Daily Archives: December 1, 2011

News from The Associated Press: New York City police say a 20-year-old woman has been arrested on a charge of self-abortion after her fetus was discovered in a garbage bin.

All Africa Global Media: Nigerians have continued to celebrate the banning of same-sex marriage by the Senate, commending senators for outlawing what they regard as abnormality and a licence for immorality.

The Washington Post: A diverse group of Maryland religious leaders launched a coalition Wednesday that organizers vowed would steadfastly resist the legalization of same-sex marriage in the 2012 legislative session.

News from The Associated Press: The Rev. Billy Graham has been diagnosed with pneumonia but remains in good spirits at a North Carolina Hospital.

BBC News: Apple moved quickly to quash the rumours, stressing that the software was new and that the lack of advice was “not intentional”.

LifeNews.com: It is happening all over the country and has now hit Wisconsin — attacks on pro-life Pregnancy Help Centers. These agencies exist for a sole purpose — to help a pregnant woman sort through her problems and to present alternatives to abortion. In Wisconsin, thousands of women are assisted each year.

Toronto Sun: B.C. court ruling upholds polygamy ban, but does it go too far limiting religious freedom?

Payvand.com: The activists say they discovered that at least 65 male members of the country’s 290-strong parliament had two or more wives. This is despite the fact that polygamy contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Iran has ratified.

Alarabiya.net: As Moroccans begin to become more curious about their new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane, it seems only appropriate to learn more about his family and meet the Moroccan premier’s wife, Nabila Benkirane, finding out how the two met.

Chaplain endorsers, representing more than 2,000 military chaplains, are congratulating the U.S. Senate for their vote Tuesday to ensure military chaplains are not forced to perform so-called same-sex “marriage” ceremonies. The chaplain endorsers also reaffirmed their call for congressional hearings on the religious liberty threats brought about by the dismantling of the law against openly practiced homosexual behavior in the military.

BBC News: The Church of Scotland has told the Scottish government that the law should not be changed to allow gay marriages.

C-Fam: The most recent example of an independent expert going beyond their mandate is Anand Grover, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health who claimed in his report last month that abortion is an international right. Individuals like Grover are appointed for their expertise in a particular area of human rights, but when they show significant bias in their reporting or claim that their opinions have international legal force, that expertise is called into question.

MSNBC: Gay-rights groups are urging a boycott of donations to the iconic holiday bell-ringers, saying the Salvation Army has a history of discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people — a charge the charity denies.

News.com.au: FEDERAL Labor looks set to back gay marriage as the party’s national conference gets under way in Sydney.

A federal appeals court says some bone marrow donors can be paid, overturning a decades-old law that made such compensation a crime.

OneNewsNow.com: Four Christian groups at Vanderbilt University are “under a serious threat” from the legal and cultural climates and may soon be booted from the campus because of a new university policy that says they must accept anyone and everyone into their organizations.

Atlanta J. Constitution: A panel of three federal appeals court judges on Thursday appeared strongly inclined to grant a legal victory to Vandy Beth Glenn, a transgender woman who was fired as a legislative editor at the General Assembly after she disclosed she was going to make the transition from man to woman.

News from The Associated Press: Syria has entered a state of civil war with more than 4,000 people dead and an increasing number of soldiers defecting from the army to fight President Bashar Assad’s regime, the U.N.’s top human rights official said Thursday.

Passport Magazine: The ACLU and the ACLU of Eastern Missouri will appear in court today to argue on behalf of Kelly Glossip, whose partner, Dennis Engelhard, was a state trooper killed in the line of duty. Missouri offers survivor benefits to spouses of troopers killed in the line of duty, but not to committed same-sex partners.

Ellwood City News: The Borough of Ellwood City will likely have a number of protestors outside of the Municipal Building by week’s end in response to the setting up of a Nativity display on the building’s front lawn.

NYTimes.com: Hiram Sasser, a lawyer for the Liberty Institute, a conservative legal advocacy group, said that because the ski resort is already leasing much of the mountain from the Forest Service, the federal government has no right to ban the statue merely because some people might not like it.

The Houston Employment Law Blog: Major League Baseball will be adding protections against sexual orientation discrimination in the next baseball collective bargaining agreement with its players, reports the Dallas Observer.

The Washington Post: The American Civil Liberties Union has started a petition asking Apple to update Siri to direct users to places to access birth control or abortion clinics when asked.

Religion Clause: The latest question arises, however because the Military Times last week published a photo of a dozen marines in formation in uniform on the football field performing “their version of ‘Tebowing’ before the Broncos-Jets game on Nov. 17.”

Religion Clause: Germany’s Federal Administrative court yesterday ruled that while a student’s right to pray at school is constitutionally protected, a school may ban a student from praying when it disrupts the school’s operations.

News from The Associated Press: One of Gloria Taylor’s greatest fears is suffocating before she dies. It’s part of the reason the 63-year-old grandmother has “gritted her teeth” to appear before a British Columbia Supreme Court judge on Thursday in her quest for the right to a doctor-assisted suicide.

News from The Associated Press: The toughest opponent Tommy Thompson may have to overcome in next year’s U.S. Senate race is Tommy Thompson himself.

News from The Associated Press: A new report says 41 states have failed to adopt strong penalties against human trafficking, and advocates say a patchwork of differing state laws makes it difficult for authorities to target the crime.

News from The Associated Press: They say the Muslim Brotherhood could take 45 percent of the seats up for grabs.

News from The Associated Press: A federal appeals court is considering the case of a former Georgia state legislative aide who said she was fired because of her sex change.

LifeNews.com: A House committee held a hearing today on the decision by the Obama administration to deny to the nation’s Catholic bishops a grant for a program helping sex trafficking victims because it would not refer for abortions.

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Bott Radio Network to discuss the ADF Pulpit Initiative. | MP3 audio 29 min

ADF Attorney Joel Oster appeared on the Bott Radio Network to discuss this case. | MP3 audio 22 mins

The Notice is available here.

Leon H. Wolf at Red State Blog: (As a side note, they are being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, which is one of the most worthy conservative charities of your donations on the face of the earth. If you have ever bemoaned the lack of a conservative answer to the ACLU, know that ADF is attempting to bridge that gap but they face an enormous funding disparity. Thus ends this plug.)

National Catholic Register: “We’re defending the church’s right to be fully engaged in the culture,” said ADF senior legal counsel Joel Oster. “Christians and their institutions are not second-class citizens who are banned from the democratic process.”

Examiner.com: “Churches and ministries shouldn’t live in fear of being punished by the government for exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel Oster, who argued before the court on behalf of the parties sued by Cook. “The mayor is seeking to silence those who oppose his policies because he doesn’t like their views, but that’s neither legal nor constitutional. The recall petitions were circulated and submitted in full accordance with the law, and he cannot stop the election just because he doesn’t like the fact that some groups participated in a legitimate effort that he doesn’t favor.”

Heritage Foundation: Sometimes the White House gets the easy questions wrong. On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked about a controversial mandate stemming from Obamacare that would require religious employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control despite religious objections.

InjuryBoard.com: The Institute is now highlighting a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by a former employee of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). David Coppedge was a 14-year veteran and the senior member of the JPL team that oversees computers for NASA’s mission to send a satellite to Saturn, one of the most complicated in its history . . . Mr. Coppedge is being defended by attorney William J. Becker Jr., who is supported by the Alliance Defense Fund, the outstanding group defending religious liberty across America.