Daily Archives: January 26, 2011

US Pastor Council: “The Houston Area Pastor Council is defending Pastor Joel Osteen’s comments that homosexuality is a sin to be aired on national television tonight and affirmed that he was not giving his ‘opinion,’ but rather expressing his beliefs. ‘Joel Osteen not only has the right to answer a question by an interviewer about the homosexual lifestyle, he has a duty as a pastor to express the truth found in the Bible he teaches from,’ stated the inter-racial, inter-denominational coalition of pastors.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “[Erik Stanley], senior legal counsel for the ADF, told the Religion News Service, ‘It makes no sense to tax churches and to limit their ability to provide their services, and it does damage to the constitutional separation between church and state.’ Yes, you read that right. The ADF has admitted that the separation of church and state is in fact a part of the U.S. Constitution.”

Yahoo / HealthDay News: “Women who undergo an abortion don’t seem to face a greatly increased risk of mental health problems after having the procedure, a new study suggests. Trine Munk-Olsen, lead author of the study published in the Jan. 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, said she was ‘not surprised by [the] findings,’ given that they mirror previous research on the subject.”

Boston.com (AP): “Appeals Court Associate Justice Fernande ‘Nan’ Duffly endured a close vote Wednesday to take her place as the first Asian-American member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.”

Hawaii News Now: “After three hours of testimony, SB 232 passed 3 to 2. It’s now heading to the full Senate.”

“House Majority Leader Kumar Barve today submitted the House plan to legalize same-sex marriage — a proposal backed by 58 delegates who have signed on as co-sponsors.”

UKPA: “Legislation to tackle the ‘abhorrent’ practice of forced marriages has passed a parliamentary hurdle. The Bill aims to establish protection orders, which if breached could carry a two-year prison sentence.”

Des Moines Register: “An ideological difference among Iowa House Republicans has sidelined their push to narrow the state’s abortion laws and keep a Nebraska doctor from opening a Council Bluffs abortion clinic.”

The Times-News (Burlington, NC): “An anti-abortion group has begun a campaign against Stericycle, an international company that burns medical waste. Stericycle, which has a plant in Haw River, has drawn attention from local and regional activists who are concerned about the facility’s impact on the environment.”

Christian Today: “Margaret Forrester, 39, was suspended by her NHS employers just before Christmas after she mentioned in private to colleagues that she was concerned that women facing an unexpected pregnancy were not being given enough information about the potential negative effects of abortion.”

Tennessean: “The driving force behind a new bill that would strip Tennessee teachers of their collective bargaining rights is the group on the other side of the bargaining table — the Tennessee School Boards Association.”

Boston.com (AP): “The sponsor of one bill to repeal New Hampshire’s gay marriage law says he will ask for it to be held over until 2012. Manchester Republican Leo Pepino said Wednesday he will ask the committee hearing his bill to retain it until next year when they have more time.”

ABC: “Kelley Williams-Bolar was convicted of lying about her residency to get her daughters into a better school district . . . Williams-Bolar said she did it to keep her children safe and that she lived part-time with her dad. ‘When my home got broken into, I felt it was my duty to do something else,’ Williams-Bolar said.”

LifeNews: “President Barack Obama delivered a State of the Union speech last night that was long on political rhetoric on other political topics but essentially ignored pro-life issues at a time when they are prominent on the minds of Americans.”

“Some Democratic state lawmakers are trying again to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland. The proposed bill — the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act — would change the state’s Family Law, which currently reads: ‘Only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid in this State.’”

LifeSiteNews: “Of the 900 registered voters who were surveyed, 50% identified themselves as pro-life, and 42% as pro-choice. Five percent considered themselves some combination of the two, and 3% said that they didn’t know. The poll has a 3% margin of error.”

LifeSiteNews: “Catholic leaders in the Philippines are cautiously optimistic after the country’s government appears to have backed off of its hard-line stance on the controversial ‘reproductive health’ bill.”

US Courts: “The chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona has declared a judicial emergency that temporarily suspends a time limit set by federal law for brining criminal defendants to trial.”

KXLH: “The American Civil Liberties Union appeared in district court in Helena for arguments on behalf of six same-sex couples seeking domestic partnership recognition. The case, Donaldson and Guggenheim v. State of Montana, was filed in July 2010.”

Los Angeles Times: “An attorney for same-sex couples hoping to overturn Proposition 8 in federal court urged the California Supreme Court on Tuesday to reject a request that it rule on whether initiative sponsors have authority to defend ballot measures.”

All News Wire: “A largely anticipated in-depth study about the relationship between marriage and faith was recently released by the California Healthy Marriages Coalition. This report entitled In The Pews and the Public Square is the first of it’s kind to be released to the public. The report analyzes how marriages among California residents fair when considering the level of faith or religion those same residents are claiming to have.”

Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, is interviewed in the Houston Chronicle. Here is an excerpt: “In the 1980s, the Anglican community started to wrestle with the issue of polygamy in Africa. Polygamy is not an issue here, except in very small pockets of Utah and Arizona, and the church has taken a very different position. We said no. In Africa, the church doesn’t officially recognize polygamy. They certainly have polygamous members of their churches. In some places, they say the man can’t take additional wives once he becomes a Christian, but he isn’t forced to divorce the wives he already has. The children generally are recognized as full members if they want to be baptized.” | Via Damian Thompson.

“Still, even if the bill passes, it’s likely that opponents would get the necessary 53,650 signatures required to put the issue to a voter referendum, which so far has proved to be the kiss of death for marriage equality in other states.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: “House Speaker John Boehner’s plan to subsidize religious schools in the District of Columbia would undercut civil rights and civil liberties and add to the federal budget deficit, while failing to improve education, according to Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”

Wall Street Journal (full text via Google News): “The U.S. Treasury could sell its remaining stake in General Motors Co. within the next year, an Obama administration official said Wednesday, signaling a much shorter time frame than the auto maker initially expected.”

OA Online: “I bring this up because I find it odd that some pro-abortion folks seem to be appalled by this. It is hypocritical to support killing babies by one procedure and be appalled by another. Why is cutting the spinal cord of a baby any different than dismembering the same baby in the uterus and then sucking it out in pieces? Or, for that matter, partially delivering the baby before stabbing it to death?”

Daily Mail: “A gay couple are suing a Christian bed and breakfast owner after she told them it was ‘against her convictions’ for them to share a bed, it emerged yesterday. Michael Black, 63, and John Morgan, 58, are claiming sexual discrimination after being turned away from Swiss B&B in Cookham, Berkshire, last March.”

Nebraska City News-Press: “District Judge Randall Rehmeier Tuesday denied a divorce to a same-sex Nebraska City couple that was married in 2003 in Vermont. The judge said the Nebraska Constitution provides that ‘only marriage between a man and a woman shall be valid or recognized in Nebraska.’”

Iona Institute: “A Scottish Catholic bishop has criticised Prime Minister David Cameron (pictured) for surrounding himself with religiously illiterate, secularist advisers. The Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Devine, said the coalition’s attitude was a continuation of that of previous Labour Government, which forced people to act against their conscience or face punishment from the state.”

Des Moines Register: “Conservative activist and former gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats spoke to a group of county residents last week about galvanizing conservative momentum, encouraging the four remaining state Supreme Court justices to resign, and recommending political leaders begin impeachment proceedings if the justices don’t resign.”

BBC: “Years of conflict in Iraq have left the country with more than one million war widows and a shortage of young unmarried men – pressures that may be bringing about the return of polygamy.”

ChristianNewsWire: “Groups also to demand Congressional hearings on the safety of the abortion industry and it’s failure to protect women. With the recent revelations and murder charges against Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell and the barbaric practices at his clinic, the myth of abortions being “Safe and Rare” has now been shattered.”

ChristianNewsWire: “‘Al Sharpton, for the sake of Al Sharpton, railed against Rick Santorum for calling attention to the horrific impact abortion is having on the black community,’ said Rev. Dr. Johnny Hunter of Life Education and Resource Network. ‘It is inconceivable that blacks today continue in that same spirit of division as we saw on the Hannity Show,’ he said.”

American Thinker: “Barack Obama responded to the 2011 March for Life in Washington DC by recommitting to protecting the right to choose, while Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) called abortion what it is: ‘Tragic.’”

Chicago Tribune: “Hundreds of charter school supporters and detractors are expected to attend a Chicago Public Schools board meeting Wednesday, hoping to influence a vote on whether to open more of the independently run public schools.”

News Chief: “Polk County School Board members have no intention of doing away with prayer before their regular meetings. During a work session Tuesday, board members said they want to continue to allow local religious leaders to offer a prayer before meetings, but not during them, and make it clear the prayer is voluntary.”

ADF attorney David Cortman appeared on the Mike Gallagher Show to discuss this: Not just another brick in the walkway: Calif. high school forbids Christian pavers. | MP3 audio 6:05 mins

The Slovak Spectator: “Bratislava University Hospital has rejected allegations that its new policy effectively ending abortion procedures was introduced based on a demand or call from Health Minister Ivan Uhliarik (Christian Democratic Movement (KDH)), hospital spokesperson Zuzana Čižmáriková told the TASR newswire on Tuesday, January 25. She was responding to a report published in the Pravda daily. Many KDH members have religious objections to abortion.”

BBC: “Conservative councillor Malcolm Hey left Tuesday night’s Portsmouth City Council chamber while Sheikh Fazle Abbas Datoo was speaking.”

The Press-Enterprise: “After an 8 ½-hour meeting, the Temecula City Council voted early Wednesday to allow a controversial mosque to be built. The vote, at 3:34 a.m., denied an appeal of the Planning Commission’s approval of a permit and development plan for the mosque sought for years by the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley.”

First Amendment Center (AP): “Introduced for the upcoming legislative session by state Rep. Mike Reynolds, H.B. 1001 provides that ‘each school district shall adopt a policy, which shall include the establishment of a limited public forum for student speakers at all school events at which a student is to publicly speak.’”

Nashua Telegraph: “A federal judge ruled that Merrimack planners didn’t discriminate on religious grounds when they denied a building request of a Jehovah’s Witness church.”

The Canadian Press: “California’s attorney general says religious beliefs aren’t enough to trump a corrections department ban on prison guards wearing beards — a stance that drew protests Tuesday from civil rights organizations.”

OneNewsNow: “‘The university is the entity that decided to let the students choose, and then once the students chose overwhelmingly to include prayers in the ceremony, the university decided that . . . it would not allow that to happen,’ reports Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney [Travis Barham].”

Reuters: “A handful of U.S. states are poised to take up the issue of gay marriage afresh, due largely to incoming lawmakers who may tip the balance in favor of the controversial measure. In Maryland, New York and Rhode Island in particular, the legalization of same-sex marriages is moving ahead, organizers and supporters say.”

AFP: “Iran’s hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that homosexuality is ‘against the human spirit,’ the ILNA news agency reported.”

Religion Clause: “Yesterday, a panel of the 9th Circuit issued an amended opinion and denied an en banc rehearing in Spencer v. World Vision, Inc., (9th Cir., Jan. 25, 2011). At issue is whether the Christian humanitarian organization, World Vision, comes within the exemption in Title VII  . . . ”

Washington Post: “The Senate edged closer Tuesday to resolving a standoff over the chamber’s arcane rules after leaders presented a set of modest changes designed to satisfy a group of junior Democrats who are pushing to dramatically revamp the filibuster process.”

Pat Buchanan writing at Townhall: “With his approval rating moving up to 50 percent and higher in some polls, the pundits are all agreed . . . He is now the winter-book favorite in 2012. There is a feeling that at last we are coming out of the Great Recession. But has the debt bomb really been defused? . . . Now, facing trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, House Republicans are balking at agreeing to raise the debit limit of $14.3 trillion, though the national debt just crossed the $14 trillion mark. Are the happy days really here again?”

Scott Fischbach, executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, writing at Minnesota Public Radio: “Now it is time for the Legislature to represent the will of the people by passing a ban on taxpayer-funded abortions, and for Gov. Mark Dayton to allow the ban to become law. We know that Gov. Dayton supports abortion; he always has. But many who consider themselves ‘pro-choice’ acknowledge that using tax dollars to pay for elective abortions goes too far.”

Associated Press: “A new estimate predicts the federal budget deficit will hit almost $1.5 trillion this year, a stunning new record.”

Honolulu Star Advertiser: “Sabrina Shizue McKenna, a longtime state judge and former University of Hawaii women’s basketball player who was born in Tokyo and raised by a single mother, was nominated to a 10-year term on the Hawaii Supreme Court yesterday . . . McKenna would be the first openly gay member of the Hawaii Supreme Court. McKenna’s sexual orientation was not brought up during the ceremonies, but she said that all judges bring to the bench their own personal experiences.”

CNSNews: “The pro-abortion rights Alan Guttmacher Institute reports that there have been nearly 50 million abortions performed since 1973, the year the Supreme Court issued the Roe v. Wade decision ushering in legal abortion nationwide.”

The Globe and Mail: “He has to win his party’s leadership first, of course, but he has an excellent chance of doing that . . . There has been at least one gay premier in Canada, although New Brunswick’s Richard Hatfield remained in the closet throughout his career. No openly gay person has ever been elected premier.”

Walter E. Williams writing at Townhall: “Everyone who receives government largesse and special favors deems his needs as vital, deserving, proper and in the national interest. It is entirely unreasonable to expect a politician to honor and obey our Constitution and in the process commit political suicide. What’s even worse for our nation is that voters ousting a politician who’d refuse to bring, say, aid to higher education back to his constituents is perfectly rational.”

Fred Siegel writing in the Wall Street Journal: “The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner. The mayor’s father, a prominent New Deal senator, had authored the landmark 1935 Wagner Act, which imposed on private employers the legal duty to bargain collectively with the properly elected union representatives of their employees. Mayor Wagner, prodded by Jerry Wurf of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Afscme), gave city workers the right to bargain collectively in 1958.”

Associated Press: “Egyptian anti-government activists clashed with police for a second day Wednesday in defiance of an official ban on any protests. Beefed up police forces on the streets quickly moved in and used tear gas and beatings to disperse any demonstrations.”

Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski writing in The American Spectator: “The child porn allegations made against MTV for its “Skins” show must be investigated by the Obama Justice Department. Child Pornography is not protected by the First Amendment, and producing child porn is a crime. Whether these allegations are true or not, even allegations of it are something most responsible businesses don’t want to be associated with, and they’re chasing advertisers away from this latest attempt to redefine what’s allowed on television.”

Honolulu Star Advertiser: “The governor introduced Circuit Judge Sabrina McKenna yesterday as the first of three associate justices he’ll nominate for the five-member state Supreme Court early in his term. The Senate must confirm . . . It leaves the public with no voice in the vetting, no chance to judge the quality or diversity of candidates put forth by the secretive selection panel and no way to see any politics at play in the governor’s pick.”

Reuters: “Senate Republican leaders said on Tuesday they were considering introducing legislation to allow financially stressed U.S. states to declare bankruptcy, even though the No. 2 Republican in the House of Representatives has rebuffed the idea.”

Clark Forsythe writing in the The Weekly Standard: “We can thank, in large part, the Supreme Court, after 38 years of Roe v. Wade, for the lurid reports coming out of Philadelphia . . . Philadelphia’s clinic conditions and lackadaisical approach to regulating clinics are the direct result of the ‘fine print’ in Roe.”

Samual Gregg, Research Director at the Acton Institute, writing at Public Discourse: “The Economics journalist Robert Samuelson recently observed that signs of undue risk adverseness are creeping into the American economy . . . Given the severity of the 2008 financial crisis and the associated recession, such trends are understandable. But another element in play is the degree of uncertainty now characterizing the American investment climate . . . the degree of uncertainty may well be heightened by the gradual impact upon the economy of another factor: a notable weakening of several conditions that make up vital elements of the rule of law.”

The Hill: “A group of Republican senators plan to debut on Wednesday their proposed amendment to the Constitution requiring Congress to approve a balanced budget each year.”

WorldNetDaily: “‘The government cannot single out Christians because their religious viewpoint does not coincide with campus orthodoxy,’ said ADF Senior Counsel [David Cortman]. ‘Christians have the same First Amendment-protected rights as everyone else does on public school campuses, and their messages are no less worthy of exposure than other individuals.’”

Charisma: “[T]he Desert Sands Unified School District Board of Education seems confused by an Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) lawsuit defending two California women who’s brick pavers were rejected as part of a sidewalk because they were inscribed with the Word of God.”

California Catholic Daily: ‘Christians shouldn’t be discriminated against and excluded from expressing their faith on public high school campuses when that door of communication is open to virtually everyone else,’ said ADF Senior Counsel [David Cortman]. ‘The government cannot single out Christians because their religious viewpoint does not coincide with campus orthodoxy. Christians have the same First Amendment-protected rights as everyone else does on public school campuses, and their messages are no less worthy of exposure than other individuals.’”

ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: “The fight goes on, to protect the vital freedom of health care professionals to honor their conscience and religious convictions, particularly with regard to abortion. Please pray that Christian medical professionals across the country will continue to stand for that freedom, and that ADF will continue to be blessed to successfully defend those stands.”

“The Iowa House Judiciary Committee approved a proposal Monday to amend the Iowa Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriages.”

The Hill: “Hours before President Obama was to make his own deficit reduction proposals in the State of the Union address, the House on Tuesday voted 256-165 to slash spending this year to 2008 levels ‘or less.’”

The Hill: “The president’s promise to eliminate pork-barrel spending, long seen as a symbol of Washington’s waste, was a rhetorical exclamation point in a speech clearly designed to prevent Republicans from owning the mantle of fiscal responsibility.”

“The Iowa House will hold a public hearing on legislation to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage, civil unions, domestic partnerships and any other legal recognition of same-sex couples on Monday from 6:30 to 8:45 p.m.”

“Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, has indicated he does not plan to bring the issue up for floor debate”

Southwest Riverside News Network: “‘The government cannot single out Christians, because their religious viewpoint does not coincide with campus orthodoxy,’ said [David Cortman], senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. ‘Christians have the same First Amendment-protected rights as everyone else does on public school campuses, and their messages are no less worthy of exposure than other individuals.’”

West Virginia Public Broadcasting: “‘The issue here now is no longer prayer, the issue is can students advance their perspective as to whether prayer should be included or not without being retaliated against and that is where the university has crossed a clear constitutional line,’ said [ADF attorney Travis Barham].”

Charisma: “‘Christian professors should not be discriminated against because of their beliefs. Disagreeing with an accomplished professor’s religious and political views is no grounds for refusing him promotion,’ says [ADF attorney David French]. ‘Opinion columns are some of the clearest examples of free speech protected by the First Amendment. Mentioning them on a promotion application does not change that.’”