Tag Archives: State: Connecticut

Freedom From Religion Foundation: In a Jan. 10 letter of complaint to Mayor John DeStefano of New Haven, Conn., the Freedom From Religion Foundation cautioned the city against “taking an unconstitutional proposal to ‘put prayer back in schools’ seriously.” Newly elected City Clerk Ronald Smith proposed prayer as a technique to lower crime rates at his inauguration ceremony

Courthouse News Service: The ACLU, American Jewish Committee, American Center for Law and Justice and Alliance Defense Fund all filed amicus briefs in the case.

BabyCenter: According to the article, an increasing number of grandparents are challenging state visitation laws, which they believe are overly restrictive, yet, at the same time, inconsistent from state to state.

News from The Associated Press: The mother of a Connecticut man facing a possible death sentence for killing a woman and her two daughters in a home invasion testified Monday she suspected he was visiting hundreds of pornographic adult websites days before the crime.

Connecticut Post: The item, introduced by Councilman Robert Walsh, D-132, in May, would have required “sexually oriented” establishments to obtain annual licenses.

Beliefnet News: Members of the football team stomped out of a Hartford, Connecticut, high school assembly when a pro-homosexual advocacy play featured two boys kissing on stage.

The Middletown Press: Abortion providers in Connecticut may be underreporting the number of procedures to the state Department of Public Health, which could mean those providers are not complying with other laws, such as counseling pregnant women before they receive an abortion, according to the Connecticut Catholic Public Affairs Conference.

LifeSiteNews.com: Several students at a Hartford high school expressed horror and left the auditorium when two male members of a city-funded school play shared a passionate kiss onstage on Friday. School officials said they opted against informing parents about the event ahead of time, saying that the students needed exposure to homosexuality, and hailed the “chaotic” reaction as a victory for raising the gay issue.

In what experts say is the first case of its kind, a disabled Navy veteran from Connecticut is challenging the constitutionality of two federal laws that define marriage as being between opposite-sex partners, saying the government denied her veterans benefits because she is married to a woman.

Religion Clause: In Dayner v. Archdiocese of Hartford, (CT Sup. Ct., release date 8/2/2011), the Connecticut Supreme Court adopted the Second Circuit’s version of the “ministerial exception” doctrine and dismissed claims by the principal of a Catholic school that she she was wrongfully terminated from her position. In reaching this conclusion the court focused on a split among circuits . . .

Courant.com: The U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee approved U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney’s nomination to the federal appeals court by a unanimous voice vote Thursday morning, sending the appointment to almost certain approval in the full Senate.

Bay Windows (“New England’s largest publication for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered reader”): Legislation bars discrimination based on gender identity or expression.

Religion Clause: In Kubala v. Hartford Roman Catholic Diocesan, 2011 Conn. Super. LEXIS 1260 (CT Super. Ct., May 20, 2011), a Connecticut state trial court dismissed a lawsuit brought against a Catholic priest, his church and the Hartford Diocese seeking damages for injuries plaintiff received when, during a Catholic Charismatic Renewal healing service she was physically injured.

LifeSiteNews.com: If minors require parental consent to use a tanning bed, shouldn’t they also require it to get an abortion? That was the seemingly commonsense thinking behind a Connecticut senator’s move to amend a bill that was before the state senate – a move that ultimately contributed to the bill’s demise.

Hartford Courant: The measure, which passed on a largely party-line vote of 20-16, seeks to bar discrimination in the workplace or while seeking housing or obtaining credit based on gender identity and expression. I

NBCConnecticut.com: Connecticut lawmakers have passed a bill providing protection from gender identity discrimination.

How Appealing links a news report and the ruling in Doninger v. Niehoff.

Hartford Courant: The General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee ran out of time Wednesday to act on the legislation. A new date for a committee vote, one of the first steps in the legislative process, has not yet been scheduled.

Hartford Courant: Judge Lubbie Harper told his life story Friday to the legislature’s judiciary committee, which later approved his nomination to the Connecticut Supreme Court.

Religion Clause Blog: “Yesterday’s Hartford Courant reports that the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division is seeking approval from the Solicitor General’s office to intervene to defend the constitutionality of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act which is being challenged by defendants in a Connecticut federal district court lawsuit.”

Christian Science Monitor: So far, five senators have announced that they will retire at the end of of their terms rather than seek reelection. With the 2012 campaigns not far off, the departures of these incumbents are shaking things up. Here’s how.”

Blog of the Legal Times: “Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is recommending a Day Pitney partner and a former Cravath, Swaine & Moore partner for vacancies on the busy federal bench in Manhattan.”

LifeNews: “Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, one of the most prominent members of the US Senate, announced this week he would not seek reelection in 2012 . . . Connecticut is incredibly favorable to pro-abortion candidates.”

Leonard Link: “The Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously ruled on January 7 that state laws governing parental status should be construed to authorize listing a same-sex co-parent on the birth certificates of children conceived pursuant to a gestational surrogacy agreement, even though the co-parent has no genetic relationship to the children. In Raftopol v. Ramey, SC 18482, the court rejected the state’s argument that the co-parent would have to go through a second-parent adoption proceeding in order to be listed on the birth certificates . . .”

CNSNews: “The Coast Guard has named the first female superintendent of its academy in Connecticut, and says she will be the first woman to lead a U.S. military service academy.”

Catholic News Agency: “Bishop William E. Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut has warned the faithful of his diocese that their fight for religious freedom has just begun, despite the defeat of a law that would have stripped authority from Catholic clergy.”

Edge Boston: “The Defense of Marriage Act faced a two-pronged attack on Nov. 9 as two separate organizations and sets of lawyers, representing different plaintiffs, filed lawsuits in federal court challenging the federal definition of marriage.”

Michael Foust writes at Baptist Press: “‘This is a full-court press against marriage, and it’s one to be concerned about,’ [Dale Schowengerdt], an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which opposes the suits, told Baptist Press.”

OneNewsNow: “‘As it stands, there are [at least] four separate lawsuits…challenging the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court right now,’ explains [Dale Showengerdt], an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). ‘They’re all basically the same. It represents kind of a full-court press by the left against the Defense of Marriage Act.’”

Christian Post: “The American Civil Liberties Union and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders both filed lawsuits Tuesday on behalf of same-sex couples trying to receive federal benefits from their partners. In GLAD’s case, the advocate group filed a lawsuit on behalf of five same-sex couples and widowed partner across three states – Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire . . . ADF Legal Council [Dale Schowengerdt] explained that GLAD put multiple plaintiffs on the lawsuit because ‘their legal arguments are a little bit thin and they focus a lot on the stories of these couples and basically make an emotional appeal.’”

Boston.com (AP): “The lawsuits were filed in federal courts in Connecticut and New York and come just months after a federal judge in Boston struck down a key component of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.”

“Ms. Pedersen and Ms. Meitzen plan to file a lawsuit Tuesday against the government in an effort to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing marriages of same-sex couples.”

Connecticut Law Tribune: “[In Thibodeau v. American Baptist Churches of Connecticut, 120 Conn. App. 666 (2010),] Timothy Thibodeau, an ordained Baptist minister, claimed that American Baptist Churches of Connecticut (Baptist Churches), which provides placement services to Baptist ministers, committed several torts when it declined to recommend him to congregations seeking ministers . . . [The Connecticut Appellate Court] concluded that the First Amendment prohibited civil courts from adjudicating disputes that revolve around church doctrine or church administration.”

Deseret News (LA Times): “The scenic village green of Litchfield has long symbolized the charms of Connecticut small-town life. Settled in 1721, it hosts tourists drawn by its Revolutionary War history . . . This summer, a federal judge ruled that sufficient evidence of ‘discrimination against Jewish people’ may exist, warranting a trial over the Borough of Litchfield’s denial of a Hasidic group’s application to build a synagogue on the west end of Litchfield Green.”

ADF Attorney Joel Oster writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “So let me see if I can understand the left’s agenda. Holding a secular graduation ceremony in a comfortable church auditorium is unconstitutional because of the mere fact the students have to physically be in a church building. But taking public school kids to a mosque, teaching them about Islam, telling them they have to obey Allah, and then leading the boys in a prayer service is just ‘learning about a culture?’ Talk about a double standard.”

Public News Service: “Investigative reporter Jesse Zwick found the Knights openly spent millions in support of California’s gay marriage ban. He says the group also fought marriage equality in Maine, but tried to do so below the radar.”

Associated Press: “The Hartford City Council’s decision to replace a scheduled Islamic prayer with an interfaith moment of silence before its meeting sends the wrong message to Connecticut’s Islamic community, Muslim leaders said.”

Hartford Courant / CityLine: “The Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations will hold a prayer vigil Monday on the steps of city hall to protest the city council’s decision to call off its pre-meeting prayer, which was to be an Islamic invocation.”

Associated Press: “Officials in Connecticut’s capital city say they won’t include Muslim prayers before council meetings after getting mostly negative feedback from the public.”

WTNH: “A battle over religion is heating up in Hartford after the city council invites local Muslim leaders to say prayers before its city council meetings . . . ‘I have my doubts,’ Tom Fitzpatrick of Hartford said. ‘I really don’t want to say them but I do have doubts about the whole thing.’” More from Fox News.

Jeannie DeAngelis writing at American Thinker: “Although Hartford City Council meetings ‘don’t regularly begin with any form of prayer,’ the Common Council has decided to act on behalf of ‘solidarity,’ not with traditional Judeo-Christian faiths, which thus far have been anathema, but rather with Islam. In September, the New England town of Hartford has invited ‘local imams to perform Islamic invocations at the beginning of the Council meetings.’”

Hartford Courant: “Last month, a federal district court judge ruled that sufficient evidence of ‘discrimination against Jewish people’ may exist, warranting a trial over the Borough of Litchfield’s denial of a conservative Hasidic group’s application to build a synagogue on the west end of the green. The ruling virtually guarantees a trial this fall on a controversy that has deeply divided this celebrated tourist town and attracted national media attention.”

ADF Attorney Joel Oster writing at Speak Up Movement / Church: “A recent decision by a federal district court in Connecticut has sent a very troubling message to those holding religious beliefs – you are not full members of society, but second class citizens! . . . In an effort to appease the anti-religious crowd, the courts are now stripping away the basic rights of Christians. Last month, a federal district court stopped the Enfield Public School District from holding graduation ceremonies at the First Cathedral, a very large Baptist church in the area.”

Yale Daily News: “Rizzolo’s laboratory is one of about a dozen facilities on campus that use stem cells. Haifan Lin, director of the Yale Stem Cell Center, said he did not yet know how the moratorium will affect Yale researchers . . . ‘The American people should not be forced to pay for experiments — prohibited by federal law — that destroy human life,’ said [Steven Aden], the legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which advised the party that brought the lawsuit to court.”

Fairfield Weekly: “[L]ast week, Connecticut got its first openly gay candidate for statewide office when Kevin Lembo won a smashing victory in the Democratic primary for state comptroller . . . Lembo crushed Jarjura by taking 70 percent of the primary vote. Some Connecticut politicians believe part of the reason for Jarjura’s humiliating defeat was Democratic voter anger over what was viewed as the anti-gay attitudes of Jarjura and his supporters.”

Connecticut Post: “After igniting a firestorm of controversy last week, a Christian gospel outreach group, Operation Save America Connecticut, said Friday it is not done preaching the gospel outside a Fairfield Avenue mosque.”

ChristianNewsWire: “In an unprecedented move, Muslim leaders in Connecticut are staging a press conference in Hartford this afternoon, to plead with legislators to censor the Gospel of Christ from the public forum around mosques.”

Thaindian News: “In Connecticut the Muslim leaders have asked for police protection as the holy month of Ramzan has started. They were scared by the threat issued by a group. They were confronted by a protester group on Friday and after that they are worried about worshiping without obstruction. Reportedly the worshippers were threatened at Bridgeport’s Masjid An-Noor mosque by a group named Operation Save America and the protesters stayed there for an hour. The protesters shouted at the Muslim worshippers with a bullhorn. The protest by the group has made the Muslims in Connecticut alarmed.”

The Inquirer: “Online Classified Ads Network Craigslist is facing a call for it to shut down its adult section from Connecticut’s attorney general after claims were made that the online service is used to advertise child sex trafficking.”

Hartford Courant / Capitol Watch: “U.S. Senate Republicans have derailed President Obama’s nomination of Hartford district judge Robert N. Chatigny to the federal appeals court . . . The nomination is opposed by Judiciary committee Republicans who say Chatigny exceeded his judicial authority when he intervened in the case of notorious, serial killer Michael B. Ross and postponed Ross’s execution.”

NBC Connecticut: “Muslim leaders in Connecticut are asking police to ensure that they can worship without being harassed after a group was confronted on Friday.”

Minuteman News Center: “The Jewish Home for the Elderly was denied the zoning amendment that it proposed, while St. Pius X Church was granted its request for a ‘special exception,’ when the Town Planning and Zoning Commission met on Tuesday night at McKinley Elementary School.”

AP: “A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out part of Connecticut’s controversial public campaign financing law, a complex ruling that could have an immediate effect on the 2010 campaigns.” | | Green Party of Connecticut v. Garfield, Nos. 09-3760-cv(L), 09-3941-cv(CON) (2nd Cir. July 13, 2010)

Law.com: “It may sound like a sad but legally straightforward malpractice case. But an interesting appeal is expected in the coming months on an issue that lawyers say has never been taken up anywhere in the country. When Mueller died, she left behind her lifelong same-sex partner Charlotte Stacey, on whose behalf the malpractice lawsuit included a claim of loss of consortium. But a state judge in 2006 dismissed the claim on the grounds that the same-sex pair was not married when the negligence occurred . . . ”

ADF Attorney Steven H. Aden writing at the Christian Post / Advancing Religious Liberty: “A Connecticut trial court last week turned back an attempt by pro-euthanasia doctors to re-define the criminal law prohibiting assisted suicide to allow them to kill their patients. … The decision granting the State’s motion to dismiss, issued June 1, 2010, held that there was no justiciable controversy for the court to consider, because the assisted suicide statute and its legislative history ‘make it quite clear that assisting a suicide, even for humanitarian reasons, is a crime.’”

SentinelSource.com: “‘Churches shouldn’t be singled out for discrimination and penalized by a city’s zoning restrictions because of their religious viewpoint,’ said [Doug Napier], senior legal counsel for the group. ‘It was right that Saint Benedict Center was compensated for years of unconstitutional restrictions that made it impossible to finish the construction of its church and school building.’”

The Keene Sentinel: “On Friday, the $1.15 million settlement with the conservative Catholic St. Benedict Center was announced. The deal is one of the largest of its kind, according to the Alliance Defense Fund.” | ADF News Release

“That patient who received the embryos was informed of the error within an hour and decided to take the ‘morning after’ pill to prevent the pregnancy, according to state records.”

Hartford Courant: “‘I hope there is a transformation in the way politics are done in this city, so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past,’ said Segarra, who would become the city’s first openly gay mayor.”

New Haven Register: “All it took was one complaint for the school district to make a small but significant change to diplomas that will be handed out at graduations this week. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, diplomas for New Haven high school students were printed without the phrase ‘in the year of our Lord.’” | Via Religion Clause.

Jeff Milyo has this post at the Volokh Conspiracy discussing legislative and administrative efforts to bully the Catholic Church in Connecticut.

“With the support of Sen. Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., the federal government has awarded $54 million to Connecticut’s politically well-connected Mohegan Indian tribe, which operates one of the highest grossing casinos in the U.S.”

NorwalkPlus.com: Governor M. Jodi Rell today announced that the state has awarded $9.8 million in grants to support nearly two dozen stem cell research projects by scientists at the University of Connecticut and at Yale. The grants are part of the $100 million Stem Cell Research Fund, which was created by legislation that Governor Rell signed into law in 2005 making Connecticut just the third state in the nation to offer public funding for human stem cell research.” [The report provides more details on some of the projects which include embryonic stem cell research]

Hartford Courant: “Board member Donna Szewczak said she voted Tuesday night to approve the appeal — after voting against it last week — because ‘we needed to take a strong stance’ and strengthen the district’s defense against a May lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”

The New Canaan Advertiser: “[W]hen alumni of St. Luke’s School were told last week the school mascot, the Crusader, was being retired this month, many objected . . . ‘In the process of reviewing all that data, one of the things that we discovered that was unique about the school was that sense of community. That we hold that as a value very highly,’ he said. Henson said in light of that sense of community, ‘we wanted something more inclusive than the Crusader.’”

Hartford Courant: “The Enfield Board of Education has scheduled a second vote on whether to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that blocked the town from holding its two high schools graduations this year at a Bloomfield megachurch.”

Blick v. Office of the Div. of Criminal Justice, No. CV-09-5033392 (Conn. Super. Ct, June 1, 2010)

Excerpts:

This is an action for declaratory and injunctive relief by two connecticut physicians who ask this court to allow them to engage in physician-assisted suicide. Specifically, the physicians ask this court to order the defendant State’s Attorneys not to prosecute them, or any other physician, for manslaughter under Connecticut General Statutes §53a-56 if they provide “aid in dying” by prescribing letahl medication to competent, terminally ill patients to enable those patients to kill themselves.

Connecticut General Statutes §53a-56(a) provides that “[a] person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when . . . (2) he intentionally causes or aids another person, other than by force duress or deception to commit suicide.”

The defendants have moved to dismiss the action . . . The case is hereby dismissed because it is barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity and, as state above, it presents a nonjusticiable claim, one which must be decided by the Connecticut legislature, and not by the court . . . .

Fox News on ACLJ (includes video): “With the clock ticking, the Enfield School Board voted Thursday night not to appeal a preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Janet Hall, who ruled Monday that it was unconstitutional for the district’s two high schools to hold their commencement ceremonies at a church . . . ‘I was shocked. I was stunned,’ said Vincent McCarthy, the attorney with the American Center for Law and Justice, which is handling the case. ‘I thought the decision was pro forma. We had a good chance.’ . . . School Board Chairman Greg Stokes was also surprised. Up until the start of Thursday night’s meeting, he’d gotten assurances from five board members that they would vote for the appeal . . . ”

Hartford Courant: “Enfield school officials voted 5-4 Thursday night against appealing a federal judge’s temporary injunction . . . Vincent McCarthy, a lawyer representing the school district, says he’s going to seek a jury trial and plans to fight to allow graduations at the church in the future.”

Associated Press: “Enfield school officials have narrowly voted not to appeal a federal judge’s ruling against plans to hold high school graduations in a megachurch.”

LifeNews: “The Planned Parenthood abortion referral center in Waterbury, Connecticut is closing up shop after having a location there since 1985. The center closed on May 27 and Grace Mayer, a staffer there, said it had been doing abortion referrals in addition to legitimate medical services.”

Hartford Courant: “The town has approved new regulations that limit where adult-oriented businesses can be located and require them to get licenses.”

ACLJ: “‘In this case, the court simply got it wrong,’ said Vincent McCarthy, ACLJ Senior Counsel. ‘There need not be a constitutional crisis simply because a religious facility is used for a clearly secular purpose.’”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Does 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 v. Enfield Public Schools, (D CT, May 31, 2010), a Connecticut federal district court issued a preliminary injunction barring Enfield Public Schools from holding 2010 graduation ceremonies for two high schools at First Cathedral, a Christian church in Bloomfield, CT. The court concluded that holding the ceremonies there would likely violate the Establishment Clause . . . ”

Hartford Courant: “Enfield high school seniors may learn this weekend if a federal judge will allow their two high schools to hold graduation ceremonies in a mega-church that the board of education wants to rent for that purpose . . . ”