Daily Archives: August 15, 2011

Statesman Journal | statesmanjournal.com (includes video): The group plans to begin collecting signatures in October for a possible 2012 ballot campaign, said Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon.

Catholic Culture: In an effort to counter the spread of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, police in the south-central state of Kogi, Nigeria, are monitoring sermons at churches and mosques.

LifeSiteNews.com: inance Minister Jim Flaherty told a group of policy consultants at a meeting in Wakefield, Que. last week that “Canada’s rapidly aging workforce” is a problem that is beginning to impact the federal government now, and cannot be relegated to the backburner to be dealt with sometime in the future.

Yahoo! News: Ron Paul, once seen as a fringe candidate and a nuisance to the establishment, is shaping the 2012 Republican primary by giving voice to the party’s libertarian wing and reflecting frustration with the United States’ international entanglements.

LifeNews.com: A study released last week by Human Rights Watch, entitled “Stop Making Excuses: Accountability for Maternal Health Care in South Africa,” highlights nearly the same facts that a MCCL Global Outreach white paper (“How South Africa is failing women and children”) stated back in January.

The Hill: The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Monday against a Missouri school district for using Internet-filtering software that blocks websites aimed at gays and lesbians.

Albert Mohler at LifeSiteNews.com: Evidently, the only acceptable “advice” is counseling that encourages a woman to abort the baby within her. This is the logic of the Culture of Death laid bare for all to see. Crisis pregnancy centers deserve the support of all who cherish the sanctity of life, the defense of the unborn, and the right of free speech. As defenders of life, crisis pregnancy centers should be committed to nothing less than comprehensive truth-telling. It is the Culture of Death, not the Culture of Life, that fears the truth.

LifeSiteNews.com: New guidelines issued this month by a medical professional regulator may strip United Kingdom pharmacists of their right to refuse to facilitate the distribution of the abortifacient morning-after pill.

LifeNews.com: You may have missed it, given that such occurrences have sadly become all too common, but another state has wasted good taxpayer dollars, pouring more money on unethical and unsuccessful embryonic stem cell research and ignoring life-saving adult stem cell research. The State of Connecticut recently announced the award of $9.8 million in state taxpayer funds for twenty stem cell research grants.

The New American: Homosexual activists have once again pressured the head of a trendy company heavily patronized by the “gay” community to back out of a scheduled speaking engagement sponsored by a Christian organization. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (pictured at left) was booked to speak August 12 at the annual Global Leadership Summit sponsored by the Chicago-based mega-church Willow Creek.

Standard Newswire: Operation Rescue has obtained eight new 911 recordings that reveal a scandalous pattern of botched abortions at two Albuquerque abortion clinics.

Asia News: A bomb exploded at around 1.30 am. No one was killed or injured, but the church was heavily damaged. The incident follows others against Kirkuk Christians in early August.

Fox News Latino: A year after Argentina became the first Latin American country to pass legislation to legalize homosexual civil unions, the gay marriage debate has heated up, as several countries consider similar bills.

Mike McManus The Daily Reporter: Marco Ciavolino, a computer consultant, created the Invisible Infants website and the spreadsheet which estimates that these people would have earned $5.7 trillion, (assuming an average per capita income of $26,000 according to Census). They would have paid $1.4 trillion in taxes!

The Christian Institute: People should be allowed to sell their kidneys for £28,000 in an NHS-regulated organ market, a medical academic at Dundee University has said. In an article in the British Medical Journal online this month, Dr Sue Rabbitt Roff called on the health service to offer financial rewards to living kidney donors to speed up NHS transplants and reduce costs . . .

The Christian Institute: Researchers have revealed that more than one in five 15 and 16-year-old girls who drink at least once a week have had drunken sex which they have later regretted.
The report also revealed that more than 15 per cent of boys have similar regrets. The report, compiled by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University . . .

CSMonitor.com: With an easy laugh and ample charm, Charmaine Yoest doesn’t at all appear to be Public Enemy No. 1 for the pro-abortion rights community. But the foundation of her rising influence – the accessibility of her approach – becomes clear when she settles in for an unexpectedly frank conversation about the stunning 2011 antiabortion legislative juggernaut that she has helped orchestrate.

E.B.S. Enterprises v. City of El Paso, No. 8-10-00088-CV (Tx. Ct. App. Aug. 10, 2011)

John Derbyshire at National Review Online: From that standpoint, I’d like to ask a question of the anti-Paulists. Here’s the question: Why are you so outraged by his assertion, in last Thursday night’s debate, that if the Iranians want to develop nuclear weapons, we should go ahead and let them?

News and Tribune: After months of researching ways to strengthen the Greenville adult entertainment laws, the town council voted 4-0 on July 18 in favor of the new ordinance.

TheUnion.com: On Tuesday, Supervisors are being asked by staff to extend a moratorium against adult businesses until September 2012, while county planners work on a draft to regulate the currently non-existent adult industry in Nevada County.

CBS St. Louis: A group of opponents is preparing to circulate a petition to amend the city’s ordinance on adult-oriented businesses. Their proposal would create a tighter definition of pornography and change the law’s definition of an adult business.

The Charlotte Observer: DURHAM Matt Phillippi organized stacks of postcards in the Carolina Theatre lobby Sunday, ready for ticket holders at the N.C. Gay and Lesbian Film Festival to sign requests that legislators withhold their support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Czech Leader Is Isolated in Opposing Gay Parade – NYTimes.com: President Vaclav Klaus is known for frankly voicing his opinions, and finding popular support. But the latest furor — over Prague’s first gay-pride festival — has left him more isolated than usual, roundly opposed by many in the Czech establishment and publicly at odds with the American ambassador.

Bob Marshall at BaltimoreSun.com: As a Catholic legislator, I disagree with Governor O’Malley. Sexual orientation is not limited to same- or complementary-sex attractions but includes attractions to children, prostitutes, multiple wives (polygamy) dead persons (necrophilia), animals, inanimate objects, and others that could not be printed in the Baltimore Sun out of deference to readers. Does the governor believe “equal protection” and the “right of the individual” to personal “sexual orientation” ever conflict with the common social good? There is no logical reason to draw a line anywhere if he succeeds in legalizing same-sex marriage.

ADF attorney Mike Norton appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the litigation. | MP3 audio 10:30 mins

Middle East Forum: Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is endemic, on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, I begin with this article a new series called “This Month in Muslim Persecution of Christians,” wherein some—by no means all—of the foulest instances of persecution that surface each month will be collated and assessed. The purpose of this series is two-fold: 1) Intrinsically, to document that which the MSM does not: Muslim persecution of Christians. 2) Instrumentally, to show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is ultimately rooted in Sharia.

Yahoo! News: According to the New York Times, law grads need to make at least $65,000 a year in order to keep up with their debt (which is non-dischargeable in bankruptcy). The law school industry has grown rapidly, even as the recession took a big bite out of the number of jobs at corporate law firms. Nine new law schools opened in the last 10 years, and the number of law degrees given out increased by 11 percent over the same period.

Kansas City Star: Kansas City Mayor Sly James vowed Sunday that he’d take steps to end large, nighttime gatherings of unsupervised teenagers and preteens on the Country Club Plaza by holding parents to account. How, he didn’t know.

Times.am: “Ambassador Ricciardone’s demonstrably false assertion betrays a callous disregard for Ottoman Turkey’s wholesale destruction of Christian churches, and for the fate of the millions of Christian faithful, who worshipped in their homeland within these holy sites until their genocidal annihilation,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA

AP: The calls have reached a point of repetitive regularity for civil rights lawyer Gadeir Abbas: A young Muslim American, somewhere in the world, is barred from boarding an airplane.

OneNewsNow.com: The American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an Ohio Ten Commandments case that deals with an issue that one attorney says is “constitutionally permissible.”

“Not Much Good Takes Place at Slumber Parties for High School Kids, and This Case Proves the Point”

The Washington Post: “Three years and more than 400 legal challenges later, courts — so far — have held that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Heller was narrow and limited, and that the Second Amendment does not interfere with the people’s right to enact legislation protecting families and communities from gun violence,” the center said in a report optimistically titled “Hollow Victory?”

The News-Sentinel: The issue of student free- speech rights has always been a contentious one. On one side are those who think school authorities and students exist in a microcosm, with the student “citizens” having the same rights in relation to educators as “government” that exist between citizen and government in the larger society. On the other side are those who argue that students’ rights can be limited by the need to maintain a structured learning environment; these are adults there to teach and children there to learn that we’re talking about, not equal partners . . .

Symposium Twenty Years After Employment Division v. Smith: Assessing the Twentieth Century’s Landmark Case On The Free Exercise of Religion And How It Changed History, 32 Cardozo L. Rev. (July 2011)

JournalNow.com: So what is he doing supporting, in effect, the work of the Alliance Defense Fund, which also fights against abortion and same-sex marriage? He’s not wild about the group, he indicated, but he believes in prayer to start the meetings.

Cox, Barbara J., Why Appellate Courts Have Rejected the Argument that the Defense of Marriage Act Trumps the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (January 15, 2011). California Western International Law Journal, Vol. 41, No. 189, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1903922

Religion Clause: Amicus Briefs In Hosanna-Tabor Case Are Available Online: All of the amicus briefs have now been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC, a case raising the question of the scope of the “ministerial exception” to federal non-discrimination laws.

AP: The city government says in a statement that about 6 percent of those getting married in same-sex weddings in the city are foreigners.

SCOTUSblog links to coverage and offers some insights.

SCOTUSblog: In our third symposium of the summer, guest bloggers will examine the future of the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 at the Court. [ADF attorney Brian Raum is a guest blogger along with several allied attorneys]

Education News: Vermont Law School, the price of standing on principle was $500,000. That’s how much school officials estimate they lost in federal money every year for refusing to allow military recruiters on campus because of their opposition to the Pentagon’s policy on gays in the uniformed services.

Education News: More and more Christian parents are having their daughters bid good-bye to Tagalongs, Thin Mints and Girl Scouts because of the organization’s relationship with Planned Parenthood, the largest player in America’s abortion industry.

Findlaw: Is a sperm donor the parent of your child? Well, biologically-speaking, he is. But, is he a “parent” in the sense that he is financially obligated to help you out? Several court cases say yes, forcing sperm donors to pay child support.

GPhilly: This likely does not give much consolation to same-sex couples who have won the right to marry only to face opponents in their own backyards. Apparently there could be an exception that allows clerks to pass off the responsibility based on religious freedom – something the Alliance Defense Fund in New York touts on its website.

CBN.com: Steve Aden is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a group that monitors sanctity of life issues across the nation. He points to recent undercover investigations by the pro-life group Live Action. The group shot undercover video purportedly showing Planned parenthood workers working with sex traffickers to provide abortions to underage girls. “They’ve ignored laws requiring the reporting of sex traffickers and the abuse of minors,” Aden said.

Judge Michael A. Martinez ruled that a voucher program designed by the Douglas County School District violated the state constitution because it sent public funds to schools that infused religion throughout their curriculum, required students and faculty to meet certain standards of faith and required students to attend religious services.

OneNewsNow.com: Casey Mattox, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defense Fund, says the student chapter of the Christian Legal Society was being discriminated against, as it was not included in the distribution of student activity fees. (See earlier story) “Every UM student and student group deserves to have their student fees distributed in a manner that complies with the First Amendment and doesn’t favor certain views over others,” contends Mattox.

Heritage Foundation: Obamacare has suffered a devastating blow. On Friday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the individual mandate in President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation is unconstitutional. With its ruling, the court affirmed the principle that the Constitution means what it says—Congress does not have unfettered power to force the American people to comply with any and all dictates it creates.

Lewis E. Lehrman at WSJ.com: By severing the dollar’s convertibility to gold in 1971, the president ushered in a decade of inflation and economic stagnation.

God Discussion (includes video): The Allliance Defense Fund (ADF), a Christian legal defense non-profit organization, received a $3.139 million matching grant from an undisclosed “generous Christian family” to fight discrimination and hostility toward Christians at secular universities.

Auburnpub.com: I have yet to obtain a copy of Belforti’s letter, but it is likely that the law she is citing is one that appears in an Alliance Defense Fund memo available on the New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms website. The memo refers to a state law requiring employers to “accommodate an employee’s religious observance.”

As politicians call for more online controls after London and Norway, authoritarian states are watching.

Justin Dyer at Public Discourse: Rick Perry’s prayer rally engendered accusations that he wrongly crossed the church-state divide. But great leaders in American history have long held that religion is a necessary basis for public morality.

The Hill: udge Nancy Freudenthal ruled that the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service policies that scaled-back the exemptions were issued without proper public notice and comment.

That British government officials are considering blocking access to social media sites as a means of curbing the rioting that has plagued that nation’s cities has led some Americans to wonder if such government actions could happen here.

The Hill: Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said Saturday he’s running for president, announcing his candidacy in South Carolina with a speech focused on jobs and the economy.

TheHill.com: Bachmann leaned on her Iowa roots and Tea Party credentials to secure victory at the straw poll, squeaking by Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) and handily dispatching former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty for the top spot in results.

Savannahnow.com: The national FCA, with help from Christian free speech advocates the Alliance Defense Fund, provides on the FCA website a 23-page handbook on members’ rights as a religious, school-based organization.

The Advocate: New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, a group of evangelical Protestants that lobbied against marriage equality, launched the Courage Fund to assist clerks who do not want to comply with the new law. The group, which contends that the new law does not offer adequate religious protections for clerks, posted a memo containing legal advice from the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian group, on its website

The Hill: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) dropped his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination following a disappointing finish at the Ames straw poll.

S. Michael Craven at the Center for Christ and Culture: I do not think it too strong or sensational to say that we are witnessing the collapse of Western civilization. Across the Western world, the fruits of apostasy and secularism are manifesting themselves in overwhelmingly destructive ways.

ADF attorney Brett Harvey and ADF Allied Attorney Mike Johnson at Winston Salem-Journal (8/8): The government has no business telling people how and to whom they should pray. The U.S. Constitution protects the right of individuals to pray consistent with their conscience and faith tradition. When the government tells citizens what is or isn’t acceptable to say in a prayer, it runs counter to the First Amendment, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

An illegal, Orwellian violation of free-speech rights? Or just a smart tactic to protect train passengers from rowdy would-be demonstrators during a busy evening commute? The question resonated Saturday in San Francisco and beyond as details emerged of Bay Area Rapid Transit officials’ decision to cut off underground cellphone service for a few hours at several stations Thursday.

LifeNews.com: On his first day on the campaign trail, Texas Gov. Rick Perry admitted he made a mistake on the sole issue pro-life advocates bring up as the lone black mark in an otherwise sterling pro-life record.

The University Bookman: Directions Back to the Public Square: About a third of the way through the book is an essay by Piero A. Tozzi, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, wherein the decline of universal rights is demonstrated to help the reader see that—minus an acknowledgement of, and adherence to, universal rights—the losses suffered by the Church must also be suffered by society at large. For instance, Tozzi writes about the “restoration” of ’48: a moment wherein both Europe and the world were emerging from the Nuremburg trials and subsequently reaching for “a universe whose rules were governed by natural law.” There was bald revulsion at what the Nazis had done, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) was penned to serve as a restraint on such things in the future. Tozzi is describing a point in time where even the secularists were brought face to face with the heinous outworking of Nietzsche’s “God is dead” paradigm, and even they had to seek a means to constrain behavior by re-asserting universal rights across the board.

NewsBusters.org (includes video): PAT BUCHANAN: No, I’m writing a note to Warren Buffett. But look, I’m a little fed up with these people who come on, you know, their big op-eds, all these admonitions. Why doesn’t he set an example and send a check for $5 billion to the federal government? He’s got about $40 billion.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcnewyork.com.

AP: Britain must confront a culture of laziness, irresponsibility and selfishness that fueled four days of riots which left five people dead, thousands facing criminal charges and hundreds of millions in damages, Prime Minister David Cameron acknowledged Monday.