Excerpt: “What the judge did was wrong in that he held the mosque to a much higher standard than any other institution applying for a land-use permit in Rutherford County,” said Eric Rassbach, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm that helped file the lawsuit on behalf of the…
Category: Human Rights
Hawaii Judge Upholds Same-Sex Marriage Ban (Honolulu Civil Beat)
Excerpt: A U.S. District Court judge in Honolulu has rejected arguments from two lesbians who said that Hawaii’s 1998 ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. According to court documents released Wednesday, Judge Alan Kay dismissed the lawsuit, Jackson v. Abercrombie, saying that a decision like this should be left to the Legislature – not the…
U.S. State Department releases International Religious Freedom Report for 2011
The U.S. State Department has released the 2011 report on international religious freedom. While significant areas of concern are present, there are also some signs of hope. The website with the report is quite helpful and easy to navigate. Visit: http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm
Two American Pastors Jailed in July
Last week two Christian pastors were jailed in the United States for violation of court orders involving two different types of property disputes.
California Senate Judiciary Committee Passes Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2012
On June 26, 2012 the California Senate Judiciary passed AB 1964, the Workplace Religious Freedom Act of 2012.
American Values: The Individual Mandate vs. Social Darwinism
Many conservatives have eviscerated Obamacare, arguing that it would “raise premiums, unconstitutionally force people to buy health care, cause the deficit to skyrocket, slash Medicare spending to create a new entitlement, cause rationing, cause a significant number of doctors to leave the practice, and destroy the quality of American healthcare. Although I am a lifelong Republican, I must respectfully disagree with my conservative brethren on many of these points.
BOOK REVIEW: First Person Account Challenges Attitudes Leading to Rwanda Genocide
By Brent Buttler – BOOK: I’m Not Leaving (2011) AUTHOR: Carl Wilkens [dc]I[/dc]n his first person account of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Carl Wilkens challenges the reader to not only end genocide, but also the selfish attitude that leads to it.Genocide, to those familiar with the term it brings to mind stories and pictures we…
Senate to Take Up Condemned Iranian Pastor Youcef Resolution Next Week (American Center for Law and Justice)
The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has scheduled to take up the resolution supporting Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani next week. The committee is scheduled to consider the resolution,a companion to the resolution that unanimously passed the House earlier this year,next Tuesday,June 19,2012. It is the next step toward bringing S. Res. 385 before the…
Principled Freedom: Religious Liberty Plays Musical Chairs
By Nicholas P. Miller – It is time to examine a position that provides a principled freedom, both religious and civil, the possibility of a public morality, and a common language with which to discuss and debate the issues. [dc]T[/dc]he recent presidential campaign has broken out into a disorienting game of religious liberty musical chairs; Catholic…
Notre Dame v. Obama and the Compulsion of the Morally Unwilling
It was wholly unnecessary for President Obama to complete his admirable health care initiative by disregarding the doctrinal or institutional teaching of the Catholic church, that is being defended, however hyperbolically, by the bishops, or the moral concerns of those individual Catholics – whether or not in a minority (minorities being the usual subject of human rights) — who still see or accept the teaching that artificial means of contraception degrades the marital estate.