Religion & Law

Korea: Bioethics Law Revision Allowing Payment To Human Egg Donors Worries Church

Posted on May 22, 2008
"The Korean Catholic Church has expressed regret over the National Assembly's recent revision of South Korea's bioethics law, saying it violates women's rights and dignity by allowing egg donors to be paid . . . "

When Janey Goes Marching off to War

Posted on May 22, 2008
Obama, recall, at last summer's CNN/You Tube debate said that he opposes a draft, but that if one occurred he would conscript men and women equally.

May the President Appropriately Invoke God? Evaluating the Embryonic Stem-Cell Vetoes

Posted on May 22, 2008
The principle of separation of church and state, properly understood, is not a persuasive basis for criticizing this religious heritage. President Bush, in relying upon his faith to justify his vetoes, acted in accord with well-established national tradition.

Public School Students? Religious Speech and Viewpoint Discrimination

Posted on May 22, 2008
Contrary to the often-held assumption and the conclusions of some circuits, I argue that the Court's four student speech cases can be read together as a body of law that permits schools to engage in limited viewpoint discrimination, although the exact contours of that exception remain unclear.

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Plan for Cross Shakes Columbia to Its Core Values

Posted on May 22, 2008
Now, one congregation's plan to place a 16-foot cross on a new building at the town's oldest interfaith center in Wilde Lake Village has stirred an anxious response. Some guardians of local tradition see the cross as a challenge to the core values of Columbia ...

Louisiana Senate Committee Moves Ban on Human Cloning Funding Forward

Posted on May 22, 2008
"The Senate Committee on Health and Welfare moved a ban on taxpayer funding of human cloning forward on Wednesday and now it heads to the full Senate for a debate and vote."

Dale Carpenter: Sexual orientation and heightened scrutiny in the California marriage decision

Posted on May 22, 2008
Dale Carpenter writes on the Volokh Conspiracy: While the politics are complicated and uncertain five months out, a thrilling but narrow win for gay marriage in the California Supreme Court last week could become a narrow and heartbreaking loss at the polls in November...

Orin Kerr: Why Do Conservatives Care So Much About the Courts?

Posted on May 22, 2008
For conservatives ? especially social conservatives, and especially religious conservatives ? the question has been whether the courts will allow their views, not whether the courts will mandate them.

Appeals Court: Texas had no right to seize hundreds of children in polygamy raid

Posted on May 22, 2008
The AP is reporting that a court of appeals has ruled that Texas had no right to remove hundreds of children from a polgamist compound.

Judicial Candidate Seeks Right to Campaign

Posted on May 22, 2008
. . Judicial candidate Randolph Wolfson filed suit today in federal court in Phoenix to block enforcement of Arizona judicial canons that restrict the ability of state court judicial candidates to engage in ordinary political activities as part of their campaigns ...

European Court agrees to hear chimp?s plea for human rights

Posted on May 22, 2008
ThisisLondon reports: So now 36-year-old Miss Stibbe and the Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories have filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. . . . insists that the chimp needs legal standing so a guardian can be appointed to look out for his interests  -  especially if the sanctuary shuts down ...

Court affirms will of Oregon voters: marriage amendment constitutional

Posted on May 22, 2008
An Oregon appeals court ruled Wednesday that Measure 36, the state?s constitutional amendment affirming marriage as the union between one man and one woman, is constitutional.

CA: Human Rights Campaign pledges $500,000 to defend marriage redefinition

Posted on May 22, 2008
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation?s largest gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organization, today pledged an initial contribution of $500,000 to Equality for All to protect marriage equality in California by defeating a proposed constitutional amendment that could possibly be on the November general election ballot in California.

National Review: United States v. Williams, child pornography ruling is supremely sensible

Posted on May 22, 2008
Justice Scalia explained that when a ban on child pornography is challenged on ?overbreadth? grounds, complainants must demonstrate not merely that they can come up with some clever Romeo and Juliet-type example of a chilling effect

Rod Dreher: Marriage and emotivism

Posted on May 22, 2008
Having said that, it is obvious, or should be, that many, and probably most, heterosexuals long ago ceased to see marriage as referring to anything definitive beyond a ratification in law of the feelings a man and a woman have for each other.

New Hampshire may bar dissolving bodies with lye

Posted on May 22, 2008
The AP reports: “The state Senate voted Wednesday to send Gov. John Lynch a bill to reverse a two-year-old law that allows alkaline hydrolysis - a process now used on human cadavers only at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and at the University of Florida in Gainesville...

Maine?s marriage referendum in a battle

Posted on May 21, 2008
OneNewsNow reports: The Christian Civic League of Maine is facing stiff opposition in its drive to ban homosexual “marriage.” The referendum would also ban homosexual indoctrination of youth in schools, and bar homosexual adoption, making it the most far-reaching referendum in the country so far ...

French Government Seeks ?Universal Decriminalization? of Sodomy

Posted on May 21, 2008
LifeSiteNews.com reports: The French government plans to use its upcoming presidency of the European Union to push for the universal decriminalization of sodomy, according to news reports. It has also announced its endorsement of the “International Day Against Homophobia” (IDAHO), a day that commemorates the World Health Organization’s decision to declassify homosexual orientation as a mental disorder [...

University Sued over Pro-Evolution Web Site

Posted on May 21, 2008
. . . Kevin Snider, an attorney with the Pacific Justice Institute, said UnderstandingEvolution.com has at least two strikes against it: UC Berkeley accepted a $500,000 check from the federal government to design the site, and has been critical of creationism...

Spain: intolerance of parents who object to Socialist course

Posted on May 21, 2008
"In an interview with the Socialist daily El Pais this past Sunday, Spain?s Minister of Education, Mercedes Cabrera, reaffirmed the government?s policy of complete intolerance of parents who conscientiously object to the controversial course ?Education for Citizenship,? reports Catholic News Agency...

Calif. Homeschoolers to Battle for Rights in Appeals Court

Posted on May 21, 2008
A coalition of legal and homeschooling advocate organizations are scrambling to argue for the rights of families in California to homeschool their children . . .

Albert Mohler: Life without Father

Posted on May 21, 2008
Albert Mohler writes on recent reports that Britain has approved in-vitro fertilization in situations where the child will not have a father. He begins: Britain’s Labour-led government has unleashed the hounds of biomedical and cultural revolution in recent days, voting to allow expanded research using and destroying human embryonic research, the development of animal-human hybrid embryos, [...

ADF attorney Glen Lavy v. Lambda Legal Attorney on LA Times: ?Gay Marriage and the ?slippery slope??

Posted on May 21, 2008
The LA Times carries this third installment in its point, counterpoint series between ADF attorney Glen Lavy and Jon W. Davidson of Lambda Legal. Glen writes: . . . After all, if “sexual orientation” is now a protected class, what about bisexuals? A bisexual who feels a need to have two spouses — one same-sex [...

Janet Folger discusses a Coast Guardsman?s refusal to be vaccinated with vaccines from aborted babies

Posted on May 21, 2008
Lt. Cmdr. Joseph J. Healy appeared on the Faith2Action with Janet Folger to discuss his lawsuit against Coast Guard efforts to vaccinate him with vaccines from aborted babies. ADF represented him. The mp3 file is here.  It runs just over 4 minutes. ADF press releases on the case here...

Maggie Gallagher: California?s Epic Battle for Marriage and Religious Liberty

Posted on May 21, 2008
Maggie Gallagher has this commentary on Townhall. She writes: They say we are tired of culture wars. Tell that to the California Supreme Court, which didn’t sound tired at all when it lobbed a big, fat hand grenade into the marriage debate. Ideas have consequences...

ACLU Launches ?Blog of Rights?

Posted on May 21, 2008
The American Civil Liberties Union envisions its new blog "as a marketplace of ideas and discourse on pressing civil liberties issues, from surveillance and extraordinary rendition to religious freedom and the rights of protesters," says Executive Director Anthony D...

Ariz. Senate rejects bill that would thwart pro-life license plates

Posted on May 21, 2008
Some Republicans criticize that provision because they say it could undermine a court order requiring the state to allow a new "choose life" license plate.

Which States Have the Best (and Worst) High Courts?

Posted on May 21, 2008
This paper ranks the high courts of the fifty states, based on their performance during the years 1998-2000, along three dimensions: opinion quality (or influence as measured by out-of-state citations), independence (or non-partisanship), and productivity (opinions written).

Michelle Obama Under Fire for 2004 Letter Defending Partial-Birth Abortions

Posted on May 21, 2008
Michelle Obama, the attorney wife of pro-abortion Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, is coming under fire for a letter she wrote defending partial-birth abortions. The 2004 letter, written to help Obama in his campaign for his U.S. Senate seat, opposes the ban on the abortion procedure ...

Late Term Aborted Babies in UK Left to ?Gasp for Breath? Until Death

Posted on May 21, 2008
The venerable Spectator, a leading British magazine of political news and commentary, has published excerpts from a letter from a British nurse who, in 2005, described babies surviving late-term abortions who are left to "gasp for breath for ten minutes on the side of a sink" until they die.

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