Daily Archives: July 18, 2011

CanadianBusiness.com: An abortion rights group is challenging a new North Dakota law that restricts how medicines can be used to induce abortions. | Center for Reproductive Rights press release

The Christian Institute: Cases of sexually transmitted infections in Scotland have trebled in the space of just ten years, prompting critics to call for a re-think in sexual health policy.

Toronto Sun: Security guards were planning to keep a close eye as Toronto-area Hindus and followers of other faiths gather for a press conference Monday afternoon to protest against Muslims students being allowed to pray in a North York public school.

LifeSiteNews.com: A pro-family coalition in New York is organizing marches and rallies throughout the state on the day the new same-sex “marriage” law takes effect, to demand that the legislature allow the voters to make the final decision on the definition of marriage.

LifeSiteNews.com: America’s top pornography opponent is sponsoring a series of webcast events focusing on how pornography harms one of its most forgotten victims: children. Morality in Media’s (MIM) four-week “Be Aware: Porn Harms” National Awareness Campaign enters its second week on July 18th.

LifeNews.com: A new report issued in the United Kingdom alleges that two abortion businesses, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (bpas) and Marie Stopes International (MSI), are pressuring women into having abortions.

Liberty Counsel: Liberty Counsel has filed a brief requesting summary judgment in the lawsuit Taylor v. Roswell against the Roswell Independent School District, for retaliating against a Christian group called Relentless in Roswell. The school punished and suspended members of the group for buying and giving fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts with Bible verses to each of their teachers.

A decision by a federal appeals court in New Orleans threatens to undermine hard-won gains by gays and lesbians, and the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review it.

Jacksonville.com: Two Jacksonville nude dance clubs are running out of ways to stay at their current locations. This year, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that zoning and municipal codes approved by City Council in 2005 and 2010 legally allowed the city to evict the Doll House on Atlantic Boulevard and the New Solid Gold Club on Blanding Boulevard. Lawyers for the two clubs asked for a rehearing on some issues, but the court refused

Chicago Sun-Times: For 18 years, the city of Chicago has been trying to shut down what’s now known as VIP’s A Gentlemen’s Club, whose politically connected owner, Perry Mandera, boasts that he runs “Chicago’s only full liquor & topless bar.”

KQED News Fix: The ACLU of Northern California filed a court brief Friday supporting an effort to block a ballot measure that would ban juvenile male circumcision in San Francisco.

Journal Sentinel Online: Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s decision to block the judicial nomination of a University of Wisconsin law professor has drawn a pointed letter of protest from a group of legal academics around the country.
Johnson has singlehandedly held up consideration of Victoria Nourse for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which reviews federal cases from Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.

ADF attorney Holly Carmichael appeared on the Georgene Rice Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 10:52 mins

The Volokh Conspiracy: From Electronic Privacy Information Center v. United States Department of Homeland Security (D.C. Cir., decided this morning) . . .

NYTimes.com: Islam is blossoming in Tajikistan. Beards are in style. Headscarves, too. Bazaars are doing a booming trade in prayer rugs, religious audio recordings and gaudy clocks featuring Muslim holy sites.

Religion Clause: The Texas Independent reported Friday that this week the Texas State Board of Education will again be debating evolution as it meets to select supplemental science curriculum materials for public schools.

Religion Clause: Yesterday, Chris Wallace interviewed Herman Cain, a candidate for the Republican nomination for President (full transcript). A portion of the interview focused on Cain’s sometimes controversial views of Muslim Americans. Here is an extensive excerpt from the interview . . .

Catholic Culture : In her more recent monthly column devoted to Catholic issues from a Latino perspective, the assistant director of media relations at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops likened the legalization of same-sex marriage to a farcical decree that mandates that apples be called “oranges.”

The Observer: exual violence is one of the most horrific weapons of war, an instrument of terror used against women. Yet huge numbers of men are also victims. In this harrowing report, Will Storr travels to Uganda to meet traumatised survivors, and reveals how male rape is endemic in many of the world’s conflicts

AP: More than half of emerging nonprofit news sites produce content with a clear ideological bent, according to a study released Monday by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Catholic Culture: Anti-Christian violence in Iraq left 92 dead and 47 wounded in 2010, making the year the worst to date for the Christian minority, according to the human-rights group Hammurabi.

ADF attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the recent victory in New York and ADF’s ongoing commitment to defend Pregnancy Care Centers. | MP3 audio 12:20 mins

The Ninth Circuit Court on Friday evening put back into effect temporarily the U.S. military’s ban on gays and lesbians from serving openly in the services, but also barred any investigations, penalties or discharges of anyone to carry out that policy.

Catholic Culture: rish government leaders have insisted that they will not allow the secrecy of the confessional to limit the scope of new legislation that would require reporting of all complaints of child abuse.

TheHill.com: The House Rules Committee is expected to take up the measure on Monday, and it is likely to receive a floor vote on Tuesday. The measure would cut spending in Fiscal Year 2012 by $111 billion, cap future spending at 18 percent of gross domestic product and approve a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It would also raise the debt limit.

LifeNews.com: On Wednesday, July 20, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) will make public its recommendation for what should be included in the “preventive care for women” mandate under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the health care reform law passed by Congress in 2010. It seems likely the IOM announcement will spell doom for rights of conscience.

NY Law Journal: Almost 60 judges in New York City have volunteered to help remove the last legal roadblock to the immediate weddings of gay and lesbian couples once they finally are recognized by the state on a Sunday in 10 days, court officials said yesterday.

ADF attorney Casey Mattox appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 12:50 mins

Seeing Red AZ Blog linked in Tucson Citizen: What better time for another accolade* to the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) — a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith? . . . ADF Senior Legal Counsel Byron Babione argued the case of Centro Familiar Cristiano Buenos Nuevas Christian Church v. City of Yuma.

NYTimes.com: This time is different, and not only because the parties have switched roles. Now, conservative House Republicans have a virtual veto over a measure to increase the debt ceiling, and some freshmen in both chambers say they worry more about changing the ways of Washington than about getting re-elected.

TheHill.com: A Saturday meeting between President Obama and the Dalai Lama has further strained relations between the U.S. and its biggest foreign creditor, China.

Christian Post: Dale Schowengerdt is with Alliance Defense Fund and has written a memo on Professor Banzhaf’s complaint. “Christian colleges should not feel compelled to maintain co-ed living arrangements simply because a law professor in D.C. demands it,” said Schowengerdt. “As long as Catholic University or any other institution does not give one party an advantage over the other, then there is no discrimination. Plus, I believe a religious school’s right to maintain separate living quarters for men and women is protected by the Constitution and federal law.”

NCPA Policy Digest: In today’s difficult job market, many bright students are turning to grad school. Historically, graduate school has repaid students’ investment handsomely — and, for some, that may still be the case. But students should recognize that rising education costs and long years of study make inroads into the value of that investment, says Jenna Ashley Robinson of the Pope Center for Higher Education.

Reuters: The credit ratings agencies are again angering governments, but this time they are taking on the big fish of the world economy.

Kathryn Lopez at The Register-Mail also at National Review: As for the lawsuit against CUA, according to a memo prepared by Dale Schowengerdt, an attorney at the Alliance Defense Fund: “Catholic colleges should not feel compelled to maintain co-ed dorms simply because a lone attorney in D.C. is threatening to sue. No court has ever held that a college must maintain co-ed dorms. And based on well-established law, it is very unlikely that a court would do so.”

Hot Air: Judge William Pauley III called the new law “offensive to free-speech principles” and halted its enactment while a lawsuit filed on behalf of two pregnancy-care centers and a maternity home by the Alliance Defense Fund continues.

Baltimore Sun: When motorists complained about the graphic nature of the posters, the state police ordered the demonstrators, members of the Alliance Defense Fund, to leave the county. Police then arrested the group members, saying they had failed to obey a lawful order.

Vatican Information Service: At midday today the Holy See released an English-language declaration regarding the episcopal ordination of Fr. Joseph Huang Bingzhang, which took place on Thursday 14 July in the diocese of Shantou (Province of Guangdong, Mainland China).