Religion & Law

Oral Arguments in the Rhode Island Same Sex "Divorce" Case: A Non-Adversarial Process

Posted on October 09, 2007
What hurt so much was not necessarily that I would be sitting on the sidelines, but that the argument to be presented to the court would be one-sided. . . Nobody disputed that their legal perspective was identical, but the Rhode Island Supreme Court chose to indulge itself in that ridiculous legal fiction...

Judicial Independence and American Sovereignty at Stake in the U.S. Supreme Court Case of Medellin v. Texas

Posted on October 08, 2007
The questions presented in this case involve the extent that treaties control U.S. law, the power of the President to declare a non-self-executing treaty to be self-executing (did he exceed his executive authority or not?), and the authority of the federal president to order a state court what to do in a particular case...

Connecticut Catholic Hospitals: Buying into Pro-Death Verbal Engineering?

Posted on October 03, 2007
This response is troubling because since the 1960?s, the primary strategy to promote chemical abortion has been to redefine language, changing the definition of ?conception? and ?pregnancy? from fertilization (when an embryo begins) to implantation (two weeks later, when it nests in the uterus)...

Connecticut Bishops Should Reconsider: Russian Roulette with the Lives of Babies is Unacceptable

Posted on September 28, 2007
The Catholic Bishops in Connecticut yesterday reversed their position and now say that Catholic hospitals there will comply with a new state law mandating that they dispense ?emergency contraception? to rape victims even if a victim might have an embryo inside her...

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Feds Asks the Supreme Court to Hear Indecency Case

Posted on September 28, 2007
Lyle Denniston discusses the case over at the SCOTUS Blog. ...(read more)

The Supreme Court Grants Review in 17 cases, but no "Culture War" Cases. Why?

Posted on September 25, 2007
The Supreme Court granted cert. today in 17 cases, but none of them involve "culture war" issues, such as religious liberty, the Establishment Clause, etc.  Those cases were set for the conference on Monday and reputable Supreme Court observers, like SCOTUSblog, identified a number of those cases as "petitions to watch...

9th Circuit: Alaska Right to Life's Challenge to State Code of Judicial Conduct Not Justiciable on Current Record

Posted on September 21, 2007
A unanimous Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel has issued a ruling in Alaska Right to Life Political Action Committee v. Feldman, No. 0535902 (9th September 21, 2007).  This case was filed by James Bopp, Jr. et. al. on behalf of AK Right to Life PAC...

Judicial Activists' Twisted View of Originalism

Posted on September 21, 2007
The New York Times Magazine will publish this article on Sunday about Justice John Paul Stevens, probably the most left-leaning judicial activist currently on the Supreme Court. Jeffrey Rosen wrote this fawningly favorable salute to Stevens...

California Libertarians Abandon the Principle of Limited Government in Seeking Same Sex "Marriage"

Posted on September 18, 2007
The Chairman of the California Libertarian party has called on Gov. Schwarzenegger to sign the same sex "marriage" bill that he has promised to veto. As experience has shown, undermining marriage through redefinition, divorce, or otherwise is a sure recipe for increasing government intervention...

Maryland High Court Upholds Marriage as Between One Man and Woman

Posted on September 18, 2007
More information is available on ADF's Doma Watch site. ...(read more)

ADF Memo Analyzes H.R. 2015, The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)

Posted on September 17, 2007
ADF has forwarded a memo to Rep. John Kline, U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, urging rejection of ENDA.  The memo begins: The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (hereinafter ?ENDA?) would, if  passed, add ?sexual orientation? and ?gender identity? as protected categories under various aspects of federal law...

Army and Air Force Exchange Service Defends View that Playboy is Not Sexually Explicit

Posted on September 14, 2007
Army and Air Force Exchange Service is defending its policy to sell sexually explicit magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, Nude Playmates, and a host of others, despite the federal Military Honor and Decency Act, (10 U.S.C. § 2489) which prohibits the sale of sexually explicit publications in military exchanges...

"Homosexuality"?To Be or Not To Be?

Posted on September 14, 2007
In the end, to be or not to be homosexual is a temporal question, not a biological one. Like others who profess to be ?gay? or ?lesbian,? or who have otherwise slipped in and out of homosexual behavior, Senator Larry Craig is merely a person who occasionally succumbs to temptation...

Defining Marriage Down: The Iowa Court Gives Real Marriage Experts Short Shrift

Posted on September 06, 2007
  Readers of ConstitutionallyCorrect.com have requested more information on a specific aspect of Judge Hanson?s ruling last week in Iowa purporting to redefine marriage, namely, his exclusion of the testimony of many of the expert witnesses offered by Polk County in the defense of Iowa?s DOMA...

Iowa Same-Sex "Marriage": One Instance of Judicial Activism Begets Another?

Posted on August 31, 2007
Yesterday afternoon a Polk County, Iowa, trial court granted summary judgment to Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and their test plaintiffs, holding that Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and is stricken from the Iowa Code, ordering the Polk County Registrar to issue "marriage" licenses to the plaintiffs and any other otherwise-qualified same-sex couples, and decreeing that all remaining provisions of Iowa's Marriage Code must be "read and applied in a gender-neutral...

Department of Defense: Playboy Is Not Sexually Explicit

Posted on August 28, 2007
In May 2007, pro family groups and citizens signed a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates asking that he enforce the Military Honor and Decency Act, 10 U.S.C. § 2489.  The Act bans the sale or rental of "sexually explicit material" on U...

Diversity Hypocrisy in Oregon

Posted on August 28, 2007
Diversity, diversity, diversity!  This is oftentimes the war hymn and battle cry of organizations committed to the proliferation of homosexual and alternative lifestyles.   Yet, when it comes to the actual practice of what they preach, homosexual activists are remarkably intolerant...

Tempe, Arizona Scheming with Sexually Oriented Businesses to Violate State Law?

Posted on August 24, 2007
Peter Gentala describes the situation and links to the court order over at the AZ Policy Blog. ...(read more)

Going Past Domestic Partnership: The Benefits Red Herring

Posted on August 10, 2007
Jackie Goldberg has an article in yesterday's LA Times titled: Going past domestic partnership:The same-sex unions law I wrote was never supposed to be an excuse not to legalize marriage for all. Goldberg?s article makes an illogical leap from a discussion of problems with domestic partnership benefits to her proposed solution of ?same sex marriage...

Even More on Footbaths and Has the Campus Culture War Even Started?

Posted on August 07, 2007
ADF Attorney David French has this post over on the National Review Phi Beta Cons blog. On the same topic,  Tamar Lewin has written a NY Times article titled: Universities Install Footbaths to Benefit Muslims, and Not Everyone Is Pleased. David also has a very interesting post on Phi Beta Cons titled: Has the Campus Culture War Even Started? ...

DC Circuit: No Right to Life Saving Drugs

Posted on August 07, 2007
On How Appealing, Howard Bashman links to an en banc ruling today by the D.C. Circuit holding that a terminally ill patient does not have a right to access potentially life-saving drugs not yet fully approved by the government.  Apparently, there is a "right" to access contraceptive drugs and force pharmacists to provide them, but those "rights" do not extend to potentially life saving drugs...

Same-sex Adoption: The Latest Interstate Recognition Hotspot

Posted on August 06, 2007
As we noted earlier, the 10th Circuit has issued a new decision striking down the Oklahoma law denying recognition to out-of-state same-sex adoptions, as violating the federal Full Faith & Credit Clause ("FFCC").  The decision highlights the difference in treatment that various official actions by states receive under FFCC...

10th Circuit: Oklahoma Statute Prohibiting Recognition of California Adoptions by Same Sex Couples is Unconstitutional

Posted on August 06, 2007
The AP reports on Friday's ruling in Finstuen v. Crutcher, No. 06-6213 (10th Cir. August 3, 2007).  Oklahoma amended its statute to prohibit recognition of foreign same sex adoptions. The relevant statute provides: § 7502-1.4. Foreign adoptions A. The courts of this state shall recognize a decree, judgment, or final order creating the relationship of parent and child by adoption, issued by a court or other governmental authority with appropriate jurisdiction in a foreign country or in another...

The Culture of Death Rears Its Ugly Head in Response to an Arkansas Family's Latest Gift

Posted on August 03, 2007
Any family that has more than two children risks being shunned and stared at in today's society which promotes contraception, abortion, malthusianism, and rabid environmentalism. But, one Arkansas family just brought the conflict between the culture of life and the culture of death into even sharper focus...

Maryland High Court: Charter Schools Have Right to Receive as Much Money as Public Schools Per Pupil

Posted on July 31, 2007
Today's Baltimore Sun in an article by Sara Neufeld titled, Charter school ruling could cost city millions: Maryland's highest court tells system to equalize funding, offer cash in lieu of services, summarizes the opinion: The Baltimore school system could be forced to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars - and eventually millions - to its charter schools under a ruling issued yesterday by the state's highest court...

The Growing Conflict Between Professional Regulation and Religious Freedom

Posted on July 27, 2007
The Alliance Defense Fund and ADF-allied Seattle attorneys sued the Washington State Department of Health, the Washington Board of Pharmacy, and others on Wednesday over the Pharmacy Board?s new regulation forcing pro-life pharmacists and pharmacies to dispense the abortifacient ?emergency contraceptive? Plan B...

Ohio Supreme Court: Marriage Amendment Does Not Negate Domestic Violence Statutes for Shackups

Posted on July 25, 2007
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled in State of Ohio v. Carswell,  No. CA2005-04-047, 2005-Ohio-6547 (July 25, 2007). The Court holds that Ohio's marriage amendment restrictions on domestic partnerships does not negate the applicability of Ohio domestic violence laws to unmarried couples...

Child Pornography's Link to Molesting

Posted on July 19, 2007
There is a lot of good information in this NY Times article about the correlation between viewing child pornography and molesting: Debate on Child Pornogaphy's Link to Molesting.  Those in law enforcement who have worked in the field of child exploitation know the correlation is very high...

Could Romney have legitimately refused to implement same-sex "marriage"?

Posted on July 16, 2007
WorldNet Daily features this article today, in which constitutional attorneys including Herb Titus, Scott Fitzgibbon and others comment on whether Mitt Romney, when governor of Massachusetts, could legitimately have refused to implement statewide same-sex "marriage" in the wake of the Goodridge decision...

IMAPP Study Finds No Fault Laws Increase Divorce Rate

Posted on July 16, 2007
Newsweek has the story here on MSNBC and the study is available on the IMAPP website....(read more)

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