Newdow fails in bid to remove God from presidential oath
A federal appeals court on Friday rejected an effort to strip the word "God" from presidential oaths.
Citing largely technical reasons, a three-member appellate panel ruled that California attorney Michael Newdow and his allies weren't in a position to legally challenge the oaths. Newdow, an atheist, had hoped to avoid formal invocation of the deity's name in the 2013 and 2017 inaugurations.
"The only apparent avenue of redress for plaintiffs' claimed injuries would be injunctive or declaratory relief against all possible president-elects and the president himself," noted Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. "But such relief is unavailable."
British Judge: Christian Beliefs Have No Legal Standing
A top British judge has ruled that Christian beliefs have no standing under secular law because they lack evidence and cannot be proven.
Lord Justice John Grant McKenzie Laws made the declaration on Thursday (April 29) in throwing out a defamation suit by Christian relationship counselor who refused to offer sex therapy to gay couples.
Gary McFarlane protested that he was fired because offering sex therapy to same-gender couples violates his Christian principles.
But Laws said "religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence." He added that to use the law to protect "a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified."
No religious belief, said the judge, can be protected under the law "however long its tradition, however rich its culture."
Network managers are being urged to run a series of checks on their routers and firewalls to ensure their users will still be able to connect to internet sites in the wake of a major change to the internet's domain name system next week.
On May 5, the world's top domain authorities (led by ICANN, the US Government and Verisign) will complete the first phase of the roll-out of DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) across the 13 root servers that direct user requests to the relevant websites on the internet.
Judge Declares National Day of Prayer Unconstitutional
A year-old, incorrect story about Barack Obama "canceling" the National Day of Prayer made the rounds today. Meanwhile, in reality, Obama's Justice Department was defending the Day of Prayer to a U.S. District Court that just ruled it unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb declared section 119 of US Code 36—establishing an annual National Day of Prayer—to be unconstitutional. Her decision is available here. We certainly agree with everything she writes, and we're sure there will be no major controversy over any of this.
The Freedom from Religion foundation brought the suit, claiming that the statute calling on the president to proclaim a National Day of Pray each year is a violation of the Establishment Clause. Crabb found that the plaintiffs had the standing to challenge section 119 itself, but not presidential proclamations generally.
Just noticed the shout from a newcomer.
Greetings sailormyyn. I second Catman's motion - hope you'll come back, and introduce yourself in 'Pleased To Meet You!'.
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