Daily Archives: December 19, 2011

KITV Honolulu: When CNN met Frances Herbert and Takako Ueda this summer, they were newlyweds – legally married in Vermont – but worried that Ueda would be required to return to her native Japan.

LifeSiteNews.com: A recently issued report from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC) has caused concerns that the organization may start advocating for abortion rights.

Reuters: As reproductive rights advocates regroup after a U.S. directive denying girls under 17 over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill, their best legal recourse may lie in a dormant 6-year-old lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, the Iranian Christian cleric facing death for the crime of apostasy against an Islamic faith he never held, has been given a temporary stay of execution. Iran’s top judge, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, instructed presiding Judge Ghazi Kashani to delay carrying out capital punishment for a year in order to give time for Mr. Nadarkhani to recant Christianity and become a Muslim.

Lambda Legal: “Lambda Legal filed a discrimination lawsuit today in the First Circuit Court of Hawai’i on behalf of a lesbian couple rejected by a commercial business establishment, Aloha Bed & Breakfast, because of the owner’s personal antigay beliefs.” | Complaint: Cervelli v. Aloha Bed & Breakfast

The Washington Post: Europe is home to about one-quarter of the world’s Christians, compared to two-thirds a century ago, according to the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Christian Post: As the New Year approaches, Christian leaders strategizing for a showdown over the definition of marriage in Maryland say it is essential to awake “the sleeping giant” called the church to counter gay activists and preserve religious freedom.

William Baude at The Volokh Conspiracy: Before I go, I wanted to leave you with a few thoughts about these legal issues that go beyond the issue of DOMA and same-sex marriage. As you may have gleaned, it turns out that marriage isn’t the only area where federal law draws upon or relies upon a pre-existing concept under state law.

iPhone J.D.: Newton Oldfather, a recent graduate of UCLA Law School, decided to do something about this and thus, with the assistance of his father and another friend, he created the app FedCtRecords. The app usually sells for $19.99 but for a limited time during the holiday season, it is FREE so I encourage you to download it now. The app does a good job of providing an iPhone interface to the PACER service.

ABC News: Officials from the policy-neutral National Payroll Reporting Consortium, Inc. have expressed concern to members of Congress that the two-month payroll tax holiday passed by the Senate and supported by President Obama cannot be implemented properly.

Reuters: A U.S. judge appeared sympathetic to a lesbian federal employee’s bid to strike down a law denying health-insurance benefits to her spouse, in the first hearing since the Obama administration decided to quit defending the statute.

The Courier-Journal: The Kentucky Supreme Court has agreed to hear the appeals of nine Amish men who were convicted in Graves County for refusing on religious grounds to use a bright orange-red safety triangle on their horse-drawn buggies.

Politico: President Barack Obama has been under immense pressure from the left to install Richard Cordray as head of a new consumer watchdog agency as soon as the Senate closes its doors for the holidays. He won’t be able to.

Online here.

NewsOK.com: Opposition from Sens. Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe effectively kills chances for Arvo Mikkanen, an assistant U.S. attorney in Oklahoma City, who would have been the only American Indian on the federal bench.

Summary: The present report is submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to its resolution 17/19, in which the Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to commission a study documenting discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and how international human rights law can be used to end violence and related human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Jeffrey A. Brauch, Faith-Based Law Schools and an Apprenticeship in Professional Identity, U. of Toledo L. Rev. at 593 (Spring 2011)

This short essay discusses professional identity in two ways. First, it addresses Carnegie’s diagnosis of law schools’ failure to effectively train students in professional identity and why that failure matters. Second, it describes how faith-based law schools are uniquely poised to provide a professional identity apprenticeship. In particular, it discusses how Regent University School of Law is accomplishing exactly what Carnegie proposed.

Religion Clause: Congress on Friday gave final passage to HR 2867, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Reform and Reauthorization Act of 2011, reauthorizing USCIRF until September 30, 2014 . . .

Religion Clause: An unusual lawsuit was filed earlier this month in state court in North Carolina challenging North Carolina’s statutes that require any marriage to be solemnized by a magistrate or a member of the clergy (GS Sec. 51-1) and prohibit them from solemnizing a marriage unless the couple has obtained a marriage license (GS Sec. 51-6). The complaint (full text) in Thigpen v. Cooper, (NC Super. Ct., filed 12/8/2011), alleges that

Jeb Bush: Capitalism and the Right to Rise – WSJ.com: In freedom lies the risk of failure. But in statism lies the certainty of stagnation.

Religion Clause: In Pucci v. Somers, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144894 (ED MI, Dec. 16, 2011), a Michigan federal district court upheld a $734,000 jury verdict in favor of Julie Pucci, the former deputy administrator of a Michigan state court, against Mark Somers, the court’s chief judge.

AP: Indiana political leaders are looking to fast-track sex-trafficking legislation before football fans flood Indianapolis for the Super Bowl.

Green Bay Press Gazette: Four Muslim students at Keller Elementary School in Green Bay quietly slip out of class or recess each day at about noon to pray in a tiny alcove of the school. For five to 10 minutes, the group of girls is not distracted by students who walk nearby.

WSJ.com: Around the turn of the last century, researchers began to discover that the country’s best minds were not reproducing as frequently as they ought to. One study showed that members of the Harvard class of 1900 were spawning fewer than two children apiece, while another found the percentages of childless Harvard marriages skyrocketing. Harvard alumnus Teddy Roosevelt, himself a father of six, was concerned. “The worst evil,” he warned in 1899, was the infertility “of the old native American stock, especially in the North East.”

News from The Associated Press: Religious practice among Chinese Communist Party members is increasing and threatens its unity and national leadership, a top party official said in remarks reported Monday

LifeNews.com: A weekend article by WorldNetDaily has the Salvation Army facing new criticism for its position on abortion, — which supports the pro-life position on most all abortions but allow for rape and incest exceptions.

Hungary’s Constitutional Court has struck down the country’s restrictive new church law as well as parts of its disputed media law and the criminal code.

LoHud.com: Christmas decorations and Nativity scenes at four homes and Sacred Heart Church in northwest Yonkers were descrated over the weekend, Yonkers police said.

As many as 5,000 attended a rally in a small Texas community to show their support for a Nativity scene under attack by a Wisconsin-based atheist group, according to a minister who organized the event.

ADF Attorney David Cortman appeared on the Janet Mefferd Show. | MP3 audio 13:18 mins

One News Now: The university is not telling the Democratic club it must be led by a Republican, or the vegetarian club that it must be led by a meat-eater,” points out ADF attorney David Cortman. “But it is telling Christian groups that they must allow themselves to be led by atheists.”

Rebecca Hagelin at the Washington Times: Consider supporting organizations that work to preserve religious freedom. If the secularists and progressives have it their way, Christmas, Easter and even religious worship may one day be confined to secret celebrations locked behind closed doors. A few stellar organizations that deserve your support are the Alliance Defense Fund (www.alliancedefensefund.org), the American Center for Law and Justice (www.aclj.org) and the Liberty Counsel (www.lc.org). And, finally, have a very merry Christmas!

Business Management Daily: Lawyers for the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian nonprofit organization, represent the nurses and requested the injunction. More hearings on the case are scheduled for this month.

Duluth News Tribune: Jonathan Scruggs, the Alliance Defense Fund lawyer representing Jankowski and Scott, said he had told the court he wouldn’t file a response. “We are happy to rest on our prior arguments,” Scruggs said. “We continue to believe that the city’s policy violates the First Amendment.” His clients are hopeful the judge will act to “return free speech to Bayfront Festival Park,” Scruggs said. He and the plaintiffs see the issue differently than the city, Scruggs said, and, “I think every single federal court to address this situation sees it differently as well. City police officers are threatening to remove my clients from the park, so clearly there’s state action here.”

Todd Starnes of Fox News at Baptist Press: David Cortman, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, told Fox News & Commentary they plan on offering legal services to the school district free of charge in the event someone tries to file a lawsuit. “Groups on the left such as Americans United have been trying to bully schools across the country all during this Christmas season, Cortman said. “When they tell schools it is unconstitutional to include a song such as Silent Night in their Christmas program, they are simply wrong not only as a matter of law but also as a matter of fairness.”

WAAYTV.com: At issue: whether singing “Silent Night” during the show was appropriate. The advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State objected to the religious content being performed at a public school. Another advocacy group, The Alliance Defense Fund fired back, saying that

Examiner.com: David Cortman of the Alliance Defense Fund praised the school’s decision. “Groups on the left such as Americans United have been trying to bully schools across the country all during this Christmas season,” he said. “When they tell schools it is unconstitutional to include a song such as ‘Silent Night’ in their Christmas program, they are simply wrong not only as a matter of law but also as a matter of fairness.” “I think it’s about time that not only Americans but schools specifically stand up to these Grinches who go on this Christmas attack every year yet deny there is any war on Christmas,” Cortman added.

ADF case information resource page (links to briefs) Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, No. 10-13925 (11th Cir. Dec. 16, 2011) Before BARKETT, PRYOR and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges. BARKETT, Circuit Judge: Jennifer Keeton was enrolled in the Counselor Education Program at Augusta State …

Washington Times: Vaclav Havel wove theater into revolution, leading the charge to peacefully bring down communism in a regime he ridiculed as “Absurdistan” and proving the power of the people to overcome totalitarian rule.

SCOTUSblog: The Supreme Court on Monday scheduled three days of oral argument, totaling 5 1/2 hours of actual argument time in March, on the constitutional issues surrounding the new federal health care law — the Affordable Care Act.

JournalNow.com: Mike Johnson of Shreveport, La., an attorney working with the ADF, said the argument of the ACLU and Americans United downplays the importance of other lower-court rulings on this issue. “They have misrepresented the facts,” Johnson said. “This is an important constitutional legal question, which is the permissibility of sectarian prayer.”

LifeNews.com: Citing the economic downturn and a decrease in taxpayer funding, Planned Parenthood officials closed four abortion referral clinics in two states, giving pro-life advocates an early Christmas gift.

Washington Examiner: The Republican presidential primary has become a bit feisty, but it will get downright ugly if Ron Paul wins the Iowa caucuses. The principled, antiwar, Constitution-obeying, Fed-hating, libertarian Republican congressman from Texas stands firmly outside the bounds of permissible dissent as drawn by either the Republican establishment or the mainstream media.

Breitbart: The 13,000 residents of Wukan, in the wealthy province of Guangdong, are in open revolt against officialdom and have driven out local Communist Party leaders who they say have been stealing their land for years.

The Atlantic Wire: Perhaps the most telling secondary question was, “Do you think Newt Gingrich has strong principles?” Only 36 percent say that he does, but for Paul that number was 73 percent.

OneNewsNow.com: “President Obama and the band of his merry men might as well erect their own pink neon sign at the Arizona-Mexico border saying, ‘Welcome all illegals to your United States. Our home is your home,’” the sheriff responded.

TheHill.com: Newt Gingrich is giving fair warning to judges and courts across the country: If he becomes president, the judiciary won’t reign supreme.

The Hill: The Republican presidential candidates turned their fire on Rep. Ron Paul at Thursday’s debate, showcasing what’s become the Texas Republican’s Achilles’ heel in the Republican primary: his foreign policy views.

The Hill: Gingrich says if there is broad opposition to a court decision, Congress should subpoena the ruling judge to defend his or her action in a hearing room.

Heritage Foundation Morning Bell: North Korea’s official media announced that Kim Jong-il, the country’s long-time leader, died on Saturday of “physical and mental overwork.”

The Washington Post: Jenifer Bowen, the executive director of Iowa Right to Life, spent a recent evening at the Hoyt Sherman Place theater here listening to four Republican presidential candidates deliver faith-infused pitches to about 1,000 evangelicals representing one of this election’s most critical and conflicted voting blocs.

Juan Williams at TheHill.com: The Census Bureau reports that 29 percent of white children are considered in or near poverty, along with 64 percent of black children and 65 percent of Hispanic children. There is a link between poverty and a rising number of out-of-wedlock babies born every year, with 24 percent, 38 percent and 42 percent of white, black and Hispanic woman-headed families, respectively, living in poverty. These harsh facts are an ugly consequence of American family breakdown and political inertia in a time of congressional fights for political advantage over budgets and tax breaks.

TheHill.com: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, 69, has reportedly died after nearly two decades in power. The White House said it was closely monitoring reports that the reclusive leader was dead.

An Alliance Defense Fund lawsuit has led to official recognition for a student-led Christian club at the Hicksville Union Free School District, which originally refused to recognize the club.