Column/Legend
1 - Prefix  - L-Life,  H-Homosexual Behavior/Perversion, R-Religion/Legal Persecution/ACLU, E-Education, M-Media Bias, O-Other
2-7 - Yr, Mo, Dy
8 - L -Letter to Editor, C-Commentary, O-Op-Ed, M-Metro

Hotlink Index of this weeks's family values related news:  [Life]   [Homosexual Behavior/Perversion]   [Religion/Religious Persecution]   [Education]   [Media]   [Other]

LIFE
L041114L  Beware Arlen Specter
L041115     Frist withholds Specter support
L041115     The attack on adult stem cells
L041115L   Abortion as an infant-mortality problem
L041116     Double homicide
L041116     Specter likely to lead Judiciary Committee
L041116     Stem-cell work may find hope in mouse sperm
L041117      Abortion pill to stay on market
L041117      Going 'nuclear'
L041117      Hatch backs Specter for judiciary post
L041118      Specter satisfies caucus concerns
L041119      Specter nails enough votes to be judiciary panel chief

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H041114     Kentucky marriage survey contradictory
H041115    Data on gay 'marriages' in Massachusetts scarce
H041118E  New gay political strategies

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R041114    Forum: A question of faith
R041114C Values and priorities
R041115    L.A. group demands cross back on county's seal
R041115    School district adopts 'intelligent design'
R041115    Silenced priest warns of gay crisis
R041115L  Fate in bishop's hands
R041115M Maryland churches to rally for marriage
R041116     Judiciary quandary
R041116     Pentagon to warn bases on Scouts
R041117     RHODE ISLAND Judge rejects holiday display policy
R041118     Bishops approve marriage initiative
R041118     Rumsfeld urged to 'defend' Scouts movement
R041118     SOUTH CAROLINA  Town fights to use Christ in prayers
R041118L   What Darwin said was ...
R041118M  Boy Scouts Jamboree to stay at Army base
R041119L   Scouting and the military

EDUCATION
E011115      MASSACHUSETTS   Harvard warm to Nazis, historian says
E041118M  'Gay-straight' clubs in schools anger foes
E041119M Sex classes concern new board member

MEDIA
M041115     Media abdication
M041116     The harsh theology of the elites
M041118     Bias? What bias?
M041118L   Whose side is the media on?
M041119     Delaying exit polls
M041119     Racist cartoons

OTHER
O041114C   Forum: The politics of abstinence
O041115     Carson's insights
O041115C  Mini clash of civilizations
O041116C Greetings from the 'United States of Canada'
O041116C Values vote audit
O041117    Moral of the story
O041117L  Do not disturb
O041118    Whitewashing Whitewater
O041119    PENNSYLVANIA Boy, 11, charged with sexual assault
O041119E  Ready for some football, eh?

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By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A survey about cohabitation and marriage taken in May correctly predicted the support for a state constitutional amendment defining traditional marriage in Kentucky, but it also revealed conflicted feelings about how to handle marital discord.
    More than 60 percent of Kentuckians said divorce shouldn't be so easy to get, but 75 percent agreed that getting a divorce wasn't as bad as staying in a "lousy" marriage.
    It's important to capture such "baseline" attitudes about marriage, said Claudia J. Heath, a family studies professor and director of the Research Center for Families and Children at the University of Kentucky.
    If Kentucky decides to start a statewide pro-marriage program, researchers are well-positioned to track any attitudinal changes that might result from it, she said.
    The research center surveyed 830 Kentucky adults about their attitudes on marriage, divorce, cohabitation and government-funded pro-marriage programs. The questions were similar to surveys conducted in Oklahoma, Florida and Utah.
    The Kentucky survey, however, included questions on same-sex "marriage" and a proposed constitutional amendment that said marriage was only the union of one man and one woman and "legal status identical to or similar to marriage for unmarried individuals" would not be recognized.
    In the May survey, 72 percent of Kentuckians supported the amendment and 72 percent rejected the idea of civil unions for same-sex couples. On Election Day earlier this month, 75 percent of voters approved the marriage amendment.
    While most Kentuckians are against homosexual "marriage," they are less clear about their feelings concerning warring husbands and wives.
    A high proportion of Kentuckians — 87 percent — said divorce was a "somewhat serious" or "very serious" national problem, and 61 percent agreed that "society would be better off if divorces were harder to get."
    Still, 75 percent agreed with the statement, "Sure, divorce is bad, but a lousy marriage is even worse."
    Personal happiness even trumped children: Sixty-nine percent disagreed with the statement, "When there are children in the family, parents should stay married even if they do not get along."
    The topic of what to do when marital relationships break down draws a lot of attention from marriage-education leaders like Diane Sollee.
    It is important for states to offer public service campaigns on marriage, said Ms. Sollee, director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education and founder of the annual "Smart Marriages" conferences.
    If people start understanding there are things they can do to "master" marriage — such as improve their communication, set goals together and revive their intimate relationships — they will learn how to do it, Ms. Sollee said.
    The Kentucky survey showed that 64 percent of adults approved of the idea of a statewide pro-marriage initiative, but only 43 percent said they would personally consider "using relationship education such as workshops, or classes, to strengthen your relationship."
    Also in the survey, 55 percent of respondents rejected cohabitation, saying it was not right for "romantically involved people who are not married to live together. But among Kentuckians in the prime cohabiting ages of 18 to 29, 65 percent said it was OK.
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R041115   L.A. group demands cross back on county's seal
 

By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A group of outraged Angelenos is gathering signatures to restore a tiny cross to the county seal after the board of supervisors recently voted to remove it.
    The Committee to Support the Los Angeles County Seal is aiming to collect 341,212 signatures by March 1, which would force the board to enact an ordinance protecting the original seal from any changes not approved by the voters.
    "The response has been startling," said David Hernandez, a former Republican congressional candidate who leads the committee. "Across the board, across ethnic lines, religious denominations, party lines, the support for this is unbelievable."
    The 3-2 board vote to eliminate the cross came in response to a May 19 letter from the American Civil Liberties Union, which threatened to file a lawsuit unless the cross was removed from the 50-year-old seal.
    The ACLU argued that the simple gold cross, described as the "Latin cross," was a "sectarian religious symbol that represents the beliefs of one segment of the county's diverse population."
    At a June hearing, hundreds of demonstrators from a variety of religious backgrounds rallied outside the county building in support of keeping the cross. In testimony before the board, dozens of supporters argued that the cross was a symbol of California history and religious freedom.
    "Christianity plays a major role in the history of this county. To take that cross off is a symbol of something terrible happening," said Los Angeles talk-show host Dennis Prager, who is Jewish.
    In a seven-page opinion, however, the county counsel's office said the ACLU likely would win a legal challenge because the cross violated the separation between church and state.
    Opponents produced opinions from law professors and legal foundations arguing that the seal was constitutional, pointing to the cross' historic significance. Even so, supervisors Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavsky voted to change the seal.
    "A seal should be a unifying symbol," said Mr. Yaroslavsky during a supervisors' meeting Nov. 3. "It should not be a symbol that divides us."
    At the same meeting, supervisors Don Knabe and Mike Antonovich argued unsuccessfully that the cross' removal should be delayed until after the results of the petition effort. Instead, the board voted 3-2 to proceed with the changes immediately.
    Tony Bell, spokesman for Mr. Antonovich, said county officials had placed the cost of changing the seal at $700,000, although he estimated that the price tag would be much higher. The seal can be found on county buildings, stationery, sheriff's cars, utility trucks, uniform patches and other items.
    Already, the Web sites of the three supervisors who voted to remove the cross feature a new seal with several changes. The old seal depicts a series of monographs that include the Greek goddess Pomona, oil derricks and a tiny cross next to two stars. The new seal replaces the goddess Pomona with an American Indian girl holding a bowl of grain, removes the cross and the oil derricks, and adds a depiction of what is supposed to be the San Gabriel Mission.
    Supporters of the old seal aren't impressed.
    "The new seal is horrific," said Mr. Knabe, who voted against the change. "I've never seen a Catholic mission depicted without a cross. It looks like a grain silo or a Wal-Mart, not a mission."
    Polls show the old seal has overwhelming support. A June survey conducted by the Los Angeles Daily News found that 94 percent of respondents wanted to the seal unchanged.
    Supporters of the old seal say they have gathered 40,000 of the needed signatures. Many of the petition-gatherers are active Catholics, Christians and Jews who are bringing petitions to their churches and synagogues.
    "People tell us that if Los Angeles County isn't able to withstand this challenge, then there won't be any municipality anywhere that will be able to stand up to it," Mr. Hernandez said. "This is a line in the sand."
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R041115   School district adopts 'intelligent design'
 

By Martha Raffaele
ASSOCIATED PRESS

DOVER, Pa. — When talk at the local high school turns to evolution, biology teachers must make time for Charles Darwin — and his detractors.
    This rural south-central Pennsylvania community is thought to be the first in the nation to mandate the teaching of "intelligent design," a theory that says the universe is so complex that it must have been created by an unspecified higher power.
    Critics call the change in the ninth-grade biology curriculum a veiled attempt to require public school students to learn creationism, a Bible-based view that credits the origin of the world to God. The school will continue to teach evolution, the theory that Earth is billions of years old and that life forms developed over millions of years.
    The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is reviewing the Dover Area School District case. Meanwhile, its Georgia counterpart is fighting a suburban Atlanta district's decision to include a warning sticker in biology textbooks that says evolution is "a theory, not a fact."
    "What Dover has done goes much further than what's happened in Georgia," said Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pittsburgh ACLU. "As far as we can tell, Dover is the first school district that has actually mandated intelligent design."
    About 2,800 students are enrolled in the district, which encompasses the rural community of Dover borough, and a patchwork of farmland and newer suburban developments in several surrounding townships.
    The revision was spearheaded by school board member William Buckingham, who leads the board's curriculum committee.
    "I think it's a downright fraud to perpetrate on the students of this district, to portray one theory over and over," Mr. Buckingham said. "What we wanted was a balanced presentation."
    Mr. Buckingham wanted the board to adopt an intelligence-design textbook, "Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins," as a supplement to the traditional biology book, but no vote was taken. A few weeks before the new science curriculum was approved, 50 copies were donated to the high school anonymously.
    Although Mr. Buckingham describes himself as a born-again Christian and believes in creationism, he said, "This is not an attempt to impose my views on anyone else."
    Two of the dissenting board members, Carol Brown and her husband, Jeff, were so upset that they resigned after the board voted 6-3 on Oct. 18 to mandate the teaching approach.
    "We have a vocal group within the community who feel very strongly in an evangelical Christian way that there is no separation of church and state," Mrs. Brown said. "Our responsibility to is to represent the viewpoints of all members of the community."
    Critics of intelligent design contend that it is creationism repackaged in more secular-sounding language.
    "Creationism in a cheap tuxedo," said Nicholas Matzke, project information specialist for the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, Calif., which advocates for the teaching of evolution.
    Even the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which supports scientists studying intelligent design, opposes mandating it in schools because it is a relatively new concept, said John West, associate director of the institute's Center for Science and Culture.
    "We're completely against anyone who says you should downgrade or limit the teaching of evolution," Mr. West said.
    Dover biology teacher Jennifer Miller said the curriculum changes have left her uncertain about how to approach her evolution lesson.
    "If you put the words 'intelligent design' into my curriculum, then I have to teach it," said Miss Miller, a 12-year veteran. "I'm not sure what that means as to how in-depth we have to go. ... I'm looking for more direction from the school board."
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O041115   Carson's insights

    "As a defeated Senate candidate in the most red of red states, many people have asked me for insights into the Democratic Party's failure to connect with culturally conservative voters," Rep. Brad Carson, Oklahoma Democrat, writes in the New Republic.
    "Much has already been written on this topic, and scholars will add more. But I do know this: The culture war is real, and it is a conflict not merely about some particular policy or legislative item, but about modernity itself. Banning gay marriage or abortion would not be sufficient to heal the cultural gulf that exists in this nation," Mr. Carson said.
    "The culture war is about matters more fundamental still: whether nationality is, in a globalized world, a random fact of no more significance than what hospital one was born in or whether it is the source of identity and even political legitimacy; whether one's self is a matter of choice or whether it is predetermined, before birth, by the cultural membership of one's family; whether an individual is just that — a free-floating atom — or whether the individual is part of a long chain that both predates and continues long after any particular person; whether concepts like honor and shame, which seem so quaint, are still relevant in a world that values only 'tolerance.' These are questions not for politicians, but for philosophers, and, in the end, it is the failure of liberal philosophy that we saw on Nov. 2.
    "For the vast majority of Oklahomans — and, I would suspect, voters in other red states — these transcendent cultural concerns are more important than universal health care or raising the minimum wage or preserving farm subsidies. ... They simply reject the notion that material concerns are more real than spiritual or cultural ones.
    "The political left has always had a hard time understanding this, preferring to believe that the masses are enthralled by a 'false consciousness' or Fox News or whatever today's excuse might be. But the truth is quite simple: Most voters in a state like Oklahoma — and, I venture to say, most other Southern and Midwestern states — reject the general direction of American culture and celebrate the political party that promises to reform or revise it."
    "That is what Antonin Scalia famously called the Kulturkampf. And there can be no doubt either that this is a fundamental dynamic in American politics or on which side of this conflict the electorate rests. [On Nov. 2], I ran 7 percent ahead of John Kerry, and my opponent ran a full 13 percent behind President Bush. In most states, this would have been more than sufficient to ensure my victory. But not in Oklahoma. At least not [Nov. 2]. And, while the defeat was all my own, the failure was of the party to which I swear allegiance, which uncritically embraces a modernity that so many others reject."
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M041115   Media abdication

    "It is often said that the only sure winner in American politics is the media. Amid GOP victory parties or the ruined dreams of the Kerry candidacy, the one constant is that the media marches on," The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger writes.
    "Maybe not this time. Big Media lost big. But it was more than a loss. It was an abdication of authority," Mr. Henninger said.
    "Large media institutions, such as CBS or the New York Times, have been regarded as nothing if not authoritative. In the Information Age, authority is a priceless franchise. But it is this franchise that Big Media, incredibly, has just thrown away. It did so by choosing to go into overt opposition to one party's candidate, a sitting president. It stooped to conquer.
    "The prominent case studies here are Dan Rather's failed National Guard story on CBS and the front page the past year of the New York Times (a proxy for many large dailies). Add in as well Big Media's handling of Abu Ghraib, a real story that got blown into a monthlong bonfire that obviously was intended to burn down the legitimacy of the war in Iraq. I think many people thought the over-the-top Abu Ghraib coverage, amid a war, was the media shouting fire in a crowded theater."
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H041115   Data on gay 'marriages' in Massachusetts scarce
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Same-sex "marriage" has been legal in Massachusetts for about six months, but research on the topic likely will remain scarce for a while because the state's Department of Public Health does not plan to release any data on the couples for at least a year.
    Recent studies and press reports offer only a few contemporary glimpses into same-sex "marriage." For instance, it appears that lesbians are more likely to want to "marry" than homosexual men. Lesbian couples also are more likely to have children in the home than are male couples.
    Early tallies of same-sex "marriages" in Massachusetts, plus the unions performed illegally by local officials in California, Oregon and other states, indicate that nearly 11,000 couples lined up for marriage licenses this year. This is about 2 percent of the 594,391 same-sex partnered homes in the United States that the 2000 census found.
    The U.S. Census Bureau also counted 415,970 children living in same-sex-couple households — a minuscule figure compared with activist groups' estimate of 6 million to 14 million children living with a homosexual parent.
    Same-sex "marriage" is, "at best, a vast, untested social experiment and we have no idea what the outcome will be," said Bill Maier, vice president of Focus on the Family and co-author of the book, "Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting."
    Public policy should look at what's best for society, he said, and on issues for which the outcome isn't at all clear, "we have to move forward with caution."
    Vermont's civil unions, which started in 2000, are the closest proxy for understanding what homosexual "marriage" would look like in the nation.
    A study conducted in 2000 and 2001 provides a look at 335 of Vermont's "pioneer" civil-union couples, said University of Vermont psychology professor Esther D. Rothblum, a co-author of the study.
    For instance, she said in a recent interview, regardless of whether they were males or females, same-sex couples typically were in their 40s and had obtained high levels of education, had higher-than-average incomes and had a preference for nontraditional or no religious beliefs.
    The typical civil-union couple also had been romantically involved with each other for more than 10 years. These couples "weren't newlyweds," said Ms. Rothblum, noting that more than 70 percent of the couples owned homes together and more than 80 percent had joint bank accounts.
    Vermont data — as well as anecdotal evidence from this year — show that lesbians are far more interested in legally uniting than men.
    In Massachusetts, surveys by the Boston Globe and Mass Equality, a homosexual-rights group, estimated that two-thirds of that state's same-sex "marriage" licenses went to lesbians. The Globe said at least 2,500 couples signed up for licenses when they became legal in May. An unknown number have been issued since then, although the Globe recently reported that some areas average two application requests per week.
    Nationally, the 2000 census found that 34 percent of lesbian couples and 22 percent of male couples had children younger than age 18 living with them.
    The Vermont study found that 34 percent of the 212 lesbians in civil unions and 18 percent of the homosexual men in unions had children.
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R041115   Silenced priest warns of gay crisis
 

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Starting today, 290 of the nation's Catholic bishops will meet at the Capitol Hyatt for their yearly business meeting and to tie up loose ends on the massive sexual-abuse crisis that has shaken the U.S. Catholic Church to its core in the past two years.
    Although it's been less than a year since the church revealed that there were 10,667 cases of abuse committed by 4,392 priests in a 50-year period, the message at the meeting will be that the crisis is under control.
    But it's far from over, says a local Catholic priest who says the true source of the crisis is a priesthood that is "honeycombed" with homosexual clerics, especially in the Diocese of Arlington.
    However, attempts by the Rev. James Haley, 48, to persuade his bishop of the problem have backfired. After hearing from the priest about numerous instances of homosexual activity among diocesan clergy, Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde ordered the priest silenced Oct. 23, 2001. This "precept of silence" — usually only employed during church trial proceedings — is rarely used to silence a whistleblower.
    Thus, in the past three years, Father Haley's case, which also involves accusations of sexual misconduct against him, has become a cause celebre among many Catholics in the Diocese of Arlington.
    It's also attracted the attention of the Vatican, which summoned him to appear before an ecclesiastical court in March. Church officials held two more hearings on the matter this summer and last week scheduled a fourth hearing in conjunction with the bishops' meeting. Less than 24 hours later, after the priest, now living several states away, had bought nonrefundable plane tickets to Washington, the meeting was canceled suddenly.
    Father Haley says his only crime is his insistence that homosexual priests, not solely pedophiles, are at the root of the sexual-abuse crisis. The Catholic priesthood is demoralized, he says, by groups of homosexual clerics who control who gets admitted to seminary, which men get nominated for bishop and which priests get the plum parishes.
    Based on his 17 years in the priesthood, he estimates that 60 percent of the Diocese of Arlington's 127 diocesan priests are homosexuals, which is high compared with national estimates of 30 percent to 50 percent from other authorities on the priesthood.
    As his prospects of returning to life as a parish priest dwindle, he has amassed reams of tapes, videos, photographs, e-mail messages and 1,200 pages of documents for a tell-all book on homosexuality and the priesthood.
    "I am astounded the bishops will protect these guys, promote them, even make them bishops," he says. "This is a huge moral issue, and if the bishops aren't clear on this, the pope needs to rule on it.
    "People will say there's nothing wrong with homosexual priests as long as they are celibate. Well, that is a totally naive statement and totally wrong."
    Backlash
    Father Haley, who is living on a $1,700 a month stipend from the Arlington Diocese and relies on his motorcycle for transport, says his troubles began after several confrontations with his bishop over the priest's charges that homosexuals were indulged by the diocese.
    Bishop Loverde, in turn, has leveled several charges at the priest, ranging from sexual misconduct to talking with the press. He has turned the case over to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, overseen by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
    The cardinal asked Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford, Ill., to preside at an ecclesiastical court, which has met in three closed sessions this year. Once the case is wrapped up, it will be forwarded to the Vatican for judgment.
    Bishop Doran was "supportive," Father Haley says, but he told the priest, "We cannot discuss the homosexual issue because there are people above us who don't think it's a problem."
    "He also explained to me: Even if I was to win this hearing, Loverde would appeal this to another [Vatican] congregation. If I lose, I cannot appeal it, but if I win, he can appeal. So three to four years might pass."
    Although Bishop Doran's office did not respond to several requests for comment, the Rev. Arthur Espelage, executive coordinator of the Canon Law Society, an Alexandria-based group of 1,500 specialists in church law and court procedures, says Bishop Doran's intervention means that the Vatican is concerned.
    "This is a lot more serious than Bishop Loverde being ticked off at Haley," he says.
    But Stephen Brady of the watchdog group Roman Catholic Faithful says Father Haley "made Loverde look bad, so they will make him pay a price by dragging this case out as long as they want."
    "The bishops defend pedophile priests by saying canon law forbids them from removing them without just cause," he says. "But if someone like Father Haley embarrasses a bishop, the church ignores canon law and throws him out."
    War of words
    When questioned by The Washington Times on Sept. 8, Bishop Loverde refused to discuss the case and Father Haley's accusations.
    "The canonical process is undergoing," he said, "and I cannot comment on it."
    However, he has resurrected some 1995 sexual-misconduct charges against Father Haley made when the Most Rev. John R. Keating was bishop of the diocese.
    The sexual-misconduct charge, Father Haley says, was from a 1994 conversation with a female friend, who, while describing the effects of her breast cancer, placed the priest's hand on where the surgery had taken place.
    Although the woman and her attorney both refused comment when contacted by The Washington Times, the priest says, "There was no sexual misconduct."
    "I've never had sex in my entire life," he says.
    Bishop Keating found Father Haley not guilty of impropriety and assigned him a post as assistant pastor at All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, the largest church in the Washington area with 20,000 members.
    He was planning to promote the priest into a church pastorship in Sterling, when he died suddenly in Rome in 1998, says the Rev. James R. Gould, former vocations director for the diocese.
    Father Haley is "a good man and a good priest," Father Gould said. "I am very concerned for him. It is still my hope to have him back in the priesthood, and he is always welcome with me."
    Father Haley never got his promotion. According to a 233-page deposition filed July 24, 2002, in Arlington County Circuit Court, the priest became aware of an affair between a married parishioner, Nancy Lambert, and the Rev. James Verrecchia, then pastor of All Saints and Father Haley's boss. Mrs. Lambert became pregnant with Father Verrecchia's child, divorced her husband, then married the priest in the spring of 2000. Mr. Verrecchia is now parish administrator at Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
    Jim Lambert, the divorced husband of Nancy Lambert, then filed a $5 million suit against the diocese on the grounds that Bishop Loverde knew of the affair months before the priest was ordered to stop seeing Mrs. Lambert.
    The person who informed the bishop about the affair in June 1999 was Father Haley.
    In the 2002 deposition, which Roman Catholic Faithful has posted at www.rcf.org, Father Haley also revealed sexually graphic details about other priests in the diocese.
    "The bishop said there is nothing wrong with these guys," he recalled. "I said, 'You haven't lived with them.' "
    The Arlington Diocese is one of a few in the country that refuses — at least on paper — to sponsor homosexual applicants for seminary. Most dioceses admit such applicants with a variety of sexual histories, although the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will reconsider this policy at its June meeting in Chicago.
    Father Haley contends that Bishop Loverde is loath to enforce diocesan policy, which was installed by his predecessor, Bishop Keating.
    "I was never asked by my bishop if I was gay," Father Haley said. Bishop Loverde "told me he had no right to ask that question, but I said you have a right to ask that question if you are putting men together [in parish rectories] who are sexually attracted to each other."
    Root of the problem
    The Rev. Donald Cozzens, author of the 2000 book "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," estimates 50 percent of all Catholic priests are homosexual.
    Psychotherapist Richard Sipe, a former Catholic priest who has written and spoken widely on the priesthood, says 15 percent of homosexual priests are sexually active.
    If all homosexual clergy were to leave the U.S. Catholic Church now, the church would lose one-third of its bishops as well, added Mr. Sipe, whose new book on priestly sexual abuse dating back to the fourth century, comes out Nov. 15.
    Father Haley says homosexuality is at the root of the huge priestly sex-abuse crisis in which 81 percent of the cases involved victims who were males younger than 18, according to a USCCB investigation.
    "Isn't the huge amounts of AIDS among the clergy a symptom of the problem?" he asked, citing a 2000 Kansas City Star estimate of the rate of AIDS deaths among priests that is at least four times that of the general population. "These are guys who are supposed to be celibate, virtually chaste and modest.
    "But I've seen priests put on cologne, dress up and go on dates with guys."
    He wonders whether Pope John Paul II understands this.
    "I would ask him, 'Your Holiness, is it proper to hire these men or not?' " Father Haley said. "You have to question whether or not these guys even have the rudiments of the faith."
    The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is an "intrinsically disordered" condition and, on Oct. 25, released a document saying such behavior "is not consistent with moral law." But it has no formal prohibition against homosexual priests. A Feb. 2, 1961, Vatican directive does say that "advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty."
    In March 2002, as the clergy sex-abuse scandal in Boston assumed national proportions, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the New York Times that, "People with these inclinations just cannot be ordained."
    He added, "That does not imply a final judgment on people with homosexuality ... but you just cannot be in this field."
    That same year, Pope John Paul II told Brazilian bishops to be extremely careful when screening men for the priesthood so as to avoid "deviations in their affections."
    "It is an ongoing struggle to make sure the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men," Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the USCCB, told the Associated Press.
    Father Haley says the problem goes straight to the top.
    "Loverde had said to me there's nothing wrong [with homosexuality] as long as you're celibate," he said. "So I said there would be nothing wrong with me living with nuns the rest of my life as long as I am celibate. He just looked at me."
    Support from home
    Northern Virginia Catholics have demonstrated outside Bishop Loverde's chancery, sent Father Haley 600 letters of support, contributed money to help defer his legal costs and set up a supportive Web site: www.truthinarlington.com.
    "I know Father Haley to be a dedicated, holy priest," said a former member of St. Mark Catholic Church in Vienna, Va., where the priest served from 1987 to 1991.
    "He impressed me with his reverence during Mass and excellent homilies, which have been always true to the Gospel. He was well-liked and well-respected in our parish," she said in an interview on the condition of anonymity.
    She attributed his current troubles to "his zeal for the church," adding, "He wants it pure and holy."
    Michael Gray, a parishioner at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, Father Haley's last parish, said he was "a very good priest."
    "He's a brilliant speaker. He's the best. There wasn't anything wrong with him. He just told the truth. He just stood up, and look where it's gotten him. He's been sent to limbo."
    Charles Molineaux, a Catholic lawyer from McLean, buttonholed Bishop Loverde about Father Haley when he spotted the prelate at a funeral this spring.
    "Loverde told me I needed to have patience," he said. "I said, 'Well, you know, bishop, justice delayed is justice denied.' "
    "At that point, he blew his stack. He said I was being judgmental. I said, 'Well, I am a lawyer, and we make judgment calls, and you are being unjust.' "
    Many local Catholics were shocked to read about two priests exposed in the deposition Father Haley gave in the Lambert divorce lawsuit, which the diocese unsuccessfully tried to seal.
    The Rev. William J. Erbacher of St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Franconia resigned soon after the deposition revealed that he embezzled church funds and collected homosexual pornography featuring young boys. The diocese has never revealed the results of two audits of Father Erbacher, one conducted by the diocese and the other by the Internal Revenue Service.
    St. Stephen the Martyr Church in Middleburg, Va., takes phone messages and mail for him.
    The Rev. Daniel Hamilton, pastor of St. Mary's Church, resigned after the deposition claimed he kept a collection of sadomasochistic and homosexual pornography in his rectory bedroom. After a psychiatric evaluation for what the bishop termed his "improper activity," he went to live at St. Francis de Sales Church in Kilmarnock, Va.
    The diocese lists both men as on leaves of absence. Father Haley said he provided Bishop Loverde incriminating material about six other priests in the diocese, plus additional names culled from e-mails in Father Erbacher's files.
    "There were homosexual jokes being sent not only to men around the diocese, but to priests around the country," he said.
    Which is why, Father Haley said, he was summoned to the diocesan chancery on that October afternoon in 2001, given four hours to vacate his rectory and ordered by the bishop to remain silent.
    The bishop's only public response to Father Haley's charges came a year later — in Sept. 14, 2002, and Dec. 3, 2002, letters defending his actions after the story hit the newspapers and TV.
    "I want every parishioner in this diocese to know that allegations by some in the media stating that I have ignored priestly misconduct are absolutely false," he wrote.
    "While Father Haley was always free to 'go over my head' and bring his accusations and criticisms to other ecclesiastical authorities, he chose instead to resort to the media."
    Several of Father Haley's advocates suggest that Bishop Loverde got advice on priestly silencing from Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., Bishop Joseph Adamec. Bishop Adamec's diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Register, ran a front-page photo of the two bishops on May 5, 2003, and informed readers that Bishop Loverde had been invited to speak in the diocese.
    On Sept. 9, 1999, Bishop Adamec forbade a local priest, the Rev. Philip Saylor, from talking about the diocese's track record on sexual-abuse cases. Father Saylor was given a canonical "precept of silence," the same as was given to Father Haley, and threatened with excommunication if he disobeyed.
    The bishop posted the order on his Web site, www.diocesealtjtn.org/news, and wrote a March 17, 2003, letter to the Wall Street Journal defending his decision. The bishop was under some pressure, because the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown had published in June 2002 an investigation saying the diocese had allowed at least 10 pedophile priests to continue working while abusing hundreds of boys.
    "There's a point where you have to put your faith on the line," Father Haley said. "You have to put your life at risk. I am willing to die for this. I am willing to stand up for the truth. Someday, this will all come out. The abuse scandal will seem small compared to this."
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E011115    MASSACHUSETTS   Harvard warm to Nazis, historian says
    BOSTON — Harvard University enhanced the reputation of the Nazi regime when it sanctioned events in the 1930s attended by Nazis, a historian said yesterday.
    "Harvard remained largely indifferent to the persecution of Germany's Jews," said Stephen H. Norwood, a University of Oklahoma history professor who is writing a book about the response of American universities to the Nazi Party.
    Mr. Norwood presented some of his findings at a conference on the Holocaust at Boston University. He said administrators welcomed one of Adolf Hitler's closest deputies to a reunion, hosted a reception for German naval officials and sent delegates to a celebration at a German university that had expelled Jews.
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L041115   Frist withholds Specter support
 

By Audrey Hudson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist yesterday withheld his support of Sen. Arlen Specter to head the Judiciary Committee, and said the Pennsylvania Republican needed to prove to his colleagues this week that he will run the panel impartially and push nominees all the way to a full Senate vote.
     "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asked Mr. Frist, "Do you support making Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee?"
    Mr. Frist responded, "Chris, it's an issue that we'll begin to face really this week," adding that a final decision would not be made until early January.
    "Ultimately, the members of that committee will choose whether or not he serves as their chairman," Mr. Frist said.
    Mr. Specter will meet individually this week with his colleagues and members of the Senate leadership to "both explain what he meant and what he would do as chairman," said Mr. Frist, referring to postelection comments by Mr. Specter that it is unlikely the upper body would confirm pro-life nominees.
    "Arlen made some statements the day after the election. They were disheartening to me. They were disheartening to a lot of different people," said Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican.
    Before the election, Mr. Frist signaled his support of Mr. Specter as committee chairman. "Who is going to lead the Judiciary Committee when it considers nominations? Arlen Specter or Pat Leahy?" he said, referring to an Oct. 31 Baltimore Sun article to the ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont.
    Political observers have speculated that, as chairman, Mr. Specter could support nominees with whom he disagrees on issues such as abortion in the committee, and then vote his pro-choice conscience when the nominee comes up for a full vote in the Senate.
    However, Mr. Frist told Fox News that is not sufficient.
    "I would expect Chairman Specter to go one step further — if it's Chairman Specter, whoever that chairman is — and that is to have a strong predisposition to supporting that nominee sent over by President Bush, a Republican president, to a Republican Judiciary Committee," Mr. Frist said.
    There will be "adequate debate and discussion," but the chairman needs to "take that candidate all the way to the floor and to have a strong predisposition of supporting that candidate, including on the floor of the United States Senate," Mr. Frist said.
    Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, is stepping down as chairman at the end of this session, during which political parties battled over several judicial nominees because of their pro-life stances. Several were denied a floor vote before the whole Senate.
    Mr. Hatch "did everything within his power," but was blocked by a "tyranny of the minority," Mr. Frist said in reference to Democrats.
    "Totally unacceptable," Mr. Frist said. "The chairman can't absolutely guarantee [against Democratic obstruction], but can fight for that and make sure that every, every one of these nominees gets an up-or-down vote on the floor of the Senate."
    Mr. Specter appeared on ABC's "This Week" and said he will assure colleagues in upcoming meetings there will be no litmus test on Supreme Court nominees.
    "The record is conclusive that I have never done that," Mr. Specter said.
    "I have voted for pro-life nominees," he said, noting that when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was up for confirmation, the justice "had already voted against Roe v. Wade." Mr. Specter also said he voted to confirm Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.
    "When Justice Clarence Thomas came up, I led the fight to confirm Justice Thomas — almost lost my Senate seat in the process," Mr. Specter said.
    "I have supported all of President Bush's nominees in committee and on the floor. And those go right to the heart of the factual matters of concern," he said.
    Asked whether he would support Justice Thomas as chief justice, Mr. Specter declined to answer, but indicated he would support Mr. Bush's nominee.
    "I don't think that our votes ought to be on sound bites on national television. I do believe that the president ought to have very substantial deference in his nominations," Mr. Specter said.
    Two Republican senators pledged support for Mr. Specter on the Sunday political talk shows — John McCain of Arizona and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana.
    However, neither man is on the Judiciary Committee, which will get the first vote on the new chairman and has conservative members from states that were easily won by President Bush with the help of the religious activists most opposed to Mr. Specter.
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, is the only Judiciary member to have issued any degree of public support for Mr. Specter, saying Wednesday that the Pennsylvanian "is likely to be confirmed" if he makes a public vow not to block Bush nominees and addresses the concerns of members of the panel.
    Mr. Cornyn has a lifetime rating of 85 percent from the American Conservative Union (ACU).
    Other Republican panel members and their ACU lifetime ratings are: Mr. Hatch, 90 percent; Mr. Specter, 43 percent; and Sens. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa, 82 percent; Jon Kyl, Arizona, 97 percent; Mike DeWine, Ohio, 82 percent; Jeff Sessions, Alabama, 98 percent; Lindsey Graham, South Carolina, 91 percent; Larry E. Craig, Idaho, 93 percent; Saxby Chambliss, Georgia, 94 percent.
    Mr. Specter is meeting informally with Republican committee members Wednesday to lobby for the chairmanship. Committee chairmen are first voted on by their respective committees, and the results are sent to the full Republican conference for ratification, said Nick Smith, spokesman for Mr. Frist. Historically, the full caucus will vote with the committee's selection for chairman.
    Conservative groups are heavily lobbying senators to block Mr. Specter from heading the committee. Mr. Kyl would be next in the line of seniority for the chairmanship should Mr. Specter step aside.
    A "pray-in" is scheduled for tomorrow on Capitol Hill to protest Mr. Specter's ascension to the chairmanship, and Focus on the Family sent an e-mail to its supporters urging them to contact their senator and express opposition.
    "Sen. Specter's pro-abortion views make him a poor choice to oversee the process of getting President Bush's judicial nominees approved," the message said.
    However, Mr. Specter is supported by the Rev. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, and the White House has signaled its approval of Mr. Specter as chairman.
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R041116   Pentagon to warn bases on Scouts

By Mike Robinson
ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO — The Pentagon has agreed to warn military bases worldwide that they should not directly sponsor Boy Scout troops, partially resolving accusations that the government has improperly supported a group that requires members to believe in God.
    The settlement, announced yesterday, stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which said U.S. military units have sponsored hundreds of Boy Scout troops.
    "If our Constitution's promise of religious liberty is to be a reality, the government should not be administering religious oaths or discriminating based on religious beliefs," said ACLU lawyer Adam Schwartz.
    The Pentagon said it long has had a rule against sponsorship of nonfederal organizations and denied that the rule had been violated. But it agreed to send a message to posts worldwide warning them not to sponsor Boy Scout troops or other such groups.
    The rule does not prevent service members from leading Scout troops on their own time, and the Scouts still will be able to have meetings on areas of military bases where civilian organizations are allowed to hold events.
    Leaders of some of the Boy Scouts' 300 regional councils reached yesterday said they knew nothing about the Pentagon's action.
    "We haven't been given any information," said Dave McChesney, Scout executive of the San Francisco Bay Area Council.
    Nor was he aware of the lawsuit brought by the ACLU.
    Asked whether any of the Scout troops in his council are directly sponsored by military bases, Mr. McChesney said, "I can't think of one that is."
    He also said he is not worried that relations between the Scouts and the U.S. military will be strained.
    "Our relations with the federal government and with state and local governments have all been fantastic. I'm sure they will remain that way," Mr. McChesney said.
    Larry Abbott, Scout executive of the Grand Canyon Council in Phoenix, said yesterday none of the Boy Scout troops in his council is sponsored by military installations.
    "But I know that's the situation in different parts of the country," Mr. Abbott said. But he could not provide specifics.
     Mr. Abbott added: "We've had really good support from the military, and we're positive that will continue."
    The Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the Pentagon's new warnings to all military bases "very wise advice."
    "It's important that the federal government — including the military — not sponsor any organization that discriminates on the basis of religion."
    The Boy Scouts does discriminate, he said, in that it requires members to believe in God.
    "In the long run, this change will be a good protection for religious freedom and diversity," Mr. Lynn said.
    Yesterday's settlement does not resolve other ACLU charges involving government spending that benefits the Boy Scouts, such as money used to prepare a Virginia military base for the Boy Scout Jamboree and grants used by state and local governments to benefit the Boy Scouts, Mr. Schwartz said.
    Lawyer Marcia Berman, who represented the Defense Department, declined to comment on the settlement yesterday. But Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the message that will be sent to bases represents "a clarification of an existing rule that DOD personnel cannot be involved in an official capacity."
    The ACLU lawsuit named as defendants the city of Chicago, the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city of Chicago settled, agreeing not to engage in official sponsorship of Scout activities.
     Staff reporter Joyce Price contributed to this report.
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L041116   Specter likely to lead Judiciary Committee
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, likely will assume the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee on schedule, despite opposition from many conservatives, say insiders familiar with talks among Republican Party leaders.
    But first, Mr. Specter must appease Republican leadership and fellow Judiciary Committee members in private meetings today.
    Earlier this month, Mr. Specter said pro-life nominees to the Supreme Court will have a difficult time being confirmed in the current political environment. Many conservatives interpreted the remarks as meaning Mr. Specter would not fight vigorously to confirm President Bush's nominees.
    Thousands of letters, e-mails and phone calls continue to pour into Capitol Hill from conservatives demanding that Mr. Specter be barred from the chairmanship because of the statements.
    "Specter's got to fix this and he's on his way to doing that," said one Republican aide. "He's got to reassure leadership that he will fight for President Bush's nominees."
    Mr. Specter has said he would give all of Mr. Bush's nominees thorough but swift hearings and votes. He said he has voted in favor of all of Mr. Bush's nominees, even the 10 who have been filibustered by Democrats.
    Republicans note, however, that Mr. Specter is credited with killing the nomination of Robert Bork when President Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court. He also joined Democrats in blocking the 1986 federal judgeship nomination of Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, who now sits on the Judiciary Committee with Mr. Specter, and will vote in January on whether Mr. Specter should take the gavel.
    Sen. Mike DeWine, Ohio Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee who plans to meet with Mr. Specter today, said Mr. Specter "will be asked for assurances."
    Mr. DeWine declined to comment on whether he thought Mr. Specter ultimately would become chairman.
    Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, supports Mr. Specter, saying he "has a good case to make for why he should be chairman."
    "He is someone who has stood by the president's nominees for the last four years," Mr. Gregg said. "And he's a tough guy who knows how to run a committee and is very effective. And I think he'll be a strong chairman of that committee and a great benefit to the president as chairman."
    Asked about his prospects around lunchtime yesterday, Mr. Specter replied: "I take 12:30 to 1 off every day from feeling anything."
    •Staff writer Brian DeBose contributed to this story, which is based in part on wire service reports.
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L041116   Stem-cell work may find hope in mouse sperm
 

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A team of scientists working with cells from mice have succeeded in growing sperm stem cells in the laboratory, which could provide a new source of adult stem cells for medical research.
    In a report published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, investigators at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine described how they transplanted the sperm stem cells into infertile mice. The mice then were able to father offspring, which were genetically related to the donor mice.
    "This advance opens up an exciting range of possible future research, from developing new treatments for male infertility to enhancing survival of endangered species," said Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child and Human Development (NICHD).
    NICHD, part of the National Institutes of Health, provided partial funding for the research.
    Such sperm progenitor cells, officially known as spermatogonial stem cells, or SSCs, could become a valuable source of adult stem cells, which scientists are seeking as an alternative to embryonic stem cells for research of major diseases. Because embryos have to be destroyed to use their stem cells, many consider them morally unacceptable.
    SSCs are found in animal testicles and can slowly renew themselves and later evolve into cells that make sperm. The new study identifies "soluble factors that promote proliferation of SSCs" outside the body.
    "This research has enormous potential [for reproduction], as you have basically immortalized the male," said Dr. Ralph Brinster, a veterinarian and reproductive biologist at the University of Pennsylvania and senior author of the study.
    Researchers are hopeful that the new culturing technique for mouse SSCs, which they say is applicable for humans and other animals, could spark exploration into the use of SSCs as a source of more versatile adult stem cells to replace injured or diseased tissue.
    Scientists say such replacement tissue might be used to help humans with spinal-cord injuries or life-threatening disorders such as Parkinson's or heart disease.
    "People feel it's possible" that SSCs could be used in this way "because they are two steps down from embryonic stem cells, they resemble embryonic stem cells, they grow in clumps like embryonic stem cells, so it's conceivable they could be one of the closest [alternatives] to embryonic stem cells," Dr. Brinster said.
    In contrast to SSCs, Dr. Brinster said, so-called hematoeic colonic stem cells, which are found in the blood and are the only other adult stem cells that can result in a full reconstruction of replacement tissue, cannot be grown in culture.
    That might happen eventually, he said, "but they've been trying for the past 20 years."
    Even if SSCs do not emerge as a breakthrough in adult stem-cell research, Dr. Brinster said, they could play a crucial role both in increasing fertility and species survival.
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L041116   Double homicide

    Pro-life forces are closely following the California conviction of Scott Peterson for the murder of his wife, Laci, and her unborn child — the first high-profile case to be decided since the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
    "The Petersons' preborn child, Conner, was described by some as a non-person," says Judie Brown, president of American Life League. "The verdict makes it crystal clear that he, and all those who reside in the womb, are indeed human persons, not possessions."
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M041116   The harsh theology of the elites
 

By Wesley Pruden

So many of our notabilities have hoist themselves on petards that our petard supply is exhausted.
    That's why some of our celebrity columnists, movie stars and professorial sex objects are investigating the immigration requirements for fleeing to Canada, France, both Upper and Lower Volta and the lesser and outer Antilles, where the strains and stresses of good citizenship may not be as fatiguing as life in the vicinity of the red states.
    Manhattan lies all but lifeless in the gloom of a particularly dark shade of blue. Every psychiatric clinic on the Upper East Side has a waiting list from now until Memorial Day. Our dear friends at the New York Times are terrified that they're about to be sentenced to Wednesday-night prayer meeting and consigned to Sunday-morning Bible study. There's not a dry pair of skivvies in the entire newsroom. (Well, maybe Bill Safire's.) The fundamentalist and evangelical seizure of the political and social infrastructure of the republic is all but complete and the sawing and hammering keeping the elites awake is the sound of carpenters building a gallows at every blue-state crossroads. Some of the scraps will be used to stoke the fires under particularly odious heretics.
    These are supposed to be serious people, but we haven't heard so much public policy cast in hyper-heated religious rhetoric since Henry VIII set about recruiting and dispatching his wives. Our tutors in the silk-stocking precincts imagine that the only way to rid the world of religious bigotry is to smother it under the weight of secular dogma and temporal zealotry.
    Mzz Maureen Dowd, the Bloody Mary of the op-ed page, loathes everything about Anglo-Saxon Protestants, having never reconciled herself to the failure of the Irish to fully redeem the auld sod, and she takes it out on anyone named Bush, particularly such an enthusiastically unrepentant Protestant as the most famous Methodist from Midland. She writes that George W. should be excommunicated for promoting "a jihad in America so he can fight one in Iraq." (It's not clear how, since Methodists have no pope, nor even archbishops or a single right reverend.)
    Thomas Friedman reckons that only people as evil as Christian fundamentalists could "promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad." Gary Wills, who imagines that only something as tried and tested as the rack could squeeze apostasy and wring heresy from the body politic, writes that the only places where you could find "fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity" are among red-state Christians (Baptists and Methodists, mostly) and among the Muslims of al Qaeda in, of all the places they've been telling us they aren't, Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
    "There is hypocrisy and self-contradiction," Paul Marshall, a fellow at Freedom House and the author of several books on politics and religion, writes of these confused jaspers in the current Weekly Standard. "[Tom] Friedman seems blissfully unaware that, even as he condemns others for holding out their particular faith as supreme, he is asserting the supremacy of his own passionately held view. His secularist critique attempts the miraculous combination of denouncing others' faith while attacking those who denounce others' faith. Do not try this trick at home. It should be attempted only by seasoned professionals who lack any capacity for self-criticism or even self-awareness."
    This is all passing strange. First our tutors lecture us that Islam is a religion of peace, that only bigots think otherwise. Now they're telling us that the faith of red-state Christians is so vile that it can only be compared to the beliefs of Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Iraq — that red-state Christians are as bad as the red-hots of al Qaeda in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where only yesterday we were told there was no al Qaeda.
    But it's not just the scribes. The Pharisees, too. Joe Biden, the Delaware senator who was so sure in midafternoon of Nov. 2 that he was to be the secretary of state in the first Kerry administration that he slipped over to inspect his parking place in Foggy Bottom, called the late presidential campaign a "death struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism." Al Gore calls George W.'s Methodist beliefs "the same fundamentalist impulse that we see in Saudi Arabia, in Kashmir and in the religions around the world."
    Al might have included, but didn't, Carthage, Tenn., in this bizarre geographic and theological litany, since that's where Al was baptized into a Baptist congregation upon profession of a born-again faith identical to George W.'s. Al, like the rest of the elites, knows better, of course. But in politics nothing is sacred.
    Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
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L041117   Hatch backs Specter for judiciary post
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, said yesterday that Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, likely will succeed him as chairman of the Judiciary Committee with Mr. Hatch's full support.
    "Arlen is an excellent lawyer," Mr. Hatch said. "I have total confidence that he will be supportive of the president and this administration."
    Mr. Specter, under fire from conservatives for publicly questioning whether President Bush's pro-life judicial nominees can be confirmed, pleaded for the committee gavel in closed meetings yesterday with Republican leadership and fellow members of the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Specter is scheduled by seniority to assume control of the Judiciary Committee in January when Mr. Hatch must step down because of term limits.
    "I expect him to be a great chairman," said Mr. Hatch, who added that most of the committee Republicans support him. "And I'm going to help him."
    The news will not be greeted kindly by the conservative activists who gathered yesterday afternoon outside the Senate for a "pray-in" to oppose Mr. Specter.
    "If Specter becomes head of the Judiciary, it is a betrayal and a slap in the face to millions of pro-life Americans who worked to help re-elect this president and get a 55-Republican majority in the Senate," said the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, who said this is only a precursor to the brewing battle over the next Supreme Court vacancy.
    "No longer can the Republican Party turn to us and say, 'Thank you, pro-life, pro-family evangelicals and Catholics for your vote. Now, go home and let us legislate,' " he said.
    The activists were pointed in their threats to desert Republicans if they don't get their way.
    Republicans need "the same winning coalition that brought them their majority and that brought us a second term of George Bush in the White House," said Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council. "That winning coalition is deeply distressed. If they want to keep this coalition on their side, they will need to listen to what is said today."
    Jan LaRue, chief counsel of Concerned Women for America, said, "Having Arlen Specter chair the Senate Judiciary Committee makes no more sense than having Michael Moore chair" the Republican National Committee.
    Sen.-elect David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, stopped short of condemning Mr. Specter but said the party's victories earlier this month reflect a belief among voters that the judicial selection process has "completely broken down."
    "I don't think it's an accident that the poster boy for obstructionism, [Minority Leader] Tom Daschle, was defeated," Mr. Vitter said.
    Mr. Hatch said Mr. Specter's divergent political beliefs do not mean he won't fight aggressively for Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.
    "The fact that he might be in total agreement with me or anybody else on the committee is irrelevant," Mr. Hatch said. "All I want is the committee to be operated in an honest, decent, effective manner, and I do want the administration to be supported."
    Barely beneath the surface is the raw personal politics at play throughout the imbroglio.
    One of Mr. Specter's most ardent supporters has been Sen. Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican who leads the pro-life forces in the Senate and who has stuck his neck out for his seatmate on several occasions.
    Mr. Santorum, who faces his own tough re-election in two years, helped Mr. Specter overcome a tough primary challenge earlier this year and has lobbied on Mr. Specter's behalf during this most recent firestorm.
    "Sen. Santorum has been enormously helpful," Mr. Specter said yesterday after meeting with Republican leaders. "He has gone above and beyond the call of duty."
    "My number one priority in the next two years is to re-elect Senator Santorum," Mr. Specter added.
    Also in play are the political ambitions of several Republican senators who have an eye on succeeding Mr. Bush, including Sen. Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican.
    Religious activists protesting Mr. Specter clearly warned Mr. Frist and other Republicans yesterday that if they want their support in the 2008 Republican primary, they must block Mr. Specter from gaining the chairmanship.
    Despite the confidence in Mr. Specter from many of his fellow Republicans, he is slated to appear before the full caucus today.
    Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee, said last night that Mr. Specter and Republican leaders are working on a formal statement for the Pennsylvanian to issue as a condition to the support of several Republican senators.
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L041117   Abortion pill to stay on market
 

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The FDA said yesterday the abortion pill RU-486 will remain on the market despite criticisms from opponents who want the pill banned because they say three women have died after taking it.
    "We feel the safety profiles of this drug are adequate to allow the drug to be used safely. But we'll continue to monitor it," said Dr. Steven Galson, acting director of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
    Effective immediately, the drug will carry a "strengthened" black-box warning, advising of risks including death from bacterial infections, septic shock and heavy bleeding. There also is a renewed warning of risks associated with tubal pregnancies.
    "We are concerned about any drug that may be related to serious medical complications and death," Dr. Galson said. "But infections, bleeding and death can result from medical and surgical abortions and even childbirth."
    One of those calling for the removal of RU-486 from the market is Monty Patterson, 51, of Livermore, Calif. His 18-year-old daughter, Holly, died of septic shock caused by inflammation of the uterus seven days after she took RU-486 to end a pregnancy last year.
    "My wife, Helen, and I are pleased that the FDA is adding new black-box warnings," Mr. Patterson said. But he added that it wasn't enough.
    At a press briefing yesterday, Dr. Galson discussed the deaths of three American women who took RU-486. He said the deaths occurred between October 2001 and January 2004.
    The first woman's death occurred after a ruptured tubal pregnancy. She had been given RU-486, even though the drug does not terminate that type of pregnancy.
    Miss Patterson's death occurred in September 2003. The FDA said it was not until August this year that it learned of the death of another young woman in January. Like Miss Patterson, that woman died of a bacterial infection.
    "We've investigated the three deaths and don't have information to know that the drug caused the events," Dr. Galson said.
    The drug in question, approved by the FDA in 2000, is known generically as mifepristone. It is manufactured by Danco Laboratories of New York, and its trade name is Mifeprex.
    It has been taken by about 360,000 women in the United States since its approval.
    "We've received 600 reports overall" of adverse events involving people who have taken the drug, Dr. Galson said.
    He said Mifeprex already bore a "black-box" warning — the FDA's strongest safety alert — on its label.
    In August 2002, three groups — Concerned Women for America (CWA), the Christian Medical Association and the American Association of Pro-Life Gynecologists — filed a petition with the FDA, requesting the withdrawal of RU-486 because of safety concerns.
    Yesterday, Wendy Wright, spokeswoman for CWA, said she was puzzled by the FDA's refusal to say Miss Patterson's death was caused by the abortion drug.
    "The coroner's report said her death was caused by a drug-induced abortion, so there clearly was a relationship."
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L041117   Going 'nuclear'
    "Whither the filibuster?" Andrew C. McCarthy writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).
    "Quite apart from the contentiousness over whether Sen. Arlen Specter assumes the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Democrats' principal tactic for blocking judicial nominees during President Bush's first term is also receiving a good deal of post-election attention in the wake of the Republicans' four-seat net gain in the upper chamber.
    "Of greatest interest now is: Will the GOP go nuclear?" said Mr. McCarthy, who led the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others and is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
    "The question is especially pertinent after Sen. Bill Frist spoke at the annual Federalist Society convention in Washington last week. The Senate majority leader indicated that he is inclined to support the so-called 'nuclear option,' in which the Senate — now with a more muscular Republican margin of 55 to 45 (44 Democrats plus one independent) — would vote to change its procedural rules so that a simple majority (51 senators), rather than the current supermajority (60), would be required to bring a nominee's name to the floor for a decisive vote.
    "Had such a rule been in effect for the last four years, it is a good bet that all of the Bush nominees would long ago have been confirmed and sitting on various federal appellate courts throughout the nation. Thus, a GOP push for such a new rule entails certain political risk: Democrats and their mainstream media allies would scream bloody murder.
    "Nevertheless, the new rule appears attainable right now, and here again Sen. Specter is in the eye of the storm. He has been a sharp critic of the filibuster. Although the senator is sometimes wont to line up with other 'moderate' Republicans to derail legislation favored by conservatives, his stated position on filibusters — coupled with the sudden need to appease conservative critics if he is to realize his desire to chair the Judiciary Committee — means Republicans probably have enough votes to secure the rule change even with expected defections from Senators Lincoln Chafee, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe."
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R041117   RHODE ISLAND      Judge rejects holiday display policy

    PROVIDENCE — A holiday display at Cranston City Hall that included a menorah, a Nativity scene and plastic pink flamingos in Santa hats didn't violate the separation of church and state, but the mayor's restrictions on what went into it did hinder free speech, a judge ruled.
    Last winter, Mayor Stephen Laffey encouraged residents to put seasonal displays he deemed appropriate on City Hall's front lawn. A menorah went up, followed by an inflatable snowman and Santa Claus and a Nativity scene. They were followed by a flock of plastic flamingos sponsored by a resident who said they represented the "Church of the Pink Flamingo," a tongue-in-cheek protest of the holiday display.
    The state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of a resident, arguing that the city was violating the First Amendment separation of church and state and that Mr. Laffey's oversight amounted to a restriction on free speech.
    Mr. Laffey said he will rewrite the city's policy based on U.S. District Judge William Smith's decision and hopes to erect a new display outside City Hall this year.
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M041118   Bias? What bias?

    "Tom Brokaw countered claims of liberal bias with how people on Manhattan's West Side maintain the media's 'conservative bias' has aided and abetted George W. Bush," the Media Research Center's Brent Baker reports at www.mediaresearch.org.
    "Appearing on Comedy Central's 'Daily Show' with Jon Stewart on Tuesday night, Brokaw recalled how at an event he attended in Houston the night before, 'there were a lot of questions about the liberal bias of the networks and mainstream media, and I said, "Come with me to New York and walk to the West Side and hear what they have to say about the conservative bias of what we're doing." We're the ones who are responsible for the election of George Bush.' "
    Mr. Brokaw quoted his interlocutors as saying, "Don't you realize that he stole the election four years ago?" and "How could you allow him to invade Iraq the way that he did?"
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R041118   SOUTH CAROLINA   Town fights to use Christ in prayers

    GREAT FALLS — The Town Council voted 6-1 to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings that prevent it from using Jesus Christ's name in prayers at meetings.
    Both a U.S. District judge and a federal appeals court agreed council members cannot refer to a specific deity in prayers at meetings. The original lawsuit was filed in 2001 by Darla Wynne, a Wiccan high priestess.
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R041118   Bishops approve marriage initiative
 

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The nation's Catholic bishops voted overwhelmingly yesterday to begin a pastoral initiative on marriage, saying deficiencies in the church's public witness on the subject plus the national debate on same-sex "marriage" compels them to act.
    The initiative will include a pastoral letter that will specifically address for the first time the necessity of marriage and its importance in Catholic theology. The bishops also will fund more church anti-divorce programs and will convene fact-finding groups with married couples.
    "The debate about 'same-sex marriage' has demonstrated that most Americans understand and support marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman," said Bishop J. Kevin Boland of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo. "However, many struggle to connect this ideal with what they encounter in life. What can we offer them?"
    In other business, the approximately 250 bishops gathered at the Capitol Hyatt for the annual business meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB):
    •Agreed to fund a sexual abuse database.
    •Received a final report on pro-choice Catholic politicians that praised the public discussion as refining the Church teachings on receiving Communion.
    •Voted for the first time to join an ecumenical group with some liberal-leaning evangelical Protestants.
    Miami Auxiliary Bishop Felipe de Jesus Estevez labeled the marriage initiative, which was approved on a 195-20 vote, as a chance to aid in the "evangelization of the U.S. culture" to counter such groups as Planned Parenthood, he said.
    Bishop Boland cited a series of statistics on falling marriage rates, both in general and within the Catholic Church, and the rising number of divorces, annulments and couples living together outside marriage.
    The letter "will deliver a needed, positive pro-marriage message," according to a bishops' statement, "one that is oriented more toward affirming and strengthening marriage than toward countering certain threats."
    Besides the letter, the marriage initiative also emphasizes church teaching on the sacrament of marriage, including gathering information from married couples — whom Bishop Boland called "the ministers of the sacrament of marriage."
    The pastoral letter, which is budgeted at $85,182, will be researched, written and presented to the USCCB during 2005 and 2006, then disseminated to Catholics in 2007.
    During a hearing, Bishop Victor Galeone of St. Augustine, Fla., wondered if it was "too little and too late."
    Citing a letter from the Family Research Council, he said that "already gay activists are figuring out how to do an end run around the 11 states that passed same-sex marriage bans and how to get their agenda in action."
    "I think we should invest our energies into mobilizing our people on the most pressing issue, the passing of a constitutional amendment on marriage being between one man and one woman," Bishop Galeone said.
    No action was taken on his suggestion.
    The bishops also authorized on a 137-85 vote a database that will track new sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, including the number of victims, the number of accused perpetrators and the money paid out in lawsuits.
    The database, a response to the sexual abuse crisis involving more than 4,000 Catholic priests first publicized in early 2002, will be compiled by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
    Costing $39,000 a year, it will be paid for by an anonymous donor.
    Bishop Blase Cupich of Rapid City, S.D., a member of the bishops' ad hoc committee on sexual abuse, said the conference wanted to issue its own compilation of statistics to the media and Catholic laity instead of relying on information given out piecemeal by individual dioceses.
    Archbishop Harry Flynn of the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, also a member of the ad hoc committee, lamented that the USCCB lacked the resources for a database of past sex offenders among priests, deacons and church personnel, including persons dismissed or rejected from church employment or lists of priests and deacons moved from diocese to diocese.
    "For a nongovernmental agency to establish such a database is daunting," he said.
    A few bishops objected to the data collection, including retired New Orleans Archbishop Philip Hannan, who said continued publicity on the sexual abuse crisis "causes a real problem with the morale of our priests and our people."
    But Bishop John F. Kinney of St. Cloud, Minn., disagreed, saying the continued collection and publicizing of data was "very important in this crisis."
    He added, "The appearance of transparency is important so that people in this country realize how we are addressing this issue."
    The database is a continuation of extensive research done by New York-based John Jay College on priestly sexual abuse, which was first publicized earlier this year. It will track new cases brought before diocesan review boards established in 2002 to conform with new church rules on sexual abuse charges.
    The charter set out a list of guidelines as to what dioceses must do to track sexual abuse cases and a national review board of Catholic laity is completing a second round of audits on how well dioceses have followed its instructions. Results of the 2004 audit will be presented in February.
    In a written statement to the gathered bishops, Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick issued a final report on a task force he heads on how bishops should handle pro-choice Catholic politicians. The report does not suggest any new guidelines or make any new insights on whether dissenting politicians should take Communion.
    Instead, the cardinal promised to produce a "Reader on Catholics in Public Life" for bishops on what the responsibilities of Catholic politicians should be in the future.
    In June, bishops approved a statement giving individual bishops leeway on whether to deny Communion to politicians, such as Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who dissent from church teaching on abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia and other "life" issues.
    About two dozen bishops either said Mr. Kerry and like-minded politicians were not welcome at church altars or put out statements suggesting pro-choice politicians refrain from Communion.
    "The media or partisan forces sometimes tried to pit one bishop against another," Cardinal McCarrick said. Bishops were "unfairly attacked as partisan" or "called cowards," he added.
    "Some have been accused of being 'single issue,' indifferent to the poor or unconcerned about the war. Others have been called unconcerned about the destruction of unborn human life, but preoccupied by poverty or war. That is not who we are."
    The bishops also voted to join Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A., an ecumenical alliance that would be the broadest Christian group ever formed in the United States, even including the current National Council of Churches.
    While the group, scheduled to start in 2005, also includes mainline Protestants, Orthodox Christians, and black and other minority churches, it marks the first formal Catholic cooperation with many American evangelical churches. However, such conservative Protestant groups as the Assemblies of God and the Southern Baptist Convention are not involved.
    With more than 60 million members in the United States, the Catholic Church would be the alliance's largest denomination by far.
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O041118   Whitewashing Whitewater
 

By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

LITTLE ROCK — In his new presidential library that opens today, Bill Clinton defiantly mocks the impeachment proceedings against him, charging that the independent counsel who investigated him had "a bias against the president" and blaming Republicans for engaging in the "politics of personal destruction."
    The former president, in exhibits he approved, repeatedly castigates Newt Gingrich, accusing him of instructing Republicans to label Democrats as "sick," and asserts that the former House speaker led a cabal of radical right-wing "revolutionaries" bent on destroying Mr. Clinton for one reason: "Because we can."
    "The impeachment battle was not about the Constitution or the rule of law, but was instead a quest for power that the president's opponents could not win at the ballot box," says one exhibit placard in a library alcove titled "The Fight for Power."
    "In this combustible climate, the congressional Republicans took the politics of personal destruction to a new level, using the subpoena power to investigate Democrats, attack them in a number of public hearings and attempt to change popular public policies by discrediting the president and members of his administration personally," says another.
    All of the text included in the exhibit was personally approved — and in some cases, even written or "tweaked" — by Mr. Clinton himself, said Bruce Lindsey, a longtime Clinton confidant who served as White House deputy counsel for the former president.
    Although Mr. Gingrich would not comment on the new exhibit, his spokesman did.
    "Why should anyone expect that a dishonest administration would produce an honest library?" Rick Tyler said. "It looks like we have the first 'I pity me' presidential library."
    The alcove — one of 15 on the first floor of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center that recount the administration's achievements over eight years — covers a slew of scandals that engulfed the Clinton presidency, including Whitewater, an Arkansas land deal that went bad; the White House travel office firings; and the former president's sexual affair with an intern his daughter's age, Monica Lewinsky.
    The exhibit includes several attacks against former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, who is labeled "a conservative activist who had never prosecuted a case and who had already shown a bias against the President."
    "Starr repeatedly expanded the scope of his investigation. Witnesses complained that Starr and his staff would threaten them with jail in an attempt to get them to change their stories. In January 1998, Starr began to look into the President's testimony about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky," one placard in the alcove reads.
    In the only instance in which the library's exhibit acknowledges wrongdoing, the text stops short of admitting that Mr. Clinton lied to the American people when he asserted that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."
    "In September 1998, President Clinton acknowledged that he had not been forthcoming about the relationship," the exhibit says, but goes on to say, "On this basis, Starr, the Republican Congressional leadership and their allies launched an impeachment drive that the overwhelming majority of constitutional scholars said was unjustified."
    The combative text in the impeachment alcove returns often to Republicans, who won a majority in the House in 1994 and have picked up seats in almost every election since then.
    "From the start of the Clinton presidency, the administration's opponents waged an unprecedented fight for power. Seeking to steer America sharply to the right, Republican leaders pursued a radical agenda through radical means. They used new tools and tactics — lawsuits, investigations, new partisan media, front groups, a secret slush fund, and deeply divisive rhetoric — in their battle for political supremacy," one placard says.
    After Democrats picked up House seats in 1998, which the exhibit concludes was the voters' way of telling Republicans "to stop their impeachment drive ... Speaker Gingrich was asked why Republicans were proceeding anyway, instead of finding another remedy such as censure or reprimand."
    "The Speaker replied, 'Because we can,' " according to the exhibit.
    Clinton aides on hand for a media walkthrough yesterday of the $165 million library defended the exhibit.
    "Impeachment was a part of an eight-year struggle beginning in '93, escalating in '94 after Republicans took the Congress," Mr. Lindsey said. "The Congress did it because, as Newt Gingrich said, because they could, because they had the votes. That is the context in which he believes it should be viewed."
    Mr. Lindsey added that although the text of the exhibit contains no words of regret, a video display in the alcove shows a clip of "when he went out to the lawn and said, 'For the part that I played in doing this, I apologize.' "
    John Podesta, Mr. Clinton's chief of staff from 1998 until 2001, also said the impeachment section of the library strikes the correct balance.
    "It is a look back at the times, a reflection about what was going on over the course of a very long series of investigations that didn't amount to anything," he said. "That dealt with this in the context that it was an important event in the presidency but put it together with what was really going on at Washington at the time. I don't think it's defensive."
    Mr. Podesta noted that none of the other 11 presidential libraries deal as frankly with scandal.
    "I don't think there's an 'Iran-Contra' alcove in the Reagan library," he said, laughing, unaware that the library does treat the affair. "There'll be partisans on both sides who think it's too much or too little, but I think it's an honest treatment that will stand the test of history."
    But there are instances in the exhibit that, while technically true, skirt the edge of truth. For instance, one placard in the alcove states that although seven separate investigations of the Clinton administration cost more than $100 million, "none of these efforts yielded a conviction for public misconduct."
    In fact, at least 14 persons were convicted in the Whitewater investigation for fraud or conspiracy involving bogus loans through public institutions, mail fraud and income-tax evasion, among others. Mr. Clinton himself agreed to a five-year suspension of his Arkansas law license as a means to end the Lewinsky inquiry and head off an Arkansas court move to punish him for misleading answers in a deposition taken during the Paula Jones sexual-harassment suit.
    •Jerry Seper contributed to this report.
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R041118   Rumsfeld urged to 'defend' Scouts movement
 

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A lawmaker and veterans are calling on Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to reverse administration lawyers who agreed to warn military bases against officially sponsoring the Boy Scouts of America as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
    Critics of the settlement said that the Pentagon caved to the ACLU, which said the government improperly supported a group that requires belief in God, and that it was particularly offensive after the Nov. 2 elections, when the most pressing voter issue was the country's values.
    "The voters of this nation, if it's a choice between expanding NAMBLA and preserving the scouting movement, the voters of America want to defend the scouting movement," said Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican and an Eagle Scout, referring to the North American Man/Boy Love Association.
    The ACLU defended NAMBLA in a wrongful-death suit brought by the parents of a 10-year-old Massachusetts boy slain by a member of the association.
    In the Pentagon case, the Justice Department defends the partial settlement of a 1999 lawsuit as merely restating existing policy, which prohibits the military from sponsoring any outside groups.
    But critics say the settlement encourages the ACLU to continue its drive to force the military to cut off all taxpayer support to the Scouts, which uses military bases for meetings and events. Part of the still-pending Illinois suit accuses the government of aiding the Boy Scouts through such means as preparing a Virginia military base for the Boy Scout Jamboree.
    Mr. Hayworth has sent a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld, himself an Eagle Scout, calling on him to countermand his lawyers.
    "Without a shot being fired, Department of Defense lawyers apparently abandoned the Boy Scouts, threw up their hands and surrendered to the ACLU's latest radical attack on the cherished heritage and values of this nation," Mr. Hayworth wrote.
    The Boy Scouts, which requires members to believe in God and declare it in the group's oath, aims to build values and character through a series of outdoor activities.
    The ACLU lawsuit filed in Illinois argues that the federal government should not support the group's exclusion of youths who want to become Scouts but do not believe in God. It also named as defendants the city of Chicago and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The city of Chicago settled, agreeing not to engage in official sponsorship of Scout activities.
    "If our Constitution's promise of religious liberty is to be a reality, the government should not be administering religious oaths or discriminating based on religious beliefs," said ACLU lawyer Adam Schwartz after the Monday release of the settlement's details.
    Mr. Hayworth said the Pentagon's warning to commanders will have a "chilling effect on the scouting movement on American military bases."
    His letter calls on Mr. Rumsfeld to instruct "Pentagonites" to "encourage the voluntary support and promotion of activities such as scouting that inspire an appreciation and commitment to the bedrock God-and-country values on which America thrives."
    Rumsfeld spokesman Larry Di Rita said the secretary did not know about the settlement before it was made.
    The American Legion, the country's largest veterans group, also weighed in. National Commander Thomas P. Cadmus, whose organization sponsors Scout troops nationwide, sent a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld demanding that he "stand up to the ACLU."
    "The idea that sponsorship of scouting by American military units is 'unconstitutional' goes beyond the absurd, even well past the point of stupidity," Mr. Cadmus wrote. "How is it the government can fund chapels on military bases and chaplains in the military, but not accommodate scouting?
    "Why is it that the rank of Eagle Scout is an attribute high-sought in candidates for military academies, but will soon become unwelcome on military bases? How is it the Congress can sanction scouting by issuing them a federal charter, but the courts can declare them 'outlaws.' "
    Mr. Cadmus called on Mr. Rumsfeld to "stand up to the ACLU. Find a way to give those who serve our nation the chance to serve their children."
    Although its allies criticized the Pentagon, the Boy Scouts of America says it can live with the settlement, although it realizes that the ACLU is fighting the Scouts on other issues, such as receiving support at military bases.
    "We appreciate the support, but we don't really have a huge problem with what happened," said Bob Bork, a spokesman for the Scouts. "It didn't change anything. The Boy Scouts are still able to be on military facilities."
    He said the settlement enforces a "long-standing [Department of Defense] regulation that predates us" on not officially sponsoring outside groups.
    Mr. Bork said the settlement affects about 400 military-sponsored Scout units, which is a small fraction of troops nationwide. He said the Boy Scouts began finding other sponsors in the summer, such as the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.
    "We have access to bases just like any other citizen groups," he said.
    Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the "very limited settlement ... does not prohibit the Department of Defense from supporting the Boy Scouts of America. Boy Scout units are permitted to meet on military bases, and military personnel are allowed to remain active in Boy Scout programs. Additionally, the settlement does not reduce the level of support provided to the Boy Scouts by the Department of Defense."
    The Pentagon has filed legal briefs in defense of providing what amounts to taxpayer support when events are held on a base.
    Mr. Hayworth calls the lawsuit "an ongoing effort on the part of the ACLU to drive the Boy Scouts of America into extinction."
    "The ACLU has had a maniacal obsession with the Boy Scouts for decades. I have no doubt they want to force us out of any relationship with the military or any government entity whatsoever," Mr. Bork said.
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L041118   Specter satisfies caucus concerns
 

By Charles Hurt and Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said yesterday that Sen. Arlen Specter has addressed the concerns of the caucus and the Tennessee Republican signaled that Mr. Specter will be the next chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
    "I think he answered every question to the satisfaction of each of the members," Mr. Frist said yesterday after Mr. Specter spoke to a meeting of the entire Republican caucus. He called it a "positive discourse, a great discussion."
    Republican senators and aides say Mr. Specter — with consultation from Mr. Frist's office — is preparing an official statement to be issued as early as today.
    "Senator Specter, in all likelihood, will have more to say over the next two to three days, or by the end of the week," Mr. Frist said. "I do want to bring as much resolution as possible to that discussion."
    Mr. Specter, a Pennsylvanian who is next in line by seniority to assume the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, created an uproar among conservatives earlier this month by saying that President Bush's pro-life judicial nominees will have a hard time being confirmed.
    Many viewed the remarks as a threat from Mr. Specter, who supports legalized abortion.
    "This is a betrayal," said the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition. "The millions of pro-life and pro-family voters who elected George Bush and widened the Senate majority are completely disappointed with Republican leadership and Senator Frist in particular. This is the exact wrong way to begin."
    But even with the assurances expected to be in Mr. Specter's statement, Republicans suspect that their 55-seat majority will not be enough to overcome Democratic filibusters of Mr. Bush's judicial nominations.
    Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee, said all options are on the table, including a change that would require 51 votes, rather than 60, for final confirmation of judicial nominees. Still, he said, he hopes it does not come to that drastic measure.
    "The Democrats got their nose bloodied in this election," he said. "What ought to happen is they should back off."
    Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, met yesterday with Alberto Gonzales, the Bush administration's nominee for attorney general. Mr. Leahy told the White House counsel to be prepared for tough and lengthy questioning by the panel, but that he expected the nomination would be confirmed.
    Mr. Leahy described Mr. Gonzales as "less divisive" than Attorney General John Ashcroft, a former U.S. senator who often clashed with Democrats on the committee over the war on terrorism.
    He told reporters, "The president could have picked a more polarizing figure. He did not. I applaud him for that. I think he has a far better chance of confirmation with votes from both sides of the aisle than a more divisive figure."
    But he warned that Democrats would seek an explanation from Mr. Gonzales' views on how the Geneva Conventions would apply to the war on terrorism, based on a 2002 memo he wrote to Mr. Bush saying the president has the authority to waive anti-torture laws and international treaties providing protections to prisoners of war. Some critics have tied that memo to abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
    Mr. Leahy, in a statement earlier this week, said he liked and respected Mr. Gonzales and looked forward to the committee's consideration of his nomination.
    "The Justice Department in the first Bush term was the least-accountable Justice Department in my lifetime," he said. "Meaningful oversight and accountability were thwarted for years. We will be looking to see if Judge Gonzales intends to change that."
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