Daily Archives: September 2, 2011

Dr. Keith Ablow at FoxNews.com: Chaz Bono, the “transsexual” woman who underwent plastic surgery and takes male hormones in an effort to appear to be a man, and who asserts she is a man, will appear on the upcoming season of “Dancing with the Stars”, according to ABC, the network which airs the show. He will be partnered with a woman.

Washington Times: Under the current American legal system, each side in litigation typically retains financial responsibility for its own legal fees absent a prearranged agreement stating otherwise. Yet under the English rule, adopted by virtually every other legal system in the West, the responsibility for attorneys’ fees can be summed up in two words: Loser pays. When two sides enter into litigation, the losing side must pay the winning side any damages awarded, as well as compensation for legal fees incurred by the victor.

EuropeNews: NORWAY: “Christian converts from Islam flee in fear from muslims at asylum reception center” Dagen.No: Muslims at the asylum center told him: “This is Jihad, holy war, and we are waiting for at fatwa (licence to kill) from the local imam at the mosque in Sandnes”

Independent.ie: A few days ago, Cardinal Sean Brady delivered a talk in which he described the attack on the seal of confession as an attack on freedom of religion.

The Christian Institute: A public consultation on whether to change the definition of marriage to allow for same-sex marriage in Scotland has been launched today.

Ezra Klein at The Washington Post: To Northup’s point, its unclear whether the court will even take up this Idaho case for this exact reason: the woman bringing the case may not actually have the legal standing to do so. Her complaint does include a criminal prosecution for a previous abortion, but that was prior to Idaho’s 20-week ban taking effect.

AHN: The Justice Department has asked an appeals court to vacate a ruling declaring “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the ban against gays serving openly in the military, unconstitutional. The law is set to be repealed late this month, but gay advocates want the case to set a legal precedent.

Fox Nation: As final preparations were underway for Friday’s football game at Marianna High School, one thing will be missing- pre-game prayer.

LifeNews.com:Haslam announced today his selection of Dr. John Dreyzehner for the state’s top medical post, but it drew quick response from, which says Dreyzehner’s close association with a leading pro-abortion advocacy organization calls into question his suitability for the head of the state health department.

LifeSiteNews.com: prominent Quebec attorney has vowed to challenge Canadian law so that a sick woman he is representing can legally end her life.

LifeSiteNews.com: Why is this a double standard? Because I can’t remember the Associated Press or the mainstream media ever seriously inquiring into how Planned Parenthood uses its federal money. The IFPC was given a $2.2 million grant from 2006-2010, the AP reports. But official sources cited by Americans United for Life show that Planned Parenthood receives tens of millions of federal dollars a year.

The Guardian: The campaign to toughen Britain’s abortion laws was losing momentum as Tory MPs on Friday backed a rival amendment and questions emerged about links to Christian counselling services that might benefit from the proposed reform.

Anchorage Daily News: A new campaign has begun in the decades-long battle over adding Anchorage’s gay and transgender residents to the city’s anti-discrimination law.

Court reverses district judge, says women can be informed they have ‘an existing relationship’ with an ‘unborn human being’

Heritage Foundation InsiderOnline: A new Big Labor v. Taxpayers Index, produced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s WorkplaceChoice.org, shows where government worker unions have the most power to dip into taxpayers’ wallets.

Smoky Mountain News: Brigman said the school system “will ensure that future graduation speakers refrain from religious speech.”

San Jose Mercury News: An instructor at Fresno City College is suing the school in an effort to have his employment record changed after the college reprimanded him when some students claimed that he said homosexuality is a mental disorder.

Department of State: Representatives from the United States and Mexico met in Washington, DC, on August 30 and 31 to begin formal negotiations on a transboundary energy agreement. The agreement is intended to govern the disposition and regulation of hydrocarbon reservoirs that cross our international maritime boundary.

ZENIT:

ZENIT: What are the most important subjects in bioethics today?

Haas: From my point of view it is the de-personalization and de-humanization of health services. Human beings are being regarded as lacking rights. Organ donation has become an international business. The same happens with in vitro fertilization that, in the United States, moves close to $5 million every year. Men and women are not being regarded as human beings, but as material to use for scientific experiments, even on some occasions for experiments that, on the surface, have the very good intention of helping others.

Teresa Collett at University Faculty for Life: Today seems to be the day to consider the legal status of the unborn – first the Nebraska law suit and now this post over on Prawfsblawg, Why Does it Matter if a Fetus is a Person?

LaTimes.com: Doctors, not health insurers, should decide how much can and should be done to extend the lives of the terminally ill.

Teresa Collett at University Faculty for Life: A Nebraska woman who is not eligible for state medical assistance because of her immigration status has sued the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services for denying coverage to her unborn child under SCHIPS.

LifeNews.com: The UN’s new fertility forecasts could have significant implications for predicting which nations will wield global power in the 21st century, especially predictions about the coming power shift in Asia where Indians will outnumber Chinese by 2025.

Spiegel: In mosques or tearooms, Muslim elders dispense verdicts that keep their communities in line. They mediate between aggrieved immigrants, sometimes at the expense of German justice. Some say the arbitrations ease caseloads in court, but others see the creeping advance of Sharia law. | Eugene Volokh comments at the Volokh Conspiracy

NJ.com: New Jersey’s Supreme Court has a new face today after attorney Anne Patterson was sworn in as its newest member.

The New Republic: 2011 has been a banner year for abortion opponents. Thus far, 87 state laws restricting abortion have been enacted, the most in any year since Roe v. Wade and more than double the previous high. But one rogue wing of the pro-life movement sees no reason to celebrate: the budding “personhood movement,” which wants to turn abortion into homicide by methodically amending state constitutions to define conception as the beginning of a person’s life.

Forbes: Should the IRS get to go back six years into your tax past or only three? If you’ve ever been audited, you may think three years is bad enough. But if the IRS has anything to say about it, it soon could be six. The tax code generally allows the IRS to audit three years back, and six in some cases.

ABC News: Congress and the White House returned to Washington from an August recess to argue about, of all things, a scheduling confict for an upcoming speech. A far cry from the third branch of government; members of the Supreme Court took to the speech circuit to praise their branch of government as a bastion of civility.

Army Times: A California congressman strongly opposed to allowing gays to serve openly in the military is drafting legislation to protect the rights of straight service members who object to the presence of gays.

For these reasons we reverse the judgment of the district court striking down the relationship advisories; affirm its ruling upholding the human being advisory approved in Rounds; and affirm its rulings upholding the general risk advisory and striking down the suicide advisory.

Religion Clause: On Wednesday, Britain’s Charity Commission announced the issuance of new, more detailed guidelines under the Equality Act 2010 clarifying when charities may restrict their benefits to persons on the basis of their religion, gender, age and various other protected characteristics. The Guidance (full text) has special rules for charities that limit their benefits to members of a particular religion.

Religion Clause: The Supreme Court’s new term begins Oct. 3. Scotus Blog has a comprehensive listing (as well as extensive links to related documents) of all the cases which the Court has already agreed to review in the upcoming term.

Religion Clause: A state court trial judge in Wichita, Kansas has sentenced Wichita pastor Mark Holick after a jury last month convicted him on charges of loitering and disrupting a local business

AP: The violence began Monday in Jos, a city on the volatile dividing line between Nigeria’s largely Christian south and Muslim north. A group of rioters on Monday attacked Muslims praying over the end of Ramadan in a primarily Christian neighborhood, using knives, machetes and bows and arrows, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said.

The Hill: Cheney writes that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Act of 1991 allowed for a major injection of federal funds into the banking system, but that Bernanke said he would “feel much more comfortable with congressional approval, so we went to work trying to secure it.” The unpopular votes for the legislation still resonate in congressional politics.

ADF Attorney Jeremy Tedesco on the Georgene Rice Show to discuss this: ADF responds to additional ACLU demands that schoolchildren be exposed to porn. | MP3 audio 11 mins | The ACLU press release announcing the initiative in partnership with Yale law school | Yale Daily Herald: Yale Law goes online for LGBT rights

ADF Attorney Dave Cortman on the Drew Mariani Show to discuss this: ADF responds to additional ACLU demands that schoolchildren be exposed to porn. | MP3 audio 7:39 mins | The ACLU press release announcing the initiative in partnership with Yale law school | Yale Daily Herald: Yale Law goes online for LGBT rights

ADF Attorney Jeremy Tedesco on the Don Kroah Show at WAVY to discuss this: ADF responds to additional ACLU demands that schoolchildren be exposed to porn. | MP3 audio 14 mins

Press conference that includes ADF attorney will follow hearing at California Supreme Court, which will answer question from 9th Circuit

Villanova Ethics professor, Christopher C. Roberts, Ph.D., Ethics department, is coming to the first floor lounge to give a talk about his book, titled Creation and Covenant: The Significance of Sexual Difference in the Moral Theology of Marriage. (Hat tip: …

William E. May at Culture of Life: Hamza Yusuf, an Islamic scholar, gives a thought-provoking and powerful presentation of these key concepts of any sexual ethics in his article, “Desire and the Tainted Soul: Islamic Insights into Lust, Chastity, and Love,” which appeared in The Social Costs of Pornography: A Reader (the Witherspoon Institute, 2010). This article summarizes Yusuf’s thoughtful and thought-provoking essay . . .

PBS (includes video): A new wave of U.S. Census Bureau data reveals some interesting trends in marriage and divorce rates by region. Ray Suarez discusses what data tell us about the institution of marriage with David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values and Elaine Tyler May of the University of Minnesota.

WORLDmag.com: The Alliance Defense Fund has taken up the four men’s cause and has provided a grant to help fight the lawsuit. Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon told The Sun-Times he would not comment on the ongoing litigation but would file a written response to the court. A hearing on that motion is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 6.

LifeSiteNews.com: Alliance Defense Fund lawyers first revealed the existence of the meetings between Obama Justice Department officials and abortion lobbyists last year; although they were able to attend the meetings, the conservative lawyers expressed concern that no one in the pro-life community had been invited to the unpublicized events. The “resource guide” administered at the meetings, said ADF attorney Matthew Bowman, was “not only completely one-sided, it adopts the bias against free speech that the abortion movement has been trying to promote for years.”

Laura J. Lederer at Public Discourse: A culture of exploitation and violence, especially sexual exploitation of children, is at epidemic levels here in the United States and around the world. The current Administration’s response is anemic and more must be done.

NCPA Policy Digest: Indeed, the very first Social Security recipient, Ida Mae Fuller of Vermont, paid just $44 in Social Security taxes, but collected $20,993 in benefits. Of course, Social Security and Ponzi schemes are not perfectly analogous. Ponzi, after all, had to rely on what people were willing to voluntarily invest with him. Social Security, on the other hand, can rely on the power of the government to tax.

The Hill: The decision follows immense pressure from industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbied hard against the EPA decision to tighten Bush-era ozone standards.

SCOTUSblog: Clement’s petition on S.B. 1070 reaches the Court.

MSNBC: It was the first time since 1945 that the government has reported a net monthly job change of zero.