Religion & Law

Ark. fetal pain bill fails in House committee

Posted on March 17, 2011
KSPR.com: "The bill by Rep. Andy Mayberry of Hensley received nine favorable votes Wednesday in the Public Health Committee, not enough to advance from the 20-member panel."

ICANN may approve .xxx domain as early as tomorrow

Posted on March 17, 2011
Digital Trends: "ICANN may decide Friday whether it will grant the porn industry its own section of the Internet in the form of a unique domain suffix."

New York mayor signs pregnancy center gag law: pro-life groups to challenge in court

Posted on March 17, 2011
LifeSiteNews: "The mayor of New York City has signed a controversial gag rule against pro-life pregnancy resource centers that local advocates have vowed to challenge in court."

Iowa House Panel Approves Abortion Restrictions

Posted on March 17, 2011
KCCI.com: "An Iowa House subcommittee has approved a bill that would ban virtually all abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy."

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Law School Loses Its Allure as Jobs at Firms Are Scarce

Posted on March 17, 2011
Wall Street Journal: "Student applications to law schools are down sharply this year, as college seniors grow leery of a degree that promises certain debt and uncertain job prospects."

Rutgers University Poll Misleads on Chris Christie, Abortion

Posted on March 17, 2011
LifeNews: "Rutgers? obvious purpose forthis poll was politically motivated and designed to conclude that the Governor?s speech at our Rally hurt the Governor, but their own results show that 68% of those polled said that it either made them feel better about the Governor or had no effect...

ADF files suit to protect Ariz. church from foreclosure based on $50K illegal tax bill

Posted on March 17, 2011
Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed suit against La Paz County Wednesday for hitting a rural Arizona church with a $50,000 tax bill that the state agrees the church does not owe. The bill has resulted in a tax lien on the church?s property which could result in foreclosure and an end to the church?s ministry, including its outreach to the needy--a program praised by the Quartzsite mayor, town manager, and police chief.

David French: When Can Students Challenge Speech Codes?

Posted on March 17, 2011
ADF attorney David French writes at the National Review Phi Beta Cons Blog: "This afternoon, my colleagues and I at the Alliance Defense Fund filed two simultaneous cert petitions to the Supreme Court. The issue: Can students challenge university speech codes in court when those codes chill their free-speech rights, or must they wait until the university formally and officially punishes their speech? Until two recent decisions by the Ninth and Fourth Circuits, the answer to this question had been clear...

Jewish student sues UC Berkeley over assault by Palestine supporter

Posted on March 17, 2011
Berkleyside: A former Jewish student at UC Berkeley has filed a lawsuit against the university contending it violated her civil rights when it did not protect her against attacks from a pro-Palestinian student.

Eugene Volokh: Judicial preference for public school over homeschooling due to ?exposure to different points of view??

Posted on March 17, 2011
"And the decision strikes me as constitutionally troublesome, whether implemented in broken families or in intact families."

Judge halts Montgomery pregnancy center law

Posted on March 17, 2011
Washington Examiner: "The First Amendment prevents the government from compelling people to speak the government's message," said Matt Bowman, a lawyer for the conservative Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit. "That message was an attempt to force pregnancy centers to tell women to go somewhere else...

Pro-life group challenging Montgomery Co. sign law in court

Posted on March 17, 2011
Daily Record: Chasanow barred Montgomery from enforcing that second requirement pending the outcome of the lawsuit brought by Centro Tepeyac, a Limited Service Pregnancy Resource Center in Silver Spring. The Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life litigation group that is representing Centro Tepeyac, said the court ?did the right thing...

Indiana Vote On Marriage Inequality Amendment Delayed A Week

Posted on March 17, 2011
Lez Get Real: Austin Nimocks, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, talked about the disproven canard that children fare best with a mother and a father saying ?Each is necessary ? culturally and biologically ? for the optimal development of a human being...

SF lesbian wife?s benefits denial upheld by judge

Posted on March 17, 2011
federal judge refused Wednesday to order the government to provide insurance benefits to the wife of a lesbian court employee in San Francisco, coverage the Obama administration has denied because of a law the president considers unconstitutional

Kansas City Star: ?Stop political takeover of judicial selection in Kansas?

Posted on March 17, 2011
Kansas City Star Editorial: "Gov. Sam Brownback has thrown his support behind a bill that would jettison a judicial nominating process that has served Kansas well for more than 50 years and replace it with political appointments of judges."

Establishment Clause Challenge To City?s Invocation Policy Survives Motion To Dismiss

Posted on March 17, 2011
Religion Clause Blog: In Atheists of Florida, Inc. v. City of Lakeland, Florida, (MD FL, March 15, 2011), a Florida federal district court allowed plaintiffs to proceed with their federal and state Establishment Clause claims challenging the invocation policy of the Lakeland (FL) City Commission

Malaysia Will Release Impounded Christian Bibles, Subject To Conditions

Posted on March 17, 2011
Religion Clause Blog: The Ministry has stamped on each Bible the warning: "The Good News Bible is for the use of Christians only."

Higher Education?s Dirty Little Secret

Posted on March 17, 2011
Education News: Western universities are undoubtedly under pressure to find financial support, but this does not mean they should allow abusive and corrupt foreign dictators, officials or their families launder their images in exchange for money.

House Speaker Boehner promotes funding for D.C. school choice program

Posted on March 17, 2011
Washington Post: "In these dire fiscal times, when even the sacred programs are no longer sacred, Republican leaders have still been able to identify a few that they think deserve more money."

U.S. Corporate Tax Rate Set To Take Over Number One Spot

Posted on March 17, 2011
NCPA Policy Digest: The U.S. corporate tax rate will soon become the highest in the industrialized world, and is already in its 20th year of being above the average for similar economies, according to a new analysis by the Tax Foundation. As other nations enact reforms and rate cuts, the U...

Court Says Any Accommodation of 7th Day Adventist Would Impose Undue Hardship On Employer

Posted on March 17, 2011
Religion Clause Blog: In Berry v. MeadWestvaco Packaging Systems, LLC, (MD AL, March 14, 2011), an Alabama federal district court dismissed a Title VII religious discrimination claim brought by a Seventh Day Adventist employee who was assigned to work at times that conflicted with his scripturally mandated Tuesday and Wednesday evening religious meetings.

March soreness: Now?s the time for a vasectomy?

Posted on March 17, 2011
AP: "Have a vasectomy on Thursday or Friday then spend the weekend recovering while watching NCAA tournament basketball."

Atheists sue to stop Brewer from declaring day of prayer

Posted on March 17, 2011
East Valley Tribune: "The First Amendment says you can't prohibit the free exercise of religion," said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy. And Herrod, who also is an attorney, called the concept of a separation of church and state "a fallacy...

Justices claim religion no part of ruling on Christian teaching

Posted on March 17, 2011
World Net Daily: Lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund, who had argued in the case that the clear religious bias against Christianity expressed by a guardian ad litem and adopted by the court was reason to reverse the decision, said the justices ignored the evidence...

Republicans Launch New Attacks on Deputy AG

Posted on March 17, 2011
Blog of the Legal Times: "Republican U.S. senators stiffened their opposition today to confirming James Cole as deputy attorney general, adding to a list of reasons they cited last year in blocking a Senate vote on his nomination."

Senate Confirms Another D.C. Judge

Posted on March 17, 2011
Blog of the Legal Times: The Senate voted unanimously today to confirm Washington litigator Amy Berman Jackson to a judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

House Passes Bill Stripping Federal Funding for NPR

Posted on March 17, 2011
ABC: "The bill passed by a 228-192 vote. No Democrats voted for it, and only 7 Republicans voted against the measure."

Germany criminalizes forcing people into marriages

Posted on March 17, 2011
AP on Google News: "Germany's parliament has adopted legislation making it illegal to force someone into marriage, with a possible punishment of five years in prison."

Mont. GOP to tell AG to join health care suit

Posted on March 17, 2011
Yahoo News: "Montana House Republican lawmakers heartily endorsed a plan Tuesday that would force the state's attorney general to join a lawsuit challenging the federal health care law, a move that sets up a possible showdown with an executive branch controlled by Democrats...

Montana GOP cuts nearly all family-planning funds from state budget

Posted on March 17, 2011
Missoulian: "The Montana House voted 53-47 last Friday to remove $4.7 million in federal family-planning funds from the state budget for the next two years - money that's been in Montana's budget for decades."

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