Daily Archives: February 8, 2012

Baptist Press: With a weekend deadline approaching when churches will no longer be allowed to meet in public schools, the New York State Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill that would allow worship services to continue.

Reuters: The Washington state House of Representatives was expected to endorse gay marriage on Wednesday in a vote that puts the state on the cusp of becoming the seventh in the nation to recognize same-sex nuptials.

News from The Associated Press: Republicans are looking to deny child tax credits to illegal immigrants – refund checks averaging $1,800 a family – in an effort that has roused anger among Hispanics and some Democratic lawmakers.

Catholic Culture: The nation’s constitutional court has not yet ruled on an appeal that claims the 2005 law is unconstitutional.

The Austin Daily Herald: A Hollandale man has been charged with marrying a woman even though he is already married to another. Wayne Allen DeMay, 41, faces one felony count of bigamy in Freeborn County District Court.

Catholic Culture: A state law in Hawaii may form the basis for a compromise between the Obama administration and the US Catholic bishops on the mandate to include contraceptive coverage in health-care plans.

NY Daily News: The lesbians who became the poster couple for gays seeking to marry in California are now doing what countless straight couples have done before them — they’re splitting up.

LifeSiteNews (includes video of the arrest): A pro-life activist was arrested in Calgary on Saturday after a police officer objected to his signs, which featured images of aborted babies.

WorldNetDaily (includes video): But this time a Christian professor is pointing out that under the same rule, Christians would be allowed to join an organization of atheists or Muslims and exert influence.

GoPride.com: HB 5710, the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, provides that all laws of Illinois applicable to marriage apply equally to marriages of same-sex and different-sex couples.

The Guardian: General Synod puts off split over ordination of female prelates by delaying legislation for fine tuning until final approval in July.

Daily Caller carries the video.

Sen. Rand Paul at National Review Online: In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II delivered a scathing critique of socialism, declaring that “the fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated. . . .

Nikolas T. Nikas and Dorinada Bordlee at National Review Online: While a much longer treatment is called for, here’s three quick facts that everyone should know . . .

American Federation for Children: The leader of New Jersey’s largest teachers union dismissed the plight of low-income families across the state who are in desperate need of high-quality educational choices, saying in a recent local television interview that “life’s not always fair” while arguing against giving expanded educational options to students trapped in failing schools.

EngageFamilyMinute.com: The document, titled “Data and Summary of Planned Parenthood’s Waste, Abuse, and Potential Fraud,” is scheduled to be released later today in conjunction with ADF president Alan Sears’ appearance on Congress to document the illegal activity and ask for government accountability. On a conference call earlier today I head from top executives at SBA and ADF on the need for this report and an accounting by PP for their activities.

The Christian Institute: Nearly two thirds, 60 per cent, of the public think that the curbs should be scrapped.

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy: Today’s Ninth Circuit decision striking down California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage is unpersuasive because it claims that the law fails to meet even minimal “rational basis” scrutiny. Eugene Volokh does a good job of explaining why.

Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy: I have no idea what the Supreme Court might do in the Perry case. But my own sense is that Judges Walker and Reinhardt are not quite as clever as some people seem to think. Or, at the very least, the reasoning of their opinions don’t really matter very much.

Eugene Volkh at The Volokh Conspiracy: A question I never thought to ask, but Prof. Terry Turnipseed asks and answers it, in a Slate article about a recent case in which a man did adopt his girlfriend — apparently to shelter money from creditors, given the terms of a trust for his children . . .

LifeNews.com: Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning is coordinating a legal challenge against the controversial Obama mandate requiring religious employers to cover birth control and drugs that can cause abortions.

WSJ.com: State lawmakers across the U.S. have started 2012 with a controversial message to their judges: keep foreign laws out of our courtrooms.

CBS Detroit: In a case that could set national precedent, the three-judge Michigan Court of Appeals panel plans to hear arguments Thursday about whether a pastor’s testimony related to a possible confession in a child sexual assault case may be used in court.

CBS News: Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich on Tuesday decried the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for striking down California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage — both of them targeting the judiciary system for invoking what Gingrich described as a “radical overreach” of power.

Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of North and Central America – Record of Protest Against the Infringement of Religious Liberty by HHS: . . . We, the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, call upon HHS Secretary Sebelius and the Obama Administration to rescind this unjust ruling and to respect the religious freedom guaranteed all Americans by the First Amendment.

Religion Clause: The High Court in the Indian state of Gujarat today ordered the state government to pay compensation to over 500 religious structures that were damaged in riots in 2002 . . .

Religion Clause: Today’s New York Daily News reports that two parents are suing school officials over decisions by two principals to send unvaccinated children home when other students at their schools contracted communicable diseases.

Catholic Culture: The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released a statement that offers “clarifications regarding the Health and Human Services regulations on mandatory coverage of contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.”

The Hill: “Today’s decision by the 9th Circuit is another in a long line of radical activist rulings by this rogue circuit – and it is precisely why I have called for that circuit to be abolished and split up,” Santorum said in a statement Tuesday. “Marriage is defined and has always been defined as ‘one man and one woman.’ We simply cannot allow 50 different definitions of marriage.”

POLITICO.com: The advice coming from Biden and Daley also represented a division among the president’s top advisers, with a group of top women all urging the president to not create an exemption for religious organizations.

News from The Associated Press: Romney has accused Obama of an “assault on religion” over the issue. But Carney says a virtually identical policy is in place in Massachusetts, where Romney served as governor, and that it’s ironic for Romney to criticize Obama over it.

GoDanRiver.com: A federal judge has given the Pittsylvania County woman behind the ACLU’s lawsuit against the board of supervisors 30 days to reveal her name.

Liberty Counsel: Mathew Staver was appointed to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC) Board of Directors. The NHCLC is the nation’s largest Christian Hispanic organization and is also known as the Hispanic Evangelical Association.

Havelock News: “It’s amazing to me that by virtue of being elected to this office, my speech is being restricted,” Commissioner Jeff Taylor said.

Hot Air:The ACLU protests this perception, pointing to a number of controversial clients they have defended and insist that their mission is only to preserve the civil liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights and the rest of the US Constitution. I think this puts the ACLU argument to rest once and for all . . .

Altavista Journal: A federal judge on Friday issued a preliminary injunction barring the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors from opening meetings with Christian prayers pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

College Times – Arizona State University (McClatchy): Brian Raum, a lawyer for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a supporter of Proposition 8, said in a prepared statement, “We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court.”

Cal. Coast News: The court allowed time for proponents of the ban to file an appeal before the decision takes the force of law. Spokesmen for one such group, the Alliance Defense Fund, said an appeal would be forthcoming to the 9th Circuit’s full complement.

WSJ.com: The political furor over President Obama’s birth-control mandate continues to grow, even among those for whom contraception poses no moral qualms, and one needn’t be a theologian to understand why. The country is being exposed to the raw political control that is the core of the Obama health-care plan, and Americans are seeing clearly for the first time how this will violate pluralism and liberty.

Findlaw: Even so, administrators at City University of New York Law School think some of their graduating 3Ls should. Those students are being offered an additional semester of “intensive, structured, Bar-oriented coursework” — for free!

OneNewsNow.com: Thomasson expects the case to land in the nation’s highest court, with Justice Anthony Kennedy casting the deciding vote. In fact, Alliance Defense Fund says it will do exactly that (see accompanying video of ADF general counsel Alan Sears). [Brian Raum also quoted]

OneNewsNow.com: But Alliance Defense Fund attorney Bryon Babione maintains that she was fired because she took a stand for her faith. “The right to refer is a pervasive right in counseling, and she followed that, but she was nevertheless laid off for doing that,” he says. “They said it was inappropriate that she told the client that she had personal beliefs which would not allow her to effectively counsel that particular client.”

Rocky Mountain Collegian (MCT Howard Mintz): “No court should presume to redefine marriage,” said Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld in the Supreme Court.”

Desert Sun (includes video): In a statement, ADF Senior Counsel Brian Raum called Tuesday’s ruling a “Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage.”
“No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people,” Raum said.

New Hampshire Public Radio (includes audio): A 23-page memo from the Susan B. Anthony List and the Alliance Defense Fund outlines what those groups’ leaders say are a series of funding irregularities uncovered in various state and federal audits of Planned Parenthood affiliates. “These problems reveal a pattern of gross financial mismanagement,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA List. Steven Aden, the Alliance Defense Fund’s senior counsel, added, “The 10 state audits amounted to nearly 8 million dollars in waste, abuse and potential fraud.”

LifeNews: Boehner Pledges Congress Will Overturn New Obama Mandate (includes video)

Religion News Services on Christian Century: “No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people,” said Brian Raum, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing an umbrella group of Prop 8 supporters known as ProtectMarriage.com.

USCCB: “Our society does not operate in an amoral or value-less vacuum,” said Bishop Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, chairman of the Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage. “To flourish, it must be infused with moral direction that is grounded in the truth. Of course, the true meaning of marriage, like the gift of human life, is ultimately not subject to a vote or court ruling. But in California, as in every other state where marriage has been put to a vote, the people justly upheld the truth of marriage. How tragic for California, for the nation, and especially for children, that this correctly-informed judgment has now been set aside.”

Maggie Gallagher at National Review Online, The Corner: Professor Eugene Volokh, a supporter of same-sex marriage as a policy matter, picks up the most radical part of the Ninth Circuit decision: Alliance Defense Fund was right. Civil Unions lead to gay marriage. Okay, he doesn’t say that part about ADF, but Prof. Volokh does say . . .

CNA: “No court should presume to redefine marriage,” Alliance Defense Fund senior counsel Brian Raum said Feb. 7. “No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people.”

OneNewsNow.com: “To begin with, there have been ten state audits of seven Planned Parenthood providers in California, New York, Texas, and Washington state that have discovered over $8 million in waste, abuse, and potential fraud between 2002 and 2008,” Aden explains.

Businessweek (Bloomberg): We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way,” Brian Raum, an attorney for proponents and senior counsel at the legal group Alliance Defense Fund, said in an e-mail. “But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court.”

San Jose Mercury News: “We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way,” Brian Raum, a spokesman for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian non-profit, said it a widely e-mailed statement. “But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court. Every pro-marriage American should be pleased that this case can finally go to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

In today’s broadcast, Rush Limbaugh read from this report –  LifeSiteNews, December 9, 2005 by Gudrun Schultz: In a shocking turn-around, Massachusetts’s governor Mitt Romney announced yesterday that Roman Catholic and other private hospitals in the state will be forced to offer emergency contraception to sexual assault victims under new state legislation, regardless of the hospitals’ moral position on the issue . . .

Elizabeth Weise and Joan Biskupic at USATODAY.com (includes video): “No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people,” said Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group that helped defend Proposition 8.

Lisa Leff at Connecticut Post (AP) (includes video): “We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court,” said Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group based in Arizona that helped defend Proposition 8.

Independent: “We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage – tried in San Francisco – turned out this way,” said Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group that helped defend the ban.

USA Today: Steven Aden, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, said he was saddened by Handel’s departure, noting that Handel’s public service to women “has become another victim of Planned Parenthood’s mafia-style shakedown of the Susan G. Komen organization.” The fund is an alliance of Christian attorneys that released a report Tuesday in which it alleges that Planned Parenthood has wasted taxpayer dollars.

The Washington Post: “We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way. But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court.” Brian Raum, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group that helped defend the ban.

ABA Journal: Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Byron Babione, who represented Walden, said he was disappointed in the ruling. “It is unlawful to punish a Christian for abiding by her faith, particularly when she made every effort to accommodate the interests of a potential client,” he said in a statement. “We are determining next steps to ultimately vindicate Marcia and the freedoms for which she’s fighting.”

ADF Attorney Jeff Shafer at Townhall: Granting leadership positions to those who disagree with an organization’s outlook is a most effective means to undermine it. That’s precisely why the university would never submit itself to the policy it is imposing on its religious student community—revealing that the university is fully aware of the destructive effect of that policy. The student body at Vanderbilt deserves better treatment than that.

Episcopal News Service: According to a statement posted on the website of the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal foundation that backed Proposition 8, the group was not surprised that “this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way.” But the group said it was confident the Supreme Court would uphold “the expressed will of the American people.”

WTAE.com: The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal foundation that backed Proposition 8, said it was not surprised that “this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way.” But it said it was …

Inside the Beltway – Washington Times: “Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicare fraud,” says ADF senior counsel Steven H. Aden. See the full report here: www.sba-list.org/ppwaste.

Huffington Post: “We are not surprised that this Hollywood-orchestrated attack on marriage — tried in San Francisco — turned out this way,” said Brian Raum of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal aid group that helped defend Proposition 8 in court. “But we are confident that the expressed will of the American people in favor of marriage will be upheld at the Supreme Court.”

ADF Attorney Brian Raum at National Review Online Bench Memos: No court can change the nature of men and women, or change the truth that the complementary union between husband and wife is different from any other human relationship. And no court should presume to redefine marriage — yet two of three judges in the oft-overturned Ninth Circuit have attempted to do so with Tuesday’s decision in the lawsuit over California’s marriage amendment, Perry v. Brown.

Rasmussen Reports.

NewsBusters.org (includes video): During an interview with openly gay former Lieutenant Dan Choi, Heilemann asked former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele the following bigoted and offensive question: “Michael I’m curious about whether you think it would be okay in modern America, for there to be some states where black men could not marry white women? If local standards where that were unacceptable.”

News from The Associated Press: Yet legal experts seemed to think the panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals struck down the voter-approved ban on Tuesday purposefully served up its 2-1 opinion in a narrow way and seasoned it with established holdings so the Supreme Court would be less tempted to bite.

News from The Associated Press: And that reality is undercutting his effort to cast himself as the inevitable Republican presidential nominee and prolonging a race that each day exposes deep divisions within the party.

News from The Associated Press: The Republican-led House is trying Wednesday to give President Barack Obama the line-item veto, a constitutionally questionable power over the purse that has been sought by both Republican and Democratic presidents.

News from The Associated Press: Egypt’s military-backed prime minister says Cairo will not halt its crackdown on foreign nonprofit groups despite what he calls threats to cut off aid from Western and Arab countries.

Ryan T. Anderson at Public Discourse: Charles Murray argues we’ve come apart, but can therapeutic Deism and the sexual revolution put us back together?

LaTimes.com: The narrow California-only approach adopted by the 9th Circuit means the high court might choose to steer clear of the dispute.

Investors.com: . . . 67 million now relying on some federal program, according to a newly released study by the Heritage Foundation.