Category Archives: Featured

Seattle Times: Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday said she’ll put forward legislation to legalize marriage for gay and lesbian couples. The proposal will be introduced during the legislative session that starts Monday. If it’s approved, Washington would become the seventh state to legalize gay marriage.

Constitutional experts warn a new law that allows the president to permanently detain U.S. citizens without trial could be used against pro-life activists, who have already been defined as potential terrorists in documents by some government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.

U.S. District Judge Michael Seabright denied this afternoon a request by two churches for a restraining order to block a law that goes into effect Sunday permitting same-sex couples to enter civil unions.

Scientists have made a major breakthrough that could soon see human sperm grown in the laboratory.

Reacting to critics of the Supreme Court who have raised their voices lately about the Justices’ ethical values, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., used his year-end report on Saturday to seek to reassure the nation that he and his eight colleagues are sensitive to the issue, and are entitled to the public’s confidence in their integrity.

An Arizona federal court judge on Friday issued a temporary injunction to halt a new abortion law from going into effect on Jan. 1. The law restricts which groups Arizona taxpayers can donate to if they want to receive a tax credit.

“A county judge should not have decided a girl could not have an abortion simply because the teen did not tell her mother she was pregnant, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Thursday as it clarified how minors can obtain the procedures.”

Detroit Free Press: Many government employers in Michigan will be barred from providing health care benefits to the domestic partners of public employees under legislation signed by Gov. Rick Snyder on Thursday.

As a result of a federal court hearing Thursday, a New Jersey hospital has agreed that it will not force nurses to assist with abortion cases.

Telegraph: A tax system that acknowledges marriage makes sense economically and morally, writes David Green.

“The state’s high court has determined that an unborn child qualifies as a minor child and, therefore, wrongful death lawsuits may be filed on behalf of those who die before birth.”

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Title Board voted Wednesday night allowing Personhood Colorado’s proposed personhood amendment to proceed.

Judge James E. Wilson granted an injunction to stop a group called Personhood Nevada from going forward with its initiative petition, the so-called personhood amendment. Wilson said he expects his ruling to be appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Doctor-prescribed death is illegal under Hawaii law despite what a pro-death group has argued, according to a newly authored legal opinion issued by Hawaii Attorney General David Louie to Sen. Josh Green, M.D.

ADF seeks review of 9th Circuit ruling that upheld ban on all religious, Western Civ. texts from objective study in every public school, university

Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Matt Bowman will be available for media interviews following a court hearing Thursday in the case of 12 nurses being forced to assist with abortions at a New Jersey hospital.

“She finally went over the head of the case worker, then over the head of a supervisor to the program director,” said Allen’s attorney Chris Branson. ” She was told in no uncertain terms that that was a bad move on her part and they were going to show her exactly what happens to people who make bad moves.”

We, being the representatives of the civil society and non-governmental organizations of the Russian Federation and Ukraine, taking part in the second hearing conducted in Saint-Petersburg on November 24th, 2011, addressing the influence of international political organizations on the condition and welfare of the family in our countries, have examined the current trends concerning family problems in the United Nations, and in particular some activities of the UN treaty monitoring bodies, including the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

A federal court issued an order Tuesday that prevents the city of Duluth from enforcing a First Amendment ban on people desiring to share their faith at a city park during the “Bentleyville Tour of Lights” event.

On Capitol Hill, 69 members of Congress recently sent a letter toDepartment of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder, whose respective offices are conducting a joint review of the roughly 300,000 currently pending immigration cases, asking that same-sex couples are included in a rubric for closing low-priority deportation cases because of family ties.

A district judge today ruled against pro-choice advocates seeking to stop an initiative petition that proposes to outlaw abortion by declaring that life begins at conception.

Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, the Iranian Christian cleric facing death for the crime of apostasy against an Islamic faith he never held, has been given a temporary stay of execution. Iran’s top judge, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, instructed presiding Judge Ghazi Kashani to delay carrying out capital punishment for a year in order to give time for Mr. Nadarkhani to recant Christianity and become a Muslim.

Hungary’s Constitutional Court has struck down the country’s restrictive new church law as well as parts of its disputed media law and the criminal code.

As many as 5,000 attended a rally in a small Texas community to show their support for a Nativity scene under attack by a Wisconsin-based atheist group, according to a minister who organized the event.

ADF case information resource page (links to briefs) Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley, No. 10-13925 (11th Cir. Dec. 16, 2011) Before BARKETT, PRYOR and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges. BARKETT, Circuit Judge: Jennifer Keeton was enrolled in the Counselor Education Program at Augusta State …

An Alliance Defense Fund lawsuit has led to official recognition for a student-led Christian club at the Hicksville Union Free School District, which originally refused to recognize the club.

ADF sends letter to Tuscumbia school officials threatened by Americans United for Separation of Church and State

The FDA got wind of his one-man sperm donor operation last year and has ordered him to shut it down. Though he charges nothing for his services, the agency has labeled him a “manufacturer of human cells.”

Some Communist Party members are getting caught up in the revival, violating party rules and becoming active religious believers in a trend that drew a high-level admonition Friday. “If we let party members believe in religion … this will inevitably result in the splits in the party organization ” . . .

A polygamous family made famous on a reality television show is asking a Utah federal judge not to block their challenge of the state’s bigamy law.

Plaintiff Jeff L. Thigpen, as Register of Deeds of Guilford County, North Carolina, and as a citizen of North Carolina and the United States, objects and finds it morally and constitutionally repugnant to administer a system which requires all persons entering into marriage to have licenses that will be recorded; to oblige pastors, priests, and rabbis who are performing marriage ceeremonies to perform them pursuent to licenses issued by the state; and to require either the religious or civil solemnization of marriages.”

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a petition Wednesday with the U.S. Supreme Court that asks it to weigh in on a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit against Christian student organizations at San Diego State University.

A federal judge Tuesday said that a last-minute Food and Drug Administration response to a citizen petition seeking to relax FDA rules regarding a birth-control product rendered moot a complaint to hold the agency in contempt of court.

If tradition is not a good reason to limit marriage to a man and a woman, it is also not a good reason to limit it to only two people.

We are facing religious cleansing in parts of the Middle East and may be entering what might be thought of as an Arab winter for Christians, Jews and other minority groups alike on a scale that we have not hitherto seen.”

A Florida judge has removed a constitutional amendment from the 2012 election ballot that would have deleted the state’s ban on using taxpayer money “in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”

After sloughing through a pile of obstacles, pro-lifers in Pennsylvania have taken an important step forward on two bills.

Barely half of all adults in the United States — a record low — are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides . . .

The Government, in 40 pages of legal arguments, said the UK was “entitled to conclude” that “other than in limited prescribed circumstances, religious belief does not justify discriminating on grounds of sexual orientation”.

Local churches have traditionally claimed 14 of the 21 Palisades Park display spaces to illustrate the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. But atheists managed to get all but three of the spaces this year because of a new city lottery system.

A federal judge has thrown out efforts to block Gov. Jan Brewer from declaring an official “day of prayer.”

A federal appeals court on Monday struck down a Wisconsin law that set limits on contributions to groups that independently spend on political speech.

Earlier this year, Texas yanked about $64 million in funding from Planned Parenthood and directed the funds to agencies that do not do abortions.

It addresses a question that was hotly debated when Madeline was born 22 years ago, remains hot now – and still has no answer: “What is the real age of viability? No one knows,” said Dr. Stephen Welty, neonatology chief at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

The bill, which the Senate passed 93-7 last week, would repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that states any person who engages in “unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), asked Wednesday if he was aware of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Bill that repeals the ban on sodomy and bestiality in the military, told CNSNews.com: “No, I can’t say I was.”

Two Columbia University researchers, Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund, were poring over U.S. Census data when they noticed a statistical anomaly: Americans from China, Korea and India have relatively few daughters.

Findlaw: Ruling against a group of Latrobe Specialty Steel Co. employees who were fired for sending sexually explicit emails through their work accounts, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the workers had no basis in claiming that they were really fired because of their age. | Hodczak vs. Latrobe Specialty Steel Co.

Natasha N. Jackson and Janin Kleid said in their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Wednesday that they tried to get a marriage license on Nov. 18 but the state Health Department denied them one because they are both women.

Lowe was charged with one count of sexual battery for engaging in sexual conduct by means of sexual intercourse with his 22-year-old stepdaughter, in violation of Ohio Rev. Code § 2907.03(A)(5) . . .

ADF attorney will participate in press conference after oral arguments
concerning motions to throw out trial, recall videotapes

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden will be available for media interviews following oral argument before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in Choice v. Greenstein. Aden will assist co-counsel for the Louisiana Secretary of Health in arguing to uphold a district court decision that threw out the lawsuit, which was filed by abortion clinics that oppose a state law requiring them to meet certain patient health and safety regulations.

This understanding no longer exists in our culture, and some argue that when Americans began divorcing in high numbers, redefined marital sexuality via contraception use, and reduced marriage to mere commitment, it set the stage for our current same-sex marriage debate.

In a rare move, the Health and Human Services Department overruled a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to make the morning after pill available to teenagers without a prescription.

Speaking yesterday at a United Nations event in Geneva, Switzerland marking International Human Rights Day (full text of remarks), U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a strong call for protection of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights . . . ”

The Obama administration is examining the possibility of selling the morning after pill to teenagers and the FDA has until Wednesday to respond to a request from the maker of the Plan B drug to sell it on the shelves and not behind the pharmacist’s counter.

Family law has changed during the past 50 years to the detriment of child well-being, paving the way for the arguments in support of same-sex marriage. But there is a new strategy available to us to respond to this situation. The second in a two-part series.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit Monday agreed to review the only remaining provision of South Dakota’s informed consent law that the court has not already upheld in a failing lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood. The provision requires women to be informed of abortion’s documented risk of suicide.

TimberCreek Bed and Breakfast accused of violating Human Rights Act for hosting weddings, not ‘civil unions’

The federal appeals court in Atlanta has ruled in favor of a former Georgia state legislative aide who was fired amid her sex change.

The Obama administration will begin considering how countries treat gay and lesbian citizens when making decisions about allocating foreign aid, an official familiar with the decision says.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday successfully filibustered the nomination of pro-abortion judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan to replace Supreme Court Justice John Roberts on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, considered to be the nation’s second most important court.

There are only four things Alana Stewart knows about her father: he has blonde hair, blue eyes, a college degree, and his assigned number at the sperm bank where he sold half of Alana’s genetic code is 81.

The Supreme Court was more right than it knew during the past two centuries as it identified the state’s interest in marriage as children and their formation. The first in a two-part series.

Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel Steven H. Aden will provide expert testimony Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee in favor of a bill that would ban all abortions committed on the basis of a child’s sex or race.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review a more-than-16-year legal battle over a New York City “unequal access” policy.

The court denied review in the case of Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York.

LifeSiteNews.com: All of Ontario’s Catholic and public schools will be required to set up gay-straight alliances if students request them, Ontario’s education minister said Thursday as Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government unveiled its new bill to crack down on homosexual bullying.

Breaking from groups that believe human life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized — also the position of the Catholic Church, of which he is a member — former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told ABC News he believes life begins at implantation.

The saying of tradition prayers before local council meetings is being challenged in the High Court today. The National Secular Society is arguing that the religious ritual is ‘archaic’ and ‘inappropriate’ and a breach of human rights.

A federal appeals court says some bone marrow donors can be paid, overturning a decades-old law that made such compensation a crime.

Atlanta J. Constitution: A panel of three federal appeals court judges on Thursday appeared strongly inclined to grant a legal victory to Vandy Beth Glenn, a transgender woman who was fired as a legislative editor at the General Assembly after she disclosed she was going to make the transition from man to woman.

The Notice is available here.

Christian Newswire: Today, the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Parental Notice of Abortion Act of 1995 violates the Illinois State Constitution of 1970. The high Court is expected to grapple with the question of whether, and to what extent, the Illinois Constitution includes protection for abortion rights.

Schools in England are set to receive a copy of the King James Bible from the Government as it marks 400 years of the translation.