Daily Archives: November 9, 2012

Omaha.com: “The Catholic Church is not going to back down,” said Denver Auxiliary Bishop James Conley, who will start as the new bishop of the Lincoln Diocese on Nov. 20. “We are never going to compromise our principles. We will defy it and face the consequences.”

Telegraph (includes video): An estimated 700,000 people gathered around the city’s landmark obelisk and other main avenues to march towards the Casa Rosada, the Argentine seat of government.

Reuters: U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said states must still tell her department by November 16 if they plan to set up their own health insurance exchanges.

The Courier: The X-Mart Adult Superstore in Clarksville can challenge the validity and constitutionality of that city’s ordinance regulating sexually oriented businesses, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday. | 40 Retail Corporation v. City of Clarkville

Weekly Standard: Hillary Clinton still intends to step down as secretary of state. That will take place likely “days” after President Barack Obama’s second inauguration in January.

John Witte, Jr. at Washington Post: Is the legalization of polygamy inevitable in America? From 1965 to 2005, American courts struck down the traditional sex crimes of contraception, adultery, fornication, abortion, and sodomy as violations of modern constitutional norms of liberty, autonomy, and privacy. Traditional criminal laws against polygamy seem vulnerable to this same constitutional logic. If you add the religious freedom claims of Muslims, fundamentalist Mormons and others, the case for polygamy seems especially ripe –whether we like it or not.

FedSoc Blog: On Monday, November 5, SLF, on behalf of another Florida citizen and taxpayer, filed an original action in the Florida Supreme Court asking the Court to issue a writ of quo warranto regarding the actions of Secretary of State Ken Detzner in determining the Justices “qualified” to be placed on the ballot. The argument is not one of conduct, but instead contends that none of the three justices lawfully qualified for the retention election and that the secretary of state failed to properly carry out his constitutional and administrative duties in the matter.

LifeNews: Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” said Bowman. “For the government to say that a Bible publisher is not religious is alarming. It demonstrates how clearly the Obama administration is willing to disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes. For that reason, we are asking the court to halt this mandate.”

CBN (includes video): For the government to say that a Bible publisher is not religious is alarming,” ADF Attorney Matt Bowman said. “It demonstrates how clearly the Obama administration is willing to disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes.”

One News Now: Bowman adds that in this case, the government is “attempting essentially cut the First Amendment out of the Constitution.” “So that people don’t really have religious freedom anymore because the government has declared that they are all engaged in secular activities,” he continues. “That is something that is incompatible with freedoms that Americans have always possessed, and we’re hopeful that the court system is not going to let the government attack people’s religious freedom and force them to be involved in abortion pills.”

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Strange things are going on in the EU Institutions. First John Dalli, the EU Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, was ousted from the European Commission on the basis of (rather flimsy) charges of wrongdoing. Requests to Commission President Barroso to explain why exactly he forced Mr. Dalli to resign have been left unanswered.

Christian Institute: People who support a Roman Catholic adoption agency that won’t do gay adoptions are like racist bigots, a lawyer for the Charity Commission suggested. But a judge rejected the astonishing attack, saying beliefs about the traditional family have a legitimate place in a broadminded society.

Gatestone Institute: The statements of Mark Elchardus, author of a 426 page study, who linked Islam with anti-Semitism, earned him a lawsuit filed by a Muslim group, which said that his comments violated Belgium’s anti-discrimination law of 2007, which forbids discrimination on the basis of “religious convictions,” and Article 444 of the Belgian penal code as his statements appeared in a newspaper and were therefore repeated extensively in print. Belgian law, however, apparently did not prevent Muslims from resorting to anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Washington Post: He said that the question of gay marriage in his new global flock was a complicated issue “and not one to be handled today, off the cuff.” But he offered a definite olive branch to the gay community despite reaffirming his opposition to same-sex marriage. Welby pledged to re-examine his own thinking on homosexuality while speaking out against exclusion and homophobia

WebProNews: I can’t vouch for how accurate the Chinese translation is, but it’s already incredibly impressive. The software is able to output the spoken Chinese word in the speaker’s voice as if they were the one saying it.

Boston Globe: “Obviously we are very disappointed in losing four tough election battles by narrow margins. We knew long ago that we faced a difficult political landscape with the four marriage battles occurring in four of the deepest-blue states in America. As our opponents built a huge financial advantage, the odds became even steeper. We ran strong campaigns and nearly prevailed in a very difficult environment, significantly out-performing the GOP ticket in every state.

Live Action News: t seems that the presidential election this past Tuesday hung on one issue: abortion. One side invested heavily in the issue, and the other chose to ignore it or fumble. The heart-wrenching stories on both sides leave most Americans uncomfortable and conflicted. As a nation, we are split, with smaller groups at each extreme and a vast majority detached between them. The big question that needs answering is, “What is the unborn?”

Christian Post: A Danish study that was recently published showed that women who had undergone at least one abortion saw an increase in maternal death rate of 45 percent. The study, “Reproductive history patterns and long-term mortality rates: a Danish, population-based record linkage study,” was published in the European Journal of Public Health and looked at the maternal death rates of women in Denmark, over a 25 year period, who had under gone an abortion or experienced a during pregnancy.

Washington Post: Three states made history Tuesday (Nov. 6) voting to approve same-sex marriage, and a fourth repudiated an attempt to ban it. Oregon, once known as a trailblazer for progressive causes, wasn’t among them. But that could change in 2014.

Eugene Volokh has posted the text of his testimony to the Commission at the Volokh Conspiracy.

How Appealing links to coverage of the ruling and provides some additional information. | U.S. v. Boland

Chicago Tribune (Reuters): A U.S. panel on religious freedom accused the Ethiopian government of trying to tighten control of its Muslim minority amid mass protests, saying it is risking greater destabilization of the Horn of Africa region. Ethiopia, which has long been seen by the West as a bulwark against Muslim rebels in neighboring Somalia, says it fears militant Islam is taking root in the country.

NY Times: While Argentina was getting ready for a big protest against the government on Thursday, I found myself thinking about the more cheerful march that will fill the streets of Buenos Aires on Saturday. Tens of thousands of people are expected to get together for Argentina’s 21st annual gay pride march down the Avenida de Mayo, and though again this year they will make demands, the gathering should also be a celebration of just how much things have improved for sexual minorities here.

MetroWeekly: According to Denis Dison, vice president of communications for the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, which seeks to increase LGBT representation on both sides of the aisle, the number of state legislatures with no out LGBT members went from 17 to 10, with states like West Virginia electing Stephen Skinner as their first out state lawmaker ever.

The Republic (AP): An abortion protester has agreed to stay 25 feet further away from the entrance to a Pittsburgh abortion clinic to settle a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit which claimed she pushed two volunteers who were escorting women into the downtown facility.

Michael J. New at First Things: However, I want to remind everyone that the abortion rate has fallen in every state—even deep blue states that have not passed any pro-life laws since 1990. Why is this? It is mostly because hearts and minds are changing.

Washington Post: Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of Turkey is the first by-vote-elected secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the second largest international body after the United Nations.

One News Now: “Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” Bowman contends. “For the government to say that a Bible publisher is not religious is alarming. It demonstrates how clearly the Obama administration is willing to disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes.”

Steve Elwart at WorldNetDaily: The hope of several countries is that they can expand the ITU’s jurisdiction to the Internet, replacing the current governing system with one that is controlled by a U.N. bureaucracy. The member nations will also consider an “Internet tax” designed to collect money from more affluent nations and redistribute it to poorer nations to improve their Internet infrastructure. ITRs do not currently include regulation of the Internet within their jurisdiction, since they have not been revised since the beginning of the Internet communications era.

Washington Post: Google and many of its most popular subdomains, including Google e-mail, have been blocked by a “DNS poison” in China, according to Chinese Web monitoring site GreatFire.org, an extraordinary step in Web censorship even for the Chinese government.

Washington Times: My stepfather used threats against my mother to gain my complete surrender to him and his pedophile sex trafficking ring.

ABA Journal: The American Bar Association has chosen Matt Nosanchuk, associate general counsel at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as one of three lawyers to receive its inaugural Stonewall Award, recognizing LGBT advancement in the legal profession.

Washington Post: For the chairman and chief executive of Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company, the reelection of President Obama was no cause for celebration. It was a time for prayer – and layoffs.

Wired.com: Supreme Court justices are to meet privately Friday to weigh whether they will hear a major genetic-privacy case testing whether authorities may take DNA samples from anybody arrested for a serious crime.

Religion Clause: According to the Wilkes-Barre (PA) Citizens Voice and the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, a former member of the Shickshinny (PA) borough council filed suit in federal court Wednesday, alleging that the borough and various of its current and former council members are unconstitutionally forcing her to support a religion by placing a church sign in her yard without her consent.

Religion Clause Blog: In Central Dauphin School District v. Garisto, (PA Com. Pl. Ct., Sept. 20, 2012), a Pennsylvania Dauphin County trial court, in a suit by a school district, issued a permanent injunction requiring a street preacher to stay at least 20 yards away from any school bus stop at which children are waiting to board or de-board buses.

Billings Gazette: Republican Tim Fox said Wednesday that he will fight what he called the over-reach of federal government as Montana’s next attorney general after winning the post by a six-point margin over Democrat Pam Bucy.

LifeNews: In the wake of the defeat to pro-abortion President Barack Obama, Republican political consultants are calling on the GOP to abandon pro-life issues. But a pushback has already begun to say that would keep the Republican Party on the road to failure.

Ryan T. Anderson and Andrew Walker at the Heritage Foundation: But a little perspective on the setback is in order. The results were close, and marriage did better in these deep blue states than Mitt Romney did. Of the four states that had marriage questions on the ballot, traditional marriage outperformed the presidential candidate in each and every one:

eNews Park Forest: Kelly Glossip, who is challenging the discriminatory survivor benefits policy of the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) and Highway Employees’ Retirement System, filed his brief with the Missouri Supreme on Monday. Glossip’s partner, Dennis Engelhard, was a Missouri state trooper killed in the line of duty while responding to an accident on Christmas Day 2009. In addition, elected officials; law school professors; and a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) law enforcement organization filed amici briefs on Glossip’s behalf.

The New American: A once reliable friend of the Obama administration is becoming its frequent foe. On Wednesday, the day after President Obama was reelected, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) leaned on the president to keep one of the first promises he made after being elected in 2008.

One News Now: “The Houston management team announced to all those who were present that it had been falsely billing the Texas Women’s Health Program for services that are not reimbursable,” Norton details about a Planned Parenthood management meeting in Houston.

Reuters: France’s leading Roman Catholic prelate said on Saturday a government plan to legalize same-sex marriage would profoundly affect the equilibrium of French society, calling it a reform for the few not the many.

Wall Street Journal (access via Google): The U.S. Supreme Court may soon take up the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act or Prop 8. In the wake of Tuesday’s votes, gay activists are calling for the court to strike down both. The legal merits of those cases are for another editorial. But on the politics, Americans don’t need or want court orders. They’ve shown themselves more than capable of changing their views and the laws on gay marriage the democratic way.

AP: San Francisco is preparing to become the first U.S. city to provide and cover the cost of sex reassignment surgeries for uninsured transgender residents.

AP: When Shirani Bandaranayake was appointed Sri Lanka’s chief justice, rights campaigners assailed her as a puppet of a government that was steamrolling opponents and consolidating power. A year later, she is on the verge of becoming its latest victim.

Ted McAllister at Public Discourse: Can the press still prevent a tyrannical majority opinion as it did in Tocqueville’s time? Second of a two-part series.

The HIll: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) quickly reaffirmed his commitment to abolishing President Obama’s healthcare reform law after suggesting in an interview that repeal was no longer a priority for the House.

The HIll: Democrats will be defending red-state Senate seats and facing a tough path to take back control of the House.

AP: Over 10,000 ultraconservative Muslims demonstrated Friday in downtown Cairo to demand that Egypt’s new constitution be based on the rulings of Islamic law, or Shariah, in the latest tussle over the role of religion in the country’s future.