Category Archives: Uncategorized

Townhall: The featured speaker will be Jeff Johnson, former member of Alliance Defense Fund. He is on leave from an Arizona law firm to work with a public interest forum.

LifeNews: The death of a young woman at a Chicago Planned Parenthood facility following a failed abortion has garnered nationwide news and attention. However, on the same day last Friday, the abortion business also injured another woman in a botched abortion.

LifeNews: A federal judge has dismissed another lawsuit filed against the Obama HHS mandate that forces religious groups to pay for or refer women for abortion-causing drugs and birth control. This comes after another federal judge tossed another lawsuit earlier this week.

AP: Opponents of Arizona’s hardline immigration enforcement law launched a new effort Tuesday aimed at thwarting a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that will allow police to enforce the so-called “show me your papers” provision.

Christian Today: The Alliance Defense Fund, one of the largest legal organizations in the United States championing Christian rights, has changed its name and logo officially to the Alliance Defending Freedom as of Monday, July 9.

Paul Coleman serves as legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom at its office in Vienna, Austria, where he specializes in international litigation with a focus on European law. Coleman earned his Bachelor of Laws from Newcastle University and also holds an LL.M. from the University of Northumbria. He is a graduate of the 2009 class of the Alliance Defending Freedom Blackstone Legal Fellowship leadership training program. Prior to joining Alliance Defending Freedom, Coleman trained for two years at Camerons Solicitors LLP, London, and acted as a legal advisor to Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre. Coleman is a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales. He is also a member of Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship in the United Kingdom and the Ecclesiastical Law Society. He is a regularly featured speaker on religious liberty issues throughout the United Kingdom and Europe.

Bryan Beauman serves as senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. Based in Paris, Kentucky, he focuses on coordinating allied attorney efforts throughout Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia to defend and preserve religious liberty, life, marriage, and the family. Beauman earned his J.D. at the University of Kentucky College of Law in 1997 and is a member of the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Kentucky. He is also a member of the Kentucky Bar Association, the Bourbon County Bar Association, and the Federal Bar Association, previously serving as president of its Kentucky Chapter.

Bradley Abramson serves as senior legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom at its headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he focuses his litigation efforts on religious liberty matters. He is admitted to the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, as well as the state of Colorado. Abramson earned his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School and has been practicing law since 1983.

Michael Foust at Baptist Press: The Alliance Defense Fund, one of the nation’s leading Christian legal groups, has a new name — the Alliance Defending Freedom.

The Gazette: Cloke said in a statement the lawsuit “follows a pattern of harassment against women’s health care and Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country. The extreme organization that former employee Sue Thayer has partnered with has a mission to take down Planned Parenthood. Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly Alliance Defense Fund, uses politics as a form of destruction, targeting Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country with false claims and misinformation.”

The Advocate: The brief was filed by a conservative medical group at the urging of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential religious right legal organization. It illustrates the right’s strategy of using the new research — which was funded by two conservative organizations — in legal battles to preserve bans on gay marriage. [more]

LifeNews: A book about sex by J. Budziszewski uses natural law arguments to persuade young adults of the moral benefits of purity . . . But what about those who think that morality requires a bit more of us? How can they persuade young people that reserving sexual intimacy for marriage is the right thing to do? In his book On the Meaning of Sex, popular author and political philosopher J. Budziszewski attempts to make such an argument on the basis of human nature and natural law. He begins with an anecdote from teaching.

AP: Attorney General Eric Holder is charging that he’s become a “proxy” for Republican attacks against President Barack Obama in an election year.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: As the EU Observer reports today, the European gay rights lobby and its allies are deeply worried about the fact that the opponents of their radical agenda appear to win increasing donor support and media attention.a

LifeSiteNews: Save the Children (SCF) has issued a report claiming, “Pregnancy is the biggest killer of teenage girls worldwide.”

Washington Post: Alliance Defense Fund, an evangelical-founded legal advocacy group, called the court’s decision “alarming and deeply wrong.”
“Obamacare treats American citizens like subjects. This administration has used health care law to become a dictator of conscience,” according to the Alliance Defense Fund about the health-care law, which the group says “holds your health care hostage and offers no real choice. Either comply and abandon your religious freedom and conscience, or resist and be fined for your faith. All current ADF legal challenges to the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate will proceed, and we are confident that the Supreme Court will strike it down as unconstitutional.”

Christian Today: A Catholic church in Mangalore was Monday attacked by a group of unidentified people in a presumed attempt to trigger communal conflict.

LoanSafe.org: “The laws are well established in this area,” said ADF legal counsel David Hacker. “When a university or government opens up a forum for speech, it has to provide essentially equal access. You can’t exclude a speaker because of their viewpoint . . . ”

The Independent: Protestant and Catholics from a Northern Ireland town devastated by an IRA bombing showed their unity today by joining forces to host a Diamond Jubilee visit by the Queen.

Christian Institute: Over eight million of the Conservative Party’s core supporters are unlikely to back issues such as same-sex marriage marriage, it has been claimed.

National Law J. on Law.com: Slightly more than half of the class of 2011 — 55 percent — found full-time, long-term jobs that require bar passage nine months after they graduated, according to employment figures released on June 18 by the American Bar Association.

Weekly Standard (includes video): Congressman Mike McIntyre, a Democratic representative of North Carolina’s Seventh Congressional District, is now refusing to endorse President Obama.

The order list is available here.

Daily Mail: Starving Greeks queued around the block for free food handouts yesterday as the country’s politicians managed to end a crippling stalemate to form a coalition government.

Citizen Link: Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council, pointed out that the bill was drafted by the gay-activist group Equality California — and its only real purpose is to get same-sex marriage on the legislative fast track should the U.S. Supreme Court strike down the state’s current constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

LifeNews: A North Carolina man is facing prison after allegedly stabbing his pregnant girlfriend and killing her unborn baby. Aris Nichols, 39, has been arrested on the charge of “death or injury of a child in utero due to commission …

KATC.com: “It is regrettable that homosexual rights activists and those who are promoting the recognition of ‘same-sex marriage’ have misappropriated the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement,” the resolution states.

Fox44 (television clip): showers and t-storms have come to an end across east texas. rain chances look slim over the next week or so as summer arrives in full force with the hottest temps so far this year in against texas a&m university. the alliance defense fund…… claims the school discriminated against political and religious student groups. and it was filed on behalf of the texas aggie conservatives. the alliance Defense Fund is a legal Alliance…. of christian attorneys and organizations. their goal is to defend the right of people…. to freely live out their faith. a historic move is made….

Catholic Culture: Some 50 Hindu extremists attacked a tiny Christian village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa on June 15, beating a Protestant pastor and 20 residents.

Morning Sentinel: A new poll released today shows 55 percent of Mainers supporting a referendum question that would allow same-sex couples to legally marry.

HSLDA on the Christian Newswire: ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska says the family’s human rights have been unimaginably violated. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like home schooling,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “We …

LifeNews: “Public schools should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas,” said ADF Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco. “Students should not be marginalized just because their pro-life views may not line up with school politics. The school district should be commended for agreeing to respect the rights of its students under the First Amendment. Public schools are more likely to succeed when the freedom of ideas is allowed.”

Breitbart embeds the CNBC interview with Trump. The last quarter of the interview discuss the international oil situation and this story.

NorthJersey.com: Public schools should encourage, not shut down, the free exchange of ideas,” ADF legal counsel Jeremy Tedesco said. “Students should not be marginalized just because their pro-life views may not line up with school politics.

Salt Lake Tribune: The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah believes a decision by the Davis School District to limit elementary students’ access to a book about a lesbian couple raising children is unconstitutional.

Guardian: Nearly a third of children under five show signs of stunted development because of food scarcity, according to agency.

AP: An influential British bioethics group says that couples who face the risk of having a baby with certain genetic diseases should be allowed to use eggs from two women to produce the embryo.

SCOTUS Blog: The Obama Administration’s second-ranking advocate before the Supreme Court, principal deputy U.S. Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan, was nominated by President Obama on Monday to a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court.

Touchstone Magazine (video embedded): You knew Obamacare was bad, but as the Alliance Defense Fund shows in this video, it’s worse than you think.

UGPulse.com: The interreligious council of Uganda has called upon members of parliament to pass the long awaited anti homosexuality bill which is currentlybefore parliament.

LifeNews: The Senate will vote on Monday on Andrew Hurwitz, President Obama’s pro-abortion nominee to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Religion Clause Blog: In a 3-page opinion in PLANS, Inc. v. Sacramento City Unified School District, (9th Cir., June 7, 2012), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a federal district court’s dismissal of an Establishment Clause challenge to two Northern California school districts that have created “Waldorf” schools.

CNN: A new poll released Friday gives insight on American attitudes toward two major cases the Supreme Court could rule on as early as Monday, one involving health care reform and the other on Arizona’s controversial immigration law.

The HIll: The race for retiring Sen. Kent Conrad’s (D-N.D.) seat has set up a test case for whether Democrats can count on voters splitting the ticket in states where people have soured on President Obama.

Justin Dyer at Public Discourse: The Founders’ nuanced views of religion and politics prevent us from reading modern concerns about the separation of church and state into their words.

Ishton W. Morton at the Examiner.com: Brian Raum, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal defense group had this to say; Now that the case has run its course in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the measure’s sponsors “absolutely” plan to take the case to the high court.

AllMediaNY: “The Protectmarriage.com legal team looks forward to standing before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of people’s right to preserve the fundamental building block of civilization,” said Brian Raum, a lawyer for Alliance Defense Fund Proposition 8 proponents. “The democratic process and the most important human institution—marriage—shouldn’t be overthrown based on the demands of… activists.”

ABQ Journal: Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund say they intend to ask the state Supreme Court to review a New Mexico Court of Appeals decision finding that an Albuquerque photography studio violated the state Human Rights Act by refusing to take photos of a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony….

NY Daily News (AP): The Alliance Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based legal alliance of Christian attorneys and others, says it plans to appeal.

KQED: Supporters of Prop Eight, including the Christian legal group Alliance Defense Fund, say they will appeal to the Supreme Court.

WITN.com (AP): Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Brian Raum said Tuesday that Proposition 8′s backers “absolutely” would take the case to the high court now that it has run its course at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

DelMarVaNow (USAToday): Update at 2:07 p.m. ET:The New York Times reports that Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Brian Raum said Proposition 8 backers “absolutely” would take the case to the Supreme Court now that it has run its course at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

SLATE: Prop 8 backers told the Associated Press that they’d “absolutely” ask the high court to take up the case now that they’ve run out of legal options in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Brian Raum told the news wire that he expects the justices will decide by the fall on whether they will take up the case.

Advocate: A lawyer for the Prop. 8 backers said Tuesday that they “absolutely” planned to take the appeal to the Supreme Court, according to the Associated Press. Brian Raum of the Alliance Defense Fund said he did not know if the defense team would take the entire 90 days to file the petition.

MetroWeekly: In a statement from the Alliance Defense Fund, which has backed the proponents’ defense of the law, Cooper added, “We’re pleased to petition the Court to hear this case. The lower court opinions were little more than an attack on the character and judgment of millions of Californians, and those decisions essentially ignored all relevant Supreme Court and appellate court precedent. We are hopeful and confident that the Supreme Court will review the 9th Circuit’s decision.”]

TPM: The poll, conducted by the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP), shows 49 percent of Minnesota voters do not believe the state constitution should be amended to ensure legal recognition for only unions between a man and a woman.

Michael Benjamin at NY Daily Post: Is anyone in New York City truly surprised by teacher-student sex in our schools?

KFVS12.com (AP): The Alliance Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based legal alliance of Christian attorneys and others, says it plans to appeal.

WYTV.com (AP): The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Friday that the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance Defense Fund has added Wayne Helper and Carrie Kolesar, owners of lumber and sawmill businesses, to the federal lawsuit filed last month by Geneva College, in Beaver Falls.

David Gibson at the Christian Century: “Under this rationale, if just one state decided to accept polygamy, the federal government and perhaps other states would be forced to accept it, too,” said Dale Schowengerdt, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “The federal government had the authority to step in against polygamy at one time in our nation’s history, and it has the authority to step in against this attempt at marriage redefinition as well.”

Examiner (AP): The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (http://bit.ly/L8m8T6 ) reports Friday that the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance Defense Fund has added Wayne Helper and Carrie Kolesar, owners of lumber and sawmill businesses, to the federal lawsuit filed last month by Geneva College, in Beaver Falls

MinnPost (Christian Science Monitor): A powerful affirmation, or a bridge too far? Gay rights advocates praised the decision, while those supporting the traditional definition of marriage denounced it. “Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it,” said Dale Schowengerdt, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund. “In allowing one state to hold the federal government and potentially other states hostage to redefine marriage, the First Circuit attempts a bridge too far,” he said.

Huffington Post (RNS): Still, social conservatives saw the decision as an ominous sign. “Under this rationale, if just one state decided to accept polygamy, the federal government and perhaps other states would be forced to accept it, too,” said Dale Schowengerdt, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund. “The federal government had the authority to step in against polygamy at one time in our nation’s history, and it has the authority to step in against this attempt at marriage redefinition as well.”

ABC: Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it,” said Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Dale Schowengerdt. “In allowing one state to hold the federal government, and potentially other states, hostage to redefine marriage, the 1st Circuit attempts a bridge too far. Under this rationale, if just one state decided to accept polygamy, the federal government and perhaps other states would be forced to accept it, too.”

The Sun Chronicle: Conservatives said they hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn the appeals court and find the law constitutional. “Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it. The federal Defense of Marriage Act provides that type of protection, and we trust the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the 1st Circuit’s erroneous decision,” said Dale Schowengerdt of the Alliance Defense Fund.

Washington Times: But Dale Schowengerdt, an attorney for Alliance Defense Fund, one of dozens of groups defending DOMA, said that in “allowing one state to hold the federal government, and potentially other states, hostage to redefine marriage, the 1st Circuit attempts a bridge too far.” “The federal government had the authority to step in against polygamy at one time in our nation’s history, and it has the authority to step in against this attempt at marriage redefinition as well,” Mr. Schowengerdt said. DOMA protects marriage “and we trust the U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the 1st Circuit’s erroneous decision.”

Babble.com: An opponent of the law and representative of the Alliance Defense Fund, Dale Schowengerdt, said that “society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it.”

Reuters: Dale Schowengerdt, a lawyer for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian advocacy group that has defended California’s gay marriage ban in court, added, “Under this rationale, if just one state decided to accept polygamy, the federal government and perhaps other states would be forced to accept it, too.”

Digital Journal: “Society should protect and strengthen marriage, not undermine it.” said Dale Schowengerdt, counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a group of Christian lawyers. He said the ruling allowed one state (Massachusetts in this case) to hold the federal government and potentially other states “hostage.” Schowengerdt said that “under this rationale, if just one state decided to accept polygamy, the federal government and perhaps other states would be forced to accept it too.”

Christian Post: Opposing the ruling, Alliance Defense Fund Legal Counsel Dale Schowengerdt said the court went too far in its rationale. “In allowing one state to hold the federal government, and potentially other states, hostage to redefine marriage, the 1st Circuit attempts a bridge too far. Under this rationale, if just one state decided to accept polygamy, the federal government and perhaps other states would be forced to accept it, too,” he contended.

C-FAM: Chilean medical researcher published a landmark study on the connection between the availability of abortion and maternal health. He found legal abortion does not contribute to maternal health and showed this using voluminous data from the extensive medical history of Chile.

CaliforniaHealthLine.org: Meanwhile, the Alliance Defense Fund — a group that opposes gay marriage — said the ruling likely will be appealed. Dale Schowengerdt, the group’s legal counsel, said, “This will end up at the Supreme Court at some point, and we’re confident and hopeful that the [Defense of Marriage Act] will be upheld” (Sacramento Bee, 5/26).

The Examiner: “The government shouldn’t punish people of faith for making decisions in accordance with their faith,” stated the Alliance Defense Fund’s President, CEO, and General Counsel Alan Sears. “We welcome these lawsuits, which are about religious freedom and freedom of conscience, not about contraception … These new cases are about the very right to determine what is ‘religious’ and what faith-based beliefs may be followed in life.”

The Church Report: The Alliance Defense Fund said Tuesday the suit had served its purpose by forcing the school to give the group called ‘Make Up Your Own Mind’ access to university facilities and funding like it does for other groups.

Inquisitr.com: Metcalfe will introduce the Whole Woman’s Health Funding Priority Act on Wednesday, a bill that would place abortion providing health care providers at the end of the priority list for state funding. The bill was co-written by anti-abortion activist group Susan B. Anthony List and the Alliance Defense Fund.