The Pennsylvania federal judge’s ruling that booted intelligent design out of the Dover school district has found its way to Indiana. A group that threatened to sue the Hamilton Southeastern School District (HSE) over its refusal to teach intelligent design appears to be calling it quits.

U.S. District Judge John Jones ruled last week that intelligent design or ID, was basically creationism with a new label and could not be taught in public school science class.

Earlier this year, the group known as the Mighty Cannon told the HSE to add intelligent design to the curriculum. In the wake of that PA ruling (which does not have an impact in Indiana, by the way) President Alex Oren, says he’s not sure what good it would do to go forward, so their putting the suit on hold, possibly indefinitely. He says they still feel passionately about the issue and may try to work through Congress to achieve their goals.

Hamilton Southeastern school officials are praising the decision. Superintendent Dr. Concetta Raimondi says it supports the schools current curriculum that teaches evolution as well as supports state standards on the subject as well.

Reporter John Martin has an interesting piece in today’s Courier & Press about the salaries of Indiana’s college presidents. Citing the Chronicle of High Education, the C&P unsurpringly reports that IU’s Adam Herbert and Purdue’s Martin Jischke led the way. But here’s how private institutions paid their presidents:

1. University of Notre Dame: $464,323
2. Rose Hulman Institute of Technology: $402,885
3. DePauw: $326,061
4. Wabash College: $292,524
5. University of Indianapolis: $286,316
6. Butler University: $266,103
7. University of Evansville: $263,375
8. Hanover: $262,216

Of course the list is much longer, but the article does not list them all. It does however note that Oakland City University’s president receives the lowest at $62,545.

Following a Courier & Press story on Rep. John Hostettler’s “Public Expression of Religion Act,” Doug Masson asks, “Liar or Just Ignorant?” Doug makes some great points and I think it’s important to also keep in mind David Darlington’s words at ITA some time ago:

Fear can be as big a motivator as much as a legitmate threat. Even if there is no vast anti-Christmas conspiracy, the fear of one can get local schools and governments to change their plans as much as a phone call from a local activist. But here’s a crazy idea for nervous administrators, Christian or not: celebrate the holidays however you see fit. Be jolly. Say “Happy Holidays.” Say “Merry Christmas.” Don’t worry about the anti-Santa crowd until they show up at your door. Something tells me their numbers aren’t as vast as we’ve been led to believe.

But the best “War on Christmas” post in my opinion comes from Zach Wendling who artfully wrote about “The Deadweight Loss of Christmas“.

The Associate Press offers this report:

A woman with cerebral palsy is suing the Fort Wayne Housing Authority, claiming she suffered leg pains because her apartment’s toilet was installed too low.

Patricia Ferro’s lawsuit alleges the toilet installed in February at her federally-funded low-income apartment was 2 inches shorter than the original toilet, leaving her with pains in her thighs and legs when she used the commode.

The suit was filed by Fort Wayne’s Metropolitan Human Relations Commission. The City of Fort Wayne’s website says that, “The Mayor appoints four members to this board; each has a four-year term, and must reside within the City of Fort Wayne.” The News-Sentinel and the Journal Gazette offer more in-depth local coverage.

As you may have noticed from the byline on the post below, Abdul Hakim-Shabazz is now contributing to Indiana Barrister. Here’s Abdul’s biography, which will soon be added to the page of contributors:

Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is the host of “Abdul in the Mornings” which can be heard weekday mornings from 5-9 on Newstalk 1430 AM, WXNT. Abdul’s program focuses on local, state and national issues. His list of guests have included Governor Mitch Daniels, Mayor Bart Peterson, House Speaker Brian Bosma and Indianapolis City-County Council President Steve Talley.

In addition to hosting the morning show, Abdul is also an attorney, adjunct faculty member at Ivy Tech State College, columnist for the Indianapolis Business Journal and stand-up comedian.

Prior to coming to Indianapolis, Abdul hosted a morning radio talk show in Springfield, IL. Before that he was an assistant to the Illinois Attorney General. He’s also been a reporter in Central Illinois.

He is an army brat having lived for several years in Europe. He has one son, Gene. And several brothers and sisters, a few of which live in the Indianapolis area.

Sunday is Christmas day. A big deal for a lot of people, for me (the Islamic agnostic) it’s just another day. But while you spend time opening presents and hanging out with family and friends, I want you to think about the origin of that day.

Although Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of Christ, what people forget is that many of the customs and traditions associated with Christmas have nothing to do with Jesus. And I find I particularly interesting that someone individuals who are trying to hock books and free publicity are alleging there’s a war taking place.

Let’s look at some of the facts courtesy historychannel.com …

The Date – December 25.
Jesus was not born on December 25th. The date of December 25th comes from Rome and was a celebration of the Italic god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god. Also December 21 marks the winter solstice and many European pagan cultures thought this was a big deal.

The Tree
Early pagan cultures believed the evergreen tree would keep away witches, spirits and other evil items.

Santa Claus
He is actually closer to the religious meaning of Christmas than the tree and the date. St. Nick is based on the monk St. Nicholas who was born near Turkey in the 4th century.

Church Attendance
A number of large churches across the country will be closed on Christmas Sunday due to a lack of attendance.

Blatant Commercialization
Go to the mall in mid-October and look at the Christmas decorations for sale. Nuff said!

Conclusion
A war on Christmas? If there was one, I think that was lost a long time ago.

Merry Christmas and Happy Winter Solstice!

An important bill extending a moratorium on specialty hospitals has just passed Congress, the impact of which is wider than most realize. The battle between not-for-profit, general-care hospitals and for-profit hospitals that specialize in just a few high-profit procedures lies at the heart of the debate.

As background, the Stark Act prohibits physicians from referring Medicare or Medicaid patients to another entity if the referring physician has an ownership interest in the entity. Any referral of patients to a “specialty hospital” by a physician owner of the hospital would implicate the Stark Act because the referral of patients to the hospital will be for inpatient and outpatient hospital services.

Congress felt there was a problem with this ban, though, and made physician self-referrals exempt from these referrals under the “whole-hospital exception”. This caused about 100 specialty hospitals to spring up nationwide during the ’90s, including many in Indiana. But in December 2003 Congress placed a moratorium on physicians referring to any new specialty hospitals.

Now Congress has once again extended the moratorium, a move which significantly affects hospitals across the state. S. 1932 passed in the Senate yesterday by a vote of 51-50 (with Cheney casting the deciding vote), following the House’s passage on Monday with a vote of 212-206.

The Evansville Courier & Press has long been a leader in print journalism by recognizing the importance of blogging. On an irregular basis it will occassionally run excerpts of blog entries from In the Agora, a group blog I contribute to. Most recently it has done that with Indiana Barrister in a column printed today titled, “Take time to appreciate Downtown revitalization,” taken from this IB post last week. Although the Indy Star’s Expresso and Fort Wayne News Sentinel has integrated blogs into their website, the C&P is, to my knowledge, the first paper in the state to consistently run blog posts in print. Kudos for leading the way.

Famed radio talk show host Greg Garrison recently addressed Proposal 622 on his show, leading Advance Indiana to write:

Garrison repeatedly lambasted the HRO as the legal recognition of the “homosexual lifestyle” and “acts of sodomy,” ignoring the conclusion reached by every major medical organization in the nation that sexual orientation and gender identity are genetically or biologically determined.

Advance Indiana is reaching here because no where near “every major medical organization in the nation” has concluded that way. In fact, no scientific consensus exists as to the specific biological factors that may play a role, nor to the precise nature of their influence on sexual orientation. But all of that is beside the point, which is the legal implications of Indy’s new law. Because the law bars discrimination on “gender identity” grounds, the definition of the phrase is important. Garrison raised the isssue as one which could permit cross-dressing in the workplace, leading Advance Indiana to opine:

…Garrison completely exposed his complete ignorance of “gender identity”, believing that cross-dressing and gender identity are synonymous.

But Garrison’s “complete ignorance” seems to be well founded. The law defines “gender identity” as the following:

Gender identity means an individual having or being perceived as having a gender-related self-identity, self-image, appearance, expression or behavior different from those characteristics traditionally associated with the individual’s assigned sex at birth.

A plain reading would seem to suggest that this encompasses cross-dressing, and case law seems to have concluded the same. Several cases note that crossdressing is a leading symptom of “Gender Identity Disorder.” In Oiler v. Winn-Dixie Louisiana, Inc. (WL 31098541), for example, crossdressing was used to diagnose the plaintiff as having Gender Identity Disorder.

Psychology Today reinforces the notion that, although the two are not synonymous, cross-dressing is significant evidence of gender identity differences. What this means, practically speaking, is that an employee who decides to cross-dress and is subsequently fired for those actions may have grounds to sue under Proposal 622, just as Garrison suggested.

Yesterday the Indianapolis City-County Council approved Proposal 622, the Human Rights Ordinance which adds sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of classes, such as race, religion and gender, specifically protected from discrimination in the workplace and housing market. This kind of discrimination is already barred in city and state government hiring, but now any business with six or more employees must also do the same (excluding religious institutions and certain nonprofits). Mayor Bart Peterson is expected to sign the proposal this week.

Others blogging the ordinance: Advance Indiana, Bilerico.com, and Taking Down Words, all of which endorsed the proposal.

Off the record conversations suggest that it was able to pass in part because of vote trading for another big measure – merging the police and sherriff departments. Taken together the measures may have a larger impact outside of Indy’s limits than people realize. With similar “human rights” ordinances popping up around the state, and consolidation measures being considered in Evansville and Fort Wayne, all of Indiana is taking note.