Daily Archives: September 16, 2010

Fox News: “The report, sponsored by the Center for Security Policy and touted by a handful of conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday, said that the violent threat posed by Al Qaeda and other terror groups is outmatched by the threat from jihadists allegedly trying to change American society from within.” See full report here.

More from Andy McCarthy: ‘Shariah: The Threat to America’

Sydney Morning Herald: “The number of IVF procedures performed in Australia and New Zealand has almost doubled in the four years between 2004 and 2008, a new study has revealed.”

Ramesh Ponnuru writing at Politico: “The Republican primaries suggest that while, of course, economic issues are at the top of most people’s minds, conservative voters still care a great deal about social issues . . . The presidential wing of the party seems to be moving right rather than left on social issues. The top candidates at the moment are Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty and Mitch Daniels. All oppose abortion, embryo-destructive research and same-sex marriage.”

Blog of LegalTimes: “A federal appeals court in Washington will hear oral argument Sept. 27 in the government’s challenge of a preliminary injunction that blocks funding for human embryonic stem cell research.”

Daily Herald (AP): : “An American Indian church is suing state and federal police and prosecutors over the right of its members to use peyote in religious ceremonies, even if they aren’t of Indian ancestry.” Complaint in Oklevueha Native American Church v. Holder, No. 2:10-cv-00892 (D. Utah)

Wicked Local (The Wellesley Townsman): “Wellesley’s superintendent of schools apologized today after Wellesley middle school students were allowed to pray at an Islamic mosque during a May field trip.”

Dallas Blog: “In a surprise e-mail to the Dallas Blog, Ron Robins, founder and analyst of ‘Investing for the Soul,’ reveals that the motivation to construct a new and controversial mosque nearby Ground Zero in New York City is to promote Islamic finance and ‘Shariah-compliant investing.’”

Law.com: “Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr is battling with a former client, who claims the firm cost him an opportunity to have his challenge to the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: “Over the past two decades, the number of Muslims living in Western Europe has steadily grown, rising from less than 10 million in 1990 to approximately 17 million in 2010.1 The continuing growth in Europe’s Muslim population is raising a host of political and social questions. Tensions have arisen over such issues as the place of religion in European societies, the role of women, the obligations and rights of immigrants and support for terrorism. These controversies are complicated by the ties that some European Muslims have to religious networks and movements outside of Europe. Fairly or unfairly, these groups are often accused of dissuading Muslims from integrating into European society and, in some cases, of supporting radicalism.”

Edge Boston: “While the United States grapples with the question of allowing openly gay soldiers to serve in its armed forces, the Australian has removed a final barrier to admitting sexual minorities into the ranks of its servicemembers by striking down a ban on transgendered troops.”

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys are asking a full panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to rehear a ruling issued last month by a three-judge panel that struck down roadside memorials to fallen Utah state troopers as unconstitutional.

Reuters: “About 200 Greek Orthodox Christians want to travel to Istanbul to try to hold mass at the former basilica of Hagia Sophia, defying Turkish law that bars religious services in what is now a museum. A Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Ankara could stop the group from entering Turkey if they pose a security threat.”

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “Imagine my surprise . . . when I see trumpeted on the ACLU’s website the fact that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued an official proclamation stating that September 15 is ‘ACLU Day.’ And then, I see the news that the ACLU just wrapped up its five year fundraising campaign where it hauled in a whopping $407 million dollars! That’s a lot of money to fund a radical organization like the ACLU that stands against traditional marriage and for unrestricted abortions . . . So church, the question is posed to us – what are we going to do about this? How are we going to counter the ACLU’s massive war chest? Are we to sit back and allow the forces of the ACLU to implement their vision for America unchecked?”

Boston.com (AP): “Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the Jerusalem city government to provide more than $120,000 in funding for a prominent gay community center.”

Pink News: “London mayoral hopeful Ken Livingstone has promised that if elected in 2012, he will appoint a LGBT advisory board and hold an annual Pride reception.”

Catholic News Agency: “Spain’s Health Minister, Trinidad Jimenez, attributed the decline in the unofficial number of first-time abortions to the legalization of the morning-after pill. According to the newspaper La Razon, Jimenez said abortions have dropped by more than 3,000 since 2008. Hertfelder called that claim a ‘lie.’ ‘Perhaps there are fewer surgical abortions,’ he said, ‘but chemical abortions, like those caused by the pill, are on the rise.’”

Amy Gardner and Sandhya Somashekhar writing at The Washington Post: “A sentiment had taken hold that party elders weren’t listening, weren’t true to conservative beliefs and assumed that everyone who votes Republican would go along with their decisions, just as they always had.”

Badger Herald: “In a move some have termed politically risky, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton will address the Freedom From Religion Foundation at a convention in Madison next month.”

NPR: “A gay rights group will ask a federal judge Thursday to order the Pentagon to stop enforcing ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ the law barring gays from serving openly in the military . . . ‘We want her to block any further enforcement or application of don’t ask, don’t tell wherever we have military operations — not just in California, not just in this country but wherever we have military bases anywhere in the world,’ [attorney Dan Woods] said.”

USA Today / On Politics: “Providence’s openly gay mayor, David Cicilline, won the Democratic nomination in a Rhode Island congressional race. He’s vying to replace Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., who announced plans to step down earlier this year.”

digtriad.com: “Cater said at the advice of the city attorney, the city council voted Wednesday night to take down the Christian flag. They cited the enormous cost associated with fighting the potential lawsuit on the issue.”

PR Newswire: “Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) today released a disturbing video showing Wellesley Massachusetts public middle school boys taking part in Muslim prayers during a field trip to a mosque. The video raises serious questions about permitting school children to visit the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center – the controversial Saudi-funded mosque in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.”

Guardian: “A US newspaper published an apology for running a front page story and picture depicting Muslims celebrating the end of Ramadan on September 11, the ninth anniversary of the World Trade Centre attacks. Within a day of the Portland Press Herald publishing the picture of people praying at the end of the Muslim holy month, the paper’s editor felt compelled to respond to complaints from people who said they were offended.”

Christian Post: “The annual Outreach 100 list of the largest and fastest-growing churches in America is out but absent from the list is a number of megachurches that were documented in previous years.”

CNN: “Changing American social attitudes have meant that many Americans are no longer surprised when a gay or transgendered candidate runs for public office in liberal cities like San Francisco or Boston. But what about the bible belt? We weren’t sure, so we flew to the politically red state of Oklahoma to check out the state house race between the transgender Democratic candidate, Brittany Novotny, and the socially conservative Republican incumbent, Sally Kern.”

Sandusky Register: “Mary Ann Chimera, the state president of Democrats for Life of Ohio, contends the Erie County Democratic Women banned her from distributing pamphlets at their events, including the group’s annual picnic that draws a big crowd every August.”

C-FAM: “The appointment of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet as Under Secretary General of UN Women has garnered praise from several abortion advocacy groups. ”

Times of India: “A Spanish discotheque called Mecca which has angered Muslims will change its name, a Muslim representative said on Thursday in the southern city of Murcia.”

ReligionLink: “The differences have sparked an intense debate about the identity of the Tea Party movement, the role and influence of Christian conservatives in politics today, and what the conservatism of the future will look like. This edition of ReligionLink provides background on the debate, which seems likely to persist throughout the fall campaign and perhaps after the November midterm elections.”

Law.com: “Federal judicial nominee Susan Carney told senators at her confirmation hearing Wednesday that she’s qualified to serve on an appeals court, despite not having argued before one. Carney, the deputy general counsel at Yale University, was nominated by President Barack Obama in May to serve on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.”

AFP: “An American cartoonist whose satirical work inspired the controversial ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Page’ on Facebook has gone into hiding, the newspaper which published her comics said Wednesday. Molly Norris, of Seattle, Washington, has moved and changed her name following a call for her assassination by US-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, The Seattle Weekly said.”

The State: “Polish officials quietly moved on Thursday a makeshift memorial cross honoring the late President Lech Kaczynski to the presidential palace chapel, in an attempt to end a lengthy dispute that divided the nation . . . ”

ABC: “Ariana, 14-year-old freshman, wears her nose ring as a religious symbol. She and her mother are members of the young, but incorporated Church of Body Modification, which viewes piercings, tattoos, among other rituals, as a way to spiritually strengthen the connection between body, mind and soul. But the school dress code forbids such piercings . . . ”

The Hill: “The Senate voted on Thursday to pass small-business legislation that President Obama and Democratic leaders made a high priority but became bogged down in partisan fighting. The Senate voted 61-38 to end a Republican filibuster of the bill, which would give small businesses $12 billion in tax cuts. Lawmakers then passed the bill by the same vote.”

Tennesean.com: “Democratic District 6 Congressional candidate Brett Carter is asking U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to step aside for the good of Democratic candidates.”

Jess Bravin writing in The Wall Street Journal: “Justice Breyer, during a conversation in the chambers he keeps at the federal courthouse here, sought to tamp down criticism from some on the left that conservatives led by Chief Justice John Roberts are on an ideological mission to roll back individual rights, while showing ‘tea-party groups’ and others on the right why liberal-leaning justices like him believe they are keeping faith with the framers. Even when the justices disagree, ‘all nine of us think we’re following the same Constitution that was there in 1790,’ he said.”

Associated Press: “A Chechen Islamist rebel group has claimed responsibility for last week’s suicide car bombing in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus that left 18 dead and 140 wounded.”

Family Security Matters: “The rights of all Americans are in jeopardy! So says the American Civil Liberties Union which has come to the defense of a New Jersey state worker who was fired for putting a match to pages from the Koran outside a planned mosque near Ground Zero in midtown Manhattan . . . Attorney Chris Dunn of the New York Civil Liberties Union said that Mr. Fenton’s First Amendment rights have been violated, noting that the Supreme Court ‘has recognized a constitutional right to burn the flag. Burning the Koran would be protected as well.’”

UPI: “Jacquelin Slinn and Trudy Moore have filed separate lawsuits seeking damages from Dr. Norman Barwin for providing different donor sperm than the ones they chose, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Wednesday.”

Sioux City Journal (AP): “Nebraska assistant coach Ron Brown says he’s not going to change the message he shares with students after ACLU Nebraska raised concerns about its religious elements.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Ugandan government has announced a new legislative initiative to widen the definition of pornography and to eliminate its distribution from the country.”

Washington Times editorial: “States across the country want Washington to stop meddling in their affairs when it comes to the environment, health care and guns, and it’s not just right-wingers leading the charge. Last week, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal fired a shot at the Environmental Protection Agency for its attempt to coerce the state into regulating carbon dioxide as if this naturally occurring gas were a pollutant.”

LifeSiteNews: “Many pro-life advocates coming to Rome, especially those from North America with its strong democratic tradition, believe that meeting with Curial officials is the equivalent to lobbying congressmen or MPs. But in Rome, [Joseph Meaney, Director of International Coordination for Human Life International (HLI)] said, pounding on desks is almost sure to backfire. The secret to understanding the Vatican, he said, is understanding it as a ‘deeply Italian’ and hierarchical institution. And in Italian culture, ‘the personal contact’ is the key. In its structure, the Vatican is wholly different from any democratic state. The language of the work is Italian, and often higher level officials will speak only Italian. But more significantly, ‘the style of governance and of work is very Italian.’”

LifeNews: “A stacked panel will tell members of the Senate on Thursday that Congress should green light more funding for embryonic stem cell research and should overturn the federal law a judge has cited in his decision to temporarily halt government funding authorized under President Barack Obama’s executive order.”

Washington Post: “The overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, the Census Bureau said Thursday in its annual report on the economic well-being of U.S. households. The report covers 2009, President Barack Obama’s first year in office.”

Ilya Somin writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “Just three months ago, in the Stop the Beach Renewal case, the Supreme Court split 4–4 over the question of whether a decision by a state court could violate constitutional property rights in a way that amounts to a ‘taking’ requiring compensation under the Fifth Amendment. Recently, the Montana Supreme Court issued a decision in PPL Montana v. State of Montana that could bring this issue back to the federal Supreme Court.”

Telegraph: “Pope Benedict XVI is in Britain from September 16-19, making the first Papal visit to the UK for 28 years. Follow the latest news, commentary and reaction to his trip here.”

Religion Clause: “A Cumberland, Indiana church last week filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the decision by the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission to designate the church’s property and building as an historic area infringes the Church’s free exercise rights under the U.S. and Indiana constitutions and under RLUIPA, violates its free speech rights, denies the Church equal protection of the laws and amounts to an unconstitutional bill of attainder.”

Gilbert T. Sewall, director of the New York-based American Textbook Council, writing at The Washington Post / The Answer Sheet: “For two decades, multicultural revisionists have tried to supplant an older view of Americans . . . If what has happened in Texas is any indicator, all future efforts to check diversity themes in social studies will be tagged ‘a sharp departure from widely accepted historical teachings’ . . . The final Texas standards are for the most part conventional and inclusive  . . . ”

Thaddeus M. Baklinski writing at LifeSiteNews: “Chief Justice Bauman reserved judgment on the [Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association] CPAA request [to declare whether polyamorists might be prosecuted as a result of a ban on polygamy]. BC Crown Attorney Craig Jones said there is currently no legal or psychological definition of polyamory on which Bauman could base a judgment. Federal Crown Attorney Deborah Strachan said that the CPAA request is tantamount to seeking immunity from future prosecution, which would be a violation of the court’s right to prosecutorial discretion in Canada.” For more information, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/country-canada+topic-polyamory/

Neuhaus Colloquium statement published at First Things: “If the new policy survives the challenge of litigation, for the first time in U.S. history, taxpayer funds will be available to promote research that requires the destruction of human embryos. This sharp reversal of direction was imposed with essentially no public justification or argument, and indeed with efforts that mask its true nature and significance. Since the new policy took effect, with an executive order issued in early March of last year, the Obama administration and its congressional allies have sought to avoid further argument about embryo-destructive research and to depict the debate as settled.”

ADF attorney David French appeared on the Dennis Prager Show to discuss viewpoint discrimination on campus. | MP3 audio 8:10 mins | Speak Up Movement: Universities

The Charleston Gazette: “The resolution was submitted by the Rev. Ann Lovejoy Johnson, associate rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Charleston. It ‘urges our Bishop to honor same-gender relationships by supporting public rites for the blessing of same-gender relationships in congregations where such blessings are supported and so desired.’”

PR Newswire: “Truth Wins Out called on GOP Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, last night’s victorious Tea Party candidate in Delaware, to apologize for running a failed ‘ex-gay’ ministry while she headed the Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth (SALT). O’Donnell heavily promoted the ‘ex-gay’ industry and hired Wade Richards, an ‘ex-gay’ poster-boy, to deliver this message.”

LifeNews: “Delaware Congressman Mike Castle lost his bid to become the Republican Senate nominee to a pro-life candidate, Christine O’Donnell. With the defeat, the pro-life movement makes a huge gain by ridding itself of one of its top proponents of forcing taxpayers to fund embryonic stem cell research.”

Rapid City Journal: “A circuit judge has dismissed a Rapid City church’s appeal of its $17,000 bill for 2009 property taxes, citing the church’s failure to exhaust other administrative remedies first . . . The Alliance Defense Fund represented the church because of what it saw as religious persecution through tax policy, but Rapid City lawyer Stephen Wesolick said the dismissal on procedural and jurisdictional grounds didn’t allow for the merits of the issue to be examined.”

Lebanon Daily News: “A northeastern Pennsylvania school district has settled a lawsuit alleging that a principal illegally search a student’s cell phone, found nude pictures she had taken of herself and turned it over to prosecutors.” ACLU Press Release

Law.com: “The Gibson team, working with Washington’s Alliance Defense Fund and Fairfax, Va.-based Advocates International, said in the court papers that a stay pending appeal ‘would lead to a flight of federal dollars into [human embryonic stem cell] research,’ hurting Sherley and Deisher and other National Institutes of Health grant applicants.”

Heritage Foundation / The Foundry: “A conservative student in Florida says he has the evidence that implicates a public college administrator who last week ordered members of Young Americans for Freedom to leave a campus event after they displayed Heritage Foundation research papers . . . YAF is also now seeking help from the Alliance Defense Fund. Legal counsel [Casey Mattox] said the college has questionable policies that, for a public institution, border on unconstitutional. ‘This school appears to have a policy that requires any student or any student group to give 24 hours notice to the school before they intend to speak or distribute literature of any kind and then it gives the school complete discretion to decide whether they will permit students to speak or distribute literature or not,’ Mattox said. ‘So if that is, in fact, the policy, and it appears that it is, that’s clearly unconstitutional.’”

. . . there is no doubt that conservatives and libertarians face discrimination when seeking academic jobs . . . Something like 80–90% of law professors are, broadly speaking, on the ‘left.’ . . .

Matt Bowman writes at CNN: “Human embryonic stem cell research is the $10,000 toilet seat of the 21st century.”

“’There is no question that the economic and trade policies of China represent clear roadblocks to our recovery . . . ‘ China spends an estimated $1 billion a day to keep the renminbi more or less pegged to the dollar.”

The CNN video is here.

“They say they are dismissing the suit because unspecified circumstances had changed.”

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: “ADF filed suit, and a federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction against the university, so the Badger Catholics could receive funding while the case proceeded. Last year, a different judge issued a final ruling partially in Badger Catholic’s favor. The university appealed that decision to the 7th Circuit, which on September 1 affirmed the lower court’s decision and ruled that the university violated the First Amendment by its discrimination.”

The Hill: “Republican leaders scrambled Wednesday to unify their party in the wake of a nasty GOP primary in Delaware that knocked Rep. Mike Castle, their top recruit, out of the race.”

AP: “A soft-spoken 14-year-old’s nose piercing has landed her a suspension from school and forced her into the middle of a fight over her First Amendment right to exercise her religion . . . It’s enough to draw the interest of the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union . . . ”

The AP has this report: Pope visits UK, admits failures in abuse scandal. The report also includes video of his arrival.

AP: “Israeli government offices that provide an array of public services are pulling the plug on online payments on the Jewish Sabbath and holidays.”

Randy E. Barnett and William J. Howell write at the Wall Street Journal (full text via Google): “Virginia will consider proposing a constitutional amendment that would allow two thirds of the states to repeal a federal law.”

LifeNews: “Members of the U.S. Senate will vote next week on whether to stop a filibuster against that bill containing a provision allowing abortions at taxpayer-funded American military bases. Republicans, perhaps joined by a Democrat or two, are filibustering the bill funding the Defense Department.”

AP: “Calumet County District Attorney Kenneth Kratz issued that statement Wednesday after The Associated Press reported on the 30 texts he sent to a 26-year-old woman who had complained to police last year. A police report shows he repeatedly sent Stephanie Van Groll text messages in October 2009 trying to spark an affair.”

FT.com: “George Soros, the international investor and one of the world’s richest men, is to have his 2002 criminal conviction for insider trading reviewed by the European Court of Human Rights. Mr Soros appealed to Strasbourg after he was convicted by a French court of insider trading in 2002 . . . ”

Marriage and Religious Liberty: Comparative Law Problems and Conflict of Laws Solutions
Lynn D. Wardle, 12 J. L. & Fam. Stud. 315 (2010)

This paper considers how the legal regulation of marriage impacts upon religious liberty, how religious regulations of marriage impact upon civil law, and how to reconcile conflicts between religious liberty and state marriage regulations. It is an area of increasing (and increasingly sharp) conflicts in a growing number of nations. The conflicts concern competing ‘jurisdictional,’ and ‘choice of law’ issues involving competing ‘sovereign’ communities.”

Tone Deaf? The Courts Turn a Deaf Ear to Religious Music in Schools
Charles J. Russo, J.D., Ed.D, 257 Ed. Law Rep. 1 (2010)

“In Nurre v. Whitehead the Ninth Circuit affirmed that a superintendent did not violate a high school student’s rights to freedom of religion or speech in prohibiting the wind ensemble that she was part of from performing an instrumental version of Ave Maria at her graduation due to concerns that allowing it could have been interpreted as endorsing religion. Similarly, in Stratechuk v. Board of Education, South Orange-Maplewood School District the Third Circuit affirmed the rejection of a father’s claim that a board policy forbidding the use of religious music in holiday celebrations was unconstitutional because it reflected the impermissible message of governmental disapproval of and hostility toward religion. Earlier, in M.D. v. St. Johns County School District, a federal trial court in Florida enjoined the playing of a country music song about God in America on the basis that doing so would have violated the Establishment Clause.

In the wake of Nurre, Stratechuk, and St. Johns, the remainder of this article is divided into five parts. The first part briefly reviews the Establishment Clause tests that the Supreme Court developed in addressing controversies over religion in schools while the second section examines earlier cases on the status of religious music in public schools. The third part reviews the facts and holdings in Nurre, Stratechuk, and St. Johns. The final two sections offer analysis and recommendations on the extent to which religious music can be used in public schools.”