Daily Archives: June 20, 2011

ADF, allies to appeal ruling that allows ‘domestic partnership’ scheme to skirt voter-approved marriage amendment

Kevin Theriot at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: But property isn’t the only thing they’re trying to tax. Cash strapped municipalities are also starting to assess churches with “fees” that are really just taxes in disguise.

LifeNews.com: Taxpayers should be on the hook for abortions done on women and unborn children at military base hospitals, according to new legislation several Senate Democrats filed in order to advance an agenda item they’ve pushed in the past.

NJ.com: New Jersey Senate President Stephen Sweeney says his choice last year not to vote for gay marriage was the worst decision of his nine-year legislative career.

LifeSiteNews.com: The Supreme Court of Canada said last Thursday that it will not hear an appeal by a group of traditional Anglican parishes in British Columbia that had been threatened with the loss of their churches after they broke away from the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) due to its endorsement of homosexuality.

LifeSiteNews.com: U.S. scientists reported last week they have been able to develop potentially “self-healing” lasers that could be used in the human body for treating diseases such as cancer. The lasers, however, use human embryonic cells in a controversial experiment that has not yet been approved by the FDA.

Reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg quoted an unnamed Democratic strategist close to the White House, who said that the President’s advisers are considering the political costs, if any, of such an action.

NBC Washington: Catholic University’s plan to convert to single-sex dorms could face a legal challenge.

The Blog of Legal Times: The U.S. House Judiciary Committee could vote as soon as this week on legislation that would restore a system of mandatory sanctions on lawyers who file frivolous lawsuits.

Christian Concern: Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), has commented on religious discrimination in the UK. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Phillips singled out evangelical Christians for criticism. He said: “I think the most likely victim of actual religious discrimination in British society is a Muslim but the person who is most likely to feel slighted because of their religion is an evangelical Christian.”

The Christian Institute: Offering free morning-after pills (MAPs) in Wales has had little impact on teenage pregnancy, a BBC documentary has revealed.

The Christian Institute: A further two churches are openly considering leaving the Church of Scotland (C of S) as the fallout continues from its decision to permit openly homosexual clergy.

LifeNews.com: The campaign manager for Ron Paul is the latest to go after Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who decided against signing a pro-life pledge distributed by the Susan B. Anthony List.

Details on today’s opinions : SCOTUSblog: This morning the Court issued four decisions.

AP: A lawyer and a college professor from the United States celebrated Nepal’s first public lesbian wedding ceremony Monday in the Himalayan nation that recently began recognizing gay rights and drafting laws to end sexual discrimination.

AP: Bucking the state’s powerful public employee unions, the New Jersey Senate on Monday passed a bill requiring sharply higher contributions for health benefits and pensions from more than a half-million government workers, while suspending unions’ ability to bargain over health care.

The Roanoke Times: The Republican-run House of Delegates and the Democratic-controlled Senate have been unable to reach an agreement on filling the high court vacancies, or replacing judges on the Virginia Court of Appeals who may get promoted to the Supreme Court . . . Gov. Bob McDonnell isn’t holding his breath. The Republican governor said he is preparing to make the appointments himself, anticipating that the General Assembly won’t get the job done before it adjourns its redistricting session.

How Appealing reports on a recent BYU study and other materials indicating Justices react differently to attorneys depending on their gender.

The Tennessean: Today, Crain and his team of four young lawyers defend clients across the country who feel their religious rights are being trampled. Crain is a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian advocacy group with a nearly $60 million budget.
Most of the time, he wins.

As demonstrators on both sides of the same-sex marriage debate are having their voices heard inside the state capitol, NY1 has learned the State Senate is unlikely to vote on the issue today.

ADF attorney Brian Raum at the Speak Up Movement Blog: Something is rotten in the states of America… And it isn’t the state of marriage. Despite a relentless pop-culture, a Big Media and education establishment-led propaganda campaign, and flawed polls screaming that marriage as we know it is doomed in the U.S., support for this foundation of our society is actually alive and well.

AP: “The Vatican will submit a long-overdue report on its treatment of children to the United Nations this fall, the Holy See’s envoy in Geneva said Monday.”

AP: Kenya for the first time on Monday saw two judges sworn in to the country’s Supreme Court, a new judicial body created as part of political reforms after the country’s 2007-08 political violence.

ADF attorney Jordan Lorence at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: The Alliance Defense Fund has petitioned the Second Circuit to rehear the Bronx Household of Faith case en banc, which means that all eleven judges will decide whether to rehear the case.

Life News: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

One News Now: Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) is asking that the full court hear the appeal. “We are asking the full Second Circuit to hear this case because the U.S. Supreme Court has already definitely ruled that the government must allow religious groups to have the same access that other groups have,” he explains.

One News Now: California-based attorney Michael Newdow and the Freedom From Religion Foundation agreed to drop a case that challenged the constitutionality of the pastoral housing allowance exemption.

Rasmussen Reports: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of American Adults shows that 49% name their mother as being the more influential parent in their upbringing. One-in-three adults (33%) say their father was more influential.

Rasmussen Reports: “Seventy-three percent (73%) continue to believe that being a father is the most important role a man can fill in today’s world. This, too, has changed little over the past several years.”

Findlaw: “Internet minders voted Monday to allow virtually unlimited new domain names based on themes as varied as company brands, entertainment and political causes, in the system’s biggest shake-up since it started 26 years ago.”

Wendy Wright at the American Thinker: Don’t buy it. When people say that same-sex “marriage” is inevitable, recognize it for the peer-pressure, crowd-mentality, intimidation tactic that it is . . . The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) commissioned the survey . . . ADF noted, “Marriage is a social, cultural, economic, and moral good. Americans believe this. … Altogether, a total of 63 million Americans have voted on state marriage amendments . . .

Christian Post: The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, has also been concerned that pastors have been unduly avoiding political topics out of legal concerns. In fact, the ADF has gone further by openly challenging a 1954 provision in the tax code that says non-profit groups (including churches) may not “participate in, or intervene in” political campaigns . . .

Crosswalk: “The Establishment Clause is being misunderstood to mean that you cannot accommodate religious private speech as opposed to other private speech,” said Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, one of the lawyers for the Bronx, N.Y., church that sought to rent from a local middle school. “They have their dance recitals, Boy Scout meetings, union meetings, worship services. Nothing is transformed. The meeting doesn’t work some architectural alchemy on the building.”

Washington Independent: U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Kiron) successfully introduced an amendment to the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2012, HR 2112, to prevent any appropriations made possible by the bill to be used for mifepristone, for any purpose

Fox News: NBC issued an on-air apology Sunday for omitting the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance during its coverage of golf’s U.S. Open.

VolunteerTv.com: A judge in Corpus Christi, Texas had some harsh words for a mother charged with spanking her own child before sentencing her to probation. “You don’t spank children today,” said Judge Jose Longoria. “In the old days, maybe we got spanked, but there was a different quarrel. You don’t spank children.”

Freedom isn’t that complicated. As freedom-loving Americans, we all know when it is violated. This is why there was an immediate and clear public outcry when there was an attempt to censor citizens’ speech at the Medina Valley High School graduation. Most everyone knew that this attempt, backed by threat of “incarceration,” was wrong.

Fox News: A high school valedictorian in Vermont was forbidden by school administers from delivering nearly half of his graduation speech in which he discussed how Jesus had changed his life.  ”I was just sharing a story about my life and how it was changed,” said Kyle Gearwar, the valedictorian at Fair Haven Union High School. “And as an American and as a valedictorian I felt that I should have been able to do that.”

“Clearly a determined effort is afoot … to anathematize traditional views of sexual morality … as the expression of ‘hate’ that cannot be tolerated in a decent civil society. The argument over same-sex marriage must be brought to an end, and the debate considered settled.”