Religious Freedom
Florida
Court tosses Fla. statute banning Bible distribution on public sidewalk
New York
NY Capitol: More than 250 Christian ministers protest marriage redefinition-"to blast Gov. David Paterson for requiring state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages and to back the Senate for its opposition to legalizing the same-sex unions . . .A national group, the National Alliance Defense Fund, has sued to get Paterson’s decision overturned. Several state lawmakers have joined the suit, which is pending in state Supreme Court"
Massachusette
Transgender activists remove clothing in public-"In Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to make same-sex marriages official...Many of the marchers, born women, wore beards and boasted love for their husbands or wives. According to one observer, some who had undergone surgery to remove their breasts took off their shirts at a rally following the main event. WND was able to confirm the claim, but refrained from posting photographs for decency concerns....Contrada explained to WND that Northampton is one of three cities in Massachusetts that have ordinances forbidding discrimination against transsexuals. The city, according to Contrada, has become a magnet for the radical lesbian and transgender movement, making it an ideal place for staging a topless rally that might be restricted elsewhere. "With anti-discrimination ordinances in place, there's no way a policeman would arrest a woman for being shirtless, because she could say she's not a woman, and under the ordinance, she gets to determine whether she's female or not," Contrada said. The marchers toted signs supporting Massachusetts bill H1722, the Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill, which would add the words "gender identity or expression" to Massachusetts statutes and would effectively prohibit employers, schools, landlords, realtors, hospitals and more from discriminating against transsexuals. Opponents of the bill believe it places unreasonable expectations on society and infringes on both freedom of speech and religion..."
California
Kmart CMO quitting, will fight to keep Cal. marriage redefinition
ACLU
“ACLU Sues Old Dominion Freight Lines Over Firing Of Transgender Trucker”-"The American Civil Liberties Union filed a sex discrimination lawsuit today against Old Dominion Freight Lines for illegally firing a truck driver for impersonating a female after she informed the company that she was transitioning from male to female. A prior EEOC investigation into the firing sided with the driver, Kaylee Seals, finding there was reasonable cause to believe that Old Dominion discriminated against Seals based on sex and sex stereotyping."
Canada
The Religion Clause Blog reports: “Canada’s Human Rights Commission is launching a review of how it handles complaints of Internet hate speech, according to today’s National Post.”
Kosovo
In Kosovo, Some Meddling Midwives Threaten a New Birth of Freedom-"Free speech provisions, for instance, are shackled to passages forbidding communications that offend others. Freedom of assembly can be curtailed easily by limitations imposed on any group that disagrees with the government or with the classes that the government chooses to protect, such as “sexual orientation.” Freedom of conscience can be invalidated if following one’s religious convictions violates the “health or rights” of someone else. (So medical professionals, for instance, can be compelled to perform abortions, even if they believe such procedures are murder.)"
Arizona
Student religious expressions get shield-"State senators voted Wednesday to protect the religious liberties of students, a measure foes said will let them harass others who don't share their beliefs — especially gays. House Bill 2713 would prohibit public schools from discriminating against students or their parents on the basis of their religious beliefs...Sen. Linda Gray, R-Glendale, said the measure is necessary because some school officials are not following federal constitutional requirements. There have been several high-profile incidents in Arizona. A Higley High School student's personal biography in the yearbook was altered to remove a reference to God. And students at Deer Valley High School were forbidden to use the public-address system generally available to all clubs to invite students to a prayer meeting after school...But he said a student could wear a shirt celebrating his or her homosexuality. "I believe that's patently unfair to limit one person's constitutional rights but not another's," Harper said. The bill, which already gained House approval, needs a final Senate vote before going to the governor."
Pro-Life
Ecuador
Ecuadorian Obstetricians and Gynecologists Issue Thundering Manifesto Against Abortion-"The document begins by stating that "we are not in agreement with any form of induced abortion; life is inviolable from the moment of conception. The elimination of an innocent human being is always unacceptable, ethically and medically speaking..."To affirm that the woman can do with her body whatever she wishes, besides being a conceited claim, has absolutely no basis in science: the embryo is not part of the body of the mother, nor is the fetus an internal organ of her body: the DNA of the embryo is distinct from that of its parents," the doctors write."-Document in english.
Poland
Polish teen aborts child in controversial case-"The 14-year-old Polish girl whose pregnancy provoked a storm of debate on the country's abortion law has terminated her pregnancy...The local prosecutor in the girl’s hometown of Lublin determined that the girl’s pregnancy was not the result of rape-- a theory that had been set forth by Poland’s largest newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. Also it is now clear that the pregnant girl did, indeed, request the assistance of the priest-director of a local home for unwed mothers, Father Krzysztof Podstawka. Father Podstawka is also the head ot the Lublin archdiocese’s pro-life office. Gazeta Wyborcza, whose editor is the well-known former anti-Communist activist and center-left political publicist Adam Michnik, attacked the person of the local priest for his efforts to help the girl continue her pregnancy."
UK
UK: Big rise in abortions among under-age girls-“The number of abortions among under 14s rose by more than a fifth last year, one of the biggest increases in terminations across all age groups, the government said on Thursday.”
California
California Pro-Life Advocates Rally at Capitol Against Tax-Funded Abortions-"The state spends more than $33 million to pay for the abortions of poor women even though main abortion business Planned Parenthood brought in $1 billion in revenue last year....Every year, pro-life advocates have tried to amend the state budget to remove the funding for as many as 95,000 abortions annually. That's about 8 percent of the total number of abortions done nationwide -- and all paid for at the expense of California taxpayers. "Enough is enough," Wynette Sills of the Coalition to Eliminate Abortion Funding, told LifeNews.com before the rally. "We will no longer be unwilling accomplices to this tragedy through our tax dollars, especially during this time of budget deficit conditions, when our teachers are being laid-off, libraries and parks are closing, senior citizens must go without their prescriptions, heathcare to needy families is being cut, and our public safety is at risk," she explained. "Surely, our limited tax dollars can be better utilized to truly help the needy of our great state, rather than further subsidize the abortion industry," Sills added."
Planned Parenthood
RU-4Safety?-"At least eight women have died from bacterial infections after taking RU-486. Four of the eight victims had something in common. They had all visited California's Planned Parenthood clinics that didn't follow FDA protocol for dispensing the pills. It took four fatalities in one week before the nation's largest abortion merchant would consider changing its policy...Democrats have fully supported investment in Planned Parenthood, despite its abhorrent track record. The clinics' use of RU-486 has been linked to thousands of complications (many of them serious or life-threatening) and four fatalities, yet taxpayers are still forced to provide the resources for Planned Parenthood's medical negligence. Any institution with such a cavalier attitude toward health and safety shouldn't be trusted with women's lives or federal funding."
Pro-Abortion Language Tanks in War Supplemental-"Thanks to the efforts of Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the legislation--worth $161.8 billion--heads back to the Senate without a provision that would have given groups like Planned Parenthood a discount on contraception and drugs like Plan B that can act as abortifacients....Considering the number of accusations leveled at Planned Parenthood in the last six months, including a multi-million suit involving a fraudulent mark-up on the price of these very pills, Congress should be highly skeptical of the investments it's already making in Planned Parenthood--let alone future ones"
