Religion & Law

UK: Second ?homosexuality is a sin? preacher awarded damages for wrongful arrest

Posted on December 20, 2010
Christian Post: "Christian street preacher Dale Mcalpine is to receive more than $10,000 in damages after police in Cumbria, England, admitted wrongful arrest, unlawful imprisonment and a breach of his human rights."

Iowa: Judge recuses himself from vote challenge

Posted on December 20, 2010
Des Moines Register: "A Polk County judge has declined to hear a legal challenge to last month's judicial retention vote to avoid the appearance that he has a conflict of interest."

Video: Merry Christmas from the Alliance Defense Fund, Alan Sears

Posted on December 20, 2010
Video is here.

Bishop E. W. Jackson Sr., former Marine, vows to fight for reinstatement of DADT

Posted on December 20, 2010
ChristianNewsWire: "Bishop E. W. Jackson, Sr., founder of S.T.A.N.D., [Staying True to America's National Destiny] and a former Marine issued the following response to the Senate vote today allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the United States Military for the first time in American history...

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Enrollment of Muslim students is growing at Catholic colleges in U.S.

Posted on December 20, 2010
Washington Post: "In the past few years, enrollment of Muslim students such as Shabnan has spiked at Catholic campuses across the country. Last year, Catholic colleges had an even higher percentage of Muslim students than the average four-year institution in the United States, according to the Higher Education Research Institute...

Ireland: New gov?t coalition facing an abortion storm

Posted on December 20, 2010
The Sunday Business Post: "If, as seems certain, the next government is formed in the coming months by Fine Gael and Labour, the negotiations on the Programme for Government have just got a little more combustible . . . 'Abortion becomes election issue,' declared the front page of the Irish Times in the wake of the decision...

NYC settles religious discrimination case

Posted on December 20, 2010
WSJ (AP): "New York City has settled a lawsuit with an Orthodox Jewish nurse who was denied a job at a city hospital because she couldn't work on the Sabbath."

How Democrats gave up on religious voters

Posted on December 20, 2010
Tiffany Stanley writing at The New Republic: "[W]hen Obama took office, the Democrats' faith outreach began to fall by the wayside. Several of those who had led the religious aspects of the Obama campaign landed in the OFBNP, which is legally barred from electoral politics, and thus faith-based political outreach ...

Egypt attempts to convict Christian to justify Muslim riots

Posted on December 20, 2010
Pakistan Christian Post: "The high profile criminal trial of 21-year-old Christian Copt Girgis Baroumi, accused of sexually assaulting a Muslim girl, is viewed by the Coptic community as an example of how the Egyptian government, using all its organs, including the Attorney General, Interior Minister and Parliament Speaker, has conspired to use him as a scapegoat to justify deadly Muslim assaults on Christians...

Fla. lawsuit alleges religious persecution

Posted on December 20, 2010
UPI: "Florida man says co-workers made his life difficult after he took a demotion so he could study to become a Pentecostal minister."

Is free Iraq becoming a more Islamic state?

Posted on December 20, 2010
Reuters: "Recent efforts by authorities, clergy and unknown bands of neighbourhood enforcers to police morals by shutting nightclubs, bars and other establishments has heightened concerns among academics and intellectuals that Iraq, now emerging from war, is displaying the tendencies of a hard-line Islamic state...

UN vote will consider whether ?gays? should be treated as minority

Posted on December 20, 2010
"A culture war has broken out at the United Nations over whether gays should be singled out for the same protections as other minorities whose lives are threatened. The battle will come to a head on Tuesday when the General Assembly votes to renew its routine condemnation of the unjustified killing of various categories of vulnerable people...

Bangladeshi ?stepson affair? woman dies after caning

Posted on December 20, 2010
BBC: "A group of village elders and clerics sentenced Sufia Begum under Sharia law to 40 lashes for adultery. The 40-year-old died of her injuries almost a month after the beating in Rajshahi district, her family says."

Nina Totenberg: ?I was at ? forgive the expression ? a Christmas party?

Posted on December 20, 2010
NewsBusters: "'I was at ? forgive the expression ? a Christmas party,' NPR reporter Nina Totenberg interjected on Inside Washington in the weekend?s oddest cautionary separation from a common description for a common event, seemingly embarrassed to invoke any religious terminology for Christmas...

When divorced doesn?t mean divorced in Egyptian

Posted on December 20, 2010
Jerusalem Post: "Discrepancies between colloquial and literary Arabic may have far-reaching legal ramifications in Egypt. Egypt may have the highest divorce rate in the Arab world, but that might be moot if a new ruling by the country?s senior jurists goes into effect...

Canada killing sparks abortion fight

Posted on December 20, 2010
UPI: "Canada's abortion debate is being revived by the case of a woman who killed her boyfriend when he tried to force her to have one."

Obama to sign DADT repeal on Wednesday; may hold news conference

Posted on December 20, 2010
USA Today: "President Obama is likely to sign the repeal of the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy on Wednesday, and may well hold a news conference later this week, spokesman Robert Gibbs said today."

Ontario Catholic teachers union funds leading gay activist group

Posted on December 20, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "Faithful Catholic teachers are outraged after discovering that the Ontario English Catholic Teachers? Association (OECTA) is funding Canada?s leading homosexualist organization with dues collected from them."

Attorney for man accused of incest asks: if homosexual sex is legal, why not this?

Posted on December 20, 2010
LifeSiteNews: "The attorney for David Epstein, a Colombia university professor charged with incest with his adult daughter, is defending sex between family members by appealing to homosexual 'rights' as a precedent."

Maureen Dowd: ?A gay Commander in Chief: Ready or not??

Posted on December 20, 2010
Maureen Dowd has this piece at the New York Times speculating on the question and lamenting the extent of opposition in the country to the homosexual agenda.

Patrick swears in 1st black chief justice in Mass.

Posted on December 20, 2010
Associated Press: "Gov. Deval Patrick has sworn in the first black chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court."

Senate votes 65-31 to normalize homosexual behavior in the military

Posted on December 18, 2010
"GOP Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) were expected to vote yes. Sens. Richard Burr (N.C.), John Ensign (Nev.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and George Voinovich (Ohio) were late surprises. West Virginia Sen...

India: Temple trusts unite against draft law to control their shrines

Posted on December 17, 2010
DNA India: "Three weeks ago in Mumbai, opponents of the legislation formed the Maharashtra Temple and Religious Institution Federation (Mandir ani Dharmik Sanstha Mahasangh) which, among other things, will oppose plans to give the state more control over the management and finances of the state?s Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhists shrines...

TN: Plaintiff attorney responds to ruling on Islamic Center of Murfreesboro case

Posted on December 17, 2010
Daily News Journal: "Plaintiffs? attorney Joe M. Brandon Jr. submitted a response today, printed below, to a November court ruling related to his clients suing Rutherford County for approving Islamic Center of Murfreesboro?s Veals Road site plans."

CA: Commission says county didn?t violate federal law in limiting synagogue?s growth

Posted on December 17, 2010
Ventura County Star: "An Oak Park synagogue?s bid to double its occupancy limit was denied for a second time Thursday when a panel ruled the county had not violated a federal law protecting religious exercise."

French court rules against hijab wearer

Posted on December 17, 2010
CBC: "A French court has ruled against a woman who sued a private child-care centre that fired her for wearing an Islamic headscarf and cloak to work."

India Congress scion Rahul Gandhi says radical Hindus a threat

Posted on December 17, 2010
Reuters: "Rahul Gandhi, seen as an India prime minister in waiting, told the U.S. ambassador radical Hindu groups could posed a bigger threat to the country than the Islamists who attacked Mumbai in 2008, a leaked cable showed. The comments made to Timothy Roemer last year were immediately criticised by the main opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), adding to political sparring that has deadlocked parliament and pushed policymaking into limbo...

IN: Nativity scene draws complaint

Posted on December 17, 2010
Palladium-Item: "Franklin County's courthouse Nativity scene will stay in place this Christmas season, despite a complaint by the Freedom From Religion Foundation."

NH: Merrimack church sues town, claiming discrimination for nixed building project

Posted on December 17, 2010
Nashua Telegraph: "Churches in Merrimack and Goffstown have sued their respective communities for religious discrimination, charging that the towns? zoning and planning boards have violated their federal rights by refusing to let them build." Complaint filed in Merrimack Congregation of Jehovah?s Witnesses v...

Sri Lanka: School textbooks to be reprinted to eliminate religious offense

Posted on December 17, 2010
Daily Mirror: "The Education Ministry has decided to reprint certain school textbooks because some of the facts mentioned in them offend the religious sensitivities of people as pointed out by religious dignitaries."

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