Daily Archives: October 12, 2010

A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday stopping enforcement of the “don’t ask, don’t tell”; policy . . .

WisBusiness.com: “Governor Doyle has pledged to assist the U.S. Department of Justice in its efforts to uphold the guidelines and secure federal funding for stem cell researchers in Wisconsin and across the nation. ”

ACLU: “The Colorado Springs Gazette has reported that a local middle school has announced a policy forbidding students from wearing certain Christian symbols to school, unless they are worn underneath clothing. The ACLU strongly opposes the decision of Colorado Springs School District 11 on the basis of religious liberty.”

Reuters: “Coverage denials of individuals based on their medical histories by the nation’s top for-profit health insurance companies rose by nearly half in recent years, U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday.”

“The DOJ on Tuesday filed a notice of appeal in rulings made by U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro in two separate lawsuits.”

Family Resarch Council Washington Update: “At that time, Mercy Health Partners CEO Kevin Cook made it clear that President Obama’s new health care law, also known as Obamacare, played a role in the decision to close. Almost immediately, however, Mercy Health Partners seemed to be backing away from their claim. According to Jeffery Lord in the American Spectator, the backtracking is due to Sister Carol Sheehan, president of Catholic Health Association.”

All of this makes the growing evangelical interest in adoption seem particularly countercultural. With the widespread availability of artificial reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization, many couples who previously would have chosen adoption can now use surrogates, donor sperm or donor eggs to have a baby who shares their DNA (or whose DNA they have carefully chosen), and whose prenatal care they can closely monitor. Taking a child as he or she comes to you may be a difficult choice for some parents to make these days.

A federal court in Hawaii has stopped the Hawaii Campaign Spending Commission from enforcing a limit on contributions received by political committees doing only independent spending for political speech.

Kitsap Sun: “No formal complaints about the new policy have been filed, Martin said. But the Anti-Choice Project is reviewing the policy and has referred it to the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance founded by Christian leaders to defend religious liberties, said project co-founder Tom Herring.”

CNSNews: “In doing so, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is following the example of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the 57-member bloc of Islamic states. The OIC set up an ‘observatory’ five years ago to monitor and report on incidents and trends around the world it regards as amounting to ‘Islamophobia.’”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “Isn’t there a contradiction here? Shouldn’t it be obvious that gay students and their families might blanch at attending a public ceremony in a church that actively campaigns against them and seeks to deny them full civil rights?”

Jess Bravin writes at the Wall Street Journal: “After the Supreme Court freed corporations and unions to pay for advertisements supporting or attacking candidates for federal office, many states concluded that their own restrictions on such electioneering were doomed as well . . . Not Montana. Sued by three corporations seeking to influence the Nov. 2 legislative election, Attorney General Steve Bullock is arguing that Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act of 1912 remains constitutional . . . ”

Foster Folly News: “Attorney states the City of Vernon in his opinion has no obligation to become involved in the question of prayer as it regards the Holmes County Pee Wee Football Association.”

Reuters: “China has become the world’s largest energy user, having overtaken the United States, the head of the International Energy Agency said on Tuesday.”

Secular Daily News: Lynn said pastors should be wary of schemes promulgated by the ADF and groups like it. He also vowed that Americans United will report any church that breaks the law to the IRS. “The Alliance Defense Fund is asking pastors to take part in a reckless, dangerous and unethical scheme,” Lynn said. “Religious leaders should send the group packing and reject Pulpit Freedom Sunday.”

CBS4Denver.com: “An interesting blend of activists are expected at the Colorado state Capitol to protest a common enemy — the state voting guide to constitutional amendments.”

AZ Republic: “A federal judge has denied motions by Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the tough Arizona immigration law referred to as Senate Bill 1070.”

Center for American Progress: “The Family Equality Council finds that only six states have laws or policies that expressly prohibit discrimination against gay and lesbian adoptions (California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York). The Florida appeals court’s ruling now decreases the number of states that expressly restrict adoption by same-sex couples to three—Michigan, Mississippi, and Nebraska . . . Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) recently introduced the Every Child Deserves a Family Act . . . ”

Paducah Sun: “About 25 people waited while the board discussed a request by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Kentucky to reconsider its Aug. 24 denial . . . ”

Baltimore Sun: “Almost three quarters of people surveyed for Planned Parenthood Action Fund said that FDA-approved prescription contraception should be fully covered by insurance and not cost the user anything.”

Christian Science Monitor: “The World Economic Forum released its 2010 Global Gender Gap Report on Tuesday. The report, which indexed 134 countries this year, evaluates how much of the gender gap each country has eliminated through economic opportunity, health access, education, and political empowerment. Below are the 10 countries that have been most successful.”

KGW.com: “Some homeowners in the West Slope area of Beaverton have become increasingly upset over a growing number of adult entertainment businesses opening in their community.”

AP: “U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday praised Serbian police for protecting a weekend gay pride march from attacks, as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation against the leader of a far-right group for orchestrating the violent anti-gay protests.”

Washington Blade: “On Monday, the Victory Fund identified the names of ten endorsed candidates in races that the organization believes could have a significant impact on LGBT community.”

LifeSiteNews: “The push in recent years to establish abortion as an international “human right” flies in the face of international human rights law that springs from the natural law and the world’s response to the Nazi atrocities, John Smeaton, head of the UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told an international conference last week.”

Philip Klein writes at the American Spectator: “The Constitution has never been amended through a convention of the states, and this route remains controversial, with many conservatives fearing that the meeting would turn into a circus in the modern media age, and open the door to a wholesale rewriting of the nation’s founding document. Yet a new body of research suggests that these fears are unwarranted . . . ”

Eugene Volokh reports at the Volokh Conspiracy: “Granted this morning, Bond v. United States. Question presented: ‘Whether a criminal defendant convicted under a federal statute has standing to challenge her conviction on grounds that, as applied to her, the statute is beyond the federal government’s enumerated powers and inconsistent with the Tenth Amendment.’”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Moore v. Metropolitan Human Service District, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107997 (ED LA, Oct. 8, 2010), a Louisiana federal district court dismissed a Title VII religious discrimination claim brought by a social worker employed by a state agency that provides counseling for patients suffering from addictive disorders.”

LifeNews: “October is the month for breast cancer awareness, but it’s difficult for pro-life advocates to lend their support to one of the primary organizations involved in the fight against breast cancer because it has provided contributions to the Planned parenthood abortion business.”

“The City Council plans to unveil legislation Tuesday that would establish strict disclosure requirements for crisis-pregnancy centers, some of which, abortion-rights advocates charge, deceive women into believing theyre full-serve reproductive health facilities by masking their antiabortion agenda.”

Education News: According to Bill Gates, it might be the future of education, or at least a piece of it. Online learning, to many, is still a mystery, and so the Gates Foundation announced today that it’s committing $20 million to develop online learning opportunities — in hopes that taking (and fostering) virtual action will boost America’s sagging college graduation rate.”

LifeNews: “It will feature speakers such as Scott Klusendorf, Alveda King, David French from the Alliance Defense Fund, David Bereit from 40 Days for Life, Peggy Hartshorn from Heartbeat International, Georgette Forney from Silent No More, Jason Jones from iamwholelife.com, Brian Kemper from Stand True, and many more.”

Education News: “Asking ‘Where did chartering start?’ is like asking where a river starts. You have to go upstream, where you probably will find no single source, but several little streams flowing together. We’ve prepared this timeline to trace some of the key milestones.”

Lake County Record-Bee: “I am writing you to address Prop. 8 for same-sex marriage. I feel it’s important to ban Prop. 8 in California so that gays and lesbians may have equal rights, just like everyone else. America has built itself on freedom and the freedom of choice. That’s what I don’t get; why is it such a hard decision?
Jumping into the case now is "just irresponsible," Douglas Napier, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund said last Friday.”

NCPA Policy Digest: “Thirty companies and organizations get waivers from the new health care overhaul because otherwise they’d have to raise rates or drop coverage.  The president said neither would happen.  Hey, where’s our waiver? asks Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) . . . The irony here is that most of these million workers are on the lower end of the income scale, the very people ObamaCare was supposed to help . . . ”

Spiegel Online: “The debate over Muslims in Germany has flared up again after Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer said Germany doesn’t need any more Turkish or Arabic immigrants because they don’t integrate as well as others. Commentators say he has damaged government efforts to calm the debate.”

Dennis Prager writes at Townhall: “America’s anomalous religiosity is very much worth celebrating — not because it leads to affluence, but because it is indispensible to liberty. Had Blow made a liberty chart rather than an affluence chart, he might have noted that the freest country in the world — for 234 years — the United States of America, has also been the most God-centered.”

“The crux of this problem and its costs is that a lack of marriage causes poverty. The poverty rate for single parents with children is 36.5 percent, while it is only 6.4 percent for married couples with children.”

Rasmussen Report: “Even though America is fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, members of President Obama’s Cabinet are three times more likely to have attended law school than boot camp.”

Statesman.com: “Tauro has yet to rule on Smith’s motions, filed Oct. 5 by the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization of Christian lawyers active in religious liberty, family and marriage issues.”

One News Now: “The girls wanted to perform in the talent show at their intermediate school outside the Windy City, but Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver says they ran into a problem when the school caught wind that they wanted to sing a song with Christian lyrics.”

One News Now: “Gary Bauer of American Values was invited to take part in a town hall meeting moderated by ABC This Week host, Christiane Amanpour. The theme of the program was “Holy War: Should America fear Islam,” but Bauer says the audience was clearly packed with pro-Muslim sympathizers. He argues that Amanpour’s questioning was biased.”

One News Now: “Kansas college town has presented an ordinance that is believed to seek the most extreme measures in the nation to defend its ‘lesbian, gay bisexual, and transgender’ citizens . . . The Kansas Family Policy Council has secured an attorney through the Alliance Defense Fund who will present to the city the possible litigation challenges such a discrimination ordinance could create . . . ”

One News Now: “It claimed that those who believe that the Bible teaches against homosexual conduct…have a — quote — ‘fifth-grade understanding of God,’ Barham explains. ‘The First Amendment is quite clear. Going back all the way to the Founding Fathers, the clearest command of the First Amendment is that government cannot prefer certain religious views over others and certain religious denominations over others. [But] that’s exactly what this film was doing — and we’re just very pleased that Lakeshore Tech has recognized that and agreed not to show that film anymore.’”

One News Now:  ”Nearly 100 pastors, backed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), participated in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” September 26 and challenged the IRS by speaking about politics in church. David Barton, founder and president of WallBuilders, believes it is necessary for outspoken pastors to speak out in order to prove that the IRS is prohibiting their First Amendment rights.”

One News Now: “Dale Schowengerdt, litigation attorney with ADF, tells OneNewsNow a federal judge struck down the DOMA law as unconstitutional in those two cases in July, but the rulings are on hold pending appeal. ‘Since then, the Department of Justice has refused to say whether it’s going to appeal the case,” he reports. “And frankly, during the litigation of the case, it gave…basically a sham defense of the law in the first place. So we moved to intervene on behalf of Representative Lamar Smith (R), who is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.’”

AP: “A statue of Christopher Columbus in Providence, R.I. was doused in red paint and a sign reading “murderer” was hung around its waist over the Columbus Day holiday.”

AP: “At the Christina School District in Delaware, 71 percent of black male students were suspended in a recent school year, compared to 22 percent of their white male counterparts, Ali said.”

“The Supreme Court won’t stop Utah from enacting a tax that hits only adult-oriented businesses.”

SCOTUS Blog makes note of the order in this morning’s live-blog coverage and the order is posted here.

James Kirchick write at the Wall Street Journal (full access via Google): “‘The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.’ So said Tom Wolfe in 1965, and so it is today. Various commentators have argued recently that opposition by many Americans to a proposed Islamic center two blocks from the ruins of the World Trade Center represents deep-seated religious bigotry and paranoia. But if any place is plagued by increasing bigotry, it’s not America but Europe, the continent whose welfare states and pacifism are so admired by American liberals . . . ”

MySanAntonio.com: “State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves . . . It also might pick up some American know-how about tapping the hard-to-get deposits trapped in dense shale rock formations, analysts said.”

NCPA Policy Digest: “Government debts will surge in coming decades if action isn’t taken quickly to cut the cost of paying pensions and providing health care to aging populations, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services says. If governments don’t cut age-related spending the size of the state relative to the economy will jump and credit ratings will fall, with developed economies suffering the largest downgrades . . . ”

CNBC: “Big US cities could be squeezed by unfunded public pensions as they and counties face a $574 billion funding gap, a study to be released on Tuesday shows . . . according to research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the University of Rochester.”

CNBC: “Google is using its vast database of web shopping data to construct the ‘Google Price Index’ – a daily measure of inflation that could one day provide an alternative to official statistics.”