Daily Archives: March 4, 2013

NRO Bench Memos: The Witherspoon Institute’s William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution, which I have the honor to direct, will again sponsor its annual summer seminar this year, “The Moral Foundations of Law.” Held August 5 to 9, 2013, on the campus of Princeton University . . .

Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review: If the Canadian Supreme Court is happy to indulge the prosecution of those whose speech apparently “opposes the targeted group’s ability to find self-fulfillment,” then I wonder if it wouldn’t also be happy to bring back Spectral Evidence, which William Stoughton allowed into his courtroom with such famous success at the Salem Witch Trials.

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute: The point is that people should not have to compromise their religious convictions to do business in America. If that means we see some healthy, reciprocal “discrimination” happening, I’m okay with it. I support the right of business owners to conduct business according to their religious and moral convictions. I also support the right of patrons to choose whom they support and whom they do not. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish my Chick-Fil-A sandwich.

Engage Family Minute: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys and allied attorneys represent Sioux Chief Manufacturing Co. in a federal lawsuit filed last month to challenge the mandate, which forces employers—regardless of their religious or moral convictions—to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.“

Sherif Girgis, Ryan T. Anderson & Robert P. George at National Review Online: Here, we respond to some challenges that even those sympathetic to our views might raise: Why worry about same-sex marriage in particular? Why worry about marriage policy? If marriage policy does matter, why not “broaden the definition” of marriage to promote family values? How would recognizing same-sex relationships as marriages harm marriage? Isn’t ours a losing cause, or at best a secondary one? And why privilege anyone’s sectarian values at all — doesn’t that compromise freedom and equality? We address each of these questions in turn.

World Net Daily: China’s crackdown on its thriving house-church movement is surging just months after it was reported attacks on Christians had subsided, according to a report from the human rights group China Aid.

AP: California lawmaker has introduced legislation aimed at guaranteeing that transgender students have the right to use public school restrooms and participate on sports teams that correspond with their expressed genders.

CNSNews: More than 60 state and local Texas lawmakers signed a letter urging the Boy Scouts of America to maintain policies that support “family values and moral principles.”

AP: The legislation would ban the procedure at 12 weeks if a fetal heartbeat is detected using an abdominal ultrasound. The Democratic governor’s veto come less than a week after the state enacted a 20-week ban.

NPR: A panel of the the San Francisco-based U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stood with a lower court, ruling that a ban on drivers soliciting day laborers violates the constitution’s free speech guarantee.

CNSNews: The Obama Justice Department is arguing in the United States Supreme Court that children do not need mothers.

David W. New at the Washington Times: In 1954, the Supreme Court effectively amended the U.S. Constitution to add an equal protection clause to the Fifth Amendment. In 1977, the Supreme Court called this phantom clause the Fifth Amendment’s “Equal Protection Component.”

Washington Examiner: According to the Malibu Times on Sunday, Pepperdine University has announced a new scholarship aimed towards individuals who “have demonstrated a commitment to the LGBT community”.

Washington Times: Jorge Fernandez Diaz made the comments — that gay unions don’t guarantee “the survival of the species,” United Press International reported — as Spain’s highest court upheld same-sex unions as constitutional. Gay activists were outraged.

Baptist Press: Of an estimated 200,000 prisoners in North Korea, 70,000 of them are Christians, Open Doors reported.

Christian Institute: A man who has locked-in syndrome says it’s possible to “find meaning” despite being in a “shell of a body”. He wants to shift the focus of the assisted suicide debate and create a world where people like him feel encouraged to live.

DW.de: Senior members of Merkel’s conservative party want to open up on issues related to equal rights for homosexuals. They are looking into taxing same-sex partnerships like married couples. But the party’s base is divided.

Montreal Gazette: I’m happy to see that Quebec has launched a campaign to raise awareness and fight homophobia and transphobia. The province will run TV and radio advertisements, and also has set up a site where people can take a short survey.

Christian News Network: The Commonwealth of Virginia has sworn in its first openly homosexual judge, according to reports.

Delaware Online (includes video): At least half of Delaware’s voters would support legislation granting marriage rights to same-sex couples and two-thirds say such a law would have no real impact on them personally, according to a poll done for Equality Delaware, the advocacy group that worked to pass the state’s civil unions bill two years ago

Denver Post: Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb on Saturday confirmed the fears of some Republicans, saying civil unions aren’t enough and the next step for same sex-couples is gay marriage.

Tablet Mag: First, gracing the cover of the Times business section was Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, who in speaking out in favor of gay marriage last month, thought he was part of a new wave. It turned out he was alone, but not for long.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line: But before getting into the weeds, we should step back in awe of the fact that the Supreme Court will likely decide the issue stated above. Assuming that threshold issues such as standing don’t prevent a ruling on the merits, nine glorified lawyers are about to tell us whether the traditional definition of marriage as requiring members of the opposite sex is rational and/or useful (whether the standard is “rationality” or “utility” is up for grabs in the case).

Christian Post: A Minnesota-based organization advocating for laws defining marriage as being between a man and a woman will be holding a demonstration against a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.

Maria Santo at the Baltimore Sun: It is long past time to question the appalling intellectual dishonesty that has led us to kill 55 million children through abortion in the past 40 years. We must, as a matter of justice, find better solutions to difficult pregnancies. Civilized societies thrive through smart, creative, generous, life-giving and just solutions to their difficulties. Civilized societies do not kill children as a solution to any problem, no matter how grave. No society can claim to be just while legally killing its own children in the name of “choice.”

LifeNews: Americans United for Life Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called for the U.S. Senate to vote no on cloture on the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in what will be a scored vote on

Helen M. Alvaré and Meg T. McDonnell at Washington Post: Pro-choice Americans must wonder from time to time what keeps pro-lifers going. Why don’t we lay down our signs, cease our marching and admit that we’ve been good and beaten for these 40 years since Roe v. Wade? One of us is a baby boomer, the other a millennial; our views may help others understand these things and, along the way, think about some rarely considered aspects of the U.S. experience with legal abortion.

ABC: Three years after drug agents searching a suspected “pill mill” at a West Philadelphia clinic instead found a medical “house of horrors,” an abortion doctor is going on trial on eight counts of murder.

Albert Mohler: The Colorado legislature is considering the repeal of laws in the state that criminalize adultery or any act that would “promote sexual immorality.” According to Lynn Bartels ofThe Denver Post, the process of repeal is now well underway, with the House Judiciary Committee voting 8-3 to take adultery and sexual immorality out of the criminal code in Colorado. | Audio Broadcasts at AlbertMohler.com – 3-4-13

LifeSiteNews: Controversy is escalating over the Manitoba NDP government’s proposed anti-bullying law, which would force schools – including independent religious schools – to accommodate homosexual student clubs under the name gay-straight alliance (GSA).

LifeSiteNews: The pro-life group Operation Rescue has today published newly obtained 911 recordings of two medical emergencies at Planned Parenthood in Wilmington, Delaware, which took place on February 8, and 16, 2013.

Tim Carney at Washington Examiner: Republicans around the country railed against President Obama’s health-care law for four years, but in recent weeks, GOP governors and state legislators have embraced some of the bill’s provisions. How did Republicans learn to stop worrying and love Obamacare? In a word: industry.

LifeSiteNews: An insurance company known for not keeping its contractual obligations has received $340 million in federal loans to set up a health care exchange under ObamaCare. Critics say the only apparent criteria for the loan is the fact that the company is led by a friend of Barack Obama during his community organizer days. She is also a former leader of a George Soros-funded politically radical organization.

LifeSiteNews: An ambulance arrived at Southwestern Women’s Options, a late-term abortion clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and transported an abortion patient to UNM Medical Center at approximately 1:00 p.m. on Friday.

Times Free Press: A federal appeals court will hear arguments on April 24 on whether the Hamilton County commissioners must stop allowing invocations at public meetings.

Harry R. Jackson at Townhall: From the very beginning, homosexual “marriage” activists have sought to hijack not only the moral authority of the Civil Rights Movement, but also the legal arguments which liberated minorities from centuries of legalized oppression and discrimination.

CBN: Residents of a small east Texas town are once again fighting for their right to freely express their faith.

ChristianNews.net: A middle school baseball coach in Georgia recently resigned after a parent complained to the principal that he had a Bible verse citation embroidered on the team ball caps.

Education News: Rollins College in central Florida has decided that Christian student clubs that require Christian leaders are in violation of the school’s “non-discrimination policy.” Rollins has decided that all Christian student groups who refuse to allow non-Christian leaders will cease to receive university funds.

Dale Carpenter at Volokh Conspiracy: Our view is that Section 3 fails equal protection review for a reason quite distinct from the standard approaches relying on heightened-scrutiny analysis. Whatever else may be its constitutional defects, Section 3 is not a constitutional exercise of any enumerated federal power. It is also not a “necessary and proper” measure to carry into execution any of Congress’s enumerated powers. Instead, it is an unprecedented expansion of federal authority into a domain traditionally controlled by the states.

QC Times: Two years after voters served the Iowa Supreme Court with a shocking blow, the judicial selection process continues to be debated, as witnessed at a forum Saturday with Iowa Supreme Court Justice Thomas Waterman.

Houston Chronicle: When federal Judge Royal Furgeson Jr. took senior status from the federal bench in San Antonio in 2008, colleagues thought it would be a matter of months before his seat was filled. Five years later, the vacancy is categorized as a “judicial emergency” . . .

TPM: In a wide-ranging profile published in the latest issue of The New Yorker, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg addressed when her time on the bench may draw to a close.

Religion Clause Blog: In a Tennessee trial court last Monday, James Coots, pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, Kentucky, pleaded guilty to illegally possessing poisonous snakes.

Religion Clause Blog: In Gilardi v. Sebelius. (D DC, March 3, 2013), the D.C. federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage mandate in a suit by two related for-profit Subchapter S corporations and their Catholic owners.

Edward Mechmann at Archdiocese of NY: For a long time, apologists and advocates for legal abortion liked to say that they believed that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare”. Well, we know that they’ve given up on “rare”. And they certainly are unconditionally committed to “legal”. But it’s astonishing that they now seem to have given up on “safe”.

National Catholic Reporter: On Sunday, Feb. 17, a 55-year-old Catholic priest named Fr. Evarist Mushi was shot to death in Tanzania by assailants on a motorcycle in front of Zanzibar’s St. Joseph’s Cathedral, just before Sunday morning Mass. According to the news agency Fides, local bishops received a message claiming responsibility from a group calling itself “Muslim Renewal.”

LA Times: The shift in favor of gay rights may have an effect on the justices. If not, it could still doom restrictive marriage laws in liberal states like California.

One News Now: Alliance Defending Freedom isn’t buying the “delaying the match” argument. ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco explains why the one-point penalty was unjust – and why the NCHSAA’s explanation just does not make sense. “Secular activities, like waving to your parents or wishing the other wrestler good luck with a shake of the hand or shaking the ref’s hand – if they were two seconds long, it probably wouldn’t have resulted in any kind of a penalty,” the ADF senior legal counsel offers. “Yet for some reason, this referee decided to penalize this wrestler for kneeling down and praying for a couple of seconds. It’s just completely unwarranted.” ADF addressed the incident in a letter . . .

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin: Still, those who champion public invocations say the practice is legal, no matter which deity is mentioned. “The Supreme Court made it clear in 1983 that public prayers are constitutional,” said Brett Harvey, senior counsel for the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defending Freedom. Harvey said if the Founding Fathers delivered prayers according to the dictate of their conscience, legislators and those giving invocations today should be able to do the same.”The wording of the Constitution hasn’t changed,” Harvey said. “It’s not the government’s job to tell people when and how to pray, and the ACLU would like prayers to conform to some generic civil orthodoxy that they agree with, that’s consistent with their beliefs.”

Inland Valley Daily Bulletin: Still, those who champion public invocations say the practice is legal, no matter which deity is mentioned. “The Supreme Court made it clear in 1983 that public prayers are constitutional,” said Brett Harvey, senior counsel for the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defending Freedom. Harvey said if the Founding Fathers delivered prayers according to the dictate of their conscience, legislators and those giving invocations today should be able to do the same.”The wording of the Constitution hasn’t changed,” Harvey said. “It’s not the government’s job to tell people when and how to pray, and the ACLU would like prayers to conform to some generic civil orthodoxy that they agree with, that’s consistent with their beliefs.”

Nathan Schlueter at Public Discourse: To reject the presence of natural law in documents of the Founding era is to embrace both cynicism and romanticism.

Life News / C-Fam: “The problem we are facing with the work of treaty bodies goes beyond resources and money,” the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) told the forum. “The real problem lies in the treaty bodies assuming powers which do not belong to them.”

Townhall: Ayanna Byer, 40, filed suit Feb. 6 against Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, alleging an unnamed doctor at the clinic performed an abortion on her in November even though she told him she had changed her mind, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing her.

Jacob Mchangama at National Review: A UN body refrains from criminalizing “defamation of religion,” but troubling ambiguities remain . . . For the past two years, the United States, European states, and the member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have pretended that their past deep divisions about the relationship between free speech and religion have been laid to rest.

AP: “If it is true that my actions flow out of my faith in Jesus, and from my deeply held moral believes – and I sincerely think they do – then it must follow that whatever judgment is being brought against me by the United States of America, is judgment on my faith and conscience and deeply help moral beliefs,” he wrote.

AP: Lawmakers at the Czech parliament’s upper house have decided to press high treason charges against outgoing president Vaclav Klaus over his controversial amnesty – an unprecedented move that taints the end of his presidency.

Erwin Chemerinsky at LA Times: But there is also a third possibility. Justices could dismiss the case on procedural grounds, which would have the effect of leaving in place a court ruling that allows gay marriage in the state.

Washington Post: In Florida, President Obama has nominated the first openly gay black man to sit on a federal district court. In New York, he has nominated the first Asian American lesbian. And his pick for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit? The first South Asian.

Witte, John and Nichols, Joel A., Who Governs the Family? Marriage as a New Test Case of Overlapping Jurisdictions (2013). Faulkner Law Review (Forthcoming 2013); U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 13-05. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2227114