Religion & Law

FL: Religious hiring okayed by hospital seeking merger

Posted on August 19, 2010
Fierce Healthcare: "City commissioners in Tarpon Springs, Fla., voted earlier this week to allow hiring to be based on religion at Helen Ellis Hospital, according to the St. Petersburg Times. The vote, which was 5-0, brings the hospital one step closer to finalizing its merger with Adventist Health System, which is associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church...

Ross Douthat: How should conservative politics approach same-sex relationships?

Posted on August 19, 2010
Ross Douthat writing at his New York Times blog: "Basically, [conservatives] should have pushed (in, let's say, the early 1980s) for what Ryan Anderson and Sherif Girgis have urged as a contemporary compromise: A domestic partnership law designed to accommodate gay couples without being sexuality-specific...

NC college to petition for appeal of police ruling

Posted on August 19, 2010
DavidsonNews.net: "Davidson College said Thursday it will ask the N.C. Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a state Appeals Court decision earlier this week that said the campus police department cannot enforce state laws because Davidson is a religious institution...

Federal Bureau of Prisons to provide Native American Medicine man

Posted on August 19, 2010
FedBizOpps.gov: "The Federal Bureau of Prisons, FPC Duluth, Duluth, MN, intends to make a single award to a responsible entity for providing the services of Native American Medicine man to the inmate population as outlined in the statement of work . ...

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Hadley Arkes: Judge Walker and the language of the law

Posted on August 19, 2010
"Walker simply rules out the notion that there may have been reasons for turning away from the homosexual life. Homosexuals were simply 'disliked,' an aversion without reason. 'Moral judgments' come down in the end to irrational beliefs; and they could supply then no justification for the law...

Wisconsin makes push on free birth control

Posted on August 19, 2010
Wall Street Journal: "Wisconsin is pushing to expand a controversial program that uses federal Medicaid funds to provide free birth-control pills, vasectomies and other forms of contraception to low-income people, an effort made possible by the federal health-care overhaul ...

Feds: Alaska couple, converts to Islam, had 20 names on hit list

Posted on August 19, 2010
Victoria Advocate: "A rural Alaska couple accused of domestic terrorism had 20 names on a hit list and had moved to the operational phase . . . Authorities say Paul Rockwood became a strict adherent to a violent Jihad-promoting ideology after converting to Islam...

The ?Ground Zero mosqe? and the politics of assimilation

Posted on August 19, 2010
"[T]he goal seems to be to shame and stigmatize one?s opponents as part of a "war of position" over which message will dominate mass media, the schools, and other institutions that govern cultural reproduction. Those who embrace this strategy, implicitly or explicitly, can justify it to themselves pretty easily by defining their opponents as irrational or subrational Nazi-like hate-mongers...

Maggie Gallagher: Chuck Cooper strikes back

Posted on August 19, 2010
Maggie Gallagher writing at Real Clear Politics: "[T]he devastating brief that attorney Charles Cooper filed asking the 9th Circuit to overrule Walker . . . is a total smack-down of Walker's decision to ignore the immense amount of evidence brought to him -- not to dispute it, but to simply ignore it...

Mike Adams: A boy named Sue

Posted on August 19, 2010
Mike Adams writing at Townhall: "In the last few months, I have been in no less than one dozen arguments with 'Christian men' who have attempted to persuade me to stop my advocacy of, and direct involvement in, litigation against public universities. This is despite the fact that the universities are seeking to curtail the rights of Christian students and professors...

Wisconsin: Teachers? union sues for Viagra coverage

Posted on August 19, 2010
OneNewsNow: "A teachers union in Milwaukee is suing over health insurance coverage of Viagra and other sexual performance-enhancing drugs, claiming that excluding the medication from insurance benefits discriminates against male employees."

Feds embargo pro-abstinence findings

Posted on August 19, 2010
"The taxpayer-supported survey from 2008 found that around 70 percent of parents and their teenagers believed that teens should wait until marriage to have sex."

Meeting fails to end Ohio church-strip club feud

Posted on August 19, 2010
Associated Press: "Pastor Bill Dunfee of New Beginnings Ministries says he and Fox Hole club owner Tommy George found no common ground during their roughly two-hour sit-down at a diner Wednesday night."

ACLU seeks end to prosecutions for recording public conversations with police

Posted on August 19, 2010
PR Newswire: "Responding to a series of incidents in which individuals in four counties in Illinois have been charged with violating Illinois' eavesdropping law for making audio recordings of public conversations with police, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois today asked a federal court to rule that the First Amendment bans such prosecutions...

Ditch the queen: UK public?s idea to cut the debt

Posted on August 19, 2010
Associated Press: "Contributors to the website say that doesn't go far enough - calling for Queen Elizabeth II either to step down, or drastically reduce the number of her family members who receive public money. 'The French have not had a monarchy for more than 200 years and tourists still flock to Versailles,' one of the ideas posted on the Treasury site reads...

Calif. Supreme Court OKs Schwarzenegger furloughs

Posted on August 19, 2010
Associated Press: "The California Supreme Court says furloughs of state workers can resume while it reviews whether governors have the authority to mandate unpaid days off."

Saudi judge considers paralysis punishment

Posted on August 19, 2010
Yahoo (AP): "A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man's spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, local newspapers reported on Thursday...

Are right and left changing where they stand on standing?

Posted on August 19, 2010
Ilya Somin writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: "Traditionally, conservative scholars and judges have advocated narrow views of constitutional 'standing': the level of 'interest' litigants must have at stake in the outcome of a case in order to give them a legal right to sue...

President Apostate?

Posted on August 19, 2010
The Drudge Report has posted this NY Times article by Edward N. Luttwak dated May 12, 2008: "As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion...

The case against restrictive Constitutional standing requirements

Posted on August 19, 2010
Ilya Somin writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: "I briefly explain my view that 'constitutional' standing requirements are both a bad idea and not required by the Constitution. Right from the start, I should emphasize that my argument only applies against claims that the Constitution imposes strict standing requirements on litigants who want to file a lawsuit arguing that some government action is unconstitutional...

9th Circuit panel for Prop 8 appeal won?t be known for months

Posted on August 19, 2010
Law.com: "The appeal of Chief Judge Vaughn Walker's Aug. 4 ruling hasn't yet been assigned to a merits panel, said Circuit Executive Cathy Catterson. The court typically assigns cases about three months before argument, Catterson said. It won't be publicly revealed which 9th Circuit judges will hear the case until a week before oral argument, set for the week of Dec...

Nebraska law sets limits on abortion

Posted on August 19, 2010
New York Times: "Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska signed a law on Tuesday banning most abortions 20 weeks after conception or later on the theory that a fetus, by that stage in pregnancy, has the capacity to feel pain. The law, which appears nearly certain to set off legal and scientific debates, is the first in the nation to restrict abortions on the basis of fetal pain...

Nebraska stands down on abortion . . . for now

Posted on August 19, 2010
First One @ One First: "[T]here remains separate bill, LB 1103, which provided for the headline-grabbing ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy?without regard to the woman's health?on the theory that fetuses can feel pain at that gestational point...

Lawyer: Expect ?powerful? statement from Supreme Court on Westboro case

Posted on August 19, 2010
York Daily Record: "Summers has represented Snyder pro-bono since 2006, when the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Westboro Baptist Church protested the military funeral of Snyder's son, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder . . . 'The reality is, anyone that tells you they know what the ruling is going to be doesn't know what they're talking about,' Summers said...

Austin R. Nimocks on Point of View Radio: Cal. marriage litigation ? where do we go from here?

Posted on August 19, 2010
ADF attorney Austin R. Nimocks appeared on Point of View Radio to answer the question. | MP3 18:34 mins| Austin R. Nimocks' article at Human Events: Federal Court Declares Most Americans A Bunch of Bigots.

Daniel Blomberg on the Janet Mefferd Show: The Cal. marriage stay order

Posted on August 19, 2010
ADF attorney Daniel Blomberg appeared on the Janet Mefferd Show to discuss the status of the Cal. marriage litigation. | MP3 17:42 mins

What makes Arizona such a hotbed of high court action?

Posted on August 19, 2010
Law.com: "' . . . 'I think there are two explanations, and one is dominant,' Bolick suggested for the influx of Arizona cases. 'Arizona is taking the concept of states being the laboratories of democracy very seriously on multiple fronts . . . We have a legislature that is risk-taking and innovative ...

Bosnian Parliament to consider ban on niqab

Posted on August 19, 2010
Religion Clause: "A release from the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) published yesterday in BikyaMasr reports that the Central Parliament in Bosnia is about to consider a bill to ban Muslim women from wearing the full face veil in public. The proposed law, which would fine women 50 Euros for violations, bans clothing that prevents identification...

Business caters to Muslim immigrants seeking to fulfill ritual animal sacrifices

Posted on August 19, 2010
Washington Post / On Faith: "This budding sub-sector of the meat industry caters to Muslims who want to follow their faith's rules -- to be certain that the animal has been slaughtered humanely with a knife to the throat, that the animal is pointed toward Mecca and that it dies as the slaughterer recites a prayer ...

Fla. city denies permit for 9/11 Quran burning

Posted on August 19, 2010
Associated Press: "Officials in a Florida city have denied a burn permit for a church that is seeking to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11."

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