Daily Archives: November 18, 2011

BBC News: Gay couples in NI are denied the chance to adopt children because of outdated legislation, the High Court has heard.

NY Daily News: While syphilis rates fell 1.6% from 2009 to 2010, the rate among young black men rose 134% since 2006, according to the recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The New American: Before the law passed, Timothy Tracey, a lawyer with the conservative Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, testified before the Judiciary Committee that the bill infringes on the religious rights of those who believe that men and women are different. Said Tracey, “The First Amendment mandates that no individual should be required to affirm, in act, word, or deed, that a man is a woman, or a woman is a man, against their sincerely held religious beliefs. Yet this is precisely what (the bill) will do.”

More than 200 LGBT presidential appointees serve under President Obama, among them the first two who are openly transgender.

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan became the first sitting cabinet secretary to announce support for marriage equality, saying on Nov. 15 that he ”absolutely” supports marriage equality in an exclusive interview with Metro Weekly.

Trying to defuse a whisper campaign about his sexual preferences, State Board of Education member George Clayton recently sent out an e-mail to news groups and others acknowledging that he is gay. Clayton, R-Richardson . . .

LifeNews.com: The West Virginia state legislature has chosen a pro-life advocate to lead the state Senate as West Virginians for Life continues working with lawmakers to pass measures designed to protect unborn children.

LifeSiteNews.com: The report, titled ‘”Not to be Forgotten: Care of Vulnerable Canadians,’” calls for “quality end-of-life care for all Canadians.”

News from The Associated Press: Hundreds of Muslims gathered in lower Manhattan on Friday to pray and march in protest against a decade of New York Police Department spying on Muslim communities.

The current session of the General Assembly ends in less than a month. No resolution proposed thus far mentions LGBT rights.

he Massachusetts legislature has passed a bill that elevates cross-dressing or transgendered individuals to a protected class, and grants universal access to sex-segregated areas such as bathrooms based on personal “gender identity or expression.”

LifeSiteNews.com: The only abortion clinic in Santa Fe will close as of December 23, 2011, when abortionist Lucia Ceis retires from private practice. The last day abortions will be done is December 16, 2011.

LifeSiteNews.com: In a conversation with a priest in my diocese, I shared my spiritual director’s report that every other confession he hears from men involves the sin of pornography. The pastor’s response was shocking: “Oh, it’s much worse than that!” Since then, this sad reality has been confirmed by many others: The sin of pornography is overwhelming Catholic men.

Lancaster Online: Only four districts — Columbia, Eastern Lancaster County, Lampeter-Strasburg and Octorara — now pray at their public meetings each month.

Dave Kopel at The Volokh Conspiracy: In short, the Necessary and Proper Clause expressed the well-known agency law doctrine of principals and incidents. That is, the grant of power to an agent (and the federal government was an agent of the people, to exercise certain delegated powers) was considered to include incidental powers. (Unless the parties specified to the contrary.) To be an incidental power, a power had to be subsidiary to, inferior to, and “less worthy” (in the language of the time) than the principal power.

Dale Alhquist at Crisis Magazine: But just as most people don’t want to hear about the sin of contraception, most people don’t want to hear about the sin of usury. Because most people don’t want to hear about sin. That continues to be a problem.

CJOnline.com: Topeka Unified School District 501 board of education members Thursday night voted 6-1 to include sexual orientation and gender expression in the district’s anti-discrimination policies regarding students and staff . . . Cindy Kelly, the district’s attorney, said the policy additions were recommended by the U.S. Department of Education in an advisory noting that bullying and harassment of students due to sexual orientation or gender identity is rising.

TimesofMalta.com: Existing European asylum procedures do not adequately provide for gender and sexual orientation-based persecution, European gender awareness experts have warned.

Shreveporttimes: The controversy surrounding the use of the Springhill branch library’s courtyard for a live nativity scene Dec. 15 has been cleared up.

CSMonitor.com: Catholic diocese: The move was approved Thursday by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert N. Kwan after a bidding war between the diocese and Orange County’s Chapman University for the sprawling 40-acre property — and was opposed by many Crystal Cathedral congregants who fear it will be the end of their church

Herald Scotland : MORE than 70 of Scotland’s evangelical churches have joined forces to campaign against the introduction of same-sex marriage.

The Blog of Legal Times: Roy McLeese III, a veteran appellate attorney in Washington, was nominated Thursday to a slot on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

The Independent: The Archbishop of Westminster said today he was “disappointed” with Government plans to legalise same-sex marriages.

Paul.House.Gov: The public is increasingly unwilling to be bilked to make bankers whole. The riots and the violence in Greece should tell us something about the sustainability of this system. If we continue to bail out banks and bankers so they can continue to lose money, if we cavalierly put this burden on the taxpayer, it is all too predictable what will happen here.

NYTimes.com: C-Span asked Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. this week to let the network televise the upcoming Supreme Court arguments in the case challenging the health care law. The justices have not permitted TV cameras in their courtroom, but this landmark case, which will affect every American, should surely be an exception to that rule.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: The full 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to decide whether it is constitutional for a public school to hold graduation ceremonies in the sanctuary of a Wisconsin church. | Doe 3 ex rel. Doe 2 v. Elmbrook School District

ZDNet: Major pornography companies have filed a lawsuit against ICANN over adult TLD .XXX.

Liberty Counsel: Liberty Counsel sent a letter to a cancer treatment center, demanding it extend its reversal of a decision to ban Santa Claus to now also allow Nativity scenes and other religious Christmas symbols. The Hollings Cancer Center, a state-funded institution in South Carolina, decided to ban all Christmas displays from its facilities. Two days later, they reversed the decision and let Santa Claus sneak in, but for now baby Jesus is still out in the cold.

ADF Attorney Dale Schowengerdt appeared on Fox News Radio 1460 AM with Mark Carbonaro to discuss yesterday’s ruling. | MP3 audio 9 mins

Church in Need: Mr. Bhatti said that Christians are marginalized and disadvantaged throughout Pakistani society, but the situation in prisons is “particularly precarious.”

Catholic Culture: The leader of Spain’s opposition party–who is favored to win general elections–may move to reverse the legal approval of same-sex marriage and the decriminalization of abortion.

California Catholic Daily: “The court was clearly right to conclude that the California marriage amendment should not go undefended just because state officials have refused to defend it,” said Brian Raumm, a senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, in a statement issued immediately after yesterday’s ruling. “Because the people of California have a right to be defended, Proposition 8’s official proponents will be allowed to continue defending the marriage amendment. Otherwise, state officials would have succeeded in indirectly invalidating a measure that they had no power to strike down directly.”

WorldNetDaily: For example, Blair participates in the annual Pulpit Freedom Day assembled by the Alliance Defense Fund that is intended to restore free speech to pastors who speak from their pulpits about the moral issues of the day. It is in opposition to an IRS rule that says pastors are not supposed to mention those issues in connection with political candidates.

Sarah Palin at WSJ.com: The money-making opportunities for politicians are myriad, and Mr. Schweizer details the most lucrative methods: accepting sweetheart gifts of IPO stock from companies seeking to influence legislation, practicing insider trading with nonpublic government information, earmarking projects that benefit personal real estate holdings, and even subtly extorting campaign donations through the threat of legislation unfavorable to an industry. The list goes on and on, and it’s sickening.

LifeSiteNews.com: Piero Tozzi, Senior Legal Counsel, Global, with the Alliance Defense Fund, criticized the Commission. “The IACHR has repeatedly overstepped its mandate these past two years, placing ideology over rule of law principles. For example, in the Karen Atala case, the Commission actually demanded that Chile’s executive power ‘punish’ Chilean Supreme Court judges for discriminating on the grounds of ‘sexual orientation’ for determining that placing children with the father over their mother, a self-described ‘lesbian,’ to be in the children’s best interest.” “If the IACHR weren’t so blinded by advancing the homosexual agenda, they would understand that undermining the independence of the judiciary and violating the principle of separation of powers actually undermines rule of law and the integrity of the Inter-American system,” Tozzi told the Friday Fax.

LifeNews.com: A recent investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, revealed that the Obama administration has broken the law. The GAO’s report establishes that at least one Obama grantee openly lobbied to expand abortion in Kenya despite the longstanding law, known as the Siljander Amendment, that prohibits U.S. tax dollars from being used to lobby for or against abortion in other countries.

The New American: The ACLU’s Nebraska franchise is demanding that a school district in that state put a stop to prayer at its high school graduation, even though the ceremony is sponsored and run privately by parents.

Christian Post: Perkins’ comments came after the two, along with Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund, discussed a recent incident in which the Air Force Academy apologized for promoting the ministry Operation Christmas Child on campus.

The Hill: The American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday that the Obama administration shouldn’t scale back new rules requiring healthcare plans to cover contraception.

USCatholic.org: Deirdre Dessingue, associate general counsel at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “But there has been a change in the mood.” She cited several factors affecting that change in mood . . . and continuing efforts by the Alliance Defense Fund to draw the IRS into a battle with a church whose pastor has endorsed a political candidate from the pulpit. “Churches should be allowed to decide for themselves what they want to talk about,” said Erik Stanley, ADF senior legal counsel. “The IRS should not be the one making the decision by threatening to revoke a church’s tax-exempt status.” That approach is far from the stand taken by the USCCB, however.

USATODAY.com: Advocates in the ProtectMarriage.com legal team praised Thursday’s action. “The court was clearly right to conclude that the California marriage amendment should not go undefended just because state officials have refused to defend it,” said Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Brian Raum.

Christian Post: Voters should not be left without any defense just because their officials refused to defend them,” said Austin R. Nimocks, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, in a statement. ADF attorneys are part of the ProtectMarriage.com legal team.
Nimocks contends that if the appeal had not been granted, “state officials will succeed in indirectly invalidating a measure that they had no power to strike down directly.”

The Washington Post: Prop 8 supporters have been working on the case with the Alliance Defense Fund, a leading Christian law firm. Mormon and Roman Catholic churches also lent strong support to the proposition though the various court challenges.

Businessweek: Because the people of California have a right to be defended, Proposition 8’s official proponents will be allowed to continue defending the marriage amendment,” said Brian Raum, a lawyer for Alliance Defense Fund, a group representing supporters of the gay-marriage ban. “Otherwise, state officials would have succeeded in indirectly invalidating a measure that they had no power to strike down directly,”

OneNewsNow.com: Alliance Defense Fund attorney Brian Raum concurs. “The court was clearly right to conclude that the California marriage amendment should not go undefended just because state officials have failed to defend it,” he tells OneNewsNow. “And so because the people of California have a right to be defended, the Proposition 8 official proponents will be allowed to continue defending the marriage amendment.”

Anglican Mainstream: A lesbian couple in California who say their 11-year-old son Tommy who wants to be a girl named Tammy are giving their child hormone blockers that delay the onset of puberty — so that he can have more time that he can have more time to decide if he wants to change his gender.

News from The Associated Press: Tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied Friday in Cairo’s Tahrir square with Islamists in the forefront to protest against what they say are attempts by the country’s military rulers to designate themselves as the guardians of a new Egypt.

Heritage Foundation: Unfortunately, Washington does not appear poised to take action to rectify the problem, and those with their hands on the wheel are ignoring the root of the problem: spending.

The Hill: President Obama’s healthcare law will leave millions of families without affordable coverage unless tax officials rewrite the rules on who gets subsidies, advocates warned Thursday.

The Hill: House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) announced Thursday that his panel would be considering legislation to prohibit lawmakers from investing based on private information.

David C. Rose at CSMonitor.com: The distinction between inactivity and activity is vital for upholding the Constitution’s principle of enumerated government powers and thereby maintaining a free society. It is important that all Americans understand the threat President Obama’s health-care law poses to freedom in the US.

NCPA Policy Digest: For years, California could rely on its temperate climate and talented workforce to attract and keep businesses even as taxes and regulations increased. No more. In surveys, executives regularly express the view that California has one of the country’s most toxic business environments, and they say it is one of the least likely places they would open or expand a company.

The Hill: The bill, H.R. 2112, was approved in a 70-30 vote in which Senate conservatives and some moderate Republican opposed it. All fifty-seven Democrats and the two independents voted in favor of the bill.