Daily Archives: October 20, 2011

Daily Mail Online: Another day, and another outrage from the European Court of Human Rights – but not of the traditional variety. Instead of rapists allowed to stay in Britain because of their family life rights, or compensation for terror suspects, or indeed votes for prisoners, we have an intriguing little tale involving the wife of one of the Strasbourg judges.

LifeNews.com: You may or may not have heard that recently a European Union court has ruled that the extraction of embryonic stem cells cannot be patented because it destroys a human embryo.

Catholic Culture: An annual Vatican message to the world’s Hindus emphasizes the importance of religious freedom—perhaps reflecting concern in Rome about the continued violence against the Christian minority in India.

LifeNews.com: As to my political policy view on abortion, I am 100% pro-life. End of story. I will appoint judges who understand the original intent of the Constitution.

ChicagoTribune.com: The Wisconsin state Senate is considering a Republican-backed bill that would limit abortions that would be paid for under the new federal health care reform law.

NBC Montana: A Flathead service group is fighting the US Forest Service over a statue of Jesus Christ built half a century ago on public land.

Beliefnet News: Members of the football team stomped out of a Hartford, Connecticut, high school assembly when a pro-homosexual advocacy play featured two boys kissing on stage.

The Christian Institute: Smacking will not be banned in Wales during the lifetime of the current Welsh Assembly which ends in 2016, the Welsh Government has said.

Boston.com: An attorney for the state of Indiana told a federal appeals court that Planned Parenthood could end a dispute over a new state law cutting off some funding for Planned Parenthood by separating its abortion business from its health service operations.

First Things: In the wake of the New York Legislature’s decision to pass the so-called “Marriage Equality Act,” there has been a renewed discussion among homosexual activists over whether they really ought to be pursuing an institution historically rife with “heterosexual” values such as exclusivity, fidelity, commitment, and monogamy.

Des Moines Register: The National Organization for Marriage is getting involved in Iowa’s special Senate election.

News-Journal Online: By a 6-1 vote Monday, the City Commission said, “Let us pray.”

Video – Opinion Journal: The Law School Bubble–Glenn Reynolds on whether law schools have too many students – WSJ.com.

WSJ.com: You can see why young people like Taylor would feel aggrieved. Growing up, they were told they needed a college education as a ticket to a productive life. Now they find themselves deeply in debt, their employment prospects limited in the Obama economy. So they’re lashing out at the banks that hold their debt and at the corporations that have made a college degree into a license to hunt for a job.

FRC:
Join us for a panel discussion to learn more about religious persecution, and what Christians need to do to prevent persecution both here at home and abroad.

CNSnews.com: First Lady Michelle Obama said yesterday that the government can affect who kids “will be forever” if it can shape their “habits and preferences” during the large part of the day they are at school.

C-Fam.org: The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice issued a ruling this week banning patents of stem-cell technologies based on destruction of human embryos. Some are hailing the decision as an incremental yet important legal step towards international protection all unborn human life.

C-Fam.org: The chemical abortion pill, more formally referred to as medical or medication abortion, has received a major push by international reproductive rights groups particularly in geographic regions where abortion may be legally restricted or otherwise not accessible.

LaTimes.com: Should Muslims have to clock out when they pray? That question arose earlier this week when 34 Muslim shuttle bus drivers were suspended indefinitely by Hertz Rent-A-Car for not clocking out when they went to pray.

Interfax-Religion: Special Envoy of the Russian President for Interaction with NATO Dmitry Rogozin believes mass visits to Cathedral Mosque in Moscow on chief Islam feasts have political background.

LifeSiteNews.com: A large Catholic hospital network in Texas is prescribing the abortifacient “morning-after pill.” Seton Catholic hospitals decided to provide the abortifacient Plan B emergency contraception to sexual assault victims after lobbying by NARAL Pro-Choice Texas.

LifeSiteNews.com: For all the criticism aimed at Ron Paul from both the left and right, one thing he can’t be called is incoherent.

The News Journal | delawareonline.com: Public school districts throughout Delaware can allow students up to two minutes for a moment of silence at the start of the school day — provided they have a policy in place that allows it.

WRAL.com: Two days after a homophobic slur was spray-painted on North Carolina State University’s campus, the student government showed support for the gay and lesbian community by passing a resolution opposing the North Carolina General Assembly’s proposed ban on gay marriage.

Syracuse.com: Ledyard Town Clerk Rose Marie Belforti, who gained national attention for refusing to issue a same-sex marriage license, told a crowded room of college students and community members Wednesday night that she was not going to back down from her beliefs.

The Volokh Conspiracy: “I do not think that the Kelo opinion is long for this world,” Scalia said. “My court has, by my lights, made many mistakes of law during its distinguished two centuries of existence. But it has made very few mistakes of political judgment, of estimating how far … it could stretch beyond the text of the constitution without provoking overwhelming public criticism and resistance. Dred Scott [legalizing slavery [note: Dred Scott did not actually “legalize” slavery, which was already legal in many states; it prevented Congress from forbidding it in federal territories, though states were still permitted to ban it — IS]] was one mistake of that sort. Roe v Wade [legalizing abortion] was another … And Kelo, I think, was a third.”

OneNewsNow.com: A law professor says the University of California’s disapproval of a conservative speaker is an example of the movement to quench politically incorrect voices in the educational arena.

Phelps-Roper v. Troutman, No. 10-2601 (8th Cir. Oct. 20, 2011)

We agree that the district court here was required to follow our Nixon precedent, which concluded that the government was unlikely to prove a significant interest in protecting funeral attendees . . . We do not make a final determination of the constitutional issues . . . Since Phelps-Roper was likely to succeed on the merits of her facial challenge under Nixon, the district court should have enjoined enforcement of the NFPL. The order denying a preliminary injunction is reversed, and the case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

News from The Associated Press: The Obama administration and challengers of the president’s health care overhaul are pushing for Supreme Court consideration of the law in late March, judging by the speed with which they are filing legal papers.

Ron Paul at WSJ.com: The continued existence of an organization that can create trillions of dollars out of thin air to purchase financial assets and prop up a fundamentally insolvent banking system is a black mark on an economy that professes to be free.

News from The Associated Press: Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum pounced on rival Herman Cain’s position on abortion Thursday, saying it mirrors the views of abortion-rights supporters and shows that Cain is not a true conservative.

The Tennessean | tennessean.com: The Monroe County Board of Education has agreed to allow students to wear T-shirts that support of the formation of a gay-straight alliance.

GoDanRiver.com: Pittsylvania County has formally filed a legal request to have the prayer lawsuit against the Board of Supervisors thrown out. Bill Stanley, who is representing the board free of charge, filed the motion today (Thursday) in Danville federal court.

Calendar listings Oct. 2026 | Cleveland Sun News | cleveland.com: Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 28455 Center Ridge Road, Westlake. Westlake 912 Meeting. Learn about Alliance Defense Fund’s passion and courage to stand up for America’s freedom. An ADF attorney will speak. 10 a.m. to noon Nov. 5. RSVP to (440) 937-6262.

California Catholic Daily: When news first broke of plans for the ordinance, pro-life legal groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the Life Legal Defense Foundation vowed to challenge the law in court. Life Legal Defense Foundation called claims that pregnancy resource centers mislead women “patently false.”

The Independent Florida Alligator [includes photo]: Speakers included Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for a group of Christian attorneys called the Alliance Defense Fund, and professor Danaya C. Wright, of the Levin College of Law, who each took a stance on DOMA . . . “The thrust of this debate is over the Equal Protection Clause,” Nimocks said. “The Equal Protection Clause has never required that different things should be treated the same … and marriage therefore does not violate that.” Nimocks went on to relate the involvement of federal government in marital matters to the issues of bankruptcy, military and immigration. “I think there is a solid history and a right and a reason for federal government to take up the right of marriage,” Nimocks said. [includes photo]

LifeNews.com: Three pro-life legal groups have weighed in on the case — including the American Center for Law and Justice, Alliance Defense Fund and Thomas More Society — and they have said the law is constitutional.

CNN.com: “We basically see Pulpit Freedom Sunday as a means of protecting a pastor’s right to speak freely from the pulpit without fearing government censorship in any way,” said Erik Stanley, ADF’s senior legal counsel and organizer of Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

News from The Associated Press: An EU legislator urged the leader of Cyprus’ breakaway Turkish north on Thursday to repeal an anti-gay law that has led to the arrest of a former Greek Cypriot Cabinet minister.

LifeNews.com: Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund says Judge Garbis’ ruling was a correct one. “The judge ruled that the law’s attempt to burden speech unconstitutionally discriminated against noncommercial, unlicensed speech on the explicit basis that it came from a perspective disfavoring abortion,” he said, calling it a “monumental decision protecting free speech and women’s health.

CNSnews.com: omeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that under the administration’s policy of exercising “prosecutorial discretion” in the enforcement of the immigration laws, her department is currently authorizing some illegal aliens to work in the United States.

LifeNews.com: Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is raising eyebrows today of pro-life advocates and political pundits who thought he had previously taken a pro-life position on abortion.

Ken Blackwell at Townhall: Egyptian violence against Christians is intolerable. When peaceful demonstrators demanding only protection of the law are attacked, we see a complete breakdown of civil order. More than that, the fact that Egypt ’s Christians are being killed with impunity means there is no Arab Spring. We need a thorough reassessment of our foreign policy goals.

AFA of Indiana: However, a new study looking back over the last fifty years has found that the bottom may now be falling out of church attendance among white middle class Americans. The scholarly study from sociologists at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia called, No Money, No Honey, No Church, has found that low or moderately educated white middle class Americans are abandoning church.

Maggie Gallagher at Public Discourse: The decline of manhood and norms around sex, marriage, and family produces for young women what may in fact have to be endured. But it shouldn’t be celebrated.

. . Young people are launching their careers with massive amounts of debt, which has a ripple effect on the growth of the economy and the growth of American families

Business Insider: Put together, almost 26 million Americans are either unemployed, marginally attached to the labor force, or involuntarily working part-time—a number experts say is unprecedented.

The standard of living for Americans has fallen longer and more steeply over the past three years than at any time since the US government began recording it five decades ago.

The Hill: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

Liberty Counsel: The Pajaro Valley Unified School District approved Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) of Santa Cruz County to distribute permission slips for it’s Good News Club after-school program for students. The district originally did not allow CEF to distribute permission slips, simply because the slips contained the word “Bible,” describing “Bible stories.” Liberty Counsel represents CEF in this case.

Federal District Judge Lynn N. Hughes signed a consent decree ordering the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) to stop banning prayer and the word “God” at national cemeteries, to revoke national policies hostile to religion, and to reopen the Chapel at the Houston National Cemetery.

Newsweek: The Daily Beast: Meet a ‘donorsexual’ on the web—and he’ll service you anywhere. Plus, key moments in insemination history.