Daily Archives: March 3, 2011

AP: “Wisconsin’s Senate Republicans have voted to order police to bring their AWOL Democratic colleagues back to work by force if they don’t return by late afternoon.”

Beaverton Valley Times: “A pair of resolutions introduced to the Oregon Legislature would alter the state constitution to allow local governments to more easily regulate where adult entertainment businesses can locate. Oregon’s Constitution includes a strong protection for freedom of expression — stronger than the federal First Amendment protections — language that has been repeatedly interpreted to protect the rights of adult businesses in zoning fights with cities and counties.”

CNA: “President of Chile Sebastian Pinera,said March 2 that human rights, especially the right to life from conception to natural death, must be protected in order to achieve comprehensive human development.”

ADF asks European Court of Human Rights to intervene; mother is 10th parent jailed for not paying fine waged as penalty for protecting children’s Christian beliefs

“Note the source. It isn’t from a religious leader, or some religious think-tank. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is an instrument of the Chinese Communist government . . . ”

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “The majority of 3,000 chaplains are theologically conservative Christians, many of whom worry that they will be accused of hate speech if they preach that same-sex relationships are sinful. But a Pentagon study found only 2 percent would leave due to a repeal.”

Charisma: “Parents, not the government, are the ones ultimately responsible for making educational choices for their children, and jailing them for standing on this universal right is simply unconscionable,” says ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “Irene Wiens was well within her rights under the European Convention of Human Rights to opt to teach her children a view of sexuality that is in accord with her own religious beliefs, instead of sending them to four days of classes and an interactive play that she found to be objectionable. These types of cases are crucial battles in the effort to keep bad decisions concerning parental rights overseas from being adopted by American courts.”

Irish Central: “Next week Dominic Hannigan and John Lyons will enter the newly elected Irish government as the first openly gay politicians elected as members of Parliament in Ireland.”

LifeNews: “Thee House Judiciary Committee approved a bill today on a mostly partisan 23-14 vote that would ban taxpayer funding of abortions across all federal government departments and programs. The panel voted for H.R. 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act . . . ”

Postcrescent: “Gov. Scott Walker’s budget would repeal a state law requiring insurance companies cover prescription birth control.”

TheAustralian.com: “Julia Gillard has restated her absolute rejection of gay marriage and hotly disputed opposition claims the Australian Greens have hijacked Labor’s political agenda.”

LifeNews: “The Planned Parenthood abortion business has launched an all-out assault on the U.S. Senate to lobby senators to oppose any attempt to add an amendment to any government funding bill that would yank its taxpayer funding.”

Anniston Star: “And on the first day of the 2011 legislative session, Sen. Gerald Dial, R-Lineville, introduced a bill to amend the state constitution to allow the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools and buildings . . . The bill, officially Senate Bill 37, is already being eyed by the Alabama branch of the American Civil Liberties Union . . . ”

Chicago Tribune (Reuters): “A federal judge in Florida on Thursday refused to order the Obama administration to stop implementing its far-reaching healthcare law, a small victory for President Barack Obama in his high-stakes effort to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system.”

Pocono Record: “Law enforcement authorities were Thursday considering laying charges against the family of a 13-year-old girl who ran away from home to avoid being forced into an arranged marriage in Pakistan.”

Advocate.com: “The disparity in funding between LGBT groups and antigay organizations is indeed stark: Combined 2009 expenses of the groups surveyed — $165.6 million — represents just half of the total annual expenses of the 10 largest groups working to undermine LGBT equality advancements that same year, groups including the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Fox News: Erik Stanley walked up Woodson Road in Mission, Kansas, surveying the church parking lot at St. Pius X Catholic Church. He said the government can tax your life and can tax your death, but they’re not supposed to tax your church. And that’s exactly what he said is happening in Mission.
“The city of Mission is taxing churches,” he said. “And that’s clearly unconstitutional.”

UPI.com: Nate Kellum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, an alliance of Christian attorneys who filed the suit, applauded the appeals court ruling. “In an environment that freely allows speech that promotes homosexual behavior, the school simply cannot shut out the opposing viewpoint,” he said

Christian Post: Similarly, Alan Sears, president of the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, said, “The administration has ‘expressly disavowed’ the winning legal arguments that the Bush Administration had made in previous cases.”

ImperfectParent.com: School officials told Zamecnik to alter her shirt to just read, “Be Happy,” and indicated if her shirt had said, “Be Happy, Be Straight,” it would have been acceptable because that is a “positively phrased message.” Zamecnik and one other student along with their parents filed a lawsuit for the right to wear the shirt, aided by the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal group formed to “defend our first liberty — religious freedom.”

Chicago Tribune: The suit was brought by the Alliance Defense Fund, which litigates on behalf of Christian causes. Nate Kellum, senior counsel with the group, said the court made the right decision. “It sets a precedent that students, Christians or otherwise, who have speech that may not be the politically correct speech, may not be the most popular speech, (can) feel free to express their views just like anyone else,” he said.

Indiana Daily Student: Impact has applied and received IUSA funding before, McDowell said. But IUSA eventually refused to fund the Impact movement because they said there would be religious proselytizing and sectarian activities at the conference, ADF Legal Counsel David Hacker said. “We sent a letter to the University saying this is unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment,” he said. “Thankfully, the University responded in a positive fashion by removing the ban on funding religious activities. They’ve since asked Impact Movement to resubmit their application for funding.”

One News Now: Steven H. Aden, an attorney with Alliance Defense Fund, argues that a patient’s health is more important than an abortionist’s bottom line. “The court was right to reject this attempt to escape commonsense health and safety regulations,” says the attorney. “If abortionists really cared about the people who enter their doors, they wouldn’t be attempting to tear down these laws.” . . . “The truth is that because of this poor understanding of the constitutional right to regulate abortion clinics, back-alley abortionists still exist,” says the ADF attorney

Chicago Pride: “It sets a precedent that students, Christians or otherwise, who have speech that may not be the politically correct speech, may not be the most popular speech, (can) feel free to express their views just like anyone else,” Alliance Defense Fund counsel Nate Kellum told the Tribune.”

AP: “A Northwestern University professor concluded a discussion of bondage and other sexual fetishes in his human sexuality class by having a woman take off all her clothes, climb on stage and graphically demonstrate the use of a sex toy, the school has acknowledged.”

Military.com (2/23): “The plan is to have all non-deployed unit commanders trained on the new policy in about three weeks and the entire Corps spun up on the changes by the end of May.”

NPR: “The U.S. military bars women from serving on the front lines in combat, but those lines are often blurred in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than 200,000 women have served in those conflicts in the past decade, and many have engaged in firefights on a regular basis.”

ChristianConcern.com: “Christians in Oxford are celebrating after their local authority rejected a licence application for a “sexual entertainment venue” to operate yards from a church. Members of St Ebbe’s Church in Oxford as well as local residents have praised the Council for its decision.”

The report estimates that there were, on average, 270 new Christian martyrs every twenty-four hours over the past decade, such that “the number of martyrs [in the period 2000-2010] was approximately one million.”

Reuters: China hopes to allow all exporters and importers to settle their cross-border trades in the yuan by this year, the central bank said on Wednesday, as part of plans to grow the currency’s international role.

“For decades the dollar has served as the world’s main reserve currency, but, argues Barry Eichengreen, it will soon have to share that role. Here’s why—and what it will mean for international markets and companies.”

LA Times: “Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, is arguing that it is unconstitutional to discriminate against gay couples who are already legally married. It hopes its incremental approach will lead to a broader ruling by the Supreme Court.”

Yeshiva World News: “The Attorney General’s suggestion that laws relating to homosexuality be given “strict scrutiny” — the highest protection our law has to offer – is a leap that flies in the face of Supreme Court jurisprudence and has never been asserted by any Administration of either party.”

Politico: “Liu, 39, has captured the hopes of liberals who see him as one of Obama’s few bold judicial picks, someone with the intellect and youth for the circuit court bench, a traditional stepping stone to the Supreme Court. But Republicans have argued that he lacks any judicial experience, his legal writings are proof of his intention to legislate from the bench, and his criticism of Supreme Court Judge Samuel Alito after he was nominated to the court revealed an inexperienced social activist who has no place on a federal bench.”

Religion Clause Blog: One of the amendments would provide that school discipline codes may not “prohibit any student from expressing … personal religious beliefs so long as that expression does not include physically harming a student or damaging a student’s property”.

Religion Clause Blog: Forum 18 reported yesterday on the continuing problems faced by minority religious communities in Turkey in establishing and maintaining formally recognized places of worship

Forbes: “The proposal would exclude abortion coverage from all private insurance policies sold in Nebraska. Abortion coverage would be allowed only with an optional rider paid for solely by the insured.”

AP: “With a tiny campaign war chest and indications that powerful Democrats wouldn’t support a re-election bid, Sen. Daniel Akaka of Hawaii announced he would step down after his term expires next year.”

AP: “Burbank and her husband, John Clark, epitomize the dreadful economic situation these days in Nevada, where a once-mighty construction boom has given way to a historic recession and a record 14.9 percent unemployment in Las Vegas.”

AP: Hundreds of Pakistani Christians demonstrated Thursday against the slaying of a Catholic government minister who had long been their most prominent advocate in the Muslim-majority country, burning tires, demanding justice and even shouting for “a revolution.”

SCOTUS Blog: “California’s Supreme Court refuses to speed up its review of a key issue bearing on the constitutional challenge to the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.”

Atlanta J. Constitution: “Authorities have determined a man who was stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment was killed for stealing drugs from a Mexican cartel, in a gruesome example of drug cartel violence spilling over the border . . . More than 34,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence since December 2006 . . . ”

Wall Street Journal: “Any state that the Administration decided deserved a waiver would still need to cover the same number of uninsured, and its coverage would still need to include the same comprehensive benefits and be as “affordable” as the Administration says it should be. That is, it must be as heavily subsidized. So perhaps states could opt out of some consumer or employer mandates, which is a minor release valve. But they would still need to find other mechanisms to achieve the same liberal priorities . . . ”

The Hill: Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is planning to offer an amendment to slash as much funding to the Department of Justice as would have been used to defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Hill: The Senate on Wednesday fell short by two votes of passing a non-binding “sense of the Senate” resolution calling on Congress to pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. The final vote was 58-40, with 60 votes needed to pass the amendment.

Wall Street Journal: “The New York City Council has passed a bill that would force pregnancy counseling centers to disclose whether they provide abortions, emergency contraception and prenatal care. The mayor is expected to sign the measure.”

“The South Dakota Senate voted Wednesday to require women to wait 72 hours before they can have abortions and to submit to counseling about why they shouldn’t go through with the procedures.”