Daily Archives: March 16, 2012

BBC: Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has announced he is to stand down in December.

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin at the Rhode Island Catholic: It’s a sure sign of spring, as predictable as the Red Sox at spring training, the swallows returning to Capistrano, and the flowing of green beer on St. Patrick’s Day. I’m referring of course to the public re-appearance of the determined proponents of homosexual marriage

Sun Journal: “I have been advised for a long time, not recently, not the last six months but for a long time, that it was recommended that if we were going to do a public prayer, that it needed to be, for the lack of a better term, a generic prayer,” Sanders said Tuesday after the meeting. “I’ve always had a problem with that. That’s just not the normal way for Christians to pray.

http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_20075397

CNN: Law school used to be thought of as a safe way to eventually land a high-paying job. But a growing number of students and lawyers say that studying law isn’t anymore practical than becoming a starving artist.

Huffington Post: While many high-profile figures have publicly advocated for including strong language in the platform, the Obama campaign and the allied Democratic National Committee are searching for ways to split the difference: showing support for equality but stopping short of a full-fledged endorsement.

Grégor Puppinck, Director of the ECLJ at Turtle Bay and Beyond: In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of GAS et DUBOIS c. France (Requête no 25951/07), the European Court of Human Rights held, by six votes to one, that there had been no violation of the European Convention on Human Rights by the limitation of MPA techniques to heterosexual couples and by the French refusal to allow a woman to adopt her same-sex partner’s child.

ADF Attorney Piero A. Tozzi at Turtle Bay and Beyond: The annual United Nations Commission on the Status of Women meeting broke up today after failing to reach consensus on “agreed conclusions” – a very rare occurrence. The impasse was due to the insistence by the United States delegation on changing language regarding “family planning” that had been agreed upon and in continuous use since the mid-1990s in favor of the term “modern forms of contraception.”

LifeSiteNews: We’ve all heard Planned Parenthood’s trite mantra that “only 3%” of their services are abortion procedures in order to downplay the pivotal role that “service” has to their financial stability.

LifeSiteNews: The Vatican’s principal representative before the United Nations, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, is objecting to demands to outlaw “discrimination” against homosexuals in a report commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council, on “Discriminatory Laws and Practices and Acts of Violence against Individuals based on their Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”.

LifeSiteNews: On February 15 of last year LifeSiteNews announced, much to the shock of our readers, that LifeSiteNews and five of its staff are the subject of a $500,000 lawsuit from a self-professed ‘pro-choice’ Quebec Catholic priest – Fr. Raymond Gravel.

LifeNews: A pro-life measure that would halt forced and coerced abortions and ban the practice of webcam abortions is now headed to pro-life Gov. Scott Walker now that it has been approved by the full Wisconsin legislature. Senate Bill 306 . . .

LifeNews: Way back in the fall of 2009, when I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed first-year law student, I noticed that Drexel Law encouraged students to be abortion center escorts as part of its pro bono (volunteer) program.

The Hill: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected calls to allow television cameras into its chambers during arguments over President Obama’s healthcare law.

NY Times: In a serious setback for justice in Alabama, primary voters chose Roy Moore to be their candidate for chief justice of the State Supreme Court in November. He is now the odds-on favorite to win. You may remember that Mr. Moore lost that job in 2003 when a special ethics court removed him from the bench after he defied a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building in Montgomery.

Courier-Journal: Kentucky’s Supreme Court justices didn’t dispute Thursday that a law requiring bright orange-red triangles on horse-drawn buggies imposes a burden on the consciences of those Amish who believe that using them would violate their religion.

Religion Clause Blog: The American Center for Law and Justice yesterday announced the filing of a federal lawsuit by a small business and its principal owner challenging on religious liberty grounds the Obama administration’s mandate requiring health insurance policies to cover contraceptive services

Religion Clause Blog: In R.W. v. Spinelli, (MD FL, March 6, 2012), a Florida federal district court held, in a case involving rather unusual facts, that a rape victim can maintain a suit for violation of her privacy and equal protection rights against a jail employee.

Religion Clause Blog: Today’s Mail & Guardian is one of a number of South African media outlets covering criticism of an e-mail sent on behalf of South Africa’s chief justice, Mogoeng Mogoeng, to chief judges around the country urging them to attend a leadership conference presented by American evangelist and motivational speaker John C. Maxwell.

One News Now: Pro-family groups are ready to gather petitions to force a citizen vote to overturn the legalization of homosexual “marriage” in Washington.

LifeNews: The Obama administration is getting grief from a pro-life group for approving an experiment using the remains of the bodies of unborn children victimized in abortion for research continues in U.S. laboratories.

No one should use a terrible tragedy to further a purely political agenda about putting innocent children to death.

ABC2news.com: “If you imagine you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you’re deluding yourself,” argued leaders of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “By remaining a ‘good Catholic,’ you are doing ‘bad’ to women’s rights. … Apparently, you’re like the battered women who, after being beaten down every Sunday, feels she has no place else to go.”

Newark Post Online: The president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware, Helen Foss, submitted a letter this week to Education Secretary Dr. Lillian Lowery asking that the Newark Charter School not be permitted to expand on the grounds of under representing minorities and low-income students due to its policy of not providing free and/or reduced price lunches to its students.

The AP reports.

AP: Prosecutors said Ravi set up a webcam in his dorm room in September 2010 and captured roommate Tyler Clementi kissing another man, then tweeted about it and excitedly tried to catch Clementi in the act again two days later.

ADF Attorney Austin R. Nimocks at 650 KENI with Rick Rydell. | MP3 audio 9:13 mins | ProtectAnchorage.com

Fox News (includes video with Jordan and Sarah Stites): Attorney Jordan Lorence, from the Alliance Defense Fund that is proceeding with the lawsuit, weighed in saying that they’re suing based on the First Amendment and free exercise of religion. He said the way the policy is currently written is problematic and needs to be changed, calling it unconstitutional.

One News Now: Though ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco applauds the school’s latest decision, he says it is not enough. “We’re still looking for the university to make some acceptable changes to their policies so that other student groups don’t find themselves in the same situation in the future,” he explains.

Chuck Colson at Crosswalk: Thus, UNC-Greenville is moving from a broad freedom of religion to a much more restrictive “freedom of church” — much like the phrase “freedom of worship,” which this administration has embraced, which I’ve been warning you about for months. In the words of my colleague Tom Gilson over at The Point blog, this freedom of church is merely the “freedom to practice religion in a defined, confined, private space.” And as Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco rightly points out, “Saying that a Christian club isn’t religious is flatly absurd.”

ADF Attorney Greg Baylor at the Christian Post (also at Speak Up Movement): Florida Christian College (FCC) and five of its students filed suit against the State of Florida March 8, challenging their religion-based exclusion from the Florida Resident Access Grant (FRAG) program. My colleagues and I at the Alliance Defense Fund are privileged to represent them.

KCRG.com: The ACLU of Iowa sent out an e-mail release on Thursday to news outlets, cautioning schools “against another Dunkerton situation”. The group’s letter, sent through multiple advocacy groups, states “the message presented at assemblies such as this can make students feel uncomfortable, unaccepted, and unsafe. Holding a school-sponsored assembly of this nature also creates the appearance that the school itself is endorsing the message given to students.”

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at LifeNews: When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, i.e., ObamaCare, was being debated in public and in Congress during 2010, Americans who supported life were told again and again that the legislation would not cover abortion. But like so many other aspects of Obama’s healthcare overhaul, what was promised and what was received turned out to be two different things – especially considering that many legislators read the bill only after they signed it into law.

Acton Institute: As society becomes more secularized, the calls for churches to pay their “fair share” become more vocal. Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, explains why churches should remain exempt from paying taxes . . .

AFP on Yahoo: China was the top foreign investor in Germany in 2011, ahead of the United States, Switzerland and France, the government development agency Germany Trade & Invest said on Thursday.

Daily Caller: Santorum says in a statement posted to his website, “The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws.”

Election Law Blog: Texas filed an amended complaint today [UPDATE, actually Tuesday] in its action to overcome the US Department of Justice’s objection to its voter identification law. The complaint now says that the Voting Rights Act section 5, as amended in 2006, “exceeds the enumerated powers of Congress and conflicts with Article IV of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment.”

Wall Street Journal: The hottest ticket of the season isn’t for the White House Easter Egg Roll or Opening Day for the Washington Nationals baseball team. It’s for a spot inside the Supreme Court to watch three days of arguments challenging the 2010 health-care law that begin here a week from Monday.

The Hill: President Obama’s 2013 budget would add $3.5 trillion to annual deficits through 2022, according to a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Alamogordo Daily News: Two physicians filed a challenge Thursday against a decades-old New Mexico law that prohibits doctors from helping terminally ill patients die.

The Hill: A group of Senate Republicans has introduced legislation that would end traditional Medicare and sign seniors up for the same private healthcare plans received by members of Congress.

Texas Pastor’s Council: An inter-ethnic, inter-denominational coalition of pastors has called Mayor Annise Parker’s call for legalization of same-sex marriage a “declaration of war on the traditional family” and are condemning her actions in the strongest terms. Parker recently joined other mayors at a press conference in Washington D.C. and on Tuesday joined activists protesting in front of the Harris County Clerk’s office in support of this effort.

St. Louis Today: The ruling, by St. Louis Circuit Judge Bryan Hettenbach, affirmed St. Stanislaus’ ownership of its property and its right to craft bylaws that limit the authority of the Roman Catholic Church over the small Polish congregation. | Krauze v. Polish Roman Catholic St. Stanislaus Parish

Christian Civic League of Maine: The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) uses member resources to advocate same-sex marriage and pro-homosexual military policy.

ADF Attorney Bryan Beauman at Townhall: Kentucky has an anti-bullying law on the books. It’s been there since 2008, but the ACLU, Kentucky Fairness Campaign, and Democrat legislators decided it needed to be enhanced this year. Therefore, on March 13, Kentucky Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (D-Louisville) and her associates on the House Education Committee, pressed for new anti-bullying legislation to be passed out of committee for a vote on the House floor.