Daily Archives: October 27, 2010

Christian Post: “Applauding the ruling, Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel David Cortman commented, ‘Christians shouldn’t be discriminated against and silenced because of their beliefs. The court made the right decision by acknowledging students’ and community groups’ free speech rights and ruling that the district’s viewpoint-based ban on the distribution of literature with a religious theme is unconstitutional.’”

Daily Mail: “Mohammed is now the most popular name for newborn boys in England and Wales ahead of Jack and Harry, it emerged today. The name, when 12 different spellings were included, was given to 7,549 youngsters in 2009, official statistics revealed.”

Wall Street Journal: “Next week, San Francisco residents will vote in a judicial election that has the city’s legal community fearing that a new level of partisan politics has risen in the judicial system . . . Mr. Nava has campaigned in television ads and in mailers to residents as an openly gay Democrat on a platform of how the Superior Court needs more diversity. He has received endorsements from the city’s powerful Democratic Central Committee and Democratic state Sen. Mark Leno, among others. Mr. Ulmer, meanwhile, has criticized Mr. Nava for turning to identity politics and has won the backing of dozens of superior court judges who fear an upsurge in partisan campaigning in judicial races.”

Christian Post: “Muslim neighbors of a Christian family scheduled to be baptized last month beat them and filed a false charge of attempted murder against them and other Christians, the head of the family said.”

A federal court ruled Tuesday that Holly Area School District officials can no longer unconstitutionally prohibit an elementary school student and his mother, represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorneys, from distributing invitations for other students to attend a Christian summer camp.

Iowa Independent: “Gay marriage is tearing society asunder, and the decision to allow it runs afoul of the Constitution, said Chuck Hurley, president of the highly influential Christian organization Iowa Family Policy Center, which is a local affiliate of the Family Research Council. ‘It’s a degradation of God’s best design for the family,’ said Hurley, who was on the tour representing the center’s political action arm.”

Evangelical Examiner: “Today another victory over discrimination against Christians has been announced. A federal court ruled Tuesday (10/26/10) that Holly Area School District (Michigan) officials can no longer prohibit an elementary school student and his mother from distributing invitations for other students to attend a Christian summer camp. In this case, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of this Christian student and his parent against the district.”

KRTV: “Planned Parenthood is suing the state of Montana over contraceptive coverage. Healthy Montana Kids, formerly called CHIP, provides health care services to uninsured children up through age 18, but it does not provide contraceptives if they are used to prevent pregnancy.”

The case was filed in the Montana First Judicial District Court, Lewis and Clark County. Planned Parenthood’s complaint is here. The state’s response is here.

BBC News: “Katherine and Tom aren’t most couples. They don’t want to get married. But they still want to make a lifetime commitment to each other. And they’d like greater legal and financial security than that offered by simply cohabiting. So what’s the solution? It’s obvious, really: a civil partnership. There’s only one snag. Under the Civil Partnerships Act 2004, such arrangements are restricted to couples of the same sex.”

ChristianNewsWire: “A coalition of pro-family leaders today urges Christian families to be faithful to biblical morality and discerning in the face of false and irresponsible accusations. Christianity and traditional values are not the cause of teen suicides, and attempts to link the two are deceptive and will ultimately harm children.”

ABC News: “Former first lady Laura Bush, who came out in support of gay marriage and abortion after she vacated the White House, split again with some social conservatives to back anti-bullying measures intended to protect gay teens.”

Breitbart: “New research found that about 1 in 3 women had a baby the first time they tried a test tube embryo, and that improved to nearly 1 in 2 with a second try.”

Brisbane Times: “Queensland’s abortion laws are a barrier to a doctor’s first duty – best patient care, the Australian Medical Association says. AMA Queensland today called for Queensland doctors to have certainty when it comes to performing abortions under the current legislation.”

Human Rights Campaign: “The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization, today once again called upon Clint McCance – a Midland School Board Member from Arkansas – to resign following an anti-gay tirade he unleashed on Facebook in response to national Spirit Day last week.”

Politico: “Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller of Alaska said Tuesday he would vote for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. ‘That’s up to the people,’ Miller ultimately said of a constitutional amendment in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday night. ‘If you get a three-quarters vote ratifying — I’d vote for it. I would.’”

LifeNews: “The Catholic leader who Pope Benedict named a new cardinal said in a new interview that faithful Catholics can’t in good conscience vote for pro-abortion candidates . . . ‘You can never vote for someone who favors absolutely the right to choice of a woman to destroy a human life in her womb or the right to a procured abortion,’ [Raymond Burke] added plainly.”

“Cash-strapped and alone on the home front, some military wives are making a living by carrying babies for other couples. What’s behind this emotional choice? And why are they so hotly in demand? A Glamour investigation.”

Catholic News Agency: “Amnesty International has announced it will give Peru’s ministry of health a petition signed by 11,000 people calling for the legalization of abortion.”

FOX News Kelly’s Court | Archive

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bCTn2m3XqM

Virginia law requires congressional candidates to collect 1,000 signatures before they can appear on the ballot. Even though Lux collected over 1,200 signatures, he was refused a place on the ballot because he witnessed most of the signatures himself. Under Virginia law, candidates may witness their own signatures, and a candidate may run for Congress without residing in a given congressional district. However, only residents of a congressional district can gather signatures and Lux does not reside in the congressional district where he is running.

The Blog of LegalTimes: “But [Jeffrey Shaman, a judicial ethics expert and professor at DePaul University College of Law], along with another top judicial ethics expert, New York University’s Stephen Gillers, don’t see anything ethically wrong with what O’Connor has done in the first place in relation to the Nevada initiative. ‘She has a special expertise about these matters, and I don’t see anything wrong with her speaking out about a matter of public concern like this,’ said Shaman, who asserts that O’Connor’s advocacy falls in the category of speech about the administration of justice that the canons permit.”

almasyalyoum/com: “Egypt’s state-run National Human Rights Council (NHRC) this week presented recommended amendments to legislation governing personal status. One of the council’s proposed amendments called for indicating citizens’ religion on national identification cards.”

Christian Post: “The Freedom From Religion Foundation has unveiled ‘friendly atheist[s]‘ as the new face of its ad campaign. While the billboards are aimed at welcoming national conference goers, the atheist group is planning to expand the campaign to the national level.”

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence appeared on Fox and Friends to talk about this: Mich. woman accused of civil rights violation for seeking Christian roommate at church

“Lifeway Research just issued the results of a survey it conducted by phone of 1,000 Protestant pastors . . . The survey found that 84% of the pastors survey did not agree with the statement. So does this mean that 84% of Protestant pastors disagree with ADF’s Pulpit Initiative?”

Blake Robinson writing at Public Discourse: “Socially responsible investing, once associated with causes like combating South African apartheid, has the potential to become a serious way to combat the harms pornography causes in our society. The proliferation of Corporate Responsibility departments at corporations attests to the continued importance of socially responsible investing, a practice that has and continues to have a serious impact on America’s leading businesses. It’s now time to apply these principles to the issue of pornography.”

“For a long, long time — going back to when the English common law first started codifying such things — the law has set the maximum number of parents a child can have as two . . . Now a few family-law scholars have begun to argue that there is nothing special about the number two . . . ”

Christian Post: “Pro-life network Susan B. Anthony List is preparing to contest false statement charges in a hearing Thursday over a billboard ad that accuses an Ohio congressman of voting in favor of federally-funded abortion. Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio) had filed a complaint with the Ohio Election Commission alleging that SBA List uses false statements in an Oct. 6 political ad characterizing his vote on health reform bill.”

TibetCustom: “The heads of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism and the Central Tibetan Administration’s Department of Religion and Culture today strongly repudiated a regulation imposed by the Chinese government aimed at undermining Tibet’s traditional Buddhist culture.”

Omaha World-Herald: “After nearly five hours of discussion, the ordinance failed on a 3-3 vote. Councilmen Ben Gray, Pete Festersen and Chris Jerram voted in favor; Jean Stothert, Garry Gernandt and Thomas Mulligan were opposed. Councilman Franklin Thompson, who has called for a public vote on the issue, abstained.”

“The new law closed a loophole that led the state’s highest court to overturn a man’s conviction for sending sexually explicit instant messages to someone he believed was a 13-year-old girl.”

The Korea Herald: “Controversy over an antisodomy clause in the military penal code has been reignited since a state human rights watchdog judged Monday that the clause may be unconstitutional. The National Human Rights Commission’s top decision-making committee of the whole has decided to present their opinions to the Constitutional Court that the clause infringes on homosexuals’ rights to make their own sexual decisions and other fundamental rights.”

Christian Science Monitor: “After a period of relative freedom, journalists in Egypt have become the targets of the harshest government crackdown in years, apparently aimed at silencing critical voices ahead of parliamentary elections next month and a presidential election next year.”

This is London: “Applications for its prized places, the Vaughan decided to demand proof of levels of Catholic adherence beyond the diocese’s standard requirement that children be baptised Catholics whose parents regularly attend mass . . . This was regarded as uncontroversial by the parent body but caught the attention of officials at the Westminster diocese. To the fury of parents and staff at the school, the WDES reported the Vaughan to the Government inspectorate for breaching comprehensives’ admissions policies.”

Politico: “House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana is considering stepping down from his post in the GOP leadership in preparation for a possible bid for president or governor in 2012.”

Courthouse News Service: “Kansas health employees are not required to hand over abortion records to former state Attorney General Phill Kline or testify about the contents of those reports, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled.” | Kansas v. Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri, No. 100,726 (Kan. Oct. 20, 2010)

Robert Wright writing in The New York Times / Opinionator: “[H]owever ‘natural’ this irrational fear, it’s dangerous. As Islamophobia grows, it alienates Muslims, raising the risk of homegrown terrorism — and homegrown terrorism heightens the Islamophobia, which alienates more Muslims, and so on: a vicious circle that could carry America into the abyss. So it’s worth taking a look at why homophobia is fading; maybe the underlying dynamic is transplantable to the realm of inter-ethnic prejudice . . . ”

“At issue before the appeals court are not the facts of the original case but whether attorneys for the women can keep their clients’ names private as they pursue the original litigation. The original complaint, which was filed in a Florida court in March 2008, identified the plaintiffs by their initials only. The women, who were filmed by GGW crews in Panama City, Fla., in March 2002, are now in their 20s.” Via How Appealing quoting AVN News. Complaint is here.

Detroit Free Press: “Anti-abortion activists who recovered the remains of identifiably human aborted fetuses from trash dumpsters outside an abortion clinic in Lansing earlier this year called today for legislation requiring cremation or burial of all such remains.”

Politics.uk: “Atheists are set to launch a campaign calling on people who are not religious to explicitly say so during the next census. Data from the last census is constantly used by journalists and politicians too promote and defend various policies, but secular groups are concerned that many Brits describe themselves as Christian because of their cultural heritage.”

Conn Carroll writing at The Heritage Foundation / The Foundry: “[I]f you total up all of the new regulations already passed by the Obama administration last year, using their own cost estimates, fiscal 2010 saw the largest increase in regulatory burdens placed on the U.S. economy in the nation’s recorded regulatory history.”

Politics.uk: “The new unity among gay rights groups comes as the Equal Love campaign, which is designed to trigger a court battle on the issue, began its first stage of action. Campaign group Stonewall, arguably the leading gay rights group, announced that it would now start to campaign for gay marriage this afternoon after months of controversy.”

One of the greatest strengths of Western civilization (which comes straight from Christianity) is monogamy. This marital relationship became the DNA of the whole social structure of the West and all its societies. But for the last 200 years, there’s been an assault on monogamy as part of the agenda to change our culture. Polyamory (multiple partners) is the competition. To learn more about this aggressive push to redefine the West, join us tomorrow, October 27, for a lecture by FRC’s Dr. Patrick Fagan. Starting at noon at FRC’s headquarters (801 G Street, NW, Washington, D.C.), Dr. Fagan will explain how this culture clash affects America’s future. For more information or to register, click here

“George Soros can claim, more than any other individual, that his endeavors have helped turn the lands of ‘Real Socialism’ in central and eastern Europe away from their ancestors, their cultural and spiritual roots.”

VOA News: “On October 27th, we observe International Religious Freedom day and reaffirm a basic tenet of human rights: Freedom of Religion. The idea of Freedom of Religion is enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.’”

LifeNews: “‘I think it’s important, Bill, to understand that unlike some other issues of cost, birth control is one of those issues that actually saves the government money,’ said Richards, according to Lifesite. ‘So an investment in covering birth control actually in the long run is a huge cost savings because women don’t have children that they weren’t planning on having and all the sort of attendant cost for unplanned pregnancy.’”

Vote Scorecard: Examining the pro-family voting record of your members of Congress.

LifeNews: “The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) again seems to realize that adult stem cells have a distinct advantage over embryonic stem cells, including the best opportunity of helping patients.”

Associated Press: “Germany’s government on Wednesday proposed criminalizing forced marriage, a tradition that some Muslim immigrant families impose on their children, even ones who were raised in Germany’s more liberal society.”

Houston Chronicle (AP): “France’s parliament granted final approval Wednesday to a bill raising the retirement age from 60 to 62, a reform that has infuriated the country’s powerful unions and touched off weeks of protests and strikes.”

Freedom House Press Release: “Domestic blasphemy laws, far beyond their clear violation of freedom of expression, are responsible for broad violations of human rights, particularly when applied in weak democracies and authoritarian systems, according to a study released by Freedom House today.” Via Religion Clause.

Bloomberg: “The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 2 will consider whether the First Amendment permits a California law that would bar the sale of ‘Postal II’ and other violent video games to minors . . . A ruling favoring California could mark a major shift in the high court’s reading of the First Amendment. California is asking the court to extend a 1968 ruling that put sales of sexually explicit materials to minors outside the ambit of the First Amendment.”

SCOTUSblog: Argument preview: Kids and video games

Breitbart: “Rampant issuance of dollars by the United States is saddling China with ‘imported inflation’, Chinese commerce minister Chen Deming was quoted as saying by state media on Wednesday.”

New York Times: “Faced with dropping enrollment and revenue, the high school in this remote Maine town has fixed on an unlikely source of salvation: Chinese teenagers.”

EducationNews.org: “Today’s article shows how the Obama administration is deliberately taking the Title IX federal law and distorting the verbiage to include gender identity . . . the Obama administration is threatening public school educators with the USDOE’s misinterpretation of the Title IX law and making educators fear prosecution unless they promote the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) lifestyle as normal.”

Roger Clegg @ NRO: Anti-Gay Bullying Is Not Sex Discrimination

Liberty Counsel: “Today Liberty Counsel filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, requesting that the Court take on a case it heard in 2005 involving the ‘Foundations of American Law and Government’ display (‘Foundations Display’), which includes the Ten Commandments, on two county courthouse walls in McCreary and Pulaski Counties in Kentucky. The original lawsuit was filed by the ACLU in 1999.”

Bucks County Courier Times: “A trio of Bucks County residents backed by the county Republican committee say they have evidence linking Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy’s campaign to a scheme to flood the county voter registration office with fraudulent applications for absentee ballots.”

The Christian Institute: “An American woman who advertised at her church for a Christian roommate is facing a legal case and massive fines after her action was branded ‘illegal’ . . . [Joel Oster], from ADF, said: ‘Clearly this woman has a right to pick and choose who she wants to live with’.” | Article includes video from CBN.

Christian Post: “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) submitted the request Tuesday, accusing The Pray in Jesus Name Project of passing out overtly partisan guides that rate politicians as faith-friendly or anti-Jesus . . . The probe request comes weeks after . . . Pulpit Freedom Sunday [which] was organized by the Alliance Defense Fund . . . ‘Pastors and churches shouldn’t live in fear of being punished or penalized by the government – in this case, the IRS,’ said ADF Senior Legal Counsel [Erik Stanley].”

Fourth Estate Newspaper: “Federal Judge Virginia Phillips ruled the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy of the U.S. military be discontinued Oct. 12, which instituted a worldwide ban on enforcing the policy . . . According to Alexander Nicholson, executive director …

At the constitutional level, defending acts of Congress is viewed as part of the president’s Article II duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” presumably including laws with which the president disagrees. And allowing a law to die simply because a single judge strikes it down is also viewed as bad form — a backdoor way for a president to veto a law.”

Samuel Summers, Keeping Vermont’s Public Libraries Safe: When Parents’ Rights May Preempt Their Children’s Rights (October 9, 2010). Vermont Law Review, Vol. 34, p. 651, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1693840

“Under Vermont state law, the Confidentiality of Library Patron Records Act (CLPRA) mandates that parents have no legal right to request their child’s public library internet records unless the child is under the age of sixteen.

This note addresses this important state issue. It argues that the CLPRA should be amended to better enable parents to ensure their child’s welfare. This note begins by exploring both the rights of parents to control the upbringing of their children and the independent rights of their children. The note then offers a legal model for determining when parents’ rights may preempt their child’s independent rights through state action. The note concludes by applying its offered legal model to the present issue. It argues that the Vermont State Legislature should amend the CLPRA age limit for minors from sixteen to eighteen years old, so that parents have legal authority to obtain their child’s public library records exclusively dealing with the internet.”

Rohen Peterson, The Emperor’s New Scanner: Muslim Women at the Intersection of the First Amendment and Full Body Scanners (March 6, 2010). Hastings Women’s Law Journal, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1684246

“With the introduction of full body scanners, the United States has signaled an increasingly stringent approach to air travel. However, it has not full considered the implication upon Muslim women. While agencies within the United States, such as the Transportation Security Agency, have reacted to concerns from the Muslim community, it has yet to take a proactive role in constructing a method that accommodates the Islamic faith.

This Note approaches Muslim women by identifying the sources of their faith in respect to modesty and clothing. Under the First Amendment, their faith is analyzed in context of airport security measures, particularly full body scanners. From this analysis, a better understanding of how full body scanners impact Muslim women, and the larger Muslim community, can be achieved while simultaneously promoting security and religious freedom.”