Tag Archives: State: Alabama

AL.com: Mike Bolin, the Alabama Supreme Court justice voted five days ago to become Jefferson County attorney, has withdrawn as the county’s top legal adviser.

AL.com: Huntsville Municipal Court Judge Sybil Cleveland agreed with defense attorney Trent Garmon that Fecteau, a 71-year-old grandmother, did not intend to alarm or annoy when she sprayed “holy water” in the direction of two pro-abortion rights supporters last December.

Life Legal Defense Foundation is urging the Alabama Department of Public Health to permanently shut down the unlicensed New Woman, All Women abortion clinic in Birmingham and revoke the medical license of Bruce Norman, who is still performing abortions there in spite of a health department closure of the site.

CNN: But Planned Parenthood immediately warned of “an almost certain legal challenge,” saying the new law’s requirements “would be difficult for nearly all providers to meet” and would shut down clinics.

AL.com: Gov. Robert Bentley on Tuesday will sign into law a bill to place new regulations on abortion clinics passed by the Alabama Legislature last week.

NY Times: The Alabama Legislature late Tuesday adopted stringent new regulations for abortion clinics that supporters called a step to protect women but that others called medically unnecessary and a disguised effort to force the closing of the state’s five abortion clinics.

AP: The bill requires abortion clinics to use doctors who have approval to admit patients to hospitals in the same city.

Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to an Alabama school district Wednesday after it banned the word “Easter” at one of its elementary schools in the “interests of religious diversity.”

LifeNews: The Alabama state health department is looking to shut down an abortion business in Birmingham that is operating illegally without a license.

Education News: Boys and girls at an Alabama elementary school will still get to hunt for eggs – but they can’t call them ‘Easter Eggs’ have the principal banished the word for the sake of religious diversity.

LifeNews: State officials have responded to complaints and indicated they will investigate an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama is operating illegally despite a state mandated order to close.

Life Legal Defense Foundation issued a statement applauding the decision of the Alabama Department of Public Health to investigate the operation of the unlicensed New Woman, All Women abortion clinic in Birmingham.

LifeSiteNews: An Alabama abortion clinic is advertizing for and conducting abortions in violation of Alabama law that requires any facility advertizing as an abortion clinic to be licensed by the state, according to a coalition of pro-life organizations.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle: Alabama’s governor says he will sign tougher abortion clinic regulations if the state Senate approves them.

The American Federation for Children—the nation’s voice for educational choice—today applauded the Alabama legislature for passing and Governor Robert Bentley (R) for his intention to sign, a revamped education bill aimed at providing families with educational options. House Bill 84 passed on Thursday, providing students with the opportunity to transfer out of failing schools and into private, parochial, or other public schools through individual and corporate tax credits.

Reuters: The Alabama House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday that would tighten regulations for abortion clinics in a move critics say could force many in the state to close.

Engage Family Minute: Yes, the authorities in two jurisdictions in the State of Alabama have succeeded in prosecuting two women who took drugs during their pregnancies and thereby caused harm to their unborn children. The Alabama Supreme Court has upheld those convictions.

LifeNews: A pro-life elderly woman has been arrested for sprinkling Holy Water on a public sidewalk outside the local abortion business in Huntsville, Alabama.

AL.com: Today’s ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that the state’s chemical endangerment of a child law also includes protection for unborn children is a landmark victory, said Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange. | In re: Ankrom v. State of Alabama

NY Times: The Supreme Court on Wednesday struggled to decide whether it was capable of doing anything to affect the outcome of a custody dispute before the Sheriff Court in Airdrie, Scotland.

AL.com: Roy Moore, forever known as Alabama’s Ten Commandments judge, has been re-elected chief justice in a triumphant political resurrection after being ousted from that office nearly a decade ago.

Religion Clause Blog: While the Presidential contest obviously looms largest at the polls tomorrow, those interested in church-state and religious liberty issues are watching a number of down-ballot issues and contests . . .

Montgomery Advertiser: Earlier this year, almost no one would have expected the race for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court to be between Roy Moore, a man who was removed from that position almost a decade ago, and Robert Vance Jr., the well-funded son of a federal judge who was assassinated.

Prattville.wsfa.com: An Autauga County school is the latest to receive a letter of complaint from the Freedom From Religion Foundation regarding religious verses displayed on banners by the high school’s cheerleaders.

LifeNews: While most pro-life Americans are understandably focused on the Presidential election and key Congressional races, citizens in several states will also vote on life-related ballot initiatives on November 6th. Below is a summary of these initiatives, and why they are important.

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.

Al.com: University of Alabama President Guy Bailey says the school will continue to offer benefits to employees’ same-sex partners.

Al.com (includes video): “We cannot continue to borrow the future of our children and our grandchildren or we will suffer the consequences. We can’t keep going into debt. We can’t keep disparaging our military and promoting things like same-sex marriage, L-G-B-T. To hear the President of the United States say that we are promoting L-G-B-T. Let’s think about what that is: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered rights,” Moore said. “Same sex marriage will be the ultimate destruction of our country because it destroys the very foundation upon which this nation is based. Divisive, I’ve been accused of being divisive I’ll tell you what’s divisive. It’s this Democratic platform,” Moore said.

AL.com: Several groups opposed to abortion have filed a complaint calling for the Alabama Department of Public Health to revoke the license of Planned Parenthood in Birmingham, alleging two abortions performed while the clinic was on state probation in 2010 resulted in severe medical problems.

Montgomery Advertiser: A state hearing officer has ruled against Kelley Rain-Water in her appeal of the state health department’s denial of her license application to reopen the New Woman All Women Health Care. Rain-Water said she plans to redo the clinic lease that caused concerns at the Department of Public Health and make another application.

NorthEscambia.com: The Escambia County (Ala.) School District has banned prayers at events like football games, but that did not stop a group of Flomaton High students from taking a stand on the football field last Friday. The students stood hand-in-hand along the sidelines before the game in prayer. No faculty or staff took part in the student led, student initiated prayer.

AL.com: Ginger Poynter and Melinda Lee Maddox both said they were ending their candidacies following the Alabama Democratic Party’s decision to disqualify Harry Lyon.

Montgomery Advertiser: Democratic officials did clear Lyon, 60, of campaign finance violations registered in a complaint filed with the party last week. However, they cited Lyon’s statements about gays and lesbians. In comments made on Facebook, Lyon called homosexuals and those who support same-sex marriage “an abomination of God.”

Azhar Majeed of FIRE at The Moral Liberal: Following receipt of a letter from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the University of Alabama has made an important change to university policy in order to protect the freedom of association of religious student organizations on campus. ADF explains . . .

eChristianNews: An Alliance Defending Freedom legal letter has prompted the University of Alabama to update a policy to ensure that faith-based student groups will not be forced to allow opponents of their religious views into the membership or leadership of those groups. The university expressed its willingness to revise its guidelines “to reflect what has in fact been the practice” for many years at the university. “In America, students have the freedom to gather together around shared beliefs and to make membership and leadership decisions in keeping with that freedom,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Litigation Staff Matt Sharp. “We commend the University of Alabama for promptly updating its policy to protect that freedom in keeping with how the university says it has long operated.”

An Alliance Defending Freedom legal letter has prompted the University of Alabama to update a policy to ensure that faith-based student groups will not be forced to allow opponents of their religious views into the membership or leadership of those groups. The university expressed its willingness to revise its guidelines “to reflect what has in fact been the practice” for many years at the university.

Shelby County Reporter: The Nashville-based South Central Conference of Seventh-day Adventists has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming Alabaster allegedly imposes “substantial restraints and burdens” on door-to-door solicitors.

LifeSiteNews: Former Alabama Party Chairman Joe Turnham said, “the national platform does not welcome those who oppose abortion even though our whole life position is a natural fit with Democratic priorities of aiding the hungry, poor and downtrodden.”

The Hill: Former Democratic Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama is officially leaving the party for the GOP, he announced Tuesday.

WAFF.com: The Freedom From Religion Foundation plans to seek legal matters after council announced the decision on the Sylvania welcome signs.

WTVM.com: Two bills aimed at making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion have passed an Alabama House committee.

Washington Examiner: Alabama’s health department said Monday it had denied a company’s application to take over a Birmingham abortion clinic that is now slated for closing over health violations, citing ties between the prospective operator and the current owner.

NECN: The Alabama Legislature has passed a bill saying that terminating an ectopic pregnancy doesn’t count as an abortion under Alabama law . . .

Christian Newswire: ts license was revoked by Consent Order of the Alabama Department of Public Health due to 76 pages of health code violations. However, according to public records reviewed by Life Legal Defense Foundation (LLDF) attorneys, there is already an applicant for a new license to take over operations after the NWAW license must be surrendered.

HSLDA: By enrolling their children in church schools not necessarily located within the city or county where they reside. Home School Legal Defense Association assisted a member family in Tuscaloosa County earlier this month when public school officials challenged their daughter’s enrollment in a church school outside the county. The family not only received a letter from the attendance officer stating that the church school enrollment form filed earlier with the superintendent was unacceptable, but they also received a Notice of Noncompliance with Alabama Compulsory Attendance Law that threatened criminal prosecution in three days.

WAFF.com (includes video): Prayer at Marshall County schools is under fire again. A group that advocates the separation of religion and schools just sent a second letter to Marshall County school leaders.

AP: [Circuit Judge John] Bush said. “It’s disrespectful conduct and I think as judges we’re expected to at least have some degree of control and respect for the courtroom the people have given us charge of.”

AP: The University of Alabama isn’t an Ivy League law school like Yale or Harvard, yet few colleges are better at luring U.S. Supreme Court justices as speakers . . .

Gary Palmer at the Alabama Policy Institute: By now practically everyone in Alabama has seen, heard or read something about public charter schools. Incredibly, most of what is out there is actually deliberate “misinformation” targeting what can be best described as simply increasing educational options for students. Naturally, the AEA is the driving force behind the campaign to discredit educational choice in Alabama.

Christian Newswire: According to an investigation conducted by the Alabama Department of Public Health, the New Woman All Women abortion mill in Birmingham has been found in total violation of numerous public health laws.

Education News: Alabama’s ‘Education Options Act’ moves through public committee hearings as Governor Bentley pushes his education reform agenda.

Catholic Culture: The attorney general of Alabama has joined in a lawsuit filed by the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) to stop the Obama contraception mandate.

Al.com: oy Moore, the past and likely future chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, brushed aside today talk of someone making an independent run against him in November’s general election.

WAVE3.com (includes video): Just how committed are you to your marriage? A new bill up for debate in Montgomery right now would give engaged couples the option of making it harder on themselves to get a divorce.

NY Times: In a serious setback for justice in Alabama, primary voters chose Roy Moore to be their candidate for chief justice of the State Supreme Court in November. He is now the odds-on favorite to win. You may remember that Mr. Moore lost that job in 2003 when a special ethics court removed him from the bench after he defied a court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the state judicial building in Montgomery.

AL.com: Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore — who famously defied a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state courthouse — has roared back from the brink of political oblivion to the cusp of getting his old job back.

The AP reports.

AZ Central (AP): A resurgent Rick Santorum swept primaries in Alabama and Mississippi Tuesday night, upending the race for the Republican presidential nomination yet again and nudging Newt Gingrich toward the sidelines.

Montgomery Advertiser: A federal appeals court Thursday blocked two sections of Alabama’s immigration law, including one that had been partially enjoined by a U.S. District Judge in Montgomery.

The Arab Tribune: Marshall County Schools Superintendent Tim Nabors is responding with what one might call “passive resistance” to a letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation in its call for no more prayers before board meetings and other demands.

AL.com: Moore plunged Alabama into a showdown with a federal judge in 2003 when he erected a monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama judicial building in Montgomery. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson declared the monument to be a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment prohibition against government sponsorship of religion and ordered him to remove it.

AL.com: An organization that advocates the separation of church and state is challenging the Huntsville City Council’s long-standing tradition of opening meetings with a prayer.

ADF Attorney Casey Mattox at Townhall: When Amy Hamilton’s pre-born son died, as a result of what she believed were “negligent acts” by doctors in Dekalb County, Alabama, she sought justice by filing a wrongful death suit. (Alabama law provides recovery for a mother whose preborn child is killed because of another’s negligence.) But Amy faced an obstacle, Roe v. Wade.

WAFF-TV (includes video): Gay rights advocates rallied around the state capital on Sunday hoping lawmakers will change the hate crime law in Alabama.

AL.com: Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker took aim Friday at U.S. abortion law, using a DeKalb County case to call for states to reject the concept of “viability” of a fetus and give legal rights to the unborn. | Hamilton v. Scott

Liberty Counsel: Today the Alabama Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that a mother may pursue a wrongful death claim on behalf of her pre-viable unborn child. In the case of Hamilton v. Scott . . .

OneNewsNow.com: Liberty Counsel is proud of an Alabama school board for standing strong against a complaint filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation concerning religious assemblies.

Times-Journal.com: : Standard insurance plans offered in Alabama would not cover elective abortions if a bill offered by state Sen. Shadrack McGill becomes law.

WAAYTV.com- Huntsville, Alabama Television (includes video): It all started when the board of education received a complaint from a family in the school system and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
They say the so-called “Bible Man”….who leads a program to help students earn Bibles should not be allowed because it’s unconstitutional.

The Montgomery Advertiser | montgomeryadvertiser.com: However, former state Attorney General Charlie Graddick, who is now the presiding circuit court judge in Mobile County, raised more in 2011 than Malone and former Chief Justice Roy Moore.

WHNT.com (includes video): There’s a holiday controversy with school children caught in the middle. Someone protested the use of ‘Silent Night’ in a Christmas program at G.W. Trenholm School in Tuscumbia.

OneNewsNow.com: Roy Moore announced his bid for the post at news conference Tuesday morning on the steps of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery.

Jonathan Berry at The Federalist Society: April Mack sued to recover for the wrongful death of her unborn child, who miscarried after a car accident. The Alabama Supreme Court ultimately vindicated her right to recovery, despite her having miscarried her child before the point of viability. In order to do so, the court found that viability made no sense as a prerequisite to wrongful-death recovery, holding an unborn child’s gestational age irrelevant as a matter of law. Conspicuously, the court never saw fit to even mention the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence and its treatment of viability.

Houston Chronicle (includes video): Hundreds of people turned out to demonstrate their concern over a move to stop pregame prayers at a high school in northwest Alabama.