Daily Archives: April 2, 2012

News.va: Allegations of conversions and then violent beatings: is what the Hindu extremists of the movement RSS (“Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh”, “National Volunteer Organization”) did against the Christian Protestant Pastor Mallikarjun Sangalada, 37, and other four Christians of his community.

Speak Up Movement Church (includes video): A lot of national attention has been drawn to the Proposition 5 vote on Tuesday, particularly due to the recent TV ads. This has raised many questions concerning freedom of speech and religious freedom among pastors and churches in Anchorage, that we at the Alliance Defense Fund would like to address.

Boston Globe (AP): The Senate is faced with deciding whether a House-passed bill to cut off taxpayer funding to hospitals, clinics, doctors and others who perform elective abortions will put New Hampshire’s Medicaid program in jeopardy.

Christian Newswire: In an effort to silence the First Amendment Rights of Christians carrying the message of life to three abortion mills in the city of Charlotte, the “Homeland Security” unit of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department has united with the abortion industry to get the job done.

Christian Institute: The High Court has deferred a decision on whether a watchdog was right to ban an advert that asked Christians to report experiences of workplace marginalisation.

NY Daily News: Police are investigating the origins of a small bomb that exploded outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Wisconsin on Sunday night.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr. at Baptist Press: What we see at Vanderbilt University is secularism with its gloves off. In the name of tolerance, it will not tolerate orthodox Christian conviction. The university now comes full circle and forces off campus the only organizations that hold to the Christian beliefs of the school’s founders. Look carefully at Vanderbilt’s intolerance. Be assured that it is coming soon to a campus near you.

PostZambia.com: “That is why for me and the Catholic Church, the proclamation of Zambia as a Christian nation is a non-event. It’s a useless proclamation because not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of God. How Christian are we? Just take a look at what happens when we have a simple by-election. Corruption, intimidation, fighting, thieving…is that Christianity?” Archbishop Mpundu asked.

Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review quoting Thomas Jefferson: Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution.

Immigrant Equality: “Five lesbian and gay couples filed suit today in the Eastern District of New York, challenging Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prevents lesbian and gay American citizens from sponsoring their spouses for green cards. The lawsuit, filed on the couples’ behalf by Immigration Equality and the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, alleges that DOMA violates the couples’ constitutional right to equal protection.”

LifeSiteNews: The Quebec bishops are opposing a report issued last week proposing the legalization of euthanasia, and are threatening to pressure the government to ensure the respect for life.

LifeSiteNews: A crowd of an estimated 2000 or so concerned parents from a wide range of ethnic and faith communities demonstrated outside Ontario’s legislature Thursday demanding the defeat of the Liberal government’s “anti-bullying” Bill 13.

LifeSiteNews: A worker in Fort Worth, Texas, walked off the job when he found out he was supposed to pour concrete footings for a new abortion clinic located next door to an adoption center.

LifeNews: The state attorney general in Oklahoma will appeal a ruling issued last week striking down the ultrasound law the state legislature approved to allow women to see one of their unborn baby before considering an abortion.

LifeNews: The pro-abortion president added, “I just remind conservative commentators that for years we’ve heard that the biggest problem is judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint. That a group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

Bluegrass Politics Blog: A nonprofit group that advocates for the separation of church and state raised questions Wednesday about the legislature’s plan to spend $2 million on road improvements near the proposed Ark Encounter theme park in Grant County.

Brisbane Times: Dr Catt’s contribution appears under a St John’s Cathedral letterhead but he makes clear it is a personal submission and is not endorsed by the Anglican Church of Australia’s Brisbane Diocese.

Independent: Foreign Office reveals cases from Italy, Holland, Australia, Indonesia and Nigeria, with one in five victims a man, and ages ranging from five to 87.

Boston Globe: The issue is also setting up the biggest internal party rebellion since the Conservatives returned to power in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Strategists say that as many as a third of Conservative lawmakers may vote against the plan, which might nevertheless pass in Parliament with the backing of Cameron’s Liberal Democrat coalition partners and the opposition Labor Party.

IndyWeek.com: Once again, it’s all about how you ask the question. The Elon Poll surveyed North Carolina adults — not likely voters, not registered voters, but potential voters nonetheless — about same-sex unions. About 6 in 10 favor some form of legal recognition, though of that group, not all are in favor of calling it marriage.

Peter Berkowitz at Wall Street Journal (via Google) (includes video): The politicization of higher education by activist professors and compliant university administrators deprives students of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and refine their minds. It also erodes the nation’s civic cohesion and its ability to preserve the institutions that undergird democracy in America. So argues “A Crisis of Competence: The Corrupting Effect of Political Activism in the University of California,” a new report by the California Association of Scholars, a division of the National Association of Scholars (NAS).

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal: Cardinal Dolan thought he heard Barack Obama pledge respect for the Catholic Church’s rights of conscience. Then came the contraception coverage mandate.

One News Now: “This is a lose-lose for the American people,” he decides. “We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, and yet President Obama through the EPA is preventing us from using that natural resource.”

AP: A legal battle over a law that denies federal benefits to married gay couples is headed to a federal appeals court in Massachusetts, the first state in the nation to legalize gay marriage.

One News Now: The hostile environment against Wisconsin’s Gov. Scott Walker (R) has led to the firing of a school custodian because of the pro-governor sign on her car.

Religion Clause Blog: Earlier this month, Florida Christian College and 5 of its student brought suit challenging the school’s exclusion from the Florida Resident Access Grant Program that provides students at eligible private colleges $2000 per year tuition assistance. The complaint (full text) . . . Speak Up blog reported on the case earlier this month.

Religion Clause Blog: Last year the Missouri legislature approved placing on the November 2012 ballot a proposal that would add a laundry list of religious freedom protections to the state constitution.

Religion Clause Blog: Reuters reports that Turkey’s ruling AK Party on Friday pushed a controversial school reform bill through Parliament that critics say furthers an Islamic agenda and lowers education standards.

Teresa Collett at Public Discourse: The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA) isn’t “mean-spirited,” “constitutionally suspect,” or “callous.” It is a popular commonsense proposal that is fully constitutional.

FoxCharlotte.com: France says it has expelled an Algerian Islamist extremist and a radical Muslim preache from Mali, and that it is in the process of deporting a Saudi Muslim prayer leader

ADF lawsuit results in new policy affirming club’s right to promote itself like all other groups

Independent Tribune: Members of Kannapolis City Council didn’t want to change the way they pray at public meetings, but they say they don’t believe it’s in the taxpayers’ best interest to spend potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in a legal battle.

Tennessean: Residents in Loudon County gathered at their courthouse to pray in support of their religion after complaints were made about prayers before school board meetings and at high school football games.

TimesDaily.com: Connor Bevis hopes to hear prayers over loudspeakers at Central School again someday. Bevis said the school stopped students from using public address systems as they pray in 2011 after the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation complained about pre-game prayers being broadcast over the public address system at Brooks High School football games.

Mike Shedlock at Townhall: Distressed cities are finally doing what they should have been doing long ago, declaring bankruptcy to force concessions from public unions.

City park board agrees with Pride Festival that people handing out Bibles must be exiled to ‘no pride zone’

The Advocate: Bergthold is familiar to Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, an adult-nightclub trade organization. Spencer said local officials are often afraid to go against Bergthold, who has been associated with the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative, Christian legal group. “He’s very successful because it’s political suicide to stand up to him,” Spencer said. Bergthold is “great at getting himself hired as a legal consultant, and then will go in and testify in support of this legislation,” Spencer said. “When clubs challenge this legislation, he becomes the attorney of record.”

In Forum: The topic will be Constitutional Measure 3, the Religious Liberty Restoration Amendment, and featured speakers will be Tom Freier of the North Dakota Family Alliance and Joe Infranco of the Alliance Defense Fund.

Liberty Counsel: The Department of Justice (DOJ) has dropped its appeal in Holder v. Pine against pro-life sidewalk counselor Mary “Susan” Pine, who is represented by Liberty Counsel. The DOJ has agreed to pay $120,000 for this improper lawsuit.

Baptist Press: Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, says that pastors and congregations have nothing to fear. Under IRS law, churches cannot endorse candidates but they can lobby for specific legislation — here, ballot initiatives — provided that the time and money spent doing so is less than 5 percent of their overall operation and budget, Stanley said. “I cannot foresee any situation where a church would come anywhere close to violating that prohibition,” Stanley told Baptist Press of the 5 percent limit. “Essentially, a church would have to devote itself almost wholeheartedly to lobbying efforts in order to be at risk.”

LA Times: Signs of Supreme Court activism worry Reagan administration lawyers
Advocates of judicial restraint say conservative justices should be wary of the impulse to strike down the healthcare law passed by Congress.

Washington Times: Danish police arrested 80 protesters Sunday in a rally against the growing Muslim threat of turning Europe into part of an Islamic empire.

Fox News: . . . “I get up every morning thinking, today I’m gonna make a difference. Today I’m gonna end capitalism. Today I’m gonna make a revolution. I go to bed every night disappointed, but I’m back again tomorrow. That’s the only way you can do it.”

Heritage Foundation: As of yesterday, the U.S. corporate tax rate of 39.2 percent claimed the world’s top spot, edging out Japan which recently lowered its rate from 39.5 percent to 36.8 percent.

AP: Egypt’s official news agency says the country’s Coptic Church is withdrawing from a committee to draft the nation’s new constitution.

Life News (includes video): In a weekend interview, pro-abortion Vice-President Joe Biden claimed pro-life advocates who are opposed to the new Obama administration mandate forcing religious employers to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions are “out of touch with reality.”

Jennifer Roback Morse at Public Discourse: We cannot escape the fact that marriage is an intrinsically public institution. We can’t avoid making collective decisions about its meaning and purpose. If we don’t do it explicitly, we will end up doing it implicitly.