Daily Archives: March 7, 2012

Herald Bulletin: In a briefing with reporters the day after Romney won six of the Super Tuesday contests, including Ohio, senior Romney advisers argued that it’s almost statistically impossible for Santorum or Gingrich to catch their boss in the primary.

AP: His delegate lead growing, Mitt Romney gently nudged his Republican opponents toward the sidelines on Wednesday and said he was on track to wrap up the presidential nomination before the party convention next summer.

Billings Gazette: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will consider at least three judicial misconduct complaints that have been filed against Montana’s Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull as well as the judge’s own request for a review.

Personhood USA: Personhood Colorado has been notified that Planned Parenthood has lost their lawsuit to keep the Personhood amendment off of the 2012 ballot, and the amendment is set to move forward.

Radio Free Europe: In a video message to council members today, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said persecution of gays is “an attack on the universal values the United Nations that I have sworn to defend and uphold.”

Al Arabaya News: African and Arab states walked out in protest Wednesday during a U.N. Human Rights Council debate on gay rights, saying that they could not legitimize homosexuality.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: According to an interview published in the WSJ the prospects of investment returns for babyboomers with money in US markets are “depressing” because of the slow demographic growth in the US.

USA Today: Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry won 18% of the vote against President Obama in yesterday’s Democratic primary in Oklahoma — and could win a delegate to the convention in September.

Washington Post: The D.C. Council approved a bill Tuesday that will make it easier for same-sex couples who married in Washington to get divorced.

Washington Post: A settlement with Minnesota’s largest school district over the harassment and bullying of students who are gay, or perceived to be gay, should serve as a model for other schools in the U.S., federal officials said Tuesday.

ABC 6 (includes video): The controversy over the prayer banner at Cranston High School West has come to an end. The banner was recently removed for good, and Tuesday there’s an agreement between the city of Cranston and the ACLU over legal fees.

ABC: Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Wednesday that his party should take a national stand in favor of gay marriage. As chairman of this year’s Democratic National Convention, Villaraigosa would not say what the specifics of such a stance might be but told Politico‘s Mike Allen he feels the issue is “basic to who we are.”

Reuters: A leading psychiatry journal has distanced itself from a controversial study that it published in 2009 which suggested a link between abortion and mental illness, including such severe forms as post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, and drug addiction.

LifeNews: Governor Bob McDonnell today signed into law a pro-life bill that allows women in Virginia to see the results of an ultrasound that is routinely performed by abortion facilities prior to an abortion.

Va. school district denies honor society credit for student’s community service because event was religious

State police will no longer illegally arrest and silence pro-life advocates in Maryland and will participate in training on constitutionally protected rights as part of a settlement the state has reached with Alliance Defense Fund attorneys.

NPR (includes audio): After the recent controversy over birth control, health coverage and the Catholic Church, writer Soraya Chemaly declared: “I’m No Longer a Catholic. Why Are You?” in a piece for The Huffington Post. Chemaly explains what made her walk away from the church . . .

Catholic Culture: Vietnamese authorities have again seized land from a Redemptorist community near Hanoi.

Seattle Times: A legal battle is under way over whether the proposed ballot measure to overturn gay marriage in Washington state is correct in saying the new law “redefines” marriage.

Breitbart: The video, which Kaczynski says was “licensed from a Boston television station,” shows a young Barack Obama leading a protest at Harvard Law School on behalf of Prof. Derrick Bell, a radical academic tied to Jeremiah Wright . . .

Atlanta J. Constitution (includes video): Shrugging off increasingly direct calls from the campaign of Rick Santorum to drop out and unite conservatives behind one alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney, Gingrich is spending all of his campaigning time in the two Deep South states before they vote Tuesday.

David Krayden at LifeSiteNews: The demands of GLAAD and other similarly focussed groups that Christians accept homosexual activity may well be a rooted in the approval of that distant coupling of sex and religion, in a desire to have organized religion today sanction that behaviour just as it was in the distant past by pagan culture

LifeSiteNews: While President Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius claim contraceptives can lower health care costs, influential environmentalist activists say birth control may save the world from the scourge of global warming. At a think tank conference last week, activists promoted Agenda 21 and United Nations climate change meetings, claiming that promotion of lower fertility rates “trumps almost anything else” and that the average 14-year-old girl “needs to know how to have” sex “for her pleasure.”

TDN.com: A bill to require insurance plans covering maternity care to also pay for abortions is likely stalled for this legislative session after it failed to advance to the floor Friday in the Washington state Senate.

Politico: “I think the Senate already took action and we’ve got a lot else on our plate,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who is running for Senate.

LifeSiteNews: Hackers claiming ties to the high profile group Anonymous are taking credit after the Vatican website went down Wednesday, claiming they are going after the “corrupt” Catholic Church over the clergy sex abuse scandal as well as its stances against abortion and contraception.

The Spectrum: The UB Students for Life club, which advocates a pro-life stance on abortion, became a temporary club last year after being ignored by the SA and disrespected by those of high office at UB. Once the club received temporary status, it saw its presentations destroyed and faced animosity from students and other clubs on campus.

The Observer: This is the first installment in a three-part series about the experience of LGBTQ students at Notre Dame in light of recent requests that the University grant club status to a gay-straight alliance.

Washington Post: So in addition to igniting a highly personal national debate about mandated coverage of contraceptives, Fluke’s testimony has also prompted discussions about the range of rules governing students at religious colleges.

How Appealing links to this Winston-Salem Journal report and the ruling.

Religion Clause Blog: As previously reported, last November federal prosecutors brought charges of conspiracy to violate the federal Hate Crimes statute against seven members of the Amish Bergholz clan who allegedly assaulted and cut the beards of 4 members of a different Amish community.

Religion Clause Blog: Christian Today reports that the Evangelical Alliance protested another passage in the Commission’s report: “The Commission believes that an employer may legitimately refuse to accommodate an individual’s religious beliefs where such accommodation would involve discrimination on the basis of other protected characteristics.”

The Republic (AP): “Pray for Our Schools,” many fading yard signs scattered throughout Santa Rosa County say, remnants of a bitter court battle over school prayer between conservative Christian groups and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Daily Caller: Since the market opened on Monday through its close today, Carbonite stock (NASDAQ:CARB) has plummeted nearly 12 percent . . .

Washington Post: Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), the two-time presidential candidate and icon of the antiwar left, suffered a bruising primary defeat Tuesday as a new Republican-drawn congressional map threatened to end the career of one of the most colorful figures in Congress.

Breitbart: ources inform Breitbart.com today that Pam Dickler, director of the 1998 production of The Love Song of Saul Alinsky in Chicago that included a panel discussion featuring then-State Sen. Barack Obama, has a video tape of the play

Wall Street Journal (via Google): n other words, the White House’s solution is merely for the bishops to shut up about the wrinkles. Cardinal Dolan writes that “there was not even a nod to the deeper concerns about trespassing upon religious freedom.” White House staffers also cited some writings by vicars of the Catholic left in support of the mandate, in effect telling the bishops that they know less about church teachings than your average Washington Post columnist.

The Arab Tribune: Marshall County Schools Superintendent Tim Nabors is responding with what one might call “passive resistance” to a letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation in its call for no more prayers before board meetings and other demands.

WPTZ.com: For years, the Vermont town of Franklin near the Canadian border started Town Meeting with a prayer. A lawsuit stopped that from happening this year.

One News Now: Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney Kevin Theriot says this government mandate is about religious freedom in America, not about a woman’s right to contraceptives. And he views this as one of the greatest threats to Christian liberty in the nation’s history “because it’s … setting the precedent for the government to be able to impose its will on a religious organization when doing that completely violates the longstanding convictions of that religious group.” [more]

One News Now: “Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it as this lawsuit clearly seeks to do,” Carmichael contends. “Anyone who believes that civil unions will preserve marriage need only look at this lawsuit and countless others. Civil unions are a Trojan horse used by activists to undermine marriage, not protect it. Hawaii’s marriage statute and constitutional amendment uphold marriage, and we are seeking to give those protections an adequate defense.”

The State Hornet: Los Angeles City College art student Jonathan Lopez’s public speaking professor called him a “fascist bastard” in 2008 during Lopez’s speech on faith and marriage (Alliance Defense Fund, 2009).

ADF Attorney Catherine Foster writes at The Hill: Do the women of America really want to force Christian schools, religious ministries to the poor, and other believers into participating against their conscience in a pro-abortion and sexual-liberation agenda? Laura MacCleery of the abortion industry’s legal arm, the Center for Reproductive Rights, would have us believe so. But it’s not true.

Salisbury Post: The Alliance Defense Fund, a national group focused on religious freedom, defended the county. Now that Forsyth has lost the case and is responsible for the ACLU’s legal bill of about $200,000, a citizens group that formed to help defend the county — the N.C. Partnership for Religious Liberty — will pay the bill. • Another fight? The Alliance Defense Fund suggested an alternative policy for the board . . .

Baltimore Sun: The Maryland State Police have agreed to pay a $385,000 settlement to 17 anti-abortion protesters arrested by Maryland State Troopers four years ago in Harford County . . . Members of the Alliance Defense Fund, a group founded 14 years ago with the stated mission of safeguarding Christian beliefs, were arrested while protesting in and around the town of Bel Air in August 2008. [Alert Editor Note: ADF is not a membership based organization.]

CNA: A Hawaiian lawsuit asking a federal court to instate “gay marriage” shows that the recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships and civil unions is just a stepping stone to redefining marriage, several critics say. (ADF Attorney Holly Carmichael and ADF Allied Attorney Jim Hochberg quoted at length)

The HBS Joint Program will focus upon two of the four arguments that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear:
Whether Congress has the power under Article I of the Constitution to enact the individual mandate provisions of ACA?
If the individual mandate is not constitutional, then to what extent can the mandate be severed from the rest of PPACA? Or, is it a necessary part of the law whose other provisions, especially the insurance reforms (such as prohibiting denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions), cannot stand on their own?

Charles Toutant at the NJ Law Journal (subscription only), March 6, 2012: A state appeals court on Tuesday held that a surname picked by the primary custodial parent is presumed in the child’s best interests, creating a clash with a panel that found otherwise. The ruling in Holst-Knudsen v. Mikisch , A-3596-10, applied existing caselaw to reject the contrary holding on Jan. 20 in Emma v. Evans , A-2303-10, that the presumption in favor of the custodial parent should not apply to children born in wedlock. The Holst-Knudsen panel said it did not read two Supreme Court rulings on the issue “as making a distinction between children born out wedlock and those born to married parents.”

The opinion.

Robert C. Koons at Public Discourse: It would be wrong for the United States to engage at this time in an attack on Iran or to participate substantially in an Israeli action.

AZ Republic: USA Today and the Republic are live-blogging results from Super Tuesday, where voters in 10 states are casting ballots in the GOP presidential race. Total delegate counts at CNN Popular vote totals at Real Clear Politics

The Hill: Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) became the first member of Congress to be defeated in a primary in 2012, losing her race on Tuesday to physician Brad Wenstrup.