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
L041130     Stem-cell results claimed
L041201L   Misleading questions
L041202L   Questionable 'cure'

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H041129    'Marriage' issue works its way through courts
H041130    Justices decline to hear gay 'marriage' challenge
H041201    Anti-Bush gay advocate loses post
H041202    HIV rate for gay men rises, CDC says
H041202L  Can't have it both ways
H041203     Forum: United Nations' unfolding AIDS scandal
H041203     MICHIGAN   Same-sex benefits pulled from contracts

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R041201     Lesbian cleric faces church trial
R041202C   In defense of the Scouts
R041203     MASSACHUSETTS   Church files suit over school rental
R041203     Methodists defrock lesbian minister
R041203     Targeting Target
R041204     Lights out for some at holiday parade
R041205     Carolers defy religious ban
R041205     Lutheran congregation stripped of status

EDUCATION
E041201     A captive press
E041201     Support of gays pushed in schools
E041203     Be the paper
E041204     More Southern Baptists shun public education
E041205M Parents organize to fight new sex-ed curriculum
E041205M SAT score delay tests students', parents' patience
E041206M Who better than family to instill values?

MEDIA
M041126E  'Values voters' and the tube
M041130    Rather report
M041201E  Biased coverage in Iraq
M041201L  Rathergate and the media
M041202    Brokaw bids goodnight to news program

OTHER
O041202     Americans continue to marry later in life
O041202     Democrat's report calls abstinence plans 'misleading'
O041202C  Tilting for the children
O041202E  Appeal of moral clarity
O041205C  Attack on decency

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    Dan Rather is leaving the anchor desk ("Dan Rather to retire as CBS anchorman," Page 1, Nov. 24), but his departure does little to resolve the very serious questions and concerns about the role of the media — news, information and entertainment — in the 2004 election cycle.
    Rathergate, the bungled CBS "60 Minutes" effort to discredit the president's National Guard service, is the poster child for the most activist, advocacy-driven media in memory. The Rathergate story was pushed off the front pages last fall by CBS' creation of a two-man panel to investigate the incident, but we haven't heard a peep since, until Mr. Rather announced his retirement.
    With most political investigations, the press insists on knowing: (1) how long the investigation will last; (2) what resources and staff the investigators will have; (3) what the scope will be(was this an isolated incident, or does it reflect a pattern of behavior?); (4) whom the investigators will interview and whether those interviewed will be instructed to cooperate; (5) to whom the investigators will report their findings; and (6) whether the findings will be made public. As far as I know, those questions were never asked, or if they were, they were never answered.
    Maybe too much was made of Rathergate, as most of the icons of the mainstream media would argue. I don't think so.
    The instances of what seemed to be media bias and jaundiced reporting in the 2004 election cycle, from the perspective of both the right and the left, were just too numerous and onerous. Several studies indicated a sharp bias in favor of Sen. John Kerry. It wasn't lost on the public.
    The Gallup Poll reported in October that just 44 percent of Americans expressed confidence in the media's ability to report news stories accurately and fairly, down from 54 percent just a year ago.
    Unfortunately, the reading and viewing public can't make good, sound judgments about the influence of the media or its objectivity. There are too few credible studies, and too little research is done on the subject. There is too little oversight. Readers and listeners deserve better. They deserve more transparency, more accountability, more knowledge, more respect.
    It isn't just the news media, either. The role and influence of the Internet, as a conveyance of information, and the entertainment media as purveyors of propaganda need to be looked at as well.
    The questions and concerns are many, and the issues at stake are profound. There is a lot to look at — but just resolving the CBS fiasco would be a good start with or without Dan Rather around.

    MIKE JOHNSON
    Davidsonville, Md.
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L041201L   Misleading questions

    Monday's story on judges ("Justices need age limits, poll says," Nation) cited an Associated Press survey reporting that people favor a Supreme Court nominee who will uphold Roe v. Wade by 59 percent. I knew from my own research into public opinion that this figure was not right, and when I looked up the actual poll question I discovered why: Respondents were told Roe v. Wade "made abortion in the first three months of pregnancy legal." The truth is, Roe v. Wade and its companion case Doe v. Bolton made abortion legal any time in pregnancy for virtually any reason — emotional, familial, even financial reasons qualify. That's why second- and third- trimester partial-birth abortions have been deemed legal. Numerous polls show that people prefer more limits on abortion, but as long as AP and others ask phony questions like this one, Americans' disagreement with Roe v. Wade will remain hidden. I can't help but wonder whether the question was designed with this purpose in mind.

    CATHY CLEAVER RUSE
    Director of planning and information
    Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
    U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
    Washington
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L041202L   Questionable 'cure'

    At a press conference in South Korea, a 37-year-old woman who had been paralyzed for 20 years gets up out of her wheelchair and walks past reporters ("Stem-cell results claimed," Nation, Tuesday). Doctors explained how therapy using adult stem cells, ethically extracted from umbilical-cord blood, enabled the woman to rise and walk.
    Regarding the amazing breakthrough, Daniel Perry, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, however, wants to know if the experiment was "disseminated in a forum more scientific and analytical than a press conference."
    Scientific skepticism, of course, has its place. Yet one senses in Mr. Perry's response almost a reluctance to admit that adult stem cells can actually produce astounding cures. Maybe that's because he's been trying to convince federal funders that such cures are much better pursued through controversial and unproven research that creates or clones and then destroys human embryos.
    Even more troubling is the equivocal response of Dr. Robert Lanza of the Advanced Cell Technology, who offers, "I think they are consistent with what we believe to be the potential [of stem cells] ... it's what we've been trying to convince President Bush and others of." Dr. Lanza, of all people, knows full well that Mr. Bush has long embraced adult-stem-cell research, funding it to the tune of more than $190 million. Dr. Lanza seems intent on linking in the public's mind such successful and ethical adult-stem-cell research with the unethical and unsuccessful embryo-destroying stem-cell research for which his company craves government funding.
    It's appropriate to seek scientific verification of reported miraculous cures, and the scientific literature has abundantly documented the amazing successes of adult-stem-cell research. Meanwhile, when one hears good news of cures reminiscent of the biblical "the blind receive sight and the lame walk," genuine rejoicing seems in order.

    JONATHAN IMBODY
    Senior policy analyst
    Christian Medical Association
    Washington Bureau
    Ashburn, Va.
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H041202L   Can't have it both ways

    So let me get this straight. New Jersey law schools have restricted on-campus recruiting because they disagree with the military policy on homosexuals ("Enforcement blocked on recruiters law," Nation, Tuesday). At the same time they accept Department of Defense funding? Now they are challenging the Defense Department's threat to withdraw funding in response to the recruiting restriction because, the article says, this would "compel them to take part in speech with which they do not agree."
    Aren't they already taking part in speech by accepting Defense Department funding? If they are so vehemently against the military's policy on homosexuals, why are they accepting "dirty" money?
    The way I see it, the Defense Department is merely correcting a "values oversight" on the financial side of the law schools' house. It's unfortunate that two judges in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can't see that. Instead they've ruled per the have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too-at-taxpayer-expense precedent.

    PATRICK MCGINN
    California, Md.
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O041202E   Appeal of moral clarity
 

By Gary J. Andres

The debate about "moral values" in the past election is the mixed green salad of politics — healthy and maybe colorful but unsatisfying in digesting the meat and potatoes of the American electorate. Dismissed by the left as a meaningless catchall phrase, liberal journalists and a host of academics continue to attack the exit poll findings suggesting that moral values was the most important issue for voters. Citing the broadness of the question, the hysterical dissembling persists, as those denying moral values could possibly drive voting decisions burn the exit poll results in ideological effigy.
    Some conservative also overreached by concluding moral values was only evidence of a popular mandate for high-visibility social issues like abortion and opposition to gay marriage.
    But both the left and right missed another critical piece of election 2004's broader mosaic.
    "Something else is going on," a Republican strategist with close ties to the Bush campaign told me. "Liberals miss it because they completely discount moral values and conservatives define it too narrowly. But there is another group of values voters out there that don't necessarily define themselves as pro-life or anti-gay marriage, but thought President Bush better represented the kind of leader they wanted to navigate through the current cultural fog." Another Senate Republican aide agreed: "I have a sense that these voters are married women with kids and maybe grandparents, increasingly concerned about the moral climate and choices faced by their children. They may not be conservatives or even Republicans, but they are very troubled by the continued coarsening of society and the kinds of forces influencing their kids.
    Parents and grandparents believe the moral choices facing their children are exponentially more complex than a generation ago. In this environment, the president's atavistic reliance on faith and prayer were reassuring in an age where most societal institutions from schools to movies to entertainers lost their values moorings. And while media elites scoffed at Mr. Bush's frequent references to his faith, values voters saw him as man pursuing a moral code despite being ridiculed by those who considered his worldview simplistic. Yet for many, his simplicity was an oasis in an ethical desert.
    Polling data supports this view. When asked which candidate could lead culture in the way it should be moving, Mr. Bush enjoyed a 6 percent edge over Sen. John Kerry in a September survey. But when the same question was posed to voters with kids, Mr. Bush's advantage jumped to 36 percent.
    For values voters, John Kerry was an ethical foil to Mr. Bush. He was a Catholic, but didn't want to impose his values on others. He believed life began at conception yet supported unimpeded abortion rights. He indulged comedians like Whoopi Goldberg deriding Mr. Bush, making vulgar sexual references about his name, but said these were the voices of ordinary Americans. He became what voters feared: Values vertigo incarnate.
    Add to this the overwhelming support from the same individuals many Americans viewed as the cause of values vertigo, like Michael Moore, and Mr. Kerry concocted a formula for failure.
     Determining what motivates these values voters is an important question for Republicans interested in broadening their electoral coalition. But addressing these voters' concerns is tricky and it's unclear if the legislative process is the best place to do it. Clearly some social issues should be fought out in Congress. But using the White House bully pulpit for others may be an even more effective tactic.
     The president's role as "teacher" and "advocate" may do a lot more than Congress trying to improve moral coarseness or lifting the moral fog. To paraphrase St. Augustine, "The laws cannot command all virtue and forbid all vice." A Republican Senate aide agreed: "I think the president speaking out on key issues and convening conferences at the White House or directives through his cabinet departments is the best way to address these issues." Denials on the left notwithstanding, Republicans broke new ground this year attracting values voters who viewed Mr. Bush's moral clarity not as simple-minded, but as an antidote to everyday values vertigo. Clearly people of faith concerned about creating a culture of life and opposed to judges redefining marriage helped re-elect Mr. Bush. But his moral clarity also appealed to others struggling with the flood of choices and influences bombarding kids everyday, trying to keep focused on our better angels.
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M041126E   'Values voters' and the tube
 

By Diana West

It may be a time of thanksgiving, but my dissatisfaction runs deep. The New York Times — which, like a frightened squid, keeps squirting gushers of ink at Bush voters — now declares that television remains "far more likely to keep pumping from the deep well of murder, mayhem and sexual transgression than seek diversion along the straight and narrow path." And it's the Bush voters' own hypocritical fault.
    Of course, my first question is, that's it? It's really got to be one or the other? Stinky well or sterile path, it's never quite enough to make me flick on the TV just for fun. Which is why I haven't seen "C.S.I." or "Desperate Housewives." Or, for that matter, the old "Touched by an Angel," the second of the two kinds of show that represent the lonely poles of contemporary cultural possibility. That doesn't mean I don't feel as though I've seen them — I know character names, plot lines, how the "Housewives" creator was all washed up, and, of course, how a towel-clad star-housewife jumped Ron Artest, setting off the infamous Pistons-Pacers-Fans conduct-malfunction. Or something.
    But back to the Times' front-page efforts. By adding exit poll numbers to Nielsen ratings, the newspaper fancies it has come up with Something Quite Profound. "Many Who Voted for 'Values' Still Like Their Television Sin," the newspaper headlined, arguing that "the supposed cultural divide is more like a cultural mind meld." Why? Because "Housewives" and "C.S.I." are both blue- and red-state hits. This is supposed to mean something: namely, that "values voters" — that ill-defined and slim slice of polling data that, the debunked story goes,alonere-elected George W. Bush — are watching sex- and violence-drenched "entertainment," and that this is a paradox. Why, the newspaperwonders, would all those "values voters" become no-values viewers?
    It's a faulty premise. Not only does it depend on a zero-sum vision of free will and personality, but it also implies that pulling the lever for "traditional" marriage or against abortion eliminates curiosity, boredom, bad taste and maybe even sin from the human condition.
    Even more dubious is the evidence. "In the greater Atlanta market, reaching more than two million households, 'Desperate Housewives' is the top-rated show," the newspaper reported. "Nearly 58 percent of the voters in those counties voted for President Bush." I'm no statistician, but it would seem that the 42 percent of Atlanta-area voters who didn't go for W. could also have boosted the smut-in-suburbia hit to the top of the ratings. After all, presidential voters had only two main choices, while television viewers choose from among dozens of programs. I'd imagine the fraction of the viewership that puts a TV show in first place couldn't even begin to budge the electoral college. Even the 27.4 percent of the voters around Salt Lake City who, the New York Times noted, didn't vote for Mr. Bush could probably hand "Housewives" its local fourth-place rating.
    But give the Times' its pet theory; let's say Bush voters are "Housewives" fans. What then? That, of course, makes Bush voters frauds and hypocrites. And there's nothing that enlivens a dispirited non-Bush voter more than "evidence" in the "newspaper of record" that Bush voters, particularly "values voters," are frauds and hypocrites.
    But there's more. "On the CBS show 'Joan of Arcadia,' God is a recurring character," the New York Times reports. "But he is not pulling in the viewers, and that goes for almost all states." Gee, that's too bad. Maybe he — He — needs new representation. Meanwhile, God's floppola has convinced the networks that viewers aren't looking for values on the tube after all. Otherwise, as Viacom's Leslie Moonves told the newspaper, "I guess we'd be seeing 'Joan of Arcadia' doing better than 'C.S.I.'"
    I marvel at the puny mind that sees in all of literature and film only either-or; that is, two main plot lines: "Joan of Arcadia," a show that features a 16-year-old girl's encounters with God in different guises, and "C.S.I.," a show that features forensics technicians' encounters with different wounds. So much for the human experience.
    Which is why I'm leaving the set off this and firing up the DVD-player to screen "Counsellor-at-Law," a 1934 gem directed by William Wyler with John Barrymore as a Jewish lawyer who has married into high society, encountering anti-Semitism, adultery, snappy dialogue, despair and, come to think of it, renewal, along the way. God may be out, gore may be in, but the DVD player is on.
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M041201E   Biased coverage in Iraq
 

By Helle Dale

If you trust most media accounts fed to American viewers and readers, Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. There is no security throughout the country, and armed insurgents are springing up, sown like dragon's teeth by the offensive of the U.S. military forces. The scheduled elections are highly uncertain. Indeed, 100,000 Iraqis have been killed by U.S. forces. Iraqis have never had it so bad. It is a drumbeat with echoes of the way the American media reported the Vietnam War.
     Those who have the opportunity to hear the accounts of Americans serving in Iraq often come away with a completely different impression. Many readers of this newspaper who have relatives and friends serving in Iraq know that they hear differently from them. This point was recently brought up by Ambassador Edward Rowney in a Council on Foreign Relations discussion with former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, who is an ardent critic of the war. Mr. Brezinski's response was to dismiss first-hand accounts as mere anecdotal evidence.
     Yet even in the mainstream media, differing views do seep in. Consider a recent column by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, a paper that has consistently reported the bad news from Iraq. This is what Mr. Friedman wrote from Iraq. "Readers ask me when I will throw in the towel on Iraq." Impressed with the spirit and the commitment of the troops on the ground, Mr. Friedman writes, "I will be guided by the U.S. Army and Marine grunts on the ground. They see Iraq close up. Most of those you talk to are so uncynical — so convinced that we are doing good and doing right, even though they are unsure it will work." And the fact is that despite the unrelenting drumbeat of bad news, there is much good to be told as well, only you don't hear it as much. Agreement has so far been reached with Iraq's Russian and European debtors to forgive $33 billion of Iraq's debt, about a quarter of the total. Some 45,000 Iraqi police and 48,000 Iraqi army and National Guard troops have now been trained. $5 billion in U.S. aid alone has been disbursed, and oil revenue, which flows into Iraqi accounts via a U.S. government trust, reached $1.9 billion in October.
    A weekly update of reconstruction projects in Iraq can be located on the Web site of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Much of this good work you will never find reported, precisely because no news is good news for much of the U.S. media. And the foreign media is even worse.
    Admittedly the security situation is dire, but look at these figures. In October, the number of Iraqis killed was 775 from acts of war and murder; American troops suffered 63 casualties and 691 wounded. These are too high, but at a time of a major military offensive against insurgents, those numbers are not gigantic.
    Or how about the constantly cited figure of 100,000 Iraqis killed by Americans since the war began, a statistic that is thrown about with total and irresponsible abandon by opponents of the war. That number, which should be disputed at every turn by those who care about the truth of what is going on in Iraq was derived from a controversial study by the British journal of medicine the Lancet. It is five to six times higher than the highest estimates from other sources of all Iraqi deaths, be they military or civilian. The Lancet study relied on reporting of deaths self-reported by 998 families from clusters of 33 households throughout Iraq, a very limited sample from which to generalize.
    As the Financial Times reported on Nov. 19, even the Lancet study's authors are now having second thoughts. Iraq's Health Ministry estimates by comparison that all told, 3,853 Iraqis have been killed and 155,167 wounded.
    The fact is that 40 percent of Iraqis say their country is better and 65 percent are optimistic about the future. Iraqis are intending to vote in the upcoming elections to the tune of 85 percent, and 45 percent currently support Prime Minster Iyad Allawi. Many are unhappy with the U.S. troops presence there, but at least 35 percent want the United States to stay.
    We still have a rocky road ahead, beyond doubt, but these figures do not add up to a picture of unmitigated failure being painted by critics of the Bush administration.
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O041202C   Tilting for the children
 

By Suzanne Fields

My mom was a full-time mother and I was the envy of my classmates. Not just because she was there, but because she was there and she was fun. She might be baking a chocolate cake and she would let us nibble the raw dough from the Mixmaster bowl. She listened to us recite the lines we had to memorize from Romeo and Juliet. She might play the nurse or Friar Lawrence.
    In high school years, everybody descended on my house after classes to plot campaigns for class officers, plan class picnics or gossip about who was going out with whom. My father would breeze in to talk about the Redskins (more fun to talk about in those days) with the boys and to tell the girls how smart and pretty they were. I didn't realize how lucky I was at the time, it was just how things were supposed to be. Once my father gave us a genuine Wurlitzer jukebox for the rec room. He showed us how to push a button in the back so it wouldn't require a nickel to bring up Perry Como or Frank Sinatra. We learned to square dance to the music on the juke: "Dive for the oyster, dive. Dig for the clams, dig. Do-si-do and away we go." Corny it was, but kids are born with a taste for corn. (Every generation just thinks its corn is cool.)
     Mary Eberstadt's new book, "Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Behavioral Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes," brought all this to mind. The title is a mouthful and it raises a noisy controversy over the effects of modern feminism on child-rearing practices. For years, the idealized stay-at-home mom, with daddy as the breadwinner, has been under siege and on the defensive, decried as the victim of "gender tyranny." The cover of "Home Alone" would melt the heart of Scrooge, with a little boy clinging to the ankles of his mommy and daddy, armed with matching briefcases, heading out the door.
    That's a metaphor for lots of children today and it's not necessarily all bad. It helps children recognize that parents have a life beyond the hearth. But for some children it's sad indeed, and it's the sad children that Mary Eberstadt's book is about — children who rarely have any fun with their parents, suffering the cries of loneliness and whispers of loss without having a name to put on it. It's about the tilt of a culture that encourages the growth in the number of those children.
    The emotional life of childhood when parents are absent from the during-the-day lives of their children is often empty, indeed. Although we've heard a lot about the pros and cons of day care for the youngest children, we haven't heard so much about what happens to teen-agers deprived of parental supervision and companionship after school. These are the chapters that will spark debate. The teen-age years are the last best chance to influence a child's character and values, and it's the most sensitive time to shape development, to enable children to see parents as models for their future.
    "If yesterday's rock was the music of abandon, today's is the music of abandonment," she writes with poignant documentation. Coinciding with this lament is the documentation of what happens when vulnerable teen-agers in empty houses "hook up" casually, and always hurtfully. Such teen-agers are not rebelling against their parents so much as taking advantage of their parents' absence. You don't need the statistics — they exist in abundance — to know that teen-agers whose parents aren't around indulge in more sex play (and acquire more sexually transmitted diseases), drugs, alcohol and cigarettes than teen-agers supervised at home.
    So what to do? Mary Eberstadt offers no prescriptions and she doesn't try to fit square parents into round holes. There's recognition that one size does not fit all. There's room in her scenarios for men and women who are better off divorced, for working parents who can't be at home and whose children succeed despite all kinds of emotional obstacles. But she accumulates the evidence that requires us to question deeply the tilt of priorities that shortchange children.
    No parent can participate in a child's life 24 hours a day. But we can encourage parents to be there for teen-agers in bigger chunks of time, both formal and informal. Teen-agers are enormously susceptible to rewards and punishments for good and bad behavior if a loving person is present to provide it.
    "For a significant number of today's kids, life is worse in important ways than it was for their parents," writes Mary Eberstadt. "Many of us adults know it."
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R041202C   In defense of the Scouts

First the Pentagon plans to send away the Boy Scouts. Then Defense Secretary (and Eagle Scout) Donald Rumsfeld promises he won't allow that. Now Congress is making noises about backing up the Scouts with legislative protection. A growing number of legal scholars think the arguments against the Boy Scouts of America no longer stand scrutiny, and we're heartened to hear it.
    Trouble for the Boy Scouts began with a lawsuit filed in 1999 by the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU argues that the Pentagon is wrong to allow military sponsorship of Scout troops because Scouts are required to pledge belief in God. To the ACLU, that's religious discrimination. The ACLU argues further that since military bases sponsor about 400 Boy Scout units and spend $2 million annually to support Boy Scout jamborees, the government is guilty, too. The ACLU wants to evict the Boy Scouts from military bases. This would constitute discrimination against the Boy Scouts of America, not by them, but this does not impress the ACLU.
    Things took a turn for the worse in mid-November, when a group of Pentagon lawyers reached a settlement that would have prevented military bases from sponsorship. Congress cried foul. That's when Mr. Rumsfeld stepped in. "The Department of Defense takes great pride in its longstanding and rich tradition of support to the Boy Scouts of America," he wrote to a group of congressmen, and vowed that Boy Scouts would be allowed to stay on the bases. Now Republican leaders in the Senate plan to codify these ties.
    The best news of all is that the ACLU's interpretation of the First Amendment provision "that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" — sometimes characterized as the "separation of church and state," and the basis for the ACLU's argument — is eroding in legal circles. There's growing belief that the framers of the Constitution never intended this clause to compel absolute separation of church and state. Philip Hamburger, a legal historian at the University of Chicago, argues that the separation doctrine was actually a late-nineteenth-century fabrication of anti-Catholic nativists. The clause itself says nothing about separation. Read it again: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." That implies neutrality toward religion, not absolute separation. Neutrality means that the Boy Scouts, like any civilian group that uses the bases, is only subject to law and to the approval of appropriate military authorities.
    Nevertheless, we urge the Senate to follow through to shore up the Boy Scouts' ties with military bases. The House should promptly follow. The ACLU lawyers should not be allowed to dispose of wholly constitutional associations like those between the Boy Scouts and the military.
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H041129   'Marriage' issue works its way through courts
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

December will be a busy month for homosexual "marriage" issues as courts in Oregon and California consider the fate of about 7,000 same-sex "marriages" and a Louisiana court considers the legality of a newly passed marriage amendment.
    The Louisiana case is up first, with a hearing scheduled for Wednesday before the state Supreme Court.
    In October, Louisiana District Court Judge William Morvant ruled that the marriage amendment, which passed Sept. 18, was unconstitutional because it defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman and prohibited recognition of "any union of unmarried individuals."
    Judge Morvant agreed with homosexual rights lawyers that the amendment illegally contained more than one subject. Louisiana lawmakers who wrote the amendment say it was legal and have appealed the case.
    The case is being watched closely because similar anti-amendment lawsuits have been filed in Georgia, Kentucky and Oklahoma.
    Oregon's case, scheduled for Dec. 15 before the Oregon Supreme Court, also tests a new marriage amendment.
    In the spring, Multnomah County officials, citing constitutional equal-rights protections, began marrying couples regardless of their sex. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) quickly filed a lawsuit seeking full "marriage" rights for homosexual couples, and traditional values groups countersued to stop the county clerks from issuing such licenses.
    In April, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Frank Bearden stopped the issuance of same-sex "marriage" licenses. But he also ruled that the 3,000 same-sex licenses already issued must be registered by the state and that the legislature should resolve the bigger issue of marital rights for same-sex couples.
    The Bearden decision was appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court. In the meantime, Oregon residents voted Nov. 2 to add a sentence to their constitution saying, "Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage."
    The high court asked for updates on the ACLU lawsuit, and on Nov. 17, ACLU lawyers said they would ask the high court to legalize some form of civil union — not "marriage" — for same-sex couples.
    The state, they added, "is still obligated to fully recognize" the 3,000 Multnomah "marriages," as the new amendment "cannot retroactively undo these valid marriages."
    Leaders of the conservative Defense of Marriage Coalition want the high court to reverse Judge Bearden's recognition of the 3,000 "marriages," because the licenses were issued in violation of state law.
    The rest of the ACLU lawsuit should be dismissed, the conservative lawyers said, because the ACLU argued against allowing civil unions in its earlier briefs.
    "You can't change your request two-thirds of a way through a lawsuit," coalition lawyer Kelly Clark told the Oregonian newspaper.
    Finally, in California, on Dec. 22, a lawsuit seeking marriage rights for same-sex couples has a hearing before San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer.
    This case is expected to reach the California Supreme Court, perhaps within a year. This summer, the high court voided about 4,000 same-sex "marriages" conducted in San Francisco this spring. However, if the high court eventually ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex "marriage," those couples could reapply for legal licenses.
    California doesn't define marriage in its constitution, but in 2000, its voters passed a law that cannot be overturned by legislators that says that only marriage between a man and a woman can be valid or recognized.
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M041130   Rather report

    CBS anchorman Dan Rather has assumed the status of soap opera star as observers continue to plumb the meaning of his pending resignation from the chair.
    Online newsman Matt Drudge has revealed that on Nov. 22, the day of Mr. Rather's resignation, CBS brass received the report of the private internal investigation of his reliance on forged documents for a "60 Minutes" story that said President Bush had compromised his National Guard service three decades ago.
    "I was told that last Monday, the preliminary report on the Rather document matter was given to management at CBS," Mr. Drudge told his talk-radio listeners in the early morning hours yesterday.
    "This is before the Rather announcement, and I've got immaculate sources at CBS. So [the report] must not be good. CBS News President Andrew Heyward is now in the bulls-eye. They can't let too many people go. They don't have that many left."
    Mr. Rather denied yesterday that his resignation hinged on the "60 Minutes" debacle.
    Will all this hubbub have any dampening effect on the rest of the press?
    Fans of the Media Research Center say no: An online poll from the Alexandria-based conservative watchdog group finds that 91 percent of its readers say Mr. Rather's resignation will have "no effect" on liberal bias in the news media.
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H041130   Justices decline to hear gay 'marriage' challenge
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Supreme Court yesterday declined without comment to hear a case challenging Massachusetts' new same-sex "marriage" law.
    In the second defeat for the long-shot effort to get the justices to overturn the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's imposition of homosexual "marriage," the U.S. Supreme Court refused to entertain the objection that defining marriage was a role for a state's legislature and not its courts.
    Both sides of the homosexual "marriage" debate agree that the issue likely will wind up before the Supreme Court again because dozens of fights in courts and legislatures on several fronts will continue because of :
    •Homosexuals trying to win the right to "marry" by suing in federal and state courts.
    •Liberal and homosexual advocacy groups suing to overturn some of the 13 state constitutional amendments passed during the 2004 election cycle.
    •Activists fighting over a proposed federal constitutional amendment and similar amendments in more state legislatures, including Massachusetts.
    The Supreme Court decision "highlights the need for an amendment to the United States Constitution protecting marriage and defining it as the union of one man and one woman," said Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel and attorney for plaintiffs Catholic Action League official Robert Largess and 11 Massachusetts lawmakers.
    "Marriage will be defined by someone," Mr. Staver said. "I would rather have it defined by the people of the United States instead of the judiciary."
    David Buckel, director of the Lambda Legal Marriage Project, said he and his colleagues were "not at all surprised that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on" the Massachusetts law.
    The Largess lawsuit was "a weak and misguided legal effort from right-wing anti-gay groups that never really stood much chance of being heard at the Supreme Court," said Mr. Buckel, who is involved in a New Jersey lawsuit to legalize same-sex "marriage" in that state.
    Lambda also is suing in three other states — California, New York and Washington — on behalf of homosexual couples who want to "marry." Liberty Counsel is continuing the fight elsewhere, lobbying more than two dozen other states to pass amendments against homosexual "marriages."
    "We will see legal battles around marriage hashed out in state courts, state legislatures and in state referenda," said Chai Feldblum, a civil rights law professor at Georgetown University.
    Yesterday's Supreme Court decision was the second time the court declined to get involved in the Massachusetts case.
    In early May, days before the first legal licenses were to be issued for same-sex couples to "marry," Mr. Largess and the 11 lawmakers filed their lawsuit asking federal courts to stop the process.
    The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court usurped the role of the legislature when it unilaterally changed marriage law in the state, the plaintiffs argued.
    Because federal courts must uphold the constitutional guarantee that the three branches of government will act within their assigned roles, a federal judge should temporarily stay the same-sex "marriage" process and determine whether the Massachusetts high court had the right to redefine state marriage laws, they argued.
    Federal judges in local and appellate courts declined to issue an emergency stay, and Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, who handles emergency appeals from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, declined to accept the case. This allowed the same-sex "marriages" to proceed effective May 17.
    The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, held a hearing on the case. It ruled in June that the appropriate way to contest the outcome of a state court case was to change the state constitution. The appellate court also said the Massachusetts high court ruling did not violate the U.S. Constitution.
    Mr. Largess and the 11 lawmakers appealed to the Supreme Court, saying in court papers that the Constitution should "protect the citizens of Massachusetts from their own state supreme court's usurpation of power."
    Merita Hopkins, a city attorney in Boston, told justices in court papers that the plaintiffs had not shown they suffered an injury and could not bring a challenge to the Supreme Court. "Deeply felt interest in the outcome of a case does not constitute an actual injury," she said.
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L041130   Stem-cell results claimed
 

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A paralyzed South Korean woman is walking again after doctors used stem-cell therapy to replace her damaged spine, researchers in that country say.
    At a press conference in Seoul, scientists involved in the case of Hwang Mi-soon, 37, said it was the world's first published report in which a patient with spinal-cord injuries had been successfully treated with stem cells from umbilical-cord blood.
     The patient, they said, had been paralyzed for 20 years as a result of a back injury.
    Officials at the South Korean Embassy in the District yesterday confirmed the contents of a wire-service report released Sunday by Agence France-Presse. They said the same story appeared in several Korean newspapers last week.
    "But there is some uncertainty about the research. Some people think it was not scientific enough," one embassy official said.
    Several U.S. stem-cell specialists contacted yesterday about the claim said they were not aware of it. One found it credible, but a second said he will remain skeptical until he reads the details in a peer-reviewed report of the human stem-cell research in a medical journal.
    The official at the South Korean Embassy said he has been told the study had not been published in a scientific journal.
    According to the report, the woman attended the press briefing in Seoul last week. With tears in her eyes, she stood up from her wheelchair and walked back and forth a few paces with the help of a walking frame.
    As for the claim, Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of medical and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Worcester, Mass., said: "I think they are consistent with what we believe to be the potential [of stem cells] ... it's what we've been trying to convince President Bush and others of."
    ACT is a research firm that's been on the cutting edge of experimentation in stem-cell therapy and cloning.
    Dr. Lanza said ACT itself conducted an experiment three years ago in which researchers used stem cells to cure what was the equivalent of spina bifida in sheep.
    "We didn't have the money to repeat that very costly experiment," he said.
    He further noted that some other American researchers have used embryonic stem cells "to restore mobility to partially paralyzed" rats and mice.
    Moral and ethical concerns exist about using embryonic stem cells to replace damaged organs or body parts because the embryos used to create the stem cells have to be destroyed.
    Adult stem cells and those found in umbilical-cord blood, however, provide treatment alternatives that usually are not morally objectionable.
    Dr. David Prentice, senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council, said a Portuguese scientist already has used adult stem cells from the nose to help restore mobility for some two dozen patients who were confined to wheelchairs.
    "This is really great news ... really exciting stuff," Dr. Prentice said of the research just reported in South Korea.
    But Daniel Perry, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, is more wary. He wants to know that the experiment in which a paralyzed woman "dramatically" walked again was disseminated in a forum more scientific and analytical than a press conference.
    "Obviously, this needs to be validated, to be replicated by others," he said.
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E041201   A captive press

    The entire run of the November issue of the Yale Free Press, a conservative student publication, was stolen from the university's campus over the Thanksgiving break, "horrified" student editor Diana Feygin said yesterday.
    Although she has received some support from Yale, Miss Feygin "wished the administration were more proactive in its investigation," the Yale Daily News reported.
    The stolen issues contained a poll asking students whether they felt political freedom in the classroom was an issue at Yale. Miss Feygin and her staff were mystified that thieves couldn't "disagree in a way that's more helpful."
    Nationally, theft of conservative collegiate newspapers is not uncommon, she said. The California Patriot, a conservative monthly at the University of California at Berkeley, was stolen repeatedly in 2002.
    In 1999, Light & Truth, another Yale conservative publication, was discarded by freshman counselors because they felt it "encouraged freshmen to skip sexual-education lectures held during orientation."
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E041201   Support of gays pushed in schools
 

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Civil liberties and homosexual rights advocates have renewed their push for community programs to bolster support in schools for homosexual youths, just weeks after voters repudiated same-sex unions in 11 state referendums.
    But in northeastern Kentucky, parents and students have defied the Ashland-Boyd County school district's "mandatory anti-harassment workshops," part of an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union to allow the Gay-Straight Alliances student group to meet in school buildings.
    Hundreds of students opted out of the tolerance training video, and another 324 students did not show up for school the day it was shown. The ACLU has threatened to file for a court order to enforce attendance.
    Joseph Platt, a Cincinnati lawyer representing parents, said "mandatory training on tolerance for homosexuals violates the right of conscience of parents and students who believe such behavior immoral."
    In Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, N.C., a lengthy cover feature in Charlotte Parent, a widely circulated shopper magazine, has brought indignant protests from churches and private schools associated with the Greater Charlotte Association of Christian Schools.
    Titled "Parenting a Gay Child," the feature offered a sympathetic account of youngsters with "same-sex attraction" and advocated community "support services and education" on behalf of homosexual children. The article supported the view of homosexual interest groups that same-sex unions are comparable to heterosexual marriage.
    Van Wade, president of Christian schools association and headmaster of Carmel Christian School in Charlotte, said, "The article was very one-sided and accommodating" toward homosexuality. "No one ever said, 'Let's talk about the moral issues that are involved.' "
    Mr. Wade said the 55,000-circulation magazine should have given alternatives to support parents "who want to help children live godly lives and pursue sexual abstinence." The feature listed only names, addresses, telephone numbers and Web sites of a half-dozen pro-homosexual support groups.
    Thomas K. Crowe, executive pastor of Charlotte's First Baptist Church, told the magazine in a letter he provided to The Washington Times that he believed sexual preference is "an unhealthy choice/preference ... that can be corrected. There are organizations and helpers available to teens and adults to live healthy lives in tune with God's plan for men and women."
    Charlotte Parent is distributed free of charge at 800 locations. Christian leaders have said they would withdraw their advertising and ask that the magazine not be delivered again.
    Church criticism was not unanimous. David Hains, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, told the Charlotte World that the diocese "doesn't find the article objectionable."
    Karen E. Conroy, the magazine's editor and author of the feature, declined to comment but said she would address criticisms in the December issue.
    William J. Maier, vice president and psychologist in residence for Focus on the Family in Boulder, Colo., said, "There is no proof that homosexuals are 'born gay' or that homosexuality is a 'fixed,' unchangeable condition," according to the American Psychiatric Association. "No child is 'born gay'; the notion is scientifically absurd."
    Ron Schlittler, executive director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, said such positions perpetuate "baseless fears and misguided claims about [homosexuals], such as the tired notion that they must 'recruit.' " Such fears are "exploited by those who wish to portray our family members and friends as some sort of danger."
    Charlotte-Mecklenburg public schools do not permit counselors to discuss sexuality with their students. Also, groups that encourage and support youths who embrace homosexuality are prohibited from advertising their activities on school property.
    As a result, three years ago one such group, Time Out Youth, listed by Charlotte Parent, started a "We Are Your Gay Youth" billboard campaign along busy Charlotte streets with contact details for further information.
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H041201   Anti-Bush gay advocate loses post
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign — whose political action committee mounted an anti-Bush effort this year — has been asked to step down, several homosexual activists said yesterday.
    The reported move comes after sharp election setbacks for advocates of same-sex "marriage," which was effectively banned by ballot measures in 11 states. President Bush's re-election — despite HRC's "George W. Bush: You're Fired" campaign — is the probable reason for a change in the group's leadership, which had been rumored for the past week.
    "This election was cast as the biggest election of our generation, and we lost," said Wayne Besen, a former spokesman for HRC. "People are upset, they're hurt and they want some heads to roll."
    Washington insider Hilary Rosen, former Recording Industry Association of America president, is expected to step in as interim executive director of HRC, reported the Advocate, a homosexual journal.
    A spokesman for HRC yesterday declined to comment on the reports. "Things are still in motion," he said.
    Washington-area Internet blogger Christian Grantham, citing sources connected to the HRC, was the first to report the shake-up, a decision he said was made Monday night by HRC board members.
    The Advocate said it was not clear whether Ms. Jacques resigned or was fired from HRC, the nation's largest homosexual rights group. At its Advocate.com Web site, the magazine cited insiders who said Ms. Jacques was told to be "out of the building" by yesterday.
    Some HRC board members apparently were "not pleased" with Ms. Jacques' handling of this year's election campaign, said Andy Thayer of Dontamend.com, a homosexual activist group that has been at odds with the HRC.
    "Some [HRC] board members are pretty conservative ... and, frankly, want to maintain a lifeline to the Bush administration and were ticked off at Jacques signing off on anti-Bush slogans on bumper stickers and so forth," Mr. Thayer said.
    His group didn't support either candidate because neither Mr. Bush nor Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry supported same-sex "marriage," Mr. Thayer said. "So from our point of view, having the anti-Bush bumper stickers was just fine. The problem was there weren't anti-Kerry ones as well."
    The choice of Ms. Rosen, who is reportedly close to former HRC President Elizabeth Birch, as the group's interim director is probably a smart move, despite Ms. Rosen's "Democratic Party baggage," said Michael Petrelis, a San Francisco AIDS activist.
    If the HRC's anti-Bush campaign is a reason for the turnover, "how does it improve HRC's standing with the Bush administration" to replace Ms. Jacques with a known Democratic partisan, Mr. Petrelis asked.
    "On the other hand, if Rosen is the new head of HRC, I've got to give her a lot of credit for having incredible connections in Washington. ... We're talking major power broker," he said.
    "If you want instant Washington credibility, [Ms. Rosen] is a natural person to go to," Mr. Besen said. "She definitely knows how to work in these tough circumstances."
    Ms. Jacques, a former Massachusetts state senator, took over as the group's president in January after Ms. Birch, HRC's longtime president, stepped down.
    "She had one of the toughest jobs in Washington — she followed an icon and had what was billed as the most important election in people's lives," Mr. Besen said. "And if we had won that election, things would have been different."
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R041201   Lesbian cleric faces church trial
 

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Beginning today, the United Methodist Church will, for the second time this year, try an openly lesbian minister on charges that her sexual practices are incompatible with church teaching.
    The Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud, 34, associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Germantown, Pa., will face an ecclesiastical court at Camp Innabah, a church camp and retreat center 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Church law forbids the ordination and appointment of practicing homosexuals.
    Her fate will be decided by a panel of 13 jurors, with nine votes necessary to convict. If found guilty, Miss Stroud could lose her ministerial credentials.
    The trial, expected to last until Friday, will be open to the public at Miss Stroud's request. The church's senior pastor, the Rev. Fred Day, said the congregation supports her and has established a legal fund on her behalf.
    The trial will be presided over by retired Bishop Joseph Yeakel, of Smithsburg, Md. At the 1996 Methodist General Conference in Denver, Bishop Yeakel was one of 15 bishops who urged the church to liberalize its laws against homosexual clergy.
    The process leading to the trial began April 27, 2003, when Miss Stroud preached a sermon on how her lesbianism had shaped her Christian faith.
    This is the third time a homosexual Methodist pastor has been brought to trial. In 1987, a New Hampshire cleric, the Rev. Rose Mary Denman, was convicted and defrocked.
    But a church trial last March in the Seattle suburb of Bothell resulted in acquittal for the Rev. Karen Dammann, also an open lesbian, on the grounds that the denomination's Book of Discipline had no official policy on homosexual clergy.
    During the General Conference in May, Methodists voted to tighten the language in the Book of Discipline to state plainly that bishops cannot appoint homosexuals.
    In an open letter to Bishop Yeakel, the pro-homosexual lobby Soulforce called the trial "an act of spiritual violence against all LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] persons."
    The trial, the letter said, "signals to all LGBT persons, their families and friends that the United Methodist Church considers their most intimate family life, their same gender committed relationships (and, yes, their same gender marriages) to be 'chargeable offenses,'" 'incompatible with Christian teaching' and ... (guilty of) 'immorality.'"
    But Mark Tooley, who directs the United Methodist program for the Institute on Religion and Democracy, called on the jury to fire the minister.
    "There should be no doubt that an unrepentant Stroud cannot continue in the ordained ministry," he said. The rest of Methodism, he added, is veering toward a more evangelical stance, based on growing demographics in the American South and overseas.
    "The train has already left the station on the issue of homosexuality," Mr. Tooley said. "Whatever happens in the Stroud case, the United Methodist Church as a whole will not endorse the sexual revolution."
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O041202   Democrat's report calls abstinence plans 'misleading'
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Bush administration is funding abstinence education curricula that teaches "false and misleading information," says a report released yesterday by a House Democratic leader.
    "It is absolutely vital that the health education provided to America's youth be scientifically and medically accurate," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat and ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee, who issued the report.
    The report says 11 of 13 abstinence-only curricula "contain errors and distortions" about contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), abortion, sex roles and sexual activity.
    Mr. Waxman decried the Bush administration's burgeoning support of such education, with $170 million expected to be allocated in fiscal 2005, more than twice the amount spent in 2001.
    "Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts," Mr. Waxman said.
    The congressman's report "misses the boat," said Dr. Alma Golden, deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Public Health and Science.
    Taking issues and information out of context to discredit abstinence education "is a disservice to our children," she said. "Studies show, as does my own experience as a pediatrician, that abstinence works, especially when combined" with parental guidance about boundaries and expectations regarding sex and relationships.
    Earlier this year, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) released a state-by-state review of abstinence programs.
    The Waxman report "reiterates and underscores what we've been saying for some time — that these programs are out of control ... using fear and shame, proselytizing on religion, using inaccurate information," said SIECUS spokesman William Smith.
    However, abstinence curriculum providers stood by their materials.
    "The information presented in [abstinence curricula] 'Game Plan' and 'Navigator' is medically accurate, and all information presented is from data compiled by national sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and the American Social Health Association. These curricula have been reviewed by physicians and public health professionals and have been found to be statistically and medically accurate," said Libby Gray, director of Project Reality in Glenview, Ill., which produces those two programs.
    The Waxman report reviewed programs funded by the largest federal grant program, Special Programs of Regional and National Significance Community-Based Abstinence Education. It found:
    •References to a now-discredited 1993 study that suggested condoms had a relatively low (69 percent) rate of effectiveness in preventing HIV/AIDS transmission.
    •Statements about how HIV and other pathogens can "pass through" imperfections in condoms. In fact, the CDC states that latex condoms "provide an essentially impermeable barrier to particles the size of STD pathogens," the Waxman report said.
    •Statements about how "5 to 10 percent of women will never again be pregnant after having a legal abortion." In fact, obstetrics textbooks teach that fertility "is not altered" by an elective abortion, the report said.
    "Several curricula also present misleading information about the relationship between sexual activity and mental health, inaccurately suggesting that abstinence can solve all psychological problems," the report said.
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O041202   Americans continue to marry later in life

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    It used to be common for men and women to get marriage certificates not long after collecting their high school diplomas. Not anymore.
    Census Bureau figures for 2003 show one-third of men and nearly one-quarter of women ages 30 to 34 have never been married, nearly four times the rates in 1970.
    It is further evidence young people are focusing on education and careers before settling down and beginning families, researchers say. Societal taboos about couples living together before marriage also have eased, said Linda Waite, a University of Chicago sociologist.
    Jeni Landers, a 30-year-old law student from Boston, said she considers living together a requirement before saying "I do."
    "I don't know how people got married before living together first," said Miss Landers, who moved in with her fiance after getting engaged nearly a year ago. "This is crucial to see how you get along."
    Data from the Census Bureau's "Current Population Survey" released this week show the age at which someone typically marries for the first time rose from 20.8 for women and 23.2 for men in 1970 to 25.3 and 27.1, respectively, last year.
    In 1970, 6 percent of women ages 30 to 34 had never been married; the figure was 23 percent in 2003. The rate for never-married men in the same age group rose from 9 percent to 33 percent.
    Among younger women, about 36 percent of those 20 to 24 had never been married in 1970. Last year, it was 75 percent. Among men in that age group, the change was nearly as dramatic: 55 percent in 1970 to 86 percent last year.
    "The majority of people still want to get married, but they see it sort of as dessert now, something that's desirable rather than necessary," said Dorion Solot, executive director of the Albany, N.Y.-based Alternatives to Marriage Project, which aims to fight discrimination based on marital status and to seek equality and fairness for unmarried people.
    "People want to be more sure that they don't make a marriage mistake," Miss Solot said.
    Meanwhile, societal pressures to marry before having children have decreased, said Thomas Coleman, executive director for the Glendale, Calif.-based Unmarried America, which also promotes equality for unmarried people. Among the group's concerns are tax policies, which it contends are stacked against single people.
    In 2003, nearly 35 percent of all births were to unmarried women, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. That was up from 11 percent in 1970, though the rate of increase has slowed since 1995, when 32 percent of births were out of wedlock. Births to unmarried teens have declined since the mid-1990s.
    Meaghan Lamarre, 24, a research assistant in Providence, R.I., said she and her boyfriend of 10 months "are not in a big hurry to marry." Miss Lamarre's focus is on work and getting into an Ivy League graduate program, possibly in public policy.
    "There's no time frame of when to get married. ... It's not a goal," said Miss Lamarre, an Alternatives to Marriage Project member. "I'm not opposed to it, but I think I could live happily ever after without being married."
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M041202   Brokaw bids goodnight to news program

NEW YORK (AP) — After bringing viewers the news for nearly 23 years, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw signed off yesterday, expressing gratitude for what he received in return.
    "Thanks for all that I have learned from you," he said at the end of his final "Nightly News" broadcast, his voice wavering. "That's been my richest reward."
    Mr. Brokaw reminded his audience how "we've been through a lot together, through dark days and nights, and seasons of hope and joy."
    "Whatever the story, I had only one objective: to get it right," he said, adding that he was "always mindful that your patience and attention didn't come with a lifetime warranty."
    Making good on an exit plan announced in May 2002, Mr. Brokaw, 64, is stepping away from daily journalism to pursue other interests, including more time on his Montana ranch. But his association with NBC will continue under an agreement to host at least three documentaries per year.
    If a huge story breaks, "I'll report for duty," he has told the Associated Press. "It doesn't mean I'll go back to what I did before. They'll have to find a new role for me."
    Brian Williams, long groomed as Mr. Brokaw's successor, takes over "Nightly News" with tonight's broadcast. He begins at the top of the ratings, where "Nightly News" has reigned since 1997.
    Mr. Brokaw's departure has been the object of ceremony the past few days, both from the press at large and on his own network, which last week aired a two-hour Brokaw retrospective on "Dateline NBC."
    Yesterday morning, he appeared on "Today," which he once anchored, for a tribute and a champagne toast from hosts Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, who paraphrased a familiar song: "Nobody does it better and no one ever has."
    "Even as we speak, people are changing the nameplate on my door," Mr. Brokaw joked during the segment.
    The much-awaited shift at NBC was upstaged briefly last week by the surprise announcement that Dan Rather would be departing the "CBS Evening News" anchor seat in March, after 24 years.
    Those changes, after two decades of stability, will leave only ABC's Peter Jennings among the old-timers in the anchor chair.
    As Mr. Brokaw marked his 30th anniversary with NBC in 1996, he recalled the precipitous ups and downs at the network.
    "I never expected the waves would be quite as steep as they were," he said. "But even in the worst of times, it was better than anything I thought I'd ever have in life."
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H041202   HIV rate for gay men rises, CDC says
 

By Paul Simao
REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

ATLANTA — A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says new HIV and AIDS diagnoses rose 11 percent among homosexual and bisexual men from 2000 to 2003, increasing concerns that the disease is resurgent nationwide.
    The CDC report, released yesterday in connection with World AIDS Day, says rates were stable among most other population sectors, and the overall infection rate rose to 19.7 cases per 100,000 persons in 2003 from 19.5 per 100,000 persons in 2000. Results were tallied from information gathered by 32 states.
    AIDS, which destroys the immune system and leaves victims vulnerable to an array of opportunistic infections and cancers, has killed about a half-million Americans and 22 million persons worldwide since 1981.
    The CDC reported that homosexuals account for 48 percent of adult AIDS cases, 27 percent involve intravenous-drug users and 7 percent involve people who fit both categories. In 15 percent of AIDS cases, the risk factor was heterosexual intercourse. In the other cases, the cause was such factors as receiving tainted blood or tissues, or it remains unidentified.
    Homosexual and bisexual men are thought to account for a majority of the estimated 850,000 to 950,000 Americans living with HIV, the virus that causes the disease.
    Public-health experts have been warning of a possible resurgence of the epidemic, which eased in the early 1990s after the development of antiretroviral drugs targeting the disease.
    Since the late 1990s, when U.S. deaths from AIDS stabilized at 16,000 per year and new HIV infections stabilized at 40,000 per year, the disease has shown signs of a comeback, particularly among homosexual and bisexual men.
    From 2000 to 2003, 125,800 persons were diagnosed with HIV or AIDS in 32 states, according to the report. Forty-four percent of the cases occurred among homosexual and bisexual men.
    New York, California and other states that had not used confidential, name-based reporting of HIV and AIDS cases for at least four years were excluded from the study.
    "Men who have sex with men continue to constitute a substantial proportion of HIV/AIDS cases," the report states.
    It also said blacks, who represent about 13 percent of the U.S. population, made up 51.3 percent of all HIV and AIDS cases diagnosed in that period.
    A number of health departments across the nation also have reported a worrying surge in syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases among homosexual and bisexual men. Sexually transmitted diseases have been linked to the likelihood of contracting HIV.
    To combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America, the government decided last year to emphasize programs that focus on testing and counseling people who are already infected.
    Some AIDS activists, however, fear that the new approach will lead to reduced funding for many programs that emphasize condom use and other safe-sex practices for uninfected people.
    The CDC, which hopes to cut the number of new annual HIV infections in half within five years, also has recommended that routine HIV testing be expanded to include pregnant women, intravenous-drug users and anyone who engages in unsafe sex.
    In Britain yesterday, leaders condemned the European Union for failing to fund AIDS research.
    According to the Weekly Standard, International Development Minister Gareth Thomas said the European Union spent only $26 million on research last year, compared with the $433 million spent by the United States.
    "During our EU presidency, we will continue to focus on working to raise money for more funding for AIDS vaccines," Mr. Thomas said yesterday during a speech commemorating World AIDS Day.
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H041203   Forum: United Nations' unfolding AIDS scandal

Last Wednesday was World AIDS Day. The focus this year is on women and girls. That's good, because almost half of all HIV-infected persons in the world are female. But if you are a woman concerned about HIV infection, I would suggest you avoid the UNAIDS program like the plague. Why? Because their advice just might kill you.
    But I'm getting ahead of myself.
    As we know, there is no vaccine or drug that can stop AIDS. But there is one proven strategy. That approach, backed by the Bush administration, is known as "ABC." A stands for Abstinence, B means Be faithful, and C refers to Condoms.
    The ABC concept has been carried out in Uganda over the past 15 years. There, a massive public education campaign was mounted. Billboard signs admonished would-be adulterers, "No Grazing." And religious organizations were tapped to play key roles (sorry about that, ACLU).
    The results were impressive: the HIV infection rate in Uganda dropped from 15 percent to 5 percent. In 1991, 21 percent of pregnant women had the deadly HIV virus. Ten years later, that figure had dropped to 6 percent.
    But the experts at UNAIDS don't believe in the ABCs. Why? Because they had a strategy with a name that appealed to erotomaniacs everywhere: Safe Sex. The Safe Sex advocates argue that since sexual activity is a fact of life, the best we can offer is condoms.
    But two years ago the truth began to emerge.
    Speakers at the 2002 Barcelona AIDS conference began openly admitting the failure of the Safe Sex approach. The U.N. Population Division offered this dispiriting assessment: "Much effort has been spent on promoting the prophylactic use of condoms as part of AIDS prevention. However, over the years, the condom has not become more popular among couples."
    Why did Safe Sex fail? Well, knowing the condom failure rate is 15 percent, ask yourself this question: If an intimate partner of yours had AIDS, would you trust your life to a condom?
    And why didn't the U.N. embrace the proven ABC strategy? The answer: it's a little too ... puritanical. Abstinence is something a Bible-thumping preacher might push but not the respectable public-health types at the UNAIDS.
    If the gospel of Safe Sex didn't sell, why not try the orthodoxy of The Sisterhood?
    So just last week the UNAIDS published its report, "Women and AIDS." If you are interested in getting a glimpse into the radical feminist mindset, you will find it there. [www.unaids.org] You will learn how women are subject to discrimination, domestic violence, and all manner of mistreatment — at the hands of their male chauvinist oppressors, of course.
    For example, the report tells us the amazing fact that "women and girls provide the bulk of home-based care" — but what has that to do with stopping AIDS? Feminists who believe all heterosexual intercourse is a form of rape will be heartened by the document's sweeping claim that "Women and girls often lack the power to abstain from sex."
    And what if you are a woman looking for concrete suggestions on how to avoid becoming infected with the deadly HIV virus? Don't go to UNAIDS, because you will find no practical advice.
    If fact, you may become convinced that since women are so utterly powerless in the face of global patriarchy, any action to protect yourself would be futile.
    Every day, 8,500 men and women die from the modern Black Death we call AIDS. Most of those deaths could be avoided if the United Nations took a practical approach based on science, not ideology. Pitting women against men is hardly the answer.
    The U.N. is engulfed in a growing array of scandals: the Rwanda slaughter that left 800,000 dead; sexual abuse by peacekeeping forces in the Congo; the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Then there's the ever-deepening Iraqi oil-for-food scandal — just this week we learned Kofi Annan's son Kojo was on the take to the tune of $2,500 a month.
    Now add to that list the devastating toll of the AIDS epidemic.
 
    CAREY ROBERTS
    Mr. Roberts is a Washington-area writer.
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O041205C   Attack on decency
 

By Walter E. Williams

Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," Nicollette Sheridan's towel malfunction and naked leap into the arms of Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens in a promotion before ABC's "Monday Night Football," and the recent Detroit Pistons/Indiana Pacers game melee are just the most recent signs of a new American culture. It's just the tip of the iceberg.
    Years ago, the lowest of low men wouldn't use the kind of language routinely used today not only in the presence of women but often to women. To see men sitting while a woman stood on a public conveyance once was unthinkable. Children addressing adults by their first names was also unthinkable, not to mention use of foul language in the presence of or to adults. How about guys and girls walking down the street while the guy has his hand in the girl's rear pocket?
    What might explain the differences in behavior today versus yesteryear? In part, a significant explanation recognizes society's first line of defense is not law but customs, traditions and moral values. Customs, traditions and moral values are those important thou-shalt-nots such as: thou shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat. They include respect for parents, teachers and others in authority plus courtesies one might read in Emily Post's rules of etiquette.
    The importance of customs, traditions and moral values as a way of regulating behavior is that people behave themselves even if nobody is watching. There are not enough cops, and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct and produce a civilized society. At best, the police and the criminal justice system are the last desperate lines of defense for a civilized society. Too many see police, laws and the criminal and civil justice systems as the first line of defense.
    For nearly a half-century, the nation's liberals, along with the education establishment, pseudo-intellectuals and the courts, have warred on traditions, customs and moral values. Many in this generation have been counseled to believe there are no moral absolutes. Instead, what is moral or immoral is a matter of convenience, personal opinion, or what is or is not criminal.
    During the 1960s, the education establishment launched its agenda to undermine what children learned from their parents and the church with fads like "values clarification."
    So-called sex-education classes were simply indoctrination to undermine family/church strictures against premarital sex. Abstinence was ridiculed, considered passe, and replaced with lessons about condoms, birth control pills and abortion. Parental authority was further undermined by legal and extralegal measures to assist teenage abortions without parental knowledge or consent.
    Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, make for a civilized society. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth, and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and discovering what works and what doesn't.
    Customs, traditions and moral values have been discarded without any appreciation of their civilizing role, and now, we're paying the price. What's worse is that instead of a return to what worked, many of us fail to make the connection and insist "there ought to be a law." As such, it points to another failure of the so-called "great generation": failure to transmit to their children what their parents transmitted to them.
 
    Walter E. Williams is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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R041203   MASSACHUSETTS   Church files suit over school rental
    BOSTON — A conservative legal group has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Peabody on behalf of Living Hope Church of the Nazarene, which was denied use of a public school.
    The lawsuit says it was unconstitutional to deny the church's request to continue renting space for Sunday services when other community organizations are allowed to use schools.
    "Either the school committee is hostile to religion, or they don't know about the Supreme Court decisions," said Vincent P. McCarthy of the American Center for Law & Justice.
    The U.S. Supreme Court's 2001 Good News Club ruling said schools in Milford, N.Y., must grant religious groups that contribute to the "general welfare" access to facilities on the same basis as nonreligious community groups.
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H041203    MICHIGAN   Same-sex benefits pulled from contracts
    LANSING — Democratic Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm will remove same-sex partner benefits from contracts negotiated with state workers, said an aide, citing a voter-approved amendment to the Michigan Constitution that not only bans same-sex "marriage" but also prohibits state recognition of "similar unions."
    Michigan voters approved the amendment on Nov. 2.
    On Wednesday, Granholm aide David Fink said negotiated contracts scheduled for adoption by the state Civil Service Commission on Dec. 15 will be stripped of the same-sex domestic-partner benefits.
    Mr. Fink said the Granholm administration decided to eliminate the benefits because of the passage of Proposal 2, which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and bans same-sex "marriage" and "similar unions for any purpose."
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R041203   Targeting Target
    Some are probing the political underpinnings of Minneapolis-based Target Corp.'s decision to ban Salvation Army bell ringers from its 1,272 stores nationwide — at a loss of about $9 million to the charity.
    "Christian shoppers and others of good will can also decide to take their business elsewhere. Why reward a company that appears to favor the values of homosexual activists over those of the families that do most of the Christmas shopping? " asks Robert Knight of the Virginia-based Concerned Women for America.
    Target, he said, "has been under pressure from homosexual groups to kick out the Salvation Army because of the charity's refusal to subsidize homosexual relationships."
    Mr. Knight adds that "Target gives millions to charities, but only if the recipients are deemed 'politically correct' by the ACLU, homosexual activists and other bullies."
    Some retailers are championing the Salvation Army, however.
    The Iowa City Press-Citizen reported yesterday that two local malls — Old Capitol Town Center and Sycamore Mall — presented Johnson County Salvation Army Capt. Terry Smith with $11,000 they raised for the charity — the amount bell ringers took in last year at a Target store in nearby Coralville.
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E041203   Be the paper
    Twenty-two conservative student publications have been started on college campuses so far in 2004, breaking the record of 21 set in 2003.
    "I tell students, 'Don't complain about the media — be the media,'" says Benjamin Wetmore, director of student publications for the Leadership Institute's Campus Leadership Program.
    Still, it isn't easy to print a conservative collegiate publication, given most campuses "force-feed students an unhealthy dose of liberal indoctrination," Mr. Wetmore notes.
    "Leftists" at Cornell University in New York, he said, defunded the Cornell American, while administrators at Lynchburg College in Virginia "told security staff to throw out copies of the conservative Lynchburg Current."
    "The Campus Leadership Program will help any student who wants to start a conservative newspaper — no matter how aggressive and thuggish the left is," Mr. Wetmore assures.
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R041203   Methodists defrock lesbian minister

PUGHTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The United Methodist Church yesterday defrocked a lesbian for violating the denomination's ban on actively homosexual clergy — the first such decision by the church in 17 years.
    A 13-member jury made up of Methodist clergy convicted the Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud on the second day of her church trial. Methodist law bars "self-avowed, practicing homosexuals" from ministry. Nine votes were necessary for a conviction, and the jury voted 12-1 to find Miss Stroud guilty.
    It then voted 7-6 to defrock Miss Stroud, the bare majority necessary in the penalty phase of the trial, though her congregation in Philadelphia has said Miss Stroud can continue performing most of her duties.
    Miss Stroud said she hasn't decided whether to appeal the verdict, which she can do at any point during the next 30 days.
    The last time the 8.3 million-member denomination convicted a cleric on charges of homosexuality was in 1987, when a New Hampshire church court defrocked the Rev. Rose Mary Denman.
    Last March, a Methodist court in Washington state acquitted the Rev. Karen Dammann, who lives with her lesbian partner, citing an ambiguity in church law that the Methodist high court has since eliminated.
    The Methodists are just one of several mainline Protestant denominations in the United States — including the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches — that are struggling with the issue of homosexuality.
    Miss Stroud, 34, an associate pastor at Philadelphia's First United Methodist Church of Germantown, set the case in motion last year when she announced to her bishop and congregation that she was living in a sexual relationship with another woman, Chris Paige.
    At her trial, presiding judge the Rev. Joseph Yeakel, the retired bishop of Washington, D.C., excluded testimony from six defense witnesses who were prepared to argue that the church's ban on active homosexuality by clergy violates the church's own legal principles.
    "I believe that even the testimony of Scripture is far from clear on this subject," the senior pastor of Miss Stroud's church, the Rev. Fred Day, testified at the trial.
    But the Rev. Thomas Hall of Exton, Pa., the prosecutor, asked Mr. Yeakel to strike Mr. Day's statement, and the judge instructed the jury that "constitutional issues are not before this court."
    Mr. Hall told jurors they had a duty to "hold a good pastor accountable to the standard with which we all live" under the Methodist Book of Discipline.
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R041204    Lights out for some at holiday parade
    DENVER — Thousands of Christians planned to crash this city's 30th annual Parade of Lights last night after a Christmas float proposed by a local church was rejected for being too religious.
    Protesters said they would walk along the downtown parade route singing Christmas carols and passing out hot chocolate to the event's anticipated 375,000 onlookers.
    Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada, Colo., a 4,000-member megachurch, had applied to enter a float in the parade that featured carolers singing Christmas carols and a "Merry Christmas" sign, but parade organizers said no floats with a Christmas or other religious theme were allowed.
    Many local Christian churches were planning to send members to carol along with Faith Christian singers, saying the ban on Christmas floats was absurd.
    "Parade of Lights? Come on. If it's not about Christmas, then why not have it in January? Obviously it has to do with Christmas or people wouldn't show up," said Mark Anderson, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Family Council.
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E041204   More Southern Baptists shun public education
 

By Duncan Mansfield
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. — Frustration with public education appears to be growing among the nation's Southern Baptists, with supporters of Christian schools and home schooling arguing that "if God is absent from the classroom, their children should leave, too."
    "What has happened is not so much that the Christians are leaving the public schools as that the public schools have left the Christians," Ed Gamble, a school administrator, says.
    Mr. Gamble is executive director of the Southern Baptist Association of Christian Schools, an Orlando, Fla.-based group that supports the more than 600 Southern Baptist schools created in the past eight years.
    "As the public schools have become increasingly secular and increasingly intolerant of things Christian, people who are openly Christian have said, 'I guess they are not part of our team anymore,' ."
    The number of conservative Christian schools grew by nearly 11 percent between 1999-2000 and 2001-2002, to 5,527, according to the U.S. Department of Education's latest statistics.
    At that rate, Christian schools are growing faster than private schools as a whole, and have increased their share to nearly 1 in 5 private schools in the country.
    Earlier this year, a resolution proposed at the national meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention — which guides the nation's largest Protestant denomination — urged parents to withdraw their children from "officially Godless government schools" in favor of religious education.
    The resolution was rejected, but interest in faith-based schools has continued to spread among Baptists at the state level, particularly in Tennessee, Missouri, Florida, South Carolina, Illinois, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina, California and in New England, according to Exodus Mandate, a Columbia, S.C., group that promotes private, Christian and home-schooling education.
    A resolution promoting Christian schooling easily passed the annual meeting of the Missouri Baptist Convention; a similar resolution was quashed in committee at the Tennessee Baptist Convention meeting in Sevierville last month.
    The Missouri resolution cited "inherent dangers of secular educational philosophies that now permeates America's public education system" and affirmed "the importance of systematically training ourselves and our children in the ways of authentic, biblical Christianity."
    "What we are saying is that God has given us some very specific commands that we are to train our children in the ways of the Lord, not in the ways of the world," says the Rev. Roger Moran, of Troy, Mo., the resolution's author and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee.
    For the faithful, that means teaching creationism over evolution, that life begins at conception, and that homosexuality is immoral, as is sex outside of marriage. But it is more.
    "It hits everything, when you realize the reality of life is [that] life was created by God and the entire universe is His creation. Therefore, everything has meaning and reflection on His nature, whether it is math or history or science. Two plus two equals four because God created them that way," says Glen Schultz, who heads the Baptists' LifeWay curriculum program for church-based schools and home-schoolers.
    The Tennessee resolution came one step short of asking Baptist parents to pull their children from public schools.
    "I wanted to be positive in promoting Christian education. I didn't want the resolution to be portrayed as attacking public education," says the Rev. Larry Reagan, of Dresden, who wrote the measure.
    But the Rev. Mike Boyd of Knoxville, outgoing president of the million-member Tennessee Baptist Convention, says he was concerned about the divisiveness of the issue.
    "It was not wise, is all I am saying," says the Rev. Grover Westover, of Whiteville, chairman of the Resolutions Committee.
    Mr. Reagan's resolution would have promoted more "Kingdom education" schools following LifeWay's lead. Mr. Schultz says the program has reached about 150 churches since 1996.
    "We encourage our members to pray for this ministry and we encourage the promotion of an adequate system of Christian schools," Mr. Reagan says.
    Mr. Boyd agrees there were "some serious issues in the public schools" to resolve but says the focus should be on supporting the teachers working in them, including many Baptists, and parents.
    "Historically, Baptists have been pretty staunch supporters of the public school system, and they still are," says Mr. Gamble. "But this is a bottom-up movement, as it is a bottom-up denomination. This is not a movement that is being led so much by pastors as it is being led by moms and dads who are frustrated.
    "And someday, I don't know how long it will be, most of the kids will be educated in Southern Baptist schools or in their homes."
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R041205   Lutheran congregation stripped of status
    SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — The Pacifica Lutheran Synod has revoked a San Bernardino mission's congregational status because its pastor is in a committed lesbian relationship.
    The decision to remove the Central City Lutheran Mission, an urban ministry that serves poor and homeless people, of its official recognition is the harshest punishment of a Lutheran congregation with a homosexual pastor in more than a decade.
    "This is the first time in 14 years that any congregation or any pastor has been dealt with this harshly. We thought those days were over," said the Rev. David Kalke, who leads the San Bernardino mission. "It appears conservatism has raised its ugly head here in Southern California, much to our surprise."
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R041205   Carolers defy religious ban
 

By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

DENVER — Hundreds of Christians sang yuletide carols at a holiday parade Friday night in defiance of rules forbidding them from entering floats with a Christmas or religious theme.
    As many as 1,000 carolers walked along the parade route in downtown Denver for an hour before the event, singing banned tunes such as "Joy to the World," "Silent Night" and "The First Noel." Some waved crosses and other Christian symbols to protest the parade committee's ruling.
    The caroling ended shortly before the start of the 30th annual Parade of Lights, sponsored by local businesses. The parade was expected to draw about 375,000 spectators.
    "It was very peaceful," said Joanna Beasley, whose husband, Gary, is a pastor at Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada. "It went very well."
    Faith Bible Chapel had applied to enter a float in the parade that would have included carolers and a "Merry Christmas" sign. Parade officials rejected the float, citing rules that ban religious or political displays.
    The parade has not allowed religious-themed entries for at least 10 years and doesn't accept public funding, organizers said.
    The ruling on the float touched off a national outcry last week after the Rev. George Morrison, pastor of the church, disclosed the parade committee's ruling to the Rocky Mountain News. Hundreds of callers complained about the ruling to the City Council, parade organizers and the local NBC-TV affiliate, KUSA-TV, which also sponsors the parade.
    Many Christians said they were shocked that a parade clearly timed to coincide with Christmas had banned all references to the holiday. If the popular event has nothing to do with Christmas, officials should hold it in January or February instead, critics said.
    "They want to take advantage of the timing by having the parade at the same time as Christmas, but they're saying you can't have any Christians in it," said Mark Anderson, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Family Council. "Obviously, it has to do with Christmas or people wouldn't show up."
    Fanning the outrage was the committee's approval of a float sponsored by Two Spirits, an American Indian group that considers homosexuality to be holy. Critics complained that the committee had broken its own rules by accepting the religious-themed float.
    Faith Bible Chapel, a 4,000-member megachurch, responded by organizing the caroling event, and the church soon was flooded by calls of support from other Christian denominations interested in participating.
    The reaction to the ruling could have an effect on the committee's policy, said Jim Basey, president of the Downtown Denver Partnership, which sponsors the parade. He said organizers would re-evaluate the float rules before the event next year.
    Mr. Basey said the partnership "had no objections" to the church's decision to walk along the parade route singing carols and passing out hot chocolate. He added that parade-watchers were free to sing carols or say "Merry Christmas."
    Former U.S. Attorney Mike Norton, who is married to Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, offered last week to represent Faith Bible Chapel in a free-speech lawsuit against the parade committee, according to the Rocky Mountain News.
    The church had no comment on the offer.
    "I don't know if Faith will sue over it, but if they did, they'd win easily," Mr. Anderson said.
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E041205M   SAT score delay tests students', parents' patience
 

By Arlo Wagner
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Some Montgomery County area high school students almost missed their best opportunity to attend some of the country's elite colleges when a mix-up delayed the posting of their SAT scores.
    The students, who were among those taking the test Nov. 6 at Montgomery Blair High School, intended to submit their scores and other application requirements to colleges as part of the early admissions or early action process, instead of competing against more students later during the general admission program.
    The results were expected within a few weeks but were not posted until Thursday, which created some anxiety for Anne Morse, whose son, Trevor, was trying to meet Harvard University's deadline of Dec. 15.
    "I grew concerned when weeks went by and [his] scores were not posted on the College Board Web site," said Mrs. Morse, whose son attends the Washington Christian Academy. "Hopefully, this will be in time for Trevor and others to be considered for early action."
    As the deadline approached, Mrs. Morse began a frantic effort to learn what happened to the scores and to keep her son in the Harvard mix. She said Harvard officials told her they needed the scores as soon as possible or her son's application would be placed in the "general admissions" pile.
    "This test is absolutely critical for college admissions," Mrs. Morse said.
    She said officials for the College Board first told her none of the students who took the test at Blair had received their scores.
    Then Brian O'Reilly, executive director of SAT Information Services for College Board, explained that the answer sheets should have been sent in priority mail envelopes to the company's New York City office, but were instead sent with the test booklets by the slower, less expensive book-rate mail.
    He also said the boxes of booklets were not received and opened until Nov. 24, but that letters with SAT test results would be sent "within a couple days" to the colleges.
    Mrs. Morse said Blair students would have received their scores on Nov. 19 had officials followed procedures.
    Brian Edwards, a spokesman for the Montgomery County public schools, said the school system would not be responsible for such a mistake because the entire testing process is handled by the Educational Testing Services company, which hires teachers to serve as proctors.
    "On that day they were working for ETS," Mr. Edwards said.
    Mr. O'Reilly said the mail mix-up was not unique.
    "There is always going to be a delay someplace," he said.
    About 400,000 students worldwide took the SAT on Nov. 6.
    The stakes are high, according to the recent book "The Early Admissions Game: Joining the Elite."
    The book notes that a survey of 3,000 of the county's top high school students found 81 percent of them who enrolled at an Ivy League school, Stanford University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had applied early.
    The book also states that applying early can "sometimes double, even triple the chances of being admitted to a prestigious college."
    A Harvard admissions officer said Friday that last year 21,000 students applied for 1,650 undergraduate openings.
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E041205M   Parents organize to fight new sex-ed curriculum
 

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Montgomery County parents met yesterday to organize against changes in the public school system's sex-education curriculum in which students are told that homosexuality is not a choice and that same-sex couples are one form of a family.
    About 75 county residents, most of them parents, met in Kensington at the unheated Kenmont Swim and Tennis Club. Several people who favor the new curriculum also spoke at the meeting.
    After more than two hours, the group decided upon the name Citizens for Responsible Curriculum and agreed upon several goals for the next several months.
    "I think these folks are in for the long haul, and this curriculum is going to be a top priority," said Michelle Turner, who has led opposition to the changes in sex education. "This has the possibility of gaining a lot of momentum."
    Mrs. Turner, of Kensington, also said she was surprised by the turnout, especially during a holiday season weekend.
    "Fifty people would have been a lot," she said. "People have lives. Weekends are very precious to them. To give up three hours is very impressive."
    Members of the new group said their main goals are to schedule a public hearing with the school board, begin a public relations campaign and organize a coalition of county groups that oppose the curriculum.
    Mrs. Turner, who has four children in the school system, said the group wants to work with mosques, synagogues, Christian churches, nonreligious groups and ethnic communities. Long-term goals include raising money, forming a nonprofit lobbying organization and promoting candidates for the county school board.
    The group has complaints about specific parts of the new curricu