Advancing Religious Liberty
TweetPosted 4/19/11 at 2:09 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
The Speaker of the House announced today that Paul Clement will defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in current court challenges. Paul Clement served as Solicitor General under President George W. Bush and is well known as one of the most experienced and effective Supreme Court advocates in the nation. FULL POST
Posted 4/18/11 at 11:30 AM | Alliance Defending Freedom
It was exactly one year ago that a Wisconsin federal court incredibly ruled that our 200 year practice of praying together as a nation is unconstitutional by striking down the statute establishing the National Day of Prayer. But on April 14, 2011, the day before the anniversary of that troubling ruling, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed it in a fantastic opinion holding that the anti-religious Freedom From Religion Foundation should not have been allowed past the courthouse gate because they suffered no legal injury.
Voting 3-0, the Seventh Circuit held that FFRF doesn’t have standing to even challenge the NDOP. Chief Judge Easterbrook, a very prominent and nationally respected judge, wrote the opinion and said that “offense at the behavior of the government, and a desire to have public officials comply with (plantiffs’ view) of the Constitution, differs from a legal injury.” Without a legal injury, plaintiffs can’t sue, and merely being offended isn’t enough. The court went on to say, “the ‘psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees’ is not an ‘injury’ for the purpose of standing…. Plaintiffs have not altered their conduct one whit or incurred any cost in time or money. All they have is disagreement with the President’s action. But unless all limits on standing are to be abandoned, a feeling of alienation cannot suffice as injury in fact.” Even the judge that was most sympathetic to the FFRF at oral argument said they didn’t have standing because ”the observation of conduct with which [they] disagree …was insufficient to confer standing.” FULL POST
Posted 4/15/11 at 6:00 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
ADF Senior Vice President and Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb writes:
The 1960s blockbuster movie Seven Days in May recounted a fictional plot by military leaders to overthrow a president who pushed for nuclear disarmament. It is a classic anti-military screed that embodied some of the worst far-left thinking of the sixties.
The movie was pure fiction. But the leftist thinking behind the movie was unfortunately real. And as we verge on another May, that bad thinking is incarnated in a real president who is bent on overthrowing the moral standards of our military—standards that have seen this Nation safely through centuries of peace and war.
In May 2011 President Obama will keep after his goal of forcing bisexual and homosexual behavior on the military by repealing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy—not just so a few individuals may serve, but to enforce the homosexual agenda by force of law and military regulation. When he rolled the idea out in his inaugural address, it seemed like a done deal. But in the wake of the 2010 elections in which he lost control of the House of Representatives, it is no longer a sure bet. FULL POST
Posted 4/14/11 at 4:09 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
FIRE has been putting the heat on Sinclair Community College (Ohio) after it punished a student for distributing pro-life literature after class. According to FIRE’s report, a paralegal student distributed literature linking abortion and breast cancer to her fellow students after her Probate Law I class in October 2010. (October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.) She gave some flyers to students directly and placed other flyers on the desks of students who had left their seats.
A couple weeks later, Sinclair’s Paralegal Program Chair met with the student about the flyers. (Here’s where the story follows the usual university plot line.) The Program Chair told the student that another student complained that the flyers were…drum roll please: “offensive.” (Where have we heard that before?) Then the Program Chair told the student she could not distribute any literature in class. FULL POST
Posted 4/13/11 at 5:43 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
Last Monday, the new Mayor of Washington, D.C., Vincent Gray, was arrested for impeding traffic when he and others staged a protest by blocking Constitution Avenue near the Senate office buildings. They did their acts of civil disobedience to protest two provisions in the budget agreement reached by President Obama and the Republican leadership in Congress last weekend.
The first provision prohibits the District of Columbia from spending its own tax money to fund poor women’s abortions. The second provision requires the D.C. government to give vouchers to poor children so they can afford to attend private schools (Congress gave extra money to D.C. to pay for the vouchers, so D.C. would not have to spend its own tax money). FULL POST
Posted 4/13/11 at 2:37 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
Will Creeley has a spot-on analysis in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education discussing why the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act is unconstitutional and unnecessary. Last month, Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (NJ) reintroduced the bill in Congress, which is named after the Rutgers University student who tragically took his life last year. Sen. Lautenberg claims the purpose of the bill is “to support colleges as they put in place and strengthen anti-harassment and anti-bullying programs.” But the bill is flush with overbroad and vague restrictions on speech: FULL POST
Posted 4/12/11 at 12:41 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Matt Sharp writes:
A few weeks ago, ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman wrote about how the Left and groups such as GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) are promoting homosexual behavior to students in public schools all over the country through their Day of Silence. As Cortman discussed, Christians who oppose the blatant promotion of the homosexual agenda are often labeled as bullies. But respectfully speaking the Truth is never an act of bullying. In fact, speaking the Truth is the greatest act of love we can show to others.
This morning in my devotions, I read from John 8 and the familiar story of the woman caught in the act of adultery who was brought before Jesus by her accusers. The men sought to trap Christ so that they could bring a charge against him. Yet Jesus surprised them all by not only standing up for the woman, but also speaking the Truth in love to the woman (and her accusers). While Christ willingly forgave the woman, he clearly told her to “sin no more,” refusing to compromise on God’s standards of holiness for His people. FULL POST
Posted 4/12/11 at 10:35 AM | Alliance Defending Freedom
Have you seen this ad on your campus? Students pay mandatory student fees under school policies, but these same policies deny funding to one type of student group at six major universities (and probably more):
Why do these universities exclude certain student groups from getting money? Are they destroying campus property? Did all of their members drop below a certain GPA? Does no one show up to their meetings? No, it’s simpler than that. In a forum open to every other type of student group, these student groups are denied funding for one reason: they’re religious. FULL POST
Posted 4/11/11 at 4:42 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
Author: ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Travis C. Barham
Back in March of 2010, a federal district court judge in North Carolina ruled that Professor Mike Adams’ columns at Townhall.com were not protected by the First Amendment. Dr. Adams appealed that decision, gathering support from academic organizations from across the ideological spectrum. Last week, this effort was blessed with a strong, ringing defense of academic freedom from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. And so a year after the district court’s opinion, Dr. Adams fittingly announces at Townhall.com today: “Caution: This Column Now Protected by the First Amendment.” FULL POST
Posted 4/8/11 at 1:17 PM | Alliance Defending Freedom
April 1 wasn’t a Fool’s Day for religious freedom in Kentucky. In Nelson v. Baker, the Court of Appeals soundly rejected a claim by former members of First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown, Kentucky who sued for the right to access the church’s financial information. It is foolish for believers to sue one another despite the Bible’s clear admonition not to in I Cor. 6:7. But that’s a different, more fundamental, matter I’ll get to in a second.
The good news is the court wasn’t fooled by an attempt to characterize access to church financial information as a completely secular matter. Courts have long held that the First Amendment protects churches from interference from government officials in the areas of doctrine, membership, policy, and interaction with its pastors. You can find a detailed analysis of this area of the law - often referred to as “Church Autonomy” – on our resource page in a document titled Church Autonomy White Paper – Protecting Churches From Government Interference. FULL POST
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