Daily Archives: May 31, 2011

Human Rights Campaign: he Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization, today praised the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for publishing guidance regarding transgender federal employees . . . The guidance published today, available at http://www.opm.gov/diversity/Transgender/Guidance.asp

Bench Memos – National Review Online: Last Friday the Washington Post published an excellent op-ed by Professor Chris Bonneau defending judicial elections from attacks by Justice O’Connor and her allies in the Soros network. He exposes these attacks as based on rhetoric detached from empirical facts. Here’s a taste:

FrontPage Magazine: On May 24, the Undergraduate Students Association at UCLA, by a 10-0 vote passed a resolution proposed by the Muslim Students Association declaring that “UCLA is a UC Campus Against Islamophobia.

Wall Street Journal: Polish legislators proposed to ban homosexuals from foster parenting. Poland’s ruling party, often referred to as liberal, gave a nod to this proposal by a conservative senator, and has refused to discuss legislation that would introduce same-sex civil unions.

BBC News: The South African ambassador to Uganda, a former columnist for South Africa’s Sunday Sun paper, has been found guilty of hate speech for an anti-gay article.

Reuters: A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that a high school graduation in a San Antonio suburb may not include an opening and closing prayer or the words “invocation” or “benediction.”

LifeNews.com: A national pro-life organization has sent ore than 100,000 signed petitions to members of the Senate urging them to allow a vote on a bill that would prohibit taxpayer funding of abortions across every department of the federal government.

Matthew Shaffer @ National Review Online: Activists are obviously welcome to protest and withdraw their patronage from any business, especially one whose political advocacy they disagree with. That’s democracy. But if we really want to “stop the hate” — and we should stop hate where it actually exists — we should look elsewhere than Chick-fil-A and the aged philanthropist at its head.

The Local: The head of a Danish sperm bank has warned that Swedish women are “most likely” to be among those inseminated with defective sperm donated by a man with a rare genetic disease.

NY Daily News: Two high schools turned tradition on its head this weekend by crowning a transgender teen and a gay young man as prom queen.

The Christian Institute: Revd Andrew Coghill had previously warned the Kirk’s governing body that ordaining homosexual ministers would destroy the church.

The Washington Post: The challenger for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has conceded defeat to a conservative incumbent justice in an election seen as a referendum on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s divisive union rights bill.

Christian Faith-Healing Parents on Trial for Refusing Medical Attention: An Oregon couple has been accused of medically neglecting their baby daughter after refusing medical treatment for a large tumor that developed over her left eye. Opening statements were heard Friday at the Clackamas County Courthouse, and the trial will resume today. Timothy and Rebecca Wyland . . .

Women’s Rights Without Frontiers on EarnedMedia.org: How does this affect us? We are helping finance the infrastructure used in coercive family planning in China. The international community funds UNFPA (United Nations Family Planning Fund), as well as IPPF (International Planned Parenthood Federation), and Marie Stopes International . . .

Christian Newswire: According to a report in the Caixin Century magazine, population control officials in the Chinese province of Hunan seized at least 16 babies born in violation of the one-child policy, sent them to state-run orphanages, and then sold them abroad for adoption.

The Washington Post: A federal appeals court in Atlanta says it will allow high-profile arguments over the Obama administration’s health care overhaul law to be recorded so they can be sold to the public.

Boston.com: A Rhode Island Senate panel is planning to review legislation Thursday allowing gay couples to enter into civil unions

The Blog of Legal Times: Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who leads Ohev Shalom – The National Synagogue, had originally sued the city before the election, pointing out that April 26 is one of several days when observant Jews are barred from signing their name or completing an electronic circuit, in effect precluding them from casting a ballot.

LifeNews.com: When Dale Mcalpine was arrested and charged for saying that homosexual activity is sinful in April last year, the charges were eventually dropped, but the Christian street preacher called for changes to the law that would make it possible to express religious opinion out loud in Britain without fear of arrest and prosecution.

LifeSiteNews.com: When Dale Mcalpine was arrested and charged for saying that homosexual activity is sinful in April last year, the charges were eventually dropped, but the Christian street preacher called for changes to the law that would make it possible to express religious opinion out loud in Britain without fear of arrest and prosecution.

The Montgomery Advertiser : Abortion legislation marks one of the biggest signs of change in Alabama’s new Republican-con­trolled Legislature: Six bills that would restrict abortions are far enough along that they might pass in the session’s closing days.

LifeSiteNews.com: The Alabama Senate has approved a slew of pro-life bills that could mark the greatest step forward in state pro-life law since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.

LifeSiteNews.com: Family Research Council’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI) released a synthesis paper Friday showing that economic well-being in the United States is strongly related to marriage.

The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram: U.S. Reps. Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree are recommending that President Obama nominate a Maine Supreme Judicial Court justice or a Portland lawyer to fill Maine’s sole seat on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bloomberg: It’s Justice Anthony Kennedy’s country — the rest of us just live in it. Or so it sometimes feels when the U.S. Supreme Court’s most important and decisions come down from Mount Olympus, aka 1 First Street, NE, where the justices preside in their white marble temple in Washington.

FoxNews.com: Eyeing a potential 5-4 decision on President Obama’s Affordable Care health care reforms, some Democratic lawmakers are trying to pressure Justice Clarence Thomas to sit out any health care case that may come before the Supreme Court.

CNN.com: Think about all the data — photos, videos, text messages, calendar items, apps, call log, voice mail, and e-mail — on your cell phone right now. If you’re arrested, could the police search your cell phone? And would they need a warrant?
That depends on which state you’re in.

BBC News: The Scottish cabinet is taking action to stop the UK Supreme Court in London getting involved in criminal cases north of the border.

Relying on a previous ruling that sex is determined at birth and not changed by later surgical procedures, a Texas court Thursday declared that the “marriage” of a man who led another man to believe he is a woman is null and void. The Alliance Defense Fund provided funding for the case.

Religion Clause: The World Journalism Institute Times Observer reported Friday that private Christian colleges are concerned about new federal regulations that take effect July 1, 2011 that define institutions that qualify to participate in various federal student financial aid programs.

Religion Clause: According to BNA’s (May 20) Daily Report for Executives, thousands of churches with fewer than 25 full-time-equivalent employees missed the May 15 filing deadline to claim a 25% tax credit for health insurance premiums paid to their clergy and staff in 2010.

AFP: The report, compiled by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, examined general trends in over 30 countries regarding their attitudes towards homosexuality, and is based on five surveys conducted in different countries between 1988 and 2008.

Religion Clause: Allen v. School Bord for Santa Rosa County, Florida, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56853 (ND FL, May 20, 2011), in another installment . . . In the current decision, the court concluded that under doctrines of res judicata teachers and official parent volunteers and chaperones, while acting in their official capacities, are precluded from bringing a facial attack seeking to invalidate the entire consent decree or enjoin enforcement of it in its entirety.

LifeNews.com: PepsiCo is ignoring criticism from pro-life advocates upset that the company contracts with a research firm that uses fetal cells from babies victimized by abortions to test and produce artificial flavor enhancers.

WJXT Jacksonville: The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Berkeley County Jail’s book policy, because it wants inmates to have access to pornographic materials.

Eggsploitation Documentary Screening – Phoenix | Center for Arizona Policy: Produced by The Center for Bioethics & Culture, Eggsploitation is a documentary film revealing the risks and costs to young women from the human egg trade. [learn more]

Religion Clause Blog: Politics.hu reports today that Hungary’s cabinet will be presented within a few weeks with a proposed new law on churches. It will prohibit the government from controlling or supervising churches.

ADF attorney Daniel Blomberg appeared on the Morning Show with Bill and Joel WDUN (North Carolina) to discuss the battle. | MP3 audio 9:21 mins

Advocate.com: Last week, an attorney with the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund threatened legal action if Congress does not expressly prohibit same-sex weddings at military chapels or other Defense Department facilities . . . But Capt. John F. Gundlach, a retired Navy chaplain and member of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy, wrote in a Monday commentary that ADF’s pleas are the result of antigay bigotry, not concern for religious liberty . . .

One News Now: Austin Nimmocks, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, adds that lawsuits may be needed to protect conscience rights if the Senate deletes the House amendments from the annual defense bill.

One News Now: “Christians shouldn’t be punished simply for expressing their views,” contends ADF attorney Roger Kiska, who is currently in Croatia. “The free expression of ideas is a basic human right that is protected by both Belarusian and European law. These two men were groundlessly arrested, denied their rights, and sentenced to prison because of their views. They broke no laws and have only peacefully expressed themselves.”

MyDesert.com: Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lou Ann Hart and Sheryl Caronnaon, declined to comment until the settlement was finalized.

Daily Mail: Professor Carl Djerassi is often asked what might have happened had he not invented the birth control Pill.
Would there have been a sexual revolution, free love, and the cataclysmic shift in attitudes which continues to shape society? Would the world have been a worse or better place?

Catholic Culture: Two Christian girls–Rebecca Masih and Saima Masih–were forced to marry and convert to Islam after they were kidnapped by a wealthy businessman on May 24.

AINA: International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that an Algerian Christian was sentenced to five years imprisonment for blasphemy in Oran on Wednesday after sharing his Christian faith with a neighbor.

Catholic Culture: Arkan Jihad Yacob, a 62-year-old businessman and father of 4 children, was gunned down in Mosul.

Christian Examiner: Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund proposed adding religious liberty protections but the law designed to dismantle the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy did not add any such protections. ADF has provided free legal support to many concerned chaplains and service members. “Service members should not be denied the very constitutional liberties they volunteered to defend,” said ADF legal counsel Daniel Blomberg. ”The alarm has been sounded time and time again in this process by those with the utmost credibility. The question is: Will our military leaders and elected officials listen?”

Steven Aden at the Constituting America: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Despite 220 years of constitutional interpretation, there really isn’t much one can say about the Ninth Amendment. And that’s just what James Madison and the Framers intended.

NewsMax: For every $10 the typical household earns before taxes, almost a full dollar now goes toward gas, a 40 percent bigger bite than normal.

AP: Turkey’s government has defended a new regulation that will filter the Internet and restrict access to websites that show pornography, bomb-making and violent content.

CNA: Citizens of the island of Malta have voted to legalize divorce, making a choice that the country’s Catholic bishops have warned will lead to family breakdown and a loss of religious identity.

LifeNews: It found the percentage of people who say “doctor-assisted suicide” is morally acceptable has dropped to its lowest level in 8 years. Currently, 48 percent of Americans say “doctor-assisted suicide” is morally wrong while just 45 percent say it is morally okay.

CNSNews: Anti-Christian violence continues in Pakistan and police are not pursuing the perpetrators, according to news reports.

The Illinois House of Representatives on Monday passed a gambling expansion bill that would bring a casino to Chicago.