Daily Archives: October 26, 2011

Reuters: The congressional “super committee” charged with reducing U.S. budget deficits is considering tackling a measure that could make their job even harder by preventing a steep pay cut for Medicare doctors.

Lambda Legal: Lambda Legal, along with several Iowa-based legal organizations, will host two forums on how best to preserve a fair and impartial judiciary after last year’s ouster of three Iowa Supreme Court justices.

ABC News: The College Board reported today that average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges surged 8.3 percent this fall, just as President Obama released details of his plan to help students deal with a debt burden that has expanded to more than $1 trillion.

CBS News: It was a transformation that was, by historical standards, remarkably swift: The decade of the 2000s saw a fundamental shift in how Americans answer the question “Who will pay for college?”

The pdf document is here.

CSMonitor.com: The Dow jumped 162 points to end at 11869 following reports that China will aid Europe by investing in a financial rescue fund.

NYTimes.com: Towering over the Bohai Sea shoreline on this city’s outskirts, the Beijiang Power and Desalination Plant is a 26-billion-renminbi technical marvel: an ultrahigh-temperature, coal-fired generator with state-of-the-art pollution controls, mated to advanced Israeli equipment that uses its leftover heat to distill seawater into fresh water.

Springfield News-Leader: Culture wars are returning to school this fall as conflicts over what to say — or not to say — about homosexuality escalate across the country.

JournalNow.com: An abortion-rights group said Monday that a nine-month investigation of crisis pregnancy centers in North Carolina found widespread misinformation being disseminated to clients seeking information about their pregnancies. NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina Foundation conducted the investigation . . .

Brazil’s top appeals court has ruled that two women can legally be married. It’s the highest court in Brazil to uphold a gay marriage.

WREG: The mayor of the town complied in his own way, having one arm of the cross removed as a form of protest.

Daily Mail Online: European human rights judges should meddle less often in cases which have already been through Britain’s courts, Ken Clarke said last night.

Christian Concern: Further doubts have been cast over how family-friendly the current Government is after it has come to light that a number of NHS Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are offering fertility treatment to single women, whilst in other areas some couples in stable relationships are denied treatment.

Christian Today: There are concerns that the freedom of Christians will be compromised in the new Tunisia after the runaway success of Islamists in the country’s first free elections.

Guardian.co.uk: Communist party responds to growing boldness of microblog users with threat to ‘punish dissemination of harmful information’

This is cause for great worry, for, once a society embraces doctor prescribed death as an acceptable answer to human suffering or as some kind of fundamental liberty right, there are no brakes.

Scotsman.com: Independent Lothians MSP Margo MacDonald has taken the first step towards a new version of her Bill on assisted suicide.

The Christian Institute: Currently schools must have a daily act of collective worship. Collective worship must be “wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character.”

In November 2011, the British Columbia Supreme Court will be asked to strike down the Criminal Code provisions against euthanasia and assisted suicide, revisiting a 1993 judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Rodriguez.

The Hill: Ron Paul said heterosexuals in the military were “causing more trouble than the gays” in explaining his support for the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” during an interview with the Iowa State Daily.

Diana West: In other words, Mubarak teaches US Marines to become intensely sensitized to the whereabouts of Mecca, and to be guided by that magnetic North for Muslims as a matter of the most personal habits and hygiene — in accordance with sharia (Islamic law).

The Orange County Register: The city plans to remove churches from the types of uses that would bar an adult business from one of three zones in the city.

St. Cloud Times: The Minnesota Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Minneapolis group that asked the Department of Education in March 2010 to investigate a series of incidents and complaints from Somali students in St. Cloud schools, said the district had much to lose by not agreeing to a settlement and that it is a big victory for the students.

StLToday.com: About 130 Muslim workers, many of whom are Somali refugees, walked off the job at the plant in Friday because of the dispute.

EuropeNews: A Muslim group in Denmark has launched a campaign to turn parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into “Sharia Law Zones” that would function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic law.

EverydayHealth.com:
Experts note that physicians may prescribe levonorgestrel with an oral contraceptive to minimize risk.

The Tower: New charges have recently been filed against the University on counts of illegal discrimination against its Muslim and female students. The allegations are being reviewed by the District of Colombia Office of Human Rights (OHR), which has the strictest discrimination laws in the country. President John H. Garvey and the University is being urged to respond to the charges.

God Discussion: Every day families fear for their children in Uganda and the children fear for their siblings due to witch doctors kidnapping children and using them for ritual sacrifice.

The Church Report: Leesburg, Va., is putting “Christmas” back in the name of its holiday parade. But not everyone is sharing in the holiday cheer.

Catholic Culture: Cardinal Joseph Zen has embarked on a 3-day fast to protest legislation that he sees as a bid by the Chinese government to seize control of Catholic schools in Hong Kong.

CNN.com Blogs: . . . The U.N. has teamed up with the company SAP to help make those decisions easier by creating a widget on the site 7billionactions.org that allows you to assess the world’s population by age, socioeconomic status and education levels, and to compare trends from country to country.

LifeSiteNews.com: After a CNN report this week condemned an illegal surrogacy ring run by high-profile fertility lawyers, one expert says that media and the pro-life community alike still fail to acknowledge the corruption endemic in the entire “baby trafficking” business – whether legal or not.

LifeNews.com: In a previously recorded interview that aired on October 22, 2011, Joseph Meaney, director of international coordination at Human Life International (HLI), spoke to EWTN’s Celtic Connections radio program about recent updates on the pro-life front in Eastern Europe.

Calgary Sun: Normally, it’s Jesus who does the saving. This time though, it’s Canadian tourists being called upon to save Christ — or, rather, a six-decade-old statue of Jesus being threatened by a zero-tolerance atheist group just south of the border.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Townhall Conservative: So how exactly do we move from a nation whose founders and first public servants included many Christians, to a place where Christians are no longer fit to participate in public life? Because if the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” (FFRF) has their way, that’s exactly what our country will look like.

The American Independent: In a move to address increasing numbers of divorce in the state, the Senate Judiciary Committee has taken up legislation which would change state law to delay the amount of time between the issuance of a license and the date a marriage can be performed.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: In an open letter to his fellow bishops, Bishop Dolan, President of the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops lists numerous examples of government laws, policies, and regulations that have been propounded without any regard for the religious liberty upon which they are trampling.

OneNewsNow.com: An advocate for religious liberty applauds a decision by one California city to end a policy that prevented religious leaders from invoking the name of Jesus in prayers.

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at Religion Clause Blog (10/21): This is just one more example of how efforts to censor speech because it is critical of other religions is a danger to freedom.

ADF Attorney Brett Harvey at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: In a remarkable 2-1 split decision, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which presides over the four states of the Carolina’s and the Virginias) invalidated the policy of Forsyth County, NC that allowed prayers to be offered before meetings of the County Council. The court acknowledged that the county policy was “neutral and proactively inclusive.” However, it was struck down because the court found that too many “sectarian” references would make people feel uncomfortable.

ADF Attorney David Cortman at Speak Up Movement University Blog (10/21): The Latin phrase in loco parentis literally means “in the place of parents” and has been referred to loosely by courts as the place held by local schools when students are in attendance. But this concept is being taken too far by public school officials.

The Republic (AP): The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Tulsa by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Owasso Kids for Christ.

Tulsa World: The complaint was filed Monday in Tulsa by local counsel Richard D. White Jr. and attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund, which on its website describes itself as “a servant organization that provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel through the legal defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family.”

NewsOK.com: Matt Sharp of Georgia, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, said Tuesday the defense fund has filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of the Kids for Christ Club of Owasso.

FOX23 News: The club used to send home flyers and permission slips with kids until the District told them they had to stop when it had its motto, “One Dream, One Vision, Reaching the World for Christ!” attached to the flyer. “The school district cannot engage in that type of discriminatory behavior,” says Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney, Matt Sharp. The ADF who represents the youth group is Christian legal team defending the right of people to live their faith. “That’s basically the Christian faith that’s showing love for Jesus to others, I don’t see how that is harmful to others,” says an Owasso mother.

San Antonio Express-News: If there’s a lawsuit, Belforti will be represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based firm that presses faith-based cases in court. Belforti says she is not discriminating against anyone since both gay and straight couples must make appointments. And she turns the argument around: She says people are opposed to accommodating her faith.

Christian Post: “This is a pretty straight forward case of the school district impermissibly discriminating against a Christian community organization based on its religious message,” said Matt Sharp, an attorney representing OKC from the Alliance Defense Fund, in an interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday.

Bartlesville Radio: Attorney Matt Sharp of the Alliance Defense Fund claims the school district is targeting a Christian organization. Owasso Kids for Christ meets at Northeast Elementary School before school starts. It is open to students Kindergarten through Sixth Grade.

ADF Attorney Piero A. Tozzi at Turtle Bay and Beyond – International Law, Policy, and Institutions: My colleague Susan Yoshihara recently posted on the browbeating Ireland has taken for its constitutional protection of unborn children during that country’s Universal Periodic Review. Norway – the “Pickled Herring” in the above caption – demanded that Ireland “bring its abortion laws in line with the [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights].”

NCPA Policy Digest: The trend is also being driven by the growing albatross that is health care reform, as many employers are worried about the coverage costs associated with adding full-time workers.

The Guardian: Two years after its founding, five supreme court justices explain how they reach judgments of national significance

SignOnSanDiego.com: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order Tuesday delaying the effect of its ruling from January, which said the cross violated the constitutional separation between church and state.

NYTimes.com: A constitutional amendment facing voters in Mississippi on Nov. 8, and similar initiatives brewing in half a dozen other states including Florida and Ohio, would declare a fertilized human egg to be a legal person, effectively branding abortion and some forms of birth control as murder.

Albany Times Union: A state judge has ordered the city Planning Board to allow the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to demolish the former St. Teresa of Avila Middle School, ruling that the panel failed to make the case that the building was a vital piece of the neighborhood fabric as it claimed.

Religion Clause: UPI reported yesterday that a Florida state appeals court has affirmed without opinion a decision of a state trial court that Islamic law can be used in deciding whether to enforce an arbitration award between a mosque and certain trustees of the mosque who had been removed from office.

Religion Clause: Alliance Defense Fund announced Monday that it had filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of “Kids for Christ” against the Owasso, Oklahoma Public Schools challenging school policy that bars religious groups from distributing flyers in the schools, as well as posting signs and making announcement of their events

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: n Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate student has filed a complaint with the school’s human resources department, alleging one of her business professors subjected her to humiliation and insults based on her sexuality.

Joe Nocera at the NY Times: The rejection of a Supreme Court nominee is unusual but not unheard of (see Clement Haynsworth Jr.). But rarely has a failed nominee had the pedigree — and intellectual firepower — of Bork.

WSJ.com: The extremely big bet that the Justice Department—and presumably, the White House—is making on ObamaCare’s constitutionality.