Daily Archives: November 3, 2011

Arizona News from USA Today: Five students, all born in the U.S. to illegal immigrant parents, sued the state last month for denying them in-state tuition rates even though they’d lived in Florida, graduated from state high schools and were entering state colleges and universities.

BBC News – : Religious groups in the Netherlands have opposed a call from the Royal Dutch Medical Association (RDMA) for male circumcision to be discouraged.

LifeNews.com: China’s coercive one-child family planning policy was blasted today in a Congressional hearing. Congressman Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, was one of panelists who told members how it has led to extensive human rights abuses.

The Americano: Illinois’ six Catholic bishops have deplored Catholic governor Pat Quinn’s role as the presenter of a “Pro-Choice Leadership Award” at an abortion advocacy group’s upcoming ceremony.

Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: This is why I am heartened by the UCHR’s ruling that upholds Austria’s law banning the use both donated eggs and sperm in an IVF attempt in order to allow a couple to bear a genetically unrelated child.

LifeSiteNews.com: Despite his support for legal abortion, Liberal MP Justin Trudeau is complaining after a Tory MP pointed out that the late Prime Minister’s son opposes key teachings of the Catholic faith.

The Christian Institute: Scotland’s main opposition parties have accused the Scottish Government of failing “to make the case” for its anti-sectarianism Bill ahead of a debate in Holyrood this afternoon.

The Christian Institute: Councillors in Glasgow have backed the Scottish Government’s controversial plans to redefine marriage, despite widespread opposition to any change.

The Brown Daily Herald: But the executive order could face a lawsuit from Rhode Island Right to Life. Barth Bracy, executive director of the pro-life organization, said he plans to challenge the order’s constitutionality on the grounds that it could allow the state to subsidize abortion. “The taking of innocent human life is the antithesis of health care,” he said.

Christian Today: African nations have responded with anger to the recent announcement by David Cameron that aid will be cut to countries that restrict the rights of homosexuals.

StarTribune.com: Members of the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, which held its annual convention over the weekend in Minneapolis, passed a resolution opposing the marriage amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage.

Delmarvanow.com: “We recognize those marriages as we do any heterosexual marriage,” said Gansler, whose office drafted the opinion leading to that decision. “The opinion we drafted has a lot less to do with same-sex marriage and a lot more to do with the full faith and credit clause.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, agreed to the delay, and suggested that the bill to repeal the 15-year-old Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) be brought up again Nov. 10.

George F. Will at The Washington Post: Illustrating an intellectual confusion common on campuses, Vanderbilt University says: To ensure “diversity of thought and opinion” we require certain student groups, including five religious ones, to conform to the university’s policy that forbids the groups from protecting their characteristics that contribute to diversity. Last year, after a Christian fraternity allegedly expelled a gay undergraduate because of his sexual practices, Vanderbilt redoubled its efforts . . .

Huffington Post (includes video): Although newlyweds Rachel and Charlotte Lambert-Jolley say they were told they would be able to change their names in Florida with the appropriate documentation, authorities at a Pinellas County DMV ultimately rejected their request after an hour-long wait, Saint Petersburg 10 News is reporting.

The Globe and Mail: But despite her achievements, she was initially unable to secure one of the 10-month articling positions mandatory for all Canadian law-school graduates who wish to become fully fledged lawyers. And she was not alone. In what’s been called an “articling crisis,” 12 per cent of Ontario law school graduates were unable to get articling jobs in 2011, according to statistics from the Law Society of Upper Canada.

Odessa American Online: It is the first time the City of Odessa has responded to such a request from Rock the Desert, Zentner said. Some find giving city money to a religious organization problematic.

LifeSiteNews.com: ECHO: Improving Women’s Health in Ontario (formerly Ontario Women’s Health Council) released the report dated May of this year, and titled “Recommendations to Improve Abortion Services in Ontario.”

LifeNews.com: The paper, titled ‘Associations Between Abortion, Mental Disorders, and Suicidal Behaviour in a Nationally Representative Sample’ was published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in April 2010 and confirmed ‘a strong association between abortion and mental disorders’.

Karla Dial at CitizenLink: his morning, the U.S. House of Representatives heard from a panel of experts about how the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — aka ObamaCare — violates health care workers’ rights not to participate in acts they find morally objectionable.

The Daily Athenaeum – West Virginia University: West Virginia University Student Government Association Governor Ben Seebaugh proposed an office of social justice be established for gender-variant minority students at Wednesday night’s SGA meeting.

Politico (Victim of recession? Bachelor pads): Almost one in five men between the ages of 25 to 34 are living with their parents, according to a Census Bureau report released Thursday. About 14 percent of men lived with their parents in 2005, a figure that crept up to 19 percent . . . Married couples with children made up 20 percent of all American households, versus 40 percent in 1970.

Frank D. Mylar at The Salt Lake Tribune: Justice Thomas sees the Supreme Court’s non-decision here as yet another contributing factor to an “Establishment Clause jurisprudence in shambles,” where no one really understands how the court might rule in a given case with memorials that can be interpreted by some as “religious.” It represents a shift further from the objective rule of law and what America’s founders intended, and instead makes us more vulnerable to the whims of the most easily offended observers — like those who see an effort to “establish” religion in memorials like the crosses in Utah . . . Frank D. Mylar, a Salt Lake attorney, was co-counsel for the Utah Highway Patrol Association with the Alliance Defense Fund (www.telladf.org).

The Washington Post: There’s [Marjorie] Dannenfelser. There’s her friend Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, who also has five. There’s Penny Nance, chief executive of Concerned Women for America, with two. (“I feel like an underachiever compared to Marjorie,” she says.) Shannon Royce, president of Chosen Families and Kristan Hawkins, executive director of Students for Life, each have two.

Matt Bowman at National Review Online: Before October 2011, Lorna Mendoza and her nurse colleagues at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey served patients every day in the same day surgery unit without any hint that the hospital’s respect for the nurses’ religious beliefs was about to come crashing down around them.

The Cheraw Chronicle: The Christian rock concert and rally at New Heights Middle School in Jefferson two months ago has the Chesterfield County School District answering to accusations of having violated constitutional principles separating church and state. David Huff, the lawyer representing the school district, had little to offer in the form of documentation in his official response to the demands of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).

San Francisco Chronicle: House Republicans defending the federal ban on marital benefits for same-sex couples in a San Francisco court have cited findings by a pro-gay-rights psychologist to support their view that gays and lesbians are not entitled to strong judicial protection from discrimination.

Religion Clause: The challenged section provides that a sexual assault is without the consent of the other person if “the actor is a clergyman who causes the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual adviser.”

Religion Clause Blog reports on developments in Ally v. City of Youngstown.

Tulsa Beacon: “I respect the views of those who argue that no-fault divorce creates less havoc than the alternatives, but I question that orthodoxy,” McCullough said. “There is very little in the divorce process that is even remotely connected to the interest of the children.”

Nicholas D. Kristof at NYTimes.com: What if there were a solution to many of the global problems that confront us, from climate change to poverty to civil wars? There is, but it is starved of resources. It’s called family planning, and it has been a victim of America’s religious wars.

Tulsa Beacon: Alliance Defense Fund attorneys representing a community-led Christian club for students filed suit against the Owasso School District after it revoked the club’s ability to publicize its events as other community groups are allowed to do and discouraged the club from promoting itself anywhere in the community, including through the media.

OneNewsNow.com: But as Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) points out, such incidences are happening in schools all across the country. “They’re just bypassing parents, especially on some of the most controversial stuff that students are exposed to — sex education, the battle regarding the homosexual agenda,” he laments. “The school districts are starting just to say, ‘Well, we know what’s better for your kids. We’re not even gonna tell you what we’re doing.’”

Crosswalk ReligionToday News Summaries: Matt Bowman of the Alliance Defense Fund, who will be representing the nurses in court, said “the right of pro-life nurses not to be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs” should be defended.

WorldNetDaily: hat word had come from officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which along with the Alliance Defense Fund already has elevated the dispute involving Christer and Annie Johannson and their son, Domenic, of Sweden to the European Court of Human Rights.

EPPC: The Ethics and Public Policy Center takes pleasure in announcing the inaugural event of its American Religious Freedom Program. President Washington’s vision for religious freedom and church-state relations established enduring precedents to guide American political life and civil society. His Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Letter to the Newport Synagogue, Farewell Address, and similar acts and statements set the stage for America’s history of protecting robust religious rights and freedoms for persons of all faiths.

Christian Examiner: Pro-life nurses shouldn’t be forced to assist in abortions against their beliefs,” said the Alliance Defense Fund attorney Matt Bowman. “No less than 12 nurses have encountered threats to their jobs at this hospital ever since a policy change required them to participate in the abortions regardless of their religious objections. That is flatly illegal.” ccording to ADF, federal law prohibits hospitals that receive certain federal funds from forcing employees to participate in abortions.

Delmarvanow.com: Cox is a member of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian-based legal network that was also involved in Schiavo’s case.

Mario Diaz of Concerned Women for American at the Washington Times: The most comprehensive scientific national survey to date, commissioned by the Alliance Defense Fund and completed by Public Opinion Strategies in May, reveals that 62 percent of Americans believe “marriage should be defined only as a union between one man and one woman.” Fifty-three percent strongly agreed.

LifeNews.com: The Planned Parenthood abortion business in yet another state is facing accusations of massive Medicaid fraud related to billing for abortions and birth control — at a time when Congress is launching an investigation.

LifeNews.com: A fourth defendant is expected to plead guilty today in the gruesome case involving the botched abortion deaths and the abortion-infanticides of dozens of unborn children that took place at the abortion facility run by Kermit Gosnell.

Atlantic City will no longer enforce a city ordinance that police used to stop a man from engaging in religious speech on the city’s boardwalk in June.

Charles Toutant at New Jersey Law Journal (subscription): The suit was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz., which describes itself as a Christian and legal policy organization and is opposed to abortion . . . The Alliance Defense Fund believes the UMDNJ case will end differently because it concerns a government-run hospital, unlike the private hospital in the New York case, according to its legal counsel, Matthew Bowman. Private entities aren’t subject to suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, but government agencies are, says Bowman.

Linda Greenhouse at NYTimes.com: The dissent was a vivid tour through the incoherent landscape of the court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Here are a few choice morsels, omitting the numerous citations not only to Supreme Court decisions but also to decisions issued by lower courts as they have struggled to understand and apply the Supreme Court’s cases . . .

WSJ: Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in August, as the number of recipients hit 45.8 million.

CNSnews.com: The federal government’s debt increased by $203,368,715,583.63 in the month of October, according to the U.S. Treasury.