Monthly Archives: January 2014

A new rule allowing freedom camping for non self-contained vehicles at three sites around Dunedin is proving so popular the Dunedin City Council might alter its servicing arrangements for toilets and rubbish bins to cope with demand.

The council has been alerted several times this summer to overflowing rubbish bins and increased use of toilet facilities at the three sites next to public toilets at Macandrew Bay, Ocean View and Warrington.

''It's nothing unexpected, or particularly terrible, just an increase in use, and we are just working out when that use is spiking to work out what we need to put in place to deal with that,'' council reserves policy and planning officer Paula Dickel said.

The council eased freedom camping rules in the city late last year, to allow up to three self-contained campervans - those with toilets on board - within a 50m radius to stay on sealed areas of reserves and other public land for up to two nights.

Vehicles without toilets previously could not stay anywhere overnight, but now up to five vehicles were allowed to stay for one night in the three designated areas.

Ms Dickel said staff had been getting feedback from council contractors, the public and from the hall committee near where the toilets were at Macandrew Bay, and hoped to enlist more people to give them more feedback on demand peaks and troughs, so the council could work out what cleaning needed to be included in future contracts.

The bins and toilets were cleared regularly, but there would be a small lapse as the council worked out how much more cleaning was required.

In the meantime, anyone who saw bins overflowing or toilets needing cleaning was encouraged to report them immediately to the council, and contractor would be sent out to deal with them.

For people staying in the wrong places, the council was reliant on people reporting campers.

Any information people needed on camping around the city was available on the council's website, Ms Dickel said.

Follow this link:
Freedom camping sites very popular

A judge granted a temporary restraining order Monday to preserve evidence at Freedom Industries, where a chemical leaked into the Elk River.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A judge granted a temporary restraining order Monday to preserve evidence at Freedom Industries, where a chemical leaked into the Elk River.

On Monday, at least 18 lawsuits had been filed against Freedom Industries and West Virginia American Water after a leak Thursday caused the loss of water service to thousands of West Virginians.

The lawsuits, many of which ask to be granted class-action status, have been filed on behalf of businesses forced to shut down during the state of emergency and all West Virginia American Water customers.

The order, signed by Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stucky, will prevent Freedom Industries from further removing possible evidence from its facility.

"Plaintiff will need to inspect defendants' facilities and premises with the aid and advice of appropriate experts. It is appropriate that the subject facilities and premises be in as close a condition as possible to their condition at the time of the chemical spill," the order states.

A hearing will take place at 3 p.m. Jan. 23 to discuss whether the restraining order should continue.

Until then, Freedom Industries must not alter or modify in any manner "any structure, tank, equipment, material or condition of" its facility with the exception of changes necessary for stopping and cleaning up the chemical spill, according to the order.

The company must also keep, among other things, documents relating to any other chemical spill or leak from each of its facilities; documents related to chemical storage policies; warnings and instructions for all chemicals kept in storage tanks at its facilities; policies and procedures for each of its facilities, and any documents generated starting Jan. 8.

The company must also keep any documents and communications between it and West Virginia American Water starting Jan 8.

More:
Freedom Industries ordered to preserve evidence at site

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington is seen on June 27, 2012.

Alex Brandon, Associated Press

Enlarge photo

Thus far, there have been three major religious freedom concerns associated with the advent of same-sex marriage, be they social or otherwise. The most frequently discussed concern is when laws require organizations and businesses to do something that they believe is wrong. A second method of silencing the religious dissenting voices is a tactic frequently used by courts by stating either that there is no rational basis for laws defining marriage between a man and a woman or that the sole purpose of such laws is to demean gays and lesbians. The third attack is thus far a social silencing of pro-marriage speech. This third attack may well become more prominent and stray into legal attacks on speech because of the logic of the first two attacks.

The first issue has been present since the beginning of the legalization of same-sex marriage as bakers, photographers and even wedding planners have faced anti-discrimination lawsuits because of their beliefs. The extent of this first attack on religious freedom has yet to be fully realized. There have been attempts to take away the tax-exempt status of the Boy Scouts. This logic could be extended. Will religious universities that rent housing to married opposite-sex couples but not married same-sex couples be tax exempt? Will the tax-exempt status be eliminated for churches? We dont know.

The second issue facing religious freedom is best explained by the Supreme Courts recent decision on the federal Defense of Marriage Act, United States v. Windsor. In the decision, the Supreme Court dismissed each rationale presented by the many litigators without comment other than to say the act lacked any legitimate purpose. This led the court to conclude, as Justice Antonin Scalia summarized in dissent: [T]he majority says that the supporters of this Act acted with the purpose to disparage and to injure same-sex couples.

This impacts religious freedom because if, in enacting DOMA, Congress had a purpose to injure and demean same-sex couples, then by extension any person who believes in man-woman marriage has this purpose as well.

This problem will get worse if the same language in Windsor is used to invalidate state laws. In the first federal case to rule on a state's same-sex marriage laws since Windsor, Utah federal Judge Robert Shelby, parroting Windsor, ruled that Utahs definition of marriage demean[s] the dignity of [Utahn] same-sex couples for no rational reason. Telling this demeans Utahns who voted for Amendment 3.

These two religious freedom issues will ultimately lead to a third attack becoming much larger, an attack on the right to state ones beliefs. How is this so? If one is condemned for a belief in the public square, and is told that the belief is hate speech, it is a small step to say that the speech itself should go away. The logic will go that, given one cannot treat same-sex marriage different than opposite-sex marriage in actions in the public square and saying marriage between a man and a woman demeans the couple, why should speech in the public square be protected?

This third attack about religious freedom will be focused on both legal and societal pressure to change beliefs and silence speech about marriage. Most attempts thus far have been societal, such as Chick-Fil-A incidents or protests about Proposition 8. Legally, examples of attacks on belief in other countries include free speech cases. Likewise, we may have freedom of religion invasions through free speech invasions.

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My view: Same-sex marriage decisions and 3 attacks on religious freedom