Religion & Law

?Advocates push abortion-rights license plate in Va.?

Posted on February 08, 2010
AP: "Activists are pushing a 'Trust Women/Protect Choice' license plate in Virginia, which would become only the fourth state to offer a pro-choice plate and the first to require legislative approval for it. Supporters have threatened to sue if lawmakers don't give drivers the option...

Church in Costa Rica stripped of right to approve religion teachers

Posted on February 08, 2010
Catholic News Agency: "Costa Rica?s Constitutional Court has stripped the Church of its right to choose which religion teachers it will hire, after reversing a 1972 law stating that the teachers must be approved by the Bishops? Conference of Costa Rica...

Apple plucks controversial aps

Posted on February 07, 2010
OneNewsNow: "'Apple is responding to public complaints about the pornography that they make available for download onto iPhones,' Trueman explains. 'Lots of people, particularly young people, have an iPhone, and you can get various applications that you can play on your iPhone through something called iTunes...

Lech Walesa: World Has ?Lost Hope? of America?s Moral Leadership

Posted on February 05, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "Lech Walesa, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former president of Poland, has warned that the world has 'lost that hope' with which it once turned to America as a moral leader."

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Veterans Defend ?Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell?

Posted on February 05, 2010
"A VFW spokesman accused those behind the repeal of the military ban and DADT of using the military as 'a control group for social engineering.'"

?NYT: Rampant Polygamy in Gay ?Marriage? May Benefit Institution?

Posted on February 05, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "In discussing a new study confirming that polygamy is a staple within gay 'marriages,' a New York Times article has suggested that doing away with the concept of spousal fidelity in marriage represents an 'evolution' that 'might point the way for the survival of the institution...

Senate Judiciary Committee Postpones Vote on Pro-Abortion Dawn Johnsen

Posted on February 05, 2010
LifeNews: "'Nominating Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel is an insult to pro-life Americans,' Congressman Steve King of Iowa said in a statement LifeNews.com received."

Utah House OKs ultrasounds before abortions

Posted on February 05, 2010
Salt Lake Tribune: "A bill that would give a woman seeking an abortion the option to first view her ultrasound passed the Utah House on Friday." HB 200

High Court urged to protect faith groups? right to define membership

Posted on February 05, 2010
Christian Post: "At least 18 different organizations and 13 state attorney generals are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the constitutional rights of religious groups to set membership and leadership criteria according to the dictates of their religious beliefs ...

?Marriage Study: ?Equality? Message Not Working?

Posted on February 05, 2010
Andrew Harmon writes at Advocate.com: "It?s problematic when you talk solely about legal protections, because many straight people don?t see it that way. They see marriage as an ideal about commitment and responsibility. ... We need to show them that we want to take on the responsibility that marriage entails for the same reasons...

Kansas sexual orientation discrimination bill advances

Posted on February 05, 2010
Kansas City Star (AP): "A Senate panel has endorsed a bill that would prohibit discrimination in Kansas based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill was advanced today by the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, with three voting against it...

Erik Stanley, Gary McCaleb on radio: Phoenix prosecutes for ringing church bells

Posted on February 05, 2010
ADF attorneys Erik Stanley and Gary McCaleb appeared on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss litigation pending in Phoenix over the ringing of church bells. The MP3 runs approx. 25 minutes. Erik also appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss the same case...

The Shaping of the American Mind, A New Report From ISI

Posted on February 05, 2010
Gary Palmer writes at The Alabama Policy Institute: "The survey consisted of sixty questions covering the basics of American history, government, foreign affairs, and economics. In the 2006 report, the average scores for the freshmen were 51.7 percent and the seniors were 53...

Jordan Lorence: 14 State Attorneys General agree that Christian students should not be forced to deny their faith

Posted on February 05, 2010
ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence writing at the Academic Freedom File: "The broad array of briefs supporting religious liberty and the Christian Legal Society is amazing. For example, 14 states, through their attorneys general joined togehter in a brief authored by the State of Michigan supporting CLS...

Second Focus on the Family Ad on Tebow, Abortion to Air Before Super Bowl

Posted on February 05, 2010
LifeNews: "Officials at the pro-life group announced today that they are unveiling a second ad that will air before the Super Bowl begins. The second commercial plans to go further than the first . . . "

?Cameron tells Rowan: Make your Church pro-gay?

Posted on February 05, 2010
Ruth Gledhill writing at Times Online: "Tory leader David Cameron has launched an astonishing attack on the Church of England over its attitudes to homosexuality. In an interview with the gay magazine Attitude, Cameron tells award-winning journalist Johann Hari that 'our Lord Jesus' would back equality and gay rights if he were around today...

Maine: What?s next for same-sex ?marriage??

Posted on February 05, 2010
The Maine Campus: "Shenna Bellows, executive director for the Maine Civil Liberties Union, sees three options on the table for moving the same-sex marriage debate back through the legislature after the 2010 elections. 'We could bring the same bill back again with the new legislature,' Bellows said in an interview Wednesday...

US Senator blocks all Obama nominees amid tanker feud

Posted on February 05, 2010
Breitbart (AFP): "A US Senator has taken the extraordinary step of blocking more than 70 of US President Barack Obama's nominees amid a dispute over a lucrative US Air Force tanker deal, senate aides said Friday."

OH: Mansfield City Council approves sexually oriented business ordinance

Posted on February 05, 2010
WMFD: "Mansfield City Council Tuesday night approved an ordinance which increases the zoning distance where sexually oriented businesses may operate."

Albania: ?Gays content with rights law?

Posted on February 05, 2010
The Straits Times: "Albania's new anti-discrimination law defends gays and minorities and meets European standards, its sponsors said on Friday, but warned that homophobia is rife and winning over the public will be slow."

DC: Elections Board again rules out same-sex ?marriage? referendum

Posted on February 05, 2010
DCist: "In an 18-page memorandum (download it here), the board concluded that an effort to suspend the implementation of the Civil Marriage Equality Act until it appears on the ballot is not a proper subject for a referendum. The legislation, which grants full marriage rights to same-sex couples, was passed by the D...

One Iowa expects marriage amendment push to start Monday

Posted on February 05, 2010
Iowa Independent: "After numerous meetings at the Capitol Thursday, Brad Clark, campaign director for One Iowa, told The Iowa Independent that he expects Republican lawmakers in the Iowa House to attempt to bring about a vote on a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage by invoking Rule 60, which allows a majority vote on the floor of the House to pull a bill out of a committee even if the committee has not approved it...

Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys

Posted on February 05, 2010
The Guardian: "Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an 'honour' killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys. The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman...

Video: Virginia GOP mocks Dems on ?global warming? during record storm

Posted on February 05, 2010
Talking Points Memo carries the video and reports: "The Virginia Republican Party is out with a whopper Web video today mocking the incoming massive snowstorm as 'global warming.'"

?Gay rights: Don?t ask, don?t think?

Posted on February 05, 2010
". . . I want to zero in on the fatal flaw in most gay-rights causes, and the one the Admiral repeated. It is the failure to distinguish between desires and behavior . . . Claiming you 'are' your sexual desires is a case of don't ask, don't think . . ...

?Washington Court of Appeals Overturns Apparent Discrimination Against a Non-Religious Parent?

Posted on February 05, 2010
At the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh reports on the the ruling in In re Marriage of V.I. Balashov, No. 62378-8 (Wash. App. Feb. 1, 2010).

ACLU pushes ?pro-choice? license plates in Georgia and Virginia

Posted on February 05, 2010
AugustaFreePress.com: "ACLU pushes GA to authorize pro-choice specialty plate: The ACLU of Virginia is urging members of the Virginia General Assembly to support Senate and House bills that authorize a pro-choice specialty license plate. The plate, containing the phrase Trust Women, Respect Choice, counters a law passed in 2009 authorizing a Choose Life license plate...

Do 3rd Circuit Rulings Over Student Speech on MySpace Pages Contradict?

Posted on February 05, 2010
Shannon P. Duffy writes at Law.com (The Legal Intelligencer): Lawyers were scratching their heads on Thursday over a federal appellate court's seemingly conflicting rulings in a pair of closely watched student-speech cases that both involve high school students who were suspended for creating fake MySpace pages on their home computers to ridicule their principals...

20+ left wing groups sign letter to the White House to prevent ?government-funded religious discrimination? and ?unwelcome proselytizing?

Posted on February 05, 2010
More than 20 left wing organizations have signed this letter posted on the Anti-Defamation League website. It begins: "On the one year anniversary of your Executive Order establishing the new White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the undersigned religious, education, civil rights, labor, and health organizations write to urge that you take additional actions to prevent government-funded religious discrimination and protect social service beneficiaries from unwelcome proselytizing ...

Indonesia?s Constitutional Court Hearing Challenge To Blasphemy Law

Posted on February 05, 2010
Religion Clause Blog: "Indonesia's Constitutional Court on Wednesday held its first hearings in a challenge to the constitutionality of Indonesia's Law on Prevention of Blasphemy and Abuse of Religion . . . "

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