By Staff, World News Magazine
ALBANY, N.Y. – The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has tossed out key parts of New York City’s law requiring pregnancy centers to post signs saying they do not offer abortion referrals.
The court ruled this provision is a violation of the centers’ free speech.
In striking down the city law’s sign requirement, the 2nd Circuit ruled the law “requires centers to mention controversial services that some pregnancy services centers, such as plaintiffs in this case, oppose.”
The ruling continued: “A requirement that pregnancy services centers address abortion, emergency contraception, or prenatal care at the beginning of their contact with potential clients alters the centers’ political speech by mandating the manner in which the discussion of these issues begins. … The centers must be free to formulate their own address.”
The court also struck the provision that centers post a sign saying that “the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene encourages women who are or who may be pregnant to consult with a licensed provider.” The court said if the city wanted to get that message across, it could do so through its own ad campaign, not through pregnancy centers.
“We think the court was right to reject two of the compelled speech requirements on pro-life centers that help women,” said Matt Bowman, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), who argued the case on behalf of the centers before the 2nd Circuit. “We think the court was wrong to uphold any compelled speech.”
ADF is concerned about another part of the ruling. The lower judge ruled that the city’s definition of pregnancy center was too vague.
The 2nd Circuit said the definition of a center – which amounts to any counseling center that looks medical – as fine.
One of the judges, in a concurring opinion that dissented from that part of the ruling, said the definition was a “bureaucrat’s dream,” because city officials could enforce the regulation on whomever they wanted.
“The city can decide to persecute pro-life centers just because they don’t like the way they look,” Bowman said.
ADF has two weeks to decide whether to appeal that part of the decision to a full panel of the 2nd Circuit.
Newly elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he, like his predecessor Michael Bloomberg, supports the city law and would pursue appeals if it was struck down.
Friends With Parental Benefits
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Unmarried friends can legally adopt and co-parent, according to an unprecedented ruling by a New York judge last month.
Judge Rita Mella of New York County’s Surrogate Court named “two loving adults” in a “solid, decade-plus friendship” the legal parents of a toddler adopted from Ethiopia.
The parents, referenced in the case as KAL and LEL, met and became friends in 2000.
They worked together but never had a romantic relationship or lived together.
According to the court’s decision, KAL lives in a house in Brooklyn with a “housemate” and LEL lives in an apartment in Manhattan with a domestic partner.
“I’m disturbed by this decision because I think it takes us further away from the original purpose of adoption,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council.
“Adoption exists not to provide children for adults who want them, but to provide a home for children that resembles as much as possible a natural family,” Sprigg said.
Houston gets “First Lady” in Same-Sex Ceremony
HOUSTON, Texas – Houston Mayor Annise Parker and Kathy Hubbard participated in a same-sex marriage ceremony in California on last Thursday.
In a statement released, the mayor’s office back in Texas referred to Hubbard as the city’s “first lady.”
Parker did not make an issue of her homosexuality when she ran for mayor in 2010.
But in December she announced the city would start offering benefits to city workers’ same-sex partners, as long as they had a valid marriage certificate from another state.
Texas does not recognize same-sex marriage. Parker is now in her third and final term in office.
Congress Strengthens Religious Freedom for the Military
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Senate passed a defense bill with strong bipartisan support last week that includes important language to strengthen and protect the religious freedom of military members and chaplains.
The 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes the standard provisions for funding the military as well as amendments that expand the protection of military members’ religious freedoms, including their personal beliefs, actions, and speech.
Specific language in the NDAA protects the freedom of military chaplains to “close a prayer outside of a religious service according to the traditions, expressions, and religious exercises of the endorsing faith group.”
North Korea is Christianity’s Worst Enemies
SANTA ANA, Calif. – A U.S.-based group tracking persecution around the globe has named North Korea the worst country in the world for Christians.
Open Doors USA on Jan. 8 gave the hermetic country the dubious designation for the 12th straight year – as many years as it has compiled the annual World Watch List of top 50 offenders.
The organization estimates North Korea’s communist regime has between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians imprisoned in labor camps for their faith.
Open Doors, which is based in California, unveiled its World Watch List (WWL) during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The group measures how much Christians are able to live out their faith to determine what countries land on the list.
It considers spheres of private, family, community, national, and church life, plus a sixth sphere counting violent incidents.