Religion & Law

Germany: Federal Court of Justice to decide euthanasia case

Posted on June 02, 2010
aerzteblatt.de: "[The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) in Karlsruhe will rule concerning] the [attempted] euthanasia of a terminally ill woman at [a] hearing on Wednesday. She [had lain] in a coma since a cerebral hemorrhage in 2002 at a nursing home in Bad Hersfeld, and [had previously] expressed the wish that [in such a case] the artificial diet [would be] discontinued ...

MP moves to decriminalize prostitution in South Australia

Posted on June 02, 2010
AdelaideNow: "At a rally on the steps of Parliament House yesterday, Labor backbencher Steph Key announced she would introduce a private member's bill to decriminalise the industry."

Russia: Dagestan?s controls on Islamic education

Posted on June 02, 2010
Forum 18: "Legal provisions in the Russian North Caucasus republic of Dagestan restricting religious education are a major element in the near monopoly on Muslim public life enjoyed by the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Dagestan, Forum 18 News Service has found...

?Evangelicals Launch Effort to ?Reduce Abortions,? Float Contraceptive Advocacy?

Posted on June 01, 2010
"The National Association of Evangelicals has issued a new resolution on abortion advocacy that calls for pursuing 'common ground' towards reducing the abortion rate in America, and included contraception as among possible means of achieving that goal...

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Spain?s Conservatives File Lawsuit to Stop New Pro-Abortion Law From Starting

Posted on June 01, 2010
LifeNews: "An opposition political party has filed a lawsuit to prevent a new pro-abortion law from taking effect later this week. The Spain Parliament this year approved the final version of a new law that expands abortions and provides no parental consent for teenagers wanting abortions ...

Iowa: Same-sex ?marriage? opponents release letter, petition

Posted on June 01, 2010
Sioux City Journal: "Iowa groups opposed to gay marriage released a letter and petition with the signatures of more than 800 Iowa pastors they plan on sending to candidates for statewide office and the Legislature."

Alberta?s teachers brace for parental rights law

Posted on June 01, 2010
Edmonton Journal: "A year after the Stelmach government passed controversial changes to Alberta's human-rights laws, the province's teachers are still waiting to find out what Bill 44 will actually mean in their classrooms . . . The key criticism of 'parental rights' was that it could force teachers to defend themselves before the quasi-judicial human rights commission for discussing sexual orientation, sexuality or religion...

Ireland: Groups call for action on child porn

Posted on June 01, 2010
Irish Times: "The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (ISPCC) and Children at Risk in Ireland (Cari) were responding to RTÉ?s Primetime Investigates programme about the issue last night. The investigation found more than 1,000 individual computers in Ireland had, in one month alone, accessed images of children being abused...

Namibia: HIV women sue over forced sterilization

Posted on June 01, 2010
UPI: "Three Namibian women are suing their country's health ministry for sterilizing them without their informed consent, their lawyers say."

Kagan files brief opposing Arizona E-verify law

Posted on June 01, 2010
Stewart Baker reports on the law in question and the filing at the Volokh Conspiracy.

State Attorneys General Argue that Non-Media Speakers Should Get Less First Amendment Protection than Media Speakers

Posted on June 01, 2010
Euguene Volokh writes at the Volokh Conspiracy: "From the amicus brief for 48 states plus D.C. supporting Snyder in Snyder v. Phelps: 'No decision of [the Supreme] Court has ever exempted a non-media defendant from generally applicable state tort law on First Amendment grounds...

Lesbian U.S. Attorney confirmed

Posted on June 01, 2010
Bay Windows: "The full Senate on Friday, May 28 unanimously confirmed Laura Duffy as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, making her the second openly lesbian or gay U.S. attorney. Jenny Durkan, the first, was confirmed in September as U...

?Don?t ask? deal?s unlikely activist

Posted on June 01, 2010
Politico: "Aubrey Sarvis's Servicemembers Legal Defense Network is 'the American Legion of the LGBT community,' says one activist . . . "

FDA Urged to Reject Dangerous Over-The-Counter Abortion Drug

Posted on June 01, 2010
Standard Newswire: "Today, Americans United for Life filed testimony with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs, urging the FDA not to approve the abortion drug Ulipristal or make it available over-the-counter...

Head of Marxist-led institute joins Obama team

Posted on June 01, 2010
World Net Daily: "The policy director at a George Soros-funded, Marxist-founded organization calling itself Free Press has just taken a key State Department position, WND has learned. Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott has been named a policy adviser for innovation at the State Department ...

Placing the blame as students are buried in debt

Posted on June 01, 2010
New York Times: "According to the College Board?s Trends in Student Aid study, 10 percent of people who graduated in 2007-8 with student loans had borrowed $40,000 or more. The median debt for bachelor?s degree recipients who borrowed while attending private, nonprofit colleges was $22,380...

Law Review: The marginalization of Jehovah?s Witnesses in Canadian child custody cases

Posted on June 01, 2010
Dr. S. Magnet and Heather Ann Hillsburg, Protecting Children?s 'Best Interests': Mature Minors, Faith and Canadian Jurisprudence (April 13, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1589208 "Jehovah?s Witnesses are consistently marginalized within the Canadian legal system...

Catholics in Iran: A community at risk of extinction?

Posted on June 01, 2010
Zenit: "As Christians flee in great numbers from Iran, for both political and religious reasons, the country's Christian community is at real risk of extinction, says journalist and observer of Middle Eastern Churches, Camille Eid . . . 'Let me say that the political pressure is upon both Non-Muslims and Muslims, but Christians are twice under pressure because you have the political facet of the regime that is questioned by the majority of the Iranian people and on top of that you have the religious pressure for the Non-Muslims, because they feel that their freedom is curtailed...

?Russian Church supports ban on gay pride parade?

Posted on June 01, 2010
Interfax: "The Russian Orthodox Church welcomes solidarity between the government and society in rejecting sex minorities' attempts to hold a gay pride parade in Moscow."

Jewish community of Russia doesn?t oppose democratic rights: But ?gays? insist on parading private matters, normal people don?t

Posted on June 01, 2010
Interfax: "Boroda highlighted that the Jewish community 'is in no case willing to oppose any democratic rights, including the right to hold demonstrations,' but organizers and participants of gay parades 'insist on public demonstration of their life style' - however, "normal people prefer to conceal their private and family lives from others...

?Pieces of Eight?: The Constitution and the Dollar

Posted on June 01, 2010
Seth Lipsky writes at the Wall Street Journal full access via Google:  "Vieira believes the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional on, among other points, the same grounds that FDR's National Recovery Administration was found unconstitutional?namely that Congress had delegated too much of its own law-making responsibilities...

Chinese hiding three million babies a year

Posted on June 01, 2010
Telegraph: "Since 1978, China?s government has limited each couple to one child in a bid to stem the growth of the world's largest population. To police the law, neighbourhood committees keep a close eye out for any pregnancies, and Family Planning officials have the power to force women to have abortions and sterilisations, as well as to monitor their contraception ...

?None so Blind? commentary on the ?NY Times: Prospective Catholic Priests Face Sexuality Hurdles?

Posted on June 01, 2010
Diogenes writes at Catholic Culture: "The challenge for American seminary rectors, the New York Times tells us, is 'deciding whether gay applicants should be denied admission under complex recent guidelines from the Vatican that do not explicitly bar all gay candidates but would exclude most of them, even some who are celibate...

See what condition ?The Condition of Education 2010? is in

Posted on June 01, 2010
Education News: "The National Center for Education Statistics has released The Condition of Education 2010, a Congressionally mandated report to the nation on education in America. It covers all aspects of education, with 49 indicators that include findings on enrollment trends, demographics, and outcomes ...

Dennis Prager: ?Why Activists Connect Men in Dresses to Same-Sex Marriage?

Posted on June 01, 2010
Dennis Prager writes at Townhall: "So, then, why the 'T' in GLBT? Because the Left seeks to obliterate the distinction between men and women. This distinction is considered to be a social construct. That is why, to this day, despite all the scientific evidence (as if that were needed) proving how different male and female brains are ...

The Union Pension Bailout

Posted on June 01, 2010
NCPA Policy Digest: "Casey is gathering support for his 'Create Jobs and Save Benefits Act,' a bailout for union run retirement plans. Similar to House legislation from North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy and Ohio Republican Patrick Tiberi, the bill would transfer tens of billions of dollars worth of retiree liabilities to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, i...

High Court: Justices to consider ?funeral protests? in free-speech case

Posted on June 01, 2010
Washington Post: "Snyder and his late son, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, killed in Iraq, have become the public faces of more than 200 families that have seen funerals of loved ones picketed by members of a tiny church who say the deaths of U.S. soldiers are God's retribution for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality...

Senators await Kagan papers from Clinton library

Posted on June 01, 2010
AP: "Researchers at the William J. Clinton Presidential Library are working overtime to produce more than 160,000 pages of documents - some of them possibly holding clues to the record of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan."

9/11 mosque ? the propaganda coup of all time

Posted on June 01, 2010
One News Now: "The author adds that the proposed center will be called 'Cordoba House.' 'Cordoba was the Islamic caliphate who conquered Spain and governed what the Muslims called 'Andalusia,' occasionally brutally for over half a millennium,' he explains...

Law Review: The Case of Legal Reasoning in Jewish and Islamic Traditions

Posted on June 01, 2010
Joseph E. David, Legal Comparability and Cultural Identity: The Case of Legal Reasoning in Jewish and Islamic Traditions (May 23, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1613943 "Comparativism is not only a means for political change, but also a heuristic tool for the legal historian within explanatory contexts...

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