Religion & Law

The Best Way to Curb Forced Marriages

Posted on December 29, 2008
TIME has issued this report that concludes: How, then, do harmful traditions like forced marriage fall? Legislation is most effective when coupled with an education campaign that addresses the everyday obstacles immigrants encounter in their adopted homelands, says Oxford’s Talib...

Louisiana: Monroe begins regulating sexually oriented businesses

Posted on December 29, 2008
The Monroe City Council has closed loopholes in the city's charter that have allowed sexually oriented businesses to remain unregulated.

?Sexting? rarely remains private conversation

Posted on December 29, 2008
Some teenagers ? and even adults ? are discovering that ?sexting,? sending nude images by phone or computer, can quickly escalate from a private communication to wide distribution on the Internet.

Douglas Napier: Iowans don?t support same-sex unions

Posted on December 29, 2008
ADF attorney Doug Napier writes in the Des Moines Register: In the Dec. 9 article, “Backers of Same-Sex Marriage Ban Ready for Court,” regarding the case before the Iowa Supreme Court, the attorney for Lambda Legal called the Alliance Defense Fund “an extremist organization” and claimed that “the positions they put forth do not reflect the [...

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Parental controls for cell phones

Posted on December 29, 2008
But statistics show that many teens have been exploiting that technology in inappropriate or even dangerous ways, and more parents have looked for ways to monitor their kids' cell phone use. Luckily for parents, new software is allowing parental control like never before.

South Carolina: Sex trade plagues Greenville County

Posted on December 29, 2008
No matter how many times Greenville County sheriff's deputies round up people and charge them with being prostitutes and their customers, they keep returning to the same Westside neighborhoods, officials and residents say.

Australia: Residents protest sex shop opening

Posted on December 29, 2008
Angry Nerang residents and business owners are up in arms about an adult shop opening in the suburb's busy main street.

UK: ?Medical student?s career wrecked by child porn case?

Posted on December 29, 2008
An "outstanding" medical student who aspired to become a heart surgeon has been jailed and expelled from university - after being caught with child porn on his laptop computer.

Michigan: Court rejects child-porn appeals

Posted on December 29, 2008
The Michigan Court of Appeals has sided with Jackson County prosecutors in two child-pornography cases that were consolidated on appeal. The court ruled this week prosecutors established probable cause to believe both Steven Flick and Douglas Lazarus knowingly possessed child sexually abusive material in separate investigations in 2002.

David French: Georgia Tech?s Long, Winding Road of Deceit and Defeat

Posted on December 29, 2008
ADF attorney David French writes on National Review’s Phi Beta Cons Blog: In March 2006 two brave Georgia Tech students, Orit Sklar and Ruth Malhotra, launched a challenge to several unconstitutional policies at the school. These policies included a speech code, a restrictive speech zone, discriminatory student-fee regulations, and a program of state religious indoctrination called [...

?Faith said to change sexual orientation?

Posted on December 29, 2008
Mr. Delaney, who said he has found true happiness in ministry, six years of marriage and two children, is part of a contested movement in the United States: sexual conversion, or ?reparative? therapy.

Supreme Court asked to review Texas exorcism case

Posted on December 29, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review the case of a former Colleyville woman who claims a forced traumatic exorcism left her so physically bruised and emotionally scarred that she later attempted to commit suicide.

Georgia: Marietta man indicted for producing child pornography

Posted on December 29, 2008
Jeffrey Alan Wasley, 37, of Marietta, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of producing and receiving child pornography. Wasley is scheduled for an initial appearance/bond hearing/arraignment on December 30, 2008.

Huge Catholic mass in Madrid seeks to promote family values

Posted on December 29, 2008
AFP: “Hundreds of thousands of people Sunday attended an open-air Catholic mass in Madrid designed to promote family values in a country where the Socialist government has undertaken sweeping social reforms.” Visit Site » Share This

Maryland: Panel recommends pay raises for state judges

Posted on December 29, 2008
The Baltimore Sun reports: “At a time when state workers are being furloughed and face possible layoffs, Maryland judges would get a pay raise of nearly $40,000 over the next four years under a plan hatched by an influential commission that recommends salaries for those on the bench ...

Rich Lowry: The New Culture War

Posted on December 29, 2008
The ensuing firestorm sheds light on two questions: Is there a real culture war in this country, deeper and more abiding than any one political party's electoral strategy? And who is the aggressor in it? The answers, respectively, are "yes" and "the cultural left...

Missouri: ?New legislation targets adult entertainment?

Posted on December 29, 2008
A southwest Missouri lawmaker intends to seek a law next year creating a host of new rules for adult sex stores and strip clubs, including a ban on lap dances.

Kentucky: Sex shop gets new court hearing

Posted on December 29, 2008
An ?adult? business at 161 North Keeneland Drive was ordered closed Oct. 30, but it remains open and will get a new hearing Feb. 19.

The evolution of contraception and the end of menstruation

Posted on December 29, 2008
mong all methods of contraception, none is as well known or influential as 'the pill.' Now, its power has been kicked up a notch, and the pill is poised to do what some say will disrupt the very nature of the XX sex. This leaves us with one question: In the next step of the evolution of women's contraception, should we eliminate the last major physical manifestation of the reproductive cycle, menstruation?

Six judges in running for vacancy on Alaska Supreme Court

Posted on December 29, 2008
The Anchorage Daily News reports: “Two Superior Court judges have scored highest among six candidates for a vacancy on the Alaska Supreme Court in a survey of attorneys by the state bar association . . . “ Visit Site » Share This

Report: Union Power and the Education of Children

Posted on December 29, 2008
. . . if public education is . . . to evolve into a new form that is better suited to providing a quality education to children?it will happen only through reforms that weaken or eliminate union power over the schools . .

Florida high court to rule on same-sex adoption ban

Posted on December 29, 2008
News-Press.com reports: “Under current law, gay people are not allowed to adopt children, but a recent court ruling making its way to the state’s Supreme Court may change that. Florida upholds the only outright ban in the nation . . . “ Visit Site » Share This

Christians called to abandon public education: Children?s worldview determined by 14,000 hours in classrooms

Posted on December 29, 2008
WorldNetDaily reports: . . . The name Dunkirk is famous for the hundreds of thousands of World War II allies saved in May 1940 when a flotilla of pleasure boats, fishing craft and others rescued the soldiers from the beaches near Dunkirk, France, where they were trapped by an advancing German army...

?New Law Protects Retirement Savings for Lesbian and Gay Couples?

Posted on December 29, 2008
HRC reports: The Human Rights Campaign today hailed the passage of a law that protects partners who inherit retirement savings. The Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA), signed by President Bush today, contains technical corrections to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA)...

Massachusetts: Bridgwater-Raynham school ?won?t bow to ACLU?

Posted on December 29, 2008
Enterprise News reports: School Committee members say they won?t be ?bullied, threatened or intimidated? into changing their decision now that the American Civil Liberties Union is stepping into the fray over whether to allow counter-recruiting peace activists inside the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School...

Louisiana: ?Record must have both men?s names: Couple sues in court over adopted boy?

Posted on December 29, 2008
"The state of Louisiana must issue a birth certificate for a Shreveport-born toddler that includes both names of his adoptive parents -- an unmarried same-sex couple -- to honor the New York court decision that granted them custody of the boy in 2006, a federal judge has ruled...

Cal. AG?s filings may help Prop. 8 defense

Posted on December 29, 2008
"The court should take note that even an attorney general that wants to strike the amendment down agrees it is not a revision," said Glen Lavy, a lawyer for Alliance Defense Fund in Scottsdale, Ariz. . .

?Unconstitutional Alabama Sodomy Law Disrupts Lesbian Household?

Posted on December 23, 2008
Leonard Link has this post discussing a recent alimony ruling in Alabama: “Despite the U.S. Supreme Court?s 2003 ruling that state laws penalizing private consensual adult “sodomy” are unconstitutional, the unrepealed Alabama sodomy law was invoked to break up a lesbian household in the context of alimony litigation in J...

Harrisburg, PA creates partnership registry for unmarried couples

Posted on December 23, 2008
Chris Johnson writes at the HRC Back Story Blog: “Last night the Harrisburg City Council voted unanimously to adopt an ordinance to create a Life Partnership Registry, allowing unmarried, committed couples to affirm and recognize their relationships with the city...

HRC: ?Why Saddleback?s website scrub is not enough: Real repentance means actual change and plans to do better?

Posted on December 23, 2008
Chris Johnson writes at the HRC Back Story Blog: . . . As a result of the full-throated advocacy of the Human Rights Campaign and many others, there seems to have been some moderation of the anti-LGBT rhetoric at Rev. Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church...

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