Matt C. Abbott
Reaction to Kavanaugh SCOTUS nomination; Law firm defends pro-life activists, battles sleazy 'sex ed'
By Matt C. Abbott
From LifeNews.com (July 9):
It seems many in the pro-life, pro-family movement aren't overly enthusiastic about Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. It's more like "Meh." Some are more positive about it than others. We can hope for the best, though, assuming he survives the confirmation process. It's not a done deal.
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Speaking of the Thomas More Society (which I've written about in previous columns), here's the latest update on the law firm's excellent work, "from the desk of" Tom Brejcha, founder and chief counsel of TMS:
July 10, 2018
From LifeNews.com (July 9):
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Sarah Pitlyk, a former law clerk to Judge Kavanaugh and special counsel for the Thomas More Society, which is a leading pro-life legal group, says Kavanaugh has an excellent record and perhaps the
best record of any of the finalists President Trump [was] considering. As she writes:
'On the vital issues of protecting religious liberty and enforcing restrictions on abortion, no court-of-appeals judge in the nation has a stronger, more consistent record than Judge Brett Kavanaugh. On these issues, as on so many others, he has fought for his principles and stood firm against pressure. He would do the same on the Supreme Court.'
It seems many in the pro-life, pro-family movement aren't overly enthusiastic about Judge Kavanaugh's nomination. It's more like "Meh." Some are more positive about it than others. We can hope for the best, though, assuming he survives the confirmation process. It's not a done deal.
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Speaking of the Thomas More Society (which I've written about in previous columns), here's the latest update on the law firm's excellent work, "from the desk of" Tom Brejcha, founder and chief counsel of TMS:
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No decent, right-thinking parent would want their teenage children brainwashed that 'hooking up' for casual sex is a good idea. Right-thinking parents would oppose 'sex education' by a propagandist who
advocates pornography and 'hooking up.' Yet a notorious 'hook-up' advocate, Nicolette Pawlowski, was scheduled to sneak into a public school, Whitney M. Young Magnet School in Chicago, behind the
parents' backs – with no opportunity for parents to opt their children out, which is contrary to state law!
Ms. Pawlowski tells young people, 'One night stands can be exciting. They allow you to explore new positions and techniques, not to mention new people... If you insist on having sex while drunk, you should be comfortable staying safe while drunk. Next time you are a little tipsy, grab that condom and a banana or sex toy and practice putting it on.'
When we found out that Ms. Pawlowski was scheduled to make such a raunchy presentation to the students at Whitney Young, we joined with a parent, who also serves as our special counsel and who is national president-elect of the Christian Legal Society, in filing a lawsuit to prevent the outrage. The principal backed down at the direction of lawyers for the Chicago Board of Education. It was our lawsuit that changed the outcome. Best of all, the settlement requires the School District to provide instruction to all principals at Chicago's public schools regarding sex education, and they are now on notice that the Thomas More Society will not tolerate sex propagandists sneaking into the schools to give sleazy presentations to children behind the parents' backs in violation of state law!
We are gearing up for a similar sex ed battle in Colorado, but there's not enough space in this letter to describe it. We'll tell you about it in a future letter.
You probably heard about the U.S. Supreme Court victory for the Christian baker in Colorado who couldn't, in conscience, decorate and custom design a cake to celebrate a 'same-sex wedding.' We filed an 'amicus curiae' brief for the baker, who won a 7-2 victory! We also filed a supportive brief in a similar case in Washington state for a Christian florist who similarly declined to custom design a floral arrangement to celebrate a 'same-sex wedding.'
We shut down a gigantic, Vegas-style strip joint that opened right next to a convent of 21 nuns in suburban Chicago. Our private investigator put together proof that acts of prostitution were taking place inside the building, and this proof was crucial to our victory.
As if that weren't enough, we're also fighting the culture war on the 'transgender' front. In our transgender cases (one in state court and the other in federal court) we argue for common sense so that high school girls aren't forced to undress in the locker room or shower in front of boys....
Another pro-life leader is falsely accused of making a 'bomb threat'!
Not many pro-lifers have saved more babies from abortion than John Ryan. John has been saving babies at St. Louis abortion centers since the 1980s.
On December 31, 2016, John was sidewalk counseling with another pro-lifer at his local Planned Parenthood abortion center. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, except that a police car arrived and arrested John in response to a Planned Parenthood employee's accusation that John had made a bomb threat!
(This is similar to the case I told you about in my last letter, in which an innocent pro-life woman was falsely arrested when an abortion employee accused her of making a bomb threat. The police kept this innocent pro-life woman locked up all weekend, during which time she was given the Midnight Sun torture treatment: bright lights kept on 24 hours a day, making it difficult or impossible to sleep.)
John was shocked by the arrest but not surprised that a Planned Parenthood employee would lie to get him removed from the sidewalk.
It turns out that the abortionists had an additional purpose in making the false charge against John. They used this incident to urge St. Louis to pass a new ordinance creating a 'buffer zone' that would make sidewalk counseling impossible. The abortionists argued that passing a new ordinance is necessary because pro-lifers had become 'violent,' as 'proven' by John Ryan's arrest for supposedly making bomb threat.
After John's arrest he was kept in jail for 35 hours. It has been our privilege to defend him.
Fortunately, the video footage helped vindicate John. The video shows no reaction from the complaining witness at the moment she claimed that John told her the place was about to blow up! Nor does the video show any evacuation of the building. Even the police didn't seem to believe the accusation because they didn't lift a finger to look for a bomb or evacuate the building.
John passed a lie detector test with flying colors, and the other pro-lifer who was with John on the day of his arrest backed up John's account of what happened.
No wonder the grand jury declined to indict John, for lack of evidence of a crime. But even after the grand jury failed to indict him, the local prosecutor decided to prosecute John for a felony anyway. So John had to endure a three-day trial for doing nothing wrong.
This was a big deal. We met force with force in the courtroom clash. It was expensive, but the stakes were huge.
You see, when the abortionists make a false criminal charge against a pro-lifer, we're not going to stand by idly and let the abortion lawyers make the charge stick. We're always going to fight! We can't always fight in person, given that our caseload is so heavy. So, to defend John we hired a veteran St. Louis pro-life criminal attorney who agreed to represent him at a reduced rate.
It took the jury only one hour, during which they had lunch, to come back with a verdict of not guilty. If it weren't for lunch, they would've come back in just minutes with the same verdict.
Getting justice for John was expensive: $52,107 in fees plus $10,156.52 in expenses for a total of $62,263.52. Was it worth it? Definitely! Preserving an innocent man's good name and getting justice for him is beyond price.
Don't you agree that the Planned Parenthood abortion center that made the false accusation against John should be required to pay punitive damages to discourage false complaints in the future? Planned Parenthood's dishonesty needs to be punished!
In the case of the ten pro-life heroes from New York whom we're defending against a vicious lawsuit in federal court, we had oral arguments two weeks ago. The judge's questions indicated that we have provoked strong questions about the legality of the New York Attorney General's case. The judge took the case under advisement. I'll update you when I learn of the judge's decision.
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