...A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court seeks to strike down as unconstitutional Oklahoma's Defense of Marriage initiative, which was just passed by the state's voters on November 2. The suit also urges the court to declare the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional, an action that would have an impact on all 50 states. Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, says this lawsuit is only the beginning of a wave of court challenges to come. "We fully expect a tsunami of litigation designed to strike down marriage in different states across the country," he says, " including every state where voters approved DOMA initiatives on Tuesday night." A similar lawsuit filed in a California U.S. district court asks that the federal DOMA and state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage be declared in violation of citizens' rights to due process, equal protection, privacy, and "Full Faith and Credit" under the U.S. Constitution. Daniels says these and other court challenges simply underscore the need for a federal marriage amendment. "The constitutional problem created by almost a decade of activist lawsuits to destroy our marriage laws demands a constitutional fix," he says. "Ultimately, only our Federal Marriage Amendment will protect marriage -- while leaving issues of benefits to the democratic process in the states." [Jenni Parker]

...America's pro-life movement is celebrating Tuesday's U.S. presidential election results, and National Right to Life says it is only the beginning. NRL's congressional liaison, Carol Tobias, was ecstatic over the outcome of Tuesday's vote. "We have had several elections in a row where we have had wonderful victories," she says, "and we are building our majorities in Congress. I think we just need to stay diligent and keep working hard. We still don't know that we have the votes in Senate for judges. So we've got another less than two years, and we need to make another statement by putting more pro-life senators into Congress." Tobias told a District of Columbia press conference that 20 of the 38 new members of the House of Representatives are pro-life, as are seven of the nine new Senate members. And NRL's Doug Johnson believes, based on the records of the pro-life senators elected, pro-life causes should get a boost. He says the Senate gains could serve to advance bills that "in the past have been stymied by filibusters or anticipated filibusters." Also, Johnson expects the addition of seven pro-life senators will improve the prospects of the "Unborn Infant Pain Awareness Act" and the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees. [Bill Fancher]

...In addition to citing election results, Democrats for Life of America are pointing to a recent poll that indicates Democratic Party insiders are out of touch with the rank-in-file Democratic voter across the United States. A CBS News poll showed that delegates to the DNC convention were twice as likely as Democratic voters to support abortions in all cases. The good news, however, is that pro-life Democrats are getting elected. According to Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, Democrats who are willing to stand up for life are withstanding the pressures of the national party and representing the values of their local communities, and they are winning campaigns. "When Democrats take a stand and protect the rights of the unborn, we win elections," she says. "When Democrats campaign on a pro-abortion platform, they lose." As evidence, she points to some of the non-presidential election outcomes, noting, "We won the governor's race in West Virginia despite the fact that President Bush carried the state. We also won legislative races in states all over the country, including Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, and made the run-off in two separate congressional contests in Louisiana." Democrats for Life of America was founded in 1999 to elect and support pro-life Democrats and to promote a pro-life plank in the party's platform. After the disastrous results of the Kerry campaign, the pro-life political group hopes the national Democratic Party will rethink its pro-abortion stance, because Day contends, "They are costing us elections and abandoning our founding values of protecting and advocating for those who need a helping hand." The executive director says the unborn should be at the top of that list. [Jenni Parker]

...A pro-family leader suggests President Bush's election success may stem from the decision of a state Supreme Court justice in Massachusetts. Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, says after years of gains, the homosexual lobby saw its first crucial setback in Tuesday's national election. "This is the greatest defeat ever of the homosexual movement in this country," he says. "We had eleven states overwhelmingly passing marriage amendments. I think this was the great iceberg in the overall election. The pundits only saw the tip. I don't think they realized the strength this issue had." And Knight says George W. Bush might need to properly thank one key person involved in his re-election. "I think the first thing President Bush ought to do this morning is send a bouquet of flowers to Supreme Justice Margaret Marshall of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court," he says. "It was her crazy ruling last May, striking down marriage and overturning hundreds of years of tradition in Massachusetts, that ignited the conservative base in this country." Knight says Justice Marshall deserves a huge pat on the back for an action that ultimately galvanized pro-family values voters across the country, causing them "to rush out and enact thirteen constitutional amendments protecting marriage." Two other states -- Missouri and Louisiana -- had passed amendment measures before November 2. [Bill Fancher]

...A federal judge will decide whether the DeValls Bluff School District in Arkansas violated a prohibition against prayer in public schools with a baccalaureate service that included Christian prayers. Judge Susan Webber Wright has heard testimony in the case. It was filed based on a request brought by Steve Warnock, a former art teacher in the district. Warnock asked the court to find the district in contempt. The judge gave both sides ten days to file briefs. Warnock alleges that the baccalaureate service violated a previous order by Judge Wright prohibiting prayer or other religious messages at district functions. [AP]

...The Lord's Prayer is being banned at city council meetings in Des Moines, Iowa. Rev. Jim Kiernan, whose nephew is a city councilman, led about 60 people in reciting the prayer before a council meeting last week. But City Attorney Bruce Bergman says that violated a city standard that invocations use God's name only in a generic sense, to maintain separation of church and state. Mayor Frank Cownie says, "We want to do the right thing for all the people in the city of Des Moines." But Cownie says he fears that reciting the Lord's Prayer could be offensive to non-Christians and result in a lawsuit or court order to end all invocations. [AP]

...One of the staunchest critics of the Communist Chinese regime says he is not convinced that China is giving the U.S. much support, if any at all, in the war on terror. Steve Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute (PRI), says China does not have America's best interests at heart and remains a threat to democracy in its region. "I'm afraid that we're going to wake up one morning and find elements of the People's Liberation Army in Taiwan, for example, and that will be a real wakeup call for us," the Institute's spokesman says. "I am not convinced that China is giving us much, if any, significant help in the war on terror." One reason for Mosher's skepticism, he says, is that the Chinese "have sold large amounts of weapons to Islamic fundamentalist terrorists and they continue to do so." PRI's president considers China's status as one of America's allies against terror questionable at best; and he believes the regime's commitment to curbing terrorism may be as suspect as its human rights record. Mosher became familiar with some of the tactics of that Communist regime in 1979-1980, when he was the first American social scientist to live in rural China and was shocked by the abuses of human rights that were being committed by the government in the name of population control. [Chad Groening and Jenni Parker]

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