Daily Archives: March 14, 2012

PR Newswire: H8SUX.com, a gay activist and T-shirt website, launched today and released its first viral video campaign targeting school kids with an offer of a free “OK4U2BGAY” T-shirt.

WOWT.com: The Omaha City Council approved a controversial city ordinance Tuesday that will make it against the law to discriminate in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

NY Times: The lawsuit maintains that beginning in 2002, Mr. Lively conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that gay people would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture.

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco regarding the University of North Carolina-Greensboro’s claim that it will grant recognition to a Christian club in the wake of a recent lawsuit . . .

Politico: The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is launching a new effort today to target 36 commentators who speak out against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people.

LifeSiteNews: Conservative MP Steve Woodworth’s historic motion (M-312) to debate the personhood of unborn Canadians in Parliament has tentatively been set for April 26.

HTRNews.com: Idaho stepped closer to requiring women to undergo a fetal ultrasound before terminating a pregnancy . . .

Catholic Culture: The poll of 1,004 Scottish adults, conducted by Opinion Research Business, found that 53% of respondents agreed that homosexuals “should not be allowed to redefine marriage for everyone else.”

Yujhan Claros at the Huffington Post: It’s time for the minority of Americans who cannot say “I do” to be granted full participation in American society. Marriage equality is the only way to reverse the wrongs that have resulted from the identification and subsequent persecution of homosexuals. With equal protection under the law, we can hope that society will become more accepting and that fewer LGBT people will senselessly die because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

Anne Jolis at the Wall Street Journal: U.K. non-discrimination rules already have more loopholes than a coherent principle can bear.

Brian Palmer at Slate: In his victory speech, he thanked his family, including the home-schooled children who have been traveling with him for at least a part of his nine-month campaign for the nomination. How many vacation days is a home-schooled child allowed to take?

Legal Times: After months of backlog and partisan recrimination, Senate leaders reached an agreement to move forward with judicial nominees this afternoon that assures 12 federal district court judge picks and two circuit court selections will get confirmation votes before the summer.

Christian Concern: A Christian bus driver is facing disciplinary action after circulating a petition backing traditional marriage at work during his break.

Christian Institute: A senior QC has warned that English law could refer to fathers and mothers with terms like “Progenitor A” and “Progenitor B” if marriage is redefined. Labour Peer Lord Brenna . . .

AP: Thirteen Cuban dissidents have holed up in a Roman Catholic church in Havana to press for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI when he visits in two weeks . . .

Huffington Post: The case of a 16-year-old girl who killed herself after she was forced to marry her rapist has spurred outrage among Morocco’s internet activists and calls for changes to the country’s laws.

Christian Science Monitor: Ron Paul received the most votes in the US Virgin Islands caucuses over the weekend, but Mitt Romney got more pledged delegates.

LifeSiteNews reports.

LifeSiteNews: A peaceful protest has begun at the entrance to the car-park of the parliament where three years ago Australia’s most radical abortion laws were introduced.

LifeSiteNews: “It’s just dehumanizing. And I have to honestly say, I think this era of porn is at least partially responsible for it,” Welch said of rampant sexual addiction. “Where is the anticipation and the personalization? It’s all pre-fab now. You have these images coming at you unannounced and unsolicited. It just gets to be so plastic and phony to me.

PostCrescent.com (AP): The state Assembly passed bills limiting insurance coverage for abortions and mandate teaching abstinence in schools during a late-night session that went into early Wednesday morning as they pushed to finish their work for the year by the end of session Thursday.

LifeSiteNews: My soul carries a new scar. The pain is fresh and keen, and I know that while time might see the pain fade, I will never fully recover from what I’ve seen, and done. For I have failed, intentionally and knowingly, in the first duty of a parent: protecting the lives of two of my children.

Liberty Counsel: After being thrown out of federal court and chastised for filing a case with no evidence, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has now filed an appeal in Holder v Pine, its longstanding political prosecution of a pro-life American.

Recordpub.com: “I have a voice, and she’s taking it away. I can speak for myself, and she does not need to speak for me,” Kinnan said. During the March 5 Council meeting, another resident told Drew he didn’t support her decision. Ward 3 Councilman Brian Lowdermilk echoed the opinions of those who disagreed with her choice

Washington Post: Opponents of same-sex marriage on Wednesday announced the launch of a widely expected petition drive, vowing to derail Maryland’s new gay nuptials law at the ballot box in November.

Lexington Herald Leader Photo: Chris Hartman, left, director of the Fairness Campaign, which supported the bill, confronted Bryan Beauman, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, following Tuesday’s House Education Committee meeting at the Capitol in Frankfort. (also at Courier-Journal)

Family Foundation of Kentucky: Bullying Bill supporter harasses opponent in Capitol Annex hallway

Quoting the Telegraph the Volokh Conspiracy reports: . . . The [Divine Comedy] should be removed from school curricula, according to Gherush 92, a human rights organisation which acts as a consultant to UN bodies on racism and discrimination . . .

Volokh Conspiracy: Arizona’s Senate Bill 1359 adds the following section to the Arizona Revised Statutes . . .

LA Times: Republican Tom Coburn wants to end the partisan battles over judicial confirmations, saying ‘presidents are entitled to their nominees.’

National Journal reports.

The AP reports.

Findlaw: [Defendant] . . . argued that viewing and search for child pornography doesn’t qualify as receiving the images. The jury disagreed and convicted Sturm on both counts. Sturm appealed. This week, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Sturm’s convictions. | U.S. v. Sturm

The Olympian: Superior Court Judge Tom McPhee’s final phrasing removed a misleading description used by the Attorney General’s Office – the phrase “redefining marriage.’’ . . . A lawyer for the Preserve Marriage Washington campaign, Austin Nimocks, argued that it was more accurate to use the phrase.

Religion Clause Blog: The Indian government charged that Rabbi Zalman Bernstein did not declare on his visa application that he would be conducting religious activities and would be trying to convert foreigners.

LifeSiteNews: Catholics and non-Catholics alike have reacted to a viciously anti-Catholic full-page advertisement in Friday’s New York Times.

Business Insider: Executives at The New York Times have rejected a full-page anti-Islam advertisement that mimicked a controversial anti-Catholic advertisement they published on March 9.

Dallas Observer: Back in January, the Dallas Independent School District suffered some minor self-inflicted PR wounds when it tried to eliminate a policy that bans schools from holding graduations in places of worship, except for in “unusual” circumstances. After the ACLU did the whole ACLU thing — stern press releases, vague threats of legal action, you know the drill — the district backed down, and life went on.

Breitbart: In a news release on Friday, ADF Senior Counsel Michael J. Norton said: Americans deserve to know if their hard-earned tax money is being funneled to groups that are misusing it…everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicaid fraud.

Echo Press: In March 2011, a school employee informed R.S.’s mother, S.S., that a parent of a boy had contacted the school and reported that her son and R.S. had been discussing sex via computer.

NY Times: China’s highest legislative body is expected to approve changes on Wednesday for dealing with accused criminals that the government says will protect suspects’ rights and activists worry enshrine a loophole that would legalize secret detentions for many political dissidents.

World: Although the Alliance Defense Fund applauded the school’s decision, attorney Jeremy Tedesco said he had not seen any official paperwork acknowledging the group’s recognition. Until he does, Tedesco told the Associated Press he would not withdraw the suit.

Christian Post: The Alliance Defense Fund, and the Discovery Institute, a proponent of intelligent design, are both supporting Copp edge’s case.


Patch.com: The Alliance Defense Fund, based in Arizona, is representing the student. A spokesman told the Washington Post excluding activities widely considered “community service” in non-religious contexts is “an unconstitutional policy that needs to be remedied.”

One News Now: “Churches shouldn’t be singled out for discrimination by a city’s zoning restrictions,” contends ADF attorney Kevin Theriot, “so Port St. Lucie has done the right thing in making its zoning code constitutional. Both the U.S. Constitution and federal law prohibit government officials from banning religious uses of property when they allow similar, non-religious uses of that same property.”

DF senior counsel Joseph Infranco said public monuments “to honor those who gave their lives in service to our nation should not be torn apart based on the subjective ‘offense’ of a litigious few.” “Allowing that to happen places the future of these beloved memorials into the hands of activists whose sole concern is furthering a divisive, political agenda, no matter the cost,” he said. [more quotes and from the ADF brief]

Deseret News: “We certainly appreciate them doing the right thing after 10 or so months of denying the group recognition,” said Jeremy Tedesco, an Alliance Defense Fund lawyer representing the organization. Tedesco said lawyers for Make Up Your Own Mind had yet to receive formal legal confirmation that the university will grant recognition to the group, and that decisions about the state of the lawsuit will have to wait until that happens.

Baptist Press: ADF Senior Counsel Michael Norton said in a written statement, “No matter where a person stands on abortion, everyone should agree that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as everyone else. It certainly isn’t entitled to a penny of public funds, especially if it is committing Medicaid fraud.”

Washington Post: “If you are doing community work that is part of a church service, you can’t be given credit,” said Matt Sharp of the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, the group that filed suit last week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. “This is an unconstitutional policy that needs to be remedied.”

American Federation for Children: The Wisconsin State Assembly late last night passed legislation that would create an expansive voucher program for children with special needs, bringing the first statewide, publicly funded private school choice program to Wisconsin’s special needs families.

Walter Williams at Townhall: Part of the problem is that people who act as instruments of government do not pay a personal price for usurping parental authority. The reason is Americans, unlike Americans of yesteryear, have become timid and, as such, come to accept all manner of intrusive governmental acts.

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England’s federal grant application and approval notice became public Monday on the heels of a federal court order that required the Obama administration to stop stalling in releasing records as part of a lawsuit over illegal funding of the affiliate.

AP reports.

The AP reports.

NY Times: More than 1,000 alumni of Northfield Mount Hermon have signed a petition calling Liberty “an extremist, homophobic and intellectually narrow institution” that clashes with the values of D. L. Moody, an evangelist who opened a school for girls on the property, his birthplace, in 1879.

Chicago Sun-Times: Mitt Romney won more delegates in the four Tuesday contests than any of his rivals.

Michael Stokes Paulsen at Public Discourse: Vanderbilt University has decided that campus student religious groups may not require that their leaders accept the core beliefs of the religious group they would lead. Ironically, Vanderbilt’s right to do so rests on the same freedom it denies to these groups—a group’s freedom to define what it stands for and the views it expresses.

Cong. Ron Paul: Yet if you think about what this 2% inflation target actually is, you realize that it is an explicit policy to devalue the dollar and reduce its purchasing power. And it adds up quickly over time. Two percent annual price inflation means that prices rise 22% within a decade, and nearly 50% within two decades.

AP: The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) says activists from the 40 Days for Life group have been holding vigils outside one of their central London clinics.

AP: “The fact is, in both states, the conservative candidates got nearly 70 percent of the vote. And if you’re the front-runner – if you’re the front-runner and you keep coming in third, you’re not much of a front-runner,” Gingrich said.

The Hill: So what do we know about Illinois? There are 69 delegates at stake – fifteen of which are unbound and fifty-four of which are bound.

HSLDA: Earlier this month, Home School Legal Defense Association intervened on behalf of a member family in the Carmichaels Area School District whose superintendent had unlawfully threatened to terminate their home education program if they did not submit a mid-year evaluation.

AZ Central (AP): A resurgent Rick Santorum swept primaries in Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday night, upending the race for the Republican presidential nomination yet again and nudging Newt Gingrich toward the sidelines.