Religion & Law

Justice Ginsburg?s husband dies at age 78

Posted on June 28, 2010
Law.com: "Prominent tax lawyer and professor Martin Ginsburg, husband of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for 56 years, died Sunday at their home in Washington, D.C. Martin Ginsburg, who was 78, died from complications of metastatic cancer, according to an announcement from the Court's public information office...

Abortion budget cuts upset NJ Dems

Posted on June 28, 2010
OneNewsNow: "Because of a tight budget, New Jersey Republican Governor Chris Christie has taken action on state spending for abortion facilities by eliminating their funding. ... Democrats are introducing legislation to reinstate those eliminated funds, but the NJFPC president does not believe that will settle well with many voters...

Is the public school the symbol of democracy?

Posted on June 28, 2010
Education Next: "What happens to public schools when disasters strike? The Obama Administration is talking about turnarounds, but no one ever commands a shut down. Yet 10 percent of all charters have disappeared. Could well-regulated charter schools be a better symbol of our democracy than the public school? Before I could answer that question, it was time to grab my bag, stumble to the door, and jump off the train...

Michael McConnell writes in support of Elena Kagan?s nomination

Posted on June 28, 2010
The Volokh Conspiracy: "The letter is here. Among other things, McConnell argues in some detail that conservatives will likely be pretty happy about Elena Kagan on the freedom of religious and political speech, on free exercise of religion, and on the participation of religious institutions in generally available funding programs...

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Supreme Court hearings: ?Vapid and hollow? or substantive and illuminating?

Posted on June 28, 2010
Jonathan Adler writing at The Volokh Conspiracy: "In today?s NYT, Adam Liptak reports on a new study by political scientists Lori Ringhand and Paul Collins Jr. analyzing the questions asked at Supreme Court confirmation hearings over the past 70 years [which] ...

Today?s U.S. Supreme Court opinions: links and summaries

Posted on June 28, 2010
The Volokh Conspiracy: "The Supreme Court holds in McDonald v. Chicago that the Second Amendment is fully applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment. ... In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Court affirms the Ninth Circuit 5?4. Justice Ginsburg writes the majority, siding with the University of California on narrow grounds...

Arizona immigration comes to U.S. Supreme Court ? Employer E-verify database

Posted on June 28, 2010
Fox News | Live Shots: "A controversial measure Arizona lawmakers passed to crack down on illegal immigration will now go before the Supreme Court, the justices announced Monday, but this is a different law from the one recently passed--and yet to go into effect--that has generated so much attention...

George F. Will: More questions for nominee Elena Kagan

Posted on June 28, 2010
"Some persons argue that our nation has a 'living' Constitution; the court has spoken of 'the evolving standards of decency . . .Scalia . . . [a] society that adopts a bill of rights is skeptical that 'evolving standards of decency' always 'mark progress,' and that societies always 'mature,' as opposed to rot...

Stevens ascends to his final day on bench

Posted on June 28, 2010
USA Today: "Retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens will ascend the court's mahogany bench today for the last time, as the justices hand down the final cases of their annual term. ... Also today, through a fluke of Senate timing, President Obama's nominee to succeed Stevens, Elena Kagan, will begin her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee...

The triumphant decline of the WASP

Posted on June 28, 2010
Noah Feldman writing in the Wall Street Journal: "But satisfaction with our national progress should not make us forget its authors: the very Protestant elite that founded and long dominated our nation?s institutions of higher education and government, including the Supreme Court...

Supreme Court won?t review case claiming Vatican liable for priest abuser

Posted on June 28, 2010
Catholic News Service: "The U.S. Supreme Court has left standing a lower court ruling that will allow an Oregon man to try to hold the Vatican financially responsible for his sexual abuse by a priest, if he can persuade the court that the priest was an employee of the Vatican...

?The last person out of the closet? The bisexual male?

Posted on June 28, 2010
CNN Living: "More than 50 percent of Americans accept the idea of a gay or lesbian relationship, signaling growing support for same-sex couples, according to a Gallup poll in May. The poll, however, doesn't address the issue of bisexuality, often defined as having a romantic attraction to both men and women...

NY: Pagan sect fights town for religious property status

Posted on June 28, 2010
The Daily Mail: "After four long years of being denied religious property status, a landmark court battle over a cloister of pagan witches is brewing. The Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater, a faction of matriarchal priestesses living in a historic Palenville inn, has filed suit against the Town of Catskill after being denied a religious property tax exemption on their three-acre parcel along Route 23A...

German court opens door to limited euthanasia

Posted on June 28, 2010
Irish Times: "Germany's federal high court in a landmark ruling has opened the door to limited euthanasia if a person requests explicitly not to be kept alive by artificial means. The federal court of justice overturned a conviction yesterday against a lawyer who advised his client to remove the feeding tube of her 72-year-old mother in 2002...

?Obama?s agenda: Overwhelm the system?

Posted on June 28, 2010
Wayne Allyn Root writing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos -- thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within...

Religious limits on arbitrators invalidated by British Appellate Court

Posted on June 28, 2010
Religion Clause: "In Jivraj v. Hashwani, (EWCA, June 22, 2010), Britain's Court of Appeal held that Britain's Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations 2003 invalidate a provision in a private commercial arbitration provision requiring that arbitrators are to be drawn from members of a particular religious community...

Why Friedrich Hayek is making a comeback

Posted on June 28, 2010
Russ Roberts writing in the Wall Street Journal: "[N]ow that the stimulus has barely dented the unemployment rate, and with government spending and deficits soaring, it's natural to turn to Hayek. He championed four important ideas worth thinking about in these troubled times...

Supreme Court upholds Hastings Law School?s all-comers policy for registered student organizations

Posted on June 28, 2010
Religion Clause: "Justice Alito wrote a dissent, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia and Thomas. The dissent argued that the Court should focus on the non-discrimination policy as written, since that was the policy originally invoked to deny CLS registration...

Kagan: another ?ruling class? slap in the face to the American majority

Posted on June 28, 2010
Wes Vernon writing at Renew America: "Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is right out of central casting as a stereotypical example of America's 'ruling class' ? i.e., out of step with the great majority of Americans, but with a sense of entitlement to wield power in such a way as to make policy against our wishes because we are her inferiors...

NY: Little noticed budget provision expands ?gay marriage? recognition

Posted on June 28, 2010
New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedom: "A little noticed provision has been slipped into today?s Budget bills that would recognize same-sex couples married in other jurisdictions for the purposes of the Empire State?s Tax Law. This provision would allow same-sex married couples to file their state income tax returns as a married couple, regardless of whether or not they can file their federal returns in the same manner...

A broken immigration court system

Posted on June 28, 2010
National Center for Policy Analysis: "Many people do not realize that illegal aliens who are caught end up in immigration courts that are part of the Justice Department's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). These courts are presided over by administrative judges; they are not Article III federal courts, says Hans A...

Number of childless American women in their 40s rising

Posted on June 28, 2010
National Center for Policy Analysis: "Nearly one in five American women in her early 40s is childless, according to a report that shows a striking increase in women who don't have biological children. The trend was much less common in the 1970s, when one in 10 women did not have children by ages 40 to 44, the age bracket researchers use to designate the end of childbearing years...

Kagan set to break silence as hearings commence

Posted on June 28, 2010
FindLaw (AP): "Elena Kagan, a trailblazer for women and the law, is hitting a new path that could be strewn with a few rough patches: the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings. Kagan's chances are bright as she heads into a marathon week of high-pressure vetting before the Judiciary panel, pressing to portray herself as a mainstream, impartial addition to the court...

?Gay pride marchers celebrate with parades, parties?

Posted on June 28, 2010
Associated Press: "Thousands of marchers and a rainbow of floats filled the streets of New York and other U.S. cities on Sunday as people celebrated gay pride, part of a weekend of events marred by a shooting death Saturday at a street party in San Francisco...

Primer on senators judging would-be Justice Kagan

Posted on June 28, 2010
Associated Press: "What's new is the experience level of committee members. Three have chaired confirmation hearings before. There are no rookies; even the junior senators toward the end of the dais participated in the questioning last year of Obama's first nominee for the high court, Sonia Sotomayor...

?Man claims Stayton city officials wrongly prohibit anti-abortion posters?

Posted on June 28, 2010
Statesman Journal: "An Oregon man has filed a lawsuit in federal court against the city of Stayton for allegedly violating his right to display anti-abortion signs featuring images of aborted fetuses. ... 'Pro-life advocates shouldn't be kept from expressing their beliefs simply because city officials or others may oppose their viewpoint or find it offensive,' ADF Senior Counsel [Nate Kellum] said in a statement...

Hastings anti-bias rules upheld

Posted on June 28, 2010
Inside Higher Ed: "The Supreme Court ruled today, 5-to-4, that public colleges and universities may require religious organizations seeking recognition or funds as campus groups to comply with anti-bias rules. ... The Supreme Court's decision, by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, found that the law school's policy was 'a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access' that did not raise First Amendment issues in the way the Christian Legal Society argued...

World leaders take the deficit pledge

Posted on June 28, 2010
Associated Press: "World leaders made bold pledges to cut their spiraling budget deficits but will probably fall far short of their lofty goals. After spending massive amounts of money to rescue the global economy from the worst downturn in decades, the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations have reversed course and promised to cut their deficits in half in terms of the global economy in just three years...

Appeals court reinstates lawsuit against Obama Administration over embryonic stem cell research

Posted on June 28, 2010
California Catholic Daily: "A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit that challenges the Obama Administration?s policy on embryonic stem cell research as a violation of U.S. law. On Friday, June 25, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit issued a 12-page ruling reversing a decision by a U...

Court case seeking protection for signers of pro-marriage petition

Posted on June 28, 2010
WorldNetDaily: "Arguing death threats have a significant 'chilling' effect on free speech, an attorney representing supporters of Washington state's traditional-marriage referendum says he's confident a lower court will decide to protect their names and addresses...

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