Daily Archives: February 22, 2012

Irish Times: The Medical Treatment (Termination of Pregnancy in Case of Risk to Life of Pregnant Woman) Bill 2012 was moved today in the Dáil by Socialist Party TD Clare Daly.

The Center for Reproductive Rights is calling on the Russian government to reverse a recent string of unnecessary and dangerous abortion restrictions.

LifeNews: After Democrats prevented passage of a bill yesterday that would halt forced and coerced abortions and ban the practice of webcam abortions, the Wisconsin state Senate today approved the measure.

Concurring Opinions: The Stanford Law Review Online has just published an Essay by Yale’s William N. Eskridge Jr. entitled The Ninth Circuit’sPerry Decision and the Constitutional Politics of Marriage Equality. Eskridge provides an accessible summary of the opinion and defends the judgment against detractors who claim it went too far—or didn’t go far enough

NECN.com: Baltimore County has become the fourth local government in the state to approve a measure protecting transgender people from discrimination.

The Christian Institute: The Government has written to all local councils in England, telling them that new laws restore their power to hold prayers at official meetings.

A federal court in Washington state ruled Wednesday that the state board of pharmacy cannot force pharmacists to stock drugs that risk taking human life if the pharmacists have a religious, moral, or ethical objection.

CBS: Former Senator Alan Simpson had some choice words for his one time colleague, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.

American Federation for Children: The Georgia House of Representatives today passed legislation that would reinstate a crucial commission charged with authorizing charter schools, the first step in an effort by advocates of educational options to overturn a State Supreme Court decision that struck down the commission last year.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: The authors acknowledge underreporting, but they make no attempt to address the factors associated with this shortcoming, nor do they discuss the magnitude of the problem.

Boston.com: U.S. Sen. Scott Brown is urging top defense officials to let women serve in front line combat, saying barring women from those units could make it harder for them to rise up the military ranks.

Chiesa.espressonline.it: Reward for those who obey the regime, punishment for those who are faithful to the pope. The bishop invited to Munich by the Community of Saint Egidio belongs to the first category. Here is a profile of him, set alongside that of a bishop who instead has been punished.

Catholic Culture: Euthanasia has become a leading issue in the French presidential election: President Nicolas Sarkozy opposes its legalization, while François Hollande, a Socialist, supports it.

Huffington Post: Maryland Del. Wade Kach (R-Baltimore County) is a key reason the state is on its way to becoming the eighth in the U.S. where same-sex marriage is legal.

NY Times: It’s true that for all its socioeconomic costs, the decline of marriage hasn’t led to immiseration and upheaval on a grand scale. But at the very least, it’s been associated with a growing happiness gap between the well-educated and the poor (35 percent of Murray’s “Fishtown” whites called themselves “very happy” in 1970; by the mid-2000s it was more like 17 percent), and a decline in female happiness overall.

MauiNews.com: Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Tuesday told a federal court that Hawaii law denies federal constitutional rights to same-sex couples who want to marry.

USA Today: Superior Court Assignment Judge Linda Feinberg is allowing the suit against the state to include a previously dismissed argument that New Jersey’s marriage laws deny equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Washington Post: Republican leaders asked that discussion of the bill be postponed until Thursday.

Baptist Press: The ACLJ statement said simply, “We are hearing reports from our contacts in Iran that the execution orders for Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani may have been issued.”

TheRawStory: New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez’s (R) opposition to same-sex marriage has led to her stylist refusing to cut her hair ever again unless she changes her stance.

LifeSiteNews: However, in a May 2009 letter, entered into evidence at the family’s trial in the same year, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education wrote that this type of “neutral” presentation of differing religions is relativistic in and of itself and so undermines a parent’s effort to pass along the faith.

LifeSiteNews: A Brazilian federal prosecutor is demanding that a televangelist retract certain statements he made in 2011 which the prosecutor says incited “hatred” against homosexuals – a thinly veiled threat of future legal action.

LifeNews: The Obama administration seems to have a new motto: “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Or maybe that has been their motto all along.

LifeNews: A Judge Daniel Green in the Cole County Circuit Court ruled Monday evening that the MOSIRA (Missouri Science Innovation and Reinvestment Act) that allows for embryonic stem cell research and human cloning funding is unconstitutional.

LifeNews: “Having looked at the current proposal, I believe there is no need to direct by statute that further invasive ultrasound procedures be done,” McDonnell said in the statement, adding that “mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state.”

World Net Daily: Savage said he agrees that America is primarily a Christian nation, and its churches and synagogues are “filled with parishioners who are screaming for preachers and pastors and rabbis to speak the truth, and they’re not getting it.”

NJE3.org (includes video): Supporters of a bill to give scholarships to tens of thousands of students in failing public schools to attend private and parochial schools rallied on the Statehouse steps today, urging legislators to take action.

Volokh Conspiracy: The law is now being challenged, in Zastrow v. Bullock (D. Mont. filed Feb. 21, 2012). One possible obstacle to the lawsuit is that it’s not clear whether the law is at all being enforced, and, in the absence of a credible threat of enforcement, the lawsuit might be dismissed on standing grounds.

Star Tribune (AP): Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top religious partner said Wednesday that Israel’s ruling coalition would not be shaken by the Supreme Court’s annulment of a contentious law allowing ultra-Orthodox Jewish men to avoid military service.

Wall Street Journal: The European Commission proposed Wednesday to suspend €495 million ($602.2 million) in European Union budget funds for Hungary in 2013 unless it acts quickly to cut its deficit.

AP: The Supreme Court appeared sharply divided Wednesday over a law that makes it a crime to lie about having been awarded top military honors.

Tampa CBS Local: Talk about pain at the pump! Some Florida drivers are spending nearly $6 a gallon to fill up their gas tanks.

Religion Clause Blog: In the case, former high school student Chad Farnan claimed that in his sophomore Advanced Placement European History class, teacher James Corbett violated the Establishment clause by making statements that were hostile toward religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Religion Clause Blog: “In Church of Scientology of Georgia v. City of Sandy Springs, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19087 (ND GA, Feb. 10. 2012) . . . the court held that it now believes a question of fact exists as to whether Sandy Springs discriminated against the Church of Scientology on the basis of its religious denomination when, in granting conditional approval of its rezoning application, it refused to allow expansion of the church’s existing building based on a lack of sufficient on-site parking.”

WPRI.com (includes video): Cranston Mayor Allan Fung tells Eyewitness News that school and city officials will meet next week to discuss the ACLU’s request for $173,000 in legal fees related to the prayer banner lawsuit. Until then, the mayor says, the banner will remain intact.

Orlando Sentinel: A school prayer bill is headed to a final vote in the Florida House, after a panel of lawmakers signed off on the measure Wednesday morning.

CBSLocal.com: Planned Parenthood, along with the ACLU and several female lawmakers say the bills — one requiring abortion doctors to offer to show the mother an ultrasound and the other tightening health regulations on many clinics – are simply further attempts to undermine Roe vs. Wade.

One News Now: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney says President Barack Obama’s administration has “fought against religion” and has sought to substitute a “secular” agenda for one grounded in faith.

Catholic Culture: Government forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo brutally suppressed a peaceful march that would have commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the massacre of Christians by soldiers.

Catholic World News: After a new rash of bombings in northern Nigeria, and a clash between Boko Haram terrorists and government troops, Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri, Nigeria, has asked for prayers for local Christians.

Sun Journal: Schneider and 11 other attorneys general on Feb. 10 sent a letter to the Obama administration opposing what they described as an unconstitutional mandate. The attorneys general, all Republicans, stated in the letter they were prepared to “vigorously oppose it in court.”

WWLP.com (includes video): The Alliance Defense Fund filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh on behalf of Geneva College.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Alliance Defense Fund, using attorneys based in Washington D.C., Georgia and Kansas, is helping Geneva pursue the case.

The Hill: The Alliance Defense Fund and Geneva College have filed a lawsuit against the health law’s birth-control coverage mandate.

Philadelphia Inquirer: The Alliance Defense Fund filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on behalf of Geneva College. The school in Beaver Falls is associated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. “At Geneva College, we only have one Lord, and he does not live in Washington, D.C.,” college

Chronicle of Higher Education: The Alliance Defense Fund filed suits on behalf of Geneva College, in Beaver Falls, Pa., which is affiliated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, and Louisiana College, a Southern Baptist institution in Pineville, La. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed a suit on behalf of Ave Maria University, a conservative Catholic institution near Naples, Fla.

“The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters think health insurance companies should be required by law to cover the morning after pill without co-payments or other charges to the patient.”

CBS Pittsburgh: Most of the cost of the lawsuit will be taken on by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian civil rights group in Washington DC.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “People of faith cannot be punished for following that faith and that is what this mandate does,” said Alliance Defense Fund attorney Greg Baylor.

KSPR.com: The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the teen, who wants to remain anonymous right now. Last week the ADF filed suit against the Dixon R-1 School District claiming an infringement of First Amendment rights.

National Right to Life News: The state shouldn’t punish people of faith for making decisions in accordance with their faith,” said Gregory Baylor, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which filed the lawsuit. “Every American should know that …

News-Press.com: On the heels of Ave Maria’s filing, another lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of Geneva College by the Alliance Defense Fund, a group of Christian attorneys defending religious freedom. The college, in Beaver Falls, Pa., was founded in the tradition of the Reformed Presbyterian faith.

Newsworks: On these points, ADF senior counsel Greg Baylor compares his client’s moral and financial dilemmas with what he sees as meddlesome government intrusion. “What is the state’s interest in this? Is it really necessary to provide that sort of burden on [Geneva's College's] conscience in order to save some one from spending 55 dollars on a box of Ella?” said Baylor. “The burden on conscience is not justified by the government’s alleged interest in having party ‘A’ pay for party ‘B’s’ abortion-causing drugs.”

Heritage Foundation: “People of faith shouldn’t be punished by the state for following that faith in making decisions for themselves or their organizations,” said Greg Baylor, senior counsel at ADF. “Every American should know that a government with the power …

Paul G. Kengor at the Center for Vision and Values Grove City College: As I digested the speech, I was struck at how so many of Santorum’s themes and words echoed those expressed in Ronald Reagan’s historic Evil Empire speech.

Erika Bachiochi & Catherine R. Pakaluk at National Review: And this points to an unresolved difficulty with the contraceptive revolution, which was supposed to serve women above all: Women on the whole disproportionately bear the burden of the new sexual regime. They are expected to dose themselves with a Group 1 carcinogen for approximately two-thirds of their fertile years. They sustain greater emotional costs from casual sex. They are at greater risk of contracting STDs and disproportionately suffer from their long-term consequences, such as cervical cancer and fertility loss.And even after 50 years with the Pill, as many as half of all pregnancies are still unintended.

TimesOnline (video): Geneva College already provides some contraceptive health coverage for its employees, but it is opposed to being mandated to cover birth-control methods that include embryo-killing drugs, officials at the Beaver Falls school said Tuesday. In announcing it had joined with the Alliance Defense Fund, a national coalition of about 2,000 Christian attorneys, in filing a federal lawsuit against the new national health care plan’s provisions on “preventive services,” Geneva officials said it was not about the contraceptives for them, it was about what they called “abortion-causing drugs.”

Human Rights Campaign Blog: ADF President Alan Sears has declared this upcoming Sunday “National Pray for Marriage Day.”

BastropEnterprise.com (AP): Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Labor Department Secretary Hilda Solis and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are named as defendants in the Louisiana suit, filed by the Alliance Defense Fund.

WTAE.com (includes video): “The state shouldn’t punish people of faith for making decisions in accordance with their faith,” said Gregory Baylor, senior counsel for the ADF, which filed the lawsuit. “Every American should know that a government with the power to do this to anyone can do this — and worse — to everyone.”

George J. Marlin at the Catholic Thing: Millions of Catholics survived the Great Depression of the 1930s thanks to parishes and parochial schools. These institutions helped to prevent the emergence of a rebellious underclass by serving as social and educational centers. Priests and nuns instilled the moral direction necessary to maintain civility.

Christopher Manion at Crisis Magazine: In the first Sunday in February, Catholics across the country heard homilies condemning the HHS mandate requiring Catholic institutions to subsidize free contraceptives for their employees. A friend of mine, shaking her head, wondered why the diktat had caught our bishops by surprise.

AP: Unions are gearing up to spend more than $400 million to help re-elect President Barack Obama and lift Democrats this election year in a fight for labor’s survival.

USA Today: The Obama administration is starting to shut down a program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration agents.

ADF: No court should presume to redefine marriage or undercut the democratic process