Daily Archives: April 20, 2011

Wright, Walter, Historical Analogies, Slippery Slopes, and the Question of Euthanasia. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Vol. 28, No. 2, Summer 2000. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=250768

Divided 10th Circuit ruled crosses for fallen troopers unconstitutional despite high court comments indicating otherwise

Kevin Theriot at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: It was exactly one year ago that a Wisconsin federal court incredibly ruled that our 200 year practice of praying together as a nation is unconstitutional by striking down the statute establishing the National Day of Prayer. But on April 14, 2011, the day before the anniversary of that troubling ruling, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed it in a fantastic opinion holding that the anti-religious Freedom From Religion Foundation should not have been allowed past the courthouse gate because they suffered no legal injury . . . This ruling adds to the list of recent setbacks for anti-religious forces in America in Establishment Clause cases.

The Republic: A Georgia judge rejected a free-speech challenge to the state’s law against assisted suicide, allowing a high-profile case to proceed against four members of a suicide group charged with helping a cancer-stricken man kill himself.

Telegraph: Vladimir Putin has promised to spend £33 billion to boost the country’s flagging population by up to a third over the next four years, during a two-and-a-half hour speech that appeared to gear him up for a 2012 presidential run

Peter Stein and Shai Oster at the Wall Street Journal (full text via Google): China is accelerating efforts to push its currency deeper into world markets, racing ahead with a series of moves toward a new financial ecosystem with the yuan at its center.

The Department of Health has lost a court battle to keep secret some details on abortion statistics.

LifeNews: The Indiana state Senate gave final approval to a bill that would cut off state taxpayer funding to the Planned Parenthood abortion business and ban abortions after 20 weeks based on the scientific evidence showing unborn babies feel pain.

Las Vegas Review Journal: “Members voted 29-13 for Assembly Bill 211, which would prevent discriminating against people based on their gender identity or expression.”

The Christian Institute: The Scottish Green Party has given its backing to full homosexual marriage and civil partnerships for heterosexual couples. The Scottish Greens say they also want legislation to allow church ministers and other religious officials to conduct civil partnerships

LifeNews: Two Texas pro-life groups disagree about whether a revised bill allowing women to see an ultrasound before an abortion is good enough to ask Texas lawmakers to support.

ABC: London police have rejected a radical Islamist group’s request to hold a protest outside Westminster Abbey on the day of the royal wedding.

Fox News: A state-funded sex education website that claims getting an abortion is “much easier than it sounds” has angered a Bay State pro-life organization that says the site glorifies the controversial procedure.

NY Magazine: Marriage Equality New York, the Empire State Pride Agenda, the Human Rights Campaign, and Freedom to Marry have created a single organization, New Yorkers United for Marriage, with the sole goal of granting legal rights to married gay couples in the state. And they have a powerful ally in Albany: Governor Cuomo . . .

Greenwich Time: Legislation passed by the Alabama House to stop elective abortions at 20 weeks into a pregnancy is getting its first test in the Senate.

AP: Airport screeners will have to wait a few more weeks before finding out which union will represent them in collective bargaining talks with the government.

Breitbart Big Government: People can speculate as to what their motive is, but we suspect that they do not want to jeopardize their White House access leading into campaign season by being the ones to release the audio of His Presidency referring to Americans as “slugs.”

The American Catholic: “Bishop’s presence at the homeschooling Mass would convey a contradictory message equating the importance of Catholic school education with Catholic homeschooling; therefore, Bishop Vásquez must respectfully decline the invitation. . . ”

Catholic Culture: Voting to continue federal government funding of Planned Parenthood were 17 Catholic senators . . . Voting to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider were the other seven Catholic senators . . .

ADF attorney Kevin Theriot appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the National Day of Prayer Victory. | MP3 audio 12:23 mins

LifeSiteNews: The Croatian Times reports that nearly three-quarters of Romanian hospitals will not abort unborn children around both Christmas and Easter, according to a study by the Euroregional Center for Public Initiatives (ECPI). The ECPI is funded in part by the Open Societies Institute, an initiative of billionaire globalist and population control advocate George Soros.

ADF attorney David French appeared on KMJ with Chris Daniel. | MP3 audio 21:33

LifeSiteNews: The government, however, has expressly forbidden such groups from helping homosexually-inclined students to reform their sexuality – a fact that has many Catholic parents expressing concern with the bishops’ approach.

LifeSiteNews: Family Court Justice Linda Dessau, who has a history of approving “sex change” procedures for gender-confused youngsters in Australia, has issued an order approving the procedures for a 10-year-old boy.

LifeSiteNews: n August of last year Jessica Council – a beautiful, 30-year-old mother of one – noticed that she had a sore throat. At around the same time, she also began to suspect that she was pregnant . . .

Days after Republican Congressmen in Washington abandoned the effort to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funds, the battle continues in state legislatures across the country.

AP: A former Rutgers University freshman was indicted Wednesday on a hate crime charge after allegedly using a webcam to spy on a same-sex encounter involving his roommate, who committed suicide shortly afterward in a case that started a national conversation on bullying.

The Independent: That 79-year-old Raul Castro, who has effectively run the country since late 2006 because of a stomach infection that nearly killed Fidel, was appointed as first secretary of the party surprised no one. However, the choice of Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, who fought alongside Fidel to overthrow the US-backed Fulgencio Batista in 1959, as his deputy and Ramiro Valdes, 78, as his number three quashed hopes that a new generation of Cuban leaders could take on senior roles.

ADF attorney Greg Baylor appeared on the Mary Reichard Show. | MP3 audio 22:38 mins

Freedom from Religion Foundation: U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen ruled April 19 in Detroit against plaintiff John Satawa’s attempt to keep erecting a holiday crèche that stood almost 10 feet high in the median of Mound Road in Warren. After FFRF’s complaint, written by Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert, the Road Commission investigated and found Satawa had no permit. The board refused to issue one on the grounds that the crèche was a traffic hazard and amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

ACLU: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court today ruled in an American Civil Liberties Union case that the mere smell of marijuana no longer justifies a search or seizure, because the possession of a small quantity of marijuana is no longer criminal in Massachusetts.

AP: China has released one of the most prominent activists taken into custody since a massive security crackdown was launched two months ago to stamp out any Middle East-inspired protests.

AP: et his name – and those of 12 other Jewish clergymen – is absent from monuments at Arlington National Cemetery that honor more than 240 other fallen military chaplains. A new congressional effort backed by Jewish groups and survivors of the chaplains aims to change that . . .

AP: “The Vatican has put a Chinese Catholic scholar who lived nearly five centuries ago on track for beatification, a move intended to raise the profile of the church in a country that keeps a tight grip on all religious expression.”

Islamist Watch: Though France is the pace setter, efforts to impose burqa bans, both broad and narrow, press on across the West. The following is a quick and by no means exhaustive update on recent attempts . . .

AP: Tea party supporters in Arizona could show off their affinity for the movement on their vehicles if Gov. Jan Brewer signs a bill sent to her Wednesday creating a special “Don’t Tread On Me” license plate.

Congratulations to allied attorneys Aaron White, Cathi Herrod, Deborah Sheasby, J. Lee McCoy, John Mauck, John Stemberger, Josh and Jamie Grosshans, Judith Fouladi, Mark Matney, John Stepanovich, Mark Rienzi, Martina Kulick, Michael Tierney, Stephen Casey, Stephen Wallace, Timothy Fox, Wallace Larson, as well as new Honor Corps members, George Weaver, Joseph La Rue, Natalie Decker, Tyson Langhofer and Valerie LeMaster, for their recent accomplishments and successes listed below. Please take time to congratulate them!

Baptist Press: Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, also expressed optimism. “The American people deserve to have their laws defended,” Brian Raum, an ADF attorney, said in a statement. “The House is demonstrating that it will not let a law that it overwhelmingly passed, that President Clinton signed, and that the American people support go undefended. ADF believes the House made an excellent decision by choosing former Solicitor General Paul Clement as lead counsel to defend DOMA, and we will support his efforts in whatever way we can.”

Christian Post: “Conservatives approve of Boehner’s repayment proposal as well as his decision to hire the Bush administration lawyer. Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Brian Raum commended the decision to choose Clement as lead counsel to defend DOMA. Hausknecht, also a licensed attorney, also praised Clement for his prestigious legal pedigree and experience arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court . . . ”

On Top Magazine (“gay advocacy website”): The law firm, however, is a far cry f[ro]m the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the Christian conservative law firm most closely associated with defending anti-gay rights statutes. King & Spalding’s workplace policies ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and the firm has extended benefits to the spouses of gay partners and employees.

. . . It hardly bears observing here that most of these measures are against the law. That law is Roe v. Wade.

Hat tip to Eugen Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy for pointing out this article by Prof. Liaquat Ali Khan (Washburn University School of Law).

Held: States, in accepting federal funding, do not consent to waive their sovereign immunity to private suits for money damages under RLUIPA.

UPI reports and includes photo.

The Hill: Arizona Sen. John McCain (R) applauded his state’s governor, Jan Brewer (R), Monday for vetoing a controversial “birther” bill. The legislation, the first of its kind in the nation, would have required presidential candidates to prove their citizenship to be included on the state’s ballot.

Walter E. Williams at Townhall: The magazine’s Winter 2010 edition contains an article by Dr. Candace de Russy, former member of the board of trustees of the State University of New York (SUNY), titled “Hate-America Sociology.” De Russy’s colleague sent her a copy of a student’s exam from an introductory sociology class found lying in a room at an East Coast public college. The professor had given it a perfect score of 100. Here are some of the questions asked and the student’s written response . . .

Washington Post: The Obama administration privately urged Standard & Poor’s in recent weeks not to lower its outlook on the United States — a suggestion the ratings agency ignored Monday, two people familiar with the matter said.

Ken Klukowski at the Washington Examiner: It appeared yesterday during oral arguments in a case raising important constitutional and political issues that members of the U.S. Supreme Court doubt the wisdom of allowing federal judges the power to regulate carbon emissions. The case was AEP v. Connecticut in which eight states sued American Electric Power and other electricity providers over carbon emissions . . .

Pacific Justice Institute: A public high school that reportedly suppressed student speech on last year’s “Day of Silence” opted to change its approach after facing the threat of legal action from Pacific Justice Institute.

Middle East Forum: The grand irony, of course, is that Christian persecution has increased exponentially under U.S. occupation. As one top Vatican official put it, Christians, “paradoxically, were more protected under the dictatorship” of Saddam Hussein.

Tom Goldstein and Amy Howe, But How will the People Know? Public Opinion As A Meager Influence In Shaping Contemporary Supreme Court Decision Making, 109 Mich. L. Rev.963, 978 (2011) Online: http://www.michiganlawreview.org/assets/pdfs/109/6/goldstein_howe.pdf

Rachel Simmonsen, Legislating After Janice M.: The Constitutionality Of Recognizing De Facto Parenthood In Maryland, 70 Md. L. Rev. 525 (2011)

Laura Prieston, Parents, Students, And The Pledge Of Allegiance: Why Courts Must Protect The Marketplace Of Student Ideas, 52 B.C. L. Rev. 375, 410+ (2011)

Deseriee A. Kennedy, Children, Parents & The State: The Construction Of A New Family Ideology, 26 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 78 (2011)

Blocher Joseph, Government Property and Government Speech (August 4, 2010). William & Mary Law Review, Vol. 52, 2011. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1653644 The relationship between property and speech is close but complicated. Speakers use places and things to deliver their messages, and rely on property …