Daily Archives: September 23, 2011

The Blog of Legal Times: A top U.S. Justice Department lawyer today defended the Obama administration’s health care law, saying the minimum coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act is within the power of Congress.

The Blog of Legal Times: Public Defender Service attorneys Corinne Beckwith and Catharine Easterly appeared before a Senate committee Friday morning to testify on their nominations to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on Koinonea with Tom Brown. | MP3 audio 12:17 mins | The Pulpit Initiative

ADF Attorney Jim Campbell appeared on Koinonea with Tom Brown. | MP3 audio 11:19 mins | Related post and link to the opinion.

AHN: They said they would appeal the fines to France’s highest court and to the European Court of Human Rights. Their fines were paid by the civil rights group Don’t Touch My Constitution, which predicted the European Court of Human Rights would sanction France for its ban on Muslim veils.

ISI’s American Studies Institute: 1) What led you to become a political philosopher? The intellectual experience that changed my life, placing me on the path to becoming a professor and a political philosopher, was reading Plato’s dialogue Gorgias in a political philosophy seminar I took as an undergraduate at Swarthmore. Socrates’s questions to Gorgias and his other interlocutors in the dialogue led me to question my own beliefs and values. They made me think about existential, social, and political questions that I had not before paused to consider. My encounter with the dialogue caused me to see, for the first time, the overriding value of truth and the importance of the pursuit of truth, not merely as a means to other ends, but above all for its own sake.

Catholic Culture: The government of Eritrea–one of the most repressive in the world–has placed 3,000 Christians in prison, “where they face mistreatment and deprivation of food and medical treatment, pending renunciation of their faith,” according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

LA Daily News: It was her faith that led the petite 72-year-old to erect a 24-foot cross on the front lawn of her West Hills home. But the monument has infuriated some of the neighbors, who complain the symbol is an eyesore that is attracting lookie-loos to their quiet cul-de-sac and hurting their property values.

The Washington Post: Heated debate in the Republican presidential race over child vaccinations also is playing out in California as Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown considers whether to a sign a bill allowing children as young as 12 to get vaccinated against sexually transmitted diseases without their parents’ consent.

Pulse: A Christian GP who asked a troubled patient if he had considered faith in Jesus said today he was ‘disgusted’ with the GMC, after the hearing into his conduct was adjourned.

The Christian Institute: A weakened safeguard which protects against HIV contaminating the blood supply should be removed because it is homophobic, the Liberal Democrats’ conference has heard.

LifeSiteNews.com: Although the Portuguese parliament is currently deliberating over several bills that could legalize physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, the debate may be largely a moot point.

Donna Miller at LifeSiteNews.com: American cities participating in this travesty are liberal strongholds and listed alphabetically: Austin, TX; Asheville, NC; Chicago, IL; Honolulu, HI; Los Angeles (Venice Beach area); Manchester, NH; Miami Beach, FL; New York City, NY; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC. Canadian cities are: Toronto and Vancouver. Paris, not known for conservatism, was scheduled for an event but police arrested the women.

LifeNews.com: The Conservative Party government in Canada has renewed taxpayer funding for the international affiliate of the Planned Parenthood abortion business, which is the largest in the world.

LifeNews.com: Abortion activists at the United Nations routinely claim that abortion access is essential to reduce unacceptably high rates of maternal mortality among women in some developing nations. But this claim is completely false, participants heard earlier this month at a MaterCare International conference in Rome.

Whittier Daily News: Stein said the letter included two photos, one of him posing with two drag queens and the other of him about to eat a corn dog. According to the complaint, the letter’s author called Stein “unfit to coach” and threatened to go to the school board if he was not fired immediately.

J. Emilio Flores at the NYTimes.com: Given the abundance of candidates, it might seem strange that judges compete so intensely for interviews. Federal judges, though, are frequently fighting over a very small subset of law students from a few elite schools. After all, clerks are hired not only to research and write, but in some cases also to improve their bosses’ career prospects. “There are some judges who like to position themselves as feeders to the Supreme Court . . . ”

The Advocate: A bill to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act now has bipartisan support after Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida announced Friday that she would cosponsor the legislation, becoming the first Republican to do so.

KansasCity.com: Benedict’s speech to the Bundestag was mainly a philosophical attack on the idea that religion has no place in ethics and politics, but he began with a defense of his right to speak as Vatican head.

Religion Clause: Under the proposed consent decree (full text), reached after mediation by a former Texas Supreme Court justice, the government agreed to 50 stipulations that facilitate the VFW, the Memorial Ladies and the American Legion’s providing honor guard ceremonies and condolence cards, including religious expressions, unless the family objects . . .

Religion Clause: In Cleveland County, Oklahoma, a woman has filed suit is state court seeking a religious accommodation that would allow her to obtain a driver’s license with a low resolution photograph instead of the state-required high-resolution photo that captures biometric data. The complaint (full text) in Beach v. Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, (OK Dist. Ct., Sept. 21, 2011)

ADF Attorney Jon Scruggs appeared on the Janet Mefferd Show to discuss this. | MP3 audio 12:51 mins

Fr. Frank Pavone sent this letter to the Bishops regarding Priests for Life. The letter is dated September 12, 2011.

ADF Attorney Roger Kiska appeared on Voice of Russia. | MP3 audio 9:30 mins

LifeNews.com: In Ohio, a lawsuit in which Planned Parenthood was recently found to have violated an Ohio informed consent law has been “resolved and dismissed,” according to the Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney who filed the suit. ADF-allied attorney Brian Hurley represents the parents of a girl who, at age 14, was brought to a Planned Parenthood clinic for an abortion by the 22-year-old soccer coach who impregnated her.

Liberty Counsel: On Tuesday, high school freshman Dakota Ary was given in-school suspension for stating in class that he believes homosexuality is wrong because of his Christian faith. Liberty Counsel is representing Dakota in this case, demanding full vindication and a full retraction of the suspension. If the school board does not comply, a lawsuit will be filed for violation of Dakota’s First Amendment rights.

The Record, Maine Family Policy Council: Keynote speaker Theo Purington will offer a man’s perspective of abortion when he speaks of his journey from grief over his baby’s abortion to his role as an advocate for fatherhood at the Saturday, Oct. 15th Maine Right to Life Convention in Portland. The Convention is open to the community.

KansasCity.com: The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging a federal magistrate’s recommendation that a court deny its motion to block enforcement of a new Kansas law restricting insurance coverage for abortions.

The Hill: A trio of lawmakers pushed Thursday for Congress to place limits on the licenses given to teenage drivers.

The Hill: Republicans demanded Thursday that billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett reveal his tax returns if his views on tax rates are going to serve as the basis for the White House’s proposals.

NOW has distributed an email encouraging readers to oppose religious exemptions from birth control insurance coverage. It provides in part: “Opponents of women’s access to contraception have stepped up pressure on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to expand an exemption allowing some religious institutions to deny birth control insurance coverage to their employees. This exemption should not have been included in the HHS rules in the first place. But religious extremists are lobbying hard to convince HHS to completely remove the requirement for full insurance coverage of contraception from the new regulations. This would be a huge loss for women.”

Pacific Justice Institute: A parent of two young girls was caught off guard recently when her daughters came home from school with questions about a man dressed like a woman on duty in the school cafeteria. The parent was further chagrined when officials in the Sierra Sands Unified School District confirmed the story but insisted their hands were tied.

The Hill: In a 59-36 vote, the Senate rejected the House legislation approved early Friday morning. The bill would keep the government funded through Nov. 19. Without a new funding measure, the government would shutdown after next Thursday.

CNSnews.com (includes video): Spokane police have served Planned Parenthood with a search warrant for an aborted fetus in hopes of proving a child rape case through the use of DNA.

One of the biggest churches in the Mid-South is in the middle of a heated political controversy. The Tennessee Equality Project claims Bellevue Baptist is in violation of its (501) (c) (3) tax exempt status by having up a very clear link up to Family Action of Tennessee, a website that appears to endorse certain city council members.

Chicago Tribune: The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal group, is representing one of the proprietors. Alliance Defense Fund attorney Jason Craddock told Huppke: I believe strongly that liberty of conscience, particularly religious liberty of conscience, is what our nation was built on and is something that goes deep to our souls. Increasingly it’s being pitted against the asserted rights of homosexuals. Now it’s going beyond just asking for tolerance. Now 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.”

Christian Concern: GMC Investigatory Committee has decided today (23 September) to continue to pursue the case against Dr Richard Scott, the Kent GP accused by a patient of sharing his faith in a one-to-one consultation, despite the witness not being at the hearing and showing an ‘unconditional disinclination to attend’.

Authorities say non-violent offenders in southern Alabama will have a new choice: Go to jail, or go to church every Sunday for a year . . .

Los Angeles Times: State employers reduce payrolls in August for the second month in a row as they see signs of a faltering economy, pushing the jobless rate up from 12% in July.

Darren Samuelsohn at Politico: Solyndra executives repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment this morning as House lawmakers pressed them to answer questions about the company’s financial collapse and any hopes of repaying their $535 million federal loan guarantee.