Daily Archives: January 4, 2011

WTSP: “Something called ‘The Obama Prayer’ has landed a Manatee County corrections sergeant in hot water. According to an internal affairs report, Sergeant Matthew Neu highlighted a verse in a bible that reads, ‘Let his days be few – and let another take his office.’”

Orange County Register: “The City Council on Tuesday will consider an interim ordinance establishing a moratorium on permits for adult businesses following the rezoning of land from business park to homes and commercial uses.”

The Hill: “Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the incoming chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, ripped into The New York Times Tuesday for telling him in a weekend editorial to tone down his rhetoric.”

Yahoo Associated Content: “Last summer, residents of King, NC, were challenged for flying the Christian flag, but today, they seem to be enjoying a sort of victory . . . The Alliance Defense Fund was involved in helping King make this crucial decision . . . To date, city dwellers have sent in 110 applications requesting to fly a flag in honor of a loved one at the Veterans Memorial. One asked for the atheist flag, some for no flag, and most for the Christian flag.”

Memorandum regarding motion to disqualify in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, No. 10-16696 (9th Cir. Jan. 4, 2010) | Excerpt: “My wife has no tangible interest in this case’s outcome, and I do not believe that my impartiality in this case can reasonably be questioned on the basis of either her public statements or the ACLU/SC’s involvement in any judicial proceedings. For these reasons, I deny Proponents’ motion.”

Christian Science Monitor: “People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations. As most pension schemes in Europe are organised by the state, European ministers of finance have a facilitated access to the savings accumulated there, and it is only logical that they try to get a hold of this money for their own ends. In recent weeks I have noted five such attempts: Three situations concern private personal savings; two others refer to national funds.”

Rasmussen Reports: “With a new Congress scheduled to swing into action this week, the number of voters who rate the economy as a Very Important issue has reached its highest level since early August 2008.”

Reuters: “The Internal Revenue Service kicked off the U.S. tax filing season, announcing on Tuesday that taxpayers will have until April 18, 2011 to file their 2010 returns and pay their tax bills because of a holiday on April 15.”

Atlantic Wire: “Douthat wrote that while some women long to have children but are biologically unable, others find themselves contemplating abortion in the midst of an unwanted pregnancy. He went on to note that adoption rates have declined since 1973–the year Roe v. Wade was decided–and lamented that so many pregnant women choose to have abortions rather than give birth and allow their children to be adopted. The column, with its implication that infertile couples and women considering abortion should just meet in the middle, has attracted no end of ire in the blogopshere. Below, a sampling of the responses.”

KTKA ABC 49: “The owners of the Oasis were trying to be annexed by the city. Meriden has no zoning that would restrict operation of an Adult Entertainment Establishment. When the City declined to annex, they fell under County zoning rules, and had to apply for a permit.”

Courthouse News Service: “Three strip clubs challenge the constitutionality of a Fort Worth law that demands that sexually oriented businesses be painted in a single ‘achromatic’ color with a single ‘achromatic’ trim, ‘both colors consisting of a neutral earth tone color only.’”

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: “In Mission, Kansas, local officials are hitting churches going and coming for so-called ‘driveway fees’ that effectively tax religious groups, non-profits, and charities normally immune to taxation.”

Associated Press: “Iran has arrested a number of Christian missionaries in Tehran province and vowed to detain more of them, the provincial governor was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA on Tuesday.”

CatholicCulture.org: “Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, has responded to criticism of Pope Benedict by the former grand mufti of Egypt.”

Evan Wolfson and Maggie Gallagher debate same-sex “marriage” at The Economist. Excerpt from the moderator’s remarks: “On the other side of the debate, Ms Gallagher argues that the ‘key purpose of marriage in both law and culture’ is the creation and raising of children. ‘If gay unions are marriages, then this is no longer what marriage is about,’ she says. But is this really the defining element of marriage? After all, barren women are allowed to marry. In fact, as Jonathan Rauch has pointed out, sterile heterosexual unions in America far outnumber homosexual ones. Do those relationships fall outside the marriage model?”

AISH.com / The Jewish Ethicist: “These ads are considered acceptable in modern society because imagination is considered something harmless. Fantasizing about forbidden activities is generally considered benign as long as it is not translated into action. Jewish tradition does not agree with this approach. Judaism attributes great power to the imagination, and imagining a transgression is comparable in many ways to committing one.”

News-Press Now: “The St. Joseph City Council could soon pull a controversial law off the books. The council will decide next Monday whether to repeal its funeral protest ordinance.”

Big Government: “In July 2010, Mayor Bloomberg outrageously told reporters it was ‘un-American’ to investigate the individuals behind the Ground Zero Mosque. Now we know why he wanted no one to look into the controversy. Judicial Watch just obtained a new batch of documents from New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s office that show his office was instrumental in helping radical anti-American Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, his wife Daisy Khan and their partner Sharif el-Gamal obtain approval for a 13-story massive mosque and ‘community center’ to be built in the shadow of Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”

Boston.com (AP): “Police in France, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries have increased surveillance of Orthodox Coptic Christian churches. In Italy, Copts have asked for special protection. And in Chatenay-Malabry, just outside Paris, metal barricades surround the church of St. Mary and St. Mark — a vivid sign of the fear that has been injected into the Copts’ season of peace.”

Concord Monitor: “The Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to repeal gay marriage in New Hampshire. Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders in Boston is promising to do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop them.”

CNN: “The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee is filing for bankruptcy protection, it announced Tuesday, citing the cost of lawsuits filed against priests by victims of sexual abuse.”

Iona Institute: “After decades of gender equality campaigning many women now find it hard to admit that they would rather be housewife than have a successful career of their own, according to Dr Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics . . . An analysis of figures for Britain shows that in 1949, 20 per cent of women married husbands with significantly higher levels of education than their own, but by the late 1990s, this had almost doubled to 38 per cent. Similar patterns are seen across much of Europe, the US and Australia.”

LifeSiteNews: “In a short interview with the Herald Sun on January 2, Cardinal George Pell called on Catholic politicians to uphold Christian teachings, and blasted MPs who ‘fly under the Christian or Captain Catholic flag’ but ‘blithely disregard Christian perspectives’ when facing a vote on moral issues in parliament.”

LifeNews: “Last week the UN announced the members of a new commission to enforce its guidelines on women’s and children’s health . . . If the make up of the commission and the website launching it are any indication, it will [include abortion promotion]. ”

LifeSiteNews: “The plea was entered in Milwaukee municipal court by lawyers with the Thomas More Society. James Marcou, a veteran sidewalk counselor, was charged in August after two clinic escorts at the Affiliated Women’s Heath Center claimed he was being disorderly and getting in their way outside the clinic.”

Medical News Today: “In sessions beginning this month, lawmakers in several states plan offer bills that would affect abortion care and other reproductive health services. Summaries appear below.”

Baltimore Sun: “The case of a New Jersey doctor found to be illegally providing abortions in Maryland last year is prompting lawmakers and regulators to consider toughening requirements for abortion providers in the state.”

The Stir: “In news that is unlikely to surprise much of anyone, a recent UK study has shown that girls from wealthier families are more likely to terminate than girls from poorer ones. Did we really need a study to tell us that?”

OneNewsNow: “Beginning this New Year, California will implement AB 2199 and ultimately strike down the requirement on the State Department of Mental Health to conduct research on the ’causes and cures of homosexuality.’ According to Veronica Esqueda, a renal social worker in Los Angeles, the measure will portray alternate lifestyles as acceptable and normal.”

The Supreme Court’s framework for evaluating monuments on public lands and for resolving Establishment Clause cases under the First Amendment leads us to conclude that the district court erred in declaring the Memorial to be primarily non-sectarian, and granting summary judgment in favor of the government and the Memorial’s supporters.

“In a brief order filed Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asked the California Supreme Court to decide if the backers of ballot propositions can step in to defend voter-approved measures in court when state officials refuse to do so.”

“A federal appeals court says the Federal Communications Commission cannot fine broadcasters for showing a woman’s nude buttocks on a 2003 episode of ‘NYPD Blue.’”

Politico: “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has bought a Google advertisement to steer people searching for ‘ObamaCare’ to a page that is customized to detect searchers’ locations and steer them both to local health insurance information and to a list of ‘what’s in the law for you.’”

Bay Windows: “Following a referral from the Santiago Court of Appeals, Chile’s Constitutional Court will take up a same-sex marriage case this week.”

Ben-Peter Terpstra writing at The Daily Caller: “The Against Equality collective — a group of gay activists who oppose gay marriage — has been ‘quietly assembling a digital archive to document the critical resistance to the politics of inclusion.’ The result? A compelling pocketbook, Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage.”

“Gov.-elect Terry Branstad says he doesn’t believe an effort to impeach four remaining Iowa Supreme Court justices over a gay-marriage ruling is the appropriate remedy. Instead, he says people should have a chance to vote them out when they come up for retention.”

CTV: “Emotionally charged hearings into the controversial issues of dying with dignity and euthanasia are set to resume in Quebec.”

Swiss Info: “The acquittal of a doctor accused of euthanasia has rekindled the debate on assisted suicide in Switzerland, ahead of votes at the cantonal level on the issue.”

ABC News: “A foetus has been found in the bathroom of a plane that arrived in the Philippine capital of Manila.”

Times of Malta: “Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia’s statement that he would be allocating part of his MP salary rise towards fiscal incentives to encourage couples to implant or adopt frozen human embryos left over after IVF treatment is being strongly objected to by the Gift of Life Foundation.”

Life in Italy (ANSA): “A Sicilian court on Wednesday turned down a separated father’s appeal for exclusive custody of his children on the grounds that his ex was living with another woman.”

UPI: “A North Carolina county official, faced with criticism that has spread nationwide, says he is standing by his denunciation of gay people as ‘sexual predators.’”

Bill Saunders writing at LifeNews: “Many mothers and fathers find themselves in this situation after they receive the results of a prenatal test; they are then given the option to either continue the pregnancy with routine medical care or to terminate the pregnancy. But there is a third option: perinatal hospice.”

CathNews Asia: “A directive to remove crosses, other religious symbols and the ban on hymns at the 2010 Christmas Day celebration at the residence of Kuala Lumpur Archbishop Murphy Pakiam attended by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was the ‘arbritrary decision’ of an aide, reports say.”

Army Times: “A rabbi from Brooklyn, N.Y., is suing the Army over its ‘no-beard’ policy, claiming the service violated his religious freedoms when it rejected him because he refuses to shave.”

“The legal system may have gone ‘too far’ in restricting the right of Christians to live out their faith, Britain’s former top judge has cautioned. Lord Woolf’s comments came after the Bishop of Winchester warned that the demise of ‘religious literacy’ had created an imbalance in the way Christians are treated by the courts.”

Miami Herald: “A pair of bills were pre-filed last month in the House and Senate, prohibiting minors ages 12-17 from electronically transmitting photographs depicting themselves or other teens ‘in a state of sexual activity or a state of sexually explicit nudity.’”

WLTX: “Officials in Washington state report the year-old rule against nearly-nude coffee servers is a success. After complaints about too-bare baristas, city and county officials in the Everett-area adopted regulations requiring a license to run an ‘adult-business’ coffee stand.”

The Daily Caller: “Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party.”

“The governor of Pakistan’s wealthiest and most populous province was shot dead in the capital Tuesday by one of his own guards, who later told interrogators that he was angry about the politician’s stance against the country’s blasphemy law, officials said.”

Christian Post: “This year, the pro-life lobby Susan B. Anthony List and the pro-family group National Organization for Marriage both elected to play an active role in this cycle’s RNC chairman race. Both groups have used the race as way to lobby for traditional marriage and an end to abortion.”

Washington Examiner: “President Obama challenged congressional Republicans to embrace the ‘shared responsibility’ of governance even as the White House appears ready to use unilateral executive powers to battle Capitol Hill.”

Kyle Olson writing at Townhall: “By bringing the auto manufacturing mentality into our public school system, it has turned teaching from a hard-earned, highly-respected career into a blue-collar, see-you-on-the-picket-line endeavor. Taxpayers deserve better. Teachers deserve better.”

Cal Thomas writing at Townhall: “The Constitution, according to liberal thinking, was written at a time when people — including some of its signers — owned slaves and so we moderns must interpret and regularly update it, like computer software. These ‘interpretationists’ are like people who appeal to biblical authority when it appears to support their earthly agenda, but ignore it when it offends secular pursuits.”

Ilya Somin writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: “The first will be on ‘Ideological Diversity and Discrimination in American Law Schools,’ along with John McGinnis (Northwestern), Bill Nelson (NYU), James Phillips (UC Berkeley), and panel organizer George Dent (Case Western). It will be held in Room Yosemite C on the ballroom level of the San Francisco Hilton from 8:30 AM to 10:15.”

The Heritage Foundation / The Foundry: “This Wednesday, the United States Senate is set to meet for its first ‘legislative day’ of the new Congress, and a group of progressive Senators are expected to introduce changes to the Senate rules designed to limit the use of the filibuster.”

The Hill: “As newly-elected Republican governors plot ways to push back against the healthcare law, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) is preparing an organized effort aimed at helping governors fight its implementation.”

Philosophy TV: “According to Tooley, abortion is morally permissible: a fetus is not a person, so it cannot have a right to continued existence. To support his view, he defends a neo-Lockean account of personhood grounded in psychological continuity. Against Tooley, Marquis defends an animalistic view of personhood, and argues that most instances of abortion are wrong for the same reason that killing you or me would be wrong: an abortion deprives a fetus of a future of value.”

Religion Clause discusses the underlying tensions behind the New Year’s Eve bombing of the Coptic Church of the Saints in Alexandria, Egypt.

Telegraph: “White women lead a wave of Britons embracing Islam, with a 50 per cent rise in converts living in this country in a decade according to a new report.”

Associated Press: “The severed head of a young man was found hanging from a bridge in the Mexican border city of Tijuana on Monday.”

Associated Press: “Uganda’s High Court has ruled that the media should not publish the names and photos of gay Ugandans following a vitriolic campaign in the east African country which urged citizens to hang those featured.”

SCOTUSblog: “The Obama Administration has asked the Ninth Circuit Court to put on hold, for 90 days or more, its review of the constitutionality of the 1993 federal law that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military. In a motion filed Wednesday, Justice Department lawyers said the Pentagon needs time to implement the new law that will repeal the ban but not immediately.”

Daniel Pipes: “[T]oday, thanks in large part to Abdullah’s efforts to ‘tame Wahhabi zeal,’ the most retrograde country has taken some cautious steps to join the modern world. These efforts have many dimensions, from children’s education to mechanisms for selecting political leaders, but perhaps the most crucial one is the battle among the ulema, the Islamic men of religion, between reformers and hardliners.”

Wall Street Journal: “More than two months after the Obama administration lifted its ban on drilling in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico, oil companies are still waiting for approval to drill the first new oil well there. Experts now expect the wait to continue until the second half of 2011, and perhaps into 2012.”

Vatican Radio: “‘An offense against God and all humanity’, that is how Pope Benedict XVI has described the New Year’s eve bombing of a Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria, Egypt, and the ongoing campaign of violence against Christians in Iraq. Speaking to a densely packed St Peter’s Square after the Sunday Angelus prayer, the Pope spoke of his sorrow and pain on hearing news of the latest spate of killings targeting Christians communities.”

AGI: “The imam of Al-Azhar condemned the Alexandria attack but criticised the Pope’s ‘interference.’”

LiveLeak: “Eyewitnesses confirmed that security forces guarding the church withdrew nearly one hour before the blast, leaving only four policemen and an officer to guard such a big church and nearly 2000 people attending the midnight mass. ‘Normally they would have waited until the mass was over,’ said el-Gezeiry.”

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “The First Amendment now stands at 15-13 going into the last set of games. But it did win the Grand Daddy of them all, vanquishing its arch-nemesis Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. A pick later this week will provide a fuller look at the speech policies and practices at the University of Oregon and Auburn University, this year’s BCS National Championship Game contenders. If you have any thoughts, anecdotes, etc. about the atmosphere for the First Amendment at either school please let me know. But for now, here are my bowl picks for the remaining games, including the Orange and Sugar Bowls, based solely upon universities’ respect for the First Amendment.”

OneNewsNow: “‘We’re in this case to uphold the right of parents to protect their children from being victimized by the abortion industry that profits in that and tries to have secret abortions on minors,’ explains ADF attorney [Matt Bowman].”

Christianity Today: “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) dismissed a complaint in November against a Grand Rapids, Michigan, woman who advertised at her church for a ‘Christian roommate.’ The Fair Housing Center of West Michigan called the ad discriminatory, and the Alliance Defense Fund sent HUD a letter on her behalf. According to WOOD TV in Michigan, HUD found ‘no reasonable cause’ for the complaint.”

Associated Press: “Rafah Toma survived one of the most horrific attacks on Iraq’s tiny Christian community – the siege on a Baghdad church two months ago that left 68 people dead – only to be gunned down in her home Monday by thieves stealing her cash and jewelry.”

Guardian: “The results of his survey showed 89% of the polled men saying they were happy to kiss another man on the lips through friendship. And almost 40% added that they had engaged in ‘sustained kissing, initially for shock value, but now just for a laugh.’”

Yahoo (AFP): “The Spanish city of Barcelona will erect a monument to gays, lesbians and transgendered people who have been persecuted and repressed ‘throughout history’, it announced Thursday.”

“Let scientists tell us about sciences. But . . . questions about the good for man, about justice, and what things are worth having at what price . . . on these a scientific training gives a man’s opinion no added value.”

Ian T. Benson, Is Canada Moving Towards or Away from Religious Inclusivity in the Public Sphere? (May 18, 2010). Religion in the Public Square in Canada Conference, Rome, Italy, May 2010 (hosted by the Canadian Embassy, Vatican See). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1654365

“In recent years, the Canadian judiciary has played an increasingly prominent role in determining the place of religion in the public sphere. Some of their decisions have led to greater religious inclusivity, while some have led to an increasing marginalization of religious communities. This paper examines the impact of some of these decisions on the public dimension of religious life. It considers the role of freedom of religion, equality, faith and belief in the lives of both religious and nonreligious citizens. It argues that the role of law is not to promote a single, monolithic conception of citizenship, but instead to foster a diverse and tolerant multicultural society that protects the sanctity of its citizens’ beliefs. Consequently, the public sphere may be best understood as a realm of competing belief systems, all of which must be accorded proper respect.”