Religion & Law

Catholic hospitals and bishops split on Senate health-bill abortion compromise

Posted on December 28, 2009
Denver Post: "Just days before the bill passed, the Catholic Health Association, which represents more than 600 Catholic hospitals across the country, said in a statement that it was "encouraged" and 'increasingly confident' that such a compromise 'can achieve the objective of no federal funding for abortion...

Illinois: ?Governor candidates divided on abortion, gay marriage?

Posted on December 28, 2009
Peoria Journal: "All but one of the seven Republican candidates call themselves 'pro-life,' while the Democrats, Gov. Pat Quinn and Comptroller Dan Hynes, support abortion rights. Only Hynes and Green Party candidate Rich Whitney support legalizing gay marriage...

UK: Girls using abortion as birth control and having up to FOUR terminations by the age of 18

Posted on December 28, 2009
Daily Mail: "Nearly 1,500 of the 19,000 girls under 18 who had a termination last year had previously undergone one earlier abortion for an unwanted pregnancy ? and in at least one case a teenage girl had her eighth abortion."

Thousands of Spanish Catholics march against abortion and ?gay marriage?

Posted on December 28, 2009
Telegraph: "Tens of thousands of Spanish Catholics marched in Madrid against the socialist government's policies on abortion and gay marriage."

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?Gay Candidates Get Support That Causes May Not?

Posted on December 28, 2009
NY Times: "There are currently at least 445 openly gay and lesbian people holding elected office in the United States, up from 257 eight years ago, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political group that supports gay candidates."

Michigan Faces Constitutional Case Over Cash-Strapped Public Defenders

Posted on December 28, 2009
Law.com (National Law Journal): "Are Michigan's public defenders improperly pushing the poor into copping pleas? The Michigan Supreme Court will consider that question this spring when it hears a case challenging how publicly appointed lawyers represent poor criminal defendants...

Effort Begun to End Voting for Judges

Posted on December 28, 2009
NY Times: "A group of judges, political officials and lawyers, led by the retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O?Connor, has begun a campaign to persuade states to choose judges on the basis of merit, rather than their ability to win an election."

Senate passes healthcare reform legislation in 60-39 vote

Posted on December 28, 2009
The Hill: "The Senate approved sweeping healthcare reform legislation by the narrowest of partisan margins early Christmas Eve morning, placing President Barack Obama closer than ever to signing a longtime Democratic priority into law."

Queensland, Australia Government Refuses Bid to Remove Abortion Ban Law

Posted on December 28, 2009
LifeNews: "The government of the Australian state of Queensland has resisted a petition campaign to request that the old law banning abortions there be removed from the books."

How the ACLU tried to steal Christmas? again

Posted on December 28, 2009
Annuit Coeptis: "You always read about it in the paper, you see it on the news, in fact some deny that it actually happens, but this year the ACLU came to town and did try to steal Christmas . . . Minority Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said he didn?t support the removal and learned about it from a news article...

Mexico pro-lifer forces swaying state legislatures

Posted on December 28, 2009
LA Times: "A year after the Supreme Court upheld a Mexico City law allowing abortion in the first trimester, 17 states have amended their constitutions to protect the unborn."

Canada: Polygamist predicts opponents will be ?damned?

Posted on December 28, 2009
The Globe and Mail: "Religious leader who police say has 25 wives comes out swinging in online missive about legal case."

Ten Commandment Projects Thwart ACLU

Posted on December 28, 2009
NewsMax: "Imagine the ACLU's chagrin, however, when the single memorial soon was replaced by four new ones at various locations -- and each larger than the original. The Project Moses group that provided those new monuments -- as well as hundreds more like them on display throughout the nation ...

Supreme Court case will bear on Soledad Cross

Posted on December 28, 2009
SDNews.com: . . . Joe Infranco, a senior attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, believes the outcome for the Mount Soledad Cross case will be affected by the Supreme Court?s decision in 2005 to permit a statue of the Ten Commandments to remain on public property in Texas due to its historical significance...

?Cancer-stricken Shaker Heights bus driver, Cleveland?s Domestic Partners Registry, Yacker Trackers, Maple Heights landlord law: Whatever Happened To??

Posted on December 28, 2009
Cleveland Plain Dealer: "City Council members passed legislation to create the registry last December. Their 13-7 vote followed heated debate and intense pressure from the community's religious leaders . . . Then, in August, the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based opponent of same-sex rights, filed a taxpayers lawsuit to shut down the registry...

Massachusetts: Appeals Court Affirms Conviction of Street Preacher For Disorderly Conduct

Posted on December 28, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "In Commonwealth v. Marcavage, (MA App., Dec. 23, 2009), a Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld the conviction of a street evangelist who was arrested on Halloween night, 2007, in the city of Salem and charged with disorderly conduct under M...

Federal Court Enjoins Illinois Hike In Fees For Lobbyists, Partly on Establishment Clause Grounds

Posted on December 28, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "In American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois v. White, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119476 (ND IL, Dec. 23, 2009) . . . ACLU . . . also claimed that the exemptions in the law for media lobbyists and lobbyists for churches and religious organizations amount to speaker-based discrimination as well as a violation of the Establishment Clause...

Pending Lawsuit Challenges Favoritism To Catholic School In Use of City Athletic Fields

Posted on December 28, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "The complaint (full text) in Rogers v. Mulholland, (D RI, filed 10/14/2009), alleges that giving exclusive after-school use of two particular public athletic fields for practice by Catholic Saint Raphael's Academy, instead of allowing public schools to also use them, violates the Establishment Clause as well as the due process and equal protection clauses of both the U...

Extending Federal Benefits to Same-Sex Couples Will Cost $898M, CBO Says

Posted on December 28, 2009
"Extending federal benefits to same-sex couples will cost taxpayers $898 million over the next nine years, according to an analysis of 'domestic partnership' legislation released by the Congressional Budget Office."

U.S. Supreme Court asks TX Solicitor General to weigh in on parental rights case

Posted on December 28, 2009
SCOTUS Blog: On October 5, the Court took what seemed to be a fairly unusual step in No. 08-1596, Rhine v. Deaton, when it asked the Solicitor General of Texas to file a brief expressing the views of the State of Texas in a challenge to a Texas statute that provides court-appointed counsel to parents facing the termination of their parental rights in proceedings initiated by the state, but not in proceedings initiated by private parties...

Soft on Prostitution

Posted on December 28, 2009
One News Now: "What the Obama administration is trying to do is to allow these organizations...that promote prostitution [to] receive federal money," he reports.

Degrading Sex, Government Style

Posted on December 28, 2009
Helen M. Alvare writes at the Culture of Life Foundation: "One of the outcomes of the current tempest over Kevin Jennings should be his ouster. But surely another should be a demand that the government get out and stay out of the business of instructing our children about human sexuality in ways that degrade them specifically as children, and also as human beings...

?D.C. Gay Marriage Opponents Press For Public Vote?

Posted on December 28, 2009
On Top Magazine: "The Christian-based Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has joined Stand for Marriage DC in challenging a District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics ruling that blocked opponents from pursing a ballot initiative . . . 'The people of DC have a right to vote on the definition of marriage,' ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin R...

Parents pray for missionary thought held in NKorea

Posted on December 28, 2009
AP: "An American missionary believed to be detained when he stepped into North Korea on Christmas didn't inform his parents of his plans but they had a hunch he would visit the communist nation."

?Christian Photographers Must Shoot Gay Weddings?

Posted on December 28, 2009
Examiner.com: "Word of the decision by District Judge Alan M. Malott comes from the Alliance Defense Fund, which promised an immediate appeal of the decision against the Christian photographer and her husband."

Bubble zone evens out

Posted on December 28, 2009
One News Now: "The Pittsburgh City Council previously established a huge buffer zone that prevented pro-lifers from communicating well with women entering abortion facilities. Alliance Defense Fund provided pro-lifers with legal representation in the lawsuit...

Michigan Forces Business Owners Into Public Sector Unions

Posted on December 28, 2009
Wall Street Journal: "After hemorrhaging members for decades, labor unions have hit upon a new way to shore up their annual dues revenue."

Keeping America?s edge

Posted on December 28, 2009
Jim Manzi, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, writes in National Affairs: "The new normal, however, is different from the old normal. To begin with, certain strands of the old bourgeois consensus have frayed, and others have simply disappeared, at least for some parts of the ­population...

D.C. Conservatives Push for Marriage Vote

Posted on December 28, 2009
Christian Post: "As part of the effort, conservative group Stand for Marriage D.C. has launched an ad campaign through the city?s transportation system ? a move that is being opposed by Full Equality Now DC, which has demanded the ads be removed on the grounds that they disrespect LGBT residents ...

Judges Gone Wild: Michigan defines judicial bias down

Posted on December 28, 2009
Wall Street Journal: "In Caperton v. Massey, the Supremes set out a new standard requiring judges to recuse themselves if there is a "probability of bias" in a case. That was a marked departure from historical standards, which required a judge to step off primarily when he had a direct financial interest...

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