Daily Archives: January 24, 2012

LifeNews.com: The Show-Me state has something to show the nation. According to newly-released State Department of Health figures, Missouri women had 1,019 fewer abortions in 2010 than in the previous year – a 9.4 percent decline!

Daily Crux: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a very simple piece of legislation to repeal the infamous Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, quietly signed into law by the president on New Year’s Day.

The Blog of Legal Times: Maryland man is suing U.S. Supreme Court Marshal Pamela Talkin, claiming that the rules barring protesters from displaying signs on the high court’s grounds are unconstitutional. Harold Hodge Jr., according to the complaint (PDF) . . .

Sacramento Bee: Dean of Students Mark Davis, a spokesman for the university, says the group’s mission is not aligned with the conservative religious university’s beliefs on sexual morality.

Chemeketa Community College revises policies after interaction with ADF attorneys representing pro-life students

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox at the SpeakUpMovement.org University Blog: Even at the time of Roe, some were concerned that legalized abortion would lead to compelled participation in abortion, a concern that was not misplaced as ACLU attorneys were working in Montana to force Catholic hospitals to perform sterilizations. The Supreme Court acknowledged but dismissed that concern, holding only that “the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, … the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated.”

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at the TellADF Blog: Our Christian brother Ray Arneson finds his mission fields close to home. For two years, for instance, he made regular visits to the campus of South Mountain Community College, in his home town of Mesa, Arizona, to peacefully share the Good News with any students and other passers-by who showed an interest in hearing more about Jesus.

LifeNews.com: For the fifth year in a row, there was no story in the Times print edition on the annual March for Life against abortion in Washington, D.C., which every year draws massive crowds in unpromising weather on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing abortion.

CBN.com: With Islamists poised to take over governments overthrown during the “Arab spring,” Christians and other minorities may soon be subject to Sharia (Islamic) law.

BBC News : UK author Sir Salman Rushdie says he is “sad for India” after threats of violence prevented him from addressing an Indian literary festival.

Telegraph: Ministers are to bring to an end an “absurd” benefits regime which has seen husbands with multiple wives able to claim extra welfare payments.

Christian Concern: he Advertising Standards Authority has announced its decision to allow commercial abortion providers, which profit from carrying out abortions, to advertise their services on television and radio.

The Christian Institute: Church leaders in Wales have united to criticise “ill-judged” proposals for a system of presumed consent for organ donation.

Courthouse News Service: Hungarian officials violated citizens’ right to peaceful assembly by routinely refusing to authorize demonstrations and declaring the area in front of the Parliament in Budapest a “security operational zone,” the European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday.

LifeNews.com: Turning a blind eye toward both good science and good ethics, the embryonic stem cell and cloning company, Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), has published a very preliminary online report regarding their first two patients injected with embryonic stem cell derivatives.

News from The Associated Press: The House has passed a bill confirming the use of religious symbols at military memorials. It was also voting on legislation to order that a prayer issued by Franklin Roosevelt on D-Day be installed at the World War II memorial in Washington.

Herald-mail.com: O’Malley, a Democrat who is making same-sex marriage a priority of his legislative agenda this year, said bill drafters were especially sensitive to protecting religious freedom in hopes of persuading lawmakers — as well as the state’s voters — to support the legislation.

LifeSiteNews.com (includes video): An appeal to the British Columbia Supreme Court launched by two pro-life activists convicted last June of violating the province’s infamous “bubble zone” law, was dismissed on December 20th by Madam Justice Fisher.

BBC News: Nigerian forces have arrested 158 suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram organisation in dawn raids in the northern city of Kano.

The Washington Post: A New Jersey Senate panel has approved a same-sex marriage bill the same day Gov. Chris Christie vowed to veto it.

International Business Times: Girl Scouts won’t be able to meet nor wear their uniforms at St. Timothy Catholic Church or its neighboring elementary and middle school in Chantilly as long as their parent group, The World Association of Girl Guides & Girls Scouts (WAGFGS), continues its partnership with the non-profit, the church said.

Huffington Post: Though it may seem minor, embracing a pro-LGBT organization’s event is likely to be viewed as a considerably progressive step for Boy Scouts given its checkered history with such affairs. Many advocates have long been outraged by what they have deemed as the organization’s explicit anti-gay policy, which allegedly bars openly gay members from participating as troop members or leaders.

Kilker and her partner, Sara Nelson, are traveling to D.C. from Colorado today, and Kilker’s case, though being touted as a sign of the administration’s success, is a stark sign of current limitations of the law for LGBT employees in the workplace . . .

WTOP.com: A battle over whether child-placement agencies should be allowed to discriminate against prospective parents and children based on their sexual orientation has moved to the General Assembly.

Ruth Institute Blog: Open marriage is also likely to be a terrible idea for children. A growing body of research suggests that children are harmed when they are exposed to a revolving cast of caregivers and partners. For example, a recent federal report found that children living with one parent and an unrelated romantic partner were about 10 times as likely to be sexually, physically or emotionally abused, compared with children living with their own married, biological parents.

Law firm knee deep in state’s many hot-button issues: As a result, the most influential three names in state politics, outside of Walker, Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald, just might be Michael Best & Friedrich.

NewsOK.com: After a long-running White House effort to find a successor for Robert Henry on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, President Barack Obama has nominated Oklahoma City magistrate judge who was on a list given to Sen. Tom Coburn.

The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram: President Obama has nominated William Kayatta Jr. of Cape Elizabeth to fill Maine’s seat on the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, the White House announced today.

LifeNews.com: A new national survey conducted by the Marist Institute and commissioned by the Knights of Columbus finds 79 percent of Americans say that they would not allow abortion after the first three months of pregnancy.

Florida Independent: A bill that would allow students to pray during school events passed through its final state Senate committee yesterday.

National Review: I called up the Commission on Presidential Debates, which handles the general election debates, and they confirmed that audience participation has not been allowed in the past in debates, and will not be allowed this cycle either.

Religion Clause: Salafi Al-Asala Party member, Mamdouth Ismail, and 15 other members added to the official oath calling for respect for the constitution and law, the phrase “as long as it does not contradict God’s law.”

Religion Clause: Blackmore claims that Bountiful split from the U.S. based FLDS church in 2002 and that its residents make up a separate religious congregation so that income from businesses in the community should be spread for tax purposes over all the residents. Canadian tax officials, on the other hand, say that Blackmore is merely the patriarch of a large polygamous family

The Thomas More Law Center announced today that it has appealed a controversial decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeal was filed in the case of Bradley Johnson v. Poway Unified School District late last week.

Law.com: Earlier this month, Microsoft general counsel and executive vice president of legal and corporate affairs Brad Smith took to the company’s official blog with a post titled “Marriage Equality in Washington State Would Be Good for Business,” in which he outlined the business case for the company’s support of same-sex marriage legislation in Washington, where Microsoft is based.

Ruth Institute Blog: Likewise, the media frequently fails to report the whole picture by reporting on insufficient studies on gay or lesbian parenting. The latest reporting of the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study pertaining to lesbian mothers (http://www.nllfs.org/images/uploads/pdf/nllfs-quality-life-january-2012.pdf) continues this trend.

Austin R. Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund, Christopher Plante of the National Organization for Marriage, and Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute testify before the Washington House Judiciary on the purpose of marriage. (January 23, 2012)

AnnArbor.com : The Ann Arbor City Council voted unanimously Monday night in favor of a resolution directing the city administrator and city attorney to assist the civil rights group in the lawsuit filed in federal court this month after Gov. Rick Snyder signed Public Act 297 into law.

Catholic News Agency (CNA): – Colorado’s proposed civil unions bill is “just a stepping stone to the legalization of same-sex marriage,” the head of the Colorado Catholic Conference has warned. “In every state where legislators or lawmakers have pushed civil unions, there has then been a push for the recognition of same-sex marriage,” conference executive director Jennifer Kraska told CNA on Jan. 17.

The Blog of Legal Times: The “occupy” movement took its campaign against corporate domination to the federal judiciary on Friday, storming the U.S. Supreme Court building and demonstrating at other federal courthouses nationwide to protest the high court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision.

Wyoming Tribune: Jonathan Skruggs is an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of WyWatch. The Alliance Defense Fund is an Arizona-based Christian civil rights group that has litigated against same-sex marriage in California. The group also has supported the recent, unsuccessful push in Wyoming to change state law to specify that the state shouldn’t recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere.

Rasmussen: Seventy-eight percent (78%) of American Adults rate the institution of marriage as at least somewhat important to U.S. society, and that includes 60% who consider it Very Important. | 77% Say Two-Parent Home Very Important for Children

OneNewsNow.com: “No provision of the Minnesota Constitution gives individuals the right to redefine marriage and force that definition on everyone else,” says Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Jim Campbell. “The union between husband and wife benefits society, especially children, in unique and special ways that could not be duplicated by any other relationship.”

HeraldNet.com: The issue will likely head to the voters, said Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal arm of Focus on the Family group that has fought gay marriage legislation across the country. “Americans are married to the institution of marriage. Red states, blue states, north, south, east and west,” Nimocks said. “They understand the definition of marriage. They don’t need to have the Legislature tell them what it is.”

AP on Your West Valley News: Surprise: A group of Christian attorneys have filed a lawsuit against the Dysart Unified School District in federal court for prohibiting fliers for a Christian club. The suit was filed Thursday by the Alliance Defense Fund.

Washington Times: “Voters can make sure that this courts ruling is not the final word. The final word belongs to the people of Minnesota, not judges,” said Jordan Lorence, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented the Minnesota Family Council in a friend-of-the-court brief in support of traditional marriage.

Phyllis Schlafly at Townhall: Barack Obama’s latest unconstitutional action is his attempt to make four so-called recess appointments to high-level, well-paying jobs in the federal bureaucracy when the Senate was not in recess. He appointed three people to the National Labor Relations Board, plus Richard Cordray to head the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, even though the Senate had declined to confirm his nomination.

William McGurn at WSJ.com: Less predictable—and far more interesting—has been the heat from the Catholic left, including many who have in the past given the president vital cover.

NCPA Policy Digest: The Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) lax accounting standards obscure the fact that it is deeply insolvent with a capital shortfall of tens of billions of dollars.

AP on NECN.com: Scruggs told Freudenthal that the commission action adopting the new rule the week after the group filed its lawsuit “shows that the defendants are not interested in constitutional compliance — they’re interested in avoiding judicial sanction.” The state never responded to the group’s letter last year threatening legal action, he said . . . We believe that if you look at the picture, it’s not offensive at all,” Scruggs said of the group’s picture of a fetus. “It’s an unborn child, it’s not an aborted child.” [more . . . ]

PhillyBurbs.com: Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund, the legal advocacy group assisting NYC churches, said “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. Churches and other religious groups should be able to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups,” argued Lorence. “These churches offer the people in hurting communities hope and help for their daily needs. To drive out the churches based on a discredited, extreme notion of ‘separation of church and state’ benefits no one and harms people who need help most.” This statement makes good sense. However, do you really think the liberal elites would be satisfied removing “just one church” from using public building?

KWTX.com: Participants include members of Congress, authors and legal experts from the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group.

News from The Associated Press: South Africa’s government human rights agency said Tuesday it is investigating whether the Zulu king made comments that could increase anti-homosexual sentiment in a country where gays face hatred and attacks despite liberal laws ensuring their rights.

News from The Associated Press: Several popular Polish websites are planning to go dark for an hour Tuesday evening to protest the government’s plan to sign an international copyright treaty.

AP on My Way News: To try to ensure that whoever ends his life won’t be jailed, the 57-year-old Nicklinson recently asked Britain’s High Court to declare that any doctor who gives him a lethal injection with his consent won’t be charged with murder. This week, the court will hold its first hearing on the case.

The Washington Post: Mitt Romney offered a partial snapshot of his vast personal fortune late Monday, disclosing income of $21.7 million in 2010 and $20.9 million last year — virtually all of it profits, dividends or interest from investments.