The more recent case (Michael C. v. Dana Gresbach) resulted from an incident involving a social worker for the Bureau who went to the Good Hope Christian Academy to investigate an allegation that a young boy and his step-sister were being physically abused.

In an effort to substantiate the abuse claims, the social worker (Gresbach) not only questioned the children, who were eight and nine years old, but also had the brother lift his shirt while she examined his back. Then, the government worker had the girl pull down her tights to examine her for injury. According to the lawsuit, the examinations took place with no other adult present.

The American Family Association’s Center for Law and Policy (CLP) filed a lawsuit alleging violation of the students’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

CLP attorney Steve Crampton said now that a federal court has agreed, the ruling sends a clear message. “I think the message is kind of like what Ronald Reagan said some years ago: the government is not the solution to the problem; the government in many cases is the problem,” he said.

Crampton described the tactics used during the investigations as “kind of like Rambo coming into the families and trying to really dictate what are the best practices with their kids.”

“With the whole social services kind of network, we have to educate our Christian parents out there [about these violations],” he added.

The case marked the second time the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare was challenged by the CLP over a violation of students’ Fourth Amendment rights. In the previous case (Doe v. Heck), the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Bureau violated the rights of students at another private Christian school.

CULTURE
Americans fail test of religious knowledge
Did you know that Sodom and Gomorrah were cities in the Bible which were destroyed for their sinful ways? If you did, you know more than the majority of high school seniors.

That’s according to an article in USA Today, which cited a survey that said – shockingly – that 50% of U.S. high school seniors thought Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.

If that’s hard to believe, you might need to pick up a copy of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know – and Doesn’t. Written by Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, the book highlights what Prothero considers our culture’s disastrous ignorance of basic Biblical knowledge – and why that ignorance is bad for our republic.

It’s not just the culture’s ignorance of Christianity that bothers Prothero, since many Americans are also oblivious to the most basic religious beliefs of Jews, Muslims, Hindus – you name it. This lack of awareness can cripple Americans’ understanding of important current events.

“If you think Sunni and Shia are the same because they’re both Muslim, and you’ve been told Islam is about peace, you won’t understand what’s happening in Iraq. If you get into an argument about gay rights or capital punishment and someone claims to quote the Bible or the Quran, do you know it’s so?” Prothero asks.

Quarter of U.S. women have HPV
A federal study revealed that 26.8% of women in America – ages 14 to 59 – are infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that can cause cervical cancer. That percentage translates into about 25 million women.

The study was conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and published in the February 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Among women ages 20 to 24, the percentage of those infected with HPV was a startling 44.8%. An article on MSNBC.com stated that at least 30 million Americans are already infected with the STD, and another 5 million news cases are reported each year. In many cases, however,    HPV clears up on its own.

HPV has been in the news over the last few months as states consider making an HPV vaccine mandatory for minor girls in school. However, according to an article in USA Today, just 3.4% of the women in the study had the strain of HPV that would be targeted by the vaccine.

More scientists sign on as Darwin doubters
More than 700 scientists have signed on as dissenters who question the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution, according to the Discovery Institute, which promotes the alternative view of Intelligent Design.

“Darwinism is a trivial idea that has been elevated to the status of the scientific theory that governs modern biology,” said Dr. Michael Egnor, professor of neurobiology and pediatrics at State University of New York Stony Brook.

Egnor, an award-winning brain surgeon according to Discovery Institute, is a signer of the statement of dissent. The statement says: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

“More scientists than ever are now standing up and saying that it is time to rethink Darwin’s theory of evolution in light of new scientific evidence that shows the theory is inadequate,” said Center for Science and Culture associate director John West. “Darwinists are busy making up holidays to turn Charles Darwin into a saint, even as the evidence supporting his theory crumbles and more and more scientific challenges to it emerge.”

The statement and list of signers can be viewed at www.dissentfromdarwin.org.

EDUCATION
Pro-life literature allowed at Michigan school
A federal court judge in Michigan issued a permanent injunction against the Jefferson School District after school officials tried to forbid distribution of pro-life materials by students.

Judge Victoria Roberts issued the ruling in March, after student Michael Amble-Lucas attempted to distribute information during non-instructional time to fellow students during last fall’s “Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity” for the unborn.

“This literature was censored by the school district,” said attorney Byron Babione of Alliance Defense Fund, which represented Amble-Lucas. “They would not allow Michael to hand out these leaflets to his classmates, which is a violation of his First Amendment rights.”

The attorney explained that the permanent injunction constituted “a final decision on the merits” of the case and allows his client to engage in what Babione described as a “non-obstructive activity” – specifically “just handing a piece of paper, delivering a leaflet to a fellow student.”

In addition, said the attorney, the court affirmed the principle that pro-life speech is not “second-class speech” and has the same protections as all other speech under the U.S. Constitution.

Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity is a student-led event sponsored by Stand True (www.standtrue.com), a Virginia-based pro-life ministry. The fourth annual observance is scheduled October 23, 2007.

Professor’s anti-Christian stance overturned by school
Officials at Southern Illinois University (SIU) have apparently compelled a social work professor to grade a Christian student’s final research paper after the instructor had refused to grade it for four months.

For a research project assigned in her social work class, SIU graduate student Christine Mize had asked to include a faith-based recovery program in the project. Dr. Laura Dreuth-Zeman, her professor, told Mize that if she included such a section in her paper she would lower Mize’s grade.

Mize reluctantly submitted the paper without the faith-based section but attached an informational letter explaining that religious speech is protected on college campuses. Dreuth-Zeman responded by refusing to grade Mize’s paper at all. The professor’s action left Mize with a grade designation of “Incomplete” for the class, a class which she was required to complete to earn her degree.

Alliance Defense Fund attorney Amy Smith sent a letter to SIU officials on behalf of Mize, stating that Dreuth-Zeman showed a blatant disregard for the Constitution and the free speech rights of her student.

“It’s hard to tell what a person’s motivation is for their actions,” Smith said, “but the result of what she told Christine was viewpoint discrimination, based on Christine coming at a problem from a Christian viewpoint.”

Soon after the school received Smith’s letter, the paper was finally graded.

Two school cases involve speech rights vs. gay rights
Two separate incidents highlight the growing conflict between the free speech rights of public school students and the vigorous push to promote gay rights.

In February administrators at Gibson Elementary in Fresno, California, informed parents that students would be disciplined for using the word “gay” in a negative fashion.

A fourth-grader at the school has already been suspended for saying “that’s gay” during a soccer game – a phrase school administrators claim constitutes “sexual harassment.” Another student was sent to the principal for a similar infraction.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, sent a letter to school officials informing them of the constitutional issues at stake and demanding that they reverse the policy or face the consequences.

Dacus said the broad, arbitrary approach being taken in Fresno “seems more focused on normalizing homosexuality than on combating actual harassment.”

He added, “This amounts to not only a free-speech violation, but a clear breach of parental trust, in that it engages an open endorsement of homosexuality and suppression of students who think differently.”

Meanwhile a high school in Illinois’s Indian Prairie District has been sued for an incident in which a student was made to write over words on her T-shirt that discouraged being “gay.”

One day after students were allowed to wear T-shirts in support of homosexual behavior during the April 2006 “Day of Silence” – a yearly promotion by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) – Heidi Zamecnik wore a T-shirt that said, “Be Happy, Not Gay.”

Zamecnik was told to eliminate any reference to homosexuality by crossing out “Not Gay,” leaving only the message, “Be Happy.”

Attorney Nate Kellum of the Alliance Defense Fund, who is representing Zamecnik in a lawsuit, accused school officials of viewpoint discrimination, a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“A school cannot allow speech that promotes one side, that being the side regarding the promotion of homosexual behavior, and then shut down the other side of the debate, which is precisely what the school did here,” said Kellum. “Students do not lose their constitutional right to free speech just upon entering the schoolhouse grounds.”

The case is Zamecnik v. Indian Prairie School District #204 Board of Education.

PORNOGRAPHY
Judge nullifies online porn protection
After saying the Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, would infringe on free-speech rights if it was allowed to stand, a federal judge in March ruled against the 1998 law’s provisions which required credit or debit card access to commercial Web sites. Those requirements were included in order to protect minors from online pornography.

U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed made his ruling after online sites such as Salon.com and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit last fall claiming the COPA provision violated their free speech rights.

Jan LaRue, an attorney and co-author of the book Protecting Your Child in An X-Rated World, said the ruling – which she described as “absolutely ludicrous” – flew in the face of studies coming out almost weekly which showed more and more online exposure of children to pornography.

“I’m not surprised at all [by the ruling],” she said, “but I’m still very deeply disappointed that any judge could find that the right of pornographers to exploit kids with this horrendous material online has a greater First Amendment concern than do children to be protected from this kind of greedy exploitation.”

Other attempts to protect children from online porn have also suffered judicial rejection. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Clinton-era 1996 Communications Decency Act; the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Reed’s 1999 injunction against COPA, ruling it unconstitutional; and the Supreme Court upheld that injunction in 2004.

PRO-LIFE
Europe debates abortion
Europe is once again an open floor for the abortion debate, and arguments are getting louder as pro-life groups gain strength and support from American activists and other outsiders. 

Portugal is at the height of the controversy following the February 11 election in which the majority voted “to relax one of Europe’s toughest anti-abortion laws by legalizing the procedure during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy,” according to USA Today.

Portugal was one of the few remaining European countries in which abortion was illegal, except in the situations of rape, birth defects, or endangerment to the mother’s health.

Although 59% voted for reform in the recent election, the result is not legally binding since less than half of the electorate voted. However, the country’s socialist-run parliament has pledged to legalize abortion out of respect to the referendum result.

“The termination of a pregnancy in the first 10 weeks, carried out at the woman’s request, in a legally authorized health institution, will no longer be a crime,” said Prime Minister Jose Socrates.

Socrates added that work on the pro-abortion law would begin immediately, which is a setback for the church in a country that is predominantly Catholic.

BBC News reported that “Dom Jorge Ortiga, Archbishop of Braga and president of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference, said the church did not see the result as decisive because it never saw the question of life as a matter for a referendum.”

The debate continues throughout Europe, specifically in France, Poland and Italy where pro-life advocates are speaking up with hopes of being heard.

RELIGION
Appellate court again tramples First Amendment rights
Liberty Counsel attorney Mary McAlister said another ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has gone against U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

In March the 9th Circuit upheld the policy of a California public library that made meeting rooms available to the public for educational, cultural and community activities, but denied their use for religious services.

In effect, the Appeals Court’s three-judge panel ruled that, under the First Amendment, religious speech is entitled to less protection than is secular speech. McAlister said the ruling is outrageous but not surprising.

“They have a penchant for going against the grain on things, and for just issuing very outlandish opinions regarding the First Amendment, and really pushing the envelope,” the attorney said.

The 9th Circuit has been overturned by the Supreme Court more often than any other court. In its current term, the Supreme Court has reviewed eight decisions by the 9th Circuit and has overturned all eight. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich once remarked that he would favor abolishing the 9th Circuit altogether.

“To us, it’s just remarkable that they could make this ruling,” McAlister said. “In light of the fact that it’s just been so well-established that when the government opens up a forum, such as a meeting room, to public speech, then it’s strictly off limits for them to dictate the viewpoint and the content of what is going on in there.”