Daily Archives: August 29, 2011

Rich Lowry at National Review Online: But it only means that marriage is unraveling in a different way. According to a new study by the Institute for American Values and the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, cohabitation has increased 14-fold since 1970. About 24 percent of children are born to cohabiting couples, more than are born to single mothers, while another 20 percent experience a cohabiting household at some time in their childhood.

SCOTUSblog: Professor Singer argues for same-sex marriage legislation stripped of any accommodations for religious organizations or individuals who adhere to a traditional view of marriage. The religious liberty accommodations I and others have worked to secure would allow such individuals and organizations to step aside from facilitating any marriage when doing so would violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. These exemptions would not allow religious individuals in commerce or government employment to act as a roadblock on the path to marriage. Instead, they cabin the ability to object to only those situations when no substantial hardship for same-sex couples would result.

SCOTUSblog: University of Maryland School of Law professor Jana Singer responds to Robin Wilson as part of our same-sex marriage symposium.

SCOTUSblog: Northwestern University’s Andrew Koppelman responds to posts from William Duncan and John Eastman for our same-sex marriage symposium.

Perth Now: The homework given to 14 and 15-year-olds at Armadale Christian College, also also points them to bible quotes describing homosexuality as an “abomination”, and describes “coming out of the closet” as “open sinning”.

EuropeNews:
“Ali” (Not his real name), an Asylum seeker in an immigration centre in Jaeren, Norway, had boiling water poured over him after he converted to Christianity and would not comply with Ramadan fasting rules. He and the other converts at the centre now fear for their lives

LifeSiteNews.com: Amid the crumbling ruins of an empire that had condemned the traditional family as a bourgeois institution, the Russian people are now witnessing a population free-fall as the youngest population is being eliminated at the staggering rate of seven abortions per woman. In the last 20 years, an estimated 80 million unborn Russian children are believed to have been aborted.

Asia News: According to the police they were proselytizing among the Dalits and poor Hindus. Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians: “The situation is alarming. The Dalits are empowered by Christian prayer and Hindus are afraid of this.

DOJ: The Justice Department filed a complaint today against the city of Lilburn, Ga., alleging that the city violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA) when it rejected the Dar-E-Abbas Shia Islamic Center’s requests for rezoning to construct a mosque. Both parties have agreed to a consent decree that will be filed on Aug. 29, 2011.

Forbes: In June, he tweeted a cartoon of Minnie Mouse in a burqa, and Islamists worldwide threatened him with death. Now, as Egypt wavers between an Islamist and a democratic future, billionaire telecom scion and art patron Naguib Sawiris wants to be his country’s next leader – and he’s founded a political party – the Free Egyptian Party — as he prepares to do just that.

LifeNews.com: Transhumanists hunger for technology that will take an otherwise healthy individual and enhance him or her beyond normal human ability.

AP: Blackburn didn’t address whether the law is constitutional. Instead, she says she needs more time to consider lawsuits filed by the Justice Department, private groups and individuals that claim the state is overstepping its bounds with the law.

LifeNews.com: One side is “conservative” and “antiabortion.” The other side is not labeled liberal, but they are “reproductive-health activists,” and the Guttmacher Institute . . .

LifeNews.com: A pro-life organization that focuses on population issues is sponsoring a new petition to urge Congress to restore the Mexico City Policy on abortion that resident Barack Obama overturned during his first week in office.

Christian Newswire: Because of the serious implications the case holds for impeding religious liberty and freedom of speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Alliance Defense Fund has gotten involved. The ADF is a national organization committed to protecting religious freedoms, and is working with Mauck’s firm on behalf of the Juarez and Sanchez brothers.

Lucy Daglish at LaTimes.com: “It is time for the courts to acknowledge that video records are a natural, lawful and useful evolution in the American judicial tradition of open court proceedings.”

R. Reeves and Anthony J. Franze of Arnold Porter at the National Law Journal: In the 2010-11 term, nearly 50 years to the day after Mapp was decided, the Court in  Turner v. Rogers, 131 S. Ct. 2507 (2011), again based its decision on an argument raised exclusively in an amicus brief — this time one submitted by the Office of the Solicitor General.

The Social Security Act authorizes the payment of benefits to the dependent children of deceased workers. This case requires us to determine whether a child conceived through artificial insemination more than a year after her father’s death qualifies for benefits under the Act.

Religion Clause: In at least two school districts around the country, prayer at high school football games continues to generate controversy . . .

Religion Clause: The Prague Daily Monitor and Czech Position both report on the agreement reached on Aug. 24 between a Czech government commission and church representatives on compensating churches for property seized by the former Communist regime of Czechoslovakia.

Religion Clause: The ruling means that the painting will be banned from exhibitions, newspapers, magazines and television under the provisions Art. 13 of of Russia’s Federal Law No. 114 FZ on Counteraction of Extremist Activities (2002).

MarketWatch: The US-China Legal Cooperation Fund has announced its most recent round of grants for rule-of-law projects in China.

Cristina Odone at Telegraph Blogs: Forget the moral rights and wrongs. Forget, too, talk of a woman’s right vs a baby’s right. Britons should see abortion as a consumer issue.

The Guardian: The Department of Health confirmed that it would change the rules to ensure that women are also offered counselling “independently” of existing abortion services.

Lloyd Marcus at Renew America: Whether you agree with the Bible or not is irrelevant. My point is Bachmann did not “make up” her take on homosexuality. It came from a holy book considered sacred by mega-millions worldwide. So, when Gregory beat up on Bachmann, he was really attacking Christians and the Bible.

Jaweed Kaleem at the Huffington Post: Conventional wisdom may suggest that religious groups generally oppose same-sex marriage and legal rights for gay Americans, but a new survey released Monday afternoon suggests there are major religious groups on both sides of the debate. According to the survey, young people are driving public opinion to the tipping point on both gay marriage and theological acceptance of gay people. The poll, conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute . . .

In practical terms, what Paul proposes is removing abortion-related legislation from the jurisdiction of the federal courts rather than fighting to overturn Roe v. Wade . . .

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit against Christian student organizations at San Diego State University.

San Antonio Express-News: Federal Judge Sam Sparks is expected to rule before Thursday on a challenge to the law by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Ed Feulner at Townhall Conservative: There’s still a long way to go, of course. School choice isn’t as widely available as it should be, and teachers’ unions continue to fight it at every step. And although the trend lines are moving in the right direction, we can’t rest until every child has access to the school that best meets his or her needs. Our nation’s future depends on it.

OneNewsNow.com: Traditional marriage groups in North Carolina are pressing for a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in their state.

Spyridon Mitsotakis at FrontPage Magazine: Americans today need to understand that the feminist movement is rooted less in concern for every woman and more in far-left politics—even communist politics. There is a specter haunting the feminist movement, and that specter does not have the interest of women first, especially not conservative women.

Richard Komer at WSJ.com: The 2010 elections had many obvious effects, but one of the lesser-known is that they revived the school-choice movement in a big way. Although many education writers had assumed the movement was dead, there have been far more efforts to pass school-choice programs this year than ever and, more importantly, the success rate has gone up too.

Three days before the event Dr. Turek was abruptly fired by an HR representative. Why? She explained that someone Googled his name and discovered that he had written Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone.

The Hill: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said the gay community has “gone out on a jihad” against him for his stance against gay marriage.

LifeNews.com: A new reported issued by the pro-life group Life Dynamics proves that Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry in the United States target black and Hispanic Americans by placing abortion facilities in communities with high minority populations. Titled, “Racial Targeting and Population Control,” the new report validates the claims pro-life advocates have made for years . . .

Findlaw: Sexual orientation self-identification, like race, ethnicity, and religion, is optional, but self-identifying could benefit an applicant. Elmhurst College officials have indicated that the school is trying to increase diversity, and applicants with LGBT self-identification may be eligible for more scholarship money.

The Hill: In a memo to rank-and-file Republicans, Cantor said the House will target 10 major regulations for elimination, and will also seek to enact one major tax cut for businesses.

Helen Alvarea at Public Discourse: Religious communities are an essential part of the fabric of America, even over and above the vital services they provide to weak and vulnerable members of our communities; we must protect their conscience rights against legal coercion.

ABQJournal Online: adets in the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Department will head over to their boss’s church today for a graduation ceremony. And the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico is urging Sheriff Dan Houston to switch the venue to avoid “religious coercion.”

Religion Clause: Report Traces “Roots of the Islamophobia Network In America“: Last week, the Center for American Progress issued a 130-page report titled Fear, Inc.– The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America . . . The report identifies “five experts [who] generate the false facts and materials used by political leaders, grassroots groups, and the media.” One of those leaders, Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, yesterday posted a strongly worded rebuttal.

Religion Clause: The New York Times reports that on Saturday, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a decree returning to minority religious groups hundreds of properties that have been seized since 1936.

Greeley Gazette: Beginning in 2008, the Alliance Defense Fund – one of the nation’s premier legal groups – launched the Pulpit Freedom Sunday Initiativeto help the church regain its much-needed voice in this arena.

OneNewsNow.com: District Attorney Keith Treadway believes the law prohibits prayers over the public address (PA) system at sporting events, but Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Institute says the Freedom From Religion Foundation is misinforming people. “You have a right to speak a religious thought, even if it’s on government property, even if it’s on a PA system that’s government -owned, even if it’s on a public street, a public park, which are also government property,” he contends.

Education News: Bad parenting at the age of 16 made children more than eight times more likely to become binge drinkers at that age and twice as likely to drink excessively when they reached the age of 34, independent think tank Demos found.

Education News: Weeks after Indiana began the nation’s broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were recently on the brink of closing.

The state-run California Science Center has agreed to pay $110,000 to settle a lawsuit by American Freedom Alliance against the center for violating AFA’s First Amendment protected free speech right to advocate intelligent design.

Sheila Liaugminas at Mercatornet.com: This May, a poll commissioned by Public Opinions Strategies for the Alliance Defense Fund found that 62 percent of those surveyed agreed with this statement: “I believe marriage should be defined only as a union between one man and one woman.” Fifty-three percent strongly agreed, while just 35 percent disagreed.

Beliefnet News: “Public school principals, teachers, and staff members should not be threatened for exercising their constitutionally protected right to organize and participate in private, religious events in their personal capacities. Contrary to what the Freedom From Religion Foundation is arguing, this is not a government establishment of religion by any stretch of the imagination, except theirs,” said attorney David Cortman from the Alliance Defense Fund, a non-profit that has committed to defend the district in court if necessary.

Baptist Press: “If Planned Parenthood truly cared about what’s best for women, they wouldn’t be repeatedly going to court around the nation to stop laws that allow women to make fully informed choices,” said Steven Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which helped defend the law before the appeals court. “The court ruled rightly in this case in rejecting the arguments of the nation’s largest purveyor of abortion,” Aden said. “The protection of women is not unconstitutional.”

Lake View News: The Alliance Defense Fund, an organization who represents victims of the ACLU’s abuses sent our superintendent a letter dated August 8, offering to assist the Camdenton R-III School District in this matter. The administration thanked ADF for its offer and is working with its attorney at this time, declining ADF’s offer.

AP: A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments Monday on whether he should unseal video recordings of last year’s landmark trial on the constitutionality of the voter-approved measure, known as Proposition 8.

AP: The deputy leader of Nepal’s former Maoist rebels took the oath of office as prime minister Monday and began forming a government that will attempt to complete a contentious and long-delayed peace process.

LaTimes.com: So far the courts have limited guns mostly to the home. But the National Rifle Assn. is asking the Supreme Court to clarify that the right extends further.

The Washington Post: After months of partisan rancor over the record federal debt and spending cuts to reduce it, congressional Republicans are working to avoid the heated political warfare when Congress turns its attention to annual spending measures next month.

Teresa Collett at University Faculty for Life Blog: There have been several news stories this week about a decision by a New York federal district court judge in EEOC v. Bloomberg. The case involved claims by the EEOC on behalf of 78 women that Bloomberg LP (the international news organization) engaged in illegal sex and pregnancy discrimination.