In a decision that likely will set the stage for a high-stakes showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down California’s Proposition 8 ballot measure that banned gay marriage, saying there is no “legitimate” reason to keep same-sex couples from marrying.

Prop 8 supporters immediately announced plans to appeal Tuesday’s (Feb. 7) 2-1 ruling to a larger panel of the 9th Circuit and, ultimately, to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“No court should presume to redefine marriage. No court should undercut the democratic process by taking the power to preserve marriage out of the hands of the people,” said Brian Raum, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing an umbrella group of Prop 8 supporters known as ProtectMarriage.com.

The appeals court’s decision upheld a 2010 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, saying that “although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently.

“There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted.”

The Prop 8 amendment to the state Constitution was approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008, just five months after the state Supreme Court ruled that a state ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.  An estimated 18,000 same-sex couples tied the knot before Prop 8 was passed.

The court also found no evidence that Walker was biased in his initial ruling because he was gay and in a committed relationship. The court did, however, side with Walker in maintaining a stay on all same-sex marriage ceremonies until the case is decided.

Prop 8 supporters, led by the National Organization for Marriage, immediately tried to use the decision as a plea for fresh funding.

“This sets up an all-or-nothing showdown at the United States Supreme Court,” NOM said in an email blast just minutes after the decision was announced.

“But the costs of litigating a Supreme Court case will run into the millions of dollars over the next year. We must have the resources to put on the best possible defense.”

Prop 8 opponents, however, including the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said “no American’s right to marry should be subjected to a veto from aggressive and well-funded religious groups. Our nation is a democracy, not a theocracy.”

Oklahoma’s referendum against state judges considering Islamic law is unconstitutional, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday (Jan. 10), upholding a lower court ruling that had blocked the measure.

The ruling could affect more than 20 other states where laws against Shariah are under consideration.

In a 37-page ruling, the 10th Circuit’s three-judge panel dismissed assertions by lawyers for Oklahoma that the law did not discriminate against Muslims.

“That argument conflicts with the amendment’s plain language, which mentions Shariah law in two places,” wrote 10th Circuit Judge Scott Matheson.

The Denver-based judges said that courts should be wary of meddling in voter referendums, but that minorities’ constitutional rights must be protected.

Some 70 percent of Oklahoma voters approved the referendum in November, 2010. Muneer Awad, head of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, sued to block the measure, saying it discriminates against Islam and violates church-state separation.

“This is an important reminder that the Constitution is the last line of defense against a rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry in our society,” Awad said in a statement, according to The Denver Post.

Last year, a U.S. District Court Judge in Oklahoma City also found the ban unconstitutional, and issued a temporary injunction preventing it from taking effect.

The case now returns to the district court in Oklahoma, which is expected to issue a permanent injunction against the law.

If Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt decides to appeal that case, it would return to the appeals court, and could eventually be heard by the Supreme Court.

NEW YORK — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday (Dec. 5) let stand a lower court ruling that bars congregations from using space in New York City schools for after-hours worship services.

The decision appears to end a legal saga that began in 1995 when the Bronx Household of Faith sued the city for barring congregations from using public schools for religious services.

The church had been holding services at P.S. 15 in the Bronx since 2002, after it won an injunction against the initial ban.

Last June, however, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the city had “a strong basis to believe” that allowing the religious services to be conducted in schools could be construed as violating the First Amendment’s prohibition on an establishment of religion.

The church argued that the ban violated its First Amendment guarantee of religious expression because the city allowed other community groups to use schools for their activities.

“When worship services are performed in a place, the nature of the site changes. The site is no longer simply a room in a school being used temporarily for some activity,” Judge Pierre N. Leval wrote in the appellate court’s majority opinion. He added: “The place has, at least for a time, become the church.”

Leval distinguished the church’s worship services from Bible studies, which are allowed to meet in public schools as the result of a 2002 Supreme Court decision.

Leaders of the evangelical church, which draws about 100 worshippers on a Sunday, say they hope to have their own building completed by next summer.

City officials say about 60 religious congregations have been using public schools for worship services. It was unclear how soon those congregations would have to stop using the spaces.

When Bob Jones III recently questioned whether President Obama is a Christian, it was a reminder not only that the fundamentalist leader is controversial but also how little the political world has heard from the man and the rock-ribbed Christian school that bears his name.

The relative silence emanating from Bob Jones University is all the more remarkable given the intensity of the Republican primary in South Carolina, and the power that the religious right here holds.

In many ways, the school is still recovering from the 2000 campaign, when George W. Bush spoke without mentioning the school’s ban on interracial dating. Bush got hammered for the lapse (as well as staying mum on the school’s view of Catholicism as a “cult”) and apologized.

The university has since dropped the interracial dating ban, but no candidates visited the campus during the 2008 primary — a sea change for a university that has been a must-stop venue for every Republican since Ronald Reagan.

So far this year, the closest any candidate has come is Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose wife Anita made a low-key lunchtime visit to nursing students in mid-October.

Since the 2000 controversy “a lot of candidates have shied away from us,” university spokesman Brian Scoles said during a recent tour of the 210-acre campus. “It’s just the perception that remains.”

Bob Jones III acknowledged in a Nov. 12 interview with the National Journal that he hasn’t endorsed any candidate, in part because it “might actually hurt” whomever Jones backed.

But there’s another, perhaps more consequential reason for the school’s muted political voice: a subtle but steady shift in its approach to the world.

It started in 2005, when the mantle of university president passed to Stephen Jones, Bob Jones III’s son and the first person not named Bob Jones to lead school since its founding in 1927.

The youngest Jones quickly distanced himself from the political legacy of his predecessors. “There were things said back then that I wouldn’t say today,” Stephen Jones said in 2005.

In 2008, he told a local newspaper, “I don’t think I have a political bone in my body.” That same year, Stephen Jones had the university apologize for banning interracial dating.

“We conformed to the culture rather than providing a clear Christian counterpoint to it,” the statement says of the “segregationist ethic” that had prevailed. “In so doing, we failed to accurately represent the Lord and to fulfill the commandment to love others as ourselves. For these failures we are profoundly sorry.”

The transformation is evident in other ways, too.

Long gone are the towering hedges and chain link fences that once kept the world out and the students in. Now a modern-looking sign welcomes visitors to the tidy, well-groomed campus.

Most faculty now live off campus and the students look much like they do everywhere. More than a few male students sported hipster porkpie hats on a recent visit, and while knee-length dresses are still required of young women in class, they can now wear pants at other times.

“We’re not this strange society in the northwest corner of Greenville County,” says Andy Rouse, 21, a senior. “There will always be stereotypes. That’s the way the world works. But you will be judged by your actions.”

There is a campus-wide Wi-Fi access, though a filter keeps out pornography. Drinking is still banned, as is rock-and-roll (and contemporary Christian music). Male-female boundaries are enforced through a careful system of chaperoned dating, but men and women mingle easily in the student center and across campus.

“Human nature is what it is. We know stuff goes on,” Scoles said. “But we have an agreement with parents that we’re going to keep that stuff to a minimum. How would it be for a Christian college to send a girl home pregnant? Or a boy home who is hooked on drugs or alcohol?”

The university is also dipping a toe in the waters of intercollegiate athletics, something that founder Bob Jones Sr. considered a dangerous dalliance with modernity. The university is starting slowly, fielding teams at the high school it operates while its college students have an annual cross-town soccer match with Furman University.

BJU leaders are also weighing alternatives to the “fundamentalist” label that has proudly defined the school (and a wide swath of the Bible Belt) since the 1920s.

“Basically, we’ve decided that we can’t use that term,” said Carl Abrams, a BJU history professor and a longtime member of the faculty. “The term has been hijacked and it takes you 30 minutes to explain it. So you need something else.”

There has been no resolution to the discussions, but just the prospect of a shift

has been enough to make other fundamentalists spew all manner of criticism, with conservative bloggers blasting the “landslide of liberalism” at the school, among the more printable epithets.

BJU has always been something of an outlier in fundamentalist Christianity. — a liberal arts university dedicated to sending well-rounded, Bible-believing graduates out into the world.

Today, 3,700 students from all 50 states and overseas study everything from economics to philosophy, business to nursing, and even science, though BJU’s commitment to “young earth creationism” raises eyebrows outside the school.

The Fine Arts program remains a distinctive feature. Music and drama are the lifeblood of the curriculum as students perform Shakespeare and other theatrical productions, and the university puts on a major opera every year. An art museum on campus features Renaissance and Baroque religious paintings in a collection that is one of the best in the country.

Political dynamics have also changed. In South Carolina, where every past BJU president enjoyed playing a kingmaker role, the GOP establishment now overshadows outspoken individuals like Bob Jones III.

“The relative importance of the BJU crowd in the GOP is declining,” said James L. Guth, a political scientist at Furman. “And many of the early BJU Republican figures have died, left politics or moderated.”

(BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)

Guth said a number of BJU graduates still wind up in Republican politics, but like the rest of the religious right, that faction has not been able to coalesce around a single candidate in recent elections.

Many have just been turned off.

“Politics is a dirty game. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m up to it,” said Rouse, who is considering post-graduate studies in political theory Yale University or the University of North Carolina.

Gary M. Weier, executive vice president for academic affairs and the university official who is considered closest to Stephen Jones, also noted that George W. Bush’s presidency was something of a disappointment to many of his conservative Christian backers.

“There had been a tendency among conservative Christians to think that the way to shape the culture was through political power,” Weier said. “I think conservative Christians bought into some of that on the political level, blurring distinctions between Christians and the Republican Party. It was easy to do.”

BJU recently announced that Weier and another school official would share responsibility for running the university as Stephen Jones suffers from complications from a severe ear infection that has left him nearly incapacitated.

The landscape of conservative Christianity has also shifted. There are more Christian colleges than ever, and schools like Patrick Henry College, the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and Pat Robertson’s Regent University are more focused on training future political operatives and placing them in positions of power than Bob Jones ever was.

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School officials insist that BJU’s beliefs and mission have not changed; it’s just the focus is more than ever on a “biblically-based liberal arts education” for students, as Weier pus it, be they aspiring housewives or pastors.

Whether these changes will be broad enough to attract the GOP candidates in 2012 is an open question. But the larger question is whether BJU — and the wider Christian fundamentalist movement_ can continue to transform while maintaining their identity.

“That is one of the main challenges,” Weier said. “There can be a perception that if you can change one thing, you can change anything. That’s not our approach.”

Both Muslim and Christian elderly residents in a housing complex in the UK are upset at a ban that was issued recently against religious artifacts from being displayed on the premises.

The ban was announced in a letter that was sent to residents of all 40 flats in St. Paul’s Court in Preston, Lancashire, which also requested that they take down any religious icons and signs that may disturb the community.

Not allowed

Both Christians and Muslims criticized the ban that was imposed on St. Paul’s Court, which is run by Places for People.

One resident told The Mirror, “Some people are very old and their faith is important to them. What harm can there be in having a small statue of Jesus or Our Lady on view?”

The resident also told The Mirror, “Last Christmas we were told to not display a crib, and decorations were discouraged.”

The letter announcing the ruling said, “The reason being that St. Paul’s Court is a sheltered housing scheme which promotes diversity amongst its residents and visitors.”

As a result, it encouraged the elderly residents to take it upon themselves to become champions of “equality and diversity,” according to The Daily Mail.

The staff members of Places for People are taxpayer funded, and their salaries are taken from housing benefits that are given to residents. A spokesman for the group could not specify to The Daily Mail what exactly was meant by “offending” items.

Residents were however asked to remove a number of religious signs and statues, even though the home is named after St. Paul, the apostle who has authored almost half of the books of the New Testament.

Dignity, respect

“I would describe this as removing people’s dignity and respect in their own age. I would ask them to put themselves in the position of their own residents,” Father Andrew Teather, minister of Preston Minster told The Daily Mail.

Teather told The Daily Mail, “I have never found any religious tension between people of different faiths, although one often finds antagonism from people who are not themselves religious towards people who are.

“Rather than having to appoint equality and diversity officers, why don’t they encourage people to speak to their next door neighbors?”

Teather’s sentiments were echoed by a Muslim leader, Salim Desai, who is a local councilor of Preston City.

Desai told The Daily Mail, “Yes, I think they should look at it again. I don’t know why they came to this decision, or what the underlying complaints are. I think they should think again.”

“We get a lot of our morals from religion and I would prefer people to follow religion, Christian or Muslim, and have morals, rather than no morals at all,” Desai told The Daily Mail, adding, “They are causing more problems than they are solving.”

Father Timothy Lipscomb told Mirror that the ruling is “ridiculous,” noting, “Political correctness is getting silly.”

The National Association of Evangelicals said in a statement that the move is detrimental to religious liberties and violates the country’s First Amendment.

Leith Anderson, president of NAE said, “Jews, Muslims, and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham. No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake,” CNN reported.

Anderson also said, “The proposed ban violates the First Amendment’s guarantee to exercise one’s religious beliefs,” according to CNN.

While the Jewish and Islamic faiths necessitate circumcision of all believers, not all Christians are required to do so.

The originator of the measure promoting the ban is Matt Hess, who lives in San Diego and is the creator of a comic called Foreskin Man, which has been slammed by critics as being anti-Semitic.

Foreskin Man is a blond superhero who saves a baby boy from the evil, knife-wielding Monster Mohel, a character who wears a traditional Jewish prayer shawl and hat.

In the Jewish faith a mohel performs circumcisions.

Hess has denied that Foreskin Man is anti-Semitic, and claims that the comic is told from the point of view of a baby.

Hess tweeted, “People who forcefully cut the genitals of children are not reasonable. If they were reasonable, they would have stopped doing it by now.”

Hess, through his organization MGMbill, managed to gather 12,000 signatures of support, the number that is required for it to qualify being voted upon in the pending November ballot.

Under the proposed bill it will be “unlawful to circumcise, excise, cut, or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles, or penis,” of any person who is 17 years old or younger.

Anyone violating the law may face a penalty of one year in jail, or be fined a maximum of $1,000.

Sponsors of the bill claim that circumcision wreaks damaging psychological and physical effects on men, not unlike genital mutilation on women.

Many doctors disagree with this, however. Health benefits have been linked to circumcision and complications rarely occur. If ever, they are only temporary and usually minor.

By contrast, World Health Organization has said that there are no health benefits that are linked to female genital circumcision, and in fact there are long-term consequences including higher mortality rates of mothers and newborns, higher incidence of infection, difficulty urinating and fistulas.

Circumcision is widespread in the U.S., with 65 percent of male American infants being circumcised in the hospitals where they were born as of 1999, statistics from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate.

However, while the percentage of circumcisions nationwide remains steady, there has been a strong drop in the West by 64 percent in 1974, and then a 37 percent drop in 1999.

Navy chaplains have been given clearance to perform same-sex marriages on the premises of military bases, according to a newly-released memo.

The April 13 memo was signed by the Navy’s Chief of Chaplains Rear Adm. Mark Tidd, and it will be enforced as soon as the Defense Department lifts a ban on openly gay people serving in the military, Reuters said.

However, some conservative members of congress say the memo violates another federal law, Reuters said, referring to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

Reservations have also been cited regarding the possibility that the religious belief of the chaplain may not agree with the union of two same sex people in marriage.

The memorandum was released by the Navy chaplain primarily to announce updated training for chaplains which will respond to new requirements upon the repeal of the ”don’t ask don’t tell” policy which disallows openly gay people to serve in the Navy, according to the Navy Times.

The ban on gay men and lesbians has been enforced for 17 years. It was repealed in December but is still in effect, and will continue to be, until new rules have been put in place with the expectant changes.

The Defense Department training guidelines do not mention marriage ceremonies for gay couples, but neither do they prohibit it. The Defense Department is expected to recognize openly gay military service this summer, Navy Times said.

The memo states, “a chaplain may officiate a same-sex, civil marriage if it is conducted in accordance with a state that permits same-sex marriage or union. If the base is located in a state where same-sex marriage is legal, then base facilities may normally be used to celebrate the marriage,” Reuters reported.

It does not follow, however, that same-sex married couples will be granted the same benefits of health and housing that married couples between a man and a woman have, the AP reported.

Navy spokeswoman Lt. Alana Garas told Reuters, “[The memo] emphasizes repeatedly that chaplains will not be required to officiate same-sex weddings if it’s contrary to the tenets of their faith.”

DOMA at issue

Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo), who chairs the House Armed Services sea power subcommittee, said the new guidelines are in conflict with DOMA, which defines marriage as “a union between one man and one woman,” Reuters reported.

In a statement Akin said, “This new guidance from the Navy clearly violates the law. While a state may legalize same-sex marriage, federal property and federal employees, like Navy chaplains, should not be used to perform marriages that are not recognized by federal law,” Navy Times reported.

Akin’s statement was signed by 62 other congressmen as well. It said, “My colleagues and I are calling on the Secretary of the Navy to make sure that the Navy actually follows the law,” according to Reuters.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear recently an appeal against a ban by a New Jersey school district on seasonal religious music being played in public schools.

The high court declined to hear without comment an appeal filed by Michael Stratechuk and his two children against the South Orange-Maplewood school district in New Jersey which implemented the ban, The Christian Post said.

John Whitehead, founder of The Rutherford Institute told OneNewsNow that he was not surprised. “The public schools are intentionally being secularized right now. I mean, when you can’t actually sing a few Christmas songs at Christmas time along with ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ and the other songs we hear during Christmas, we’re in bad trouble…in the public schools.”

Whitehead told OneNewsNow that public schools are turning into atheistic settings. “What it does is…it discriminates against a whole class of citizens — Christians, Jews and others — who actually believe in God, but especially Christians during Christmas time. It is not a good trend.”

Under the policy songs like “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman,” and “Winter Wonderland” are acceptable, but not “Silent Night,” or “Joy to the World,” according to Education Week.

The ban was upheld by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia last November, even though the judges noted that religious songs during the holiday season had not been objected to before, The Christian Post said.

The Appeals court decision said, “Certainly, those of us who were educated in the public schools remember holiday celebrations replete with Christmas carols, and possibly even Chanukah songs, to which no objection had been raised,” according to Education Week.

Nonetheless, it upheld the ban saying school authorities should decide “how to best create an inclusive environment in public schools.” Attorneys of Stratechuk said the policy is unconstitutional and gives the impression that the government is sponsoring a message of disapproval and hostility towards religion, according to The Christian Post.

Richard Thompson, counsel for Stratechuk argued, “The constitution does not require our public schools to become religion–free zones. Forcing students to strip all religious content from music is like asking them to study art history while excluding paintings from the Renaissance because they contain religious subjects,” The Christian Post reported.

Since its implementation, it is not only religious Christmas songs that have been banned from public schools—even seasonal images including Christmas trees are not allowed, according to The Christian Post.

Some 6.400 students are served in nine schools in the School District of South Orange and Maplewood. Stratechuk’s children were students at Columbia High School and Maplewood Middle School, The Christian Post said.

Italy appealed recently a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that bans crucifixes in the classrooms of all state schools, the Telegraph said.

The Italian government’s appeal will be raised before the Grand Chamber in Strasbourg. A decision is expected within three months and if Italy loses, crosses will be banned from all state schools in the European Union, the Telegraph said.

Credit: bjearwicke/sxc.hu

The case was initiated originally by Soile Lautsi, an Italian citizen. Lautsi was upset because her children went to a school in a small town near Venice where the cross was displayed in all of the classrooms, the Telegraph said.

When education authorities refused to take the crosses down, she filed a case in the Italian courts for several years. Finally, she brought her case to Strasbourg, the Telegraph said.

Last year the court ruled in her favor, causing an outcry in Italy where 90 percent of its people are Christian. The ruling was viewed to be invasive of the nation’s culture, religion and history, the BBC said.

The Vatican said the European court had no right to intervene, and added that the court seeks to ignore the part that Christianity played in the making of Europe’s identity, the BBC said.

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini decried the ruling and cited the cross as a symbol of the country’s tradition, the BBC said. Gelmini added, “…If we erase symbols we erase a part of ourselves,” the Telegraph said.

Crucifixes have been displayed in all classrooms in Italy since the 1920s, the Telegraph said.

The closing arguments were heard yesterday in the trial to determine the constitutionality of same-sex marriage in California.

This hearing brought to an end the Proposition 8 trial, which upholds a ban on gay marriage. California voters in 2008 ruled in support of the ban, as did 70 out of 108 judges, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Proposition 8 was passed in November 2008, less than six months after the California Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage, the Los Angeles Times said.

The following year, the court ruled in support of Proposition 8, but by then some 18,000 same-sex couples had already married. Should chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker decide on behalf of the amendment, proponents would also like those marriages to be voided, the Christian Post said.

Attorney Charles Cooper, in support of Proposition 8 noted how seven million Californians voted for the amendment and stated that society should be allowed to preserve its endorsement of marriage as a tradition that is permitted for those who can naturally bear children, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

Cooper maintained that marriage between men and women is intended to endorse responsible sex and child rearing in a stable family environment where children are brought up by their natal parents, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

Cooper contended that the state already has enough domestic partner laws that permit equal dealings for all couples. He noted, too, that the U.S. Constitution does not provide for any unique protection for homosexuals, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

Walker asked Cooper several questions, including why the state should regulate marriage, rather than treat it as a private contract. He also questioned why marriage had such a large public role, the Los Angeles Times said.

Theodore Olsen, who argued on behalf of two same-sex couples who filed charges for their right to be wed, stated that homosexuals marry so that they can make a commitment to the person they love, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

The city of San Francisco also weighed in and said that Proposition 8 is detrimental to the city as it will raise the cost of health and welfare. Their city attorney, Chief Deputy Therese Stewart added that it could lower the earnings from the city’s tourism industry, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

Walker’s decision is likely to be appealed by the losing side. After the appeals court, it can be raised to the U.S. Supreme Court. Should the Supreme Court accept the case, by 2012 a final ruling can be reached on whether or not same sex couples can legally marry.

Source:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/16/BAHO1E0CIM.DTL

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/16/local/la-me-0617-prop8-arguments-m

http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100616/prop-8-supporters-want-peoples-vote-respected/