Religion & Law

Caucasus peoples reject Wahhabism ? Investigative Committee

Posted on August 26, 2010
Interfax: "Wahhabism is losing support in the North Caucasus, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office Alexander Bastrykin said."

New court decision reinforces need for speech policy changes at five colleges, universities

Posted on August 26, 2010
"A new ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has prompted the Alliance Defense Fund to send follow-up letters to five colleges and universities that it contacted in April about their problematic 'speech codes.'"

Religious figures favour establishment of conscience police in Russia

Posted on August 26, 2010
Interfax: "Representatives of the leading religions of Russia pointed out the lack of legal institutions focused on crime prevention in Russia. 'We have overlooked morality police or conscience police,' chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities in Russia rabbi Zinovy Kogan said Wednesday at a round table talks held in Interfax...

Neb. high court to get immigration-law question

Posted on August 26, 2010
Associated Press: "A federal judge says the Nebraska Supreme Court should answer a legal question about whether a Nebraska city's ban on hiring and renting to illegal immigrants is allowed by state law."

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Report: 90,000 inmates sexually victimized

Posted on August 26, 2010
Associated Press: "The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of inmates in prison and 3.1 percent of inmates in jail report being victimized sexually by another inmate or staff member. Those percentages translate to the sexual victimization of 88,500 inmates behind bars nationwide in the previous 12 months, according to a study by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2008-2009...

Alan Sears: At Mount Rushmore, a decision four presidents would love

Posted on August 26, 2010
ADF President and CEO Alan Sears writing at Inside the Issues: "ADF lawyers filed a federal lawsuit on Boardley?s behalf against the Department of the Interior, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In March, 2009, the court found that a portion of one of the regulations challenged in the lawsuit was unconstitutional...

Shattering the myth of a Left-libertarian alliance

Posted on August 26, 2010
Timothy P. Carney writing at The Washington Examiner: "Brink Lindsey, a vice president at Cato and the evangelist of a libertarian-liberal coalition, was driven from the think tank, and he was followed out the door by his astute lieutenant, Will Wilkinson ...

Russell Korobkin: Stem cell shock #2: The preliminary injunction

Posted on August 26, 2010
Russell Korobkin writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: "In a [post yesterday], I described why I think Judge Royce Lamberth?s decision on Monday that the Dickey-Wicker Amendment prohibits the federal government from funding human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research is wrong on the merits...

Unmasking the ?Ella? masquerade: Blurring the line between contraception and abortion

Posted on August 26, 2010
E. Christian Brugger, D. Phil, Senior Fellow in Ethics at the Culture of Life Foundation: "The secret that the Ella establishment doesn't want you to know is this: from a pharmacological perspective, Ella is not an emergency contraceptive (EC). It is an abortion drug ...

School choice proves effective in Fla.

Posted on August 26, 2010
OneNewsNow: "Dr. Vicki Murray is the associate director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute (PJI) and director of the Women for School Choice project at the Independent Women's Forum (IWF). She reports that reading levels for fourth-graders in the Sunshine State were close to the bottom of the barrel a little over a decade ago, but one of the changes made during that time was to give parents the opportunity to choose the best school for their children...

Appeal in stem-cell decision revealing

Posted on August 26, 2010
OneNewsNow: "A spokeswoman for Americans United for Life says it's obvious the Obama administration wants to circumvent the law and make federal funds available for research that requires the killing of unborn babies."

Groups protest ban on religion-based hiring in proposed SAMHSA legislation

Posted on August 26, 2010
Religion Clause: "Today's New York Times and a press release from World Vision report that over 100 religious organizations have written to every member of Congress objecting to a provision in HR 5466, the proposed SAMHSA Modernization Act of 2010 reauthorizing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration...

Barack Obama and Slavery: Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery

Posted on August 26, 2010
"Baraq [Barack] was the name of the winged horse-like creature that took Mohammed to Paradise in the Night Journey . . . . . The Arab African Muslim has always been associated with slavery because Islam is the driving force in the history of world slavery ...

Joe Infranco on the Mike Gallagher Show: Roadside cross memorials for fallen troopers

Posted on August 26, 2010
ADF attorney Joe Infranco appeared on the Mike Gallagher Show to discuss the recent 10th circuit decision holding that Utah Cross memorials for fallen State Troopers violates the Constitution. | MP3 7:04 mins | Related ADF Media information

Daniel Blomberg on KFUO with Roland Lettner: Religious Freedom and the Proposition 8 Marriage Ruling

Posted on August 26, 2010
ADF attorney Daniel Blomberg on KFUO with Roland Lettner to discuss some of the ramifications of the Proposition 8 marriage ruling.  | MP3 24:18 mins

Allan Carlson: Why Australia needs a renewed culture of natural marriage

Posted on August 26, 2010
Briefly put, marriage ? as conventionally understood ? is a bulwark of liberty. Here ? despite the bigotry of Iowa judges against the past ? I revert to history. The telling reality is that every modern totalitarian movement ? every enemy of a free society ? has moved early and aggressively to disrupt or destroy the institution of natural marriage...

?The forgotten new deal ? The Gold Clause Cases?

Posted on August 26, 2010
Gerard Magliocca writing at Concurring Opinions: "Last month I wrote two posts about The Gold Clause Cases, in which the Court upheld (5-4) FDR?s decision to take us off the gold standard in 1933 . . . FDR?s decision to break with gold was a bold repudiation of the consensus that had prevailed for a generation...

How Americans view the Court

Posted on August 26, 2010
Summary of Pew Research Center survey data [Google Viewer] via SCOTUSblog: "The Obama administration's effort to paint the Supreme Court as an unacceptably conservative institution does not appear to be working. Survey data released during the summer by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press suggests that, if anything, more of the public views the Court as liberal than in the past...

?The Wyoming gay marriage case debuts?

Posted on August 26, 2010
365Gay.com: "The complaint in this case was filed pro se, meaning that the parties are representing themselves. Although information about the case (including the complaint itself) is hard to find, your intrepid columnist did finally track down this exclusive interview with one of the plaintiffs, David Shupe-Roderick ...

US bishop laments ?post-Christian? world

Posted on August 26, 2010
"We face an aggressively secular political vision and a consumerist economic model that result ? in practice, if not in explicit intent - in a new kind of state encouraged atheism."

Slashed Muslim taxi driver to visit NYC mayor

Posted on August 26, 2010
Associated Press: "Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch supporter of the mosque project, invited the taxi driver to visit City Hall on Thursday . . . A judge ordered Enright, 21, held without bail on charges of attempted murder and assault as hate crimes and weapon possession...

Janice Shaw Crouse: Why young Black males are not graduating high school

Posted on August 26, 2010
"If the statements on which Judge Walker based his ruling are 'facts,' how do we explain what is happening educationally to boys in the black community where a large majority are growing up without fathers?"

Reports: Iran bars local coverage of opposition

Posted on August 26, 2010
Associated Press: "Iranian media have been prohibited from mentioning opposition leaders, including former President Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media directive that would further strengthen the government's grip over the remaining news outlets...

Fed seeks delay of bank data release while considering appeal

Posted on August 26, 2010
Bloomberg: "The Federal Reserve Board sought to delay the court-ordered release of documents identifying banks that might have failed without the U.S. government bailout while it considers an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court."

Online learning is on the upswing ? in the public mind at least

Posted on August 26, 2010
Education Next: "Of all the innovations and policy reform proposals in education, it is online learning that is gathering public support most rapidly. In just one year?from 2009 to 2010?the percentage of Americans who think that high school students should be given credit for courses taken online has jumped from 42 percent to 52 percent...

Black voices from the pulpit

Posted on August 26, 2010
Eric J. Sundquist reviews Preaching With Sacred Fire, Edited by Martha Simmons and Frank A. Thomas, at the Wall Street Journal: "Ranging primarily across Christian denominations? Islam plays a small role in the book, and Judaism none at all?the editors place conventional homiletic and uplift preaching alongside the most strident black nationalism...

What?s next with the stem cell injunction

Posted on August 26, 2010
ScienceMag.org / Science Insider: "More ongoing grants will come up for annual review in the coming months, so they will also be halted if the injunction stands. In addition, Steven Aden of the Alliance Defense Fund, a co-counsel in the plaintiff's suit, says the plaintiffs haven't ruled out a challenge to the Adminstration's interpretation of the ruling...

Human (embryonic) life as a basis of family restoration

Posted on August 26, 2010
Regent Law Family Restoration: "The case of Sherley v. Sebelius was brought by Dr. James L. Sherley, Dr. Theresa Deisher, Nightlight Christian Adoptions, and the Christian Medical Association, who are represented by Advocates International (AI), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), and the firm Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, LLC ...

Benjamin Bull: The Manhattan Declaration . . . Romanian style

Posted on August 26, 2010
ADF Executive Vice-President and Executive Director of ADF-Global Benjamin W. Bull writing at The Christian Post / Advancing Religious Liberty: "The Alliance of Romania's Families has launched the Timisoara Declaration. (Scroll down their page to see the English version...

Joe Martins: Third Circuit vindicates free speech (again)

Posted on August 26, 2010
ADF Attorney Joe Martins writing at Speak Up Movement / University: "Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a resounding decision in favor of free speech by invalidating several unconstitutional speech codes. In McCauley v. University of the Virgin Islands, the Court struck down campus policies banning expression that is 'offensive,' 'unauthorized,' or which causes 'emotional distress...

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