Tag Archives: State: Vermont

Daniel Doherty at Townhall: Catherine Glenn Foster, litigation counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom and a Townhall columnist, explained some of the problems with the bill mere hours before the initiative passed the state legislature . . .

LifeNews: With Governor Peter Shumlin’s signature on a bill the state legislature approved, Vermont today becomes the third state after Oregon and Washington to legalize assisted suicide.

LifeNews: The Vermont state legislature approved a measure to make the state the third to legalize assisted suicide, following Oregon and Washington.

Charisma: Suffering patients need understanding and sound medical treatment, not encouragement to kill themselves,” says Litigation Counsel Catherine Glenn Foster. “Even in Oregon, where doctor-prescribed death is already legal, studies show that depressed patients often don’t end up killing themselves when they get counseling and good pain management.”

Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Friday to all Vermont legislators to explain the negative consequences of a bill that would allow doctor-prescribed death.

Catherine Glenn Foster at Townhall: Some Vermont state lawmakers are pushing to pass S.77, a bill that legalizes “physician-assisted suicide” under the familiar guise of “choice.” Their bill is an attack on human life generally, and especially on elder adults and disabled individuals.

Rutland Herald: Leaders in the medical and LGBT communities are celebrating a new health bulletin they say will require insurance companies to cover “medically necessary services” for transgender Vermonters — a mandate that will include gender-reassignment surgery.

VPR.net: But the traditional prayer will not be revived, a judge ruled against the town, and the prayer had to be dropped. While prayers may have once been common, many towns left them behind years ago.

AP: A Mennonite pastor who helped a still-missing woman and her daughter flee the country – and a custody fight with the woman’s former lesbian partner – joined his supporters in song Monday after being told his 27-month prison sentenced could be put on hold while he appeals his conviction.

AP: “If it is true that my actions flow out of my faith in Jesus, and from my deeply held moral believes – and I sincerely think they do – then it must follow that whatever judgment is being brought against me by the United States of America, is judgment on my faith and conscience and deeply help moral beliefs,” he wrote.

Huffington Post: New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley plan to file a friend-of-the-court brief on Friday, their offices said. Officials in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia, will join the amicus brief.

LifeNews: “The Vermont Senate today voted not to accept the Senate Judiciary Committee’s recommendation that Senate Bill 77 be rejected,” Mary Ann Beerworth of Vermont Right to Life told LifeNews. “Thirteen senators voted to reject the bill, while 17 voted not to reject the bill. As a result of today’s vote, debate on the Bill will continue. S.77 is now scheduled for further debate on Thursday, February 14th, at 1:00 p.m.”

Times Argus: “There are people in the state who are not able to access health coverage simply because their spouse’s employer refuses to recognize their marriage,” says Rep. Paul Poirier, a Barre City independent. “We passed gay marriage, but a lot of people still can’t get the benefits of marriage.”

Religion Clause Blog: AP on Friday reported that Kenneth Miller, a Mennonite pastor from Stuarts Draft, Va., was sent back to jail by a Vermont federal district judge who has ordered him to testify before a grand jury about a man involved in the 2009 flight of Lisa Miller and her daughter to Central America.

Vermont Public Radio (includes audio): The Vermont Senate Health and Welfare and judiciary Committees have been holding hearings this week on whether to allow terminally ill patients to get a prescription to legally end their own lives. Supporters call it Death with Dignity, opponents refer to it as Physician Assisted Suicide.

AP: Forty-seven-year-old Kenneth Miller was convicted last summer of helping Lisa Miller and her daughter leave the country in September 2009 to avoid sharing custody with her former partner.

AP: A Vermont federal judge has ordered a pastor to be held in custody after the man refused to answer grand jury questions about his role in helping a woman and her daughter flee the country in a same-sex custody case.

LifeSiteNews: Despite strong opposition from pro-life forces and a recent high-profile defeat in neighboring Massachusetts, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin said last week he is confident the state legislature will pass a bill legalizing assisted suicide during the next session.

LifeNews: Vermont Governor, Peter Shumlin, has stated, once again, that Vermont will legalize assisted suicide in the 2013 legislative session.

Boston Globe: A Virginia pastor asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to quash a subpoena requiring him to testify as part of an investigation into the flight from the United States of a woman who didn’t want to share custody of her daughter with her former partner in a Vermont civil union.

WSLS.com: A Virginia pastor is scheduled to testify next month before a grand jury investigating the kidnapping of a now-10-year-old girl by her mother, who fled the country rather than share custody of the child with the Vermont woman who was once her civil union partner, the pastor’s attorney said Monday.

Wisconsin Gazette: Vermont woman says the ex-partner who took their daughter and fled to Nicaragua and the Christian-right activists who aided her are guilty of racketeering and kidnapping. Janet Jenkins’ lawsuit, filed in August in the U.S. District Court for Vermont, alleges civil rights abuses, conspiracy, money-laundering, kidnapping, mail fraud and violations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Jim Campbell appeared on Vermont Public Radio to discuss the Wildflower Inn litigation. | MP3 audio 2:50 mins

LifeSiteNews: Nicaraguan Mennonites say that they have been persecuted by government authorities since they chose to shelter ex-lesbian Lisa Miller and her daughter Isabella following their escape from the United States, but add that they are willing to suffer and even die to protect Isabella from a court-ordered custody transfer to her non-biological lesbian “mother.”

Jim Campbell appeared on the Georgene Rice Show to discuss the Wildflower Inn Case and other issues. | MP3 audio 10:49 mins

Jim Campbell appeared on the Zeb Bell Show to discuss the Wildflower Inn Case and other issues. | MP3 audio 11:12 mins

Jim Campbell appeared on the Drew Mariani Show to discuss the Wildflower Inn Case and other issues. | MP3 audio 11:16 mins

Vermont NPR (includes audio): Their attorney, Jim Campbell, works for an Arizona-based religious advocacy group called Alliance Defending Freedom, and he still sees the lawsuit as an attack on their constitutional rights. “Every American should be free to live and do business consistent with their deeply held religious beliefs,” Campbell says. “And legal attacks like this one are not pursuits for justice but attempts to coerce and police a private business’s expressions.” But Campbell also says the innkeepers were eager to move on with their business and lives, without violating state law.

AP: Jim Campbell of the Alliance Defending Freedom says an employee acting without the owners’ OK said Katherine Baker and Ming Linsley couldn’t hold their event at the Lyndonville facility.

State human rights commission, ACLU finally call off attack on small bed-and-breakfast

AP: Janet Jenkins, of Fair Haven, filed the civil lawsuit Tuesday when a jury was announcing its guilty verdict against Mennonite pastor Kenneth Miller, who helped Lisa Miller and daughter Isabella flee.

Wall Street Journal: Massachusetts’ top court ruled on Thursday that a Vermont civil union will be recognized as the “equivalent of marriage” in the Commonwealth. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s unanimous opinion . . . | The opinion in Elia-Warnken v. Elia, SJC-11023. July 26, 2012 is accessible here.

LifeNews: The city of Burlington, Vermont, has told peaceful pro-life demonstrators they must stay at least 35 feet away from the city’s abortion clinic or face a fine of up to $500.

One News Now: Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel says the ruling is “outrageous.” “The constitution of Vermont says no person ought to or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship,” Staver tells OneNewsNow. “That’s certainly understandable and that’s a good provision, but going to an open meeting of the local governing board is not a religious meeting simply because someone opens the meeting with prayer.”

Religion Clause Blog: In Hackett v. Town of Franklin, (VT Super. Ct., May 29, 2012), a Vermont trial court held that a town’s practice of including a prayer at its town meetings violates Art. 3 of the Vermont constitutionthat prohibits a person from being “compelled to attend any religious worship.”

LifeSiteNews: The city council of Burlington, Vermont, has passed a new ordinance that could have the effect of banning pro-life protesters from exercising their right to protest in front of the town’s Planned Parenthood facility.

VPR: The Vermont Senate has rejected legislation that would allow terminally ill people to get a physician’s help in ending their own lives.

LifeNews: Euthanasia advocates in the Vermont legislature are pushing for a vote to make the state to next to join Oregon and Washington as the only states in the nation to legalize the practice of killing patients in assisted suicides.

GLAD: In a case involving a man who married in Massachusetts without dissolving his Vermont civil union to a different man, GLAD will argue before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) that the marriage should be considered void.

Religion Clause Blog: In Carter v. Lee (VT Super, April 3, 2012), a Vermont trial court held that it can adjudicate a dispute between factions of the First Congregational Church of Manchester.

Republic (AP): Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin says he’s disappointed with the decision of state Senate leaders not to bring right-to-die legislation to a vote in the chamber this year.

Breitbart carries the report and video.

WPTZ.com: For years, the Vermont town of Franklin near the Canadian border started Town Meeting with a prayer. A lawsuit stopped that from happening this year.

St. Alban’s Messenger: Judge Martin Maley will not rule on the constitutionality of town prayer at Franklin’s Town Meeting prior to Town Meeting Day, he said at a hearing Tuesday.

Worcester Telegram: In the small, northern Vermont town of Franklin, the annual Town Meeting starts with the banging of the gavel, the Pledge of the Allegiance and a prayer, delivered by a local pastor. But one woman has objected to the last custom for the last eight years.

Fox News: A Franklin woman is asking a Vermont judge to block a prayer that is used as part of the opening ceremonies on Town Meeting Day.

OneNewsNow.com: A Virginia man who prosecutors say helped a woman leave the U.S. with her daughter so she wouldn’t have to turn custody of the girl over to her former lesbian partner has surrendered to face charges he aided in international parental kidnapping.

Federal prosecutors have worked out a deal with an American missionary in Nicaragua that may help them find a woman who fled the country in a custody dispute with her former lesbian partner, court documents show.

The Rhode Island Catholic: The O’Reillys and the inn are being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based legal organization.
Holly Carmichael, an attorney for ADF, said that similar discrimination complaints are being filed in states that allow same-sex marriage or civil unions.

ADF President and General Counsel Alan E. Sears at Townhall: It doesn’t take courage to ride the wave of support for same-sex ‘marriage.’ It takes courage to stand against the surging tide. At the Wildflower Inn, so high in the Vermont hills, the water is rising fast.

SeattlePI.com: Making good on a campaign promise, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin married a lesbian couple in a small ceremony in his office.

ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Vermont filed a lawsuit today against a Vermont resort that refused to host a lesbian couple’s wedding reception due to the owners’ personal bias against lesbian and gay people. Vermont law prohibits denying access to public accommodations based on sexual orientation.

AP: Lisa Miller’s path from lesbian in committed relationship to international fugitive started in 2003.

Fox News: A high school valedictorian in Vermont was forbidden by school administers from delivering nearly half of his graduation speech in which he discussed how Jesus had changed his life.  ”I was just sharing a story about my life and how it was changed,” said Kyle Gearwar, the valedictorian at Fair Haven Union High School. “And as an American and as a valedictorian I felt that I should have been able to do that.”

AP: A Tennessee missionary charged with helping a woman get her child out of the United States as part of a high-profile lesbian custody case in Vermont says he’s not guilty. Timothy David Miller . . .

One News Now: he victory thus far does give those who oppose assisted suicide another chance to educate voters and the public to ensure that the bill does not pass next time around, but Beerworth expects a full-court press from pro-life proponents.

Boston Globe: The Vermont Law School is lifting its 25-year-old ban on military recruiters on campus because the military is ending its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about gays and lesbians serving in the military.

NY Times: Federal authorities last week arrested and charged a Tennessee pastor with aiding in the “international parental kidnapping” of a girl who has been missing since late 2009 and is at the center of a lengthy custody battle between her two mothers — a onetime lesbian couple who were in a civil union.

A Christian missionary charged with helping a woman take her 9-year-old daughter to Central America during a custody dispute with her former lesbian partner was allowed Monday to remain free on $25,000 bond . . .

ACLUTV.org: The ACLU of Vermont has sued the town of Franklin for including prayer in its town meeting. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Marilyn Hackett, a Franklin resident, alleges that the town and its moderator, Timothy Magnant, have violated …

Chicago Tribune: “Representatives of the Vermont Education Association and of nurses at Fletcher Allen Health Care will stage a noontime rally at the Statehouse in Montpelier.”

“. . . the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld, as applied, Burlington, Vermont’s noise ordinance that was invoked by a police officer to issue a written warning to plaintiff, a street preacher, who was preaching in a loud voice outside places of business on a pedestrian mall.”

OneNewsNow: “‘The state said, “No — we don’t allow religion or a deity on our vanity plates” and denied the request,’ recaps Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) attorney [Jeremy Tedesco]. ‘So we litigated the case, and after five years, we won at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. After the district court ruled against us, the Second Circuit said that Mr. Byrne needs to be granted equal access to the vanity plate forum for his religious speech.’”

Washington Examiner (AP): “The state of Vermont has ended a years-long legal dispute with a man who has been fighting for the right to display a reference to one of the Bible’s most famous passages on a vanity plate . . . ‘This really is a great victory for free speech,’ said [Jeremy Tedesco], the general council for the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, which represented Byrne.”

Associated Press: “A Vermont man will be able to get a license plate that refers to a famous passage from the Bible’s New Testament.”

ADF attorney Matthew Sharp writing at Townhall: “[T]he recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Byrne v. Rutledge, a lawsuit wrapped up Monday, assures us that no matter how short the message or the viewpoint it expresses, it is protected by the First Amendment . . . Shawn Byrne applied to the Vermont DMV for the tag ‘JN36TN,’ a creative reference to the popular Bible verse, John 3:16. But Vermont denied his request, citing a state law prohibiting vanity plates that reference religion or deity.”

Boston.com (AP): “A Vermont high school’s winter ball has been canceled at least in part because of slow ticket sales caused by a ban on the style of dancing known as ‘grinding.’”

LifeNews: “Vermont and Montana will form ground zero for the debate over assisted suicide in 2011 as legislatures in both states are expected to tackle bills related to the subject.”

Christian Post: “The American Civil Liberties Union and Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders both filed lawsuits Tuesday on behalf of same-sex couples trying to receive federal benefits from their partners. In GLAD’s case, the advocate group filed a lawsuit on behalf of five same-sex couples and widowed partner across three states – Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire . . . ADF Legal Council [Dale Schowengerdt] explained that GLAD put multiple plaintiffs on the lawsuit because ‘their legal arguments are a little bit thin and they focus a lot on the stories of these couples and basically make an emotional appeal.’”

“The justices on Monday turned down an appeal from Lisa Miller, the biological mother of an 8-year-old girl.”

FRCblog: “It is a tragic consequence of the civil ‘right’ that, unfortunately, Lisa Miller, fought for – and now has to live in spite of. Only this time, an innocent child suffers at the hands of adults in a political milieu where the innocent loses and no one, especially little Isabella, wins.”

LifeSiteNews: “The Democratic candidate for governor of Vermont has told a pro-euthanasia lobby group that he would push to decriminalize the actions of those who help others kill themselves.”

“The Vermont Supreme Court says a family court was right to award custody of an 8-year-old girl to her non-biological mother in a lesbian custody case.”

Reuters: “According to a 2002 study of Massachusetts and Vermont teens, only 5 percent to 6 percent of teens had same-sex partners. In the new study, 9.3 percent of teens said they did.”

OneNewsNow: “The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has told Vermont that license plates referring to ‘religion’ or ‘deity’ are constitutional . . . ‘Shawn Byrne in Vermont wanted to put ‘JN36TN’ [John 3:16] on his license plate, and the state said that he could not do that because they banned all references to religion on vanity plates,’ [ADF Attorney Jeremy Tedesco] explains.”