Tag Archives: State: Missouri

Catholic Culture: The Diocese of Kansas City, Missouri, has agreed to pay $600,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from child-pornography charges against a priest of the diocese.

The Raw Story: The American Humanist Association threatened to sue Missouri’s Fayette School District and several school officials on Wednesday for their alleged roles in holding morning religious ceremonies with students on school grounds every week for at least the last year.

AP: he Missouri Senate advanced legislation Monday that would require a doctor to be physically present when a drug causing an abortion is administered. The measure passed 23-7 along party lines . . .

MO Family Policy Council: The Missouri House has advanced legislation which would provide constitutional protection to the right of parents to guide the upbringing of their children. The House has given preliminary approval to House Joint Resolution 26, sponsored by Representative Todd Richardson of Poplar Bluff.

AP: A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a Missouri law banning protests within 300 feet of funerals but struck down a broader law that could have kept protesters even further away. | Phelps-Roper v. Kester

Missouri Family Policy Council: A federal judge has upheld Missouri’s new law protecting houses of worship from deliberate incidents of protest and disruption. U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the House of Worship Protection Act, which was approved by the Missouri Legislature and signed into law by Governor Jay Nixon last year.

Daily Journal: Wampler is providing his services for free in part to fulfill his membership obligations to the Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates in the courtroom for religious liberty, the sanctity of life and marriage and family. “He’s trying to change people’s lives for the good,” Wampler said of Brummitt.

Fort Mill Times: “I told him to go ahead and keep preaching. Hang in there,” said Springfield attorney Dee Wampler. Wampler, who last year had similar charges dismissed against a trio of street preachers in Noel, said Brummitt’s speech is especially protected by the Constitution because that speech is religious. Wampler is providing his services for free in part to fulfill his membership obligations to the Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates in the courtroom for religious liberty, the sanctity of life and marriage and family. “He’s trying to change people’s lives for the good,” Wampler said of Brummitt

San Francisco Chronicle: The Missouri House gave preliminary approval Wednesday to legislation that would require a doctor to be present for the administration of any drug used to induce an abortion.

MO Family Policy Council: The Missouri Senate has given final passage to pro-life legislation which would protect the conscience rights of the owners of licensed pharmacies in the state. The Senate has approved Senate Bill 126, sponsored by Senator David Sater of Cassville, by a vote of 24-9.

ConnectTriStates.com: Missouri’s Catholic bishops have joined the chorus urging the appeal of a federal court ruling striking down the state’s contraception insurance exemption for people with religious or moral objections.

USA Today: The Missouri senator joins President Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, to publicly state support for marriage equality.

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)

LifeNews: Today the Missouri House gave final approval to HCS HB 457, a religious conscience measure that has the support of pro-life groups.

Daily Journal Online: A suburban St. Louis town is now part of a national movement to display “In God We Trust” at local government sites.

David Crary at Bay News 9 (AP): “Anti-abortion groups divided over legal tactics”
Steve Aden, who helps oversee abortion issues for the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, suggested that the 20-week bans had a better chance of reaching the high court than measures such as the heartbeat bill or the new Arkansas ban. However, he said the entire swath of bills conveyed a common message. “What they demonstrate,” he said, “is that there’s a tidal wave of sentiment at the grass-roots level that abortion is unconscionable and that states should do their utmost in restricting it.”

Kansas City Star: The American Civil Liberties Union says it will keep fighting against Missouri’s new constitutional amendment on prayer after a federal judge dismissed its initial lawsuit.

Religion Clause Blog: In a consent order in Hunter v. Board of Trustees, Salem Public Library, (ED MO March 5, 2013), a Missouri federal district court ordered the Salem, Missouri public library to refrain from reactivating on its public computers filters that blocked websites relating to the categories “occult” or “criminal skills.”

Missouri Family Council: A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Missouri’s new religious liberty amendment. U.S District Judge Howard Sachs has ruled against a challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of two inmates incarcerated in state prisons.

River Front Times: In Missouri, when state troopers are killed in the line of duty, the state provides “survivor benefits” for spouses in the form of an annuity of the late employee’s salary. But because the state doesn’t recognize same-sex couples, Glossip hasn’t been able to obtain any of these benefits since his spouse, a Highway Patrol corporal, died.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys have filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the exclusion of a Christian pre-school and daycare center from a Missouri program that provides recycled tires for children’s playgrounds. Although the state highly ranked the center as qualified for the program, it denied its application solely because it is run by a church.

Missouri Family Policy Council: Pro-life state legislators are making a strong push this session to win passage of bills that would revive a state tax credit program which benefits pregnancy resource centers.

LifeNews: The Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in St. Louis has botched yet another abortion — its fourth recently.

LifeSiteNews: For the third time since Thanksgiving, a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in St. Louis, Missouri, has transported a woman to the hospital for emergency care, which, according to Operation Rescue, makes it one of the most dangerous abortion clinics in the nation.

Religion Clause Blog: In Sharpe Holdings, Inc. v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, (ED MO, Dec. 31, 2012), a Missouri federal magistrate judge issued a temporary restraining order barring enforcement of the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage mandate to require a for-profit dairy farming and cheese making business to cover abortifacient devices ( Plan B, Ella and copper IUDs) and related counseling.

STL Today: The City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to expand its anti-discrimination ordinance to include prohibitions against discrimination for sexual orientation and gender identity.

Religion Clause Blog: However, in American Pulverizer Co. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (WD MO, Dec. 20, 2012), a Missouri federal district court granted a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the contraceptive coverage mandate in a challenge filed by a group of metal recycling businesses owned by Evangelical Christians Paul and Henry Griesediek . . .

First Amendment Center: A Cape Girardeau, Mo., man arrested for desecrating an American flag must be paid $7,000 in compensatory damages, a federal judge has ruled.

Religion Clause Blog: According to yesterday’s St. Louis Post Dispatch, Muslim cab driver Raja Awais Naeem has filed a religious discrimination lawsuit in state court against the city of St. Louis, its Metropolitan Taxicab Commission and Whelan Security, a private security company apparently in charge of security at the St. Louis airport.

Missouri Family Policy Council: Leaders of the homosexual rights movement are mounting a statewide petition drive to adopt a new law to provide special legal rights to homosexuals, bisexuals, and so-called “transgendered” individuals.

Boston Globe: Emerson announced the plans Monday, just weeks after she won re-election to the southeastern Missouri district.

First Things: Pro-life groups that spend time outside Planned Parethood clinics have recorded eighteen recent instances where women have had to be transported to nearby hospitals by ambulance. The most recent case occurred the day before Thanksgiving in St. Louis . . .

San Francisco Chronicle: In a frank interview with POLITICO, Cornyn ascribed part of the blame to himself and the GOP campaign committee for dropping the ball in an election that looked promising for the Republican Party at the onset. Ultimately, though, he attributed the losses in winnable states, such as Indiana and Missouri, to weak candidates with limited mainstream appeal.

STLToday: A new group in Missouri could soon start circulating petitions for a ballot measure that would make it illegal to discriminate against gays and lesbians in Missouri.

eNews Park Forest: Kelly Glossip, who is challenging the discriminatory survivor benefits policy of the Missouri Department of Transportation (MODOT) and Highway Employees’ Retirement System, filed his brief with the Missouri Supreme on Monday. Glossip’s partner, Dennis Engelhard, was a Missouri state trooper killed in the line of duty while responding to an accident on Christmas Day 2009. In addition, elected officials; law school professors; and a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) law enforcement organization filed amici briefs on Glossip’s behalf.

The Hill: McCaskill was leading Akin 52.9 percent to 40.8 percent, with 84 percent of precincts reporting. Libertarian Jonathan Dine pulled in 6.3 percent of the vote.

The Hill: But Akin has shown surprising strength in recent days, as a poll released this past weekend put him just 2 points behind McCaskill. And, in late September, the NRSC cracked the door to giving Akin some aid. NRSC executive director Rob Jesmer said the committee would keep close tabs on the race, and hinted it might reverse its decision to abandon its nominee.

Bloomberg: Abortion has been a campaign issue for decades. Rape is a more recent, and more troubling, point of political discussion. But understanding the connection between the two is essential to evaluating the controversies percolating in Senate races in Missouri and Indiana and what they entail for national politics.

The Examiner: New polls released over the last 72 hours from Senate races in Massachusetts, Missouri Virginia, and Wisconsin all give Democrats a good chance to keep control of the Senate. Nate Silver’s probability analysis for all ten races, which was updated just today, favors the Democrats in seven out of the ten races listed below.

STLToday: The Missouri Plan has faced mounting criticism in recent years, primarily from conservatives who claim it gives too much power to trial lawyers. They prefer judicial elections or systems modeled after the federal government that rely on gubernatorial appointees confirmed by state lawmakers.

KCTV5.com: Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin was repeatedly arrested during anti-abortion protests in the 1980s, including at least once when police had to carry him away, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

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.

AP: Missouri Rep. Todd Akin has raised about $1.6 million for his Senate bid in the months after party officials sought to distance themselves from him for his comments on “legitimate rape.”

Bloomberg Business Week: NFIB spokeswoman Jean Card said the group based its endorsement on Akin’s voting record on small business issues, which gets a 100 percent approval score from the NFIB. (McCaskill gets a 45 percent.) “We really do our best to just look at the issues that are relevant to our membership,” Card says.

How Appealing summarizes and links to the ruling.

AP: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is coming to the aid of Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin with a new advertising campaign.

World Net Daily: Only a month ago, Akin was trailing in polls by roughly 6 percent. But according to a Wenzel Strategies poll taken over the weekend, Akin has surged to a four-point lead, 48.9 to 44.7, with a plus-or-minus 3.07 margin of error. Nearly 87 percent of respondents said they were “firm in choice.”

Brian Walsh at National Review: Today, a bipartisan group of over 100 legislators in nine states is announcing the nation’s first state legislative caucuses focused solely on religious freedom. These working groups of legislative leaders are being established in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. This is the first installment in a national plan to form state religious-freedom caucuses in all 50 states by the end of 2013.

LJWorld: Claiming religious freedom is under assault, 120 legislators in nine states, including Kansas, announced on Tuesday the formation of caucuses that they said would be dedicated to protecting religion from government intrusion.

Esbeck, Carl H., Religion During the American Revolution and the Early Republic (September 30, 2012). Silvio Ferrari, ed., LAW & RELIGION (Ashgate Publishing Co., U.K., 2013); University of Missouri School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2012-30. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2154443

KansasCity.com: Two new polls Wednesday showed Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill leading Republican U.S. Rep. Todd Akin by six points as Akin faced a new round of questions about four-year-old comments about abortion providers.

Washington Post: In defense of his assertion, Akin’s campaign released a statement Tuesday from Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas who quit in 2009 and now speaks against abortion. “I can attest that when I served as director of Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas, we often scared women into getting services they did not need — including abortion — so we could collect the fees. This included women who were not pregnant and women who were in the process of miscarrying,” Johnson said in the written statement.

MO Family Policy Council: A federal judge has rejected a motion by the American Civil Liberties Union to block enforcement of Missouri’s House of Worship Protection Act.

Religion Clause Blog: In O’Brien v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (ED MO, Sept. 28, 2012), Judge Carol E. Jackson (a President George H. W. Bush appointee) first held that she need not decide whether O’Brien Industrial Holdings (“OIH”), a secular limited liability company, is capable of exercising religion within the meaning of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the First Amendment because, even if it is, the contraception coverage mandate does not infringe religious exercise rights.

Religion Clause Blog: In Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests v. Joyce,  (ED MO, Sept. 28, 2012), a Missouri federal district court refused to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of Missouri’s House of Worship Protection Act against a group representing clergy sex abuse victims.

LifeSiteNews: Missouri’s U.S. Senate hopeful Todd Akin confirmed Friday that he was once arrested for his involvement in a peaceful process outside an abortion clinic.

Gary Bauer at Human Events: But so far it has no plans to support Akin financially. “We have no plans to do so,” John Cornyn, chairman of the NRSC, said last week when he was asked by The Courier-Journal whether he’d be putting money into the Akin-McCaskill race. “I just think that this is not a winnable race.” But it clearly is a winnable race. Social conservatives are making the election of Todd Akin to the Senate a top priority. It’s time for the Republican Party to do the same.

The Hill: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Sunday that he doesn’t think the GOP should back Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s campaign, despite emerging support from several Republican senators.

Alan Keyes at Renew America: Whatever it says in the GOP platform (which agrees with Akin on this point), the GOP’s elitist-faction leaders are determined to make it plain that they mean to tag principled pro-life politicians like Todd Akin as “far right” extremists. To pander to those who push the oxymoronic notion of “abortion rights,” they will purge from the GOP’s leadership ranks anyone who adheres consistently to the doctrine of God-endowed unalienable rights (including first of all, the right to life) on which America’s constitutional republic is founded.

LA Times: Top conservatives announced their support for Missouri Republican Todd Akin’s embattled campaign for Senate, some reversing course after having earlier called for him to step down following his “legitimate rape” remarks.Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint jointly gave their backing Wednesday after a final deadline passed for Akin to withdraw from the ballot. And Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, a party leader in the Senate, quietly dropped his previous opposition to Akin’s candidacy, and said he would support his fellow Missourian.

Politico: The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which vowed not to spend a dime on Todd Akin if he stayed in the race, is striking a more conciliatory tone with the controversial Missouri Senate candidate.

OpenSecrets.org: If Todd and the people of Missouri prove it’s a close race, what’s the moral case for not backing the Republican nominee picked by the people of Missouri who is in a close race with an incumbent liberal Democrat?” Gingrich told Politico.

National Journal: The Missouri Democratic Party is filing complaints with the House Ethics Committee and Federal Election Commission charging that Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., broke House rules and campaign finance laws by altering his position on an earmark ban in exchange for fundraising from a conservative political action committee.

Chicago Tribune: If anyone in the Republican Party harbors illusions that Todd Akin will bow out of the Missouri U.S. Senate race by a September 25 deadline, he is quite happy to disabuse them.

Accuracy in Media: The controversy over Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin’s abortion comments was started by a George Soros-funded Democratic Party Super-PAC and the “bait” was taken by Republican Party officials who wanted him out of the race for other reasons, says John Putnam, Missouri state coordinator for the national Tea Party Patriots group.

News-Leader: The suit was announced during a press conference in which College President Jerry Davis raised his voice on many occasions, saying the federal government health care act will require the school’s insurance to pay for abortions, abortion services and abortion counseling. “We believe it violates our religious rights as guaranteed by the Constitution,” Davis said.

Patch.com: Missouri State Representative Sue Allen, (R) Town and Country, plans to reintroduce bullying legislation later this year that will require school districts to establish their own bullying policies and put them in writing so school staff, parents and students have clear steps to follow when filing complaints.

Matt Bowman at Townhall: On Wednesday, Missouri lawmakers ignored the warnings of the Obama administration and overrode their governor’s veto to enact religious exemptions to the abortion pill mandate. The bill, which passed through the state senate on a 26-6 vote and through the house on a 109-45 vote, is now law in Missouri and provides citizens of that state with serious religious freedom protections. (also published at LifeNews)

STL Today: But just hours after lawmakers voted Wednesday, the new law was hit with its first legal hurdle. The Greater Kansas City Coalition of Labor Union Women and a female firefighter filed a lawsuit claiming that the legislation discriminates by sex and religion and that it goes against federal law.

Columbia Missourian: Missouri lawmakers enacted new religious exemptions from insurance coverage of birth control Wednesday, overriding a gubernatorial veto and delivering a political rebuke to an Obama administration policy requiring insurers to cover contraception.

Rasmussen: The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds McCaskill will 49% support to Akin’s 43%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate in the contest, and another four percent (4%) are undecided.

STL Public Radio: A federal judge will hear arguments today in a lawsuit over Missouri’s new law making it a crime to disturb a worship service.

Religion Clause Blog: Finn was sentenced to two years’ probation. If he complies with all the conditions, his criminal conviction could then be expunged. Those conditions include strengthening training for clergy and administrators on child abuse reporting and recognizing child pornography; creating a $10,000 victim counseling fund; drawing up an approved list of treatment providers; and maintaining an ombudsman.

Washington Post: They say D.C. Republicans ultimately will not stay out of a race so critical to their national prospects — if they are convinced Akin won’t end his campaign.

Baptist Press: Missouri Baptist leaders and pastors have signed a document affirming their personal support for embattled Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin, saying they accept his apology and appreciate his “long-standing commitment” to social conservative causes.