Nashville, Tenn., Jan 15, 2020 / 08:34 pm (CNA).- Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced Jan. 15 that he intends to sign into law a bill to protect adoption organizations which place children based on the belief in marriage as a union between a man and woman.
The state Senate approved HB 836 on the first day of the 2020 legislative session, Jan. 15, after the House approved it last April. Tennessee has several Catholic Charities agencies that handle adoption cases.
The bill would protect adoption agencies that follow their religious convictions in declining to place children with same-sex couples. Declined applicants would be unable to sue an agency for damages in such a situation, the Associated Press reports.
Although religious adoption agencies in Tennessee have not been prevented from acting out of their moral convictions, the bill comes at a time when Catholic agencies in other states have been shut down or denied access to funding for declining to place children with same-sex couples.
The AP reports that to date, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, South Dakota, North Dakota, Virginia, Mississippi and Michigan have all enacted similar protections for adoption agencies to the one being considered in Tennessee. In March 2019, Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel settled with the ACLU and required all adoption agencies to match children with qualified same-sex couples in order to receive state funding.
Senator Paul Rose, Republican sponsor of the bill in the Senate, noted that the Trump administration last year proposed a federal rule change to protect faith-based foster care agencies.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced during Nov. 2019 that it would change its enforcement of previous regulations and propose a new rule, allowing faith-based adoption agencies to continue receiving federal funding while not having to match children with same-sex couples against their religious mission.
The U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB) praised the change at the time.
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Fargo, N.D., Apr 12, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- North Dakota’s governor signed into law Wednesday a bill that outlaws the common abortion procedure known as “dilation and evacuation.” Mississippi and West Virginia also outlaw the procedure.
Tammi Kromenaker, director of the Red River Women’s Clinic, the sole abortion facility in North Dakota, told reporters that before deciding whether to file suit against the law’s constitutionality, she will wait until the verdict of an appeal of a similar 2017 law passed in Arkansas is reached.
The practice of dilation and evacuation is the most common type of abortion performed in the second trimester.
The new law would not prosecute women who undergo or attempt to undergo the procedure. Instead, doctors performing a dilation and evacuation abortion outside of emergency cases could be charged with a felony and punished by a $10,000 fine and up to five years’ imprisonment.
In addition to Arkansas, similar laws face injunctions in Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Ohio, Louisiana, and Texas.
Tallahassee, Fla., Aug 3, 2019 / 04:21 pm (CNA).- The 1st District Court of Appeals in Florida has overturned a circuit court ruling which deemed a 24-hour waiting period requirement unconstitutional, sending the case back to the circuit court for further review.
Denise Harle, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, praised the ruling, saying “the appeals court was on solid ground to reverse the trial court’s decision.”
“Abortion is a life-altering decision, and no woman should be rushed or pressured into it,” she said in an Aug. 1 statement.
“The appeals court noted evidence from medical experts that the standard of care for significant, non-emergency medical procedures is that they are not and should not be done on a drop-in basis,” Harle said. “The court also described evidence of the ‘mental health effects and negative outcomes’—including suicide—associated with women who undergo abortions without adequate time to process the serious consequences and come to a place of certainty.”
Medical Students for Choice in Gainesville, Florida, along with two local abortion clinics and the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged in court a June 2015 amendment to Florida’s abortion law requiring a 24-hour waiting period between the time a patient is informed of the nature and risks of having an abortion and a physician’s completion of the procedure.
Opponents of the law argued it is an unconstitutional violation of the state’s right to privacy, and singles out abortion from other riskier medical procedures that don’t require a waiting period.
The circuit court in Jan. 2018 agreed with the plaintiffs, striking the law down as unconstitutional, with the judge writing that the state had not produced evidence that such a broadly sweeping law was the “least restrictive means” of safeguarding women’s health. The Florida Supreme Court had previously blocked the new law temporarily, while the court challenge against it proceeded.
The appeals court on Aug. 1 ruled that all doubts about issues of fact must be resolved before the law can definitively be ruled unconstitutional.
“Appellees’ summary judgment motion asserted that the 24-hour Law deviates from the accepted standard of medical care in Florida by requiring the 24-hour delay and an unnecessary visit to a physician,” the decision reads.
“But the State produced conflicting evidence from medical experts that the absence of such a decision-period after receiving information about the nature and risks of an abortion procedure and the procedure itself falls below the accepted medical standard of care.”
If the State’s experts prove correct, that the 24-hour Law brings Florida in-line with the informed consent standard of care, the judge wrote, then the law would pass muster under a Florida Supreme Court’s decision approving informed consent in the abortion context. The court sent the case back to the circuit court for further review.
The Florida bishops’ conference issued a statement supporting the law after its 2015 passage. They called it “good legislation” that “gives women one day to reflect upon the risks of abortion, one day to view the image of her unborn child’s ultrasound, and one day to consult with friends, family and faith.”
They also noted that more than two dozen other states have such waiting period laws, and that Florida “already requires waiting periods before marriage, divorce, and the purchase of a handgun.”
The cover of Raymond Arroyo’s album “Christmas Merry & Bright.” / Credit: Sophia Music Group
CNA Staff, Nov 16, 2023 / 12:40 pm (CNA).
Combining warm vocals and the classic sound of a New Orleans jazz band, Raymond Arroyo’s album “Christmas Merry & Bright” offers a fresh spin on treasured Christmas melodies. The recently released album currently stands among the top 5 on Billboard’s seasonal and jazz charts, top 10 overall on Amazon’s music chart, and top 25 on Barnes & Noble’s bestselling chart for all genres.
Arroyo, host of EWTN’s “The World Over,” called the process of making the album “an explosion and a journey of joy” in an interview with CNA and credited his audience for the inspiration behind his album.
Over the years, Arroyo has performed with the likes of Johnny Mathis and Aaron Neville, among others, on several Christmas specials, which led many to ask him about making his own Christmas album.
When he was first approached by a record producer to consider recording an album, he said his initial thought was no. However, after praying about it, he thought about how he could make it original.
“I dug into the origin stories of so many of these Christmas carols and songs we take for granted and discovered these incredible backstories and approaches to the songs that I had never heard before or considered before,” he explained.
Raymond Arroyo recording his new album “Christmas Merry & Bright.” Credit: Sophia Music Group
Together with Kevin Kaska — composer and arranger for hit shows such as “The Greatest Showman” and Disney’s “The Jungle Book” and “The Lion King,” among others — the album showcases the big band jazz sound from Arroyo’s native New Orleans in the rendition of Christmas classics such as “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Deck the Halls,” and “Feliz Navidad” with José Feliciano.
Arroyo shared that this is the first time Feliciano agreed to do a new rendition of his beloved Christmas song. When he first wrote it in 1970, Feliciano was “under duress” due to his producer pressuring him to come up with something original, Arroyo explained.
“So, he wrote ‘Feliz Navidad’ in literally 10 minutes. But in his mind, he was thinking of celebrating Christmas by sitting with his brothers on the shores of Puerto Rico, beating on tin cans and boxes, whatever they could find, and singing Spanish carols.”
Inspired to go back to the original context of the song, Arroyo proposed a bossa nova feel to the song and that it be sung “like two brothers on a beach.” Feliciano agreed.
Arroyo shared that many of his fans are surprised to learn that he has a musical background. He attended a performing arts school in New Orleans, studied acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and took part in several musicals.
“Growing up in New Orleans you can’t help but be influenced and surrounded by music,” he said. “It’s a part of your life. … So, there was a rich jazz world that swirled around me my entire life.”
Before returning to the recording studio, Arroyo saw a vocal coach every week, ran his scales, and is now preparing for a tour that will include stops in Phoenix; Dallas; Tampa, Florida; Cleveland; and Nashville, Tennessee.
Arroyo said he was “humbled and aghast” when he saw his Christmas album climbing to the top of the charts.
“When you see an album like this that really was a labor of love, and anytime you sing, it’s such a vulnerable art,” he added. “You’re putting your heart out for public consumption because it’s not like speech or book, there’s something removed there. It’s your voice; it’s your breath; it’s your mind behind it all. So there’s something very personal about it.”
Arroyo said that during this difficult time in the world, the album is a “gift” for his audience and a reminder to “focus on joy and the ultimate joy, which is the coming of the Christ Child.”
“It’s a touchstone of joy in the midst of chaos and gloom and darkness that light still shines in Bethlehem. And that really is the through-line to all these songs … the light still dawns in Bethlehem.”
He pointed out that Christmas music “is the only genre of music that your great, great, great, grandparents sang, you are singing, and your children’s children will be singing in the future.”
“There’s no other genre of music that has that power. None,” Arroyo said. “And I think it’s because it touches Jesus. That’s my take. It’s wrapped up in the Incarnation and in God, which is why it’s the only eternal music.”
As for future projects, Arroyo said he hopes to make another album but will “wait on the inspiration.”
“Mother Angelica used to say, ‘When God inspires you to do something, don’t question it. Run at it.’ And I’ve done that my whole life. Really since she told me that, because I watched her do that.”
A segment about “Christmas Merry & Bright” was recently featured on EWTN’s “The World Over”:
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