Daily Archives: August 8, 2011

Catholic Culture: Arnold Archie Dass was slain in front of dozens of onlookers in the oldest Christian neighborhood in Karachi.

Catholic Culture: Chinese authorities have released a Catholic priest who had spent 4 months in prison in Hebei because of his refusal to join the government-backed Catholic Patriotic Association. But in Shandong, 4 other priests have been arrested for the same reason.

ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco on the Zeb Bell Show. | MP3 audio 17:24 mins

SeattlePI.com: A federal judge sided Monday with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in a dispute with organized labor, ruling that federal labor laws don’t prohibit “the expression of political animosity toward unions.”

Gary Bauer at Human Events: American atheists are a litigious bunch. They constitute a minuscule share of the American population—roughly 1%, according to most polls. Yet with the help of liberal judges and secular elites, they’ve spent the last few decades on a series of often successful courtroom crusades to eliminate all public recognition of Christianity.
Three current cases highlight the extremes . . .

The Blog of Legal Times: A three-judge panel this afternoon in Washington upheld the constitutionality of the ban against foreign citizens donating money to candidates in state and federal elections.

The Charleston Gazette: Fairness West Virginia, a statewide advocacy group that promotes civil rights and fair treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender residents, has launched a new campaign with the goal of creating effective anti-bullying policies in West Virginia.

Pro Life Blogs: This week, the Thomas More Society filed a “friend of the court” brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on behalf of more than 60 members of the Indiana General Assembly, in opposition to Planned Parenthood’s assertion that defunding abortion providers imposes an “unconstitutional condition” on physicians’ alleged right to perform abortions.

The Local: Artificial insemination costs vary widely across Sweden, forcing some same-sex couples to pay significantly more than heterosexual couples who save thousands of kronor by bringing their own sperm.

This year, close to $350 million dollars of US financial aid was rescinded due to amendments in the country’s penal code criminalizing sodomy.

Christian Concern: According to a recent news report, one in six clergy in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) and six other denominations is either an atheist or agnostic.

FoxNews.com: Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis believed Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was behind the assassination of her husband, according to tapes recorded by the former first lady just months after President John F. Kennedy’s death, the Daily Mail reports.

LifeNews.com: Wisconsin voters are headed to the polls tomorrow for the first of two recall election dates that a state pro-life group says are important because they will shape the direction of the state legislature on the issue of abortion.

FoxNews.com: Two doctors at a Pittsburgh abortion clinic gave hundreds of prescription diet pills over several years to a staffer seeking to treat anxiety and depression, state authorities said Tuesday in charging the three and a former registered nurse not affiliated with the clinic.

The Christian Institute: Dr Peter Saunders, writing on his Christian Medical Comment blog, warns that 203,444 abortions were performed on UK residents in 2009. However, in stark contrast just 91 babies under the age of one were adopted during the same year.

Politico: As if his intentions weren’t clear already, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is planning to make sure America considers him a presidential candidate in remarks planned for Saturday in Sourth Carolina.

The News Journal: For years, the Sussex County Council has opened each of its meetings with the recitation of the Protestant version of the Lord’s Prayer. Despite requests to stop this practice, the council continued. Now, Sussex County and the council are facing a lawsuit filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based religious liberty watchdog group.

The West Australian: “I see no reason why State schools should ban it,” Archbishop Hickey said. “I think that if the majority of the children affirm some sort of Christian affiliation, then it’s perfectly legitimate to have that prayer said in government schools.”

Calgary Herald: But 17 years later, her fight has been renewed in Vancouver by two groups challenging the Criminal Code offence of helping in a suicide. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association, acting on behalf of a Kelowna woman with ALS, is asking that the offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, be tossed out. So, in a separate action, is the Lower Mainlandbased Farewell Foundation for the Right to Die.

digtriad.com: A debate is raging in the United Kingdom over the prospect of allowing students to sell organs for tuition money.

Rasmussen Reports™: new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters think the federal government today has the consent of the governed. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe the government does not have that consent.

Reuters (includes video): President Barack Obama on Monday blamed a downgrade in the United States’ credit rating on political gridlock in Washington and said he would offer some recommendations on how to reduce federal deficits.

Religion Clause: Cuba’s president, Raul Castro, gave a speech (full text) to Cuba’s Parliament (Legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power) on Monday, reviewing economic and other developments in recent months. A lengthy section of his speech was captioned: “A Painful Indictment Caused by Errors in the Implementation of the Cadre Policy and Attitudes Toward Religion.”

The New American: For over 10 years Ohio judge James DeWeese (left) has fought for his constitutionally guaranteed right to display the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. And during that entire time he has been thwarted by a series of federal court rulings fueled by manipulative arguments of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Now, with the help of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), Judge DeWeese will try to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Atlas Shrugs: Also, due to the attention you brought to the story, I had the opportunity to speak to 2 attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund who had agreed to defend me should I have been indicted. They went the extra step of offering to come to our county and help us put into place a working plan of action to try to avoid suit by any hateful groups, but that plan also came along with a promise to defend our county at no cost against any suit that should arise in spite of our plan of action. I’m still working on trying to get the judge to agree to meeting with them, but it is a great opportunity for our county.

Religion Clause: In Harrison v. Tauheed, (KA Sup. Ct., Aug. 5, 2011), the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed a trial judge’s decision to award custody of a 5-year old boy to the child’s mother, a Jehovah’s Witness, over the objections of the child’s father who also sought custody.

Religion Clause: In the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the government has ordered schools to incorporate “Gita Sar”– the essence of Gita– into the curriculum. According to yesterday’s Indian Express, the Catholic Bishops Council last month filed suit asking the Madhya Pradesh high court to order the government to instead include a summary of all religions in the curriculum, and not to favor a particular faith.

AP: The Obama administration has unveiled plans to give school districts a break from the stringent testing mandates in the No Child Left Behind Law, as long as they pursue other reform efforts.

ADF attorney Daniel Blomberg on KPXQ with Tom Brown. | MP3 audio 12:20 mins

Janie B. Cheaney at WORLDmag.com: The ADF sees potential disaster in that. “The power to tax is the power to destroy,” wrote John Marshall (1819) in the McCulloch v. Maryland case, which involved a bank, but the ADF applies Marshall’s statement to the Church—in fact, all faiths.

California Catholic Daily: When news broke of Cohen’s plans in June, pro-life legal groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the Life Legal Defense Foundation vowed to challenge the law in court. Life Legal Defense Foundation called claims that pregnancy resource centers mislead women “patently false.” “Although this type of legislation is an underhanded attack on the free-speech rights of [pregnancy resource centers], it should perhaps also be viewed as an indication of their success in assisting abortion-minded women,” LLDF said in a June 14 statement about the controversy. “Abortion proponents are suddenly seeing it necessary to try to cut out the competition.”

SeattlePI.com: “Christians shouldn’t be threatened with arrest and censored by being quarantined to isolated ‘expression areas’ when they want to share their beliefs,” said Nate Kellum, senior counsel wih the Alliance Defense Fund, in a statement. Kellum said the ordinance violates the “protected right to free speech in public areas at a free event that’s open to everyone.”

American Medical News: The plaintiffs have not decided whether to appeal Lamberth’s dismissal but are considering all options, said Steve Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund in Washington, part of the plaintiffs’ legal team. “In these tough economic times, it makes no sense for the federal government to use taxpayer money for this illegal and unethical purpose.”

Jack Telfer Midland Daily News: Blogs: Alliance Defense Fund attorneys have filed the suit against the U.S. Postal Service, saying it unconstitutionally prohibited the man from handing out the tracts

JournalNow.com: “Effectively, they are being punished for the demographics of the community they serve,” said Mike Johnson, the attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund who argued the county’s case.

WorldNetDaily: A Michigan woman is suing her county over limiting her petition gathering to a 3-by-3-foot square of ground in a 135-acre park, a restriction one attorney said is in the running for the title of the “most unconstitutional [free] speech zone ever.” . . . Attorney Heater Gebelin Hacker of the Alliance Defense Fund, agrees with the ACLU’s assessment, writing in a blog post that the park’s decision may be in the running to win “the title of ‘Most Unconstitutional Speech Zone Ever.’”

Sister Mary Ann Walsh at the Huffington Post: Now, however, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has gone beyond nuzzling its nose where it does not belong. It has plunked itself right in the middle of the sanctuary. It is trying to define what a religion does and does not do. This misguided move comes with a proposed HHS regulation to guide implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The regulation for the new health care reform bill demands that all health plans pay for contraceptives, sterilizations and education to use both.

Case challenging California anti-same-sex measure continues next month in state Supreme Court | The American Independent:

Beliefnet News: Seven of eight Forsyth County, North Carolina, commissioners say they will accept an offer from group of Christian attorneys to fight this week’s ban on praying in “Jesus’ name” all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court . . .The county will not be spending taxpayer dollars on the case since all costs will be picked up by a group of Christian attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund.

Dent, George W., Families We Choose? Visions of a World Without Blood Ties (July 18, 2011). Case Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2011-12. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1888400

AP: They defied the bishops to support President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Now Catholic hospitals are dismayed the law may force them to cover birth control free of charge to their employees.

AP: China is vowing to strengthen enforcement to prevent sex-selective abortions and close a yawning gender gap in a country that already has tens of millions more boys than girls.

The Washington Post: Czech President Vaclav Klaus is lashing out at 13 ambassadors for their support of a gay pride festival in the Czech capital.

Ours is nation built on liberty, the ideals of Western Civilization, and prayer. It is also a nation under assault by people who wish to erase prayer from the list . . .

AP: Hundreds of thousands of Somali children could die in the country’s famine unless more help arrives, a top U.S. official said Monday as Washington prepared to announce $100 million in new famine aid

CNBC: “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default” said Greenspan on NBC’s Meet the Press. “What I think the S&P thing did was to hit a nerve that there’s something basically bad going on, and it’s hit the self-esteem of the United States, the psyche” said Greenspan

NYTimes.com: President Obama made history when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court. He did it again with his second nominee, Elena Kagan, raising the number of women on the nation’s highest court to three.

TheHill.com: Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) high-profile prayer gathering Saturday is set to pave the way for his possible but increasingly likely late entry into the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Hill: Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a possible 2012 Republican presidential contender, led a crowd at Houston’s Reliant Arena Saturday in a televised prayer-meeting. In his comments, Perry called on Americans to ask God to guide the nation’s leaders.

The Hill: The fallout from the nation’s credit downgrade continued Monday, as Standard & Poor’s announced government-sponsored housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also getting their top rating slashed.

TheHill.com: John Chambers, the chairman of Standard & Poor’s sovereign debt ratings, on Sunday estimated that it could take between 9 and 18 years for the nation to regain its AAA credit rating.

TheHill.com: resident Obama’s economic advisers are waging a fierce pushback against Standard & Poor’s decision to strip the nation of its AAA credit rating.

CNBC: The man who leads one of China’s top rating agencies says the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency is set to wane as the world’s most powerful policy makers convene to examine the implication of S&P’s decision to strip the United States of its triple “A” rating.