Religion & Law

Americans United urges Senate panel to question Kagan on church-state views

Posted on June 23, 2010
Americans United for Separation of Church and State: "Americans United for Separation of Church and State today urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to question Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan about her views on crucial religious liberty issues. In a letter to Committee Chairman Sen...

Federal removal just got easier in the Eleventh Circuit

Posted on June 23, 2010
Washington Legal Foundation: "Trial lawyers in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama will now have to try much harder to avoid removal to federal court, thanks to a recent panel opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The case, Pretka v...

Feds accused of ignoring judge?s drill ban ruling

Posted on June 23, 2010
Associated Press: "Several companies say the Obama administration is ignoring a judge's decision to strike down a six-month ban on deepwater drilling."

New policy allows MA school to distribute condoms to elementary students

Posted on June 23, 2010
FOX News: "An elementary school in Provincetown, Mass., is implementing a controversial condom distribution policy, allowing kids as early as first grade to practice safe sex, MyFoxBoston.com reported."

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OpenDNS FamilyShield makes it easier to block porn from your kids? computers

Posted on June 23, 2010
Download Squad: "OpenDNS is a great service for a number of reasons, and today there's one more. If you're a concerned parent, they're now making it super-easy to block porn from all the computers in your home. The new offering is called FamilyShield, and it's just as easy to get working as the original OpenDNS service...

Ukrainian boy, 5, slaughtered ?like a goat? by radical Islamist

Posted on June 23, 2010
FOX News: "A 5-year-old Ukrainian boy was slaughtered by an alleged religious fanatic as he played in a sandpit with his friends, Pravda reported Tuesday. ... The June 18 killing has threatened to ignite tension in the town of Dneprovka, in Ukraine?s Crimea region, after it emerged that the 27-year-old knifeman was a suspected Muslim fanatic, the Russian online newspaper reported...

PA jury: ?City can?t evict scouts for no-gays rule?

Posted on June 23, 2010
"A jury says the city of Philadelphia cannot evict a local Boy Scouts chapter from a city-owned building for refusing to admit gays."

Founder of Military Religious Freedom Foundation: Christians, who don?t recognize proselytizing limits, are national security threat

Posted on June 23, 2010
Colorado Springs Gazette: "Weinstein, 55 . . . founded the nonprofit Military Religious Freedom Foundation . . . The broad outlines of Weinstein?s approach: Condemn in the strongest language possible. Publicly embarrass. Sue if necessary. Each new step raises the pressure on his publicity-averse targets ...

Lee wins Utah GOP Senate nomination

Posted on June 23, 2010
Associated Press: "Utah Republicans chose their nominee for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, selecting a legal scholar who grew up in a family of lawyers and fondly recalls discussing the Constitution over childhood dinners. ... Lee's mission is simple should he get elected: limit the role of government to what the founding fathers intended it to be...

GA: Albany sexually oriented business can stay open

Posted on June 23, 2010
WALB: "Gail's Lingerie and Video opened on West Broad Avenue 13-years ago, but it was in danger of being shut down under a proposed new adult business ordinance. ... Tuesday night, city commissioners approved an updated version that includes Broad. The owner got support from her church in her effort to protect her business...

Medicare proposes new rules to ensure equal visitation rights for all hospital patients

Posted on June 23, 2010
"The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today proposed new rules for hospitals that would protect patients? rights to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay, including visitors who are same-sex domestic partners . . . "

In lieu of appeal, Obama admin. to issue new oil drill ban

Posted on June 23, 2010
MSNBC First Read: "After yesterday vowing to seek an appeal quickly, administration officials now say the Justice Department will refrain from any legal action in response to yesterday's court order that temporarily blocks the Interior Department's moratorium on offshore drilling...

Soros says Germany could cause euro collapse

Posted on June 23, 2010
Reuters: "Germany's budget savings policy risks destroying the European project and a collapse of the euro cannot be ruled out, billionaire investor George Soros said in a newspaper interview released on Wednesday."

On pill anniversary, Pro-Life Action League encourages confident opposition to contraception

Posted on June 23, 2010
Christian NewsWire: "To mark the day the U.S. Food and Drug Administration first approved the birth control pill 50 years ago, the Pro-Life Action League is encouraging pro-life activists across the nation to speak out against contraception."

Study finds link in abuse, abortion

Posted on June 23, 2010
The Daily Iowan: "Abortion-seeking women are more likely to have experienced partner violence than the general population, according to a recent study by University of Iowa professors and Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, was based on a series of private screenings of 986 women seeking abortions at Planned Parenthood on issues of physical and sexual abuse, as well as battering...

Legal battle brews over ban on ?anti-Islam? bus ads

Posted on June 23, 2010
AolNews: "A conservative legal group has asked a federal judge to force a Michigan bus company to run ads that offer support to Muslims who want to leave their religion, saying the ads are protected under the First Amendment. ... 'The only city so far that has dug their heels in is Detroit,' said Robert Muise, a lawyer at the Thomas More Law Center in Michigan, the conservative legal group representing the Freedom Defense Initiative...

Republicans May Boycott Kagan Supreme Court Hearings Over Lack of Documents

Posted on June 22, 2010
LifeNews: "Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are considering boycotting the hearings planned next week for pro-abortion nominee Elena Kagan because they still have not received the documents they requested from her tenure as Solicitor General for pro-abortion President Barack Obama...

?Holder leads celebration of gay rights in Justice Department ceremony?

Posted on June 22, 2010
"A crowd of gay and lesbian Justice Department employees and their supporters enthusiastically cheered Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday as he vowed to strictly enforce a new federal law designed to protect them."

Southern Baptists Convention fighting ?don?t ask, don?t tell? repeal

Posted on June 22, 2010
Washington Post: "The Southern Baptist Convention is battling the expected repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" on a number of fronts: Its agencies are contacting members of Congress and the Pentagon; retired chaplains are sending letters to President Obama; and a resolution adopted at the denomination's annual meeting in Orlando this week condemns allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military...

?What?s ahead for same-sex marriage??

Posted on June 22, 2010
Washington Post: "With a federal court considering a challenge to California's Proposition 8, a 2008 ban on same-sex marriage, The Post asked state residents, pollsters and others what it would mean for the cause of gay marriage if the law is overturned...

Alliance Defense Fund to defend Rapid City church in political endorsement case

Posted on June 22, 2010
The Republic (AP): "The Alliance Defense Fund will represent Liberty Baptist Tabernacle of Rapid City and its pastor, the Rev. H. Wayne Williams. ... ADF lawyer [Erik Stanley] says free-speech rights take precedence over tax rules." | ADF News Release

Bible battle in Idaho school continues

Posted on June 22, 2010
Christian Web News: "'We are talking about every school in the entire state of Idaho from kindergarten up through post-secondary school -- we're talking about colleges and universities -- where every single book that can be deemed to be a religious document or text has been banned from study, whether it's for objective study for art or history or literature or music,' [David Cortman] states...

President Obama?s Homosexual Benefits Order Ignores the Law and the Constitution

Posted on June 22, 2010
FRC: "The Obama Administration continues to defy federal law and exceed the limits of its constitutional authority by extending benefits to homosexual couples that have not been authorized by law . . . "

Slave Master: How pornography drugs and changes your brain

Posted on June 22, 2010
Slave Master: How Pornography Drugs & Changes Your Brain Donald L. Hilton, Jr., Salvo Magazine, Salvo 13 (Summer 2010) "This article will seek to answer two questions: (1) Biologically, is the brain affected by pornography and other sexual addictions? (2) If so, and if such addictions are widespread, can they have a societal effect as well?"

Dallas: DART board set to adopt gender-identity policy

Posted on June 22, 2010
Dallas Morning News: "DART board members appear likely today to change the wording of the agency's proposed nondiscrimination policy to explicitly prohibit employment decisions based on gender identity. It takes two votes to change a board policy, and last week members voted 11-2 to adopt protections for transgender employees ? but only after a last-minute wording change created a loophole that some say is large enough to gut the new protections altogether...

Judge block Gulf offshore drilling moratorium

Posted on June 22, 2010
Breitbart (AP): "Feldman says in his ruling that the Interior Department failed to provide adequate reasoning for the moratorium. He says it seems to assume that because one rig failed, all companies and rigs doing deepwater drilling pose an imminent danger...

New York?s Legislature Is on the Brink of Adopting True No-Fault Divorce: What the Change Would Mean for Unhappy Couples

Posted on June 22, 2010
Findlaw (AP): "Last week, however, the New York Senate passed a divorce reform bill, by a vote of 32-27, which would dramatically reform the law. Senate Bill 3890 would allow divorce based on the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, regardless of whether either party had committed a particular kind of marital fault ...

Kagan sought secrecy in 4 of 5 open gov?t cases

Posted on June 22, 2010
Findlaw (AP): "Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's arguments as solicitor general in several cases on government secrecy were at odds with a promise of transparency made by her boss and top client, President Barack Obama. In four of five cases she dealt with involving the Freedom of Information Act, Kagan argued in favor of secrecy, Justice Department documents show...

Study Confirms Abortion Triples Breast Cancer Risk Among Sri Lanka Women

Posted on June 22, 2010
Life News: "A new study coming from researchers in Sri Lanka finds women who had abortions more than triple their breast cancer risk compared with wome who carry their pregnancy to term. The study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology and found a 3...

Breaking Deadlocks, Senate Confirms a Herd of Nominees

Posted on June 22, 2010
National Law Journal: "The U.S. Senate this morning broke deadlocks on more than 60 presidential nominees, including those for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the D.C. Superior Court."

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