Daily Archives: December 14, 2011

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: The coming of Christmas is always a time for prayerful reflection … on the year now closing, on the year now just ahead. And there’s so much to reflect upon . . .

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor Speak Up Movement University Blog: The District of Columbia Office of Human Rights has held that John Garvey, president of Catholic University of America did not violate a District law banning sex discrimination by returning the institution he leads to single-sex dormitories

LifeNews.com: Formerly a celebrated pro-life Democrat who enjoyed support from Right to Life for his standing as a minority voice within the Democratic party speaking against abortion, Nelson lost his support within pro-life circles after he voted for the abortion-funding Obamacare . . .

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at The Speak Up Movement Church Blog: On December 12, Judge Silver, a federal judge in Arizona, threw out a claim that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer violated the Establishment Clause by issuing day of prayer proclamations in observance of the National Day of Prayer. The court cited the Seventh Circuit’s recent ruling in FFRF v. Obama, saying “hurt feelings” don’t give someone standing to bring a federal case.

Lambda Legal: “The single most important principle contained in the guidelines is that affirming the sexual orientation and gender identity and expression of LGBTQ youth in care protects young peoples’ emotional safety and ensures positive outcomes,” said Flor Bermudez, Lambda Legal’s Youth in Out-of-Home Care Staff Attorney. “We are pleased that the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) will make the Recommended Practice Guidelines available to every state child welfare agency in the country to help meet the needs of LGBTQ children.”

MinnPost: The state should be protecting its citizens, rather than encouraging them to do something not in their best interest, Prichard adds.

We are facing religious cleansing in parts of the Middle East and may be entering what might be thought of as an Arab winter for Christians, Jews and other minority groups alike on a scale that we have not hitherto seen.”

The Christian Institute: A new poll has found that two thirds of Britons think parents or guardians should be the main people responsible for teaching children about sex.

The Washington Post: A boy removed from his mother’s custody over health concerns when his weight ballooned to more than 200 pounds will be taken from foster care and placed in the custody of an uncle, a judge ruled Wednesday.

National Review Online: There is some that is commendable and much that is pernicious in Secretary Clinton’s speech Tuesday announcing that the United States will be making “LGBT rights” — that is, the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered persons — “a priority of our foreign policy” and a factor in determining the uses of “foreign assistance.”

MSNBC: A school district in Utah is defending its decision to “out” a middle-school student as gay to his parents in light of safety and bullying concerns.

Roger Graef at BBC News – Panorama – Should everyone be allowed to have children?: The care system is letting down a growing number of British children whose birth parents cannot or will not support them and who have little chance of successful adoption, argues the distinguished documentary film-maker, Roger Graef.

LifeSiteNews.com: Colombia’s prosecutorial wing says that it will continue to fight the adoption of two children by an American journalist following the revelation that he is homosexual.

British Pakistani Christian Association: The leader of the Central Council of Pakistan Christian Congress (PCC) has praised a resolution from the Canadian Parliament urging the Pakistani Government to release Asia Bibi.

Philadelphia Inquirer: The deadline was 5 p.m. Monday for Philadelphia Entertainment & Development Partners L.P. to appeal its license revocation to the state Supreme Court.

LGBTQ Nation: Turkish Cypriot leaders have bowed to pressure from Members of the European Parliament (MEP), and have agreed to repeal a law outlawing homosexuality.

A Florida judge has removed a constitutional amendment from the 2012 election ballot that would have deleted the state’s ban on using taxpayer money “in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”

Turtle Bay and Beyond: An article in the New American reveals that some UN agencies will not account for a large amount of their funding.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Belgium’s chairman of the Federal Committee on Euthanasia, Wim Distelmans, sent an open letter to Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo last month “asking him to re-open a national debate on euthanasia” and update the parameters that qualify a person to be euthanized.

The Washington Post: The leader of the Ohio Senate said Wednesday that he’s suspending hearings on a bill that would ban abortions at the first detectable fetal heartbeat, saying amendments proposed by supporters have created confusion.

Rebecca Taylor at LifeNews.com: I have heard countless times that parents that undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) must love their children so very much to go through such an expensive and invasive process to have children. I have no doubt that parents undergoing IVF think they love their children and are doing what is best, but looking at the realities of IVF, that many parents are not aware of, one has to wonder if IVF is really about the children.

OneNewsNow.com: Another Macy’s store is reportedly permitting men to use women’s dressing rooms — and in the process, says Mat Staver, the retailer is alienating a lot of its customer base.

Michele Somerville at the Huffington Post: One big problem with the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the Bronx Household of Faith Case is that case is that now, under New York law, it will fall to the DOE to decide which programs can rent space in schools. Anyone who thinks that the DOE can be trusted to rise to the occasion of such nuanced philosophical decision-making doesn’t know very much about the DOE.

CBS Philly (includes video): Some residents of a South Jersey town are calling a Knights of Columbus banner that hangs over Broadway in Pitman, a sign of the season.

After sloughing through a pile of obstacles, pro-lifers in Pennsylvania have taken an important step forward on two bills.

LifeNews: The Obama administration is coming under more fire from pro-life advocates for blocking Texas’ plan to run a women’s health initiative without funding the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

WorldNetDaily: Congress apparently has decided that allowing bestiality in the U.S. military isn’t a good idea.

Reuters: Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul declared on Wednesday his campaign was “peaking at the right time” as polls show him closing in on the two perceived front-runners.

Canada Free Press: Against the backdrop of the Shafia honour-killing trial in Kingston, Montreal’s Concordia University graduate Sikander Ziad Hashmi, an imam with the Islamic Society of Kingston, tells us “there is no such thing as ‘honour killing’ in Islam.” Last week, Hashmi challenged readers of Canada’s National Post Full Commentonline to find one classical Islamic religious text that endorses the murder of a family member to preserve honour. PointdeBascule in Montreal answers the imam’s request by producing not one, but TWO Islamic texts stating that a father who kills his child must NOT be subject to punishment (“retaliation”).

Pamela Geller at Human Events: Harvard University has dropped courses on economics taught by a Hindu professor, Subramanian Swamy, president of the Janata Party of India and a former Union Cabinet minister—not because they were poorly taught, or because Swamy advocated discredited economic theories (such as, say, socialism), but because he wrote an editorial last summer that Muslims find offensive.

Chicago Tribune: A southwestern Indiana city is weighing whether to update its local anti-discrimination ordinance to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender.

AllAfrica.com: The Senate yesterday approved Prof. Sam Rugege as the new Chief Justice for an eight-year non-renewable term.

Houston Chronicle: But in granting a request by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to temporarily block the interim maps, the nation’s highest court left candidates across the state uncertain where and when they’re competing, even in the midst of a filing period that ends Thursday.

LifeSiteNews.com: A small Catholic college in Philadelphia has revised its policies to end employment discrimination based on “sexual orientation [or] gender identity” after its firing of an openly gay dissident priest set off a controversy, reports the Cardinal Newman Society. While the cleric said he felt “vindicated” by the change, the school says the change simply reflects recent changes in city non-discrimination rules.

NCRegister.com: Bridgette Dunlap says she expected Fordham University to provide students with “standard health care.”

Catholic Culture: The apostolic administrator of an Australian diocese says that he is “absolutely appalled” that Sacred Heart Primary School in Broken Hill denied admission to a child of a lesbian couple.

The Boston Globe: The twin boys were identical in every way but one. Wyatt was a girl to the core, and now lives as one, with the help of a brave, loving family and a path-breaking doctor’s care.

USA Today: Attorney General Eric Holder is suggesting the Obama administration may go to court to try and block states that it believes are trying to restrict voting, particularly minority voting.

Chatham Star Tribune: News: A federal judge is expected to decide the fate of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union over public prayer at Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors meetings by the end of December.

Des Moines Register: However, Santorum said he does believe that radical Islam is a “very dangerous thing” and that the Islamic world must work with the United States “to confront this cancer within.”

LGBTQ Nation: An Islamist group called for a Muslim lesbian author to be killed and invaded a discussion on Islam in Amsterdam last week.

LifeNews.com: After reports from some pro-life corners claiming Komen affiliates were considering stopping grants to Planned Parenthood, at the same time a local California affiliate gave another grant to the abortion business, Komen has made it appear the grants will continue.

Barely half of all adults in the United States — a record low — are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides . . .

Fredericksburg Patch: A maintenance employee for Rappaport Companies reported that the figure of the Christ child was stolen from the Nativity scene in Central Park.

Religion Clause: Last June, the lower house of Netherlands’ parliament overwhelmingly passed a bill that effectively would ban kosher and halal slaughter of animals.

Religion Clause: Yesterday’s Des Moines Register reports that less than a week after he was hired, Newt Gingrich’s political director for his Iowa campaign was forced to resign because of remarks he made about Mormons during a focus group in which he participated a day before he was hired.

Heritage Foundation: Next week, Congress will have an opportunity to bring much-needed oversight to America’s regulatory process by voting for the aptly named REINS Act (Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny), which would require any new regulations costing more than $100 million to be approved by Congress.

Personhood USA: So far, candidates who have returned the pledge with their signatures include Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

LifeNews: Michael Norton of the Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life legal group, is also encouraged. “The seven former Planned Parenthood employees told Congressman Stearns that they could “state categorically, from personal experience, that abortion is indeed deployed [by Planned Parenthood] as a means of family planning.” They also expressed to Congressman Stearns that, since Planned Parenthood receives $1 billion or more in a three year period, close governmental oversight is indeed warranted,” he explained. “Planned Parenthood’s pro-abortion allies, including the Obama Administration, are doing all they can to resist Congressman Stearns’ long overdue investigation,” Norton said. “Let the Stearns’ investigation proceed apace.”

Carson Holloway at Public Discourse: Though racial and religious profiling offends our better feelings, it is nevertheless constitutional.

News from The Associated Press: Reality star Richard Hatch, who was freed this week from prison on a tax evasion sentence tied to his $1 million “Survivor” winnings, said Tuesday that he is hoping for a new reality show about his relationship with the children conceived from his sperm donations.

News from The Associated Press: The chief justice of the Philippine Supreme Court warned Wednesday that President Benigno Aquino III’s moves to oust him could lead to a dictatorship and vowed to defend himself in an impeachment trial.

News from The Associated Press: Egyptians turned out in large numbers Wednesday for a second round of parliamentary elections, with Islamists looking to boost their already overwhelming lead and liberal voters concerned the outcome will push the country in a more religious direction.

Frank Gaffney at Townhall: To the contrary, the Obama administration has been working behind the scenes to do as its Islamist friends have demanded by shutting down the USCIRF. It has enlisted for this purpose Senator Dick Durbin, the Senate’s Number 2 Democrat. Sen. Durbin is not only perfectly placed to do the deed stealthily. He has his own close associations with a number of the Brotherhood’s top fronts and operatives in his home state of Illinois, in Washington and elsewhere across the country.

News from The Associated Press: Britain’s unemployment hit its highest level for 17 years Wednesday, with women and young people bearing the brunt of the deepening jobs crisis in the wake of the government’s austerity measures and the economy’s general weakness.

NCPA Policy Digest: Electric bills have skyrocketed in the last five years, a sharp reversal from a quarter-century when Americans enjoyed stable power bills even as they used more electricity, says USA Today.

News from The Associated Press: “Many people are surprised to learn there are more people trapped in slavery today than any time in history,” said Jacquelline Fuller, director of charitable giving and advocacy for Google.