Tag Archives: State: Ohio

Cincinnati.com: Women seeking an abortion in Ohio would have to wait longer to undergo the procedure and listen to their doctors describe all of the fetus’ “relevant features” under a measure being considered by state lawmakers

World Magazine: An Ohio jury ruled Monday that the Cincinnati archdiocese discriminated against a teacher fired after she became pregnant through artificial insemination. The expected appeal may affect how much religious organizations can regulate employees’ behavior.

Reuters on Yahoo: The Ohio Senate on Thursday passed a $61.7 billion two-year budget which includes controversial amendments that would limit federal funds for Planned Parenthood and ban public hospitals from having patient transfer agreements with abortion clinics.

Houston Chronicle: Board members of a southwest Ohio school district are keeping on the table a proposal to add creationism to the curriculum.

Columbus Dispatch: Ohioans won’t vote on whether to allow gay marriage until at least the November 2014 election. FreedomOhio, the campaign to overturn Ohio’s 2004 constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman, said today it would wait until next year, despite an ongoing petition drive.

Fox News (AP): A Catholic school teacher who was fired after she became pregnant through artificial insemination was awarded more than $170,000 Monday after winning her anti-discrimination lawsuit against an Ohio archdiocese.

Toledo Blade: Publicly funded hospitals would be forbidden from entering into transfer agreements with abortion clinics under language expected to be added today to Ohio’s proposed two-year budget.
Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/State/2013/06/05/Budget-plan-targets-abortion-clinics.html#CufVhfhre0Ur51eA.99

AP: A teacher fired from Catholic schools after becoming pregnant through artificial insemination told jurors Wednesday she didn’t know that the procedure violated church doctrine or that she could be fired for it.

WKBN (AP): Some parents and a civil rights group oppose policies to insert creationism and other religious issues into a western Ohio school district’s classrooms. | ACLU press release and letter

Christian Post: As America waits with bated breath for the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, one Ohio church became the target of gay marriage supporters after it advertised an event celebrating biblical marriages that promised to reward husband and wife couples with free $25 Chick-fil-A gift cards.

AP: Members of the Cincinnati tea party will gather at noon Tuesday at the city’s Fountain Square, then march to the nearby federal building to continue the rally.

AP: A gay teacher challenging her firing by an Ohio Catholic school says the local union for Catholic educators has decided not to proceed with her complaint.

The Crescent-News: Attorney General Mike DeWine has rejected a group’s initial attempt to place a constitutional amendment before voters allowing prayer in school.

LifeNews: As more details emerge from the case of the Cleveland kidnapper who apprehended three teenage girls and forced them to live as sex slaves for a decade in his home, a leading pro-life attorney hopes more charges will be made.

USA Today (includes video): Castro, facing rape and kidnapping charges, could be charged with murder in the deaths of one victim’s unborn children.

The Columbus Dispatch: ‘Steadfast in the teaching of the church’: Bishop defends gay teacher’s firing

Campbell said earlier in the day that Hale was not fired because of her sexual orientation but because her “quasi-spousal relationship” with another woman violates the church’s moral teaching. He said Hale violated a teacher contract and Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus policy that prohibits immoral behavior and requires employees to follow general church tenets.

AP: A gay teacher who said she was fired by an Ohio Catholic school after her mother’s published obituary included the name of her partner is fighting to get her job back.

Toledo Blade: A Summit County abortion clinic that was connected with a Toledo abortion clinic that lost its transfer agreement from the University of Toledo has been shut down by the state because of deficiencies found during a February inspection, including allowing under-qualified people to administer drugs and using patients’ blood without their knowledge.

Forbes: Michigan’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder, was among the many GOP state executives who made national headlines this winter by endorsing Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid, America’s government-run health insurance program for the poor. But what isn’t making headlines is that Michigan’s legislature, like its counterparts in Florida, Ohio, and Arizona, is not going along.

Columbus Dispatch: The firing of a gay physical-education teacher from a Columbus Catholic high school would be a violation of a city ordinance if a complaint were filed and investigators determined the dismissal was based on her sexual orientation.

Toledo Blade: University of Toledo students are trying to put pressure on university President Lloyd Jacobs to negotiate “transfer agreements” with two Toledo abortion clinics, and a local women’s group announced plans to demonstrate at the university today.

Washington Post: Forty-one percent of self-identified Republicans in the state say they view Portman less favorably because of his shift. Overall, 20 percent say it reflects poorly on Portman, 25 percent say it reflects positively, and 53 percent are indifferent.

Logan Daily: The Logan-Hocking School Board refused to allow an elective Bible Literature Course under similar wispy threats, with the same measly excuse. Some of us tried to tell them of the enormous amount of help available for courageous freedom lovers. Think Alliance Defending Freedom; American Center for Law and Justice; Heritage Defense; Christian Freedom Foundation… It’s a long list. But fear carried the day. They stand spinelessly, while the very knowledge or reference to Jesus Christ is systematically obliterated from the thoughts of our youth. Thus freedom dies.

AP: Hiram Sasser, an attorney with the Liberty Institute that helped defend the school, said Wednesday that the Hi-Y Club could file its own lawsuit for the right to display the portrait, but he didn’t know its plans.

MyFoxNY.com: A northeast Ohio clinic is denying a woman’s allegations that doctors failed to successfully perform the abortion she sought, eventually leading to her child’s birth.

Politico: A Saperstein poll, released Sunday, showed that 54 percent of Ohioans now support a new amendment, which would repeal the state’s 2004 measure banning gay marriage and “allow two consenting adults to marry, regardless of their gender,” The Columbus Dispatch reported.

LifeSiteNews: The Republican Party of Ohio has appointed as its executive director a registered lobbyist actively campaigning to redefine marriage in the state, deepening the conflict between voters and the party elite. The move triggered swift backlash, as a coalition of 80 conservatives from across the state issued a letter warning party bosses they “will not support them” in the future.

Cleveland Plain Dealer: “The governor’s position is unchanged,” Kasich’s spokesman Rob Nichols said Thursday in a statement. “He opposes gay marriage and opposes changing Ohio’s constitution to allow for civil unions.”

Selwyn Duke at American Thinker: In another case in the annals of conservative “adaptation” to yesterday’s liberal innovation, Ohio Republican senator Rob Portman has just announced that he now supports faux marriage. The change was motivated, he said, by his son having come out to him and his wife as a homosexual. Well, it’s a good thing his son didn’t announce that he was involved in bestiality.

Religion Clause Blog: This week, at the request of the Hi-Y Club, the portrait was moved from the middle school building to a high school building. The Hi-Y is a high school club . . .

San Francisco Chronicle: A northeast Ohio woman filed a malpractice lawsuit alleging that a clinic failed to successfully perform the abortion she sought, eventually leading to her child’s birth.

AP: The superintendent of an Ohio district facing a federal lawsuit over a Jesus portrait in a middle school says it’s been moved to a high school at the preference of the Christian-based student club that the district views as the picture’s owner.

Columbus Dispatch: Rob Portman commentary: Gay couples also deserve chance to get married
I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married.

Religion Clause Blog: Thomas More Society announced yesterday that a settlement has been reached with Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio in Deddens v. Warren County Montgomery County Community College District, (SD OH, filed 7/6/2012), a lawsuit filed last year after college rules were invoked to bar signs at a student-organized Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute: Lawmakers in the Ohio Legislature are set to introduce “The Health Care Freedom Act.” This bill is designed to protect citizens from the government imposed penalties associated with ObamaCare.

Faith and Liberty Talkshow at Ohio Christian U. (2/28): Tim Throckmorton, Pastor of Crossroads Church, author of a number of books, board member of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, and political activist speaks with Dave Garrison, host of The Faith & Liberty Talk Show, and former U.S. Congressional candidate, about the issues pastors face when teaching biblical principles related to political matters. | Alliance Defending Freedom and Pulpit Freedom Sunday are mentioned in the broadcast.

Akron Beacon Journal Online: An abortion-rights advocacy group says some Ohio crisis pregnancy centers are providing misleading or inaccurate information on abortion risks.

Religion Clause Blog: The Ohio Supreme Court yesterday heard oral arguments (video of full arguments) in Freshwater v. Mount Vernon City School District Board of Education. In the case, a state appeals court upheld the firing of John Freshwater, a middle school school science teacher

World Magazine: Nine years after approving a ban on same-sex “marriage,” Ohio voters may have to return to the ballot box to defend the measure. Gay advocacy group FreedomOhio claims it will have enough signatures to put a proposition overturning the 2004 ban on the November ballot.

LifeSiteNews: A former Ohio congressman has appealed his lawsuit holding the Susan B. Anthony List responsible for “loss of livelihood” when voters defeated him in 2010.

Boston Globe: The last two of 16 Amish found guilty in beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio have appealed their convictions.

Vinton Daily: In Tuesday evening’s Jackson Board of Education meeting several business matters were discussed, but the focus of the meeting seemed to be what the Liberty Institute would disclose about the investigation they conducted regarding the portrait of Jesus Christ hanging in the Jackson Middle School foyer . . . The following morning Howard did not have too much to add to the numerous comments made by Liberty Institute, but was able to say that the demands of the FFRF and ACLU was not the only battle the district was facing. He said he had received a letter that morning from a group of attorneys representing Hi-Y Club members.
In that letter the attorneys of the Alliance Defending Freedom, for Faith, for Justice, requested that the school district resist FFRF’s unreasonable demand to censor the private religious speech of the Hi-Y Club, a student led Christian Club, simply because it is included in the forum for honoring important historical figures at Jackson Middle School. [more]

WOUB.org: A Southeast Ohio school district is now facing a lawsuit over the district’s refusal to remove a portrait of Jesus hanging in the city’s middle school. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the Freedom from Religion Foundation filed the suit in US District Court against the Jackson City School District Thursday. | ACLU press release and complaint

Religion Clause Blog: In Dias v. Archdiocese of Cincinnati, (SD OH, Jan.30, 2013), a former technology coordinator at two Catholic Archdiocese schools sued under Title VII claiming pregnancy discrimination after she was fired for being pregnant and unmarried, and for becoming pregnant through artificial insemination.

Cleveland.com: “While I recognize capital punishment is the law of the land, I cannot participate in what I consider to be a violation of the Constitution I have sworn to uphold,” O’Neill wrote in his dissent.

Christian Post: A U.S. District Court judge ruled that a major pro-life organization is not guilty of defamation against a politician who sued the group two years earlier over losing a re-election bid.

The American Freedom Law Center is providing representation in the case and recent appeared on Michael Coren’s Canadian talk show.

WOUB.org: It has been a picture on the wall since the 1940s. Thousands of Jackson City Schools students have passed by the portait, perhaps some never realizing it was even there. Now a group based in Wisconsin, want the portait of Jesus Christ, that hangs above an entrance at Jackson Middle School, to be taken down, for what they say is a violation of the First Amendment.

Religion Clause Blog: In Chenzira v. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, (SD OH, Dec. 27, 2012), an Ohio federal district court held that a hospital customer service worker may be able to show that her employer’s refusal to accommodate her vegan beliefs amounted to religious discrimination under Title VII and state anti-discrimination laws.  Plaintiff was fired for refusing to be vaccinated against the flu.

WDTN.com: Humanist and secular groups have joined the side of an Ohio school board in a court battle over the firing of a public school science teacher who kept a Bible on his desk and was accused of preaching religious beliefs in class.

Toledo Blade: The latest Ohio poll suggested 45 percent of registered voters support gay marriage and 47 percent oppose it. The results, however, suggest a softening of Ohioans’ position on the issue.

Toledo Blade: Toledo Council President Joe McNamara today threw his support behind a statewide drive to allow same-sex marriage in Ohio.

American Freedom Law Center: Tomorrow, Robert Muise, Co-Founder and Senior Counsel of the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC), is presenting oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in defense of Crystal Dixon, a former human resources administrator at the University of Toledo who was fired in 2008 for expressing her personal, Christian viewpoint on homosexuality in an op-ed published in the local newspaper.

San Francisco Chronicle: GOP Senate President Tom Niehaus told reporters a Romney victory was a condition he had set with proponents for advancing the so-called “heartbeat bill.” The legislation proposed banning most abortions at the first detectable fetal heartbeat, as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

AP: The leader of the Ohio Senate put a stop Tuesday to a bill that would have imposed the most stringent restriction on abortions in the nation.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: The Ohio Supreme Court let stand a newly drawn state legislative map Tuesday in a defeat for Democrats.
In a 4-3 ruling, the divided high court upheld the map approved last year on grounds that Ohio’s Constitution does not require political neutrality in the process. | Wilson v. Kasich

Akron Beacon Journal Online: Ohio women are having fewer abortions in the state. Induced abortions dropped 12 percent last year, hitting an all-time low since the Ohio Department of Health started tracking them more than 35 years ago.

Joe Hallett at the Columbus Dispatch: And that’s the problem: Voters know virtually nothing about the judges they elect and are left to play the name game. The system limits judges’ ability to campaign, to raise money and even to make statements that might be construed as political. They are not permitted to be identified by party on general election ballots. In short, we make judges politicians at election time but deny them the crucial opportunities to communicate with voters the way other politicians do.

WatchDog.org: Now that Gov. John Kasich has decided that Ohio will not establish its own health insurance exchange, small business owners with more than 50 employees have some hope for relief from a potentially ruinous requirement to provide employees government-approved health plans.

Crisis Magazine: The success that the gay community has achieved in shedding the “deviant” label has relied upon convincing the heterosexual world that homosexual behavior is perfectly normal. The recent uproar over a social work course titled “Deviant Behavior” at Franciscan University of Steubenville—which lists homosexuality as a form of deviant behavior—demonstrates just how vigilant the gay community remains in confronting anyone who might suggest that homosexual behavior could be anything but normal. It also shows how difficult it is for faithful Catholic institutions to teach students what the Church says about the nature of homosexual acts.

LifeNews: A Ohio legislative panel today approved legislation that will revoke taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The vote is the first step in a long legislative battle to protect Ohio taxpayers.

LifeNews: hio lawmakers may vote on Wednesday on legislation that would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business.

Columbus Dispatch: Two sitting Ohio Supreme Court justices, one Republican and one Democrat, were unseated in yesterday’s election, marking the first time in recent history that two incumbents were removed from the state’s top court.

Politico: “I think this is premature,” he added. “We’ve got a quarter of the vote. Now remember, here is the thing about Ohio. A third of the vote or more is cast early and is won overwhelmingly by the Democrats. It’s counted first and then you count the election day and the question is, by the time you finish counting the election day does it overcome that early advantage that Democrats have built up in early voting, particularly in Cuyahoga County.”
Rove said the network needs to be “careful about calling things when we have like 991 votes separating the two candidates and a quarter of the vote yet to count. Even if they have made it on the basis of select precincts, I’d be very cautious about intruding in this process.”

Newsmax: Anyone who is sent an absentee ballot — including those who do not complete it and mail it in — and later shows up at the polls on Election Day to cast their ballot in person will be instructed to instead complete a provisional ballot. And under Ohio election law, provisional ballots cannot be opened until 10 days after an election. “I would just say that this is a potential nightmare-in-waiting,” says Blackwell.

The Hill: The Supreme Court said Tuesday that early voting can proceed in Ohio — a major win for President Obama.

Washington Post: A bare majority of voters in Florida and Ohio, and nearly half in Virginia, support the right of same-sex couples to wed, according to September Washington Post polls showing that the national trend toward accepting such unions has taken hold in these swing states.

Today, Tuesday, October 9, 2012, Oklahoma State Representatives Pam Peterson, Republican from Tulsa, and Rebecca Hamilton, Democrat from Oklahoma City, filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief in the Oklahoma Supreme Court, in defense of House Bill 1970, which regulates the use of drugs that are prescribed to cause an abortion.

Washington Post: Secretary of State Jon Husted asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the state Legislature or federal courts should set Ohio election laws.

Daily Caller: Unhappy with President Barack Obama‘s support of same-sex marriage, a group of African-American faith leaders have announced a campaign aimed at stripping 25 percent of the black vote that went to Obama in 2008 (95 percent).

“Planned Parenthood should not be experimenting with women’s lives by using abortion drugs in a way not approved by the FDA–especially when at least 14 women have died in recent years from using RU-486. Once again, Planned Parenthood has demonstrated that it is more concerned with its bottom line than with the health and safety of women.”

The Columbus Dispatch: A report released by the Ohio Department of Health yesterday doesn’t say why fewer abortions were performed last year but noted a sharp drop in use of the abortion pill, which had been an increasingly common method of terminating early pregnancies.

Cantonrep.com: The legislation banned the use of RU-486, or mifepristone, to induce abortion unless prescribed by a doctor in compliance with U.S. Food and Drug Administration guidelines.| Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region v. DeWine, No. 11-4062

Politico (includes video): The pro-life, conservative group Susan B. Anthony list is going on air in Ohio with a new anti-abortion ad calling President Obama an “abortion radical.”

Reuters: A federal jury on Thursday convicted an Ohio Amish sect leader and 15 of his followers on federal hate crimes charges in connection with several beard- and hair-cutting attacks on Amish people that shocked the state last fall.