Religion & Law

WA: Display of Nativity scene approved for Capitol grounds in Olympia

Posted on December 21, 2010
The News Tribune: "Washington state officials have approved the display of a Nativity scene with life-size figures on the Capitol Campus grounds east of the Legislative Building."

Obamacare, the Constitution, and the original meaning of the Commerce Clause

Posted on December 21, 2010
William J. Watkins, Jr. writing at the Christian Science Monitor: "The courts? opinions exhaustively discuss and interpret modern Supreme Court case law, but barely touch upon the history of the commerce power and the intent of the Constitution?s framers...

$1.5M offer made for disputed Philly Boy Scouts HQ

Posted on December 21, 2010
Boston.com (AP): "A philanthropist has thrown a wrinkle into a plan for a Boy Scouts of America chapter to buy their city-owned headquarters in Philadelphia to resolve a discrimination lawsuit . . . real-estate investor Mel Heifetz tells the Philadelphia Daily News he would pay $1...

Suspected Rome bomb contained no explosive

Posted on December 21, 2010
Reuters: "A suspected bomb was found on an empty underground train in Rome on Tuesday but police said it lacked a detonator and tests showed it contained no explosive."

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FCC says gov?t has power to regulate Internet traffic

Posted on December 21, 2010
WSJ: "Federal telecommunications regulators approved new rules Tuesday that would for the first time give the federal government formal authority to regulate Internet traffic, although how much or for how long remained unclear." FCC press release is available for download here.

Graham: GOP to blame for ?capitulation of dramatic proportions? in lame-duck

Posted on December 21, 2010
The Hill: "Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lashed out at fellow Republicans Tuesday for a 'capitulation ... of dramatic proportions' to Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the lame-duck Congress."

Belgium: Court rules boy had the right to be the object of an abortion

Posted on December 21, 2010
E. Christian Brugger writes at the Culture of Life Foundation: "The bioethics website BioEdge (www.bioedge.org) just reported that an appeal?s court in Belgium recently upheld a similar suit brought by parents against doctors on behalf of their disabled son...

Continuing resolution sets up battle on DC abortion funding

Posted on December 21, 2010
LifeNews: "The Senate voted 82 to 14 today to invoked cloture on legislation to fund the government through March 4, 2011 after rejecting an omnibus funding bill containing several goodies for the abortion industry."

23% fail military entrance exam

Posted on December 21, 2010
"Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the military fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can't answer basic math, science and reading questions."

Spain: Muslim student files complaint against teacher for talking about ham

Posted on December 21, 2010
Pajamas Media: "Consider the case of the student at the Menéndez Tolosa school in Cadiz who this week asked his geography teacher to stop discussing ham in class because it was disrespctful to him as a Muslim. It should be noted that the teacher, José Reyes Fernández, was not mocking the Koran?s prohibition against eating ham...

Stanley Kurtz: Obama, pragmatic socialist

Posted on December 21, 2010
Stanley Kurtz writing at National Review Online: Obama could easily have confessed his youthful radicalism and explained how he?d come to abandon it. As a man with national ambitions, we might have expected him to do so. Instead, Obama has consistently identified himself with a profession, community organizing, he knew to be quietly socialist ...

William Saletan: DADT and the future of sexual morality

Posted on December 20, 2010
"Conservatives tend to exaggerate the slippery slope from homosexuality to anything-goes. But many of the arguments for repealing DADT, coupled with ongoing efforts to reform military sex laws, do point in that direction."

MI: Anti-religion group shouldn?t dictate location of creche

Posted on December 20, 2010
Daily Tribune: "Have we become a country so concerned with political correctness that we prefer 'Happy Holiday' to 'Merry Christmas'? We hope not. And we see no reason for an anti-religion group in another state to dictate what's wrong or right in Warren...

The role of law clerk numbers in the rise of the Supreme Court bar

Posted on December 20, 2010
Orin Kerr writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: "Why did a specialized Supreme Court bar form in the first place? Most accounts suggest it started in the 1980s and has grown in size since then. But why? . . . "

Jonathan Adler: Faux concern for judicial ethics

Posted on December 20, 2010
Jonathan H. Adler writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: "CRC metastasized into a new organization with a much broader mission ? the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC), but the campaign against judicial seminars continues . . . The aim of these attacks have always been to discourage judges from attending judicial education seminars at which they might be exposed to ideas Kendall and his colleagues dislike, if not shut down the seminars altogether ...

Americans, for first time, say ObamaCare will be repealed

Posted on December 20, 2010
LifeNews: "The new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey released today finds 52 percent think it is at least somewhat likely that the health care law will be overturned. Thirty-three percent view repeal as unlikely. Those figures include 16 percent who say it is very likely and 5 percent who say it is very unlikely...

Proposed amendment would enable states to repeal federal law

Posted on December 20, 2010
New York Times: "Under the proposed 'repeal amendment,' any federal law or regulation could be repealed if the legislatures of two-thirds of the states voted to do so."

Judge allows children to visit father in polygamous community

Posted on December 20, 2010
Salt Lake Tribune: "A judge has reversed a custody order barring a Juab County man from talking to his children about his religious belief in plural marriage and taking his children to the largely polygamous community he lives in."

Biden says US to be out of Afghanistan by 2014

Posted on December 20, 2010
Associated Press: "Despite uneven progress in Afghanistan, Vice President Joe Biden said next summer's planned withdrawal would be more than a token reduction and that the U.S. would be out of the country by 2014 'come hell or high water.'"

Chavez defends plan for Internet regulations

Posted on December 20, 2010
Associated Press: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez defended plans for a law that would impose broadcast-type regulations on the Internet, saying Sunday that his government should protect citizens against online crimes."

NY Rep. King: I?ll hold hearings on radical Islam

Posted on December 20, 2010
Associated Press: "The incoming head of the House Committee on Homeland Security says he will hold hearings on what he calls the 'radicalization' of some American Muslims."

Federal Reserve Board backs off policy of barring religious displays in bank

Posted on December 20, 2010
Religion Clause: "According to another report by KOCO News, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe and U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas sent a letter to the Federal Reserve Board calling the action an 'all-out assault on the faith, values and rights of the bank, its employees and the people it serves...

Automakers suing EPA over higher ethanol mix gas

Posted on December 20, 2010
Associated Press: "Automakers and engine manufacturers are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over a plan to allow the sale of gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol."

AP: DADT repealed, but restrictions remain

Posted on December 20, 2010
Associated Press: "[F]or the time being the restrictions will remain on the books, though it's unclear how fully they will be enforced. Some people believe gay discharge cases will be dropped as soon as Obama signs the law. Military leaders, who have been divided on the issue, gave indications that the policy change will be aggressively pursued...

GOP ? not Sen. Manchin ? to blame for normalization of homosexual conduct in the military

Posted on December 20, 2010
Jeremy Dys writing at the Family Policy Council of West Virginia's Engage Family Blog: "[T]he DADT repeal passed 65-31 in the U.S. Senate. Of that, 8 ? EIGHT ? GOP Senators voted in favor of repeal. Frankly, Manchin?s family obligations gave him convenient political cover, but it was an effective vote against repeal ? which is more than can be said 1/5th of the republicans in the U...

Virginian: Bar gays from National Guard

Posted on December 20, 2010
Washington Times: "Responding to the federal repeal of the military policy banning open gays from serving in the armed forces, a state lawmaker in Virginia plans to fight back with legislation that bars 'active homosexuals' from serving in the Virginia National Guard...

Benedict Arnold Republicans destroy military and our national security

Posted on December 20, 2010
Bryan Fischer writes at Renew America: "The Saturday morning cloture vote on the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' was the critical vote. It needed 60 votes and got 63, because of Republican renegades Scott Brown, Mark Kirk, George Voinovich, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe...

North American Union: Why the U.S. coverup?

Posted on December 20, 2010
WorldNetDaily: "Operating much like a 'memory hole' in George Orwell's classic novel '1984,' the Obama administration has replaced the content of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America website, providing additional evidence the White House intends to implement the SPP agenda by executive action, below the radar of public opinion and outside the framework of congressional approval...

Bill O?Reilly: A very liberal Christmas

Posted on December 20, 2010
Bill O'Reilly writing at Human Events: "Why would any rational person get testy about a federal holiday that brings joy to the majority of their countrymen and helps the economy, to boot? As a Christian, I don't mind the winter solstice people doing whatever it is they do...

Washington Times: The Islamic tsunami

Posted on December 20, 2010
Washington Times: "The second and more threatening wave is the creeping takeover of Western political and social institutions, something Mr. Rubin calls the 'silent tsunami.' The spearhead of this movement is 'collusion between Islamic ideologues and the far left to promote the idea of moral relativism,' he said, 'that all values and ideologies are equal...

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