Tag Archives: State: Oregon

Liberty Counsel: “Principal Michelle Zundel of Bellview Elementary School in Ashland, Oregon, has banned Christmas trees and Santa Claus from her school.”

Daily Vanguard: “The Students Alliance and The Liberty are seeking equal rights to speak on campus according to their attorney, Heather Gebelin Hacker of the Alliance Defense Fund . . . ‘The defendants have been served and their answer to the complaint is due on Nov. 30,’ said Katie Blechacz, media relations manager of the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Tigard Times: “The public discussion about the popular chain of ‘adult entertainment clubs,’ more commonly referred to as strip clubs, seems to have died down in recent months. But it was just a year ago that many in the city were immersed in a campaign to stop the club from setting up shop in the old Out of the Blues restaurant at 17939 S.W. McEwan Road.”

Oregonian: “The front page of The Oregonian on Monday brought the news that Basic Rights Oregon plans an initiative drive to repeal the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, which voters approved just five years ago. However, there’s a big caveat: the group won’t try to put anything on the ballot until at least 2012.”

OneNewNow: “The Alliance Defense Fund is suing Oregon State University on behalf of the campus’ Student Alliance. The Student Alliance publishes an independent paper, but the 2008 fall semester found their campus distribution bins missing. ADF attorney Heather Gebelin Hacker tells OneNewsNow students originally thought the bins were stolen and contacted the police.”

Student Press Law Center: “The Alliance Defense Fund filed a lawsuit Sept. 30 against Oregon State University on behalf of the school’s unofficial student paper, The Liberty, seeking to reverse the school’s removal of newspaper distribution bins from campus . . . ‘The Liberty and the students really just want to be treated equally,’ said David Hacker, the [Alliance] Defense Fund attorney working on the case. ‘They want to put their bins back on campus and be treated equally with The Daily Barometer.’”

The Register-Guard: “Oregon State University students who publish a journal of ‘conservative, libertarian and independent thought’ have filed a federal lawsuit in Eugene, alleging disparate treatment by university officials who have limited its on-campus distribution to two sites . . . Student publishers of The Liberty are being represented in their lawsuit by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund, a California-based Christian advocacy organization.”

The Oregonian: “A conservative student group has accused leaders of Oregon State University in federal court of violating students’ right to free speech by restricting distribution of a student-run newspaper on campus . . . ‘In this case, it seems like these students have viewpoints that aren’t favored by the university, and they are being treated differently because of that,’ said Heather Gebelin Hacker, an attorney representing the student group for the Alliance Defense Fund.”

Gazette Times: “The Oregon State University student group that publishes The Liberty, a conservative-leaning journal, has sued OSU officials, arguing that the university has discriminated against the journal by arbitrarily limiting the opportunities for its distribution . . . [Executive Director of The Liberty] Will Rogers is being represented in the lawsuit by attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund, a national legal alliance founded in 1993 by prominent Christian leaders. One of those attorneys, Heather Hacker, said Wednesday that staff members of The Liberty ‘just basically want to be treated like the Barometer . . . That’s just basic fairness.’”

The paper, The Liberty, had its distribution bins–containing copies of the latest issue of the paper– thrown next to a dumpster by university officials . . . the other student newspaper was left untouched.

AP: “A law backed by the Ku Klux Klan nearly a century ago to keep Catholics out of public schools is still on the books in Oregon, one of the last states in the nation to prohibit teachers from wearing religious clothing in classrooms. Both Pennsylvania and Nebraska have similar laws . . . ”

The Oregonian: “The massive new headquarters for Planned Parenthood Columbia-Willamette under construction at Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Beech Street has become a focus for community tension about abortion.”

KATU.com: “Mayor Stu Rasmussen admits he wore an open-back bathing suit, mini skirt and high heels when he went to speak before a group of kids for a Silverton-based non-profit group. ”

Associated Press: “An Oregon couple who relied on prayer instead of medical care dodged manslaughter convictions Thursday in the death of their 15-month-old daughter.”

Tim King reports at Salem-News.com: “A protest this afternoon in Portland will address Oregon’s ban on religious dress among teachers in the state’s schools. An interfaith group will hold the peaceful protest to draw attention to a law that could have, but ultimately failed to… allow teachers religious freedom on the job.”

Harry Esteve reports in The Oregonian: “The bill requires employers to allow workers to wear certain clothing, grow beards and take certain days off to observe their religious practices. But it specifically carves out school districts in Oregon, one of two states that expressly forbid teachers from wearing religious clothing.”

“If the biological mom’s partner consents to the insemination, she is also the parent of the resulting child.”

LifeNews reports: “A crisis pregnancy center in Eugene, Oregon was hit by vandals last week who left pro-abortion messages on its building. The incident comes weeks after an abortion advocate attacked the national headquarters of the pro-life group Operation Rescue.”

Elizabeth Hovde reports at OregonLive.com: “Concern for librarians and children led the federal government to tie some federal dollars for library Internet access to a requirement that libraries have the ability to block minors from pornography and other potentially harmful sites. The ACLU opposed even this modest move, calling it a threat to free speech and saying parents, not libraries, should control what kids view.”

KTVZ.com: “A man claiming to have a gun held up a northeast Bend adult store late Friday night, then ran, but police recognized his description and soon found and arrested a transient in an abandoned vehicle, officers said.”

Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law: “This article will discuss the flaws underlying the majority view concerning access to marriage, the inherent discrimination against same-sex couples, and the various spousal rights concerning end of life and estate planning decisions. In particular, this article will examine spousal rights available to same-sex couples married by the Coquille Indian Tribe and registered as domestic partners under the Oregon Family Fairness Act.”

Religion Clause Blog: “In Oregon City, Oregon, a state trial court judge has rejected a motion by Carl and Raylene Worthington that second-degree manslaughter and criminal mistreatment charges against them be dismissed.”

Peter Wong reports in the Statesman Journal: “House Bill 2599 requires school districts to be more specific in anti-bullying policies, which a 2001 law requires them to have . . . House Bill 2509 requires age-appropriate sex education as part of the health curriculum in public schools. The bill arose out of concern about the health of young people.”

Collen Carroll Campbell writes at the Ethics and Public Policy Center: “Consider the case of Barbara Wagner, an Oregon woman who was diagnosed with a recurrence of lung cancer last year at age 64 . . . The response she received shocked her. Oregon state officials sent a letter saying that they would not pay for medication to extend her life, but they would foot the drug bill for an assisted suicide — an expenditure of roughly $50.”

Ohmygov: Jason Dwain Davies, 32, a prison inmate from Eugene, Oregon, has filed a federal lawsuit from his cell, claiming that his civil rights were violated by Lane County parole offers who tried to require him to live at the Eugene Mission, a “fundamentally religious facility” after his October 2006 release from prison.

StatesmanJournal.com: “Gov. Ted Kulongoski is set to receive a bill ensuring that employees of Oregon businesses will be able to practice their religion freely. Senate Bill 786, which the House passed 38-21 on Friday, requires that employers must provide accommodation for religious beliefs provided that it does not impose an “undue hardship” on the business.”

Jason Cox reports in the Keizertimes: “The city was contacted one day before the breakfast by a representative of the Alliance Defense Fund, which is fighting the Freedom from Religion Foundation on the prayer breakfast issue, offering free legal services and assuring city officials that the event ‘appears to us to be a constitutionally-defensible exercise.’”

Bill Graves reports in The Oregonian: “A Coquille Indian Tribe law allowing same-sex marriage took effect this week, and two women plan to marry Sunday on the tribe’s Coos Bay reservation.”

The Oregonian: “House Bill 2509 passed along party lines by a vote of 20-9 with all opposition from Republicans. The bill requires all public elementary and secondary schools to provide ‘age-appropriate human sexuality education” as an “integral part of the health education curriculum.’”

Jillian Daley reports in the Statesman Journal: “The Keizer Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast went on as usual Thursday morning despite a letter of protest.”

Statesman Journal: “All public elementary and secondary schools would have to provide age-appropriate human sexuality education courses under a bill approved by the Senate Education Committee on Monday.”

Gail Earle writes at OregonLive.com: “The bottom line of all the research is the horrific damage that is done to our society and women by the sex industry, which takes women often damaged by early abuse and further damages them.”

Keizertimes.com: A group promoting separation of church and state is objecting to the city of Keizer’s role in the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, set for Thursday, May 7. The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to Mayor Lore Christopher complaining . . . the Alliance Defense Fund – a religious group which describes itself as “a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending religious liberty and the right of people to freely live out their faith” – has backed an effort to “Save the National Day of Prayer.”

Oregonian: “Now Tualatin’s mayor and two Oregon legislators have proposed amending the Oregon Constitution and are targeting nude dancing. It’s an issue Oregon voters have repeatedly rejected in a state with greater protections for speech and expression than are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”

The Oregonian:

“After months of political maneuvering, threatened lawsuits and public outcry, the fate of a controversial Tualatin strip club rested in the resolve of a 79-year-old former lawmaker . . . Oregon’s constitution protects nude dancing as free expression, squelching strong resistance from city leaders and residents, but officials challenged the liquor license because of problems at the Stars location in Bend . . . ”

Rutgers Journal of Law & Religion: “The LDS church has long believed that it has a religious right to secret their financial records which they value as an expression of their religion. This is a right, or privilege, that they have protected by settling any case that might lead to an investigation of their financial records. In fact, since 1959, the church has not released any financial information to the public.”

Eugene Volokh reports at the Volokh Conspiracy: “A federal district court has just upheld another religious exemption claim for the use of hoasca.”

The ruling in Church of the Holy Light of the Queen v. Mukaseyn, No. 08-3095 PA (D. Ore. March 18, 2009) begins . . .

Wesley Smith: Compassion and Choices, the assisted suicide advocacy group, has admitted to undermining proper hospice care. That’s not how they put it, of course. Instead, the group brags that nearly 100% of Oregon assisted assisted suicides last year—88% with which their representatives were involved—were in hospice.

How Appealing links to the ruling in Doe v. Holy See, No. 06-35563 (9th Cir. March 3, 2009). The fifty nine page per curiam opinion begins: _________________________ We consider whether, on the allegations made in the Plaintiff’s complaint in this case, …

. . . New Hampshire’s state motto is ‘Live Free or Die.’ But is New Hampshire the most free place to live in the United States? Apparently it is, according to a new study, Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom . . .

OregonLive.com: “Portland high school teacher Bill Diss, who spent months protesting abortion outside a Planned Parenthood office, is the subject of a complaint to police and the state agency that investigates complaints of teacher wrongdoing . . . ” Planned …

Abortions rank 41st, indicating that the state considers using public money for abortions more important than treating an ectopic pregnancy . . .

KVAL.com reports: “We’re improving the downtown area,”said Democratic state Sen. Bill Morrisette of Springfield, “but this one element in the downtown area makes it difficult.” He wants to give local governments the power to create special land use zoning for …

Religion Clause Blog: “In Aslin v. Coos County Assessor, (OR Tax Ct., Jan. 13, 2009), a county tax assessor in Oregon refused to accept an unsigned personal property tax return from James Aslin . . . ” The Oregon Tax …

The Oregonian: Some 2,600 Oregon same-sex couples — about one in five — have registered for domestic partnerships since the civil unions became legal a year ago this week. An analysis by The Oregonian shows that nearly half of the …

Oregon, the only U.S. state with legalized physician-assisted suicide, and the Netherlands, the only country in Europe with legalized euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, have kept extensive records of the use of end-of-life treatments. These records show that physicians in Oregon and the Netherlands generally follow the law, that legalization shapes physicians’ behavior, and that legalization may improve end-of-life care. Dr. Jackson Pickett uses empirical data from these two jurisdictions to analyze the effects of legalization on end-of-life care and suggests some goals that any future legalization should seek to accomplish.

AP: “Four Portland newspapers and the city police union are calling on the mayor to resign, after he admitted he lied by denying he had a sexual relationship with a teenage boy . . . As newspapers called for him …

AP: More than a year after denying it, the newly elected mayor of Portland has admitted having a sexual relationship with a male teenager in 2005. Sam Adams, who is openly gay, acknowledged the relationship in a statement Monday, after …

Thus, if anyone says, ‘I love God’ and still favors abortion, he is, to quote St. John, a liar.” . . .

JustOut Blog reports (warning ads promoting homosexual behavior): “At a Jan. 10 executive committee meeting of the Democratic Party of Oregon, Calvo was chosen as the statewide party’s new Treasurer, a position which puts Calvo in elite company: she is …

AP: The owner of a shuttered Springfield strip club is appealing an Oregon Liquor Control Commission decision to deny issuing his business a liquor license. Jack Dugger is the owner of Shakers Bar & Grill.

The clergy at one Ashland church are refusing to sign marriage licenses until same-sex couples can legally tie the knot.

Eighty-seven percent of residents polled would opt for schools other than regular public schools, according to the survey.

The AP reports: “Portland became the nation’s largest city with an openly gay mayor Thursday as a longtime City Hall insider took the oath of office.  Sam Adams, 45, was sworn into office at 12:01 a.m. New Year’s Day at …

OfficialWire: Oregon State House of Representatives in Salem will open with Sanskrit mantras from ancient Hindu scriptures on January 29, some as old as 1,500 BCE. Acclaimed Hindu and Indo-American leader, Rajan Zed, will recite this historic opening prayer. After …

Religion Clause Blog reports: “In Young v. Jackson County, (OR Land Use Bd. App., Dec. 23, 2008), the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals held that the “equal terms” provision of RLUIPA was violated when a county denied an application …

A Clackamas County, Ore., couple accused of letting their infant daughter die by relying on prayer, rather than medicine, today asked that the charges be dropped, arguing that they infringe on their freedom of religion and their right to raise their children in their own way.

KGW.com reports: “A Forest Grove man was arrested after drinking in a strip club then exposing himself at a Target store across the street, before driving himself home, deputies said Friday.”

The Columbian reports: “In Portland, child prostitution has come to light because neighborhood groups have lashed out against prostitutes and pimps for littering their sidewalks with condoms and needles. In Clark County, only former U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith has tackled …

OregonLive.com reports: December inside Oregon’s Capitol is filled with a forest of lighted trees, tall toy soldiers and carols sung by school choirs. But requests to add a Jewish menorah and Christian creche to the mix have sent legislative leaders …

A Pendleton man who claimed to have been stabbed when he tried to defend a woman in a northeast Bend street-corner fight made up the tale and instead was injured while breaking into a nearby adult video and novelties store, police said Monday.

Citizen Link reports: “Girls as young as 12 are being exploited for sex in Portland, Ore., according to an NBC investigation.  Teri Williams used to be one of them. ‘You’re a prisoner,’ she told NBC’s Portland affiliate KGW. ‘No one …

The prostitutes working Portland’s notorious 82nd Avenue will tell you they’re in it for the cash. A girl who doesn’t want to be identified started at 13 years old.

Frustrated advocates adopted an “Oregon-plus-one” strategy, believing that if only a second state legalized assisted suicide, it would put the winds back into their sails. That theory is about to be tested.

The AP reports: “Jeff Merkley, a little-known policy wonk who likes to regale voters with his legislative accomplishments, was far from the first choice of national Democrats looking for a challenger to Oregon’s Sen. Gordon Smith.”

365Gay.com reports: “State Sen. Kate Brown (D) won a narrow victory Tuesday to become Oregon Secretary of State. Oregon has no lieutenant governor, so Brown’s win makes her the second most powerful state politician in Oregon and the highest-ranking LGBT …

Margaret Datiles of Americans U. for Life has this post in the Washington Times. She writes:  Oregon soon may not be the only state saving money by denying coverage for lifesaving medications and encouraging suicide. The State of Washington is …

Forbes reports: The bad news is, statistically, money is typically the driving force behind a marriage meltdown. The good news, however, is that it’s not everything. In other words, a marriage surviving a downturn depends more on what a couple’s …

LifeNews.com reports: “An Oregon woman who was victimized by the state’s assisted suicide law is urging Washington voters to oppose I-1000, the ballot measure to make the state the second to legalize the grisly practice. Barbara Wagner found out Oregon …

KPTV.com reports:  . . . The owners of Stars Cabaret plan to take over the site of Out of the Blues bar on McEwan Road near Bridgeport Village. They’ve applied for a liquor license with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.  …

OregonLive.com reports: Behind a portable chain-link fence and with the protection of police officers and hired security guards, supporters of Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette held a ceremonial groundbreaking Wednesday on their new clinic and office building in Northeast Portland . …

Theworldlink.com reports:  A Coquille Indian Tribe member is challenging a recent decision by the Tribal Council to allow domestic partnerships and marriages regardless of sexual orientation. Brady Metcalf, who lives in Pahoa, Hawaii, said he believes the Marriage and Domestic …

The Pendleton School Board has silenced a protest against abortion at Pendleton High School.

Tualatintimes.org report: Three ordinances designed to deter another strip club from starting up in Tualatin could have had a significant impact on all live performers in the city — from strippers to guitar players. But on Monday, city councilors agreed …

To weigh the claims made by supporters and opponents of the proposed Washington state initiative, we ought to carefully examine the first decade of Oregon’s experience with physician-assisted suicide.