Religion & Law

Markings on ballot copies upset Minn. Senate case

Posted on January 27, 2009
AP: “The trial on Minnesota’s U.S. Senate recount stalled on its first day Monday when the judges said photocopies of 5,000 excluded absentee ballots couldn’t be used as evidence because Republican Norm Coleman’s campaign workers had marked on them ...

Tens of Thousands Crowd San Francisco Waterfront, Rally Against Abortion

Posted on January 27, 2009
LifeSiteNews: “More than 30,000 pro-life supporters filled the boulevard along San Francisco?s waterfront for more than a mile in the 5th Annual Walk for Life West Coast on Saturday, walking behind a 10-foot-long ‘Abortion Hurts Women’ banner ...

Obama to fund pro-abortion UNFPA

Posted on January 27, 2009
LifeNews: “Now that President Barack Obama has fulfilled his promise to overturn the Mexico City Policy and fund groups that promote and perform abortions in other countries, he is laying out additional pro-abortion plans. In his statement accompanying his executive order, Obama says UNFPA funding is next ...

Legal Writing Job Candidate Files Lawsuit Claiming that She Was Rejected by the University of Iowa Law School Because of Her Conservative Views

Posted on January 27, 2009
Ilya Somin writes on the Volokh Conspiracy: Teresa Wagner, Associate Director of the University of Iowa College of Law Writing Resource Center, has filed a lawsuit claiming that her application to become a legal writing professor at the law school was rejected because of her conservative political views...

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Court rejects Shoshone bid to enjoin mine in the name of religious freedom

Posted on January 27, 2009
The Religion Clause Blog reports: “AP reports that yesterday a Nevada federal district court judge refused to issue a preliminary injunction to prevent Barrick Gold Corp. from beginning to dig a 2,000-foot deep open pit mine on Nevada’s Mount Tenabo ...

Proposed Nigerian Law Would Criminalize Clergy Performing Same-Sex Marriages

Posted on January 27, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: “A press release yesterday from Amnesty International on behalf of several human rights groups expresses strong opposition to proposed legislation in Nigeria that would impose criminal penalties– up to 3 years in prison– on same-sex couples who marry ...

Connecticut: ?Starvation: Do Inmates have the Right?

Posted on January 27, 2009
The Hartford Courant reports: In a Superior Court hearing that begins Thursday in Hartford, Judge James T. Graham will hear arguments that pit First Amendment and privacy rights ? including the right to refuse medical treatment ? against the state’s interest in preventing suicide, maintaining control of its prisons and resisting inmate coercion...

Equality California: Live Blog of ?Equality Summit?

Posted on January 27, 2009
Equality California has posted clips and video of the recent “Equality Summit” Visit Site » Share This

Legal writing job candidate sues University of Iowa, claims politics determined her rejection

Posted on January 27, 2009
Teresa Wagner, Associate Director of the University of Iowa College of Law Writing Resource Center, has filed a lawsuit claiming that her application to become a legal writing professor at the law school was rejected because of her conservative political views...

New Book Provides Co-Habitation Contracts as Alternative to Marriage

Posted on January 27, 2009
PR Newswire: “Just in time for the financial crisis of ‘09 the new edition of ‘Love is Love, but Business is Business’ by Merle H. Horwitz, Attorney at-law, debuts with everything you need to create legally binding financial contracts between two unmarried but committed romantic partners...

Iowa: Ferris wants to bring back marriage resolution

Posted on January 27, 2009
The Sioux City Journal: Councilman Dave Ferris surprised his colleagues Monday night by announcing he intends to bring back the same sex marriage resolution at next week’s meeting. The original measure, proposed by Councilman Brent Hoffman, called for the council to lobby the Iowa Legislature to define traditional marriage as being between one man and one woman [...

Illinois: ACLU to challenge birth certificate policy for ?transgender persons?

Posted on January 27, 2009
The ACLU of Illinois has issued this media alert indicating: “. . . A recent policy change in the Illinois Department of Vital Records denies the ability to get a new, accurate birth certificate issued for a specific group of persons in Illinois ? specifically, transgender individuals who have elected to have gender confirmation surgery [...

Evolution and ?the doomed attempt to reconcile science and religion?

Posted on January 27, 2009
A meaningful effort to reconcile science and faith must start by recognizing them as they are actually understood and practiced by human beings. You cannot re-define science so that it includes the supernatural, as Kansas's board of education did in 2005...

Michael J. New: The Impact of Parental Notification Laws

Posted on January 27, 2009
Dr. Michael New did original analysis of datasets for the Family Research Council which immediately published the results in September 2008. The Guttmacher Institute (GI) recently published an article on New?s study, but as Dr. New?s (MN) response, previously published by the Family Resource Council, indicates, their paper betrays an inadequate grasp of the literature.

Faith & Fertility in Europe

Posted on January 27, 2009
With fertility rates dipping to almost one child per woman in Spain and other European countries, it?s hard to even imagine the future. Who will work and pay all those retirement benefits to the current and larger generation of workers? How can societies with declining populations maintain a robust, confident cultural outlook? Will European demographic suicide turn the continent over to Islamic domination, as Mark Steyn and others darkly foresee?

Thomas Sowell: What are they buying?

Posted on January 27, 2009
Thomas Sowell writes on Townhall: . . . No matter how many times President Barack Obama tells us that these “extraordinary times” call for “swift action,” the kind of economic policies he is promoting take effect very slowly, no matter how quickly the legislation is rushed through Congress...

?The Overlooked Public Health Argument for Same-Sex Marriage?

Posted on January 27, 2009
This article contends that the debate has given insufficient attention to the public health and policy justifications for marriage equality. Borrowing from contestable social science research suggesting that marriage has benefits not only to the couple but to the broader society, the article advances the preliminary case that, to the extent such population-wide benefits are real, they would at least to some extent be furthered by allowing same-sex couples to marry...

Wyoming: Same-sex ?marriage? introduced in House

Posted on January 27, 2009
A bill that would let Wyoming voters decide whether to amend the state constitution to deny state recognition of same-sex marriages performed elsewhere has been introduced in the House.

Democrats: Birth control funding may be dropped from stimulus plan

Posted on January 27, 2009
House Democrats are likely to jettison family planning funds for the low-income from an $825 billion economic stimulus bill, officials said late Monday, following a personal appeal from President Barack Obama at a time the administration is courting Republican critics of the legislation.

Kentucky: Mongiardo to challenge Bunning in 2010 U.S. Senate race

Posted on January 26, 2009
Washington Post: “Kentucky Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo announced this morning that he will take on Sen. Jim Bunning (R) in 2010 — seeking a jump on what could be a crowded Democratic field . . . This will be Mongiardo’s second try at ousting Bunning who is widely regarded by Republican and Democratic strategists alike [...

Economic Crisis Fuels Unrest in E. Europe

Posted on January 26, 2009
Washington Post: On a frigid evening this month, more than 10,000 people gathered outside a 13th-century cathedral in this Baltic capital to protest the government’s handling of Latvia’s economic crisis and demand early elections . . . “People here instinctively know the idea of a strongman who imposes order doesn’t work,” he said, arguing that the region’s [...

?Gay leaders mull taking fight to 2010 vote?

Posted on January 26, 2009
AP: “Gay rights activists are weighing the wisdom of rushing in front of voters a repeal of the state ballot measure that banned gay marriage.  While two initiatives seeking to undo Proposition 8 - the voter-approved measure - already have been submitted to the Secretary of State, pro-gay marriage leaders say 2010 may be too [...

Matt Bowman with Mike Monokian: ?Choose: Your Faith or Your Job,? HHS Conscience Regs

Posted on January 26, 2009
ADF attorney Mat Bowman appeared on Reality Check with Mike Monokian to discuss the new HHS regulations that protect conscience rights and have been challenged in court. The mp3 file is here and runs just over 21 minutes. Visit Site » Share This

Lawyers of the Right: Professionalizing the Conservative Coalition

Posted on January 26, 2009
Ann Southworth has this post on the Volokh Conspiracy discussing her new book: “The book is an account of lawyers? roles in the conservative movement and class and cultural conflict among them. It analyzes these lawyers? characteristics, values, professional identities, and strategies, and the extent to which they, and the organizations they serve, operate as [...

Strange political shenanigans: U.S. House stimulus targets Blagojevich, denis funds to Illinois

Posted on January 26, 2009
Jonathan Adler reports in the Volokh Conspiracy on some strange political shenanigans in D.C. Visit Site » Share This

New Bolivian Constitution Approved By Voters; Catholicism Disestablished

Posted on January 26, 2009
The Religion Clause Blog reports: “AP says that the new Constitution honors both the Christian God and the Andean earth deity, Pachamama who continues to be worshipped by many Bolivian Catholics.” Visit Site » Share This

Parental Inquisition: Sweden and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Posted on January 26, 2009
ParentalRights.org Blog: “Sweden?s government places so much pressure on families to conform with its dictates that Ruby Harrold-Claesson, an international human rights lawyer and a citizen of Sweden, has gone so far as to call their actions a ‘parental inquisition...

Friday: Pro-life activists marched on court

Posted on January 26, 2009
The Washington Post carried this article covering Friday’s March for Life: . . . Marchers said the crowd was about as large as those of previous protests, which drew about 250,000 . . . The crowd virtually stood in the footsteps of 1.8 million people who two days earlier came to the Mall to witness the inauguration [...

Darwin is Dead (Leave Him in the Grave)

Posted on January 26, 2009
Karl Priest writes on Ed News: Led by the atheistic and misnamed National Center for Science Education and enabled by the main-stream media, colleges, museums, and public schools have launched a last ditch effort to salvage Darwinism . . . Universities and, museums, if public funded, are using tax-payer money to celebrate a man whose ideas [...

European crack down on ?hate speech? bodes ill for U.S.

Posted on January 26, 2009
One News Now: “An author and critic of Islam says the recent decision by a Dutch court to prosecute a Dutch lawmaker for comparing the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf does not bode well for the future of free speech rights in the United States ...

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