Daily Archives: October 29, 2010

Bremerton Patriot: “Olympic College is revising a policy adopted in the summer that restricts where demonstrators may assemble in response to criticism that the regulations inhibit free speech. An anti-abortion group, the Anti-Choice Project, joined with the Alliance Defense Fund to challenge the restrictions.”

ABC: “Both Northern Territory senators say they will support a Greens bill to restore self-determination for Australian territories. Greens Leader Bob Brown wants to wind back federal legislation that overturned the Northern Territory’s euthanasia laws in 1997.”

The Oklahoman (AP): “The imam co-leading a drive to build an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center has politely brushed aside a suggestion by one of his past benefactors that the project be moved to a different spot.”

Washington Post (AP): “The high court without comment turned away a request for an injunction from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life.”

Boston Herald: “Caritas Christi Health Care expects to close its $895 million sale to New York private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management within a month following today’s final regulatory approval from the Supreme Judicial Court. Associate Justice Francis Spina’s declaratory judgment allows the Boston-based chain of six Catholic hospitals to convert to a for-profit business – the state’s largest for-profit hospital chain – under a new Cerberus affiliate called Steward Health Care System.”

LifeSiteNews: “Human Life International (HLI) Switzerland pointed out that headlines saying the ‘Catholic Church’ is handing out condoms in parishes are misleading . . . ‘The official Swiss Catholic Church is not responsible for this action. Only the “Catholic Church of Lucerne,” a local Catholic State organisation, is responsible for the distribution of the condoms.’”

LifeSiteNews: “The Parliament of the European Union has rejected a proposal to fund forced abortion and sterilization programs in overseas ‘family planning’ projects. The campaign group, Care for Europe, has announced that an amendment has passed that they put forward to the European Commission’s annual budget this week. The amendment proposed to prevent any funding going to family planning programs in which coercion or compulsion is used.”

C-FAM: “Angry delegates took to the UN floor this week to denounce a report that promotes a new human right to explicit sexual education for young children . . . The report claims a new human right to sexual education citing non-binding recommendations and other UN reports including the controversial UNESCO guidelines on sexual education and the Yogyakarta Principles. The report’s author, Victor Muñoz, argues that States have an obligation to ensure this new right ‘from the early stages of life.’”

CTV (The Canadian Press): “The fate of an ex-bureaucrat’s sexual discrimination complaint against the federal government hinges on Trudeau-era memories and good old-fashioned record-keeping . . . The latest round of Richard’s fight for redress is slated to be heard Monday in the Federal Court of Appeal.”

Boston.com (AP): “Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall has agreed to delay her retirement until a nominee to the court is confirmed . . . Marshall was first appointed to the bench in 1996 and became chief justice three years later. She wrote the state’s landmark ruling legalizing gay marriage.”

Michael Nazir-Ali writing in Standpoint Magazine: “We must ensure that the teaching of history is not just about a number of significant events and personalities and that there should be a connected narrative. But how is this to be achieved and what is the ‘golden chain of harmony’ that can provide the connection? Surely, this has to do with a world-view that underlies the emergence of characteristically British institutions and values: the Constitution itself (‘the Queen in Parliament under God’); a concern for the poor; a social security net, based on the parish church, which goes back to the 16th century; and personal liberties as enshrined in the Magna Carta. The world-view that made these fundamental national building-blocks is the Judaeo-Christian tradition of the Bible.”

The Christian Institute: “Women should be made fully aware of the psychological risks associated with abortions before they choose to have a termination, an MP has proposed. The proposal was made by Therese Coffey, a Conservative MP, in an Early Day Motion (EDM) which she tabled earlier this month.”

The Christian Institute: “Yobs in West Yorkshire burned Bibles and slashed hymnbooks in an attack against a Methodist church in a village near Bradford. The distressing attack on Birkenshaw Methodist Church was discovered earlier this week when an art group went to the church to hold their meeting.”

The Christian Institute: “The judgement of headmaster and school-governor groups has been cast into doubt after they took part in a sex education study sponsored by a condom company. The controversial decision, which comes amidst increasing concern about the content of sex education, has been slammed by family campaigners.”

ACLJ: “I am pleased to report that an ACLJ legal team has successfully obtained asylum in the United States for a 22-year-old woman from Indonesia – a woman who left the Muslim faith and converted to Christianity. As a result, she faced grave danger – including the threat of death – if she returned to her home country.”

Sioux City Journal: “Conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats on Friday predicted a ‘clean sweep’ in ousting three Iowa Supreme Court justices – an outcome that he hopes will build pressure on Republican Terry Branstad to issue an executive order halting same-sex marriages if he succeeds in defeating Democrat Chet Culver for governor in next Tuesday’s election.”

ADF Attorney Joel Oster writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “We at ADF are representing this lady. We are prepared to defend her fundamental rights as far as needed until common sense can be restored. Surely, the officials at HUD and the Michigan Department of Civil Rights have more pressing matters than investigating a young woman for seeking a Christian roommate!”

Alliance Defense Fund – Q&A with Dr. Wayne Grudem talking about his new book “Politics according to the Bible.” Question: Is there confusion regarding the phrase “separation of church and state?”

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Of the nearly four hundred public colleges and universities whose policies are assessed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the University of Virginia is now one of 13 schools given FIRE’s coveted ‘green light,’ meaning that the school’s policies respect constitutionally protected student speech.”

LifeNews: “The parents of a 16-year-old girl have backed down and are retreating from their attempt to force their daughter to have an abortion. They signed a court order Wednesday agreeing to not force their daughter to have an abortion against her will after she obtained legal help from the Alliance Defense Fund pro-life legal group . . . ‘The right not to have an abortion is protected by law, and this right isn’t relinquished just because someone else considers the child to be an unwanted burden,’ said ADF Legal Counsel [Matt Bowman].”

Businessweek: “The High Court struck out an application by the Malaysian Assembly of Muslim Youths, which demanded that Sisters in Islam change its name because it was allegedly misleading people to believe that the group speaks for all Muslims, said Ratna Osman, program manager of the women’s group.”

Daily Register: “The board held off on a final decision about a public referendum in April until the Nov. 17 meeting, when County Clerk Willie McClusky is expected to tell board members when the deadline falls for putting referendums on the April ballot. He also will bring information to the board about binding or non-binding referendums.”

Minneapolist St. Paul Business Journal: “The state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) said recent Muslim profiling claims against the biggest carrier at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport call for an investigation of company policies, according to a news release.”

John Creech writing at The Imaginative Conservative: “This past Wednesday night, Dr. Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideas and Institutions at Princeton University, gave the keynote address at the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston’s annual Red Mass . . . According to Dr. George, natural law theory provides a persuasive alternative to other theories because it can explain two features of human action and experience that other theories, such as utilitarianism and biological determinism, not only cannot explain, but dismiss as mere illusions. Natural law can also account for the fact that most of us act ‘as if’ there are morally binding, objective and universal principles of human conduct, even if we do not believe such principles exist.”

YouTube: “What makes some laws worth obeying, while others demand to be overturned? In Part 4, Bill examines the difference between Natural Law and Political Law.”

Washington Post: “Dozens of retired military chaplains say that serving both God and the U.S. armed forces will become impossible for chaplains whose faiths consider homosexuality a sin if the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy is thrown out. If a chaplain preaches against homosexuality, he could conceivably be disciplined as a bigot under the military’s nondiscrimination policy, the retired chaplains say. The Pentagon, however, says chaplains’ religious beliefs and their need to express them will be respected.”

The Daily Rising Kashmir: “Alleging that authorities did not allow Friday prayers at historic Jamia Masjid for the 8th consecutive week today, Hurriyat (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar has called for a meeting of Islamic scholars on November 2 to discuss the counter strategy against restrictions on religious freedom.”

Guardian: “Site near Bethlehem included in a resolution by Unesco, which says it forms ‘an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories.’ The UN body in charge of culture, education and science also urged the Israeli authorities to remove the site from its national heritage list, on which it was placed in February this year. The resolution – which also refers to the site as Rachel’s Tomb – triggered an angry response from Israel.”

UK Gay News Press Release: “A new amendment to Lithuania’s Provision of Information Act came info effect last week It bans the ‘manifestation or promotion’ of sexual orientation in advertising and audiovisual commercial communications.”

EU Observer: “Gay rights organisations openly acknowledge the crucial role played by European institutions in securing recent advances in the area, but concerns over top-down decision making and rising bureaucracy tell a more nuanced backstory. Delegates at the 14th ILGA-Europe annual conference in The Hague on Thursday (28 October) also expressed fears over growing social conservatism in a post-recession Europe, and pointed to the recent Roma debacle as highlighting divergences between EU legislation and implementation on the ground.”

ILGA-Europe annual conference page

European Commission Press Release: “The European Commission has today sent a formal request to the Czech Republic to implement fully EU rules against gender discrimination in employment (Directive 2002/73/EC). The request, in the form of a reasoned opinion under EU infringement procedures, comes after the Czech Republic failed to adequately implement all aspects of the Directive in its national law. The Czech Republic has two months to tell the Commission how it will fully comply with the Directive, failing which the Commission may decide to refer the Czech Republic to the EU’s Court of Justice.”

“The European Commission has said that Roman Catholic schools in Poland or elsewhere in the EU cannot refuse to employ gay teachers.”

South Bend Tribune: “The South Bend Common Council voted Monday to defeat a proposal to ban workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The vote was 6-3 with council members Tom LaFountain, David Varner, Derek Dieter, Timothy Rouse, Karen White and Henry Davis Jr. opposed.”

The Daily Republic: “The poll of 393 South Dakotans, conducted Sept. 20-Oct. 6 by the McGovern Center at DWU, indicated that there is no consensus among South Dakotans on the issue of civil unions. While approximately 43 percent of respondents opposed any legal recognition for same-sex couples in South Dakota, 36 percent supported some form of legal recognition, either marriage or civil unions, and 21 percent were not sure or did not respond to the question.”

Green Bay Press Gazette: “The City Council on Wednesday will consider a proposal to support Wisconsin Family Action in its lawsuit challenging the state’s domestic partner registry. Approved by state lawmakers and enacted in 2009, the registry allows same-sex couples to qualify for certain employment benefits, including family leave for medical emergencies.”

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman writing in The Wall Street Journal [full text via Google News]: “Call it Supreme Hypocrisy: An ex-Supreme Court justice, still issuing rulings from the bench, wields her political clout to push citizens to abandon their own politics . . . The public campaign for merit selection has been led by O’Connor’s Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System. But behind the scenes is liberal moneyman George Soros, who has provided $45 million in grants to groups like Justice at Stake and the left-wing People for the American Way that press for an end to judicial elections.”

The Spectrum: “Gay-Straight Alliances were formed in March at four local high schools, after the Washington County School District Board of Education, under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union, changed its policies. The board has since taken steps to combat the clubs, unwanted by many in Southern Utah’s socially conservative majority, by requiring parents’ signatures to join noncurricular student clubs starting next year.”

Catholic News Agency: “After being arrested in a clash with police in a church-state property dispute, six Catholic villagers in Vietnam were convicted in a quick trial on Wednesday. One U.S. congressman criticized the proceeding as a ‘sham court,’ noting the defendants’ lack of a lawyer.”

EmpireStateNews.net: “Kings County District Attorney Charles J. Hynes today announced the creation of a Hate Crimes Task Force in his office to counter the violence perpetrated against members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community. The Task Force was set up due to the high rate of hate crimes in the community and is designed to protect victims by giving them an outlet to report crimes and seek advocacy.”

UPI: “At a debate Tuesday in western Pennsylvania, U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., asked a moderator from the League of Woman Voters to lead the audience in the pledge, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. When she seemed reluctant, members of the audience got up and recited the words.”

Washington Post: “A majority of active-duty and reserve service members surveyed by the Defense Department would not object to serving and living alongside openly gay troops, according to multiple people familiar with the findings.”

Politico: “The White House is coming to the defense of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, after the leak Thursday of a year-and-a-half-old letter from Harvard Law Professor Larry Tribe questioning her intellect and discouraging her appointment to the Supreme Court.”

See this post for background: Laurence Tribe’s letter to Obama: Sotomayor “not nearly as smart as she thinks she is”

“The parents of a 16-year-old girl represented by Alliance Defense Fund allied attorneys signed a court order Wednesday agreeing to not force their daughter to have an abortion against her will.”

Joan Biskupic writing at USA Today: “On Tuesday, Supreme Court justices will hear arguments in the case, which could have sweeping consequences for consumers and entertainment media. California officials and their defenders say the ban is important to protect children. Publishers and filmmakers argue that if the Supreme Court sides with California, the action could chill creativity in other media.”

WBTV (AP): “The North Carolina State Bar Council voted 35-20 Friday in favor of changes to the preamble of their rules of professional conduct.” More information here.

Washington Times: “Missouri lawmakers recently adopted a gender-neutral anti-bullying law, while the D.C. Council is considering legislation that adopts recommendations proposed by a gay rights group . . . The D.C. bill titled the “Harassment and Intimidation and Prevention Act of 2010″ would hold school, library and recreation officials responsible for developing anti-bullying policies.”

Arizona Republic: “Judge Donald Daughton ruled late Wednesday that Planned Parenthood could not amend a separate lawsuit in an effort to block provisions of a 10-year-old Arizona law from taking effect. The law requires a licensed physician to participate in various aspects of the procedure, including a physical examination of the woman before surgery.”

Seattle Post-Intelligencer (AP): “The department reported Thursday that the rate of reported abortions for women of childbearing age (15 to 44) was about 17 for every 1,000 women last year, compared with 18 in 2008. The pregnancy rate for the group dropped to 83, from 85 in 2008.”

LifeNews: “With than a week until Election Day, a new Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey of likely voters shows Rossi picking up 48% of the vote, while Murray draws support from 47%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and two percent (2%) are still undecided.”

Telegraph: “The ruling, made in an online fatwa by the Darul Uloom Deobandi seminary in northern India, regarded as one of Islam’s leading authorities on religious law said that the woman would have to first marry another man before she could remarry her first husband.”

ADF News Release: “Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel David Cortman will be available for media interviews following oral argument Wednesday at the U.S. Supreme Court in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn. ADF contends that the suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, should be dismissed because the ACLU hasn’t proven that its clients have any legal standing to sue over someone else’s private donations.”

NRLC: “[O]n October 5, Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-Oh.) filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission against the Susan B. Anthony List, claiming that organization was disseminating a knowing falsehood, in violation of an Ohio law, by asserting that Driehaus had voted for ‘taxpayer-funded abortion’ when he voted to pass the Obama health care bill. On October 11, NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson filed a 23-page sworn affidavit with the Commission, defending the truthfulness of the disputed statement . . . we are now making available a [more generic version of the affidavit].”

Bloomberg: “The plan to create national Shariah boards to oversee sukuk sales is drawing criticism from bankers and lawyers who say the groups would increase bureaucracy in the $1 trillion Islamic finance industry. The Accounting & Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, a leading global regulator, is in the final stages of a plan recommending governments appoint panels of scholars and experts at the national level to rule whether products comply with the religion’s tenets.” Via Religion Clause.

Philippine Daily Inquirer: “In pleading not guilty before Manila MTC branch 4 Judge Alfonso Ruiz, Celdran told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he was ‘standing by the fact that he did not say anything offensive’ when he hoisted a placard reading ‘Damaso’ disrupting a September 30 ecumenical service at the Manila Cathedral.” Via Religion Clause.

Religion Clause: “In Woodlands Christian Academy v. Weibust, (TX App., Oct. 7, 2010), a Texas appellate court upheld an arbitration clause in an employment agreement requiring disputes to initially be submitted for settlement by Biblically-based mediation.”

“A Denver Judge says Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter did nothing unconstitutional when he issued proclamations recognizing the National Day of Prayer.”

“George Soros is back . . . he champions the culture of death. Abortion, atheism, pornography, gay marriage, euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide – these are the issues central to Mr. Soros’ progressive agenda.”

Law.com: “A stir recently erupted in the securities class action bar after Baer issued an order in a case against Gildan Activewear Inc., directing two of the largest firms in the field, Labaton Sucharow and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, to ‘make every effort’ to put at least one woman and one minority lawyer on the case . . . In a follow up order last Friday in In re Gildan Activewear Inc. Securities Litigation, 08 cv 5048, Baer said his initial order ‘was not intended to be critical in any way’ of how the two firms promote diversity or prosecute and staff a case. But he said the diversity considerations ‘were goals I would urge be met in similar cases that come before me.’”

FIRE: “This week, the University of Virginia (UVa) confirmed that it had eliminated the last of its policies that unconstitutionally restricted the free speech of students and faculty members. While more than two-thirds of the nation’s colleges maintain policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech, UVa is now a proud exception, having fully reformed four speech codes. UVa has now earned a coveted ‘green light’ rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).”

Gallup: “A new analysis of more than 550,000 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index interviews conducted over the last year and a half finds that Americans who are the most religious also have the highest levels of wellbeing. The statistically significant relationship between religiousness and wellbeing holds up after controlling for numerous demographic variables. Higher levels of healthy behaviors, life evaluation, work environment perceptions, and emotional health affect religious Americans’ high wellbeing.”

Associated Press: “An Air Force Academy survey found that 41 percent of cadets who who identified themselves as non-Christian said they were subjected to unwanted proselytizing at least once or twice last year.”

Forum 18: “The fines and beatings followed a so-called ‘anti-terror’ raid by 20 police officers on the congregation, while they were worshipping in August. They belong to the Baptist Council of Churches, which rejects state registration in all the former Soviet states where it operates. Witnesses present described the raid as being conducted ‘using physical force, even tearing books from the hands of children.’”

Forum 18: “Muslims in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk are challenging the designation as extremist of yet another work by the late Turkish theologian Said Nursi, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. An appeal brought by Krasnoyarsk Muftiate is due to be heard by Krasnoyarsk Regional Court on 29 November, Muftiate lawyer Akhmad Kolobayev told Forum 18 from Krasnoyarsk on 28 October.”

Religion Clause: “In J.S. v. Holly Area Schools, (ED MI, Oct. 26, 2010), a Michigan federal district court concluded that a preliminary injunction should issue to guarantee an elementary school student the right to distribute religious flyers and invitations to a church summer camp to his classmates, so long as he distributes them in a manner that does not disrupt normal school activities . . . Alliance Defense Fund issued a press release announcing the decision.”

ACLU: “The American Civil Liberties Union today asked the Arkansas Supreme Court to uphold a lower court ruling striking down a law that bans any unmarried person who lives with a partner, including those in same-sex relationships, from serving as an adoptive or foster parent in the state of Arkansas. In April, the Pulaski County Circuit Court found that the law, known as Act 1, did not serve the state’s interest in determining what is best for children. The state of Arkansas is challenging the circuit court’s ruling.”

Austin Ruse writing at The Catholic Thing: “It’s a story older than literature. Young naïfs come from the provinces only to have their pockets picked by big city denizens. This is at least part of the story of the ‘Open Minds, Open Hearts and Fair Minded Words’ conference on abortion that took place a few weekends ago at Princeton. Abortion advocates came with a great deal of confidence and a clear agenda. Many of the pro-lifers came with little more than good will, not a little embarrassment, and in many cases an incomplete ability to articulate the pro-life position.”

Shannon P. Duffy writing at Law.com: “As the sentencing guidelines for child pornography crimes have grown increasingly harsh, a strong trend has developed among federal judges to reject the proposed prison terms as draconian. Now two influential federal appellate courts — the 2nd and 3rd Circuits — have joined the trend and declared that the child pornography guidelines are seriously flawed, or at least that a trial judge wouldn’t be wrong for thinking so.” | United States v. Grober, No 09-1318 (3rd Cir. Oct. 26, 2010) [dissent begins at pg. 32]

Stephen J. Choi, G. Mitu Gulati, Mirya R. Holman, and Eric A. Posner, Judging Women (September 28, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1479724

“Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that female judges might be ‘better’ than male judges has generated accusations of sexism and potential bias. An equally controversial claim is that male judges are better than female judges because the latter have benefited from affirmative action. These claims are susceptible to empirical analysis. Primarily using a dataset of all the state high court judges in 1998-2000, we estimate three measures of judicial output: opinion production, outside state citations, and co-partisan disagreements. We find that the male and female judges perform at about the same level. Roughly similar findings show up in data from the U.S. Court of Appeals and the federal district courts.”

Christopher Kaczor, Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount, writing at Public Discourse: “Our current law protecting conscience should remain in place and receive robust defense not least because it helps to ensure a more ethnically diverse medical profession in addition to facilitating greater ideological diversity in the field . . . The current law protects the autonomy of physicians, making the profession generally more attractive. The current law also provides greater access to non-controversial health care for all people. If all Catholic hospitals and pro-life physicians are forced to choose between performing abortions and no longer providing any services, many of them will simply shut down.”

Peter Meyer writing at EducationNext: “A number of years ago (1989 to be exact) I reported and wrote a story for Life magazine called Children of Poverty . . . My argument was simple: there were more Caucasians living in poverty than African-Americans; at the time, the 1988 census, there were 7.4 million whites and 4.3 million blacks living below the poverty line. (Today it is 27 million whites and just under 10 million blacks) . . . Flash forward to October 18 of this year, to what I thought would be enlightenment, in the form of a front-page story in the New York Times, ‘”Culture of Poverty,” Long an Academic Slur, Makes a Comeback.’”

Lyle Denniston writing at SCOTUSblog: “A Texas prison inmate’s claim that the warden’s staff has illegally interfered with the practice of his Christian faith offers the Supreme Court a significant opportunity to spell out how much power Congress has when it attaches strings to the money it provides to states — that is, when it uses its core authority under the Constitution’s Spending Clause and states get the money. The lower courts are divided over whether one of the strings Congress may attach is a requirement that state officials submit to damage claims if they violate an individual’s federal rights.”

Tampa Tribune / Hernando Today: “Deputies say two Jehovah Witnesses quest for spreading peace and religion was interrupted by a man who pointed a gun and cursed at them as they approached his home.”

News Channel 9: “The Hamilton County School Board Attorney told board members Thursday night they should stay out of the prayer in schools fight. The district’s rules on prayer changed last week after a student complained about prayer at a Soddy Daisy football game.”

Christian Post: “Inboden says America is missing another opportunity to declare religious freedom’s importance in its national security policy. The 2010 National Security Strategy, detailing America’s plans to combat national security threats, does not mention religious freedom. In a section entitled, ‘Values,’ the document states, ‘The United States supports the expansion of democracy and human rights abroad because governments that up hold these values are more just, peaceful and legitimate.’ The document does mention the freedom to worship, but doesn’t integrate the subject of religious freedom into the definition of a democracy and human rights abroad.”

Associated Press: “The gruesome case of a man who was stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment has police investigating whether the killing is potentially the most extreme example of Mexican drug cartel violence spilling over the border.”