Daily Archives: November 3, 2010

ADF attorney David Cortman is featured in one of the podcasts. He provides an excellent overview of the litigation and its stakes.

Asia News: “This morning, Sister Meena, the nun beaten and raped during the violence, recognized another of her 10 assailants. The man, Santosh Patnaik, has been defined by the religious sister as the main author of the rape. The identification was made just hours before the sixth session of the trial against the authors of the violence in the District Court in Cuttack. To date, Sr. Meena has recognized 5 of her 10 rapists.”

LifeNews: “In the day after a banner election year for pro-life advocates and the Republican Party, which took over the House from pro-abortion Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her allies, GOP lawmakers appear likely to select pro-life advocates as their leaders.”

Herald Sun (AFP): “Many children with Down Syndrome are being eliminated because of abortion, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Madrid said ahead of a weekend visit by Pope Benedict XVI.”

The Star Phoenix: “The provincial government plans to introduce human rights legislation that will dissolve the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal in favour of having a court hear the complaints.”

Deborah Anapol, Ph.D., writing at Psychology Today: “It doesn’t matter what we call it, the fact is that my body can tell me if a lover is making love with someone else. My body can detect the blood type of a man I’m making love with and select a compatible match for conception. My body can refuse to respond if a potential lover is unhealthy in some way. If my body can do this, so can the bodies of others, but a closed mind will not listen when the body talks . . . For today’s humans, sex almost always involves egoic considerations of one form or another. These considerations sometimes overpower the wisdom of the body and sometimes they don’t.”

Associated Press: “Voters in a western Massachusetts city have decided not to lose their shirts over at least one ballot question. Pittsfield voters soundly rejected on Tuesday a measure pushing for women to be allowed to walk around town topless.”

Blog of LegalTimes: “Tuesday’s election results, as well as retirements and other circumstances, mean there are likely to be a few openings soon on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee weighs in on nominations and on a diverse array of legislative topics, including national security, immigration and antitrust law.”

Bruce Hausknecht writing at CitizenLink: “The common denominator for both the Iowa and California situations seems to be this: judges are usually given a lot of leeway by citizens to perform their duties, but voters can tell the difference between ‘doing your job’ and legislating from the bench on issues that the people have reserved for themselves.”

CNBC: “The Federal Reserve launched a controversial new policy on Wednesday, committing to buy $600 billion more in government bonds by the middle of next year in an attempt to breathe new life into a struggling U.S. economy.”

Mercury News (AP): “Civil libertarians are suing the Navy on behalf of a junior officer at a Connecticut submarine base who’s seeking an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector.”

Mark Paredes writing at Jewish Journal / Jews and Mormons blog: “There has always been a libertarian streak in LDS culture (perhaps owing to government persecution in the Church’s first few decades), and Mormons today preach and teach self-reliance.”

At The Liberty Musings Blog, David Hall responds: “I think you missed the biggest part of the reason, and that is a fundamental belief that the overwhelming majority of Latter-day Saints have in individual liberty as opposed to the use of government force to promote the good of society. Mormons believe that the US Constitution is inspired and that the principles of liberty it codifies are inspired. To accept modern-day liberalism, you have to toss aside the Constitution the way it was written and believe, instead, in a ‘living, breathing’ constitution that can mean whatever Supreme Court justices want it to mean.”

Christianity Today: “[W]hat drew the most attention about evangelical voters came in an earlier round of voting, as nearly 20 million Brazilians cast votes for Marina Silva, a former environment minister and committed Assemblies of God member from a small party with little money. With more than 19 percent of the vote, Silva forced an unexpected runoff between Rousseff and Serra.”

Pew Forum: “Christopher Hitchens: ‘There used to be a word which could be used unironically, and it was used, really, until not much more than a century, a century-and-a-half ago. People could say, and mean what they said when they said the word, Christendom. There was a Christian world. It had been partly evolved, partly carved out by the sword, partly defended by the sword, at some points giving way, at other times expanding. But it was a meaningful name for a community of belief and value that endured for many, many centuries — and has many splendors to its name. And it’s all gone . . . It destroyed itself, Christendom, and it destroyed itself by the tremendous criminal act of urging its members to kill each other in the outbreak of the great war — as it was then known, but it wasn’t known that it would lead to a huge and even worse part two — in 1914, where the king-emperor of the British empire, who was also the head of the Church of England, and the Russian czar, who was also the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and you follow the road . . .’”

A follow-up comment from Peter Hitchens is here.

Steve Farrell writes at Meridian Magazine (LDS publication): “Without a second thought, some Conservatives instantly screamed in protest [at Judge Walker’s ruling in Perry v. Schwarzenegger: ‘One judge wiped away the votes of seven million people!’ They were right. But was that the best they could do? . . . What some Americans miss by reasoning on such a superficial level of ‘we won the vote! Ha! Ha!—So you better obey!’ is that we are in the midst of a very real and a very hot ideological war which will end in either liberty or slavery depending on which side comes out on top.”

Emina Melonic reviews The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis by Robert R. Reilly at The Catholic Thing: “Islamism’s strange theology (or lack thereof, depending how one looks at it) is really an ideology, not a religion. In fact, Mr. Reilly writes that Islamism is structurally quite similar to Marxism . . . The most significant modern philosopher behind Marxist Islamism was Sayyid Qutb, one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood. He saw the West as a debauchery that must be saved and obliterated by Islam. He applied Marxist rhetoric to a religion, calling Islam an ‘emancipatory movement’ with ‘an active revolutionary creed.’ Such an unreasoning and ahistorical view yields nothing but the most dire consequences for the world.”

Al-Masry Al-Youm: “The Coptic Church has begun tightening security in advance of Pope Shenouda III’s Wednesday sermon following threats by the Iraqi wing of al-Qaeda against Egyptian churches for allegedly detaining two women said to have converted to Islam.”

Maroondah Leader: ““We have simple and modest goals, such as eliminating the use of the word ‘gay’ as a put-down or general negative word,” Mr McNamara said.”

AFP: “Amid mounting uproar, a lawyer for a gay rights group filed a complaint against Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard in the northern city of Bruges after the church leader described gay love as a travesty of nature and AIDS as ‘a sort of intrinsic justice.’”

Washington Post (AP): “Businessman Jim Gray defeated incumbent Jim Newberry in Tuesday’s nonpartisan election. Gray had 53 percent of the vote to Newberry’s 46 percent with 79 percent of precincts reporting.”

9News: “Voluntary euthanasia talks featuring a Belgian expert in Brisbane have failed to attract much interest from Queensland’s politicians.”

Catholic San Francisco: “Bioethical issues are real for this generation of high school students. Some of them were conceived using in-vitro fertilization technology and others have had abortions before they leave high school, said Marin Catholic High School religion teacher Ryan Mayer . . . ‘Our technical expertise is surpassing our moral understanding,’ said Marin Catholic senior Virginia Yoham, 17.”

UKPA: “Doctors give more information to patients with ingrowing toenails than they do to vulnerable women seeking abortions, a Tory MP has said. Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) urged the Government to instruct clinics to provide counselling to women who seek terminations.”

Montreal Gazette: “The provincial Department of Health’s policy stipulates that it will only pay for an abortion if a woman gets a referral from a family doctor and if the procedure is performed in a hospital.”

CBN News: “‘This program is important to the millions of Americans who support school choice across the country,’ [ADF Attorney David Cortman] said. ‘And Arizona is trying to increase their scores by giving parents a choice whether they want to go to public schools, charter schools or private schools, and this is just another prong in that.’” | Post includes video:

Toledo Blade: “By a narrow margin in unofficial results, voters upheld an ordinance that expands the list of protected classes in the city’s fair housing code to include sexual orientation, gender expression, gender identity, and marital status, among others.”

Omaha World-Herald: “By a 6-1 vote, the Omaha City Council essentially killed a proposal to put protections for gay and transgender Omahans to a popular vote.”

Karen Selick writing at the National Post: “The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to reconsider 20-year-old jurisprudence that limits free speech. The case under appeal is The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission v. William Whatcott. Back in 2001 and 2002, Whatcott, a social conservative activist, distributed flyers in Regina and Saskatoon bearing headings such as ‘Keep Homosexuality out of Saskatoon’s Public Schools” and “Sodomites in our Public Schools.’”

Washington Blade (“lgbtq” news source): “Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who is expected to become Speaker of the House in January, agreed to a request by the gay GOP group Log Cabin Republicans not to penalize House Republicans who voted in May for repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ according to the group’s leader.”

Daily Mail: “After the sentence was passed, a group of men began shouting in the public gallery ‘Allahu akbar’ (‘God is great’), ‘British go to hell’ and ‘Curse the judge’. A demonstration was also taking place outside the court.”

ChristianNewsWire: “According to a post-election survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies for the Faith and Freedom Coalition, the largest single constituency in the electorate in the 2010 midterm elections was self-identified evangelicals, who comprised 29% of the vote and cast an astonishing 78% of their ballots for Republican candidates.”

Daniel Pipes writing at National Review Online: “A new German political party, Die Freiheit (The Freedom), had its inaugural meeting on October 28 in Berlin. As a reminder of how freedoms have eroded in Europe in this age of Islamist terror, a political party that resists Islamization and supports Israel cannot come into existence in broad daylight. So, like the other 50-plus attendees, I learned of the event’s time and location only shortly before it took place.”

Breitbart.tv: “Jerry Jackson, the same New Black Panther member who intimidated voters in 2008 back at the same polling station, allegedly instructs voter to vote straight Democrat, then proceeds to threaten same voter.”

Toronto Star: “Quebec’s top court has overturned a lower-court decision that denied an unmarried woman the right to alimony from her wealthy ex.”

Arizona Republic: “Early ballots delivered to polling places and provisional ballots are yet to be counted in Arizona from Tuesday’s general election – and it’s not clear how much a role those may play in several contests that have yet to be decided.”

Detroit News: “Republicans took back control of the Michigan Supreme Court, with two Republican-backed candidates rolling over Democratic opponents.”

Denver Post: “About 60 percent of state voters chose to retain Justices Nancy Rice, Michael Bender and Alex Martinez with 22 percent of the precincts reporting results.”

Anchorage Daily News: “Voters kept Alaska Supreme Court Justice Dana Fabe in office Tuesday, rejecting an effort by a group of social conservatives to unseat her.”

Oakland Tribune: “Alameda County has become home to the first transgender trial judge in the country as Victoria Kolakowski won the race to fill an empty seat on the county’s Superior Court bench.”

Todd Zywicki writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “. . . I don’t understand the complaint of Drake University Law School Dean Allan Vestal that this was a ‘misuse’ of the right of voters to vote on judicial retention. Isn’t this exactly what the retention power is intended to do?”

Associated Press: “President Barack Obama says he still sees an opportunity to overturn the military’s ban on gay servicemembers during Congress’ upcoming lame-duck session.”

ACLU: “This Friday, and for the first time ever, the United States will submit to a peer review of its human rights record as part of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s (HRC) Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which is taking place this week in Geneva.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “Remarkably, Acting Solicitor General Neal K. Katyal appeared before the justices to argue on behalf of the program. For some reason, the Obama administration thought it would be a good idea to join groups like TV preacher Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice, Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Liberty Counsel, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Christian Legal Society, the Alliance Defense Fund and others supporting this ill-conceived plan.”

OneNewsNow: “Pat Trueman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and former chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, notes that YouTube has a reputation for questionable material on its site, which includes pornography. But the Coalition for the War on Illegal Pornography has decided to make good use of it.”

“The conservative justices indicated they are likely to rule against a challenge to the Arizona program that says it amounts to an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion. The court’s liberals suggested they have problems with the state’s tax credit.”

Hurriyet Daily News: “Values taught to Turkish students should be based on ‘faith in God’ and imparted using Islamic terminology, a commission with the National Education Council has said, prompting concerns among educators’ unions in the country.”

World Jewish Congress: “A Knesset committee has made it possible for a civil marriage law to be implemented in Israel. The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee on Wednesday approved a registration fee of about US$ 165 for couples to obtain a civil marriage. The law, passed in March and set to be implemented next week, will allow Israelis without a religious denomination to be recognized as married.”

The Christian Institute: “Fewer children in care are being adopted into loving families. The Government wants to change that but will not talk about the sexual orientation laws that have shut down faith-based adoption agencies.”

EU Observer: “The gay and lesbian community in Barcelona is preparing a two-minute kissing session in front of Pope Benedict XVI to express their ‘discontent’ over the anti-gay stance of the Catholic Church.”

Mmegi Online: “Kgosi Letlamoreng II of Barolong will this morning table a motion in Ntlo ya Dikgosi, requesting government to halt registration of churches in Botswana.”

Religion Clause: “In Oklahoma yesterday, voters approved State Question No. 755, amending the Oklahoma constitution to bar state courts from considering or using international law or Shariah law when deciding cases.” | Ballotpedia: Oklahoma “Sharia Law Amendment”, State Question 755 (2010) | Text of the amendment can be found here (see pgs. 2-3-)

Businessweek: “The Treasury department said in August it will forgo charging tax on three Islamic structures to allow home loans. The government may sell Islamic bonds after deciding whether to make tax amendments in the middle of 2011 . . . ” See Religion Clause for more information.

Lyle Denniston reports at SCOTUSblog: “With Justice Stephen G. Breyer pushing the notion that ‘common sense’ can work as a constitutional principle, the Supreme Court on Tuesday looked for a workable way for states to keep younger kids away from truly violent video games, even while seemingly convinced that California has not found that way.”

Richard W. Rahn writing in the Washington Times: “The U.S. Department of Education was created with the primary stated goal of increasing students’ test scores, but test scores for 17-year-old American students have remained essentially flat since 1970. The department’s budget has grown to a whopping $107 billion this year. Per pupil, taxpayer-financed education spending (adjusted for inflation) has risen by more than 200 percent since 1970 (and 150-plus percent since 1980). Clearly and unambiguously, the department deserves a grade of F.”

Catholic News Agency: “While the chaplains’ opposition to the policy change includes concerns with issues like military readiness, their specific concern is that religious faith ‘will be discriminated against in favor of the new political correctness that will be imposed by the Obama administration,’ [ADF Attorney Daniel Blomberg] added. Asked about reports that active chaplains can be accused of insubordination if they publicly oppose changes to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ the ADF attorney said that the servicemen have been informed through their chain of command that ‘they should not be commenting on this at this time.’”

Associated Press: “The U.S. government will spend $511 million to expand its embassy in Kabul, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday, describing the work as a demonstration of America’s long-term commitment to Afghanistan.”

INFORUM (Fargo-Moorhead): “A doctor at the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo has a state medical license that expired four months ago due to an oversight, the clinic acknowledged Friday.”

Sheryl Young writing at Yahoo / Associated Content: “The woman posted an advertisement for a Christian roommate, thus causing the ‘uproar’ over her right to do so. According to the Alliance Defense Fund statement on this case, it is a misunderstanding that she had no right to post her preference.”

Iowa Independent: “The highly charged campaign featured more than $1 million in spending against the judges from national anti-gay organizations like the Mississippi-based American Family Association, Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, Georgia-based Faith & Freedom Coalition and New Jersey-based National Organization for Marriage. The campaign culminated in a 20-city bus tour across Iowa.”

LifeNews: “Thus far, eight of the so-called pro-life Democrats have lost their bids for re-election. That includes Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, Chris Carney and Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania; Alan Mollohan of West Virginia; Baron Hill of Indiana; and Charlie Wilson of Ohio.”

OneNewsNow: “A pro-family leader in Illinois is warning that the post-election lame-duck session could provide an opportunity for the state to legalize civil unions for homosexuals.”

KUNC / NPR: “The measure failed on a 3 to one margin, much like a similar measure did in 2008.” Ballotpedia: Colorado Fetal Personhood, Amendment 62 (2010)

LifeNews: “[Bob Brown] received a debate on his measure which would overturn the federal 1997 Euthanasia Laws Act which effectively ceased the operation of Northern Territory’s own Rights of the Terminally Ill Act. The bill would allow Australian states to make their own laws pertaining to assisted suicide.”

LifeNews: “Proving that women candidates don’t have the be abortion supporters to win in states both red or blue, pro-life women won 23 victories in contests for key Senate and House seats and in gubernatorial races.”

Wall Street Journal Editorial [full text via Google News]: “The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee seems poised today to make a historic decision to expand its balance sheet by as much as $1 trillion or more to boost inflation and reduce unemployment. We’ve said before that we think this is a monetary mistake, but the public and Congress should also be aware that it increasingly carries fiscal risks.”

National Journal: “The wave of disappointment and disillusionment with Washington that swept Obama into office two years ago never went away. With the unemployment rate hovering near double digits, the president was unable to deliver the change that most Americans could believe in, so voters delivered a message of their own to the incumbent party: Get out.”

TBD.com / Amanda Hess: “Among the many nightmare scenarios under discussion this Election Day morning: If Republicans gain control of Congress, will they exert their influence to end gay marriage in the District of Columbia?”

The Hill: “Environmentalists, GOP strategists and others are offering sharply 
different views about whether votes for cap-and-trade legislation played a big role in the demise of the Democrats’ House majority.”

Rick Cohen writing at The Nonprofit Quarterly: “[F]inding ways for government to indirectly support religious groups, for example, tax credits and vouchers for private religious institutions, is likely in the cards for the freshman class. Promoting the mixture of their faith and their politics, these electees will probably also favor scrapping the prohibition against church electioneering. The pastors behind Pulpit Freedom Sunday, organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, have good reason to cheer as the freshman class of Republicans likely takes up their argument against the Internal Revenue Service.”

Bloomberg: “Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke may have to renew his battle to preserve the central bank’s independence after Republican victories in yesterday’s congressional elections.”

Des Moines Register: “A governor leaving office should refrain from appointing new Iowa Supreme Court justices between the November elections and the end of the term, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said Sunday.”

“The city of King will adopt a policy crafted by the Alliance Defense Fund that will preserve its citizens’ right to honor U.S. veterans through a display consisting of 11 flagpoles, which was attacked by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).”

Associated Press: “Al-Qaida’s front group in Iraq has threatened more attacks on Christians after a siege on a Baghdad church that left 58 people dead, linking the warning to claims that Egypt’s Coptic Church is holding women captive for converting to Islam.”

ADF Attorney David French writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “Why does it keep getting hammered at the ballot box? . . . Yesterday, three of the seven Iowa justices were up for retention, and all three lost.”

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “Unfortunately, there are some groups that view Christmas time as the right time to attack religion by misusing the First Amendment to restrict religious speech. They use the Establishment Clause – originally meant to protect the Church from control by the State – as an Anti-Christmas Clause.”