Tag Archives: Topic: Legislation

LifeSiteNews: No matter the crimes of their parents, babies conceived in rape have the same right to life as the rest of us. That’s the idea behind a massive petition drive aimed at overturning Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s veto of a bill that would have allowed people who participate in ObamaCare’s state health exchange to opt out of funding abortions with their contributions to the pool.

Volokh Conspiracy: Lenta.ru so reports. The bill would criminalize “actions in public, demonstrating clear disrespect to society and committed with the intent to insult the religious feelings of believers,”

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 . . .

Windy City Media Group: With the end of the Illinois’ spring legislation session just days away, LGBT leaders say that equal marriage legislation has the support needed to pass by month’s end.

AP: Two people familiar with the Senate immigration deliberations say the White House has suggested to Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy that it would be best to put off a controversy over gay marriage until a bill goes before the full Senate.

The Hill: The legislation is aimed at crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), which are clinics often set up by a church or other anti-abortion groups. Democrats in Congress and other pro-abortion groups say these clinics are known to indicate they can perform abortions in order to attract pregnant women patients, and then try to convince them to carry their babies to term.

National Review: IRS scandal notwithstanding, on Tuesday, the (Republican-dominated) Texas legislature passed S.B. 346, a bill to force non-profit organizations and trade associations to disclose the names of the people who support them financially. The law exempts unions, but covers groups that spend more than $25,000 or more in independent expenditures about political candidates. This applies even if those expenditures are a tiny fraction of the group’s overall spending . . .

The Hill: Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) will offer a bill to ban late-term abortions in response to the gruesome case of Kermit Gosnell, an abortion provider recently convicted of killing three viable infants.

Washington Blade: The Nevada Assembly on Tuesday gave final approval to a bill that would add gender identity and expression to the state’s hate crimes law.

Washington Blade: The Puerto Rican Senate on Thursday approved a sweeping bill that would ban anti-LGBT discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and government services in the U.S. territory. The 15-11 vote took place after lawmakers for several hours debated Senate Bill 238 that Sen. Ramón Nieves Pérez introduced in January.

The Hill: Only two Democrats sided with Republicans in the party-line 229-195 vote — Jim Matheson (Utah) and Mike McIntyre (N.C.). All Republicans voted in favor of repeal.

Josh Israel at Think Progress: The Losing Arguments Of Anti-LGBT ‘Alliance Defending Freedom’

ADF testimony in Minnesota, Colorado, and Washington all failed to sway legislators. Asked whether ADF believes its tact has been effective or swayed any lawmakers’ votes, legal counsel Jim Campbell told ThinkProgress: “First Amendment-protected freedoms are vital to the continued flourishing of our constitutional republic. They should not be ignored by state legislators who vote to redefine marriage. The failure to respect freedoms long-enshrined in our Constitution will lead to needless litigation. Sadly, even when those rights are eventually vindicated in court, the legal process will take a significant toll on innocent citizens who are simply trying to live in accordance with their conscience. Alliance Defending Freedom will be at the forefront of defending those Americans.”

PilotOnline.com: A bill banning private insurers from offering abortion coverage through future online marketplaces has cleared the North Carolina House.

Bangor Daily News: The thorny issue of abortion rights came to the forefront Thursday in Augusta with the introduction of three bills that sparked strong words even before they were introduced to lawmakers.

Bloomberg: U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright in Little Rock in a ruling yesterday denied a request by the state’s attorney general to dismiss the lawsuit. The judge said the two doctors have standing to sue even though the law hasn’t gone into effect and they have sufficiently alleged the law infringes women’s constitutional rights.

Jeanneane Maxon at Washington Times: It is clear the time is now to protect women and children victimized by Big Abortion by enacting common-sense clinic regulations, informed consent requirements, mandated reporting of sexual abuse, parental involvement in young girl’s abortion decisions and legal protections for born-alive infants. Americans United for Life has been championing these laws for decades, providing model legislation and protecting women from unregulated Big Abortion.

LifeNews: The state of Virginia has adopted new pro-life laws ranging from a measure allowing women to see ultrasounds to one that cracks down on health and safety violations at abortion clinics to a law allowing Choose Life license plates.

Tony Perkins at LifeSiteNews: Now, some in Congress want to get in on the act with a bill that would intentionally deprive children of a mother. Under this legislation, the government would punish any adoption agency that gives priority to married, heterosexual couples.

AP: The Minnesota Senate voted Monday to make gay marriage legal, the last legislative step before Gov. Mark Dayton’s promised signature will make the state the 12th in the U.S. to do so.

ABC (AP): The Texas House on Wednesday approved a bipartisan bill that aims to remove legal risks of saying “Merry Christmas” in Texas public schools.

Hadley Arkes at Public Discourse: We don’t need a new resolution from Congress to address the wrongs of clinics like Kermit Gosnell’s—the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act already serves that purpose, and we should restore the civil penalties originally attached to it.

WCSH6.com: Every Thursday, anti-abortion protestors gather outside a family planning clinic in Augusta. They hope through prayers and pictures they can get women to change their minds about having an abortion. While they protest outside, some Maine lawmakers are working inside the state house on 3 abortion bills.

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

EdenPrairie Patch: After remaining publically undecided through much of the same-sex marriage debate, Rep. Jenifer Loon (R-District 48B) endorsed a measure from Rep. Tim Kelly (R-District 21A) to remove the term “marriage” from state law for both heterosexual and homosexual couples.

WRAL.com: Senate Bill 132 says the state’s mandated health curriculum on reproductive health and safety “shall include information about the preventable causes of preterm birth, including induced abortion as a cause of preterm birth in subsequent pregnancies.”

Politico: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) proposed two amendments to the Gang of Eight immigration legislation to extend legal rights to gay couples, one of whom is foreign born.

AP: Richard Land, a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that evangelicals are hopeful the bill will remain focused on immigration and steer clear of gay rights.

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.”

Miami Herald: Minnesota appears poised to legalize gay marriage, as the Democratic speaker of the state House said Tuesday that a gay marriage bill endorsed by the governor and likely to pass in the state Senate also now has enough backing in his chamber.

The Dallas Morning News: The bill is stalled in the Senate and Thursday is the last day it can be added to the to-do list for the House.

USA Today: The Senate’s 12-9 vote sends the bill to Democratic Gov. Jack Markell, who supports the measure and planned to sign it later in the day. It would go into effect July 1.

TwinCities.com: A Senate Finance Committee will review the potential fiscal impact of a bill allowing same-sex couples to wed at a meeting Tuesday morning, May 7. A companion bill cleared the House Ways and Means Committee on a voice vote Monday night, May 6. Both are last stops before potential floor vote in each chamber.

Opposing Views: The Illinois Family Institute protested against State Rep. Ron Sandack over the weekend, while gay marriage activists staged a counter protest, outside the Republican’s Downers Grove office (video below).

Albany Times Union: Karen DeWitt of New York State Public Radio talks to state Senate Republican Conference Leader Dean Skelos about his resistance to the abortion plank of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s women’s agenda and many of the election reform proposals that have been floated.

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.

Wall Street Journal (access via Google): Senators began laying the groundwork Sunday for formal debate on immigration-overhaul legislation, including a provision that would extend immigration rights for same-sex couples.

Engage Family Minute provides a quick summary.

Human Rights Campaign: Today the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act passed the New York State Assembly by a vote of 85 to 46. This bill would prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression in employment, housing, public accommodations and credit.

Delaware Online: Legislation to legalize same-sex marriage in Delaware cleared a Senate Committee today, paving the way for a final legislative vote on the measure Tuesday.

NBC Montana: The 2013 legislative session wrapped up in Montana at the start of the weekend, and now Planned Parenthood of Montana says they’re planning to sue the state over a bill passed that requires anyone under 18 to get parental consent for an abortion.

LifeNews: The legislature approved Senate Bill 371, a pro-life bill which introduces oversight into the chemical abortion industry by including chemical abortions in the definition of abortion in Indiana law.

AP: Ireland unveiled a long-awaited bill Wednesday that lays down new rules governing when life-saving abortions can be performed, a point of potentially lethal confusion for women in a country that outlaws terminations.

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.

Washington Post: For the second straight year, significant parent opposition to “parent trigger” legislation in Florida has led to defeat in the legislature despite powerful supporters, including former governor Jeb Bush.

BBC: The Irish cabinet has reached agreement on a controversial bill on abortion that will include the credible threat of suicide as grounds for a termination.

TimesUnion.org: Amid concerns that the abortion rights plank of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Women’s Equality Agenda hasn’t yet been nailed down as legislation, women’s groups will soon be able to show lawmakers bill language blessed by the Cuomo administration.

Hadley Arkes at Weekly Standard: With the scandal over Kermit Gosnell, this seems precisely the moment for pro-life congressmen to return to the Born-Alive Act and hold hearings: They could take evidence now about the volume of these killings, and they could restore the civil penalties that were dropped from the bill. After all, not a single Democrat, in either House, finally voted against that bill. The Democrats agreed that it was wrong to kill a child who survived an abortion, and so they should be faced with the question of how wrong they thought it was: Would it merit at least the kind of penalty that comes with a moving violation in traffic?

MO Family Policy Council: The Missouri House has advanced legislation which would provide constitutional protection to the right of parents to guide the upbringing of their children. The House has given preliminary approval to House Joint Resolution 26, sponsored by Representative Todd Richardson of Poplar Bluff.

NY Daily News: The state Senate’s only openly gay lawmaker wants to outlaw a controversial therapy that attempts to make gay youth straight.

The HIll: House Republicans and Democrats have joined together to re-introduce a bill that would expand the religious conscience exemptions under ObamaCare. Under the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH) Act, individuals would have the option of being exempted from the Affordable Healthcare Act’s mandate to buy health insurance.

CNSNews: A proposed law introduced in the California State legislature would allow public school children to use bathrooms designated for members of the opposite sex, if that students’ “gender identity” differed from the students biological sex. Assembly Bill 1266 . . .

WPRI (AP): Legislation to allow gay couples to marry in Rhode Island will probably be signed into law by the end of the week.

LifeNews: The House Judiciary Committee, after declining to hear from expert witnesses who asked to testify, rubber-stamped the House Human Services language to restore Oregon-Style doctor-prescribed suicide to, and then voted 8-3 to move, S.77 out for a full vote of the House of Representatives.

Cape Gazette: Alliance Defending Freedom Attorney Jordan Lorence, who testified before the House, said HB 75 does not protect Delaware citizens’ First Amendment rights. “The protections in this bill are not adequate,” he said. “You’re going to have some real victims, I think, if you pass this bill,” he said.

PolicyMic: Opponents to Delaware’s bill cite concerns over religious liberties — worried that business owners who refuse marriage-related services for gay and lesbian couples could be hit with discrimination charges. “If there’s an exemption for right of conscience,” said Jordan Lorence, attorney of the conservative religious liberties group Alliance Defending Freedom, “I don’t see it.”

Daily Caller: Under strict bullying law, kid who called classmate ‘horse’ and ‘fat ass’ goes to court
It’s an unintended result of the law, which took effect in 2011. Designed to combat the kind of ritualistic and pervasive abuse that led to the suicide of bullied Rutgers University freshman Tyler Clementi, the law raises questions about the line between offensive speech and harassment.

San Francisco Chronicle: Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has signed a bill that regulates the prescription and use of abortion-inducing drugs. He signed Senate Bill 2795 on Thursday, and it becomes law July 1.

WJLA.com: An Arizona congressman has reintroduced a bill that would ban abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Boston Globe (AP): Phone banks, an army of volunteers and alliances with organized labor, business leaders and religious clergy propelled gay marriage to victory in Rhode Island this week, a savvy and coordinated strategy that relied on growing public support and old-fashioned bare-knuckle politics.

Providence Journal: The state Senate voted 26 to 12 Wednesday to allow same-sex couples to marry in Rhode Island as early as August 1.

AP: Frustrated at being left out of an immigration overhaul, gay rights groups are pushing to adjust a bipartisan Senate bill to include gay couples.

WGMD 92.7: Testimony went on for just under 2 hours in the state House from witnesses on both sides of the marriage equality issue. There was testimony from Jordan Lawrence, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom and Mark Pupura, of Equality Delaware and Nicole Theis of the Delaware Family Policy Council.

Delaware Online: The minority’s featured witness was Jordan Lorence, an attorney with the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund. Language in the bill to protect churches and clergy from being compelled to solemnify marriages they oppose is not adequate, he said. “It’s the business owners that deal with weddings. It’s licensed professionals having their licenses threatened because they believe the wrong things about marriage,” Lorence said, citing discrimination cases in other states where businesses have been sued for denying services to same-sex couples. “Those are the places where we are having religious liberty conflicts around the country,” he added.

NBC News: “If there’s an exemption for right of conscience, I don’t see it,” said Jordan Lorence an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative religious liberties group.

LifeNews: The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed House Bill 818 on Tuesday, supporting the Commonwealth’s longstanding policy of not using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.

National Review Bench Memos: Washington governor Jay Inslee yesterday signed into law the last piece of a multi-year effort to rewrite state statutes in something that resembles Orwell’s Newspeak. Reuters notes that 3,500 state code sections have now been “tediously scrubbed” of gender bias . . .

Irish Times: Proposed new abortion laws will go before the Cabinet next week. Minister forf Health James Reilly reported to his ministerial colleagues on the progress of the legislation which is due to be enacted by July. It had been expected Dr Reilly would bring the proposed legislation to Cabinet today.

Washington Post: The story suggests immigration reform could “cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.” Assuming all 11 million illegal immigrants could vote and that 71 percent supported President Obama in 2012 (his share of the Hispanic vote last fall) the article says that he would have significantly narrowed the GOP’s margin in Arizona, Georgia and Texas.

Politico: The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.

Modernhealthcare.com: Senators voted 32-2 Monday for a bill that would prohibit doctors from remotely administering the pill via video hookup, a process criticized as “telemedicine abortion.”

NewsObserver: North Carolina’s 115 public school systems would lose the right to take their local board of county commissioners to court for more funding under a bill filed in the state Senate.

Washington Post: Senator Jeff Merkley, one of the lead sponsors of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, says he intends to introduce ENDA on Thursday, along with several other Republican and Democratic co-sponsors. ENDA would federally prohibit discrimination in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and it has remained bottled up in Congress for a very long time.

Boston Globe: The Rhode Island Senate is poised to hold a landmark vote Wednesday on gay marriage legislation, the culmination of years of efforts by supporters who want to see the state join the rest of New England in allowing gays and lesbians to wed.

Las Vegas Sun: Following more than an hour of riveting and personal floor speeches — during which one state senator publicly announced for the first time he is gay — the Nevada Senate voted 12-9 to begin the process of repealing the gay marriage ban from the state constitution. Only one Republican, Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, joined with Democrats to vote in favor of Senate Joint Resolution 13 . . .

Missouri Family Policy Council: A federal judge has upheld Missouri’s new law protecting houses of worship from deliberate incidents of protest and disruption. U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the House of Worship Protection Act, which was approved by the Missouri Legislature and signed into law by Governor Jay Nixon last year.