Daily Archives: September 26, 2011

Fox News (includes video): Specifically, Swain is referring to four Christian student groups being placed on “provisional status” after a university review found them to be in non-compliance with the school’s nondiscrimination policy.

Telegraph: Education bodies in parts of the country are using the Healthy Schools initiative introduced by Tony Blair’s government to impose “liberal and permissive” teaching on pupils, campaigners warn.

Alan Sears sees his calling as fighting for the religious freedoms that undergird other freedoms

Post-Gazette.com: Several dozen state lawmakers this morning called for the swift approval of two measures to increase oversight of abortion providers and further limit the use of taxpayer funds in paying for those medical procedures.

An Idaho woman prosecuted for terminating her own pregnancy with abortion pills she ordered online won a temporary court order on Friday barring enforcement of the decades-old law under which she was charged.

Christian Newswire: Women’s Rights Without Frontiers has released a groundbreaking new report setting forth thirteen new, documented cases of coercion: forced abortion (including one woman at eight months and another carrying twins at 8 ½ months), forced sterilization, forced contraception, the use of quotas, Family Planning Police, Family Planning jail cells, the demolition of homes, and the use of “implication” (detention, torture and fining of relatives of “violators”). Several of these cases are documented with extensive photographs as well. | Report

ADF Attorney Matt Sharp appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this: ADF assures Tenn. schools: ACLU wrong on rights in public schools. | MP3 audio 17:12 mins

Jim Garlow appeared on the Glenn Beck Program to dicuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 11:48 mins

OneNewsNow.com: The Economic Policy Institute has recently discovered that the trade deficit with China has cost America 2.8 million jobs, most of which were in the manufacturing sector. Scott Paul is executive director for the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), which commissioned the study.

OneNewsNow.com: An new analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau suggests that the Bible Belt deals with more marital problems than anywhere else — but one researcher says that’s not a reflection of Christianity.

LifeNews.com: According to their own figures, in 2009 alone, Planned Parenthood performed 332,278 abortions. That’s like wiping out the population of a sizeable city. Since the average cost of an abortion was $468, Planned Parenthood’s total abortion income that year was $155,506,104. In light of their total “health center” income of $404,900,000, Planned Parenthood made out like bandits with abortion, which generated 38.4% of this total revenue.

Pope Benedict addresses the German parliament

Kansas Law Free Press: The KU Federalist Society, KU OutLAWS and Allies, and KC Legal are pleased to announce this year’s inaugural event, “The Case for Same Sex Marriage: Practicum and Practice.” We are fortunate to have two respected speakers who will each give their arguments for the legalization of same-sex marriage. KU Federalist Society is proud to welcome Professor Dale Carpenter. Professor Carpenter is an Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at University of Minnesota. He will be discussing the “Conservative Case for Gay Marriage” with Dale Schowengerdt. Schowengerdt is a seasoned litigator who has worked with the Alliance Defense Fund since 2003. | Dale Carpenter has a related post at the Volokh Conspiracy announcing the forum.

Bloomberg: “In 220 years there has been a whole lot of laws and a lot of crises, yet Congress has never once mandated a purchase,” said Judge Brett Kavanaugh, adding that the “lurking next step” might be a law requiring investment in private retirement accounts.

The Globe and Mail: In a three-hour discussion – the only such interview he has ever given – Judge Binnie provided penetrating glimpses into an institution known for its secretive nature, at a time when the bench is entering an unsettling period of transition with five judges slated to be replaced by 2015. Widely seen as a towering intellect who is arguably the country’s premier judge, he spoke with the easy candour of a man who has spent his career as a renowned advocate.

Deseret News: In 1999, Perich signed a one-year contract to teach at Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Mich. The next year the congregation voted to make her a “called teacher” — a commissioned minister in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. She didn’t have to renew a contract every year and could now take tax breaks reserved for ministers. And, under Lutheran teachings, she would be answering a call from God. But five years later they would vote to rescind her call and put into motion what many say is the most important religious freedom case in years.

Star Parker at Townhall : The presidential debates are looking more and more like symptoms of the problems we’ve got than part of the process of solving them. Maximum style, minimum substance. Focus on sizzle, forget about the steak.

Reuters: Several states that appoint judges are considering a switch to an elected bench, despite growing criticism from judges about the influence of money in judicial elections. One of the most active is Tennessee, where conservative legislators believe that appointed judges are out of touch with the electorate and unaccountable to voters.

Al Jazeera English: It was Sarkozy who, in February, asked Gates to prepare a report for the upcoming summit on new ways that money could be raised to promote development and alleviate poverty in poor countries, particularly in light of the sharp cuts in official development assistance (ODA) from many donor countries that followed the 2008-9 financial crisis.

C-FAM: While world attention may be focused on the UN General Assembly as it grapples with Palestinian statehood, the methodical drive by United Nations officials to promote legal abortion internationally goes on largely unnoticed. During the summer months, when press coverage of UN activities is minimal, the UN Secretariat released a report from the UN Human Rights Council calling on all nations to accept that women and girls must be granted access to legal abortion in order for them to fully enjoy their human rights.

National Post: The report, released Thursday by the development agency Plan International, found 31 per cent of Canadian boys aged 12 to 17 believe a woman’s most important role is feeding her family and taking care of the home.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Justice Scalia, the longest-serving member of the nation’s high court, hailed the importance of a moral background in rounding out an education in law and praised Duquesne for its commitment to a notion that, he said, is out of fashion.

Houston Chronicle: The Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union is calling the state’s new civil union law a “fiasco” and says lawmakers should pass gay marriage legislation in its place.

Erik Stanley at Townhall: Yet it remains a fact that every Sunday, when pastors in America ascend the pulpit, they face the cruel and unusual prospect of exchanging their natural, God-given right to free speech for a government-ordained lexicon (if they want to keep their tax-exempt status).

Arizona’s Abortion Consent Act upheld | Oregon Faith Report: Georgene Rice interviews Deborah Sheasby, legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, regarding a recent decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals . . .

NCPA Policy Digest: Third, while the federal government may be pretending in this case that state governments are too big to fail, the truth is that bankruptcy of state governments is not a new phenomenon.

Catholic News Agency (CNA): The Notice of Appeal was filed on September 19 by Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and their co-counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Rob Boston of Americans United for Separation of Church and State at OpposingViews.com: It’s going to be a long election season, and we’re bound to see a lot more of this. The Alliance Defense Fund and other Religious Right organizations are already prodding churches to flagrantly violate the law by endorsing and/or opposing candidates from the pulpit. These groups hope to build a church-based political machine to elect their favored candidates to office. Once in power, these people will pursue a fundamentalist political agenda, work to enact laws that impose their narrow version of faith on all of us and assail the church-state wall.

NashuaTelegraph.com: Elsewhere on the Web, we find that Cornerstone has been most active in opposing the marriage equality law in New Hampshire. It has close ties with other conservative groups such as the Alliance Defense Fund, the Family Research Council and the National Organization for Marriage.

Pamela Kimble at Cross Timbers Gazette: On October 20th, Reclaiming Texas For Christ will hold their second annual FREE conference for pastors, lay leaders, and everyday citizens who are concerned about the crumbling of this nation’s spiritual foundation. An impressive array of speakers will headline this year’s conference. In this FREE afternoon conference, attendees will hear from Timothy Barton of nationally recognized WallBuilders, Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund, Pastor Geoffrey Cohen of Gateway Church, Dan Panetti of Prestonwood Church, and talk show host Kerby Anderson of Point of View Ministries.

LJWorld.com: In Lawrence, a forum took place in April where several members of the community expressed religious, moral and practical concerns with the idea. An organizer of the local forum did not return phone calls seeking comment this week. Representatives of the Alliance Defense Fund, which led the conversation at the April forum, also did not respond to a request for comment. Here are questions surrounding the gender identity issue . . .

Gary Palmer at Education News: In less than three years, the Obama Administration has taken over financial institutions, two car companies, the energy sector and health care. Now, with the help of some Republican governors and school board members, the Obama Administration is on the verge of taking over education.

OneNewsNow.com: Alliance Defense Fund attorney Kevin Theriot says that since the nation’s founding, public meetings have been opened with prayer — and there is no legal reason, he explains, why a town should be denied this right. “This practice has always been lawful in America, and the district court rightly affirmed its constitutionality in this case last year,” says Theriot

Love Your Neighbor ministry seeks used cookbook donations – St. Petersburg Times: Brooksville Wesleyan Church, 8168 Jasmine Drive, will recognize Pulpit Freedom Sunday at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 2. The Alliance Defense Fund created the day in 2008 to encourage pastors to preach boldly and biblically about current events. Visit pulpitfreedom.com

Findlaw: Does anybody really enjoy being a law clerk? Let’s face it. Only a small minority of law students decide to spend their 3L summer compiling clerkship applications because they truly want to clerk for a judge. The vast majority are doing it for prestige . . .

Findlaw: “He’s going to go down as an absolutely historic figure,” Tim Goldstein, leading Supreme Court advocate and SCOTUSblog proprietor, told CNN earlier this year. Goldstein characterized Roberts as the “best Supreme Court advocate of his generation” based on Roberts’ 39 appearances before the Court in his days in the Solicitor General’s office and private practice.

News from The Associated Press: Sen. Susan Collins, who hails from Maine’s potato country and picked potatoes as a girl, is working to restore some respect for the humble spud, which is on the verge of being virtually banished from the nation’s school lunch programs.

Helen Alvaré, Gerard V. Bradley and O. Carter Snead at Public Discourse: The Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on Conscience Protection recently reviewed and will submit comments on the “interim final rule” jointly issued by the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury on “preventive services” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We present our findings here. First, we treat the mandate that all health plans provide both contraceptives and certain abortifacients. Second, we comment upon the narrow religious freedom exemption in the rule. Third, we address the mandate in light of current social circumstances concerning sexual freedom and sexual restraint.

LifeSiteNews.com: A proposed Mexican Supreme Court decision that would nullify pro-life amendments to Mexican state constitutions suffers from flawed reasoning, is “arbitrary,” and “frankly confused,” according to Piero Tozzi, an international human rights law expert and senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

Times-Journal.com: Arab City Schools Superintendent John Mullins announced earlier this week he would reverse a policy he started a decade ago allowing every home football game at Arab High School to start with a prayer.

The Clanton Advertiser: Students in Chilton County will have the chance to rise with the sun and gather at their schools’ flagpoles for an early-morning organized prayer event called See You At The Pole on Wednesday, Sept. 28.

News from The Associated Press: Eight Muslim students convicted of misdemeanors for disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador at the University of California, Irvine thanked supporters and expressed no regrets at a public meeting in an Anaheim mosque.

News from The Associated Press: Last year’s class of California kindergartners had a record high percentage of parents who used a personal belief exemption to avoid immunization requirements, a development that concerns state health officials.

News from The Associated Press: Also on Monday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said that it has never been up to the Dalai Lama to pick his own successor and that Beijing will identify who is the next incarnation of the Tibetan spiritual leader.

News from The Associated Press: Congress is once again allowing shutdown politics to bring the federal government to the brink of closing.

Middle East Forum: Among analysts of the ongoing unrest in Syria, it is a truism that the main reason Christians are generally not participating in demonstrations against Assad’s rule is because they fear reprisals at the hands of the Sunni Arab majority if the Alawite-dominated regime falls.

News from The Associated Press: Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, considered a reformer by the standards of his own ultraconservative kingdom, decreed on Sunday that women will for the first time have the right to vote and run in local elections due in 2015.

SCOTUS Blog has posted its latest list of Cert. Petitions to watch. It includes this RLUIPA case – City of San Leandro v. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.