Daily Archives: October 4, 2011

National Review Online: Pfundstein talks to National Review Online’s Kathryn Jean Lopez about some of these issues that affect the very health and soul of New York and our national culture, never mind our lives.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: Thanks to your generous prayers and support, the Alliance Defense Fund continues to work to protect the right of all Americans to hear and speak the Truth. The depth and breadth of our ADF activities this past week illustrates how much God is graciously enabling us to do in defense of religious liberty. To cite just three quick examples . . .

Asia News: Yesterday in the district of Muthana, an armed group assassinated the 30 year old Catholic Bassam Isho. October 1, Emmanuel Polos Hanna, was found at the edge of the road to Baghdad shot to death. Christian sources in Kirkuk: “The attacks continue, in the total silence of the world.”

PR Newswire at sacbee.com: A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization is calling on Virginia’s George Mason University School of Law to disinvite Nonie Darwish, a notorious Islamophobe who has stated that Islam is a “poison to a society” that is “based on lies” and must be “annihilated.”

Baptist Press: Iran has an obligation under its international commitments to free a pastor facing execution and to drop all charges against him, Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land says in a letter written to Iran’s United Nations ambassador.

Baptist Press: A blood test recently proven to be capable of accurately determining the sex of an unborn child as early as seven weeks’ gestation could result in an increase in gender-selective abortions in the United States.

KRMG.com: State lawmakers are looking into the possibility that the punishment for a crime may be too harsh.
A state prosecutor says sexting’ among teens is on the rise.

Guardian.co.uk: The global trend suggests a gradual shift towards the decriminalisation of assisted suicide

Video here.

National Review Online: A new study in the British medical journal The Lancet has revealed that a common contraceptive doubles the risk of HIV infection — at least based on evidence from where it is most popularly recommended and used, in eastern and southern Africa (the world’s most AIDS-infected areas). The New York Times reports . . .

Fox News: Imprisoned Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, originally sentenced to death for apostasy and refusing to renounce Christianity, is now in even greater danger of being put to death in light of reports in state-run media of other charges, including being a Zionist and a threat to national security.

LifeNews.com: The Ohio health department has updated an arrangement that allows late-term abortion practitioner Martin Haskell to continue doing abortions without following state law requiring him to have a transfer agreement at a local hospital.

A third-party “psychological” parent does not have the same autonomy as the child’s legal parents did before ceding custody, a state appeals court said Friday in a precedential decision. An applicant for visitation need only prove it is in the child’ best interests, and need not satisfy the higher avoidance-of-harm standard, the Appellate Division said . . .

Officials revised their count of same-sex couples who described themselves as “spouses” from 349,377 to 131,729.

The Christian Institute: It should not be a crime to display the Bible or disagree with homosexuality, former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe has warned. Miss Widdecombe was commenting in light of a Christian café owner in Blackpool . . .

The Christian Institute: Edwin Poots, Northern Ireland’s health minister, has decided to keep a lifetime blood safeguard which helps to protect against the risk of HIV contamination. His decision was met with a furious reaction by his political opponents and a homosexual lobby group.

WSJ: A lower court dismissed Ward’s suit last year. “Public universities shouldn’t force students to violate their religious beliefs to get a degree,” Jeremy Tedesco, Ward’s attorney, said yesterday in this statement previewing today’s 6th Circuit argument. Tedesco is an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund.

News from The Associated Press: The network said Tuesday that its 1960s period piece drama “The Playboy Club” is being canceled, acting less than 24 hours after the new series drew only 3.5 million people for its third episode.

WREG (includes video): Whiteville removing cross from top of water tower due to threatened lawsuit.

The Blog of Legal Times: Noting the pending nomination of a sitting magistrate judge, D.C. Superior Court is advertising the position in anticipation of the potential new vacancy.

The Blog of Legal Times: Senators moved with relative speed to confirm Judge Jennifer Zipps after President Barack Obama nominated her in June.

NCRegister.com: Wagner, 38, has just been convicted of mischief and sentenced to 40 days in jail for entering a Toronto abortion business and counseling the women there to keep their babies. It’s Wagner’s second conviction since 2000 and her second time in jail in two years. This spring she was actually acquitted of the same offense — but not before she spent four months awaiting trial. She could have been released during the interim before her case was heard, but only if she signed an agreement to stay away from abortion clinics.

Catholic Culture: The Archdiocese of Puebla and Roca Fuerte, a Protestant organization, have agreed that Catholics and Protestants in the village of San Rafael Tlanalapan will respect one another’s religious liberty.

Catholic Culture: The government of the Czech Republic will pay the Catholic Church 47 billion korunas ($2.5 billion) over 17 years in compensation for property confiscated during the Communist era (1948-89), according to a proposal outlined by the government’s culture ministry.

CNN.com Blogs: The authors are both psychologists who work at religious universities. Stanton Jones is a psychology professor and provost at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, and Mark Yarhouse is a professor of mental health at Regent University, in Virginia Beach, which was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Jill Stanek: After the New Hampshire Executive Council voted in June not to award a $1.8 million contract to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England for family planning services, PPNNE appealed to the Obama administration for help.

News from Missouri Family Policy Council: Missouri’s Catholic bishops are calling on the Obama Administration to abandon plans to mandate health care coverage of abortion-inducing drugs . . .

Civitas Poll: Majority of Voters Support NC Marriage Amendment: A majority, 62 percent, of North Carolina voters say they support a constitutional amendment that establishes marriage between one man and woman as the only recognized domestic legal union in the state.

Politics in Minnesota: In a news release, the Minnesota for Marriage campaign fired back against new proposed guidelines for disclosure that would require not only the campaigns to release detailed income and expenditure reports, but also the release of any donors who support nonprofits that eventually contribute to campaigns.

News from The Associated Press: House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday dismissed a Senate bill that could punish China for undervaluing its currency, saying it was “pretty dangerous” for Congress to tell another country how to run its monetary policy.

Findlaw Blog: Eight men were jailed in Kentucky for the nefarious crime of refusing to affix safety triangles onto their Amish buggies.

Kare11.com: The ACLU of Minnesota released hundreds of documents Monday from its ongoing lawsuit against an Inver Grove Heights charter school, based on the legal claim that school used taxpayer money to promote Islam.

The Tennessean: The school system held the forum at Vol State Community College in response to community backlash after a Westmoreland principal disciplined four coaches for bowing their heads at a football game and the district’s subsequent decision to bar district employees from praying at school events.

Islamist Watch: Over the past few months, a “mosque” in Toronto has inspired quite a hubbub in the blogosphere and Canadian press, even promptingdemonstrations, including some in September. As in many mosques, the genders are segregated, with males sitting in the front and females in the back, but it is the location of the “mosque” — a public school — that initiated the controversy. The Valley Park Middle School basically converts its cafeteria to a temporary mosque in which Muslim students hold Friday (jum’ah) prayers.

TheHill.com: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) on Tuesday called for President Obama to appoint a special counsel to investigate whether Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress.

LifeNews.com: The letter, which appeared publicly on the Diocese of Amarillo website and which LifeNews blogger Gerard Nadal obtained, claims Father Pavone “remains suspended,” even though the Diocese had said publicly repeatedly before that that was not the case and that Pavone was a priest in good standing.

Eugene Volokh discusses the situation and constitutional implications at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Gallup: As the U.S. Supreme Court begins its 2011-2012 term, Americans’ approval of the institution is now 46%, a drop of 5 percentage points in the last year and 15 points in the last two years.

San Leandro can be sued for blocking church’s move: The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for a fast-growing church to sue San Leandro for blocking its move to a larger building . . .

Reuters: The Senate on Monday approved six nominees to fill judicial vacancies, addressing a backlog of 27 judicial nominees that were pending before the chamber.

Religion Clause: In India, Muslims and Catholics are strongly criticizing the Women’s Code Bill that is being proposed by the government in the state of Kerala.

NYTimes.com: Mr. Brown, the charismatic leader of Word of Life Church, an independent evangelical congregation of about 1,500 members, is on a mission to ensure that the domestic partners of El Paso city workers no longer get health insurance.

The list and description of cases is here.

Christian Post: California Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill that would prevent local governments from banning male circumcision after a spirited attempt by anti-circumcision activists to ban the religious practice in San Francisco and Santa Monica.

Religion Clause Blog: “Pacific News Center reports today that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against Aviation Concepts, an aircraft retailer and service provider in Guam.”

CNSnews.com: Will same-sex marriage ceremonies be allowed at the Catholic Chapel of the Most Holy Trinity at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point? “The answer is ‘no,’” said Taylor Henry, director of public affairs and media relations for the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and spokesman for Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who certifies all Catholic chaplains for the armed services.

Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission: The SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is on the record with strong support for H.R. 2059, legislation to prohibit funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). This bill would ensure that taxpayers are no longer forced to fund this agency, which known for its involvement with China’s one-child policy and forced sterilization.

The American Independent: Part of the mission of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, led by Richard D. Land, is to expand, generally, the freedom of religious groups to influence law and policy. This past Sunday, Land was among more than 400 religious leaders to participate in the Alliance Defense Fund’s Pulpit Freedom Sunday . . .

AnnArbor.com: Ward sued EMU in 2009, but lost in the lower courts. Ward and her attorneys, the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal organization that works to uphold the rights of religious college students and faculty, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth District.

J.S. Turner letter to Syracuse.com: As for the town clerk’s fitness for her office, I submit this is not a question for People for the American Way, or for the Alliance Defense Fund, or for the editorial board of The Post-Standard. It is a question for the voters of Ledyard properly to decide, which I understand they will do in due course in a few short weeks. Everyone else should butt out.

Brian Bolduc at National Review Online: But Belforti isn’t picking which laws to enforce, she’s merely changing how she enforces them, says Holly Carmichael, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which will assist Belforti in the event of litigation. Carmichael notes that in a New York Times article on the controversy, Katie Carmichael (no relation) complains, “To have her basically telling us to get in the back of the line is just not acceptable.”

Concord Monitor: Cusson then sought the representation of the religious-freedom Alliance Defense Fund, who argued his sign should be treated like a gas price sign. In April, he won final approval from the zoning board.

Snoqualmie, WA – SnoValley Star: “Christians shouldn’t be threatened with arrest and quarantined in isolated ‘expression areas’ when they want to share their beliefs,” Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Nate Kellum said in a statement. “The federal judge did the right thing by halting the enforcement of a city ordinance that effectively censors anyone who wishes to express his or her beliefs through the distribution of literature. That violates the constitutionally protected right to free speech in public areas at a free event that’s open to everyone.”

NCRegister.com: As Gregory Baylor, a senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, stated with regard to the case, “When a government enables parents to make meaningful choices about the education their children receive, it advances rather than undermines religious freedom because government no longer channels virtually all children into a system with philosophical presuppositions that many parents reject. This is both good for freedom and for children.” . . . Yet, amazingly, the court found that what is called “the balance of equities” favored stopping the program now, before a full trial, because of the “significant injury” continuing the program would cause the plaintiffs. This, however, elevates form over substance. The “plaintiffs” are not harmed by allowing other children to attend other schools.