Daily Archives: September 29, 2011

EuropeNews.DK via Google Translate: Representatives of the churches in Indonesia have called on the government of their country to take action against the repression of Christians. The growing influence of radical Islamic forces from the Middle East had already led to numerous churches were closed, members of the Indonesian Council of Churches declared on Wednesday during a visit to Berlin.

Community Press – Ontario, CA: Hastings County is poised to remove the Lord’s Prayer from it’s monthly agenda.

WYFF Greenville: The senior staff of Hilton Head Island Fire & Rescue Division has been told they may no longer start their monthly meetings with a prayer.

Baptist Press: An Iranian pastor facing a death sentence remained in jail Thursday as the White House publicly asked Iran to release him and friends of the pastor urged the international community to maintain its pressure.

21st Century Contract with America | Newt Gingrich 2012.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanely at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: Yet a growing nationwide movement of pastors are refusing to be intimidated. They are willing to stand up and exercise their constitutional rights of freedom of speech and free exercise of religion by boldly preaching on Pulpit Freedom Sunday. These pastors are courageously regaining the freedom of the pulpit.

LifeNews.com: Legislation that would cut federal taxpayer funding for the pro-abortion UNFPA agency will get a hearing in a House committee next week, after Republicans put forward the bill following a vote from people saying they wanted it.

Care2 Causes: Retail giant Wal-Mart has added gender identity and gender expression provisions to its nondiscrimination policy, meaning that trans employees will now be better protected from unfair treatment while working for the store chain.

The Daily Caller: One of the interesting things to come out of our recent interview with former Speaker Newt Gingrich was his position on judicial reform — an issue that is point 9 of his “21st Century Contract with America.”

Tulsa Beacon: Gov. Mary Fallin, who campaigned on her genuine Christian values, has nominated an outspoken homosexual to a post on the important Oklahoma State Election Board.

LifeNews.com: U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks ordered the main provisions of the law to be blocked while the lawsuit continued, on Wednesday the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to allow the law to go into effect pending a ruling in the case, and, today, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, acting on behalf of the entire Supreme Court, refused to lift the injunction.

In doing so, the appeals court also dismissed a Southern California trial judge’s year-old ruling that the policy was unconstitutional.

The Washington Post: Justice Department attorneys have sued Arizona and Alabama, where a federal judge on Wednesday allowed key parts of that state’s immigration law to take effect but blocked other provisions. Federal lawyers are talking to Utah officials about a third possible lawsuit and are considering legal challenges in Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina, according to court documents and government officials.

The Washington Post: The news that the Justice Department had requested that the Supreme Court examine President Obama’s health care law means that a verdict from the nation’s highest court will likely come sometime next year — right in the heart of the 2012 race.

A proposed decision to overturn a state right-to-life constitutional amendment in the Mexican Supreme Court has failed . . .

LifeSiteNews: “Self-control is one of the strongest predictors of differences between people in terms of their involvement in crime,” said Dr. Walter Forrest, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Australia’s Monash University, in a press release from Monash University.

Southwest, Lesbian Argument Creates Decency Debate – News Story – KFOX El Paso: Hailey tweeted that she felt discriminated against because of the kissing, but the airline argued the kissing was not the action that removed the couple from the plane. “Profane language was being used loudly by two passengers,” read a statement from Southwest. “At least one family who was offended by the loud profanity moved to another area of the cabin

KansasCity.com: A federal judge today said that an out-of-state group of physicians opposed to abortion can’t intervene in the legal battle over new Kansas rules for abortion clinics.

Fox News Latino: Mexico’s Supreme Court failed Wednesday to overturn a controversial anti-abortion law adopted by the northwestern state of Baja California.

A federal judge refused Thursday to block enforcement of a new Kansas law that restricts insurance coverage for abortions.

Randy Barnett at The Volokh Conspiracy: The low point for the government was when Judges Kavanaugh and Silberman pressed counsel for about 10 minutes for a single example of any economic mandate that would be unconstitutional under the government’s theory of constitutionality. To their evident frustration, she refused to provide any such example.

Eugene Volokh reports at The Volokh Conspiracy.

San Diego Reader: The “Equality 9,” as they’ve been referred to in LGBT circles, were arrested August 19, 2010, after refusing to leave the county clerk’s office after same-sex couples were denied marriage licenses.

Examiner.com: The Patriot-News recently published an article discussing non-believers – Ernest Perce, Carl Silverman and Mikki Weidman — who protested a “See You At The Pole” event at East Hanover Elementary School in which students gathered to pray. The article briefly mentions complaints that were voiced regarding this particular event, but it does not delve into great detail concerning the legal problems associated with the event.

New York Daily News: The Human Rights Campaign’s annual dinner – which features a keynote address by President Obama – will honor Bloomberg Saturday night, officials announced Thursday.

Senate Judiciary Committee: The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing entitled “Considering the Role of Judges Under the Constitution of the United States” for Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 2:30 p.m. in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building.

ACLU Blog: Late last week, the ACLU wrote to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on the problem of homophobic discrimination and harassment in U.S. public schools. In addition, we offered a model federal legislative solution that would address this problem — the Student Non-Discrimination Act (S. 555/H.R. 998).

Washington Times: With homosexuals now able to serve openly in the military, the gay rights movement’s next battleground is to persuade the Obama administration to end the armed forces’ ban on “transgenders,” a group that includes transsexuals and cross-dressers.

abc30.com: Steve Cuckovich says the practice is disrespectful and disruptive. He’s banned saying “bless you” in his high school health class in Vacaville.

International Business Times: here were rumors on Wednesday night that Nadarkhani’s execution sentence was to be waived after the final trial, but contradicting reports indicate that the news was incorrect.

News from The Associated Press: The lawyer of an Iranian pastor sentenced to death for apostasy said Thursday he is hopeful an appeals court will acquit his client.

News from The Associated Press: Kazakhstan’s upper house of parliament approved a bill Thursday that backers say will help combat religious extremism, but that critics call a blow to freedom of belief in the ex-Soviet nation.

The Hill’s Floor Action:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and 67 other House Democrats this week called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to take specific steps to ensure that the family ties of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are given special consideration in deportation cases.

News from The Associated Press: A Thai court has sentenced a morgue worker to three years in jail for hiding aborted fetuses in a Buddhist temple in Bangkok.

Visit: KTBS.com

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley In the Arena with John Kirkwood to discuss Pulpit Freedom Sunday. | MP3 audio 22:33mins

ADF Attorney Jonathan Scruggs appeared on Wallbuilders Live. | MP3 Audio 7 mins

LaTimes.com Editorial: On Sunday, hundreds of preachers are expected to celebrate something called “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” by sermonizing about the moral qualifications of candidates for public office. The event is organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization. The alliance is offering legal representation to clergy whose remarks might run afoul of the prohibition of politicking by churches. It’s a challenge the Internal Revenue Service should take seriously.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley on Grounded with Ryan Dobson to discuss the Pulpit Initiative. | MP3 audio 29:36 mins

Christian Post: Prior to the nationwide prayer rally on Wednesday, the Arizona-based legal group Alliance Defense Fund said that they are ready to defend students who are prevented or discouraged by public school officials from participating in the prayer event without charging any legal fees. Inquiries were made to ADF during the week leading up to the event, and more were made on Wednesday. A spokesperson for ADF told The Christian Post late Wednesday that specific details could not be presently released, but that the inquiries came from across the nation.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at Townhall : The war I have in mind is the so-called “Sexual Revolution.” And on every scale that ultimately matters, it is a complete and utter failure . . . In our courtrooms, the culmination of a half-century of hedonism is that sex doesn’t matter at all. Indeed, it doesn’t exist. Gender is irrelevant, a social constraint extrapolated from an increasingly adjustable physical reality

News from The Associated Press: Only about one-third of chief executives of the nation’s largest companies expect to hire or spend more in the next six months, down sharply from about half who said so three months ago.

News from The Associated Press: Serbia’s police chief warned Thursday violence by extremists is likely during this weekend’s gay pride march, and urged the organizers to cancel it.

Christian Newswire: The appeal was organized by The Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education, a division of The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS), and authored by attorneys Kevin Theriot and Matthew Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund.

Heritage Foundation: In large part, Obamacare. According to Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman, the President’s health care legislation was responsible for approximately 20 percent of the increase in premiums . . .

Digtriad.com: A coalition of groups has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block a new North Carolina law mandating ultrasounds and other requirements before a woman can have an abortion. | ACLU case information page

OneNewsNow.com: “All of this is related to a group called the Tennessee Equality Project that made an effort to unseat some councilmen who were opposed to an ordinance that would have provided preferential treatment for sexual orientation,” explains Erik Stanley, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). [more quotes from Erik]

American Constitution Society: A new ACS Issue Brief explores another avenue to the courthouse that the Roberts Court is narrowing, involving the ability of people to challenge unconstitutional government support of religion.

The Daily Caller: A Daily Caller investigation has found that in addition to the failed company Solyndra, at least four other solar panel manufacturing companies receiving in excess of $500 million in loan guarantees from the Obama administration employ executives or board members who have donated large sums of money to Democratic campaigns

SCOTUSblog provides this update on the appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and links to some of the recent filings.

NCPA Policy Digest: The typical state has unfunded public pension liabilities three times larger than its explicit government debt.

Ed Feser at Public Discourse: If one accepts the legitimacy of punishment and the principle of proportionality, then it is impossible to claim that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong.