Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Federal Court Hears Oral Arguments In Newdow v. Roberts

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments today in Newdow v. Roberts, a case that challenges the infusion of religion into presidential inaugural ceremonies. With the support of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center, the legal arm of the American Humanist Association, lead plaintiff Michael Newdow argued today that the United States District Court for the District of Columbia erred by failing to follow Supreme Court precedent when it previously dismissed Newdow v. Roberts.

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Brit Hume To Tiger Woods: Convert To Christianity To Recover From Scandal (VIDEO)

Fox News' Brit Hume gave Tiger Woods some personal advice Sunday morning, telling the scandal-plagued (and Buddhist) golfer to 'turn to Christianity' to make a full recovery.

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Argentine Ex-Archbishop Gets 8 Years In Sex-Abuse Case, Court Reports

(CNN) -- A former Catholic archbishop in Argentina has been sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual abuse of a seminary student in 1992, a court report said Wednesday.

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Paedophile Monk Allowed To Strike Again At Abbey School

A Benedictine monk who abused children at an independent abbey school in west London was allowed to strike again despite senior officials in the Catholic church and regulators being warned about his record as a paedophile, an official inquiry has revealed.

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Church Accused Of Disregarding Complaints Of Priest's Child Abuse

THE CATHOLIC Church in Germany has been accused of ignoring abuse complaints against a priest who reportedly shared beds, saunas and showers with boys and young men.

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Irish Bishop Donal Murray Resigns Over Cover-Up Of Child Sex Abuse

A bishop accused of covering up the serial sex abuse of children by priests resigned yesterday and a second said he was ready to stand down as the Roman Catholic Church sought to clean up its tarnished image.

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2nd Irish bishop resigns in sex-abuse scandal

Catholic abuse scandals

Irish Atheists Use Bjork, Mark Twain To Challenge Blasphemy Law

(CNN) -- An Irish atheist group has published a series of quotations on religion in an attempt to challenge a blasphemy law that went into effect on New Year's Day.

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Irish Befuddled By New Blasphemy Law

The Atheist Bus Campaign Has Kicked Off In NZ

Atheism is a positive statement about the limits of knowledge. Rather than taking a religious-like leap of faith and saying that there definitely is a god or definitely isn't a god, atheists just say that there's as much evidence for the Christian God as there is for Zeus or any other supernatural thing. That is, zilch.

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Latin America Sees Its First Same-Sex Marriage

Buenos Aires, Argentina (CNN) -- Less than one month after a Buenos Aires court derailed the marriage of Alex Freyre and Jose Maria di Bello, the couple wed Monday at the southern tip of Argentina, making it the first same-sex marriage in Latin America.

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Mexico City legalizes same-sex marriage, adoptions

Americans' Role Seen In Uganda Anti-Gay Push

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about "curing" homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda's capital to give a series of talks.

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Spiritual Awakening

Globalisation has been good for gods in the Indian subcontinent. As the region has remade itself, it has grown more devout, and its religions are becoming ever more entangled with politics

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Bangladesh bans religion in politics

Malaysian Court Rules Non-Muslims May Call God Allah

A court in Malaysia has ruled that Christians have a constitutional right to use the word Allah to refer to God.

The High Court said a government ban on non-Muslims using the word was unconstitutional.

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Assassin Shot In Cartoonist's Home Has Links To Al-Qaida, Say Police

Danish police admitted yesterday that a Somalian caught breaking into the home of a cartoonist whose work sparked riots across the Muslim world five years ago was a would-be assassin with links to al-Qaida.

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Religious Hatred Simmers In Terror Suspect's Homeland

AbdulMutallab is the 23-year-old Nigerian being held for allegedly trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day. While much attention has focused on his privileged background, less has been said about the religious conflict in his homeland.

Christians and Muslims have been killing each other in Nigeria for much of AbdulMutallab's lifetime. At least 10,000 Nigerians have died during Christian-Muslim riots and ethnic violence during the past decade.

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List of Islamic Terror Attacks For the Past 2 Months

Reports: Islamists Spark Deadly Fighting In Central Somalia Town

(CNN)-- Al-Shabaab rebels attacked a town in central Somalia early Saturday, sparking an intense firefight between rival Islamic groups, according to eyewitnesses and local journalists.

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West warns that Somalia is becoming a haven for international terrorists

Clashes Kill 73 Saudi Security Force Members, Official Says

(CNN) -- Fighting that has spilled from Yemen into Saudi Arabia has killed 73 members of the Saudi security forces since November 3, a Saudi spokesman said Tuesday.

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34 killed in Yemen terror raids

Taliban Blow Up School In NW Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Taliban militants blew up a girls' school in Pakistan's Khyber district Monday, officials said, as two soldiers and seven insurgents were killed in clashes in the northwest tribal belt.

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Suicide car bomb attack in market kills 33 people in Pakistan

Pakistan: Taliban brainwashes kids with visions of virgins

Blast in Pakistani Kashmir kills three

Death toll rises in Pakistan game blast

Death toll rises in Karachi suicide attack

Blast kills Pakistan official, 5 of his children

Suicide bomber strikes in Pakistan

14 Terror Suspects Mistakenly Kill Themselves

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely, police said.

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Attacks kill 8 purported CIA employees, 5 Canadians in Afghanistan

Pilgrims Killed In Baghdad Bombing

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- Two Shiite pilgrims were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad on Saturday afternoon, the latest strike targeting people marking Ashura, one of the most important annual holy periods for Shiite Muslims across the globe.

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Car bombs kill four in Baghdad

Al Qaeda in Iraq 'shifting its tactics'

Tale Of Two Cities Illustrates Battle For Israel's Soul

While the rest of the world focuses on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a divide is growing within Israel. Religious and secular Jews are increasingly at odds, and nowhere is the split more obvious than in Israel's two main cities: Tel Aviv, known as "Sin City," and the holy city of Jerusalem.

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Factions clash over Israel's buses

Defying U.S. urging, Israel to build homes in Arab East Jerusalem

Israeli troops kill 6 Palestinians