbell writes at STLToday.com: “After months of unsuccessfully fighting against Senate Bill 793, a new Missouri law that requires clinics to offer ultrasounds and information about fetal development to women seeking abortions, Planned Parenthood officials and their ilk are trying a new tack. They are trading their charge that optional ultrasounds constitute a threat to women’s rights — a nonsensical complaint that never got much traction — for the claim that the law rests on religious and philosophical opinions rather than facts.”

Asia News: “A former Hindu converted to Christianity was killed this morning near Tiangia, a village in the district of Kandhamal (Orissa) hit by anti-Christian pogrom of August 2008.”

Catholic Culture: “Only 16 men are entering the seminary in Ireland this year– down from 39 in 2009, and over 150 during the average year in the 1980s. Ireland currently has 99 seminarians, while England and Wales have 150.”

The Detroit News: “The surprise resignation Thursday of Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Weaver caused political upheaval as Gov. Jennifer Granholm quickly appointed a replacement and tilted the balance of power in the state’s highest court. Naming Appeals Court Judge Alton Davis to Weaver’s seat gave Democrats a majority on the court for the first time in 11 years and could have lasting impact on the state, analysts say.”

CitizenLink: “Liberals who rely on courts to achieve what democratic majorities would never stand for, however, see such campaigns to oust judges as a threat to their ‘judicial independence’ – a polite euphemism that many times means ‘you can’t stop us.’ They are worried about the ‘chilling effect’ it will have on judges nationwide. Erick Erickson of Redstate.com has an answer for that: A chilling effect on judges is ‘exactly what this country needs.’”

Boston.com (AP):  ”The developer behind plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from ground zero kicked off fundraising for the project Friday by raising $10,000 in just a few minutes from a congregation of Muslim worshippers.”

US v Di Pietro, No. 09-13726 (11th Cir. Aug. 27, 2010) | Google Viewer

“This case requires us to address de novo two constitutional challenges to § 1325(c) U.S.C. § 1325(c), ['which imposes criminal liability on any individual who knowingly enters into a marriage for the purpose of evading federal immigration laws'] in evaluating whether the district court properly denied Ms. Di Pietro’s motion to dismiss her indictment. Specifically, Ms. Di Pietro argues that § 1325(c) is so vague that it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. She also contends that the statute unconstitutionally preempts Florida’s marriage laws, which purportedly recognize the validity of marriages entered into for any purpose. After thorough review and oral argument, we agree with the district court that Ms. Di Pietro’s constitutional challenges do not pass muster. We therefore affirm the district court’s ruling and sustain her conviction under the statute.”

Hugh Hewitt Show transcript: Peter Hitchens discusses the decline of Christianity in the West, and his book, The Rage Against God. Excerpt: “We are a country in very severe decline of all kinds, and there is, at the moment, no sign whatever of any serious attempt to recover from that decline. On the contrary, it’s embraced by a large part of the population . . . unless something is done about it very soon, then as a society, we will cease to function. We are becoming an uncivilized anarchy, and a very, very uneducated and immoral one as well. The other thing, the institution of marriage is in an advanced state of collapse here. Marriage simply doesn’t enter into the lives of many young people who set up home without even considering getting married. It doesn’t happen. It’s gone. The number of children being born outside wedlock is colossal. I think it’s now the majority.”

Wyoming Tribune Eagle: “Last week, a Cheyenne couple challenged Wyoming’s law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. But many of the key supporters on gay rights aren’t backing the action [and were] surprised by the lawsuit . . . ‘We don’t support this argument at this time,’ said Tim Reid, a board member for Wyoming Equality, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender advocacy group.”

EU Observer: “An Italian MP is planning to ask gay couples to hold a day of mass-scale public kissing in September in a fight against petty homophobia. But a draft EU law combatting the same problem is likely to stay off the agenda for years.”

Associated Press: “Utah’s Supreme Court has rejected a petition from members of a southern Utah-based polygamous sect seeking a reversal of changes made to its communal land trust.” FLDS v. Hon. Lindberg, No. 20090859 (Utah Aug. 27, 2010)

Reihan Salam writing at The Daily Beast: “However much Republicans like former RNC chair Ken Mehlman want to embrace gay rights, the party’s rank-and-file won’t for years to come . . . Republicans are far less likely to accept gay relationships than Democrats or Independents. According to Gallup, 61 percent of Democrats accept gay relationships, as do 61 percent of Independents. Though virtually all groups in the U.S. are growing more accepting of lesbians and gays, the gap between Republicans and Democrats is vast. It is all the more striking that elite Republicans tend to be far more favorably disposed towards embracing gay rights including the right to marry than grassroots Republicans.”

LifeNews: “Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell appears to agree with the opinion Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli issued late Friday providing legal guidance for the state Board of Health. Cuccinelli said more limits can be placed on abortion businesses in Virginia when it comes to healthy and safety standards.”

The Blog of LegalTimes: “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has just upheld lower court findings that reject a causal connection between childhood vaccines and the onset of autism. The ruling came in Cedillo v. Secretary of Health and Human Services.”

AFP: “Muslims and Jews in the United States remain among the most ardent supporters of President Barack Obama, whose overall job approval ratings have been falling sharply, a Gallup poll showed Friday. The survey which tracked opinions over a period from January 21 to July 31 showed 78 percent of Muslims and 61 percent of Jews approved of Obama’s job performance.”

Chicago Tribune: “After an uproar over three controversial proposals to build or expand Islamic centers in DuPage County, about 60 people attended a more than two-hour public hearing on Thursday evening to debate a proposed ban on opening new religious facilities in unincorporated residential areas in the county.”

Christian Science Monitor / Adam Smith Institute Blog: “This week the last Catholic adoption agency in the UK has been forced to cease adoptions following the ruling of the Charity Commission. Catholic Care, a Leeds-based social care organization, only offers adoption services to heterosexual married couples. The Commission has ruled that their religious views do not justify its refusal to place children with homosexual couples. Gay rights campaigners may see this result as a victory, but I believe it reflects a growing trend of trampling on religious groups’ liberties and will mean young, vulnerable children will lose out.”

WKMS: “This week, the Mayfield zoning board denied a conditional use permit that would have allowed a mosque in the city’s downtown. This is the first conditional use permit submitted by a religious organization the board has denied . . . ‘We certainly have obviously serious concerns about the procedural irregularities. But we will undertake a review of the situation and decide what actions, if any, the ACLU will undertake.’”

Juneau Empire: “The biggest abortion provider in Alaska, Planned Parenthood, has created a website to help teens meet the requirements of the ballot measure approved in Tuesday’s election.”

“The Muslim center . . . could qualify for tax-free financing, a spokesman for City Comptroller John Liu said on Friday, and Liu is willing to consider approving the public subsidy.”

The Christian Institute: “The Church of England has called on the BBC to appoint a religion editor to bring more depth to the Corporation’s religious output. Bishop of Manchester Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, the Church’s senior communications spokesman, said that it made little sense for areas such as arts and science to have editors, but not religion.”

The Christian Institute: “Women could be paid up to £800 for donating their eggs to fertility clinics under a controversial new proposal from the UK’s fertility regulator. The proposal is one of a number of options being considered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) in an attempt to address a current shortage of egg and sperm donors.”

The Christian Institute: “A Government guide for homosexual and transgender taxpayers has received a stinging rebuke from a prominent national newspaper commentator . . . The glossy booklet, which features the gay pride flag on its front cover, promises that ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ is at the heart of the agency’s diversity agenda.” Richard Littlejohn’s article is here.

The Christian Institute: “Faith schools shouldn’t be allowed to teach religious education (RE) lessons in line with their beliefs, according to atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins . . . During an interview with the Times newspaper Professor Dawkins said that RE should be taught in a ‘comparative way according to a national curriculum’, and accused faith schools of ‘indoctrinating’ pupils.”

The Christian Institute: “Free speech laws that allow people to express their opinions about homosexual conduct should be scrapped, Labour leadership hopeful Ed Miliband says . . . His extraordinary comments appear in an opinion article he wrote for the homosexual website, Pink News.”

Exerpt from Milband’s Pink News commentary: “I also wish we’d succeeded in changing the law to make incitement to homophobic hate a crime. I was angry when I saw the House of Lords force through a ‘freedom of speech’ opt-out to our legislation and I think along with many others I felt there could be no better argument for why the House of Lords and our politics needs reform. Homophobic attacks are on the increase, such as the vicious murder of Ian Baynham, beaten to death in our capital city.”

The Christian Institute: “Labour MP, Chris Bryant, is continuing his party’s controversial attempts to impose compulsory sex education in schools, despite opposition from head teachers and faith leaders . . . This type of bill is unlikely to become law but critics say the proposal, expected to be debated on 8th September, will be used to establish the mood in the new parliament on the issue of sex education.”

Associated Press: “Critics of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination and its more open stance toward gay clergy formed a new Lutheran church Friday at a meeting of a conservative activist group. The overwhelming voice vote by members of the Lutheran Coalition of Renewal created the North American Lutheran Church, a tiny denomination of churches formerly affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, headquartered in Chicago.”

“Alliance Defense Fund attorneys secured a consent order Friday from a district court that requires the city of Stayton to allow a man to display pro-life signs on a public street corner.”

Guessing the Trigger Point for a U.S. Debt Crisis [View online at Insider Online]
by Arnold Kling

“It would appear to be quite likely that the United States will experience a debt crisis within the next two decades, unless the path for fiscal policy changes from what is projected by the Congressional Budget Office. However, international capital markets continue to treat U.S. Treasury debt as a fairly safe asset. One way to interpret this phenomenon is that investors expect the United States to take steps to get its fiscal house in order. The assumption that the United States will have the political will to stabilize its fiscal position is based more on hope than on recent experience. If the political process continues to enlarge the government’s commitments to spend in the future, investor expectations will change at some point. That change in market perception is likely to be swift and severe.”

Pioneer Press: “A former St. Paul schoolteacher has been sued again — this time by two foster children and their guardians — for allegedly using the children to produce pornography . . . The lawsuit targets the recipients of the pornography as much as Larsen, Noaker said. One hundred as yet-unnamed ‘downloaders’ also are listed as defendants.”

CNSNews: “The cleric who wants to build a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero claims that ideas from his book were incorporated into President Obama’s landmark Cairo address to the Muslim world last year by one of the drafters of the speech.”

CNSNews: “Police allege the men had plans and schematics to make improvised explosive devices. Police seized 50 electronic circuit boards which they say could be used as remote-control triggers for bombs. They said one of the men was trained overseas to make explosive booby traps, but did not specify which one.”

The Christian Post: “The niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is pushing back against fellow African-American Christians who have accused her of hijacking the civil rights movement for her own political agenda – namely to protect the unborn . . . According to the Guttmacher Institute, black women are more likely to have an abortion, at rates three to five times the rate of white women. The high abortion rate, however, has been linked to poverty and women of color tend to come from lower-income households.”

FrumForum: “Gay marriage is ruled a federal right for the first time and the response from the GOP is . . . tepid. Not one nationally prominent elected official thought the issue was important enough to get worked up over. The only cries of outrage were from politically active religious groups. Recently when both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the U.S. House voted to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, hardly a critical peep was heard regarding the votes of leading GOP figures (with the exception of John McCain who was facing a conservative primary challenger).”

Seattle Times: “Meth use among gay men has been a pervasive problem for decades, particularly in the western United States. Here in King County, about 10 percent of gay and bisexual men used crystal meth in a given year, according to data from Public Health — Seattle & King County. These rates are twice as high in men under the age of 30.”

ExecutiveGov.com: “. . . Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012, the chairman told students and local leaders in Detroit. ‘That’s one year’s worth of defense budget,’ he said . . . ”

“Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem said Friday that sexually oriented businesses likely will suffer economic loss as a result of the law. But he says that alone does not affect the legal analysis of the constitutional claims.”

Bay Area Reporter: “A state senator and two Assembly members from the East Bay have thrown their support to a transgender woman running for an open seat on the Alameda County Superior Court this fall . . . Should [Victoria Kolakowski] win election in November, Kolakowski would be the first openly transgender trial court judge in the country and the only out LGBT superior court judge in Alameda County.”

Avik Roy writing at National Review’s The Agenda: “The NHS, for American conservatives, is the paradigm of how state control of the health care system plays out. Palin’s logic is irrefutable: once the government is spending the money, the government has an obligation to the taxpayer to use those dollars as efficiently. What does that entail? From the government’s point of view, that involves not wasting money on end-of-life care . . . What conservatives are objecting to is the involvement of the state in end-of-life counseling. It comes down to this: if the government is funding health care, and simultaneously funding end-of-life counseling, the government has a conflict of interest . . . It is, at bottom, the same reason we insist on a free, independent press (and free speech in general): when the government controls the media, it has a conflict of interest; i.e., an incentive to promote journalism that is favorable to the government.”

Carl H. Esbeck, Uses and Abuses of Textualism and Originalism in Establishment Clause Interpretation (August 23, 2010). Utah Law Review, Vol. 2011, No. 2; University of Missouri School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2010-19. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1663829

“This article takes up the curious tale as to why the more obvious text and the drafting record in the House and Senate were ignored by the Court in Everson and what it can tell us about contemporary theories making the rounds. One theory of conservatives is that the Establishment Clause was not intended to prohibit support for religion so long as no religion is preferred over others. This is called ‘nonpreferentialism.’ A second theory is that the clause was only intended to deny the national government power to disturb how States arranged their church-state affairs. I call this ‘specific federalism.’ Neither theory is supported by the text or the congressional record.”

Expatica: “A Dutch appeals court on Thursday fined an Arab organisation in the Netherlands 2,500 euros for causing ‘unnecessary offence’ in publishing a Holocaust-denying cartoon.” Via Eugene Volokh.

The Boston Globe: “A Boston man being held in North Korea since January for crossing into that country illegally was freed yesterday at the behest of former President Jimmy Carter, and is expected to arrive back in Boston today . . . His friends told the Globe he was active in an evangelical church in South Korea and was very upset when a friend, Korean-American Robert Park, was arrested after crossing into North Korea on Dec. 25 to protest human rights abuses there.”

Reuters: “U.S. birth rates in 2009 declined for the second straight year, a sign the economy may be causing some women to think twice about having children, health officials said Friday.”

Washington Post: “Conservative activists are trying to oust three judges on the state Supreme Court whose unanimous ruling last year legalized same-sex unions. Their decision stunned opponents nationwide and delighted advocates who were eager for a victory in the heartland.” For more information see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/state-iowa+category-bench-and-bar/

LifeNews: “Focus on the Family recently donated to a local pregnancy center the 500th ultrasound machine designed to help women contemplating abortion see an image of their unborn baby. The program is credited with saving as many as 81,000 children from abortions across the United States.”

LifeNews: “The funding cuts will come even though the Obama administration was forced to reveal the results of a new study on Monday showing the effectiveness of abstinence education programs and the support parents have for them.”

LifeNews: “New Jersey Democrats in the state legislature have set a September 20 vote to attempt to override a veto Governor Chris Christie issued on a bill restoring the family planning funds Christie cut from the state budget. Christ said the money shouldn’t go to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.”

ADF attorney Steve Aden is quoted in the video linked at YouTube below.  | Related ADF Media Information Page |

http://www.youtube.com/v/PbHYvw3Ry0w?fs=1&hl=en_US

LifeNews: “Only 33% of U.S. voters believe that taxpayer money should be spent on embryonic stem cell research, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifty-seven percent of Americans say funding for the research, which has never helped any patients and requires the destruction of human life to facilitate, should be left to the private sector.” | Rasmussen

OneNewsNow: “The government is about to confirm what many people have felt for some time: The economy barely has a pulse. The Commerce Department on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.4 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent.”

Associated Press: “An international child pornography ring that operated on Facebook has been brought down with the social networking site’s support, Australian police said Friday.”

Associated Press: “The Royal United Services Institute said in a paper published Friday that criminals who’ve shared cells with jailed terrorists may also pose a risk if they’ve embraced radical ideologies. Michael Clarke, director of RUSI, claimed that one in 10 Muslim prisoners in high-security jails had been ‘successfully targeted’ by jihadists.”

Associated Press: “The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination says minorities in the Islamic republic don’t enjoy the same rights to free expression, health and housing as other ethnic groups.”

Associated Press: “Massachusetts, Delaware and Rhode Island were granted waivers Friday to ignore a new federal law meant to protect the voting rights of deployed troops and other Americans overseas, while Wisconsin was denied in its request . . . Not getting the waiver calls into question how Wisconsin will comply with deadlines that election officials have said can’t be met.”

reason.tv: “How did a clause intended as a restriction on states wind up giving Congress a green light to regulate noncommercial, local, and purely private behavior? How will ObamaCare stand up against the legal challenges brought by the states? Legal titans John Eastman (Chapman University Law Professor) and Erwin Chemerinsky (Founding Dean, University of California, Irvine School of Law) slug it out to to determine whether or not Congress has been abusing the commerce clause.” | Watch video here.

Religion Clause: “In 2006, in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot block a New Mexico church from using a hallucinogenic tea for religious purposes, and remanded the case for further proceedings. (See prior posting.) Today’s Albuquerque Journal reports that the case last week was finally been dismissed by a New Mexico federal district court after the parties entered a 21-page settlement agreement.”

SILive.com: “Iftar is the evening meal during which Muslims break their daily fast during the month of Ramadan. Around 50 people from the Island’s five mosques attended Wednesday’s event, staged in a Borough Hall conference room.” Via Religion Clause.

Ryan T. Anderson writing at The Public Discourse: “Bad ethics, bad science, bad politics, and bad law. Normally it takes only three strikes to be out. But not even this fourth will mark the death knell for this deadly science: while the ruling temporarily halts the federal funding of embryo-destructive stem-cell research, it does nothing to prevent the destruction of human embryos in privately funded research. There is no law forbidding embryo killing, and there never has been. And despite what some excitable commentators have said, there has never been a ban on embryonic stem-cell research. Yet this injunction is a step toward restoring taxpayer-supported scientific research to its morally upright place.”

Linda Greenhouse writing at The New York Times / Opinionator: “Believe it or not, a familiar Ten Commandments case is now heading back to the Supreme Court . . . the case could provide a window on how committed the Roberts court is to the project that some justices have clearly embraced, that of carving out more space for religion in the public square. The new/old case is McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which the Supreme Court last encountered in 2005 . . . Cases that concern the separation of church and state are among those on which the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens is likely to have the greatest impact. For years, Justice Stevens was the Supreme Court’s strictest separationist.”

David W. Kirkpatrick writing at Education News: “Perhaps the epitome of [a] union attitude came in Colorado when a package of education reform legislation was introduced in the state legislature and the Colorado Education Association promptly announced it would oppose each and every one. A very lengthy book could be written with such examples, and not exhaust them. In brief, despite claims that any critic of union procedures is anti-union and out to destroy them, the problem, for many of us, is not the existence of unions but the absence of union democracy, a lack that is virtually universal throughout the labor movement.”

Education News:”Almost 105,000 seven-year-old pupils fail to reach the writing standards expected of their age this spring, struggling to use capital letters and spell words . . . One in six, or about 84,000, failed to reach expected standards in reading and nearly one in ten – 58,700 – failed to make the grade in maths.”

Peggy Venable writing in The Washington Times: “President Obama’s EPA is already well down the path to regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, something the act was not designed to do . . . The EPA, determined to move forward anyway, is attempting to rewrite the Clean Air Act administratively via a ‘tailoring rule,’ which would reduce the number of regulated sources. The problem with that approach? It’s illegal . . . Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Chairman Bryan W. Shaw saw the tailoring rule for what it really is: a massive power grab and centralization of authority.”

ChristianNewsWire: “Concerned Women for America’s (CWA) CEO Penny Nance applauded the FCC’s move saying: ‘We are pleased to see the FCC is standing up for families and the agency’s power to regulate indecency granted by “We the People.” CWA’s half-million members around the country called on FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to appeal the decision and we stand with the FCC as they ask the Second Circuit to reconsider its wrongful decision.’”

Associated Press: “Vending machines that dispense lottery tickets are headed to Arkansas retailers, after a legislative committee reviewed rules governing the machines but took no action.”

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence writing at Inside the Issues: “The Washington Post today flung a new slander at the supporters of marriage – that millions of American voters who overwhelmingly approved 21 state constitutional amendments defining marriage as one man and one woman in the 2004 and 2006 elections were callously duped by Karl Rove and the Bush White House to manipulate them to go to the polls and vote for Republican candidates. This is totally inaccurate, and I say that as one who was there . . . ”

The State Department has submitted a report to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the Universal Periodic Review . . . The very first line of the report states: ‘The story of the United States of America is one guided by universal values shared the world over–that all are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights.’ Perhaps I’m being too picky or hypersensitive, but I couldn’t help but ask upon reading that sentence, ‘Would it have killed you to say that all are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights?’”

Richard Land writing in The Christian Post: “I am delighted the court’s Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth made the decision to uphold the rule of law as passed by the Congress of the United States, the people’s elected representatives. In the case, two scientists, several other individuals, Nightlight Christian Adoptions and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations with the support of the Alliance Defense Fund sought to prevent the Obama administration’s Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research from taking effect.”

The Republican (Masslive.com) editorial: “We hope that the judge’s ruling blocking federal funds for experiments created with embryos left over from fertility treatments will be overturned . . . The ruling drew praise, however, from the Alliance Defense Fund, a group of Christian attorneys who helped with the lawsuit filed by two researchers against the expanded rules . . . We believe Obama is on the right side of the issue, and polls show that Americans are behind him.”

ADF Attorney Gregory S. Baylor writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Yes, believe it or not, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has issued a favorable religious freedom decision. On Monday, the court held that World Vision is in fact a religious organization and thus allowed to fire three employees who had repudiated the Christian beliefs they once held.”