Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Inspector General: Kenneth Tomlinson violated his office's Code of Ethics in applying political tests to hiring;

Fox News's John Gibson: liberals want to destroy Christmas as part of a war to eliminate Christianity; Focus on the Family uses the word "secularists," but he uses the word "liberals";

Californian Michael Newdow starts lawsuit to remove "In God We Trust" from money;

17-year-old in Florida granted abortion without parental consent despite new law against it, granted legal exemption for cause by court;

Focus on the Family argues against "Winter break" and "Holiday parties" in schools, demanding Christmas be used instead - Alliance Defense Fund on standby for interventions; a group called "Gateways to Better Education" is also involved;

FotF blasts crankiness over new condom labels;

FotF attacks Planned Parenthood over their protest of Target's policy allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense Plan B emergency contraception, which the fundamentalist movement condemns as an abortifacient;

Focus on the Family upset about a lack of massive indecency fines from FCC so far this year, want to see a lot of fines levied;

Ohio considers ban on any state monies going to embryonic stem-cell research - in other versions of this sort of thing, it's often included things like faculty salaries, but I don't know that this is the case here;

Bill in Wisconsin house to mandate "schools to teach abstinence until marriage as the ideal choice for teens";

Lawsuit over Las Cruces city seal, which contains a set of three crosses;

Some context over what's going on in Las Cruces recently - including condemnation of abortion as murder in public school sex ed classes, and fundamentalist videos and religious newspaper advertising receiving Federal funding, and also being shown as part of class - the cross thing is apparently part of an ongoing battle between the New Mexico chapter of the ACLU and local fundamentalists over tax dollars going directly to religious activities;

Concerned Women for America presents parody protest as terrorism;

CWA's article about the Federal Marriage Amendment, currently entitled the Marriage Protection Amendment, going to the full Judiciary committee, courtesy Senator Brownback (R-Kansas); CWA's Robert Knight is there, also talks about how Robert Knight helped draft DOMA;

Current version of the active Federal Marriage Amendment, currently entitled the "Marriage Protection Amendment," which is Senate Joint Resolution 1 (S.J.RES 1);

Conservative Catholics demand all pro-choice politicians be denied communion;

CWA's bullet-point-listed talking-points for Supreme Court nominee Alito;

Counsellor at Canadian (BC) public school disciplined for anti-gay public statements - Traditional Values Coalition tries to imply it was a Christian (private) school and a government fine, but his supporters (supporters) in Canada call it a suspension without pay from his counseling and teaching job at a public school;

Bush endorses splitting 9th Circuit Court into multiple circuits; Traditional Values Coalition sends out an action item in support. The general idea is to create a bunch of new judgeships and appoint people they like to the open positions. When Roosevelt tried this with the Supreme Court to push it to the left in the early 1930s, it was called "packing the court";

TVC urges support for Oklahoma Senator Inhofe's determination to fight any attempt to reduce carbon emissions in the US.

( Transcriptions, excerpts, articles )