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
L050103      The 'bull's-eye'
L050104C   The undemocratic party
L050105      Morning-after pill access fails to cut pregnancy rate

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H050104      RHODE ISLAND   Ruling requested on same-sex benefits
H050104M  Virginia to consider amendment on marriage
H050105C   Same-sex 'marriage' nonrights
H050106      Searching the closet

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050104L   To America's defense
R050105     Cornyn's view
R050105     Man of prayer
R050105     Whitman book hits Bush, Rove
R050105     WISCONSIN   Court OKs plan to sell Commandments statue
R050106     Atheist tries again
R050106     Law firm readies sex-abuse suits
R050108M Atheist sues to ban hand on Bible
R050109L  Protect against activist judges
R050109M Newdow targets use of clergy

EDUCATION
E050104L    Up and coming home-schoolers
E050105      CALIFORNIA   Church school roiled by gay parent issue

MEDIA
M050106E  Lost in media translation

OTHER
O050107     Tsunami orphans not up for adoption, agencies say
O050109L   Whitman's book doesn't get it
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H050104M   Virginia to consider amendment on marriage
 

By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Lawmakers in Virginia are aiming to place the commonwealth at the forefront of the nation's battle against same-sex unions when the General Assembly reconvenes next week.
    The legislature will consider a state constitutional amendment to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman, by reaffirming the traditional definition of marriage.
    Virginia law recognizes a marriage only between a man and a woman. It does not recognize same-sex unions performed in other states.
    Lawmakers also will consider creating a special driver's license plate for supporters of traditional marriage. The license plate would feature two interlocked golden wedding bands over a red heart.
    "You can see the handwriting on the wall," said Delegate Richard H. Black, Loudoun Republican. "Thirteen out of 13 states passed these amendments."
    Last year, 13 states voted to amend their constitutions to forbid same-sex "marriages," bringing to 17 the number of states that have such amendments.
    Both measures have a good chance of passing Virginia's Republican-controlled General Assembly, which begins its session Jan. 12. The legislature overwhelmingly has approved previous efforts to support traditional marriage.
    Delegate John A. Cosgrove, Chesapeake Republican, authored the marriage amendment.
    The legislature must approve the amendment two years in a row before sending the measure to the voters. That means voters would decide on the measure in November 2006, when Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, is up for re-election. Mr. Allen opposes same-sex unions.
    The governor's approval is not necessary for the amendment to be implemented.
    Delegate L. Scott Lingamfelter, Prince William Republican, has proposed the license-plate bill. He said proceeds from the sale of the plates would go to the state's general fund.
    "If you support traditional marriage, you might want to make a statement about your views," Mr. Lingamfelter said. "The American people in November made a very, very clear statement in favor of traditional marriage. You saw it again and again across the country. It's for people who want to signify their support for something that has seemed to have worked for 4,000 years."
    Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, said he isn't sure whether the issue should be featured on license plates.
    "Our license plates kind of turn too much into political sloganeering on either end of the spectrum," Mr. Warner told The Washington Times last month.
    "It would probably be better policy if everyone on both sides agreed that maybe you can put your sports team or your college on your license plate," he said. "There's nothing wrong with putting a bumper sticker that advocates a political position, but the state approving political statements of any type maybe ought not to be on a license plate."
    Mr. Warner said he thinks a constitutional amendment is not necessary because of the existing bans on same-sex "marriages," even though he is against such unions.
    Last year, the legislature passed an amendment to the state's Affirmation of Marriage Act to prohibit recognition of same-sex unions performed in other states. It bans civil unions, "partnership contracts" or other arrangements between homosexuals.
    Homosexual rights advocates mounted statewide protests and a legal challenge when the ban went into effect in July. The lawsuit is ongoing.
    They argue that the law is too broad and could prevent same-sex relatives or business partners from entering into contracts, such as those required for purchasing property, and that wills between same-sex partners could be challenged.
    Mr. Warner had tried to amend the bill by deleting the phrase "partnership contract or other arrangement." But the legislature rejected his amendments and enacted the law without his signature.
    Delegate Mitchell Van Yahres, Charlottesville Democrat, has proposed a bill that would repeal the ban.
    Mr. Warner said that "other than politics" he doesn't see why a constitutional amendment should be added.
    Equality Virginia, the state's primary homosexual rights lobbying group, plans to rally against the amendment at the state Capitol in Richmond on Jan. 13.
    The group also has formed a political action committee to fund and endorse candidates who share the organization's priorities.
    Executive Director Dyana Mason said Equality Virginia wants to engage lawmakers in a debate and started the PAC "to make sure that our voices are heard throughout the process."
    Miss Mason said her group supports Mr. Van Yahres' bill and has been preparing for the constitutional amendment battle.
    "Virginia has a long history of being last out of the gates for extending civil rights," she said. "This is just another example of that. In Virginia, we are always prepared for attacks."
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E050104L   Up and coming home-schoolers
    Jay Ambrose's keen commentary ("Goliaths beware," Saturday) is right on the mark. Patrick Henry-type home-schooled students are everywhere and are a force to be reckoned with. They are academically gifted, politically astute and stand for what most of America has lost: a determined work ethic based on a Judeo-Christian worldview.
    This phenomenon has been in the works for decades, and I have been fortunate enough to see it firsthand — bright young minds discuss complex books and articles with ease and go on to win regional, state and national contests (Math Counts, National Geography Bee, National Spelling Bee). They have made their presence known in local, state and national campaigns; worked as congressional interns; and volunteered their time at shelters for the homeless, hospitals, nursing homes, the Special Olympics and other worthy causes. The list goes on and on.
    It's a phenomenon that will last. For too long, elitist and leftist academia have looked down their noses at others, self-styling themselves as the best and brightest minds in America. For too long, home-schoolers have been viewed with a jaundiced eye as they applied to secular universities despite impressive SAT and ACT scores. They have been sneered at and categorized as country bumpkins who are not up to the "true" academic standard. The students at Patrick Henry College and the many others like them at other colleges and universities are the Davids of their generation, and the opening stone has been thrown. One Goliath has felt the sting, and the others had better start watching out because these youngsters not only embody the true spirit of the original Patrick Henry, but also have the intelligence and work ethic necessary to challenge the leftist stranglehold on public policy and their ipso facto viewpoint on right and wrong.
    This phenomenon is here to stay because some of these same students have younger brothers and sisters following the same path, and as Mr. Ambrose has aptly stated, "Patrick Henry students will eventually make themselves felt on the real issues, and America will have reason for gratitude." To some extent, they already have. It's only a matter of time before other Goliaths feel their impact.

    JEFFREY D. WATTERS
    Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
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R050104L   To America's defense
    Christian capitulation is the objective of a "leftist control agenda," according to Walter Williams ("Attacking Western values," Commentary, Sunday). How true. Mr. Williams questions "how we should respond." Consider the following for starters.
    First, the root of the problem is in the federal judiciary. To remove the liberal agenda from our courts, it is imperative that the Republican Senate do whatever is necessary to advance President Bush's judicial nominees to the floor of the Senate for an up-or-down vote.
    Second, an army of lawyers spread across this land are intent on defending the attack on Christianity. Part of this defense should include an offensive counterattack against the American Civil Liberties Union. Each and any abusive, frivolous or otherwise improper assault by the ACLU should be met in kind in court. In other words, attack the ACLU.
    Third, parents need to be more involved in schools. For example, parents should nominate and elect PTA representatives who will fight against the attack on Christianity and assure that administrators, principals, teachers and PTA representatives implement a common-sense approach rather than the absurdities practiced by some educators.
    Issues parents must keep within their sight include curriculum and textbook content as well as the more emotive issues such as Christmas. Teachers need to assure that their union truly represents them and what they believe rather than the agenda of its leaders .
    Fourth, the electorate needs to control elective officials and their appointees through the ballot box. November 2004 was a good start .
    Finally, although Christianity is the target today, the real enemy of the liberal left is religion. We must all be aware of that.

    ROBERT HARGEST
    Alexandria
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R050107L   Whitman's book doesn't get it

    Christie Whitman says President Bush and political strategist Karl Rove were "wrong in their strategy of boosting turnout among the party's voting base of political 'extremists' on the right, including evangelical Christians," ("Whitman book hits Bush, Rove," Nation, Wednesday). Heaven forbid. No pun intended. Is it a shame to appeal to the most giving and law-abiding among us? By the way, didn't Mr. Bush win? And didn't the Republicans increase their majorities in both the House and Senate?
    Mrs. Whitman says the Republican Party has failed to reach out to "moderates" like herself. Then how did she get into the Bush Cabinet? How did Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudolph Giuliani get major speaking slots at the convention last year? How did Colin Powell get to be secretary of state?
    It appears that Mrs. Whitman is spending too much time reading the New York Times and/or watching CBS. She ought to take a look at a county- by-county election map. The red counties show that Mr. Bush's support was very broad in the heartland, while Sen. John Kerry's support was very narrow — the blue counties were mostly confined to the elitist enclaves along the coasts and the Great Lakes.

    GARY SOKOLA
    Mount Vernon
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M050106E   Lost in media translation
 

By Gary J. Andres

The 109th Congress convened this week amid numerous speeches and interviews by Democratic lawmakers announcing their continued quest to find the Holy Grail of Washington politics — bipartisanship. It has such a nice ring to it. Cooperation, conciliation, comity. "Voters didn't send us here to bicker. They want us to work together with the president and get things done," was a common refrain. But this cocktail served up early in every Congress has a familiar taste of naivete, the cynics will say — we've heard it all before.
    This White House talks bipartisanship, but walks the party line. Or does it? Many also wonder if the president's second term or the Democrats' defeat will make a difference. Will President Bush engage in a different style and substance in his relations with congressional Democrats because he has faced his last election and now his legacy is key? Will Democrats recalibrate their tactical engines and move beyond behavior that appears stuck in obstructionist high gear after losing four net Senate seats? The dance between the branches will no doubt vary in cooperation and affection based on the issue and the times. But those looking for a major tactical shift on either end of Pennsylvania Avenue will likely be disappointed. The level of bipartisanship on major issues probably won't change a great deal in the next four years, but contrary to conventional wisdom, it hasn't been that bad.
    Part of the problem with bipartisanship in Washington is who defines it. "The White House probably won't do a lot of negotiating with Democratic leaders in the House or Senate," a former Republican leadership aide told me. "But that doesn't mean they won't be working with and reaching out to rank-and-file Democrats." When the media writes stories about the legislative process, though, much of the focus is on the Democratic leadership, not about the Democrats who may have voted with the president.
    In other words, bipartisanship gets lost in media translation. This certainly was the case over the past several years on some of the president's tax-cut legislation and on Medicare reform. Nearly a quarter of the Senate Democratic Caucus supported those bills (12 voted for the first tax-cut bill in 2001 and 12 voted for the Medicare bill in 2003), yet because the Democratic leadership opposed them, they were not considered bipartisan. The No Child Left Behind bill passed the Senate 87-10. Unfortunately, the media instinctively turned to the Democratic leadership to judge if the White House is acting in a bipartisan manner. Bipartisanship will never measure up using that criterion.
    Bipartisanship is also defined differently for Republicans and Democrats by the press. As one former Senate aide told me, "We get a healthy number of Democrats on major bills, like tax cuts, Medicare and education — and even larger numbers on national security issues. But we get criticized for not being bipartisan enough or all the time. The Democrats pick off one of our moderates on an amendment and they're acting bipartisan?" Based on the track record in the Senate on these major issues he's right. The media either has selective memory or uses a double standard in evaluating the parties' bipartisan proclivities.
    Finally, the onus of "who's acting in a bipartisan manner" needs to flow in both directions. For example, if the White House generates support on any given proposal from moderate blue state enators like Olympia Snowe from Maine and Lincoln Chafee from Rhode Island, as well as conservatives from red states like Sam Brownback from Kansas and Jeff Sessions from Alabama, it's accomplished impressive breadth in ideological support. So if some Democratic senators oppose legislation under those circumstances, it begs the question: Is it the policy or the politics that drive Democratic opposition? Unfortunately, over the past five years, if the White House and Republicans were "for" something, many Democrats voted no, period. Blaming the president and Republicans for not pursuing bipartisanship under those criteria is an unfair criticism.
    Bipartisanship has not exited Washington; it's just ignored by the media. Over the next term, the White House will no doubt reach out to certain Democrats on key issues — such as Social Security, tax policy and litigation — just like it has over the past four years. These Democrats will join the president in trying to pass these initiatives. Democratic congressional leaders will not, however, be among this group of supporters. From the media's perspective that translates into a lack of bipartisanship. Reporters need a better measuring stick.
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L050104C  The undemocratic party
 

By Terence P. Jeffrey

If the process for confirming federal judges in the next session of Congress is at all like the last, the Democratic Party should change its name to the Undemocratic Party.
    Many of the American left's chief policy aims over the last 40 years — including legalized abortion on demand, race-based admissions for state-run colleges, and driving God and prayer out of American public life — were advanced not at the ballot box or in legislatures, but by unelected federal judges who enacted the liberal agenda by fiat from the bench.
    There was a simple reason for this: The American people had too much good sense to give the liberal agenda majority nationwide support. To win, liberals had to cheat the democratic system. To do that, they had to make sure the referees were on their side.
    It did not matter if a large majority of voters in a state backed a conservative initiative, or if a supermajority of the U.S. Congress enacted a conservative law. All the liberals needed to prevail was for one federal judge to take their side, and at least five members of the U.S. Supreme Court to rule for them if a conservative appeal made it that far.
    Time after time, conservatives have seen their legislative touchdown passes flagged by left-wing judges. In one of the most egregious examples of the 1990s, a federal judge tossed out California's Proposition 187, an initiative passed by 59 percent of the voters that simply said illegal aliens could not receive nonemergency public benefits in the state. This year, federal judges overruled the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, which had been enacted with support of 64 U.S. senators.
    As this undemocratic system of government-by-judges has become the settled way Americans decide major social issues, the primary role of the national Democratic Party has shifted from making sure liberal legislation gets through Congress to making sure constitutionalist judges do not.
    The last thing the Democrats want now is a federal bench dominated by fair and honest referees, who are guided by the rulebook known as the U.S. Constitution, not by the eccentric policy aims of the Democratic liberal elite.
    But democracy itself has at last cornered the Democratic Party. By electing and re-electing a Republican president and by expanding the Republican Senate majority — in national campaigns where the direction of the federal bench was an unambiguous issue — the American electorate has offered the Democrats a choice: confirm constitutionalists judges now, or become even more of a minority party tomorrow.
    President Bush shrewdly sharpened that choice for the Democrats last week when he announced intention to renominate 20 candidates for the federal bench who were blocked by Democrats in the last Congress.
    The best thing Mr. Bush can do in his second term to advance the cause of freedom in the United States is to secure the confirmation of constitutionalist justices to the Supreme Court. But the second best thing he can do is to drive more liberal Democrats out of the Senate by forcing them to fight against constitutionalist judicial nominees.
    In the last Congress, the Democrats blocked many Bush judicial nominees by invoking cloture, which requires a vote of 60 senators to bring a nomination to a final floor vote. The architect of these filibusters was then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat. He was defeated for re-election by conservative Republican former Rep. John Thune.
    Senate Republicans now ponder changing Senate rules to prohibit filibusters of judicial nominees.
    One possibility is called the "nuclear option," by which a simple majority of senators could affirm a ruling on the Senate floor by Vice President Dick Cheney that it is unconstitutional to filibuster judicial nominations.
    Recently in Human Events, Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, the outgoing Senate Judiciary chairman, suggested another possibility. In the last Senate, he and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, co-sponsored Senate Resolution 138 to change Senate filibuster rules. It "would apply only to nominations," said Mr. Hatch, "and require a declining supermajority on successive cloture votes — from 60, 57, 54, 51, and finally a majority of senators present and voting."
    Republicans could enact this change by a simple majority vote when they first adopt the rules for the incoming Senate.
    Whichever remedy the Republicans select, they are now in a win-win situation, as long as they fight for Mr. Bush's nominees. Either the Democrats cave and confirm the president's picks, or they continue obstructing democracy on the floor of the Senate and suffer the consequences in 2006.

    Terence P. Jeffrey, the editor of Human Events, is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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H050105C   Same-sex 'marriage' nonrights
 

By Thomas Sowell

In all states where same-sex "marriage" was on the ballot this year, voters rejected it — as they should have.
    Of all the phony arguments for homosexual "marriage," the phoniest is that it is a matter of equal rights. Marriage is not a right extended to individuals by the government. It is a restriction on rights they already have.
    People who simply live together can make whatever arrangements they wish, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. They can divide up their worldly belongings 50-50 or 90-10, or however they want. They can make their union temporary or permanent or cancellable at any time.
    Marriage is a restriction. If my wife buys an automobile with her own money, under California marriage laws I automatically own half of it, even if my name is not on the title. Whether good, bad or indifferent, that law limits our freedom to arrange such things as we ourselves might individually choose. This is just one of many decisions marriage laws take out of our hands.
    Oliver Wendell Holmes said the life of the law is not logic but experience. Marriage laws have evolved through centuries of experience with couples of opposite sexes — and the children that such unions produce. Society asserts its stake in the decisions made by restricting the couples' options.
    Society has no such stake in the outcome of a union between two persons of the same sex. Transferring all those laws to same-sex couples would make no more sense than transferring the rules of baseball to football.
    Why then do homosexual activists want their options restricted by marriage laws, when they can make their own contracts with their own provisions and hold all sorts of ceremonies to celebrate it? The issue is not individual rights. What the activists seek is official social approval of their lifestyle.
    But this is the antithesis of equal rights. If you have a right to someone else's approval, they don't have a right to their own opinions and values. You cannot say what "consenting adults" do in private is nobody else's business and then turn around and say others must approve of it.
    The rhetoric of "equal rights" has become the road to special privilege for all sorts of groups, so perhaps it was inevitable homosexual activists would take that road too. It has worked. They have already got far more government money earmarked for AIDS than for other diseases that kill far more people.
    We're long overdue for calling a halt on "equal rights" word games leading to special privileges — for anybody — and same-sex "marriage" is as good a place to do it as anywhere.
    Incidentally, it is not even clear how many homosexuals actually want marriage, though homosexual activists are pushing it. What the activists really want is the stamp of acceptance on homosexuality, as a means of spreading that lifestyle, which has become a deathstyle in the AIDS era.
    They have already succeeded to a remarkable degree in our public schools, where so-called "AIDS education" or other pious titles are put on programs that promote homosexuality. In some cases, homosexual activists actually come to the schools, not only to promote homosexuality as an idea but even to pass out to the kids the addresses of local homosexual hangouts.
    There is no limit to what people will do if you let them get away with it. That our schools, which are painfully failing to educate our children to the standards in other countries, have time for promoting homosexuality is truly staggering.
    Every special interest group has an incentive to take something away from society as a whole. Some will be content just to siphon off a share of the taxpayers' money. But others want to dismantle some of the values that make a society viable.
    They may not want to bring down the whole values structure, just get rid of the part that cramps their style. But when innumerable groups start dismantling pieces they don't like, we can be headed for the sorts of social collapses seen both in history and in other parts of the world in our own times.

    Thomas Sowell is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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E050105   CALIFORNIA   Church school roiled by gay parent issue

    COSTA MESA — Some parents and parishioners have accused the Roman Catholic diocese in Orange County of violating church doctrine by allowing two homosexual men to enroll their adopted children in a church school.
    St. John the Baptist School in Costa Mesa rejected a demand from a group of parents that the school accept children only from families that pledge to abide by Catholic teachings, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
    "The teachings of the church seem to have been abandoned," John R. Nixon told the paper. "We send our children to a Catholic school because we expect and demand that the teachings of our church will be adhered to."
    Catholic teaching opposes adoption by homosexuals, and some parents have promised to ask the Vatican to intervene in the situation at St. John the Baptist.
    "The boys are being used as pawns by these men to further their agenda," said Monica Sii, who has four children at the school.
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L050103   The 'bull's-eye'
    James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, warns in a letter that some senators "will be in the 'bull's-eye' " if they block President Bush's judicial nominees.
    A letter from Mr. Dobson to supporters of Focus on the Family, the Colorado Springs-based group he founded, suggests that outgoing Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, was defeated in November in part for blocking votes on Bush nominees, the Associated Press reports.
    "Let his colleagues beware, especially those representing 'red' states," Mr. Dobson says, a reference to states that voted for Mr. Bush. "Many of them will be in the 'bull's-eye' the next time they seek re-election."
    He cites Democrats Bill Nelson of Florida, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia.
    Mr. Dobson's letter was sent to 1.2 million members of Focus on the Family Action, an arm of his organization established last year to allow public advocacy that would otherwise threaten the parent group's tax-exempt status, said Paul Hetrick, a vice president of the parent organization.
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H050104   RHODE ISLAND   Ruling requested on same-sex benefits
    TIVERTON — The Tiverton School Committee asked a judge whether it can extend health care coverage to the same-sex partner of a retired high school teacher.
    Cheryl McCullough, who worked as a health teacher and guidance counselor at Tiverton High School for 27 years, applied for health insurance for Joyce Boivin in June, days after the couple were "married" in their home state of Massachusetts, where same-sex unions are recognized.
    Attorneys for both sides say this is the first case of this kind in Rhode Island, where the law is silent on homosexual "marriage."
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R050105   WISCONSIN   Court OKs plan to sell Commandments statue
    MADISON — The city of La Crosse's decision to sell a Ten Commandments monument and the land around it to a private service group was constitutional and not made to advance religion, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
    The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 that the city's sale of the statue and a surrounding 22-by-20-foot plot of land in a public park to the Fraternal Order of Eagles was proper.
    The city sold the parcel to the Eagles after the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and two La Crosse residents sued in 2002, seeking the monument's removal and arguing that the display violated the separation of church and state.
    A federal judge in Madison ruled that the sale was a sham and ordered the monument's removal, but the appeals court ruled that the sale to the Eagles made sense.
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R050105   Cornyn's view
    "At every new year, Americans traditionally reflect on the past, identify problems that need fixing, and adopt New Year's resolutions," Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, writes at National Review Online (www.national review.com).
    "In that same spirit, the Senate needs a New Year's resolution to fix its broken process for considering the president's judicial nominees. To do so, however, we must first recognize that liberal interest groups in Washington have prevented the Senate from confirming several of this president's judicial nominees for one simple reason: They just don't want judges who will just apply the law as written," Mr. Cornyn said.
    "These liberal interest groups want judges who will redefine marriage and condemn the Boy Scouts, expel the military from college campuses and purge the public square of expressions of faith. They want courts to ignore the three-strikes-and-you're-out law and give lenient sentences to convicted criminals, block school-choice programs designed to expand educational opportunities to minority communities, and require better treatment for terrorists than for ordinary Americans accused of a crime. They want judicial activists who believe that our civil rights are violated anytime a public-school teacher recites the Pledge of Allegiance, a county clerk issues a wedding license only to the union of one man and one woman, a terrorist is denied access to cookware or athletic equipment, or a Boy Scout troop is allowed onto a military base.
    "These groups want judges who will impose their agenda on the nation by judicial fiat — regardless of what the American people have said at the ballot box. And they will do anything to oppose judges who will not blindly rule in their favor.
    "The commencement of a new Congress this week provides the perfect opportunity for senators to resolve to reform the judicial-confirmation process. An important first step in reform, however, is recognizing that these liberal interest groups have invented a series of double standards to defeat this president's judicial nominees. The Senate must resolve to reject these absurd double standards and restore fair and traditional standards in the coming year."
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R050105   Man of prayer
    Here, word for word, is what President Bush wrote above his signature in the condolence books of four foreign embassies — those of Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Thailand — the countries most affected by last week's deadly tsunami.
    Indonesia: "May God bless all who suffer."
    India: "We pray for the victims of this terrible disaster and we stand firmly with the people of India as she recovers."
    Sri Lanka: "We pray for victims and families of this epic disaster, and the American government and American people are dedicated to helping you recover."
    Thailand: "We pray for the victims and families of this epic disaster. The American people and government stand with you as you recover and rebuild."
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R050105   Whitman book hits Bush, Rove
 

By Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Republican Party is being "dictated to by a coalition of ideological extremists," a former Bush administration Cabinet official says in a new book that blames President Bush and his top political strategist for failing to bring more "blue states" into the Republican column in November.
    Christie Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who resigned her post as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in May 2003, says Mr. Bush and adviser Karl Rove were wrong in their strategy of boosting turnout among the party's voting base of political "extremists" on the right, including evangelical Christians.
    In her new book, "It's My Party Too: The Battle for the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America" — due in bookstores Jan. 31 — Mrs. Whitman says the Republican Party has failed to reach out to "moderates" like herself.
    The Republican Party "at the national level is allowing itself to be dictated to by a coalition of ideological extremists — I call them social fundamentalists — groups that have claimed the mantle of conservatism and show no inclination to seek bipartisan consensus on anything," Mrs. Whitman writes in the book.
    A spokeswoman for Penguin, the book's publisher, said yesterday that Mrs. Whitman would not grant interviews until the official release date.
    Fellow Republicans reacted sharply to the arguments Mrs. Whitman makes in advance copies of her book.
    The Republican Party is winning elections by "sticking to our principles of trusting free people and free enterprise," said Sen. George Allen of Virginia, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
    "I take issue with her prescription," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican. "Our winning the White House again and increasing our majorities in the House and Senate show that most of the American public agrees with our philosophy of government."
    Mrs. Whitman says her party should move away from those she calls "zealots" in the social conservative movement and return to the party's fiscal conservative roots.
    "We all agree that fiscal responsibility is important," said Mrs. Blackburn, adding that for her that means "reducing taxes and spending."
    Although Mrs. Whitman's book is critical of the influence of religious conservatives in the Republican Party, Mrs. Blackburn said, "Most people believe in faith, family and freedom as the underpinning of our society. When we talk about that faith and draw on it, that's positive. I don't think that's fundamentalism, and I don't think that's what's wrong with our country or our party. That's America."
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L050105   Morning-after pill access fails to cut pregnancy rate
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Women's health care advocates have been urging the federal government to allow easy access to "morning-after" pills as a way to dramatically reduce unintended pregnancies.
    However, a study released today undercuts that argument by showing that young sexually active women who were handed packages of "morning-after" pills had pregnancy rates six months later that were virtually the same as women who had to go to drugstores or clinics to get the pills.
    "That was definitely a disappointing finding," said Tina R. Raine, lead researcher of the study of 2,117 women, which appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
    A core hypothesis, she said, was that two groups of women with easy access to "emergency contraception" (EC) would have half as many pregnancies as women who had to see a health provider to get the pills. Instead, all three groups of women had pregnancy rates of around 8 percent.
    Nevertheless, EC should still be available without a prescription, said Dr. Raine, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco.
    That's because the study also showed that when women had easy access to EC, they used the pills more often, but they didn't take more sexual risks or get more sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), as some have feared.
    Given these findings, "it seems unreasonable to restrict access to EC to clinics," Dr. Raine and her colleagues wrote.
    Concerned Women for America analyst Wendy Wright, an opponent of EC, disagreed.
    "Why make [EC] easily available and put women's health at risk if it doesn't even reduce what the women fear, which is pregnancy?" she said.
    Emergency contraception refers to high-dose birth-control pills taken within 72 hours of unprotected sexual intercourse. The pills, used by 4 percent of women, can interrupt ovulation, fertilization or implantation. All but six states require a prescription to get EC.
    Most women's health advocates believe that half of the nation's estimated 3.5 million unintended pregnancies could be prevented if EC were widely available, especially to teens and college-age women. They believe the pills are safe and effective, and they have launched campaigns urging the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow the nation's primary EC product, Plan B, owned by Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., to be sold without a prescription.
    Opponents of EC, such as Miss Wright, worry that easy access to EC will encourage irresponsible sexual behavior and STDs.
    Studies of EC in Britain show easy access to the pills causes "an increase in STDs and no decrease in the number of abortions," she said.
    In 2003, two FDA advisory panels recommended that the FDA approve Plan B for over-the-counter sales, but in May, the FDA declined, saying it was concerned about teens using the product without medical supervision.
    A spokeswoman for Barr Pharmaceuticals yesterday said they have resubmitted Plan B paperwork and are expecting another FDA response this month.
    The Raine study, conducted between 2001 and 2003, divided 2,117 sexually active women, aged 15 to 24, into three groups. One group received free packages of Plan B, another group was told how to get Plan B for free at drugstores and a third group was told how to get Plan B by appointment from a health clinic.
    A key hypothesis was that, six months later, women in the two groups with the easiest access to EC would have 5 percent pregnancy rates, compared with a 10 percent pregnancy rate expected for women who had to go to a clinic to get Plan B.
    But the three groups still got pregnant at about the same rate: Eight percent of the women with Plan B at home became pregnant, as did 7.1 percent of women with "pharmacy access" and 8.7 percent of women with "clinic access."
    This may be because many women with Plan B at home didn't use it after unprotected sex, Dr. Raine said. Also, some women in the non-clinic groups still went to clinics and this "cross-over may have diminished our ability to demonstrate a difference" in pregnancy rates, she wrote.
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R050106   Atheist tries again
    An atheist who sued because he did not want his young daughter exposed to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has filed another lawsuit — this time with other parents.
    Michael Newdow won his case more than two years ago before a federal appeals court, which said it was an unconstitutional blending of church and state for public schools to require students to pledge to God.
    In June, however, the Supreme Court dismissed the case, saying Mr. Newdow could not lawfully sue because he did not have custody of his elementary-school daughter and because the girl's mother objected to the lawsuit.
    In the latest challenge filed Monday in federal court in Sacramento, Calif., eight co-plaintiffs have joined the suit, and all are either custodial parents or the children themselves, Mr. Newdow said.
    The plaintiffs' names have been withheld from the lawsuit, the Associated Press reports.
    "It's because of the potential adverse impacts of having your name on a case like this. That's why they are not named," Mr. Newdow said yesterday.
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H050106   Searching the closet
    The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest U.S. homosexual-rights group, announced this week that it has formed a 25-member committee to search for a new executive director, in the wake of HRC chief Cheryl Jacques' Nov. 30 resignation announcement.
    However, HRC did not name the members of its search committee, prompting San Francisco AIDS activist Michael Petrelis to ask if "closet cases" are running the search.
    "Maybe the committee members are embarrassed to be associated with the gay community. Perhaps they're not fully out of the closet, or they just don't want their names released," says Mr. Petrelis, a former resident of the District, where he was active with the local chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP).
    "Whatever the reason for the secrecy, it doesn't say much about HRC's commitment to transparency and accountability to the community it purports to represent."
    Gwen Baba, co-chairwoman of the HRC board of directors, and Vic Basile, co-chairman of the HRC Foundation board of directors, will lead the committee, the group announced in a Monday press release. And while the names of individual search committee members will not be released publicly, Mr. Basile characterized the group as "diverse."
    Miss Jacques' resignation in November widely was interpreted as a reaction to HRC's failed efforts to defeat President Bush on Election Day, when voters in 11 states approved ballot measures effectively prohibiting recognition of same-sex "marriage" — and "moral values" was cited as the No. 1 issue in exit polls.
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R050106   Law firm readies sex-abuse suits
 

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A Washington law firm that demanded a year ago today the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington settle accounts relating to clergy sexual abuse hopes to file claims within the next few months on behalf of 20 victims.
    But Kevin Baine, a lawyer with Williams & Connolly, the D.C. firm representing the archdiocese, questions the claims of lawyers for Greenberg-Traurig, which is representing the potential plaintiffs.
    "So far, they've produced nothing relating to any priest of the archdiocese," he said. "If they come forward with a series of demands, we will address them."
    Plus, "there is no evidence that any active priest of the archdiocese has ever been involved in sexual abuse," he added, "and there are not at this point proceedings or negotiations relating to any claims of abuse" by archdiocesan priests.
    Greenberg-Traurig, which represented 227 of the 541 victims who overall won an $85 million sexual-abuse settlement from the Boston Archdiocese in 2003, says it is still completing the legwork needed to demand a similar settlement from the Washington Archdiocese, possibly in the next few months.
    "We've presented formal demands on behalf of only a few clients," said Peter Gillon, the lead lawyer for Greenberg-Traurig in the case. "I just want to say that the investigation and development of these cases takes time, and we are proceeding deliberately."
    "We haven't made big demands yet," he added. "But when we do present our claims, they will be backed up by a lot of detailed histories and supporting evidence."
    The firm's 20 clients are all in their mid-40s and 19 of them are men. The law firm said it is focusing on the victims of "a number" of former priests, at least 10 of whom have been convicted of sexual abuse in criminal courts or sanctioned by the archdiocese.
    In November 2003, the archdiocese said 26 priests over a 56-year period had been credibly accused of abuse and $4.3 million was spent compensating 119 victims. Eighty-five percent of the abuse occurred before 1980.
    Two months later, Greenberg-Traurig sent a letter to the archdiocese that claimed the church had "taken a path of denial and resistance" despite "credible allegations of a pattern of abuse in Washington and Maryland that is identical to the pattern we have encountered in Boston, Chicago and other locales."
    Since the letter, Mr. Gillon said, attorneys for the archdiocese have been "cooperative," and that the archdiocese has been more willing to pay for professional counseling by therapists chosen by the victims instead of the church.
    But Mr. Baine said Greenberg-Traurig has only made one demand this past year, which concerns two boys abused in the 1970s in Montgomery County by a seminarian, Wayland Brown, who later became a priest in Savannah, Ga. He was tried and convicted in 2003 of sexual abuse against the two boys.
    The archdiocese, which covers the District and five Maryland counties, including Montgomery and Prince George's, has benefited from state laws that require child sex-abuse victims to sue for civil damages before age 25.
    "But many victims do not disclose abuse until their 30s or 40s," said Ellen Mugman, former legislative chairman for the Maryland Council on Child Abuse and Neglect. "You limit significantly the number of victims who can sue the archdioceses of Washington and Maryland because the limits are so stringent."
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R050108M   Atheist sues to ban hand on Bible
 

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The California lawyer who tried to have the phrase "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance now wants to legally prevent President Bush from placing his hand on a Bible while being sworn in at his inauguration.
    Michael Newdow, an atheist doctor and lawyer from Sacramento, has filed a complaint and a motion for preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to remove prayer and all "Christian religious acts" from the Jan. 20 inauguration.
    Mr. Newdow, 50, asserts that the presence of Christian ministers who pray publicly at the inauguration, Christian songs and the swearing of the oath of office while a president places a hand on the Bible violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
    Such practices turn people "into second-class citizens and create division on the basis of religion," he said yesterday.
    "It is an offense of the highest magnitude that the leader of our nation — while swearing to uphold the Constitution — publicly violates that very document upon taking his oath of office," Mr. Newdow wrote in his Dec. 17 filing. "The demands of strict scrutiny have not been met, and defendants must be enjoined from their planned religious activities."
    The Constitution does not require the new president to place his hand on a Bible while repeating the oath. The tradition has been kept since George Washington — with the exception of Theodore Roosevelt, who did not use a Bible when he took the oath after President William McKinley's 1901 assassination.
    The Revs. Franklin Graham and Kirbyjon Caldwell delivered Christian invocations at President Bush's 2001 inauguration. Inaugural organizers have yet to announce who will pray this year, but they confirmed there will be an invocation and a benediction by ministers chosen by the president.
    The White House and the Presidential Inaugural Committee, which is one of three inaugural organizational bodies, declined to comment on Mr. Newdow's actions but a response to his filing was due yesterday.
    A hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday, Mr. Newdow said.
    Mr. Newdow's efforts are "part of a march toward removing every vestige of religion from American public life," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a D.C.-based public interest law firm.
    "There is a progressive move toward secularism that we've got to combat pretty aggressively," he said.
    The center is filing an amicus brief in support of the defendants in this case..
    The legal debate centers on two Supreme Court cases — Marsh v. Chambers in 1983 and Lee v. Weisman in 1992.
    The argument in favor of prayer at the inauguration is based on the establishment of chaplains in Congress at its inception, before the Bill of Rights was passed prohibiting any "law respecting an establishment of religion."
    When the presence of chaplains in the Nebraska state legislature was legally challenged in 1983 by Ernest Chambers, a Nebraska lawmaker, the Supreme Court ruled against him, saying the practice had a "special nook" because it was a long-standing practice to have government-paid chaplains.
    "The Supreme Court has given its constitutional blessing, so to speak," said Mr. Sekulow. "We should not lose our history and the religious underpinnings it is founded on."
    However, Mr. Newdow makes a distinction between prayer in government chambers and prayer at a presidential inauguration.
    "This is the most important public ceremony we have in our public existence, the inauguration," he said. "This is public, not just for" lawmakers.
    The presence of Christian influence and prayer, Mr. Newdow said, have forced him to contemplate not using his ticket to the inauguration because he does not want to feel like "an outsider."
    Mr. Newdow filed a similar suit in the San-Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year. The court threw out the suit, calling it "futile" and said that Mr. Newdow had not suffered "a sufficiently concrete and specific injury," the Associated Press reported.
    Mr. Newdow first became a national figure when he argued before the Supreme Court last March to remove the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. The court dismissed his case on the grounds that he could not represent his 10-year-old daughter, who is in the custody of his ex-wife and believes in God.
    In addition to his quest to remove Christian activities from the inauguration, Mr. Newdow has renewed his quest to remove "under God" from the pledge by filing a new suit in California federal court on behalf of eight other parents.
    Mr. Newdow is a licensed minister of atheism, though he says he and members of his Internet church worship nobody. He says church members instead encourage a way of thinking.
    "Question everything," said Mr. Newdow, summing up his worldview. "Be honest. Do what's right. Stand up for principle."
    When asked how to determine what is right, Mr. Newdow said, "I use my brain."
    Mr. Newdow states in his complaint that he "sincerely believes that there is no such thing as god, or God, or any supernatural force." On the contrary, he believes "supernatural" is an oxymoron. "Thus, plaintiff denies the existence of God."
    The Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, said Mr. Newdow's filing marks "the day we have been warning America would come."
    "Mr. Newdow should be ashamed for seeking this injunction against his fellow citizens," he said. "We, as Americans, need to awaken and deal with these threats to religious liberty, cynically disguised as 'civil liberties' defense."
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R050109M   Newdow targets use of clergy
 

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

California atheist Michael Newdow said yesterday that his legal attack on "Christian religious acts" in this year's presidential inauguration specifically targets only those performed by clergymen.
    "I have never sued to have anyone keep his or her hand off of a Bible," Mr. Newdow said in response to yesterday's story published in The Washington Times regarding his lawsuit. "As my prayer for relief and judgment specifies, I sought only the prohibition of using clergymen to further religion."
    Mr. Newdow filed his 16-page complaint Dec. 17 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
    "The demands of strict scrutiny have not been met and defendants must be enjoined from their planned religious activities," the lawsuit states.
    A hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday.
    The lawsuit also states: "It is an offense of the highest magnitude that the leader of our nation, while swearing to uphold the Constitution, publicly violates that very document upon taking his oath of office."
    Mr. Newdow also said yesterday he sought "only the respect and equal protection that the Constitution requires from our government."
    Mr. Newdow, 50, a doctor, lawyer and licensed minister of atheism, says Christian ministers praying publicly at the inauguration violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
    At President Bush's 2001 inauguration, two ministers, the Rev. Franklin Graham and the Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, delivered Christian invocations. Inauguration organizers have yet to announce who will pray this year, but confirmed there will be an invocation and a benediction by ministers chosen by the president.
    Such prayers turn non-Christians "into second-class citizens and create division on the basis of religion," Mr. Newdow said Friday.
    The legal debate centers on two Supreme Court cases — Marsh v. Chambers in 1983 and Lee v. Weisman in 1992.
    The argument in favor of clergy at the inauguration is based on the establishment of chaplains in Congress at its inception, before the Bill of Rights was passed including a prohibition of any "law respecting an establishment of religion."
    When the presence of chaplains in the Nebraska Legislature was legally challenged in 1983 by Ernest Chambers, a Nebraska lawmaker, the Supreme Court ruled against him, saying the practice had a "special nook" because it was a long-standing tradition to have government-paid chaplains.
    "The Supreme Court has given its constitutional blessing, so to speak," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a District-based public-interest law firm. "We should not lose our history and the religious underpinnings it is founded on."
    Mr. Newdow filed a similar suit in San Francisco's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year. The court threw out the suit, calling it "futile" and saying that Mr. Newdow had not suffered "a sufficiently concrete and specific injury," the Associated Press reported.
    Mr. Newdow first became a national figure when he argued before the Supreme Court last March to remove the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. The court dismissed his case on the grounds that he lacked standing and could not represent his 10-year-old daughter, who is in the custody of his ex-wife and believes in God.
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O050109L   Whitman's book doesn't get it
 
    Christie Whitman says President Bush and political strategist Karl Rove were "wrong in their strategy of boosting turnout among the party's voting base of political 'extremists' on the right, including evangelical Christians," ("Whitman book hits Bush, Rove," Nation, Wednesday). Heaven forbid. No pun intended. Is it a shame to appeal to the most giving and law-abiding among us? By the way, didn't Mr. Bush win? And didn't the Republicans increase their majorities in both the House and Senate?
    Mrs. Whitman says the Republican Party has failed to reach out to "moderates" like herself. Then how did she get into the Bush Cabinet? How did Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudolph Giuliani get major speaking slots at the convention last year? How did Colin Powell get to be secretary of state?
    It appears that Mrs. Whitman is spending too much time reading the New York Times and/or watching CBS. She ought to take a look at a county- by-county election map. The red counties show that Mr. Bush's support was very broad in the heartland, while Sen. John Kerry's support was very narrow — the blue counties were mostly confined to the elitist enclaves along the coasts and the Great Lakes.
 
    GARY SOKOLA
    Mount Vernon
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R050109L   Protect against activist judges
    The article "Rehnquist backs life tenure for judges" (Page 1, Jan. 1) is disturbing. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist believes judges should not be punished by Congress because of their decisions and lifetime tenure is needed to protect their independence.
    Unfortunately, Chief Justice Rehnquist has forgotten that the intention of the Founding Fathers in writing the Constitution was for the legislative branch to be the most important and most powerful branch and the judiciary the least important and least powerful.
    The Constitution places many functions of the judiciary under the oversight of the legislative and executive branches, but the judiciary has no oversight power over the other branches. Because our constitutional republic was to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people, our Founders knew that the most powerful branch needed to be chosen by the people and, as such, accountable to the people.
    The judiciary, on the other hand, is not accountable to the people and therefore should be the weakest branch of the government. Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers that "the Judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power ... the general liberty of the people can never be endangered from that quarter."
    Although the judiciary was given the authority to review laws and judge them against the Constitution, it was to do so, as Hamilton stated, as "faithful guardians of the Constitution."
    Unfortunately, this is where the judicial branch has gone astray. Laws were to be judged only against the specific, self-evident wording of the Constitution and no more; to do otherwise would make judges policy-makers.
    Hamilton stated that the judiciary was forbidden to substitute its own pleasure for the constitutional intentions of the legislature. Instead of protecting our inalienable rights stated in the Constitution, the judiciary has removed them without any accountability to the people.
    Our only recourse is for Congress to do its constitutional duty and remove activist judges.
 
    CARL RUGGIERO
    Stafford, Va.
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O050107   Tsunami orphans not up for adoption, agencies say
 

By Richard S. Ehrlich and Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Asian children orphaned by the tsunami last month aren't immediately available for adoption, and may never be, international and U.S. adoption experts said this week.
    "I think there will be a real need for orphanages in this region now," said John Quinley, an executive director of Youth With a Mission (YWAM), a Montana-based evangelical Christian service group that is assisting tsunami victims in Phuket, Thailand.
    Since the Dec. 26 tsunami, countless Americans have called adoption agencies inquiring about adopting children who appear to have been orphaned.
    Susan Soon-keum Cox of Holt International Children's Services said people want to adopt children instead of giving money. The Eugene, Ore.-based organization specializes in international adoptions, including from India and Thailand.
    "Some people really think they can just get on a plane and bring home a child," Mrs. Cox said.
    She, however, said this scenario isn't like the one in 1989 when Romania's government was overthrown and the country's orphanage doors were thrown open.
    "Those [Romanian children] really were orphans," Mrs. Cox said, adding that tsunami survivors still might have family members alive.
    The State Department has issued a statement that says "it is not possible for U.S. citizens to adopt these children, for several reasons." One reason is that some children are being reconnected as quickly as possible with surviving family members, who most likely will become their caretakers.
    Of the four hardest-hit tsunami countries, India and Thailand are the most amenable to foreign adoption. Every year, hundreds of Indian children and dozens of Thai children are adopted by U.S. families, according to the State Department.
    But foreign adoption, at least by Americans, is almost unknown in heavily Muslim Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Five or fewer U.S. immigration visas a year are issued for children from either of the two countries, primarily because of prohibitions on non-Muslims adopting Muslim children.
    Foreign adoptions of tsunami victims are illegal, Sri Lankan and Indonesian officials said this week. In a crackdown on illegal trafficking of children, the Sri Lankan government said neither its citizens nor children's relatives can adopt children without the government's approval. Officials in Indonesia said adoptions in Aceh were banned and that it is illegal for children 16 or younger to be taken out of the province without their parents.
    Adoption advocates have been gently educating Americans about foreign adoptions.
    "Although we empathize with these heartfelt impulses, we must advise patience and caution," the National Council for Adoption said on its Web site.
    The group said established child-welfare procedures must be followed to ensure that children truly are orphaned and have no other family members to take care of them, and that adoptions are conducted ethically.
    In Phuket, Mr. Quinley said, young tsunami survivors have been brought to hospitals, emergency shelters and into neighbors' care but will require long-term, secure upbringing.
    "Someone on our team has just been talking to a lady who has had quite a bit to do with seeing orphanages open in Asia. So I think there will be that need," said Mr. Quinley, 47, who grew up near Virginia Beach and has been working with YWAM in Thailand for the past 16 years.
    In addition to relief and development work, YWAM operates orphanages in Thailand, which Americans and others can contact to adopt Thai children, Mr. Quinley said, though children from the tsunami-hit zones aren't available.
    "The Thai government has a very clear system set up about adoption," and the process of freeing children for adoption may take months or years, Mr. Quinley said.
    •Richard S. Ehrlich filed his report from Phuket, Thailand.
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