Daily Archives: May 6, 2011

LifeNews: The Senate is expected to vote early next week on another pro-abortion judicial nominee President Barack Obama put forward for the federal courts, Edward Chen.

AP: Members of Ohio’s largest teachers’ union have agreed to a one-time, $54 dues increase to pay for the fight against Ohio’s new collective bargaining law.

Catholic Culture: The denial of the right to life of the unborn has created a culture in which disabled infants are being killed through denial of medical treatment, neonatologist and bioethicist Carlo Bellieni warns in an published in L’Osservatore Romano . . .

Boston Globe: House Speaker John Boehner says he will nominate the Rev. Patrick J. Conroy, a Catholic priest who now teaches at Jesuit High School in Portland, Ore., as the next House chaplain.

Kansas City Star: Abortion opponents in Kansas are moving closer to reviving a proposal to restrict private health insurance coverage of most abortions. But they were facing strong resistance Friday from key state senators . . .

John Couretas at the Acton Institute Blog: The miraculous post-Soviet revival of the Russian Orthodox Church, all but destroyed by the end of the Stalinist purges in the 1930s, is one of the great stories of 21st Century Christianity. This revival is now focused on the restoration of church life that saw its great institutions and spiritual treasures — churches, monasteries, seminaries, libraries — more or less obliterated by an aggressively atheist regime. Many of the Church’s best and brightest monks, clergy and theologians were martyred, imprisoned or forced into exile. Yet, plans are now underway to build 200 churches in the Moscow area alone . . . Christianity Today deputy managing editor Timothy C. Morgan interviewed Hilarion on the bishop’s recent trip to Washington. Here’s an excerpt . . .

Isobel Coleman at Council on Foreign Relations Blog: Currently trailing China by more than 100 million people, India is projected to overtake its neighbor by 2025, according to the medium variant. Indeed, China’s population is projected to peak around that same year and, thereafter, to experience an eye-popping decline. By 2100, China will have 400 million fewer people than it does today—a reduction larger than the entire current U.S. population.

Zenit: The statement, signed by representatives of 17 Christian churches and the secretary-general of the Mexican bishops’ conference, responded to a situation in which a small group of protestors interrupted Easter Sunday Mass in the cathedral of Mexico City. Six or seven people shouted anti-life and anti-Church slogans during the Mass, and destroyed an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The protestors were detained by police but subsequently released. Here is the full communiqué . . .

AFP: At least 16 people were killed in a pre-dawn attack Friday in a Christian village in northern Nigeria beset by ethnic and sectarian violence, police told AFP.

A dancer from Venezuela who legally married an American man in a same-sex ceremony last year had his deportation placed on hold Friday, one day after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder set aside an immigration ruling in a similar case.

Christian Concern for Our Nation: A proposal requesting that information about the benefits of sexual abstinence be included in sex education has passed its first vote in the House of Commons.

AP: Two Muslim religious leaders say they were removed from a commercial airliner in Memphis on Friday and were told it was because the pilot refused to fly with them aboard.

Express.co.uk: HUNDREDS of Osama bin Laden supporters clashed with English Defence League extremists today as a “funeral service” for the assassinated terror leader sparked fury outside London’s US Embassy.

The Christian Institute: The Salvation Army has won a government contract to oversee help for victims of trafficking, but humanists have hit out at the move.

The Christian Institute: A ten-year-old boy has been given the go-ahead by an Australian court to have sex change treatment.

LifeSiteNews: The Catholic Bishops of the Philippines have set May 9 as a “National Day of Prayer” to invoke divine intervention and guidance for legislators to reject a birth control/population control measure.

AP: Federal labor regulators have sued the state of Arizona over a state constitutional amendment that limits how workers can choose whether they want union representation.

Rob Schwarzwalder at Life News: Even the mass media cannot help itself. In ordinary stories, the personhood of the child pops up in the simple reportage of stories of the day.

LifeNews: The UN is about to ask governments to fund the vaccination of every girl in the world against the sexually transmitted disease HPV, human papillomavirus. The controversial campaign could cost as much as $300 per person, totaling billions.

LifeNews: North Carolina state House members held a hearing on Wednesday on a key pro-life bill that will help reduce abortions by giving women more information about its risks and alternatives that they don’t normally receive. The House Judiciary Subcommittee B held a hearing on the Woman’s Right to Know bill, H 854 . . .

Wired.com: A federal appeals court is issuing a clear warning to employees: Violate your employer’s computer-use policy and be fired. | Zellner v. Harrick, No. 10-2729 (7th Cir. Apr. 29, 2011)

NJ.com: A late afternoon Assembly budget hearing flared into an all-out constitutional debate Thursday when legislators asked Attorney General Paula Dow to settle the predominant legal question in Trenton: Can Gov. Chris Christie defy the state Supreme Court? The governor has threatened to ignore the justices if they order him to find an extra $1.7 billion for school districts, but he has refused to elaborate on his controversial stance.

The Times-Picayune: Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Higginson of New Orleans is President Barack Obama’s choice to fill a vacancy on the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

Christian Today: International Christian Concern says that protesters are being led by hard-line Islamists and that Christians have come under pressure to either join in protests demanding the resignation of President Bashir Assad, or else leave the country.

Virtue Online: The California Supreme Court today held that St. James Anglican Church can defend its property rights against the claims of the Episcopal Church with evidence in a court of law. The Court confirmed that its 2009 Episcopal Church Cases decision did not end the property dispute in the Episcopal Church’s favor as it had claimed. “Further proceedings are still necessary to finally decide the dispute,” said the Court. (links to op.)

ACLU Exec. Directory Anthony Romero has forward a letter to the NY Times that begins: Re “How the Law Accepted Gays” (Op-Ed, April 29): Dale Carpenter says correctly that the American Civil Liberties Union failed to challenge sodomy laws in the 1950s. That was a regrettable mistake, but hardly tells the story.

AP: But since the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, Norwegian salmon exporters say their fish is being held up for days or even weeks by Chinese food safety inspectors – devastating its freshness.

AP: The Scottish National Party won a majority of seats in Scotland’s parliament and promised Friday to hold a vote on independence, while the Liberal Democrats suffered an enormous defeat in Britain, losing more than 600 local seats.

Washington Blade: The 64-page lawsuit, filed last week in Fairfax County Circuit Court, charges the defendants – including former GOP Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia – with conspiring to force Bloch out of his job as head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel through a trumped up criminal investigation, according to Courthouse News Service, which first broke the story.

Washington Blade: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder endured a barrage of hostile questions from House Republicans Tuesday over the Obama administration’s decision to drop defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in court.

Denver Post: “Kniech, an attorney and program director for FRESC, received endorsements and campaign contributions from several labor unions . . . “We don’t know the final outcome yet, but we do know that we had the visions for Denver that tens of thousands of voters in Denver connected with, that brought together folks from all walks of life,” said Kniech, who is openly lesbian. Denis Dison, a spokesman for the Washington-based Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund . . . ”

Wall Street Journal: The early reviews are in, and Herman Cain, the little-known former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, has emerged as the unquestioned winner of the first Republican presidential debate. Just check out the headlines . . .

Center for AZ Policy Foundations Blog: While the extra sleep is always nice, I found out later that I missed an amazing message that was shared by the Revered Dr. John Hall during the Royal Wedding. In a very succinct manner, Dr. Hall explained why marriage is such a sacred and holy thing . . .

Fox News Radio (includes audio): “The principal said, ‘I don’t want any of these Christian clubs at my school,’” said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative advocacy legal group. The ADF filed the lawsuit Monday against the Hicksville Union Free School District in Central Islip, NY. “Public schools cannot ban Christian student clubs simply because they are religious,” Cortman said. “If officials at government-run schools did their homework, they’d know that students have a constitutionally protected right to express their beliefs.”

NewsMax: Atlanta talk-show host and businessman Herman Cain stole the show in the GOP debate in Greenville, S.C., Thursday, and may have vaulted himself into the front tier of Republican candidates according to several pundits and observers. “If you want the real headline today it would say, ‘A star is born,’” Matt Towery, the conservative syndicated columnist and CEO of the nonpartisan InsiderAdvantage polling firm, told Newsmax Friday.

Holder asked the judges to reconsider the case and determine whether Dorman can be considered a spouse under New Jersey law and whether he would be a spouse under immigration law were it not for the Defense of Marriage Act, according to a copy of Holder’s decision.

Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court on Thursday legally recognized homosexual partnerships in a landmark case for gay rights in a country with the world’s largest population of Roman Catholics.

LifeNews: A Department of Health spokesperson says the controversial Massachusetts taxpayer-funded web site MariaTalks.com will remain online in its current format despite promoting abortions and Planned Parenthood.

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to | MP3 audio 5:50 mins | Decision Points: An Evening with President George W. Bush | ADF Media: 7th Circuit rejects lawsuit against National Day of Prayer | Website: Save the National Day of Prayer

ADF attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Janet Mefferd Show. | MP3 audio 18:50 mins | National Day of Prayer | Save the National Day of Prayer

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on KFUO with Roland Lettner. | MP3 audio 24 mins | ADF Pulpit Initiative | National Day of Prayer | Save the National Day of Prayer

ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on the Georgene Rice Show to discuss the National Day of Prayer. | MP3 audio 12:11 mins | Save the National Day of Prayer

Courthouse News Service: The 9th Circuit seems likely to affirm dismissal of an action that claims Oregon State University administrators violated free speech by trying to eliminate a conservative student newspaper. Judges noted in oral arguments that the newspaper’s executives could not pinpoint any particular administrator who engineered the alleged “unwritten policy.” . . . Heather Gebelin Hacker, who represents The Liberty’s publisher and editor, is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative nonprofit that says it “fights to defend religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.” . . . At the very least, Hacker said, there is a reasonable inference that facilities head Vincent Martorello “had something to do with the policy” because he was in charge of the people who removed the bins. “This was not an action of a rogue groundskeeper that just decided one day to go and remove all these bins,” Hacker said . . .

The American Independent: “Taxpayers should not be forced, through tax dollars, to support performing abortions or any organization that performs abortions,” said Schneider, who called the service “morally objectionable.” He said the CMS claim that Indiana will not be able to deny Planned Parenthood reimbursement of Medicaid claims is a ”false alarm” and is confident the bill will pass all legal tests, bolstered by legal opinions from the Christian legal network the Alliance Defense Fund and James Bopp, Jr., an attorney for the Terre Haute, Ind.-based law firm Bopp, Coleson and Bostrom . . . Steve Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said the notion that Indiana would be the first state to deny federal funding to abortion providers is inaccurate. He said Texas and Missouri* have already passed similar legislation, and, to his knowledge, have not been threatened with discontinuation of federal matching funds for family planning under Title X.

AP: Texas lawmakers have passed legislation requiring doctors to perform a sonogram before conducting an abortion.

USA Today: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit will consider two cases testing the sweeping law that requires people to buy health insurance by 2014 or face a tax penalty. In one of those two cases, a trial judge declared that mandate, the linchpin provision of the 2010 health-care law, unconstitutional. In the other case, a judge upheld it.

NCPA Policy Digest: Last month, California’s new governor Jerry Brown signed his first major piece of legislation: a bill that requires the state’s utilities to get 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Before signing the bill, Brown claimed that the measure “is about California leading the country.” But the governor’s political rhetoric ignores the higher costs that the mandate will place on California’s residents and entrepreneurs, says Robert Bryce, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Harry Enten at Rasmussen Reports: Most analysts, myself included, believe that the Democrats face an uphill battle to re-capture the House. The main question is whether Republicans can pick up the necessary four (or three, if the Republicans win the …