Tag Archives: State: Tennessee

Knox News: Craig L. Garrett, Blount County attorney, said in a letter to commissioners that he is researching the issue and “will update the commission regarding the legal ramifications of this issue in the near future.”

The Daily Times: Under pressure from a Wisconsin-based advocacy group, the Blount County Commission tonight will consider approval of a formal written policy clarifying its practice of allowing prayer prior to its regular monthly meetings.

WATE.com: The Blount County Commission votes this week on a formal prayer policy for commission meetings.

The Daily Times: Under pressure from an Wisconsin-based advocacy group, the Blount County Commission on May 16 will consider approval of a formal written policy clarifying its practice of allowing prayer prior to its monthly meetings.

Tennessean: Sheriff Robert Arnold decided to hang the Ten Commandments in the jail lobby despite a court order banning the Rutherford County Commission from doing the same at the County Courthouse.

MansfieldNewsJournal: Wampler is providing his services for free in part to fulfill his membership obligations to the Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund, which advocates in the courtroom for religious liberty, the sanctity of life and marriage and family. “He’s trying to change people’s lives for the good,” Wampler said of Brummitt. [Alliance Alert Editor Note: Dee Wampler is an allied attorney. Alliance Defending Freedom is not a membership based organization]

Peter J. Reilly at Forbes: Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the nondenominational megachurch, told me that they are planning to appeal. The argument is that, in Tennessee, universities can run bookstores without affecting their property tax exemption and “family wellness centers” can run fitness clubs (As a matter of fact, the church has turned operation of the fitness center over to the YMCA), so churches should be able to also run both of them. For whatever it is worth, neither operation was a money maker.

KnoxNews.com: A bill to create a new state panel that could authorize charter schools when local school boards reject them has been revised to apply only in five counties, including Knox, and remains a contentious issue as legislators push toward adjourning the 2013 session.

Peter J. Reilly at Forbes: The church was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom. Erik Stanley of ADF had commented earlier in the litigation: “Tax exemptions for churches are vitally important because it doesn’t make sense to penalize organizations that help serve the community and don’t exist for profit–and that’s certainly true with this church,” Stanley explained. “The taxing authorities in this case determined that the facilities were not integral to a religious purpose of the church, but the government is ill-equipped to determine what is and what isn’t a legitimate religious use. That’s why it shouldn’t be delving into church affairs. Doing so violates the constitutionally protected rights of the church.”

CNSNews: “I write to express my shock and concern regarding a Planned Parenthood lobbyist who recently advocated in support of post-birth abortion before a state legislature,” Blackburn said in an April 3 letter to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. “It is my sincere hope that your national organization will fully repudiate the radical position and hold your lobbyist fully accountable.”

Religion Clause Blog: In Christ Church Pentecostal v. Tennessee State Board of Equalization, (TN App., March 21, 2013), the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a determination by the State Board of Equalization that a portion of a church’s multi-million dollar family life center is not exempt from property taxes.

Business Week: Haslam, 55, a Republican, told lawmakers yesterday that Obama’s health-care overhaul might force hospitals to close as they lose money now channeled to caring for the poor.

Carly Pildis at Policymic: The bill was inspired by the case of Julea Ward, who was expelled from Eastern Michigan University for refusing to counsel LGBT students. She sued the university with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group, with EMU agreeing to a settlement of $75,000.

Steve Williams at Care2.com: However, neither Deberry or Hohenwald authored the bill. Conservative David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee, drafted both versions of the bill with the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, formally the Alliance Defense Fund, whose anti-gay agenda is well established. The ADF represented a Michigan student named Julea Ward who was expelled from a master’s degree program at Eastern Michigan University for refusing to counsel gay clients or clients who were sexually involved with someone but weren’t married. Ward received a $75,000 settlement last year. Another student, self-avowed devoted Christian Jennifer Keeton . . .

Huffington Post: That sparked what the Times called a trial of the counseling profession. Ward’s lawyers, a Phoenix-based Christian legal group called Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that if referrals to other counselors were common enough for non-religious reasons, Ward had been discriminated against for offering her religious beliefs as her reason for a referral.Hear Ward tell her story in the video below, posted on the Alliance Defending Freedom’s website . . .

Tennessean: It was inspired by a case in Michigan involving a Christian student named Julea Ward. She was expelled from a master’s degree program at Eastern Michigan University for refusing to counsel gay clients or clients who were sexually active but not married. She sued the school with help from Alliance Defending Freedom, a Phoenix-based Christian legal group. Ward eventually received a $75,000 settlement. The bill was drafted by conservative activist David Fowler, president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee . . .

KnoxNews.com: If the state Court of Appeals upholds a lower court’s ruling that Rutherford County officials held an illegal meeting when they approved plans for a new mosque, the question will be, “What next?”

KnoxNews.com: State Sen. Jim Tracy of Shelbyville and Rep. Rick Womick of Rockvale said Wednesday in a news release that they instead will focus on persuading voters to pass a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion.

Times Free Press: A federal appeals court will hear arguments on April 24 on whether the Hamilton County commissioners must stop allowing invocations at public meetings.

Religion Clause Blog: In a Tennessee trial court last Monday, James Coots, pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name in Middlesboro, Kentucky, pleaded guilty to illegally possessing poisonous snakes.

National Review Bench Memos: The body passed a proposed constitutional amendment to reform the state’s judicial selection system, by an overwhelming margin of 29 to 2.

WBIR.com: A report from Alliance Defending Freedom, a Phoenix-based Christian legal group, claims that that audits of Planned Parenthood programs in 10 states showed about $8 million in overbilling. Whistleblower suits filed by former Planned Parent workers in California, Texas, and Iowa made similar claims. Michael Norton, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, is the lawyer in the Houston and Iowa suits. The Iowa suit accused was dismissed in district court, but he’s optimistic about the Houston suit. That suit accuses Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, based in Houston, of overbilling the Texas Women’s Health Program by $5.7 million, by charging for medical services related to abortion . . . Norton, an abortion foe, said he hopes that politicians will crack down on Planned Parenthood. “Everyone agrees that Planned Parenthood has to play by the same rules as anyone else,” he said.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: Two men seeking to stop public prayer before Hamilton County Commission meetings have filed an appeal of a federal judge’s refusal to issue a temporary injunction.

Tennessean.com: But attorney Matt Kairis argued on Thursday that this case is different. Kairis, representing the Diocese of Nashville, claimed that local nonprofits already have been injured by the mandate.

AP: Republican U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, who opposes abortion rights, testified during divorce proceedings that he and his former wife made a mutual decision for her to have two abortions, according to divorce transcripts released Thursday.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: A Tennessee Republican congressman won re-election on Tuesday overcoming revelations that he once had an affair with a patient and urged her to get an abortion.

The Hill: So far, six states have passed laws that seek to defund Planned Parenthood on their own — and the courts have blocked all six.

WATE.com: The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State posted a video to YouTube showing what it says is a local pastor praying before a recent Lenor City School board meeting.

Tennessean: The Sumner County Board of Education and American Civil Liberties Union settled a lawsuit over teacher-prayer and promoting Christianity in schools in December, but the two sides will soon head to mediation to work out a compromise in attorneys’ fees. Court records show attorneys representing the ACLU, the prevailing plaintiffs, are asking a judge to award $284,321 for legal fees and litigation expenses to be paid by the school board.

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

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

Baptist Press: The University of Tennessee, in rejecting a request from the Freedom From Religion Foundation to eliminate the Volunteers’ traditional pregame prayer, has garnered praise from the Alliance Defending Freedom. South Carolina is the only other university in the SEC to offer a public invocation prior to football games.”We’re very pleased that the University of Tennessee has seen fit to disregard the Freedom From Religion Foundation,” said Travis Barham, litigation staff counsel for ADF. “We hope they continue to do that because the Freedom From Religion Foundation has been distorting the law, twisting the law, to support its jaundiced view of religion, its jaundiced view of the First Amendment.”

WREG.com: The Memphis City Council has adopted a new policy for the invocations held before each council meeting . . . The policy also advises as to how groups can sign up to be apart of the invocation.You can find the complete policy here: Prayer_Resolution-AJWv2

WBIR.com: On Wednesday, UT Chancellor Jimmy Cheek responded to the group with a letter, stating that it will stand by the tradition of prayer before UT events.

LifeNews: The Diocese of Nashville and seven of the Catholic entities operating in Middle Tennessee have filed suit in Federal court to block the implementation of mandates by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Chattanoogan: UTC officials said Monday that opening prayers at Moc football games will be discontinued in favor of a moment of silence.

Alan E. Sears at the Alliance Defending Freedom Blog: August was a wonderful month for your liberty at Alliance Defending Freedom, in which God has reminded us time and again, across a spectrum of important cases, how much He is blessing your good prayers and generous support for the work of defending religious freedom across our nation. Some highlights . . .

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.”

WRCBTV.com (includes video): Commission Chairman Larry Henry and County Attorney Rheubin Taylor have referred all questions to the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Arizona-based Christian legal group who authored its new prayer policy. The ADF also is lead defense counsel and is paying the Commission’s costs of defending its prayer policies.

Religion Clause Blog: In United States v. Rutherford County, Tennessee, (MD TN, Aug. 29, 2012), a Tennessee federal district court permitted neighbors of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro to intervene in a RLUIPA lawsuit brought by the Justice Department.

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, which the court today affirmed as constitutional.

Commercial Appeal: The Freedom From Religion Foundation announced plans Sunday to sue the Memphis City Council over the opening prayer said before each meeting, calling it an unconstitutional breach of the separation of church and state.

The New American: The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), which has gained its reputation (and a tidy living for its employees) by suing school districts and municipalities over public prayer, has chosen schools in Mississippi and Tennessee as its latest targets. According to the Mississippi Press website, the Wisconsin-based atheist group has threatened all 151 Mississippi school superintendents with lawsuits if they allow prayer over public address systems during school football games.

TimesFreePress.com: Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration is responding to what it calls “confusion” about the role of a Muslim staffer and a council that has advised two state departments on Islamic affairs. The Republican governor was criticized this summer by several GOP groups over what they perceived as the growing influence of a version of the Islamic code called Shariah in state government.

AP on NECN.com: An atheist group has asked the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga to discontinue Christian prayers before football games.

LifeNews: A judge issued a ruling that pro-life groups said was favorable for the much-needed law. Alliance Defense Fund attorneys representing Allen County say the court order the judge issued denies most of abortion practitioner George Klopfer’s motion to stop critical aspects of the new Patient Safety Ordinance. ADF tells LifeNews.com that means those provisions can go into effect and that the door is open for other Indiana counties to enact similar legislation. “A patient’s health is more important than an abortionist’s bottom line,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden.

Blog of the Legal Times: A federal district judge in Tennessee has been asked to void the results of this month’s Democratic U.S. Senate primary vote, won by a man associated with an organization the state’s Democratic party has described as a hate group.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: I’ve blogged quite a bit about why broad bans on the use of foreign law in American courts are improper. But what about narrower limitations, such as the American Laws for American Courts proposal that has been enacted in some form in Arizona, Louisiana, and Tennessee?

WRCBTV: The Wednesday morning meeting of the Hamilton County Commission started with a lengthy public prayer and ended with political fireworks directed at the county school board.

AP on TimesFreePress.com: It’s finally opening day for a Tennessee mosque after opponents waged a two-year court battle trying to stop it.

FFRF: U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Breen approved a settlement yesterday between the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Town of Whiteville, Tenn. The Agreed Judgment ends a lawsuit brought by FFRF against the town and its mayor, James Bellar, over several crosses on town property.

Reuters: A new mosque in Tennessee that has faced fierce community opposition was granted permission by county officials to open on Tuesday, in time for the final days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Tennessean: For more than two years, Rutherford County has been in the middle of a perfect storm over Islam. While furor over the “ground zero” mosque in New York has faded, the dispute over the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro — which began around the same time — has only grown more intense.

Tennessean: In January, the Tennessee Supreme Court adopted an overhauled code of conduct that applied to judges across the state, intended to draw a clear line between courts and politics.

AP on MySanAntonio: Coleman is alleging the incident was a violation of Fourth Amendment rights that guard against unreasonable seizure. He was tossed out after another man had spoken during the period and questioned the commission’s decision to accept free legal representation from the Alliance Defense Fund in the lawsuit. The fund is a Washington-based legal alliance of Christian attorneys.

Citizen Link: Unfortunately, we are seeing battles like this all across the country,” said Brett Harvey, who is representing the county along with Senior Counsel Bryan Beauman, both with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Chattanoogan: The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the county at no charge. Christian activists June Griffin and Charles Wysong had sought to enter the case in behalf of the county’s position, but that was not allowed.

Religion Clause Blog: In Crider v. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, (6th Cir., July 23, 2012), a Seventh Day Adventist was fired from her position as one of the coordinators of the University of Tennessee’s Programs Abroad when she refused to perform work-related tasks from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.a

Available for media interviews following preliminary injunction hearing in Coleman v. Hamilton County Government. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys are co-counsel in defense of the Tennessee county’s policy that allows public meetings to be opened with an invocation.

Wate.com: Knox County commissioners will consider Monday a written policy for how prayers are conducted in its public meetings.

Knox News: Eleven of Tennessee’s 12 Court of Appeals judges have declined to be involved in an appeal of John Jay Hooker’s latest effort to invalidate the state’s system for selecting appeals court judges.

American Prospect: In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just outside Nashville, the Muslim community won a hard-fought victory Wednesday. After a two-year legal battle that inflamed anti-Islamic sentiment across the state, a federal judge ruled that a new Islamic community center could get the permits necessary to open. Elsewhere in the state, however, Muslim residents got a cold reminder this week of just how much prejudice exists around them.

WATE.com (includes video): Knox County Commission’s Rules Committee is sending a written prayer policy to the full commission with a positive recommendation following its meeting Thursday.

TimesFreePress (includes video): A group of 27 supporters of the separation of church and state gathered on the Hamilton County Courthouse stairs Wednesday for an “Interfaith Rally.”

AP: A federal judge ordered a Tennessee county on Wednesday to move ahead with opening a Muslim congregation’s newly built mosque after a two-year fight from opponents.

AP: A federal judge on Wednesday will consider whether to force a Tennessee county to allow a Muslim congregation to begin worshipping in its newly built mosque . . .

Church Report (includes video): An East Tennessee pastor is challenging a state law that he claims restricts how he worships.

Chattanoogan: Federal Judge Sandy Mattice has directed attorneys in the lawsuit seeking to halt County Commission opening prayers to file legal briefs, including analysis of a new commission policy in which a list of local ministers is being compiled.

NOOGA.com: Two anti-prayer citizens were escorted out of Thursday’s Hamilton County Commission meeting after an outburst during the period for public discussion.

Nate Kellum at the American Thinker: The Obama administration’s recent end-around provision of nearly $400,000 to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Memphis reminds us that the battle between life and death in this country still rages . . . Life is much harder to defend when Planned Parenthood enjoys nearly unfettered access to the national pocketbook. Nate Kellum is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and is director of its Memphis Regional Service Center in Tennessee.

TimesFreePress.com: The Hamilton County Commission approved a new prayer policy today, further formalizing the body’s intent to allow public prayer at meetings.

The Chattanoogan: Also, County Attorney Rheubin Taylor said the Alliance Defense Fund will represent the county in the lawsuit at no charge.

LifeSiteNews: A new law banning explicit sex education, spearheaded after an anti-AIDS group two years ago demonstrated oral sex on anatomical models in front of high schoolers, took effect in Tennessee this week.

Times Free Press: The complaint, filed by Attorney Robin Flores on behalf of Tommy Coleman and Brandon Jones in U.S. District Court in Chattanooga, argues that the prayers violate rights guaranteed by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

USA Today: Now he says the mosque is part of a plot to destroy America. He claimed the mosque is “built on a foundation of lies” in a recent op-ed piece at the anti-Islam site Jihadwatch.com.