Religion & Law

Faith is ?irrelevant? to child support, court says

Posted on June 04, 2010
Courthouse News Service: "A father who quit his job as a corrections officer and joined a religious commune cannot escape child-support payments, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled." | Via Religion Clause. | Shippen v. Shippen, (NC App...

CA court overturns order requiring minor to undergo transfusions

Posted on June 04, 2010
Metropolitan News-Enterprise: "A juvenile court judge cannot order medical treatment for a minor when no dependency proceeding is pending, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled yesterday. The court reversed an order requiring a teenager?one of Jehovah?s Witnesses?with sickle cell anemia to undergo periodic blood transfusions, over religious objections...

Wisconsin Attorney General?s office concurs UW may be violating state law by training abortionists

Posted on June 04, 2010
Pro-Life Wisconsin: "In a May 25 letter to State Auditor Janice Mueller, Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Kevin Potter wrote that the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics Authority [UWHCA] may be violating state law by paying resident physicians while they are being trained to do abortions at Planned Parenthood in Madison...

?MFC and ADF intervene in lawsuit to legalize homosexual ?marriage??

Posted on June 04, 2010
Minnesota Family Council: "Tom Prichard, President of the Minnesota Family Council today announced the filing of a notice of intervention in a lawsuit seeking to overturn Minnesota?s marriage law. 'We?re filing this notice to intervene to ensure Minnesota?s marriage law is vigorously defended in the courts...

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IN: Allen County Commissioners hold off on discussing doctor ordinance

Posted on June 04, 2010
The News-Sentinel: "The commissioners had been scheduled to consider whether to accept the Alliance Defense Fund's 2-year-old offer to represent the county should it be sued over its effort to regulate out-of-town doctors. That happened earlier this week when Illinois-based Dr...

?Christian group seeks to fight gay marriage suit in Minnesota?

Posted on June 04, 2010
INFORUM (AP): "The [Minnesota Family Council] is represented by Alliance Defense Fund attorney [Jordan Lorence], who frequently represents conservative Christian groups around the country in gay rights cases. He's filing the request Thursday."

Japan?s parliament elects new prime minister

Posted on June 04, 2010
CNN: "Both the upper and lower houses of Japan's parliament elected Finance Minister Naoto Kan to be the nation's new prime minister Friday, following the resignation of Yukio Hatoyama from the post earlier this week."

Nigeria: Sharia Council drags Federal Government, National Assembly to court over child marriage

Posted on June 04, 2010
This Day: "In a dramatic twist, the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria yesterday dragged the Federal Government and National Assembly before a Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja, over Senator Ahmed Yarima?s controversial marriage to a 13-year old Egyptian girl...

Alliance of Baptists supports DADT repeal

Posted on June 04, 2010
Associated Baptist Press: "A progressive Baptist group that endorses military chaplains is supporting repeal of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy that bans gays from serving openly in the military . . . In May, 41 retired military chaplains signed a letter from the conservative Alliance Defense Fund to President Obama and Secretary of Defense William Gates warning that repeal would discourage military chaplains from preaching and teaching Bible passages about homosexuality...

Fox commentator: Family of girl berated by bus driver should be sued for instilling pro-family views

Posted on June 04, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "An attorney commentating for the Fox News show 'Kelly's Court' not only dismissed as irrelevant a lawsuit against an Indiana bus driver caught berating a middle-school girl for her pro-family views, but said that the girl's family should instead be sued for instilling belief in traditional marriage...

Vt. lawyer: Girl, Va. lesbian mom may have fled US

Posted on June 04, 2010
Associated Press: "An 8-year-old girl at the heart of a long-running child custody fight between former lesbian partners may have fled to Central America with her birth mother, a lawyer for one of the women said."

Law Review: An Empirical Study of the Ideologies of Judges on the United States Courts of Appeals

Posted on June 04, 2010
Corey Rayburn Yung, Judged by the Company You Keep: An Empirical Study of the Ideologies of Judges on the United States Courts of Appeals (June 1, 2010). Boston College Law Review, Vol. 51, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1618665 "While there has been an explosion of empirical legal scholarship about the federal judiciary, with a particular focus on judicial ideology, the question remains: how do we know what the ideology of a judge actually is? For federal courts below the United States Supreme Court, legal academics and political scientists have offered only very crude proxies to identify the ideologies of judges...

IRS nears action on church pensions

Posted on June 04, 2010
Wall Street Journal: "The Internal Revenue Service is drafting guidance that could require employers with religious affiliations to warn workers when their pensions have lost their federal safety net . . . Church plans are exempt from federal pension rules, including those that require employers to fund the plans and insure them with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp...

Daniel Blomberg: The ranks for protecting military religious liberty grow

Posted on June 04, 2010
ADF Attorney Daniel Blomberg writing at Speak Up University / Church: Already, veteran chaplains from numerous denominations?including Lutherans, Southern Baptists, and Presbyterians?have spoken out to express their concern that repealing the current law that protects the military from open homosexual behavior will, among other things, harm religious liberty...

6th Circuit takes lead as most reversed appeals court

Posted on June 04, 2010
Daily Journal of California: "The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, often categorized as too liberal and out of sync with the more conservative U.S. Supreme Court, faces some unusual competition this term for its crown as the most reversed circuit...

?Brazilian man, Mass. husband rejoin in asylum case?

Posted on June 04, 2010
Associated Press: "A Brazilian man was reunited with his Massachusetts husband this week after U.S. Sen. John Kerry pressed federal officials to temporarily allow the 31-year-old gay man back into the country on humanitarian grounds."

European nations seal divorce law pact

Posted on June 04, 2010
AFP: "Couples of different European nationalities will be able to choose which divorce laws will apply under a new deal struck between 14 countries on Friday. The breakaway pact marks a significant extension of the process that allowed an inner core of European Union countries to set up the euro currency, or others to remain outside the continental border-free Schengen area...

Sweden says no to new EU divorce-policy

Posted on June 04, 2010
Stokholm News: "The new proposal gives spouses of different nationalities living in different countries or who live together in another EU-country the possibility to choose which counry's divorce laws they intend to abide to . . . The Swedish resistance is about the issue that Swedish courts could be forced to base their judging on other countries' laws...

A Catholic renaissance in Ukraine may be at risk

Posted on June 04, 2010
John Allen writing at the National Catholic Reporter: "Today, however, Catholicism in Ukraine may once again be at risk, as a new government has come to power which seems bent on reviving Soviet-style authoritarianism. On May 18, an official of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the successor to the KGB, visited the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv -- the only Catholic university in the former Soviet Union, which means it's the only Catholic university in twelve time zones...

KCCI poll: Iowans back same-sex ?marriage?

Posted on June 04, 2010
KCCI: "The survey found that 53 percent of those polled said they favor marriage rights for same-sex couples and that 41 percent are opposed."

Baseball seeks halt to porn, indecency on MLB.com

Posted on June 04, 2010
Reuters: "Major League Baseball has asked a judge for a subpoena to help it identify people using Internet services provided by Charter Communications Inc to post pornography and other indecent material on the MLB.com website."

Louisiana: Ultrasound bill goes to House

Posted on June 04, 2010
The Advocate: "A Louisiana House committee Thursday approved Senate-passed legislation that would require physicians to perform ultrasounds prior to an abortion . . . [SB528] amends the state law that generally forbids abortions 24 weeks after conception...

PA: Birth certificates sought for stillborns children

Posted on June 04, 2010
WFMZ: "A birth certificate is a precious document for a parent. But it's a document that parents of stillborns in Pennsylvania don't have."

Kagan called assisted suicide ban ?terrible idea?

Posted on June 04, 2010
CNSNews: "As a domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote that encouraging a new federal law banning assisted suicide would be 'a fairly terrible idea.'"

UK: Council spends £150,000 so Muslim graves can face Mecca

Posted on June 04, 2010
Telegraph: "High Wycombe Cemetery in Buckinghamshire currently has a separate Muslim burial section but this is due to run out of space in 2012 . . . The council have now settled on extending High Wycombe cemetery terracing to form new burial areas, walls, paths and steps for access at a cost of £150,000...

?Bachmann?s Christian counseling clinic receives state funds?

Posted on June 04, 2010
The Minnesota Independent: "Bachmann and Associates, Inc., a counseling center that receives state funds and is owned by Rep. Michele Bachmann and her husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, uses counseling methods steeped in fundamentalist Christianity, raising questions about its use of taxpayer money...

Seton Hall: No decision yet on same-sex ?marriage? course

Posted on June 04, 2010
The Setonian: "At the Mission and Identity Committee meeting Thursday, no decision was reached regarding the gay marriage course, as reported by the Star Ledger. A campus spokesman told the Star Ledger that the course was discussed, but a 'final recommendation' was not made...

FL: Gainesville OKs fire fee, even for churches, nonprofits

Posted on June 04, 2010
The Gainesville Sun: "Faced with opposition from religious leaders, the Gainesville City Commission voted Thursday night to levy a fee for fire service on property owners -- including churches and nonprofit groups -- to help close its $7.4 million budget shortfall and avoid some of the 'dire cuts' ahead...

MI: Canton police change policy on religious head coverings

Posted on June 04, 2010
Detroit Free Press: "People arrested by Canton police while wearing head coverings will no longer be forced to remove them while being booked, as long as the coverings are worn for religious reasons."

Dignitas probed for helping mentally ill man kill himself

Posted on June 03, 2010
The Christian Institute: "The Dignitas suicide clinic is being investigated by the Swiss authorities after it was revealed that the controversial organisation had helped a mentally ill man commit suicide. Swiss law requires that every patient at the facility must be able to understand the consequences of their actions, and that they are of sound mind...

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