Category Archives: Featured

Ed Whelan at NRO offers this description of today’s arguments and what to watch for.

Lyle Denniston at SCOTUS Blog: If the Supreme Court can find its way through a dense procedural thicket, and confront the constitutionality of the federal law that defined marriage as limited to a man and a woman, that law may be gone, after a seventeen-year existence. That was the overriding impression after just under two hours of argument Wednesday on the fate of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The How Appealing Blog links to numerous reports on today’s arguments in Windsor v. United States.

Steven Smith at Public Discourse: Debates about marriage will only be cluttered up, and decisions confounded, if the issue is framed in the question-begging terms of “marriage equality.”

Sacramento Bee: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled on Tuesday that the Lancaster City Council’s invocation policy is constitutional because it allows for the opening prayer to be said by any faith or religion. | Rubin v. City of Lancaster

AP: The Indiana Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the law creating the nation’s broadest school voucher program, clearing the way for a possible expansion.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit late last week against the Montana Office of Public Instruction and Columbus Public Schools on behalf of a hearing-impaired preschooler. State and school district officials denied the young girl disability benefits for tuition payments because her parents enrolled her in a Columbus faith-based preschool.

LifeNews: North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed three pro-life bills this morning, including one that would ban most abortions in the state. Dalrymple acknowledged a court battle is expected and asked state legislators to set aside funds to pay for the expenses.
The governor’s office released the following statement on the bills he signed . . .

Audio here. Transcript here.

Austin R. Nimocks at Wall Street Journal (via Google): The Supreme Court is not the place to settle the country’s public-policy disputes. The court is not equipped to distill all of the competing concerns and interests over marriage into a comprehensive, nationwide policy.

SCOTUS Blog: Below are answers to questions about how the cases will unfold over the next three months . . . As with health care last year, the ruling almost certainly will come at the end of the court’s term. The last week of June looks to be historic one way or another.

Politico: Republican fundraisers say the changing views of gay marriage in their party could unlock big money from GOP donors in places like New York, California and Florida — where some Republicans have kept their checkbooks closed over what they saw as misplaced priorities, at best, or intolerance, at worst, at the highest ranks of the party.

Matthew J. Frank at NRO: So the official position of the United States, in the Supreme Court anyway–notwithstanding the blandishments of the president of the United States–is that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right in those states that have civil unions, but that it is an “open question” whether this is so anywhere else. It might or might not be a constitutional right in, say, Mississippi, but it certainly is one in California!

CNSNews: “Well, you’ve said — you’ve said in the cases decided by this court that the polygamy issue, multiple marriages raises questions about exploitation, abuse, patriarchy, issues with respect to taxes, inheritance, child custody, it is an entirely different thing,” Olson said. “And if you — if a state prohibits polygamy, it’s prohibiting conduct.

Ed Whelan at NRO: Some noteworthy question/comments by Justice Kennedy in the oral argument today:

SCOTUS Blog provides a growing list of links here.

LA Times: “I think we are going to win this case,” Andy Pugno, lawyer for Proposition 8 campaign. “We definitely represented the winning case today and the justices asked good thoughtful questions and we were able to say everything that we wanted to get in front of the court today.”

Links and issue summary by SCOTUS Blog below. Hollingsworth v. Perry | Oral Argument at 10 am on Tuesday, March 26th Issue: (1) Whether the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State of California from defining marriage …

FACE the NATION (includes video): Austin Nimocks, part of the legal team defending California’s Proposition 8, said during a gay marriage panel earlier in the program that the debate is “too young” to be stifled by a nationwide decision. “That’s exactly what we don’t need when we see Americans of all walks of life, all different faiths and backgrounds, and creeds, engaging in the marriage debate,” Nimocks said. “President Obama said there are people of good will on both sides of the debate, and the last thing we need is to shut down the debate, have the Supreme Court redefine marriage for everybody, instead of letting us work through this question through our democratic institutions. That’s why we have them. “The Supreme Court is not a legislature,” Nimocks continued. “We have ballot boxes for a reason and we’re asking the Supreme Court not to interject itself in this question.”

The video is here.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys who are co-counsel in defense of California’s constitutional amendment protecting marriage will be available for media interviews at the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday following oral arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry.

NBC: Paris riot police fought back crowds who pushed their way onto Paris’ landmark Champs-Elysees avenue as part of a huge protest against a draft law allowing same-sex couples to marry and adopt children.

Washington Post: “I’m not worried about it, because the polls are skewed, ” Gary Bauer, a leading social conservative and former presidential candidate, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Just this past November, four states, very liberal states, voted on this issue and my side lost all four of those votes. But my side had 45, 46 percent of the vote in all four of those liberal states.”

NJ Star Ledger: However, because this boy was also written up as a bully, it kick-started an entire bureaucratic process: There was an investigation, and a legal dispute. A hearing before an administrative law judge. Tearful testimony from L.L. The appeal of the judge’s decision and, ultimately, the backing of it by the state’s education commissioner.

CNN: Todd Stiefel is far from a household name, and the odds he gets recognized on a street corner, even in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, are small . . . “What I am trying to accomplish is multifold, he told CNN. “I consider myself working on the next civil equality movement, just like women’s rights, LGBT rights and African-American Civil Rights. We are still in the early stages of eliminating discrimination against atheists and humanists. That is something I really want to accomplish.”

LifeSiteNews: For the first time in United States history, a legislative body has approved a personhood amendment in both the House and the Senate. Now the amendment will be referred to the people of North Dakota for a vote.

Voices for Family Values is calling upon all county clerks in New Mexico to follow state law instead of the desires of Santa Fe Mayor David Coss with regard to marriage licenses.

Ryan Anderson at CNN: Court shouldn’t rewrite law on gay marriage

“Pediatrics Group Backs Gay Marriage, Saying It Helps Children,” proclaims a headline in The New York Times. But the advocacy group presented no new studies, no new data, to support this claim. And the studies the group cites have been shown to be insufficient to come to this conclusion about same-sex parenting. Turns out the press release, picked up nationwide, was a PR stunt aimed at influencing the Supreme Court.

Ed Whelan at NRO: Michael McConnell has asked me to post this response to my critique of his Wall Street Journal op-ed, and I am happy to do so . . .

Ed Whelan at NRO: I never imagined that I would write a post bearing this title. If you had shown me the text of this Wall Street Journal op-ed and asked me to guess the author, I never would have guessed Michael McConnell, the usually brilliant conservative law professor at Stanford. Some comments . . .

Mike McConnell at Wall Street Journal: For most Americans, the Supreme Court cases being heard on Tuesday and Wednesday next week are about same-sex marriage. But the cases—Hollingsworth v. Perry (the Proposition 8 case from California) and U.S. v. Windsor (the Defense of Marriage Act case)—also are a test of the nation’s democratic and decentralized constitutional structure. These cases thus are not just about marriage. They are about how we reach decisions regarding matters of deep moral significance in our federal republic.

Citizen Link: Sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the March 26 event will provide a platform for people to show their support for God’s design for the institution. Dozens of organizations and ministries across the country — including Focus on the Family and CitizenLink — have signed on as co-sponsors.

Santa Fe New Mexican: Attorney General King is in Mexico this week for talks on drug trafficking, human trafficking and judicial reform. His spokesman, Phil Sisneros, said late Wednesday that the office has received McCamely’s authorized inquiry and will “work as quickly as possible to formulate our response.”

Santa Fe New Mexican: ACLU files suit on behalf of New Mexico same-sex couples ACLU: Two same-sex couples seeking the freedom to marry filed a lawsuit today after they applied for and were denied marriage licenses by the Bernalillo County …

AP: Civil unions for gay couples got the governor’s signature in Colorado on Thursday, punctuating a dramatic turnaround in a state where voters banned same-sex marriage in 2006 and restricted protections for gays two decades ago.

Ed Whelan at NRO: Or perhaps I should say that George Will snookers himself against the Defense of Marriage Act. For anyone who uncritically parrots, as Will does, the lousy arguments made in the “federalism scholars’” amicus brief against DOMA isn’t really giving serious attention to the matter. I must also marvel at the fact that it has taken Will 17 years to discover (mistakenly) that DOMA’s “purpose is constitutionally improper.”

Dennis Prager at NRO: A final note to parents of gays: Parents who believe in the man-woman definition of marriage do not owe it to their gay child to support the same-sex redefinition of marriage — any more than gay children owe it to these parents to oppose same-sex marriage. Parents and children owe each other love and respect, not abandonment of convictions.

Hercules and the Umpire: Turning to the meat of this post, I was the trial judge in both of the Carhart cases that ended up in the Supreme Court. Compare Carhart v. Stenberg, 11 F. Supp. 2d 1099 (D. Neb. 1998) (Nebraska’s partial-birth abortion statute was unconstitutional), aff’d, 192 F.3d 1142 (8th Cir. 1999), aff’d, Stenberg v. Carhart, 530 U.S. 914 (2000) with Carhart v. Ashcroft, 331 F. Supp. 2d 805 (D. Neb. 2004) (the federal partial-birth abortion statute was unconstitutional), aff’d, Carhart v. Gonzales, 413 F.3d 791 (8th Cir.2005), rev’d, Gonzales v. Carhart, 550 U.S. 124 (2007). Even though there was very little difference in the cases from my perspective, the Court affirmed the first decision but reversed the second. To say that I was perplexed is an understatement. It is that perplexity that prompts this post.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: As American public opinion appears to shift in favor of gay marriage and the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments on the issue next week, a major medical organization has weighed in, saying same-sex couples should be allowed to wed and calling it “the best way to guarantee benefits and security for their children.” | Pediatrics: Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents Are Gay or Lesbian

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Eastern Michigan University on behalf of a pro-life student organization. University officials denied the group funding from mandatory student activity fees based on its “political or ideological” views even though the university funds other groups involved in political and ideological speech.

AP: Benedictine monks may keep selling plain, low-cost caskets from their monastery outside New Orleans, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, finding that a regulation that only state-licensed funeral directors may sell coffins in Louisiana had no reasonable grounds. | St. Joseph Abbey v. Castille

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys file third lawsuit to expose abortion giant’s mishandling of taxpayer dollars

CBN (includes video): Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Austin Nimocks is on the legal team defending traditional marriage before the High Court. “Marriage is what it has always been since the beginning of time: the union of a man and a woman,” he said. “That’s how the Supreme Court has acknowledged marriage 14 times in its prior jurisprudence.” But if the pro-gay side triumphs, Nimocks said what’s at stake is whether the American people themselves get to have the final say about what marriage is “or whether the Supreme Court is going to impose a radical new definition of marriage upon all 50 states and the four U.S. territories.” “Americans want to engage in this debate,” he continued. “We’ve been doing it for the last 10 years.” “Americans care about this, and what we need is for the Supreme Court to keep its hands off marriage right now,” he said. “Let Americans continue to debate this through our democratic institutions.”

Dean Kalahar at American Thinker: The homosexual agenda once took a covert route to incrementally gain approval with small victories that flew under the radar of common sense. Today, the movement has bought into its own myth and now brazenly injects itself into every corner of the culture to create the appearance of normalcy. Even so, 31 states do not grant any form of legal recognition to same sex couples, and 44 out of the 50 states do not allow for same-sex marriage. The Federal government has never had a law sanctioning same sex marriage.

The Pearcey Report: Admittedly, the phrase “marriage equality” functions as highly effective PR. After all, who wants to stand against marriage? And who could possibly protest against equality? Therefore “marriage equality” seems like a win-win. Yet, a critical distance allows one to see beyond the PR and to realize that the kind of “equality” promoted in “marriage equality” is alien in theory, and inferior in results, to the genuinely liberating concept of “created equal” we find planted in the Declaration of Independence.

AP: Britain’s fertility regulator says it has found broad public support for in vitro fertilization techniques that allow babies to be created with DNA from three people for couples at risk of passing on potentia

Leicester Mercury: In November, there will be a vote in the European Parliament on the Stockholm Program which compels member states to recognise and uphold the “effect of civil status documents of another EU state”. The report deals with the issue of cross-border harmonisation within the European Union and implies an EU-wide de facto recognition of same-sex marriage.

Raw Story: In a legal memo, City Attorney Geno Zamara explained that the state’s definite of marriage was gender-neutral and therefore did not prohibit same-sex marriage. He also noted that the constitution of New Mexico prohibits denying equality under the law on the basis of sex.

AP: The Responsible Parenthood Law was passed by lawmakers late last year despite the church’s opposition but petitioners questioned its legality on several grounds, saying it offends religious beliefs and fosters abortion, which remains illegal in the country.

Defenders of California’s constitutional amendment protecting marriage filed a reply brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday that concisely answers the arguments of those attacking the amendment. The brief is the final one that will be filed before oral arguments scheduled for March 26 in Hollingsworth v. Perry.

Selwyn Duke at American Thinker: In another case in the annals of conservative “adaptation” to yesterday’s liberal innovation, Ohio Republican senator Rob Portman has just announced that he now supports faux marriage. The change was motivated, he said, by his son having come out to him and his wife as a homosexual. Well, it’s a good thing his son didn’t announce that he was involved in bestiality.

Washington Post: Democrats are calling on Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II to condemn the comments of a major financial backer who recently compared abortion to slavery. “There’s a point when you become culpable in the killing of other people, because of what the government is making you do,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony List, which last month pledged at least $1.5 million to the Republican Cuccinelli’s campaign for governor.

Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to seven school districts in Illinois and Wisconsin Friday debunking legal claims and misinformation provided by an atheist group. The letter reassures the school districts that, contrary to the atheists’ claims, taking students on field trips to participate in non-religious educational programs at a church-run camp is constitutional.

AP: A federal judge has struck down a Missouri law exempting moral objectors from mandatory birth control coverage because it conflicts with an insurance requirement under President Barrack Obama’s health care law . . . “The point of the law was to tell health insurance companies that they’re supposed to honor the wishes – pro or con – of people who have religious or ethical objections to what’s in the policy,” said Timothy Belz, a St. Louis attorney who represented Our Lady’s Inn. | Missouri Insurance Coalition v. Huff (E.D. Mo. March 14, 2013)

SCOTUS Blog: The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to let an Obama administration lawyer take part in the argument on March 26 on the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage in that state.

LifeSiteNews: A controversial bill that would add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to Canada’s Human Rights Act and Criminal Code will face the vote in the House of Commons this Wednesday. Critics say that if passed, Bill C-279 will effectively abolish society’s understanding of male and female.

AP on Google: “The idea that a major political party must accept the practice of homosexuality as normal so as to remain relevant will prove the contrary and lead to disaster,” said John Horvat II, a Catholic scholar. And Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots, faulted Washington GOP establishment leaders for the November losses, saying they strayed from the conservative message. “Americans and those in the tea party movement don’t need an ‘autopsy’ report from RNC to know they failed to promote our principles and lost because of it,” she said.

Carson Holloway at Public Discourse: We cannot embrace same-sex marriage and live in continuity with our past as a civilization. To embrace it is to deny that tradition, revelation, reason, and nature have any authority over us.

We cannot hope to limit government if we do not stand up for our core civil society institutions, beginning with marriage.

LifeSiteNews: [Bishop Jean Laffitte, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family] . . . affirmed what many in the pro-family movment have long believed, that the push for “gay marriage” is not coming exclusively from homosexual lobbyists, but from a more sinister international cadre of highly placed secularist social engineers seeking a radical alteration of the foundational ideas of Western Civilization.

Defenders of marriage need some entrepreneurial thinking. America has been governed by no-fault divorce, illegitimacy, and disordered desires of every kind for two generations; there are fewer and fewer people around who even remember living in a world where the Christian position was the default. We need to stop imagining real marriage is like the Apple of 2013—assuming we are the dominant entity and our opponents are upstarts trying to displace us from our position at the top.

Ryan Anderson at Heritage Foundation: Redefining marriage would further distance marriage from the needs of children. It would deny as a matter of policy the ideal that a child needs a mom and a dad. We know that children tend to do best when raised by a mother and a father. The confusion resulting from further delinking childbearing from marriage would force the state to intervene more often in family life and cause welfare programs to grow even more.

American Spectator: Other pro-family groups have been collecting petitions and urging the BSA to stand firm. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which litigates in defense of religious freedom, has recently warned BSA that its proposed local option would potentially remove protection that courts have given BSA’s national policy. Absent a clear national standard, ADF warns, BSA would be vulnerable to litigation. “It is not legally necessary for BSA to sacrifice its history or its principles in the face of growing threats,” ADF told BSA in its appeal.

Columbus Dispatch: Rob Portman commentary: Gay couples also deserve chance to get married
I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Over 20 groups are asking U.S. Secretary of State to end the U.S. obstruction over abortion at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Here is the letter sent today . . . It is especially shocking that the U.S. called for deleting a reaffirmation that every human being has the “inherent right to life, liberty and security of persons.” This contradicts a foundational principle of citizens and civilizations worldwide. [Piero Tozzi of Alliance Defending Freedom is one of many signers]

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing a former Planned Parenthood facility director in Iowa filed notice in district court Wednesday that they are appealing her fraud case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit.

LifeSiteNews: A Yukon Catholic bishop has reportedly complied with a government order that his diocesan policy on ministry to students with same-sex attraction be deleted from a Catholic school’s website after one student complained that the document was demeaning. At the same time, the bishop said that the policy will remain in effect.

LifeNews: Today, the Thomas More Law Center, a pro-life legal group, informed LifeNews that Federal District Court Judge Lawrence P. Zatkoff of the Eastern District of Michigan granted a Motion for a Preliminary Injunction against enforcement of the HHS Mandate it filed for Monaghan and his property management company, Domino’s Farm Corporation.

The American Federation for Children—the nation’s voice for educational choice—today applauded the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that lifted the temporary restraining order placed on the Alabama Accountability Act in response to a lawsuit filed by the Alabama Education Association last week. The lawsuit was filed in an effort to prevent Governor Robert Bentley from signing the legislation that includes a new tax credit scholarship into law.

AP: A record number of U.S. counties – more than 1 in 3 – are now dying off, hit by an aging population and weakened local economies that are spurring young adults to seek jobs and build families elsewhere.

“We join millions in congratulating Francis I on his selection as pope. He is a leader who has stood strongly for the values of religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, marriage, and the family, often under very trying circumstances. We appreciate his many strong statements over the years on the protection of marriage and the unborn and trust he will continue to be a powerful voice on the deep importance of these issues.”

Chicago Tribune: Speaker Michael Madigan today said a gay marriage bill is “12 votes short of passage” in the Illinois House, a signal that same-sex marriage could face a tough road to approval this spring.

Alliance Defending Freedom explains Boy Scouts can uphold time-honored mission, avoid legal attacks

MPR (includes audio): The bill allows churches or other religious organizations to opt out of providing wedding-related services or facilities if they oppose same-sex marriage. But opponents still raised concerns. Ken Connelly, a lawyer with the national organization Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Senate panel that the religious exemption is inadequate and will lead to persecution. “If the government declares that same-sex unions and opposite-sex unions constitute equally marriages under the law, the law will eventually punish and stigmatize those who stand by traditional marriage as discriminatory and irrational,” Connelly said.

Colorado Connection: Many of those opposed to the bill said that it discriminated against those who are opposed to same-sex civil unions for religious reasons, with an attorney for the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom equating it to “religious intolerance.”