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TechnoratiPOST PUBLISHED INMay, 2010
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A Page of History Is Worth a Volume of Logic: The History of Politics from the Pulpit
May 28th, 201004:51 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik StanleyOver at Dakota Voice, Bob Ellis has an interesting post that details the history of politics from the pulpit in America. Bob does a good job of detailing many of the stories where pastors in American history spoke forcefully and with great conviction from their pulpits about political matters.... -
Progress on Five University Speech Codes
May 28th, 201002:05 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Casey MattoxSix weeks ago ADF allied attorneys launched an ambitious project seeking to eliminate unconstitutional speech codes in the Third Circuit (PA, NJ, and DE). Despite a clear and controlling Third Circuit decision in DeJohn v. Temple University, dozens of public universities under that Court's jurisdictio... -
Friday Fun: Supreme Court Justices- They’re Just Like Us
May 28th, 201001:57 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin HackerThe Justices on the United States Supreme Court sometimes seem larger than life. Their superior intellect, tremendous success, and all the pomp and circumstance of the Court can sometimes create the impression that they are somehow above all the problems we mortals must deal with. Check ou... -
Churches Vandalized, Ransacked, and Threatened with Disruption
May 27th, 201001:57 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Dale SchowengerdtThe past week produced more evidence that attacks against churches are on the rise-at least three churches suffered property destruction or threatened disruption. As usual, they were conservative churches that take a stand on moral issues that were abused. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, a group called... -
Great New SCOTUS Website
May 26th, 201006:17 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin Hacker For those of you interested in following Supreme Court news and the confirmation process, our friends at the Federalist Society just launched a brand new website for that purpose: SCOTUSReport. Complete with multimedia, a news feed from top sources, and a blog feed, their websi... -
Dear Atheists and Vegetarians of Penn State – Erie: Oops.
May 26th, 201004:28 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Casey MattoxSeveral months ago I was reviewing a policy at Penn State-Erie when I stumbled upon the "Safe Zone" at Penn State-Behrend (the Erie campus). I finally got around to blogging about the school's decision to extend its "Safe Zone" coverage to atheist and vegetarian students - something I had never seen b... -
Religious Liberty for Me, but Not for Thee…
May 26th, 201002:19 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Counsel Daniel BlombergThe battle over whether chaplains' and Service members' First Amendment rights to religious liberty will be sacrificed to make room for normalized homosexuality in the military is reaching a critical phase this week. Despite strong warnings by the Pentagon that a premature rush for repeal should b... -
Notice to Small Ministries: The IRS Would Like to Talk with You…
May 25th, 201005:47 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Counsel Daniel BlombergWhile churches need not fear, hundreds of thousands of small non-profits groups nationwide, including para-church ministries, may find their tax-exempt status at stake come next year. That's because of an IRS deadline by which small charities had to file some required information-which came a... -
Student Activity Fees: Allocating Fees Based on Clear Standards
May 25th, 201005:05 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David J. HackerToday's post will provide principles that student fee allocation committees can rely upon when distributing fees and insight for student groups to determine if their rights are being violated (and they just don't know it). As a recap, in my previous student fee post I wrote: "the ... -
At the End, Turn Left: 2010 Commencement Speakers Overwhelmingly Liberal
May 25th, 201012:43 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan LorenceThe Young America's Foundation has published an interesting study on the 2010 commencement speakers at the top 100 universities in America, according to the report issued by U.S. News and World Report. Not surprisingly, the list of speakers shows a lopside... -
U.S. Supreme Court Grants Review in Major School Choice Case from Arizona
May 24th, 201004:50 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan LorenceThe Supreme Court today granted review in a case the Alliance Defense Fund has been litigating on whether Arizona's school tuition tax credit program violates the Establishment Clause. Actually, the Supreme Court consolidated two cases, Arizona Christian School ... -
Some Schools Are NOT Waiting on CLS v Martinez
May 24th, 201012:57 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Casey Mattox Academia waits on the Supreme Court to decide CLS v Martinez, with many universities perhaps hoping that the Court will authorize a new means of excluding religious student groups from their campus. As I've noted in a previous post, universities have a long history of it is worth noting that t... -
Freedom of Religion – Don’t Ever Take It for Granted
May 24th, 201012:52 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik StanleyI had the distinct pleasure to recently hear Dr. Ajai Lall from Central India Christian Mission speak. Dr. Lall started CICM many years ago as a church-planting and evangelistic outreach to India and the surrounding countries. His mission has been to spread the Gospel of Christ thro... -
May Christian Organizations Have Conduct Standards? A Development from the Great White North
May 21st, 201005:25 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. BaylorReaders of this blog are well aware that many American public universities pressure religious student groups to ignore religious belief and extramarital sexual conduct in choosing their leaders and voting members. This sort of conflict between religious associational freedom and the non-... -
Do Churches Really Benefit Communities?
May 21st, 201012:15 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Litigation Counsel Kevin TheriotRocky Mountain Christian Church just won a huge battle that really was about just how beneficial churches are to the community. Located in a rural area of Boulder County, Colorado, the church found itself at odds with the local zoning board because it needed to expand its sanct... -
Friday Fun: George Washington Edition
May 21st, 201012:10 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin Hacker George Washington was one of the Founding Fathers of our country-he was the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, presided over the Constitutional Convention, was first to sign the Constitution, and became our first President, making history when he peacefully relinquished power a... -
A Big Win for College Free Speech in the 9th Circuit
May 21st, 201010:05 AM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David J. HackerThursday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an important college free speech decision in a case that pits a college harassment policy against a professor's racially insensitive comments. (H/t to Professor Volokh who has thorough coverage here, her... -
Does AU Favor Banning Works of Western Civilization from Idaho's Public School and College Classrooms?
May 20th, 201007:01 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman I responded yesterday to an AU blog post by Joe Conn in which he applauds a court decision calling for a broad-based book ban in Idaho schools, a ban that includes the great works of the canons of Western Civilization. AU now calls Rob Boston to the plate to take a swing at it. Personal attacks aside,... -
Student Activity Fees: How to Know Your Rights Are Being Violated
May 20th, 201002:29 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David J. HackerCasey Mattox's excellent series on Widmar v. Vincent (stay tuned, there's more to come) inspired me to write my own mini-series on student activity fees, a topic that will consume student groups from coast to coast this summer as they prepare for the fall semester. I will examine the co... -
Bold Leadership in Troubled Times – St. Leo’s Legacy
May 20th, 201002:23 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Dale SchowengerdtSome people claim that religious leaders somehow dilute the Gospel when they tackle important "political" issues or candidates from the pulpit. But, in fact, Church history is chalk full with examples of religious leaders who combated secular leaders while also boldly proclaiming the Gospel. St... -
Look for the Cross
May 20th, 201009:59 AM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Heather Gebelin Hacker"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery," Galatians 5:1. There was a compelling article in National Geographic last year that recently came to my attention. It is about the plight of North... -
Americans United Gets It Oh So Wrong on Idaho Textbooks Decision
May 19th, 201006:41 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel David CortmanEarlier today, Communications Director Joseph Conn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State authored a post on AU's blog where he gloated over a federal judge's decision upholding the State of Idaho's ban on any use of all religious documents and texts in all public schools in the state.&n... -
The Debate over Chaplains’ Religious Liberty Heats Up
May 19th, 201004:58 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Counsel Daniel BlombergLast week, 3 retired chaplains expressed, in strong and occasionally harsh terms, their disagreement with 41 chaplains' stance that normalizing homosexual conduct in the military threatened military religious liberty. Out of respect for these 3 chaplains' long service to our country, and out of an... -
California’s Speech Zone Disease
May 19th, 201004:52 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David J. HackerIt seems Peralta Community College District has not learned its lesson. On the heels of settling an unfathomable case involving the punishment of two students who dared pray for an ill faculty member, Peralta is considering a new speech zone policy. Our readers know that whil... -
Breaking News – New Jersey Changes Course, Withdraws Opposition to CLS at the Supreme Court
May 19th, 201004:47 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan LorenceIn a highly unusual move, the State of New Jersey has asked the Supreme Court for permission to withdraw from the amicus brief it earlier joined against the Christian Legal Society in the Martinez case. Although New Jersey filed the letter on May 5, we have just learned about i... -
F for Fascist
May 19th, 201010:44 AM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeff ShaferThose familiar with the ADF litigation on behalf of Jonathan Lopez know that his speech class professor (among other delinquencies) nominated Jonathan a "fascist bastard" because he announced in class his support for the definition of marriage found in the dictionary. Of several questions we mi... -
Intolerant Tolerance: A Perverted Politically Correct Agenda
May 19th, 201010:31 AM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Joel OsterBilly Graham. Franklin Graham. The Graham name itself is almost synonymous with religion in America. In fact, it was just recentlythat President Obama visited the Grahams in North Carolina to pray and swap old Chicago stories. In so doing, President Obama became the twelfth pres... -
Censorship of Students via “Trademark” Law
May 19th, 201010:25 AM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan LorenceOur friends at FIRE have written about the absurd attempts by the University of California-Berekely to restrict the names of student organizations can call themselves by claiming "trademark" rights over words such as "Cal" and "California," and even some r... -
The Story behind Widmar (Part 2)
May 18th, 201002:45 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Casey Mattox Part II: UMKC Becomes the Envy of Academia This is the second of a three part series on the story behind Widmar v. Vincent, the seminal Supreme Court decision protecting the rights of Christian student groups on campus, taken from an interview with Jonathan Wil... -
“The Politically Correct University and How to Fix It”
May 18th, 201002:41 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. Baylor That's the title of a short essay by Robert Maranto on the Manhattan Institute's Minding the Campus website. Recommended reading. Best line: "surveys indicate that a quarter of sociologists are self-proclaimed Marxists, meaning that there are quite literally more s... -
Religious Freedom on a Collision Course with Non-Discrimination Laws
May 18th, 201010:14 AM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Tim ChandlerRecently, the Roman Catholic Church has come under fire after two of its schools, one in Massachusetts and one in Colorado, declined to enroll students who have same-sex parents. Not surprisingly, these decisions created a firestorm of public criticism and outrage, raising questions about whether churches ... -
A Paul Harvey Moment for Mohave Community College
May 17th, 201005:02 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Travis C. BarhamLast week, the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom complimented Mohave Community College-both on this blog and in a press release-for continuing to allow prayers at the pinning ceremony for its nursing program. MCC had eliminated the prayers but then opted to al... -
Harvard, Hastings, and Andre Agassi
May 17th, 201004:54 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. BaylorBack in the early 1990s, Canon launched an ad campaign for its "Rebel" line of cameras featuring tennis star Andre Agassi. In the ads, he executes a series of "rebellious" moves: tousling that crazy mullet he had back then, driving a jeep with no doors, throwing his shirt ... -
Video Surfaces of Christian Preacher Being Arrested for Saying Homosexual Behavior Is a Sin
May 17th, 201012:37 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley In my earlier blog post, I told the story of Dale McAlpine, the Christian preacher in Britain that was arrested for saying that homosexual behavior was a sin. Now a video has been posted showing his arrest. The video is amazing in several respects. First, I counted at least 4 of Britain's fines... -
Christians in the Danger Zone?
May 17th, 201012:27 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Casey MattoxNondiscrimination rules tend to expand with time, with more and more categories added so that an increasing number of characteristics become "protected." Indeed, Hastings College of the Law has now famously rejected the whole idea of specifying protected categories and ostensibly declared every status or belief... -
Stigma and Dogma, Revisited
May 13th, 201006:26 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeff ShaferAlexander Solzhenitsyn, in his June 8, 1978 commencement address at Harvard, observed the following about American intellectual culture: Without any censorship in the West, fashionable trends of thought and ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, and the latter, witho... -
Separation of Church and Home?
May 13th, 201006:22 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Counsel Daniel BlombergNot too long ago, the pernicious and unconstitutional doctrine of "separation of church and state"-which is often invoked to sanitize public life from Christian influence-was eclipsed by a newer and even more disturbing doctrine: the separation of church and home. As discussed here, a group of sev... -
Settlement Protects Student Prayer on Campus
May 13th, 201009:55 AM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David J. HackerKudos to our friends at Pacific Justice Institute and its affiliate attorneys who recently settled a student prayer case against Peralta Community College District in Alameda, California. According to PJI, the College of Alameda (a campus in the District) punished two students... -
Pelosi to Catholic Bishops: Talk about Politics from the Pulpit
May 12th, 201006:10 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik Stanley Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi spoke last week at the Catholic Community Conference and urged Catholic priests and bishops to talk up immigration reform from their pulpits. Pelosi reportedy stated, "The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me ... say, 'We want you to pass ... -
College of Alameda Sets New Standard for Religious Intolerance
May 12th, 201006:05 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Joe MartinsOn December 22, 2007, two students-Kandy Kyriacou and Ojoma Omaga-at the College of Alameda received letters from the Vice President of Student Services notifying them that the College intended to suspend them. What did Ms. Kyriacou and Ms. Omaga do to deserve suspension? Did they assau... -
University of Calgary Punishes Students for Prolife Speech
May 12th, 201001:22 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan LorenceJohn Carpay, our Canadian friend who leads the Canadian Constitution Foundation, gives a chilling report today about the University of Calgary in Alberta punishing eight students after they refused to turn their prolife displays inward so no one could see them. ... -
Christian Preacher Arrested for Saying That Homosexual Behavior Is a Sin
May 12th, 201001:13 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Erik StanleyIf you haven't heard the story of preacher Dale McAlpine, then you will want to take notice. Mr. McAlpine is a British man who preaches on the streets of his hometown in Cumbria. He was recently arrested by a police officer who told him that it was against the law to preac... -
To Pray or Not to Pray: Colleges Are Not High Schools
May 12th, 201001:06 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Travis C. BarhamWithin the past few weeks, the topic of prayer-particularly public prayer-has appeared regularly in the headlines. Last Thursday was the National Day of Prayer, which the majority of Americans support, despite Judge Crabb's ruling that this tradition, which dates back to 1775, now viol... -
The Facts Be Hung
May 12th, 201001:00 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jeff ShaferThe philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), when challenged by a student that the facts did not conform to his theories, is reputed to have rejoined, "Then the facts be hung." Slavish adherence to abstract ideological formulas (with disregard for life as it actually is) is a defining feature of the re... -
Silencing Religious Leaders
May 12th, 201012:47 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Dale SchowengerdtThe Left wants silence, not dialogue. That quickly became obvious to me as I sat as part of the team defending Prop 8 in California this past January. I was amazed at how often the plaintiffs' lawyers brought up the Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist statements on marriage and homosexual ... -
Mojave Cross Stolen!
May 11th, 201002:47 PM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Jordan LorenceNews reports are stating that the Mojave cross at issue in the Supreme Court's recent decision was stolen late Sunday or early Monday. This blog site has photos showing the cross before and after the removal. A little over a year ago, I visited the Mojave cross. It i... -
Wearing Pro-life T-shirts in the Classroom: A Non-issue
May 11th, 201012:45 PM ETAuthor: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel David J. Hacker In the May 7th edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the ProfHacker section (no relation) asks for input on how to handle students "who display offensive/insensitive slogans on their clothes." I thought I would offer my two cents. Here's the scenario from ProfHacker: Scenario #... -
Conflict at Hope College over Human Sexuality
May 11th, 201010:02 AM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. BaylorHope College isn't backing away from its policy condemning same-sex sexual conduct, reports the Holland Sentinel newspaper. At least for now. Hope is affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, which continues to believe that same-sex sexual intimacy violates God's standards.&nb... -
The Story behind Widmar v. Vincent
May 10th, 201004:39 PM ETAuthor: ADF Legal Counsel Casey MattoxPart I: The Christian Student Group That Was "Too Influential on Campus" If you are - or have been in the past 30 years - part of a religious student group on a public university campus (or for that matter on a high school campus), you owe that privilege to the decision of a group of college students in K... -
Forced to Abort
May 10th, 201011:53 AM ETAuthor: Matt Bowman- ADF Legal CounselCoercive hospital administration and complacent government officials unwilling to enforce protective regulations have forced many Christian medical professionals to choose between their faith and their livelihood. Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo was put in this predicament when Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York told he... -
Is the Church Relevant to Young People?
May 10th, 201011:27 AM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Litigation Counsel Kevin TheriotIt depends on how you read the data. In April, 2010, Lifeway Christian Resources surveyed the beliefs of millenials - those born between 1980 and 1991. Surprisingly, they found that "70 percent agree (strongly or somewhat) that Christian churches are still relevant in Ame... -
Homosexual Behavior, Freedom, and the “Helping Professions”
May 10th, 201010:46 AM ETAuthor: ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. BaylorLifeSiteNews.com reports that the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) is being pressured to expel members who seek to help clients with unwanted same-sex sexual attraction. The article also reports that CAMFT, in response to pressure, pulled fro...
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A blog about the fight to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
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