Daily Archives: March 9, 2012

The Hill: Late last month, two bioethicists – Dr. Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva – published an outrageous “paper” in the Journal of Medical Ethics justifying the deliberate, premeditated murder of newborn babies during the first days and weeks after birth.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: It was of course never to be expected that the European Commission, as a reply to critical questions from the European Parliament with regard to the generous funding it is handing out to ILGA-Europe (a homosexual lobby group with links to pedohile networks), would openly acknowledge to have committed a misuse of budgetary funds. But if replies to parliamentary questions are evasive and not to the point, this can be viewed as a clear indication that the Commission finds it very difficult to explain to the public what it is doing.

Christian Institute: The Government would be “playing with fire” if it goes ahead with its contentious plans to redefine marriage, the Bishop of Oxford has warned. Rt Revd John Pritchard said: “It is not up to society or the Government to define marriage at will.”

Christian Institute: The money, which was rejected by mum Lisa Mackin, was offered by the child’s father when he discovered that the child could have the condition.

Christian Institute: Openly gay popstar Will Young believes vicars who describe gay marriage as ‘abhorrent’ should be prosecuted for hate crimes.

Montgomery Advertiser: A federal appeals court Thursday blocked two sections of Alabama’s immigration law, including one that had been partially enjoined by a U.S. District Judge in Montgomery.

Charles C. Haynes at the Washington Post: Why first? In his famous “Memorial and Remonstrance,” James Madison put it this way: “The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right.”

Legal Insurrection: Baer spoke at length about how, in their rush to ensure that they’re not promoting religious values, state-run and other “non-sectarian” schools actually end up promoting a dangerous brand of secular humanism that effectively acts as a religion in which one worships one’s self.

Christian Newswire: Human Life International President Father Shenan J. Boquet today defended Pope Benedict XVI, whose statement in defense of chastity and traditional marriage has started an uproar in the media. The Holy Father was speaking to several U.S. Bishops who were in Rome for an ad limina visit.

Washington Post: More importantly, the new research suggests that China’s censors are dynamic, often deleting messages as they appear in real time. And most of what they’re censoring is deleted by hand.

ADF Attorney Catherine Glenn Foster at American Thinker: A watershed moment for the Girl Scouts came in 1993, when they amended their “promise” so as to omit the word “God.” Since then, there has been a slow but steady slide that has landed the organization in the not-so-loving arms of Planned Parenthood, and the feminists and hard-left politicians whom Planned Parenthood attracts.

Hispanic Business: Mitt Romney’s attacks continue — this time in a a radio ad in Ohio attacking his GOP opponent Rick Santorum for his 1998 vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the federal circuit court.

Fox News: Virginia school district said they would reverse a decision to remove a student from the National Honor Society just hours after the student filed a federal lawsuit accusing the district of religious discrimination.

LifeSiteNews: The homosexual rights community is getting behind the book for its positive portray of the dozens of alternative methods that can be used to create a new human life (about 30 according to the author).

LifeSiteNews (includes video): Two pro-life advocates who were arrested and held in jail for 24 hours while peacefully demonstrating outside a high school in Mississippi say they were told by police that they were detained simply because they were talking about abortion.

Volokh Conspiracy: What happens when divorced parents with joint legal custody disagree about whether their child should be given the routine childhood immunizations? That’s the issue in Grzyb v. Grzyb (Va. Cir. Ct.), decided in mid-2009 but just uploaded to Westlaw a day or two ago.

American Judicature Society: During the summer of 2011, The American Judicature Society conducted a nationwide survey of Judicial Nominating Commissioners.  Nominating Commissions exist in 36 states and the District of Columbia to recruit, screen, evaluate, and recommend individuals for appointment to the state courts. The survey was designed to gather information about the membership, rules, procedures, practices, and effectiveness of Judicial Nominating Commissions from those who know it best – the Commissioners.  This information can be used to better understand how current systems operate and to evaluate proposals that would alter existing merit selection systems or institute new ones

Planned Parenthood submitted “repeated false, fraudulent, and ineligible claims for Medicaid reimbursements” through the Texas Women’s Health Program according to a federal lawsuit made public Friday.

Religion Clause Blog: Alliance Defense Fund announced the filing of the lawsuit.

AP: Every Friday, bearded men in shin-length robes demonstrate in Tunisia’s capital against perceived insults to Islam in a country once known for its aggressive secularism.

AP: China’s government vowed Friday that it will not deviate from its socialist path, defending anew its authoritarian system and saying Western capitalist political systems are not suitable for China.

AP: A plan by Fiji’s military rulers to institute a new constitution is raising hopes among those eager to see democracy restored to the Pacific island nation.

AP: . . . a new rule that prohibits owners and operators of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded housing from inquiring about an applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

he decision of Florida education officials to exclude students at Florida Christian College in Kissimmee from a state grant program open to other religious and non-religious schools prompted Alliance Defense Fund attorneys to file a federal lawsuit Thursday.

AP: The New York Police Department kept secret files on businesses owned by second- and third-generation Americans specifically because they were Muslims

Democrat and Chronicle: Law experts have urged Congress to adopt legislation to strengthen the ethical guidelines for the high court. It needn’t go that far. The court should, as Slaughter suggests, take matters into its own hands by determining and publicizing its own code of conduct, then conducting itself with sufficient transparency that the public is ensured such code is being closely followed.

Michael Oren at WSJ: Just as Jews were once expelled from Arab lands, Christians are now being forced from countries they have long inhabited.

Patrick Buchanan at Townhall: Today’s GOP front-runners — Newt, Mitt and Rick Santorum — all clearly believe that a warlike stance toward Iran will appeal to the evangelical base and to Jewish voters who went for Obama by 57 points in 2008. But they are rolling the dice with a war-weary America. Ron Paul, whose youth vote the party needs and who receives the largest number of contributions from the military, has split with them on Iran.

Courier Press: “We are winning in litigation,” said Bryan Beauman of the Alliance Defense Fund. He spoke at Holy Name to raise money for the 20th-annual Marsha’s Place Pregnancy Resource Center fundraising banquet. “We are winning in state legislatures, and … most importantly, we are winning in the court of public opinion.” . . . “Don’t tell me this is a social issue,” Beauman said. “It is as economic and political as it can be.”

LifeSiteNews: “We’re glad to hear this news, which is certainly a vindication of the position we took in the federal lawsuit, which we filed and prosecuted over the last three-and-a-half years, along with the Alliance Defense Fund and America Catholic Lawyers Association,” attorney Tom Brejcha, president of the Thomas More Society in Chicago, told LifeSiteNews.com.

R.J. Snell at The Public Discourse: Unless we ask the “what” and “why” in ethical debate, we aren’t doing ethics. Debating ethics requires intellectual conversion and thus a commitment to intelligible reality.

Vatican Information Service: This morning in the Vatican Benedict XVI received a group of prelates from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who have recently competed their “ad limina” visit. Extracts of his English-language remarks to them are given below:

Fox News: “In essence, she was targeted and discriminated against solely because of the religious nature of her community service work,” said Matt Sharp, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund. Sharp is represented the unidentified student in her lawsuit. “There’s no honor in penalizing an honors student’s community service to children just because it happens to be faith-based,” Sharp said. “Positive community service and leadership like this should be encouraged by schools, not subjected to unconstitutional discrimination.”

ADF lawsuit prompts Port St. Lucie to make zoning rules constitutional

B92.net: French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said there are too many foreigners in France and the system for integrating them is working “increasingly badly”.

Fox News: Chu was asked if he drove a Chevy Volt, a car he praised during the hearing, but claimed he didn’t own a car ‘at the moment’

Citizen Link: While girls raised by lesbians tend to be much more sexually experimental than their peers, boys tend to be more sexually reticent.

Las Vegas CBS: State senators in Utah have voted in support of a bill, now destined for gubernatorial approval, that will allow schools throughout the state to drop their sex education programs, if they so choose

Reuters: Banks are foreclosing on America’s churches in record numbers as lenders increasingly lose patience with religious facilities that have defaulted on their mortgages, according to new data.

Bluegrass Institute: Senate Bill 143 with a Senate Floor Amendment is on its way to the Kentucky House after winning approval in the Senate. This bill will allow parents to enroll their children, preschool through Grade 12, in another school district outside of the one where the family actually resides provided the parents transport the student to the gaining school.