Religion & Law

Australian study: Sperm from polygamous mice ?better competitors in the race for fertilization?

Posted on January 20, 2011
Times of India: "In a new study, scientists at the Centre for Evolutionary Biology, University of Western Australia, have found being polygamous could be more than being monogamous, when it comes to fertilization. The team discovered that sperm from polygamous mice are better competitors in the race for fertilisation...

MI: Opposition grows against Planned Parenthood in Auburn Hills

Posted on January 20, 2011
Detroit Catholic Issues Examiner: "Petitions opposing an abortion clinic in Auburn Hills are quickly and quietly being circulated at area churches and throughout the communities of Auburn Hills, Lake Orion, Pontiac, Rochester and Rochester Hills as citizens learn that Planned Parenthood has purchased property nearby on Opdyke Road...

ACLU opposes bill that would deny insurance coverage for abortion services

Posted on January 20, 2011
Common Dreams: "A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives today that would make permanent policies that deny abortion coverage to women who depend on the federal government for their health care and extend these unjust prohibitions into the private sector...

NY: ?District approves Gay-Straight Alliance at South High?

Posted on January 20, 2011
LI Herald: "A Gay-Straight Alliance chapter starts today at Valley Stream South High School, announced interim Superintendent Dr. Richard Marsh on Jan. 20."

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Malta: Professional group to lobby against embryo freezing

Posted on January 20, 2011
Times of Malta: "The Professionals Against Embryo Freezing - as the group is called - said today that it was disappointed by the recommendations of a parliamentary committee, which, it said, was calling for the setting up of a national embryo freezing service...

Bill would make Coloradans organ donors by default

Posted on January 20, 2011
PhysOrg.com: "Some Colorado lawmakers say their state should be the first one where people become organ donors by default, even though other states' efforts have been halted by worries about making such a personal decision automatic."

Netherlands: Euthanasia society calls for clinic to help people kill themselves

Posted on January 20, 2011
Dutch News: "The Dutch voluntary euthanasia society is looking for a partner to open a special clinic later next year where people can go to end their lives, the Volkskrant reports."

Court allows same sex couples? lawsuit against Cal. Public Employees? Retirement System

Posted on January 20, 2011
Wilken said that two federal laws used to deny the same-sex spouses the right to buy long-term care insurance "do not bear a rational relationship to a legitimate government interest."

New commission may insert abortion in $40 billion UN program

Posted on January 20, 2011
C-FAM: "Will a new $40 billion maternal and child health fund include abortion? A just-announced UN commission will decide. The new commission is supposed to 'make transparent' funds slated for the UN Secretary General?s Global Strategy for Women?s and Children?s Health, announced last September at a UN summit...

Va. panel backs tougher abortion clinic regulations

Posted on January 20, 2011
WTOP: "A House of Delegates committee on Thursday endorsed legislation to toughen state regulation of abortion clinics. The Health, Welfare and Institutions Committee voted 15-6 for the bill, which would require clinics to meet the same standards as outpatient surgical centers...

Gov. Robert Bentley: What Baptists thought

Posted on January 20, 2011
Julia Dinn writing at The Washington Post / On Faith: "Al Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, released a statement late Wednesday saying the governor's comments 'were completely consistent with mainstream evangelical piety and conviction' in that those who believe in Jesus are 'brothers...

Boehner: Permanently ban federal abortion funding

Posted on January 20, 2011
ABC: "Speaker of the House John Boehner this morning expressed support for a new bill that would permanently ban federal funding for abortions and called the measure one of the House's 'top legislative priorities' in the 112th Congress."

All-nude strip club near D/FW Airport debuting tonight despite opposition

Posted on January 20, 2011
Dallas Morning News: "When the newest Rick?s Cabaret gentleman?s club opens south of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport tonight, the girls ? as they say in the adult entertainment business ? will be wearing nothing but their smiles. Local officials and businesses, though, will be wearing everything but theirs...

Outsourcing at Boeing

Posted on January 20, 2011
moneycontrol.com: "Instead of drawing primarily from its traditional pool of aircraft engineers, mechanics and laborers that runs generations deep in the Puget Sound region around Seattle, Boeing leads an international team of suppliers and engineers from the United States, Japan, Italy, Australia, France and elsewhere, who make components that Boeing workers in the United States put together...

Pravda: Religious women more successful in love than big city girls

Posted on January 20, 2011
Pravda: "It seems that those women, who do not use cosmetics, wear plain clothes, cover their heads with kerchiefs and follow religious rules, are no competition to fashionable and liberated women when it comes to love affairs. Real life proves the opposite, though...

Day of prayer planned for Christians in Egypt

Posted on January 20, 2011
Christian Today: "The interdenominational event is being held in London on January 29 in association with United Action for Egyptian Christians. It follows the bombing of a Coptic church in Alexandria on New Year's Eve which killed 23 people and injured another 80, and the murder of a 71-year-old Christian man who was travelling with his wife on a train bound for Cairo when a gunman opened fire...

David French: ?Potentially Evangelical? professor is now $125,000 richer

Posted on January 20, 2011
ADF attorney David French writing at Phi Beta Cons: "Coming on the heels of June Sheldon?s $100,000 settlement after San Jose Community College fired her for providing a (literally) textbook answer to questions about the origin of homosexual desire, it?s becoming clear that religious discrimination in academia is growing increasingly costly (and those figures don?t include the considerable sums the universities paid to outside counsel to defend their illegal conduct)...

Canada: Documentary explores evolution, adaptation of modern marriage

Posted on January 20, 2011
Times Colonist: "For the first time in Canadian history, there are more unmarried adults than married ones. And that suggestive statistic helped send happily married Esquimalt story producer Sara Darling on an 18-month foray into the state of contemporary matrimony...

Wash. court: Out-of-state companies subject to tax

Posted on January 20, 2011
Associated Press: "Washington's Supreme Court on Thursday reaffirmed the state's authority to collect business-and-occupation taxes from out-of-state companies that do business here, even if they have no local sales force, offices or stores." Opinion is here...

Charter school network proposed in Sacramento County worries districts

Posted on January 20, 2011
Sacramento Bee: "Opposition is mounting against a proposal to create a network of charter schools in Sacramento County. Area school board members and union representatives say their concern is that local control is being thwarted by Margaret Fortune petitioning for 10 charter schools with the Sacramento County Office of Education and not individual school districts...

Canada: Wife testifies polygamy is ?really amazing?

Posted on January 20, 2011
Vancouver Sun: "A polygamous mother from Utah on Wednesday agreed to lift an anonymity order and testify using her name at the polygamy trial in B.C. Supreme Court. Alina Darger, who has seven children, spoke glowingly of her experiences growing up in a polygamous family and as one of three sister wives to her current husband...

Marriott takes porn off the menu at new hotels

Posted on January 20, 2011
USA Today: "Marriott International, one of the nation's leading hotel groups, tells Hotel Check-In that it's pulling access to adult movies from the new hotel rooms it will be opening the next several years."

UK: Christian hoteliers consider appealing ?gay ban? ruling

Posted on January 20, 2011
This is Cornwall: "The Christian owners of a Marazion guesthouse who refused to let a gay couple share a room acted unlawfully, a judge ruled earlier this week. Peter and Hazelmary Bull are considering making an appeal after they were said to have discriminated against civil partners Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy by banning them from staying together in a double room at the Chymorvah Hotel...

Missouri abortion rate declines; expanding access a concern

Posted on January 20, 2011
St. Louis Review: "Those involved in promoting a culture of life will be pleased to hear that in Missouri, the abortion rate is on the decline. But what remains a concern is the alarming increase in the ways in which women are able to access abortion...

TX: Jasper ISD denies banning religious symbols

Posted on January 20, 2011
KFDM: "A spokesman for the Jasper Independent School District, Chris Coleman, said Thursday, that while it is true that some students had been asked to remove some items from necklaces or other jewelry, that there is no crack down on religious symbols...

MO: ACLU files court challenge to St. Charles funeral protest ban

Posted on January 19, 2011
STLtoday.com: "As promised, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit Wednesday morning to try to overturn the new restrictions on funeral protests passed just hours before by the St. Charles City Council."

Men have upper hand in sexual economy

Posted on January 19, 2011
CNN Health / The Chart: "Researchers found that since women in the 18- to 23-year-old group feel they don't need men for financial dependence, many of them feel they can play around with multiple partners without consequence, and that the early 20s isn't the time to have a serious relationship...

Illinois restores moment of silence at schools

Posted on January 19, 2011
The Register-Mail: "After a two-year hiatus, ROWVA Superintendent Lloyd Little gave his school administrators the green light Tuesday to re-implement a daily moment of silence, as mandated by Illinois law . . . The Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act, approved in October 2007, requires a daily moment of silence at the opening of every school day, not to be conducted as a religious exercise, but rather as 'an opportunity for silent prayer or reflection on the anticipated activities of the day...

Dolan outlines U.S. Bishops? legislative priorities for new Congress

Posted on January 19, 2011
USCCB: "In a letter to Congress, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), outlined the 'principles and priorities that will guide the public policy efforts' of the Bishops? Conference during the new legislature...

Canada: Bloc proposes ban on ceremonial daggers in Parliament

Posted on January 19, 2011
Montreal Gazette: "The Bloc Quebecois is proposing a ban on Sikh ceremonial daggers in federal Parliament buildings. The opposition party made the recommendation following an incident Tuesday at Quebec's National Assembly in which a group of Sikhs, carrying their kirpans, were turned away from the building for security reasons...

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