Daily Archives: January 21, 2011

LifeSiteNews: “The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church has offered Russian authorities suggestions on how to reduce the nation’s staggeringly high abortion rate.”

LifeSiteNews: “The popular Catholic blog Creative Minority Report unearthed documents Wednesday that show that in 2008 Ralph McCloud, while serving as head of CCHD, was the treasurer for the Texas state senate campaign of pro-abortion Democrat Wendy Davis. Davis ultimately won her bid to unseat Republican incumbent Kim Brimer, who is pro-life.”

LifeSiteNews: “A scientist recently appointed to the Vatican’s prestigious Pontifical Academy of Sciences has confirmed in an interview that he supports the legalization of abortion and civil unions for homosexuals, as LifeSiteNews.com and other websites had reported earlier this month.”

LifeSiteNews: “The extremism and stupidity of Canada’s top political leadership on the matter of abortion was on display again today with Liberal and NDP leaders reacting to Conservative Prime Minister Harper’s comments on the issue yesterday. The message from both of the opposition parties has remained the same: ‘ooooh, we’re scared Harper is secretly pro-life.’”

The Daily Tar Heel: “The GOP takeover of the N.C. General Assembly in November has given anti-abortion groups encouragement in their attempts to limit the practice, as they no longer face resistance from key Democratic lawmakers in power.”

Guadalajara Reporter: “With a bow to the archbishopric of Leon, Guanajuato governor Juan Manuel Oliva is analyzing a proposal to teach religious education in the state’s schools.”

Portland Press-Herald: “The state ethics commission continues to seek the names of people who donated to the National Organization for Marriage in 2009 — an inquiry the organization continues to oppose.”

ABC: “The $250,000 dollar pilot program aims to fight abuse and negative attitudes faced by gay teens, and will be implemented at 12 schools in Sydney, the Hunter and on the Central Coast.”

Living in Peru: “Former President Alejandro Toledo will push for legalization of gay and lesbian civil unions if he is elected, his campaign chief told daily El Comercio. The proposal is included in Toledo’s government plan under the eighth point titled ‘All Peruvians are Equal.’”

Christian Post: “More than a third of Americans would grade the country’s moral climate with a D or F, a new survey found.”

The Hill: “Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Democrats’ sweeping healthcare reform law does not fund abortions, and that no president’s administration has since the Hyde Amendment passed more than 30 years ago.”

Hege Storhaug writing at Pajamas Media: “In terms of values, 2010 was a red-letter year for Norway. Our innocence was destroyed. From one end of the country to the other, and in no uncertain terms, Islamists proclaimed their sinister message. Henceforth, only those in deep denial will insist that our freedom is not endangered. And only true innocents will fail to grasp that we are headed for a raging conflict about values.”

ChristianNewsWire: “Roy Moore, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice, and theFoundation for Moral Law, a religious liberties legal organization in Montgomery, Alabama, filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit today defending the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed by Congress in 1996. Read the Foundation’s brief in Massachusetts v. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.”

UPI: “The American Civil Liberties Union, representing a group critical of Israel, filed a lawsuit against a Washington county for canceling a controversial bus ad.”

Fox News: “The Cherokee County School Board voted Thursday night not to move its graduation ceremony from First Baptist Church of Woodstock, MyFoxAtlanta.com reports.”

News First 5: “El Paso County Commissioners are now saying a prayer before the start of every meeting. It’s something new Commissioner Peggy Littleton called for, and other commissioners agreed to, ‘Deep in the heart of this nation’s history and in this nation’s future lays a belief that we cannot be a free nation without the blessings of the almighty,’ says Littleton.”

LifeSiteNews: “A GOP plan to drastically reduce spending and place the United States on a path to fiscal responsibility would eliminate money for both Title X ‘family planning’ and the administration costs of implementing the pro-abortion national health care reform law.”

Associated Press: “Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer signed an emergency bill Friday allowing the cash-short state to seek a federal waiver to temporarily remove nearly 300,000 people from its Medicaid rolls in the first such request by a state.”

CNS: “The federal government’s reliance on borrowed money to carry out its functions more than doubled between fiscal year 2008 and 2009, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Also, between fiscal year 2007 and 2009, borrowing as a percentage of federal income increased by 566 percent.”

Boston.com (AP): “New Hampshire’s House Republican leader said Friday he will ask that the fight to repeal gay marriage be postponed until 2012.”

The Blog of LegalTimes: “Leaders on the Senate Judiciary Committee are in discussions about whether to hold second confirmation hearings for some of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees, aides say.”

Washington Post: “The military spent about $193.3 million from fiscal 2004 to 2009 to replace approximately 3,660 troops discharged under the policy known as ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ according to an audit.”

Billings Gazette: “The Wyoming House on Thursday advanced legislation that would stop recognition of out-of-state gay marriages. The proposal, which previous legislatures have killed, passed on its first hearing with 34 votes. The bill, House Bill 74, must now pass two additional House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration.”

Euractiv: “Nearly 187,000 women in Turkey, a candidate country for EU membership, are in polygamous marriages despite the practice being illegal in the country, a report has revealed.”

CNS: “The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is teaching farmers how to participate in ‘carbon markets’ despite the fact that such markets do not exist and Congress – in rejecting cap and trade legislation last year – has refused to create them.”

Sears says colleague was a “pillar of faith, service, and the law”

ADF attorney David French appeared on the Mike Gallagher Show to discuss this: Insult to injury: WVU-Parkersburg cuts all student speakers at graduation after students’ plea to reinstate prayers.  | MP3 audio 7:17 mins

Sam Ericsson went to be with the Lord this morning after battling cancer for eleven years. Sam served as CLS’s Executive Director from 1985-1991 and Director of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom from 1980-1985. In 1991, he founded Advocates International, a network of international religious liberty attorneys spanning the globe.

“The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development today proposed new regulations intended to ensure that its core housing programs are open to all eligible persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Insider Online: “Democrats, Independents, and Republicans have all demonstrated that they can create deficits and debt and reduce them, and they have done so with unified and divided government. We are all part of the problem and we must all be part of the solution, which will require that we commit ourselves to engaging in reasoned problem solving based on hard facts rather than scoring points in an increasingly self-destructive game of fiscal fantasy.”

LifeNews: “The Montana state House has okayed a bill that would provide justice and protection for pregnant women and their unborn children who are victims of violant attacks outside the context of abrotion. More than 36 other states have similar laws as does the federal government.” For more background on the bill, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/state-montana+topic-legislation+category-sanctity-of-life/

Formed to provide legal representation and support to pro-life organizations and individuals and aggressively defend the sanctity of human life in state and federal courts

William Saletan writing at Slate: “It’s a tale of gore and nihilism—and an occasion for pro-choice advocates to reflect on the limits of reproductive freedom . . . [According to the pro-choice absolutist view] there’s no moral difference between eight, 18, and 28 weeks. No one has the right to judge another person’s abortion decision, regardless of her stage of pregnancy. Each woman is entitled to decide not only whether to have an abortion, but how long she can wait to make that choice . . . It’s one thing to preach these ideas in the lefty blogosphere. It’s quite another to see them in practice. That’s where Kermit Gosnell, the doctor at the center of the Philadelphia scandal, comes in.”

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson writing in the St. Louis Review: “[A]bortion is the most serious challenge to the sacredness of human life because unborn children are the most vulnerable members of society and the most in need of our protection. They are innocent victims who must rely completely on the care and protection of others — first of all on their mothers and, ultimately, on all of us who are God’s family.”

Peter Kreeft writing at the Catholic Education Resource Center: “No one speaks of a revolution in any other area of morality. No one speaks of the Property Revolution or the Bearing False Witness Revolution . . . The moral revolution is confined to sex . . . What then do we need to defeat this revolution . . . Nothing less than Jesus Christ will do . . . Because the heart of the error of the Sexual Revolution is the identifying of love with sex. Christ undoes this fundamental confusion by showing us – not just telling us but showing us – what love is.”

Associated Press: “The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that unions lost 612,000 members in 2010, dropping the unionized share of the work force to 11.9 percent from 12.3 percent in 2009. That follows a loss of 771,000 workers in 2008, continuing a steady decline from the 1950s when more than a third of workers belonged to unions.”

LifeNews: “Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, one of the most prominent members of the US Senate, announced this week he would not seek reelection in 2012 . . . Connecticut is incredibly favorable to pro-abortion candidates.”

Mail Online: “Abercrombie said on Tuesday that an investigation had unearthed papers proving Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 . . . Abercrombie suggested that a long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate for Barack Obama may not exist within the vital records maintained by the Hawaii Department of Health.”

Pacific Justice Institute: “The federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is heading to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. In two separate cases, one brought by same-sex couples married in Massachusetts and the other by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a judge struck down a challenged section of the law which defines marriage for the purpose of interpreting federal statutes, regulations and administrative bureaus whenever the word ‘marriage’ or ‘spouse’ is used.”

Robert Verbruggen writing at National Review Online: “[T]he majority of abortions — far from all, but the majority — serve as nothing more than routine birth control: Most women who have abortions became pregnant by willingly engaging in high-risk sexual activity, and many resort to abortion more than once . . . pro-lifers and moderate pro-choicers . . . need to face the fact that while programs designed to talk women out of abortion are one useful tool in a pro-life strategy, they will not significantly lower the abortion rate by themselves. Those who are truly concerned about abortion should have two priorities: first, overturning Roe v. Wade so that states may ban abortion; and second, in the meantime, designing an anti-abortion program that will appeal to women who use the procedure as birth control.”

Ashley Herzog writing at Townhall: “Earlier this year, Ohio University announced a new pilot program for gender-neutral housing, which has become all the rage on college campuses. The program allows people of ‘all genders’ to live together in the dorms . . . These days, gender-neutral housing is mostly a bow to LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) students who demand their own special dorms.”

Pakistan Christian Post: “In Somalia, the Sunni Islamic fanatics called the Al-Shabaab (Al-Shabab) have once more killed a convert to Christianity and in true style the soldiers of Islam held down a Christian lady and slit her throat in front of many villagers. This hatred is clearly based on the teachings of Mohammed because he supported killing apostates and the ongoing Islamic inquisition continues in nations like Somalia.”

Brent Bozell writing at Townhall: “Now those secular progressives at MTV have opened a new front. They feel one should enjoy a childhood stuffed with sex, drugs and alcoholism. That would be the message of their new teen drama ‘Skins.’ ”

Daily Mail: “A man threatened to kill his cousin and harm her family after she decided to stop wearing the traditional Muslim headscarf, a court has heard. Mohamed Al-Hakim, 29, allegedly phoned Alya Al-Safar to tell her she must die because of the ‘shame’ she had brought – leaving her too afraid to leave the house.”

CBN: “Hundreds of millions of Christians have suffered discrimination or even persecution in lands as diverse as China and India, but mostly in countries where Islam is the top religion. Despite this, persecution of Christians is one topic the American public doesn’t hear much about. One possible reason: an anti-Christian bias among Western elites.”

Soeren Kern writing at Hudson New York: “The European Union, bowing to pressure from Muslim lobby groups, has quietly abandoned a new measure that would have required halal [religiously approved for Muslims] meat products to carry a label alerting consumers that the animals were not stunned, and therefore conscious, just before slaughter. With the exponential growth of Europe’s Muslim population in recent years, thousands of tons of religiously slaughtered halal meat is now entering the general food chain, where it is being unwittingly consumed by the non-Muslim population.”

USA Today: “Now, former Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf wants to make assisted suicide more difficult by requring the process be supervised by doctors who aren’t affiliated with one of the country’s four right-to-die organizations. And Zurich voters are due to decide in May whether to ban assisted suicide, the article says.”

Swiss Info: “Switzerland did not violate any human rights when it refused to give a mentally ill man over-the-counter access to a drug in order to end his life. In a ruling on Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg dismissed an appeal by the 58-year-old man, who after two suicide attempts in 2004 turned to Dignitas, a Swiss assisted suicide organisation.”

Christian Concern: “The current compensation limit for undergoing the complex process of donating human eggs is £250. However, five years after its last review of the rules on the practice, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is testing public attitudes on whether payments should be sharply increased. HFEA has launched a three-month public consultation on the issue calling for the widest possible participation from the British public.”

Peter Orszag, Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup and formerly Obama’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, writing at Financial Times: “If policymakers will not act before we have a fiscal crisis at the federal level, a fiscal crisis we will ultimately have. Until then we will see a microcosm of this broader problem arise dur­ing debate about increasing the federal debt limit, later this spring. This will be contentious. We may have to experience some temporary market turbulence before it is resolved.”

Religion Clause: “In India yesterday, a two-judge panel of the Gujarat High Court heard arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of a Hindu ceremony in which the Gujarat governor, the chief justice of the High Court and other judges had all taken part last year.”

NCPA: “Beginning in 2014, most U.S. residents will be required to have health insurance coverage. However, provisions of the new Affordable Care Act (ACA) will limit the choice of health plans offered. Health insurance that does not cover preventive care, plans with deductibles above the statutory limit and plans that cap benefits at predetermined levels will ultimately disappear.”

Stephen Glover writing at Mail Online: “A Christian couple have lost a court battle over their refusal to ­allow a homosexual ­couple to share a room at their B&B, and have been ­ordered to pay them £3,600 in damages. Is this just? . . . A month before Steven and ­Martyn turned up in ­September 2008, the Bulls were sent a ­letter by Stonewall, the gay rights ­organisation, saying that it had received a complaint, and warning them that they were breaking the law. Such ‘stings’ are not unknown in this field.”

Daily Mail: “Ministers must not ‘preach’ to parents about marriage or lifestyles, Nick Clegg declared yesterday – as he signalled a new Coalition rift on the family. The Deputy Prime Minister said Government’s role was to ‘empower’ parents rather than browbeat them with ‘prescriptive’ solutions on the best way to bring up children.”

Daily Mail: “One in five children from a broken home loses touch with a parent within three years and never sees them again, it is revealed today. Many more lose contact as they grow older, most often with fathers after mothers are awarded custody.”

Associated Press: “As cash-strapped school districts lay off teachers and close campuses, publicly funded charter schools are flourishing and altering the landscape of public education.”

New York Times: “Beyond their short-term budget gaps, some states have deep structural problems, like insolvent pension funds, that are diverting money from essential public services like education and health care. Some members of Congress fear that it is just a matter of time before a state seeks a bailout, say bankruptcy lawyers who have been consulted by Congressional aides.”

Courthouse News Service: “A Chinese man who says he was persecuted in his home country for practicing Christianity got a second chance at asylum in the United States. In 2005, an immigration judge had rejected Lei Li’s petition because Li incorrectly answered ‘basic’ questions about Christianity.” | Li v. Holder, (9th Cir., Jan. 19, 2011) | Via Religion Clause.

Military Religious Freedom Foundation: “Albuquerque-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has demanded that the United States Air Force Academy rescind their invitation to former Marine Lt. Clebe McClary to speak at the Academy’s upcoming National Prayer Luncheon. ‘Egregiously sectarian statements like [those] from former Lt. McClary blatantly exclude not only non-Christians, but also the many Christians who do not subscribe to a particularly fundamentalist view of Christianity,’ said Michael ‘Mikey’ Weinstein, President and Founder of MRFF.” | Via Religion Clause.

Parents Television Council: “The Parents Television Council today called on the chairmen of the U.S. Senate and House Judiciary Committees and the Department of Justice to immediately open an investigation regarding child pornography and exploitation on MTV’s ‘Skins.’”

Hollywood Reporter: “Taco Bell has pulled its ads off Skins after the Parents Television Council urged people to contact the company to protest.”

Yahoo (AP): “After leading the nation last year in passing a law to sue the federal government over the health care overhaul, Idaho’s Republican-dominated Legislature now plans to use an obscure 18th century doctrine to declare President Barack Obama’s signature bill null and void.”

Robert George writing at Mirror of Justice: “District Attorney Seth Williams estimates that [Gosnell] performed the procedure hundreds of times . . . Gosnell’s procedure for late term babies was to induce delivery and then kill the children with a quick snip . . . People seem to be shocked. One wonders why . . . is it really such a big surprise that a doctor who bought this line [i.e., "the idea that a 'fetus' is not a human being"] would set up shop as an abortionist and perform what have come to be known as ‘live birth abortions’?”

ADF attorney Kevin Theriot writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “Although several different churches are already located at the Shopping Center (churches have been leasing space there for the past nine years), the City of Port St. Lucie prohibited the Church from even attempting to obtain a certificate of occupancy . . . On January 19th, ADF filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Church, asking the federal court to prohibit the City from enforcing those parts of its Zoning Code that discriminate against churches as compared to other types of assemblies.”

ADF attorney David Hacker writing at Speak Up Movement / University: “This week Stanford gave me another reason to pause when Rev. Scotty McLennan (author of Jesus Was a Liberal) from Stanford’s Office of Religious Life, announced that Stanford intends to interfere with the leadership decisions of its religious student organizations on campus. The Stanford Review reports that, to the surprise of most students, Stanford has an all-comers policy that requires student organizations to open their membership roles to all students.”

MySanAntonio.com (AP): “The Hawaii Senate on Thursday silenced prayers previously offered before each of the chamber’s lawmaking sessions . . . ‘[The ACLU. et al.] continue to threaten governments with lawsuits to try to force them into capitulating to their view of society,’ said [Brett Harvey], an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, made up of Christian lawyers to defend free faith speech. ‘Governments should take a stand for this cherished historical practice.’”

NECN: “Wyoming wouldn’t recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states under a bill that cleared its first hearing in the House of Representatives Thursday . . . The Wyoming debate has attracted attention from the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian civil rights group that has litigated against same-sex marriage in California. [Austin R. Nimocks], an ADF lawyer, has appeared at committee hearings on the issue.”

Charisma Magazine: “Will West Virginia University-Parkersburg officials reverse their decision to eliminate all student speakers from its nursing program’s pinning ceremony on account of a prayer request? Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorneys have sent a second letter strongly urging the school to do just that . . . ‘Christian students shouldn’t be censored for expressing their beliefs. Retaliating against students who simply asked to exercise their freedoms at a public graduation ceremony by removing all student speakers is simply unacceptable,’ says ADF Litigation Counsel Travis Barham.”

WDBJ: “The Ten Commandments will be displayed once again in Giles County schools. The school board voted 5 to 0 Thursday to put the Ten Commandments back up. The school system removed the framed displays after it received a letter calling for separation of church and state.”

CNN Money / Fortune: “The future is still very bright for graduates of the country’s top law schools . . . In 2010, most large firms reinstated associate bonuses and annual salary increases. For those who can secure a position at a premier firm, law is still a compelling career choice.”

New York Times: “The last Christian man in town goes to church each morning to clean the building and to remember the past. Romel Hawal, 48, was born in this town in Anbar Province back when most of the population was Christian. Now, he said, his 11-year-old son knows no other Christians and has no memory of attending a church service.”

Washington Post: “Maryland state regulators voted Thursday to grant permission to Holy Cross Hospital to build the first new hospital in Montgomery County in 30 years . . . At the meeting, which drew a standing room-only crowd of about 120, [Chairman Marilyn] Moon said she understood the concerns about family planning and reproductive health services, but said there were no state standards that required hospitals to offer such services.”

Boston.com (AP): “Attorney General Martha Coakley is joining with lawmakers and police to push a bill to toughen criminal penalties against pimps and others profiting from human trafficking.”

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel David French will be available for media interviews Sunday following his presentation at the 2011 Students for Life of America National Conference.