Daily Archives: October 21, 2011

Sacramento Bee: Last year, both local and state politicians – including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – signed proclamations for the Sacramento Freethought Committee.
But this year, Gov. Jerry Brown’s office sent an email informing the group he would not issue a message for them.

The State Column:
Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, today urged the United States Forest Service to reconsider its denial of a permit extension for an historically significant World War II Memorial statue of Jesus that has been located in the Flathead National Forest near Kalispell, MT since 1953.

KXLH.com | Helena, Montana: The Flathead National Forest Supervisor is withdrawing his earlier decision on the Knights of Columbus special-use permit for the statue of Jesus on Big Mountain near Whitefish.

Aaron Baer at the Center for Arizona Policy Foundations Blog: SB 1188 requires that marital status be considered in adoption placements and establishes a preference for children to be adopted by a married man and woman when all other relevant factors are equal.

San Francisco Chronicle: U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer says he will transfer to senior status with a limited caseload by the end of the year, creating another vacancy on the federal bench in San Francisco.

Baptist Press: The current tax deduction for charitable giving is under attack, and the services provided by churches and other institutions could suffer, U.S. senators were warned Oct. 18.

Seattle Times Newspaper: Pending a Monday hearing by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Secretary of State’s Office has stopped releasing Referendum 71 petition names to the public after a religious conservative group filed an emergency motion with the court.

LifeSiteNews.com: Lawyers for Catholic Charities affiliates in three dioceses in Illinois are protesting in court after the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) said it would transfer over 1,000 children from the church-run agencies by only a fraction of the original timeline.

The Daily Caller: Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday that the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive.

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Cleo Elaine Powell was formally sworn in today as the first African-American woman on the 232-year-old Virginia Supreme Court.

LifeSiteNews.com: Today came the bombshell news that the administration of former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, now the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, destroyed critical evidence in 2005

LifeSiteNews.com: The leader of Australia’s opposition party, often referred to in the media as a social conservative, has said this week that should he be elected, his government would not consider changing the country’s abortion laws.

Freedom From Religion Foundation: The Social Security Administration, following complaints by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has halted a mandatory baptismal question previously asked of all applicants seeking benefits.

The Local: The highly popular church built near the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi in Northern Sweden might soon be joined by an ice mosque by next winter, if all goes according to plan.

Christian Concern: Ann Widdecombe, the former long-standing Conservative MP, is expected to criticise the government’s policy on cutting aid to countries which have laws against homosexuality whilst failing to take a stand against countries which persecute Christians.

The Christian Institute: Homosexual groups in Scotland have received nearly ten times as much Government funding as church groups over the past decade.

The Christian Institute: A group within the Church of England has called on the Church’s bishops to match the boldness of Roman Catholic bishops in speaking out against plans to redefine marriage.

Copenhagan Post: The government plans to introduce a bill just after the New Year that will allow same-sex couples to hold weddings in the Church of Denmark and be ‘married’ under Danish law.

Christian Post: A watchdog group dedicated to countering the agenda of homosexual activists said that a brick-throwing incident over the weekend at an Illinois Christian school is not simply an act of vandalism, but an act of domestic terrorism allegedly committed by a gay rights group.

Marcia Segelstein at WORLDmag.com: Getting rid of bullies isn’t the real point of productions like these, which happen in different forms and with different names in schools across the country. The real goal is to stamp out any objections—moral or religious—to practicing homosexuality. And if anyone wonders why public schools are failing, look no further than Johnson’s statement that this play is as important as math and social studies.

ABC News: The common perception of polygamy is that men pick out the women they want to marry. But at Centennial Park, a polygamist community in Arizona, the opposite is true: It’s up to the women to choose their husbands with the help of God, a choice that has brought tension into the household of Michael, Rose, Connie and Teresa.

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster will be available for media interviews following a hearing Monday that concerns El Paso Mayor John Cook’s attempt to stop a recall election against him and two city council members.

In other words, the woman carrying the embryo physiologically shapes the resulting baby’s DNA . . .

The Associated Press: Kansas officials are easing contentious new regulations governing abortion clinics, but the move may not be enough to placate abortion providers who have already persuaded a federal judge to block earlier versions, The Associated Press has learned.

San Antonio Express-News: A local advocate for separation of church and state sued Mayor Julián Castro on Thursday in state district court, accusing him of approving only Christians for the invocation at City Council meetings.

The Washington Post: Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon signed legislation Friday repealing a contentious law that had limited online discussions between teachers and students and caused a judge to raise concerns that it infringed on free-speech rights.

The Indianapolis Star | indystar.com: Lawyers for the state tried for a second time Thursday to convince a federal court that Indiana’s law defunding Planned Parenthood should go into effect immediately and not be delayed until after a judge rules on a lawsuit challenging the law.

The Washington Post: Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright recently told his organization’s Executive Committee in Nashville, Tenn., that he had appointed a task force to study a possible name change.

Korean Times: The advisory council on the Seoul Education Board has proposed that a students’ bill of rights should contain a code banning students from bullying same-sex adolescents. It says it is a violation of human rights for homosexual students to be isolated inside schools.

“Teaching acceptance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual students needs to be part of the curriculum in Canadian schools, say two anti-bullying experts, after the suicide of 15-year-old Ottawa teen Jamie Hubley.”

San Francisco Chronicle: Supporters of the 2008 ballot measure that outlawed same-sex marriage in California have lost a lawsuit that sought to block their past and future campaign finance records from public view.

NY Daily News: Being gay is wrong and a personal choice, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain says in a new interview.

LaTimes.com: About 21,740 same-sex couples had adopted children in 2009, up from 6,477 in 2000, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.

WSJ Law Blog: We’ve been tracking the legal job market here at LB, and as we’ve said, the news isn’t good, with recent law grads being hit the hardest. Now, along comes the annual salary guide from legal placement firm Robert Half Legal, which says some of the legal job trends aren’t necessarily what you might think.

Findlaw: t’s that time of year again, which means The Princeton Review has released its newest edition of The Best 167 Law Schools. Now, we know you normally only care about the all-powerful U.S. News rankings. But this year’s Best list has some possibly useful information.

The Guardian: Ma Jihong died on operating table after officials forced her to go with them to hospital, her relatives have said.

NECN.com: Kansas’ health department destroyed abortion records that were later sought as evidence in a criminal case against a Planned Parenthood clinic, a prosecutor said in a court record released Friday.

BaltimoreSun.com: Ravens player Brendon Ayanbadejo is putting his considerable heft behind passing a gay marriage bill in Maryland and will star in a new video that will be released today pushing for the measure.

A nonprofit religious group and its president are asking the Supreme Court to let it sue the IRS for improperly taxing its constitutionally protected political speech.

LifeNews.com: The status of whether Chen Guangcheng, the blind attorney who is the leading opponent of forced abortions in China, is dead or alive is still unknown. But one human rights activist says the pressure China has faced since the initial reports is paying dividends.

LifeNews.com: International population advocates and their allies in the media have decided that October 31, 2011 is the day that the world’s population will reach 7 billion. How convenient for them; they get to play off the day dedicated to spooky tales with a spooky tale of their own.

LifeNews.com: The Wisconsin state Senate on Thursday voted for legislation that would make it so the state opts out of the taxpayer funding of abortions found in the Obamacare legislation. The bill now heads to the state Assembly, which is expected to approve the pro-life measure and send it to the governor

TheHill.com: President Obama will announce Friday that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year.

US News and World Report: The cost to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, could balloon to $1.5 million, and Democratic Rep. Mike Honda of California wants none of it.

OneNewsNow.com: “It never was about ‘oh, let me please serve. I don’t want to lie; I want to serve my country.’ That was just all frosting on a get-rid-of-DOMA cake. And so this is not unexpected.”

LifeNews.com: “Everyone deserves a chance to recover,” said ADF legal counsel Matt Bowman. “There is no question that Daniel expressly stated his desire to live, and yet he was denied the food and water he needed to survive. His wishes should have been followed. ADF sees far too many situations involving hasty decisions to pull the plug on a human life.” “The court has done the right thing in granting our request to have Daniel’s food and hydration restored,” said Sanger’s legal counsel Daniel Cox.

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.

Patrick J. Reilley at Washington Times: Writing on their behalf, attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) argued that “federal law simply prohibits the federal government from violating the religious and moral beliefs” of any individual or institution. “No federal rule has defined being ‘religious’ as narrowly and discriminatorily as the [HHS] mandate appears to do, and no regulation has ever so directly proposed to violate plain statutory and constitutional religious freedoms,” wrote ADF’s Kevin Theriot and Matthew S. Bowman.

A federal court issued an order Thursday that prohibits the Pocono Mountain School District from continuing to stop a student from distributing fliers that invite other students to church parties and other religious events.

Christian Post: However, Daniel Blomberg of the litigation council at Alliance Defense Fund, told The Christian Post that repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and changing the fundamental definition of marriage will have serious consequences. “Different things should not be treated as the same. Gay marriage is not recognized by federal law and therefore does not mandate the same treatment as a heterosexual marriage that is. The repeal of DOMA is unlikely. Most states, when given the opportunity to do so, have written into their constitutions the definition of a marriage being between one man and one woman. Those state measures passed without any problems, most had 62 percent in favor. The majority of Americans recognize the importance of maintaining marriage as between a man and a woman.”

Christian Post: ADF claims that Knox engaged in protected speech, and therefore should not be penalized for her views. “Viki communicated her religious views on a matter of public importance… To punish her for that would be completely illegal,” said ADF Senior Counsel Byron Babione. [more]

News from The Associated Press: A toddler who was twice run over by vans and then ignored by passers-by on a busy market street died Friday a week after the accident and after days of bitter soul-searching over declining morality in China.

News from The Associated Press: More than two dozen Somali Muslim drivers for Hertz at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport are being fired after refusing to clock out for daily breaks during which they normally pray, according to media reports Thursday.

News from The Associated Press: Russia’s parliament adopted a law Friday limiting abortions but rejected even tougher restrictions backed by the country’s conservative Orthodox Church.

Christian Civic League of Maine: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has chimed in on the controversy saying that he found Knox’s comments on her personal Facebook page “disturbing.” “I think that kind of example is not a positive one at all to be setting for folks who have such an important and influential position in our society,” Christie told WABC Radio. “I’m really concerned about those kinds of statements being made.”

The legal institution of marriage exists primarily to encourage lifelong monogamous sexual unions of men and women, where we expect that children will result as often as not.

Sliding vs Deciding: What happens romantically between the ages of 18 and 34 (or whenever a person settles down in marriage and family life) affects the rest of life.

TheAge.com: AS A 41-year-old woman who has been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for more than a year, I have a simple thing to say to the medical profession – wanting to have children is about more than biology.

Slate Magazine: Women who are already mothers have more abortions than anyone else, and by an increasingly wide margin.

Rachel R. White at The Atlantic: Is marriage on the way out? Forty percent of Americans think that marriage is “becoming obsolete,” and 50 percent of younger Americans believe this, according to 2010 Pew research. I think that marriage is in a brainstorming phase. It’s trying to find its footing in the new realities of the 21st century.

WSJ.com: Maybe it’s a sign of the tumultuous times, but the federal government recently wrapped up its biggest spending year, and its second biggest annual budget deficit, and almost nobody noticed. Is it rude to mention this?

TheHill.com: Pakistan should be warned that the U.S. will cut ties with Islamabad if it continues to support an extremist group linked to attacks on U.S. troops, a key Democratic lawmaker said Friday.

LifeNews.com: The Obama administration today is coming under fire from pro-life advocates who submitted tens of thousands of public comments opposing a new mandate that would force insurance companies to cover birth control, contraception and drugs that may cause abortions.

ADF-allied attorney represents Md. heart attack victim who said, ‘I want to live,’ but had food, water cut off