Religion & Law

British Religious Leaders Want Special Judicial Panel To Hear Religious Rights Cases

Posted on April 12, 2010
Religion Clause Blog: "At issue in McFarlane's case is a ruling by the Employment Appeal Tribunal that religious discrimination prohibitions were not violated when McFarlane was dismissed by a counselling service for refusing to counsel same-sex couples...

RLUIPA Suit Challenges Denial of Rezoning For Islamic Learning Center

Posted on April 12, 2010
Religion Clause Blog: "The Council on American-Islamic relations last week announced that it had filed a RLUIPA lawsuit in federal court in Chicago challenging DuPage County's rejection of a zoning permit for the Irshad Learning Center that would serve some 30 Shia Muslim families primarily of Middle Eastern origin...

Greg Baylor: USA Today and CLS v. Martinez

Posted on April 12, 2010
ADF Attorney Gregory S. Baylor writing at the Academic Freedom File: "USA Today took on Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (to be heard by the Supreme Court on April 19) in a recent opinion column by Tom Krattenmaker. ... First, it is misleading (at best) to suggest that this case is all about the ability of 'gay students' to serve as leaders and voting members of CLS...

McGill University and University of Calgary censor pro-life students

Posted on April 12, 2010
Wintery Knight, a blog "integrating Christian faith and knowledge in the public square": "The headline should be that these Canadian universities both continue to censor pro-life students. ... The academic left uses the power of the lectern and the grading marker to impose their views on generations of students...

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EMU motion for dismissal denied

Posted on April 12, 2010
The Eastern Echo: "A federal judge denied Eastern Michigan University?s move for dismissal or summary judgment of former EMU counseling graduate student Julea Ward?s case March 24. ... Jeremy Tedesco, Ward?s lawyer, said that while it is not a final decision, this is 'an important win in the case...

Group questions legality of physician assisted suicide

Posted on April 12, 2010
KAJ18: "The Montana Family Foundation based in Laurel says a Montana Supreme Court decision last year did not legalize physician assisted suicide. ... The foundation hired two attorneys to analyze the decision. Defense attorney Greg Jackson of Montana and Matt Bowman with the Alliance Defense Fund in Washington, DC analyzed the Supreme court ruling in Baxter v...

VA: Family Foundation, Alliance Defense Fund to discuss Christian Legal Society v. Martinez

Posted on April 12, 2010
Family Foundation Blog: "The Family Foundation of Virginia and the Alliance Defense Fund will host a discussion Tuesday, April 13, on the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court Case Christian Legal Society vs. Martinez. The Court will determine whether a public university can require recognized campus Christian student organizations to have nonbelievers and persons engaged in activities contrary to the beliefs of the organizations as voting members and officers if the club receives money from the school...

Suit seeks to block embryonic stem cell policy

Posted on April 12, 2010
Ozarks First: "Lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund are participating in oral arguments this morning at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in a federal lawsuit over the destruction of human embryos." | ADF News Release: ADF providing support to lawsuit defending law that prohibits federal funding of embryo destruction

ME: Teacher cleared in ad on ?gay vows?

Posted on April 12, 2010
Kennebec Journal: "A state board on Friday dismissed a pair of licensing complaints that were filed last year against a Nokomis High School guidance counselor [Don Mendell] about his appearance in a television advertisement opposing gay marriage. ... 'The First Amendment,' said [Jordan Lorence], the fund attorney who represented Mendell, 'protects the rights of citizens to speak out on important public policy matters being voted on by the people...

Fight over ?Choose Life? slogan on NJ tags revived

Posted on April 12, 2010
PhillyBurbs.com (AP): "A nonprofit group's effort to get a specialty New Jersey license plate with the tagline "Choose Life" has been revived by a federal appeals court. ... The case will now be sent back to U.S. District Judge Joel A. Pisano for further proceedings...

Spanking May Make a Child More Aggressive

Posted on April 12, 2010
Business Week: "Previous studies have also turned up a link between corporal punishment and aggression in children, but none has controlled for as many factors as the new one, published in the May issue of the journal Pediatrics." Catherine A. Taylor, Jennifer A...

?Advocates for Life?: Initiative Aims to Organize Pro-Life Students in 200 Law Schools

Posted on April 12, 2010
". . . The idea was hatched by [Kellie] Fiedorek and several other participants in the Blackstone Legal Fellowship, an annual summer school for 110 second-year law students put on by the Alliance Defense Fund. The ADF began as a fund-raising organization to support legal cases in defense of traditional marriage, the right to life and freedom of religion...

George Will: Facing Up to a Pension Crisis

Posted on April 12, 2010
George Will writes at Townhall: "Asked how the nation might address the projected $17.5 trillion in unfunded Social Security liabilities, Rubio said we should consider two changes for people 10 or more years from retirement. One would raise the retirement age...

?CA protest seeks Social Security benefits for gays?

Posted on April 12, 2010
AP: "About 700 peaceful demonstrators walked more than a mile to rally outside the Hollywood Social Security Administration office, said Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center."

Homeschoolers vs. United Nations: Who will survive?

Posted on April 12, 2010
EducationNews.org: "Homeschoolers have won a round in the long fight against the crackdown on family rights contained to the United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child, but experts say they need to keep up their guard."

Nigeria?s descent into religious strife

Posted on April 12, 2010
Wall Street Journal (Google link to full story): "It is no accident that this sectarian violence in Nigeria has largely occurred in the predominantly Muslim part of northern Nigeria. Though Nigeria's constitution declares that there is no state religion, twelve state governments have instituted Islamic Sharia law...

AG: Oklahoma will not join health care suit ? for now

Posted on April 12, 2010
EdmondSun.com: "Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson Friday said his office will only enter a Florida lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal health care law if required to do so by legislative action . . . "

Abortion Practitioner Loses Medical License for Killing Wrong Twin in Failed Abortion

Posted on April 12, 2010
LifeNews: "A Florida-based abortion practitioner lost his medical license this weekend after the state medical board evaluated his license. Matthew Kachinas was supposed to do an abortion on one of the twin babies who had Down syndrome but wound up killing the other baby in the failed abortion ...

?Elena Kagan on Same-Sex Marriage and Other Gay-Rights Issues?

Posted on April 12, 2010
Ed Whelan reports on Elena Kagan's at National Review Bench Memos. NY Magazine: Journalists Start Elena Kagan Gay Dance Again

Evangelical Lutheran Church Makes ?Gay? Clergy Official

Posted on April 12, 2010
Chicago Public Radio: "Last summer, the church assembly voted to allow gays and lesbians in committed, long-term relationships to be pastors and professional lay leaders. The Church Council just OK'd new policies making that official."

WI: Grand Rapids panel to consider ?adult lounge? request

Posted on April 12, 2010
Wisconsin Rapids Tribune: "The Grand Rapids Planning Commission will consider a request this evening for a land-use permit to operate an 'adult lounge' at 7330 Plover Road."

Law Review: Universal Human Rights in the Law of the United States

Posted on April 12, 2010
Mortimer Newlin Stead Sellers, Universal Human Rights in the Law of the United States (March, 12 2010). American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 58, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1569553 "This article discusses the relationship in United States law between State, Federal and international authorities on universal human rights...

Law Review: The Authority of International Law ? Lifting the State Veil

Posted on April 12, 2010
Samantha Besson, The Authority of International Law ? Lifting the State Veil (2009). Sydney Law Review, Vol. 31, pp. 343-380, 2009. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1588040 "The legitimate authority of international law, i.e. its ability to generate moral duties of obedience for its subjects whether states, international organisations or individuals, has become a subject of growing interest among international legal scholars and legal theorists over the past fifteen years or so...

The New Health-Care Fight: Abortion Coverage in State Exchanges

Posted on April 12, 2010
Newsweek: "The fight comes courtesy of Section 1303 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (page 779 here), which reiterates states? rights to regulate abortion coverage among their insurers. The key sentence: 'A state may elect to prohibit abortion coverage in qualified health plans offered through an Exchange in such State if such State enacts a law to provide for such a prohibition...

David French: Why do Universities in the Third Circuit continue to defy the law?

Posted on April 12, 2010
ADF Attorney David French writing at NRO Phi Beta Cons: "Working with the Leadership Institute and Young America's Foundation ? two groups fighting the good fight on college campuses ? the Alliance Defense Fund and its allied attorneys are taking the fight one step farther: sending letters on behalf of students at five public universities in the Third Circuit requesting that they comply with the law...

?Pediatricians: Don?t Reinforce Gender Disorder?

Posted on April 12, 2010
AP: "A member of the Pontifical Council for the Family is welcoming a statement from the American College of Pediatricians regarding the harmful effects of reinforcing gender identity confusion in children . . . "

Ballot to overturn Cal. marriage amendment fails

Posted on April 12, 2010
"Gay rights activists say they have failed to qualify a measure that would repeal California's same-sex marriage ban for the November ballot . . ."

Pope?s No. 2: Pedophilia linked to homosexuality

Posted on April 12, 2010
"The Vatican's second-highest authority says the sex scandals haunting the Catholic Church are linked to homosexuality rather than celibacy vows among priests . . . "

Montana Pro-Life Group Says Baxter Supreme Court Decision Didn?t Legalize Assisted Suicide

Posted on April 12, 2010
LifeNews: "A Montana pro-life group has issued a new analysis saying the decision by the state's Supreme Court to allow assisted suicide there didn't legalize the practice. The Montana Family Foundation says doctors who engage in the practice may still be charged for homicides there despite the Montana Supreme Court's decision in the Baxter case...

Judge Sidney Thomas on Supreme Court list

Posted on April 12, 2010
AP: "President Barack Obama's candidates for the Supreme Court include a new name, federal appeals court Judge Sidney Thomas of Montana, and at least six others who were considered contenders when Obama chose his first high court nominee last year, The Associated Press has learned ...

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