Daily Archives: January 12, 2012

Telegraph: Britain has lost three out of four cases taken to the European Court of Human Rights, new figures have shown.

‘Naturist’ convicted in Ontario after naked drive-through visits, judge upholds Canada’s nudity laws | National Post: In convicting a local businessman of public nudity charges after he shocked female clerks at drive-through windows at a local Tim Hortons and A&W restaurant, an Ontario court judge has upheld Canada’s nudity laws as an acceptable infringement of the man’s freedom of expression.

Orlando Sentinel (includes video): Orlando made history Thursday as couples filed into city hall to sign the city’s first Domestic Partnership Affidavit.

LifeNews.com: Maryland woman is facing up to five years in prison after facing charges related to her giving the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug to a teenager.

Ron Paul’s Appeal Among the Military – By David French – The Corner – National Review Online: A fact that many of Ron Paul’s supporters mention to rebut claims that he is dangerous on national security is his overwhelming financial support from the military, and it’s true.

Business Week: An ordinance that would require porn actors to wear condoms during film shoots was tentatively approved by the City Council on Tuesday. The council voted 11-1 for the proposal.

State Journal: Three West Virginia delegates are introducing a bill that would limit the activities of “sexually oriented businesses” in West Virginia.

CSMonitor.com: Evidence of a covert war against Iran’s nuclear program is mounting. Yesterday’s assassination of an Iranian scientist tied to the program is just the most recent data point in the last year that indicates an accelerating effort to spread fear and slow the country’s nuclear work.

News from The Associated Press: Rep. Jerry Lewis of California became the latest Republican to announce his retirement from Congress after new boundaries drawn through redistricting promised to make the road to re-election more difficult.

The Christian Institute: A Christian radio station which was banned from airing an advert on Christian marginalisation has been given permission to go to court and challenge the decision.

Kentucky.com: A group of Amish men were sent to jail in western Kentucky Thursday for refusing to pay fines for breaking a state highway law that requires their horse-drawn buggies to be marked with orange reflective triangles

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor appeared on Wallbuilders Live to discuss this. | MP3 audio 7:21 mins

ADF Attorney Benjamin Bull Townhall : While we sit in our soft chairs watching big screen TVs and complaining that microwave popcorn takes too long to cook, activists backing the homosexual agenda relentlessly march on. Availing themselves of avenues that are notably left of center, both culturally and politically, they incrementally pursue and secure special treatment under the guise of “rights” and “equality.” And while we’ve seen this happen at many levels of government—both state and national—we err greatly if we fail to see the inroads being made on an international level as well.

Florida Independent: Senate Bill 98 would “authorize district school boards to adopt resolutions that allow prayers of invocation or benediction at secondary school events.”

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot at Speak Up Movement Church Blog: The Supreme Court just handed down a fantastic ruling affirming the right of churches to employ only those individuals that share their beliefs and live their lives according to the teaching of the church.

C-Fam Friday Fax: Tension between free speech advocacy and efforts to curb “hate speech” has arisen over the past year as the result of recent initiatives at the United Nations (UN) and by the Obama administration.

CNN.com Blogs: America’s Protestant pastors overwhelmingly reject the theory of evolution and are evenly split on whether the earth is 6,000 years old, according to a survey released Monday by the Southern Baptist Convention.

CNN.com Blogs: Imagine the following scenario: A U.S. president is discovered to be spending his spare time taking a razor to the New Testament, cutting up and re-pasting those passages of the Gospels that he considered authentic and morally true and discarding all the rest.

The Washington Post: The Pew Forum poll, to be released Thursday, offers an unusually detailed look at an American-born religion at a time when voters are craving information about GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, a Mormon who was once a bishop in his church.

USATODAY.com: A hearing Wednesday in a lawsuit aimed at stopping the Sussex County Council from reciting the Lord’s Prayer before each meeting delved into the theological meaning and history of the prayer’s title and whether it is explicitly a Christian prayer.

LifeSiteNews.com: Rick Santorum describes himself as universally pro-life. That includes his tax plan, which policy analysts contend gives couples economic incentives to get married and have larger families.

LifeSiteNews.com: The book, titled “Godly Seed: American Evangelicals Confront Birth Control, 1873-1973,” by Dr. Allan Carlson, comes at a time when some American evangelicals are rethinking their position on birth control.

Nathanael Bennett at LifeNews.com: Planned Parenthood’s abortion business continues to boom – to the tune of more than a billion dollars in net assets. As if that weren’t shocking enough, a closer examination of the abortion giant’s latest annual report reveals even more troubling issues – like more than $100 million in previous underreporting of taxpayer funding and a distortion of just how “comprehensive” of care the organization provides

The Washington Post: A coalition of nearly 40 religious leaders has published an open letter that seeks to recast the battle against same-sex marriage as a fight on behalf of religious freedom.

SouthBrunswick.patch.com: Although the last attempt to legalize gay marriage in the state ended losing in the Senate by a 14-20 vote, this time Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), said he has at least the 21 votes needed to pass the bill in the upper house.

CNET: Google and China have had a strained relationship over the years, but now, the search giant is trying to smooth things over a bit.

State of the Family Address at (includes audio): My Fellow West Virginians, Tradition, as well as our state constitution, requires that the Governor of the State of West Virginia give an address at the commencement of the regular session of the legislature, “of the condition of the state.”

WSJ.com: Tom Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Thursday the group wouldn’t “sue today” to block Cordray’s appointment, but held out the possibility that position could change in the future.

LifeNews.com: Planned Parenthood has a response to the federal appeals court decision allowing Texas women a chance to see an ultrasound of their baby before an abortion. They call it “abhorrent.”

A report says the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Canada has served notice that thousands of same-sex couples who flocked to Canada from abroad since 2004 to get married are not legally wed.

CNBC: The number of Americans applying for first-time jobless benefits rose last week, a report showed on Thursday, reversing a recent decline and suggesting the labor market remains brittle.

DOJ: The convening of periodic pro forma sessions in which no business is to be conducted does not have the legal effect of interrupting an intrasession recess otherwise long enough to qualify as a “Recess of the Senate” under the Recess Appointments Clause. In this context, the President therefore has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.

Bloomberg: In September 2010, President Barack Obama nominated New York lawyer Caitlin Halligan to replace John Roberts on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington. Halligan waited for more than a year as her file made its way through the Senate.

TheHill.com: In a memo, Justice argued the pro-forma sessions held every third day in the Senate do not constitute a functioning body that can render advice and consent on the president’s nominees. It said the president acted consistently under the law by making the appointments.

Mcall.com: Preliminary state audit report finds Pocono Mountain Charter School had ‘improper entanglements’ with Tobyhanna church.

Religion Clause: Now however in the town of Morinville where all public schools are operated by the Greater St. Albert Catholic schools, it is the Catholic school board that is the subject of parental complaints about the ability to opt out. At least 5 non-Catholic parents have filed complaints with the Alberta Human Rights Commission claiming that their non-Catholic children were forced to receive religious instruction, without the ability to opt out.

What’s Wrong with the World Blog: The every-fourth-year-ly hoopla about a certain politician whose name rhymes with “Don Tall” has brought into view a slogan (perhaps I may say a “canard”) which evidently is this politician’s position–namely, that “government should get out of the marriage business.”

Tyler Star News: Dustin Turner, a St. Marys High School teacher and pastor of Middlebourne United Christian Fellowship, spoke at Monday night’s regularly scheduled Tyler County Board of Education meeting to request the board consider instituting spoken prayer as part of the their regular agenda. Members of his congregation also attended in support of the proposal but did not speak to the board.

630WPRO.com: The prayer banner that hangs at Cranston West High School must be removed immediately said U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Lagueux in his decision issued Wednesday.

Freedom From Religion Foundation: In a Jan. 10 letter of complaint to Mayor John DeStefano of New Haven, Conn., the Freedom From Religion Foundation cautioned the city against “taking an unconstitutional proposal to ‘put prayer back in schools’ seriously.” Newly elected City Clerk Ronald Smith proposed prayer as a technique to lower crime rates at his inauguration ceremony

ADF Attorney Kevin Theriot appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss yesterday’s ruling. | MP3 audio 8:33 mins

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence appeared on several radio shows to discuss the Bronx Household ruling and its fallout: “The Supreme Court’s action has acted as a catalyst to galvanize pastors [and] members of the New York City Council as well as state lawmakers in the legislature in Albany to oppose this and to ask and to work for repeal of this policy,” the attorney explains. | MP3 audio 22:40 mins; FRC Washington Watch with Tim Wildmon and Tony Perkins (NY Councilman Cabrerar also appeared on this broadcast) | MP3 audio 10:20 mins; Line of Fire Radio with Michael Brown | MP3 audio 12:35 mins; The Morning Ride with Mark Elfstrand | ADF Media: Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York resource page

One News Now: Alliance Defense Fund attorney Jordan Lorence tells OneNewsNow that the decision is not being taken lightly. “The Supreme Court’s action has acted as a catalyst to galvanize pastors [and] members of the New York City Council as well as state lawmakers in the legislature in Albany to oppose this and to ask and to work for repeal of this policy,” the attorney explains.

TPM: But Young’s got a little high-powered help. Her attorney, from the Alliance Defense Fund, argues that the lawsuit threatens Young’s religious freedom because “no business owner should be forced to violate his or her religious beliefs because someone is offended by those beliefs.”

NYTimes.com: After the arrests, the situation began to draw national attention from religious groups worried that similar things could happen in their districts, said Jordan Lorence, the senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented Bronx Household in the litigation and had begun to prepare a case on behalf of the housing project churches. “They can’t use the Bronx Household case as some kind of all-purpose permission slip to banish private worship services from every public venue,” Mr. Lorence said.

The Hill: More than 480 state lawmakers plan to file a brief Thursday urging the Supreme Court to uphold President Obama’s healthcare law.

The Hill: Rod Beckstrom, president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), brushed off criticism of his group’s plan to allow for new Web domain endings in an interview with The Hill on Wednesday.

Education News: A federal judge’s order has opened the door for more students in Tucson Unified School District to sue the state and challenge the constitutionality of the law that bans racially divisive courses in Arizona schools.

News from The Associated Press: A new study of fertility treatment found that women who get three or more embryos have no better odds of having a baby than those who get just two embryos.

Washington Times: A panel of federal judges has ruled that states cannot protect their courts from jurists who base their decisions on international or Koranic law. America needs better judges.

News from The Associated Press: A group of Amish men in Kentucky could be headed to jail for refusing to mark their horse-drawn buggies with reflective triangles for traffic safety.

Obama asks Congress for $1.2 trillion increase in nation’s borrowing limit – The Washington Post: President Barack Obama is asking Congress for another $1.2 trillion increase in the nation’s debt limit. The request is largely a formality.

Daily Mail: Youngsters are being dumped by their parents who are struggling to make ends meet in what is fast becoming the most tragic human consequence of the Euro crisis.