Daily Archives: March 21, 2011

The Republic: “Regarding whether it’s discriminatory or not, we discriminate all the time. We discriminate based upon gender or race, skin color, it’s inappropriate. But if we discriminate based on behavior, we do this regularly,” Walker said.“The definition of marriage, people say, ‘You’re trying to get into my bedroom,’ and I answered vehemently, ‘No, I am not.’ Because, marriage is an institution of society; it’s not an institution of being in relation to two consenting adults.” HJR 6 passed the House 70-26 and now is being discussed in the Senate.

Daily Telegraph: PRIME Minister Julia Gillard revealed yesterday that her personal stance against gay marriage was due to her conservative upbringing.

Metro Weekly: We spent the night in discussions among Equality Maryland board and staff, members of the Assembly’s LGBT Caucus, and our national partner organizations, trying to find a way to save the bill. Everyone realized that if the legislature passed the bill, opponents would likely gather sufficient signatures to place a repeal referendum on the next election ballot. The political realities of a referendum meant that, if we didn’t pass the bill in 2011 or 2012, we wouldn’t have another shot until 2015 . . . ”

LifeNews: “A Florida state legislative committee has approved a bill that would strengthen the parental notification law voters approved years ago to ensure abortion advocates are not abusing it. The bill, HB 1247 . . . ”

Sophie in ‘t Veld writes at the Guardian: Women’s rights, gay rights and healthcare are all under threat – the secular nature of the European project must be reaffirmed . . . This is abuse of freedom of religion, which was intended to protect the individual against oppression and coercion on the part of the regime. Religious organisations do not determine where the boundaries of fundamental rights should be set. The EU fundamental rights are currently in the process of finding increasing expression in legislation. It is unacceptable for this legislation to be biased according to a strict religious morality. It is high time for the secular nature of the European project to be re-emphasised. Europe doesn’t do God. Perhaps it is time to replace “freedom of religion” by freedom of beliefs or conscience, an individual right that can be claimed by 500 million Europeans in all of their diversity.

“If that’s the case then shut it down,” said pro-life leader Rev. Frank Pavone, of Priests for Life. “When a government funds massive child-killing, it has betrayed its very purpose anyway. Maybe a shutdown will give our government officials a chance to reflect on what government should be doing in the first place – serving life, not helping to destroy it.”

AP: “Oregon lawmakers are considering asking voters to roll back the state’s free speech protections to allow regulation of strip clubs.”

From Monday, March 21 to Friday, March 25, SBA List and other members of the Expose Planned Parenthood coalition will mobilize pro-life activists to call and visit district offices and attend town hall meetings while their representatives are in their home districts, asking them to defund Planned Parenthood in the next CR . . .

Breitbart Big Government: “The publication of this Act will allow the State to save significant money–evidence of which the trial court did not allow presented and did not appear to consider are the cost savings identified by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau which require, of course, publication.” the motion reads. “Thus it is vitally important that this Court act before March 25, 2011–the last possible publication date provided by law–so as to not harm the State.”

Liberty Counsel: “The ACLU pressured the Santa Rosa County (Florida) School Board into a Consent Decree that unconstitutionally forbids all manner of religious expression at school, right down to the mere uttering of the words “God Bless.” After vindicating the school officials charged with criminal contempt for prayer, Liberty Counsel filed suit to invalidate the unconstitutional Consent Decree. The School District joined hands with the ACLU in defending the Consent Decree, and both asked the Court to dismiss Liberty Counsel’s challenge.”

The Republic: A federal judge is expected to rule soon in the case of a central Kentucky attorney who challenged a warning he received after criticizing the state’s Legislative Ethics Commission.

Kevin Theriot writes at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: We’ve summarized the situations when ADF can assist your church in a new resource appropriately titled, “When Should My Church Contact ADF?” The short answer is whenever your church’s attempts to further the Gospel are being restricted by a legal roadblock.

Blog of the Legal Times: “The District of Columbia Judicial Nominating Commission announced today that it is seeking applications from members of the D.C. Bar interested in filling a judicial vacancy on the D.C. Superior Court.”

Wesley J. Smith writes at First Things: I reported on Friday that Rachael Nyirahaabiyambere was back on a feeding tube by court order. I can now report that the ADF has–once again–leaped into the breach to help a family whose loved one was threatened with dehydration–just as it did in the Jesse Ramirez case.

Guardian: “Government spokesman says the education secretary is ‘crystal clear’ that teaching creationism is at odds with scientific fact.”

Slate: “But the biggest reason may be cultural, not economic. In the past year or two, scads of blogs have committed themselves to exposing law school as a “scam,” and the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have devoted thousands of words to telling readers why law school is a bad, bad idea if you do not actually want to be a lawyer.”

Fox News: “Christian students shouldn’t be censored at public schools just because district officials consider religious speech to be offensive,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman in a press release. “The school district is doing the right thing by changing its policy to protect students’ constitutionally protected rights so that censorship of religious speech no longer occurs during student activities.”

CNA: Matt Bowman, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said pregnancy centers were being “punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” for their work on behalf of women and children. “Attacks on pregnancy centers are an ideologically motivated attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry,” said Bowman. “For years, abortionists have preyed on women and girls for profit. Now pro-abortion politicians are trying to give women fewer choices.” “At a time when New Yorkers believe the city’s abortion ratio to be too high,” he stated, “it’s absurd to see the city work with pro-abortion groups to ensure that the public is ‘protected’ from the ‘threat’ of these compassionate, caring, nonprofit groups.”

LifeSiteNews: The House Financial Services Committee has approved a measure that recommends cuts in foreign aid to countries based on their opposition to homosexual activity, which opposition the measure calls a “gross [violation] of human rights.” The amendment was offered by Rep. Barney Frank, who is openly homosexual . . .

The Engage Family Blog: As part of it’s “celebration,” the abortion industry re-released this 13-page paper from 2005 with quotes from their leading lights titled, “Why I Provide Abortions.”

Life News: ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman commented on the law and the lawsuit in remarks to LifeNews.com. “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” he said. “Attacks on pregnancy centers are an ideologically motivated attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry. For years, abortionists have preyed on women and girls for profit. Now pro-abortion politicians are trying to give women fewer choices.”

LifeNews: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will announce this afternoon that he will create an exploratory committee to formally consider a bid for the Republican nomination to face pro-abortion President Barack Obama.

Eugene Volokh writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: “The Ninth Circuit has just refused to rehear en banc the panel decision striking down the Stolen Valor Act; the opinions are here. I look forward to reading them shortly, but in the meantime I thought I’d note them for our readers. My post on the panel decision is here.”

LifeSiteNews: A student at an Ontario Catholic high school whose bid to launch a “gay-straight alliance” was denied and subsequently made national media, had refused the school’s offer to start a support group for homosexuals that’s in line with Catholic teaching.

National Catholic Register: Reflecting on the lessons learned during the course of two political fights over legal same-sex “marriage” in the Archdiocese of Washington — the first in the District of Columbia and the second in Maryland — Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington acknowledged that Church leaders are on a sharp learning curve. “When we began to address same-sex ‘marriage’ in the District, we thought we were dealing with an issue that was fairly well understood by our people — the definition of ‘marriage,’” recalled Cardinal Wuerl. “We learned we couldn’t take anything for granted in our catechesis. We have to find ways of speaking more clearly, directly and convincingly on this subject.”

The Rhode Island Catholic: “Now, it seems to me that if there has ever been an issue that cries out for some restraint and common sense, rather than litigation, it’s this one.” . . . The desire to scrub every reference to God and religious faith from public life, including our schools, is tiresome and irritating. And in fact it creates another pseudo-religion, secularism, that other people are forced to endure. The ACLU should avoid these silly little squabbles and move on to other more important issues where civil liberties are really threatened. By the way, does anyone know – does the ACLU ever support “conservative” causes, or just those that are part of the “liberal” agenda?

Fides.org: “Last year more than one thousand priests were victims of attempted extortions (for their “protection”, amounts ranging from ten thousand to two million Mexican pesos have been demanded). About 162 were threatened with death. Two priests were kidnapped and killed.”

Catholic Culture : “Muslim extremists have burned down 69 Protestant churches– 46 of them Pentecostal– in southwestern Ethiopia.”

LifeNews: A Planned Parenthood in Everett, Washington sent a woman to the hospital late Friday following a botched abortion and the head of the local abortion business is coming under fire for her response to the events.

Jeff Mirius writes at Catholic Culture: “Have I hinted that the growth of support for gay marriage over the past few years tells us more about the tendency of people to espouse fashionable ideas than about any significant moral shift? It might almost be said that taking significant moral positions, at least from the point of view of one’s own interior life, depends precisely on the ability to resist the temptation to be fashionable. Those who do not resist this temptation do make significant moral decisions in terms of their consequences, of course, but they are hardly significantly engaged with moral issues.”

Lawrence D. Jones writes at the Christian Post: “The European Court of Human Rights shouldn’t overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses,” said Roger Kiska, legal counsel of Alliance Defense Fund, who was present at the announcement of the court’s decision. Last year, ADF attorneys were granted permission by the European court to intervene in the suit on behalf of 33 members of the European Parliament.

ADF attorney Piero A. Tozzi appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the ruling. A related ADF press release is here. | MP3 audio 10:46 mins

ADF attorney Dale Schowengerdt appeared on the Paul Edwards Program to discuss President Obama’s refusal to defend the Federal Defense of Marriage Act. | MP3 audio 9:08 mins

ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco appeared on the radio to discuss the case of Julia Ward Howe. | The Janet Mefferd Show; MP3 audio 18:22 mins | The Hugh Hewitt Show; MP3 audio 5:32 mins

CBS: State bills are currently pending all over the country, and many states are considering multiple abortion-related bills. (Americans United for Life has a map on its website showing how widespread the anti-abortion efforts are.)

Wall Street Journal: Mr. Olson reminds us that the mere presence of law schools on college campuses was deeply controversial at the turn of the last century. Thorstein Veblen said that law schools belonged in the academy no more than schools of dancing or fencing, because their practical, vocational training detracted from the enterprise of intellectual discovery. Thus if law teachers wanted to become members of the professoriate, they had to do more than merely impart the content of legal doctrine. They had to find arguments implicit in academic trends and critique the law’s very architecture. To meet the need for intellectual respectability, Mr. Olson implies, professors became engineers of reform.

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on the Rich Buhler Show to discuss this: NH Supreme Court sidesteps critical religious liberty issue in homeschooler case. | MP3 audio 14:00 mins

Christian Today: Legal counsel Roger Kiska, of the Alliance Defense Fund, was present at the court when the ruling was passed down today. He welcomed the decision: “The European Court of Human Rights shouldn’t overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses.

Religion Clause Blog:  Canada’s Supreme Court this week granted leave to appeal in N.S. v. Her Majesty the Queen, (leave granted, March 17, 2011).

Religion Clause Blog: “In Hendricks v. Marist Catholic High School, (D OR, March 16, 2011), an Oregon federal district court refused to apply the ministerial exception to prevent a Catholic high school teacher from bringing an age discrimination claim after his teaching contract was terminated.”

Daniel McConchie writes at LifeSiteNews: Mark Rienzi, an attorney allied with the Alliance Defense Fund and Americans United for Life, helped fight the law in court. In an email, he stated, “We’re very happy with the Judge’s ruling. The County has no business taking over the walls of pro-life pregnancy centers to tell women to go elsewhere.”

Religion Clause Blog: “The New York Times reported that 77.2% of Egyptian voters approved the country’s proposed constitutional amendments in a referendum election held Sunday. 41% of all eligible voters turned out at the polls. Those in the more liberal wings of Egyptian politics say that the vote means early elections can be called. This favors the Muslim Brotherhood and former President Mubarak’s party– the only two parties that are well-organized at this point . . . ”

Religion Clause Blog: “In re Beachy, (ND OH Bkrpt., March 18, 2011 . . . Because both the debtor and the vast majority of investors are members of the Amish or Mennonite communities, a group from those communities proposed a Plain Community alternative plan to the bankruptcy proceedings. Plain Community members interpret the Bible as barring the use of civil courts to resolve financial disputes.”

Yahoo News: “According to the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), allied with the mother’s attorney, the New Hampshire’s Supreme Court has previously stated that American home education is a tradition and a right.”

Valerie Richardson writes at the Washington Times: “Unlike same-sex marriage, which has no historical roots and is a new frontier — you can’t say the same thing about polygamy,” said Austin Nimocks, attorney for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which opposes same-sex marriage. “There’s a cultural underpinning and support for plural marriage, so one could say the case is actually stronger for plural marriage.”

Newsmax: “The Texas lawmaker has long championed dismantling the Fed, but at a hearing on Thursday slammed its $600 billion bond buying program, which he said was creating inflation and undercutting the dollar. This week he introduced legislation abolishing the Fed.”

Pocono Record: Matt Sharp, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, the Christian attorneys’ organization that filed the March 7 suit on behalf of the student, said the law backs up students’ right to distribute invitations to religious events in schools. “Schools have been misinformed that students are supposed to check their religious beliefs at the school door, and that’s not true,” Sharp said.

Indiana Daily Student: “The Senate will vote on the amendment, sponsored by Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero, this week . . . Representatives from the Alliance Defense Fund and the American Family Association of Indiana testified in favor of the amendment.”

One News Now: David Hacker serves as legal counsel with ADF. “The rulings from the courts in Maryland and California essentially conflict with other federal courts which have held for many years that…if a student is subject to a code of conduct on campus, he or she can challenge that if it stifles or chills their speech.”

The New American: While home school advocates were concerned the case might set a precedent for other courts to force home schooled children to attend public school, Joseph Infranco, senior counsel for ADF, predicted that because the state court limited its decision to the facts in the case, the ruling could not be used “as a battering-ram against religious liberty or home schooling — and ADF will be vigilant to make sure that it’s not.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District has agreed to change a policy that initially prevented a 5th-grade student afflicted with cerebral palsy from performing to a Christian song as part of a talent show in February.

New code requires centers to post, publish notices advising women to seek help elsewhere, but law does not affect abortion facilities

Star Parker writes at Townhall: There is nothing more repugnant and flagrantly misplaced in the federal budget than the $360 million taxpayers annually send to Planned Parenthood. If we can’t eliminate this, it means either that the nation is hopelessly lost or that Republicans are weak. Planned Parenthood funding must become the poster child for what is wrong with the federal budget. Why?

AP: “Republican presidential candidates take note: the clout of social and religious conservatives is growing in politically crucial Iowa.”

AP: “A Turkish court ordered five military officers and two civilians jailed Monday in a probe into the 2007 killing of three Christians, including a German national, over allegations that the attack was part of an alleged plot to topple the government.”

AP: “Google said Monday the Chinese government is interfering with its email services in China, making it difficult for users to gain access to its Gmail program, amid an intensified Internet crackdown following widespread unrest in the Middle East.”

AP: “Less than two months in office, the low-key real estate agent became something else: a very public face against gay marriage in California.”

Globe and Mail: “A Mississauga Catholic high school’s decision to bar students from launching a gay-straight alliance doesn’t jibe with Ontario’s education policy on equity, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Monday.”

AP: “Bosnian police say they have seized some 2 million child pornography pictures and 7,000 video clips in the arrest of an alleged member of an international online child pornography ring.”

NY Times: By operating one case at a time, rather than from a grand vision, Alito has proved himself to be the closest thing conservatives have to a feelings justice. In fact, it’s lately from Alito that we get a window onto right-wing empathy on the court — and onto conservative instincts generally about who deserves our solicitude.

Christopher Wolfe writes at Public Discourse: “It is important to situate the same-sex marriage issue in the context of dramatic changes in our society over the last forty years that bear upon the very nature of marriage. These changes have paved the way for the even more dramatic changes implicit in the adoption of homosexual marriage.”

Telegraph: “Apple has come under fire for approving an “app” that offers guidance on how homosexual people can be “cured” and convert to heterosexuality.”

AP: “Jiang is among dozens of well-known lawyers and activists across China who have vanished, been interrogated or criminally detained for subversion in recent weeks, a crackdown that human rights groups say is on a scale and intensity not seen in many years.”

Newsweek: When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.

Volokh, Alexander, Everything We Know About Faith-Based Prisons (March 17, 2011). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1789282