Daily Archives: December 5, 2011

FT.com: Standard & Poor’s has warned Germany and the five other triple A members of the eurozone that they risk having their top-notch ratings downgraded as a result of deepening economic and political turmoil in the single currency bloc.

Daily Mail: Nearly 3,000 so-called honour attacks were recorded by police in Britain last year, new research has revealed.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: ortunately, hardly any citizen ever reads the pompous yet irremediably silly resolutions through which the European Parliament lets the world know about its opinion on all matters that fall outside its competence.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Today C-FAM attended a panel discussion on “People at the center: Human rights in global economics and development”. The event commemorated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, and was organized by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Sydney Morning Herald: Access Ministries, a Victorian provider of chaplains and religious instructors, which has been accused of proselytising, plans to provide Christian workers to schools across the nation from next year under an enlarged chaplaincy program.

Businessweek: “You can’t just trump the law by saying a naked dancer’s erotic message is protected by free speech,” said Scott Bergthold, a Chattanooga, Tennessee, attorney who helps municipalities craft and defend adult-business regulations. “We’re dealing with cases where cities are outlawing touching between naked dancers and customers that involve prostitution acts and she’s coming in with these opinions. It’s ridiculous.”

ThinkProgress: The Puerto Rican Senate recently approved a bill that “could eliminate LGBT-specific categories from the island’s hate crimes law” and now the House is expected to take up the measure, the blog Boy In Bushwick is reporting . . .

NYTimes.com: The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal alliance defending the church, said the Supreme Court’s dismissal was “befuddling.” “Churches and other religious groups should be able to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups,” the group said in a news release. “They should not be excluded simply because of the religious nature of their speech.”

LifeSiteNews.com: Pro-abortion NGO’s are partnering with African governments and leaders to develop strategies and policies on abortion policy. A stakeholder meeting in Sierra Leone this month brought together the nation’s Health Ministry with UNFPA, Ipas and Marie Stopes Sierra Leone to address access to abortion and population control. Abortion advocates seek to expand access to abortion through public policies and emphasize the need to remove the “stigma” of abortion.

Peter Sprigg at LifeSiteNews.com: As early as October of 2010, however, experts on suicide prevention were warning that this simplistic approach linking suicides (which are always tragic) to bullying (which is always wrong) could do more harm than good.

Catholic Culture: A recent conference series on “Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church,” held at two Catholic universities as well as two secular institutions, was subsidized by a foundation with a long history of support for homosexual attacks on Catholic Church teaching, the Cardinal Newman Society has discovered.

News from The Associated Press: A transgender Virginia inmate has appealed the dismissal of her lawsuit asking the state to pay for her to have a sex change operation, saying a jury should decide if hormones and other therapies she receives are adequate.

(AP) Boston.com: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has ordered an “extensive and thorough review” of a foreign exchange program that has been used by U.S. businesses as a source of cheap labor and exploited by criminals to import women to work in the sex industry.

Newsmax: “It’s a serious form of corruption,” said Limbaugh, “but we knew this was coming. The regime got the headline it wanted – it got 8.6 – all the other details are irrelevant.”

Whatever the future holds, we need to understand that the economic collapse is not the main crisis which engulfs Europe. More significantly, we see the EU developing into the ever-tighter totalitarianism which was envisaged from its inception.

The Christian Institute: Abortions in England cost the NHS £118 million last year, according to new Government estimates – a figure much higher than previously thought.

LifeNews: Ian Wilmut, the scientist who achieved international notoriety for cloning the sheep Dolly, is now urging his fellow scientists and researchers to abandon embryonic stem cell research.

Charlotte Observer: Union sued in federal court Monday, claiming that public schools in Chesterfield County are unconstitutionally promoting Christianity. | Related ACLU press release

LifeNews: After initial reports showed Chan Guangcheng, a prominent human rights activist who had led the fight against forced abortions under the one-child policy in China, may have been killed now new reports show he may still be alive.

WCN: Hundreds gathered at Ellwood City’s borough building to support the traditional nativity display.

NewsObserver.com: Departing Mayor Charles Meeker condemned a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages in North Carolina on Saturday, days before the City Council considers the controversial issue.

AlgeMeiner.com: “By definition, a union that is not sanctioned by Torah law is not an Orthodox wedding, and by definition a person who conducts such a ceremony is not an Orthodox rabbi.” They also dispelled any doubt over possible flexibility on the matter in the future, writing, “We strongly object to this desecration of Torah values and to the subsequent misleading reportage…the public should not be misled into thinking that Orthodox Jewish values on this issue can change, are changing, or might someday change…any claims to the contrary are inaccurate and false.”

Vanguardngr.com: Malam Abdulkadir Apaokagi, an Abuja-based Islamic scholar, on Sunday in Abuja, called for death penalty for same sex marriage in Nigeria.

Washington Post: A bill originally designed to outlaw gay marriage in Nigeria likely has consequences far beyond its initial scope — criminalizing gay groups and organizations could jeopardize millions of dollars of Western aid geared toward stopping the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa’s most populous nation.

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden will provide expert testimony Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee in favor of a bill that would ban all abortions committed on the basis of a child’s sex or race.

Australian: Labor MPs have warned that their party’s embrace of gay marriage in its platform will damage their re-election chances in suburban and regional Bible belts.

NYTimes.com: A widening and emotional rift over legal tactics has split the anti-abortion movement, with its longtime leaders facing a Tea Party-like insurrection from many grass-roots activists who are impatient with the pace of change.

CBN.com: It will not force other schools to throw out the churches, but I think that it could introduce this option to them, that if for any reason there is members on the school board that want to get rid of the churches, this would give them an excuse to do so,” Lorence explained.

The Australian: THE head of the nation’s powerful Christian lobby has warned of social upheaval as a result of Labor’s approval of same-sex marriage.

NY Daily News: If it were up to Michele Bachmann, gay marriage would be gone in Iowa. In an appeareance on Fox News Sunday, the conservative GOP candidate slammed a 2009 court decision allowing same-sex marriage in the state.

Christianity Today: The growth of evangelical groups has not been limited to grassroots groups, however. One area of growth has been legal advocacy groups. The American Center for Law and Justice, the Alliance Defense Fund, and Liberty Council are some of the groups who have focused on shaping the law through their legal advocacy. In the 1990s, these groups were successful in shaping case-law on religious liberty and other constitutional issues.

Bruce Hausknecht at CitizenLink: The 9th Circuit published a notice this week announcing further hearings in the dispute over California’s marriage amendment, also known as Prop 8. It answers a couple of open questions about the complicated procedural twists and turns this case has taken; so now is a good opportunity to give you a status report.

Reuters: Thousands of Tunisian Islamists and secularists staged parallel protests outside the interim parliament on Saturday in a dispute over how big a role Islam should play in society after the country’s “Arab Spring” revolution.

CitizenLink: Late Thursday evening, the U.S. Senate passed a $662 billion defense authorization bill — without any amendments redefining marriage.

Zenit: A pro-life document by the name of the San Jose Articles is being publicized in many countries around the world. The most recent countries where it has been presented are Italy, Uruguay and the Philippines.

Wesley J. SmithSecondhand Smoke | A First Things Blog: Pro choice and pro life women have come together in coalition to protect women from being exploited for their eggs by Big Biotech. Reason? Women would take all the risks and the companies could make all the money but for the small payments to women to undergo the unnecessary extration procedure.

The School Law Blog – Education Week: The Bronx Household of Faith’s appeal to the Supreme Court was backed by religious freedom groups such as the Alliance Defense Fund and the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The church’s Sunday services are attended by 85-100 people each week, court papers say.

Zenit: The popularity of cohabitation as an alternative or a preliminary step to marriage continues to grow. Data published this week by the British Office for National Statistics for England and Wales confirms the trend.

The Hill: A defiant Herman Cain maintained that various allegations of sexual impropriety plaguing him were untrue, but nonetheless suspended his presidential campaign Saturday.

TheHill.com: But eager to leave no stone unturned as they peruse the electorate for 2012 supporters, Democrats are setting out to court faith-based voters by connecting their policies on economic issues to the values of equality, tolerance and humanitarianism.

Liberty Counsel: A young woman was fired from a Macy’s department store for refusing to violate her religious beliefs by permitting a young man dressed as a woman from entering the women’s dressing room.

OneNewsNow.com: But Greg Baylor of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) says the DC Office of Human Rights was right to dismiss the complaint. “They acknowledge that this is a reasonable practice,” he notes. “It’s not discriminatory against women or men. It’s just something that universities do and that federal law itself says is a perfectly permissible act by a college or university.”

OneNewsNow.com: Reaction … Alliance Defense Fund attorney Jordan Lorence: “We are disappointed that the Supreme Court decided not to review this case from New York City,” he tells OneNewsNow, “but people have to be clear that what the Supreme Court did was not affirm what the lower court did. The Supreme Court just decided not to hear the case.” (Listen to audio report)

Religion Clause Blog: As reported by CNN, the relatively moderate Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party took 40% of the vote, while the more fundamentalist Noor Salafi Movement took 20% of the vote.

Religion Clause: Chabad.org reports that the U.S. Army has settled the lawsuit filed against it by Rabbi Menachem Stern who was not permitted to become a military chaplain because he refused for religious reasons to shave his beard.

Kerri Toloczko at Breitbart’s Big Government: Appeals and lawsuits and all kinds of messy proceedings ensued with Catholic Bishops and Wisconsin-based and national social conservative organizations weighing in on the matter, such as the Alliance Defense Fund, which assisted Mr. Noesen on the legal side.

Religion Clause: In an lengthy article today titled An ‘Arab Winter’ Chills Christians, the Wall Street Journal reports that at least 54 Iraqi Christian churches have been bombed and at least 905 Christians have been killed in sectarian violence since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

LifeNews.com: After making headlines nationwide with curious comments in an interview in which many observers say he indicated he believes human life begins at implantation, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has restated his pro-life views.

News from The Associated Press: The Philippine health chief is under attack for suggesting at an AIDS conference that health workers survey homes of gay children and warn their parents about potentially risky behavior.

News from The Associated Press: Only 1 percent of kids aged 10 to 17 have shared images of themselves or others that involve explicit nudity, a nationally representative study found

Education News: The importance of marriage is to be taught to every pupil at the Government’s flagship free schools and academies. The schools will be made to sign up to strict new rules introduced by Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, setting out what pupils must learn about sex and relationships.

CNN: The United States is awash in gasoline. So much so, in fact, that the country is exporting a record amount of it.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review a more-than-16-year legal battle over a New York City “unequal access” policy.

Politico: Fresh off snubbing Donald Trump by refusing to participate in a debate he’s moderating, Ron Paul blasts his fellow GOP presidential candidates for paying the billionaire businessman so much credence.

Russell Nieli at Public Discourse: Judges and legal scholars rarely agree on what was the original meaning, understanding, or intent behind the Establishment Clause. Donald Drakeman’s book Church, State, and Original Intent critiques current views and offers a new approach.

WSJ.com(AP): Enter the ADF, a conservative group that says it champions “the legal defense of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, marriage and the family.” It has been on the case since and is bearing the costs. Lorence is the lead attorney. “We took the case to defend the First Amendment principle of equal access,” Lorence said. “This is private religious speech and we’re requesting equal access to meet in the buildings the way New York City allows all other community groups to meet.” [more]

The court denied review in the case of Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York.

LifeSiteNews.com: All of Ontario’s Catholic and public schools will be required to set up gay-straight alliances if students request them, Ontario’s education minister said Thursday as Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government unveiled its new bill to crack down on homosexual bullying.