Religion & Law

Dale Schowengerdt on Chris Fabry Live: No Bible Studies. Period.

Posted on March 15, 2010
ADF attorney Dale Schowengerdt appeared on Chris Fabry Live to discuss this: Ariz. town: No church meetings at home. Period. The MP3 runs just over 15 minutes

Daniel Blomberg on AFR Focal Point: AZ Town restricts House Churches

Posted on March 15, 2010
ADF attorney Daniel Blomberg appeared on AFR Focal Point with Bryan Fischer to discuss restrictions on house churches in Gilbert, Arizona. The MP3 runs just over 12 minutes. Related ADF Media Information

Md. bill seeks to broaden federal FMLA provisions

Posted on March 15, 2010
Baltimore Business Journal: "A bill introduced in the General Assembly would expand the federal Family and Medical Leave Act to include workers who need unpaid time off to care for ailing domestic partners and the children of their domestic partners."

?Spurned by NV, transgender woman to wed in CA?

Posted on March 15, 2010
Mercury News: "While both states prohibit same-sex marriage, officials in California said the two qualified for the license because Severson's birth certificate lists her as a man. But officials in Nevada nixed the request, saying they consider Severson a woman because that's what her driver's license says...

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ObamaCare and Eugenics: How abortion subsidies threaten reproductive liberty.

Posted on March 15, 2010
James Taranto writes at the Wall Street Journal: "What Stupak is hearing from his colleagues is not the pro-choice argument that the government should permit abortion as a matter of individual liberty. Rather, they claim that the government should encourage abortion as a social expedient--a cost-cutting measure...

?High divorce rates and teen pregnancy are worse in conservative states than liberal states?

Posted on March 12, 2010
Naomi Cahn and June Carbone write at the Christian Science Monitor: "But moral panic won't help lower divorce rates and teen pregnancy in conservative states; education will . . . In the United States, states that emphasize abstinence-only education, limit public subsidies of contraception, restrict access to abortion ? and, yes, oppose gay marriage ? have higher teen birth and divorce rates...

Former Co-Chair of Obama National LGBT Leadership Council: We don?t want tolerance, we want acceptance

Posted on March 12, 2010
"So, why do I constantly see arguments in the LGBT press extolling tolerance of us from the larger community or suggestions that we should be tolerated? What I want, and I hope the community at large wants, is acceptance. That?s right, approval and respect of my sexual orientation...

Embryonic stem cell research bill introduced in House

Posted on March 12, 2010
govtrack.use: H.R. 4808 "To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, and for other purposes."

MN: Islamic charter school families seek to join legal fight over religion at school

Posted on March 12, 2010
Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "In a formal move to join the legal battle over religion at their school, several families at Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TiZA) have asked a judge to let them intervene as parties in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota...

Georgia Taking Lead in Interstate Insurance Laws

Posted on March 12, 2010
NCPA Policy Digest: "Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) is showing the way on how states can implement cross-state selling of individual health insurance, says Ronald E. Bachman, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. States can voluntarily enter into reciprocity agreements with like-minded states...

Virginia legislators drop bill restricting pregnancy centers, praise them instead

Posted on March 12, 2010
Catholic News Agency: "Rather than passing two bills headed by abortion supporters which aimed to impose restrictions on pregnancy centers, Virginia legislators chose to pass a resolution this week that praised the pregnancy centers work." HB 452: Limited service pregnancy centers; Department of Health to promulgate regulations for registration...

Ariz. town: No church meetings at home. Period.

Posted on March 12, 2010
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed an appeal Wednesday with the town of Gilbert?s zoning Board of Adjustment to overturn a decision banning churches from meeting, holding Bible studies, or having any other activities in private homes.

Hung Parliament possible as UK polls tighten

Posted on March 12, 2010
Associated Press: "The latest buzz word in the clubby world of British politics is 'hung Parliament' . . . It means an election so close that no party receives more than half the seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament."

UK: Court bars British National Party from taking new members

Posted on March 12, 2010
Associated Press: "A British court has barred a far right, anti-immigrant political party from accepting new members until it stops discriminating against nonwhite people."

?Hands off Mexico!? International Coalition tells United Nations

Posted on March 12, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "An international coalition of pro-life organizations reminded the United Nations yesterday that it cannot dictate abortion policy to sovereign member states, specifically highlighting Mexico in its defense of the right to life."

GA: Senate panel advances legislation to crack down on illicit massage parlors

Posted on March 12, 2010
macon.com: "Senate Bill 364 passed the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously, and Staton, R-Macon, said he hopes to see the bill before the full Senate next week, or the week after. The bill strengthens current massage laws on several fronts, and makes it clear that local governments can regulate parlors and spas...

Study Finds Unborn Babies Respond to Mother?s Mood

Posted on March 12, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "Scientists have discovered that unborn babies respond to their mother's mood while she is watching a movie, becoming quiet and still if the film is sad and very lively if the film is happy. Dr. Kazuyuki Shinohara and colleagues in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior of Nagasaki University in Japan showed 10 pregnant volunteers ...

Unclear whether House has the votes to pass ?healthcare? debacle

Posted on March 12, 2010
LifeNews: Bart Stupak: Nancy Pelosi Lacks Votes for Pro-Abortion Health Care in House "But Rep. Bart Stupak, the top pro-life Democrat in the House, told Fox News last night that Pelosi lacks the votes she needs for passage." LifeNews: Democrats: We Have Votes for Health Care Bill Without Fixing Abortion Funding "Top House Democrats who are intimately involved in the discussions over the Senate health care bill and its provisions funding and promoting abortion claims Democrats have enough votes in the House to pass the Senate bill without changing the pro-abortion language...

?Peaceful and private? ? Montana?s Supreme Court rules on assisted suicide

Posted on March 12, 2010
Cathleen Kaveny writing at Commonweal: "The Baxter decision is radical: it says that intentional killing isn?t always a matter of public concern. It is stealthy. By refraining from finding a state constitutional right to assisted suicide, it avoided immediate criticism for judicial activism...

Obama sidelining religious freedom?

Posted on March 12, 2010
Washington Post, Georgetown / On Faith: "Almost 14 months into the Obama presidency, the ambassador at large for international religious freedom -- a position mandated by the International Religious Freedom Act -- has not been named, even though other positions of less weight and importance to our national interests have long been filled ...

Government, civil society, and religious freedom

Posted on March 12, 2010
Clifford Bob writing at The Immanent Frame: "Should the U.S. government employ American civil society to engage religious communities overseas in promotion of a 'religious freedom agenda'? Scott Appleby, the Chicago Council?s Task Force Report (TFR), and the Obama administration think so...

Nigerians recount night of their bloody revenge

Posted on March 12, 2010
New York Times: "The man, Dahiru Adamu, 25, was crouching on the floor in the sprawling police headquarters here, summoned to give an accounting of the terrible night of March 7, when, he said, he and dozens of other herdsmen descended on a slumbering village just south of here and slaughtered hundreds with machetes, knives and cutlasses in a brutal act of sectarian retribution...

SJSU students, faculty weigh in on Proposition 8

Posted on March 12, 2010
Spartan Daily: "Jim Campbell, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, an organization fighting to uphold Proposition 8, said the argument isn't valid because gays have yet to be proven as a suspect class in federal court . . . 'It's a very unworkable standard to set that as a suspect classification,' he said...

Will ?Pro-Life Democrats? Be Pro-Life or Democrat?

Posted on March 12, 2010
"Some pro-life Democrats appear to be weakening on their stance on the pro-abortion Senate health care bill . . . "

The defense of marriage in America

Posted on March 12, 2010
Dakota Voice: "Fortunately, this critically important institution has a powerful ally: the Alliance Defense Fund. The Alliance Defense Fund was started in the early 1990s and has proved itself more than a match for its much older nemesis, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)...

Reinhardt Stands Alone on 9th Circuit?s Pledge of Allegiance ?Under God? Ruling

Posted on March 12, 2010
Law.com (The Recorder): "Stephen Reinhardt and Dorothy Nelson have been simpatico on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for 30 years. One former Reinhardt clerk says they have a good personal relationship. But Nelson handed Reinhardt a bitter defeat by siding with conservative Judge Carlos Bea in an opinion upholding the words 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance...

3rd Circuit Asked to Clarify Student Internet Speech Cases

Posted on March 12, 2010
Law.com (Legal Intelligencer): "Now lawyers on both sides of the issue are urging the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate two recent -- and seemingly conflicting -- decisions by two different three-judge panels, and to hold rearguments before the full court...

D.C. Circuit Won?t Reconsider Anti-Protester Ruling

Posted on March 12, 2010
Blog of the Legal Times: "In its March 11 order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit let stand a ruling from November, in which a three-judge panel found that police had the right to arrest an entire group of marchers once some members of the crowd began to riot, even if officers never ordered the crowd to disperse...

WI: Lawsuit Challenges Zoning Refusal For Bible Camp

Posted on March 12, 2010
Religion Clause Blog: "The complaint (full text) in Eagle Cove Camp & Conference Center, Inc. v. Town of Woodboro, Wisconsin, (WD WI, filed 3/10/2010), alleges that the refusal to allow the camp on plaintiffs' Squash Lake property violates RLUIPA, the ADA, and constitutional equal protection and free exercise protections...

Recovering Sight after Scientism

Posted on March 12, 2010
Edward Feser writes at Public Discourse: "Seeing that scientism is unsustainable, we must embrace a return to philosophy. The second article in a two-part series. As I argued in part I, scientism?the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge?is either self-refuting or trivial...

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