DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: THE POLITICAL WINDS
SUBSECTION: RIDICULING RELIGION
Revised 8/20/99
RIDICULING RELIGION
9/26/98 Freeper reports ".. MSNBC quotes a White House source saying that not even "a delegation made up of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost" could persuade the president to step down.."
New York Post Deborah Orin "PRESIDENT Clinton would go ballistic if anyone slurred a White House aide's religion - but he's winking at aide Sid Blumenthal's attack on Ken Starr's top deputy as a "fanatic" evangelical Christian..In a speech at Harvard, Blumenthal said Starr deputy Hickman Ewing is a "religious fanatic" - apparently because he's an evangelical who prays daily. He also branded Starr a "zealot on a mission divined from a higher authority." And he painted Starr's probe as a "perverse episode" that will come to be seen as a "reign of witches" - a phrase borrowed from Thomas Jefferson..You'd think Clinton, a regular Sunday churchgoer and passionate critic of divisive rhetoric, might be a tad embarrassed by Blumenthal's cracks. But when the president was asked, he just dodged: "I don't have any comment about that."."
IRS AUDIT: Christian Film and Television Commission
TAX EXEMPT STATUS CHALLENGED: Christian Coalition, Three chapters of American Family Association, Life Legal Defense Foundation, Pierce Creek Church (Vestal, NY), Second Baptist Church (Lake Jackson, Texas)
The Winds Website 8/1998 "The only church in history to have its federal tax-exempt status revoked is a small country church in Vestal, New York called The Church at Pierce Creek. Their crime that resulted in that revocation was simply mentioning the name of then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in an advertisement the church placed in USA Today and The Washington Times.. "As a result of the Times editorial the IRS included pejorative language in their reports, such as 'militant right' or 'radical Christian right' to describe the church--terms that were never used in the actual New York Times editorial."To us this revealed that the government really had an ill motive in picking on this church.".Ironically, the IRS tax code Section 508(c)(1)(A) entitled, "Special rules with respect to section 501(c)(3) organizations" specifically exempts churches from the restrictions enumerated under 501(c)(3). "Since only in 501(c)(3) do you have the restrictions about political activity," May elaborated, "churches are exempt organizations, and don't even have to abide by the restrictions of 501(c)(3)."
Freeper followup note on the above: "Pastor John Hagee in Texas, who has 13,000 members of his church is also being defended by the ACLJ. Pastor Hagee calls them the way he sees them, and he has Billie a sinner many times from the pulpit. He wrote a book called Day of Deception He tells about how are government is decieving us and the darkness around us. In Matthew 24 it states that the cardinal indicatorof the terminal generation would be deception. The first 5 chapters are about deception in government. They are about Hillary and Bill--The death of Vince Foster, The village wants your children, etc. This for some reason did not set well with our dictators. So he sent the post office after him. They won't let him mail his monthly magazine under the non-profit status. They claim that taking people on a trip to the Holy Land has nothing to do with religion, nor did a lecture on Matthew, or something similar I can get the exact issue if desired, have anything to do with the church. So he must mail first class postage."
The Village Voice Nat Hentoff 8/18/98 "When the president and his spiritual adviser, Jesse Jackson, were in Africa earlier this year, a group of fifth-graders in Denver intently followed the coverage of the journey on television. They desperately hoped Clinton and Jackson would say something about the thousands upon thousands of black Christians and animists who have been enslaved in the Sudan with the encouragement and support of the totalitarian fundamentalist National Islamic Front--the government based in the North. These fifth-graders have become very knowledgeable about the horrifying chattel slavery in the Sudan. And when Clinton acted as if it didn't exist, they were furious, and one of the students wrote him, ''Why aren't you doing anything about this?'' There was, of course, no answer. As for Jesse Jackson's continued silence, he knows about the slavery in the Sudan. I have left him several messages, as have others. It may be that he doesn't have the courage to speak out because he doesn't want to offend Minister Farrakhan, who has been honored in Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan. Jackson has been careful in the past not to directly antagonize the commander in chief of the Nation of Islam.."
Underground Roman Catholic Bishop Su Zhimin spent 15 years in prison before his release in 1993; he was tortured throughout and then re-arrested shortly before President Jiang Zhemin's state visit to the United States in October, 1997 and remains in detention In 1997, Protestant leaders reported that about 40% of the inmates in labor camps in Henan Province are there for belonging to the Christian underground. In Henan Number One Labor Camp, for example, approximately 50 out of 126 inmates are imprisoned for underground church activities. On March 16, 1997, Peter Xu Yongze, Protestant leader with millions of followers, was arrested and jailed with seven others in Henan. Ambassador Sasser did not know what a house church is.
CNS Bruce Sullivan 8/12/98 "A Christian pastor and four men were handing out religious leaflets last week in a section of Las Vegas frequented by drug dealers and street walkers, when they were arrested, jailed, and strip-searched by the police. They were charged with blocking the sidewalk, then handcuffed, and thrown into a paddy wagon as denizens of "Crack Alley," which is what that part of Fremont Street is nicknamed, watched.." 'Sing your Christian hymns now,'" Robinson says one of the police officers said. "They compared us to the folks in Waco," Robinson told CNS referring to the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. ."
The Federal Election Commission sued the Christian Coalition, claiming its political support for specific candidates violated campaign finance rules.
The London Telegraph Ambrose Evans-Pritchard ".What if he puts on one of his magnificent, lip-biting, teary acts of contrition in the Oval Office, with the whole nation watching bewitched on television, and ends with an admission of the Lewinsky affair and a plea for forgiveness? . It would be utterly nauseating, yet it might very well work in the mushy, sentimental, post-Christian morality of fin de siŠcle America. He may skate yet, as they say in Arkansas."
Daily Press Briefing 9/23/98 Mike McCurry ".Q: Your use of the phrase of the "jihad caucus" -- do you think some people up there think they are engaged in a holy war against the President? MR. MCCURRY: I don't know. You'd have to ask them. Q: But it was your phrase. (Laughter.) Q: We have to ask you. MR. MCCURRY: I don't think it's necessarily inappropriate."
Freeper observation by The Oregon Homeboy "Frankly, I don't think the problem is with the Clinton Administration. While I detest Clinton and everything he stands for, he uses -- co-opts -- religion in a manner that does not directly attack it. For example, his work with the two pastors on "healing his soul" -- an example of using religion for the effect it has upon the religion's adherents. The deeper problem is in the mainstream media, many of which are not religious and thus contemptuous of the notion that a person can have a personal relationship with God."
AP Sonya Ross 4/7/98 "The White House said Monday that President Clinton has no regrets about taking Communion from a Catholic priest during his visit to South Africa, a move that was criticized by some American Catholics. .In a Palm Sunday homily, Cardinal John O'Connor said it was wrong for the officiating priest to give Clinton the sacrament, "however well-intentioned" his actions were. "Cardinal O'Connor may not be familiar with the doctrinal attitude towards the Holy Eucharist that the Conference of Bishops in South Africa brings to that question," McCurry said in response..."
9/26/98 Jewish World Review Binyamin Jolkovsky ".But now, as we've been banging on foundations' doors, our main rival -- an outfit called JCN18 -- and a former employee of that company who now writes for a commie weekly -- no hyperbole! -- are launching an attack on JWR because -- get this! -- Republican and Christian sites link to us. Because I don't want contributions from individuals who write pieces exclusively for us on the Jewish Sabbath (thus desecrating it), and because of of our positions on morality.."
Provencial Proverbs 3/4/98 ACE ".And today the pundits of popular culture tell us that good and evil are not absolute, but open to personal interpretation. The modern liberal believes it, and the classical liberal is adamant about it. We are encouraged to take it onto ourselves to determine what is right, and what is wrong. And on the surface, there's no denying it seems a philosophy that has logical and reasonable potential. Even the fundamental principles of the universe itself seem mathematically relative. There's just one problem. If I take it onto myself to determine what's right for me, how do you actually defend yourself if it isn't right for you? What if I decide it's right for me to deceive you in order to take advantage of you? I mean, it is relative, isn't it? And what if you don't find out until it's too late for you? Of course therein lies the rub.."
Freeper CitizenX reports ".I for one am sickened by the attacks on my faith. I have seen time and time again where when I speak out on a issue from a moral standpoint I am attacked for "forcing my faith down their throat". Even though I am choosing my words to speak from a scientific viewpoint. Example: If I do not mention my Faith in God, and state that abortion is wrong because the unborn child is not "a blob of tissue" but a living Human being, genetically unique from the mother. It meets all the criteria of life: cellular division, exchange of O2 and CO2, assimilation of nutrients, etc. If I point out that this life begins at the beginning, which is conception, and the willful destruction of a unique human life is murder, the woman who pays for this surgical procedure has in fact contracted for a murder, and the abortionist is guilty of not only murder but is in truth a serial murderer of children! If I say that I am told "Don't force YOUR religion down my throat!" ."
Reagan Information Interchange 9/28/98 Mary Mostert "Apparently word went out last week to the Clinton troops to try to defend Clinton by announcing a "Christian coup" that plans to "take over the government." Obviously they hope to convince America that lying under oath about sex is not an impeachable offense. The very idea, according to Alan Dershowitz on the Geraldo Rivera show, as he attacked the Rev. Jerry Falwell, is proof of a "Christian coup" that plans "to take over the U.S. Government by impeaching Clinton or forcing him to resign "merely for lying." According to Dershowitz, the sinister "Christian coup" is based on what he considers the perfectly outrageous notion that "lying about sex" an "impeachable offense." The message here is that any of you out there who are asking for resignation or impeachment of Bill Clinton, are part of "Christian coup" that is trying to "take over" America. Makes one wonder if Bill Clinton was part of some "Christian coup" back in 1974 when he was saying that lying - not under oath - just lying to the media was definitely an impeachable offense.It must be noted that Richard Nixon was not lying under oath. He was lying basically to the media before an election, covering up what he considered to be a national security operation gone awry as a group of younger aides tried to carry out his directive to find out how national security information was being leaked to the media.."
AP 10/11/98 "Aborted fetuses found dumped in a field have been given to antiabortion groups for Christian burials, a move critics say violates the separation of church and state. San Bernardino County Coroner Brian McCormick released the remains of the 54 fetuses Friday over objections from American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California officials, who said they may take legal action..The fetuses were found last year in cardboard boxes in a county field. Authorities traced the fetuses to a Los Angeles abortion clinic, which has since been closed. A truck driver for the clinic was jailed for 71 days for dumping the fetuses.."
WorldNetDaily 10/16/98 Alan Keyes ".The hate crimes legislation movement is bogus, but the existence of hateful attitudes toward the Christian conscience is undeniable. This is a very dangerous world that we are moving into. And sadly speaking, it is clear that opponents of the Christian conscience will use every opportunity, and will even make use of terrible and tragic events, in order to promote their political agenda. And that is what is happening in the Wyoming case. We face the promotion of a political ideology that aims at arming the liberal left with coercive force of law as its advocates come after those who disagree with their immorality.."
Freeper report 10/16/98 "I received this email today from someone who believes either that Christians are not being persecuted, or that they are and that they deserve it. The email originated from the .gov domain. Date: Friday, October 16, 1998 7:05:25 AM Subj: Christians persecuted? To: lazfilm@aol.com I read your article with interest Why are you Christians (I don't think you're REAL Christians) surprised and insulted when people defend themselves against something YOU started? YOU'RE the ones who have branded gays as sinners--YOU'RE the ones that don't understand the biology of sexual orientation (or evolution!). YOU'RE the people who started this--and to wonder why you're being attacked is ludicrous. What would Jesus do? Jesus probably WAS a homosexual-he certainly deviated from marriage and family and all your so-called traditional values--what would you label him? He hung around with a bunch of guys and had prostitutes for friends--he had no job, and he loitered around temples and banks. There is not ONE of you that would find this acceptable behavior today---You know in your hearts that Jesus would accept people's gayness--that's the kind of person he was--to think otherwise, is to deny your religion. Lynn
Washington Times 10/16/98 Julia Duin ".Family groups say they are furious at being linked with the murder of Matthew Shepard by TV commentators, newspaper columnists and homosexual activists. NBC, the network that airs the "Today" show, got so many complaints about comments by anchor Katie Couric that it told Focus on the Family Thursday to desist. "NBC was getting flooded with calls, so much they've called us today, asking the calls to stop," said Focus spokeswoman Amy Tracy. "When Katie made that comment on TV, our constituents started calling here. People are outraged.".On Monday's broadcast, Miss Couric and NBC reporter Geoffrey Dickens linked several Christian groups with the type of intolerance that reportedly led to the murder of Mr. Shepard, the 21-year-old University of Wyoming homosexual student who was viciously beaten last week and died Monday While ending an interview on Monday with Wyoming Gov. Jim Geringer, Miss Couric asked: "Some gay-rights activists have said that some conservative Christian political organizations, like the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family are contributing to this anti-homosexual atmosphere by having an ad campaign saying, 'If you're a homosexual, you can change your orientation.' That prompts people to say, 'If I meet someone who's homosexual, I'm going to take action and try to convince them or try to harm them.' Do you believe that such groups are contributing to this climate?" ."
San Jose Mercury 10/17/98 Richard Cohen ".IT IS expected of me, I know, that I would use the murder of Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, to lambaste political and religious conservatives for their homophobia. I will not disappoint. In fact, I will figuratively place the young man's body at the doorstep of Trent Lott, Richard Armey and countless other conservatives who maintain, somehow, that what President Clinton does in the privacy of the Oval Office has a baleful effect on national morals but their own public statements about homosexuality evanesce into the Washington night leaving, aside from a stink, no effect at all. They are wrong.."
San Francisco Gate 10/17/98 Debra J. Saunders "``WHAT MURDER isn't a hate crime?'' Jane Armstrong of Santa Cruz, asked yesterday. In 1986, Armstrong's 17-year-old brother Tod was shot four times in the course of a robbery, then left to die. Armstrong doesn't understand why Tod's robbery/murder isn't considered a hate crime, while the robbery/murder of Matthew Shepard, a homosexual college student living in Wyoming, is.."
Washington Weekly 10/19/98 J. Peter Mulhern (Peter the Lawyer) ".The anencephalic left pounced on Matthew Shepard's bloody shirt and promptly began waving it around. According to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, Wyoming police have arrested the wrong suspects in the Shepard case. The real culprit, he tells us, is Trent Lott. Senator Lott has an alibi, but this detail deters Richard Cohen hardly at all. enator Lott and other Republican leaders are guilty of Matthew Shepard's murder because their rhetoric "robbed homosexuals of . . . humanity," thus "legitimizing hate," and promoting violence. The smoking gun proving Senator Lott's guilt is his own statement that homosexual acts are sinful. For thousands of years this moral insight has been conventional wisdom. Now, according to Richard Cohen, stating that insight is bigotry and incitement to violence. Nobody tries to explain or justify this about-face. Our moral opinions are supposed to change in the same mindless way that we exchange wide ties for narrow ones and vice versa. We don't need reasons; fashion reigns. enator Lott's view of homosexuality grows out of the integrated moral philosophy that is woven into American society. The liberal view rests on the moral philosophy of the 1960's -- "if it feels good do it." But people like Richard Cohen have no respect for depth and no aversion to shallowness. The sillier a liberal idea gets, the more viciously liberals attack those who reject it.The only intelligible message one can derive from Richard Cohen's shameful attack on Trent Lott is that people who reject current liberal orthodoxy are bad. Disagreement is tantamount to murder; conformity is the duty of every decent person. iberals demand deference for their beliefs, but they proudly display contempt for the beliefs of others. When outraged Christians succeeded in raising some doubt about whether Corpus Christi would be produced, liberals cried foul, citing the First Amendment. Freedom of speech, they argued, demands that there be no social restraints on the presentation of controversial views. his is a truly radical suggestion. The Bill of Rights has traditionally dealt only with the limits of government action. The Christian protest of Corpus Christi never sought to have the government ban the offensive production. The protesters are asking that those responsible for the play cancel it voluntarily because it falls outside the bounds of good taste.."
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 10/19/98 Editorial ". Christians are responsible for the death of Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old gay college student who was kidnapped, robbed and pistol-whipped, then left tied to a fence on a Wyoming ranch on Oct. 7. At least that's the slant NBC News felt compelled to include in a story it aired last Tuesday, the morning after Mr. Shepard died...From Mr. Gregory's Oct. 13 report on the ``Today'' show: ``Even as friends of Matthew Shepard held a candlelight vigil in his honor, gay civil rights groups rushed to condemn the killing, portraying Shepard as a casualty of a new cultural war against gays and lesbians, a war declared this summer by a coalition of religious right groups including the Christian Coalition, which funded advertisements in major newspapers and commercials on TV promoting a campaign to convert homosexuals to heterosexuality.'' .By the way, after leaving Shepard for dead, police say Henderson and McKinney returned to Laramie, picking a street fight with two Hispanics. In this current climate of political correctness, can there be any doubt that the chihuahua of Taco Bell commercial fame somehow won't be blamed?.."
The Washington Times 10/19/98 Robert Stacy McCain ".David Horowitz spent the 1960s as a radical leftist, urging the overthrow of the U.S. government. Nowadays, he's a conservative who would be content with the overthrow of the Clinton administration..As the son of Communist Party members - a so-called "red diaper baby" - Mr. Horowitz studied the works of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky from an early age. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, "those ideas are alive and well today in America." ..But such movements - which Mr. Horowitz described as "kitsch Marxism" - have proven powerful in the 1990s. "The reason for the tenacity of the Marxist world view is because it's really a religion," he said, "a movement of people who think that government can create the kingdom of heaven on earth." This religion is most powerful, Mr. Horowitz said, in American universities. "There are more Marxists in our universities today than ever before," he said. "The university now defines itself as an agent of social change. . . . Everything is about power." Conservatives, he said, should not underestimate the left. "These are very smart people. They are very ruthless. . . . They're not going to tell you what their agenda is."."
Roll Call 10/19/98 Morton M. Kondracke "The Monica Lewinsky scandal has hit the high culture. Distinguished writers regard it not as a tale of tawdry sex and perjury, but of American freedom menaced by ayatollahs, Tourquemadas, McCarthyites and Salem witch hunters. The menace is Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, who is pictured as the leading agent in a right-wing Puritan conspiracy to remove that most precious of all American liberties. It's not freedom of belief or expression, according to the authors ventilating in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and The New York Times, but the right to engage in sex anywhere, anytime, including in the Oval Office during working hours.The archetypes being drawn by authors such as Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, E.L. Doctorow and Ethan Canin are of Clinton as a flawed but humanistic leader entrapped, victimized and, possibly, martyred by forces of antediluvian religiosity.."
WorldNetDaily 10/20/98 Jane Chastain "There is no scientific proof that one is born homosexual. It is a movement grounded in politics not science. In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the American Psychiatric Association's official list of disorders, not as a result of any scientific breakthrough, but by a campaign of intimidation and harassment. An independent poll of APA members conducted at the time showed that an overwhelming majority considered it to be a treatable disorder. Under continued pressure from homosexual activists, the APA subsequently voted to "normalize" sadomasochism and pedophilia.."
Jewish World Review 10/20/98 Thomas Sowell ".People who glibly talk about "hate crimes" ignore both the past and the implications for the future in what they are advocating. It took centuries of struggle and people putting their lives on the line to get rid of the idea that a crime against "A" should be treated differently than the same crime committed against "B." After much sacrifice and bloodshed, the principle finally prevailed that killing a peasant deserved the same punishment as killing a baron. Now the "hate crime" advocates want to undo all that and take us back to the days when punishment did not fit the crime, but varied with who the crime was committed against.."
The Nation 11/11/98 Tony Kushner ". Trent Lott endorses murder, of course; his party endorses murder, his party endorses discrimination against homosexuals and in doing so it endorses the ritual slaughter of homosexuals. Trent Lott endorses murder. He knows that discrimination kills. Pope John Paul II endorses murder.None of these kids will ever be allowed to marry the person she or he loves, not while the Pope and his church can prevent it; all of these kids are told, by the Holy Catholic Church, and by the Episcopalians and Lutherans and Baptists and Orthodox Jews: Your love is cursed by God. To speak out against murdering those who are discriminated against is to speak out against discrimination. To remain silent is to endorse murder.. If you are lesbian, gay, transgendered, bi, reading this, here's one good place to assign blame: The Human Rights Campaign's appalling, post-Shepard endorsement of Al D'Amato dedicates our resources to the perpetuation of a Republican majority in Congress. The HRC, ostensibly our voice in Washington, is in cahoots with fag-bashers and worse. If you are a heterosexual person, and you are reading this: Yeah yeah yeah, you've heard it all before, but if you have not called your Congressperson to demand passage of a hate crimes bill that includes sexual orientation, and e-mailed every Congressperson, if you have not gotten up out of your comfortable chair to campaign for homosexual and all civil rights--campaign, not just passively support--may you think about this crucified man, and may you mourn, and may you burn with a moral citizen's shame."
Provincial Proverbs 3/4/98 ACE c 1998 from Freeper Coyote ".On June 17, 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court forbade Bible reading and prayer in the public schools. One of the nation's most popular magazines later echoed the spirit of this sentiment by running a cover article, entitled "Is God Dead?" It was then followed in the early 1990's by another cover entitled "The Cultural Elite," virtually exhorting the success of the Gramscian thesis. Few knew enough to even take notice. Christian bashing became the norm in popular intellectual circles. New age values became the catch morality. And since that 1963 ruling, the number of U.S. violent crime offenses exploded upward by 700%. The U.S. now has the highest per-capita rate of felony incarceration of all the industrialized First World nations. Premarital sex among 18 year olds jumped from 30% of the population, to 70%. Tax rates for a family of four skyrocket 500% to consume a fourth of their income. Divorce rates quadrupled. Illegitimate births among the black population soared from about 23% to more than 68%, leaving mothers contained by the state and fatherless children to roam the streets in search of trouble. Illegitimacy as a whole has jumped from 5% to nearly 30% nationwide for a total rise of 600%! On July 17, 1994, the New York Times even quoted liberal Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan saying that overall American illegitimacy could rise to 50% by the year 2000! Cases of sexually transmitted disease rose 150%. Virtually lethal sexually transmitted plagues like AIDS and Hepatitis C swept through the nation, even tainting the blood supply. Teen age illegitimate pregnancies are up by several thousand percent, and teen age suicides have increased by 200%. Even the president himself is accused of sexual harassment, and having orax sex with a 21 year old intern in the Oval Office of the White House. Between 1950 and 1979, serious crime committed by children under 15 increased 11,000%! That's eleven thousand percent! Say it again: ELEVEN THOUSAND PERCENT!."
Click here for the complete Original Sin articleNational Review On-line 10/26/98 Jonah Goldberg ".In today's New York Times, Bill Safire rightly scolds President Clinton for telling a group of black ministers that reaching peace in the Middle East was part of his "personal journey of atonement." Safire calls Clinton "smarmy and solipsistic" for making the peace agreement a self-centered achievement. But this is Bill Clinton's way. There's a larger point to be made here, too. Clinton's spinners consistently and constantly say that the President has not been distracted by the scandal. But now the President says he's going for peace in the Middle East to make amends for Monica. You can't have it both ways.."
The Washington Times (Weekly) 10/19-25/98 Editorial ". On October 7 in Laramie, Wyoming police say , two men lured a college student our of a local bar to their truck, beat him, tiedhim to a fence post, pistol-whipped him with a .357 magnum, robbed him and left him for dead in near- freezing temperatures. Then they did something really, really heinous. They reportedly derided the victim for his homosexuality. ..But it wsn't swift and sure justice for the suspects that the critics were demanding. It was public consciiousness-raisingand attitude adjustment. "I was deeply grieved by the act of violence perpetrated against Matthew Shepard," said President Clinton. "There is nothing more important to the future of this country than our standing together against intolerance, prejudice and violent bigotry." How about standing together against violent crime? In a letter to the Laramie Daily Boomerang, two Unitarian Church ministers complained that the incident was atypical in its brutality but not in its "underlying motive" --And they weren't talking about robbery. Gays in Laramioe they said, "are frequently assaulted with derision, intolerance, insult and hostility--if not guns and ropes." The two apparently make no distinction between derision and hangings or shootings, but derision didn't kill Matthew Shepard. The deliberate blurring of thought, word and deed in this case is regrettable for a couple of reasons. Rather than turn hate into some kind of thought crime, it actually diminishes the horror of the murder itself. There is no such thing as a good motive for murder.."
Fox Online 10/28/98 Barbara Fischkin ".The Free Republic, a self-described conservative forum, is planning an anti-Clinton march on Washington on Oct. 31.. There are rumors that Tripp herself may speak. She has become something of a folk heroine, this marginally professional, deceitful woman. She is a folk heroine to some of the same people who believe abortion and homosexuality are always wrong."
LifeSite Daily News 10/29/98 ".John Holmes of the Association of Christian Schools International revealed that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is requiring all participants in federal school nutrition programs and other USDA programs -- including religious schools and other religious institutions -- to display a poster saying that discrimination is prohibited on the basis of "race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or family status." Holmes noted that US law does not establish "sexual orientation" or "political beliefs" as a protected class. In a release by the National Center for Public Policy Research Holmes said that Congress should be informed that the USDA is forcing compliance with a statute the Congress has not approved.."
The American Cause 10/30/98 Patrick J Buchanan ".A week ago, an assassin fired through the kitchen window of Barnett Slepian, an obstetrician who did abortions in Amherst, N.Y. And like the murder of Matthew Shepard, the slaying of Slepian was seized upon and exploited to initiate a new moral pogrom against the American right. In Shepard's case, social conservatives who condemn homosexual conduct as immoral were charged with giving aid and comfort to his murderers. And those who decry abortion as "the killing of the unborn" are now accused of giving moral sanction to the killing of Slepian. The "hot rhetoric" of "right-wing extremists," the charge runs, has created an environment in which men feel justified in murdering doctors and gays. That it is a vicious lie, however, does not make it ineffective, especially when the Big Media concur in and promote it.. Shepard and Slepian are now being beatified as martyrs to the causes of gay rights and abortion rights. This, too, is false. Shepard was not fighting for gay rights on the night of his death. He was killed while out cruising for gay sex by thugs out cruising for easy mugging victims. Dr. Slepian was almost surely murdered by someone who believed he had been doing to death unborn children, which is exactly what Dr. Slepian had been doing, though that did not give anyone the right to murder him. Because the killings of Slepian and Shepard were wrong does not make what they were doing heroic or right..What is the truth? America is a country where slurs about minorities have been rightly purged from public speech, but the left freely employs such hate terms as racist, bigot, Nazi, fascist and homophobe. It is a country where -- as one can divine from the identity of the speakers shouted down on campuses and the storm troopers doing the shouting -- the greatest intolerance is on the left. It is a nation where the principal victims of sex crimes are not gays but women, boys and girls, and pedophiles are among the principal victimizers of the latter. It is a land where 35 million defenseless unborn children have been done to death in 25 years, and, yes, two abortionists have been killed and a number of clinics bombed. It is a nation where people who pillage and burn cities like L.A. are more likely to belong to the Crips and the Bloods than the Michigan Militia. Social conservatives will be making a fateful mistake if they do not stand in battle against this wicked characterization of who they are.."
Freeper black cloud 10/31/98 reports ".It is not that religion is under attack; it is the Christian Religion under attack. All the other religions including Secular Humanism are free to do whatever they wish including attacks on Christians.The prize is the return of slavery and Feudalism to the whole world. It is Christianity alone that brought about the connection of man as being part of God with a human, personal family relationship with Jesus, the Son of God. Whether this is fact or fiction is a matter of faith. However, the result of the belief is that Kings and other dictators lost control of the masses when man started giving his allegiance to a Heavenly Father instead of the ruling elite..People who accept that their nearest relative is a chimpanzee and their fartherest relatives were simple amoebas, can only expect the rights relegated to chimps and amoebas. This is the legacy of the sixties counter culture and this is the legacy of their hero in the White House.."
New York Times 11/8/98 Maureen Dowd ".There's a new spirit wafting through the land. Hey, baby, we're talking about love power. The voters have chosen the lovers over the haters. The meanies with the jangly names -- Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Lauch Faircloth, Fob James, "B-1" Bob Dornan -- are toast. So are the guys like Al D'Amato, who sneered and jeered and used ethnic and anatomical epithets. So are the Christian zealots. And obsessive special prosecutors. The Democratic lover boys, like Bill Clinton, and the Republican preachers of compassion, like the Bush boys, are being embraced.."
Freeper robnoel 11/8/98 reports ".Just when I thought I have heard everything....on CNN Roberts.. of US News and World Report...said the Republicans need to get rid of the Hamas -Wing of the Republican Party....add that to Comrade Reno putting a FBI Police force to got after "pro- life"orgainizations (Bob Barr exposed this FBI expansion hidden in the budget bills).....Christians attacked in America...whats wrong with this picture....."
Reuters 11/9/98 ".California Congresswoman Mary Bono has long had ties with the Church of Scientology and is still linked with the organization, according to several sources. Bono has taken at least six courses in the religion, according to Celebrity, a Scientology publication that chronicles activities of prominent members. One course, which she took in 1990, was on family counseling...The church has been at the center of several controversies recently; critics accuse it of cultlike tactics and attempts to influence government. Defenders and members of the church, which not long ago received tax-exempt status as a religion from the IRS, say it is the victim of harassment and violation of constitutional rights to religious freedom.."
Larry Margasak 11/10/98 AP ".Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Republicans "haven't read the election results'' and referred to Starr's perjury and obstruction-of-justice investigation as a "jihad'' - the Arabic word for a holy war.."
www.ewtn.com 11/10/98 ".Two Catholic churches and a pro-life group received letters that threatened they contained anthrax bacteria on Monday, 10 days after abortion clinics in four Midwestern states received similar threats. St. Matthew's Church and School in Indianapolis, Queen of Martyrs' Church in Cheektowaga, New York, and the Chicago office of the Pro-Life Action League all received letters that said, "You have been exposed to anthrax." The note was identical to a threat sent 10 days ago to the abortion clinics. Those letters had a Cincinnati postmark while the most recent threats had Texas and Illinois postmarks. Six parish staff and 481 students and teachers were treated for possible exposure to anthrax at St. Michael's, although authorities did know if the threat was real. Nine people were decontaminated at Queen of Martyrs, which is located near Amherst, New York where abortionist Barnett Slepian was murdered last month. None of the seven workers at the Pro-Life Action League were evacuated or treated. That group lost a lawsuit earlier this year that had been brought by pro-abortion groups.."
The Oklahoman 11/11/98 Cal Thomas ".MOTHER Teresa used to warn anyone who would listen that the abortion culture cheapens human life and finds expression in violent streets, terrorism of all sorts and a debasing of the uniqueness of human beings. She might have argued, were she still with us, that the murder of Dr. Barnett Slepian, who performed abortions in Amherst, N.Y., proves her point. While his killing by a sniper is indefensible and the antithesis of what it means to be pro- life, it also demonstrates where our 25-year inattention to protecting the endowed and unalienable right to life has brought us.Three abortionists have been murdered in the past five years, as have three clinic employees and a clinic "escort." But in the same period, more than 6 million babies have been denied their right to live. In the 25 years since the Roe vs. Wade ruling a staggering 30 million babies have died. No Times editorialist weeps for them or for what they might have become. Abortion is an industry that makes millions of dollars by exploiting women. As abortion is tolerated, pressure builds to remove protections on human life at other stages. That abortion is still conducted in secret, shielding us from confronting this immoral act, does not diminish its significance. The industry is able to keep us from having a full-scale debate because it has elevated "choice" to a sacrament, even while denying women access to the latest technology and information (like adoption) that frequently results in many choosing life for their unborn.."
The Dallas Morning News 11/11/98 ".A word of sympathy, brethren, for the "religious right." And before I proceed, one innocent question: Anybody remember the last time our all-knowing media dissected something called the "secular left"? Just asking."
Newsmax.com 11/27/98 Pat Buchanan ".Buried in the editorial page of the Nov. 16 Wall Street Journal was a remarkable essay, which exposes the true, and hidden, story of who is really "underrepresented" in our elite schools, and who are the real victims of ethnic bigotry in America. The author is Ron Unz, a Harvardian 20 years ago, now a California political activist and entrepreneur, who led the successful state initiative to abolish bilingual education. According to Unz, today at Harvard College, Hispanic and black enrollment has reached 7 percent and 8 percent, respectively, slightly less than the 10 percent and 12 percent of the U.S. population that is Hispanic and black. This has been a cause of protests at Harvard, as Hispanics and African-Americans insist on more proportional representation. But Unz does not stop there. He goes on to report that nearly 20 percent of the Harvard College student body is Asian- American, and 25 percent to 33 percent is Jewish, though Asian-Americans make up only 3 percent of the U.S. population and Jewish-Americans even less than 3 percent. Thus, 50 percent of Harvard's student body is drawn from about 5 percent of the U.S. population! When one adds foreign students, students from our tiny WASP elite and children of graduates, what emerges is a Harvard student body where non-Jewish whites -- 75 percent of the U.S. population -- get just 25 percent of the slots. Talk about underrepresentation! Now we know who really gets the shaft at Harvard -- white Christians. The same situation, says Unz, exists at other elite schools like Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley and Stanford, where Chelsea Clinton goes. As Hispanics, Asians, African-American and Jewish-Americans also vote overwhelming Democratic, the picture that emerges is not a pretty one. A liberal elite is salving its social conscience by robbing America's white middle class of its birthright, and handing it over to minorities, who just happen to vote Democratic."
Wall Street Journal 11/30/98 ".The following statement--"Declaration Concerning Religion, Ethics, and the Crisis in the Clinton [the known liar] Presidency"--was signed by 95 religion scholars including Paul J. Achtemeier (Union Theological Seminary), Karl Paul Donfried (Smith College), Jean Bethke Elshtain (University of Chicago), Stanley M. Hauerwas (Duke University), Robert Peter Imbelli (Boston College), Max L. Stackhouse (Princeton Theological Seminary), and Harry Yeide (George Washington University): As scholars interested in religion and public life, we protest the manipulation of religion and the debasing of moral language in the discussion about presidential responsibility. We believe that serious misunderstandings of repentance and forgiveness are being exploited for political advantage. The resulting moral confusion is a threat to the integrity of American religion and to the foundations of a civil society. In the conviction that politics and morality cannot be separated, we consider the current crisis to be a critical moment in the life of our country and, therefore, offer the following points for consideration: 1. Many of us worry about the political misuse of religion and religious symbols even as we endorse the public mission of our churches, synagogues, and mosques... 2. We challenge the widespread assumption that forgiveness relieves a person of further responsibility and serious consequences...3. We are aware that certain moral qualities are central to the survival of our political system, among which are truthfulness, integrity, respect for the law, respect for the dignity of others, adherence to the constitutional process, and a willingness to avoid the abuse of power...4. We are concerned about the impact of this crisis on our children and on our students.. 5. We urge the society as a whole to take account of the ethical commitments necessary for a civil society and to seek the integrity of both public and private morality..6. While some of us think that a presidential resignation or impeachment would be appropriate and others envision less drastic consequences, we are all convinced that extended discussion about constitutional, ethical, and religious issues will be required to clarify the situation and to enable a wise decision to be made. We hope to provide an arena in which such discussion can occur in an atmosphere of scholarly integrity and civility without partisan bias.."
The Wanderer 12/3/98 Paul Likoudis ".Right in the middle of a coordinated media campaign to vilify America's pro-life citizens as bombers, arsonists, and murderers, a Miami businessman pleaded guilty Oct. 28th in federal court in Trenton, N.J., to committing insurance fraud and authorizing unsafe medical practices at an abortion facility he owned here. Alan I. Weisberg, who will be sentenced on Jan. 29th, could face up to one year in jail and fines equal to double the amount for which he bilked five insurance companies and health maintenance organizations. Weiselberg, who remains the prime suspect in the April 22nd, 1991 arson of his Woodbridge, N.J. clinic, which caused more than $500,000 worth of damage, was not charged with the arson because the statute of limitations on the blaze had expired. As local writer Rick Malwitz observed in a Nov. 8th newspaper column: "There was never any evidence that linked the fire to anyone in the pro-life movement, according to persons involved in the investigation."."
USA Journal 12/4/98 Jon E. Dougherty ".Here now, at the close of the paganistic Twentieth Century, you can be a pillar of your community - and be granted the amenities that distinction affords - so long as you never mention God, never assert your right to be a Christian, and never openly display any tangible Christian insignia. Arlington, Texas Patrol Sergeant George Daniels, a former recipient of the "Rookie of the Year" and "Officer of the Year" awards, is the latest victim of this pagan mentality. Though his Rutheford Institute attorney Jennifer Schans fully expected the city to reject his latest appeal effort to win his job back after being fired this summer for wearing a small cross on his uniform lapel, she also vowed to take the case to federal court when all the appropriate local appeals through the department have been exhausted. Sgt. Daniels had served his community with honor and distinction for some 13 years, and had been working diligently to obtain the rank of lieutenant - the next step on his career ladder. His fellow officers had described his persona and his job performance as `exemplary'. His superiors had consistently rated his work as excellent. And then Sgt. Daniels went and did it. He decided to pin a small cross on his lapel - right next to the DARE pins, the department rank insignia, his first aid training patches, and, ironically, the American flag. For that, his police chief, David Kunkle, sacrificed one of his best patrol sergeants at the altar of paganistic political correctness. Sgt. Daniels seems to be a very wise man; he had to know that the action he took might have cost him his career - at least in Arlington, Texas. After all, this is the end of the Twentieth Century, when Christ no longer dwells in the halls of officialdom, protected by the Constitution. But because he is a Christian - one of God's children and a believer in Jesus Christ - he did what his heart and his faith directed him to do and put his whole life on the line, this time in a different way..What about the employee at work who can be assured a sex joke won't be tolerated but a joke about his or her religion will be? Where are Christians at work supposed to turn for solace? Hat's off to the Rutheford Institute for taking up Sgt. Daniels' case and for their vision to know ahead of time that his legal action will end up in federal court. When it came to matters of strict constitutionality - such as this one - Americans used to be fairly confidant that the federal courts would uphold a citizen's right to utilize a constitutional right. But in all honesty, when it comes to matters of Christian religion, the federal courts are no help anymore. The real travesty here is that Sgt. Daniels has to take his issue to court in the first place.."
Agence France Presse 12/4/98 ".The Dalai Lama .came under attack from an official Chinese newspaper Friday which dubbed the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader a "terrorist" for supporting India's nuclear tests in May. "The Dalai Lama's words only remind people of a terrorist who greatly admires violence and shows no respect for the well-known world rules," the Tibet Daily said in an editorial, excerpts of which were published in the English-language China Daily. The Dalai Lama had called for "full understanding" of the tests conducted by India in the face of global condemnation, it said. "Peace is just a cloak for him to cheat the world," the article said. "Granting Dalai the (Nobel Peace) prize shed discredit on the prize." "Dalai's 'smart' comments on the nuclear tests tore off his mask and showed the nature of a faked pacifist," it said. "Black turns into white and threats are called peace in his mouth." London-based pressure group the Tibet Information Network (TIN) said last month that China had intensified a campaign against the Dalai Lama's followers in Lhasa, searching their homes and cracking down on Tibetan children studying in India..."
UPI 12/6/98 ".The nation's top health officer says Americans have ``to get real'' about educating their children about sex. At the interim meeting of the American Medical Associations House of Delegates in Honolulu (Sunday), Surgeon General David Satcher urged sex education to teach children responsible sexual behavior that includes ``abstinence where appropriate.'' Satcher says in an education vacuum children are learning about sex in all the wrong places: from people on the street, from movies and television shows and from the Internet.."
Washington Times 12/7/98 John McCaslin ".We've intercepted a U.S. Navy internal memo about "Christmas," advising that "new guidelines on expression of religious beliefs in the workplace has [sic] been issued by President Clinton. "As such, religious displays in working areas or offices that are accessible to the public, or where it would appear that the government has endorsed a particular religious point of view, is [sic] not permitted." If that's not enough to put a damper on celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, ."
Chicago Sun-Times 12/11/98 Lynn Sweet Ernest Tucker ".A Wheaton congregation is among a group of eight churches nationwide whose tax-exempt status is being challenged by a group that claims they broke election laws. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State filed formal complaints Thursday with the Internal Revenue Service, seeking to strip the exemptions because they say the churches distributed Christian Coalition material two days before last November's election. ``These houses of worship are breaking federal tax law and penalties must be imposed,'' said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of the Americans United group. A spokesman for the Wheaton Evangelical Free Church, 520 Roosevelt Rd., called the charges ``baseless.'' William Miller, a former associate pastor of the church and spokesman, said, ``we are familiar with the IRS regulations and we have abided by those.'' Miller said he had been unaware of the group's charges. Joseph Conn said his group filed the complaints because the material from the Christian Coalition ``was clearly to endorse Republican candidates.'' He said his group had done an extensive education campaign for churches before the Nov. 3 election to ``educate'' clergy on the boundaries for participating.``We chose eight that we knew of, but obviously there were more,'' he said. ``We just didn't have information on all.''."
Freeper oddither 12/14/98 recalls watching FoxNews ".Yesterday, I commented to a friend, if he took communion from a Priest, the only thing left, is to wear the Jewish religious garb and pray to mecca while he is in the middle east. Sho-nuff there he was dressed like a jew and soon was whisked off so he could be seen as a muslim. Has this man no shame? strike that I know the answer. .."
Irish news 12/14/98 Freeper Big Dog summary ".The Irish News is reporting tonight that the IRA are ready to resume a violent campaign of Bombing and shooting as we approach Christmas. The move comes in spite of North south Elected governments, a withdrawel of British troops, 400 terrorists released, and a United Ireland in it's embyonic stage. The IRA has had all of it's demands met and now it is time to see what happens when a president and a Prime Minister decide to grant terrorists all of their wishes. According to the Good Friday agreement, in exchange for all of the above concessions, the IRA would give up their weapons of Mass destruction. I visited N.Irealnd less than a month ago and I witnessed the most unbelievable turn of events. The Orange order, an organization founded on Christianity requiring it's members to be Christians was not allowed to March home from Church. ."
USA Journal 12/21/98Jon E. Dougherty by Freeper Peggy ".Christians and conservatives would do well to refute what is dishonestly said about them. Unless and until they do, the bogus claims made about how "intolerant" we are will be overshadowed by the intolerance of the Left.."
Washington Times 12/24/98 Joyce Howard Price and Bill Sammon ".A new media report by a liberal on-line magazine about the sex life of a Republican congressman has fueled the debate over the role of private morality in public life, even as President Clinton condemns what he called the "politics of personal destruction." "The left routinely accuses religious conservatives of sexual McCarthyism, but it's the left that is outing gays and exposing the private lives of others. It's not Gary Bauer. It's not the Christian Coalition. It's not the Weekly Standard," said William Kristol, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard. "The politics of personal destruction is the politics of Bill Clinton," he said. Salon, the liberal on-line magazine, and Larry Flynt's Hustler magazine have been responsible for most of the recent character assassinations. Victims have included three top House Republicans -- former Speaker-elect Robert L. Livingston of Louisiana; Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois, chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. Some Republicans have charged that the White House fed Salon and Hustler the information. The White House and the two publications deny that... Conservative pundit Cal Thomas contrasted Mr. Clinton's current talk about the need for "reconciliation" and "healing" with the attacks his political adviser James Carville has leveled against independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Clinton. "While his minions slime his enemies, [Mr. Clinton] pleaded for the sliming to end," Mr. Thomas wrote in a column that appeared yesterday in The Washington Times. The New York Post's Dick Morris assailed Mr. Carville's "crazed strategy," which he says has hurt the president. Mr. Carville yesterday blamed Republicans for initiating destructive politics by refusing to back off their investigations of Mr. Clinton. "There are doors in life which are best left shut, and they insisted on opening them," he told The Washington Times. "At every point, people begged these people to stop it, and at every point they ignored them." Mr. Carville bemoaned the fact that Hustler's publisher, Mr. Flynt, a staunch Clinton defender, offered $1 million to women who came forward with proof of extramarital affairs with congressional Republicans. In a new development, Salon ran a story Tuesday that accused Mr. Burton of groping a female lobbyist for a family planning organization in the mid-1990s.. The story by Russ Baker, a free-lance writer who penned an earlier Salon article that discussed an extramarital fling Mr. Hyde had with a beautician in the late 1960s and early 1970s, also raised questions about Mr. Burton's ties with a former model, Claudia Keller...A separate report in Tuesday's issue of Salon blamed liberals for "hypocrisy" in "backing a president who lied under oath in a sexual harassment lawsuit." "Before the rest of us get too misty-eyed about ending the politics of character assassination, we might want to take a closer look at our own record in this area," Andrew Ross, a Salon founder and vice president, wrote in an article titled "What if it were President Packwood?" ..Mr. Ross also cited liberal opposition to the nomination of the late Texas Sen. John Tower as defense secretary. His "crime," Mr. Ross said, was that "he enjoyed a drink or two." Others targeted for destruction by liberals, the Salon writer said, included failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, "whose video rental receipts were paraded in front of the world," and Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was hit with a "sex harassment smear" during confirmation hearings. Paul McMasters, ombudsman for the Freedom Forum, says: "The bar hasn't just been lowered. It's been done away with." .."
AP Larry Margasak 12/24/98 ".With the nation's second presidential impeachment trial looming next month, key senators acknowledged Wednesday that bipartisan talks were under way on how to decide the president's fate..Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a Clinton ally and former boss to presidential Chief of Staff John Podesta, was among the senators Wednesday who said they wanted no White House interference. Leahy said he agreed with the Senate's senior Democrat, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, that only senators should craft a deal. .``I do believe there will come a time when people of good will in Senate will want to resolve this,'' Hatch said. Hatch, who has advocated censure if it appears certain that Clinton can't be convicted, said, ``It's up to the Democrats to show there's no way there will be 67 votes for conviction. Once that is shown to the satisfaction of most Republicans, then people have to see what has to be done in a way that punishes him, but still resolves it.'' ."
NY Times 12/25/98 A. M. Rosenthal "."Millions of American Christians pray in their churches each week, oblivious to the fact that Christians in many parts of the world suffer brutal torture, arrest, imprisonment and even death . . . for no other reason than that they are Christians. . . . They have been persecuted and martyred before an unknowing, indifferent world and a largely silent Christian community. "Eleven countries where Christians are currently enduring religious persecution are China, the Sudan, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Egypt, Nigeria, Cuba, Laos and Uzbekistan. They evidence a worldwide trend of anti-Christian persecution based on two political ideologies -- Communism and militant Islam." I quoted that in my first column on religious persecution, in 1997 -- from "In the Lion's Den," by Nina Shea, a human rights army in herself, now director of the Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House. Unknowing, indifferent -- only a few months ago at a dinner, one of America's richest and pleasantest men and the headmaster of a noted private school, a minister, both said they knew nothing about the persecution of their fellow Christians. Governments know. They are silent for 30 billion pieces of trade silver. In 1994 Bill Clinton, breaking his pre-election promises, sold to China the American commitment to human rights for Chinese and Tibetans. What he got in return was the permission to continue business with China, a kindness that costs America $50 billion annually in export-import loss, strengthens China with American missile technique and escorts Beijing into U.S. politics. And it frees China from Administration action or denunciation for the arrests of more Christians who refuse to worship in government-regulated churches, and more long prison sentences to Chinese who believed the Communists might allow another political party. For the price America paid, read "Year of the Rat" by Edward Timperlake and William C. Triplett 2d (Regnery) and learn as much as your stomach can bear. Tibet got something in return for the Clintonian assurances of Chinese reasonableness. It got a Chinese stonewall to the Dalai Lama's eagerness for talks, and more repression. But millions of American Christians backed by many Jews and Buddhists rebelled against the persecution. In China, in the Sudan, where Christians are slaughtered by government armies -- everywhere..."
James Gerstenzang 12/25/98 San Francisco Chronicle ".The battle over President Clinton's impeachment, nasty during the House debate, threatened yesterday to grow nastier as the president's trial looms in the Senate. The White House and its Democratic allies cried foul over unpublished and uncorroborated evidence collected by investigators about Clinton's private life. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said senators should consider the material, in addition to the formal record compiled as part of the House debate that led to the president's impeachment. Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, responded by calling DeLay ``a frustrated moral ayatollah.' .``He wants to impose his twisted morals on everyone else,'' Harkin said, adding that out of frustration of failing to gain popular support for his position, ``DeLay must be approaching an apoplectic state.'' ``We know what the evidence is'' against Clinton, said Harkin. ``What the Republicans are afraid of is (that) Clinton will win big.'' ."
The Hindu 12/28/98 "..Led by the Congress(I), the entire political spectrum has spoken with one voice against the unabated violence against the Christians in Gujarat. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal have been severely criticized by almost all political parties and various citizens forums for the sangh parivar's current violent campaign against Christian organizations and educational institutions in Gujarat, especially in the Surat and Dangs districts. Even the BJP has found itself constrained to disapprove the attacks...The CPI(M) politburo in a statement said it was shocking that Christian missionary schools and churches in the BJP-ruled Gujarat continued to be targeted despite ``assurances to the contrary'' by Union Ministers. ``The inability to rein in the culprits smacks of a connivance of both the State and the Union Government in permitting, if not encouraging, such attacks'', it alleged. The politburo pointed out that after the ``earlier round'' of violence, the Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani had claimed that there was no law and order problem in Gujarat. He should now take note of what was happening and order ``necessary action'', it said squarely blaming the ``saffron brigade'' for the violence. It appealed to the people not to get provoked by attempts to fuel social tension.."
NY Times Elaine Sciolino 4/28/98 ".President Clinton on Monday criticized laws that automatically impose sanctions on countries for behavior that Americans find unacceptable. He said such legislation put pressure on the executive branch to "fudge," or overlook, violations so that it would not have to carry out the sanctions. Clinton made his unusually frank remarks during an appearance before a group of about 60 evangelical Christian leaders at the White House. They were meeting with Sandy Berger, the national security adviser, in the Roosevelt Room. Specifically, Clinton asked the group to withdraw its support for pending legislation that aims to reduce religious persecution overseas by imposing trade and aid sanctions on repressive regimes. Last week the House International Relations Committee approved, by 31 to 5, a bill that would impose export and aid sanctions on countries that endorse or permit violent attacks on religious believers. Among other provisions, the sanctions would ban imports from such countries, prohibit loans by multilateral institutions and make it easier for victims of religious persecution overseas to qualify for asylum or refugee status.."
Arab News 12/26/98 Fahmi Howaidi, Cairo ".How stupid was the American explanation for rushing to attack Iraq! It was that the U.S., out of respect for the feelings of Muslims, did not want to attack a Muslim country in Ramadan. Does this mean that America considers Ramadan a time in which the shedding of Muslim blood is not allowed? This seemed to be the explanation given by...Clinton in his statement attempting to justify the attack. His explanation was picked up and repeated by most of the commentators and so-called experts invited by Western television networks to comment on the situation. This American explanation implies that killing Muslims is forbidden only in Ramadan but allowed in other months. I cannot imagine which of the so-called experts convinced the Americans of this but it unfortunately reveals the shallow thinking and shameful ignorance of some decision makers regarding the Muslim world. ."
Underground Roman Catholic Bishop Su Zhimin spent 15 years in prison before his release in 1993; he was tortured throughout and then re-arrested shortly before President Jiang Zhemin's state visit to the United States in October, 1997 and remains in detention In 1997, Protestant leaders reported that about 40% of the inmates in labor camps in Henan Province are there for belonging to the Christian underground. In Henan Number One Labor Camp, for example, approximately 50 out of 126 inmates are imprisoned for underground church activities. On March 16, 1997, Peter Xu Yongze, Protestant leader with millions of followers, was arrested and jailed with seven others in Henan. Ambassador Sasser did not know what a house church is.
Foxnews.com 2/27/99 Lisa Holewa "...After a case that started with an arson fire in a waterfront mansion, the head of one of the nation's most influential black denominations was convicted Saturday on charges of swindling millions of dollars from companies seeking to do business with his followers. The Rev. Henry Lyons, president of the National Baptist Convention USA, also was found guilty of grand theft in the disappearance of almost $250,000 from the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, money intended to rebuild burned black churches in the South.... "
Reuters 3/3/99 Freeper Brian Mosely "…An Arkansas minister was charged Wednesday with setting his church on fire more than two years ago in a case authorities at first thought was connected to a rash of blazes at African-American churches…."
6/29/98 The Reagan Information Interchange, Mary Mostert. An anonymous informant employee of Forest Service employee provided a copy of a letter from Clinton which said among other things "THE WHITE HOUSE Washington GAY AND LESBIAN PRIDE CELEBRATION, 1998 Warm greetings to everyone taking part in the 1998 Gay and Lesbian Pride Celebration .Best wishes for a wonderful celebration.. Bill Clinton" with a note from Rob Sadler adding the following "As a Federal employee, it is important to add your name to the growing ranks of employees who are willing to openly identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons in the workplace. This act of personal bravery and conviction does more to alter the workplace environment and change perceptions than any other single action. We hope you will consider adding your name to this Register before National Coming Out Day on October 11, 1998."
TV coverage of the 29th Gay Pride parade blocked out dirty placards, insulting banners, anti- religious themes, a half dozen men stark naked except for green condoms, bare-breasted women, and the passing of the parade in front of the St. Patrick's Cathedral - instead - as an example WNBC said "They're celebrating with pride and parades, a rainbow of flags, floats and festivities ... They kicked off in high style ... and remained spectacular to its end."
7/9/98 AP A crackdown on sex in public restrooms at a commuter bus terminal has netted dozens of offenders -- and raised the concern of advocates who fear that the campaign targets gay men.Authorities say that they are not singling out gay men. Officers also patrol the women's bathrooms, though they have not witnessed any sex there..
AP 10/14/98 ". The church - not gays and lesbians - has sinned by promoting unhealthy attitudes about sex, a United Methodist reverend who performed a union ceremony for two women in September 1997 said Wednesday. The Rev. Jimmy Creech, a former Omaha pastor, set off a national controversy last year when he performed the ceremony at First United Methodist Church..While critics have condemned him for disobeying Christian teachings, Creech said the church has fostered an unhealthy discussion of sex by teaching that it is not something to be talked about in public."
Clinton lifted the ban on fetal tissue research in 1/93.
Justice Department filed a brief with the Supreme Court advocating a lower standard of child pornography in 93
USA Today 2/22/99 "...In poll after poll throughout the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, majorities of 2-1 and 3-1 repeatedly voiced strong disapproval of Clinton's behavior. In a USATODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll just days ago, 64% said changes since the 1960s are bad because the country is more permissive; 58% said they are more concerned about moral problems than economic ones. On abortion, for example, an issue of particular concern to many social conservatives, the pendulum is swinging in their direction. Public support for an unrestricted right to abortion is clearly down; support for subtle ways of making abortions more difficult to obtain is up...."
Reuters 7/10/98 Anthony Goodman "Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday the United States could lose its U.N. General Assembly vote if it failed to pay its dues. .The U.S. Congress had approved legislation that would cover a large part of the arrears. But President Clinton has vowed to veto the measure because it includes a provision barring international family planning agencies that receive U.S. aid from lobbying foreign governments to change their abortion laws."
AP 9/18/98 AP "The 64-36 roll call by which the Senate failed to override President Clinton's veto of an abortion ban. A two-thirds majority, or 67, votes were needed. Voting ``yes'' were 13 Democrats and 51 Republicans. Voting ``no'' were 32 Democrats and 4 Republicans.."
Minneapolis Star Tribune 8/19/98 H J Cummins ".Scientists already have moved on -- backed up, really, to before birth -- to examine the brain-building work that goes on in a fetus. Their question: What does your fetus know, and when does he know it? Although the facts are clear -- evidence is mounting that fetuses are busily shaping their own development -- what that means is the basis of heated debate. One side says this credits fetuses with thoughts and feelings. The other calls that an absurd leap. "All the things a fetus can do are also seen in common insects," said Scott Robinson, co-editor of the book, "Behavior of the Fetus." "Now, what do you want to conclude from that?" Besides any implications for abortion or prenatal care, the research approaches the keystone of human nature. "This gets right to one of the last great mysteries," said Myron Hofer, psychiatry professor at Columbia University in New York. "That is, human consciousness." The research is important, scientists say, partly because it traces human traits to their absolute origin. And it has played a role in changing the medical view of newborns, long considered nothing more than a bundle of reflexes.Some discoveries: At about 10 weeks, a fetus will begin touching its face with its hands, sometimes even putting its fingers in its mouth. At about 2 months, a fetus will respond by moving if it's touched in the area around its mouth. At about 4« months, a fetus will quicken its swallowing of amniotic fluid when that fluid is sweetened, and slow it down when a bitter flavor is added. At about 6 months, a fetus has REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep -- the kind associated with dreaming. Fetuses respond to various stimuli, including pain and familiar music. Within minutes after birth, a baby will suck a computer-connected nipple at the rate necessary to hear its mother's voice. It will prefer her voice as it sounds in the womb over her real-world voice -- indicating a preference developed in utero. Also, when a baby's mother regularly read Dr. Seuss' "The Cat in the Hat" throughout her pregnancy, it will suck the nipple that activates a recording of her voice reading that story.."
Seattle Times 12/31/98 John Hanchette Gannett News Service ".More than 150 theology professors and ethics scholars have published a withering protest of President Clinton's "manipulation of religion and debasing of moral language" during the national discussion about his impeachment. .The controversial declaration was published just before Christmas in a book titled "Judgment Day at the White House" (edited by Gabriel Fackre; Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, Mich.). The three-page declaration opens the book, which includes supporting essays from about a dozen of the 157 signers of the declaration, plus a half dozen rebuttals from opponents of the presidential criticism..Authors of the declaration - including seven signers from the liberal Princeton Theological Seminary, among them President Thomas Gillespie - were very direct in their accusations: "We believe that serious misunderstandings of repentance and forgiveness are being exploited for political advantage." .."We fear," wrote declaration signers, "that the religious community is in danger of being called upon to provide authentication for a politically motivated and incomplete repentance that seeks to avert serious consequences for wrongful acts." .. -- "The moral character of a people is more important than the tenure of a particular politician or the protection of a particular political agenda." ..Elshtain attacked White House spin that the impeachment case is based on something private: "This was no `discreet affair,' with the two principals doing their utmost to try to protect the feelings, moral concerns, and sensitivities of all involved. A small army of staffers was enlisted by the president to facilitate these assignations and an even larger number to cover matters up once things turned sour. Surely this has crossed the boundary into the public domain on every possible scale - ethical, legal, and political." Stackhouse went after counselors of ministerial silence: "I disagree with those who have refused to offer public criticism of his behavior because they think it may further disrupt the programs that they want him (Clinton) to advance or may give comfort to his political enemies. . . ."."
Imus In The Morning 1/7/99 Radio Show by Freeper paul in cape2 ".At approx. 8:15 AM e.s.t. Sen. John Kerry insulted the majority Party in the House of Representatives by equating them to the Ayatollah."
Centre Daily Times 1/3/99 Vincent Velotta ".In short, their goal is to promote a theory pointing out that American immorality has run amok. But to suggest that 250 million people are immoral is pushing the lever a bit too far. Our president, however, has provided them with the excuse they were seeking. Yet, the decent and moderate members of the Republican party have added to the problem by their unwillingness to confront these radicals and by allowing them to go unchallenged in their quest for control of the leadership. Whether it be the Taliban that now controls Afghanistan, or the religious zealots in Iran, or perhaps the inquisitors of old Spain, and now the American Taliban, they are all alike. These new American fanatics are no different. They are all from the same cloth. They all belong to the same club. Scorch the earth. Give no quarter. Never, never compromise. "We are the moral giants, we are the soldiers of God and in order to gain our ends, we will, with malicious intent, do our best to damage the relationship between the American people and what we consider to be their corrupt representatives in the Congress." .Moderate conservative Republicans, as well as all decent and fair-minded Americans, should wake up to the fact that there is indeed a group of ideological extremists, and they are bent on forcing their brand of radical politics down the throats of the American people. We Americans cannot allow these ideological extremists to enlarge their base by lulling us with such terms as "constitutional obligation" and "duty to God and country." We must look with skepticism upon their moralistic rhetoric of fairness and forgiveness and look at what they do and how they do it. We, as free Americans, must always be alert to those who would attempt to subvert or distort our political system. It may not always be to our liking, but it is all we have. Hitler did it in Germany over 60 years ago. Don't let it happen here, and don't you think it can't..."
ACLU Ira Glasser 1/19/99 ".Dear Friend: You may be surprised that the Executive Director of the ACLU is writing to you on the subject of morality, rather than on law or the Constitution or some civil liberties emergency. Well, I've decided to reach out to you and others like you because a growing struggle between two competing visions of morality is now taking place in America. This struggle should command the attention and involvement of all of us who share deep beliefs and treasure the fundamental value of individual freedom. Individual freedom vs. government authoritarianism. That's what the struggle over competing visions of morality is all about. On the one hand, the New Puritans want to use the police power of the state to enter our bedrooms and control the most intimate details of our personal lives -- who people love, who they commit their lives to, whether or when they pray, whether they prefer marijuana to martinis, whether they use birth control or decide to have an abortion. The other vision is the one we represent - - a vision where the government is prevented from controlling and punishing such personal behavior, and where the moral purpose of government is to insure fairness in law and public policy. Right now those who would impose their pious standards of morality on private, personal behavior are dangerously close to winning the debate. By not responding and challenging their authoritarian vision of "morality," you and I concede far too much. And that is why I am writing, without apology for raising the subject of "morality," to seek support from you and others like you. Specifically, the American Civil Liberties Union has embarked on a special membership drive. Our goal is to enlist those Americans we believe will help make the difference between winning and losing the national debate over freedom vs. authoritarianism.."
Chicago Sun-Times 1/31/99 Dennis Byrne ".There he goes again: this pope guy instructing Americans about morality. Who does he think he is? ``Pope John Paul II--9th Century Thinker,'' proclaimed one sign held by a protester. ``Not everyone favors the political agenda that this man has for America,'' said Ellen Johnson, who was picketing the pope in St. Louis. But wait. With all this preaching about morality going on, now comes the Clinton administration talking about morality. Secretary of Defense William Cohen told a Downstate Springfield audience on Thursday that Americans have a moral obligation to treat its military better. Amen to that.."
Media Research Center - Press Release 1/29/99 Brent Bozell Freeper Aherald ".Media Research Center Chairman Brent Bozell is challenging the national establishment media to fully air and report the findings of a landmark national survey of American women. The findings reveal that a majority of American women - 53 percent - now support the Pro-Life position on abortion. Most notably, the survey was paid for by the Center for Gender Equality, headed by former Planned Parenthood Executive Director Faye Wattleton..."It's obvious why the Center for Gender Equality waited until now to make these findings public. According to the Associated Press, the poll was done last year and it's almost February. Ms. Wattleton told the Washington Times that her survey's findings were - quote - 'very disturbing.' She and her organization released these findings yesterday in hopes that the impeachment story will overshadow them.."
Politically Incorrect 2/1/99 Freeper bobf reports ".Then, as James kept standing his ground, especially about the morality issues at work in Clinton's impeachment process, Mahr gave his worst, most reprehensible line... "Christians are PARASITES on the Republican party, and like PARASITES, they will KILL it!!" Our man James would not let that slide: "Christians have a right to gather, express their opinions, and VOTE, just like anyone else..."...evoking applause from the apparently liberal-tilted crowd..."
Newsmax 2/2/99 Freeper FISHHOG ".IMUS: Does a taped interview exist between Lisa Myers and this woman? RUSSERT: ah, er, ah, I'm not going to get into where we are. It's a work in progress about a whole lot of things. IMUS: In other words, the answer is yes. Thank you. RUSSERT: Well, ah, er, alright Mr. Falwell. IMUS: (laughing) No, I just wondered. RUSSERT: I mean, you know - there's a videotape available if you want that says President Clinton murdered people. I mean, put it on the screen.After Russert left, Imus said he doubted NBC would be a party to any Rapegate cover-up, then tossed this barb at his erstwhile friend: "It would be as if they set a truck on fire, or accused somebody of planting a bomb." The references were to past NBC News debacles involving a staged car explosion passed off as spontaneous and a false report fingering Richard Jewel as the Olympic Park bomber. ."
World Magazine Marvin Olasky 2/6/99 Freeper Stand Watch Listen ".Second, the disdainers clearly have no fear of the Lord, but they fear conservative Christians. That no member of the Clinton Administration has resigned in protest, and that congressional Democrats almost unanimously shamed themselves, can partly be explained by the moral bankruptcy of a once-great party, along with knowledge of how Clinton partisans harass those who cross them. But there's more: A lot of folks on the left truly fear that if Bill Clinton falls to those who believe in biblical right and wrong, they will be next. Hence their furious defense of the indefensible.."
Insight Magazine 2/22/99 James Lucier ".Progressive Democrats have a strategy of labeling GOP conservatives as extremists, but the ideology of the House Progressive Caucus may be the most extreme in Congress. Immediately after the impeachment of Bill Clinton last December the president called together a private gathering of supporters at the White House. Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, a denizen of the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House's Progressive Caucus, emerged to tell the New York Post that Clinton himself told the meeting that "the Constitution was being trashed by Republican ex- tremists." And California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, another fiery-tongued Judiciary member who also is on the Progressive Caucus, said, "Bill and Hillary are the real targets, and the Republicans are the vehicles being used by the right-wing Christian Coalition extremists to direct and control our culture.".."
FoxNews Reuters 2/4/99 Freeper holly ".Calling the remark "pure nonsense,'' a Roman Catholic group Thursday asked President Clinton to apologize for saying Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler preached a "perverted form of Christianity.'' During a speech Thursday at the annual prayer breakfast hosted by members of Congress, Clinton observed that ''throughout history people have prayed to God to aid them in war. People have claimed repeatedly that it was God's will that they prevail in conflict.'' "I do believe that even though Adolf Hitler preached a perverted form of Christianity, God did not want him to prevail,'' Clinton said. William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, asked Clinton to apologize for what he called "a remarkably ignorant comment about Hitler and Christianity.'' "Anyone who has studied Hitler knows that this is pure nonsense,'' Donohue said in a statement issued from his New York office. "Hitler was a neo-pagan terrorist whose conscience was not informed by Christianity, but by pseudo-scientific racist philosophies,'' he said.."
National Post 2/5/99 Mark Steyn Freeper praise ".In other breakfast news, Mr. Clinton yesterday attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast, one of those opportunities to flaunt his faith he can never resist. The president's religion is an undemanding one. In one of the most striking examples of his ability to "compartmentalize," he strolled out of his church after the Easter service, waved his trusty Bible to the crowds, and then went back to the Oval Office to observe the resurrection with Monica in a more personal sense.."
ZENIT (Catholic News Agency) 12/23/98 ".The government of Alberto Fujimori implemented a systematic sterilization campaign in the most depressed areas of Peru. As a result, 250,000 women were sterilized without their knowledge and consent. This information was revealed in a report by the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Woman (CLADEM), presented in Madrid.. "Deceptions, coercion and false promises were the currency of this campaign," which has been denounced in the Peruvian press for the past year. ..The author of the report, "Nothing Special," funded by CLADEM, is Giulia Tamayo, a 40 year old Peruvian, director of the Flora Tristan Center for the Peruvian Woman, one of the most active feminist organizations in the country. The first cases denounced to the Defender of the Peruvian People were in 1997 and, since then, evidence "has been accumulated over the systematic violations of human rights, due to the aggressive policy imposing sterilization on poor or extremely poor women," the report states. ." Freeper Vince Ferrer adds ".This program was funded by the US agency USAID.."
Washington Times 2/5/99 Letters to the Editor June 7 - Arlington, VA ". During the past several months in the American press, the Democrats have frequently denounced the Republicans as Nazis due to their attempts to control runaway federal spending. How very ironic. I remember the Nazis. Let me share a little about them and recall some of their exploits. First of all, 'Nazi' was gutter slang for the verb 'to nationalize'. The Bider-Mienhoff gang gave themselves this moniker during their early struggles. The official title of the Nazi Party was 'The National Socialist Workers Party of Germany'. Hitler and the Brownshirts advocated the nationalization of education, health care, transportation, national resources, manufacturing, distribution and law enforcement. Hitler came to power by turning the working class, unemployed, and academic elite against the conservative republic... Being a Nazi was 'politically correct'. They called themselves 'The Children of the New Age of World Order' and looked down their noses at everyone else. As Hitler acquired more power, he referred to his critics as 'The Dark Forces of Anarchy and Hatred'.. The Nazi reign of terror began with false news reports on the Jews, Bohemians and Gypses who were said to be arming themselves to overthrow the 'New World Order'. Hitler demanded that all good people register their guns so that they wouldn't fall into the hands of 'terrorists and madmen'.Right-wing fanatics of the 'Old Order' who protested firearms registration were arrested by the S.S. and put in jail for 'fomenting hatred against the Government of the German people'. Then the Reichstag (government building) was blown up and Hitler ram-rodded an 'Emergency Anti-Terrorist Act' through Parliament that gave the Gestapo extraordinary powers. The leader then declared that for the well-being of the German people, all private firearms were to be confiscated by the Gestapo and the Wermotten (federal law enforcement and military.Public schools rewrote history and Hitler youth groups taught the children to report their parents to their teachers for anti-Nazi remarks. Such parents disappeared. Pagan animism became the state religion of the Third Reich and Christians were widely condemned as 'right wing fanatics'.. Evil was declared as being good, and good was condemned as being evil. World Order was coming and the German people were going to be the 'peacekeepers'. Yes, indeed, I remember the Nazis and they weren't Republicans, or 'right wing', or 'patriots' or 'militias'. They were Socialist monsters.."
AFA.net 2/6/99 Gene Edward Veith (World Magazine) ".The way to keep the Internet safe for children, according to many Christians and cyber libertarians leery of government censorship, is for parents to employ filtering software, which promises to prevent children from signing on to sexually explicit or other harmful sites. The most commercially successful filtering software-outselling its competitors by as much as 10 to one and rated best of them all by a number of computer magazines-is CyberPatrol. Published by The Learning Company and automatically updated on-line, CyberPatrol blocks out sites that fall into 12 categories: Violence/Profanity, Partial Nudity, Full Nudity, Sexual Acts, Gross Depictions, Intolerance, Satanic/Cult, Drugs/Drug Culture, Militant/Extremist, Sex Education, Questionable/Illegal and Gambling, and Alcohol and Tobacco. Christians might be surprised to find themselves included in such company. The American Family Association, Donald Wildmon's media watchdog organization and a longtime advocate of filtering the Internet, is now being filtered by CyberPatrol. The AFA's Web site, itself devoted to fighting the media's "Gross Depictions," has been judged blockable on the grounds of "intolerance," a category previously reserved for Nazis and Klansmen. The AFA, like other Christian activist organizations, questions the gay-rights movement and teaches that homosexual acts are immoral. This is considered an example of discrimination based on sexual orientation, which is a clear violation of the criteria published in the CyberPatrol manual. Impressionable young minds thus need to be protected from the heinous, shocking ideas of moral conservatives. .."
WashingtonTimes 2/6/99 Wes Pruden ".Everybody's trying to get at me. Nobody even tries to understand me. A man has to do what a man has to do . Well, let's see. What else? Ah, yes. Religious faith. They're even measuring the size of the Bible I take to church. That was a good stroke, though, finding that big-print Bible the last time I went home. Nobody can miss that on Page One. Ought to send Dick Morris out to take a poll. Is there still any percentage in exploiting what the preachers call the faith of our fathers? Maybe enough people still go for that stuff to make it worth my while. Some people will say I'm just trying to plunder religion, too, but nobody but the ACLU would criticize me for loud praying. Inviting Yasser Arafat to the prayer breakfast was a stroke of genius. Sometimes I surprise even myself. I owe those prayer breakfast guys a payback, anyway. Inviting Mother Teresa to give me hell over abortion. Why won't those abortion people shut up? I was against abortion back home. Didn't help much. The hicks in the legislature gave me a hard time, anyway. Hillary's friends were always railing at me for it. I thought that stuff would go away when I got up here. Some of those Planned Parenthood gals look like possibilities.."
Fox newswire / AP 2/6/99 ".An appeals court has overturned a rapist's 51-year prison sentence because a judge turned to the Bible while deciding his punishment. The Ohio 1st District Court of Appeals ruled Friday that James Arnett can return to court and seek a lesser sentence. Arnett, 33, pleaded guilty to raping and molesting the 8-year-old daughter of his fiancee. In handing down the 51-year sentence in January 1998, Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Melba Marsh Marsh referred to a Bible verse that says anyone who offends a child would be better off if "a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.''.."
The Wanderer 11/5/98 Paul Likoudis Freeper marshmallow ".How easy is it for a homosexual activist with 20 years of experience in "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered ministry" to use a Catholic archbishop, "contaminate" Catholic schools, and frustrate the parents of Catholic school students? It's very easy, according to homosexual activist Bill Kummer, who publicly disclosed his step-by-step plan that transformed nine of the eleven Catholic high schools in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis into "gay- friendly" schools. He has been so successful, as a matter of fact, that he can proudly boast that some Catholic high schools in his archdiocese have gay student clubs, survey students on their "homophobia," publish gay newspapers, have queer literature in their libraries, and even permit same-sex couples to dance at their high school proms. In just three years, Kummer claimed, under his direction, Catholic high schools have adjusted their curricula to include gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered ideology in most classes, including history, literature, science, religion, and even math.."
Grassroot Republicans Website 2/7/99 Ken Carroll ".At least two groups composed of people vocally opposed to Clinton have been hit this week. Clinton is already trying to make life tougher on gun owners, bringing the National Rifle Association into a conflict, but it is his remarks regarding Christianity which are truly distressing. At an annual prayer breakfast hosted by congressional members, Clinton proclaimed that "Adolf Hitler preached a perverted form of Christianity." Not only is Clinton's statement historically inaccurate, but the context of his speech shows it aimed at Christian conservatives. Clinton said, " . . . throughout history people have prayed to God to aid them in war. People have claimed repeatedly that it was God's will that they prevail in conflict. I do believe that even though Adolf Hitler preached a perverted form of Christianity, God did not want him to prevail." Claiming what Hitler did, by any stretch of the imagination, could be referred to as "Christianity" whether it was "perverted" or not is extremely insulting to followers of Christ. The insinuation is that Christianity is not that far from Nazi beliefs. If you think those are innocent words, replace "Christian" with any other religion and see if it jogs your conscience a little. Would you openly tell a believer of any faith that Hitler preached a perverted form of their religion? Would you say it to a Moslem or a Jewish person? Clinton supporters may say it was a slip of the tongue, but that boat won't float. This is a man so careful in his phrasing and parsing of public words that he claims he misled and deceived people and still did not lie. Bill Clinton knew exactly what the ramifications of his words were and how this message would be taken. ."
The American Spectator 2/5/99 R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. ".It is interesting that the twentieth anniversary of the Rev. Jim Jones' Jonestown holocaust has come and gone, unremarked by such liberal thought leaders as Professor Alan Dershowitz and the Hon. Barney Frank. Located in the steamy jungles of Guyana, Jonestown was the site of the People's Temple, "an interracial sharing community" that originated in San Francisco. Over 900 of the Rev. Jones' followers died there late in 1978. At his orders they drank poison or had it imposed on them... Letters found in the vast killing field that had been the People's Temple, "dedicated against the evils of racism, hunger, and injustice," maundered on about his followers' dread of "the capitalist U.S." and their affection for "the beauty of Communism." None of the thousands of letters found among their paltry possessions betrayed any interest in Christianity or any other organized religion but in "Communism." Yet when their corpses were found I cannot recall any major news report calling them "Communists." As I say, the notion spread that they were some sort of Christian believers run amok..Midst the corpses other laudatory letters were found, from California's Governor Jerry Brown, Congresswoman Bella Abzug, Senator Mike Gravel, and from Mrs. Jimmy Carter, who wrote from the White House that "your comments about Cuba are helpful." ."
Reuters 2/10/99 Freeper yea whatever ".A liberal activist group Wednesday launched a $5 million campaign aimed at ousting in the 2000 election vulnerable Republican legislators who voted to impeach President Clinton. People for the American Way, a group which fights the religious conservative groups such as the Christian Coalition, provided a preliminary hit list of 68 Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Clinton and who represent districts carried by the president in the 1996 election.It said it would try to link impeachment to other agenda items of conservative Christians including their opposition to abortion, support of prayer in public schools and opposition to homosexual rights. ``The impeachment fiasco presents us with a unique opportunity,'' Shields said..."
Florida Times-Union 2/9/99 Freeper newsman ".Though the Senate will likely acquit President Clinton this week, he'll be relegated to the status now held by O.J. Simpson, said the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority. Falwell, in Jacksonville to speak at a pastors conference at First Baptist Church, spared little in assessing Clinton's impact on the nation's character. "He's lowered the moral bar in this country more than Hollywood, the television industry and the drug industry combined," he said. "Can future leaders lift the bar?"."
Time Daily 2/9/99 Frank Pellegrini ". Senate Democrats know the verdict they want: Not guilty, with an explanation. But when to do the explaining? The deliberations set to span the next two days will be held behind closed doors - proponents of an open session admitted Tuesday that they were six votes (and one majority leader) short of the 67 needed... For Democrats, censure remains the mother of all political flak jackets. Though they've already successfully cast Republicans as the repressive party of the Ayatollah, they're not particularly eager to be the party of Oval Office sex, either. .."
New York Post 2/10/99 Jack Newfield ".IT IS now clear that a few right-wing Republican senators are trying to block a tough censure of President Clinton. This is moral absolutism and irrational partisanship run amok. It doesn't make sense politically, constitutionally or morally. It is the kind of warped reasoning that characterizes the fundamentalist, Hezbollah faction of the GOP.."
Nando Media/Agence France-Press 2/10/99 Philip Alfroy ".A Clinton administration decision to promote some human embryo research despite a law prohibiting it has delighted scientists but blurred the ethical boundaries of medical research, opponents say. Earlier this month the White House authorized public funding for scientific experiments on some human embryo cells. The decision, announced two weeks ago by National Health Institutes director Harold Warmus, inflamed an already heated debate on the ethics of meddling with human embryos. For most people, the issue of spending public money on such research died in 1995 when the Republican-led U.S. Congress banned it outright.."The Clinton administration now seeks to do indirectly what Congress has forbidden it to do directly: provide federal support for research in which human embryos are created and destroyed," said Richard Doerflinger, of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. ."
Catholic World News 2/11/99 ".The Ohio American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court this week seeking a court order to have four public schools remove outdoor monuments that include the Ten Commandments..."
Salon Magazine 2/2/1999 GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ Freeper imdoug ".but Carlos Fuentes took it further by asking the president who he thought of as his enemies. His reply was immediate and abrupt: "My only enemy is right-wing religious fundamentalism.".."
People for the American Way 2/11/99 Freeper Bob J ".People For the American Way Foundation President Carole Shields issued the following statement today in response to the Rev. Jerry Falwell's assertion that the popular cartoon character, Tinky Winky the Teletubby, is gay: "Jerry Falwell is no longer taken seriously in the political arena, so now he has to go after cartoon characters. If Tinky Winky the Teletubby cannot measure up to Mr. Falwell's standards of morality, than who among us can?.." and ".People For the American Way and its affiliated PAC, People For the American Way Voters Alliance, today launched national voter education and mobilization campaigns aimed at ending the Religious Right's occupation of Congress. Relying on a mix of TV, grassroots organizing and education, the $5 million campaigns will give voice to the millions of Americans alarmed by the Republican impeachment trial and other radical, Religious-Right-driven initiatives in Congress over the past four years. The Voters Alliance unveiled its first TV ad in the campaign today. "Impeachment was the catalyst that shocked and angered voters," said PFAW President Carole Shields. "But the Religious Right's agenda on so many other issues also is of paramount concern. The same Religious Right that drove the impeachment train is trying to force Congress to adopt vouchers, pass a captive audience school prayer amendment and roll back civil rights for women and minorities.".."
San Francisco Chronicle 2/12/99 Betsy Hart ".Results that many might find startling appear in a new national poll of American women. The report, just issued by the Center for Gender Equality, says women are generally conservative - and are moving more and more to the right. The poll found that a majority, 53 percent, could be generally classified as pro-life. Meaning they think abortion should not be allowed at all, or only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother's life. That number is up from 45 percent in 1996. Another 41 percent of women said that issues championed by the conservative Christian Coalition would improve the lives of women. That compares with only 18 percent who said the coalition's issues would make women's lives worse. A whopping 75 percent of women say religion is very important in their lives. That's up from 69 percent two years ago. Of women surveyed, 46 percent said that politicians should be guided by religious values, up from 32 percent six years ago... The large-sample poll of 1,000 women was conducted by the prestigious Princeton Research Associates. Faye Wattleton, who heads the Center for Gender Equality, is best known for her previous role as executive director of Planned Parenthood. She was dismayed. She told the Washington Post that the responses "were surprising and disturbing to everyone who cares about women's status and liberty in this country." Wattleton blamed the numbers on what she says has for years been the domination of religious conservatives in the public policy debate. You see, women just shouldn't think this way.."
US Newswire 2/17/99 Freeper Brian Mosely ".``The kind of raw anti-Catholic bigotry contained in Ted Turner's remarks is something we had all hoped was a relic of the last century. ``To begin to repair the damage, Ted Turner must only retract his remarks but also issue a full and complete apology to the Holy Father and all American Catholics. This is the worst form of religious bigotry,'' said Bauer. Bauer also charged that Turner insulted all American Christians and Jews when he belittled the Ten Commandments, saying the commandments are ``a little out of date. If you're only going to have 10 rules, I don't know if (prohibiting) adultery should be one of them.'' ."
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights Press Release 2/17/99 ".TV-mogul Ted Turner received an award yesterday at the 27th annual meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. According to a report in the Washington Times, he drew laughter and applause with remarks about sex, the Ten Commandments and Pope John Paul II. Turner, who has five children, commented that everyone should promise to have no more than two children. He said he came to this conclusion years ago after talking to doomsayer Paul Ehrlich; this was after Turner contributed to the "population explosion." He also dubbed the Ten Commandments "a little out of date," adding that "If you're only going to have 10 rules, I don't know if prohibiting adultery should be one of them." Of the pope, Turner showed his idea of ethnic humor: "Ever seen a Polish mine detector?" He then said the pope should "get with it. Welcome to the 20th century." Catholic League president William Donohue took note: "Ted Turner embarrassed himself yesterday with his silly remarks, though it is doubtful he even recognizes what he did. Any man who thinks that the pope needs to `get with it' while quoting Paul Ehrlich is a true embarrassment. Thirty years ago Ehrlich predicted that pesticide-induced cancers would soon cause life expectancy in the U.S. to plummet to 42 years. `If I were a gambler,' he said back then, `I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.' If that wasn't bad enough, in 1980 Ehrlich wagered a $1,000 bet with economist Julian Simon over the availability of scarce commodities in the year 1990; Simon collected the money in 1991. But no matter, Ehrlich is the same guy that Turner continues to quote as a reliable source. "."
CNS 2/1/99 Charles Colson Freeper hope ".At the National Prayer Breakfast this month, President Clinton described how hard his administration had worked to pass the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998--a law designed to fight the torture and murder of people of faith around the world. A few days later, the president's budget was unveiled. How much money did the president earmark to enforce the Religious Freedom Act? Not one plug nickel.."
Human Life International Reports at www.hli.org 2/2/99 ".The month of November witessed the election of Gray Davis, an ardent abortion supporter, as Governor of California. In an attempt to mask his abortion agenda Davis apologists developed the concept of an ecumenical religious program to disguise a reign of terror in California against babies in the womb. The banner was quickly picked up by a number of liberal religious including Rabbi Brad Bloom, a longtime Davis backer. Representing the "Sacramento Interfaith Service Bureau" Rabbi Bloom contacted religious leaders throughout the area inviting them to the rally to portray Davis as having the backing of the religious community.. Dear Rabbi Bloom: Your invitation of 24 December to attend an inaugural event on Sunday morning, 3 January 1999, for Governor-elect Gray Davis causes me profound distress and grave insult. Surely you must know that Gray Davis is an outspoken, militant champion of violence-the most cold-blooded violence of killing pre- born and partially born human beings. He incessantly and obsessively proclaimed his commitment to unrestricted and taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand in his TV campaign commercials, debates, campaign position statements and even on his Internet campaign site. He would force every California taxpayer, including all the Catholic bishops, priests and lay people, to be his fiscal accomplices in payments to abortionists for over 100,000 Medi-Cal abortions per year (out of about 300,000 to 400,000 abortions per year in California). .To presume that any true Catholic, and in particular, a Catholic priest and pastor, would violate the moral teachings of the Catholic Faith and the very moral foundation of human rights, and would betray and scandalize the faithful by attending a political function dedicated to a leader of the American Holocaust, is mind-boggling. Any Catholic priest and pastor who would publicly give honor and affirmation to Gray Davis would be subject to severe penalties and would rightfully expect the just denunciation and harsh censure of not only Catholics, but all who defend the right to life..Monsignor Edward J. Kavanaugh St. Rose Catholic Church Sacramento."
American Center for Law and Justice Fall 1998 "...Thanks to your support, the ACLJ has stopped an appalling attempt to make homosexuality part of a Connecticut high school's program for "minority students." Vince McCarthy, our ACLJ Northeastern regional counsel, appeared before the Brookfield High School board to denounce the Pink Triangle program, which encouraged "sexually confused" teens to discuss their feelings with designated faculty members. Following his presentation, the school board voted to ban the program. Pink triangle decals, posted on several classroom doors, would have designated "safe zones" for students who are homosexual, bisexual, or confused about their sexuality. That was the shocking message that a public schoolteacher delivered to her class of teenagers in announcing the program. The Connecticut school was literally going to provide sexually troubled kids with adult counseling that condoned and encouraged the homosexual lifestyle...."
Insight Magazine 3/15/99 Aimee Howd Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...But the American people went ballistic when President Clinton took this idea to its logical conclusion and proudly displayed a sample national health-care I.D. card during the nationally televised summary of his health-care plan in 1993. Few consumers could stomach the thought of allowing even the most altruistic federal bureaucrat to assign them a "unique health identifier" -- a computerized code that could be used not only to track the medical records of every citizen from birth, but potentially could link those records to financial data, tax information, employment history, educational databases and anything else of interest to a would-be Big Brother...."
American Family Association (AFA.net) 3/2/99 "…The battle in this country between those holding to traditional morality and those espousing hedonism has reached a fever pitch, manifested in no clearer terms that the ideological conflict over homosexuality…. There may be no area of debate that causes blood pressures to escalate more rapidly than the question of whether public schools should teach children about homosexuality. Now the homosexual community has thrown down the gauntlet by unveiling a video entitled It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues In School, and as its title implies, the video is aimed at the educational establishment. The video is produced by Helen Cohen and Debra Chasnoff, the latter an Academy Award-winning documentary producer. In 1992 Chasnoff became the first woman to openly declare her lesbianism at the Oscars. The producers went into six elementary and middle schools where teachers and principals are already force-feeding children with pro-gay grist. The narrator says the educators allowed the filming "in the hope of inspiring other educators and parents to take the next step in their own school communities to teach children respect for all." …When It’s Elementary is not pointing the finger at bigoted parents in general, it zeroes in on Christians in particular: the Christian view of homosexuality is highlighted as an example of outrageous bigotry. In one sequence of clips from TV talks shows, two apparent Christians present the view of their faith. One says, "God hates fags." The other: "The Bible that I read says homosexuals should be put to death." …"
newsmax 3/4/99 Schlafly "…I'm fed up with the liberals telling me that I can't be judgmental about crimes and sins, even when committed by the President. We have every right to be judgmental, and the liberals have their nerve trying to dictate a "Thou shalt not be judgmental" commandment. I'm fed up with the liberals telling me I must be nonpartisan. Do we have political freedom in America or don't we? … I'm fed up with the liberals imposing their values on us about perjury, along with their absurd caveat that "everybody lies about sex." If it's just "he says, she says" and everybody lies, we should toss out all the sexual harassment cases, enjoy sex in the workplace, and then lie about it…I'm fed up with the liberals blaming the Republicans for Clinton's impeachment and trial…. I'm fed up with the liberals dictating their new moral imperative that we must "move on" and "become moderate," or else they will label us "extremist." Who gave them the right to enforce a new law of moderation and extremism and to brand people with their judgments? ….I'm fed up with the liberals telling us we have a moral obligation to spend American blood and money in ethnic conflicts all around the world. Where did the interventionist liberals get any authority to impose their foreign-policy morality on us? ….I'm fed up with the liberals saying it is OUR moral duty to spend OUR money for THEIR pet projects (it's called taxes) in order to provide benefits to special constituencies that are expected to vote liberal…. I'm fed up with the liberals and the teachers unions imposing their Whole Language, School-to-Work, "comprehensive" sex education, and diversity curricula on other people's children. The educrats won't even allow parents a choice for phonics, abstinence classes, or traditional academic basics. I'm fed up with the liberals telling me I have to respect their gods: the Presidency and his "wag the dog" foreign policy, the Imperial Judiciary and its activist decisions, and the public schools with their failed methods. Who gave the liberals the authority to substitute those gods for God and His Ten Commandments? …"
Catholic World News 3/5/99 "… A federal judge ruled on Thursday that a Louisiana law banning partial-birth abortions is unconstitutional because it was intended to create confusion. US District Judge Thomas Porteous said the law was too broadly worded. "This act's broad language seems to purposefully create confusion and ambiguity," Porteous wrote in the ruling. The law forbade any abortion performed once any part of the unborn child entered the birth canal…."
Rep. Traficant, Democrat 6/19/98: "Mr. Speaker, Mildred Rosario, a sixth grade teacher in the Bronx, was fired. Mildred was fired for attempting to comfort her students over the drowning loss of a fellow classmate by simply saying he was in heaven. Mildred was fired for saying, I quote, he was in heaven. Unbelievable. In America teachers can pass out condoms in school. Teachers can pass out needles. Teachers can even have forums and discussions on devil worship. But in America teachers cannot even mention God. Beam me up. "
Clinton spokesman Mike McMurry said that Senator Lott and those who agreed with him that homosexual conduct is a sin are "backward in their thinking" and "incorrect."
CNS Bruce Sullivan 8/12/98 "A Christian pastor and four men were handing out religious leaflets last week in a section of Las Vegas frequented by drug dealers and street walkers, when they were arrested, jailed, and strip-searched by the police. They were charged with blocking the sidewalk, then handcuffed, and thrown into a paddy wagon as denizens of "Crack Alley," which is what that part of Fremont Street is nicknamed, watched.." 'Sing your Christian hymns now,'" Robinson says one of the police officers said. "They compared us to the folks in Waco," Robinson told CNS referring to the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. ."
Global Intelligence Update 11/9/98 ".The past week has demonstrated that Bill Clinton is the most extraordinary politician of our time. He took a draw in the 1998 by-elections in which the Republicans retained control of both houses of Congress, and managed to define it as an overwhelming defeat for the Republicans and a major personal victory for himself. The generally accepted consensus was that the elections ended any chance of an impeachment of the President. As pure icing on the cake, the elections destroyed his archenemy, Newt Gingrich and with it, redefined the Republican Party. The President achieved his tremendous victory by defining the basic issue as whether having sex with Monica Lewinsky was or was not an impeachable offense..There are two domestic political results here. The Christian Right sees itself as engaged in a struggle for the cultural soul of the United States. They have just been handed an overwhelming defeat.. The second political result is the effective collapse of feminism as a political force.. The feminists have now created the Clinton Test for sexual harassment. Unwanted sexual advances, actual exposure of private parts, and taking advantage of a powerful office to seduce young women, do not constitute sexual harassment if you support the feminist agenda.. Thus we will make an extreme but we think defensible statement: the cultural wars that have defined much of the nation's politics since about 1980 are over. Both sides have lost and have lost decisively. .It is interesting to note that issues like the power of the IMF are increasingly motivating the Christian Right as much as cultural issues. There is a deep and growing distrust on the part of the Christian Right of the trend toward multilateral solutions, like NAFTA, IMF, UN, WTO and so on, that the Democrats are so fond of."
New York Times 11/8/98 Maureen Dowd ".There's a new spirit wafting through the land. Hey, baby, we're talking about love power. The voters have chosen the lovers over the haters. The meanies with the jangly names -- Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Lauch Faircloth, Fob James, "B-1" Bob Dornan -- are toast. So are the guys like Al D'Amato, who sneered and jeered and used ethnic and anatomical epithets. So are the Christian zealots. And obsessive special prosecutors. The Democratic lover boys, like Bill Clinton, and the Republican preachers of compassion, like the Bush boys, are being embraced.."
Original Sources 3/6/99 Mary Mostert "…In the syrupy adulation after the death of retired Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe vs. Wade, little has been said of his other decision which dramatically changed our culture. He not only wrote the decision which declared that the unborn, like black slaves in the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, were not human, he also changed the meaning of "due process" to make it not only legal, but mandatory, to make decisions based on race and gender…. That legacy may be best expressed in the words of a 20 something young woman who reminded C-span listeners that "The baby boomer generation killed one third of my generation - one third of my generation were killed by their parents before they were born." …Once America's doctors took a sacred oath before they began practicing medicine that said in part: "I will use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment; I will abstain from harming or wronging any man by it. I will not give a fatal draught to anyone if I am asked, nor will I suggest any such thing. Neither will I give a woman means to procure an abortion." In less than 30 years we have gone from that to a nation which has so downgraded its concern for its children that over 51% of all pregnancies end either in the death of the baby or in the birth of a live baby who has no legal father. How could that have happened? …"
Jewish Task Force 3/10/99 "…We were all taught to believe that major corporations are run by conservative Republicans. This myth has been refuted on numerous occasions on this web site. The multinational corporations, who have no loyalty whatsoever to the United States, use bogus tax-free foundations to fund socialist groups that are working to destroy this country. For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is one of the most evil anti-American, anti-white, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel groups in existence. The ACLU is dominated by people like attorney Alan Dershowitz, who recently boasted that he would have represented Adolf Hitler and gotten him off. ere are some of the ACLU's surprising benefactors: the Carnegie Corporation - $1,000,000; the Clark Foundation - $975,000; the Ford Foundation - $2,265,000; the MacArthur Foundation - $300,000; the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation - $140,000; and the Rockefeller Foundation - $110,000. These are only partial contributions from these foundations from 1993 to 1995. The total figures are much larger….Immediately after the ACLU announced that they would represent neo-Nazi scum who wanted to march in Skokie, Illinois as a provocation to that town's several thousand concentration camp survivors, Lear responded by making a $250,000 contribution to the ACLU which he averred was in direct response to the ACLU's pro-Nazi stance. Lear himself formed a Bolshevik group called People for the "American" Way. Of course, there is nothing "American" about this hideous Marxist organization. Its main focus is attacking all attempts to inspire religious faith and spirituality in the lives of Americans. Any time someone suggests placing a Christian or Jewish symbol on public property or even private corporate property, Lear's group has a fit. They proclaim such symbols to be "un-American" because of the so-called separation of church and state. Lear's despicable People for the "American" Way has received the following curious support: the Carnegie Corporation - $200,000; the Clark Foundation - $150,000; the Joyce Foundation - $50,000; the MacArthur Foundation - $25,000; the Mertz-Gilmore Foundation - $35,000; and the Rockefeller Foundation - $75,000. Why do these multinational corporate giants back left-wing groups that are undermining America's moral and spiritual values? Because an America devoid of values is easier to control when you are a small clique of mega-billionaires who want no competition, massive profits and total power. People with values, especially religious ones, will educate their children and raise strong families who will ultimately become competitors in the free-market arena…."
Wall Street Journal 3/12/99 Lorena Rodrigues Bottum "…During her Barbara Walters interview, Monica Lewinsky casually mentioned that she'd had an abortion while dating a Pentagon official. Like the rest of her conduct, it was nothing she was ashamed of. Unfortunately in this regard, at least, she's no aberration--as I learned recently at a park in my well-to-do Washington, D.C., neighborhood…. We exchanged information about baby-sitters, complained about the local supermarket, and spoke about our doctors--at least, until the older woman explained: "The same week that Bob got his warning that we have to go overseas, I missed my period. And I thought to myself, 'Oh, no, not another abortion!' " "Oh, I know," said the other. "It's so expensive, and you feel sick for days afterwards."…Proponents of abortion rights typically insist that abortion is a traumatic decision for women and not undertaken lightly. But the fact is that my neighbors in the park are not moral monsters. Neither are they moral philosophers, of course. They're ordinary, middle-class, stay-at-home mothers, best described not so much in positive terms as in double negatives: not unfriendly, not unkind, not unintelligent, not uneasy. Somehow, modern America has allowed them to develop the ability to casually discuss their multiple casual abortions with a stranger. What's going on here?…"
Christian Citizen 3/99Robert Holland - Richmond Times Dispatch Freeper Stand Watch Listen "…Armed with backing from private foundations and the federal government, advocates of Hillary Clinton’s It-Takes-a-Village ideology are beginning to implement a plan for cradle-to-grave tracking of the newborns of first-time parents. Part of the scheme entails sending agents into private homes to "train" parents for up to 50 visits annually per family. Expectant parents are enlisted by being asked to sign permission forms at the hospital, where amid all the excitement of a first birth, they may not be aware of the implications for their privacy and parental rights......Information that the agents collect from families will be put in a nationwide computerized system called the Program Information Management System (PIMS), which will contain medical and psychological entries and observations on family relationships.....Eventually the information in a comprehensive, permanent record could be shared with employers when an individual applies for a job…"
Drudge 3/14/99 "…AID is funding programs that endorse or legitimize what amounts to witchcraft The paper is reporting that Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a Feb. 8 letter to Secretary of State Albright that the committee had spent a lot of time recently reviewing U.S. aid programs to Haiti and it has found that US taxpayers are "funding programs that endorse or legitimize what amounts to witchcraft." Helms cited as the basis for his concern a recent exchange between U.S. AID and the Foreign Relations Committee, in which AID was asked if it provided "any assistance to any group, like IPPF's affiliate PROFAMIL, which, according to IPPF's 1995 Annual Report, undertook 'a campaign to reach voodoo followers with sexual and reproductive health information... by performing short song-prayers about STDs sexually transmitted diseases and the benefits of family planning during voodoo ceremonies.'" AID acknowledged providing $295,000 from April 1998 to March 1999 to PROFAMIL. The agency said many AID "partners and implementing organizations use this important social network voodoo ceremonies as the medium for disseminating health sector messages and information."…"
American Family Association Center for Law & Policy 3/15/99 "… Today, four members of the Adams County Ministerial Alliance filed papers in federal court seeking to intervene in the lawsuit challenging the placement of monuments displaying the Ten Commandments at four high schools in Adams County, Ohio. The ministers, Kenneth W. Johnson, Thomas D. Claibourne, Ronald D. Stephens, and Douglas W. Ferguson, say that the Ministerial Alliance was responsible for erecting the monuments and continues to maintain them. …The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU on February 9, 1999, on behalf of a disgruntled citizen, Berry Baker, who was denied permission to erect his own display, two six foot tall phallic symbols with a plaque explaining that they represent an ancient religion. Mr. Baker had previously praised the School Board for its "leadership role in an apparent spiritual and cultural revival." "Mr. Baker is apparently upset, not that Adams County is displaying a religious symbol, but that it is not displaying his religious symbol," commented Mr. Crampton. …."
Insight Magazine 4/5-12/99 J Michael Waller Freeper pfesser "…. In open defiance of the Clinton administration, lawmakers in El Salvador overwhelmingly have voted to amend their country's constitution to declare that life begins at conception. Ratification was timed to preempt President Clinton's March 9 visit. "We wanted El Salvador to be the first country in the world to roll back an abortion law," explains Ricardo Enrique Posada, one of the amendment organizers…."
Catholic World News 3/17/99 Freeper marshmallow "… Six people have been killed in fighting in the southern Philippines this week between Catholic and Muslim villagers, a provincial governor said on Wednesday…." NEW DELHI Over 200 Christian houses were torched Tuesday night in Gajapati district of eastern Orissa state that has seen several cases of anti-Christian violence including the arson death of an Australian missionary and his two sons in January…." AKARTA A group of hundreds of Muslims attacked a police station and burned vehicles in a province of Indonesia on Wednesday after a group of foreigners tried to distribute Bibles and then sought refuge in the station…."
Reuters 3/17/99 "…The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco has had it with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The ``order'' of drag performance artists who, clad in nun's habits and vibrant face-paint, have shocked and amused the city for 20 years is being damned by Catholic leaders for planning to stage a public celebration of their troupe's anniversary on Easter Sunday. Archdiocese spokesman Maurice Healy said Wednesday allowing a group which ``mocks the Catholic Church'' to close a public street on the holiest day of the Christian year was just as reprehensible as ``allowing a group of neo-Nazis to close a city street for the celebration on the Jewish Feast of Passover.'' ``In terms of offensiveness, it's very similar,'' he told Reuters…."
Conservative News Service 3/18/99 William Lind "…Once again, the U.S. government is siding with Moslems against Christians. The place is again the Balkans, where we are supporting the Islamic Albanians' grab for Kosovo, the historic heartland of the Christian Serbs. We did the same thing in nearby Bosnia, where we again supported Moslems against the Serbs, including by bombing Serbian forces. I wonder how many American Christians have thought about the fact that their defense dollars now go to attacking other Christians on behalf of Islam? Over and over again, the U.S. government has showed a bias against Christianity and in favor of Islam. In Africa, where thousands of Christians have been martyred at the hands of Islamics, our government has maintained a careful silence. The same is true in Indonesia, where much of the recent rioting has been directed against Christians. Perhaps the most grotesque example is Saudi Arabia, a country we fought to defend against Iraq in the Gulf War and also a country where anyone who converts to Christianity is beheaded. (In contrast, Iraq's current foreign minister is a Christian). The U.S. State Department is so anxious to kiss the Saudis' robes that it banned Christian religious services at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah. Those services had given American citizens in Saudi Arabia a place to worship. All Christian services are illegal in Saudi Arabia, but the consulate is legally American soil, so the Saudis could not stop them. The consulate offered weekly Protestant and Mormon services as well as Catholic Mass…."
Washington Times 3/23/99 Julia Duin "…A study on pedophilia that claims child sexual abuse does not cause lasting psychological harm to its victims has set off a furor on the Internet and talk radio. The angry public reaction, fueled by Internet reports and conservative activists, comes nine months after the study was first released by the influential American Psychological Association. Sex between adults and willing minors should be described in more positive terms, the study suggests. "A willing encounter ... would be labeled simply 'adult-child sex,' a value-neutral term," the authors advised. "A willing encounter between an adolescent and an adult with positive reactions ... would be labeled scientifically as 'adult-adolescent sex.'" The report, titled "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples," is a compilation of 59 studies on how college students cope with child sexual abuse. The article was written by Bruce Rind, a psychology professor at Temple University in Pennsylvania, Philip Tromovitch of the University of Pennsylvania graduate school of education and Robert Bauserman, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan. Mr. Bauserman was also a contributor to a special issue on sex between men and boys published in 1990 by the Journal of Homosexuality, a scholarly journal. His article on "Male Intergenerational Intimacy" in that journal questioned the "taboo" against "man-boy sexual relationships." Mr. Bauserman dismissed criticism of these relationships as "irrelevant or else biased."…"
The Oklahoman 3/25/99 "...BILL Clinton didn't want to bomb Iraqis "during the holy month of Ramadan" -- but he's raining bombs during the Great and Holy Lent, a sacred time for the Orthodox who comprise much of the Serbian population. That note came yesterday from a clergyman in Texas. His point hits both U.S. policy and Clinton's lack of discernable principles...."
Hellenic Orthodox Traditionalist Church of America 3/23/99 Metropolitan Archbishop PAVLOS to Clinton "...Again I write to you as a Christian and as an American. Sir, we are poised on the brink of disaster, a disaster that is manifold in its dimensions and character. As I expressed to you in my previous letter this imminent and unprovoked attack against Yugoslavia is immoral. Even the trepidation alone that we have instilled in the people of Yugoslavia is a horror. The fact that this is exactly one of our intentions is offensive. Legally speaking our country is heading toward the perpetration of a crime of international proportions. We are acting without a UN mandate. We are violating the very charter of the NATO Pact. NATO is acting without a UN mandate. We are violating every international law governing respect for the sovereignty of nations. We are acting without the mandate of the American people. Do the American people truly believe our national interests are at stake? A recent CBS Radio broadcast quoted a poll that said 50% of Americans cannot find Kosovo on a map! Is this the well-informed constituency that gives us a mandate to attack Yugoslavia? I ask again by what authority do we act? Is it the authority of the law of God, the law of our country, or international law? ..."
LifeSite Daily News 3/31/99 "…Speaking with LifeSite News just moments after stepping off the plane from New York, veteran UN diplomat Gilles Grondin told LifeSite that the UN Cairo+5 prepcom which was scheduled to end yesterday continues today despite sessions that went till 1:30am. The reason for the delay, says Grondin is that the G-77 countries are rejecting efforts by the West, particularly the European Union, the US and Canada to have an anti-family agenda dictated to them. "At every turn," reports Mr. Grondin, "sexual and reproductive rights are pushed on the G-77 countries." He confirmed that by these terms the West was referring to 'rights' to homosexuality, abortion, contraception, sterilization and sex-education to be granted from the age of 10. According to Mr. Grondin, the G-77 nations are demanding that the UN articles be chapeaued, thus allowing them to exercise national sovereignty, but the US and Western delegates are fighting sovereignty proposals with the help of the UN Secretariat. Mr. Grondin recalled that at the conference the Vatican delegate noted that whenever world "health" was mentioned only "reproductive health" was discussed. Furthermore, it was made clear that there was no end of money from the West available for reproductive health but that there were definite limits on funding for other health concerns. Mr. Grondin, a pro-life lobbyist at the conference and himself a former Western UN diplomat involved in human rights in the Third World, said, "I was ashamed to be from the West."…"
Washington Post 3/31/99 Peter Slevin "…The Internal Revenue Service properly stripped tax breaks from a New York church that opposed candidate Bill Clinton in full-page newspaper advertisements during the 1992 campaign, a federal judge here ruled yesterday. U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman decided that the IRS acted lawfully when it took away tax-exempt status from The Church at Pierce Creek in Vestal, N.Y. He dismissed the church's claims that the IRS violated religious freedoms and engaged in selective prosecution. Churches that claim exemption from taxation cannot take sides in an election campaign, the federal tax code states. The IRS concluded after a two-year investigation that the nondenominational Christian church had done just that and no longer was entitled to the exemption. The case centered on a full-page advertisement that appeared in USA Today and the Washington Times four days before the 1992 general election. The advertisement said, "Bill Clinton is promoting policies that are in rebellion to God's laws."…"
LifeSite Daily News 3/26/99 "…A group calling itself "Catholics for a Free Choice" (CFFC) has proven to be the furthest from Catholic in attempting to strip the Vatican of its voting status at the UN this week. CFFC is a very low membership front group for a number of powerful anti-Catholic U.S. foundations that vehemently oppose the Catholic Church's international influence on population- related and moral issues. Through CFFC, the Rockefeller, Ford and Playboy Foundations and International Planned Parenthood, have been attempting to spread a great deal of confusion about the church's position on these issues and to undermine the credibility and authority of legitimate, faithful church leaders and institutions. Wednesday, CFFC held a meeting entitled "A Challenge to the Vatican's Status at the UN" thereby launching a postcard campaign calling on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to conduct an official review of the Holy See's status as a voting delegation at the UN. The pro-abortion CFFC was unsuccessful with a similar campaign in 1995…."
http://www.the700club.org/cwn/980807.asp 8/7/98 Freeper DonMorgan "…Meanwhile, Sudanese Christians in Africa are suffering from the twin afflictions of persecution and famine, and that's not all. They still face the problem of slavery. Stan Jeter brings us this brief update. Stan Jeter, reporter Human life is cheap in the Sudan. First, a bitter civil war and now a spreading famine that's put over 2 1/2 million people at risk of starvation. Christian Freedom International recently sponsored a relief flight to one of the areas overlooked by the United Nations' aid efforts. But then they found another tragedy. In this slave market are many Christian women and children kidnapped from their villages in the south by Muslim raiders from the north. Some are branded so they can't escape their masters. Village leaders keep records of their kidnap victims. There are thousands still missing. On this visit, CFI's Jim Jacobson brought enough cash to redeem 12 slaves and reunite them with their families. The price: about $100 each….."
The Jerusalem Post 3/28/99 Thomas O’Dwyer Freeper bessellieu "…At the end of the ceremony the Clintons plunged in among the guests, spreading that famous empathy with unforced glee. When he met Clinton, Marquez had the nerve to ask him directly who he thought his enemies were. The writer reported that Clinton's reply was immediate and abrupt: "My only enemy is right-wing religious fundamentalism."…"
Reuters 3/29/99 "…A national Catholic organization Monday called for a boycott of San Francisco, saying the city was promoting intolerance by allowing a group of drag queen ''nuns'' to hold a street party on Easter Sunday. ``Many people think that San Francisco is the city of tolerance. But it is a lie -- an outrageous lie,'' William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said in a half-page advertisement taken in the San Francisco Chronicle. The league, which has 350,000 members and fights what it sees as anti-Catholic prejudice, said San Francisco's plan to allow the ``Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence'' to close a public street on April 4 for a party to celebrate their 20th anniversary was tantamount to an attack on Catholic faith ``Our objection to the 'Sisters' does not center on men dressing as nuns: it centers on their obscene assaults on the Eucharist, the very nucleus of Catholicism. That is why we are outraged,'' the league advertisement said…. The group says it is not anti-Catholic but simply irreverent, and that it exists primarily as a fund-raiser for nonprofit organizations which serve the community…."
Washington Post 4/1/99 Press Conference "...From a news briefing yesterday by White House spokesman Joe Lockhart: Q: The president's fellow Democrat, Mayor Willie Brown of San Francisco, has just requested a group of actors who mock nuns and the Catholic sacraments to cancel their plans to do this on Easter. Does the president agree? And will he ask Mr. [James C.] Hormel, his nominee to be ambassador to Luxembourg, to join Mayor Brown in asking these people, who Hormel saluted, not to do this on Easter? Mr. Lockhart: I -- it would take 10 minutes for me to unravel all of the deception that's in that question. So we'll do it another time. [Cross talk.] Q: Do you think it's appropriate, Joe? You don't want to speak to this? A: This is -- you know, that sort of ad hominem attack on Mr. Hormel has been -- Q: Ad hominem? A: -- has come from various sources over the last year. It has no basis in fact -- Q: No, he saluted these people -- A: It has no basis in fact -- Q: It does, Joe! A: Well, having -- Q: We've been reporting on it. A: Well, having spoken to Mr. Hormel directly on this subject, it has no basis in fact...."
Conservative News Org 4/1/99 Scott Hogenson "...The American Psychological Association is trying to correct what it called misrepresentations of the organization's positions on child sexual abuse and the findings of a report on the topic published by the organization. But the association appears to be selective in who it publicly criticizes for their use of the report. The APA found itself at the center of a burgeoning controversy after publishing the report A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples, which concluded that child sexual abuse "does not cause intense harm on a pervasive basis," among victims.....Rhea Farberman, Director of Communications for the American Psychological Association, told CNS that the organization's publication of the report in the APA's Psychological Bulletin, does not constitute an endorsement or validation of its findings. The APA states that "sexual abuse of children is wrong and harmful to its victims," and the 155,000 member association published a clarification of its official position on child sexual abuse following Schlessinger's broadcast, noting that the findings of the report "are being misreported by some in the media."...While Schlessinger is being criticized for real or perceived misinterpretations of scientific fact and conclusion, the APA is taking no public action regarding the use of its published documents by one particular group which promotes an agenda of sex between adults and children.... The North American Man Boy Love Association cites the APA-published study and other research documents as justification for sex between children and adults, saying that sexual encounters between men and boys "are often quite positive and beneficial for the participants, regardless of their ages," according to the group's Internet web site. ..."
Associated Press 3-31-99 Karen Testa "...Boca Raton can tear down crosses, stars of David and other monuments on grave sites in the city's municipal cemetery because the decorations are not essential for religious practice, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The ruling was believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, and the first under Florida's Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1998, which says governments cannot impose a ``substantial burden'' on people's freedom of religious expression. Judge Kenneth Ryskamp said that families who decorated the final resting places of their loved ones with religious symbols, plants, stones and other items will not have their religious rights trampled if they cannot keep the decorations...."
WorldNetDaily 4/2/99 Kaye Corvett Freeper Mercuria "...When a pipe bomb package blew up at a U.S. Postal Service center in Dallas last Sunday, to many it signified the growing persecution of Christians both home and abroad. The target of the blast was one of the world's most controversial televangelists, John Hagee, pastor of San Antonio's 17,000-member Cornerstone Church and seen by millions on TV around the globe each week...."
Wall Street Journal 4/2/99 "...Remember the old Hollywood films like "Ben-Hur" and "The Robe," which would always include a scene with a sneering Roman emperor or centurion spitting out the word "Christian" as though it were a slur? In those days the intended effect was irony, a reminder to audiences that there was a time when the Christian faith so publicly honored in American life was looked upon by authorities as low and unnatural. As Christians the world over Friday commemorate the passion and crucifixion of their Lord, it may be a good moment to reflect on the caricature that has come to dominate public treatment of America's predominant faith. Clearly, Americans continue to rank among the most religious peoples in the world. Year after year the Bible outsells all other books. More Americans go to church each Sunday than watch the Super Bowl. Yet our public squares are increasingly dominated by elites who look upon Christian expression in much the same way Hollywood's centurions did in the 1950s and 1960s. Just this February, for example, Ted Turner used a Washington forum to mock the Ten Commandments, particularly the injunction against adultery, a return performance from a man who has in the past dissed Christianity as "a religion for losers." He is not alone. In a speech at Harvard last April, Sidney Blumenthal denounced Hickman Ewing, then one of Kenneth Starr's deputies, as "a religious fanatic," evidently on the grounds that Mr. Ewing helped found a church where he worships and occasionally preaches. During her "20/20" interview with the independent counsel himself, Diane Sawyer wrinkled her nose in disbelief when she asked Mr. Starr to confirm reports that "you jog and sing hymns and pray" -- the last two evidently constituting pretty serious misdemeanors if not high crimes in the ABC canon. Later still, a "CBS Evening News" report on the selection of House impeachment managers noted ominously that "all 13 are white, all 13 males, all 13 Christians." As the CBS reporter understood, this wasn't just a description. It was an indictment. The distinguishing feature here is not the contempt but the license to express it in an American milieu otherwise disposed to hypersensitivity. When Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott made offensive remarks about blacks a few years ago, baseball suspended her for a year. But Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who spent this past weekend with Fidel Castro, confined baseball's disapproval of Mr. Turner, who owns the Atlanta Braves, to a $25,000 fine, not likely to be much felt by a man donating a billion dollars to the U.N. Ditto for Mr. Blumenthal. Though forced to apologize, the White House aide retained his post. As the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote, Mr. Blumenthal's crack "caused barely a ripple -- nothing like the uproar that routinely accompanies a personal insult regarding, say, race or gender or sexual orientation."..."
The Charlotte Observer 4/5/99 Michelle Locke "...Fishnet was big, heels were high and emotions ran deep as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence -- drag queens dressed as nuns -- threw a 20th anniversary bash here Sunday despite criticism from Roman Catholics that their rituals smacked of heresy. The typically irreverent street party -- which featured bands, Easter bonnets and a ``Hunky Jesus'' beauty contest -- infuriated church officials, who said holding the parody on Easter Sunday was like neo-Nazis partying on Passover..... ``City government has gone out of its way to associate itself with this ridicule and blasphemy,'' Archbishop William Levada wrote Friday in Catholic San Francisco, a church newspaper. Some officials, including Mayor Willie Brown, then tried to rescind the permit. It didn't work, but Ammiano is expected to meet with Levada in a peace talk of sorts...."
AP 4/6/99 "…A federal judge who has been overruled twice has again thrown out a lawsuit by an atheist who wants the Ten Commandments removed from a courtroom. Richard Suhre sued over marble tablets displayed on a wall at the Haywood County courthouse four years ago, claiming they violate his constitutional right to freedom of religion. U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg dismissed the lawsuit on Friday…."
The Times of India 4/8/99 Freeper Jai "…It is regrettable that the US-led bombing campaign of Yugoslavia is continuing despite Belgrade's unilateral cessation of hostilities against militants of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Sunday is Easter for Orthodox Christians and several countries, including Greece and the Vatican, had called on NATO to halt its airstrikes in deference to the religious holiday. The US, however, has no intention of stopping the bombing . . ."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 4/7/99 Helen Louise Herndon "…To think that San Francisco is named for a Catholic saint is ironic in today's climate. On Easter Sunday the "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence" partied and celebrated their 20th anniversary by ridiculing nuns. This is not only a mockery of the Roman Catholic Faith but a mockery of historical Christianity as well. Though I am not Roman Catholic and not a proponent of monastic life as exemplified by cloistered nuns, I recognize that such an attempted bashing of an institution held precious and sacred to another religious group is basically a slap in the face to all religions that hold dear their doctrines and practices. When the "Sisters" claim to be merely irreverent, they fail to recognize their act goes beyond irreverence. Their behavior and mockery of the religious is a manifestation of stark prejudice and bigotry against a particular group of people. The fact that they chose Easter, the holiest day on the Christian calendar, only bolsters its outrageous behavior as bigotry. Would the city officials of San Francisco permit a group such as the "Sisters" to dress up on the feast day of the Eid ul-Adha and make a mockery of the faith of Muslim pilgrims on their journey to Mecca? I hardly think so. In fact, they would run the risk of a violent retaliation because most Muslims hold sacred their doctrines and practices. ….Do gays really think Christianity alone prohibits homosexual acts? How would San Francisco's city officials react if a group planned to dress up as Orthodox rabbis or Orthodox Jewish men and women to make a mockery of the Orthodox Jewish faith on Yom Kippur or during Passover? There would be outrage across this nation that any group would show itself so bigoted. Most people, regardless of religious affiliation, would be offended that any group purported to make fun of this very religious group of people. The holy writings of Muslims and Orthodox Jews strongly condemn homosexuality. Yet these groups are spared the ridicule by gay activists that Christianity, and particularly the Roman Catholic faith, experiences…."
NewsMax (Inside cover) 4/6/99 "…Michael Eisner and his Disney Corp., parent company to Miramax Films, seems to have an obsession with defaming Jesus Christ. At least that's the way it looks by the advance word on the next Miramax movie release, "Dogma." …Disney and Miramax enjoy antagonizing Christians with blasphemy, having produced 1995's "Priest" and last year's TV sitcom "Nothing Sacred" on Disney-owned ABC. "Nothing Sacred" caused a fireball of protest from Catholic groups. Now comes "Dogma," the latest Miramax production, in which Disney's movie studio stepchild apparently outdoes itself. Monday's New York Post Page Six reports that "Among ['Dogma's'] elements are a trash-talking 13th apostle, the notion that Joseph and Mary had sex, a female descendant of Jesus who works in an abortion clinic, a Skee-ball-obsessed God and an updated Christ who no longer hangs from the cross but instead offers a thumbs-up salute." William Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, tells Inside Cover that he tried to contact Disney chief Eisner about "Dogma" last year but got no response. Now Donohue warns that if the movie is as bad as early reports indicate, he'll take on "Dogma" the way he did Disney's "Nothing Sacred." "We had a lot of problems with that show and worked successfully to kill it. We got 37 corporate advertisers to withdraw their sponsorship of the program," Donohue told Inside Cover…."
AP 4/13/99 Victor Simpson Freeper TheOtherOne "...Use of the ``morning after'' pill by rape victims is tantamount to abortion, a senior Vatican official said Tuesday, expressing church opposition to their distribution to Kosovo refugees by U.N. aid workers. He called the pill an ``abortion technique'' that should not be confused with contraceptives. The position stated by Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, reflected the Vatican's firm opposition to abortion and its concern that rape victims would end their pregnancies. Sgreccia, writing in the Italian Roman Catholic daily newspaper Avvenire, was reacting to last week's announcement by the U.N. Population Fund that it was providing emergency reproductive health kits for about 350,000 people...."
LifeSite Daily News -- www.lifesite.net 4/8/99 "....On Monday the New York Post reported that Mirimax, a subsidiary of Disney, was preparing to distribute a film called "Dogma" - another gratuitous attack on Christianity. However, after the Catholic League threatened Disney with a major boycott, Mirimax announced yesterday that their co-chairmen, Bob and Harvey Weinstein, will personally buy thefilm rights for "Dogma" and will look for a new distributor for the film. As a result the Catholic league will focus its boycott and other actions on the Weinstein brothers and film writer/director Kevin Smith. William Donahue, president of the Catholic League publicized the substance of the movie after reading the script of "Dogma". "Smith says the movie is 'intended as a love letter to both faith and God almighty.' But in the movie, Joseph and Mary have sex and a descendant of theirs is a lapsed Catholic who works at an abortion clinic; it is said of Mary that 'Believing a wife never humped her husband - that's just gullibility'; God is played by (Alanis Morissette) a singer known for her nude videos and songs about oral sex; the 13th apostle resembles Howard Stern; the Mass is compared to lousy sex. This sounds more like hate mail than a love letter." ..."
WorldNetDaily.com 4/9/99 Stephan Archer "...Assembly Bill 222, a piece of legislation calling for the addition of "sexual orientation" to the existing non-discrimination laws of the California Education Code, may soon be challenged in the courts if state lawmakers vote to pass the bill.... The California Education Code currently recognizes the right of every student to educational opportunity without regard to "race, creed, color, national origin, sex, or economic status." The legislation, Kuehl said, would simply add "sexual orientation" to those sections of the Education Code that now protect students from other forms of discrimination..... In one of the controversial portions of the bill, Kuehl said that private schools controlled by religious organizations, such as churches, will be exempted from adopting policies contrary to any religious beliefs they might hold. Although appearing to be private school-friendly on the surface, Dacus explained that many private and religious schools are not directly affiliated with churches and thus will have to comply with the proposed law in the bill or face consequences for non-compliance. Another controversial aspect of the bill deals with interscholastic athletic participation. According to Kuehl, private schools that are currently participating in interscholastic athletics with public schools wouldn't be adversely affected by the bill. However, Dacus believes that the bill would effectively ban private schools from participating in public school athletic leagues unless they adhere to the sexual orientation measure in the bill..... Another concern that Dacus has concerning the bill has to do with the fact that the bill would make it impossible for students who want to attend most religious colleges to receive Cal Grants because according to the bill, Cal Grant funds cannot go to universities that don't have sexual orientation policies allowing professing homosexuals to teach. Speaking of possible ramifications of the bill, Dacus said, "It basically opens the door for justification of homosexual acceptance -- not just tolerance -- of homosexual policies and programs throughout public schools because it specifically states that all curriculum cannot 'reflect adversely' upon homosexuality. This would inherently include class instruction dealing with homosexuality and its association with HIV and AIDS." ..."
4/10/99 Voice of Russia Freeper Thanatos "…We are addressing the servicemen by the NATO policy-makers to action against Yugoslavia/ It is a shame that you’ve been ordered to continue bombing Yugoslavia on Easter. You are committing a serious sin. Your bombs and missiles are killing people just as they are getting ready to celebrate Easter either this week or in a week. Why should this be? Just because NATO leaders and US President Clinton have refused to meet calls by Pope John Paul II and Russian Patriarch Alexiy for suspension of attacks during Easter. Neither the NATO leaders nor President Clinton are likely to be worried if this Easter happens to be the last in your lives. They don’t care if your missiles and bombs turn Easter into a nightmare and spell death for men, women and children of Yugoslavia. Use your brains…"
THE REAGAN INFORMATION INTERCHANGE 4/12/99 "...FRIDAY FAX April 9, 1999 Volume 2, Number 23 OVERREACHING BY US AND EU ANGERS DEVELOPING WORLD, STALLS CAIRO+5
* The final preparatory committee meeting of the Cairo+5 conference ended last week without completing its main task which was to write a document for the UN General Assembly. There are many reasons for what has become an embarrassing circumstance for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United States, the European Union and radical feminist NGOs. Essentially, this group overplayed their hand and slowed the debate by introducing new and highly controversial language into the document. In the process they angered the 133-member Group of 77 from the developing world.
* From the very beginning of this nearly ten day process, the G - 77 played by the rules, established by the UN General Assembly (GA), that no new language be introduced into the document. The GA wanted to prevent opening old ideological wounds from the contentious Cairo conference in 1994, particularly in the area of "reproductive rights." ....
* The developed world, led by the US, did not show the same restraint. For instance, they insisted upon wholly new language on "emergency contraception." Considered by many in the scientific and medical communities to be frequently abortifacient, "emergency contraception" was objected to by the G - 77 as a violation of the GA's order against new language. The US insisted, with the vocal support of the EU, and Canada, so "emergency contraception" had to be "square bracketed" and held for a later debate.
* The G - 77 was also angered by the US's attempt to get parental rights eliminated from the document. A big push at the conference has been in favor of adolescent sexual rights, again advanced by the industrialized west. The G - 77 insisted upon parental rights. The German delegate, representing the EU, remarked during the debate that "parents have too many rights already." Much of this language was also "square bracketed."
*The G - 77 showed particular discomfort toward the aggressive radical feminist NGOs. At one point, radical feminists formed an intimidating gauntlet outside the conference room through which delegates had to wade. Attempting to shame developing world diplomats, feminists waved leaflets saying "Group of 77 -7 = Consensus." The Libyan delegate waved the leaflet in the air and shouted to the conference, "this kind of demonstration has never been seen inside the United Nations." Another G - 77 diplomat complained bitterly that pro-life NGO voices were deliberately discriminated against by the Cairo+5 Secretariat and by UNFPA.
The Nando Times - AP 4/17/99 Amir Shah "...The Taliban religious militia on Saturday warned President Clinton that criticizing Afghanistan's human rights record damages the countries' relations. "This criticism will only be bad for relations between Afghanistan and the United States," said a Foreign Ministry statement. Clinton has been a strong critic of the Taliban's treatment of women and last month said the United States wouldn't recognize the Taliban while the repression against women continued. "Any criticism regarding Afghanistan's Muslims and women's rights should come from a Muslim," the statement said. "This Clinton is not a Muslim and does not know anything about Islam and Muslims."..."
Houston Chronicle 4/15/99 Eric Berger ".... U.S. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay said Thursday that two leading mental health associations' writings could make pedophilia more acceptable. Two publications, one printed in 1994 and the other in 1998, have stirred controversy for months, but the associations' representatives have consistently said pedophilia is harmful and wrong. However, DeLay, R-Sugar Land, said the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, considered a primary tool of physicians, suggests that a pedophile could be diagnosed as "psychologically normal." "Their new definition dumbs it down to where someone who molests a child may not be considered a pedophile," said Emily Miller, DeLay's press secretary. DeLay also took issue with an article in the June 1998 issue of the American Psychological Association's highly regarded Psychological Bulletin. He contends that the authors suggest that pedophilia might not always constitute sexual abuse. Talk-show radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and many of her listeners, have also been critical of the article. Other commentators have labeled it as "pedophilia propaganda," saying there is no way children can have consensual sex with adults...."
Cincinnati Post 4/18/99 Andrew Conte "...The live birth of a 22-week-old fetus during a partial-birth abortion in Cincinnati earlier this month prompted abortion opponents to call today for new federal regulations banning the procedure. After undergoing the first part of a three-day abortion process at the Women's Med Center in Dayton on April 6, the unidentified mother experienced abdominal pains the next morning and was taken to a Cincinnati hospital where she gave birth, according to members of the Warren County Right to Life organization. The baby girl, dubbed Baby Hope by medical staff, apparently lived for about three hours as an emergency room technician rocked and sang to her. Physicians ruled that the baby's lungs were not developed enough to support life or to permit them to respirate her. 'It certainly underscores the need to pass partial-birth abortion laws immediately,' said Lori Viars, president of the group. 'The tragedy here is that no laws were broken.' ..."
Zenit News 4/19/99 Zenit News Freeper ex-snook "...In fact, because of the above policy, two NGOs -- Oxfam and Save the Children -- which are not even Catholic, decided to stop working with the U.N. on this matter, after they witnessed, for themselves, the disasters it provoked. Cascioli came to a harsh conclusion: "the true objective of the reproductive health services in the refugee camps is the coercive control of a population they do not want to see increase. There is a surreptitious racism in this logic, confirmed by the fact that the one which supports these U.N. programs, including in Kosovo, -- with money and personnel -- is the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the powerful organization which is the heir to the eugenic movement of the beginning of the century for which the 'selection of the race' continues to be a task of society."..."
WorldNetDaily 4/21/99 Joseph Farah "...We'll be sorting out the details of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado for days and weeks to come. Much of the reationary spin will be familliar. We've got to get rid of guns, they'll say. As if the dead-eyed, cold-blooded teen killers in this case had somehow legally obtained and carried their weapons to school. Then there will be those who blame society -- the culture. Ceretainly there's something here. America has become desensitized to violence. Certainly the entertainment media bear some responsibility. Certainly the video games, the hideous rap music, the TV and the movies have some effect..... But this is still America. There is no place in America for confiscating guns from law-abiding people, and there is no place for government-imposed censorship. It doesn't work. It's un-American. And it doesn't address the real root problems -- the kind that trigger Columbine High massacres. The real problem is that in America we have forgotten the concepts of personal responsibility, individual rights and the sanctity of life. In fact, it's not a matter of forgetting. There has been a wholesale effort to obliterate these values from the soul of our nation. We forbid kids from praying at school. We teach them that they evolved spontaneously from a singe-cell organisms in the swamp. We immerse them in a grossly polluted moral ecosystem. We break up their families. We telll them there are no absolutes, no right and wrong, ultimate truth. It's just amazing with that recipe that there aren't more Columbine Highs. And, tragically, I think there will be, unless America wakes up and recognizes how we have betrayed our children -- cheated them, deceived them, broken their hearts...."
Total Request Live (MTV) 4/21/99 Freeper incognito "…Here (paraphrasing) is what he next told MTV's interviewer Chris Connelly: You were eventually able to escape. What about your friend? Student (didn't get his name): He ... killed her. He walked up to her and asked her if she believed in God. She said yes and then he blew her head off. …"
Christian Science Monitor 4/22/99 Ron Scherer Freeper Cincinatus "…Parents with children in voucher programs generally are happy with the results. One of the main reasons: There are rarely incidences of violence in the parochial schools. "When we looked at the Catholic schools in and around Los Angeles and compared them to the public school system, we found the main reason the Catholic schools had virtually no violence is because they treat the smallest incident as a big thing," says Mr. Seder…"
Pat Buchanan 4/21/99 "…"At Littleton, yesterday, America got a glimpse of the last stop on that train to hell she boarded decades ago when we declared that God is dead, and that each of us is his or her own god who can make up the rules as we go along. I pray for the families of those who lost loved ones."…"
Larry King Live 4/21/99 Freeper murron reports "…Here is a fact that is getting very little media play. According to this girl's account, these killers were looking for Christians. When her friend stated that she was, in fact, a Christian, she wa promptly shot and killed…."
Freeper Steve_Seattle 4/21/99 on Larry Kind Live "…Larry didn't follow up on the "killed because she was a Christian" angle, but later vigorously pursued the "killed because he was black" angle with another student. The media just doesn't get it - there is a lot of hate directed at traditional Christians in this country, and the media can't see it even when it's right in front of their face, possibly because they are among the worst offenders…."
LifeSite Daily News 4/19/99 "...The Canadian branch of the pro-abortion group "Catholics For a Free Choice" (CFFC) has joined ranks with its international counterpart in a campaign to strip the Vatican of its voting status at the UN. The organization's agenda, however, is being resisted by faithful Catholics, pro-life groups and non-Catholic Christian leaders..... CFFC is a very low membership front group for a number of powerful anti-Catholic U.S. foundations that vehemently oppose the Catholic Church's international influence on population-related and moral issues. Through CFFC, the Rockefeller, Ford and Playboy Foundations and International Planned Parenthood, have been attempting to spread confusion about the church's position on these issues and to undermine the credibility and authority of legitimate, faithful church leaders and institutions...."
CNN / TRANSCRIPTS 4/22/99 Freeper AmericanInTokyo "...LARRY KING: Where was she, Mickie? MICKIE CAIN: She was in the -- in a classroom, I believe, and she ended up standing up for the greatest thing ever. She had the courage to turn her life around, and she went straight up after she started trusting Christ. And when I came to Columbine the year after she left, she lent a hand to me when I was kind of going crooked, and she completely, completely stood up for God when the killers asked her if there was anyone who had faith in Christ. She spoke up and they shot her for it. And that is the most brave thing anyone could ever do, and I -- I want that memory to live on and her example for that. And she was so fun loving and amazingly open hearted, and -- you could come to her with anything, and she accepted your darkest secret with open arms...."
Eye on Conservatism 4/22/99 Robert Yoho "...Now that the last bodies have been moved from Columbine High School, I find myself wondering if these senseless tragedies could altogether be avoided if God was freely welcomed into the schools on a daily basis. Why does it take a tragedy to acknowledge our reliance on God and the need for Him in our lives? Why does it take the introduction of bodybags for us to turn to God? Why does it take gunfire before our school children can bow their heads and pray? Nobody at the memorial services worries about the abominable crime of invoking the name of God in public. Nobody worries about the "separation of church and state." Nobody worries about the irreparable damage that might be done to these school children by the intrusion of heretofore-ridiculed Judeo-Christian values. I am sure that there were many tears shed. No doubt many of the mourners took the time to bow their heads for a moment of silence, a generic term that still means "prayer" to most of us--or to all of us who are still not fearful of using the actual word..... Although God had already been expelled from many of our bigger city schools, I attended an elementary school that started each day with prayer and the pledge of allegiance. I can even remember seeing the "Ten Commandments" posted on the blackboards of some of the classrooms. Despite all of these unsavory influences, I somehow managed not to turn to a life of crime and delinquency. The point is simply this: nobody has ever been hurt by bringing prayer and Judeo-Christian standards of morality into the classroom. If our children were exposed to the Ten Commandments at school, they would come under the dangerous influence of concepts such as "Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal." And God forbid! What if the children started to believe and practice them? What could be the worst thing that might happen...they might not kill their teachers and fellow students...they might not steal?..."
FOX News 4/22/99 Amanda Onion Freeper Steven W. "...Chism described how one of the assailants had confronted Valerie Schnurr in the library of the school and asked her if she believed in God. "Val said she knew she could say yes, no or nothing, and she said yes, knowing she would pay a price," Chism said. The assailant then shot Schnurr in the chest. She sustained nine shrapnel and bullet wounds to the chest, abdomen and left arm. She's now in stable condition at Swedish medical Center. "Val told me today she doesn't regret her choice," said Chism...."
Christian Broadcasting Network Website 4/22/99 "...April 22, 1999 Dear Friends, I'm very tired, having just returned from a memorial service this evening. It's been a very long day, but I wanted to give you an update before retiring. As of this morning Rachel Scott's family still hadn't received official word of their daughter Rachel's death. The waiting was agonizing, but after 1:00 p.m. this afternoon, I received a call from the Coroner confirming that Rachel had been positively identified and was indeed deceased. It was very difficult delivering that news, and we spent several hours praying and weeping with the family members who had assembled in their home. Pictures of Rachel adorned the living room. She was such a beautiful 17-year-old! We spent time praying together, and seeking our Father's merciful comfort. We heard from eyewitness accounts of other surviving students that when Rachel was confronted by one of the gunmen, she gave a bold testimony of her faith. The killer asked her, "Do you believe in God?!!" She boldly answered, "Yes I do!" She was instantly gunned down. This has made a major impact on the other students who knew of Rachel's Christian testimony. I'm certain that in this moment, the angels of God surrounded her and instantly ushered her into Christ's eternal kingdom. The spirit of the martyrs still lives! This evening we joined another church in holding a memorial service for Rachel and the other students killed or wounded. Over 1,500 people attended. We heard stories of several students who survived while their classmates were slaughtered while begging for their lives. I had the honor of addressing this assembly for 20 minutes, and urged that we all receive the grace of Jesus to heal our wounds and resurrect our community out of this morass of pain and confusion. One of the ways we must find healing is in forgiving those who have hurt us. There seemed to be a special presence of the Lord this evening upon us all. This Saturday we will hold a Funeral Service for Rachel at 1:30 p.m. We will again be sharing the facilities of another area church just blocks from the site of Columbine High School. We expect the Lord to bring many young people to Himself through this service. Never before have we seen such an open hunger for God in the young people of this community! Thank you for all your prayers and thoughtful notes. Please continue. The process of healing the scars of this tragedy will take time and lots of prayer. Love in Jesus, Bruce Porter Pastor Cellebration Christian Church Littleton, Co"..."
Denver Post 4/23/99 Claire Martin and Janet Bingham "...Cassie Bernall's Christian faith saved her once when her life was in turmoil, and her unwavering trust made her a martyr the instant after she was taunted by the gunmen in Columbine High School's library on Tuesday. "Do you believe in God?'' one of them asked. "Yes, I do believe in God,'' Bernall said. Then he pulled the trigger. Bernall's young friends at the West Bowles Community Church youth group cling to that story like a lifeline. With her last breaths, she affirmed the faith she embraced and it made the shy, quiet Bernall a hero in their eyes. Seth Huoy and Crystal Woodman, who belong to the Bernall's church youth group, were in the library, too. They survived, and one way they make sense of the massacre is to tell about the girl who died because she believed in God. They prayed for invisibility, and in at least one sense, their prayer was answered: Death passed them by.... "
WorldNetDaily 4/23/99 Alan Keyes Freeper laz "...This was a dark week in American life. The shooting in Colorado last Tuesday punctuates the truth about the era in which we live -- a culture of death and dark satanic forces is threatening the future of our nation. We are already hearing the usual suspects rising to speak about guns and other material objects as if they are causing our problem, but we know they are not. Our problem is that a spirit of death is stalking the land...."
Washington Post 4/23/99 Amy Goldstein, Rene Sanchez and Michael A. Fletcher Freeper laz "...While investigators here continued today to sift through the aftermath of the rampage for clues to the shooters' motive, relatives and friends of several of the slain students said that they believe some victims were targeted because they represented all that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold disdained. There is no evidence that the murderous pair moved through the corridors with a hit list of names. But it was widely known among Columbine students that the tiny subculture to which Harris and Klebold belonged had little tolerance for devout Christians, or for athletes who favored caps, or for the handful of minority students who attended the school...."
Newsday.com, AP wire, regional 4/24/99 "... Raising further concerns about violence, a Rochester man was arrested Wednesday after pointing an imaginary rifle at a crowd of demonstrators. Police later found rifles, knives and ammunition in the back seat of 34-year-old James Krentel's car. Police said the Rochester man told them he thought abortion should be legal and was irked by the anti-abortion protesters who had traveled to Rochester. Krentel was arraigned Thursday on three misdemeanor counts of harassment...."
WALL STREET JOURNAL 4/22/99 Peggy Noonan Freeper Roscoe Karns "...A man called into Christian radio this morning and said a true thing. He said, and I am paraphrasing: Those kids were sick and sad, and if a teacher had talked to one of them and said, "Listen, there's a way out, there really is love out there that will never stop loving you, there's a real God and I want to be able to talk to you about him"--if that teacher had intervened that way, he would have been hauled into court....."
Reuters 4/24/99 Michael Ellis "...A diary recovered from the home of one of two teens responsible for the Columbine High School massacre showed they planned the bloody rampage for a year and that the attack was timed to coincide with Adolf Hitler's birthday..... He said the diary contained detailed plans. It also showed that they had been stockpiling bombs for a considerable period of time..... He declined to say whether the diary came from the home of Eric Harris, 18, or Dylan Klebold, 17, the two seniors who shot and killed 12 fellow students and a popular teacher Tuesday before taking their own lives. Stone described that weapon parts, and other materials were clearly visible in one of the suspect's bedrooms. He did not say which suspect he was referring to...."
CNN 4/24/99 "....The diary of a Columbine High School student discloses that he and another student gunman planned their bloody massacre at the school for more than a year, police said Saturday.... They were monitoring the lunchroom," the sheriff said. "It was very intentional, the timing of this." Stone, who declined to say which of the gunmen kept the diary, placed some of the blame for the massacre on the parents of the shooters, Dylan Klebold, 17, and Eric Harris, 18. He noted that along with the diary, police found a shotgun barrel on a dresser of one of the boy's homes, as well as bomb-making materials. "A lot of this stuff was clearly visible and the parents should have known," Stone said. "I think parents should be accountable for their kids' actions." ..."
Orlando Sentinel 4/27/99 Charley Reese Freeper Cincinatus "...Today, killing is often presented in a flippant, emotionless manner as if the death of a human being was inconsequential. In many films, the so-called hero kills a man, cracks a joke; kills a man, cracks a joke; etc. Violent video games preach the same message: Killing is OK, even amusing. The federal government that legalizes abortion and prefers bombs to talks reinforces the message of the entertainment industry...."
Capitol Hill Blue 4/26/99 Doug Thompson "...I killed my first man at 18, a little more than 33 years ago. He looked even younger than me, caught wide-eyed in the blast of a left-to-right sweep of my Stoner machine gun, dancing like a puppet on a string before dropping to the ground. I walked over, looked at his lifeless face and then puked my guts out.... Even when you kill for your country, a little bit of you dies each time you do it..... This wasn't war against a sworn enemy. This was war in a high school, fought by two crazies with a grudge against their classmates. It should be the worst horror that any society can ever imagine. And for many, it was. Most of the students who survived expressed genuine shock and horror at the carnage they both witnessed and were lucky enough to escape. A disturbing number of others, however, seemed unbelievably unaffected by it all. One teenager discussed seeing a fellow student's face blown off with little or no emotion. It wasn't shock. It was a complete lack of revulsion or horror over what he saw. Another youngster described, in graphic detail, what he had seen in such a matter of fact way that you half expected him to say "cool" and walk away. No shock. No revulsion. No anger. Just another video game..... But too many others seem unfazed by what happened. Their dispassion may be the biggest tragedy of all. ..."
Jewish World Review 4/26/99 Cal Thomas Freeper starlu "...WHILE AMERICAN FORCES BOMB YUGOSLAVIA with the announced intention of stopping one form of slaughter, gunfire comes to yet another public school in which more than a dozen have been slaughtered and others, critically wounded, remain in peril...We await the psychiatrists' explanation, but don't we secretly know what it is? When you mix the ingredients for a cake, you get a cake. When you mix the volatile ingredients of corrupted culture, vulgar entertainment and broken, loveless families, you get child killers...."
New York Post 4/26/99 Jonathan R.Cohen "....ACCORDING to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, America has "defined deviancy down." The Columbine High School killings also indicate that America has simultaneously "defined rebellion up." Anti-social teens are nothing new, but as deviancy has been made normal, we have made it increasingly difficult for teen-agers to rebel. Adults no longer seem to be even slightly outraged by far more offensive cultural imagery. As a result it has become harder for teens to shock their elders, try though they do these days by piercing their eyelids, tattooing their bellies and dressing like vampires. We have raised the threshold of rebellion so high that it is practically beyond reach. To be recognized, to get attention, to stir anyone in authority to lift a finger, whether it is a parent, a teacher, a principal, or a sheriff, a rebel has to go to very great lengths these days. One must send letter bombs, blow up office buildings or gun down children...."
WorldNetDaily 4/26/99 Joseph Farah "...'Do you believe in God?' When I first heard the story of 17-year-old Cassie Bernall from dozens of e-mailers, I assumed it was another one of those Internet urban legends. I hear from hundreds of well-intentioned people a week spreading rumors and disinformation they overhear or pick up on the WorldWideWeb somewhere. This story was just too unbelievable to be true -- just too perfect. It turns out the story was perfectly true. Cassie went to the Columbine High School library to study during lunch on Tuesday. Shortly afterward, a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia pointed his gun at her and asked: "Do you believe in God?" "Yes, I believe in God," she said. "Why?" the gunman asked. But he did not wait for an answer. He shot Cassie Bernall dead. Joshua Lapp, 16, was an eyewitness to this execution of the innocent -- a walking, talking, real-world illustration of what I have written about so often in this column: that we all live in the midst of a universal spiritual war zone. Lapp was crouched nearby, hiding from the gunman. What he saw and heard made a powerful impact on him, as it would on anyone..... Now the whole world is hearing it. It shows how temporal our world is. One moment we're going about our routine business. The next moment, we're gone -- at least from this mortal realm.... Those 70,000 -- and, I would guess, millions around the world watching on TV -- were not only brought to tears by recollections of this tragedy, they were empowered to fight back in this spiritual war consuming the earth. It's rare that Americans are shocked out of their sense of complacency, comfort, and security, and forced to address these ultimate issues as a country. All of us have trials and tribulations in our personal and family lives that make us confront them, but collectively, as a nation, we seldom come together to say: "Yeah, there are opposing forces in this universe of ours -- the force of good and evil..... Columbine was a wakeup call. Was it loud enough? Will Americans hear it? Will they heed the message? Or will they fall back into their semi-blissful sleep. There is only one solution. It's a person. His name is Jesus Christ. He came to earth about 2,000 years ago to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. His coming was foretold by the prophets for 4,000 years before He came in human form. And He's coming again -- and, by all indications, very, very soon. Cassie Bernall was ready for Him. The question Columbine should raise in the minds, hearts, and souls of every American and every human being on planet earth is: "Are you ready?" If some evildoer put a gun to your head today and asked you whether you knew Jesus and accepted Him as your personal savior, what would your answer be? ..."
Universal Press Syndicate 4/30/99 Joseph Sobran "... Christians in America have been slow to grasp that they live under a regime whose unspoken major premise is that we don't have immortal souls. Liberal indoctrination teaches children that all earthly evils derive from our Christian heritage -- the source of intolerance, superstition and bigotry. "Medieval" has become a liberal devil-word, disparaging the high civilization of the Middle Ages. The chief practical result of the theory of evolution is the belief that human life isn't particularly special or sacred. This belief has found expression in mass murder, in the bombing of cities and in abortion clinics. Today new implications are still being found in it, as witness the career of Dr. Jack Kevorkian...."
The Washington Times 4/30/99 Valerie Richardson "....Some liberal Christian, black and Jewish leaders are outraged over the strongly evangelical Christian tone of last Sunday's memorial service for those massacred at Columbine High School. "The entire community was invited to come and mourn, and then it turned into an evangelical prayer service," said the Rabbi Stephen Foster of Temple Emanuel in remarks before the Denver Interfaith Clergy Alliance. "I've had many complaints from people saying, 'Where were the Jews?' but that's not the issue," he said. "The issue was one of insensitivity to the kind of statements being made that were exclusively directed to not just Christians, but fundamental Christians." Another rabbi called the service reflective of an "ignorant, narrow-minded" streak of Christianity. None of the parents expressed objections about the memorial or its speakers, which included a rabbi. Several of the slain students were known for their born-again Christian faith, and the testimony of one of them, Cassie Bernall, in the face of death seized the attention of millions of readers and viewers across the nation. One of the gunmen, who seemed to be seeking out believers, asked her whether she believed in God. She looked him in the eye and said, "Yes, I believe in God." He shot her dead. ..."
NewsMax 4/29/99 Richard Poe "...The pundits have spoken. The massacre at Columbine High School, they say, was caused by video games, splatter films, Internet surfing and easy access to guns. But was it really? Not likely. Consider the fact that young people in Switzerland surf the same Internet and watch the same movies as did the Littleton shooters. Consider also that every able-bodied Swiss male between the ages of 20 and 42 serves in the militia. Swiss law requires its citizen soldiers to store their gear at home, ready for action. Every man keeps an assault rifle with ammunition in his closet. By the pundits' reasoning, Switzerland should long ago have drowned in an ocean of blood. So why hasn't it? Maybe because the pundits are wrong. Maybe because guns and video games do not really have the power to transform high school nerds into murderous psychopaths. So what does? One answer is cult brainwashing. Evidence is mounting that the Littleton shooters did not act alone. And some of their conduct suggests a cult mindset. "Do you believe in God?" one of the gunmen asked 17-year-old Cassie Bernall. When she said yes, he killed her. News reports have painted the Littleton massacre as a vendetta against bullies. But Cassie Bernall's death suggests darker motives. The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey was reportedly a favorite text of Columbine's Trench Coat Mafia....If Berkowitz is telling the truth, then the masterminds behind the Son of Sam murders have been running loose for more than 20 years. We can only hope and pray that investigators of the Columbine massacre will approach their work with more diligence than did their predecessors on the Berkowitz probe...."
New York Post 4/29/99 DAVID GELERNTER Freeper laz "...You might imagine that, in the aftermath of Columbine, our cultural leaders have been caught on camera in the act of hypocrisy. They have told us for years that we should not be ''judgmental,'' but surely everyone everywhere acknowledges his obligation to be ''judgmental'' where these killers are concerned. It appears that what the anti-judgmentalists really meant is: Morality should be kept locked up except in emergencies, in which case you are allowed to Break Glass and (carefully) remove it from its case - keeping in mind that it is a dangerous instrument, only to be used in a crisis...."
Chattanooga Free Press 4/29/99 Pastor James E. Gibson Freeper newsman "...We have taken this issue of pluralism and compared it to moral absolutes and determined that we are going to go with pluralism because we don't like what moral absolutes mean. But, Mr. President, we cannot ignore the fact that moral absolutes still exist. Absolute truth is still in place. And there are three stipulations for absolute truth. One is that truth must come from a source bigger than ourselves. Number two, those truths must be timeless in their relevance. And number three, they must be universal in their application. And I submit to you, Mr. President, that the Bible is the only source that meets all these requirements. . . . "
LifeSite Daily News 4/30/99 '....The findings of the first detailed physiological study of a cloned animal from birth were reported yesterday. Dr Jean-Paul Renard of the Institute National de la Recherche Agronomique found that a baby cow, cloned from an ear cell of a healthy adult cow, had major genetic defects. According to BBC news, "six weeks after the calf was born, there was a sudden, dramatic fall in its red blood cell counts." The calf died a week later and an autopsy reveled that the spleen, thymus and lymph nodes had not developed normally. Dr Harry Griffin, involved in the original cloning of Dolly the sheep said this study reinforces the point that "no-one should be contemplating the cloning of a human being" at this time...."
Florida Times-Union 5/01/99 Jim Saunders Freeper newsman "... ''It's dramatic in many ways,'' said Bush, who made the plan his top priority of the session. ''It's precedent setting.'' But the vouchers battle, which has raged in the Legislature for months, isn't over: A coalition of groups vowed yesterday to go to court to block the plan, arguing it would illegally send tax dollars to religious schools...."
MSNBC 4/30/99 Jay Severin "....As the national debate invariably polarized along two equally simple-minded schools of thought -more God vs. more government - the president predictably signed on to the latter argument. IT DID NOT seem to interfere with his thinking that existing gun control laws cannot prevent tragedies like the Colorado school shootings. Or that such laws unavoidably require sacrificing both money and freedoms. But, hey, this is politics, and you do what the overnight polls tell you will be popular.... Many truths are uncomfortable and inconvenient for liberals like Clinton. One is that while new gun laws won't solve this sort of behavior, other new laws might. If kids unsupervised in the afternoon, after school hours are a key to the problem - and many parents believe that is so - then how about one parent actually at home with them? Well, take it up with the village that is currently raising America's young people, because Mom and Dad are both working to pay the highest taxes in American history, and cannot be home to keep an eye on junior....."
USA Journal 5/3/99 Jon. E. Dougherty "....Foster complained, "The issue was one of insensitivity to the kind of statements being made that were exclusively directed to not just Christians, but fundamental Christians" - meaning, if you're a fervent believer in God's word, you're a dangerous threat to society and, quite probably, as dangerous as the student lunatics who did the shootings in the first place. Another 'good rabbi' went on to call the services "reflective of an 'ignorant, narrow-minded' streak of Christianity." Who's 'ignorant' and 'narrow-minded' here - these few complaining rabbis, or the 70,000-plus mourners, consisting of members of most religious faiths in and around Littleton? Guess what, rabbi - this service wasn't about you, it was about the 15 children who were gunned down by a couple of loose screws. This incident goes beyond the proverbial 'dung in the punchbowl' kind of gaffe. And it's more than just a little inappropriate. This kind of rhetoric is pure hate - no more, no less. Regardless of which faith you believe - Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Jew, Presbyterian, Mormon, or some other belief - doesn't God always teach the same thing: Unity, compassion, discretion, and understanding Yeah, I thought so. This incredibly bad taste demonstrates the antithesis of God's word and His intentions for the kind of life He wants all of us to live. It ain't representative of it. And these morons are supposed messengers of the Word? Can you just imagine how the families of the dead children must feel when they hear this kind of BS - especially at this particular time?...."
WorldNetDaily 5/7/99 S.L. Goldman Freeper laz "...Though I can neither define nor prove evil, I can say without hesitation that -- in terms of the Littleton Massacre -- it was, without a doubt, the prime motivating force behind the deeds of the two murderers. Evil, and its various manifestations, are so thick, so numerous, in the world today, that I am prepared to say that anybody who dares question the existence of evil is either a fool, or have themselves been "taken over" by evil. Now let me get even more specific. I don't believe that the killers targeted -- as is being touted in the media -- jocks and minorities. But I do think they had a target? Absolutely. Who, you ask? The answer is -- "Believers."..."
AP 5/7/99 Freeper Buffalo Bob "...A beer advertisement in a free magazine for gays and lesbians that shows two men holding hands has drawn so much response that Anheuser-Busch Inc. set up special hot lines to handle calls...."
The Indian Express 5/8/99 Reuters Freeper Jai "...San Franciscans held a party Friday ``to de-stigmatize and celebrate the under-recognized activity of self-love.'' The occasion being marked at a local sex shop was ``National Masturbation Day,'' and the San Francisco sex campaigners who organized the erotic festival and ``Masturbate-a-thon'' said it was part of a drive to liberate people's sexuality, reports Reuters. . . . "
ConservativeNews.org 5/12/99 Justin Torres "...As hate crime legislation winds its way through the Congress, conservative and family activists have begun to accuse those pushing the bills of having a non-traditional family, pro-homosexual agenda that they wish to ensconce in public schools-using public money to pay for the effort. To date, the effort has yielded public school curricula and programs that teach grade school students about homosexuality and encourage high school students to lobby lawmakers on a variety of homosexual issues. The selectivity of the material also neglects thousands of years of religious conviction by every major denomination on Earth-and overlooks the statistics on hate crime, which account for a minute percentage of total crime in America-describing homosexuality as "normal."..."
www.ConservativeNews.org 5/13/99 Justin Torres "....Hate crime legislation presently before the U.S. Congress sets up funding structures for "hate prevention" programs and youth advocacy groups in American schools. These programs are designed and required by federal mandate to "support" homosexual students rather than advocate the normalization of homosexuality. They are hoped to ease an assortment of mental and psychological difficulties claimed to be caused by alleged discrimination and homophobia in schools. But there is a thin line between "support" and "advocacy," and many private programs have surfaced around the nation, such as Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs) and other such groups that are products of coordinated efforts between government policy makers, teachers, and homosexual advocacy groups, including the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination (GLAAD); Parents, Friends, and Families of Gays and Lesbians (PFLAG); the Lambda Legal Defense Education Fund (LLDEF); and the Gay/Lesbian/Straight Education Network (GLSEN). These groups have used GSAs and other student organizations for lobbying in favor of a variety of homosexual causes. They're also often used as conduits for federal and state tax money, and as springboards for lawsuits against school districts and administrators accused of insensitivity to homosexual concerns, raising questions about whether such activity is advocacy or support...."
London Telegraph 5/14/99 Ben Fenton "...THE United States army has recognised white witchcraft as a religion and has appointed chaplains to oversee pagan ceremonies on at least five bases. A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that there were believed to be at least 100 witches attending covens at Fort Hood, Texas, the army's largest base with more than 42,000 troops. So respectful has the army become of the pagan rites that security was increased at Fort Hood's Boy Scout camp, where covens are held. The move is to deter members of Christian groups from intimidating the group. The pagans, called Wiccans, are accorded the same privileges as practitioners of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. They are encouraged to have their religious preference stamped on the metal dog-tags each soldier wears...."
Conservative News 5/12/99 Lawrence Morahan "...The publication in a prestigious psychological bulletin of a sex study that medical experts say is a trial balloon for the normalization of pedophilia has prompted a group of conservative lawmakers to call on President Clinton to condemn the suggestion that sex between adults and children is harmless. "I'm outraged," Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ), a leading advocate of stiffer sentences for sexual predators, told a coalition of leading conservative lawmakers, victims of pedophilia and family groups at a forum on sex abuse hosted by the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. Wednesday. Salmon was referring to an article that appeared in the July 1998 volume of the Psychological Bulletin, a bi-monthly publication of the American Psychological Association (APA), in which the authors say it's all right for an adult to sodomize a child so long as the child doesn't develop psychological problems because of it. The article, "A Meta-Analytic Examination of Assumed Properties of Child Sexual Abuse Using College Samples," by Bruce Rind, Philip Tromovitch and Robert Bauserman, unleashed a firestorm for asserting, among other things, that there is scant evidence that little boys suffer from having been sodomized by adult males......"I don't want to understand them. I want to put them in prison," Salmon said of pedophiles..."
New York Post 5/15/99 Uncredited Editorial "...Wesleyan is offering a course in porn. The final exam is quite simple, explains Professor Hope Weissman: "Just create your own work of pornography." ....One took photos of herself and her boyfriend engaging in oral sex. Another made a video of a fellow student's eyes as he pleasured himself..... The course catalogue describes Weissman's seminar as a serious examination of the "implication of pornography in so-called [sic] perverse practices such as voyeurism, bestiality, sadism and masochism." (Thesyllabus includes Hustler magazine and the Marquis de Sade.) ..."
WorldNetDaily 5/17/99 Samuel L. Blumenfeld "...One of the reasons why the educrats have focused on guns as the chief cause of the Littleton massacre is because Columbine High School was supposed to be the kind of progressive school where such things could never happen.... Carol Belt, a former school board member in Englewood, Colo., was chairman of a Strategic Planning committee in charge of drawing up "vision statements" about the future. She writes: "As background material to help with the process I received materials on globalism and books by 'futurists.' One of those books was 'The Aquarian Conspiracy,' authored by Marilyn Ferguson. I was told that it was the 'best reference' to the 'new curriculum' that was coming into our school district. I read the book and decided if the 'future' that Marilyn Ferguson was predicting was in fact going to become a reality, I wanted no part of it. I discovered that this was the 'foundational book' of the 'New Age' movement." To help the teachers in Littleton become effective change agents, they were required to attend training sessions given by the Strategic Options Initiative. The trainees were requested to read the second, third, and ninth chapters of "The Aquarian Conspiracy." Marilyn Ferguson writes in Chapter Nine, "You can only have a new society, the visionaries have said, if you change the education of the younger generation. Yet the new society itself is the necessary force for change in education. ... Of the Aquarian conspirators surveyed, more were involved in education than in any other single category of work. ... Tens of thousands of classroom teachers, educational consultants and psychologists, counselors, administrators, researchers, and faculty members engaged in colleges of education have been among the millions engaged in personal transformation." In other words, American schools like Columbine High have been completely paganized by educators who have adopted the occult philosophy of the Aquarian Conspiracy. It is a philosophy in conflict with Judeo-Christian teachings, and it is a philosophy that opens the door to satanism. It is impossible for a member of the Aquarian Conspiracy to be indifferent to Christianity. He or she must oppose it, for Christianity is based on absolute biblical principles that condemn pagans. And that is why the public educrats are so adamantly opposed to any acknowledgment of the biblical God in the schools. ..... "
AP 5/16/99 "...Teaching honesty, fairness and other essential values is crucial for students and public servants alike, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh told graduates of Marymount University on Sunday. Freeh said his interest in ethics was renewed by a recent trip to Normandy, France, where he saw the D-Day beaches. He contrasted the 19- and 20-year-olds who fought in World War II to today's generation, in which a majority of high school students say their biggest challenges are ethical ones.....Education provides an important role in teaching ethics, Freeh said. He praised Marymount University, a Catholic school in Arlington, Va., for its Center for Ethical Concerns and said core values should be a stronger part of FBI training...."
Newsmax 5/13/99 Arianna Huffington Freeper Fulbright "...America -- the nation that Alexis de Tocqueville described as ``great because it is good'' -- is losing the moral high ground across the globe. It is easy to dismiss the anti-American demonstrations in Beijing as choreographed by opportunistic dictators to divert attention from their own domestic problems. But it is much harder to shrug off the burning of American flags and the chanting of anti-American slogans in cities from Moscow to Melbourne, from Tokyo to Rome...."
EWTN News Brief 5/14/99 "...A House subcommittee on Thursday passed two amendments to the 2000 defense appropriations bill that would repeal the longstanding ban on abortion services at overseas military bases. The first amendment, sponsored by Rep. Steven Kuykendall, R-California, and passed by a vote of 11-7, introduces exceptions to the ban on public-funded abortion in cases of rape and incest. The second amendment was introduced by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-California, and would repeal a ban on privately-funded abortions. In 1996, Sanchez won the Orange County, California, House seat held by noted pro-life Republican Bob Dornan....."
Chattanooga Free Press 5/17/99 Editorial Freeper newsman "...Nor is the problem simply a reflection of a "gun culture" or the absence of gun control. If you go back to the 1950s, you find that there was less gun control then than there is now. And cap pistols, BB-guns and deer rifles were standard equipment for many if not most growing boys. And yet violent crime in America then was but a small fraction of what it has since become..."
EWTN 5/18/99 "...Pro-family advocates and reformed ex-homosexuals called on the American Psychiatric Association on Monday to revisit its policy on whether homosexuals can change their orientation, as the group opened its annual convention. The groups called on the APA to change its policy on homosexuality within its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to reflect the ability of homosexuals to change and to stop condemning therapists who treat them. "Instead of condemning and interfering with treatment that has proven to be successful in the lives of hundreds of men and women who have benefited by it, the APA should be supporting the work of NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) members and referring individuals seeking help to them," Jan LaRue of the Family Research Council said. APA has changed its policies in recent years, revoking the designation of homosexuality as a mental illness or disease. Moreover, therapists and psychiatrists who treat the orientation as disease are often ostracized or penalized by their colleagues, according to the advocates...."
Freeper tracey12 5/18 Dan Patrick KPRC 950 AM Houston Texas "...In Houston Texas today, KPRC 950 AM radio with host, Dan Patrick began discussing the orders handed down by Federal Judge, Sam Kent. By the time this two hour discussion was over, people in Houston and the surrounding counties were mad as Hell at this judge because of what he has done to a High School in a near by community. Judge Kent issued a restraining order which states that a student may say a prayer at the graduation ceremony for Santa Fe High School on May 28th, but any prayer that contains the words "God, or Jesus" or any diety will result in the student being arrested by Federal Marshals on the spot, and that student will spend SIX MONTHS in jail for violating the judeges orders. He went on to say a number of very mean statements including "You will wish you had died as a child." This is the most profound case of documented abuse by a Federal Judge that I have ever seen! Here in Houston, we are hoping that 20/20, or some news magazine will quickly come here and make a story out of this for all of the country to see how an appointed judge can abuse the rights of many Americans. The graduating class of Santa Fe High is over 400 this year! That judge is violating the Free Speech rights and the Freedom of Religion rights of these Americans. Dan Patrick, owner of KPRC 950 AM in Houston, talked with both Rush Limbaugh, and Mike Reagan about mentioning this story on their programs. Listen on Wednesday to see if anything is said about this incredible Judge, Sam Kent in Galveston Texas. Judge Kent says he is calling in the Federal Marshals to stand by the stage, and if anyone says "God or Jesus, or the name of any other diety, those marshals will take that student to jail on the spot!..."
Conservative News Service 5/18/99 Scott Hogenson "...The American Library Association has decided to continue linking from its Internet web site to a teen sex site that counsels teenagers on safe sex with animals, maintenance of violent sex toys, sado-masochism and other exotic aspects of sexuality. The ALA decision was made at an impromptu meeting of the group's division heads in Chicago Sunday, when top officials from the organization decided to continue linking from the ALA web site to another site called Go Ask Alice, according to ALA spokeswoman Linda Wallace. "Nobody raised any concerns," about the Go Ask Alice site, said Wallace. "They're basically saying 'fine,' but they didn't say it formally," Wallace told CNS....."
http://www.cashill.com 5/18/99 Jack Cashill "....An alien monitoring our media from a different galaxy--even if he did have cable--would never guess that the most God-fearing country in the industrial world is none other than the good old USA. Here, some 60% of the citizenry attends church at least semi-regularly. In England, by contrast, that figure is down to about 3%. In surveys, more than 90% of Americans express belief in heaven and/or hell, devils and/or angels and close to 100% believe in God. Every weekend, from rural backwater to big city store front, millions of American burst out in effusive rituals of energy and enthusiasm that for many represent the most significant cultural expression in their lives. Our alien friend would never see this. Newspapers bury religious news as deeply as they can: The Star stashes it somewhere between entertainment and obituaries. TV avoids religious news altogether unless there is a whiff of scandal about it, say a minister who spends the Orphan's fund on hookers or an accusation of priestly child molestation, real or "recovered." In Hollywood, it's been at least 40 years since the likes of Audrey Hepburn or Ingrid Bergman played nuns or Bing Crosby and Humphrey Bogart played priests. And in schools, alas, religion in any form is about as welcome as head lice. (It could be worse I suppose. In the more "progressive" Canada, religious broadcasting has historically been illegal.)...What stemmed the hemmoraging of American Christianity was a cross-sect yearning to get back to the basics. Protestant churches, Southern Baptists most visibly, rebelled or reformed themselves as need be to avoid the disintegrating power of progressivism. In the process, they learned that the surest way to make news--maybe the only way--is to challenge the PC canon on hot topics like gender and orientation. This challenge has earned traditionalists the undisguised scorn of the media--Boycott Disneyland! Da noive!--but then again, the Magic Kingdom has never been the Kingdom these folks sought the keys to. ...Still, with or without the media, that old time religion will endure and occasionally revive itself. It had better. America can not exist without it...."
The Wanderer, page 5 5/20/99 Samuel Francis Freeper Marianne "...A culture hasn't collapsed just because more Klebolds and Harrises have appeared; a culture has collapsed when ordinary people, like the gentleman quoted above, are no longer able to distinguish between the robes of a priest and the trench coats of madmen, when no one is able or willing to set apart good and evil, normal and abnormal, healthy and unhealthy, or the people who embody them. When that happens, we no longer have a culture at all, and the Klebolds and Harrises will walk among us unnoticed and unrestrained until, one night, they wake up and slaughter us all for no apparent reason...."
Outrider 5/19/99 Freeper Thanatos Garry Wills "...An important new poll taken by USA Today/CNN shows that there has been a shift in the balance between those who are pro-life and those who are pro-choice. Those defending a woman's choice have declined from 56 percent in 1996 to 48 percent now. This still leaves the pro-choice people six points higher than those who are pro-life (42 percent, up from 36 in 1996). The change is attributed to the opposition to late abortions that has been spurred by conservatives who call it a "partial-birth" procedure. In a sense this confirms the people who expected that procedure to make people change their minds on abortion itself. But it will be dangerous for conservatives to pin their electoral hopes on this shift...."
WorldNetDaily 5/20/99 Craige McMillan "...As it is with men and their leaders, so it is with nations: "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1:15).....For a pittance in campaign contributions China bought our nuclear secrets from the Democratic National Committee, acting as banker for the Clinton-Gore White House. For its treason, Clinton-Gore gained four more years to lie about the economy. Treat it like a poll: find out what the nation's economists think is necessary, then deliver those numbers at the end of the month. Why risk the unpleasant surprises that real numbers could generate? Men and women who supported a liar for president -- and begged their senators for his reprieve -- have no claim to anything better. Let the good times roll and pass the stock options!...."
Freeper reports on C-Span/House of Representatives 5/20/99 Rep. James Traficant/D-Ohio "...I saw Rep. Traficant on C-Span this morning talking about the shootings at Heritage High School in Atlanta. He said "Congress needs to look into the mirror....our students learn about devil worship and Hitler, but they can't have God." "And a nation that bans God...is a nation that opens the door to the devil." He ended his little one-minute speech by saying "It's time to get God back into our schools...and God back into our nation." ..."
Washington Post 5/29/99 "...THE AUDIENCE at a Calvert County high school graduation was wrong to have interjected religious worship into the county's secular educational life. That is what happened this week when thousands in the audience, faced with a lawful school ban on prayer and with advice from the state attorney general's office to drop a formal prayer from the ceremony, ignored the restrictions and recited the Lord's Prayer. It was a defiant act, an incursion on the freedom of conscience of others and a prescription for the kind of community divisiveness that the Supreme Court's school prayer decision aimed to avoid. That there was discord was evident from the treatment of Nick Becker, the student who had successfully opposed the inclusion of formal prayer as part of the graduation ceremony. Mr. Becker walked out of the hall in protest once the mass spontaneous prayer began. When he tried to return to the ceremony to collect his diploma, he was detained in a squad car and threatened with arrest by state police...."
Washington Times, Weekly Edition 5/24/99 B.K. Eakman "...Paul Weyrich, Cal Thomas, and Ed Dobson recently announced that the culture wars are lost, that most people don't defend, or even necessarily believe in, the values that characterized the Moral Majority and the Reagan revolution. They say social conservatives have failed politically since none of their agenda items have seen the light of day in seven years...... How did we lose? We lost by basing our strategy on wishful thinking instead of the realities of war, by allowing turf battles to split our alliances, by treating our allies like competition instead of welcoming them as friends. If we are to save our way of life in the coming century, individuals of principle will have to don the mentality of the resistance fighter. We no longer have the luxury of time for righteous indignation...."
Associated Press 5/24/99 Sandra Sobieraj "...Treading on traditional Republican territory, Vice President Al Gore said Monday that churches and other faith-based organizations - where "the client is not a number, but a child of God'' - should receive government funds to help cure social ills. His proposal for "a new partnership'' between church and state, outlined in a presidential campaign speech at a downtown Salvation Army, centered around the notion that "politics and morality are deeply interrelated.'' Lest there be any doubt, the Democratic presidential candidate said three times that he believes in the separation of church and state. And his language suggested a skittishness at opening a war with civil libertarians....."It's taken too long for candidate Gore to join Republicans in recognizing the rightful role of churches and religious organizations in solving society's most challenging and pressing problems,'' Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican National Committee said. At the same time, he welcomed Gore's "change of heart.'' ...."
EWTN 5/24/99 Freeper marshmallow "...A Clinton administration bioethics advisory panel will call for Congress to end its four-year-old ban on the use of federal funds in research using embryonic unborn children...."
http://www.ConservativeNews.org 5/25/99 Justin Torres "... The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), alarmed that falling birth rates in Pakistan will mean smaller and smaller groups of young people to support a rapidly aging population, has issued a call for increased abortion and contraception services for the young in the Asian nation.
In Pakistan, for the first time, reports UNFPA, the age cohort of one to four years old is smaller than the cohort of five to nine year olds-both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population..... Judie Brown of the American Life League (ALL), noting UNFPA's consistent support of no-growth population policies, asked, "Why would it be surprising that the very countries, like Pakistan, that have been the target of UNFPA's consistent demand for fewer children, would now be the very ones facing projections of an aging population?" Austin Ruse, director of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a conservative NGO, said that fear of a population boom and what he termed an "anti-natal attitude" is behind calls for increased reproductive services in Pakistan and worldwide. "The world is now seeing the largest cohort of adolescents in history-about a billion-and this has UNFPA up in arms," Ruse told CNS..."
EWTN 5/27/99 CWNews.com "... A report by two pro-family groups on Thursday said the United Nations' Population Fund (UNFPA) may be violating the human rights of Kosovar refugees and endangering their health through its campaign to provide them with abortion and birth control. The Population Research Institute (PRI) and Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (CAFHRI) reported that shipments of UNFPA's "reproductive health kits" have bumped basic medical supplies and even food from supply convoys to refugee camps...."
Newsday.com 5/28/99 James Pinkerton "...The so- called "charitable choice" proposal now has the support of both Vice President Al Gore and Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.).....The Right has always known that belief was the key to personal virtue. But the Left has tended to dismiss religion as the "opiate of the masses." Progressives have wanted to transform society and government; only after such social engineering was accomplished would bureaucrats get around to dealing with people and their "unmet needs." On Monday, Gore distanced himself from that discredited liberal line. "For too long," he said in a speech to the Salvation Army in Atlanta, the Left maintained that "religious values should play no role in addressing public needs." But the "hollow secularism" that resulted, Gore continued, was not sufficient to spark the "personal transformation" needed to save people from the traps of "addiction, delinquency or dependency." And so Gore endorsed legislation, first proposed by Ashcroft, one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, that would allow "faith-based" organizations to compete for government social service contracts and to deliver those services as part of a faith-based transformational package. "For too long, faith-based organizations have wrought miracles on a shoestring," said the vice president. "With the steps I'm proposing today, they will no longer need to depend on faith alone." No doubt Gore is secretly pleased that liberal groups, such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State, have attacked him, imparting on him an aura of Clinton-like triangulatory centrism. For his part, Ashcroft welcomed Gore's support....."
ETWN 5/31/99 ZENIT News Agency "...Some U.N. agencies condition their aid to victims of hurricane 'Mitch' by imposing birth-control plans. This determined policy of U.N. agencies was made official during the meeting, which concludes today in Stockholm, of the Consultative Group for the Reconstruction of Central America, led by the Inter-American Development Bank, and including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, the Reconstruction Group was created last December to launch an international fund-raising campaign for humanitarian aid to the peoples of Central America affected by last October's hurricane 'Mitch.' The donor countries have guaranteed the Stockholm meeting $6.2 billion but, in exchange, request from the interested governments certain commitments, salient among which are programs for birth control...."
Scripps Howard News Service/Knoxville News-Sentinel 6/1/99 Joan Lowy, Freeper Brian Mosely "... Civil libertarians suffered a major setback last week when Vice President Al Gore embraced a legal concept called "charitable choice" which permits government to aid religious groups that perform social services while allowing them to retain an overtly religious flavor. Groups concerned about maintaining a separation between church and state -- from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Joint Baptist Committee to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judiasm -- have been fighting charitable choice since it was included in sweeping welfare reform legislation enacted in 1996...."
Washington Times 6/1/99 Balint Vazsonyi "....Astonishing but true: The academic year just completed has elicited few howls of anguish about the rising level of incompetence threatening to engulf this land, whereas near-hysterical attacks on prayer and guns have become our daily bread. Is it rational to be against both prayer and guns?Perhaps it is. ..."
ACLJ.ORG 6/01/99 "...The American Center for Law and Justice, a public interest law firm, today filed suit in State District Court in Rice County, Minnesota on behalf of a high school biology teacher who has been barred from teaching biology because of his religious beliefs. "School officials are engaging in a type of 'educational McCarthyism' in this case which cannot go unchallenged," said Francis J. Manion, Senior Regional Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice - Midwest. "Teachers must be able to tell students information they need to make up their minds about issues such as evolution." Manion said that Rod LeVake, who holds a Masters degree in Biology Education, was told in 1998 he could no longer teach biology at Faribault High School in because, according to the school's curriculum director, LeVake has a deep conflict between his religious beliefs and the teaching of evolution. The lawsuit contends that LeVake, who describes himself as a Christian, denies that such a conflict exists and repeatedly has assured school officials that he could and would teach the theory of evolution. The suit contends that LeVake has told his superiors that he is not interested in teaching creationism in biology class, but simply wants his students to be aware that not all scientists accept evolution as an unquestionable fact and that there are numerous, scientific, non-religious critiques of the idea ..."
email: From: 'Chris W. Stark' 5/27/99 Darrell Scott "...TESTIMONY OF DARRELL SCOTT FATHER OF TWO VICTIMS OF COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING LITTLETON, COLORADO BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES THURSDAY, MAY 27,1999 2:00 P.M. 2141 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING Since the dawn of creation there has been both good and evil in the heart of men and of women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher and the other children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.... In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughters death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent. I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy - it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies!...."
http://cnn.com/ 6/4/99 CNN "...President Bill Clinton Friday used his recess appointment privilege to name James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg. Clinton's move was in direct defiance of the Senate's GOP leadership who have refused to confirm Hormel because he is openly gay. The recess appointment is a constitutional device that becomes available to the president if an appointment is made while Congress is in recess. Both the House and the Senate return from their 10-day Memorial Day holiday on Monday. Under the recess appointment, Hormel, 66, will be able to serve until the end of 2000, when the 106th Congress adjourns. All of Clinton's ambassadorial appointments expire at the end of his term in January 2001....."
Kansas City Star 6/6/99 "....Saturday night's prom at midtown's Metropolitan Community Church was the first gay prom in the Kansas City area, organizers said...The event was organized by Passages, a social and support group for gays, lesbians and other youths between the ages of 14 and 21. "We wanted an event where the atmosphere is very affirming, not that thin gruel of tolerance," said Bruce Hall, a Passages board member...."
Original Sources 6/4/99 "...Deborah Zimmerman spent the day her daughter was born drinking at a bar. By the end of the day, her blood-alcohol level had reached 3.0 percent, more than three times the DUI limit of .08 in Georgia. Later, at the hospital where she gave birth, Zimmerman allegedly told a nurse that "I'm going to kill this thing because I don't want it anyway." Miraculously, her baby daughter survived, but was born with a blood alcohol level of .199 percent, twice the legal limit in Wisconsin. As a former prosecutor, I have no difficulty recognizing Zimmerman's actions for what they are. If the facts have been reported accurately, Zimmerman is guilty of attempted murder. Apparently, the State of Wisconsin agrees, because it charged her with first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless injury. Unfortunately, a State Appeals Court in Wisconsin didn't see things the same way. In a highly publicized ruling, the court held that "[t]he term 'human being' was not intended to refer to an unborn child, and Deborah's prenatal conduct does not constitute attempted first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless injury."..."
WorldNetDaily 6/7/99 Paul Chesser "....While national media figures and government officials pine for more gun control and limiting Internet access, many parents are quietly taking actions on their own. It is too soon after recent school shooting incidents in Littleton, Colo., and Conyers, Ga., to measure statistically whether parents are adopting alternative methods to educate their children, but evidence indicates that many parents are at least considering teaching their children at home next year. Phone call inquiries to various state home school associations throughout the country have jumped since the Columbine High School shootings April 20, with some parents panic-stricken in their search to find other educational options for their children...."
ZENIT News Agency 6/4/99 "....Between 1994 and 1998, the number of children saved from abortion in Italy increased significantly. Those saved with the help of the 100 Italian Centers of Aid to Life rose from 1,539 to 2,862 -- an increase of 86%. The number of women helped in these Centers increased from 6,554 to 10,402, an increase of 59%. Expressed in other figures, the number of children increased by 47% for women who received assistance. The Life Centers give the mothers every possible assistance: diapers, clothes, powdered milk, payment of water, electric and rent bills, medical care, and help in finding a home or employment. The Life Centers' work often fills the voids left by other public organizations....."
(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) 6/03/1999 Cal Thomas "...SOMETHING QUITE REMARKABLE happened last week at a high school graduation in Calvert County, Maryland. It wasn't that the American Civil Liberties Union had intervened on behalf of a lone student who said he would be offended if a fellow graduate went ahead with her plans to deliver an invocation at commencement. The religious version of "ethnic cleansing'' happens all the time, from the courthouse to the schoolhouse. Seventeen-year-old Julie Schenk, who wanted to deliver the invocation, compromised and announced that she would instead call for a "time for reflection'' that did not mention God. That seemed fine with everybody, including the ACLU. But when Schenk asked for 30 seconds of silence and the crowd of 4,000 rose, a single loud male voice began reciting the Lord's Prayer, which begins, "Our Father, who art in heaven.'' The prayer was quickly picked up by others in the audience until it rolled like thunder across the room....What amazes about this incident is that the audience reaction seems to have been spontaneous. Indeed, an ACLU spokesperson appeared frustrated when she noted the corporate prayer wasn't initiated by graduates or school officials. Nor did the prayer specifically mention "God,'' only "Our Father,'' so technically it might be said to have been in compliance.... For decades we have been told that the price we all must pay for a healthy First Amendment is the toleration of the most disgusting filth oozing through every pore of our society and culture. Creeps, louts, pornographers, blasphemers, alternative lifestylers, fornicators, adulterers, liars, slanderers and other forms of human rubbish enjoy the full protection of the law, but those who believe in God and order their lives accordingly, and who wish to participate in the pluralism and diversity which they hear so much about (but which never seems to apply to them) are increasingly losing their rights to be heard in the same public places occupied by those dedicated to tearing down, not building up, society. What these Maryland parents and friends of graduates discovered was a power they had forgotten they had. Frustrated by the aimlessness of Washington and its inability to do anything except focus on the self-preservation and survival of the politically unfit, the audience at the Calvert County graduation decided to practice what "We the people'' actually means. As their forebears did with immoral and tyrannical British rule, they stood up and spoke out for, and to, an Authority higher than the state. When those Marylanders were told they had no right to speak of God publicly, they chose to speak to God. When Rosa Parks decided she would not obey an immoral law that required her to sit at the back of the bus because her skin color was not white, she inspired a civil rights movement that is ongoing. Maybe those prayer protesters are the Rosa Parks of the secularist '90s. When the people speak, there's nothing the ACLU or anyone else can do about it...."
Augusta Chronicle 6/6/99 Editorial "...Bill Clinton is the first president to go beyond tolerating homosexuality to promoting it as an acceptable alternative lifestyle. He has ignored the constitutional veto of the Senate by naming, during the congressional recess, homosexual activist James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg. (This country, 97 percent Roman Catholic, was insulted when his name was first announced -- and this was after the Democratic donor was to be ambassador to Fiji, but couldn't serve because homosexuality is a crime there.) Hormel was a ``commentator'' for San Francisco's ``Gay Pride Parade,'' which mocks Christianity -- and Catholicism in particular. He also funds a library collection in that city featuring perverted documents from the ``North American Man/Boy Love Association.'' How low can Clinton go? ..."
Eagle Forum 6/2/99 Phyllis Schlaffy "...In the interest of the public's right to know, Senator Jim Jeffords' Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions conducted an oversight hearing last week on the controversies surrounding "Channel One." That's the 12-minute-a -day news and advertising program beamed into the classrooms of 40% of all 11 to 18 year olds. Channel One is able to offer its advertisers what every advertiser dreams of: a guaranteed captive audience. Children attend school because of compulsory attendance laws, and children are forced to watch Channel One because their school board signed a contract agreeing to compel them..... A Channel One marketing flier promises: "Channel One delivers the hardest to reach teen viewers. Channel One even penetrates the lightest viewers among teens". Of course, that's because schoolchildren are forced to watch the Channel One ads. Prayer and Bible reading have been banned from the schools because they interfere with the right of athiest children not to have to sit in a classroom where prayers are recited. What about the rights of children whose parents don't want them listening to satanic shock rocker Marilyn Manson (whose song was played as intro music to a Channel One program)? What about parents who don't want their children to see clips from Stephen King's horror film "The Shining"? Or don't want them to be pressured to see the sex-saturated TV-14 show "Dawson's Creek," or the grusome killings in the movie "The Mummy"? The most objectionable commercials are the many hard-sell ads for movies and television shows that contain vulgarities, obscenities, blasphemies, sexual innuendoes, or violence. The ads induce students to see the movie over the weekend so they can answer a question the following week and win fabulous prizes....."
www.conservativenews.org 6/8/99 Justin Torres Freeper buffalo bob "...Emily: "My mothers mean so, so, so, so, so much to me. I have two mothers. Two moms is pretty nice. Well, it's more than pretty nice, it's really nice. You can't imagine. Although having two mothers is a problem to others, I respect that that's the way they think, and I can't do anything about it. I still think that those people think stupidly. This once happened with a boy in my class who couldn't come to my house because my parents were lesbians. One night I called their house and their mother told me their version of the Bible. I stood up for my mothers and knew that many kids in my class were supporting me and calling me to see how I was. I am proud of my moms and enjoy marching in the gay pride march every single year with my moms." Teacher: "Wasn't that a nice essay? Shouldn't we give Emily a round of applause?" ...."
UPI 6/10/99 "... The owner of a controversial anti-abortion Web site has filed a $251 million lawsuit in Georgia against an Internet provider for closing down his Christian Gallery Web site. Neal Horsely of Carrollton, Ga., is asking (Thursday) for $1 million for breach of contract and $250 million in punitive damages, claiming Mindspring Enterprises made a "fundamental legal error" when it shut down his anti-abortion site and destroyed his electronic mail...."
AP 6/10/99 "...Pope John Paul II stressed loyalty to the church today and cautioned young people against falling victim to "travesties of religion, or to manipulations of the truth.'' ....[ re: Russian martyrs] John Paul said. "'How sweet it is to die for the faith.' These were their last words.'' Such devotion was needed today, he said, citing "problems and violent changes'' facing humanity. "In such a world, many people, especially the young, feel lost and wounded,'' the pontiff said. "Some fall victim to sects and travesties of religion, or to manipulations of the truth. Others succumb to different forms of slavery. Attitudes of selfishness, injustice and insensitivity to the needs of others become more widespread.''..."
Nando Times 6/10/99 J. DeFAO and M. Jones "...Thursday night, Jason Niemeyer will don a black cap and gown and join 190 classmates as they slowly process to strains of "Pomp and Circumstance" on the football field of Oroville's Harrison Stadium. But the time-honored traditions will end there because Oroville High's valedictorian - with four years of straight A's behind him and a grade-point average above 4.0 - will not give his prepared address. Niemeyer and his family are locked in a legal battle over whether student graduation speakers can make references to God. If it sounds familiar, it is because Niemeyer's older brother, Chris, was in the same place last year. School officials barred Chris Niemeyer's valedictory address on the grounds that it was sectarian, with such lines as: "We must yield to God our lives." They also rejected the prayer of another student. Just hours before the graduation, a federal judge declined to intervene. The Niemeyer family sued, claiming the school was violating Chris' First Amendment right to free speech. U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton of Sacramento has yet to issue his ruling, though one is expected soon..... school officials told the family's attorney, "Tell Jason he doesn't need to plan on writing a speech, because he probably won't be giving it." The family believes it was retaliation for their lawsuit, to which Jason had been added as a plaintiff...... In a hearing on the suit two weeks ago, Karlton asked the parties to "see what can be done to permit Jason to speak within the confines of the administration's comfort zone." Jason Niemeyer then submitted two speeches, both with the same typical high school recollections of homecoming and friendships and being "puny little freshmen being picked on." One version named Jesus Christ directly, and the second deleted the name but referred to "a friend who has personally helped me to achieve my goals, and I give Him the praise and glory for that." Jason learned Monday night that both had been rejected by school officials. Keiner said both versions "ask the audience to accept Jesus Christ as their friend and we believe that is unconstitutional at the podium." ...."
EWTN Feature Story: www.ewtn.com 6/11/99 "...(Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute.) A few weeks ago International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) called for the elimination of the Vatican from its seat as an Observer Mission to the United Nations. IPPF accused the Vatican of having a 'broader political agenda' in its criticism of "emergency contraceptive" supplies IPPF and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have shipped to the Kosovar women living in Albanian and Macedonian refugee camps. IPPF accused the Vatican of lying in their assertion that the "morning after pill" was tantamount to abortion. * Considered an "apex NGO," IPPF is one of the most important and powerful NGOs in the UN system. IPPF both carries out UN programs on the ground, and also maintains a leading policy-making role at UN headquarters. IPPF is an umbrella organization that directly links "family planning associations" in more than 150 countries. IPPF promotes what many consider to be the most advanced notions of sexual and reproductive health, including abortion on demand for all age groups, including children. * A major goal of IPPF is to change national laws regarding abortion and other "reproductive health services." IPPF says they intend to "increase the right of access to safe, legal abortion" and to "campaign for policy and legislative change to remove restrictions against safe abortion." More than 100 nations have some restrictions on abortion, each of them presumably are targets of IPPF action. * Also potentially troubling to the more conservative diplomats from the developing world is IPPF's promotion of sexual practices for teens and children. IPPF runs a website for adolescents in which various kinds of sexual practices are encouraged, including 'mutual masturbation, oral and anal sex.' The website calls 'casual sex' 'exhilarating and entertaining.' ...."
U.S. Newswire 6/11/99 Freeeper Brian Mosely "...Thirty years ago this month, at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a courageous group of citizens resisted harassment and mistreatment, setting in motion a chain of events that would become known as the Stonewall Uprising and the birth of the modern gay and lesbian civil rights movement. Gays and lesbians, their families and friends, celebrate the anniversary of Stonewall every June in America as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month; and, earlier this month, the National Park Service added the Stonewall Inn, as well as the nearby park and neighborhood streets surrounding it, to the National Register of Historic Places...."
Washington Post 6/11/99 Caryle Murphy "...A Senate Republican aide came under fire this week for what members of the Muslim community called his bigoted remarks on Islam. But Idaho Sen. Larry E. Craig, the number three ranking Republican in the Senate, rejected calls to fire the aide, citing his right to free speech. James George Jatras, a foreign policy staff analyst on the Senate Republican Policy Committee, said Islam has a "fraudulent self-depiction as a pacific creed," arises from "the darkness of heathen Araby" and rivals communism as one of the "gigantic Christian-killing machines." In an apparent reference to historic Islamic descriptions of heaven, Jatras added that "it is beyond me what spiritual values any Christian has in common with someone whose idea of beatific bliss is boinking an endless parade of the well-rounded houris said to inhabit the Muslim paradise."..... "I absolutely condemn any sort of bigotry or intolerance," Craig said in his reply to CAIR a day later. But "the exchange of opinions and ideas . . . that some might find disagreeable is an important part of the workings of free society." For him to dismiss Jatras, Craig added, "would not constitute the censuring of bigotry, but its practice." ..."
Washington Times 6/14-20/99 Andrea Billups "...A federal appeals court in Philadelphia has agreed to decide if a first-grader's free-speech rights were violated when his teacher forbade him from reading a Bible story to his class. Eight months ago, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit agreed with a lower-court ruling that teacher Grace Oliva did not violate Zachary Hood's rights when she kept the Catholic student from reading the Old Testament story of Jacob and Esau in front of his classmates. The boy's presentation, taken from his favorite book of Bible stories, did not mention God or the Bible and was cleared by his mother as appropriate material for an assignment designed to highlight his reading proficiency. The teacher, who called the story "a prayer," did allow Zachary to read it to her alone...."
AP Wire 6/15/99 "...Mark Friestad said it, the audience believed it, and that settled it. The 26-year-old high school social studies teacher from Valley City, N.D., won the Great American Think-Off on Saturday with a convincing spiel that science is more dangerous than religion.... The seventh annual event featured debate between four finalists selected from about 500 argumentative essays submitted from around the world. The Think-Off audience then selected a winner, who receives $500 and a contract from an educational book publisher. Friestad cited the early 1900s eugenics movement, which hypothesized the human gene pool could be improved if weak links were removed. ``That led to public policy like sterilizing handicapped people,'' he said. ``We accepted that because scientists told us it was so. And anytime you have to rely on someone else to do your thinking for you, that's dangerous.''..."
UPI Focus 6/14/99 Michael Kirkland "...The Supreme Court has let stand a lower- court ruling in favor of Maryland officials who refused to provide funds to a religious college, drawing a sharp dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. At issue was whether officials - when deciding whether to grant funding to an institution - should focus on the religious nature of the institution or the secular purpose of the activity that the funds would support. In the case rejected by the justices today, Maryland refused funding to a college affiliated with Seventh-day Adventists, saying it was "pervasively sectarian," while providing funds to three other religiously affiliated schools. In a rare three-and-a-half page dissent to the denial of review, Thomas acknowledged that the "pervasively sectarian" concept was established in a 1976 Supreme Court decision, Roemer vs. Board of Public Works of Md. "We invented the 'pervasively sectarian' test as a way to distinguish between schools that carefully segregate religious and secular matters," Thomas said, "and schools that consider their religious and education missions indivisible and therefore require religion to permeate all activities." Thomas, one of the Supreme Court's most conservative members and a devout Roman Catholic, said a number of more recent decisions in the 1980s and 1990s have said that public assistance may be made available in many cases to religious schools or students when it is "based upon neutral, secular criteria." "We should take this opportunity to scrap the 'pervasively sectarian' test and re-affirm that the Constitution requires, at a minimum, neutrality not hostility toward religion," Thomas argued...."
Original Sources (www.originalsources.com) 6/16/99 Mary Mostert "…"The KLA has set its check points and controls the town. KLA groups have besieged the Bishop's Court with bishop Artemije, monks and priests inside. In the church yard, monuments of emperor Dushan and Russian consul Yastrebov are destroyed. The German contingent cannot guarantee safety and security neither for the Serbs, nor for the priests and the monks, and officers advised the Bishop, the priest and monks to leave Prizren tomorrow with the remaining Serbs." And thus the destruction begins - a destruction reminiscent of the Barbarian Assault on Rome, in the 5th Century, A.D.: "THE HOLY ARCHANGEL MONASTERY (XIV century - 2 km from Prizren) This morning KLA has kidnapped one monk and some Serbs from Prizren. Their fate is uncertain. "THE HOLY TRINITY MONASTERY- MUSUTISTE ( XV century) Today the monastery church has been burnt down, few days ago the monastery residence was burnt down. The nuns have escaped to the Gracanica monastery. "THE SAINTS KUZMA AND DAMIAN MONASTERY -ZOCISTE (XIV century) The monks have been evacuated to Prizren. The fate of the monastery is unknown. VELIKA HOCA and surrounding villages are deserted. Line of 400 people are on the way to Pristina, although no safe evacuation has been guaranteed. "THE VISOKI DECANI MONASTERY (XIV century) During Yugoslav Army pullout, 150 Albanians from Decani had found safety in the monastery and spent 2 days there, together with a group of 17 Serbs that had escaped earlier. The Italian troops are stationed near the monastery, and their officers are cooperative, and guarantee safety and security Serbs and Albanians alike. "PEC - THE PATRIARCHATE OF PEC (XIII century) The Italian forces are in the town, relations are good. There are no more than 50 Serbs left in the town. The nuns at the Partriarchate are well. "THE DEVIC MONASTERY (XV century) There is no information. The arrival of the French contingent is expected tomorrow. "THE GORIOC MONASTERY (XIV century) No presence of KLA is registd. The arrival of the French contingent is expected." And so we watch as NATO helps IMPLEMENT the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo, just as we watched the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Croatia in 1995 with the help of US bombers, while the media, who MUST know it is lying, talks about "Serbian War Crimes."…"
AP 6/17/99 Laurie Kellman "…The House voted today to allow the Ten Commandments to be posted in schools and other government buildings. By 248-180, lawmakers approved Rep. Robert Aderholt's amendment to a juvenile crime bill that would allow states to decide whether to permit such displays on government property. The amendment, Aderholt said, was a ``first step'' for government in reinstilling the value of human life in children influenced by violent culture…."
Associated Press 6/17/99 Julia Lieblich "...Homosexuality dominated the final day of the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting, as members criticized the appointment of the nation's first openly gay ambassador and cheered football great Reggie White for again condemning the gay lifestyle. ``God said it not -- Reggie White,'' the player-turned-preacher told the audience Wednesday. ``Leviticus 18.22 says, `Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman.''' The applause at the Georgia Dome was thunderous. Last year, White declared homosexuality a sin when he addressed the Wisconsin Legislature. Earlier Wednesday, members of the nation's largest Protestant denomination voted overwhelmingly to urge President Clinton to rescind James Hormel's appointment as ambassador to Luxembourg. ....The convention also rebuked Clinton -- who is a Southern Baptist -- for proclaiming June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month...."
Reuters 6/18/99 Evelyn Leopold "…A Swiss-based Christian charity group which campaigns against slavery in Sudan said on Friday a decision by a U.N. panel to withdraw its U.N. accreditation was a ``vote of shame.'' The United States was alone late on Thursday in voting against the withdrawal of credentials from Christian Solidarity International (CSI). In January the group bought the freedom of 1,050 slaves, mainly children, for $50 per person. The U.N. panel's decision has to be reviewed by the 54-nation U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which meets in Geneva in June. Christian Solidarity is one of hundreds of voluntary groups with expertise in various fields which are allowed to take part in the work of ECOSOC, the main U.N. body dealing with social and economic affairs….``This is a technical complaint. We did not politicize the issue,'' Sudan's ambassador Elfatih Mohamed Ahmed Erwa said. The panel has made several controversial decisions recently, particularly when human rights groups are involved…."
The New York Post 6/19/99 Editorial "…Jerrold Nadler, the New York City congressman, is doubtless a man of many talents, but biblical scholarship is not one of them. "Whose Ten Commandants?" he thundered on the floor of the House during Thursday's vote on amendments to the gun control measure that passed later that night. "Which version? The Catholic version? The Protestant version or the Jewish version?" Umm ... they're all pretty much the same, congressman. You know - thou shalt not kill, honor thy mother and father, that sort of thing. Sure, there are slight differences in translation (some versions don't use the words "thou" and "thy," for example), but we're not talking anything major…."
The Associated Press 6/18/99 Steve Geissinger "…Three of the area's five synagogues were hit almost simultaneously by arsonists Friday, and a leaflet blaming the ``International Jew World Order'' for the war in Kosovo was left behind. The fires caused moderate damage to two synagogues and gutted a third temple's library, destroying a collection of videos on Jewish history. Investigators questioned four youths who fled from police near Congregation B'nai Israel, the most heavily damaged, and determined they had nothing to do with the fires. There were no suspects Friday evening. ``Hate is hate. You can't predict when it will happen,'' said Lou Anapolsky, president of B'nai Israel…."
New York Post 6/19/99 Angela Allen "…Thou shalt not put the Ten Commandments in the classroom. That was the reaction of educators in the nation's largest school system, who turned thumbs down on the controversial congressional proposal. Conservative Rep. Robert Aderhold (R-Ala.) is pushing to let states decide if they want to display the biblical rules in public schools. The measure was passed by the House Thursday and now goes before the Senate. Yesterday, dozens of educators and administrators from all five boroughs declined to speak out on the thorny issue, but the few who did voiced little support for the plan…"
The Wall Street Journal 6/22/1999 Leslie Lenkowsky "...Groups favoring abortion rights have petitioned the IRS to withdraw the Catholic Church's tax exemption because of its endorsement of antiabortion candidates. Black churches have reportedly been warned that opening their pulpits to candidates might jeopardize their exemptions. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has also been the object of complaints, including a lawsuit brought by former U.S. government officials, that it devoted more of its resources to backing candidates than the IRS allowed. Environmental groups have been particularly active campaigners. The League of Conservation Voters widely advertises its "dirty dozen" list of congressmen whose voting records it deemed unacceptable. The league keeps a "scorecard" indicating which of them are defeated. Because the IRS's decisions are confidential, we don't know what led it to rule against the Christian Coalition. It's possible but unlikely that politics played a role. (The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation is completing a report on allegations of political bias in the IRS's auditing of conservative political groups, which should indicate whether there is a problem in the agency.) ...."
Washington Post (Page C1) 6/22/99 Lyndsey Layton "... Life has changed in the neat gray house on the loping country lane. There are sleepless nights and tense conversations, and the telephone now has an unlisted number. Because you can't be too cautious in the days after you've been labeled the Young Atheist of Calvert County. In his sneakers and thrift store bowling shirt with "Cathy" embroidered on the chest, Nick Becker doesn't look like a threat to society. But ever since he defied the adults in his rural community 35 miles south of the District, he's been tagged by everyone from local politicians to a national columnist as the embodiment of all that is wrong with America. He had the U.S. Constitution and the Maryland state attorney general on his side. And when he questioned local authorities, they threatened to arrest him and banned him from a post-graduation party. The community reacted even more harshly, labeling Becker with one of the worst pejoratives in a conservative, churchgoing place: atheist... .But the prayerful folks in Calvert County insist they also are standing up for something admirable. They say they exercised their constitutional right to religious expression and are fighting a society that has squeezed God out of public life and thrown itself out of kilter as a result. "This is an average American community which chose to exercise our rights to pray," says Linda L. Kelley, president of the county commissioners and one of several community leaders who ignored a ban on prayer and recited the Lord's Prayer during the graduation ceremony. "No one in Annapolis or Washington, D.C., is going to tell us when and where we can pray." .....Becker tried to get another video--a fright movie parody about a family that got chopped up and put in the bathtub--aired on local cable-access television; it was rejected. ....A problem Becker wrote for the Web page displays his sensibility: He's smart--and a smart aleck. "A 20-lb bag full of severed thumbs is dropped from the second highest floor of the Sears Tower, 1542 feet above the ground. The top floor was rented out for a Narcoleptic Rabbi Association (NRA) convention . . . (a) Find the position and velocity functions for dem thumbs . . . (b) How long does it take for dem thumbs to smash into the pavement below in a disgusting, bloody mess?" .....Cal Thomas, a syndicated columnist, checked out Becker's Web site and compared him to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the teenage gunmen in the Columbine High School shootings. "Why is God the only idea banned from government schools, while the demons that produce the beliefs of a Harris, a Klebold and a Becker are tolerated, protected, even promoted?" Thomas wrote...... Anyone looking to reinforce a dark image of an angry young man can find plenty of material on Becker's Web page. "My Dad Can Go To Hell (In C# Major)" rails against a father's attempt at control.....One November day in the 11th grade, Becker refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. "I don't think there's any point in making us stand up while someone recites rhetoric," Becker says..... he sent an e-mail to the American Civil Liberties Union, which sent a fax to the school the next day, informing administrators that they could not require Becker to stand for the pledge. Principal George Miller apologized. Becker wasn't delicate in victory. He posted a story about the episode on his Web site in which he called the flag "the cloth on a stick." .....But when it came time at the graduation for a "moment of reflection" that had replaced the prayer, some in the audience--including the county's highest elected officials--defiantly recited the Lord's Prayer. Becker walked out and was threatened with arrest by state police when he tried to re-enter to claim his diploma. Then he was barred from the post-graduation boat cruise, for which he had already bought a ticket...."People who have been silent on the question of prayer are now taking a stand," Linda Kelley says. "There's not a function that I've attended since this whole thing started--Eagle Scout swearing-in, picnic--where people aren't talking about it. If government is about 'We the People,' well, we the people have made a statement here."..."
Conservative News Source 6/21/99 Lawrence Morahan "...Nicholas Lassonde, an A student whose graduation speech at Amador Valley High School was censored by school authorities because he sought to urge his classmates to follow God, is considering suing the school on the grounds his right to free speech was violated. The school district in Pleasanton, California, required Lassonde to remove religious references from his speech on Friday because they felt it would be a violation of the separation of church and state to allow him to talk about God. Lassonde wanted to tell his classmates not to put their trust "in princes and mortal men who cannot even save themselves," but the school thought he was going too far..... Each time he came to a portion of his speech his principals found objectionable, he told his audience that the school didn't feel that the passage was appropriate and invited them to get copies of the uncensored version that were handed out at the gate. If stifling the message was the aim of the school, it didn't succeed. The incident has gained much attention in local and national media, and given the graduate more play than he would have received if he'd been allowed to give the speech....."His speech didn't require anyone to bow their head or close their eyes. It didn't even require anyone to say or do anything. They could agree or disagree in the sanctity of their own minds. But that wasn't enough for the school district," Aden said...."
ABCNews.com 6/22/99 Heather Maher "...The news is not good, according to Michael Novak, a theologian and someone who thinks about these matters much harder than most people. Novak won the Templeton Prize in religion in 1994 and is the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. Novak is a Thinker with a capital T. "In our cultural system, there's something very rotten, everyone feels that," the Thinker says. Apparently, America is in the grips of "moral entropy;" our republic is on a veritable downward slide. "There's practically a universal sense that something has gone wrong, but when we go to name it, we disagree."....The Thinker patiently explains: our freewheeling, liberated ways have given us a "dizzying" freedom that is actually putting a big strain on us, because it creates so many choices and distractions. And that makes it "harder to concentrate one's moral energies," Novak says, "and they become diffused." By "moral energies," he means all things good and noble - telling the truth, holding a door, helping a neighbor, making ethical choices, practicing self-sacrifice, taking responsibility, etc., etc. The feeling you get after talking a while with this deep thinker (besides intellectual inferiority) is that we are largely a diffused (and confused) country, turning to the media and movies as our main source of inspiration, and preoccupied with the pursuit of more choices, more flavors, more channels. A nation adept at gunning the engine of social progress, preening its feathers for being so ambitious and successful, but that rarely gets around to developing individual character traits like manners, or to practicing things like reflection and contemplation. And most damning, a nation so caught up in getting to the mall before it closes, it forgets to have dinner as a family or have meaningful chats with its kids about politics, religion, the arts - topics that fall in the Jeopardy category: "Things That Aren't Mundane."...."
Washington Times 6/24/99 Barbara Reynolds "...The Army's decision to allow witches as an official religion may come back to not only devil that institution, but also the rest of us. Recently the Army has sanctioned witches. They can wear their pentagram rings, moon tattoos under their uniforms. And at Fort Hood, Texas, the nation's largest base, the Army has given them a campsite so they can dance around the campfire chanting and working magic. In light of this, other equally weirdo pseudo-religions, such as the Church of Satan, Black Judaism and Scientology, are also petitioning the Army to allow them to do their thing, all of which worries me...."
Associated Press Will Lester 6/24/99 "...While Americans rallied behind President Clinton during the impeachment process, a bipartisan poll released today suggests the public has a growing concern about moral leadership that may help Republicans. The GOP has almost a 20 percentage-point edge over Democrats when asked which party best represents the values of faith in God, personal responsibility, ethics and honesty and knowing right from wrong, according to the latest Battleground Poll. Democrats and Republicans are tied at 39 percent apiece when voters were asked which party they would vote for if the election for Congress were held today..... But when registered voters were asked which one issue they think is the most important, a fourth said restoring moral values, followed by a fifth of the total who thought improving education was the top issue....."
Reagan Information Exchange 6/24/99 Mary Mostert "...Associated Press reported yesterday that the House voted to "allow the Ten Commandments to be posted in schools and other government buildings. By 248-180, lawmakers approved Rep. Robert Aderholt's amendment to a juvenile crime bill that would allow states to decide whether to permit such displays on government property..... Let's take a deep breath and go back to basics.... The ignorance of those who claim the posting the Ten Commandments in public school is "forcing Christian doctrine on non-Christians" is simply abysmal. There is nothing that potentially could unite the people of America - of ALL religions than posting the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were designed to move the children of Israel away from the law of the jungle to a minimal law. Jesus Christ brought to the world a Higher Law. Mosaic law was "Thou shalt not commit adultery," for example. Jesus Christ's law is "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." The Mosaic law is "Thou shalt not kill. ." Jesus Christ's law is, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." If America has sunk to such a low cultural level that the Ten Commandments, upon which the law of this land was based, has become too controversial to post in public places, we are surely teetering on the edge of the same kind of destruction experienced by the Roman Empire...."
INSIGHT Magazine 7/19/99 Kelly Patricia O'Meara "...Public schools and local libraries increasingly have been choosing to make available to children graphic and sexually explicit books that barely can be described in this magazine. Picture your adolescent browsing through the school library. Other than home, it's the one place parents may feel sure their children are likely to be protected from pornography, obscenity, perversion and other vulgarity. But are they? ..... Innocently scanning the school-library shelves a child chooses It's Perfectly Normal, a book about sex and reproduction by Robie Harris. Flipping through the pages, young readers might immediately be attracted to the drawings of adolescents like themselves, touching their private parts. Naturally, their curiosity aroused, they begin to read soothing words normalizing things younger readers may never have heard of or even understand. For example, "Masturbation is touching or rubbing any of your body's sex organs for pleasure -- because it feels good. One everyday term for masturbating is 'playing with yourself.' A girl often rubs her clitoris; a boy often rubs his penis."..... It's Perfectly Normal now is considered by national library authorities to be appropriate for children in elementary school. Of a total of 89 pages, 30 present drawings with explicit genital detail; one illustrates kids masturbating while another shows a boy in a classroom with an erection under his clothes. Because of such graphic and explicit material, a growing number of parents are challenging the appropriateness of books such as this for the age group at which they are directed....."
World Net Daily 6/25/99 David Limbaugh "...During the last three-plus decades, extremists in this country hostile to America's Judeo-Christian tradition have succeeded in erecting an almost absolute barrier between church and state. These anti-biblical zealots claim to have been acting in deference to constitutional principles. In fact, they have acted in willful disregard of those principles -- revealing their contempt, not their allegiance, to our constitutional heritage. The framers of the Constitution never intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state, merely to prevent the government from establishing a state religion. Even liberal Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas acknowledged that the framers didn't forbid all church and state interaction. In Zorach vs. Clausen (1952), he stated, "The First Amendment ... does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State...." Last week, Congress showed uncharacteristic courage by enacting politically incorrect legislation permitting the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools and other government buildings. This represents a radical liberation from our cultural bondage to liberal historical revisionism. Last week, Joe Farah made the excellent point that "the Ten Commandments form the very basis of Western law." We should be aware that other Biblical laws were also foundational to our system of jurisprudence. In the Book of Exodus following the Ten Commandments are further laws, sometimes collectively referred to as the Book of the Covenant. As a lawyer, I was fascinated to discover just how much of our law -- torts, contracts, property and criminal law -- is obviously traceable to this section of Scripture...... Don't be fooled by the secular elite into believing that our Founding Fathers feared any intrusion of biblical precepts into our governmental system. Those who teach that the framers prescribed total separation of church and state are pitifully divorced from objective truth and from undoctored American history....."
The Associated Press 6/25/99 Katie Fairbank "...Presbyterian leaders Friday rejected a measure that could have opened the door to the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians. At the annual meeting of the 2.6-million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), delegates decided 389 to 198 not to allow the church's regional governing bodies to vote on the issue. For now, the vote ends an attempt to strike the constitutional clause that requires clergy to maintain ``fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.'' That prohibits single, non-celibate heterosexuals or homosexuals from being ministers...."
Associated Press 6/25/99 Linda Deutsch "....A panel of appeals court judges expressed open skepticism Thursday about a private citizen's right to force a public school to post the Ten Commandments on a ballfield fence where advertising space was sold. Justice Michael Mott of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal noted that with a $400 contribution to the Downey High School baseball program, Edward DiLoreto has trapped the school district into a cycle of litigation that "could cost them a fortune." "It could go to the Supreme Court and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars over a $400 sign," Mott said. He said that DiLoreto could have posted his Ten Commandments sign on a billboard on any freeway in California and "would have saved the school district the cost of litigating this." The school refused to post the Ten Commandments on the outfield fence, fearing that it would engender protests over mixing religion with public education...."
NBC Chicago Online 6/25/99 Charlie Wojciechowski "...Francis Cardinal George is expected to lead nearly 900 people in a prayerful protest outside a Humboldt Park abortion clinic on Saturday. Following the dedication of the newly-renovated St. Sylvester's Church, Cardinal George will lead a procession to a Fullerton Avenue clinic that performs abortions. There, he will lead a silent prayer vigil. "We believe prayer can help change people's lives, open up new opportunities and new ways of thinking about problems, and help people choose life," said Nora O'Callaghan, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago's Respect Life office...."
THE WASHINGTON TIMES 6/24/99 Julia duin "...The Clinton administration quietly awarded a homosexual bar with a coveted place on the National Register of Historic Places in an emotional ceremony this week at a party in New York. On Monday, the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village bar that was ground zero in a series of riots in June 1969, was honored with a National Register plaque by John Berry, an assistant secretary for the Department of the Interior. In a speech, he likened the riots to the Boston Tea Party, the Declaration of Independence and the Battle of Gettysburg...."
New York Post 6/29/99 Rod Dreher "..." HOW serious are the country's theater owners in their new vigilance against letting underage kids into R-rated films? We shall see when "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" opens tomorrow. Though the risque Comedy Central series has built a large following among the under-17 crowd, the "South Park" movie is not for kids. Actually, that's an understatement. In terms of language alone, the Paramount-Warner Bros. co-production is undoubtedly one of the filthiest mainstream films ever released. We can't get into the specifics here, of course, but the sheer volume and creativity of the children's swearing would embarrass a longshoreman. ..."
Washington Post 6/30/99 David Broder "...As we approach another Independence Day national birthday, Americans are worried that their country is backsliding. Despite the best economy in most people's memory, a spate of public opinion polling affirms that most voters are deeply concerned about the moral climate and are searching for ways to restore what they see as lost values. Presidential candidates of all stripes are picking up the same signals and trying to respond as best they can. In almost identical phrases, they lament the weakening of family ties and the erosion of community bonds. They fret particularly about the fear that youngsters, who need clear standards and strong role models, instead are dealing with absentee or overburdened parents and see examples of hypocrisy and misbehavior in high places. Deprived of discipline and, equally, of supportive love, too many of these young people are turning into alienated and sometimes aggressive outcasts -- damaging themselves with drugs and random sex and even turning guns on classmates and teachers...."
Reuters 6/30/99 "...Salvadoran radio stations, responding to a government request, Tuesday banned songs by two controversial rap groups because their lyrics were said to be an assault on public decency.... Stations aimed at youth audiences were asked to pull from their playlists the Mecate hit ``El Directo,'' a song telling the story of an infamous Salvadoran gang member and his life on the country's mean streets and in its jails...."
New York Post 6/30/99 Editorial "...When Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) first introduced legislation last fall to set up a national commission on terrorism, Arab-American groups complained that the proposed membership - including such renowned scholars as Fouad Ajami - contained "Muslim-bashers" and others who would "infringe upon our civil rights." To that crowd, a commission whose mandate is to "review counter-terrorism policies regarding the prevention and punishment of international acts of terrorism directed at the United States" is biased if it focuses on fundamentalist Islamic groups - which are the primary source of international anti-American acts of terrorism. Apparently, however, those protests have born fruit: House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) has appointed to the commission an official who can easily be described as an Israel-basher with disturbing sympathies for Islamic terrorists. He is Salam al-Marayati, director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council. Although he has publicly condemned individual acts of terrorism, al-Marayati has attacked efforts to investigate U.S. fund-raising links to such terrorist groups as Hamas and Hezbollah According to a list of public statements compiled by terrorism expert Steven Emerson, al-Marayati has compared American Revolutionary soldiers to Hamas and Hezbollah, and said: "When Patrick Henry said, 'Give me liberty or give me death,' that statement epitomized jihad [holy war]." ...."
Orlando Sentinel 6/23/99 Kathleen Parker "...Just when you thought "strange" has been fully exploited, someone raises the bar. In one week, here's what crossed my desk: *In Chicago, a group of third-grade boys were reprimanded for praying together on the playground. *In Fort Myers, Florida, a teacher scheduled a cross-dressing day for his middle-school students. *In Middletown, Connecticut, college students at Wesleyan University created pornographic movies for a film class. Hello? Who's in charge here? I feel like the entire country is guzzling LSD punch while I'm sipping Irish Breakfast Tea. ...And what did you learn today, kids? Well, let's see, Prayer is bad; cross-dressing is rad; pornography is a legitimate career choice. I realize I'm going to have to find a new country soon, but before I go, I'd like to make a couple of observations. 1. Adults are obsessed with sex and can't seem to leave children out of it. 2. Public education has become the enemy of parents who, owing to their own confusion in the midst of moral chaos, have become part of the problem. ...."
WashPost 7/2/99 "..."Americans are less likely to marry than ever before, according to a new study, and fewer people who do marry report being "very happy" in their marriages. The report, released yesterday by Rutgers University's National Marriage Project and touted as a benchmark compilation of statistics and surveys, found that the nation's marriage rate has dipped by 43 percent in the past four decades, leaving it at its lowest point in recorded history. This historically low marriage rate, coupled with a soaring divorce rate, has dramatically altered attitudes toward one of society's most fundamental institutions...."
Fox Newswire 6/30/99 "...The House Wednesday easily passed a bill that would make it a crime for anyone other than a parent to take a teen-age girl across state lines for an abortion. The vote was 270-159. The House passed the bill by a slightly bigger 276-150 margin last year. A Senate panel approved it but the full Senate never took it up, despite Majority Leader Trent Lott's support. The Senate has not yet taken action this year...."
The FederalistDigest 6/29/1999 "...."Though the House hung a copy of the Ten Commandments around Mr. Clinton's neck last week when it approved a measure to give local and state governments the right to display the document, the residents of Brooksville, Alabama, population about 200, aren't waiting for Mr. Clinton to veto the measure. They are incorporating their community and have petitioned an Alabama court for permission to use the King James Bible as their town charter. The town's only ordinances will be the Ten Commandments. "
EWTN News 6/30/99 "...A special United Nations General Assembly meeting on population issues, including abortion, contraception, and teen sex, began on Wednesday, after UN officials reportedly tried to set up a split between Catholic and Muslim nations on the topic. The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute said this week that senior UN sources told them that Dr. Nafis Sadik, director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), pressured the heads of six Muslim delegations in a late-night meeting during the preparatory conference in March. Sadik was said to have charged the Muslim diplomats with working closely with the Vatican and Christian organizations, and the Muslim delegates apparently reacted with anger. At this week's special session that began Wednesday and ends Friday, the G-77 developing countries and the industrialized Western nations were set for a showdown on population issues. After pro-life groups at the March meeting were successful in defending parental authority and defeating abortion and contraceptive measures, Sadik encourage a number of pro-abortion groups to apply for participation in this week's meeting to offset them....."
Washington Times 7/1/99 "...Health enthusiasts may be tempted to put away their running shoes and granola and search for the family Bible. A new study in Demography magazine suggests that if you go to church, you may live up to 14 years longer. The research follows a growing consensus that religious belief and church attendance are key indicators of health, social behavior, political leanings, lifestyles and morality. "There is still a sense in much of the scientific community that religious effects are minor at best or are even irrelevant," says a group of researchers on health and population issues. "Our findings help to dispel such a notion."...."
The Orlando Sentinel 7/1/99 Charlie Reese "...There may be a revolt brewing in America. It seems to be happening in that part of America so mysterious to the political and news-media elite -- the areas that surround, like interstellar space, the elitist strongholds in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. There was a hint in Utah a year or so ago when audience members at a school event defiantly sang a song that some federal judge had commanded that they could not sing. More recently, on the East Coast, a group of parents and students decided to pray in defiance of a court order. The American majority may be fed up with special-interest-group lawyers, using some sorehead as a token plaintiff, persuading political appointees in black robes to jerk Americans around. Somehow, an idea has arisen that a minority may dictate to the majority. That's a perversion of custom. The majority respects the right of minorities to dissent, but minorities must also respect the rights of the majority..."
Chicago Tribune 6/28/99 John Kass "...It's an ugly twist on an old science fiction theme: Would you use the body parts of an innocent baby so that you could live a happier life? Would you support a system of incentives to kill other babies, and process them like meat at a packing plant, for the benefit of a frightened Baby Boom generation terrified of Alzheimer's disease and death? Of course not. The suggestion is monstrous and dehumanizing. By comparison, it makes what the Serbs and Albanians are doing to each other look like a gentle game. But the science fiction scenario doesn't generate the terrifying passions of old Balkan blood feuds. Instead, it's calculated, without anger, and practiced by reasonable men and women in white lab coats. It's about pure reason, efficiency and scientific rationalism. It's what a culture can do when it loses its soul. If you don't believe me, ask a Jew about the Nazi concentration camps. So get horrified. Because it's not science fiction. It's happening now, in our country. I read about it in Sunday's Tribune, in a fascinating story by science writer Ronald Kotulak under the headline "Stem cells opening path to brain repair." It began with an anecdote about a woman with Parkinson's disease. Her name is Dr. Jacqueline Winterkorn. The drugs she was taking to fight the disease weren't working anymore. "It's a very sad disease," Dr. Winterkorn was quoted as saying. "People are locked into bodies that don't move. Their brains are working, their minds are working, but they can't talk and they can't move." In other words, they're human beings immobilized through no fault of their own, trapped without speech. They have emotions, but they can't do anything about it. They're helpless....And it's being done in the name of cold scientific reason. The rhetorical pathway was cleared years ago, when the Germans built Buchenwald and Auschwitz and other places. Soon other folks with Parkinson's or other brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease will seek such treatments. The Baby Boom generation that has never been denied will make its demands. It's human nature to use available resources to satisfy the most powerful human need: staying alive. So aborted human babies will become resources. They'll become products, subjected to the market. Because they'll have value, there will be an incentive to provide more. Their bodies will be served up for the benefit of adults. If we don't stop it now, if we accept this crime in the name of scientific reason, we'll lose ourselves. Ask a mother carrying a child inside her. Ask her if it's not human. Ask any father who puts his hand on his expectant wife's belly and feels a tiny foot....Someday, when they're old enough, they might ask you what fetal brain stem cell research is all about...."
8/10/98 Reuters "America's leading porn stars were hailed as champions of human rights by the president of the country's largest civil liberties group. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) President Nadine Strossen told porn stars and adult film makers at a conference Friday that their work defended the most fundamental of all human rights -- freedom of speech. "I want to underscore how extremely essential your efforts are. I want to thank and applaud you for your fight and contribution for First Amendment freedom and to galvanize you to 'keep it up,' so to speak," she added."
Electronic Telegraph-UK News 5/13/99 Oliver Poole "...THE Pope was recognised as the overall authority in the Christian world by an Anglican and Roman Catholic commission yesterday which described him as a "gift to be received by all the Churches". Disagreement about the extent of the Pope's authority was one of the main causes of the English Reformation in the 16th century, and has been a constant stumbling block to the two Churches reuniting. However, yesterday's statement, released at Lambeth Palace - which is not binding - accepted that if a new united Christian Church was created it would be the 'Bishop of Rome who would exercise a universal primacy...."
WORLD Magazine 7/16/99 Mindy Belz "… The general secretary of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party, Le Kha Phieu, made his first trip to Cuba this month, a sign of strengthening ties between the two communist holdouts….. The discovery of a classified Vietnamese government document, which goes into great detail about how to suppress Christianity, surprised even stalwart church experts on persecution. The government is increasing pressure to eradicate Christianity, according to a report from World Evangelical Fellowship, in the face of large numbers of Christian conversions, especially among the tribal Hmong people. Church workers say that as many as 300,000 Hmong are now Christians. Fearing that evangelistic upheaval will undermine communist rule as it did in Eastern Europe 10 years ago, Vietnamese authorities have increased pressure to wipe out Christianity among Hmong…."
Source: www.conservativenews.org/ 7/13/99 Thomas Legislative Service "…The House of Representatives has voted 355-0 in favor of a resolution rejecting the conclusions of an article published by the American Psychological Association that suggests sexual relationships between adults and children did not cause pervasive harm. Voting 'Present' on Child Sexual Abuse Resolution
"A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of Congress rejecting the conclusions of a recent article published by the American Psychological Association that suggests that sexual relationships between adults and children might be positive for children." 355 voted in favor of the resolution and there were no votes against it. 13 members voted present, including:
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI)
Rep. Thomas Allen (D-ME)
Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA)
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)
Rep. William Delahunt (-MA)
Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA)
Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
Rep. E.B Johnson (D-TX)
Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI)
Rep. James Moran (D-VA)
Rep. Fortney Stark (D-CA)
Rep. Ted Strickland (D-OH)…"
United Press International 7/14/99 "… Officials in this southwest Missouri community are considering an appeal (Wednesday) now that a federal judge has ordered the removal of a Christian fish symbol, called an ichthus (IHK'-thuhs), from the official city seal. Ruling in a case filed by a witchcraft practitioner, the judge decided the logo stamped on Republic's city trucks, flags and letterheads violates the First Amendment separation of church and state…."
AP Wire 7/14/99 "…President Clinton's top ethics advisers are close to recommending a change in federal law to allow the government to finance a certain type of human embryo research -- but the White House instead said Wednesday it will support a more conservative approach. The issue is over experiments with ``master cells,'' the building blocks for other tissues in the body that scientists can cull from human embryos…."
New York Times News Service via. Chicago Tribune 7/15/99 "…Public-school prayer is more than an abstract issue of civil liberties in Alabama. For many students it is the stuff of everyday life, a part of football huddles and weekly assemblies, and the question of its legality has driven political campaigns and prompted mass demonstrations. So when a federal appellate court issued a ruling on Tuesday that permitted students to engage in personal, voluntary prayer in school, it was front-page news across the state. Suddenly, students were given a green light by the court to pray all they wanted in school and to lead other students in prayer, as long as school officials are not involved…. "Permitting students to speak religiously signifies neither state approval nor disapproval of that speech," the judges said in their decision. "The speech is not the state's--either by attribution or by adoption. The permission signifies no more than that the state acknowledges its constitutional duty to tolerate religious expression. Only in this way is true neutrality achieved." On Wednesday, Pryor called the decision a victory for free speech and religious freedom. "Public school students do not give up their 1st Amendment rights when they go to school," he said, adding that it was unfair that students could be permitted to read from secular inspirational books at assemblies but not from the Bible or other religious works….."
NewsMax.com 7/16/99 Barret Kalellis "…The moment it was learned that white supremacist murderer Ben Smith's motives derived from an organization calling itself the "World Church of the Creator," (WCOTC) the mainstream press immediately labeled it a "far right hate group." That hate is its stock in trade there can be no doubt. But the "far right" label doesn't seem to be entirely satisfactory. In fact, many of the inspirations for such groups come from leftist ideology, while the reactionary tenets that are most distasteful are aggravated by liberal policy in this country….. at makes Klassen's thoughts particularly odious is his underlying racist view of the world. An almost clinical paranoia infects his writings…. In Klassen's comical view, Christianity itself was a Jewish conspiracy to undermine the Roman Empire: Jews somehow understood that the Christian principles of asceticism and salvation in the next world would destabilize the Roman spirit from within, leaving the way open for Jewish masters to rise again…."
AP Will Lester "...Accompanying the hum of computers and the roar of the economy at the end of the 20th century is a nagging feeling among many Americans that something has been lost. They describe it in various ways: an absence of morality, a loss of innocence, a lack of trust in others. Almost two-thirds of the people in a new poll say their families' lives have improved since the 1950s. But fewer than half say the country as a whole is better off now and nearly one-third say it is worse. ``There's more money, but less human caring,'' said Wayne Dubrawsky, a government worker from Orchard Park, N.Y...... "
WorldNetDaily.com 7/8/99 Jon E Dougherty "…In another victory for parents of school-aged children, a federal judge in New York has ruled that the Bedford Central School District can no longer force children to participate in Earth Day "worship services," "North American Indian animism," or be forced to construct "worry dolls" and other "tangibles" that "have supernatural powers." At Bedford, students were required to create paper images of a Hindu god, make toothpick and yarn "worry dolls" to defend against anxiety, and to participate in "Earth Day" worship services -- all advocated by liberal district administrators and teachers who personally took part in the services. The judge in his ruling had the insight to call these celebrations "truly bizarre," and added that the events "took on many of the attributes of the ceremonies of worship by organized religions" -- something liberals have consistently prevented Christians from doing since 1962….."
LineOne News (UK) 7/13/99 "…"Heresy trials are to be reintroduced by the Church of England for clerics who deny the existence of God. For the first time in 150 years, sceptic clergy who defy doctrine in the pulpit may be tried by a tribunal. The General Synod has agreed to the proposal by bishops to include offences against "doctrine, ritual and ceremonial" matters in a new streamlined procedure for disciplining priests. The last heresy trial was of the Rev A Gorham in 1847, when the Bishop of Exeter accused him of being unsound on the doctrine of "baptismal regeneration"…."
Christian Science Monitor 7/12/99 Joe Loconte "…Critics - mostly conservative - are ready to dismiss Vice President Al Gore's recent talk about faith and values as empty presidential sloganeering. But to do so is to neglect a profound cultural moment: a repudiation by Democratic leaders of the antireligious mood that has darkened liberal thought for at least a generation. Just as Bill Clinton once declared the era of big government over, Mr. Gore now admits that the "hollow secularism" of liberal government has run its course. As Gore opened his presidential bid June 17 in Tennessee, he praised the work of religious groups in treating social ills. In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, he claimed that "faith and family are at the center of my life." And in a major speech on religion in May, he called for a "new partnership" between church and state, pledging to "put the solutions that faith-based organizations are pioneering at the very heart" of his administration….."
D. James Kennedy 7/6/99 "…A thousand Christians were "manacled to doors, then beaten and tortured with electric shocks to their genitals," according to a recent report issued by prison Fellowship founder Charles W. Colson. "Babies were not spared. Mothers were forced to lay their infants on the floor and watch helplessly while police struck them with sticks." Who would perpetrate such an atrocity? The government of Egypt, according to Colson's report. It happened in late October, as the nation's mostly Islamic leadership executed a "crackdown" on the Christian community. Yet Egypt, one of the "largest recipients" of American foreign aid, still receives billions in non-humanitarian financial support from the U.S. government - $2.5 billion in American taxpayer money in one year alone. All of which happens in defiance of federal law, that requires the President and Congress to cut off non-humanitarian financial aid to countries where individuals are persecuted for their religious faith! …"
D. James Kennedy 7/6/99 "…Michael Horowitz, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, warns Christians that they are close to becoming "the Jews of the 21st century. You have become the scapegoats of choice for the thug regimes around the world," says Horowitz, who is Jewish, "as my people were for much of European history. And the suffering is met with indifference." Most American Christians are largely unaware of the escalation of religious persecution around the world - not only because of the silence of our media, but, also because of the federal government's keen interest in keeping international trading partners happy. It is also unattractive for a politician to run the risk of tangling with a foreign government when he may have major political donors with ties to that country. Consequently, few in Washington have much incentive for making waves! …."
WP 7/12/99 Sally Quinn "…As the political climate heats up for Campaign 2000, Americans are hearing more and more about religion from the candidates. This is not surprising, since polls show that more than 90 percent of Americans say they believe in God, and the Christian evangelical movement makes up some 35 percent of the population. Texas Gov. George W. Bush volunteers that he has "recommitted his life to Christ," Elizabeth Dole talks about how she "humbled herself before God," Vice President Gore told reporters that "the purpose of my life is to glorify God." On the floor of the House, Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) states, "The focus must be returned to God." …..So ingrained is the culture of avoidance of religion, conservative syndicated columnist Cal Thomas thinks that it has kept him off Washington's roster of sought-after guests. "One reason I'm not on anyone's A-list," says the religious author and columnist, formerly of the Moral Majority, "is that they're afraid I'll talk about God. . . . In this town you pay a social price for being upfront about your faith. People don't invite you to parties….. "
Conservative News Service 7/13/99 Justin Torres "…An article in a leading psychology journal reports that the presence of fathers in families raising children is "not essential," and that fathers "may be detrimental to the child and the mother." The report in the current issue of The American Psychologist, a journal of the American Psychological Association (APA) - recently in hot water over an earlier report that concluded that child sexual abuse did not cause pervasive harm - takes aim at the notion that fathers and two-parent heterosexual marriages are necessary for the psychological health of children. "[W]e do not believe that the data support the conclusion that fathers are essential to child well-being and that heterosexual marriage is the social context in which responsible fathering is most likely to occur," wrote Drs. Louise B. Silverstein and Carl F. Auerbach, both from Yeshiva University, in an article called "Deconstructing the Essential Father." The report appears in the June 1999 issue of the journal…."
Fox News 7/13/99 Reuters "…The Vatican Tuesday punished an American nun and priest, both long-time gay activists, for propagating "erroneous and dangerous'' views and refusing to toe the Roman Catholic Church's line on homosexuality. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which controls the orthodoxy of Catholic teaching, said in a statement it had banned Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent permanently from pastoral work involving homosexuals…."
EWTN 7/16/99 NEW YORK (CWNews.com) 7/19/99 "... A UN committee focusing on women's rights has pressured governments to stop promoting motherhood and called on religions to change the interpretation of their sacred texts as part of a campaign to promote radical feminism, according to a Catholic pro-family group on Friday. The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute said the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has used the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to put pressure on the 163 countries that have ratified it to implement their vision of feminism. The committee recently directed the government of Libya to reinterpret the Koran, the sacred text of Islam, "in light of the provisions of the Convention." ....The Committee criticized Croatia for allowing "church-related organizations to adversely influence" women's rights. It told the Dominican Republic that an "intermingling of the secular and religious spheres" is a "serious impediment to implementing the Convention." .....The group also admonished Armenia to "use the educational system and electronic media to combat the traditional stereotype of women 'in the noble role of mother,'" and the Czech Republic was criticized for "over-protective measures for pregnancy and motherhood." ..."
AP 7/19/99 Douglas Kiker "...Three Republican senators have asked Attorney General Janet Reno to investigate whether a group that promotes the separation between church and state is intimidating churchgoers and interfering with their right to vote. The July 2 letter from Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Paul Coverdell of Georgia, contends that Americans United for Separation of Church and State violates citizens' right to vote by ``intimidating people of faith into not participating in the political process.'' The senators cited a federal law prohibiting restriction of citizens' right to vote. Violation of the statute is punishable by fines and jail time...... Americans United is a nonprofit group that sends information and newsletters to church leaders across the country warning them of the possible legal and ethical implications of becoming involved in the political process. The group has long criticized what it says are the Christian Coalition's partisan political activities, particularly the so-called ``voter guides'' distributed at churches throughout the nation. In 1998, 72 million voter guides were distributed...."
Associated Press 7/20/99 David Briscoe "…In a rare rejection of anti-abortion tactics, the House agreed today to fund U.N. population programs and cleared the way for a $2.4 billion bill aimed primarily at fortifying U.S. embassies against terrorist attack….. Congress last year rejected any money for the U.N. agency, which supports family-planning programs around the world…."
FREDERICKSBURG STANDARD-RADIO POST 7/21/99 Cathie Collier "...The long-standing tradition of prayer at the beginning of a football game will be a thing of the past at Fredericksburg High School Stadium this fall-at least until a further court ruling is made clarifying the issue for the state's public schools. Fredericksburg Independent School District officials were advised by school attorney Cristol Schoessow last week that a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in February this year makes the practice of allowing student-led prayers at high school football games against federal law. "I'm very unhappy with the decision," Superintendent Marc Williamson said, "but it's pretty clear. Anything that can be construed as a prayer, even a moment of silence, is a prayer and is against the law, according to this ruling." ...."Under other circumstances, we might have decided just to do it until someone complained," Dr. Williamson said, "but the recent ruling says that school districts should know better and makes the district and individual board members liable for punitive damages." ..."
Free Press News Services 7/24/99 "…Religion is coming back into style and will be an important factor to consider in marketing products in the 21st Century, according to the Brand Futures Group of the Young & Rubicam advertising agency. Brand Futures, in a survey released in Milan, Italy, reported that a poll of 15,580 people in the United States, Italy, Britain, France, Germany and Netherlands indicated a growing number of people consider religious faith an important aspect of their lives. The trend was particularly strong in the United States and Italy, it said. Central to the poll were attitudes of trendsetters, a group defined as the 10 percent of the population that Brand Futures considers to be oriented to the future, curious, motivated and in tune with the people around them…."
Etherzone 7/23/99 Rick Reeder "…I am not a pessimist, just more reluctantly optimistic. The reality for all of us is sinking in that after 30 plus years of being, to some degree, an "officially" godless, Bible-less commandment-less nation. We are not only "slouching toward Gomorrah" as Bork has said, we are feeling and acting "slouchy" toward decay. Our art is no longer that which displays that which is best in us, but the vile. Our music is not that of an overcoming people, but that of a self-indulgent, flesh-loving people. Our focus is not on more noble deeds done, but we are preoccupied with the horrible actions of those, which commit despicable atrocities among us. Our greatest thinkers waste their ingenuity on more toys for a playful army of spoiled toddlers than tools for a productive army of world-changers…."
WORLD Magazine 7/24/999 Janie Cheaney "... Doubt and anxiety have jolted the nation into a revival mode, or so it might seem. Why else would Al Gore suddenly begin speaking out on the value of religion to society and its importance in his personal life? Why is one of his staffers vowing to "take God back from the Republican Party in the year 2000?" ….Rep James Traficant (D-OHIO) urges his fellow congressmen to "allow God back into the classroom." Newsweek reports on God as the "hottest idea in crime fighting." Conservative columnist Don Feder proposes religion as "God for what ails you." Nobody has to know much about the rules or develop any particular skills, and sincerity is nice but optional….. But it's still just a game. Any effects on society will be skin-deep and short-term, unless the Sovereign Lord Himself decrees otherwise….. Most Christians influence their own homes, offices, and neighborhoods; others are called to serve in public office and affect public policy in godly ways. Wherever they are, Christians are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. That is precisely why they should be very careful how they speak and think about God. It's an insult, if not blasphemy, to talk of "allowing" God back into the classroom, as though He had been waiting anxiously outside the door. Or, of "taking Him back" from the Republican Party, which has no hammerlock on the Lord of the universe. It's equally misleading to speak of God as a quantity we need more of (for how much is enough?) or the ideal remedy for society's ills --do we put Him away when we are cured? …."
New York Post 7/26/99 Editorial Board "…THE modern U.S. Air Force is willing to sanction Wiccans - dagger-wielding witches who pose as an alternative to religion. Accomodating Catholic doctrine, on the other hand, is a problem. Just ask 1st Lt. Ryan Berry, who may be forced out of his Air Force post on account of his religious beliefs. Berry's duties as a missileer include spending uninterrupted shifts - ranging from 24 hours to several days - in a small underground capsule from which 150 Minuteman III missiles can be activated. The launch center's two-person crew is expected to share the capsule's one bathroom and one bed. Trouble is, Berry has a religious objection to fulfilling this duty with female officers. Catholics, according to established doctrine, should not put themselves in the way of temptation and sin. Berry, a 25-year-old married man, says spending long hours in a confined space with a woman who is not his wife is a violation of this teaching. …."
National Liberty Journal Vol 28 No. 8 "Were Founding Fathers Wrong in Establishing Days of Prayer and Fasting? Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Idaho), reacting to escalating school violence in the nation's public schools, led an attempt last month to pass a resolution calling on the nation to pray and fast for "healing and spiritual renewal." However, days after approving a measure allowing public schools and government buildings to erect the Ten Commandments, the House declined to pass the non-binding resolution that would have encouraged people of all faiths to prayerfully beseech God in national healing. Through a procedural vote, the House failed to gain the two-thirds of members ..."
AP 7/26/99 "...With a majority of lawmakers opposing abortion, several limits on abortion that have come up in the state legislature this year have plenty of support. Abortion opponents are proud of the success of their movement,while a national pro-choice group gives Michigan an F for the limits it has adopted. The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League ranks Michigan 42 out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia for abortion access..."
Worldnetdaily 7/26/99 J R Nyquist "...This letter is important because it contains an error which needs to be corrected. The error is to think that conservatives use dictatorial methods. But the reality is, the whole conservative movement is committed to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This is its point of departure. It is therefore the worst possible misunderstanding to imagine that conservatives are engaged in some kind of sinister or criminal plot. This accusation is unfair. All that conservatives have done is use the ballot box -- the democratic process. Conservatives are merely campaigning and voting for what they believe in. Perhaps the left doesn't pay attention to what conservatives say and do. Perhaps they would understand us better if they did. American conservatives want to uphold freedom and republican institutions. That is what they are struggling for. Perhaps there are those on the left who would point to the "Christian right," and say that this is the group that is threatening to send the sex police on a rampage. But if you listen closely to what the "Christian right" is saying, there is no plan to police people's bedrooms. The fact that Christians uphold moral values does not mean they intend to send the police to effect moral changes in our society. Cultural conservatives and Christians are sophisticated enough to know that sheer police power cannot bring positive moral change. The person who wants a national police force, on the other hand, is Bill Clinton. That is something he's been advocating since 1992. But none of the cultural conservatives or Christians I know are advocating the use of police agencies to punish fornication, homosexuality, or adultery. Certainly the conservatives are worried about the decline in moral standards. Certainly the conservatives want to elect leaders who exemplify these standards. But there has been no call for chastity belt legislation. In this matter, left wing paranoia has created, out of whole cloth, an imaginary right wing monster. It is a mad, delusional notion that should have no place in rational political discussion..... Today, if Christians act to preserve the basis of Western civilization by voting to support their values, then they are usurpers and dictators. How odd, indeed, that the moral basis of a civilization should suddenly become a threat to that civilization. The logic of the secular left is not logic at all. It is blindness and irrationality. Christ taught us to love other people and to love God. He taught mercy and forgiveness. For this teaching he was crucified. In this context, I cannot imagine what the left could possibly be thinking when it likens Christianity to Marxism or Nazism -- which are doctrines of hate...."
Indianapolis Star/News 7/28/99 Susan Schramm "...Jay Scott Ballinger traveled across the country with his girlfriend, setting fire to 29 churches in eight states, according to a federal grand jury indictment returned Tuesday. From January 1994 until February of this year, the Yorktown man crisscrossed the nation, burning churches as he went, federal court documents say. Although his home state was the preferred burning ground -- 14 church fires in Indiana were attributed to him -- he also is accused of arsons in California, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee..... Ballinger also is charged in Georgia with 10 federal counts involving five church fires, including one that killed a volunteer firefighter. Court documents filed previously said Ballinger confessed to as many as 50 church arsons.....Investigators have not disclosed a motive for the church burnings. But at least one church was desecrated with satanic markings. Interviews with people who knew Ballinger revealed that he tried to lure young people in Delaware County in the early 1990s into joining his fledgling satanic church...."
AP 7/30/99 David Briscoe "...Risking another clash with the Clinton administration over abortion and U.S. spending abroad, the House opened debate late Thursday on a $12.6 billion foreign aid bill. The legislation pushed by Republican appropriators had the tentative support of Democrats, despite their loud complaints about $1.9 billion in slashes from President Clinton's proposals. But major battles were expected to take place after House passage when the bill goes to a House-Senate conference committee. One would be over funding levels and another over an amendment, approved 228-200 Thursday, to prohibit U.S. aid to organizations that use privately raised funds to lobby in favor of liberalized abortion laws...."
CNSNews.com 7/29/99 Justin Torres "...A group of five students from Miami-Dade Community College in Miami, Florida, are suing the school for policies that they claim are an infringement on their right to free religious speech. According to Matthew Staver, an attorney for the public interest law firm Liberty Counsel, which is representing the students, a group of five students attempting to hand out business cards bearing the message "It's the call you'll never forget" and the number to a local ministry were stopped by campus security guards and informed that they must seek the permission of the Student Life Director..."
HUMAN EVENTS 7/25/99 ANN COULTER "...Answer me this: If the right-to-life position on abortion is such a loser at the polls, why are liberals so terrified that the Court will overrule Roe v. Wade? All that happens when Roe is overruled is that abortion laws will be decided by popular election rather than judicial fiat. (And half the country can stop pretending to see something that doesn't exist, which has got to be a relief even to the most fanatical abortion supporter.) .... This is the sort of logical lunacy that emerges in any topic vaguely touching on abortion, or -- in the favored parlance of the lunatics -- "choice." The whole abortion dialogue -- especially on the make-believe constitutional right there to -- is like listening to Clinton explain his relationship with Monica...."
AP 7/28/99 Carl Hartman "...The chairman of a Senate committee that oversees the Smithsonian Institution said Wednesday he was disturbed by ``political correctness'' at the National Museum of American History.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, during a hearing on the Smithsonian's budget, said he objected particularly to references to capitalism, immigration and Christianity in New Mexico. ``I want to express again my concern is about the drift to political correctness,'' said McConnell, chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. ``I know it's going on in every campus and it's not surprising to find remnants of it at the museum ... I do think it's a disturbing trend.'' The term ``political correctness'' began as a description by Communists of conformity to the party line..... In a New Mexico pueblo exhibit, McConnell, R-Ky., objected to a reference to ``invasive forms of Christianity.'' ``The characterization seems more apt for ... a plague rather than as a means of describing the evolution of Christianity in this country,'' McConnell said. The label in the exhibit reads: ``Both pueblos and Hispanics have been subject to invasive forms of Christianity. Pueblo peoples faced Spanish attempts to suppress their native religions ... In turn Hispanic Catholics experienced Anglo-American attempts to convert them to Protestantism.'' ..."
Washington Post 7/31/99 Donald Baker "...A Richmond judge ruled today that Regent University does not qualify for tax-exempt construction bonds because it is a "pervasively sectarian" institution "whose primary purpose is religious training." The school, founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, wanted to use the $55 million in bond proceeds to pay for construction on its Virginia Beach main campus and to develop a satellite campus in Alexandria.... "This means that Pat Robertson cannot have Virginia's taxpayers support his ministry," said Ayesha Kahn, who argued against the proposal on behalf of Americans United for Separation of Church and State...."
AP 8/4/99 "...A Denver couple filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday to challenge a city order barring them from holding more than one prayer meeting at their home each month. The lawsuit, filed by attorneys for the American Center for Law and Justice on behalf of David and Diane Reiter, claims the cease-and-desist order issued by the city zoning office is unconstitutional. It also contended the Reiters are the victims of religious hostility. ``The city has trampled on the First Amendment rights of our clients and has enacted an order that is not only unconstitutional but absurd,'' said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the center based in Virginia Beach, Va....."
Associated Press 8/3/99 Jonathan Salant "...The Christian Coalition is moving ahead with plans to distribute 75 million voter guides in the next election following a federal court ruling that the activity did not illegally help Republican candidates. The beleaguered group - trying to rebound from a restructuring, staff defections and an IRS decision denying it tax-exempt status - plans to use churches and the Internet to distribute its scorecards for the 2000 campaign.
The Christian Coalition hopes to raise $21 million to fund its 2000 political activities, seeking 50,000 donors to give $20 a month. ``The stakes are so high,'' said Randy Tate, the coalition's senior vice president for government relations. ``Not since 1980 has there been a chance to shift the national debate.'' Those efforts received a boost from Monday's decision by U.S. District Judge Joyce Green, who rejected assertions in a 1996 Federal Election Commission lawsuit that the coalition's voter guides and get-out-the-vote operations were partisan activities designed to aid Republican candidates and should be treated as contributions under federal law...."
Christian Coalition 8/7/99 "...Here's a quote from Christian Coalition: If you actively support the protection of the unborn, take time to thank Wal-Mart for their courageous corporate stand against Planned Parenthood. A recent company policy from Wal-Mart says their pharmacists are not to stock , order or dispense PREVEN (the morning-after pill which can cause abortions ). This policy came out in fall, 98 & Planned Parenthood is applying pressure to get them to change their policy...."
Claremont Institute 8/5/99 Larry Arnn "...First, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in favor of James Dale. Dale, you may recall, is the Boy Scout leader who was dismissed from that position nine years ago because of his homosexuality. He sued the Scouts, a private organization, to get his place back. This is one of several such suits that have been filed against the Boy Scouts of America and local scouting organizations. But it is the first to succeed in any state Supreme Court. Now it will go to the United States Supreme Court. We will both work and pray that the highest court of all, the one over which "the Supreme Judge of the World" presides, will remember their duty to uphold the "laws of nature and of nature's God."...."
Washington Post 8/8/99 Hanna Rosin "...In the past two decades, creationists have undergone their own process of evolution. After a series of court decisions from 1968 to 1987 barred the movement's efforts to have biblical creationism taught in the schools, activists changed their strategy. They began to focus instead on attacking evolution as an unproven theory, picking apart such basic building blocks as fossil records and geological dating..... The movement's recent success may in part be a reflection of the fairly widespread sympathy for some of its basic principles. According to Gallup polls, about 44 percent of Americans believe in a biblical creationist view, that "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years." About 40 percent believe in "theistic evolution," the idea that God oversaw and guided the millions of years of evolution that culminated with humankind. Only one in 10 of those surveyed held a strict, secular evolutionist perspective...."
Washington Post 8/8/99 Hanna Rosin "...Some creationists offer what they consider to be positive scientific evidence for biblical explanations of the origins of life..... To prove Earth's relative youth, they search, for example, for evidence that dinosaurs lived far more recently than the millions of years ago cited by paleontologists. "One of our staff members went to Alaska recently and found dinosaur bones that were not yet fossilized," said Looy, of Answers in Genesis. "If dinosaurs perished 65 million years ago, how could one have been around in the last few hundred years? That matches with what the Bible teaches - that dinosaurs lived recently." .."
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/1999/aug99/99-08-04.html 8/4/99 Phyllis Schlafly "...NEA resolutions support public school sex education that is "sequential, pre-K through 12" (i.e., for 14 years) and "comprehensive" (i.e., covering all types of sex including "diversity of sexual orientation" and "universal precautions," i.e., demonstrations of devices and explicit descriptions of all sex practices that do not result in a live baby). This means teaching sex ed without regard for moral principles, children's natural modesty about sex, the child's latency period, or parental wishes. NEA resolutions endorse school-based clinics available to "every" child (i.e., without exception) on a "confidential" basis (i.e., without parental knowledge). The NEA wants these school clinics to provide "services" (i.e., diagnosis, "intervention," and treatment), "birth control" (with demonstrations), and "referrals" (i.e., to abortion clinics). The NEA resolutions strongly endorse an abundance of counseling and "psychological programs" in the public schools. School counseling means psychological testing and treatment by non-licensed psychologists, all "confidential" (i.e., without parental consent) NEA resolutions repeatedly affirm that some courses and concepts must be "integrated" into, or made "an integral part" of, classroom teaching. This integration doesn't have anything to do with race; it means concealing controversial counseling and teaching (such as instruction in "safe-sex" devices, AIDS education, and suicide education) within various courses so parents can't discover it, object to it, or remove their children from it. The terms "sexual orientation" and "diversity," which is a code word for the same thing, are used in more than a dozen resolutions. They make it clear that the NEA endorses teaching the gay/lesbian agenda in curricula, textbooks, activities, training programs, and classroom presentations of role models. ..."
Washington Times 8/11/99 "...U.S. military officials can be mighty accommodating when they want to be. Weeks after news broke that the nation's largest military base in Fort Hood, Texas, had opened its gates to a group of self-styled witches, Army officials continue to stand up for the organization's right to practice the religion of its choice. The witches recently treated a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to a worship service, which he duly reported: " 'We are a circle within a circle with no beginning and never ending,' intoned 60 men, women and children encircling the blaze. 'Horned one, lover son, leaper ..."
Front Page 8/13/99 Chris Weinkopf "...Jesse Jackson's Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, which routinely attacks corporations for hiring too few minorities, seems similarly nonplused about the suggestion. A spokesman high-mindedly answered that he wants to "see the study," which has been summarized in the Chicago Tribune but is not yet published, before commenting on its conclusion-that aborting indigent and minority babies makes the world a safer place. Representatives at the Congressional Black Caucus and the American Civil Liberties Union have yet to utter a peep, or return this writer's phone calls. The report, "Legalized Abortion and Crime," by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and Stanford sociologist John Donohue III, notes that nationwide, the number of abortions skyrocketed after the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973. Crime, on the other hand, began to taper off eighteen years later, in 1991, when the first aborted babies would have entered the most crime-prone age group. Where there were many abortions, police reported fewer robberies, rapes, and murders two decades later. From that correlation, the scholars infer causality. They reason that since an inordinate number of abortion-obtaining mothers are unwed, poor, or ethnic minorities, their children, if born, are more likely to become violent criminals. The logic is dubious; the implications are downright frightening....The study's authors, and those who have embraced its findings, insist that they do not endorse the idea of abortion as crime control, but their words speak louder than their denials. Cory Richards, vice president of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, tells the Tribune that the study "is not an argument for abortion per se. [It] is an argument for women not being forced to have children that they don't want to have." But were "choice" all that is at stake, there would be no need to talk about national crime statistics. Implicit in the study is the suggestion that the country is better off for having permitted some 34 million abortions of demographically undesirable people. As Richard Posner, chief judge of the Seventh U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, claims, "unwanted children are quite likely not to turn out to be the best citizens." Or, as one of the study's authors puts it, "Abortion provides a way for the would-be mothers of those kids who are going to lead really rough lives to avoid bringing them into the world." That sounds a lot like an argument for abortion......There are too many other factors-the rise and fall of the welfare culture, the burgeoning prison population, stricter methods of law enforcement-to determine conclusively why crime went up in the 1970s and down in the 1990s. Abortion probably has removed some sinners from the nation's ranks; it has surely taken some saints, too. That's all a matter of speculation, because 34 million Americans were deemed "unwanted" well before their time. "This idea of culling before birth," a Planned Parenthood spokesperson candidly confessed, "seems a little creepy." It's strange to hear an abortion proponent admit as much, while activists who claim to fight for the civil rights of minorities remain silent. The "unwanted" designation says more about those who apply it than those who are so defined. That America has dealt with 34 million lives so brutally is itself a crime-one that Professors Levitt and Donohue neglected to include in their tally..."
WorldNet Daily 8/12/99 "..."... believe them not, though they speak fair words unto thee." --Jeremiah 12:6 We live in a world built upon deceit. Ours is an age that cannot know truth, for its professional wise men -- those who inhabit our halls of learning -- deny that truth exists. Our fate as individuals under their tutelage is to stumble from one passionate, lying embrace to the next, fueling our pain and alienating our souls, engaged in a blind search for that which we have been warned we cannot have..... These colorful balloon-beasts they send forth to slay the demons of our collective guilt, selfishness and ambition, so that we may all together appear wise, just, and righteous in our own eyes. It is now an accepted fact that the perks of high political office in the United States include sex with campaign contributors' children; that there is no accountability -- not from the courts, the people, or the Congress -- for lies so voluminous that they can no longer be properly counted and catalogued; that treason in the form of leaving our nation naked and defenseless before its enemies is an acceptable means of campaign fundraising -- provided that it helps you to win the next election; and that God is an absentee landlord, doesn't bother to vote, and neither sees nor hears our multitudinous affronts to His character, perhaps because He is too busy blessing us with His patience and grace.
WorldNet Daily 8/12/99 "..."... Our society has accepted the notion that "guns kill people," while excusing the murderous madmen who wield them.... The "evil influences" of Jesus Christ and the Bible, which gave us the foundations upon which our freedoms, our government and our unimaginable prosperity were built -- must, at all costs -- be kept out of our schools. Let us instead worship evil under the guise of tolerance -- and invite in the demonic "spirit guides" of the "new age" to teach our children how to listen to these lying voices and follow them "wherever they lead."....Science, once the proud god of this age, has been profaned by her own worshipers: in her very temple researchers fabricate evidence to get the politically-correct answer that yields their next fix of government money....The destruction of colleagues' lives is of no concern if it enhances their imagined "infallibility." Our children have accepted these lies as their own, and are busy building their lives upon them...."
MSNBC 8/11/99 Reuters "...The Kansas Board of Education rejected evolution as a scientific principle Wednesday, dealing a victory to religious conservatives who are increasingly challenging science education in U.S. schools. The 10-member board, ignoring pleas by educators and established scientists, voted six to four to embrace new standards for science curricula that eliminate evolution as an underlying principle of biology and other sciences.... "
Associated Press 8/11/99 Kimberly Hefling "...With essentially no community opposition, volunteers placed the Ten Commandments in every classroom in a rural eastern Kentucky school district before classes began on Wednesday. The Jackson County school board and superintendent made the decision as part of ``an effort to start having good morals in school ... because of all the violent issues that have been showing up,'' said Betty Bond, principal of Jackson County High School. Timothy Crawford, the district's attorney, said he's concerned about lawsuits, but believes the Ten Commandment plaques in the district's five schools are allowed by law because they were paid for and posted by local volunteers. Robert Lakes, a business teacher at Jackson County High School, said the Ten Commandments were posted in the classroom when he was growing up. ``It's like the flag,'' Lakes said. ``We've been tearing down symbols that have been in this country'' for a long time....."
The New Australian 8/99 Phyllis Schlafly Report "... A federal district judge in White Plains, NY, ruled last month that the Bedford Central School District must stop requiring schoolchildren to create paper images of a Hindu god, to make toothpick and yarn "worry dolls" to ward off anxiety, and to take part in Earth Day worship services. Third graders had been required to make clay and construction paper cutouts of the elephant-headed Hindu god, Ganesha.
Judge Charles Brieant ordered the school district to (1) "prevent school sponsorship of worship of the Earth" and North American Indian animism or nature worship, (2) "remove the worry dolls from the school system" and "refrain from suggesting that (such) tangibles have supernatural powers," (3) prohibit "any direction to a student to make a likeness or graven image of a god or religious symbol," and (4) "direct the adoption of a published policy containing clear instructions (about religion) to teachers and others." The school was engaging in what the judge called "truly bizarre" Earth Day celebrations. He said that these events "take on (many) of the attributes of the ceremonies of worship by organized religions." According to the parents who filed the lawsuit, "student and senior citizens, who have also become part of earth worship services, sit in concentric circles around a giant inflated globe placed atop a bamboo tripod. The elderly people form the inside circle, symbolizing that they are closer to the earth and will return to it to nourish it." A chorus of tom-tom drums plays throughout the ceremony, while teachers and school officials read speeches. The ceremony pretends that the earth is deified, and students are urged to "do something to make Mother Earth smile." Evidence submitted in this case included an audiotape (Exhibit 62) entitled "Listening to Nature," which intersperses prayers and invocations sonorously uttered along with background sounds of forest and ocean. The plaintiff parents particularly objected to the fact that the tape, which they characterized as "nature worship and guided imagery," was played in science classes. The accompanying book contains this creed: "This is what we believe. The Mother of us all is the Earth. The Father is the Sun. The Grandfather is the Creator who bathed us with his mind and gave life to all things. The Brother is the beasts and trees. The Sister is that with wings."..."
The New Australian 8/99 Phyllis Schlafly Report "...The school district is expected to appeal the decision in this case, Altman et al. v. Bedford Central School District. If it does, the parents should appeal the failure of the court to throw out the offensive classroom activities involved in the use of the card game called "Magic: The Gathering." It was this card game that alerted the plaintiffs to contest the peculiar classroom activities. They objected to the "Magic" card game because it is steeped in satanic imagery, signs, and rituals such as human sacrifice and the casting of spells. The object of the game is to accumulate "mana," which is "power that comes from the earth." The plaintiffs contend that the card game "initiates children into satanism using perversion of actual Bible verses." One card, depicting a man about to be sacrificed with a knife about to plunge into his heart, carries this strange message: "Sacrifice one of your creatures to add to your mana pool a number of black mana equal to that creature's casting cost." Another card shows a terrified woman with a hand holding her head down and a huge knife at her throat. The parents charged that the card game is part of a New Age curriculum that includes yoga lessons, cult worship, and religious activities. "The cards represent a billion dollar industry," attorney Mary Ann DiBari said, "and our children are paying the price with indoctrination in the occult."...."
Education Week 8/12/99 "...Volunteer effort in rural district is unopposed With essentially no community opposition, volunteers placed the Ten Commandments in every classroom in a rural eastern Kentucky school district before classes began on Wednesday. The Jackson County school board and superintendent made the decision as part of ``an effort to start having good morals in school because of all the violent issues that have been showing up,'' said Betty Bond, principal of Jackson County High School...."
Education Week 8/12/99 "...With essentially no community opposition, volunteers placed the Ten Commandments in every classroom in a rural eastern Kentucky school district before classes began on Wednesday. The Jackson County school board and superintendent made the decision as part of ``an effort to start having good morals in school because of all the violent issues that have been showing up,'' said Betty Bond, principal of Jackson County High School.
Timothy Crawford, the district's attorney, said he's concerned about lawsuits, but believes the Ten Commandment plaques in the district's five schools are allowed by law because they were paid for and posted by local volunteers. Robert Lakes, a business teacher at Jackson County High School, said the Ten Commandments were posted in the classroom when he was growing up. ``It's like the flag,'' Lakes said. ``We've been tearing down symbols that have been in this country'' for a long time. Jackson County isn't the only school district in Kentucky or the country where the Ten Commandments are on display in schools. Tonya Adams, principal of Union Chapel Elementary School in Russell County, which has had the Ten Commandments posted for years, said she's never received any complaints about it..."
Wall Street Journal 8/13/99 "...And on the seventh day, He rested. Whoa, no way! "Adam" evolved many millennia ago from a series of random mutations. Whatever. It is not our purpose today to throw in with either the Kansas Board of Education, which voted this week to drop biological evolution from its curriculum guidelines, or with the biologists now screaming that the creationism movement is driving out serious science. We do, however, very much want to discuss driving important things out of public life. Specifically, we have in mind the Supreme Court decisions way back in the early 1960s that led over the years not merely to banning prayer from the schools but to wiping God and religion out of textbooks, graduation ceremonies and anywhere else the ACLU and its ilk could find Him hiding inside a public school. This is what we think is the message these Kansans are sending into the world: "About 35 years ago, you folks banned our religion from the public schools. So we've just voted to drop your religions from the public schools. Now maybe you'd like to sit down and negotiate a deal."..."
Associated Press 8/14/99 "...Gov. Bill Graves and some legislators are talking about abolishing the State Board of Education or stripping it of authority because of its vote to de-emphasize the teaching of evolution. "It's going to be an issue in the legislative session," Mr. Graves, a moderate Republican, said Friday of the board's 6-4 vote this week. On Thursday, Mr. Graves said the decision was "so out of sync with reality" that it minimized the board's credibility. Legislators say the controversy over evolution could create support for changes that have been sought for years by lawmakers in both parties. ..."
Fox News 8/14/99 John Hanna AP "...The American Civil Liberties Union says school districts could face lawsuits if they attempt to teach creationism in wake of the state school board's recent decision to de-emphasize the teaching of evolution. The ACLU, in a letter Friday to school superintendents, warned the districts about adopting "religiously-based standards'' in teaching science. The ACLU also noted U.S. Supreme Court decisions that forbid the teaching of creationism, the belief that a higher power created the universe, because of its religious foundation. People for the American Way and Americans United for the Separation of Church and States also said they would consider lawsuits if religion-based standards were implemented....."
New York Times 8/15/99 George Johnson "...Whenever setbacks like the one in Kansas occur, scientists leap forth to point out the fallacy of the reationist position: There is no compelling reason to single out the evolution of life or the cosmos as being less than absolute. It would be just as sensible for school boards to affix a warning inside physics books: "No one has directly observed the detailed substructure of matter. Therefore, any statement about it being made of atoms should be considered as theory, not fact." The problem is that the dynamic view of science doesn't come across strongly enough in the classroom. For reasons of expediency, scientific theories are presented as done deals. Little appreciation is conveyed for the intellectual struggle that went into interpreting the data or examining the assumptions -- always open to question -- that lurk behind the experiments. Lost from most explications is the exhilarating possibility that a theory that seems undeniable today could be overturned tomorrow. With science presented almost as though it were received wisdom, it's little wonder that some legislators and school board members confuse it with a competing religion, and misconstrue a religious belief like creationism as an alternate scientific theory. They're encouraged to do so by a new wave of creationists who, in an act of intellectual jujitsu, promote their belief in absolute knowledge by invoking the relativistic arguments of post-modern philosophy: While creationism is built on belief in a caring, all-powerful, constantly intervening creator, who completed his work thousands of years ago, evolution has its own tenets of faith. The most fundamental is the belief that the world consists of insentient matter unfolding on its own over vast eons of time -- eons that can only be inferred from indirect evidence. One is still free to believe in a deity, but it's not a necessary part of the equations..... For something to be called a theory, it has to be falsifiable, capable of being overthrown. Students could also be taught the dangers that come when a scientist mistakes a theory for eternal truth, shoring up flimsy hypotheses by contorting the data. They could learn of cases in which a religion flexibly adjusted its doctrines because of new social realities, allowing, for example, homosexuals into the ministry. But slowly, by giving creationism equal time with evolution, the class would see a powerfully subtle difference. Science is, foremost, a method of interrogating reality: proposing hypotheses that seem true and then testing them -- trying, almost erversely, to negate them, elevating only the handful that survive to the status of a theory. Creationism is a doctrine, whose adherents are interested only in seeking out data that support it. In making sense of the world, one is always free to start from different assumptions. But part of a good education is learning what you are trading off in the bargain...."
Florida Times-Union 8/10/99 "...New Jersey's Supreme Court was on dubious legal ground when it declared the Boy Scout ''gay ban'' unlawful under a state statute. The Scout organization teaches traditional family values and requires its young members to take an oath to be ''morally straight.'' It therefore would be hypocritical, Scout officials maintain, to allow homosexual leaders or members. .... The Scouts replied that, as a private and voluntary group, they could tailor membership and leadership criteria to fit their values. The court disagreed, however, saying the Scouts were a public accommodation subject to that law. Legal precedent suggests something entirely different. The homosexual ban has been upheld by the supreme courts of four other states - California, Oregon, Kansas and Connecticut...."
The Washington Times 8/10/99 Wes Pruden "...If you don't subscribe to the notion that gay is as good as it gets, you're a bigot. The New Jersey Supreme Court says so. The judges of the court, finding the Boy Scouts of America guilty of "illegal discrimination" because the Scouts won't countenance assigning little boys to the care of homosexual Scoutmasters, say anyone who disagrees with them is a bigot. The logical implications of the ruling, which applies only to New Jersey and is likely to be overturned by higher courts, are breathtaking. Deborah T. Poritz, the chief justice who wrote the opinion in the name of a unanimous court, says the Scouts' dismissal of James Dale, the homosexual assistant Scoutmaster, was "based on little more than prejudice," and "the sad truth is that excluded groups and individuals have been prevented from full participation in the social, economic and political life of our country. The human price of this bigotry has been enormous.".... In a concurring opinion, Justice Alan B. Handler says: "One particular stereotype that we renounce today is that homosexuals are inherently immoral. That myth is repudiated by decades of social science data that convincingly establish that being homosexual does not, in itself, derogate from one's ability to participate in and contribute responsibly and positively to society. In short, a lesbian and gay person, merely because he or she is a homosexual, is no more or less likely to be moral than a person who is heterosexual."
Maybe, maybe not. The Jersey judges carefully avoid saying whether the practice of the love rites of the nether region is immoral, only that mooning about it isn't. But the teaching that homosexuals individually are immoral "is a myth." This careful straddle is meant to give them a little wiggle room, but the judges can't resist showing their contempt for the religious teachings of every major religious denomination in America -- Protestant, Catholic, Jewish....."
CNSNews.com 8/10/99 Lawrence Morahan "...The ages-old legal right of Catholic priests to keep to themselves what they hear in the confessional is under attack by a preparatory commission of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a United Nations' body established last year to investigate genocide and crimes against humanity. In ongoing meetings this week to determine rules of evidence and procedure, the commission is considering revoking the so-called priest-penitent privilege, a sacred authority bestowed on ordained priests to hear the confessions of Catholics and grant them absolution for sins...."
CNSNews.com 8/12/99 Nicholas Sanchez "...As the American culture increasingly retreats from its Judeo-Christian heritage, I think it is important for traditionalists to reflect upon the past of the Christian Church... For the first three hundred years following the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the great Church of Christ was known as the "Church of the Catacombs." It was termed as such because the adherents of the orthodox Christian Faith were forced to congregate in the catacombs, atop the bodies of Christian martyrs. Christianity was a persecuted and outlawed religion.
Then a cataclysmic event occurred in the early life of the Church: the Roman Emperor, Constantine, a nonbeliever at the time, issued his "Edict of Milan." This decree legalized the Christian Church. Overnight, the Church of the Catacombs became the Church of the Empire....We religious, especially we Christians, have been so beaten down by the government's assaults of recent decades that we are very much in danger of once again becoming the Church of the Catacombs. Don't laugh or accuse me of being too melodramatic. Consider these latest cases: Just recently, the Wiccan rites were approved to be served on U.S. Army bases. At this same time, a married Catholic serving in the Air Force, Lt. Ryan Berry, was severely reprimanded for refusing to share a confined quarter with a female officer to avoid the appearance of sin. Imagine, the U.S. military, one of the oldest and most venerable institutions in this relatively young country has decided to side with pagans over Christians. The next thing you know school children will be forbidden from praying in school, the Ten Commandments will be taken from our public buildings, homosexuals will be allowed adoption rights, and tax laws will be made to favor unmarried couples instead of married ones. Oh, wait, sorry - my mistake. I forgot that we had already begun to slip down that path..... What I do want is a peaceful co-existence between the government and those who are professed Christians. This country has decided to place a wall between such a relationship, but only in the case of Christianity - New Agers are in the midst of their halcyon days...."
The Boston Globe 8/13/99 Yvonne Abraham Joanna Massey "...Every morning, the teenage camp counselors joined the children's tiny hands together, bowed their heads, and asked God to come into the Mason Cathedral Church in Dorchester and bless their day. It is a scene repeated all over America every summer, but this seemingly simple practice has spawned a constitutional furor. On July 27, seven counselors at the camp, members of the city's summer jobs program, were transferred to other assignments. The city said the church had broken its contract: Since the counselors were paid with federal funds, the church was not allowed to ask them to perform religious duties of any kind. The removal highlights a growing tension between the legal principle of separation between church and state and the increasing acceptance of religion in many facets of American public life...."
WORLD Magazine 8/14/99 Cal Thomas "...Only a couple that has been emboldened by their escape from impeachable offenses would try to spin God. But Hillary Rodham Clinton---veteran of cattle future profiteering, a failed attempt to nationalize health care, champion of children raised by the government village and not parents---has done just that and more in an interview with TALK agazine....But it's when she dabbles in theology that Hillary Clinton outrageously misrepresents the doctrines of sin and grace. She says, "There are sins of weakness and sins of malice, and this was a sin of weakness." While it is true that a murderer is worse than a person whose parking meter expires, both are lawbreakers. In a thoelogical sense, our reference point is to a Holy God, not theologians or personal opinion. So, when a real saint, Paul, writes that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," he does not engage in a theory of moral relativity. He diagnoses a human condition that is true for all, regardless of how individual sinners categorize their sins. None of us, including a first lady, gets to make the rules or render judgment...."
Washington Post 8/15/99 George Will "...New Jersey's Supreme Court has unanimously issued a ruling that deserves to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which four years ago issued a unanimous ruling that may be incompatible with the New Jersey ruling that the Boy Scouts cannot discriminate against homosexuals. The controversy, with wide ramifications for American freedom, is not about whether the Scouts' policy is right but whether the Scouts have a right to it. The Scouts will take to the U.S. Supreme Court the argument that their constitutional (First Amendment) right of "expressive association" trumps New Jersey's statute...."
Edmonton Sun 8/15/99 Ted Byfield "...The abortion debate is closed, declared the political experts back in 1991. Minds are made up, they said. There's no point debating it because nobody is going to change his position. Today, eight years later, minds apparently have changed and are still changing - in the United States, anyway. In 1995, Gallup found only 33% of Americans declaring themselves "pro-life." Last year Gallup found the pro-life figure running at 48%. This year a feminist group called the Centre for Gender Equity announced in some alarm that 53% of American women now favour banning abortions, either altogether or permitting them only in cases of incest, rape or where the mother's life is in danger, exceptions that'd still leave 95% of abortions outlawed. This concurred with national polls being conducted for pro-life groups, except one in Wisconsin this month which found that 66% would prohibit abortion except in such dire cases...."
Wall Street Journal 8/15/99 Phillip Johnson "...A Chinese paleontologist lectures around the world saying that recent fossil finds in his country are inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. His reason: The major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time, rather than evolving gradually from a common ancestor as Darwin's theory predicts. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin." That point was illustrated last week by the media firestorm that followed the Kansas Board of Education's vote to omit macro-evolution from the list of science topics which all students are expected to master. Frantic scientists and educators warned that Kansas students would no longer be able to succeed in college or graduate school, and that the future of science itself was in danger....The root of the problem is that "science" has two distinct definitions in our culture. On the one hand, science refers to a method of investigation involving things like careful measurements, repeatable experiments, and especially a skeptical, open-minded attitude that insists that all claims be carefully tested. Science also has become identified with a philosophy known as materialism or scientific naturalism. This philosophy insists that nature is all there is, or at least the only thing about which we can have any knowledge. It follows that nature had to do its own creating, and that the means of creation must not have included any role for God. Students are not supposed to approach this philosophy with open-minded skepticism, but to believe it on faith. The reason the theory of evolution is so controversial is that it is the main scientific prop for scientific naturalism. Students first learn that "evolution is a fact," and then they gradually learn more and more about what that "fact" means. It means that all living things are the product of mindless material forces such as chemical laws, natural selection, and random variation. So God is totally out of the picture, and humans (like everything else) are the accidental product of a purposeless universe..... All the most prominent Darwinists proclaim naturalistic philosophy when they think it safe to do so. Carl Sagan had nothing but contempt for those who deny that humans and all other species "arose by blind physical and chemical forces over eons from slime." Richard Dawkins exults that Darwin "made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist," and Richard Lewontin has written that scientists must stick to philosophical materialism regardless of the evidence, because "we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." Stephen Jay Gould condescendingly offers to allow religious people to express their subjective opinions about morals, provided they don't interfere with the authority of scientists to determine the "facts" -- one of the facts being that God is merely a comforting myth.....So one reason the science educators panic at the first sign of public rebellion is that they fear exposure of the implicit religious content in what they are teaching. An even more compelling reason for keeping the lid on public discussion is that the official neo-Darwinian theory is having serious trouble with the evidence..... "
Ark.Dem-Gaz. 8/17/99 Ray Pierce "…Frequent visitors to the Capitol Gift Shop in the state Capitol might notice something missing from the selection of greeting cards: References to God. Five varieties of greeting cards, mostly those expressing sympathy, were removed last week from the gift shop's card displays after a visitor to Secretary of State Sharon Priest's office pointed them out. Jean Fulwider, Priest's chief deputy, said a woman whom Fulwider refused to identify, came into her office last month to talk about the cards that had a religious tone. Fulwider said the woman wasn't complaining but wanted to point out that the cards seemed mostly directed toward the Christian faith. Fulwider said she followed that visit with a conversation a week later with Vickie Hart of Little Rock, owner of Gifts of Arkansas, which leases space in the Capitol for the gift shop. Fulwider said she told Hart about the visit and about religious diversity. "We just want to make sure we don't discriminate," Fulwider said….. Priest said there was a difference between God and Jesus in that the name "God" is more universally recognized as a deity than Jesus. "More faiths refer to God as God," she said. "The Jewish faith doesn't recognize Jesus" as God, as most Christians do. Hart said the main goal of the Capitol Gift Shop is to showcase Arkansas, not religion. The gift shop is not the only place where God is referred to. Above the House and Senate chamber doors, on the inside of the chambers are cast metal plaques that read: "In God We Trust."…"
AP 8/16/99 "…A couple is suing their daughter's school guidance counselor for advising the 17-year-old to get a secret abortion and telling her, "Someday you'll look back on this and laugh.'' The federal lawsuit, filed Monday, also accuses counselor William Hickey of cashing checks from the girl's boyfriend using school district bank accounts, lying to teachers so the girl could miss school and drawing her a map so she could drive to the clinic in New Jersey. …"
The Times 8/17/99 James Bone Ruth Gledhill "…ROMAN CATHOLIC priests are to be given immunity from testifying to the proposed International Criminal Court about atrocities they have been told about in the confessional. The provision in the draft rules of evidence and procedure for the new world court was negotiated, over objections from secularist France, during a session at UN headquarters last week after the Vatican mobilised its ambassadors around the world to plead its case. The draft gives cast-iron protection to priests and penitents saying: "The court shall recognise as privileged the communications made in the context of a sacred confession when it is an integral part of the practice of that religion." It also says that the new court will be able to grant privilege to communications between doctors and patients and lawyers and their clients, but it has yet to be resolved whether Red Cross officials with special access to war zones should be required to testify about what they learn. The privilege will certainly not extend to priests who are themselves accused of war crimes or of trying to help war crimes suspects to escape. "It is something that is meant to benefit the penitent, not the priest," Richard Dicker, a legal expert at Human Rights Watch, said….."
Cnn 8/18/99 "….The American Civil Liberties Union has promised to sue a school district that banned a Jewish student from displaying a Star of David necklace because administrators feared it could be mistaken for a gang symbol. High school officials had told Ryan Green he could wear the necklace, but not where it could be seen...."
Boston Globe 8/19/99 Jeff Jacoby "…The City of Boston is shocked - shocked! - to find praying going on at the Keys of Life Bible School. And not only praying, but Bible reading. And as if those weren't bad enough, there are religious emblems in plain view - crosses and spiritual posters right out in the open where anyone might see them. This is intolerable, the city says, and Keys of Life must be punished. Keys of Life is a summer day camp run by the Mason Cathedral Church in Dorchester…..Indeed, the camp has repeatedly been praised by Action for Boston Community Development, the agency that administers the jobs program. ''For five years they've been saying I do good work,'' says the Rev. Thomas Cross, Kenya's father and the pastor of Mason Cathedral. ''This year, everything changed.'' On July 15, ABCD sent a letter to Mason Cathedral, warning the church not to involve the counselors in ''religious activities.'' ''These include but are not limited to the following: praying, reading Bible stories, drawing Bible pictures, and cleaning in the areas of the church where there are religious symbols.... All religious activities must cease immediately.'' To Rev. Cross and his daughter, this was preposterous. Ban prayer at a church-run summer camp? But the city was adamant. Larry Smith, the official who supervises ABCD's operation of the summer program, came to the church to insist that the Crosses toe the line. ''He sat right here in my office,'' Cross says in amazement, ''and told me, `My job is to make sure those kids don't pray.''' According to Cross, Smith also told him to remove any religious symbols visible to the children - including the crucifix on the pastor's door….."
National Post (Canada) 8/19/99 Philip Mathias "…I don't believe in evolution. That's why, for a moment, I was pleased the Kansas Board of Education voted last week to delete any mention of evolution from the state's science curriculum. But my delight was only momentary, because I believe even less in creationism, which teaches God created each species by miracle at different stages in the history of the world….That's not for me. But I don't believe in evolution either, for two reasons. The first is that evolution has become a faith, a kind of scientific religion, whose dogmas you must believe if you are to be treated with respect as a thoughtful person. I have tried to debate evolution with many scientists, and their reaction is always the same -- at first the discomfort felt by a believer faced with an unbeliever, and then, when the light dawns, contempt for somebody they believe must be a religious nut. In fact, I graduated some time ago with a degree in chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology (including evolution theory) from London University. ….My second reason for not believing evolution is that, for the most part, it is not proven and is even, at times, nonsensical. At this point in the argument, I must make a careful distinction between macro- and micro-evolution. There's no doubt species do adapt to local conditions. A bird's beak will change to deal with different nuts, and gazelles will run faster to escape cheetahs that are also evolving into faster runners to catch the gazelles. That's micro-evolution. But macro-evolution is another ballgame. The process of natural selection that changes birds and gazelles is gradual. But the fossil record is not continuous, as natural selection would require. The elephant and the whale appear relatively suddenly. Some argue the huge gaps in the fossil record are caused by genetic mutation. An individual in one species is born with a mutation that forms the beginning of quite another species. Nothing in between. The problem with this idea is that mutations are almost always a handicap, and only occur in one individual at a time. Are we to believe the same mutation appeared spontaneously in enough individuals of one species to enable the mutants to form the breeding base for another stable species? That would truly be a miracle. As astronomer Fred Hoyle put it, that's like believing a hurricane could blow through a junkyard and assemble a Boeing 747. Another popular theory is that species evolved by micro-adaptation, but in rapid bursts, and in places far from the locations where we find fossils. That's why there's no record of the gradual change from one major species to another. That's like saying we know there are people on Mars, but we have no evidence yet….. Science has theories for all these phenomena, but they are just that -- theories, and often poor ones at that. I believe there is a mechanism behind the development of species through the ages that has not yet been discovered. What is it? I have no idea. But logic demands there is something we do not yet know …."
www.catholicleague.org 8/19/99 William Donohue "…On August 17, a branch of the international bookstore, Rizzoli, placed in its storefront window a picture of blasphemous art that was offensive to Christians. The branch at 31 West 57th Street in New York had on window display a picture of the Last Supper that showed a bare-breasted woman standing in the middle of the table with her arms outstretched; men and women were seated on both sides of her conversing. The picture was taken from a book entitled Visionaire 28, published by Visionaire. Catholic League president William Donohue spoke to the store’s manager, John Deen, to say that he thought it an impropriety for a prestigious bookstore in mid-town Manhattan to give such high profile to a display that many Catholics might find offensive. When Deen said he did not think the picture was offensive, Donohue asked him whether he might think it offensive to picture Martin Luther King with a swastika on his forehead surrounded by a bare-breasted woman. Deen said that he would…."Chuck Baldwin Live 8/18/99 "…Without question, we live in the most hypersensitive generation in history. In this atmosphere of politically correct sensitivity a man was fired job for using the word "niggardly." The word has nothing to do with insulting a particular minority race, of course, but simply means, "miserly, stingy, covetous." No matter. The man was fired posthaste. Just this week Sen. Robert Bennett from Utah was told to apologize for quipping that unless Gov. G.W. Bush did something stupid, like have an affair with a black woman, he was certain to win the Republican nomination for president. He did. Americans are told that they had better not offend black people, Jewish people, homosexuals, Asians, Muslims, Indians, handicap people, short people, fat people, near-sighted people, ugly people or any other people. Any other people except Christian people, that is. Christians are routinely impugned, denigrated and held up to scorn from practically every quarter of society. In movies they are pictured as maniacal murderers, serial rapists and the like. They are favored targets of every late night TV comedian. Christians are routinely told that if they are offended by the content of television programs to "turn the channel". Christian chaplains in our military services are categorically instructed to not mention the name of Jesus. The leaders of public education tell Christian valedictorians the same thing. Christian schoolteachers are told to check their faith at the entrance to the school. Christians must listen to profanity, look at co-worker’s girlie magazines but are threatened with their jobs if they bring a Bible or gospel tract to work….."
Conservative News Service 8/20/99 Bruce Sullivan "…New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said that Mildred Rosario's firing from a Bronx middle school earlier this month for discussing heaven, death and God with her students "astounded" him. In a statement released to CNS, the mayor allowed that he had not seen all the documentation on the incident, but added, "She (Rosario) seems to have received very little representation, so I was astounded by the procedure." Giuliani said that New York City schools have had teachers accused of theft, sex crimes and even pedophilia who "remained hanging around for two, three or four years with very vigorous representation." Rosario, 43, was fired from her teaching job at IS-74 on June 12 for discussing God and heaven with her sixth graders and praying with them as the children attempted to come to grips with the death of a classmate, who died earlier this month in an accidental drowning….. "
Augusta Chronicle 8/20/99 Editorial "…I would like to make some comments about the young man who appeared Aug. 4 on ``Good Morning America.'' I could not believe this show would reduce itself to air this! The young man stated that he was removed from the Boy Scouts of America due to the fact that he is a homosexual. That fact is true! BSA teaches duty to Self, Family, Country and God. Homosexuality is a sin! God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. The majority of sponsoring organizations for BSA are churches. This man also stated that homosexuals being barred from Scouting is not stated anywhere in BSA literature but in the beginning of the BSA handbook for Scouts stipulates ``traditional American family values.'' That means a father (male) and mother (female) and this is taught from the very beginning of any Scouting career. I have been in Scouting since 1971 as a youth and adult leader. If this change is forced upon us, it will kill Scouting…. It is hard now to keep track of 25 young men on a camping trip without having to worry about if a leader is missing. If the homosexual community wants Scouting, then start your own, do not force your way of life on us and devalue the Eagle Scout Award…."
Judicial Watch 8/20/99 Judicial Watch, Inc., the Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm that fights government corruption, today announced that it will seek to participate in a lawsuit to be filed against the Harrison County School District in Mississippi. Monday, the school board unanimously prohibited Ryan Green, a 15 year old Jewish student, from wearing a Star of David pin given him by his grandmother. The school board feared that the Star of David was a gang symbol. "This is a case of the government’s hostility to religious expression, and the school board’s decision must not stand," stated Judicial Watch General Counsel Larry Klayman. "Our public schools are going down the tubes, they are graduating illiterates, and they spend their time and energy picking on an innocent boy who wishes to express his faith. And then they wonder why more and more parents are pulling their children out of government-run schools. Clearly, we need more God in school, not less," Klayman continued. Judicial Watch joins the American Civil Liberties Union and the Christian Coalition in support of the case. With the court’s permission, Judicial Watch, Inc. will seek to file an amicus curiae or similar legal brief on behalf of Ryan and his fundamental right to free exercise of religion and freedom of expression. …"
AP 8/20/99 "…Several Republican presidential candidates have pledged to oppose allowing gay or lesbian couples to adopt and to promote the rights of organizations such as the Boy Scouts to exclude homosexuals, a gay rights group said Friday. Human Rights Campaign said former Vice President Dan Quayle, radio host Alan Keyes, publisher Steve Forbes, conservative activist Gary Bauer, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah and commentator Pat Buchanan signed the pledge before last week's Iowa straw poll…."
Joseph Sobran 8/20/99 "…The New Jersey court's opinions confirm that homosexual "rights" are injurious to our traditional rights. Orthodox Judaism and Christianity have always condemned homosexuality. But this ancient teaching, says the court, is nothing but "bigotry." Why? Because "social science data" have revealed that homosexuals may act "responsibly" and "positively." So religious and traditional teachings -- as well as the freedoms of religion, speech and association -- must be subordinated to "social science data." But no neutral social science presumes to pass judgment on moral and religious teachings. The whole method of social science is to suspend moral judgments in the study of phenomena. The court, however, has ruled that the Boy Scouts must subordinate their own moral judgments to the court's supposedly "scientific" finding that homosexuals are morally entitled to forced association with people who would freely choose to avoid their company…..Well, well. So that's "tolerance." Neither the New Jersey court nor the tolerant Times argues from the purely legal merits of the case. Both are on a moral mission to force the Boy Scouts, on any pretext, to conform to the liberal agenda. And their flimsy arguments could just as well be applied to churches and synagogues, the foundations of our civic culture. Yes, this case involves bigotry, but it isn't on the side of the Scouts….What, after all, are the characteristics of bigotry? A venomous rejection of any view contrary to one's own, a refusal even to entertain an opposing view with detachment, a denial of the legitimacy of disagreement, a total contempt for ancient tradition, and a militant eagerness to coerce those who disagree -- such attitudes are the very essence of bigotry, liberal-style…."