Daily Archives: October 6, 2011

The Republic: The Kentucky attorney general has ruled that the company that operates University Hospital in Louisville is public and that it violated open-records law by not turning over records requested by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

Telegraph: The world is facing the worst financial crisis since at least the 1930s “if not ever”, the Governor of the Bank of England said last night.

Christian Concern: The Prime Minister has faced a backlash from Christian leaders after stating in his speech yesterday at the Conservative party conference that he backed legalising homosexual ‘marriage.’

The Christian Institute: Dave Landrum of the Evangelical Alliance hit the nail on the head: “If you can’t conserve the institution of marriage, what can you conserve?” It’s good to see that at least one Dave is thinking clearly about this.

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and two pro-life organizations filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Austin LifeCare, a pregnancy resource center, against the city of Austin.

CBC News: Technology experts are warning companies with websites to protect their domain names from being hijacked by pornography businesses when the website suffix .xxx becomes available starting next year.

British Pakistani Christian Association: We have received news of the tragic killing of a young man Sabir Masih yesterday morning, in District Khanewal in the Punjab province. Our correspondent Khalid Gill from APMA reported on the incident and will be providing a full update tomorrow.

WSJ.com: Mexican telecom billionaire Carlos Slim significantly increased his stake in the New York Times Co. for the second time in less than two months, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Washington Post: A Tunisian university dean says a group of people armed with swords and knives entered his school and threatened staff after they refused to enroll students wearing Islamic face veils.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan Sears at Townhall: A Vanderbilt University policy prohibiting “discrimination on its campus against anyone because of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression” is drawing national attention because of the way it’s being used to discriminate against religious groups.

The Moral Liberal: Students at Montana State University – Bozeman (MSU) will now enjoy a much-improved right to engage in free speech and expressive activity on their campus. That’s because, as reported by the MSU student newspaper The Exponent, the Montana State University Council has passed a revised version of MSU’s Freedom of Expression Policy . . .

The Guardian: Doctor accused of helping CIA find Osama bin Laden should be charged with high treason, says Pakistani state commission.

Politics on the Hudson: The Alliance Defense Fund produced a legal memo regarding the religious freedoms of the rights of town clerks and other New Yorkers. The new law protects religious beliefs and the state is required to accommodate them unless they place an “undue hardship” on a municipality, the memo said.

FRC Washington Update: Wasserman Schultz said, “I know that the party in each of those states will be combatting [the amendments].”
But the Democratic Party in North Carolina has already effectively thrown supporters of homosexual “marriage” under the bus. Fearful that their jobs would be jeopardized by a large turnout of conservative voters in November to support the marriage amendment, Democrats in the legislature insisted it go on the ballot in May instead–when the only other thing on the ballot is the Republican presidential primary.

LifeNews.com: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul blasted President Barack Obama today over the mandate his administration will likely give final approval to soon that forces insurance companies to cover birth control and drugs that can cause abortion.

LifeSiteNews.com: 30 years ago last week Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was sworn in as the first female justice on the US Supreme Court. During the 1980 campaign, Ronald Reagan made a promise to nominate the first woman to high court. He got that chance shortly after taking office when Justice Potter Stewart left the bench. A review of O’Connor’s career reveals why the judicial nominee process has become so heated and why new laws had to pass what I call ‘the O’Connor test.’

LifeSiteNews.com: At the hearing, Minister Shatter reiterated the stance taken by the government in its National Report to the UN UPR Working Group, when he said that the European Court of Human Rights found that there was an absence of effective procedures to establish a right to termination in Ireland. He added that “Ireland is committed to ensuring that the judgment in this case is implemented expeditiously”.

Paul LintonLifeNews.com: Roe can be overturned only by a decision of the Court itself overruling Roe or by a federal constitutional amendment–neither a federal statute enacted under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment defining the word “person” as used in § 1 of the Amendment, nor a statute removing the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over abortion cases would have that effect.

LifeSiteNews.com: Researchers at the University of Washington published their findings October 4 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases about the contraceptive hormone shot, which is given every three months.

LifeSiteNews.com: Note: This testimony is excerpted from a statement by a Chinese woman, Wujian (an alias), before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 10, 2009. This excerpt originally appeared on the Minnessota Concerned Citizens for Life blog.

The Blog of Legal Times: Addressing reporters today at the White House, President Barack Obama said he has “complete confidence” in how Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. is running the U.S. Justice Department.

The Blog of Legal Times: “It will certainly take time as vacancies occur to have a judiciary that does have more diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and that certainly includes a diverse pool of women on the bench,” said Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, in an interview Wednesday.

LifeNews.com: The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) approved a resolution on Monday condemning the practice of prenatal sex selection before encouraging the work of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) – known for funding China’s coercive one child policy.

LifeNews.com: The House of representatives will vote next week on legislation that would stop abortion funding in Obamacare, the national health care plan that contains no limits on taxpayer funding of abortions. H.R. 358, Protect Life Act . . .

Alex Aldridge at Guardian.co.uk: According to recent research by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender legal group Interlaw, 70% of LGBT lawyers believe there is prejudice within the selection process for judicial office. The judicial appointments committee (JAC) – the body founded in 2006 to enhance judicial accountability – is keen to remedy this . . .

Reproductive Services in Tulsa and the Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice filed a legal challenge late Wednesday to a state law that restricts the use of abortion-inducing drugs.

News from The Associated Press: Federal officials are warning California medical marijuana dispensaries they must shut down within 45 days or face criminal prosecution and having their property confiscated.

OneNewsNow.com: Equality California has filed a complaint against the Stop SB 48 campaign, alleging that the Pacific Justice Institute and the Capitol Resource Institute are engaged in an “unlawful scheme” to qualify the referendum for the 2012 ballot.

Inside Higher Ed: A legal team on Wednesday announced plans to sue 15 law schools, charging them with misleading applicants about their job prospects upon graduation. These suits, building on a suit filed in August against two other law schools, signal a rapid expansion of a push to draw attention to the tough job market facing new lawyers, and to allegations that law schools aren’t being honest about how their graduates are faring in that job market.

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.

Timesonline.com: An American Civil Liberties Union attorney says a western Pennsylvania school superintendent has removed references to prayer from his blog on a district web site after the agency said a former teacher complained.

C-Fam: It is commonplace now for UN officials and American law professors to tell foreign governments that they are required by international law to liberalize their abortion laws . . . Enter the San Jose Articles, which were launched today in the UN press briefing room at UN headquarters in New York. Professor Robert George told UN press and observers that the San Jose Articles were drafted for the purpose of helping government officials fight back against such assertions.

Jenifer Haberkorn at POLITICO.com: If the mandate is struck the justices would have to decide how much of the law would have to come down with it — a complicated calculus at the intersection of law and health policy.

Washington Times: Partially lifting the veil that usually guards their actions, two Supreme Court justices on Wednesday painted the court as a bulwark for the Constitution and said some of today’s cynicism about government stems from the public’s scanty understanding of the founding document.

Steve Klingaman at Open Salon: In a move designed to provoke the Internal Revenue Service into action, activist clergymen and women (if there are any women) organized by the hardcore conservative Alliance Defense Fund intend to skirt or cross the line between religious and political speech from the pulpit. But just where is the line? According to IRS regulations, the line is no line in the sand, more serpentine calligraphy in quicksand. In this prohibition, context is everything, and, I’ll warn you, it’s complicated.

LifeNews.com: “Pregnancy centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of the abortion industry,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “Attacks such as this ordinance are an ideologically motivated attempt to distract from the growing national scandals in the abortion industry. For years, abortionists have preyed on women and girls to generate profits. Now, pro-abortion politicians are trying to give women fewer choices.”

Teresa Collett at University Faculty for Life: SRN has a new article entitled The Jurisprudence of Dignity (http://ssrn.com/abstract=1928768). The author, Leslie Meltzer Henry, identifies the variety of meanings given to the word “dignity” in Supreme Court cases: institutional status as dignity, liberty as dignity, equality as dignity, personal integrity as dignity, and collective virtue as dignity.

Teresa Collett at University Faculty for Life: Earlier this year I posted a link to an editorial arguing that fathers should have a right to veto the abortion of their children . . . I expressed the view that while it is possible that the Court would reverse its opinion on notification of husbands, but I saw very little prospect of success for a consent requirement. SSRN has a new article, Fathers and Abortion, by Ezio Di Nucci . . .

Christian Newswire: On behalf of their client, Austin LifeCare, a pregnancy resource center that has been well serving pregnant women in Texas since 1984, civil rights attorneys for the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project, the Texas Center for the Defense of Life and the Alliance Defense Fund filed an action in federal court this morning seeking to enjoin and have declared Austin City Code 10-9 to be an unconstitutional abridgment of Austin Life Care’s rights to freedom of speech, association and religious free exercise.

Forward.com: When the Alliance Defense Fund started organizing annual preacher protests in 2008, only a handful of churches joined in, but the number quadrupled in the past year alone. This is a dangerous movement that needs to be forcefully answered. Pastor Anu may run a fine church, but his argument that ministers should have the same free speech rights as ordinary citizens is simply indefensible.

OneNewsNow.com: “The university certainly overstepped its bounds under the First Amendment,” he contends. “The simplest thing for the university to do in this case was to allow Julea to refer the client, which she had a religiously-based conflict with the client. Referral is a very common and accepted professional practice,” the attorney adds.

ENCToday: The council wanted to wait to revert to praying aloud after seeing whether the U.S. Supreme Court would rule in favor of an appeal entered by The Alliance Defense Fund — the public interest law firm that is leading Forsyth County’s defense.

The Jackson Sun | jacksonsun.com: Whiteville Mayor James Bellar said the board of aldermen voted to let the Alliance Defense Fund look into the town’s options for responding to complaints about a religious cross atop its water tower. . . . The [FFRF] foundation sent another letter to town officials on Wednesday cautioning them against accepting legal representation from the Alliance Defense Fund. [more . . . ]

JacksonSun.com: Our View: Line should be drawn in favor of Constitution

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.”

Sonoran News: “Unelected judges should rule in accord with the Constitution, not according to their own personal policy preferences, as one judge here has rightfully noted,” said ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Daniel Blomberg. “Every federal appellate court to consider precisely this issue has found no fundamental right to engage in homosexual conduct while employed in the military. Since the law was reasonably related to Congress’s goal of military cohesion, those courts always upheld the law as constitutional.” Circuit Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain agreed . . .

Tobin Grant at Christianity Today: “ADF is not trying to get politics into the pulpit. Churches can decide for themselves that they either do or don’t want their pastors to speak about electoral candidates. The point of the Pulpit Initiative is very simple: the IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status. We need to get the government out of the pulpit,” said Stanley.

The Tennessean | tennessean.com: With the Cheatham County school district still feeling the aftermath of the ACLU suing the district in November 2009 for promoting and endorsing religious activity, many questions still remain on what is or isn’t acceptable in the schools.

AP on Findlaw: A judge has upheld the firing of a central Ohio public school science teacher accused of preaching religious beliefs in class and of keeping a Bible on his desk.

Findlaw: A federal appeals court in Atlanta is hearing from a gun rights group that wants to overturn a Georgia state ban on guns in places of worship.

Findlaw: The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that France did not violate financier George Soros’ rights when convicting him of insider trading.

There was no way, Justice after Justice admitted, to define a bright boundary between state and church.

The Hill: A newly leaked World Bank report calls on 24 OECD countries to boost tax burdens on their oil and gas sectors—eventually by as much as $40-$60 billion annually—in order to funnel part of the money raised to carbon-trading and other environmental concerns.

The Hill: Sarah Palin ended months of speculation Wednesday when she announced she will not run for president.

William English at Public Discourse: In a new bestseller, David Brooks contends that the “new sciences” point to the incredible reality and importance of old-fashioned things like education, character formation, and virtue.

NCPA Policy Digest: Compared to other large investments that Americans make, the information that prospective students have about college costs and quality is woefully incomplete, says Andrew P. Kelly, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

CNSnews.com: Bantering with the audience at a fundraiser in St. Louis yesterday, President Barack Obama bragged about a new regulation, proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services, that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has denounced as an “unprecedented attack on religious liberty.”