Religion & Law

Fla. Bar joins fight against state?s ban on homosexual adoption

Posted on February 03, 2009
The Bar's board of governors voted unanimously to file an amicus brief before the 3rd District Court of Appeal supporting a Miami-Dade circuit judge's ruling that declared unconstitutional the state's ban on gay adoptions.

Advocates International intervenes in federal case to protect the right to conscience

Posted on February 03, 2009
Representing Concerned Women for America, America's largest women's advocacy group and four other groups of pro-life medical professionals, attorneys with Advocates International filed a motion to intervene yesterday in three lawsuits commenced on January 15 that seek to invalidate a federal law protecting medical professionals from discrimination because they refuse to participate in abortions...

Charles Colson: The proper role of science

Posted on February 03, 2009
Scientism assumes that science is the controlling reality about life, so anything that can be validated scientifically ought to be done. Other things are subjective fantasy?like love, beauty, good, evil, conscience, ethics.

Florida: Judge OK?s homosexual porn filming in Miami home

Posted on February 03, 2009
Miami has tried to shut the house down, arguing it constitutes an adult business illegally operating in a residential area. The city's Code Enforcement Board in 2007 agreed, but Cocodorm responded to the code enforcement proceedings by suing in federal court.

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Obama Picks Porn Lawyer for #2 at Justice

Posted on February 03, 2009
?David Ogden is a hired gun from Playboy and ACLU. He can?t run from his long record of opposing common sense laws protecting families, women, and children. The United States Senate has a responsibility to the American people to insure that Mr. Ogden?s full record is fully reviewed before any vote on his nomination? said Brian Burch, President of Fidelis.

?Debate rages over Hebrew charter school in NYC?

Posted on February 03, 2009
Two years after the debut of a controversial public school focusing on Arabic language and culture, a Hebrew language charter school is opening in New York City, stoking further debate about the purpose of a public school education.

8th Circuit: ?Confederate flag symbol? is grounds for high school suspension

Posted on February 03, 2009
B.W.A., a minor and student at Farmington High School ("Farmington High"), along with fellow students R.S. and S.B., brought this First Amendment action against Farmington R-7 School District ("the District") and its school officials after they were sent home for refusing to remove items of clothing depicting the Confederate flag symbol...

11th Circuit upholds conviction for possession and distribution of child porn

Posted on February 03, 2009
In an unpublished opinion delivered on January 30th, the Eleventh Circuit upheld Matteo DeGennaro?s conviction for the possession and distribution of ?materials depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit activity? via a ?peer-to-peer file sharing network? in violation of several provisions of 18 U...

Collegiate Sex Indoctrination

Posted on February 03, 2009
Every fall, kids arrive on college campuses and learn that their basic moral intuitions on sexual matters don?t square with the reigning ideas. Thanks to debased campus culture and overreaching on the part of administrators and professors, students are beginning to respond systematically?and they?re having an impact...

Science and religion in The New Republic

Posted on February 03, 2009
But what Coyne is implying here is that scientific truth is the only form of truth; that no other way of knowing anything has any value or worth. Let?s just say we part company there. In fact, one could take this as a healthy criterion of demarcation in the other direction...

The Catholic News Service and FOCA

Posted on February 03, 2009
Imagine, then, my surprise to open our diocesan newspaper only to read in a Catholic News Service story written by CNS reporter Nancy Frazier O?Brien: ?no Catholic hospital in the United States is in danger of closing because of the Freedom of Choice Act?...

Rick Garnett: Positive Secularism and the American Model of Religious Liberty

Posted on February 03, 2009
Today the American experiment in religious liberty is both vital and vulnerable. Our religious-freedom protections are robust, but incomplete. Our church-state arrangement is exemplary, yet confused. This much, though, seems clear: what was true at the founding remains true today, namely, that there are at work several different models, or ways of thinking about, the freedom of religion under and through law...

N.C. Baptist Groups Join Marriage Coalition

Posted on February 03, 2009
The NC Family Policy Council reports: “Last week, the Board of Directors and the Council on Christian Life and Public Affairs (CCLPA) of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina voted unanimously to join NC4Marriage, a coalition of pastors, churches, organization and individuals across North Carolina dedicated to adding the definition of marriage to the [...

Manhattan Surrogate Recognizes Same-Sex Marriage in Probate Proceeding

Posted on February 03, 2009
Leonard Link: “New York County Surrogate Kristin Booth Glen issued a decision on January 26 in Matter of the Estate of H. Kenneth Ranftle, File No. 4585-2008 (N.Y.L.J., Feb. 3, 2009), recognizing the Canadian same-sex marriage of J. Craig Leiby and the late H...

Daschle withdraws as nominee for HHS secretary

Posted on February 03, 2009
The AP reports that Tom Dashle has withdrawn his nomination as HHS secretary in the face of tax questions. Visit Site » Share This

Maryland Dems unlikely to embrace deal to move marriage amendment

Posted on February 03, 2009
The Baltimore Sun: A new wrinkle in the death penalty debate emerged in the General Assembly yesterday when a state senator said he would vote to move a repeal bill out of the committee where it has been bottled up for several years. But the lawmaker, Sen...

Hawaii lawmakers consider civil unions

Posted on February 03, 2009
Pacific Business News: Civil-union bills have lacked support at the Legislature in recent years, but HB 444 is backed by a majority of the Democrat-controlled House. HB 444?s support in the Democrat-controlled Senate is unclear, while Republican Gov. Linda Lingle has not yet stated her position on the measure ...

?First gay Episcopal Bishop leads Md. Senate prayer?

Posted on February 03, 2009
Boston Globe: “The first openly gay bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church led a prayer in the Maryland Senate Monday night in which he asked God to bless the legislators with ‘anger at discrimination in all its forms.’” Visit Site » Share This

Conference: ?Law and Religion: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives?

Posted on February 03, 2009
The Witherspoon Institute: The Center on Religion and the Constitution of the Witherspoon Institute is organizing a consultation on Law and Religion: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives, to be held at Princeton University on April 16 18, 2009...

Italian women sent to clinic to die

Posted on February 03, 2009
BBC: “A woman at the centre of the right-to-die debate in Italy has been moved to a clinic where she will be allowed to die after 17 years in a vegetative state . . . “ Visit Site » Share This

Pennsylvania Town Pays $75K in Pole Dancing Settlement

Posted on February 03, 2009
ClaimsJournal.com: “A Pittsburgh suburb will pay $75,000 to end a federal lawsuit with a woman whom they initially barred from opening a pole dancing studio . . . The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit . . . “ Visit Site » Share This

Obama, Abortion and the Promise of Racial Equality

Posted on February 03, 2009
Micah Watson writes on Moral Accountability: “. . . Sadly, though, that hope for a better future is not available to all young black human beings. This promise is undercut by the ugly truth that the youngest blacks in America first have to survive the harrowing gauntlet that is their first 40 weeks of existence...

Colombian Supreme Court Grants Broad Special Rights to Homosexual Couples

Posted on February 03, 2009
LifeSiteNews: The Supreme Court of Colombia has ruled that homosexual couples are entitled a broad array of rights normally granted to heterosexual couples under the law. Under the ruling, announced on Wednesday, homosexual couples will receive equal status with heterosexual couples under 42 different provisions of the law, ranging from military benefits to naturalization of a foreign [...

Assessing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Posted on February 03, 2009
Ilya Somin writes on the Volokh Conspiracy: Last December was the 60th anniversary of the enactment of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has an article in The New Republic claiming that the Declaration was a major advance in the protection of human rights ...

University of Calgary Students Charged With Trespassing for Pro-Life Display

Posted on February 03, 2009
LifeNews: “Three students who attend the University of Calgary in Canada were charged with trespassing on their own college campus by setting up a pro-life display. When UC officials warned members of Campus Pro-Life that they had to restrict their own pro-life display, the students refused to comply ...

Does legalizing prostitution work?

Posted on February 03, 2009
These women are Amsterdam's leading tourist attraction (followed by the coffee shops that sell marijuana). But an estimated 50 to 90 percent of them are actually sex slaves, raped on a daily basis with police idly standing by. It is incomprehensible that their clients are not prosecuted for rape, but Dutch politicians argue that it cannot be established whether or not a prostitute works voluntarily...

Massachusetts ?reaches out to gay tourists?

Posted on February 03, 2009
Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism said it has the launched a "microsite dedicated to attracting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender leisure travelers to the commonwealth."

Religious discrimination embedded in stimulus bill

Posted on February 03, 2009
The legislative team at American Center for Law and Justice has noticed that a provision in Section 803 of the measure contains language that would prohibit schools that accept funding for the renovation of university facilities from allowing religious activity to take place at those facilities.

5th Circuit hears challenge to Texas schools? moment of silence

Posted on February 03, 2009
A lawsuit challenging the minute of silence that Texas schoolchildren observe every morning was argued today in a federal appellate court.

Animal-human clones don?t work, U.S. company finds

Posted on February 03, 2009
Researchers who tried to use mouse, cow and rabbit eggs to make human clones said on Monday the effort failed to produce workable embryos but added that they showed human cloning should work in principle.

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