S. Dakota kills bill from survivors of Catholic school abuse

Louise Aamot Charbonneau couldn’t make her annual trip to the South Dakota Legislature this year to confront lawmakers with her story of surviving childhood rape and abuse at the hands of priests and nuns at a boarding school for Native Americans during the 1950s and 1960s.

The 69-year-old died suddenly three weeks ago. But her sisters, bonded both through family and survival, showed up, along with their daughters and granddaughters.

They continued their push for lawmakers to open a two-year window for victims of childhood sexual abuse to file lawsuits against organizations in which the abuse occurred. The proposal has died every year, but they keep coming back to confront lawmakers with their testimony that priests and nuns at St. Paul’s Indian Mission School systematically perpetrated rape, abuse and even forced abortions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/s-dakota-kills-bill-from-survivors-of-catholic-school-abuse/2020/02/24/70404e36-5755-11ea-8efd-0f904bdd8057_story.html

SCOTUS May Give Foster Care Agencies a Right to Refuse Same-Sex Couples

On Monday morning, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority escalated its crusade to legalize anti-LGBTQ discrimination under the First Amendment. The court agreed to hear a challenge to a Philadelphia policy that bars the referral of foster children to religious agencies that won’t work with same-sex couples. It also announced that it will consider granting religious individuals, groups, and businesses a First Amendment right to exempt themselves from certain laws, like nondiscrimination measures, by citing their religious beliefs. When SCOTUS hears the case next term, it could give people, organizations, and corporations a constitutional right to discriminate when they say their faith demands it.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/supreme-court-philadelphia-religious-foster-care-lgbt-discrimination.html?via=rss

‘India-US no longer just any partnership, it’s far closer’

AHMEDABAD: India and the US were “natural partners” and their ties and cooperation would play a big role in determining the world’s direction in the 21st century, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Monday in an unprecedented and unabashed public celebration of the bilateral relationship.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-us-no-longer-just-any-partnership-its-far-closer/articleshow/74291850.cms

‘India-US no longer just any partnership, it’s far closer’

AHMEDABAD: India and the US were “natural partners” and their ties and cooperation would play a big role in determining the world’s direction in the 21st century, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said here on Monday in an unprecedented and unabashed public celebration of the bilateral relationship.