Daily Archives: February 29, 2012

AP: The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a two-page order Wednesday that declined the city’s request to block a lower court judge who stopped the city from enforcing its no-worship-in-schools policy. | The order

Albert Mohler, Jr. at CNN: Santorum should have avoided gastrointestinal references in his comments, and he clearly missed some of the careful nuances of Kennedy’s speech, but his criticism of Kennedy’s argument is both timely and essentially right. Furthermore, it is high time that Americans understand that the ideas Kennedy espoused in that speech have led us to an impasse in current debates.

ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence at the Santa Fe New Mexican: Santa Fe hairdresser Antonio Darden decided he can no longer in good conscience cut the hair of Gov. Susana Martinez because she does not support redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Recently, the HSBC Global Research department released a report forecasting the trends in world economic development for the next 40 years. Countries with growing population and improving rule of law, education, health and governance will fare much better than those with shrinking population and already high per capita income levels.

Global Post: The British government is calling for the European Convention on Human Rights to be substantially rewritten so that judicial powers are wrestled back from Strasbourg, according to documents leaked to UK and French media outlets.

KPHO: The proposed legislation would ban the termination of nearly all pregnancies after 20 weeks.

The Republic (AP): A group of anti-abortion physicians and Christian leaders are supporting an Oklahoma bill that bestows personhood status to a fertilized human egg.

9News.com: A hospital disclosure bill Republicans decry as religious persecution has cleared Colorado’s Democratic Senate after two days of fiery debate.

Ruth Institute: And if the line in the sand is moved from 24 weeks in utero to at birth, what’s to say it won’t be moved to 1 month after birth, 2 months, even two years as some nutter suggested? I couldn’t help but post the entire article. It’s just too good. And it’s short anyway.

Washington Post: Kerrey had announced earlier this month that would not try to return to the Senate, citing his family in New York City.

WorldNetDaily: Poll after poll in recent months has indicated that Americans have a high level of concern over Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president, with one poll showing fully half of the nation wants Congress to investigate the question.

American Federation for Children: Governor Jan Brewer today signed legislation increasing the amount of maximum allowable donations to the state’s Individual School Tuition Organization Tax Credit Program, a move that is expected to increase access to the nation’s oldest scholarship tax credit program.

Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney William Becker will be available for media interviews following each day of a five-week trial that begins Thursday over a NASA mission specialist demoted by Jet Propulsion Laboratories for his beliefs about intelligent design.

LifeNews: During a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday night, Representative Sandy Adams questioned Dr. Linda Rosenstock, chair of the Preventive Services for Women Committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), about the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services’ (HHS) controversial mandate.

WorldNetDaily: In a development that could chill the dedication of every soldier in the field, the U.S. government has refused to deny reports by the government of Afghanistan that NATO has agreed to have the soldiers who burned copies of the Quran face trial.

CNSNews: The Justice Department will defend against any legal challenge to the new Obama administration mandate to force employers to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception, even if it goes against their conscience, Attorney General Eric Holder told a House subcommittee Tuesday.

CNSNews: A Georgetown co-ed told Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex that they’re going broke, so you and I should pay for their birth control. | Commenting on the report in today’s broadcast, Rush Limbaugh said she is engaging in prostitution (wanting to be paid to have sex) and making “Johns” of taxpayers.

CNSNews: “The private market is in a death spiral,” Sebelius said, contending this would be the case whether or not President Barack Obama’s health care law had been enacted.

Christian Institute: The former MP said if the Prime Minister “insists on pushing ahead” with the change then there should be a referendum on the issue.

LifeSiteNews: Teenagers are directed to a website, TeenSource.org, where, after filling out the request form, they can have a free package of ten condoms along with lubricant and sex-ed literature mailed to their home addresses in a plain yellow envelope.

LifeSiteNews: The New Brunswick Health Department has issued a warning that syphilis is spreading at an increasing rate among the province’s homosexuals and that strategies to prevent infection and reduce risk of transmission by infected individuals seem to be ineffective.

LifeSiteNews: A newly-minted Portuguese cardinal has sparked controversy at home and abroad by repeating the Catholic Church’s longstanding teaching encouraging women to be at home with their children.

Eugene Volokh at the Volkh Conspiracy: Some have argued that a religious exemption analysis in work-related cases might differ depending on whether (1) the job requirements changed in a way that violated the employee’s felt religious obligations or (2) the employee’s religious beliefs changed in a way that started to conflict with the existing job requirements. That might or might not be a good rule to adopt, but it’s not the rule . . .

The Hill: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned Congress against taking the nation over a “massive fiscal cliff” at the end of the year, asking lawmakers to come up with more gradual plans to implement major policy reforms.

NY Daily News: “I wish that I had that particular line back,” the former Pennsylvania Senator — who’s also a Catholic — admitted on the Laura Ingraham radio show on Tuesday. | Audio at the Laura Ingraham website (Broadcast 2/28)

ADF Attorney Erik Stanley at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog: The upshot of these cases is that even though churches are not required to apply for a tax exemption from the IRS, churches are still subject to the restrictions in section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. That means all churches are required to abide by 501(c)(3). And if you think about this logically, it makes sense. The way the federal tax code works is to begin from the assumption that all organizations are taxable unless they meet an exemption from taxation specified in the tax code. Thus, for a church to be considered exempt from taxation, it must meet a specific exemption under section 501(c) of the tax code. The specific exemption that churches fall under is section 501(c)(3). And this is where the problem arises because the restrictions on churches in 501(c)(3) are unconstitutional. The passage of the Johnson Amendment in 1954 added a restriction to 501(c)(3) that allows the IRS to censor a pastor’s sermon from the pulpit

Atlanta J. Constitution: Dan Becker, the president of Georgia Right to Life, is facing off with state House Republicans whom he believes might waver on supporting a bill that would cut the time for elective abortions and tighten medical exemptions for treating pregnant women.

KHOU.com: “Respectfully, if you cannot uphold the Texas constitution, then you should do the honorable thing and step down,” Pastor Steve Riggle of Grace Community Church wrote in an e-mail to Parker’s office.

Spiegel: Traditionally, the US gets to appoint the president of the World Bank. But China is keen to make its influence felt in the search for a successor to Robert Zoellick, who will step down in June. The next head may still be American, but he or she will need to get Beijing’s blessing.

Telegraph: Dr Rowan Williams said the issue of gay couples becoming married should be addressed through “culture rather than law”.

USA Today: Whether the good fortune of some Indianapolis homeowners who saved themselves thousands of dollars simply by putting off paying a bill is unconstitutionally unfair will be debated by the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday.

LifeNews: Leading Democrats are aggressively attacking pro-life advocates and lawmakers who want a vote on the Blunt Amendment tomorrow to mitigate the problems associated with the new mandate pro-abortion President Barack Obama put in place.

ABA Journal: A review by George Mason University law professor Ross Davies shows paid circulation numbers continue to tank, TaxProf Blog reports. | Contrast: Legal Blog Page Views Statistics at TaxProf Blog

Politico: The Obama administration needs to win over at least one conservative Supreme Court justice to save its health care reform law and it’s pulling out the stops to get one.

WSLS.com: Women who want to have an abortion in Virginia will first be required to submit to an ultrasound under precedent-setting legislation that narrowly passed the Virginia Senate on Tuesday.

San Francisco Chronicle: Support for same-sex marriage in California has never been higher, with 59 percent of the state’s voters backing the legalization of gay nuptials, according to a new Field Poll.

BBC: A court in Egypt has dismissed one of the two complaints brought against a billionaire Coptic Christian tycoon which accuse him of insulting Islam.

ADF Attorney Austin R. Nimocks at Townhall: Throughout the push for the judicial overthrow of California’s marriage amendment, arguments were made about how it was time to quit peeking into people’s bedrooms, or allegedly singling out those who practice homosexual behavior. Sexuality was a private matter, some argued, and that shouldn’t affect public decisions, or so the argument went. However, that was then, and this is now. The Administration Office of the Courts in California is now making sure gays and lesbians are adequately represented on the judicial bench . . .

Findlaw: What’s an appropriate sentence for a defendant who pleads guilty to possessing over 7,100 images of child pornography? While the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to answer that precise question this week, it ruled that a one-day sentence and a $100 fine landed on the lax side of the child pornography sentence spectrum. | U.S. v. Robinson

St. Alban’s Messenger: Judge Martin Maley will not rule on the constitutionality of town prayer at Franklin’s Town Meeting prior to Town Meeting Day, he said at a hearing Tuesday.

KnoxNews.com: A federal appeals court is set to hear arguments over whether a Knoxville student should have been allowed to read and discuss Bible passages during recess.

Kokomoperspective.com: Gilbert Holmes, the ACLU of Indiana’s executive director, said FSSA’s new rule is contrary to the whole notion of family values. “Here is a family member taking care of a family member, and the state wants them to pay for someone else to do that job,” said Holmes. “It seems like a dehumanizing and callous approach to addressing the need of a segment of humanity that cannot fend for itself.”

Ken Connor at Townhall: With the exception of Catholics and others in the religious community that closely follow such issues, few people took note of the Obama administration’s rhetorical shift from “freedom of religion” to “freedom of worship” in 2010. This seemingly innocuous modification carried with it significant implications

The Columbus Dispatch: Tree of Life has administrative offices there and has leased out parts of the building as it awaits a ruling on a religious-discrimination lawsuit against the city that was filed on its behalf by the Alliance Defense Fund, which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Human Events: ObamaCare’s requirement that every American buy government-mandated coverage will ensure that no religious person or institution will go untrampled in the President’s rush to line Planned Parenthood’s pockets and eliminate all consequences of irresponsible sexual behavior.

The Hill: Bipartisan legislation to repeal the healthcare law’s cost-control board sailed through a House panel on Wednesday, raising pressure on the Senate to take up the bill and dealing President Obama a political blow.

MyFoxPhoenix: The Human Rights Campaign of Arizona held its annual event for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families on Sunday.

Tucson Citizen: Representatives of the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel on Tuesday met with a lesbian couple who were asked to leave a hotel restaurant Sunday after they were seen hugging and kissing. Their ouster quickly sparked a firestorm on social-media sites.

Illinois Supreme Court accepts brief filed by ADF, allied attorneys in defense of parental notification law

Knox News: As a current student in government (at Lenoir City High School), I have realized that I feel that my rights as an atheist are severely limited when compared to other students who are Christians.

Politico: House Republicans asked the Congressional Research Service to look into it, and now they’re blasting out the answer they got. According to the research service, insurers and employers that do not comply with the contraception coverage rule could face federal fines of $100 per day per employee.

AP: The gambling website Bodog was shut down and four Canadians were indicted, including founder Calvin Ayre, for illegal gambling . . .

The Hill: House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) on Wednesday morning announced from the House floor that he would not seek reelection this year.

Religion Clause Blog: Under Hungary’s new Law on Churches passed last month, all churches other than those of 14 traditional faiths, must apply to Parliament if they want formal recognition.

AP: Maine GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe announced Tuesday she would not seek re-election to a fourth term because she is frustrated with polarization in Washington.

AP: Researchers conducting the national count found a total of 2,106 Islamic centers, compared to 1,209 in 2000 and 962 in 1994.

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal: Over the past few weeks, this column has on more than one occasion expressed agreement with Rick Santorum’s view that advances in birth control have had deleterious social consequences, most notably in contributing to the breakdown of the family. To our surprise, a not-insignificant number of our readers have pushed back against this idea, which some find counterintuitive and others downright unthinkable. So we’d like to go through the argument step by step.

The Hill: The House on Tuesday afternoon approved legislation that overturns a 2005 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the ability of states to take control of private property under the doctrine of eminent domain and hand it to another private developer. That decision, Kelo v. City of New London . . .

The Hill: Mitt Romney re-established himself as the Republican front-runner Tuesday night with his win in Michigan’s pivotal primary, fending off what would have been a crushing defeat by rival Rick Santorum.

Three high school students who were ordered to remove their American flag clothing to avoid offending students celebrating their Mexican heritage on Cinco de Mayo in 2010 filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit Wednesday.

Heritage Foundation The Foundry: But for Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu, those steep prices aren’t even a concern. In fact, he says his goal is not to get the price of gasoline to go down.