Daily Archives: March 21, 2012

The Christian Institute: A judge has this morning stopped a Christian from using human rights arguments in his legal case against his employer who demoted him because of his moderate comments about gay weddings in churches.

Christopher Tollefsen at LifeNews: Were the central task of government to be seen as that of aiding citizens in their own self-constitution, oriented towards real human goods including the good of religion, the HHS mandate would be seen for the unjust imposition it is.

Christian Institute: David Cameron’s plan to rewrite the definition of marriage is not a vote winner, an influential Conservative commentator has warned.

IntoleranceAgainstChristians.edu: The Observatory’s Report on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in the Year 2011 was released on March 19th, 2012. This report portrays the most important developments with regard to freedom of religion, the most striking cases of intolerance and discrimination throughout Europe – and what individuals and institutions say about it. The report includes several statistics as well as analysis of the meaning of freedom of religion in the European context.

LifeSiteNews: The article, entitled “My commitment to life,” (read an English translation here) outlines Piñera’s four principal reasons for opposing abortion, which include the personhood of the fetus, legal and practical considerations, and his religious convictions.

David Kraden at LifeSiteNews: In this progressive era, this mother of two was shocked to discover that, despite the dictates of the Royal Dalton government, St. Joseph’s Catholic Elementary School in Bowmanville, Ont. had gravely erred in not sufficiently accommodating the gay agenda. The dreaded offense? A Catholic school had actually dared to espouse Catholic doctrine and, in the midst of a languid tract on equity and inclusion in the classroom, actually cited the Catholic catechism and suggested that homosexuals are “objectively disordered.” Can you imagine the temerity of a Catholic school teaching Catholic dogma in the classroom?

LifeSiteNews: Like most Irish people, I welcomed the Irish government’s rejection of calls made at a major UN hearing for Ireland to legalize abortion.

Chicago Tribune: The former leader of a polygamist sect charged with marrying two women on the same day will go on trial in Texas on Wednesday, putting a spotlight on the rarely prosecuted crime of bigamy.

Toronto Star: An expected ban on the free distribution of Gideon Bibles at public schools in a southern Ontario school district has angered those who see the decision as an atheist attack on religious values and children.

Christian Newswire: Family Institute of Connecticut will co-host the Hartford Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally on Friday, March 23rd at 12:00 p.m. in front the of the Ribicoff Court House, 450 Main Street.

Union Leader: After two hours of debate and 10 votes, the House Wednesday decided to keep the state’s gay marriage law in place. After voting down several amendments and a motion to table the bill, the House members finally decided to kill House Bill 437 on a 211-116 vote. | House.gov information

TheStar.com: At issue is what some critics call weak language in the Liberal government’s Bill 13, which would allow Catholic school officials to deny queer students from naming their clubs ‘gay-straight alliance’ as their public school counterparts do.

National Review: Today the Chiaroscuro Foundation released an interactive map illustrating the abortion ratio by zip code in New York City from 2000 to 2009. This is a continuation of our effort to raise awareness of the extremely high rate of abortion in New York City.

Al.com: oy Moore, the past and likely future chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, brushed aside today talk of someone making an independent run against him in November’s general election.

AP: Two California men on a gay cruise of the Caribbean have been arrested in Dominica, where sex between two men is illegal.

Time of India: Women may be able to stake claim to marital property if an amendment to matrimonial laws is accepted by the Cabinet.

Telegraph: The pair, Valerie Gas and Nathalie Dubois, had tried to establish marriage rights under anti-discrimination laws but the judges said there had been no discrimination. The court heard how the women had wanted Miss Gas to be allowed to adopt Miss Dubois’s 11 year-old daughter. But the judges in Strasbourg said: “The European Convention on Human Rights does not require member states’ governments to grant same-sex couples access to marriage.”

Charlotte Observer: Charlotte Bishop Peter Jugis and his Raleigh counterpart have criticized President Barack Obama’s opposition to the upcoming N.C. marriage amendment, calling his comments last week “a grave disappointment.”

AZ Central: “Personally I’d like to make a law that mandates a woman watch an abortion being performed prior to having a “surgical procedure”. If it’s not a life it shouldn’t matter, if it doesn’t harm a woman then she shouldn’t care, and don’t we want more transparency and education in the medical profession anyway? We demand it everywhere else. . . . ”

Business Week: Utah (BEESUT)’s Republican Governor Gary Herbert signed legislation extending a required waiting period for women seeking an abortion to 72 hours, one of a number of measures to curb abortions advancing in state legislatures.

One News Now: Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) has introduced H.R. 3828, which has been inserted into the 2012 House Defense Authorization Bill. It is designed to define and protect marriage and the rights of conscience in the military.

Volokh Conspiracy: At the end of the opinion, the judge offers an op-ed of sorts about the market for legal services. He suggests that the real reason for the lawsuit is that the market for legal services has tanked, and that the plaintiffs are trying to blame their law school for not foreseeing the changes in the legal economy

Becket Fund: On March 23 at noon thousands of Americans from all faiths will gather to rally in support of religious freedom.

USA Today: Seeking precedents for the law’s requirement that Americans buy health insurance, some constitutional scholars are reaching back 220 years to a law signed by George Washington: the Militia Act of 1792.

NJ.com: Faced with a state Supreme Court nomination in jeopardy and hearings a day away, the Christie administration countered critics of both nominees Tuesday with the endorsement of an advisory panel he had hand-picked.

KnoxNews.com: The Lenoir City School Board has ceased opening its meetings with a prayer in a response to secular organizations who allege that prayer at board meetings and other school functions violates the Constitution.

Religion Clause Blog: Today the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released and transmitted to the President its 2012 Annual Report (full text)(appendices) reviewing religious freedom abuses in 25 countries around the world.

Religion Clause Blog: . . . all the properties of synagogues, including space used for commercial purposes, are exempt from real estate tax. However, for other religions, only prayer halls are exempt.

AP: Angry residents in the conservative, Muslim-majority town held protests and set fire to the Gergis family businesses.

AP: The Chinese government said Wednesday that lawyers are now required to swear allegiance to the Communist Party

AP: The head of the Council of Europe on Wednesday criticized a new law in Hungary that sharply reduced the number of officially recognized churches and changed the procedure they need to follow to gain that status.

UPI: Officials in a Delaware school district said a girl who was suspended last week for dyeing her hair pink is being allowed to return to class.

Mark W. Leach at Public Discourse: Unless regulations and laws are changed, there will be fewer people with Down syndrome to celebrate on future World Down Syndrome Days, making this year the high water mark of lives with Down syndrome.

AP report.

AWR Hawkins at the Daily Caller: We’ve arrived at that place Ben Franklin warned us of when he shared his concern that one day Americans would trade liberty for security.

HSLDA: This coming Monday, March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will notify HSLDA whether it has decided to hear the Loudermilk case concerning a homeschooling family’s right to home privacy.

Politico: The AFP, the Huffington Post and other websites have scrubbed a report about first daughter Malia Obama’s school trip.

Reuters: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that states cannot be sued for money damages for violating a key provision of a federal law that gives workers time off for a serious medical condition, a decision that could affect millions of state employees.

ADF Attorney Steve Aden at the Christian Post: As ADF has pointed out in its litigation against the Obama administration’s illegal funding of embryonic stem cell research, other types of research that do not involve pre-born babies have brought about successful results without such ethical horrors. But those successes are largely ignored in the face of gruesome leftists who want to use American taxpayer dollars to find yet another reason to keep abortion alive and well…even if the victims of abortion are not.

Woman with no fatal disease sued Switzerland for refusing to provide her with suicide drugs

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox appeared on the Victoria Taft Show to discuss the case. | MP3 audio 07:08 mins

ADF Attorney Mike Norton appeared on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss the case. | MP3 audio 25:10 mins

ADF Attorney Joel Oster on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins to discuss this: ADF: Hundreds of Christians face jail time in El Paso. | MP3 audio 11:54 mins

ADF Attorney Joel Oster on Wake Up We the People with George Stephenson. | MP3 audio 9:13 mins

One News Now: ADF filed suit on behalf of New Hampshire Right to Life late last year, and attorney Michael Tierney tells OneNewsNow a . . . Another ADF attorney, Catherine Glenn Foster, says the administration was required by law to release the documents more than 125 days ago, but it kept dragging its feet. “Planned Parenthood is already being investigated by Congress and is the subject of other litigation of potential fraud in the use of taxpayer dollars,” she notes. “It is a shame to see more money from American wallets go to Planned Parenthood as part of an illegal funding process that the state of New Hampshire didn’t even want.” . . .

Christian Post: “The United States Supreme Court decided not to hear a case today. Alpha Delta Chi (ADX) v Reed. But that’s not really news considering that they decide not to hear about 99% of the cases brought to them,” said David Cortman, ADF senior counsel. “What is news though is that the issue in the case of whether religious groups can choose leaders who share their religious beliefs remains hotly contested on the national level.”

The Advocate: The Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal organization representing the fraternity and sorority in their suit, objected to the Supreme Court’s decision to leave the appeals court ruling in place. “The university did not tell the Democratic club it must be led by a Republican, or the vegetarian club it must be led by a meat-eater, but it did tell Christian groups that they must allow themselves to be led by atheists,” Alliance Defense Fund lawyer David Cortman told the Chronicle. He added, “The supposed marketplace of ideas at San Diego State University will remain a stronghold for censorship.”

SCOTUS Blog: The EPA acted under the Clean Water Act, and it insisted — with the approval of lower courts — that the couple could not sue to challenge the order and had to wait for court review at the option of EPA. That was the result the Court overturned in Sackett, et al., v. EPA, et al. (docket 10-1062).

The Hill: Two Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee questioned Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski in a letter on Tuesday about his agency’s proposal to require TV stations to keep online databases of political advertising.

The Hill: House Republican leaders voiced confidence Tuesday that they will pass their budget despite unified Democratic opposition and grumbling from GOP conservatives that its proposed spending cuts are too small.

The HIll: The frenzy generated by the Supreme Court’s arguments on the healthcare reform law next week is likely to dwarf anything the court has ever seen.

The HIll: Mitt Romney got a much-needed victory in Illinois on Tuesday night, giving his presidential campaign a boost and strengthening the argument that he is the inevitable GOP nominee.

FP.com: The State Department announced on Tuesday that it would exempt 10 European countries and Japan from penalties for doing business with Iran’s central bank, because those countries are making significant progress toward weaning themselves off of Iranian oil.

Gov. Chafee sidestepped General Assembly
to create pro-abortion health exchange for ObamaCare

Findlaw: ADF attorney David Cortman criticized the High Court’s failure to act on Monday, saying, “The university did not tell the Democratic club it must be led by a Republican, or the vegetarian club it must be led by a meat-eater, but it did tell Christian groups that they must allow themselves to be led by atheists,” reports The San Francisco Chronicle.