Daily Archives: November 22, 2010

Associated Press: “A federal judge on Monday said she would rule by the end of the month on a lawsuit challenging an Oklahoma constitutional amendment that would prohibit state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.”

Associated Press: “Figures on government spending and debt (last six digits are eliminated). The government’s fiscal year runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.”

Associated Press: “Minnesota Supreme Court justices are deliberating over a Republican lawsuit casting doubt about whether the number of governor’s race votes squares with rosters of voters.”

LifeSiteNews: “Abortionist Romeo Ferrer, who stood accused of negligence in the death of Denise Crow in February, 2006, has permanently surrendered his Maryland medical license and promised not to seek licensure in any other state.”

KOMU: “After a three-month hiatus due to what the company called ‘scheduling issues,’ the Columbia Planned Parenthood said Monday it has resumed in-clinic abortions.”

Jonathan S. Tobin writing at Commentary / Contentions: “The release of the latest FBI report on hate crimes this week adds more weight to the doubts raised about the mythical backlash against Muslims. The new statistics published on the U.S. Department of Justice website show that there were only 107 reported incidents of anti-Islamic hate crimes in the country during 2009. ”

Winnipeg Free Press: “The ‘historic’ court case in British Columbia that could decide whether polygamy is legal in Canada is a matter of immense national importance and should be televised, a lawyer for the CBC argued Monday on the opening day of the hearings.”

Adam Freedman writing at Ricochet: “[The City Council of Davenport, IA] passed a law requiring parents to exercise control over their minor children. The law said that if a child has two or more episodes of delinquency (resulting in a complaint filed in court), there will be a ‘presumption’ that the parent violated his or her duty . . . The Iowa Supreme Court has struck down that part of the law that creates a rebuttable presumption against parents.”

Amazon.com description for Licensing Families by Michael McFall: “In Licensing Parents, Michael McFall argues that political structures, economics, education, racism, and sexism are secondary in importance to the inequality caused by families, and that the family plays the primary role in a child’s acquisition of a sense of justice. He demonstrates that examination of the family is necessary in political philosophy and that informal structures (families) and considerations (character formation) must be taken seriously. McFall advocates a threshold that should be accepted by all political philosophers: children should not be severely abused or neglected because child maltreatment often causes deep and irreparable individual and societal harm.” | Via Mirror of Justice.

Selwyn Duke writing at The New American: “While Americans are thinking about turkey and the TSA (and turkeys in the TSA), as is often the case, the most destructive governmental shenanigans are occurring behind the scenes. On Thursday, November 18, the Senate held hearings on the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a treaty that could be used to justify sweeping social engineering across the nation.”

Freedom From Religion Foundation: “The Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent letters of complaint on behalf of its 700 Florida members and a local resident objecting to proclamations declaring Christian Heritage Week by the Vero Beach City Council and the Indian River County Board of Commissioners.”

Toronto Star: “An Ontario court of appeal judge will reserve judgment on arguments made Monday by the federal and provincial governments, who pleaded with the court to extend a 60-day stay on a controversial ruling to strike down Canada’s prostitution laws.”

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “In the recent case, Hutterville v. Warden, the South Dakota Supreme Court rightly refused to get involved in a church dispute because it would have interfered with religious freedom . . . Because the matter boiled down to who were truly members of the church, the court wisely washed its hands of the matter, determining this was a religious dispute secular judges have no business adjudicating.”

Letter to the Editor of the Tidewater News: “Unfortunately, the issues of ‘bullying’ and ‘safe schools’ have provided those who seek to normalize and promote homosexuality a way to infiltrate our schools. Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network poses as a ‘club’ formed to improve relationships between hetero and homosexuals but functions more like a recruitment center. Their meetings ‘educate’ students on the homosexual lifestyle with X-rated topics that reject traditional values, encourage homosexual experimentation and celebrate those who adopt that lifestyle.”

Dayton Daily News: “Unofficial results had shown Bowling Green voters approved only one measure on Nov. 2. The Blade of Toledo reports the Wood County Board of Elections on Monday found both passed after provisional ballots were certified.”

ABA Journal: “Justice Antonin Scalia defended originalism on Friday, warning that interpreting the Constitution as a ‘living document’ effectively allows ‘five out of nine hotshot lawyers to run the country.’ Unless judges give words in the Constitution their fair meaning, democracy doesn’t work, Scalia said in a speech at the University of Richmond. The Associated Press and the Richmond Times-Dispatch both covered the event.” | See also LifeNews.

Financial Times [full text via Google News]: “The number of people subscribing to US cable television services has suffered its biggest decline in 30 years as younger, tech-savvy viewers lead an exodus to web-based operations, such as Hulu and Netflix.”

Associated Press: “New Jersey lawmakers have approved what advocates say will be the nation’s toughest laws to fight bullying in institutions of learning . . . It would require anti-bullying programs in public schools and language in college codes of conduct to address bullying. The measure would update a law on the books since 2001.” | Bill Nos. A3466; S2392

Christian Post: “Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Monday pardoned Asia Bibi (also referred to as Asia Noreen by some media), the first woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.”

The Heritage Foundation: “House Minority Leader John Boehner (R–OH) made quite a statement last Monday when, on his first day back in office post-elections, he took time out to meet with parents and children enrolled in the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP). In doing so, Boehner sent a clear signal to D.C. families of his support for school choice in the nation’s capital.”

The Star-Ledger: “In the basement of Jubilee Hall at Seton Hall University, 24 undergraduates meet twice a week for a course known as ‘Special Topics in Political Theory: Gay Marriage’ . . . The three-credit course made headlines last spring when Newark Archbishop John J. Myers questioned whether a Catholic university should be teaching students about a topic the church opposes . . . ”

KTAR: “Gov. Jan Brewer has appointed Robert Brutinel, a trial judge from a county outside the state’s largest metro areas, to fill an Arizona Supreme Court vacancy.”

Slate: “The Chinese must choose between their government and the pope. There are actually two strains of Catholicism in China. The official, ‘above-ground’ version operates in state-approved churches and is overseen by the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference and the state-affiliated Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association rather than by the pope.”

Guardian: “A few months ago nurses at the Betsi Cadwaladr University NHS trust, the largest health organisation in Wales, received a shock: their Christmas party was going to be cancelled. What was more shocking was the excuses used by management to justify their decision . . . ”

Times of India: “Things are finally looking up for the gay and transgender community in the state. In its first step forward, the state government has issued a GO bringing the transgender community under the purview of the minorities welfare department . . . As per current estimates, there are about 1.2 lakh gay and transgenders in Andhra Pradesh, and a massive 80 per cent of the transgenders are into sex work.”

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: “It is inevitable, in any week dedicated to giving thanks to the Lord for His blessings and mercies beyond measure, that my heart would turn to the founders of the Alliance Defense Fund . . . on November 12, the ADF team was privileged to welcome Dr. Dobson and his wife, Shirley, to our headquarters in Scottsdale – to see firsthand some of the tangible results of their generous contributions to this work.”

Christian Today: “The Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) today urged the NSW Government not to rubber-stamp the roll-out of ethics classes in competition with Scripture classes – saying this is a ‘hot button’ issue for the Christian constituency.”

Dutch News: “The HIV infection rate amongst gay men is soaring, according to new figures from the HIV monitoring foundation.”

France 24: “A small group of Russian homosexuals held what was billed as the first authorised demonstration of its type in the country Saturday, despite provocations from counter-protesters who threw eggs.”

Courier-Post: “Assembly Democrats plan to make another attempt in today’s session to restore funding for family-planning clinics, although recent votes in legislative committees suggest it is an effort unlikely to succeed.”

MSN India: “The Kerala government today informed the High Court that an Islamic bank is established on the secular principles of Shariat law and irrespective of religion anyone can become a stakeholder.”

Belfast Telegraph: “Church leaders have slammed the government’s blueprint for tackling sectarianism in Northern Ireland. The Church of Ireland has told First Minister Peter Robinson and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness that their Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (CSI) strategy aimed at bridging community divisions will not work.”

Telegraph: “The 66-year-old legislation governing ‘collective worship’ is too restrictive and fails to meet the needs of a modern education system, it was claimed. Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, is among a group of trade unionists, secularists and religious leaders calling for the rules to be axed.”

Baltimore Sun: “But while the church and the community association may share some goals, they’ve been at odds of late. Some Highlandtown residents have raised concerns about noise and parking stemming from Savage’s church, and recently mounted a zoning challenge that questioned whether Holy Truth had the permits it needed to operate.”

New Zealand Herald: “Despite her attempts to shuffle it to the bottom of a large and fractious in-tray, Prime Minister Julia Gillard now has no chance of avoiding a further, divisive, debate on gay marriage.”

Mercury News: “The ‘Respect for All’ short films involved in that curriculum have come under fire from parents who believe their elementary school-aged children should not be learning about gay and lesbian families. They also believe that parents should be notified and be able to pull their children from the lessons.”

Vallejo, CA debates “pro-gay” film for elementary students

The Jerusalem Post: “Islamic schools in Britain are teaching anti-Semitic material to high school children, with some exposed to extremist preachers and extremist Islamist groups, a BBC documentary was set to reveal on Monday evening.”

CBN: “Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he supports Congress using its lame-duck session to end the ban on gays serving openly in the military.”

Houston Area Pastor Council: “Dear General Abbott: We would like to request a formal opinion on whether Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s Executive Order 1-8 issued in April of 2010, ‘Prohibition of Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity’ (attached), conflicts with state laws regarding the use of public restrooms by those of the opposite gender.”

ZDNet / Tech Broiler: “I asked, and now I’m telling: looks like Yahoo! Clues, the new keyword search and comparison tool, has a problem with the gays. Yahoo!’s new research tool Clues appears to be part of the growing trend of search giants and their tools not reporting results or returning data on sex-related keywords.”

KTAR: “The University of Arizona is considering a pilot program that would allow students of the opposite sex to live in the same dorm room . . . ‘That’s completely at odds with common sense,’ said [David French], senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale-based Christian organization that seeks to preserve family values.”

ADF Attorney Gregory S. Baylor writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “The bill, if it became law, might threaten the freedom of Christ-centered institutions of higher education. Many of these schools forbid their students from engaging in homosexual behavior on the ground that the Bible deems it immoral. It is not difficult to imagine that someone might argue that Christ-centered colleges and universities have ‘educational environments’ that are ‘hostile’ to those who engage in homosexual conduct.”

OneNewsNow: “A pastor in Wichita, Kansas, heads to court today to defend himself against charges involving his efforts to witness for Christ outside a mosque.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Montana Supreme Court has reversed a district judge’s ruling that school officials could censor a valedictorian’s speech that contained references to God and Jesus Christ.” More information here.

LifeNews: “Dozens of members of Congress and more than 70,000 Americans are represented in a new legal brief filed by a pro-life legal group supporting the lawsuit in Florida against ObamaCare. The American Center for Law and Justice today filed an amicus brief with a federal court in Florida on behalf of 63 members of Congress in support of Florida’s lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal health care law.”

FindLaw (AP): “Iraqi police say gunmen have shot and killed two Christian brothers in a northern city in the latest in a spate of attacks targeting the religious minority.”

MSNBC: “The War on Christmas may be in its final days. This season, merry Christmas — not happy holidays or season’s greetings — will dominate retailer’s marketing messages. There will be Christmas sales and Christmas trees and Christmas carols galore.”

OneNewsNow: “Liberty Institute and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, are at odds over a reconstructed Civil War-era chapel. The replica was constructed in 2006 by John Wega, who refounded the United States Christian Commission (USCC) . . . But Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Institute, says the USCC recently received a letter from the borough demanding that the building be torn down. However, no reason was given.”

OneNewsNow: “A recently released study shows a link between childhood family structure and the rate of female homosexuality — undermining the claim that sexual orientation is genetic or biological.”

“Women (aged 14-44) Who Had a Homosexual Sexual Partner in the Past Year” by Current Religious Attendance and Structure of Family of Origin

National Post: “The lawyer for an anti-abortion group just decertified at Carleton University said Friday he will take the school’s student association to court unless the ban is reversed. Albertos Polizogopoulos called the decision to decertify Carleton Lifeline by the Carleton University Student Association (CUSA) ‘totalitarian’ and ‘ludicrous.’”

National Post: Anti-abortion students force us to look at our commitment to free speech

Ed West writing in the Telegraph: “Back in the 1980s and early 1990s some conservatives began claiming that welfare policy was helping to institutionalise fatherlessness, and that the children of such non-unions were more likely to be dysfunctional. They were largely berated, and yet countless studies have shown this to be undoubtedly true. In fact, rather than being the flag-bearers of science, as they like to believe, the Left’s standpoint on a variety of issues is based on a modern secular version of religious dogma; while conservatives are driven by more rational and logical analysis of outcomes (although often supported by people with irrational and even sinister motives).”

“Signaling the growing seriousness of the Obama administration’s commitment this year to ending the military’s ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces, the Defense Department said Sunday that it will release a long-awaited report on the matter earlier than planned because senators are eager to vote on whether to repeal the policy.”

Education Reform Now!: “The false industrial model that prevails in education, discussed in a previous post, has led to the birth and inexorable growth of industrial style teacher unions throughout the country, so that today they’re on the A-list of powerful lobbies on both the state and national levels. Like other lobbies, they work assiduously to introduce and support legislation that advances their agenda.”

Religion Clause: “In Schofield v. Superior Court of Fresno County, (CA App., Nov. 18, 2010), a California appellate court held that in a lawsuit brought by the Episcopal Church to establish its title to property of the break-away San Joaquin Diocese, the trial court must apply neutral principles of law to determine ownership of the property. It held that the trial court had erred in preliminarily deciding who is the rightful bishop of the Diocese of San Joaquin.”

Hudson New York: “Shortly after the new British coalition government took office in May 2010, Hague, a long-time member of the Conservative Friends of Israel group, promised to move quickly to change the law, amid fears that the threat of arrest was preventing high-ranking Israelis from visiting Britain . . .”

“A landmark debate begins today in British Columbia Supreme Court. Lawyers representing the attorneys-general of Canada and B.C. will argue the current law against polygamy – Section 293 of the Criminal Code – should be upheld. Their arguments are expected to focus on alleged harms resulting from polygamy to women, children and society.”

Dallas Morning News: “Advantage’s state-funded campuses showcase the latest breed of charter schools, born from faith-based principles and taxpayer funds. More than 20 percent of Texas’ charter schools have some kind of religious ties. That’s the case for six of the seven approved this year, including ones in Frisco and Arlington.”

Religion Clause: “In Islamic Cultural Center of Monticello, Inc. v. Village of Monticello, (NY Sup. Ct., Nov. 17, 2010), a New York trial court found no RLUIPA violations in a village’s handling of applications for a special use permit and a certificate of occupancy for a mosque and related parking lot.”

Religion Clause: “Both The Capital and the Maryland Daily Record report that on Thursday in the midst of a RLUIPA trial, Anne Arundel County, Maryland signed a settlement in the lawsuit brought against it by Riverdale Baptist Church which sought to build a school on 57 acres of land it owns.”

The Daily Caller: “Conservatives are planning to propose an amendment to the Constitution at some time in the next few weeks aimed at allowing states to repeal legislation without the approval of Washington . . . The Repeal Amendment calls for allowing states to band together to repeal, or overturn, federal legislation. As it is written now, if approved and ratified, two-thirds of states’ legislatures would need to vote in favor of a repeal.”

Gary Beckner writing at Townhall: “Unfortunately, teachers largely have been pushed aside as education reformers determine how to help America’s students catch up with the rest of the world. Teachers can thank the teacher union leadership for being excluded from the education reform decisions. While American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten claims that teachers are being ‘scapegoated’ for the nationwide lack of student achievement, administrators, parents, policymakers, and business leaders are working together to develop innovative strategies to help America’s students catch up with countries like Finland and South Korea.”

Associated Press: “A Pakistani Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam is innocent, a government minister investigating the case said Monday, adding he was hopeful she would be granted a presidential pardon and be freed.”

Dallas Morning News: “Today, 70 percent of New Orleans public school students attend a charter school. No other city comes close. (Dallas’ rate is 10 percent and growing.) So educators, lawmakers and researchers are watching for results. One early lesson: The relative freedom of charter schools – they’re independently run and exempt from many state education laws – appears to have been key to an overall boost in student performance in New Orleans.”

Benjamin Ismail writing in The Middle East Quarterly: “Does the vehemence of some media criticism imply that the banning of the niqab and the burqa is too sensitive and too complex an issue to be determined by law? Quite the reverse in fact. The question of whether France should legally ban the wearing of the full-face cover on its territory was answered in the affirmative, resoundingly and unequivocally, during parliamentary debates held over the past two years. The only remaining problems for its enactment are more a matter of form over substance, namely, what will be the best rationale for this legislation? . . . An EU decision to invalidate the French ban would have to be based on the unlawfulness of the government’s bill or some of its provisions. Yet this possibility has been fully anticipated by the government which, by changing the bill’s rationale from the principles of secularism or the dignity of women to public order, has greatly reduced the likelihood of invalidation.”

Goldwater Institute: “Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance has published a new report on the Arizona tuition scholarship tax credit. The report does a great deal to answer the misleading claims of some of the program’s critics. Vicki Murray of California’s Pacific Research Institute surveyed Arizona scholarship groups and found the tuition tax credit really does expand the options available for middle- and low-income families to educate their children.”

Wall Street Journal: “The Vatican on Sunday rushed to clarify a recent interview by Pope Benedict XVI, in which the pontiff states for the first time that there may be some cases in which the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on condoms isn’t absolute . . . The pope then added: ‘There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants.’” Full text of the Pope’s comments is here.

Vatican Information Service: Note by Fr. Lombardi concerning a new book on the Pope

Jimmy Akin: The Pope Said WHAT about Condoms???

Janet E. Smith: What does the Holy Father really say about condoms in the new book?

The Hill / Briefing Room: “NPR hailed the ‘good judgment’ of lawmakers on Thursday who rejected an effort to cut funding for public radio. NPR hailed a failed vote by Congress to cut off its funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which funds both NPR and PBS.”

Politico: “Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski is putting together a net neutrality proposal and plans to take action on [net neutrality] as early as next month, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation . . . The long-running net neutrality debate centers around rules that would require Internet service providers to treat all web traffic equally. Internet companies like Google and Skype want net neutrality rules applied to both wireline and wireless networks, but network operators including AT&T, Verizon and Comcast say they need flexibility to manage web traffic on their lines.”

Janice Shaw Crouse writing in the Washington Times: “Acccording to the latest census report, the number of cohabiting couples escalated from 6.7 million in 2009 to 7.5 million just one year later. Living together has become today’s ‘normative experience,’ with nearly 50 percent of young adults aged 20 to 40 cohabiting . . . The trend toward cohabitation is producing a cultural transformation that has profound ramifications for both individuals and communities.”

Washington Times: “A federal judge will hear arguments Monday on a preliminary injunction against one of the most contentious ballot measures in this month’s elections — an Oklahoma referendum that banned state courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.”

Washington Examiner / Beltway Confidential: “American Federation of Teachers president Rhonda ‘Randi’ Weingarten has issued a statement slamming proposed cuts from the congressional deficit commission for not pushing shared sacrifice among the wealthy, but an AFT spokesman has told The Examiner that Weingarten will not be taking a paycut from the total $428,284 she received in salary and benefits during fiscal year 2010.”

WKRN: “Christ Church may take its fight to not pay more than $400,000 in property taxes to Davidson County Chancery Court . . . The church is working with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is a legal alliance that deals specifically with defending religious freedom.”

Arizona Republic: “The University of Arizona is considering a pilot program that would allow students of the opposite sex to live in the same dorm room, an option designed to make gay students feel more comfortable living on campus . . . ‘You mix all those together and then say, “Hey, guys and girls, why don’t you just go ahead and room together?” and it seems to be asking for an even greater degree of trouble than already exists,’ [ADF Attorney David French] said.”

Winston-Salem Journal: “The King City Council will review a draft today of its limited public-forum policy regarding religious flags being flown at the city’s Veteran’s Memorial before it holds a public hearing about the policy later tonight, a city official said . . . The Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz., is preparing the policy, Cater said. [Joe Infranco], a defense fund lawyer and Walter ‘Wrennie’ Pitt, the city’s attorney, will answer questions from people who will attend the public hearing at 6 p.m. at King Elementary School, a city notice publicizing the meeting, said.”

The Tennessean: “A South Nashville megachurch facing a $425,000 property tax bill is fighting the assessment on its gym, bookstore and cafe . . . ‘The cafe and bookstore were gathering spaces for ministry,’ said [ADF Attorney Erik Stanley], whose group is assisting Christ Church. ‘The fitness center was an outreach to the community. There was nothing to suggest it was a retail operation or a money-making venture.’”