Tag Archives: State: Pennsylvania

ABC: Three years after drug agents searching a suspected “pill mill” at a West Philadelphia clinic instead found a medical “house of horrors,” an abortion doctor is going on trial on eight counts of murder.

ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania have sent a letter requesting that school officials at Governor Mifflin School District in Berks County stop using Internet filters that violate students’ First Amendment free speech rights. The district uses a “sexuality” filter that blocks sites that express support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, and an “intolerance” filter that blocks political advocacy sites that are labeled as intolerant.

Newsitem.com: The Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way Board announced Friday it will be placing discretionary funding for the Susquehanna Council of Boy Scouts of America on “pause” while the national Boy Scouts of America organization concludes its review of a policy of “not granting membership to open or avowed homosexuals.”

CBS: She may be a felon convicted on six counts of public corruption, but Justice Joan Orie Melvin is still a member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court — for now.

AP: Philadelphia will host a large gathering of the Roman Catholic church called the World Meeting of Families in September 2015, an event expected to bring hundreds of thousands from around the world, church officials announced Monday.

Religion Clause Blog: The complaint (full text) in Child Evangelism Fellowship of Dauphin County, Inc. v. Harrisburg School District, (MD PA, filed 2/8/2013), alleges . . .

Religion Clause Blog: In Persico v. Sebelius, (WD PA, Jan. 22, 2013), a Pennsylvania federal district court dismissed on ripeness grounds a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate brought by the Catholic Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania and two organizations affiliated with Pennsylvania Catholic Charities.

TribLive.com: Thou Shalt Not Move is continuing to keep the fight to keep the Ten Commandments monument at its current location at Connellsville Junior High School in the public eye.

Matt Sharp appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss this: Atheists Still Not Gleeful About Christmas. | MP3 audio 17:41 mins

MyFoxNY.com: A southwestern Pennsylvania hospital will stop delivering babies after March 31 because its obstetricians are either leaving or refocusing their practices, and because hospital officials believe they can’t afford it based on projected reimbursements under looming federal health care reforms.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys sent a letter Tuesday to the Chambersburg Area School District after an atheist group complained about the selection of songs included in an annual Christmas performance by the Chambersburg Area Senior High School’s Glee Club.

Pittsburgh Tribune; The legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania said the organization might sue over the filing of “sexting” charges against two Greensburg Salem Middle School students.

Public Opinion: Chambersburg Area School District community members are upset a Wisconsin organization is trying to end one of the district’s longest-standing traditions. By some reports, the CASHS’ Glee Club’s annual performance of “The Song of Christmas” has surpassed six decades.

PennLive.com: But eight county judges from across the state are challenging the 70 and out rule as being illegal under both the Pennsylvania and U.S. constitutions.

Religion Clause Blog: In Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, (ED PA, Dec. 28, 2012), a Pennsylvania federal district court issued a 14-day temporary restraining order barring enforcement of the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage mandate against a cabinet and wood specialties company whose Mennonite

Catholic News Service: Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett announced Dec. 12 that the state would not set up its own health insurance exchange and instead join the federal exchange, which will cover elective abortions.

Pittsburgh Tribune: A lawsuit seeking to force a Fayette County school district to remove a Ten Commandments monument from school grounds should be dismissed because the monument is more secular than religious, and its outdoor location means students aren’t forced to read it, according to school district attorneys.

PennLive (AP): Republican Rep. Mike Fleck, 39, told The Daily News of Huntingdon County that his personal journey has been a long and difficult process.

Philly.com: City Councilman James Kenney is to introduce legislation Thursday that would give a tax credit to employers who provide health-care benefits to same-sex partners, saying his bill would make Philadelphia, already a popular city for gays and lesbians to live, even more so.

Freedom from Religion Foundation: The Freedom From Religion Foundation helped one of its Pennsylvania members obtain a favorable ruling for nonbelievers from the state Human Relations Commission. After John Wolff of Lancaster was unable to get the owners of Prudhomme’s Lost Cajun Kitchen in Columbia to stop discriminating against atheists and agnostics, he enlisted FFRF’s help. The restaurant was offering an illegal 10 percent discount for customers who brought in a church bulletin.

Religion Clause Blog: In Zubik v. Sebelius, (WD PA, Nov. 27, 2012), a Pennsylvania federal district court dismissed on ripeness and standing grounds a challenge by the the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh and Catholic Cemeteries Association of Pittsburgh to the contraceptive coverage mandate issued under the Affordable Care Act.

ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the city of Philadelphia’s appeal from a jury verdict that it was “unreasonable” for the city to require the Boy Scouts of America’s Cradle of Liberty affiliate to certify that it would not discriminate against gay scout members and leaders as a condition of continuing its rent-free use of city property for its headquarters building at 21st and Spring Streets.

Blog of the Legal Times: President Barack Obama sent three judicial nominees to the Senate on Tuesday for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, all with experience working as public defenders or with a legal aid organization.

Washington Blade: The White House announced on Tuesday that Obama named Nitza Quiñones Alejandro as part of a group of three nominees to sit on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. According to the Human Rights Campaign, Quiñones is a lesbian and was recommended by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).

Religion Clause Blog: AP reported Saturday that the 21-family congregation of Swartzentruber Amish who have lived in western Pennsylvania are moving to St. Lawrence County in upstate New York rather than continue their battles with local officials over sewage disposal codes.

Lancaster Online: Prayers were said at Monday’s Eastern Lancaster County school board meeting, the first meeting with a public comment period since the district stopped opening its meetings with prayer.

The Mercury: Despite recent gains for gay marriage in a number of states, analysts say you needn’t expect Pennsylvania to join their number anytime soon.

Dechert LLP: Six Pennsylvania judges filed a lawsuit today in Harrisburg claiming that a provision of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which mandates all Pennsylvania justices and judges retire at the end of the calendar year in which they turn 70, violates their rights under the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and under Article I of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

PennLive.com: Harrisburg City Council unanimously adopted a law Tuesday night preventing protesters from being within 20 feet of entrances and driveways of abortion clinics and other medical facilities.

It’s one thing for a Democratic presidential candidate to dominate a Democratic city like Philadelphia, but check out this head-spinning figure: In 59 voting divisions in the city, Mitt Romney received not one vote. Zero. Zilch.

Religion Clause Blog: In Pocono Mountain Charter School v. Pocono Mountain School District, (MD PA, Nov. 8, 2012), a publicly funded charter school, along with students and parents, claimed that a Pennsylvania school district imposed harsher conditions on the school out of racial and religious animus

The Republic (AP): An abortion protester has agreed to stay 25 feet further away from the entrance to a Pittsburgh abortion clinic to settle a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit which claimed she pushed two volunteers who were escorting women into the downtown facility.

Religion Clause: According to the Wilkes-Barre (PA) Citizens Voice and the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, a former member of the Shickshinny (PA) borough council filed suit in federal court Wednesday, alleging that the borough and various of its current and former council members are unconstitutionally forcing her to support a religion by placing a church sign in her yard without her consent.

Religion Clause Blog: In Central Dauphin School District v. Garisto, (PA Com. Pl. Ct., Sept. 20, 2012), a Pennsylvania Dauphin County trial court, in a suit by a school district, issued a permanent injunction requiring a street preacher to stay at least 20 yards away from any school bus stop at which children are waiting to board or de-board buses.

Catholic Culture: Because politics is the place where competing moral visions of a society meet and struggle, our democracy depends on people of conviction fighting for what they believe in the public square, yet doing so with an abiding respect for one another. That struggle includes and depends on all of us, precisely as Catholics. For if we believe that a particular issue is gravely evil or that it will result in serious damage to society, then we have a duty, both as Catholics and as Americans, to hold political candidates accountable.

Christian Post: DF Senior Counsel David Cortman argued that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit should affirm the district court order. There was no decision made by the court during the hearing Wednesday involving the school district. “Public schools should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas – and that certainly includes a 5th-grader’s Christmas party invitations,” Cortman said. “America’s public schools should recognize the constitutionally protected freedom of religious students who wish to hand out these kinds of fliers. The district court was right to stop this unconstitutional ban on Christmas party invitations. Numerous courts have upheld similar fliers around the country.”

Pocono Record: The Alliance Defending Freedom sued the district in March, claiming the student’s free speech rights were violated because the district has let students hand out fliers for other events, including Halloween parties and even the plaintiff’s younger sibling’s birthday party.

TimesOnline.com (AP): The Alliance Defending Freedom sued the Pocono Mountain School District in March, claiming the student’s free speech rights were violated because the district has let students hand out fliers for other events, including Halloween parties and even the plaintiff’s younger sibling’s birthday party.

lliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel David Cortman and Legal Counsel Matt Sharp will be available for media interviews immediately following Cortman’s oral argument at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit Wednesday in favor of allowing elementary school students to distribute Christmas party fliers at school.

Queerty (site promotes homosexual behavior and may contain objectionable content): Inspired by a law recently enacted in California, Pennsylvania State Representative Babette Josephs (D- 182nd) has introduced a bill that would ban the practice of reparative or “conversion” therapy in the state of Pennsylvania.

Law.com (subscription): A federal judge in Philadelphia has placed a closely-watched case involving the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act and the survivors of a deceased Cozen O’Connor partner on the suspense docket, effectively terminating the matter pending the outcome of other relevant cases. U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones II of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania heard arguments on DOMA’s constitutionality in Cozen O’Connor v. Tobits . . .

Philly.com: A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by an atheist group that challenged the legislature’s resolution declaring 2012 the “Year of the Bible,” but he also chastised the lawmakers for “pandering.” | FFRF press release and opinion link

Casey Mattox at Townhall: A court has recently stopped Illinois from enforcing a rule that denied freedom of conscience to pharmacists. This is a cause for celebration and an excellent legal win. But as the left reacts hysterically to the supposed lack of access to Plan B that will result, one pharmacist’s story perfectly demonstrates the fundamental flaw at the core of any effort to deny freedom of conscience: compelled violations of conscience won’t expand access, they’ll reduce it.

AP: A state Commonwealth Court judge on Tuesday determined that the requirement that Pennsylvania voters show a valid photo ID will not be in place for the Nov. 6 presidential election, a victory for opponents of the law. | Applewhite v. Commonwealth of Penn., No. 330 M.D. 2012 (Pa. Cmwlth. Oct. 2, 2012)

Times Dispatch: U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski agreed Friday to let the board and the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia try to reach a settlement after both sides requested it.

FoxNews: Pennsylvania’s highest court on Tuesday told a lower court judge to stop a tough new law requiring voters to show photo identification from taking effect in this year’s presidential election if he finds voters cannot get easy access to ID cards or if he thinks voters will be disenfranchised.

LifeNews: “We urgently need you to call Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai’s office and urge him to put Senate Bill 3 up for a vote,” she said. “This common sense measure, which has already passed the Pennsylvania Senate, would allow Pennsylvania to opt out of abortion funding under President Obama’s so-called health care reform law.”

WPXI.com: Board members said it will stay put, and they are looking at all of their options to determine how to move forward . . .

Business Week: Pennsylvania’s new voter-ID law “impermissibly” violates a fundamental right, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and 10 citizen-plaintiffs told the state’s Supreme Court.

Freedom from Religion Foundation: FFRF has hired counsel and has parent plaintiffs in both school districts. Marcus B. Schneider of Pittsburgh wrote both districts on Aug. 29 on behalf of FFRF, noting that these Ten Commandment monuments “will not withstand judicial …

The New American: Attorney Brett Harvey of the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom applauded the ruling, noting that “since this nation’s founding, public meetings have been opened with prayer. There is no legal reason why Hamilton County’s citizens should be denied this freedom under the county’s policy.” Harvey emphasized that prayer “has always been lawful in America, and the district court rightly declined to stop the county from including prayer at its meetings. Secularist groups might not be happy with this, but an invocation offered according to the dictates of the giver’s conscience as part of a policy like Hamilton County’s is not an establishment of religion.”

PennLive.com: Covenant Christian Academy leaders make that claim, and insist their doctrine is shielded by the Constitution’s religious freedom protections, in asking U.S. Middle District Judge Christopher C. Conner to dismiss the suit filed by ex-teacher Sharon Wright.

FFRF: Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert sent letters to the Octorara Area School Board in Atglen, the Eastern Lancaster County School Board in New Holland, the Big Spring School Board in Newville and the Greencastle-Antrim School Board in Greencastle. In all instances, a local complainant had alerted FFRF to the violations.

PennLive.com: Six justices on the state’s Supreme Court stand to play a bigger role in determining the outcome of this year’s elections in Pennsylvania than any other voter.

AP on MyWay: A Pennsylvania woman whose autistic adult son was not recommended for a heart transplant because of his illness and the complexity of the process, among other factors, said she wants to bring more attention to the decision-making process so that those with ailments or disabilities are not passed over without careful consideration.

How Appealing reports and links to relevant documents.

WFMZ.com: Pennsylvania judge on Wednesday refused to stop a tough new voter identification law from going into effect, which Democrats said will suppress votes among President Barack Obama’s supporters.

Religion Clause Blog: As previously reported, last month a Pennsylvania federal district judge, from the bench, issued a temporary injunction against enforcement of Philadelphia’s new ordinance that bans public feeding of groups of more than 3 people in any city park.

LifeSiteNews: An online petition circulated by an alumnus aims to push DeSales University, a faithful Catholic college, to reconsider the decision to not allow a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender student-run organization on campus. The petition has led to a strong response from the university.

Religion Clause Blog: A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania rabbi has filed a federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Board of Funeral Directors and two other state officials seeking an injunction against interpreting Pennsylvania’s funeral-director law as requiring licensed funeral director when a funeral is supervised by a religious authority and there is no embalming or fee-for-service.

The Sentinel: The long-standing practice of the Big Spring School Board beginning public meetings with a prayer is unconstitutional, according to federal case law and the opinions of two law professors.

WorldNetDaily: A judge in Pennsylvania who dismissed charges against a fellow Muslim who was accused of attacking an atheist parading as a zombie Muhammad has been rebuked by state judicial officials.

TPM: The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has launched a formal investigation into whether Pennsylvania’s voter ID law discriminates against minorities, TPM has learned.

WYTV.com: A western Pennsylvania borough has rejected a proposed lottery system to solve objections from an atheists’ group over a Nativity scene that has been erected annually on borough property for decades

EllwoodCity.org: On Monday, a vote is expected to take place in order to determine the fate of the Nativity that for decades has sat on the front lawn of the Municipal Building in Ellwood City.

LifeNews: Abington Health, a non-religiously-affiliated hospital in southeastern Pennsylvania, recently announced plans to merge with Holy Redeemer Health System, a Catholic institution. As a result of the merger, Abington Health will desist performing abortions out of respect for Holy Redeemer’s pro-life convictions.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette: This fall, students will be able to choose from four new cyber charter schools, bringing the statewide total to 16, thanks to approvals by the state Department of Education.

Senior citizens banned from praying before meals at a Pennsylvania senior center will again be allowed to pray after the center received a letter from the Alliance Defense Fund.

Citizens Voice: The American Civil Liberties Union is taking issue with Luzerne County’s new administrative code, saying the county can require employees to identify domestic partners to prevent nepotism but can’t only require it for gay employees.

LifeSiteNews: One abortion clinic, Allegheny Women’s Center, voluntary closed on June 15, 2012, rather than comply with the law. Five others will be forced to stop all surgical abortions as of today.

Times Online: The Beaver County Times ( http://bit.ly/KQHdyl) reports Tuesday that Ellwood City’s borough council has given preliminary approval to a lottery that would let anyone enter a contest to erect a holiday display.

AP: The Service Employees International Union . . . Target states include Colorado, Florida, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia – each considered crucial for an Obama victory.

NECN.com: Nearly all of the state’s abortion clinics are expected to remain open under a tougher law that raises surgical standards as a response to grotesque conditions discovered at a Philadelphia clinic two years ago, state officials said Monday.

Philly.com: The special-interest groups that derailed reform of statewide judicial elections, which most Pennsylvanians say they distrust, claimed that they were fighting to preserve citizens’ right to vote.

Think Progress: In recent days, state Democratic parties in Montana, Texas, and Pennsylvania have agreed to add marriage equality to their 2012 platforms. Even though same-sex marriage is currently outlawed in all three states, these state Democratic parties have decided that same-sex marriage fully deserves formal recognition on their upcoming agendas.