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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
Last week the Pro-Life Action League highlighted a recent letter sent by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), to his brother bishops.
Therein, Cardinal Dolan repeatedly underscored the fact that the HHS Mandate is first and foremost an assault on religious freedom, and that is how we need to frame this issue.
One of the the most striking passages in the letter reads as follows:
At a recent meeting between staff of the bishops’ conference and the White House staff, our staff members asked directly whether the broader concerns of religious freedom—that is, revisiting the straight-jacketing mandates, or broadening the maligned exemption—are all off the table. They were informed that they are. So much for “working out the wrinkles.” Instead, they advised the bishops’ conference that we should listen to the “enlightened” voices of accommodation, such as the recent, hardly surprising yet terribly unfortunate editorial in America. The White House seems to think we bishops simply do not know or understand Catholic teaching and so, taking a cue from its own definition of religious freedom, now has nominated its own handpicked official Catholic teachers.
The very first freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment is that of freedom of religion — which is most emphatically not limited merely to freedom of worship — and explicitly states that “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” is a no-no. [Continue reading ...]
Pro-life activist Peter D’Attilio [Photo via MassResistance.org]
A Massachusetts judge has dismissed all charges against peaceful pro-life activist Peter D’Attilio stemming from his arrest last summer in what was clearly a disturbing case of police misconduct.
I’ve written previously about this incident, in which D’Attilio was arrested after distributing pro-life bookmarks at St. Rocco Parish’s annual festival in Franklin, Massachusetts.
After a festival chairman complained to police and asked that D’Attilio be removed, officers approached him and asked to see his identification. D’Attilio responded by asking why they wanted to see his ID.
One of the officers, Patrolman Robert Burchill, responded that he “needed to know who he was dealing with”.
D’Attilio claims that Officer Burchill then told him he was on private property owned by the church, at which point D’Attilio claims he offered to leave voluntarily, but then Burchill told him not to leave.
D’Attilio says he then told Burchill he was illegally detaining him, and that the officer tried to put his hand in D’Attilio’s back pocket to grab his wallet. [Continue reading ...]
Walter Hoye (right) with the League’s Joe and Ann Scheidler at the Hilo, Hawaii Right to Life conference in 2009
Veteran sidewalk counselor Walter Hoye scored a major victory last week when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — widely regarded as the most liberal appeals court in the nation — sided with him in ruling that the City of Oakland’s “bubble zone” ordinance “unconstitutionally suppresses speech based on the content of its message.”
Pastor Hoye was the first person arrested and later convicted under the ordinance after it was adopted in May 2008, although those convictions were overturned last year.
While the Circuit Court ruled, unfortunately, that the Oakland ordinance was constitutional as it is written (pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hill v. Colorado decision), it also ruled that the ordinance is not valid as the city applies it, because police have only enforced it against Hoye, but not other speakers, including abortion clinic “escorts” who have made a habit of surrounding him, blocking his sign that says, “Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help,” and otherwise making it impossible for him to communicate with abortion-bound women. [Continue reading ...]
Face the Truth site in Lake Zurich in July where the League will return September 15 [Photo by Sam Scheidler]
The Pro-Life Action League’s site in Lake Zurich, Illinois on this summer’s “Face the Truth” Tour was one of the biggest and most successful of the entire tour. The site ran very smoothly and Lake Zurich police were nothing but professional and helpful.
That’s why it came as such a shock when Lake Zurich Police Chief Patrick Finlon wrote a letter to League National Director Joe Scheidler—which he copied to the media—complaining that the League’s demonstration had the intention and effect of disrupting traffic and disturbing local citizens. [Continue reading ...]
In response to the media coverage of the Pro-Life Action League’s visit to Batavia, Illinois on July 9 during our summer Face the Truth Tour, MySuburbanLife columnist Jerry Moore published a defense of the League’s constitutionally protected tactics.
Without taking sides on the abortion issue—or even saying whether or not he approved of the Truth Tour approach—Moore made the point that messages like ours—messages which many people simply don’t want to hear—are exactly what the Constitution was intended to protect. [Continue reading ...]
The mother of a 6th grade girl who was not allowed to wear a pro-life T-shirt at her public school in Merced, California filed a federal lawsuit this week against the school, claiming that the school violated her daughter’s First Amendment rights.
The design on the girl’s shirt can be seen above, right.
The school claims it had the right to prevent the girl (identified in court documents as “T.A.”) from wearing the shirt on the grounds that it violated the school’s dress code, which states:
Personal articles, clothing, or manner of dress shall make no suggestion of tobacco, drug, or alcohol use, sexual promiscuity, profanity, vulgarity, or other inappropriate subject matter.