Daily Archives: December 29, 2010

Christian Telegraph: “Hundreds of poor Christian brick kiln workers were denied their wages before Christmas in Toba Tek Singh, a district in the Pakistani province of Punjab, reports Ashfaq Fateh, special to ASSIST News Service.”

Gallup: “Four in 10 Americans, slightly fewer today than in years past, believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago. Thirty-eight percent believe God guided a process by which humans developed over millions of years from less advanced life forms, while 16%, up slightly from years past, believe humans developed over millions of years, without God’s involvement.”

Sydney Morning Herald: “Following the passing of the Equal Opportunity Bill in Victoria this year, which allows religious groups to continue to discriminate on the basis of ‘sexuality or marital status if it is in accordance with their beliefs’, the NSW directive is clearly portentous for Victorian gay couples hoping to foster.”

Radio Australia News: “Muslim traders in India have welcomed a new share index of companies that comply with Islamic law. The Bombay Stock Exchange launched the index of sharia-compliant firms on Monday, to open stock-trading to more Muslims.”

Strasbourg Consortium: “An international Symposium on ‘Religious Diversity and the European Workplace‘ will take place in at the Law Faculty of Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, on 13 January 2011.”

But what is marriage, so understood? . . . Bodily union: Does it matter? What does it mean? . . . Just a legal convention?

My Fox Detroit: “A transgender man says an Oakland County court denied him and his fiancé a marriage license because his sex change was not complete.”

Patriot Action Network: “I just received this email from the Alliance Defense Fund. It reads: ‘In its words, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claims to support free speech. In deeds, the nation’s number one censor of religious freedom files outrageous lawsuits to prevent public governing boards from opening meetings with prayer.’”

Idaho Press-Tribune: “Founders of the now-defunct Nampa Classical Academy can take some consolation in the fact that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently refused to kill at least a portion of their lawsuit to use religious texts in schools. On Sept. 1, 2009, the Alliance Defense Fund, a private, conservative group, filed a federal lawsuit asking a judge to block enforcement of the Idaho Public Charter School Commission’s ruling that prohibited NCA from using the Bible in classrooms.”

TIME: “Since taking office in January, Virginia’s new attorney general has sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its plan to regulate greenhouse gases, opined that Virginia can regulate first-trimester-abortion facilities as it can hospitals, advised that the state’s public colleges lack authority to bar discrimination against gays and lesbians, tweaked the state seal to cover the bare breast of the Roman goddess Virtus and subpoenaed the University of Virginia to probe for evidence that a former professor manipulated climate-science research.”

Via Joseph Lawler at The American Spectator: “It’s a sign of the disconnect between what Democrats on Capitol Hill think they can do to the public at large, and what the public thinks they should be allowed to do.”

Brad O’Leary writing at Townhall: “Nowhere in our Constitution is there a mandate for a centralized public education system to begin with . . . Nor did our Founders establish a school system whereby American families are taxed into oblivion and essentially forced to enroll their children in government schools . . . Schools, incidentally, where students are told to check their religion at the door under some bizarre interpretation of the First Amendment.”

Wall Street Journal: “More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly 7% are on two or more such drugs, based on the company’s database figures for 2009.”

FIRE: “With the year coming to a close, it’s as good a time as any to check out the impressive legal scholarship that FIRE has amassed in the past few years. These law journal and law review articles bring much-needed attention and legal scrutiny to the free speech issues that lie at the heart of FIRE’s mission and activities.”

Christian Science Monitor: “Faced with the need to make drastic cuts to avoid looming budget holes as federal stimulus money runs out, school districts across the country are resorting to once-unthinkable solutions. Officials are turning to desperate measures to save the jobs of teachers, whose livelihoods were long considered secure.”

Wall Street Journal Editorial [full text via Google News]: “The drama began in May, when Republican Governor Chris Christie declined to reappoint sitting state Supreme Court Justice John Wallace, instead nominating Anne Patterson to fill the seat. While Mr. Christie’s authority to make the change is granted by the New Jersey constitution, his audacity in exercising it was greeted by his political opponents as a moral outrage.”

Ekklesia: The European Parliament has officially welcomed a delegation of Christian leaders from Iraq and Lebanon at its last plenary session of the year.”

Blue Ridge Times-News: “[T]housands of people viewing the image online since the weekend have accused government officials of gruesomely killing Mr. Qian to silence his six-year campaign to protect fellow villagers in a land dispute.”

Charisma: “Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys, along with Americans United for Life and ADF-allied attorney Randall Wenger, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the first-ever review of a law requiring parental consent for a minor’s abortion . . . ‘Parents should have a right to be involved in their child’s critical life-changing decisions, and that includes abortions,’ says ADF Legal Counsel [Matt Bowman].”

Baptist Press: “Writing on behalf of his colleagues, Steve Brinn wrote a letter to the editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer to express dismay over Haskell’s move next door to their practice in Sharonville, Ohio.”

WIBW: “Kansas Democrats have harsh criticism of appointments by Governor-elect Sam Brownback and incoming Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Brownback named Caleb Stegall his Chief Counsel and Kobach named Eric Rucker his Assistant Secretary of State.”

NECN: “Gay advocates in Ogden plan to press the city’s mayor for a new local ordinance to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.”

OneNewsNow: “The North Carolina Council of Churches has chosen an open homosexual as its president-elect . . . According to its website, the purpose of the ecumenical organization is to promote ‘Christian unity.’ But the vote in favor of Kimer, says Alan Wisdom of the Washington, DC-based Institute on Religion & Democracy, accomplishes just the opposite.”

LifeSiteNews: “In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, noted Orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Levin has predicted the U.S. military will pay with ‘loss of life and limb’ for the normalization of homosexual acts. This past weekend the U.S. Senate voted to repeal the 1993 law that forbids open homosexuals from serving in the U.S. military. President Obama signed the repeal into law today.”

Chicago Tribune: “Republicans in the Indiana House have filed bills that would prevent workers from being required to pay union dues, an issue considered so divisive that Gov. Mitch Daniels would prefer to avoid it.”

OneNewsNow: “An advocate for America’s fighting men and women says she’s disappointed the Catholic Church didn’t take a stronger stance against the recent lame-duck Congress’s reckless decision to repeal the law that banned homosexuals from military service.”

Great Falls Tribune: “Republican lawmakers plan to introduce a broad range of bills aimed at restricting or even banning legalized abortion. Abortion rights groups say they are going to have their hands full fending off proposals from the ‘extreme far-right’ of the GOP, which they say will try to take advantage of large Republican majorities in both houses to accomplish its agenda.”

Wall Street Journal editorial: “Under highly centralized national health care, the government inevitably makes cost-minded judgments about what types of care are ‘best’ for society at large, and the standardized treatments it prescribes inevitably steal life-saving options from individual patients . . . Democrats and the press corps accused Mrs. Palin of misrepresentation to avoid reckoning with this inexorable rationing reality that President Obama has himself implicitly acknowledged.”

LifeNews: “A proposed law in Nebraska would stop the telemed abortion process currently employed at Planned Parenthood centers in neighboring Iowa from expanding there.”

LifeNews: “In the latest move in the contentious debate over the next Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Texas Alliance for Life announced today it has endorsed Rep. Ken Paxton.”

Rasmussen: “A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 19% of Likely U.S. Voters say they get updated news feeds in this fashion, while 79% do not. This marks little change from a year ago at this time.”

New York Times: “The legal challenge to the Obama health care act has invigorated a dispute as old as the Constitution about the framers’ most nettlesome grant of power, which gives Congress treacherously broad authority to pass laws ‘necessary and proper’ to carrying out its assigned responsibilities.”

The Oklahoman: “The Oklahoma Judicial Nominating Commission submitted the nominees Tuesday to Gov. Brad Henry after a daylong session of interviewing 14 finalists. In addition to Askins, the nominees are Judge John Fischer, of Oklahoma City, whom Henry appointed to the Oklahoma Court of Civil Appeals, and Oklahoma County District Judge Noma Gurich, of Oklahoma City.”

Telegraph: “John Bercow has backed the creation of a team of multi-faith chaplains, which will also include representatives of the Hindu, Buddhist and Jainist religions . . . It could mean that religious leaders of non-Christian faiths will take part in parliamentary ceremonies, though there would need to be constitutional reform to allow them to read the daily prayers.”

Associated Press: “Police in northeastern Nigeria say that members of a radical Muslim sect have wounded three people.”

Associated Press: “China said it is reducing the amount of rare earths it will export for the first half of the year by more than 10 percent – likely to be an unpopular move worldwide since the minerals are vital to the manufacture of high-tech products.”

The National: “Shiite clerics have long debated their role in politics. The ‘quietist’ school – rooted in the sect’s tradition of seeking to avoid confrontation with powerful rulers – argues against direct engagement in political matters. The more activist school emphasises the martyrdom of one of Shiism’s founding figures, Imam Hussein, who advocated rebellion and confrontation. But even within the activist school, there is a debate over the extent of clerical power.”

The Media Line: “Egypt’s government is weighing changes to laws that make it virtually impossible for the country’s Christians to build or expand a church. No law regulates erecting houses of worship, but building a new church in Egypt requires a presidential permit, as well as security clearance from Egypt’s State Security Intelligence. The procedure can take years winding its way.”

Jonah Goldberg writing in the Los Angeles Times: “Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian ‘free love.’ And avant-garde values . . . the sweeping embrace of bourgeois lifestyles by the gay community has been stunning.”

Ken Blackwell writing at Townhall: “Next spring, Republicans will be faced with a serious decision over whether to vote to raise the debt ceiling . . . In all likelihood, Republicans will have to reluctantly vote to extend the debt ceiling — but they should not do so without extracting some serious concessions in return . . . Republicans should agree to raise the debt ceiling only if Democrats also agree to vote for a balanced budget amendment resolution.”

Breitbart (AFP): “The Danish intelligence agency PET said Wednesday it had arrested four men suspected of preparing a massacre at a newspaper which published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.”

The Washington Post / The Answer Sheet: “The University of Virginia has eliminated four controversial policies that restricted the free speech of students and faculty, becoming one of a minority of schools across the country to do so . . . More than two-thirds of the nation’s colleges maintain policies that clearly and substantially restrict freedom of speech, according to FIRE.”

Heritage Foundation / The Foundry: “Now this week, analysts including former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, say Americans could be paying $5/gallon of gasoline by 2012. Investment banks are predicting a return to $100/barrel oil, and OPEC is refusing to raise production. All of this news would be less frightening if the White House were focusing on potential ways to lower energy prices. Instead, President Obama is admittedly fixated with raising them.”

The Hill: “GOP Sen.-elect Rand Paul said Monday that he wants to attach spending cuts to every major piece of legislation that comes before the Senate next year.”

Fox News: “After failing to get climate-change legislation through Congress, the Obama administration plans on pushing through its environmental policies through other means, and Republicans are ready to put up a fight.”

CNSNews: “The federal government has accumulated more new debt–$3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29)—during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.”

LifeNews: “Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund and Americans United for Life submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the first-ever review of that court of the pro-life law . . . ‘Parents should have a right to be involved in their child’s critical life-changing decisions, and that includes abortions,’ ADF Legal Counsel [Matt Bowman] told LifeNews.com today. ‘Secret abortions performed on minors leave children in the hands of a predatory abortion industry that has put profits above parents’ rights and the health and safety of young girls and their preborn children.’”

Keen News Service: “The ruling jeopardizes the legality of all other such ‘second-parent adoptions’ in the state . . . [Nancy Polikoff, Professor of Law at American University] noted that conservative groups like the Alliance Defense Fund ‘are willing to work on any case seeking to undo any parenting by a non-bio mom’ but does not believe the attack on second-parent adoptions in North Carolina heralds a trend.”

“As long as the Iowa Supreme Court is comprised of justices that abuse their authority, the credibility of our court will be compromised.”

“Justice Cady should use his speech to outline a plan for the remaining four Iowa Supreme Court justices to resign in a responsible fashion.”

ADF President and CEO Alan E. Sears writes at Townhall: “No, ultimately there’s only one reason to oppose the repeal – and it is, of course, the reason that almost no politician or military officer is willing or able to say, right out loud. The repeal was and should be opposed because it endorses homosexual behavior – and homosexual behavior is morally wrong.”

Burning Crosses on Campus: University Speech Codes
Alexander Tsesis, 43 Conn. L. Rev. 617 (2010)

“This Article adds a fresh perspective to this decades-old academic tempest of intellectual disagreement about First Amendment theory. It first discusses the current problem of hate speech on college campuses. It then turns to a survey of First Amendment jurisprudence that is relevant to the regulation of hate speech on campus. Then it compares and contrasts international approaches to that of the United States. The final portion of the Article analyzes the narrow and broad implications of the Supreme Court’s rational in Virginia v. Black to develop two forms of college hate speech regulations that are likely to withstand First Amendment challenges.”

From Research Conclusions to Real Change: Understanding the First Amendment’s (Non)Response to the Negative Effects of Media on Children by Looking to the Example of Violent Video Games
Renee Newman Knake, 63 SMU L. Rev. 1197 (2010)

“Woodhouse’s proposal offers an appealing perspective for those who support regulation of children’s access to harmful media. The real issue, however, is whether ecogenerism will evolve from academic theory to actual practice. This article tests her theory by revisiting the line of violent video game cases to evaluate whether her ecogenerist perspective can achieve any real change in the courts’ decisions. Particular attention is devoted to challenges presented by First Amendment free speech protections with a primary focus on the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Schwarzenegger to invalidate a California statute prohibiting the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, a case that the Supreme Court is poised to soon decide. While some speculate that the Supreme Court is unlikely to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision given the uniform position of other courts on this issue, this article reveals that an ecogenerist perspective demands a reversal by the Court precisely for that reason. Should the Court affirm the Ninth Circuit’s invalidation of the statute, the article concludes by proposing recommendations for future research and regulatory efforts from an ecogenerist perspective.”

Is There a Right to Have Children? Substantive Due Process and Probation Conditions That Restrict Reproductive Rights
Joanna Nairn, 6 Stan. J. Civ. Rts. & Civ. Liberties 1 (2010)

“This Article focuses on women who have been sentenced, as part of their probation, either to use specific forms of birth control or simply to avoid procreating. It begins by exploring the prevalence of these conditions, hampered by the difficulty in gathering data about probation conditions that are not appealed to higher courts. Using a combination of appellate opinions and reported trial court decisions, it notes that appellate courts have begun to break with the unanimous rejection of such conditions that characterized the first few decades of their reported use. Moreover, it highlights a pattern of appellate decisions that focus not on the constitutionality of these conditions but rather on their reasonableness in the particular case–a trend that has created inconsistency across courts. It then goes on to survey the Court’s substantive due process jurisprudence, noting the specificity with which the Court has defined protected rights and describing the three methods by which it deems rights fundamental. This Article also argues that it is likely that strict scrutiny would apply to probation conditions that restrict reproductive rights. Finally, it makes the case for invalidating such conditions under a strict scrutiny framework, arguing that the right implicated is fundamental and that there are less restrictive alternatives available.”