Category Archives: Featured

Kay Bailey Hutchison and Barbara Mikulski at Wall Street Journal: Education proponents across the political spectrum were dismayed by recent attempts to eradicate the single-gender options in public schools in Virginia, West Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Maine and Florida. We were particularly troubled at efforts to thwart education choice for American students and their families because it is a cause we have worked hard to advance.

In the wake of a lawsuit filed by Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys, DeKalb County has agreed to allow a church to continue to rent one of its recreational facilities.

Telegraph: Fame Daddy will offer would-be-mothers “top quality celebrity surrogate fathers” when it launches next February, according to Dan Richards, its chief executive . . . To be able to harvest potential from the global gene pool, rather than from the more limited selection of the men she comes into direct contact with, is a major evolutionary leap for women.

Telegraph (includes video): A protest by 10,000 Muslims outside the offices of Google in London today is just the first in an orchestrated attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from website YouTube in Britain.

Steven Douglas at MinnPost: The argument over same-sex marriage does not start in the political realm but in the philosophical. Many of the proponents of same-sex marriage with whom I speak assume that we agree on who we are on a basic level and therefore the way we should plot our political course forward. That’s where they’re wrong. Many Christians still hold to the truth of Scripture, often called inerrancy, and believe that God created humanity in his image (Genesis 1:27). These Christians reject the theory of macro evolution as an explanation of human origins. We see the role of image-bearing, generally called imago Dei, to be what defines us.

How Appealing summarizes and links to the ruling.

PR Newswire: Today, Liberty Institute and its local counsel Bryan Hughes on behalf of the Wood County Commissioner’s Court applauds the ruling of a state district judge who granted a summary judgment, dismissing the lawsuit against the County for opening its sessions in prayer and for displaying in its courtroom America’s national motto “In God We Trust.” The ruling was made during a summary judgment hearing at the Wood County Courthouse in Quitman, Texas.

BuzzFeed: And now, if Romney were to win the presidency and change course again as he told the National Organization for Marriage he would do, both the lawyers defending and those taking aim at the 1996 law agree that the Supreme Court could be entering uncharted waters.

Alliance Defending Freedom is offering free legal assistance to public school students who participate in the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity if their First Amendment freedoms aren’t respected.

Mercury News: An appeals court ruled Friday that a Mobile County woman can’t adopt her female partner’s child because of Alabama’s law defining marriage as being between a man and woman. The Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled that Cari Searcy can’t adopt her partner’s child even though the couple was married in California.

WSLS.com: A Virginia pastor is scheduled to testify next month before a grand jury investigating the kidnapping of a now-10-year-old girl by her mother, who fled the country rather than share custody of the child with the Vermont woman who was once her civil union partner, the pastor’s attorney said Monday.

Deseret News: A young boy who was conceived from preserved sperm after his father’s death is not entitled to Social Security benefits under Utah law, the Utah Supreme Court ruled Friday. | Burns v. Astrue, 2012 UT 71 | Hat Tip: How Appealing

SCOTUS Blog: The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to rule on the constitutionality of a state requirement that voters must prove they are U.S. citizens before they register to vote and cast their ballots . . .  (The case is Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., docket 11-71.)

AP: The government borrowed about 31 cents of every dollar it spent in 2012. The string of $1 trillion-plus deficits has driven the national debt above $16 trillion. The magnitude of that figure has intensified debate in Congress over spending and taxes but little movement toward compromise.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief Wednesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on behalf of a doctors group that supports an Arizona law restricting non-emergency abortions after 20 weeks.

liance Defending Freedom attorneys who are litigating numerous lawsuits against the Obama administration’s abortion pill and contraceptive mandate are calling Vice President Joe Biden’s claims that effectively denied the mandate’s existence in Thursday’s vice-presidential debate “amazingly false.”

CBN (includes video): Many Egyptian Christian women fear they’ll be targets for abduction and forced marriage by Muslims. CBN News traveled to Cairo to investigate the trafficking of Coptic women.

LifeSite News (video included): Argentina’s National Women’s Encounter attracts thousands of women every year from extremist feminist groups, many of them homosexuals, to angrily demand the acceptance of their political agenda, which includes the legalization of abortion and the vindication of the homosexual lifestyle.

Reuters: Pedro Andereggen, a lawyer for the Association for the Promotion and Defense of the Family, which led the legal campaign against this week’s abortion, said his group was fighting for unborn children’s rights and hoped courts throughout Argentina would ignore the Supreme Court ruling. “The mother doesn’t have the right to kill her child, even when she’s been the victim of rape. The right to life of an innocent human being is absolute and allows no exceptions whatsoever,” Andereggen said.

Harvard L. Prof. Michael J. Klarman at NYT: Justice Kennedy’s opinions often suggest that he wants to be on the right side of history, which matters greatly here because the future of gay marriage in America is so clear . . . A Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage would divide the nation roughly down the middle, much as the Court’s ruling against racial segregation, in Brown v. Board of Education, did in 1954. Yet, within two decades, the Brown decision was almost universally revered . . .

The Southern Poverty Law Center marked National Coming Out Day by filing a complaint today against a Chicago-area social worker who offers conversion therapy services – a dangerous and unethical practice that proponents claim can change a person’s sexual orientation.

Queerty (site promotes homosexual behavior and may contain objectionable content): Inspired by a law recently enacted in California, Pennsylvania State Representative Babette Josephs (D- 182nd) has introduced a bill that would ban the practice of reparative or “conversion” therapy in the state of Pennsylvania.

LifeSiteNews: In what pro-life leaders are calling a stunning and unprecedented attack on religious freedom, Ontario’s Education Minister has apparently declared that Catholic schools can no longer teach that abortion is wrong. Laurel Broten, who serves under Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, said Wednesday that Catholic schools are barred from teaching this core moral belief because Bill 13, the government’s controversial “anti-bullying” law, prohibits “misogyny.”

Washington Post: In the headquarters of Washington United for Marriage, a large collage displays a list of the high-powered sponsors backing the ballot-measure campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. They include such iconic businesses as Amazon, Google and Nike, as well as most of the state’s unions and a long list of religious, ethnic and civil rights group. Staffers shuttle in and out of a conference room as they figure out how to deploy 4,000 volunteers and an $8.9 million campaign fund.

Weekly Standard (video embedded): A GOP source sends along this video, shot by a Republican tracker, of a union member supporting Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren outside of a debate Wednesday night in Springfield, Massachusetts. The cameraman asks the union member if he was at an earlier debate between Warren and her Republican opponent, Senator Scott Brown

FRC: On Wednesday, October 10, Gallaudet University suspended a senior university official when it was learned that she had signed a ballot petition giving Maryland voters the right to vote on recently passed legislation that redefines marriage in the state. Dr. Angela McCaskill serves as the school’s chief diversity officer, and is according to the university’s web site the first deaf African American woman to earn a Ph.D. from Gallaudet. Apparently that is not diverse enough for the uniform viewpoint required by the school’s administration.

David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy: With that in mind, stories like this don’t help the cause: “The chief diversity officer at Gallaudet University has been placed on paid leave after she signed a petition to put a gay marriage referendum on the ballot in Maryland…. Gallaudet President T. Alan Hurwitz says McCaskill “participated in a legislative initiative that some feel is inappropriate” for someone in her position.”

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys together with Samuel B. Casey of the Jubilee Campaign’s Law of Life Project and Tom Hungar of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, asked the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday to review an appellate court ruling that allows federal funding of embryonic stem cell research to continue.

Fox News: A panel of three federal judges upheld a South Carolina law requiring voters to show photo identification, but delayed enforcement until next year, in a decision announced Wednesday, less than a month before this year’s presidential election. | South Carolina v. U.S., (D.C. Cir.)

Independent: The Prime Minister has made clear in Downing Street that he wants to drive through the legislation as quickly as practical, The Independent has learnt – a signal that it could be on the statute book by the end of next year.

Clinton Herald: Republicans hold a 59 to 40 edge in the Iowa House, while Democrats hold a 26 to 24 advantage in the Iowa Senate. If Republicans maintain their lead in the House, and take over the Iowa Senate, it would be the first time in 14 years that the GOP controlled the House, Senate and Governor’s seat in Iowa. “Win just two more Senate seats and the majority understands that the private sector creates jobs and grows the economy,” Reynolds said. Reynolds believed not only would the Iowa Senate be controlled by Republicans, but Iowa would send four Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Washington Post: Judicial elections were once sedate, bottom-of-the-ballot affairs, frequently overlooked by voters focused on the bigger-name races. But there was nothing low-key about the message on a bus that toured Iowa recently, bearing the face of state Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins and a giant “NO.” Nor was there anything decorous about the contingent of lawyers that trailed with a smaller truck urging “Yes Iowa Judges.”

The Gazette: Iowa Supreme Court Justice David Wiggins’ 63 percent favorability rating from fellow attorneys is the lowest score earned by a member of the court in 50 years of judicial retention elections, according to a group calling for his ouster.

An Alaska court Monday upheld most of a voter-approved state law that requires at least one parent to be notified before a minor child can obtain an abortion.

LifeNews: In Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest v. State of Alaska, the Superior Court for the State of Alaska ruled that the parental notification law, which requires an abortion provider to give notice to a parent or guardian before performing an abortion on a minor, does not violate the state’s constitution. The court also upheld provisions requiring that the parent or guardian provide valid identification and providing for criminal penalties for those who violate the law.

A federal court has scheduled an Oct. 16 hearing to consider whether to halt enforcement of the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate against a Bible publisher. The court scheduled the hearing in response to a preliminary injunction motion that Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Tyndale House Publishers filed Monday.

Washington Blade: The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Log Cabin wants to talk to the campaign about Romney’s views on LGBT issues and to seek his support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in particular.

Sacramento Bee: A court ruling sending a Native American girl back to Oklahoma from her adoptive South Carolina family has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. | Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl (Petition for Cert.)

Elissa Gootman at NY Times: Suddenly these step-relatives, unbound by biological or legal ties, are former step-relatives, left to puzzle over the sorts of questions that can require a whiteboard to explain. Do you invite your ex-stepsister to your wedding, given that you shared a bunk bed with her for seven formative years? How long should you continue texting your ex-stepson if he doesn’t text back? And what, if anything, do you call your ex-stepgrandmother?
For thousands of people, such questions are not hypothetical.

Nearly 1,500 pastors in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have registered to participate in Alliance Defending Freedom’s fifth annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday.

Religion Clause Blog: In Zastrow v. Bullock, (D MT, Oct. 2, 2012), a Montana federal district court entered a permanent injunction with the consent of all parties barring enforcement of a Montana statute, MCA § 13-35-218(2) which provides . . .

Erik Stanley at Townhall: In other words, the arguments against Pulpit Freedom Sunday fail because the premise for those arguments is all wrong . . . But pastors who participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday are not engaging in a “political crusade.” Instead, they are simply applying Scripture and theological doctrine to the positions held by the candidates running for office. Pastors have been applying scriptural teaching to circumstances facing their congregations for centuries. This is not “political” speech. Rather, it’s core religious expression from a spiritual leader to his congregants. That kind of expression is at the very center of the freedom of speech and religion protections in the First Amendment.
The real question is this: When has the government ever been allowed to condition any government-recognized status (such as tax-exempt status) on the surrender of a constitutionally protected freedom?

Matthew J. Franck at National Review: But the historic tax exemption for churches is not predicated on their being held to some standard of apolitical conduct. It is predicated on the proposition that freedom of religion is so fundamental, and individual and institutional conscience so precious, that the state has no jurisdiction over churches, the setting in which free consciences find their space and vitality to act. At least one finds this argument strongly present in a prominent strain of the founders’ thought on freedom of religion. The state cannot tax churches, in short, because churches make a higher claim on their members than does their allegiance to the state as citizens, and the government of a free republic is formed on a recognition of this principle.

Tadeusz Pacholczyk at Wall Street Journal (via Google): Why should doctors have a monopoly on undermining public trust in their profession by aiding suicides? Police and lifeguards could help out too.

SCOTUS Blog: After battling for years to get a pay raise that they say Congress had once promised them, six federal judges finally won in a specialized federal court on Friday.  If the ruling withstands a likely trip to the Supreme Court, those judges – and presumably others – will get annual cost-of-living increases that have been specifically vetoed by Congress.   The ten-to-two decision by the Federal Circuit is here.

The hearing concerns a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood against H.B. 2800, the “Whole Woman’s Healthcare Funding Prioritization Act,” which closes loopholes that allowed taxpayer dollars to fund abortions and prioritizes family planning funds to health care entities that best provide comprehensive health care to women. The hearing will consider Planned Parenthood’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the law, as well as the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Susan B. Anthony List: Today, the national pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) slammed a brief filed by the Department of Justice aimed at overturning Arizona’s Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priority Act (HB 2800). The law, co-authored by the SBA List and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), defunds abortion providers of state family planning funds. Family planning funds are prioritized away from abortion-centered businesses like Planned Parenthood to entities that provide comprehensive health care. Governor Jan Brewer signed HB 2800 into law in May. The law was challenged by Planned Parenthood and is before the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

LifeNews: The Obama administration is using the state of Arizona and claiming that its new law revoking taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business runs afoul of federal laws.

Reuters: Patricia Casey’s views on abortion were formed at the age of 12 when she came across an image of what looked to her like a torn-apart baby – an aborted foetus.

LifeSiteNews: The personhood debate will be brought renewed on October 10, weeks after Stephen Woodworth’s Motion 312 came to a vote in Parliament. The National Post reported Tuesday that the case of Ivana Levkovic, who is charged under Section 243 of the Criminal Code for concealing the body of her dead child, will be brought before the Supreme Court and potentially cause lawmakers to question whether a child is a person before birth.

Kinder v. Geitner, No. 11-1973

A group of seven plaintiffs, including Samantha Hill and Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder (acting in his personal capacity), brought this action to challenge various provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“the Act”). Pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 (2010). The district court dismissed the suit for lack of standing. Hill and Kinder appeal, and we affirm.

Attorneys with the Family Policy Council of West Virginia and Alliance Defending Freedom submitted a legal memoto Kanawha County Schools Wednesday in response to an atheist group’s recent demand that the district prevent public invocations before high school football games.

Fox News provides full video coverage of the event and a transcript.

Speak Up Movement has embedded the short clip.

Eric Stanley appears in the short video embedded at the Speak Up Movement Church Blog. | PulpitFreedom.org

Election Law Blog: Wow.  See this 5 page order, striking down Montana Code Annotated 13-37-216 in its entirety. The judge did note that plaintiffs did not challenge the aggregate limits on political party contributions in 13-27-218which remains in effect.

“Planned Parenthood should not be experimenting with women’s lives by using abortion drugs in a way not approved by the FDA–especially when at least 14 women have died in recent years from using RU-486. Once again, Planned Parenthood has demonstrated that it is more concerned with its bottom line than with the health and safety of women.”

LA Times: Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill requiring foster parents and other care givers to undergo training in “cultural competency and sensitivity” regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The bill by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has been controversial, with some conservative activists saying it will discourage adults from volunteering as foster parents.

Law.com (subscription): A federal judge in Philadelphia has placed a closely-watched case involving the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and the survivors of a deceased Cozen O’Connor partner on the suspense docket, effectively terminating the matter pending the outcome of other relevant cases. U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones II of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania heard arguments on DOMA’s constitutionality in Cozen O’Connor v. Tobits . . .

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Tyndale House Publishers filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate. Tyndale House is one of the world’s largest privately held Christian publishers of books, Bibles, and digital media.

The Baltimore Sun (video embedded): n the wake of Ravens special-teams ace Brendon Ayanbadejo taking a strong public stance supporting same-sex marriage, one of his teammates has expressed an opposing view on this high-profile political topic.

The Columbus Dispatch: A report released by the Ohio Department of Health yesterday doesn’t say why fewer abortions were performed last year but noted a sharp drop in use of the abortion pill, which had been an increasingly common method of terminating early pregnancies.

BuzzFeed (Napolitano letter embedded): Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday that she has ordered written guidance be issued that same-sex couples’ relationships be considered “family relationships.”

Cantonrep.com: The legislation banned the use of RU-486, or mifepristone, to induce abortion unless prescribed by a doctor in compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines.| Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region v. DeWine, No. 11-4062

Philly.com: A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by an atheist group that challenged the legislature’s resolution declaring 2012 the “Year of the Bible,” but he also chastised the lawmakers for “pandering.” | FFRF press release and opinion link

TBO: Before the Brevard County couple split up, the genetic mother had donated an egg that was fertilized and implanted in the other woman, who gave birth in 2004. The couple separated two years later, and a trial court granted sole custody to the birth mother. An appellate court disagreed and said the women should share custody.

AP: A state Commonwealth Court judge on Tuesday determined that the requirement that Pennsylvania voters show a valid photo ID will not be in place for the Nov. 6 presidential election, a victory for opponents of the law. | Applewhite v. Commonwealth of Penn., No. 330 M.D. 2012 (Pa. Cmwlth. Oct. 2, 2012)

John J. Meyers, The Catholic Archbishop of Newark, NJ has published this comprehensive and astounding letter: When Two Become One: A Pastoral Teaching on the Definition, Purpose, and Sanctity of Marriage

AP: Child pornography victims can recover money from people convicted of viewing their abuse without having to show a link between the crime and their injuries, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. | In re: Amy Unknown (For the reasons above, we reject the approach of our sister circuits and hold that § 2259 imposes no generalized proximate cause requirement before a child pornography victim may recover restitution from a defendant possessing images of her abuse)

More than 1,200 pastors to dispute unconstitutional tax rule
as part of Pulpit Freedom Sunday

Religion Clause Blog: In O’Brien v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (ED MO, Sept. 28, 2012), Judge Carol E. Jackson (a President George H. W. Bush appointee) first held that she need not decide whether O’Brien Industrial Holdings (“OIH”), a secular limited liability company, is capable of exercising religion within the meaning of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the First Amendment because, even if it is, the contraception coverage mandate does not infringe religious exercise rights.

AP: Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation that makes California the first state to ban a controversial form of psychotherapy that’s aimed at making gay teenagers straight.

AP: The lawsuit argued the commission gives too much influence to lawyers and is unconstitutional because non-lawyers have no say in those appointments.

AP: The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from a national anti-gay marriage group that tried to thwart Maine’s campaign disclosure law requiring it to release its donor list.

PJ Media: Ever since PJ Media’s blockbuster Every Single One Series documented the radical partisan lawyers hired as career civil servants in the Obama DOJ, many have asked me how this is accomplished. One way is that only attorneys are hired who have resumes which have obvious ideological histories. The Every Single One series provided the public copies of these resumes. They are filled with cues that were used in the hiring process to exclude some and include others. But Eric Holder is also personally furthering the cause of ideological hiring. One way Holder is accomplishing this goal is by recruiting from within identity politics organizations.