Daily Archives: March 2, 2011

ACLUTV.org: The ACLU of Vermont has sued the town of Franklin for including prayer in its town meeting. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Marilyn Hackett, a Franklin resident, alleges that the town and its moderator, Timothy Magnant, have violated …

David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey write at the Wall Street Journal: “DOMA effectively bars recognition of same-sex marriages at the national level, and Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the administration believes that this violates the Constitution’s equal protection principles. Whatever the motivation behind this decision—and wherever one stands on the debate over gay marriage—the administration’s refusal to defend this law in court is not justified.”

LittleNeck.Patch.com: There is no abortion exception to the First Amendment. And the Baltimore case shows that the government cannot compel speech because people want to talk about pregnancy from a pro-life perspective,” said Matt Bowman, legal consul at the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance Defense Fund. Bowman stopped just shot of a promise of legal action if the bill was passed today by the City Council. “We are prepared to bring legal action to protect pro-life pregnancy centers in New York City, just as we have done across the country,” he said.

Baptist Standard: “I have no doubt that the Alliance Defense Fund and other organizations will involve themselves in these cases,” said Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based firm. “The question is what is going to be the nature of the role. If somebody with (legal) standing to intervene in these cases wants ADF to represent them, we will certainly explore that with them.”

Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Nate Kellum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys who represented the students in the suit, responded to the Sun-Times: “In an environment that freely allows speech that promotes homosexual behavior, the school simply cannot shut out the opposing viewpoint.”

The Republic: “Lawyers for the National Organization for Marriage filed their notice of appeal with the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, which already is considering another constitutional challenge of Maine’s campaign finance law by the Virginia-based organization.”

ACLU: “Today, the ACLU sent a demand letter to the Flour Bluff Independent School District (FBISD) that gives the district until March 9 to confirm that a GSA will be allowed on campus or face possible legal action.”

TIME: “Prosecutors in Philadelphia say they will seek the death penalty against a doctor charged with killing a patient and seven babies at his abortion clinic.”

Robert Peters of Morality in Media presentation at the Houston Human Trafficking Conference: What I did come to say is that there is a very substantial evidence to support the assertion that the proliferation of hardcore adult pornography is contributing to the demand for prostitution and thus for women and children trafficked into prostitution. I am also here to say that it is counterproductive (foolish) for law enforcement agencies and prosecutors to pour endless resources into combating sexual trafficking while totally ignoring the proliferation of hardcore adult pornography.

WVRecord.com: “The push for an intermediate appellate court is now headed to the House of Delegates. The state Senate on Wednesday passed a bill to create a three-judge panel to hear appeals . . . he proposed legislation, Senate Bill 307 . . . ”

Christian Science Monitor: “If there has been any uproar about this, I’ve missed it . . . Obama did a back-door card check by adding thousands of soon-to-be dues-paying government workers at no cost to big labor. Two unions are fighting for the $18 million in annual dues that the TSA crew will provide . . . ”

Idaho State Journal: “A bill that would ban state insurers from providing coverage for elective abortions has been approved in the Idaho Senate.”

Christian Newswire: “Dr. Peter J. Richards appointed affiliated scholar with Philadelphia-based American leadership center.”

Blog of the Legal Times: “Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. faced questions today about whether he plans to abandon the legal defense of any other federal laws, after the administration’s decision last week not to stand up for the core of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Chicago Tribune: “Some Michigan lawmakers are making another attempt to ban a procedure they call “partial-birth abortion” in state law.” | SB 160

Houston Chronicle: “The Texas House began debating a bill on Wednesday that would require doctors to perform a sonogram before providing an abortion. ”

Huffington Post: “Pursuant of her earnest religious convictions, Heidi sought a way to communicate her belief that homosexual conduct doesn’t lead to happiness,” Zamecnik’s lawyer Nate Kellum told MTV when the suit was filed in 2007. “She wanted to wear a T-shirt communicating that idea.”

Charles A. Donovan writes at the Bellingham Herald: “However, the decision to openly switch sides comes midstream in the judicial process. That creates real uncertainty about who will represent the Congress of the United States and the law before the courts. Our judicial system depends completely on a genuine adversarial process. The courts do not accept controversies unless they are just that: important legal matters about which the contending parties deeply disagree. This holds for criminal cases as well as for issues of statutory and constitutional law. When one side of a case is actively helping the other, or putting up a token defense, the courts and the people of the United States suffer a grave disservice. Even more offensive is the fact that, while serving up this legal surrender, the president and his team are slandering millions of Americans who clearly disagree with redefining marriage.”

Washington Post: “A bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland stalled unexpectedly Tuesday after two delegates who had previously pledged their support deliberately skipped a key voting session needed to move the legislation forward.”

Bloomberg: “In Ohio Senate committee passed a bill to limit collective-bargaining rights for public employees that has sparked protests at the Statehouse in Columbus. The move allows the full Senate to vote on the measure.”

“The Supreme Court ruled today that the First Amendment protects members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., who have held provocative, anti-gay protests at military funerals.”

LifeSiteNews: Just after Canada’s House of Commons narrowly passed a ‘transgender’ bill (Bill C-389) that would criminalize discrimination based on “gender identity” and “gender expression,” Joe Comartin, New Democratic Party MP for Windsor-Tecumseh, introduced an amendment to the Criminal Code, Bill C-628 that had First Reading on February 11. The amendment would “remove the distinction between anal intercourse and other forms of sexual activity. It also amends other sections of that Act in consequence.”

LifeSiteNews: “Two important pro-life measures that which would restrict late-term abortions and opt the state out of coverage for elective abortions in the new national health care law have made their way out of committees in the Oklahoma legislature.”

LifeSiteNews (video): “The disciplinary panel overseeing Phill Kline’s ethics trial will not allow the former attorney general to mount a full defense or call all his witnesses, despite Kline’s objection that the prosecution has been given an unjust advantage. The trial will end Wednesday, even though as of this morning the Disciplinary Administrator had not yet rested his case on the first count against Kline over his criminal investigation of Planned Parenthood and George Tiller, and Kline has not been given the opportunity to present his defense.”

Christian Science Monitor: “Vincent Staub said he was fired from his hospital job because his supervisors were hostile to his responsibilities in the Army Reserves. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in his favor Tuesday.”

Ed Whelan writes at National Review Online: “It’s an odd thing: On the one hand, many folks on the Left (and many other supporters of same-sex marriage) maintain that only an irrational bigot could fail to accept the (absurd) proposition that the Constitution is properly interpreted as conferring a right to same-sex marriage. On the other hand, these same folks engage in extraordinary gymnastics to deny the concrete evidence that various of Obama’s judicial nominees favor invention of a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”

Principles that Americans find self-evident — the dignity of the human person, the sanctity of conscience, the separation of political and sacred authority, the distinction between secular and religious law, the idea of a civil society pre-existing and distinct from the state — are not widely shared elsewhere…. We need to ask ourselves why this is the case…. It’s impossible to talk honestly about the American model of religious freedom without acknowledging that it is, to a significant degree, the product of Christian-influenced thought.

NY Times Editorial: The New York City Council is about to vote on, and should pass, an important measure that addresses the problem of crisis pregnancy centers that masquerade as licensed medical facilities but are, in fact, fronts for anti-abortion groups that interfere with the ability of women to make timely, well-informed decisions about their reproductive health. | ACLU Cheers Proposed Law

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys won an important decision Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit against Indian Prairie School District on behalf of high school students prohibited from expressing their religious views about homosexual behavior on T-shirts. The court rejected Indian Prairie’s argument that school officials could justifiably put the First Amendment aside and censor T-shirts with the message “Be Happy, Not Gay” to prevent some students’ from having their feelings hurt.

AP: “Assailants purportedly sent by al-Qaida and the Taliban killed the only Christian member of Pakistan’s federal Cabinet Wednesday, spraying his car with bullets outside his mother’s home.”

Christian Law Journal: Dale Schowengerdt of the Alliance Defense Fund acknowledged that: “The Department of Justice’s litigation efforts have been so anemic that this does pave the way for someone to give this law the vigorous defense it deserves,

Religion Clause Blog: In Zamecnik v. Indian Prairie School District #204, (7th Cir., March 1, 2011), the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a trial court’s entry of a permanent injunction permitting any student at a Naperville, Illinois high school  to display on clothing or personal items the slogan “Be Happy, Not Gay.”

CBS Chicago: Christian students shouldn’t be discriminated against for expressing their beliefs,” said Nate Kellum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “The 7th Circuit has, once again, rightly recognized the First Amendment-protected rights of students on a public school campus. In an environment that freely allows speech that promotes homosexual behavior, the school simply cannot shut out the opposing viewpoint.”

Chicago Breaking News: The lawsuit supporting opposition to homosexuality was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, which litigates on behalf of Christian causes. The American Civil Liberties Union filed an opposing brief.

Chicago Sun-Times: Nate Kellum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys who represented the students in the suit, responded: “In an environment that freely allows speech that promotes homosexual behavior, the school simply cannot shut out the opposing viewpoint.”

Metro Weekly: The conservative religious legal organization Alliance Defense Fund filed the lawsuit. ADF’s Nate Kellum said the student who wore the shirt, Heidi Zamecnik, did so to promote her religious views: ”Christian students shouldn’t be discriminated against for expressing their beliefs”

One News Now: “With a little nudge from the Alliance Defense Fund, Indiana University has changed a policy that banned a student group from receiving school funding because of its Christian beliefs . . . We’re very pleased that Indiana University changed its policy and is now actually requesting that the Impact Movement, the student group, reapply for the funding so that it can reimburse the group and its members for the costs they incurred in going to this national conference,” reports David Hacker, legal counsel for ADF.”

Michell Malkin: Yesterday Kline testified under oath that Planned Parenthood of Overland Park and George Tiller together performed abortions on 166 girls 14 years and under and only reported one each to authorities . . . Another bombshell: The Topeka Capital Journal reports that “the state’s disciplinary board for lawyers concealed for 20 months an internal investigative report concluding no probable cause existed to justify ethics complaints against former Attorney General Phill Kline tied to his criminal inquiries into abortion clinics.”

Mark Rienzi writes at Public Discourse: This history shows that the right to refuse to perform an abortion is “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” In fact, the historical basis for a right to refuse is actually far better established than the historical basis for the rights to abortion or to homosexual sodomy.

FRC: “Last week, I shared with you our concern that President Obama is ignoring his responsibilities as President and refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court. But what’s even more troubling about the situation is how quickly litigants trying to overturn Proposition 8 in California filed a “Motion to Vacate Stay” in the Ninth Circuit after Attorney General Eric Holder announced that DOMA would be left undefended. Within just a few hours of the DOJ’s statement, Ted Olson’s team filed a 23-page document that quoted from the Attorney General’s letter twice.”

Holman W. Jenkins writes at the Wall Street Journal (full text via Google): Solidarity House is the headquarters of the United Auto Workers in Detroit, whose windows gaze figuratively across the labor hinterland of the upper Midwest. At least it used to be a labor hinterland, though its politicians this week are taking an axe to public-sector unions. In Indiana and Michigan, proposals even target private-sector unions with bills to turn those states into “right to work” states, like Tennessee or South Carolina.

Wall Street Journal: “Sixty ships were commonly underway in America’s seaward approaches in 1998, but today there are only 20. We are abdicating our role on the oceans.”

Washington Post: “Thousands of union supporters descended on the Ohio Statehouse on Tuesday to protest a proposal that would dramatically curtail bargaining powers of government workers, as the state becomes the latest flash point in the fight over union rights.”

With Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker attempting to rein in the unbalanced power of government unions, and given the fierce stranglehold that union members have on their ever-increasing taxpayer-provided benefits, now is a crucial time for Americans to understand the difference between private-sector and public-sector unions. Collective bargaining in the private sphere—where companies face competition—is a world away from collective bargaining in government—which faces no competition, and where unions have a legal monopoly. Heritage Foundation labor expert James Sherk explains why it is time to restore voter control over elected government, and how it can be done.

The Hill: “Key House Republicans expect to officially introduce a bill in the next week that would permanently block the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions.”

LifeNews: “Two abortion practitioners in Delaware associated with embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell were suspended for not reporting the massive abuses Gosnell perpetrated an for their own problems.”