Tag Archives: Group: Liberty Counsel

Liberty Counsel: “What we ultimately need is a Supreme Court that will understand the rule of law, and abortion has no place in this jurisprudence. It’s not a right under the Constitution. It is simply an invention of justices back in 1973,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Matt Barber at LifeSiteNews: Our sources have provided Liberty Counsel an internal DOJ document titled: “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers.” It was emailed to DOJ managers in advance of the left’s so-called “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month.” The document is chilling. It’s riddled with directives that grossly violate – prima facie –employees’ First Amendment liberties.

Politico: Liberty University’s challenge to the health reform law will go back before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., on Thursday, with the school focused on getting Obamacare back before the Supreme Court. Liberty’s lawsuit is the most wide ranging of the outstanding legal challenges to the health law, hitting everything from contraceptive coverage to the employer mandate.

Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

Liberty Counsel: The City Council of North Miami ignored the threatening, inaccurate letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation in favor of Mission Miami and local pastors, after a letter from Liberty Counsel.

First Coast News: The school board wanted control over what was said and feared a lawsuit if a prayer took place. In fact, a letter sent by the Freedom From Religion Foundation said they would be asking for a lawsuit. A former Navy chaplain in Colorado has weighed in, offering scholarship money to the first student to say the Lord’s Prayer, or pray in the name of Jesus at a graduation ceremony.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel filed its final brief in Liberty University v. Geithner before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals hears our case against ObamaCare on May 16. Liberty Counsel represents Liberty University and two private individuals in this case

Christian Post: The openly gay son of a conservative Republican Congressman has stated that he benefitted from undergoing the controversial practice of reparative therapy as a teenager.

WorldNetDaily: The decision from the Supremes was that the Alien Tort Statute cannot be used to challenge foreign conduct in courts inside the United States. The ruling came down in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, but attorneys for Pastor Scott Lively say it means a claim brought against him by an organization called Sexual Minorities Uganda should be dismissed.

How Appealing links to the audio and several reports.

AP: A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is considering two legal challenges to the ban on “sexual orientation change efforts” that was passed by the California Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown last fall. | Liberty Counsel Press Release

Citizen Link: Liberty Counsel testified before Congress today outlining one of a series of incidents that suggests the Department of Justice (DOJ) violated the Constitution by initiating prosecutions for political reasons.

AP: Rival legal teams, well-financed and highly motivated, are girding for court battles over the coming months on laws enacted in Arkansas and North Dakota that would impose the nation’s toughest bans on abortion.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: The nature of constitutional law is such that when I litigate or file briefs on religious liberty issues, I survey and cite to the Supreme Court’s decisions and religious liberty historical facts in this country going back to when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were first adopted. Doing so recently, it vividly struck me that in all of American history religious liberty has never been as gravely threatened as it is today, especially for Christians. One need only look at the cases being litigated by public-interest law firms, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Institute, Becket Fund, and Liberty Counsel.

World Net Daily: Ken Connelly, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund told WND in an interview that he “would not characterize it that way,” but yet said, “There is an inherent contradiction” today because the executive branch is refusing to enforce and defend the law of the land. He said that is “incorrect” from a legal standpoint . . . The Supreme Court has made clear that defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman is constitutional as a matter of public policy. Thus, Congress and President Clinton acted constitutionally when DOMA was enacted. The wisest course is for the Supreme Court to resist demands to prematurely end the national debate over the future of marriage. The court should respect the freedom of both Congress and citizens to affirm a bedrock social institution that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western Civilization,” said Austin Nimocks, senior counsel for the ADF. [more]

One News Now: Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jim Campbell explains why the case is important to those who hold a traditional view on marriage. “If the Defense of Marriage Act is overturned, it will send the message that the government can no longer affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman,” he laments. “It will essentially say that even though throughout history diverse cultures and faiths have upheld marriage as the ideal, as the union of a man and a woman, it will say that here in America we can no longer do that.”

Baptist Press: Afterward, a co-counsel for Prop 8′s supporters said they have been asking the same question as Scalia.”At what point in time did marriage, this cornerstone of civilization and the bedrock of our society, all of a sudden become unconstitutional? And we don’t believe obviously it ever has,” Austin Nimocks, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told Baptist Press. “We believe Americans have the constitutional right to uphold, support and defend marriage as it has always been. And so we certainly are hopeful that the Supreme Court agrees with us.”

Liberty Counsel is pleased to welcome the Florida Faith & Works Coalition into the Liberty Counsel family! Comprised of over 600 Florida pastors plus supporting volunteers, Florida Faith & Works Coalition is built on the belief that America was established as a Christian nation, and the guardian of those Biblical principles has always been His church.

The Recorder: Next month, five SOCE counselors will go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, seeking to enjoin the law as an unconstitutional intrusion on the doctor-patient relationship. Although associated with conservative Christian causes, their attorneys come armed with a powerful liberal precedent: a 2002 Ninth Circuit ruling that forbade the government from cracking down on doctors for recommending medical marijuana.

Robert Knight at Townhall: The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has lost its six-year campaign to tear down a Ten Commandments monument at the Dixie County, Florida courthouse. They’ve even lost their usual extortion money for harassing a community.

Matthew Staver at Orlando Sentinel: A national uproar apparently caused the executive board of the Boy Scouts of America to postpone until May a vote on whether to allow homosexual Scouts and Scoutmasters among their ranks.

Liberty Counsel: California ban on change therapy (SB 1172), which would ban any counseling to minors seeking to diminish or eliminate unwanted same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, or identity. On December 21, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pickup v. Brown granted Liberty Counsel’s emergency motion to temporarily block the law from going into effect on January 1, 2013, as scheduled.

Liberty Counsel: After nearly six years of effort, culminating in a yearlong battle with Charlotte County’s zoning board, Lutheran Church of the Cross will now be able to build a 60-foot monument cross on its 11-acre property.

Religion Clause Blog: In 2006, Dixie County, Florida commissioners approved a request by citizens to permit them to place a 5-foot tall, 6-ton granite Ten Commandments monument at the county courthouse. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the monument on behalf of an ACLU member, identified only as John Doe, who did not live in Dixie County, but said he was looking to purchase property there on which he and his wife could park their recreational vehicle.

FRC: Three public interest law firms (Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, and Liberty Institute) have offered to give counsel to BSA in their efforts to maintain their policy. Those standing with the Scouts are strong in number, but the other side will continue to use bullying tactics to eliminate this common sense policy. This is why we must redouble our efforts.

ABC2: In a letter to top Boy Scout officials, Liberty Institute, Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defending Freedom note that the Supreme Court upheld the ban as part of scouting’s self-defined mission to instill morals, so making gay membership optional would suggest the Boy Scouts no longer consider homosexuality immoral.

Biz Journals: Making the proposed policy change would have profound implications regarding religious liberty and First Amendment rights,” said Liberty Institute President Kelly Shackelford in concert with Mathew Staver, Chairman and Founder of Liberty Counsel, and Gary McCaleb, Chief Solicitor and Executive Vice President of Alliance Defending Freedom. “We are also happy to provide representation to protect your First Amendment rights if you choose to continue respecting and adhering to your longstanding view of what the Scout Oath means when a scout promises to be “morally straight.”

Counton2.com: In a letter to top Boy Scout officials, Liberty Institute, Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defending Freedom note that the Supreme Court upheld the ban as part of scouting’s self-defined mission to instill morals, so making gay membership optional would suggest the Boy Scouts no longer consider homosexuality immoral. The letter says that would expose scout troops that disagree to discrimination lawsuits they can’t afford.

One News Now: In a letter to top Boy Scout officials, Liberty Institute, Liberty Counsel and the Alliance Defending Freedom note that the Supreme Court upheld the ban as part of scouting’s self-defined mission to instill morals, so making homosexual membership optional would suggest the Boy Scouts no longer consider homosexuality immoral.

Citizen Link: Alliance Defending Freedom filed its brief Tuesday, arguing that the court should affirm the validity and rational basis of California’s marriage amendment. “Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western Civilization,” said ADF Senior Counsel Austin R. Nimocks.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel is filing two amicus briefs with the United States Supreme Court on two marriage cases, the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) (U.S. v. Windsor) and California’s Proposition 8 (Hollingsworth v. Perry), a state marriage amendment. The High Court will decide both cases by the end of the term in June 2013. “We are at a pivotal point in history,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “Nothing will define the future of America more than the Court’s decision on marriage.”

Christian Post: David Cortman, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Christian Post that the board punished Tutka for a crime he did not commit. “It is often said that the punishment should fit the crime. This doesn’t …

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel will represent Rev. Scott Lively, an evangelical pastor who was sued by the foreign group called Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG). The suit heard by the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts, alleges that Rev. Lively committed “crimes against humanity” in violation of “international law,” simply by sharing his Biblical views on homosexuality during a 2009 visit to Uganda.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel filed its Opening Brief at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals against the California ban on change therapy (SB 1172), which would ban any counseling to minors seeking to diminish or eliminate unwanted same-sex sexual attractions, behavior or identity. On December 21, 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pickup v. Brown granted Liberty Counsel’s Emergency Motion to temporarily block the law from going into effect on January 1, 2013, as previously scheduled.

How Appealing links to reports on the ruling and the opinion in Pickup v. Brown. Liberty Counsel press release: Ninth Circut Court of Appeals Blocks California’s Ban on Change Therapy

Andy Norman at Bell Towers: Most scholars, jurists, and those who love God recognize that preserving our religious freedoms in the United States today is inseparably linked with promoting religious diversity. When the new, the small, the controversial, and the unpopular are able to express their beliefs freely, we all benefit. That freedom, however, comes under attack every Christmastime. . . . In support of an accurate reading of the Establishment Clause numerous groups have joined the battle in recent years. These include the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian Legal Society, TMLC, Liberty Council and many others. Thanks to these organizations and the private law firms and attorneys willing to take these cases, the tide may be turning.

LA Times: The dispute is before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is expected to decide within the next several days whether to put the law on hold before it takes effect Jan. 1.

Liberty Counsel: Late last night, Liberty Counsel filed a request for an emergency appeal and declarations in support of our appeal, asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to block California law SB 1172 which goes into effect on January 1, 2013. The law will ban any counsel that seeks to reduce or eliminate same-sex sexual attractions, behavior, or identity.

Sacramento Bee: On Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Kimberly J. Mueller ruled that the law prohibiting licensed mental health providers from steering patients under 18 away from gay and lesbian lifestyles does not infringe on the suing providers’ constitutional guarantee …

The Hill: he Stop Harming Our Kids Resolution, H.Con.Res. 141, is a sense of Congress resolution that finds efforts to change the sexual orientation of minors are harmful, and should be prohibited.

SCOTUS Blog: The Supreme Court on Monday arranged for a Virginia university to go forward with new challenges to two key sections of the new federal health care law — the individual and employer mandates to have insurance coverage. The Court did so by returning the case of Liberty University v. Geithner (docket 11-438) to the Fourth Circuit Court to consider those challenges.

The Guardian: So, when the IRS sits on its hands while Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky commands all the priests in his diocese to read an anti-Obama letter at mass; when the IRS pretends not to be interested while Billy Graham runs full-page ads in national newspapers on the eve of the election whose message is a transparent endorsement of Mitt Romney; when the IRS has nothing to say about the fact that on 7 October, at least 1,000 pastors participated in “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” by explicitly endorsing political candidates from their pulpits – we can only suppose that the IRS has decided to ignore its own code.

Liberty Counsel: “This law places the state between the client and the counselor,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “This law intrudes on the fundamental right of self-determination to seek counseling that aligns with the client’s religious and moral values. This law forces counselors to overrule their clients who choose to prioritize their religious or moral values above unwanted same-sex sexual attractions,” said Staver.

Liberty Counsel: Today Liberty Counsel is launching its tenth annual “Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign,” pledging to be a “Friend” to those who recognize Christmas and a “Foe” to those who censor it.

WDBJ7.com: Roanoke County lawyer Paul Mahoney said he put in a lot of work to draft a policy that didn’t discriminate or set out to cause any religious divides. Mahoney got help drafting the 12-page resolution from the Liberty Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: Unless they’ve been living under a rock, most Americans have heard that the Supreme Court decided a constitutional challenge to Obamacare’s infamous Individual Mandate in NFIB v. Sebelius. Plenty of Americans are unaware, however, that out of over 30 cases challenging the Mandate, NFIB was only one of five challenges that were considered serious and credible. Another one of those major cases was Liberty University v. Geithner, argued by the university’s law school dean Mat Staver, who is also chairman of Liberty Counsel, a public-interest law firm.

CNSNews: Erik Stanley, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund), said flatly that CREW’s complaint is “bogus.” “This is a favorite tactic of advocacy groups that believe in a radical secularist view of America,” Stanley …

Matt Barber at LIfe News: The jig is up. The news is out. Pastors across America have called the left’s bluff. The empty words “separation of church and state” – a phrase found nowhere in the U.S. Constitution – have lost their sting . . . But there’s a back story. Since 2008, the Christian legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has spearheaded a First Amendment exercise called “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” Since then, thousands of pastors across America have boldly exercised their guaranteed constitutional rights by addressing “political” issues from the pulpit. This has included directly endorsing candidates. These pastors have dared the IRS to come after them and, not surprisingly, the IRS has balked.

ChristianNews.net: A school district in Wayne, Indiana has banned a local youth pastor from speaking to students about spiritual matters at lunchtime.

Liberty Counsel: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the Oklahoma Personhood Initiative case of Personhood Oklahoma v. Barber. Last spring, the Oklahoma Supreme Court stopped a citizen’s initiative before it was even placed on the ballot.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief at the federal court of appeals in support of defunding Planned Parenthood. At issue is an Arizona law barring public funding for abortion clinics and doctors.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel filed suit in federal court challenging the new law (SB 1172) that bans any counseling to diminish, eliminate, or manage same-sex sexual attractions. Liberty Counsel represents several parents and their children who are receiving and benefiting from such counseling, several licensed counselors, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), and the American Association for Christian Counselors (AACC), an organization with about 50,000 professional counseling members.

Liberty Counsel Action: vote is imminently expected in the New Jersey State Senate regarding a
controversial bill that creates new burdens on folks seeking religious exemptions from the state’s
mandatory vaccination requirements.

Liberty Counsel: In anticipation that California Governor Jerry Brown would sign the new law banning change therapy, Liberty Counsel has been preparing a lawsuit on behalf of counselors, parents and their minor children, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).

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.

WSET ABC 13 (includes video): The group Alliance Defending Freedom says it’s the pastor’s job, not the IRS, to determine what is said from the pulpit. The group is also asking pastors to send their sermons to the IRS, in hopes a court battle ensues.

Lisa Shaw Roy, The Evangelical Footprint, 2011 Michigan State Law Review 1235-1291.

Funding for evangelical advocacy received a boost with the formation of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) in 1994. Prominent movement leaders, such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, formed ADF to fund litigation and to coordinate the efforts of Christian litigation firms.

ADF has been responsible for providing funding in several high profile cases, including Rosenberger, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. ADF also sponsors litigation firms with overlapping interests, such as the Christian Law Association, Pacific Justice Institute, the Home School Legal Defense Fund, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, to name a few. While ADF began solely as an umbrella organization to provide funds to individual lawyers and law firms, ADF now also takes its own cases.

Though its success as a funding organization seems apparent given, for example, the number of Supreme Court amicus curiae briefs that disclose ADF support, some opine that its success in coordinating evangelical litigation efforts has been mixed.

Douglas County Sentinel: At last Friday’s Haralson County Rebels football game, thousands of residents came out to show their support for the team; however, many were reportedly there to show their support for team prayer.

One News Now: A federal appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling that upheld the removal of Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) from a Minnesota public school.

Liberty Counsel: “If the bill is signed into law, Liberty Counsel will sue on behalf of counselors, parents, and minors who provide, refer, or who receive and have found change therapy to be beneficial,” said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel: A federal appeals court ruled today that the Minneapolis Special School District No. 1 engaged in viewpoint discrimination when it removed Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) from the after-school program. Overturning a lower court decision, in a 3-0 decision the court of appeals stated, “When the government targets a particular viewpoint taken by speakers on a general subject, the First Amendment is violated.” Liberty Counsel represented CEF in this case.

Freedom from Religion Foundation: The Aug. 27 letter by FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel to Superintendent Damon Raines points out that Liberty Counsel’s “no cost” representation offer, which the Liberty Counsel mistakenly sent to Walker County, Ala., instead of Walker County, Ga., is “disingenuous.” Seidel explained, “Even with pro bono legal representation, a court battle could cost Walker County taxpayers thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel offered free counsel and legal defense to Georgia’s Walker County Public School Board in response to the recent threats from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). In its letter to the school superintendent, FFRF makes a number of assertions, leading off with the most ridiculous: “Taking public school football teams to church, even for a meal, is unconstitutional.”

GodDiscussion.com (includes video): Preaching politics from the pulpit is becoming an important focus of religious right groups lately. Last month, Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund) complained that pastors were forced to live in a climate of “fear and intimidation” because of complaints of IRS tax code violations by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and other organizations. Alliance Defending Freedom encourages pastors to preach politics on “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” each October.

Liberty Counsel: A federal appeals court has reversed the decision in American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Inc. v. Dixie County Florida. Last summer, a U.S. District Judge ruled in favor of the ACLU and ordered Dixie County to remove the six-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments. Today’s ruling reverses that decision and sends the case back down to the district court on standing.

Liberty Counsel: As of today, Liberty Counsel has sponsors for 99,750 copies of the “Patriot’s Handbook of Religious Freedom in Public Schools” — one for literally every public school in America!

Liberty Counsel: Today, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, was asked to review a challenge to the New York legislature’s vote regarding the redefinition of marriage to include people of the same gender.

Liberty Counsel: Miami-Dade County School Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho has backed down from his threat to revoke the lease from Impact Miami Church and Pastor Jack Hakimian. The Superintendent threatened to review the lease following a sermon by Pastor Hakimian, in which he spoke about the intolerance of those who espouse the homosexual agenda.

One News Now: Liberty Counsel is cautioning a Miami-Dade County school superintendent against using a pastor’s sermon about homosexuality as reason to rescind his church’s lease.

Liberty Counsel: Today, Liberty Counsel filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision removing a proposed Personhood citizen-initiative from the ballot.

PublicEye.org (authored by Kapya John Kaoma and published by Political Research Associates): Conference panelists varied from a new brand of less vitriolic pro-traditional family advocates such as Dr. W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at University of Virginia, to Piero Tozzi, an attorney for the right-wing Christian group the Alliance Defense Fund, to Floyd Godfrey, a practitioner of the harmful and discredited practice of reparative or conversion therapy for “treating” same-sex attraction . . . The ACLJ is now one of the principal legal advocacy groups in the conservative movement, along with the Alliance Defense Fund, Liberty Counsel, the Liberty Institute, and the Thomas More Law Center.
The group has built strong partnerships with many Religious Right groups, including the Christian Defense Coalition, Faith and Action,
the American Family Association, and WallBuilders. Its reach has expanded globally with affiliates in countries including France, Israel, , Kenya, Pakistan, Russia, Zimbabwe, and Brazil.

SCOTUS Blog: Now, a Virginia university is seeking to revive its challenge to both mandates. It has asked the Court for a new order that would revive its challenges in a lower federal court. It did so in a rehearing petition, filed on Monday. The Court seldom grants such petitions, but it definitely has the power to do so. Liberty University, a religion-oriented private college in Lynchburg, Va., had its own case pending among the petitions from which the Justices chose in granting review of the Affordable Care Act (Liberty University v. Geithner, 11-438).

LifeNews (includes video): Pro-bono legal foundations like LLDF, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Liberty Counsel have taken a stand to defend these innocent pro-lifers. Thankfully the sidewalk counselors have either had witnesses or video evidence to defend their actions.

IB Times: While Florida’s controversial school prayer law officially took effect on Sunday, both supporters and opponents of the “inspirational message” legislation have acknowledged that the law is primarily a political one aimed at boosting Republican candidates ahead of the November elections and is unlikely to be implemented by school districts.

Liberty Counsel: The Foundations of Law and Government display, including the tablets of the Ten Commandments, will remain on the walls of Narrows High School, following a settlement approved by the Giles County School Board. Liberty Counsel represents the school board against the ACLU of Virginia.