I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down an important ruling on religious freedom recently in the case of Inouye v Kemna et al. The case involved a Buddhist man in Hawaii who was forced, as a condition of parole, to go to a Salvation Army addiction rehabilitation program that required attendance at meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. The man objected to being forced to go to a religious rehab program and filed suit. The Appeals Court voted in the plaintiff’s favor:
While we in no way denigrate the fine work of (Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous), attendance in their programs may not be coerced by the state.
This case echoes many others around the country, including a case here in Michigan that is still pending in the courts, Hanas v Genesee County Adult Probation Department. Joseph Hanas pled guilty to marijuana possession in early 2001 and was placed in a program by a special “drug court” that would allow the charges to be dismissed if he enrolled in and successfully completed a stint in the Inner City Christian Outreach Program. Mr. Hanas is Catholic but this program is run by a Pentecostal minister, Richard Rottiers. More importantly, the program contained no drug or alcohol counseling at all, only religious instruction.
According to briefs filed in the case by the ACLU of Michigan, which is representing Hanas, he was required to read his Bible 7 hours a day and was given tests on his understanding of Pentecostal religious principles. The staff there confiscated his rosary and a Catholic prayer book that he had brought with him, telling him that Catholicism was akin to witchcraft. He was also barred from seeing his priest and forced to attend Pentecostal church services.
According to Hanas’ sworn testimony, Pastor Rottiers told him that he could not successfully complete the program unless he proclaimed at the altar that he had been saved. When his aunt contacted the program to arrange for a deacon from his church to visit him, Pastor Rottier told her that Hanas
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