Daily Archives: September 19, 2011

ADF Attorney Gary McCaleb at Townhall: For over a year, ADF and decorated, high-ranking veteran chaplains have warned that DADT repeal will harm military religious liberty. One of the most significant threats is that the lack of strong regulations protecting chaplains and service members from “sexual orientation discrimination” complaints will chill free speech and freedom of religion.

CatholicHerald.co.uk: Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark has said the British courts are wrongfully penalising Christians through an “incorrect interpretation” of human rights laws.

Kevin McKenna at The Observer: Yet today, in the broad church that is the UK left, Christianity has become the sin that dare not speak its name. For, according to the sentinels of neo-liberal socialism, you are not allowed to be in their party if, at the same time, you also accept and subscribe to what I suppose we must call traditional Christianity.

Mail Online: The EU is about to implode, the UK economy is going under, urban youth in British cities have just burned down their neighbourhoods and the Arab world is in ferment.And so what are the big talking points of the day in Britain? Gay marriage, bashing the rich and (a few days ago) cutting the length of the school holidays.

Christian Concern: The Home Office has begun a consultation on whether to introduce passports in which the holder does not need to state their gender as male or female. The new plans would introduce an ‘X’ for everybody under the ‘sex’ category on their passports.

Christian Newswire: Today, on behalf of the adult stem researchers it represents, the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and their co-counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, filed their Notice of Appeal asking the United States Court of Appeals to reinstate their case dismissed by United States District Court for the District of Columbia in its July 27 decision based upon the district court’s interpretation of the Court of Appeal’s April 29 ruling vacating the district court’s August 23, 2010 preliminary injunction of the National Institute of Health’s regulations that Obama administration promulgated to permit the federal funding of “research in which” human embryos are “knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

The Expositor – Sparta Tennessee News: Sparta officials have taken the first step in regulating adult oriented businesses by passing a lengthy ordinance that covers all aspects of the operations of these establishments.

LifeNews.com: Members of Congress will hold a hearing tomorrow on the one-child family planning policy China instituted — and it comes just days before the forced abortion-supported policy marks its 35th anniversary.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: The great news is the Fourth Circuit issued an order on September 14, 2011 which affirms that St. Catherine and other ministries have the right to employ only those who agree with their religious teachings and apply them to their daily lives.

Elaine Donnelly at Washington Times: ccording to The Washington Times, in an Aug. 11 letter to Mr. Panetta, Aubrey Sarvis of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) disingenuously suggests that it would be “simple” to add “sexual orientation” to the five categories (race, color, sex, religion and national origin) covered under the Military Equal Opportunity program and Human Goals Charter. Such a change, he argues, would justify 10 mostly new administrative policies.

The Blog of Legal Times: The three candidates recommended to the White House are Roy McLeese III, chief of the appellate division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia; District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz; and private practice attorney Geoffrey Klineberg.

The Blog of Legal Times: In a closed mediation session held at the D.C. Office of Human Rights last week, Catholic University officials met with George Washington University Law School professor John Banzhaf to try to resolve Banzhaf’s recent complaint concerning the university’s newly enforced same-sex housing policy.

NYTimes.com: President Obama called on Monday for Congress to adopt his “balanced” plan combining entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce the federal deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, and said he would veto any approach that relied solely on spending reductions to address the fiscal shortfall.

Guardian.co.uk: The assumption that global population will peak around 9-10bn may be overly optimistic — and if it is, population will continue to rise, placing enormous strains on the environment.

Religion Clause: Under Egyptian personal status law, the Coptic Orthodox Church controls divorce of couples where both are members of the Church. Al-Ahram this week reports that hundreds of Copts who are seeking a divorce plan to gather in front of the Ministry of Justice to collectively resign membership in the Church.

Big Government: The new S&P warning follows President Obama’s efforts to sabotage bipartisan cooperation on the “Supercommittee” deficit reduction panel by making confrontational demands for half of a trillion dollars more in stimulus spending and trillions of dollars of new class warfare tax increases on investment and charity.

The Washington Post: If he waits long enough, the reporters inevitably ask about Anwar al-Aulaqi, the radical cleric who once led the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque. They want to know about Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter, and the two Sept. 11 hijackers who also once worshiped there. And they often come with a list of other terrorism suspects who have been connected in some way with the Northern Virginia mosque.

LifeNews.com: The magistrate judge denied the ACLU request for a temporary injunction to halt the law. The state legislature approved, and pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback signed, a law that makes it so no state or federally administered health-insurance exchange in Kansas that is established under Obamacare can fund abortions at taxpayer expense.

Yahoo! News: An animal rights group, which is no stranger to attention-grabbing campaigns featuring nude women, plans to launch a pornography website to raise awareness about veganism.

Capitol Confidential: Most of the claims in the lawsuit, which was filed in July, deal with the procedures followed by the Senate in the run-up to its June 24 approval of the gay marriage bill. This is none of the court’s business, the filings argue.

Herald Sun: THE Tasmanian Parliament is set to become the first in Australia to vote in favour of same-sex marriage after Premier Lara Giddings indicated she would support a Greens motion on the issue.

University prohibited work study at community center only because religious youth activities sometimes occur there; ADF letter prompts UM to reverse course

Jeremy R. Hammond at Foreign Policy Journal: Paul Krugman tried to slam Ron Paul in his most recent column by writing:

Back in 1980, just as America was making its political turn to the right, Milton Friedman lent his voice to the change with the famous TV series “Free to Choose.” In episode after episode, the genial economist identified laissez-faire economics with personal choice and empowerment, an upbeat vision that would be echoed and amplified by Ronald Reagan.

But that was then. Today, “free to choose” has become “free to die.”

Washington Times: Mitt Romney refused Thursday to embrace Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s description of the Obama administration’s policies as “socialist,” instead opting for some softer language, dubbing President Obama’s moves as “Washington heavy.”

LifeSiteNews.com: A New Brunswick father who was convicted of assault for spanking his 6-year-old son in 2009 has been granted a re-trial by the New Brunswick Court of Appeal.

LifeSiteNews.com: Contraceptive injections were administered without parental consent to young girls at a South African school, the Dispatch Online reported Monday.

LifeSiteNews.com: Even with its highly optimistic fertility projections, the new UN population forecast predicts a grayer world than the one imagined by its 2009 report which used much lower fertility estimates.

WorldNetDaily: Muslim extremists are using a relatively new tool in their attempt to intimidate and bully Christians, with death threats sent by text-messaging to Christian church leaders, a new report confirms. The report comes from Compass Direct, which monitors and reports on Christian issues around the globe. The situation has developed in Sudan.

World Net Daily: Chuck and Stephanie Fromm already have been fined $300 for holding Bible studies for their friends at their home, and they face the potential for additional fines of $500 for each study held, according to a legal team taking their case to court.

LifeSiteNews.com: A survey of all U.S. ZIP codes where Planned Parenthood clinics are located in the United States has found that most are located in areas with a minority population significantly higher than the state average.

LifeSiteNews.com: PayPal is conducting an investigation of several pro-family organizations and individuals targeted by a homosexual campaign that accuses the groups of “hate” and “extremism,” LifeSiteNews has learned.

LifeSiteNews.com: Britain’s coalition government is aiming to legalize same-sex “marriage” before the next federal election in 2015, announced Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone on Saturday. The move comes after the “personal intervention” of Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, reports the U.K.’s Daily Mail.

News from Missouri Family Policy Council: The Missouri Senate has taken action to extend tax credits available to Missouri citizens who donate to pro-life pregnancy resource centers and maternity homes.

Education News: Schools are being accused of going too far in what they teach children about sex. Children as young as 12 are being taught about oral sex and told it’s acceptable to play with a girl’s private parts as long as “she’s okay with it”.

Education News: The Chicken Licken child’s book depicts a fearful and ill-informed chick running around screaming hysterically, “the sky is falling, the sky is falling,” but discovers instead the sky is the limit. Similarly, teacher’s unions are attempting to create hysteria about Charter schools. Unions are ignoring key issues while blocking meaningful education reform.

United Nations Foundation: Today ABC News and the UN Foundation will launch an initiative engaging millions of Americans to support millions of moms across the globe around the critical issues of pregnancy, childbirth and children’s health — moms here helping moms worldwide. The Million Moms Challenge will be featured on weekly segments on ABC News’ broadcasts including “Good Morning America,” “World News with Diane Sawyer,” “Nightline,” and “20/20,” as well as other ABC News platforms including ABCNews.com and ABC News Radio. The initiative will lead up to a one-hour prime time special on maternal health anchored by Diane Sawyer on December 16, 2011.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Townhall: On college and university campuses around the country, officials are increasingly using “nondiscrimination” policies to deny religious groups the right to choose prospective members and leaders based on whether they share the group’s religious beliefs. In other words, laws that were originally designed to protect religious groups and persons from institutionalized discrimination are now being used to punish religious groups for exercising their religious freedoms.

LifeNews.com: On September 1, NPR reporter Carrie Johnson filed a slanted story touting the Obama Justice Department for cracking down on allegedly violent pro-life protesters like 79-year-old grandfather Dick Retta . . .

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: Americans United for Separation of Church and State has joined a coalition of religious, education, civil rights and health organizations in a letter to President Barack Obama expressing concern over his approach to hiring bias in the “faith-based” initiative.

NY Daily News: The world’s largest sperm bank is telling redheads to keep their semen. Demand for ginger-haired donors is so low that Cryos International says they needn’t bother donating.

Philly.com: While the spectacle of a Pittsburgh-area state senator being tried for improperly aiding her sister’s state Supreme Court election campaign is bad, at least the case could give a welcome push to renewed efforts to enact reforms that would help shield all Pennsylvania appellate judges from politics.

Religion Clause: Recent Articles of Interest: Gregory S. Baylor and Ronald Chen, Did the Supreme Court Properly Decide Christian Legal Society v. Martinez?

LifeNews.com: The chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama was today’s keynote speaker at the Power of Choice Summit sponsored by leading pro-abortion activists group NARAL.

Religion Clause: Rabbinical School Dean Entitled To New York Property Tax Exemption: In In re Application of Renni Altman v. Assessment Review Commission of the County of Nassau, (Nassau Co. NY Sup. Ct., Sept. 6, 2011), a New York trial court held that a rabbi who was employed as Associate Dean of Hebrew Union College and Director of its Rabbinical School was entitled to the $1500 per year real estate tax exemption granted by New York law (RPTL Sec. 460) to clergy.

Religion Clause: In the Maldives, the government has published new regulations (full text) under the 1994 Protection of Religious Unity Act in the country’s official gazette.

NCPA Policy Digest: In the U.S. public school system today, the method used to determine teacher effectiveness — and thus to drive salary, promotion and tenure decisions — is based on a few external credentials: certification, advanced degrees and years of experience in the classroom. Little to no relationship exists between these credentials and the gains that a teacher’s students make on standardized math and reading exams.

The Thomas More Law Center announced today that it will petition for an en banc review of the controversial Ninth Circuit Court 3-judge panel decision that overturned a lower court decision, which had upheld the right of a school teacher to display patriotic banners in his classroom that mentioned God.

Leaving to one side the debate about the policy itself, there are significant concerns for the U.S. military’s chaplaincy corps in the post-repeal era unless specific, robust protections for the chaplains’ religious liberty and free speech rights are explicitly adopted.

News from The Associated Press: An increase in child abuse, mostly in infants, is linked with the recent recession in new research that raises fresh concerns about the impact of the nation’s economic woes.

A few days ago, Rep. Howard McKeon and Joe Wilson, Chairmen of the House Armed Services Committee and Military Personnel Subcommittee, forwarded a letter to the SecDef addressing the fact that only 8 days (at the time of the letter) prior to the implementation of the repeal, Congress has still not received the “necessary policies and regulations” that were required PRIOR TO the certification by both him and the President as spelled out in the law.

Columbus Local News: After the Board of Zoning and Appeals rejected that application and council upheld BZAP’s ruling, Tree of Life filed suit in January, represented by the Alliance Defense Fund.

Implementation of the repeal is planned for next Tuesday, September 20, but the repeal legislation requires written regulations (not PowerPoint slides), which the Defense Department has not
provided to Congress.

News from The Associated Press: Pentagon press secretary George Little said Monday that the military is adequately prepared for the end of the current policy, commonly known as “don’t ask, don’t tell . . .

Pantagraph: But 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. The fund sponsors Pulpit Freedom Sunday, in which it offers free legal representation to churches whose pastors preach about political candidates and are then audited by the Internal Revenue Service. (So far, no IRS investigations have been triggered.) Last fall, 100 churches participated — up from 33 in 2008. This year’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday scheduled for Oct. 2, is expected to draw more than 500 churches. [Kelly Shackelford of Liberty Institute quoted]

Chief U.S. District Judge James Ware agreed with lawyers for two same-sex couples who sued to overturn Proposition 8 and with a coalition of news outlets — including The Associated Press — that no compelling reasons exist to keep the recordings secret.

Houston Chronicle: “We’re getting into a situation where government is telling people of faith, ‘You can’t live out your faith if it happens to disagree with this particular group,’” said Illinois attorney Jason Craddock, a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a national Christian legal organization that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. [Jason is an allied attorney]

Chicago Tribune: Illinois attorney Jason Craddock, a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a national Christian legal organization that opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, also is representing Timber Creek. Craddock said cases such as this one involving the Wathens are critical for people of faith who believe their First Amendment freedom of religion is inviolable. [Jason is an allied attorney.]

The father of a 7-year-old born a girl said the second-grader, prohibited from using the boys bathroom at school in McIntosh County, has never fit traditional gender roles.

Noda, Tokufumi Joshua, The Role of Economics in the Discourse on RLUIPA and Nondiscrimination in Religious Land Use (September 14, 2011). Boston College Law Review, Vol.1, 2011. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1927649

Washington Times: For that reason, Jobs was given up for adoption to his parents Paul and Clara Jobs. Eighteen years later saw the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which paved the way for hundreds of millions of legal abortions to take place in the United States over the following years. In 1955, abortion was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. It was primarily rejected by society as the termination of an innocent life. Instead, adoptions were preferred. Adoptions ensure that children are given life. Jobs’ adoption was very beneficial, creating and shaping him into the leader that he would later become. What would a world look like in which Steve Jobs had been aborted?

Boston Globe: Opponents won the referendum with a majority of 514 votes, out of 11,510 ballots cast. The official count put no-votes at 52.3 percent, ahead of 47.7 percent who favored the plan to decriminalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy or if the child is severely disabled.