Daily Archives: May 18, 2011

NOLA.com: The Rev. Mile Holloway, pastor of Cook Baptist Church of Ruston . . . “I am not asking you to establish a religion,” Holloway said. “I am asking you not to banish it either.” He said Muslims, Christians and Jews all draw on the Ten Commandments for their religious beliefs. He said that he has friends in the conservative Alliance Defense Fund that would defend the monument “all the way to the (U.S.) Supreme Court” if a lawsuit is filed against the state challenging the location of the structure on state property.

Catholic Culture: “The blunt truth is that sectarianism fuels the continuous attack on Catholic education in Scotland,” said Bishop Devine. “The real enemy of all religious people is secularism which breeds sectarianism and those who espouse it and propagate it are Christianity’s greatest foes.”

Lapido Media: A statement drafted by Turkish analyst Ziya Meral at the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, and signed by leaders and academics on three continents, warns of ‘worrying trends’ that could pull Egypt into further chaos.

BBC: Children smuggled into the UK are being sold on British streets for up to £16,000 each, MPs have heard in a debate on human trafficking.

Tim Kelly became the second Republican in the committee process to vote “no’’ on the amendment. Kelly is a second-termer from Red Wing. Rep. John Kriesel, a first-term Republican from Cottage Grove, was the first member of the GOP to say no to the amendment.

Catholic.org (includes video): We are not anti anybody; we are pro-marriage. The definition of marriage is a given: it is a lifelong union of love and fidelity leading, please God, to children, between one man and one woman. History, Natural Law, the Bible (if you’re so inclined), the religions of the world, human experience, and just plain gumption tell us this is so. The definition of marriage is hardwired into our human reason.

Michael Foust at Baptist Press: With the strong backing of the governor and the likely approval of the assembly, New York state is toying once again with legalizing “gay marriage,” a move that observers both inside and outside the state say could have a monumental impact on the rest of the country.

CBS: Hunter, a Marine Corps veteran, released a statement Tuesday saying that the Navy’s decision to name the ship after Chavez “goes right along with other recent decisions by the Navy that appear to be more about making a political statement than upholding the Navy’s history and tradition.”

Daily Caller: Newly released documents reveal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was more involved with President Obama’s health-care law than she disclosed previously. The documents likely will lead to a revival of questions about whether the Kagan should recuse herself from future cases.

The Diocese of Providence urges the consideration of “reciprocal benefits legislation” that will be helpful to Rhode Islanders without reference to marriage and without compromising the traditional understanding of marriage and family in our society.”

A judicial nominee of President Barack Obama has never been successfully filibustered, but Liu may be the first.

Washington Post: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was welcomed with a mostly standing ovation when he took the podium Wednesday to dedicate Augusta’s sparkling new courthouse, but not everyone stood. Some in the crowd remained conspicuously seated, greeting the Georgia native with a studied silence.

Christian Post: The two Houston siblings share their reasons for leaving in their recently launched site called “SPEAK NOW: girl scouts” and reveal several ways in which Girl Scouts has been promoting Planned Parenthood, promiscuity and abortion to their members.

National Review: There’s been a bit of buzz about the possibility of Texas governor Rick Perry getting into the 2012 presidential race, mostly because he’s been making some phone calls to Iowa.

LifeNews: Trevin Wax, an editor at LifeWay Christian resources and a blogger at Kingdom People, is out with an article that is making the rounds in pro-life circles explaining five reasons why he believes the pro-life movement is winning on the issue of abortion.

One News Now: The head of Liberty Institute says the infamous “candy cane” case — to be heard on Monday — could result in “a massive shift of power away from citizens and families to the government.”

Star Tribune: As lawmakers tee up a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Gov. Mark Dayton said Wednesday that he will oppose it “with every fiber of my being.”

NY Times: But a special election in the Los Angeles County district on Tuesday produced an unexpected result: a runoff between a Democrat and a Republican.

AOL Sporting News: The San Francisco Giants will be the first professional sports team to produce an “It Gets Better” video to raise awareness and tolerance for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender young people, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The National Post: The Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday will hear a case involving a Quebec couple who oppose the province’s mandatory ethics and religious culture school course.

UPI: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, lobbying hard for same-sex marriage, says he will support any Republican state senator who votes for it.

New Zealand Herald: One of the most evil manifestations of the abortion industry and the “health” system is their ability to have abortions performed on schoolgirls without the knowledge or consent of the child’s parents.

The Hill: U.S. employers can expect an 8.5 percent increase in their medical costs next year due in some part to the healthcare reform law, the consulting firm PwC said in a report Wednesday.

Here’s a quick stab at some key points, distilled from the selected repository of my extensive documentation of the case against the controversial nomination of Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu to the Ninth Circuit . . .

“It’s less [productive] than I’ve ever seen,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has been in the Senate since 1987, told POLITICO. “We literally are doing nothing — except confirming judges.”

Politico: If the legal fight over California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage makes it to the Supreme Court, the justices could issue an “incremental” decision striking down the ban on narrow grounds that stop short of creating full-fledged federal constitutional protections for gay relationships, one of the lawyers involved said Wednesday.

LifeSiteNews: The video reveals that the National Institute for Reproductive Health (NIRH) has launched an initiative, known as the “Urban Initiative for Reproductive Health,” to unite city lawmakers across the country against crisis pregnancy centers and disseminate a template gag rule similar to ones already passed in New York, Austin, and Baltimore, Maryland.

Jeffrey Kluger provides an evolutionary answer at TIME Magazine.

Janathan Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy: Does this story mean that health care waivers are being used for political purposes? We don’t know. The issuance of 1,000-plus waivers is a relatively short period has raised lots of questions. The problem is that HHS has not been sufficiently clear about the criteria it is using in its waiver decisions.

How Appealing links to the ruling and earlier coverage in R.O. v. Ithaca City School District, No. 09-1651 (2nd Cir. May 18, 2011)

Liberty Counsel: As students all around the country are celebrating their graduation, Liberty Counsel is at the forefront of protecting them by launching its annual “Friend or Foe” Graduation Prayer Campaign. Liberty Counsel seeks to educate and, if necessary, litigate to ensure that prayer and religious viewpoints are not suppressed during graduation ceremonies . . . Liberty Counsel has published a free legal memo on graduation prayer . . .

Religion Clause Blog: In Harris v. Providence Everett Medical Center, (WA App., May 16, 2011), a Washington state appellate court held that a hospital whose parent company is sponsored by a Catholic religious order, the Sisters of Providence, comes within the statutory exemption (RCW 49.60.040(11)) in the state’s anti-discrimination law for non-profit “religious or sectarian” organizations.

Religion Clause Blog: BBC reports today that a petition containing more than 100,000 signatures was handed to the government this week demanding that Religious Education be added to the core subjects.

AP: After simmering for months, a wide-ranging and acrimonious debate over government-funded access to contraceptives in the Philippines has entered the country’s Congress.

AP: The fight against human trafficking, which for years has focused on rescuing sex slaves and punishing their pimps and smugglers, is now seeking to compel corporations to ensure they aren’t unknowingly facilitating modern-day slavery.

Reuters: One in three university students in the German capital would consider sex work as a means to finance their education, a study from the Berlin Studies Center said Wednesday.

“Finally, the report says that 81 percent of the victims were male and 78 percent were postpubescent. Since 100 percent of the abusers were male, that’s called homosexuality, not pedophilia or heterosexuality.”

Yes! Weekly: Mike Johnson, a former senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, represented Forsyth County . . . Commissioner Walter Marshall said the county did not have a policy regarding prayer until Judge Beaty issued his ruling last year. “The Alliance Defense Fund gave us a policy that we were supposed to sign off on,” Marshall said. “It was not a policy created by our board.”
The Alliance Defense Fund is “a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the truth through strategy, training, funding, and direct litigation,” according to its website.

AP: Rhode Island’s House speaker is facing criticism for backing civil unions this year instead of gay marriage legislation, but he says he’s committed to moving the state toward gay marriage.

David French at National Review: While there does exist a theoretical danger that overly restrictive giving can compromise academic freedom, conservatives have far too little influence over academia to approach that level of control. Simply put, large public and private universities will not agree to gift terms that cede too much ground to the Right. The danger to academic freedom comes from the University’s close partnership with the Left, where funded programs will often brook no dissent — not by formal agreement, but by expectation and practice.

AsiaNews.it: Ashur Yacob Issa, 29, was the father of three children. He was abducted three days ago. Negotiations for his released failed. This morning police found his body, which bore “horrific marks of torture”. In voicing his outrage, the archbishop of Kirkuk slammed this “inhuman act,” urging everyone to work together to “protect defenceless citizens”.

Federal News Radio: The U.S. Postal Service will begin to default on its financial obligations just over four months from now unless Congress takes action to relieve it of its obligation to pre-fund retiree health care accounts, its leader told lawmakers Tuesday.

Heritage Foundation, The Foundry: To date, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved 1,372 Obamacare waivers, covering 3.1 million Americans. Yesterday, The Daily Caller reported that among HHS’s most recent round of 204 Obamacare waivers, “38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.” That’s right: Nearly 20 percent of exemptions from Pelosi’s crowning health care achievement were doled out in her backyard. | see also: Waive Me by Michelle Malkin at Townhall.

Timothy Shah, Daniel Philpott and Monica Toft at Public Discourse: We can no longer afford to hang on to secularization theories as we design policy for nations from Libya to Egypt, Iran to Pakistan, Nigeria to Indonesia, and the numerous other societies being reshaped by the partisans of God in the 21st century. The second in a three-part series.

My latest research into opaque state financial statements suggests taxpayers will be surprised by how much pensions are underfunded

Wall Street Journal: A tax probe of donations given by a specific class of political donors is a boldfaced attempt to punish and discourage political speech.

Fox News: Readers unhappy with Soros’ media influence might be tempted to voice concerns to the Organization of News Ombudsmen – a professional group devoted to “monitoring accuracy, fairness and balance.” Perhaps they might consider a direct complaint to one such as NPR’s Alicia Shepard or PBS’s Michael Getler, both directors of the organization. Unfortunately, that group is also funded by Soros.

LifeNews: A teenage girl who was recently killed by a deadly infection following usage of the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug followed the same Planned Parenthood protocols for taking the drug that claimed the lives of women in the United States.

NCPA Policy Digest: Added together, the total retirement package provided by the federal government to members of Congress is worth somewhere around 33.4 percent of pay. ( Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Biggs finds the average private sector worker in establishments of 100 employees or greater receives . . . — a package worth around 6.4 percent of pay total.

NCPA Policy Digest: The weakening of the dollar since 2008 has added 56.5 cents to the price of gasoline, the congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) has found.