Christian conservatives fight expansion of hate-crimes law
With a Democrat-controlled Congress and a president who has indicated his support for the Matthew Shepard Act, time may be running out for its opponents. To stop the legislation, a few Christian leaders have suggested repealing all hate-crimes law, which would undo historic protections for race and even religion.
“The entire notion of hate-crimes legislation is extraneous and obsolete,” said Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs with the conservative nonprofit Liberty Counsel, adding that he believes hate-crimes laws are unconstitutional.
In addition, a number of Christian conservatives have raised fears that pastors would be prosecuted for inciting hate crimes if they had preached against homosexuality, despite assurances that the law only targets physical violence.
See Christian conservatives fight expansion of hate-crimes law
USA Today
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Fla. Bar support in gay adoption case upheld
(Tallahassee, Fl.) The state Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the Florida Bar’s right to oppose the state’s ban on gay adoption.
Liberty Counsel, a faith-based legal group, had asked the high court to prohibit the bar’s Family Law Section from filing a friend of the court brief in an …
Supreme Court takes up dispute over endorsement of gay adoption by Florida Bar’s family-law section
State Supreme Court justices critically questioned both sides today in a dispute over whether the family-law section of the Florida Bar should be allowed to legally endorse adoption for gay couples. A circuit judge in Miami threw out the statute banning adoption by gays but the case is headed for the Supreme Court. The Bar itself has not taken a position but its family-law section sought to file a “friend of the court” brief supporting the circuit court ruling. Lawyers supporting the statute objected — saying the Bar shouldn’t be using compulsory dues paid by all lawyers to fight on one side of a controversial issue.
Tallahassee attorney Barry Richard said the family section is a voluntary association and that its lawyer members have a right to take positions. But Matt Staver, representing the conservative Liberty Counsel, said Bar rules forbid lobbying on either side of a hot topic.
The attorneys argued over the distinction between lobbying the Legislature and filing a legal brief in court. They also disagreed about whether a voluntary section of the bar is restrained by the same rules applying to the full bar.
Chief Justices Peggy Quince and Justices Barbara Pariente, Fred Lewis, Charles Canady and Ricky Polston pressed Richard and Staver on the legal distinctions.
Pariente said that if the prohibition on pursuing controversial, divisive issues had been interpreted as a ban 50 years ago, the Bar could not have taken sides on racial integration. Lewis said he doesn’t think much of “friend of the court” briefs, because they are usually partisan advocacy rather than independent guidance on the law, and that the public doesn’t make a distinction between a section of the Bar and the whole Bar itself.
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Adoption Emerges As The Next Gay Rights Battle
The announcement last week that conservatives had mounted a lawsuit against the Florida Bar to keep it from arguing in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to adopt in Florida is the latest evidence that adoption is likely to become the next gay rights battle.
Several events nationwide are pushing the adoption issue to the front burner of gay rights, but Florida remains at the epicenter of the debate.
Late last year, a Miami-Dade circuit judge was the latest to disagree with Florida’s 30-year-old ban on gay adoption, enacted during the infamous Anita Bryant anti-gay crusades of the 70s.
Judge Cindy Lederman’s order allows Frank Gill, 47, and his partner to legally adopt the 4- and 8-year-old half brothers they have raised since 2004.
Lederman’s 53-page ruling found the law to be unconstitutional and to have “no rational basis.”
The Florida Bar of Governors approved filing a “friend of the court” brief on January 30 supporting Lederman’s ruling when the state appealed to the Third District Court.
In an unusual move, lawyers for the conservative Liberty Counsel filed a petition in the Florida Supreme Court, saying the Bar is not free to file a brief in such cases.
Lawyers for Liberty Counsel argue the brief violates the First Amendment.
See
Adoption Emerges As The Next Gay Rights Battle
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