Tag Archives: State: Montana

KXLH: “The recent adoption by the Helena School District of a controversial new sex-education curriculum has sparked some residents to organize a symposium for parents to address the issue and explore their options.”

The Missoulian: “Wednesday marks the second annual Missoula Transgender Day of Recognition, an event that aims to share people’s struggles and triumphs with the community, said Bree Sutherland, Montana TDOR executive director.”

KLUR 8: “The state of Montana has responded to a motion filed by the ACLU demanding the same legal protections for gay couples that are given to married couples . . . Now, Montana’s Attorney General has denied their request.”

Angry parents and religious critics, while agreeing that schoolyard harassment should be stopped, charge that liberals and gay rights groups are using the antibullying banner to pursue a hidden “homosexual agenda,” implicitly endorsing, for example, same-sex marriage.

The Body (AP): “Helena school district trustees voted 6-3 on Oct. 12 in favor of a revised sex education curriculum . . . But the changes are not enough for some religious and conservative parents who argue that sex education should be taught at home, not at school. ‘This is going to send people into isolation,’ said school board member Trevor Wilkerson. His proposal to send the curriculum back to the planning stage and to highlight the sex education component for further scrutiny was rejected.” | For background, see this ADF Alliance Alert compound tag: http://www.alliancealert.org/tag/state-montana+topic-sex-indoctrination/

Missoulian: “Saying a U.S. Supreme Court ruling trumps Montana’s unique historical circumstances, a Helena district judge Monday threw out as unconstitutional the state’s 1912 law banning direct corporate spending for or against political candidates or political parties.”

Jess Bravin writes at the Wall Street Journal: “After the Supreme Court freed corporations and unions to pay for advertisements supporting or attacking candidates for federal office, many states concluded that their own restrictions on such electioneering were doomed as well . . . Not Montana. Sued by three corporations seeking to influence the Nov. 2 legislative election, Attorney General Steve Bullock is arguing that Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act of 1912 remains constitutional . . . ”

The Montana Family Foundation will no longer be singled out for exclusion from a state employee giving program in the wake of a lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defense Fund. Because the state agreed to include the organization in the program and permanently change the problematic policy that led to the lawsuit, ADF attorneys voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit Wednesday.

KULR (AP): “Opponents of a revised sex education plan for Helena schools are bashing the new version for teaching too much, too soon, while supporters are lauding it as necessary instruction.”

Flathead Beacon: “The state Department of Administration said it was glad to remove its ban on sectarian-based groups in the program — which dates back to the mid-1990s — after looking into the issue. The program allows state employees to automatically donate to their favorite charity through automatic paycheck deduction. Earlier this year, the Montana Family Foundation filed a lawsuit contending the state was wrong to exclude religious-based groups from the state employee charitable donation program.”

“The Bozeman City Commission . . . unanimously approv[ed] a resolution backing seven same-sex couples suing the state of Montana for the same rights as married couples.”

In These Times: “Tom Daubert, a caregiver and director of Patients and Families United, the medical marijuana advocacy group that spearheaded the 2004 I-148 campaign, says most of the opposition in the state has come from ‘conservative, so-called right-wing church groups’ . . . Daubert’s assertion that a certain conservative Christian element is behind efforts to repeal the law is also correct . . . David Lewis (not to be confused with Montana State Senator David Lewis (R-Helena)) is the treasurer and spokesman for Safe Communities Safe Kids . . . While Safe Communities Safe Kids does not bill itself as a faith-based group, the sole entity that signed on to support their ballot initiative was the Montana Family Foundation, a right-wing Christian group with ties to Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Religion Clause: In State v. Hardman, 2010 Mont. Dist. LEXIS 209 (MT Dist. Ct., May 21, 2010), the court concluded that the pastor’s report to police of the confession was admissible because the pastor told defendant before he began to confess that if he was disclosing anything illegal the pastor was obligated to notify authorities.

Bozeman Daily Chronicle: “A Republican lawmaker says it is time to remove from the books an obsolete Montana law declaring homosexual acts illegal. State Sen. John Brueggeman says he is requesting a draft of a bill to strike down the law. The bill would be considered by the 2011 Legislature, which convenes in January.”

KULR 8: “The city of Bozeman is expected to adopt a resolution that supports seven gay couples who are suing the state for the same rights as married couples.”

The Montana Supreme Court Legalizes Assisted Suicide
August 31, 2010
William L. Saunders

A dozen years after the United States Supreme Court penned [its decision] Washington v. Glucksberg, Montana became the third state where physician assisted suicide is ‘legal.’ However, it is the first state where this change occurred as a result of a court decision, as opposed to legislative action . . .”

KBZK: “Several members of the Big Sky Tea Party Association have resigned after the weekend removal of the group’s president. The association’s board voted to remove president Tim Ravndal after a Facebook exchange appeared to condone violence against homosexuals.”

Missoulian: “Members of the Big Sky Tea Party Association strongly defended former president Tim Ravndal at the group’s meeting Tuesday night following what many called his unfair and hasty ejection from the group over a casual conversation on Facebook that appeared to treat violence against gays lightly.”

Associated Press: “The president of a Montana tea party group has been kicked out of the organization for an exchange on his Facebook page that appeared to condone violence against homosexuals.”

KULR8.com: “The state of Montana is asking for more time to respond to a lawsuit brought by seven same sex couples in the state.” | ACLU information and filings

Billings Gazette: “The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana has sent a letter to leaders at Billings School District 2 asking them why they are holding an all-district back-to-school staff meeting at a church.”

Fox News: “Leaders of a Christian organization are convinced a group of atheists were successful in getting annual fellowship services moved from the Missoula County Fair, but church organizers say they’re determined to make the best of their new location.”

Edge Boston: “[S]even same-sex families, together with the Montana branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have brought suit against the state, seeking the establishment of state-recognized domestic partnerships. … Last year, Montana’s supreme court upheld the parental rights of Michelle Kulstad, the former long-term life partner of Barbara Maniaci, the biological mother of the children that the two women were rearing until their relationship ended. … The court’s lone dissenter, Justice Jim Rice, echoed the arguments made by the Alliance Defense Fund’s attorney, writing in a dissent that, ‘Now, even parents who are fit and capable . . . are potentially subject to the claims of third parties for rights to their children.’”

ACLU of Montana: “Seven committed same-sex couples, with the aid of the ACLU, are suing the state of Montana for failing to provide legal protections for their families in violation of the Montana Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection.”

KRTV: “The Helena School Board is taking the controversial human sexuality portion of the proposed health curriculum back to staff for some additions. After a flood of public comment in recent weeks, the executive committee decided to push back its decision; the board was going to vote on the curriculum in August, but now Superintendent Bruce Messinger says it will be more like October.”

Personhood USA: “The Montana Personhood Amendment Initiative CI-102 volunteers received news yesterday that they were just 6,000 signatures short of the required 48,674 signatures to put Personhood on the 2010 ballot.”

Great Falls Tribune: “Friday was the deadline for county election officials to submit ballot initiative signatures to Secretary of State Linda McCulloch’s office. … As of late Friday afternoon, it appeared the majority of the proposals would not qualify. … One of the state’s most controversial ballot initiatives, a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban abortion in Montana, appeared to be well below the 48,674 signatures required to place the measure on the ballot. As of 4 p.m. Friday the certified signature count on Constitutional Initiative-102 was 29,938. Additionally, preliminary counts show the measure only received the qualifying number of signatures in 12 of the required 40 legislative districts.” | For more information see Montana 2010 ballot measures at Ballotpedia. | PersonhoodMontana.com

AP: “More than 300 people attended a school board meeting Tuesday and about 65 people commented on the proposed curriculum.” | FRC Blog: Excerpts from proposed Helena, Montana sex ed curriculum

Peter Sprigg writes at the FRC Blog: On Tuesday evening, July 13, the Board of Trustees of the Helena, Montana public schools was scheduled to hear public comments for the first time on a controversial new sex education curriculum. Some people who support in principle the idea of sex education in schools may wonder what the fuss is about in Helena. Just so people know how extreme the proposed curriculum is, here are some excerpts . . . ”

KRTV: “A new health curriculum under consideration in Helena Public Schools is causing quite a controversy. … It lays out sex education topics for each grade, K through 12. In the first grade, children would be taught that human beings can love people of the same gender; in second grade, kids are taught not to make fun of people by calling them ‘gay’ or ‘queer.’”

Helena Independent Record (AP): “Montana State University’s lawyer says MSU-Northern officials don’t have to apologize for inviting a Christian pastor to give the invocation and benediction at the school’s graduation in May. The ACLU of Montana had filed a complaint and asked for an apology . . .”

OneNewsNow: “A Montana college is being supported by the Christian community regarding the constitutionality of the school’s graduation prayer tradition. . . . Travis Barham with Alliance Defense Fund is hopeful the letter will encourage the university to hold fast. ‘These prayers have been part of our nation’s traditions for centuries, and two federal courts have already upheld these kinds of prayers,’ the attorney points out.”

ADF attorney Travis Barham appeared on the Georgene Rice Show to discussion the controversy over a graduation prayer at Montana State University Northern. | MP3 8:55 mins | Related ADF Media

Evangelical Examiner: “The Alliance Defense Fund and the Montana Family Foundation sent Montana State University-Northern officials a letter Monday assuring them that they can continue the school’s graduation prayer tradition, despite a contrary letter they received from the American Civil Liberties Union. . . . [ADF attorney Travis Barham said] ‘Contrary to the ACLU’s latest unfounded intimidation attempt, the First Amendment does not require universities to purge public ceremonies of all things religious.’”

“‘Our Founding Fathers regularly opened official public ceremonies with prayer, and federal appellate courts have consistently ruled that universities can do the same at their graduation ceremonies. These prayers have been constitutional for centuries and are still constitutional today,’ said ADF Litigation Counsel Travis Barham.”

Medical News Today: “On Tuesday, abortion-rights opponents visited Montana polling places in an attempt to gather enough signatures to qualify a ‘personhood’ ballot measure for the November election, the Great Falls Tribune reports.”

LifeNews: “Supporters of a personhood amendment are trying a second time to get a measure to define unborn children as people starting at conception on the ballot in Montana. Should they obtain a November vote and Montana residents support it, the measure would challenge legal abortions and head for an immediate court battle.”

Great Falls Tribune: “The Montana Foundation of the American Civil Liberties Union believes an invocation and benediction that occurred during graduation ceremonies at Montana State University-Northern in Havre earlier this month were unconstitutional . . . The ACLU charges that MSU-Northern asked a local pastor — Tim Zerger of Community Alliance Church — to give the invocation and benediction, and that he was clearly ‘proselytizing’ by invoking the image of Jesus Christ during the ceremonies, which the ACLU said violates the separation of church and state . . . ”

Ross Douthat writing in the New York Times: “Liberals sometimes argue that their preferred approach to family life reduces the need for abortion. In reality, it may depend on abortion to succeed. The teen pregnancy rate in blue Connecticut, for instance, is roughly identical to the teen pregnancy rate in red Montana. But in Connecticut, those pregnancies are half as likely to be carried to term. Over all, the abortion rate is twice as high in New York as in Texas and three times as high in Massachusetts as in Utah.”

OneNewsNow: “Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has filed suit against Montana over an employee charitable gift fund . . . ‘[O]ur client is the Montana Family Foundation (MFF), and they applied to participate in this program and to be able to receive donations from state employees,’ [ADF Attorney Jonathan Scruggs] explains. ‘But they were turned down because there is a rule in the eligibility requirements that says you cannot be essentially pervasively sectarian. You can’t be too religious.’” | ADF News Release

First Amendment Center (AP): “A conservative Montana group [contends] its exclusion from a state employee charitable-donation program is discriminatory because it’s based on the group’s religious views . . .’Government officials are denying state employees the opportunity to give to one group, while allowing them to contribute to groups with other views and activities that the state is more fond of,’ said [Nate Kellum], senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.” | ADF News Release

Billings Gazette: “A Laurel-based conservative religious group is suing state officials, claiming that it is being illegally excluded from a charitable-giving program for state employees . . . ‘Christian groups shouldn’t be penalized for their beliefs,’ said [Nate Kellum], senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Tennessee-based alliance of Christian lawyers and organizations, which is representing the Laurel group.” | ADF News Release

Missoulian (AP): “A conservative Montana group has filed a lawsuit against the state contending its exclusion from a state employee charitable donation program is discriminatory because it’s based on the group’s religious views . . . ‘Government officials are denying state employees the opportunity to give to one group, while allowing them to contribute to groups with other views and activities that the state is more fond of,’ said [Nate Kellum], senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.” | ADF News Release

Missoulian: “Breaking ground in Montana, the Missoula City Council on Tuesday adopted the first equality ordinance in the state that protects people from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday on behalf of the Montana Family Foundation, which was excluded from the Montana State Employee Charitable Giving Campaign even though other issue advocacy and religious groups were allowed to participate.

KAJ18: “The Montana Family Foundation based in Laurel says a Montana Supreme Court decision last year did not legalize physician assisted suicide. … The foundation hired two attorneys to analyze the decision. Defense attorney Greg Jackson of Montana and Matt Bowman with the Alliance Defense Fund in Washington, DC analyzed the Supreme court ruling in Baxter v. State of Montana.”

Montana Family Foundation: “A legal analysis of the Montana Supreme Court’s decision in Baxter v. Montana shows how the decision still allows physicians to be charged with homicide. The analysis of the of the decision was written by attorneys Greg Jackson and Matt Bowman, at the request of the Montana Family Foundation . . . ”

Citizen Link: “The Missoula, Mont., City Council is considering an ordinance that adds ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ as special classes protected against discrimination.”

Cathleen Kaveny writing at Commonweal: “The Baxter decision is radical: it says that intentional killing isn’t always a matter of public concern. It is stealthy. By refraining from finding a state constitutional right to assisted suicide, it avoided immediate criticism for judicial activism. It is politically canny. It put the burden of action on opponents. Most troubling of all, its strategy is portable. There’s no reason its contorted logic can’t be exported to other states by euthanasia activists.”

Ninth Circuit Holds Montana Election Contribution Disclosure Requirements Unconstitutional as Applied to De Minimis Contributions — Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church of East Helena, Inc. v. Unsworth
556 F.3d 1021 (9th Cir. 2009)

“As political campaigns have become more expensive and sophisticated, Congress has increasingly regulated them, yet the Supreme Court has declared many aspects of that regulation unconstitutional. Recently, in Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church of East Helena, Inc. v. Unsworth, the Ninth Circuit continued this deregulatory trend byholding that Montana’s election contribution disclosure requirementswere unconstitutional as applied to de minimis campaign expenditures. Though the bureaucratic disclosure requirements of the regulation at issue may chill speech, an effect that the court correctly recognized, another feature of the regulation may chill speech even more: its third-party enforcement mechanism. Because the regulation allows third parties to bring complaints of campaign rulebreaking, enforcement against minor parties may spring from questionable motives, result in disproportionate burdens, and ultimately militate against the public interest. Legislatures crafting campaign law and judges applying it should be cognizant of these difficulties.”

Tom Stockton writing to the Helena Independent Record: “We live in a state and nation of laws and apparently the ACLU has decided the laws of Montana and the United States are inferior and that UN has more authority, that is wrong.”

Religion Clause Blog: “A Montana trial court this week upheld the action of Butte High School officials in refusing to let one of the class’ ten valedictorians speak at her 2008 graduation when she refused to remove religious references from her remarks.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In State of Montana v. Turk, 2010 Mont. Dist. LEXIS 18 (MT Dist. Ct., Jan. 12, 2010), a Montana state court rejected a claim by defendant Richard Turk that his rights under the U.S. and Montana constitutions were violated by the state’s requirement that he present a social security number in order to obtain a drivers’ license.”

KFBB.com (AP): “The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the United Nations to intervene in the case of a Montana State Prison inmate the ACLU says is being subjected to ‘torturous’ treatment.”

E. Christian Bugger writes at the Culture of Life Foundation: In late December, Montana became the third state (behind Washington and Oregon) to permit physician assisted suicide to terminally ill patients. The State Supreme Court in Baxter et al. v. State of Montana was considering an appeal of a ruling from a lower district court dated December 2008 . . . the court’s tortured ‘reasoning,’ . . . departs so far from commonly accepted ways of moral reasoning (which are not the province only of educated moral theologians, but available rationally to all thinking persons) that not only it but the system that tolerates it deserve criticism. Judges should not be able to engage in irrational textual or other argument just because they’re judges . . . ”

Education Week: “Juneau said that to qualify for the federal money, Montana would have to weaken local control of schools, change how it evaluates teachers in ways that could violate labor contracts and possibly agree to transfer teachers from one district to another.”

Death With Dignity’s Emerging Conceit: Could Vacco v. Quill Be Losing Its Appeal?
Arthur G. Svenson, 31 U. La Verne L. Rev. 45 (2009)

“The holding of one Montana judge, who discovered a fundamental right to PAD within enumerated state rights to privacy and dignity, is unlikely to have a parroting effect upon non-Montanan state judges reviewing the constitutional implications of death with dignity issues. After all, Montana’s is only one of five state constitutions that contain substantive enumerations of privacy rights, and for three of those that do, California, Florida, and Alaska, judges have already considered and denied pleadings that state privacy rights shield actions of patients and willing physicians from criminal prosecution for actions amounting to assisted suicide. For the Justices of the Supreme Court, the absence of a ‘careful description of [an] asserted fundamental liberty interest’ in the Bill of Rights that even remotely resembled PAD proved pivotal in convincing them to decline Glucksberg’s invitation to create such a right on their own. Given that reasoning, then, one could quite plausibly imagine that most judges in most states confronting similar state challenges on cognate state constitutional grounds would unhesitatingly follow the High Court’s lead and choose to defer to the prevailing forces at play in the political arena.”

LifeNews: “Jeff Laszloffy of the Montana Family Foundation told LifeNews.com, ‘Definitely not what we wanted, but not as bad as it could have been. While we would have preferred an outright reversal of the lower court’s decision, this ruling is a partial victory,’ he explained. ‘The fact that the Court did not find a constitutional right to physician assisted suicide is good for those of us opposed to this abhorrent practice.’”

NPR: “The Montana case has drawn wide national attention, with advocates for physician-assisted suicide weighing in on the side of Baxter and his doctors. Meanwhile, conservative groups like the Alliance Defense Fund and the Family Research Council sided with Montana’s attorney general against physician-aided suicide.”

LifeNews: “The high court did not determine if the Montana constitution guarantees a right to assisted suicide but said nothing in state law or the precedent of the court prevented assisted suicide . . . The Montana Supreme Court received 19 amicus briefs, including one from attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life group who filed their brief in April.”

“The Supreme Court disagreed that the Montana Constitution guarantees the right. But it said in an opinion Thursday that ‘we find nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy.’”

Religion Clause Blog: “Last week in Office of the State Public Defender v. McMeekin, (MT Sup. Ct., Dec. 23, 2009), the Montana Supreme Court issued a writ of mandamus ordering the jail revise its policy so that attorneys can have face-to-face visits with pretrial detainee clients . . . Apparently no one challenged the suspension of religious activities . . . ”

“Kulstad had earned the right to be known as a parent to two children because she had ‘shacked up’ with the children’s adoptive mother during the time when they were adopted.”

Montanasnewsstation.com: “Planned Parenthood of Montana is not only seeing a drop in patients because of the slumping economy, but more patients who aren’t able to pay for health services.”

OneNewsNow: “The Montana Supreme Court has granted parental rights to a non-parent . . . Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, tells OneNewsNow that Montana’s highest court decided to uphold the demands of a legal stranger. ‘What the Montana Supreme Court did was give a third party — the parent’s former roommate and girlfriend — parental rights…,’ says the attorney. ‘And it runs contrary to clear precedent dating back several years in Montana and the United States Supreme Court. [It's] a very, very disturbing decision.’”

Billings Gazette: “Planned Parenthood of Montana has announced it is closing its Kalispell clinic next month due to a decline in patients.”

“Granting acquaintances and roommates parental rights over the objections of fit parents is a very dangerous precedent.”

HSLDA: “Home School Legal Defense Association assisted eight member families in Butte at the beginning of this school year when the county superintendent of schools rejected their notice of intent. In a letter sent to each of the families, the superintendent stated that she was unable to ‘register’ the children to be homeschooled because of insufficient information contained in the notices of intent.”

ADF attorney Steven Aden appeared on the Jody Hice Show to discuss “Personhood” Amendments.

The MP3 runs just over 17 minutes.

Related ADF Alliance Alert posts

MSNBC (AP): “[Personhood] Amendment language has been cleared, with petition drives under way, in Colorado, Mississippi, Montana and Nevada. Amendment language will be filed later this month in California and Florida.”

MSNBC (AP): “[Personhood] Amendment language has been cleared, with petition drives under way, in Colorado, Mississippi, Montana and Nevada. Amendment language will be filed later this month in California and Florida.”

“The attorney general’s office in Montana has approved the ballot language some pro-life advocates are supporting that would define unborn children as persons under the state constitution.”

LifeNews: “The Montana Supreme Court held a hearing today on a case that could make the state the third to allow assisted suicide . . . So far, the court has received 19 amicus briefs, including one from attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life group who filed their brief in April . . . ‘Doctors are licensed to heal, not to kill. It should seem obvious, but the law should never allow private individuals to poison one another,’ ADF senior legal counsel Steven H. Aden told LifeNews.com.”

NY Times: “The state’s highest court on Wednesday will take up Mr. Baxter’s claim that a doctor’s refusal to help him die violated his rights under Montana’s Constitution — and lawyers on both sides say the chances are good that he will prevail.”

LifeNews: “The Montana Supreme Court will take up a case on Wednesday that could make the state the third to allow assisted suicide . . . So far, the court has received 19 amicus briefs, including one from attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life group who filed their brief in April. ‘Legalizing assisted suicide diminishes compassionate treatment of pain because…assisted suicide encourages the elimination of patients themselves rather than of their suffering,’ the brief states . . . ‘Doctors are licensed to heal, not to kill. It should seem obvious, but the law should never allow private individuals to poison one another,’ ADF senior legal counsel Steven H. Aden told LifeNews.com . . .”

Related ADF Media

Flathead Beacon: “The Montana Board of Pharmacy took no action Wednesday after hearing comment on the issue of pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraceptives because of religious beliefs. Montana currently has no rule or statute that requires pharmacies to stock every drug on the market, and ‘we decided to leave it at that,’ board President Jim Cloud of Stevensville said.”