Religion & Law

Christian lawyers vie for incumbent judges? seats

Posted on June 08, 2010
Mercury News (AP): "A group of Christian lawyers is challenging four San Diego Superior Court judges in a race critics say threatens the impartiality of the courts."

Planned Parenthood Backs Down From Expanding Telemed Abortion Process

Posted on June 08, 2010
LifeNews: "A local Planned Parenthood affiliate in Iowa has backed down from comments saying it would expand the controversial telemed abortion process throughout Iowa. The process has women getting the dangerous abortion drug without an in-person examination by a physician...

Muslims order Christians to leave village in Pakistan

Posted on June 08, 2010
Compass Direct News: "The head of a Muslim village last week ordered 250 Christian families to leave their homes in Khanewal district, Punjab Province, local residents said. Abdul Sattar Khan, head of village No. 123/10R, Katcha Khoh, and other area Muslim residents ordered the expulsions after Christian residents objected too strenuously to sexual assaults by Muslims on Christian girls and women, said a locally elected Christian official, Emmanuel Masih...

?Gay rights groups join boycotts over immigration law?

Posted on June 08, 2010
Phoenix Business Journal: "Gay rights groups are joining boycotts of Arizona over the state?s controversial new immigration law. Twenty-three gay rights and advocacy groups said Tuesday they would join economic and meeting planner boycotts of the state already imposed by labor unions and Hispanic activists including the National Council of La Raza...

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Dellinger: Kagan is no Souter

Posted on June 08, 2010
Blog of the Legal Times: "Former acting solicitor general Walter Dellinger said today that Elena Kagan's work for civil rights and Democratic icons should alleviate any concerns about her among liberals . . . "

Nominee for DOJ?s No. 2 Headed to Hill

Posted on June 08, 2010
Blog of Legal Times: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has scheduled a June 15 confirmation hearing for James Cole, nominated for deputy attorney general . . . "

Fines Proposed Against Mormon Church for Prop 8 Campaign Finance Violations

Posted on June 08, 2010
Human Rights Campaign: "The Human Rights Campaign today hailed a proposal by the California Fair Political Practices Committee (FPPC) that would fine The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) for failing to report all of its late non-monetary contributions in its efforts to pass Proposition 8 in California in 2008 ...

NY: Senate Judiciary Committee Rejects ?Bathroom Bill?

Posted on June 08, 2010
New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom: "On June 8, 2010, by the narrowest of margins (12-11), the New York State Senate Judiciary Committee voted to reject a bill known as the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA or the 'Bathroom Bill')."

Citi Ain?t Paying for Summer Associate Time

Posted on June 08, 2010
Legal Blog Watch: "Nate Raymond reports in today's New York Law Journal that Citigroup has put all of its outside counsel on notice that it will not pay for summer associate time. Not for a single, solitary hour of it, thank you very much . . . "

Stanley Fish: ?A Classical Education: Back to the Future?

Posted on June 08, 2010
Stanley Fish writing at the NY Times:  Leigh A. Bortins? ?The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education,? . . .  proposes a two-pronged program of instruction: "classical education emphasizes using the classical skills to study classical content...

Cairo court wants Egyptian men married to Israelis stripped of their citizenship

Posted on June 08, 2010
World Jewish Congress: "The Supreme Administrative Court in Cairo has upheld a ruling urging the government to consider stripping Egyptian men who are married to Jewish Israeli women of their Egyptian citizenship. The ruling requires officials to send all such cases to the Cabinet, to be decided on an individual basis...

?U.N. committee moves to keep out gay-lesbian NGO?

Posted on June 07, 2010
Reuters: "A United Nations committee that decides which nongovernmental organizations can be accredited to the world body moved on Thursday to keep out the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission."

Saudi Plaintiffs Say Their Government Is Violating Islamic Law By Mixing Genders

Posted on June 07, 2010
Religion Clause Blog: "Zawya reports today that a member of the public has filed a complaint with the Prosecution and Investigation Commission in Asir province claiming that TV channels and print media affiliated with the Ministry of Culture are advocating the mixing of genders and the unveiling of women, as well as mocking religious symbols ...

?A gay Catholic voice against same-sex marriage?

Posted on June 07, 2010
New York Times: "It is common, this freshman urge for self-invention. The football player tries his hand at poetry; the classical violinist fiddles in a bluegrass band. But Ms. Tushnet ? whose parents, Mark Tushnet and Elizabeth Alexander, are a well-known liberal Harvard law professor and a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, respectively ? did not imagine that she would become a Roman Catholic, nor that 10 years after graduation, her voice, on her blog and in numerous articles, would be one of the most surprising raised against same-sex marriage...

Thomas Fleming on abortion: Children are the property of God and stewardship belongs to parents

Posted on June 07, 2010
Thomas Fleming writing at Chronicles: "The obvious solution is to fall back on the ancient view. Children are the gift and property of God, but the stewardship belongs to the parents and not to social workers. The implication would be that instead of trying to beef up abortion laws in general, Christians should focus on some specific targets...

Justice Thomas and the state bench: The new Supreme Court feeders?

Posted on June 07, 2010
The Faculty Lounge: "I believe we may be seeing a new Supreme Court nominee feeder - Justice Thomas - and a new Supreme Court feeder system . . . the state Supreme Courts. Lacking the ability to appoint judges to the U.S. Courts of Appeal during an Obama Presidency, but in an effort to culture (and observe) future Republican Supreme Court nominees, it seems that the Republicans may be tapping a new route to the High Court...

UK outsources its laws to the EU

Posted on June 07, 2010
Hudson New York: "As there are no actually verifiable statistics, the truth may be better -- or worse. 'The fact is,' said one seasoned political consultant, 'that with the adoption of the acquis communitaire as a necessary requirement for the Eastern bloc nations to become members of the EU, means [sic] that up to 90% of all new laws come from Brussels...

Joe Martins: Trinity University?s diploma battle continues

Posted on June 07, 2010
ADF Attorney Joe Martins writing at Speak Up Movememnt / University: "I recently blogged about how Trinity University had to decide whether the words, 'in the Year of Our Lord,' would remain on the school?s diplomas. I considered this a critical decision for the University: Either bow to the demands of the Trinity Diversity Connection, or hold true to the University?s Presbyterian heritage and identity...

AK Supreme Court supports pro-life petition

Posted on June 07, 2010
OneNewsNow: "'The Alaska Supreme Court ruled against Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union by holding that the . . . people have the right to vote on whether the initiative...which simply would give a parent a right to notice before their minor daughter can be given an abortion...

IN: County is offered counsel in doc?s suit

Posted on June 07, 2010
The Journal Gazette: "A Christian defense league from Arizona could end up defending Allen County against a lawsuit seeking to overturn the new patient safety ordinance. The Allen County commissioners, who were not named in the suit, plan to discuss next week whether the Alliance Defense Fund, rather than county-contracted attorneys, should defend the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health, Commissioner Nelson Peters said...

IN: Christian law group may defend Allen Co. from suit

Posted on June 07, 2010
CNBC (AP): "A Christian legal group has offered to defend Allen County's health department against a lawsuit seeking to stop a local ordinance that regulates doctors who perform abortions and other procedures. The county commissioners will discuss this week whether to allow Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based group of Christian lawyers, to represent the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health, Commissioner Nelson Peters said...

DOJ: UW may be improperly paying for abortion training

Posted on June 07, 2010
WTAQ: "The Alliance Defense Fund, representing Pro Life Wisconsin, told the attorney general in April that the UW has paid almost $60,000 in the last 3 years to pay for residents? abortion training by Planned Parenthood. The defense fund asked J.B. Van Hollen for a legal opinion...

Titles of Nobility in America: Elena Kagan and the Return to Feudalism

Posted on June 07, 2010
But we are gravely concerned about a more subtle message Kagan's nomination is sending to the people of the United States: a return to feudalism in American law . . . America was founded as a rejection of feudalism . . .

High court turns down No Child Left Behind case

Posted on June 07, 2010
AP: "The Supreme Court has turned away a challenge by school districts and teacher unions to the federal No Child Left Behind law." The School Law Blog provides more information.

George F. Will: ?Waltzing with teacher unions: Guess who pays piper??

Posted on June 07, 2010
Houston Chronicle: ?For the past hundred years, with rare and short exceptions and after controlling for inflation, public schools have had both more money and more employees per student in each succeeding year.? Indeed, public schools have been so insulated from economic downturns that ?there have been 11 periods during which GDP declined but mean total real per-pupil revenues still increased...

Black leaders leaving Dallas schools along with students

Posted on June 07, 2010
Dallas Morning News: "And some leaders of a civil rights group that once battled for equal education in Dallas schools are now urging black parents to send their kids elsewhere. Some say the rising attention to the needs of children learning English is overshadowing the needs of black students...

Pro-lifers protest birth control

Posted on June 07, 2010
One News Now: "As birth-control advocates are celebrating 50 years of hormonal contraceptives, a coalition of pro-life groups across the country is participating in the largest protest of the birth-control pill in the United States."

Election spooks lawmakers, curbs Congress spending

Posted on June 07, 2010
AP on MyWay: "The 2010 elections have changed the direction of government only half way through the primary season, with voter anger and economic jitters causing lawmakers to balk at their most basic duties as well as key elements of President Barack Obama's agenda ...

Egypt to strip men married to Israelis of citizenship

Posted on June 07, 2010
Yahoo News (AFP): "'The case for (Egyptian) men married to Israeli Arab women is different to those married to Israeli women of Jewish origin because (Israeli Arabs) have lived under Israeli occupation,' Husseini told the court."

UK: Schools failing to teach children the core beliefs of Christianity, says Ofsted

Posted on June 07, 2010
Telegraph: "Schools are neglecting to teach children the core beliefs of Christianity in religious education lessons, a damning new report will reveal."

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