Religion & Law

St. Louis: ?ACORN voter registration recruiter charged with voter registration fraud?

Posted on January 06, 2009
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports: . . . A voter registration recruiter working for the group ACORN has been indicted on two felony counts of voter registration fraud . . . [Deidra] Humphrey is accused of submitting forged and false voter registration cards for the November general election, including forging cards for nursing home residents, U...

Senate officials close Norm Coleman?s office

Posted on January 06, 2009
The Boston Herald reports: Senate officials closed Norm Coleman?s office Monday morning, two days after the Minnesota Republican?s term expired. Coleman?s staffers had reported to work Monday to do constituent service. But the Senate Rules Committee ordered the office closed because Coleman?s term was finished ...

Christian Science Monitor on the Faith Based Initiative

Posted on January 06, 2009
Greg Baylor writes on the CLS Blog: The Christian Science Monitor has published an article regarding the faith-based initiative under the Obama Administration. Our friend Stanley Carlson-Thies of the newly launched Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance is quoted extensively...

ADF: Court should reject ACLU demand to end popular school program

Posted on January 06, 2009
http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4787 ALLIANCE DEFENSE FUND NEWS RELEASE January 6, 2009 ? FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT ADF MEDIA RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020 or www.telladf.org/pressroom ADF: Court should reject ACLU demand to end popular school program 97 percent of 3rd, 4th-graders attend released-time religious education program allowed at Indiana elementary school FORT WAYNE, Ind...

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Boston: Charter schools grade highest

Posted on January 06, 2009
The Boston Globe reports: “A new study indicates that Boston charter schools significantly outperform the city’s traditional schools, but raises new questions about the city’s experimental pilot schools, which in many cases posted ‘ambiguous’ or ‘disconcerting’ results ...

More Judicial Vacancies

Posted on January 06, 2009
Jonathan Adler writes on the National Review Bench Memos Blog: “The number of vacancies on the federal bench for President Obama to fill is slowly increasing . . . ” He mentions several. Visit Site » Share This

Georgia: GOP lawmaker suggests strip club fee

Posted on January 06, 2009
The Ledger-Enquirer.com reports: Georgia strip club patrons could soon be slapped with a new “pole tax” to help offset steep state budget cuts hitting programs for sex abuse victims. State Sen. Jack Murphy, a Republican from Cumming, said Monday he’s considering legislation to charge between $3 and $5 for every visitor to Georgia’s adult entertainment clubs...

Connecticut: ?Simsbury OKs Moratorium On Adult-Oriented Business Applications?

Posted on January 06, 2009
Hartford Courant: “The Simsbury zoning commission has unanimously approved a moratorium on all applications concerning adult-oriented businesses to give the town time to rewrite its zoning regulations to restrict where adult entertainment shops can go ...

Illinois: Police want to talk with woman in confrontation at Planned Parenthood

Posted on January 06, 2009
SuburbanChicagoNews.com reports: “Police are hoping a surveillance photo will help identify a woman who allegedly grabbed the arm of an employee at the Planned Parenthood Clinic last fall. At 11 a.m. on Oct. 1, three workers were leaving the clinic at 3051 E...

ACLU: New Filing in Prop 8 Legal Challenge

Posted on January 06, 2009
The ACLU of N. California has issued this press release: “The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Lambda Legal filed a reply brief on Jan. 5 in the California Supreme Court, the next step in the lawsuit seeking to overturn Proposition 8, which passed by a mere 52 [...

?Why Are Gay Marriage Advocates Not Defending Polyamory??

Posted on January 06, 2009
Lee Stranahan writes on the Huffington Post: . . . If the rights of gay people are being trampled on, then it’s two states worse for poly people. If you follow the same argument template as many gay marriage advocates, anyone who opposes polygamy is a bigot and a hater...

Montana: Catholic Diocese joins fight against assisted suicide ruling

Posted on January 06, 2009
LifeNews.com reports: The Catholic bishop of Helena, Montana has written a new column in which he says he will pledge to fight the court decision a state judge issued making the state the third to legalize assisted suicide. Bishop George L. Thomas of Helena says the church will support an appeal of that decision ...

New Report: Legal Abortions Not Stopping Dangerous Self-Induced Abortions

Posted on January 06, 2009
LifeNews.com reports: “To hear abortion advocates tell the story, legalizing abortion is supposed to stop the incidence of women engaging in dangerous self-abortions that could endanger their lives. A new report published Sunday in the New York Times makes it clear self-abortions continue despite abortion’s legality ...

Burris denied seat in US Senate to succeed Obama

Posted on January 06, 2009
The AP reports: “Roland Burris announced Tuesday he was rejected for Barack Obama’s Senate seat, in a bizarre rainy-day scene on the Capitol grounds as lawmakers awaited the gaveling of the 111th Congress into session.” . Visit Site » Share This

Teens Divulge Risky Behavior on Social Networking Sites

Posted on January 06, 2009
Washington Post: “More than half of teens who use the social networking site MySpace have posted information about sexual behavior, substance abuse or violence, new research shows . . . Factors associated with a decreased risk of posting risky behaviors included displaying religious involvement or involvement with sports or hobbies...

Jordan Lorence on CNN: ?Rick Warren foes aren?t practicing tolerance?

Posted on January 06, 2009
Proponents of redefining marriage couldn't wait for the new president to be sworn in before demanding that he erase from the inauguration ceremony a prominent American who disagrees with them.

Baby?s corpse thrown out with NJ hospital?s trash

Posted on January 06, 2009
AP: “Police are searching garbage dumps in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the body of a baby that was apparently thrown out with the trash at a Jersey City hospital. Christ Hospital spokeswoman Barbara Davy says the baby was stillborn on Dec. 21 and the body was placed in the hospital morgue ...

Labor Department Issues Guidance On RFRA Exemption For Grantees

Posted on January 06, 2009
The Religion Clause Blog reports: “Yesterday the Department of Labor issued a release explaining how recipients of federal grants under the Workforce Reinvestment Act (WRA) can obtain an exemption from statutory provisions barring hiring by grantees on the basis of religion (full text of Guidance document...

Cert. Petition Filed In Case Challenging Jurors? Use of Bible

Posted on January 06, 2009
Religion Clause reports: “Yesterday, a petition for certiorari (full text) was filed in Oliver v. Quarterman.” Visit Site » Share This

California Church Loses Challenge To Rezoning Denial

Posted on January 06, 2009
Religion Clause Blog reports: “In International Church of the Foursquare Gospel v. City of San Leandro, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105525 (ND CA, Dec. 22, 2008), a California federal district court rejected RLUIPA, First Amendment, due process and equal protection challenges to San Leandro, California’s refusal to rezone industrial property a church had agreed to [...

Cambodia creates new body to regulate foreign marriage

Posted on January 06, 2009
China View reports: “A new organization to regulate foreign marriage has been created following the lifting of a six-month suspension of such unions in 2008, English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post said on Tuesday . . . he foreign marriage suspension was enacted in April amid concerns over an explosion in the number of [...

ACLU sues Wilkes County school system over recruiting access

Posted on January 06, 2009
WRAL.com reports: “The ACLU is suing a North Carolina school system it says has denied access to a pacifist who wants to talk to students about alternatives to the military . . . “ Visit Site » Share This

CLS/ADF seek to intervene to defend right of Cal. Christian schools to punish lesbianism

Posted on January 06, 2009
The parents of two students attending California Lutheran High School filed a lawsuit after school officials expelled the two girls for violating the school?s Christian code of conduct by engaging in homosexual behavior.

Univ. of Wis. Hospitals secret plan to perform second-trimester abortions unveiled

Posted on January 06, 2009
The plan would likely compel unwilling employees to aid or participate in dismembering preborn babies, which would violate their religious conscience rights and may constitute an unlawful state funding of abortion.

ADF attorneys successfully halt censorship of pro-life advocates in Ohio

Posted on January 06, 2009
A federal court has ruled that an Ohio town violated the First Amendment rights of pro-life advocates when police officers threatened them with arrest for engaging in pro-life speech.

Cruelty to animals in sex videos constitutionally protected? U.S. Supreme Court might decide

Posted on January 06, 2009
. . . in 1999, Congress made it a crime to sell ?crush videos? and almost all other depictions of unlawful cruelty to animals . . .

Erwin Chemerinsky: ?No matter what you think of him, the Illinois governor?s appointment of Roland Burris to the Senate meets the constitutional test.?

Posted on January 06, 2009
Erwin Chemerinsky writes in the LA Times: “Like it or not, Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich has the legal authority to appoint Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, and Burris, the state’s former attorney general, should be allowed to take the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama...

Prop. 8 proponents say Brown ?profoundly wrong?

Posted on January 06, 2009
The San Francisco Chronicle: State Attorney General Jerry Brown was “profoundly wrong” and “invented an entirely new theory” when he urged the California Supreme Court to invalidate Proposition 8’s same-sex marriage ban on the basis that voters can’t be allowed to overturn fundamental liberties, attorneys for the measure said Monday ...

Nearly nine of ten Oregonians would opt out of regular public schools

Posted on January 06, 2009
Eighty-seven percent of residents polled would opt for schools other than regular public schools, according to the survey.

Colorado: County makes subtle change to prayer time

Posted on January 06, 2009
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: A moment of prayer Monday by Mesa County Commissioner Janet Rowland ended with the words: ?And we ask this in Jesus? name.? A moment later the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America was said ? including the words ?one nation under God...

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