Daily Archives: January 28, 2011

Providence Journal: “As promised, the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled an early-session hearing on a proposal — co-sponsored by Speaker Gordon D. Fox — to legalize same-sex marriage in Rhode Island.”

KITV: “The state Senate on Friday approved Senate Bill 232, relating to Civil Unions, at its regular daily session.”

Christian Post: “A crowd of 150 invited activists from groups such as the Tea Party Express, Americans for Tax Reform and FreedomWorks met with elected tea party candidates Thursday to discuss current victories and future plans. However, once Senators got down to business, there was no mention of key conservative issues that would cut government spending on abortion providers and save the government millions of dollars.”

LifeSiteNews: “Senate Bill 113, sponsored by Republican Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, maintains that “Health insurance exchange coverage of abortions in the state health insurance exchange [is] prohibited.” It will now go to the state House for a vote.”

GPB: “Republican State Representative Allen Peake filed a bill this week that would ban all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.”

“Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Justice has chosen not to defend DOMA based on the well-established rationales that Congress cited when it passed the law.”

Andrea Mrozek And Peter Jon Mitchell writing in the National Post: “In recent decades, Canadian public policy has made it more difficult for parents to be responsible for their families. It begins with the micro-management of the legal status of our households . . . No-fault divorce [resulted in] a fivefold spike in the divorce rate . . . Today’s smaller families mean we seldom learn from parents or grandparents who successfully raised large broods, so it’s easy to assume the experts have a better handle on our kids.”

JURIST: “he Wyoming Senate on Thursday voted 20-10 [vote details] in favor of Joint Resolution 5, the first step to a constitutional amendment that would prevent the state from recognizing same-sex marriages from any jurisdiction.”

“The department will not offer changes in its standards of conduct, expressions of religious beliefs, military benefits, medical policies or duty assignments.”

Times of India: “Australian couples seeking divorce are now increasingly doing it through the Internet, with more than 250 people using an online service in almost 18 months.”

Richard Gamble reviews To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, James Davison Hunter, Oxford University Press, 368 pages: “Sociologist James Davison Hunter . . . takes up the question of what Christian faithfulness ought to look like in 21st-century America.Hunter’s alternative model of social change foregrounds the role played by institutions, top-down leadership, and well-financed networks of elites operating at the centers of ‘cultural production’ . . . Hunter summons Christians to a more comprehensive application of the Great Commission that, while still carrying them into ‘all the world,’ will reach beyond geography to include every institution: the arts, sciences, media, politics, education, entertainment, social welfare, and more.”

The Local: “While homosexual couples are allowed to adopt their partner’s own biological children thanks to a Constitutional Court ruling in the summer of 2009, the same rule does not apply to non-biological adopted children. But the Hamburg upper regional court (OLG) called this ‘unequal treatment of marriage and civil unions in current adoption law’ that is neither constitutional nor in the child’s best interest, broadcaster NDR reported.”

Times of India: “A woman acting as surrogate mother in India cannot be less than 21 or over 35 years. Also, she cannot give more than five live births, including her own children. With India fast emerging as a hotspot for rent-a-womb phenomenon, the Union health ministry has now finalised the Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) Regulation Bill 2010, which has been sent to the law ministry for its approval.”

Bill Muehlenberg writing at Christian Today: “While many adults applaud the new reproductive technologies, many children conceived by these means are far from thrilled with them. Many are left not knowing who their actual mother or father is. And many go though lifelong agony and grief as a result. They have become the new stolen generation, deprived of the most important people in their lives.”

Jeremiah G. Dys, president and general counsel of The Family Policy Council of West Virginia, writing in the Charleston Gazette: “Faced with an agonizing loss, Cassandra and her family began making plans for mourning little Bobby James. But, because of a loophole in West Virginia’s law, they were not allowed to do so. Because Bobby did not weigh enough, the law did not allow for the hospital to issue a birth certificate. Because they could not get a birth certificate, they were unable to get a death certificate. And without a death certificate, Cassandra and Jason would not be able to bury their son.” | The Family Policy Council of West Virginia press release.

Washington Examiner: “House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, introduced a bill this week to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a successful education reform that has provided scholarships up to $7,500 annually for more than 3,300 disadvantaged children living in the District of Columbia. We fully support the program’s reauthorization, which President Obama and the Democrat majority opposed in the last Congress.”

Odd Eigen writing in the Washington Examiner: “Under our system, every family has the right to choose a school that’s right for their child. And every student brings with him the same amount of per pupil funding as the cost of the public school in his or her home district . . . With 15 years experience, we in Sweden can summarize the effects. Education’s private-sector share of students has grown from 1 percent to 10 to 15 percent, depending on grades.”

Washington Examiner: “President Obama’s decision to push new gun-control measures in the wake of the mass shootings in Tucson, Ariz., is out of character and faces dubious prospects with a new Republican majority in the House.”

Washington Times: “A controversial strip club in Northeast Washington is operating with a liquor license reserved in 2007 for a blighted warehouse property owned by a convicted drug kingpin who at the time was receiving city funds to renovate the site as a job-training center for ex-offenders, records show.”

Robert Shibley writing at Pajamas Media: “[A]s the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has repeatedly determined, the vast majority of colleges maintain policies that restrict far more expression than the law requires . . . Lautenberg and Holt’s bill will only make this problem worse by actually requiring colleges and universities to enact policies that violate the Constitution.”

Andrew Gilligan writing in the Daily Telegraph: “In November, I disclosed how the new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Islamophobia had unwittingly appointed a group of Islamist sympathisers called Engage (or iEngage) to act as its secretariat . . . Now, however, after what is described as an ‘orchestrated lobbying campaign,’ Engage have apparently convinced a number of the more gullible members of the APPG that they are authentic representatives of Britain’s Muslim communities. They appear to have been reinstated as the secretariat.”

Fides: “Terrorist organizations in Pakistan are preparing an attack to eliminate Catholic Shahbaz Bhatti, Federal Minister for Religious Minorities.”

BBC: “Lawyers for a Ugandan woman who says she is a lesbian say a judge has rejected an initial appeal for an injunction to stop her deportation. Brenda Namiggade says she fears for her life if she is returned to Uganda where gay sex is against the law.”

The Local: “Sweden’s National Library has sought guidance from the government after determining that a portion of its magazine collection features child pornography.”

Comox Valley Echo: “The Comox Valley School District is taking strides to protect students with anti-homophobia policy passed Tuesday.”

Department of Defense: “Clifford Stanley, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, and Gen. James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will speak with Pentagon reporters about the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal implementation effort.”

Westlaw News and Insights: “The 9th Circuit has reversed a lower court’s ruling that a Los Angeles ordinance prohibiting combined adult retail and arcade establishments violated the First Amendment. The court of appeals said the bookstore and arcade that brought the suit did not offer enough evidence to show that the city’s ordinance was unconstitutional.”

Alameda Books Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, No. 09-55367 (9th Cir. Jan. 28, 2011)

Reuters: “President Barack Obama said on Friday his healthcare overhaul is an important part of efforts to cut the budget deficit and insisted he will not ‘refight’ the battle to pass the law.”

Daily Caller: “A University of Idaho law student is suing the school over its firearms ban, saying the policy violates his Second Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Second-year law student Aaron Tribble, 36, filed a civil suit last Tuesday, challenging a policy that doesn’t allow him to store a registered handgun in his university-owned apartment.”

Eugene Volokh comments at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Human Events: “A legislative initiative aimed at preventing ‘a court or other enforcement authority’ from enforcing foreign law in the Palmetto State was introduced today in both the S.C. House and Senate by Rep. Wendy Nanney (who drafted the bill) and Sen. Mike Fair respectively, who say the bill will preempt violations of a person’s constitutional rights resulting from the application of foreign law.”

Reuters: “Islamists marched through central Tunis on Friday, demanding religious freedom, while police fired teargas at anti-government protesters who have camped out around the prime minister’s ”

Volunteer TV: “Dozens of parents, community leaders and even students met at the Sacred Heart Cathedral Thursday night with one ultimate goal. ‘We would like to see Planned Parenthood removed from the guest speaker list in Knox County Schools,’ said Lisa Morris, a parent and spokesperson for the Prolife Coalition.”

Daily Telegraph: “While seven women died as a direct result of IVF between 2003 and 2005, two died as a result of having abortions in 2007, note the obstetricians, in an [article published in the British Medical Journal].”

Bloomberg: “The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, the U.K.’s largest abortion provider, asked a London judge to modify the interpretation of a 1967 law to allow women to take drugs to terminate pregnancies at home.”

DNA India: “Government subsidy to Muslims for Haj pilgrimage or similar benefits for other religions is not violative of the Constitution, the Supreme Court today ruled. The apex court rejected the argument that grant of subsidy for Muslims undertaking the Haj amounts to violation of Articles 14 (equality), 15 b (non-discrimination) and 27 (no public taxing for promoting any religion).”

Telegraph: “Charities, parents and religious groups are among those vying to run their own independent state schools free of local council interference. At least 35 could open as soon as this September after being allowed to progress to an advanced planning stage.”

“In a letter sent this morning, the Southern Poverty Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Faegre & Benson, LLP are urging Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin School District and Champlin Park High School (CPHS) to immediately restore the rights of two lesbian students, Desiree (“Dez”) Shelton and Sarah Lindstrom.”

The Washington Post / Maryland Politics: “A Feb. 8 hearing has been set on one of the most high-profile issues before the Maryland General Assembly this year: [legalizing] marriage between same-sex couples.”

Salt Lake Tribune: “Freshman Sen. Mike Lee, who has clerked at all three levels of the federal judiciary, will join his senior colleague, Orrin Hatch, on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republican leaders waived a rule against two senators from the same state serving on the powerful panel to allow Lee to join Hatch on the committee.”

David Morris, MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, writing at ConservativeHome: “Perhaps the biggest question going forward will be how do we allow manufacturers to market their products? Clearly Government cannot legislate for a blanket ban on advertising; there has to be a balance. On the one hand we must allow marketing of some description, but on the other hand the sexualisation of our children in the name of marketing cannot be condoned.”

“The Constitutional Court in France has rejected a lesbian couple’s bid to overturn the French ban on same-sex marriage. Judges ruled that marriage was legal only between a man and a woman.”

Religion Clause: “In an important ruling in X v. Mid Sussex Citizens Advice Bureau, (EWCA, Jan. 26, 2011), the England and Wales Court of Appeal held that volunteers are not covered by the EU directives requiring equal treatment in employment and occupation.”

Congressman Frank Wolf: “In the wake of increasing violence, targeted attacks and heightened discrimination against Christians in Iraq and Egypt, and persistent concerns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, among other nations, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) today introduced bipartisan legislation calling for the creation of a special envoy at the U.S. State Department for religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.” | Via Religion Clause.

New York Daily News: “Mustafa Fteja is suing the Internet giant for $500,000 for shutting down his access to the site – and many of his overseas friends – without explanation . . . Fteja, who is Muslim, also accuses the company of religious discrimination.” | Via Religion Clause.

Jennifer Rubin writing in The Washington Post / Voices: “The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came out in December with a draft of its interim report on the New Black Panthers Party scandal. Earlier today a final report was posted on the commission’s website . . . 2) there is voluminous evidence of the Obama administration’s political interference in the prosecution of the New Black Panther Party case; 3) there is ample evidence that the Obama administration directed Justice Department employees not to bring cases against minority defendants who violated voting rights laws or to enforce a provision requiring that states and localities clean up their voting rolls to prevent fraud . . .”

CNN: “Hours ahead of what are expected to be massive displays of anti-government ferment across the world’s most populous Arab nation, the internet went dark in parts of Egypt early Friday, and text messaging appeared to be blocked.”

WHEC: “The Monroe County Health Department says it’s seen a major spike in HIV cases among teens in the Rochester City School District. Now, it wants condoms to be handed out in high schools.”

Palo Alto Daily News: “Planned Parenthood wants to open a new facility on El Camino Real in Redwood City, but at least one neighbor won’t put out the welcome mat.”

Reuters: “Egypt rounded up members of the Muslim Brotherhood including at least eight senior leaders of the group ahead of planned countrywide protests on Friday, a lawyer representing the detained men said.”

KING 5: “The Seattle City Attorney’s Office requested Thursday that the King County Superior Court close the ‘adult cabaret’ club Jiggles because it violates building and zoning codes.”

Christian Post: “Georgette Forney, a co-founder of Silent No More Awareness Campaign, criticized the study for not going deeper to find the true mental health issues that result for abortion. ‘They didn’t address the women who may be feeling depressed but don’t go into a hospital,’ said Forney, also the president of Anglicans for Life.”

WSBT: “The university decided to remove Chick-fil-A as a campus vendor after news that a Pennsylvania franchise will be donating food for an event hosted by a known anti-homosexual group.”

WLS Chicago: “A woman who is now married to a Hasidic Jew accuses her ex-husband of not following their custody agreement to support her religion.” | For background on this case, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/state-illinois+topic-child-custody/

The Washington Post / Virginia Politics: “Watts’ HB1893, would expand the kidnapping statute to cover anyone who ‘recruits, entices or solicits’ someone to perform services or work under duress and deprives the person of liberty. Comstock’s measure, HB2440 would allow someone charged with prostitution to interpose an affirmative defense evidence that he or she had been coerced into the act, thereby excusing the crime. Comstock’s bill would also allow a person to expunge a prostitution conviction by showing that he or she was coerced.”

CBS Atlanta: “Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents told CBS Atlanta News sex slaves rings are operating in various parts of the metro area. CBS Atlanta spoke to a woman who said she was kidnapped from her home in Veracruz, Mexico, and forced into prostitution.”

Toronto Star: “Only in Canada would this be a matter of constitutional challenge—which just goes to show how far the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been co-opted, manipulated, to turn fundamental concepts on their head in the ever-unravelling tapestry of classic Western democracy . . . While practitioners of plural marriage . . . have come forward to defend their lifestyle . . . so, too, have misguided sectarian allies added their support for striking down a law they claim criminalizes unconventional relationships.”

KATV (AP): “The Arkansas Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments in an appeal over a state law that prohibits unmarried couples who live together from fostering or adopting children.”

BBC: “Ahjaz Ali, 41, Umer Javed, 37 and Mehboob Hassain, 44, are accused of distributing threatening material . . . The Crown Prosecution Service said the case was the first brought since new laws were introduced for this offence.”

KNDO: “City of Yakima has ‘been served,’ according to the attorney representing a businessman who wants to open up a strip club in Yakima.”

Michael J. New writing at Public Discourse: “Unfortunately, amidst all this sunny news, one development from 2010 has the ability to undermine much of the hard fought progress the pro-life movement has made since the Roe v. Wade decision. That is, of course, this last spring’s passage of Obamacare. The danger that Obamacare poses to the pro-life movement is twofold. First, if abortion is listed as a federal health benefit, that could easily nullify or weaken a number of important state level pro-life laws including parental involvement laws, waiting periods, and informed consent laws. Second, Obamacare provides federal funds to insurance plans which cover abortion.”

WORLD: “When Christina Beattie, a junior at Palm Beach State College, decided to start a Young Americans for Freedom chapter, she was not expecting to defend that freedom in court . . . A school spokesman told me the school will not comment on the case, but Beattie’s lawyer—[Casey Mattox], senior legal counsel at Alliance Defense Fund—said of the school’s policy: ‘It’s essentially a policy that prohibits consenting words on paper between consenting adults.’”

WorldNetDaily: “Does a police officer have the right to disobey an order that would cause him to violate the constitutional rights of, say, a Christian open-air preacher at a public university? ‘Armbruster v. Cavanaugh is an important case,’ said ADF Senior Counsel Tom Marcelle. ‘A police officer takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. If he has that obligation, he also has a right to refuse to uphold orders that cause him to violate the very Constitution he is sworn to defend.’”

Faisal Kutty, The Myth and Reality of “Shari’a” Courts in Canada: A Delayed Opportunity for the Indigenization of Islamic Legal Rulings (January 26, 2011). Univ. of St. Thomas Law Journal, Vol. 7, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1749046

“The Ontario government’s passage of the Family Statute Law Amendment Act, 2005 ostensibly precluding the enforcement of faith-based decisions issued by arbitration panels pursuant to the Arbitrations Act, 1991, in the area of family law, brought to the fore a debate that has been raging in liberal democracies for some time.

Those opposed to allowing the use of religious principles in resolving family disputes using the Arbitrations Act, 1991, raised some legitimate concerns about gender rights within religious communities. They also questioned the role of religion in secular society and opposed what they saw as privatization of the legal system. Opponents contended that religious groups should be able to govern their lives according to their conscience within the parameters of law if the constitutional right to freedom of religion and association is to have any real value. Consenting and informed adults, they argued, must be able to make religious choices even if others do not believe these are “correct” choices.

The issues, of course, transcend dispute resolution and tug at fundamental tensions surrounding multiculturalism and national identity, the limits of accommodation and legal pluralism within a liberal democracy and the separation of church and state. I argue that Ontario lost a timely opportunity to devise a way to balance these competing rights and interests in a manner that respects all parties and protects the vulnerable.

The controversy was a prime case to examine whether Islamic law and liberal democracy can co-exist within a liberal constitutional framework. Moreover, I also argue that Ontario also delayed an opportunity to indigenize or Canadianize Islamic law rulings in a manner that would help in the integration process of its Muslim citizens.”

Marco Fanara, The Criminalization of HIV/AIDS Transmission Through Sexual Contact in the Canadian Context (June 3, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1748509

“This paper is not intended to present a ‘shock and awe’ reflection the criminalization of the transmission of HIV/AIDS through sexual contact in Canada, rather the objective is to present you, the reader, be you an academic, legal scholar, advocate or everyday concerned citizen HIV positive or negative, with a clear, logical, albeit brief, pragmatic introduction into the arguments surrounding criminalization and why it is not the best legal and/or public health approach to preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDS through sexual contact. To begin, a brief overview of the current Canadian laws being used to prosecute the transmission of HIV/AIDS will be presented, followed by objectives of sentencing and the various legal arguments often referred to justify to criminalization. Next, arguments against criminalization, from both the public health and legalistic perspective, will be presented. In closing, alternatives to criminalization will be suggested.”

Brian Leiter, The Law of Religious Liberty in a Tolerant Society (January 25, 2011). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1748699

“This is a draft of the final chapter of my forthcoming book WHY TOLERATE RELIGION? Earlier versions of material in the first part of the book appear on SSRN as ‘Why Tolerate Religion?’ (Constitutional Commentary, 2008) and ‘Foundations of Religious Liberty: Toleration or Respect?’ (San Diego Law Review, 2010) (the account of religion has changed somewhat since these two papers). The two main conclusions from earlier in the book that are presupposed in this draft chapter are that: (1) the moral value of liberty of conscience is not specific to claims of ‘religious’ conscience; and (2) there are claims of conscience that are not ‘religious’ in character (however precisely religion is understood). ‘Principled toleration’ requires that a dominant group, with the means to stamp out or repress disfavored beliefs of others, nonetheless recognize that there are good moral reasons to permit such beliefs to be held and expressed (subject to the limits imposed by the Harm Principle). The draft chapter explores the question: what should become of the law of religious liberty in light of these conclusions? Should we opt for a scheme of universal exemptions for claims of conscience, or are there reasons to think that no exemptions for claims of conscience, religious or otherwise, are justified? The relation between toleration and religious establishment is also discussed.”