Daily Archives: December 6, 2011

Toronto Star: The Institute for Canadian Values held a news conference Tuesday morning, condemning the premier for a section of the new anti-bullying legislation that allows for all publicly funded school boards to “host gay clubs.”

Malakoff News: The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Wisconsin, sent a letter dated Dec. 1 to Henderson County commissioners saying the nativity scene located on the courthouse lawn is illegal.

American Medical News: ACOG encourages obstetrician-gynecologists to offer them routine care and more specialized procedures such as hormone replacement therapy.

Christian Newswire: News that the .XXX Domain is going live today caused Morality in Media to call for an investigation of ICM Registry, the company behind the .XXX Domain, for possible violations of federal laws prohibiting distribution of hard-core obscene Internet pornography.

Center for Reproductive Rights: A Kansas state judge has blocked enforcement of a recently enacted state licensing statute and regulations that reproductive rights advocates say would cut off women’s access to constitutionally protected medical services, including abortion and other important OB-GYN care.

The Washington Post: French lawmakers are expected to pass a symbolic resolution that would condemn prostitution as linked to human trafficking and violence before beginning debate on a tough proposed law that would punish clients.

The Argus Leader | argusleader.com: A federal court said Monday it will hear arguments next month concerning a 2005 South Dakota law that requires a doctor to tell a woman seeking an abortion that she would face a higher risk of suicide by going through with the procedure. The hearing will be Jan. 9 . . .

Daily Mail Online: Jaiya Ma had been living her boyfriend Jon Hanauer, 49, for six years when he urged her to take a new lover. Within weeks, Jaiya, 34, fell for a furniture designer Ian Ferguson, 44, at a dance class, and a year later she fell pregnant with his baby. But Jon supported Jaiya, welcomed Ian into his home, and the two men helped deliver baby Eamon during an ‘orgasmic’ labour.

JURIST: JURIST Guest Columnist Brian Raum, Senior Counsel and Head of Marriage Litigation at the Alliance Defense Fund, argues that the recent California Supreme Court decision on Proposition 8 is just one of many losses for opponents of the amendment that will not bode well for their cause moving forward…

LifeSiteNews.com: It’s been nearly two months since the Supreme Court of Canada heard what will likely be the nation’s seminal case on homosexual ‘hate speech’ and religious freedom. The case, Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (SHRC) v. William Whatcott involves a well-known pro-family activist who pushes the boundaries of free speech with what many regard as crude flyers detailing the physical health risks of homosexual sex acts.

LifeSiteNews.com: Foreign organizations with an abortionist agenda are pressuring South American countries to legalize the deadly practice, Catholic Church representatives told the government in recent Senate hearings on the topic.

Michael Fragoso at LifeNews: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ABOG) are restricting opportunities for healthcare professionals to object to abortion and contraception on grounds of conscience. This will accelerate the growing problem of physician shortage.

The Christian Institute: Children as young as twelve should be taught how to gamble “safely”, according to controversial proposals which have been welcomed by the Labour Party.

Courthouse News Service: Two East Texas softball coaches and their school district still face civil rights claims for allegedly telling one mother her daughter is gay.

CBS News (includes video): And, as CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reports, new laws aimed at limiting abortions are adding even more fuel to the fire — though their implementation is being held up by court challenges.

The Daily Iowan: Poll numbers show Americans are becoming more progressive on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues, but most of the 2012 Iowa caucus candidates oppose expanding gay rights.

The Washington Post: The suit asks the Richmond Circuit Court to prevent Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who presides over the Senate, from casting the decisive 21st vote in favor of the GOP when the 40-member Senate organizes next month.

EENEWS.net: A lawyer President Obama nominated to serve on the appeals court that handles most of the legal challenges to environmental regulations faces a make-or-break procedural vote in the Senate today. The nomination of Caitlin Halligan . . .

Fox News Radio 550 KFYI: A new report details how DEA agents allowed hundreds of millions of dollars walk to Mexico in a failed attempt to trace the money to its source.

LifeNews: Tomorrow the House Judiciary Committee Constitution Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican who is the sponsor of the abortion ban, will hold a hearing on the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act (PRENDA). Witnesses on the panel include Steve Aden, a pro-life attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund . . .

TimberCreek Bed and Breakfast accused of violating Human Rights Act for hosting weddings, not ‘civil unions’

The federal appeals court in Atlanta has ruled in favor of a former Georgia state legislative aide who was fired amid her sex change.

The Obama administration will begin considering how countries treat gay and lesbian citizens when making decisions about allocating foreign aid, an official familiar with the decision says.

LifeNews.com: Their opposition could explain why organizations like Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the ACLU almost never speak out against the horrible human rights abuses associated with the one-child policy in China – ranging from sex-selection abortions, to forced abortions, to coercive sterilizations and infanticides.

Cal Thomas at Townhall: Ultimately, what voters must decide is this: Does a presidential candidate’s personal flaws rise (or fall) to a level that inhibits his ability to do the job of president? Put another way, if you are about to have surgery, do you care if the doctor is a cad, or do you care more whether most of his patients are alive and well?

Editorials – The Boston Globe: Discrediting Perfectly qualified nominees to the federal judiciary is a dreary, familiar business – one whose latest target is Caitlin Halligan, a former New York solicitor general who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Ever since President Obama nominated her for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last year, critics have been combing her record for evidence of dangerous radicalism.

Religion Clause: VP Biden Meets In Turkey With Ecumenical Patriarch.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday successfully filibustered the nomination of pro-abortion judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan to replace Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered to be the nation’s second most important court.

Religion Clause: Nurse John Benitez Jr. was told by his female supervisor not to treat women wearing Muslim headscarves because their male family members did not want a male treating female patients. However Benitez disregarded this instruction when a doctor told him to treat a female patient. Benitez was subsequently fired.

Jason Whitlock at FOX Sports on MSN:
Tebow might be a true revelation

There are only four things Alana Stewart knows about her father: he has blonde hair, blue eyes, a college degree, and his assigned number at the sperm bank where he sold half of Alana’s genetic code is 81.

Education News: More Minnesota students are signing on for free or reduced-price meals, as middle-class families coping with cutbacks and foreclosures are becoming first-time users of the subsidized National School Lunch Program.

NCPA Policy Digest: Both the federal and state governments hamper doctors’ ability to innovate in medicine and to offer more affordable or alternative care. While the federal government delays innovative medicine, state governments make affordable care more difficult by limiting the number of doctors and saddling those who do practice with difficult liability rules.

Deseret News: Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund issued a press release Monday in which its senior counsel Jordan Lorence said, “Churches and other religious groups should be able to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups. They should not be excluded simply because of the religious nature of their speech. The Supreme Court’s decision not to review this case is befuddling because it has already ruled multiple times in other equal access cases that the First Amendment protects religious worship the same as secular speech. ADF will continue to stand for this constitutional principle.”

The Supreme Court was more right than it knew during the past two centuries as it identified the state’s interest in marriage as children and their formation. The first in a two-part series.

LifeSiteNews: “Churches and other religious groups should be able to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups. They should not be excluded simply because of the religious nature of their speech,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence. “The Supreme Court’s decision not to review this case is befuddling because it has already ruled multiple times in other equal access cases that the First Amendment protects religious worship the same as secular speech. ADF will continue to stand for this constitutional principle.”

ABC (AP): “I’m concerned that other school districts that now permit religious groups to worship will reconsider,” said Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, who argued the church’s case.

Digital Journal: Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal organization defending the Bronx Household of Faith church, has described the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the appeal as “befuddling.” He said: “The Supreme Court’s decision not to review this case is befuddling because it has already ruled multiple times in other equal-access cases that the First Amendment protects religious worship the same as secular speech.” The Wall Street Journal reports that he said, “Churches and other religious groups should be able to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups. They should not be excluded simply because of the religious nature of their speech.”

Todd Starnes (Fox News Commentary) at Baptist Press: It’s a sad day for religious liberty,” said Jordan Lorence, the church’s attorney and senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “Churches and other religious groups should be allowed to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups, and they’re being denied that in New York City. “The Supreme Court’s decision not to review this case is befuddling because it has already ruled multiple times in other equal access cases that the First Amendment protects religious worship the same as secular speech.”

David Giambusso at Huffington Post (Religion News Service): A hearing in federal district court was scheduled for Monday (Dec. 5). The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the nurses, said only a court-approved agreement would mean the school “might finally be interested in following the law.”

World Magazine: Lorence said the Alliance Defense Fund reviewed school districts’ rules across the country and didn’t find any similar to New York’s, but he is concerned that the court’s decision could embolden some districts to create such rules. “If that’s the case, the Alliance Defense Fund would be there to litigate those cases,” he said. “I think other appeals courts would not agree with the 2nd Circuit’s decision.”

Dennis Prager at Townhall : To religious readers, I point to God Himself, who apparently thought that King David deserved to remain king — and even have the Messiah descend from him — despite a particularly ugly form of adultery (sending Bathsheba’s husband into battle where he would assuredly be killed).

Norwood News: Lawyers for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which has represented Bronx Household of Faith in its legal battles with the city’s Department of Education for 17 years, couldn’t be reached for comment. The ADF has argued that the city is unfairly singling out churches for exclusion and, consequently, violating their Constitutional rights. The city says holding worship services in schools amounts transforming the building’s into churches and the appeals court ruling back in June upheld that position.

SCOTUS Blog: This is one of a continuing series of articles the blog will publish over the next several weeks, explaining more fully the new federal health care law, and the Supreme Court’s review of the constitutionality of key parts of the law.  This article is the third of three on the heart of the new law: the mandate that virtually all Americans obtain health insurance by the year 2014.  Part I (found here) described why Congress adopted the mandate.   Part II (found herediscussed the tie between the mandate and expanded health insurance coverage.  This Part III discusses the financial penalty that Congress adopted to enforce the mandate, and how the penalty is to work.  Each of these parts has included discussions of related constitutional questions.   Prior posts in this overall series can be read, in sequence, here and here and here.

Live Blog of Senate hearing on cameras at the Court : SCOTUSblog.

Sally Satel at WSJ.com (full access via Google): In October of 2009, Kumud Majumder, the father of an 11-year-old son with advanced leukemia, joined a lawsuit challenging the federal ban on compensating bone-marrow donors. He wanted to save his son’s life. Last week Mr. Majumder and his co-plaintiffs enjoyed a victory. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the majority of bone-marrow donors may lawfully be compensated.

LifeSiteNews.com: The truth is more complex…and perhaps confusing. Congressman Paul’s view of same-sex “marriage” can best be summed up in one phrase: states rights. Ron Paul believes homosexuals should be allowed to “marry”…in states that legalize the practice.

NationalJournal.com: The evidence of an extensive Western covert program against Tehran, and Iranian retaliation, is now too obvious to ignore.

LaTimes.com: At an Iranian military base 30 miles west of Tehran, engineers were working on weapons that the armed forces chief of staff had boasted could give Israel a “strong punch in the mouth.” But then a huge explosion ripped through the Revolutionary Guard Corps base on Nov. 12, leveling most of the buildings.

CSMonitor.com: “A victory for tax increases in California could encourage similar moves in other states,” says Jack Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “If the tax measure goes down to defeat – in a blue state running a huge deficit – the effect would be to chill such proposals in other states for many years to come.”