Religion & Law

North Dakota Approves Petition for Abortion Decapitation, Skull Crushing Ban

Posted on April 23, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "A North Dakota grassroots pro-life organization is announcing the official beginning of an effort to circulate petitions for an initiated measure that would prohibit physicians from decapitating and crushing the skulls of living unborn children...

Louisiana House Approves Bill to Opt Out of Some Health Care Abortion Funding

Posted on April 23, 2010
LifeNews: "Louisiana is the latest state to move ahead with a bill that would allow it to opt out of some of the abortion funding on the national health care bill President Barack Obama signed into law. HB 1247 cleared the Louisiana House floor without any negative amendments by a vote of 76-13 ...

Oklahoma Governor Henry vetoes two abortion bills, possibility of legislative override

Posted on April 23, 2010
"Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry vetoed two abortion bills including one that would allow women considering an abortion to have a chance to view an ultrasound beforehand. The second bill fosters respect for babies with disabilities by disallowing wrongful-life lawsuits ...

CT: Christian Law Center Offers Legal Help To Enfield Board Of Education

Posted on April 23, 2010
Hartford Courant: "'I've been hired to advise the board on any issues that arise in this case, and that includes advising on how to handle any suit that may come from the ACLU or Americans United [for Separation of Church and State]," Vincent McCarthy, senior northeast counsel for the ACLJ, said Thursday...

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Military?s health care costs booming

Posted on April 23, 2010
USA Today: "Military health care spending is rising twice as fast as the nation's overall health care costs, consuming a larger chunk of the defense budget as the Pentagon struggles to pay for two wars, military budget figures show . . ."

MI: Senate passes bill to restrict embryonic research

Posted on April 23, 2010
Detroit News: "The bills, passed Wednesday, prohibit the sale or purchase of human eggs and would require research facilities, including universities, to file annual reports listing how many human embryos they have stored and other data. The legislation includes civil fines of up to $5,000, and would make some violations felonies punishable by up to a year in prison ...

Driver wearing Islamic face veil fined in France

Posted on April 23, 2010
AP: "A woman driver wearing an Islamic face veil has been fined by French police for not having a clear field of vision. The fine was small, but it garnered big attention Friday and may illustrate what is to come as the president pushes to outlaw the veils nationwide...

Community Defense Reporter Online: 9th Circuit rules NV restrictions on advertising by brothels are constitutional

Posted on April 23, 2010
The March 2010 edition of the Community Defense Reporter are now available online at the Community Defense Counsel.

San Francisco archdiocese files suit over $21.7M property tax bill

Posted on April 23, 2010
Catholic Culture: "'San Francisco Recorder Phil Ting has taken a step that is unprecedented in the history of the State of California. He has determined that an internal reorganization of Church property, within the family of corporations of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, constitutes a 'sale' and is subject to a property transfer tax,' an archdiocesan spokesman said last year...

Bar Leaders Ask Congress To Boost LSC Funding

Posted on April 23, 2010
Blog of the Legal Times: "The presidents of 61 state and territorial bar associations and their counterparts at five national bar associations have sent a letter to Congress asking for increased funding for the Legal Services Corp. The April 20 letter urges the lawmakers to add at least $15 million in new funds, raising the LSC budget to a minimum of $435 million ...

Arab Emirates: Sharjah couples urged to legalise their status as police clamp down

Posted on April 23, 2010
TheNational.ae: "Couples living together out of wedlock should immediately get married or formally register their marriage with the courts if they want to avoid prosecution, police and justice officials warned yesterday . . . "

Saudi court lets bride, 12, divorce 80-yr-old hubby

Posted on April 23, 2010
Times of India: "In what could become a prelude to introduction of a minimum age for marriage in Saudi Arabia, a 12-year-old girl has won a divorce from her 80-year-old husband."

Arizona governor signs immigration law; foes promise fight

Posted on April 23, 2010
AZ Republic: "Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer today signed into law an immigration bill that gives the state toughest law in the nation, making it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requiring local police to enforce federal immigration laws."

David French: The anatomy of a smear

Posted on April 23, 2010
ADF Attorney [David French] writing at Phi Beta Cons: "Smearing good and decent conservatives as racists or accusing them of making racially inflammatory remarks is something of a cottage industry in certain sectors of the Left these days. Yesterday it happened to Stanford professor Michael McConnell, former judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and the chief counsel for the Christian Legal Society in CLS v...

The Pornography Plague

Posted on April 23, 2010
William E. May writes at the Culture of Life Foundation:  "The April 10, 2010 bulletin of iMAPP Marriage News [1] highlighted this issue. It focused on the Witherspoon Foundation?s recent conference and book, The Social Costs of Pornography.[2] After summing up Marriage News?s report of the Witherspoon Foundation?s conference and book on the social costs of pornography, I will present the masterful analysis of pornography and 'pornovision' offered by a prominent philosopher/theologian during the last quarter of the 20th century, namely, Karol Wojtyla, better known as Pope John Paul II...

Freedom from Religion Foundation ?floored? by ?judge?s gratuitous preaching? as he dismisses Wisconsin nativity lawsuit

Posted on April 23, 2010
"Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor . . . 'We were floored, however, by the judge's gratuitous preaching!'"

Franklin Graham: Army disinvites him to Pentagon Prayer Day

Posted on April 22, 2010
"Graham, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham, in 2001 described Islam as evil. More recently, he has said he finds Islam offensive and wants Muslims to know that Jesus Christ died for their sins."

South Park episode featuring the Prophet Muhammad blocked by network

Posted on April 22, 2010
Times Online: "An American television network has blocked global internet broadcasts of an episode of South Park featuring the Prophet Muhammad after death threats from a radical Islamic group."

?More on the Supreme Court?s CLS v. Martinez Case, Which Asks Whether a Public Law School Can Deny Funding and Recognition to a Student Christian Organization that Excludes Gay Students: A Response to Mr. Baylor?

Posted on April 22, 2010
Marci Hamilton writes at Findlaw: "In an earlier column for this site on the case of CLS v. Martinez, which is now before the Supreme Court, I argued that a public law school need not grant funding or grant official recognition to a group that excludes gay students from its voting membership and its leadership positions...

DOJ To Appeal National Day Of Prayer Ruling

Posted on April 22, 2010
"In a 'Notice of Appeal' filed in the Western District of Wisconsin on Thursday, Justice Department lawyers said that, on behalf of President Barack Obama and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, they were asking the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to overturn the judge's ruling ...

Erik Stanley on The Drew Mariani Show: The ADF Church Project

Posted on April 22, 2010
ADF attorney Erik Stanley appeared on the Drew Mariani Show to discuss the Church Project. | The MP3 runs just over 15 minutes.

?Tory shadow minister: Gay age of consent poses HIV risk?

Posted on April 22, 2010
Telegraph: "Julian Lewis, a Conservative shadow minister, has said the age of consent for homosexuals should not have been lowered to 16 because it put teenagers at 'seriously increased physical risk' of catching HIV."

Australia: New South Wales adopts tough child porn laws

Posted on April 22, 2010
The Sydney Morning Herald: "Tough reforms to NSW child pornography laws that scrap the 'artistic merit' defence have passed through parliament . . . Rather than relying on the defence of artistic purpose, as has previously been the case, artists who create images of naked children will now have to pay for a commonwealth classification to ensure against prosecution...

Global strategies for ?sex education?

Posted on April 22, 2010
The Globe and Mail has a fact sheet for "sex education" in Poland, the U.S., Finland, Spain, Netherlands, and Sweden: "Sex ed is a culturally sensitive issue in classrooms around the world, with a complete abstinence from discussion in some, and others going all the way...

European big business admits to lobbying Washington, but not Brussels

Posted on April 22, 2010
EU Observer: "Many of Europe's biggest corporations are avoiding registering their lobbying activities in Brussels even as they admit to the scale of their operations in Washington where registration of lobbyists is required by law, according to a new study...

Center for Reproductive Rights says government funded abortion is a human right

Posted on April 22, 2010
C-FAM: "A top abortion-rights law firm recently released its conclusion that the last decade of international legal trends indicate that abortion is not only an international human right, but that government funding is part of that right. They claim that the 'vicious' health care debate in the United States over abortion funding shows that the U...

Belgium discusses burqa ban

Posted on April 22, 2010
UPI: "Belgian lawmakers are debating a bill that, if approved, would make Belgium the first European country to ban the burqa in public places, BBC News reports."

Resistance against same-sex ?marriages? on St Eustatius

Posted on April 22, 2010
Radio Netherlands Worldwide: "St Eustatius, Bonaire and Saba are to become 'special municipalities' of the Netherlands as a result of the formal dismantlement of the Dutch Antilles, which will take place later this year. When this happens Dutch law will be in force on the islands, which are former colonies of the Netherlands ...

MA: Middleton businesses oppose ?adult? zone

Posted on April 22, 2010
Wicked Local Middleton (Tri-Town Transcript): "Middleton officials will ask voters at Town Meeting to establish a zone limiting adult entertainment in the Town of Middleton. Commercial abutters are now opposing the proposed adult entertainment zone that sits off Birch Road in Middleton, agreeing with residential abutters last year who voiced dissatisfaction with a similar plan...

NY: Planned Parenthood says abortion law needs to be updated

Posted on April 22, 2010
Albany Times Union: "Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, was in Albany on Wednesday to ask state legislators to update New York's abortion law. New York was one of the first states to legalize abortion 40 years ago, but the law still is part of the penal code...

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