Daily Archives: January 18, 2012

Updated News: A long-standing tradition that sees some schools handing out bibles to students should be scrapped, says a P.E.I. parent.

Palladium-Item | pal-item.com: Indiana’s first specialty license plate that benefits gay causes is now available for purchase.

Todd Ziebarth, vice president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, on which states are most supportive of charter school growth.

LifeSiteNews.com: A coalition that includes black pastors and pro-family organizations held a protest outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center yesterday to protest the organization’s ongoing “slander” against pro-family organizations.

LifeSiteNews.com: The Irish coalition government has included in an “expert committee” on abortion the lawyer who acted in the notorious “X case,” the 1992 attempt to overturn the country’s constitutional amendment outlawing abortion.

LifeSiteNews.com: As France moves towards the next presidential election a little more than three months away, a new poll indicates that a strong majority of French citizens now support a key element in the anti-family agenda of the French left: the creation of homosexual “marriage.”

BellinghamHerald.com: From U.N. chambers to the halls of the State Department, global pressure on countries to protect the rights of homosexuals and transgender people is rising.

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence at the Speak UP Movement Church Blog: No other major school district in the U.S. prohibits religious groups from renting school buildings for worship services, except New York City. That is the conclusion of a memo that ADF wrote . . .

Big Government: For the second time in a session that is only weeks old, Indiana House Democrats refused to show up for work on Tuesday, effectively delaying the passage of right-to-work legislation.

Yahoo! News: Hungary’s prime minister yielded on Wednesday in a dispute with the European Union that threatens aid for his country, saying he was willing to change contested laws tightening government control over institutions including the central bank.

Huffington Post: Given that more and more youngsters are self-identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) at younger ages, a new report hopes to shed light on school climate, biased remarks and bullying among elementary school students. Released by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), “Playground and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States.”

BostonHerald.com: A probate judge’s order to abort a mentally ill woman’s unborn baby and sterilize her — if it meant she had to be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed … by ruse” into the procedure — has prompted a legal tongue-lashing from an appeals court, and outrage from even abortion rights supporters.

ABC News (includes video): “I think it’s gone too far,” Cranston Mayor Allan Fung told ABCNews.com. “Our country was built upon civil discourse, not hate for one person exercising their constitutional rights.”

WSJ: The mayors of several big cities, including Chicago, New York, Boston and Los Angeles, are joining together to support same-sex marriage rights, a move that could put additional pressure on President Barack Obama to do the same.

NYTimes.com: Gay rights advocates from Wall Street to Hollywood poured donations into the coffers of four little-known Republican state senators after the lawmakers provided the decisive votes for same-sex marriage in New York last June, according to new campaign finance filings released on Tuesday.

Fox News (includes video): The largest Muslim civil liberties group in the United States on Wednesday condemned Newt Gingrich for saying he would only hire Muslims to his administration if they renounced the use of Islam’s Shariah law as a tool for U.S. government.

News from The Associated Press: Iraq needs new leaders to prevent the country from disintegrating, the leader of the main Sunni-backed bloc said Wednesday, reflecting the severity of a sectarian political battle in the Shiite-led government, accompanied by violence, just a month after the exit of U.S. forces.

Stanton L. Jones at First Things: Nevertheless, our culture is polarized between those relentlessly advancing the full acceptance and normalization of homosexuality, indeed of all sexual variations, and those resisting those moves. As religious believers, we must confess our own culpability in creating the mess we are in. We were complicit, even if ignorantly and passively so, in the cultural embrace of the disease conceptualization of homosexuality.

Stephen Sweeney at NJ.com: Equality, fairness and justice are the most basic of American principles. The last century especially has seen numerous episodes of Americans fighting for, and eventually receiving, their civil rights. Yet there remain Americans for whom these principles are not fully realized.

EagleTribune.com: “The legislation will not be considered for a floor vote until February,” Bettencourt said in an email.

NewsChannel5.com (includes video): A controversial new policy in the City of Mount Pleasant has people fired up about their religious rights.

Education News: The US Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to take up three cases presenting a potentially important test of the free speech rights of minors to engage in offensive and controversial speech on the Internet.

ABC News (includes video): Paul D. Clement is a lawyer standing at the center of three blockbuster Supreme Court cases that could make this term one of the most politically significant in years.

Barry Lynn at Opposing Views: Nothing I heard in the news reports about this incident indicates that Jarrett told people how to vote. Yes, she praised Obama and criticized the GOP. But pastors laud or blast politicians all of the time. Unless they take the additional step of advising congregants how they ought to vote or engage in some other action (distributing candidate literature in church, endorsing a candidate on the church website, donating church funds to a candidate), they’re not likely to attract IRS scrutiny.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at Townhall : On December 6, President Barack Obama’s support for the demands of the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender” agenda rose to the next level when he issued a memorandum directing federal agencies abroad to “improve protections for LGBT asylum seekers and to strengthen opposition to criminalization of LGBT status or conduct.” The key phrase in the directive was Obama’s claim that so doing is but another part of the “United States’ commitment to promoting human rights.”

Townhall Finance: Who provides abortions in the United States? The chart below reveals what we found for the year 2008 . . .

Reuters: South Carolina will sue the administration of President Barack Obama over its rejection of the state’s new requirement that voters provide a photo ID, Attorney General Alan Wilson said on Tuesday.

News from The Associated Press: Demonstrations against Romania’s harsh austerity measures took place across the country again on Wednesday, with protesters demanding the government’s resignation.

Religion Clause: Religious-political battles in the Maldives are intensifying.

Religion Clause: Yesterday’s Wilmington (DE) News Journal reports on an interesting line of questioning raised by a Delaware federal district judge in oral arguments in Mullin v. Sussex County, Delaware.

LifeNews.com: Michael Tierney, an Alliance Defense Fund-allied attorney in Manchester, New Hampshire who helped promote the language, added, “It is time to get New Hampshire taxpayers out of the abortion business. Planned Parenthood’s business model is centered on abortion, and New Hampshire taxpayers want no part in it.” Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Mike Norton chimed in as well: “Every innocent life deserves to be protected. Taxpayer dollars should go toward helping and caring for the most vulnerable Americans, not killing them. New Hampshire taxpayers should not be forced to fund abortions.”

The Hill: The Obama administration will reject the Keystone XL pipeline Wednesday afternoon, according to a source closely following the issue.

ADF Attorney David Cortman appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hosanna Tabor (ministerial exception for Christian school teachers) and its refusal to hear Forsyth County (sectarian legislative prayer). | MP3 audio 7:10 mins

The Hill: In an unprecedented display of political muscle, thousands of websites went dark on Wednesday to protest two Internet piracy bills, the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s Protect IP Act.

Rasmussen Reports: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters nationwide shows Romney with 30% support and Gingrich with 27% of the vote. Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, who was running second two weeks ago, has now dropped to 15%.

WorldNetDaily: The HSLDA also works with the Alliance Defense Fund to challenge such violations of parental rights. Roger Kiska, a European-based attorney working with the ADF, warned, “Parents have the right and authority to make decisions regarding their children’s education without government interference. Swedish policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children. Those standards include the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents, all of which recognize that parents have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive.”

Examiner.com: In addition to the opinion of the School Board attorney, two other organizations – Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defense Fund – have issued their judgments on the matter.

Inside Higher Ed: “It is a shame that certain academics and groups on the left … would rather engage in educational censorship than allow true academic freedom,” ADF senior counsel David Cortman wrote in a statement released to Inside Higher Ed. “Any objections to the method of teaching the course could have been addressed without canceling the entire course.”

HSLDA: Roger Kiska is an ADF attorney stationed in Europe who has brought numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights on family issues, including homeschooling. He says that the European Court of Human Rights has not been particularly supportive of homeschoolers. “The ECHR is giving aid and comfort to Sweden’s repressive home education policies. But ECHR jurisprudence and Swedish, as well as German, policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children,” Kiska said. “The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents all recognize that parents of children have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive. We are committed to working with HSLDA and others to vindicate this right. We will stand with families like the Johanssons and Himmelstrands until we win.”

John Hayward Human Events: However, the IRS’ enforcement of its rules are skewed, said Stanley. ‘The IRS’ record of enforcement against churches has been atrocious, uneven, discriminatory and arbitrary,” he said. “Usually more liberal churches and more African-American churches have been [engaged in political activities] for years… whether it is legal or not,” said [Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund], who wants to persuade the Supreme Court to invalidate IRS curbs on clerics’ speech . . .

ADF lawsuit says policy requiring fees, waiting period to engage in free speech is unconstitutional

Winston-Salem Journal: But the county insisted on fighting on through the legal representation of the Alliance Defense Fund, a right-wing Christian organization. The ADF advanced the case for free, but if the county had lost, it would have been liable for paying the victor’s costs. A local group had raised money for that, but there was no guarantee it could meet all the costs.

Winston-Salem Journal: On a vote that splits the county board 4-3 on party lines, the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners accepts an offer from the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian group, to defend the county for free.

Fox 8 (video included): David Cortman with the Alliance Defense Fund, which helped defend the county in the case, said a non-sectarian prayer is no prayer at all. “This was open to anyone to pray according to their own beliefs. It didn’t exclude any religion at all,” Cortman said.

Baptist Press: But David Cortman, an attorney representing Forsyth County, said the ruling makes Christians second-class citizens. “That’s what this case shows,” said Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund. “We believe the Supreme Court has missed an opportunity to clear up the differing opinions among the various circuit courts. It really is disappointing.” [more]

Rocky Mount Telegram: “This means that, for the time being, the standard for prayer policies in the 4th Circuit will be different from the standard held by the rest of the country,” said David Cortman, senior counsel for the group.

FRC Washington Update: he Supreme Court giveth, and the Supreme Court taketh away. Just days after handing down one of the biggest victories for religious freedom in a half-century, the justices are back to ignoring the principles they upheld

Heritage Foundation Foundry: As of midnight, Wikipedia is shut down for 24 hours, and hundreds of other popular websites have gone dark right along with it. They are standing together in protest of two controversial pieces of legislation that threaten Internet security and undermine the freedom of speech all in an effort to crack down on online “piracy” — the illegal distribution of copyrighted material.

The Hill: Supporters of President Obama’s healthcare reform have lost the high level of confidence they once displayed that the Supreme Court would throw out constitutional challenges to the law’s individual mandate.

TheHill.com: Some legal experts, including those who have sided with President Obama on other constitutional issues, think there is a good chance the courts could overturn his recent recess appointments.

KRGV.com: Three beheadings in two different states and they happened here in the United States, not Mexico.

Mark Levin on ‘Ameritopia:’ ‘We Now Live in a Post-Constitutional Country’ | CNSnews.com: In an interview with CNSNews.com about his new book—“Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America”—Mark R. Levin said he believes America has already largely become “a post-constitutional country.”

CBS Los Angeles: he Los Angeles City Council approved a new law Tuesday that will require adult film stars to use condoms.

Times 247: The Obama administration is launching a new space arms-control initiative that critics say will lead to restrictions on U.S. military activities in space, a key U.S. strategic war-fighting advantage.

NYTimes.com: With a Web-wide protest on Wednesday that includes a 24-hour shutdown of the English-language Wikipedia, the legislative battle over two Internet piracy bills has reached an extraordinary moment — a political coming of age for a relatively young and disorganized industry that has largely steered clear of lobbying and other political games in Washington.