As the year draws to a close, we take a look back at a few of the victories and challenges for religious liberty during the past 12 months and look forward to greater respect and protection for religious liberty in 2012. HHS “Preventive Service” Mandate In August, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a rule that forces nearly all private health care plans to include coverage for certain contraceptives and surgical sterilization. The mandate’s threat to religious freedom has already caused a stir in the nation’s capital …
The Supreme Court’s term has barely begun, and yet speculation already abounds regarding when the Court will hear and how it will decide politically controversial cases such as Obamacare, racial preferences, immigration, and same-sex marriage. Court watchers offer their predictions on the outcomes of the cases, but many if not most simply presume that the justices will decide the cases based on what they individually believe to be good policy, rather than based on any requirement in the law. Liberal activist judges have given the public reason to believe judging …
Last week, both the North Carolina House and the Senate approved a state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as one man and one woman. North Carolina voters will have the opportunity to approve the amendment in 2012. The pro-marriage votes in the North Carolina legislature continue a nationwide trend to protect marriage as one man and one woman—especially through the use of democratic measures such as constitutional amendments and ballot initiatives. According to Jordan Lorence, a senior attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, North Carolina voters will join Minnesota …
Children served by private adoption and foster care organizations are finding themselves among the victims of collateral damage of state decisions to legally recognize same-sex couples. From county courts to the U.S. Congress, the debate over protecting the conscience rights of religious institutions is heating up. Before Illinois passed a civil union law this spring, proponents of the measure promised the legislation would have no adverse effect on the religious liberty of private adoption agencies. Yet, just a few months after passage of the law, Illinois is trying to terminate …
Pay much attention to the same-sex marriage debate and you’re likely to hear how people who support marriage as one man and one woman are trying to impose their religious beliefs on other people. Dig in a bit deeper and you’ll find that many proponents of same-sex marriage aren’t very comfortable with political action by religious people and groups to support marriage as one man and one woman. When Proposition 8 passed in California, for example, Mormons were widely criticized and even targeted for reprisals based on the widespread belief …
The decision by the U.S. Navy to rescind new guidelines that would have permitted same-sex marriages to be performed in navy chapels in certain states is a simple recognition of the law of the land. The fact that the rescission came only after pressure from Members of Congress who wrote to the Defense Department on May 6 requesting the enforcement of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is a sober reminder that the Obama Administration continues to play fast and loose with this area of public policy. A quick review …
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that has had the effect of blocking an initiative or referendum vote on same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. The high court’s action brings to an end this judicial phase of the effort to rescind a same-sex marriage law enacted by the D.C. city council in 2009. The law took effect in March 2010 and has never been enjoined by a court of law. As a result, same-sex marriages have been taking place …
C-SPAN does not cover many federal appellate courts hearings. On Monday, in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the case involving the constitutionality of California’s voter-approved Prop 8, the cable public service provider made a not-at-all surprising exception. Before a three-judge panel in a San Francisco courthouse, defenders of traditional marriage squared off against proponents of inventing a new federal constitutional right to marry a person of the same sex. The goal of the same-sex marriage proponents is to make history; the goal of traditional marriage proponents is to preserve a core institution …
In a statement that is as unseemly as the example of judicial activism that gave rise to their removal from office, three former Iowa Supreme Court justices are blaming “out-of-state interests” for their loss on Election Day. The evidence seems clear that the three judges who were not retained by Iowa voters lost their offices because of the unsupportable ruling they joined in April 2009 that invented a state constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Of the 74 Iowa judges statewide who were subject to retention votes last week, only Marsha …
Since 2003, the Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News have cooperated in the form of the National Election Pool (NEP) to produce one set of nationwide exit poll data. First, representatives from each news organizations form a committee that comes up with the specific question for that cycle’s poll. Then the NEP contracts with Edison Research to conduct the actual polling on Election Day. In 2008, as they had done in previous cycles, the NEP asked respondents “Are you currently married?” and “Do you …
