Daily Archives: September 16, 2011

News from The Associated Press: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says the nation’s highest court would benefit from more geographic diversity among its justices

The Government is to legislate for same-sex marriages before the next General Election, a minister has announced.

Daily Mail Online: Instead of pouring our energies into organising a wedding, we put heart and soul into building our lives together. We developed successful careers, bought a lovely home in London, made good friends and had happy children. On the surface, we had the perfect life. Marriage or no marriage.

BBC News: Nearly half of parents of secondary school children say corporal punishment such as the cane or slipper should be reintroduced, a survey suggests.

Human Events: “The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” said Rep. John Mica (R. -Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee. “It mushroomed into an army,” Mica said. “It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion.” As for keeping the American public safe, Mica says, “They’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.”

The Christian Institute: The terms BC and AD are being dropped from textbooks as part of Australia’s new politically correct national history curriculum.

Minnesota Independent: U.S. Reps. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison urged the IRS Friday to provide guidance to same-sex couples when filing their federal taxes, which McCollum said should have been provided by the agency years ago.

Religion Clause: In Rosenberger v. Jamison, (FL App., Sept. 16, 2011), a Florida state appellate court held that deciding a dispute about governance of the First Baptist Church of Micanopy would unconstitutionally entangle the court in a religious controversy.

Fides Service: A Christian high school teacher has suffered false accusations of blasphemy by a student and some Muslim professors, because of dislike, revenge and hatred towards Christians. He was forced to leave his job and hide, he appealed to Court, but the laconic sentence of the judge of first instance invited him to “leave the country”. It is the story reported by Fides sources in the Christian community in Punjab, that ask for anonymity for security reasons.

Catholic Culture: The Seton Healthcare network in Texas has begun providing the “emergency contraceptive” Plan B pill to rape victims.

Catholic Culture: Lawyers for the Catholic University of America (CUA) appeared on September 15 before the Office of Human Rights in Washington, DC, at a hearing on a charge that the school is engaging in illegal discrimination by offering only single-sex dormitories for undergraduates.

Congratulations to allied attorneys Barry Arrington, Bill Becker, Scott Bergthold, Harold Cassidy, Natalie Decker, Kyle Duncan, Rick Esenberg, Steve Fitschen, Jeremiah Galus, Jobe Rodgers, David Langdon, and Alan Reinach as well as new Honor Corps members Stephen Casey, Donald Cayen, and Ruth Nordstrom for their recent accomplishments and successes listed below. Please take time to congratulate them!

LifeSiteNews.com: In a unanimous decision last Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court expanded legal protections for the unborn child when it ruled that Alabama’s wrongful death statute applied to the unborn child at any stage of development. This means that an offender can be tried civilly for the death of an unborn child regardless of viability.

LifeNews.com: Abortions are up in Indiana slightly thanks in part to the Planned Parenthood abortion business doing more abortions and using the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug more frequently.

LifeNews.com: Yesterday, the Senate appropriations measure received approval from the Senate Appropriations Committee that funds the federal government and, unlike the measure House Republicans passed in their committees, the Senate bill funds abortions in D.C.

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe: Participating States need to step up their efforts to effectively prevent and combat hate crimes against Christians, participants said at the opening of an OSCE conference in Rome today.

The Advocate (“LGBT news, politics and opinion”): The Democratic National Committee has upped its diversity quotient with the election of Babs Casbar Siperstein as the first openly transgender member of its executive committee.

Poliglot (“a queer spin on politics”): The National Center for Transgender Equality announced this evening: The Social Security Administration (SSA) has confirmed that it has ended the practice of allowing gender to be matched in its Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS). This will result in the immediate cessation of SSA sending notifications that alert employers when the gender marker on an employee’s W-2 does not match Social Security records.

District 3 primary winner distances herself from attack ads | The Charlotte Observer Newspaper: Mayfield, a community organizer, beat eight-year incumbent Warren Turner in Tuesday’s District 3 Democratic primary. If Mayfield beats Republican Ed Toney this fall, she would be the city’s first openly gay elected official.

The Economist: CHRISTIAN SMITH is a well-known sociologist of religion. That alone may deter the more deeply secular from reading his book, “Lost in Transition”, which explores the moral map of 18- to 23-year-olds in America. This would be a shame, as it is intensely and uncomfortably thought-provoking. It deserves consideration on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly from the parents of that generation.

WSJ.com: Obama’s proposal to limit charitable tax deductions punishes those who receive, not just those who give.

News from The Associated Press: The Dutch prime minister says the government has drawn up legislation to ban face-covering veils such as the burqa worn by some Muslim women.

A former student midwife escaped a possible prison term Friday when a judge sentenced her to three years of probation after she was convicted of practicing medicine without a license when she delivered a baby without supervision.

News from The Associated Press: California schools are turning away middle and high school students who have not received the whooping cough vaccine.

Liberty Counsel: Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief with the United States Supreme Court in FCC v. Fox. The case involves a challenge by broadcast networks to the FCC decency standards for primetime television. Broadcasters claim that the standards are too “vague” and violate their First Amendment rights. In the brief, Liberty Counsel urges the Court to uphold the decency regulations. The brief is filed on behalf of Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D . . .

Personhood USA: Personhood USA has released a new video documenting the infamous Roe vs. Wade court case that legalized abortion in the United States. Relevant to today’s battle for human life, the video illustrates the need to recognize unborn children as people. The video includes actual audio from the court case in which Justice Potter Stewart states, “And the basic Constitutional question, initially, is whether or not an unborn fetus is a person, isn’t it? That’s critical to this case.”

FRC Urges Supreme Court to Protect Public Airwaves from Nudity, Fleeting Expletives: amily Research Council (FRC) and Focus on the Family have submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations Inc. arguing that the FCC’s regulations against indecent material aired on broadcast TV are constitutional.

The Hill: A bipartisan group of 37 senators said Thursday it will urge the deficit-reduction committee to cut the deficit by at least $4 trillion over the next 10 years, including previously enacted deficit measures.

TheHill.com: Leading House Democrats are accusing the Obama administration of ignoring the lingering mortgage crisis and threatening tens of millions of Americans with foreclosure in the process.

ADF Attorney Steve Aden at the TellADF Blog: On Thursday, August 11, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled in Planned Parenthood Arizona v. Horne, finding Arizona’s Abortion Consent Act constitutional. This meant major changes were going to take place in the way abortion mills provided services to women seeking to end the lives of their preborn children. | Also posted at RedCounty.com

JSOnline: In a statement Friday, Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys, said the university should defend the free speech rights of religious students. “Sadly, the university refused to do so, and instead squandered money by trying to defend the indefensible: blatant, unlawful discrimination against Christian students and ministries.”

Anti-LGBT Bullying Advocates Meet with Bachmann’s Office | The Advocate: In a meeting that she described as cordial and productive, Aaberg talked about the pervasive bullying her son had faced. The problem was compounded by a school policy that did not adequately counter such harassment, she said. To the contrary, Justin’s school allowed such events as the “Day of Truth” to occur: The annual antigay event is organized by the social conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, though the ex-gay group Exodus International has also supported Day of Truth in the past.

VirtueOnline: The religious leaders are bolstered by well-funded Christian legal organizations supporting their cause. The most prominent – the Alliance Defense Fund, a group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., that spent $32 million in 2010 – is challenging a 1954 tax code amendment that prohibits pastors, as leaders of tax-exempt organizations, from supporting or opposing candidates from the pulpit.

Fox News: “I suspect the Supreme Court is going to eventually write the final book of this case,” David Cortman predicted as he too walked across the abandoned field that was once Nampa Classical. Cortman is from The Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based group that defends Christian causes. “The Supreme Court of the United States has held for decades now,” he explained, “that it is Constitutionally permissible to objectively teach the Bible in public schools for history or comparative literature.”

OneNewsNow.com: Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation that will require businesses that have contracts worth more than $100,000 with the state to provide benefits for their employee’s spouses, whether “gay” or straight.

OneNewsNow.com: Homosexual activists are pressuring PayPal to not handle donations made to groups that promote traditional values, but one pro-family organization is encouraging the e-commerce business to be fair.

Religion Clause: In Signs for Jesus v. Town of Chichester, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103430 (D NH, Sept. 13, 2011), a New Hampshire federal district court refused to grant costs and attorneys’ fees under 42 USC Sec. 1988 to a group that ultimately prevailed at the town Planning Board and obtained permission to put up an electronic message sign to display Christian Bible verses . . .

Appellate Daily: Circuit Split Watch: Federal appellate courts have recently split over the requirements for posthumously conceived children to receive Social Security survivor benefits. One petition for certiorari is already pending before the U.S. Supreme Court and two more could follow soon. The most recent case in the split, decided at the end of August, is Beeler v. Astrue, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

LaTimes.com: Two liberal groups have asked the Judicial Conference of the United States to investigate whether Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has violated the federal Ethics in Government Act. The prospect of such an investigation is remote, but the conduct cited by Common Cause and the Alliance for Justice is troubling.

NY Daily News: Mayor Bloomberg warned Friday there would be riots in the streets if Washington doesn’t get serious about generating jobs.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has agreed to cover legal costs racked up as a result of its latest multi-year effort to discriminate against Christian students in Badger Catholic v. Walsh. ADF has been involved in six different lawsuits involving the state university system’s relentless discrimination against Christian and conservative groups.