Daily Archives: February 14, 2012

Turtle Bay and Beyond: “Given the demographic crisis that Russia is experiencing, the latest move by the Russian government to further limit the cases in which abortion is available on demand in Russia is not surprising . . . ”

Daily Mail Online: Lesbian lovers Kirsty Cox and Anna Jones have both become mothers after DIY artificial insemination from the same sperm donor.

Politics in Minnesota: The Board of Directors for the Minnesota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is preparing a 2012 push to defeat the constitutional amendments backed by Republican majorities at the Capitol — all of them.

DesMoinesRegister.com: The bill, House File 2033, will be advanced to the Human Resources Committee, subcommittee chairman Joel Fry, R-Osceola, said.

The Washington Post: The GOP-controlled House of Delegates gave final approval Tuesday to bills that require women to undergo an ultrasound before an abortion and that state human life begins at conception.

BaltimoreSun.com: “If you believe in God, you believe God made us in His image. Thus, God made both straight and gay people.”

Roll Call News: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is delaying the confirmation of Adalberto Jose Jordan to join the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as well as a transportation bill in an effort to force Senate leaders to schedule a vote on his proposal to cut off aid to Egypt until Americans being held there are released.

How appealing reports.

Ken Connor at LifeNews.com: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently made waves when he stated that his respect for the sanctity of human life precludes an exception for instances of rape or incest on the question of abortion.

Margaret Somerville at the Ruth Institute Blog: So why is there this huge fuss about sex-selection abortion? If one can have an abortion for any reason or none, why not because a baby of the opposite sex is strongly preferred? The reason is, as sex-selection abortion most clearly demonstrates, that abortion is not just a private matter

LifeNews.com: The National Right to Life Committee has sent every member of the U.S. Senate a letter urging lawmakers to support the Blunt Amendment that would mitigate the damaging effects of the new Obama mandate.

WTOP.com: The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia revealed Barbara Hudson’s identity in a letter sent to U.S. District Court Clerk Julia C. Dudley. ACLU-Virginia sued the board on Hudson’s behalf last September.

Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review Online: The Washington Examiner correctly characterized the ACLU’s position on the contraception mandate as being that “individuals who choose not to pay for employees’ contraceptives . . . are forcing their beliefs on their employees.” But it is downright impossible to “force” a “belief” on another adult by doing nothing.

Christian Concern: A Government ‘tsar’ for children and young people has claimed that boys should be free to wear skirts in school because the application of a traditional school uniform code was a “discriminatory practice” which could cause “serious distress” to pupils who were “gender variant”.

The Christian Institute: Roughly £100 billion is spent each year dealing with problems relating to sexual promiscuity and relationship breakdown, according to research by the Jubilee Centre.

News from The Associated Press: A gay activist in Uganda says that the country’s ethics minister, accompanied by police, broke up a meeting of gay participants.

The Washington Post: Chinese officials denied a top State Department official a visa and refused to meet with her to discuss religious freedom issues days before this week’s high-profile visit by China’s vice president to Washington, according to rights advocates and others.

Paul.hous.gov: In truth this mandate has nothing to do with healthcare, and everything to do with the abortion industry and a hatred for traditional religious values. Obamacare apologists cannot abide any religious philosophy that promotes large, two parent, nuclear, heterosexual families and frowns on divorce and abortion. Because the political class hates these values, it feels compelled to impose—by force of law—its preferred vision of society: single parents are noble; birth control should be encouraged at an early age; and abortion must be upheld as an absolute moral right.

The Des Moines Register (includes video): More than 100 people stood in 20-degree weather outside a south Des Moines church Sunday to support the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

MyFox Chicago (includes video): Eaton said sponsors of the gay marriage bill may be setting the stage for a vote before new lawmakers are seated. Civil unions were approved during the same kind of “lame duck” period.

SeattlePI.com: Washington state lawmakers moved forward Monday with bills on insurance coverage for abortions, facial recognition for state IDs and fees for vehicle towing.

CBS St. Louis: Supporters of Planned Parenthood spoke out against proposed Senate legislation that would make exceptions to President Barack Obama’s mandate requiring employers to cover contraception in health care plans.

BBC News: More than 1,000 campaigners for same-sex marriage have taken to the streets of Edinburgh to urge the Scottish government to change the law.

NY Daily News: The former Pennsylvania senator garnered 30% support from Republicans and Republican-leaning registered voters in a new nation-wide survey by Pew Research Center. That’s compared to Romney’s 28% and Newt Gingrich’s 17%.

LifeSiteNews.com: Should Canada’s Christians have the right to defend their beliefs without losing their job? Damian Goddard plans to put this question front-and-centre in May as he heads to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The Rutherford Institute: Congress has just passed a bill, the FAA Reauthorization Act, mandating that the Federal Aviation Administration create a comprehensive program for the integration of drone technology into the national air space by 2015. The FAA predicts that there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

LifeSiteNews.com: While data released last week from the 2011 Canadian census shows a “small increase” in the country’s overall fertility rate, demographers from Statistics Canada are warning that without a “substantial increase in fertility,” Canada’s population growth in 20 years will be “close to zero.”

Baptist Press: New York’s ban on churches meeting in public schools, which went into effect Feb. 12, is about “far more than meeting space,” according to a Southern Baptist pastor in the area who believes broader religious freedom is at stake.

LifeSiteNews.com: New e-mails show the White House had already lined up Sr. Keehan’s support, and that she had provided White House insiders a copy of her statement before releasing it to the press.

LifeNews.com: Jake Tapper of ABC News wrote a remarkable story last week revealing the players in the Obama administration’s internal debate on the contraception mandate.

Religion Clause: According to Haaretz, a trial court in Israel on Sunday ruled that a U.S. request for extradition of a convicted hit-and-run driver should be denied unless it is assured that the driver will have access to kosher food while serving his sentence

Evangelical Fellowship of Canada: The EFC has sent this open letter to Members of Parliament and Senators supporting the concept of a special committee to review subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada which states that a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth.

ADF Attorney Joe Infranco at Townhall: So in effect, the compromise – should it be enacted – still requires religious non-profits to both foot the bill and violate their religious beliefs and teachings. The creeping mandates of government compelling religious organizations to do so should shock us all; the latest attempt at “compromise” is an empty well.

LifeNews.com: The U.S. Senate may vote this afternoon on an amendment that would stop the mandate President Barack Obama put in place to force religious groups to pay for insurance coverage that includes birth control and abortion-causing drugs.

James Kalbe at The Catholic World Report: We live not in a Catholic society but one in which the view of freedom expressed by the Planned Parenthood court is generally accepted by social authorities. In that view, freedom is freedom to choose what to treat as real and meaningful. The ideal is to let our choices determine what makes sense for us, rather than let what makes sense determine our choices. Human will and not truth is at the center . . . So we are faced with two opposing understandings of freedom, one that views freedom as the unfolding of individual creativity and one that views it as reaching for something greater and better than we are. Which is right?

ADF Attorney Travis C. Barham at the Christian Post: Recently, Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos’ “message” on “nondiscrimination” announced the end of any meaningful religious freedom at Vanderbilt.

CNSnews.com: A top Muslim Brotherhood official has warned that any cuts in U.S. aid to Egypt could affect Cairo’s peace treaty with Israel . . .

ADF Attorney Doug Napier appeared on the Rob Schilling Show. | MP3 audio 7:53 mins

ADF Attorney Matt Bowman appeared on the radio to discuss mandate. | WWIB with Mark Halvorson — MP3 audio 15:55 mins | The Victoria Taft Show — MP3 audio 5:55 mins

ADF Attorney Dale Schowengerdt appeared on the Zeb Bell Show with guest host Sharon Hardy Mills to discuss the ruling. | MP3 audio 16:32 mins

Norwood News: he injunction was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, which has legally backed Bronx Household’s efforts to use school space since it first challenged the DOE’s policy in 1994. “Churches and other religious groups should be able to meet in public buildings on the same terms as other community groups,” said ADF lawyer Jordan Lorence in a statement. “A government can’t solve the supposed problem of appearing as though it is endorsing religion by treating churches worse than everybody else. The city’s policy prohibits activity for religious reasons, and that is both unconstitutional and at odds with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in a different case.”

Dayton Daily News: They filed a federal lawsuit in 2010. The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Christian legal aid group, Alliance Defense Fund, argued their appeal.

Bucyrus Telegraph Forum: “The court was right to recognize that the city used an unconstitutional policy to stifle religious speech in a public park,” Jonathan Scruggs of the Alliance Defense Fund said in a statement. “We are pleased that the policy is on hold and that the court has determined that we are likely to succeed in this case.”

One News Now: Roger Kiska of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), who has been defending the Johansson family, points out that everything about Dominic’s education was legal. “Not only was home schooling legal at the time — it was limited, but it was legal — but Dominic fit into all of the circumstances in which it was legal,” he explains. “There was no evidence, no due process.”

Yahoo! News (includes video): Having essentially exhausted their efforts in the courts (although Jordan Lorence of the Alliance Defense Fund has filed for a new injunction against the policy and may appear in federal court on Tuesday), churches and activists are working with city and state lawmakers to try and overturn the ban. Last Monday, the New York State Senate passed a bill that would rectify the situation.

OneNewsNow.com: Lorance says Speaker Sheldon Silver’s worry that a reversal would open the schools to everyone, even the Ku Klux Klan, is a weak argument. “But I think that that kind of phantom fear is not the reason to deny religious liberty of [more than] 60 actual churches that are meeting in the schools,” says the attorney. “Freedom of speech means that you allow people who you don’t agree with to have their say.”

NY Daily News: Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Jordan Lorence, who represents the Bronx Household of Faith, called on Silver and the Assembly to act immediately, branding the decision to delay “misinformed.” “There is absolutely no reason for the Assembly to wait,” Lorence said. “We’re saying that the policy is unconstitutional and the Legislature is absolutely free to change the policy.”

WorldNetDaily: “No one should be forced to violate their conscience by paying for abortions, but that’s precisely what Obamacare does,” said ADF Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden in a statement. “Obamacare requires that employees enrolled in certain health plans pay a separate insurance premium specifically to pay for other people’s elective abortions and offers no opt-out for religious or moral reasons. Such a mandate cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.”

LifeNews.com: ADF Senior Counsel Steven Aden says Americans should not be compelled to pay for other people’s elective abortions. “No one should be forced to violate their conscience by paying for abortions, but that’s precisely what ObamaCare does,” he explained. “ObamaCare requires that employees enrolled in certain health plans pay a separate insurance premium specifically to pay for other people’s elective abortions and offers no opt-out for religious or moral reasons. Such a mandate cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.”

PRNewswire-USNewswire: AUL joined lead counsel Bioethics Defense Fund, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Life Legal Defense Foundation in filing a brief on behalf of American College of Pediatricians, Christian Medical & Dental Associations, American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Catholic Medical Association, Physicians for Life, National Association of Pro-Life Nurses, and Medical Students for Life of America.

Christian Post: Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Brian Raum said the group has not yet decided what to do but will make a decision in “due time.” Federal law allows them 90 days to appeal the decision to a higher court.

WFMJ.com (AP): They sued in 2010. The Christian legal aid group Alliance Defense Fund argued their appeal.

LifeSiteNews.com: Within weeks, the top lawyers in a dozen states may file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s controversial requirement that all insurance plans include access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, the attorney general of Nebraska told LifeSiteNews.

Center for Reproductive Rights: The Honduras Supreme Court has upheld the country’s absolute ban on emergency contraception, which would criminalize the sale, distribution, and use of the “morning-after pill” — imposing punishment for offenders equal to that of obtaining or performing an abortion, which in Honduras is completely restricted.

FRC Washington Update: With the Alliance Defense Fund’s (ADF) help, they may get their wish. Tomorrow, ADF’s Jordan Lorence will be reopening the case against the city’s Department of Education by filing a preliminary injunction that would let churches continue worshiping in classrooms. “This is not over,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

Amy Ridenour at Townhall : Yet the National Health Statistics Report (Number 36, March 3, 2011), released by the same department, HHS, that developed the mandate, says only 86.8 percent of women aged 15-44 have ever had vaginal intercourse.

News from The Associated Press.

The Hill: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Sunday introduced legislation that would encourage federal agencies to return unspent money to the Treasury by giving federal workers bonuses for proposing spending cuts.

Sherif Girgis and Robert P. George at Public Discourse: Morality is not about keeping as long a leash as you can on the harms you cause. It is about keeping upright intentions and rejecting unfair tradeoffs—neither of which Obama’s proposed revision even pretends to affect.

The Hill: Nearly 2 million dead Americans are still on active voter registries, and one in every eight registrations in the United States is invalid or has major inaccuracies, according to a new study.

NYTimes.com: In upholding the law, the court ruled that the United States Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which struck down bans on campaign spending by corporations and unions, did not apply because the Montana law was tailored to meet a compelling state interest and any burden on speech was minimal.

Ben Pershing at The Washington Post: Only a few hundred yards of grass and concrete separate the steps of the U.S. Capitol from those of the Supreme Court, but lately the gulf between the two has seemed much wider.

Washington Times: Across the country, angry emails bombard official Girl Scout computers. In Northern Virginia, a Catholic church bans the Scouts from meeting on its property. An Idaho television station reports that a “rumor” about a Girl Scout-Planned Parenthood alliance is disrupting this year’s cookie sales.