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
L050507      Stem-cell institute to have San Francisco headquarters
L050512      Stem-cell vote

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H050510    Gays, women react alike to scent
H050508      Democrats set to endorse gay 'marriage'
H050511      Social engineers
H050514      Gay 'marriage' ruling energizes foes

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050508     Episcopal bishop tells dissidents to leave
R050508C   Filibuster passions
R050508L   Liberals are clueless
R050509     N.C. pastor glosses over political furor
R050509E   Filibusters and misleading phrases
R050509E   Stereotypes and filibusters
R050510   Bush raps judicial filibuster
R050510     Frist plans to use 'option' on nomination of Owen
R050510E   Stop the filibustering
R050511      NORTH CAROLINA   Pastor resigns in politics fight
R050511      Time to act on issue of judges, Frist says
R0505113    Reid cites FBI file on judicial pick
R050511E    Democrats and the filibuster
R050512      GOP pulls evenin PR battle over nominees
R050512      Parties debate filibuster history
R050512      Pastor in flap over politics quits N. Carolina church
R050512E    Unprecedented obstructionism
R050513      LOUISIANA   Vitter backs prayers at school meetings
R050513      Pryor passes
R050513C   Judgeship jousting
R050513E   Spinning the Fortas filibuster
R050513L   Misinformation about judges
R050514      GOP decries 'stunt' by Reid
R050514      U.S. archbishop new Vatican enforcer

EDUCATION
E0505010    PTA conference disallows equal access for ex-gays
E050507Md Suspension of sex-ed course angers some supporters
E050508L    Teaching the Bible
E050508Md Graduates' morality praised
E050509C    Veggie porn in school?
E050509E    A setback for Rockville's sexperts
E050510Md Curriculum foes press sex-ed suit
E050511Md Schools expected to defer on sex-ed
E050512Md Cucumber will have to wait for its film debut
E050514L    The National Parent-Teacher Association has a lot of explaining to do

MEDIA
M050511   Media spin
M050508C  'Alleged' tilt at PBS
M050510C  PBS dial dynamics
M050511     Conservatives rally around DeLay
M050512E   Media's 'silent spring'

OTHER
O0505010    Cohabitation ban challenged
O050511      Lessons on 'values voters' in demand
O050512L   Do you know where your teens are?
O050513     Pass the popcorn
O050514     Dobson seen as champion by the conservative culture

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L050507   Stem-cell institute to have San Francisco headquarters

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- San Francisco was chosen yesterday as the headquarters for California's new stem-cell agency, beating out San Diego, Sacramento and Emeryville.
    The stem-cell institute was created in November after voters overwhelmingly approved a measure allowing the state to borrow $3 billion to fund human embryonic stem-cell research.
    Plans call for a 17,000-square-foot office with a maximum of 50 employees who will help dole out nearly $300 million in research grants annually over 10 years.
    No actual stem-cell research is planned at the headquarters, but supporters said winning the bid would give the successful city scientific and marketing prestige that can be used to attract biotechnology companies.
    ?There is no question it will be an anchor for business,? San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said after the vote. ?This secures our future as a point of destination for discovery.?
    Mr. Newsom said his city's bid is worth $17 million in perks, including 10 years of free rent at a building near the new research labs at the University of California and the Giants baseball stadium.
    San Francisco also will provide 2,600 free hotel rooms and discounts on another 14,000 rooms, which he said were worth $900,000. It will also give the center free access to several conference centers and free use of 46,000 square feet of laboratory space at San Francisco General Hospital.
    Sacramento and San Diego offered free rent and other multimillion-dollar perks. The 29-member committee that oversees the new Institute for Regenerative Medicine made the final decision.
    Two lawsuits have been filed against the institute -- one alleging that its oversight of $3 billion is illegal and the other claiming the proposition language that created the agency was unconstitutional.
    The institute can't borrow any money while the lawsuits are pending unless it files a special lawsuit called a ?validation suit? to ensure lenders they will get paid back. Board Chairman Bob Klein said the agency is considering such a move. He has said both lawsuits are without merit.
    The board yesterday appointed 15 scientists from outside California to oversee the grant-application process. Institute officials said they hope to begin awarding modest individual grants by November.
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R050508   Episcopal bishop tells dissidents to leave
 

By Hugh Aynesworth
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

MIDLAND, Texas -- Many parishioners in a small but active Episcopal congregation in Midland are reeling after an order from their bishop to leave church property if they can't adhere to the tenets of the national Episcopal church.
    It is the latest episode in an ongoing feud over values within the church -- one that peaked in 2003 when the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA) named a homosexual, V. Gene Robinson, as bishop of New Hampshire.
    The Rev. Jon Stasney, rector of St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Midland, said he received word Monday from Bishop Wallis Ohl that those who disagreed with the national church should "leave the property by June 1."
    The move came after months of negotiation with Bishop Ohl, an effort to keep the congregation together regardless of the ideological split within the church.
    "Most members did not desire to be affiliated with ECUSA," said the Rev. Jonathan Hartzer, associate rector. "St. Nicholas representatives asked the bishop to help work out a mutual solution that would keep the congregation together."
    The bishop attended a meeting March 31 with church members, during which they voted on their preferences.
    Eighty-nine percent of those who voted said they did not want to be affiliated with ECUSA but rather wanted to remain a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, although not as Episcopalians.
    Bishop Ohl informed church leaders last week that those opposed to ECUSA should leave the premises. In a letter of explanation, he said:
    "I believe that in the long-run, delaying the decision would have been much more difficult for all involved. The animosity between the factions of what currently constitutes St. Nicholas Episcopal Church was not ameliorating; in fact it was becoming more exacerbated with each passing week. I do not believe that is good for the souls of those who wish to depart the Episcopal Church to remain in the close proximity relationship that currently exists."
    As it stands, the 31 who voted to remain in the national Episcopal church will continue to attend St. Nicholas, with financial help from the diocese. The others will find another home.
    Not to worry, Mr. Stasney said yesterday. The group already has a handful of offers for temporary relief.
    He said there had been "an outpouring of support from the community," and one Catholic church, an independent charismatic group and two smaller churches have offered to share quarters with his flock.
    Though Bishop Robinson's appointment became the biggest rallying point for those who believe the national church has strayed from biblical teaching, the national church's blessing of same-sex unions and other liberal stances have intensified that split.
    "The battle in the Episcopal church and other denominations is not just about homosexuality," Mr. Stasney said. "It's about whether or not we are going to remain true to the biblical faith and 2000 years of apostolic teaching."
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H050508   Democrats set to endorse gay 'marriage'
 

By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Massachusetts Democrats are preparing to endorse same-sex "marriage" in their party platform this week, reopening a bitter split among national party leaders, some of whom fear the issue will hurt their campaign to win back majority status in Congress.
    State Democrats plan to embrace same-sex "marriage" at their party convention Saturday, despite deep disagreement over the issue between the state's two U.S. senators, an arms-length posture by the national party, and a public backlash against it that has spawned a political movement to ban it in state law and at the federal level in the U.S. Constitution.
    Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts -- the party's 2004 presidential nominee, who opposes same-sex "marriage," but favors state-sanctioned civil unions -- lashed out at his party's plans Thursday during an appearance in Baton Rouge, La., suggesting that it could only further alienate swing voters.
    "I'm opposed to it being in a platform. I think it's a mistake," Mr. Kerry told the Boston Globe. "I think it's the wrong thing, and I'm not sure it reflects the broad view of the Democratic Party in our state. I'm opposed to gay marriage. I support partnerships and civil unions."
    But a spokesman for the state's senior senator, Edward M. Kennedy, said soon after Mr. Kerry's remarks that Mr. Kennedy wholeheartedly backed the proposed platform plank.
    However, that is not the position of the Democratic National Committee, whose chairman, Howard Dean of Vermont, helped enact civil unions in his state as governor.
    "We've been saying that state parties have every right to establish their own party platform and several states' views differ on that from the national party," DNC spokeswoman Laura Gross said. "The national party platform supports civil unions. Governor Dean supports the national party platform."
    Actually, the platform, approved in July at the DNC's national convention in Boston, does not specifically mention civil unions, but instead says: "We support full inclusion of gay and lesbian families in the life of our nation and seek equal responsibilities, benefits and protections for these families."
    It also says that marriage "should continue to be defined" at the state level and that the party is opposed to a "federal marriage amendment" in the U.S. Constitution.
    Massachusetts is the only state that has legalized civil marriage for same-sex couples, although Democratic parties in New York, Washington state and California have passed resolutions endorsing it.
    But in a sweeping backlash that became a prominent political issue in last year's elections, voters in 18 states have since passed constitutional bans on same-sex "marriage" and 24 states have passed laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
    Massachusetts Democratic Party Chairman Philip W. Johnston said last week that he does not expect "any serious debate" about the marriage platform plank when the party's 3,000 delegates gather in Lowell on Saturday and that it will be easily adopted.
    Even so, the issue has stirred dissent among state party officials.
    "I really think that the Democratic party does itself a disservice when it takes on these issues. Frankly, there's a lot of Democrats that are opposed to gay marriage," Democratic state Sen. Steven Panagiotakos told the Lowell Sun.
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R050509   N.C. pastor glosses over political furor

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- The pastor of a small church who led an effort to remove nine members because of their political beliefs tried to welcome them back yesterday, calling the fuss a "great misunderstanding," but some said they still want him to leave.
    The Rev. Chan Chandler didn't directly address the furor during the service at East Waynesville Baptist Church, but issued a statement afterward through his attorney, saying the church does not care about its members' political affiliations.
    "No one has ever been voted from the membership of this church due to an individual's support or lack of support for a political party or candidate," he said.
    Nine members said they were ousted during a church gathering last week by about 40 others because they refused to support President Bush. They attended yesterday's service with their lawyer and many supporters.
    Mr. Chandler noted their presence in his welcome to the congregation, saying, "I'm glad to see you all here. ... We are here today to worship the Lord. I hope this is what you are here for."
    But Mr. Chandler's statement and his welcome didn't convince those members who were voted out that things would soon change, and some called for him to resign.
    "This all started over politics and our right to vote for whoever we wanted to," said Thelma Lowe, who has been attending the church for 42 years. She and her husband, Frank, a deacon at the church for 35 years, were among those voted out.
    "Things will never be the same here until he leaves," she said.
    The ousted members have said Mr. Chandler told them during last year's presidential campaign that anyone who planned to vote for Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry needed to leave the church.
    "He needs to leave," said Marlene Casey, 42, a lifelong member. "A lot of blood, sweat and tears have been shed by the people he told to leave."
    Added Lewis Inman, a deacon at the church who said he was voted out last Monday: "He could have apologized and made everything right. He's not man enough."
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R050510   Frist plans to use 'option' on nomination of Owen
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans for Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen to be the judicial nomination on which he uses the "nuclear option" against Democratic filibusters later this month, according to Republicans familiar with his plans.
    Justice Owen, first nominated to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals four years ago yesterday, has often been seen as the most likely nominee to be pushed though. And when Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican, made his final offer to Democrats last month to avoid a showdown, he mentioned only one nominee: Justice Owen.
    The Republican sources, both on and off Capitol Hill, say the choice of Justice Owen for the precedent-setting vote is based in part on the political calculation that she is a sure winner and, as one source said, "a great face" for this issue.
    She has impeccable academic credentials, received the highest rating from the American Bar Association and is supported by both Republicans and Democrats who know her.
    "She's very intellectually honest," said Judge Mary Sean O'Reilly, a Texas Democrat who has known Justice Owen for more than 10 years. "She has an uncommon ability. She just gets it completely."
    After graduating near the top of her law school class, Justice Owen earned the highest score in the state on the December 1977 Texas bar exam. In 2000, Justice Owen won re-election to the Texas Supreme Court with 84 percent of the vote -- the highest of any justice running in the state that year.
    But most appealing, Republicans say, is that the very cases for which Justice Owen has been most strenuously attacked are rulings that are overwhelmingly popular with American voters.
    Democrats' primary line against Justice Owen has been several cases in which she argued that the teenagers involved were not mature enough to bypass a Texas law requiring them to notify a parent before having an abortion.
    "Her record to date is not only predictive of a judge who is personally anti-choice, but one who is willing to rewrite the law in accordance with those beliefs," said a position statement released by NARAL Pro-Choice America. Senate Democrats then went after her, describing her as "far outside the mainstream."
    Yet polls show overwhelming support for laws requiring minors to get permission from a parent before getting an abortion. That support is even higher for laws that only require notification.
    Justice Owen has been approved twice by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both times, all panel Democrats opposed her. She has majority support by the full Senate, but a minority group of Democrats has voted four times to prevent her from getting an up-or-down vote on the floor.
    Also coming to her defense are Texas Democrats who know her.
    "They don't know the woman. They've made no effort to get to know her, and they're not treating her fairly," former Texas Supreme Court Justice John Hill said of his fellow Democrats in the Senate.
    Justice Hill, who admonished senators on both sides of the aisle for maligning judicial picks, said the portrayal isn't "the Priscilla Owen I know."
    "She's a conservative person and her view of the law is probably from a conservative orientation, just like a liberal judge will decide cases from a liberal orientation," he said. "But she tries to follow the law as it's been decided or as it's been interpreted. That's just been a bad rap against her."
    Republicans were particularly outraged when Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and a member of the Judiciary Committee, referred to Justice Owen and other Bush nominees as "neanderthal."
    "Ted Kennedy doesn't know her," said Darrell E. Jordan, a Republican and a former president of the Texas Bar Association.
    "Anyway, didn't Ted Kennedy have to cheat to get out of law school?" he said, referring to Mr. Kennedy's 1951 expulsion from Harvard for cheating on an undergraduate Spanish exam.
    Judge O'Reilly, the Texas Democrat, wasn't as hard on Mr. Kennedy, but called his description "unfair."
    "She's a very thoughtful and studied woman," she said. "Sure, she's a conservative, but she's the opposite of neanderthal."
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O0505010   Cohabitation ban challenged

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- There are an estimated 144,000 unmarried couples living together in North Carolina, and they are all breaking the law -- a statute that has been on the books since 1805.
    The law against cohabitation is rarely enforced, but now the American Civil Liberties Union is suing to overturn it. The case involves a former sheriff's dispatcher, who said she had to quit her job because she wouldn't marry her live-in boyfriend.
    Deborah Hobbs, 40, said her boss, Sheriff Carson Smith of Pender County, near Wilmington, told her to get married, move out or find another job after he found out she and her boyfriend had been living together for three years. The couple did not want to get married, so Miss Hobbs quit.
    Her lawsuit, filed in March in state court, seeks to have the cohabitation law declared unconstitutional.
    "Certainly the government has no business regulating relationships between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes," said Jennifer Rudinger, state executive director of the ACLU. "This law is 200 years old and a lot of people are very surprised that we even have it on the books."
    The sheriff told the Star-News of Wilmington last year that Miss Hobbs' employment was a moral issue as well as a legal question. He said that he tries to avoid hiring people who openly live together, but he doesn't send out deputies to enforce the law.
    Miss Hobbs, who is still living with her boyfriend, declined to be interviewed for this story.
    Miss Rudinger and other legal experts believe a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law may undermine the basis for North Carolina's cohabitation law, which carries a fine of up to $1,000 and up to 60 days in jail.
    Arnold Loewy, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the ACLU lawsuit is almost certain to succeed.
    If the high court's decision in Lawrence v. Texas protects consensual sex among adults, "it's hard to understand any serious argument that it would not include" the right to live together, he said.
    North Carolina is one of seven states that still have laws on the books prohibiting cohabitation out of wedlock. The others are Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi and North Dakota. North Carolina appears to be the only state where the law is being challenged.
    The Virginia Supreme Court in January responded to the Lawrence v. Texas decision by striking down its rarely enforced state law prohibiting sex between unmarried people. But a Virginia law against cohabitation remains on the books.
    In January, the North Dakota House defeated a challenge to its cohabitation law on a 52-37 vote.
    There were roughly three dozen cohabitation-related charges filed in North Carolina between 1997 and 2004, according to state figures. But the number of people actually convicted under the law -- formally known as the fornication and adultery statute -- is not known, said Patrick Tamer, a statistician with the North Carolina court system.
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R0505010   Bush raps judicial filibuster
 

By Bill Sammon and Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President Bush yesterday marked the fourth anniversary of his nomination of Justice Priscilla Owen and Judge Terry Boyle to federal appeals courts with vigorous criticism of "partisan" Democrats for continuing to filibuster them.
    "A minority of senators is blocking the will of the Senate," Mr. Bush said. "Over the course of the past four years, the blocking of judicial nominees in the Senate has escalated to an unprecedented level."
    By issuing a statement on domestic politics during a trip to Europe, the president underscored tensions between Republicans and Democrats over the filibustering of his judicial nominees.
    White House aides said Mr. Bush wants to end the practice before vacancies occur on the U.S. Supreme Court, possibly this summer.
    Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, offered to allow confirmation of Thomas B. Griffith, who won Senate Judiciary Committee approval earlier this year for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, despite opposition from some panel Democrats.
    "A number of Democrats will vote against confirmation on the floor for these reasons and other reasons," Mr. Reid said. "But we on this side know the difference between opposing nominees and blocking nominees. We will oppose bad nominees, but we will only block unacceptable nominees."
    Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, welcomed the offer, but added that it was a "first step," called on Mr. Reid to lift the filibusters against all nominees and said such horse trading "confirms public cynicism about what goes on behind Washington's closed doors."
    Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican and Judiciary Committee chairman, went further.
    "An offer to confirm ... is an explicit concession that each is qualified for the court and that they are being held hostage as pawns in a convoluted chess game," he said. "If the Democrats really believe each is unqualified, a deal for confirmation for any one of them is repugnant ... and violates senators' oaths on the constitutional confirmation process."
    Other Democrats seized on the anniversary as a rallying cry against Republicans who are considering a change in Senate rules to block the filibustering of judges.
    "Republicans want to blow up 200 years of Senate history and change the rules simply because they aren't getting their way on a handful of radical nominees," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
    But Mr. Bush was in no mood to change the subject, saying the Senate should "put aside the partisan practices of the past and work together to ensure that all nominees are treated fairly."
    "Much more than enough time has passed for the Senate to consider these nominations," he said. "The Senate should give these extraordinarily qualified nominees the up-or-down votes they deserve without further delay."
    The president pointed out that Justice Owen, who sits on the Texas Supreme Court, and Judge Boyle, a federal district judge, have received the highest ratings from the American Bar Association and were nominated to fill circuit court vacancies regarded as emergencies by the Judicial Conference of the United States.
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H0505010   Gays, women react alike to scent

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    The brains of homosexual men respond more like those of women when reacting to a chemical derived from the male sex hormone, according to new evidence of physical differences related to sexual orientation.
    The finding, published in today's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows differences in physiological reaction to sex hormones.
    Researchers led by Ivanka Savic at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm exposed heterosexual men and women and homosexual men to chemicals derived from male and female sex hormones. These chemicals are thought to be pheromones, molecules known to trigger responses such as defense and sex in many animals.
    Whether humans respond to pheromones has been the subject of debate, although in 2000 American researchers reported finding a gene that they think directs the human pheromone receptor in the nose.
    In the Swedish study, when sniffing a chemical from testosterone, the male hormone, portions of the brains involved in sexual activity were activated in homosexual men and heterosexual women, but not in heterosexual men, the researchers found.
    When they sniffed smells such as cedar or lavender, all of the subjects' brains reacted only in the olfactory regions that handle smells.
    The result clearly shows a biological involvement in sexual orientation, said Sandra Witelson, a researcher on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario.
    The research was funded by the Swedish Medical Research Council, the Karolinska Institute and the Magnus Bergvall Foundation.
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E0505010   PTA conference disallows equal access for ex-gays
 

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The 6 million-member National Parent-Teacher Association has agreed for a second year to feature a pro-homosexual group at its annual convention, while rejecting a group that says homosexuality is not an inborn trait.
    The National PTA, representing 26,000 local affiliates, solicited a workshop and exhibit by Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) for public school action against anti-homosexual beliefs at the PTA's convention next month, Ron Schlittler, PFLAG executive director, told The Washington Times.
    But another group, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) of Alexandria, was rejected as an exhibitor at the June 24-26 convention in Columbus, Ohio, because the PTA and its members "have not identified homosexuality or same-sex marriage as an issue," according to Jennifer Gaster Sopko, National PTA spokeswoman in Chicago.
    Mrs. Sopko declined to explain the participation of PFLAG.
    Mr. Schlittler said the National PTA solicited PFLAG's involvement last year at its convention in Anaheim, Calif., because of the group's campaign to ?end rampant anti-gay bullying? in schools.
    He said PFLAG's application was initially rejected, but Warlene Gary, then the National PTA's chief executive officer, reinstated the group's workshop and exhibit table after he and other activists planned an all-day ?teach-in? during the convention at a hotel across the street.
    Miss Gary was previously the National Education Association's human and civil rights director and the school union's liaison to homosexual interest groups.
    "This year, we received an invitation to apply again," Mr. Schlittler said. ?We're doing the entire full-on, everything."
    He commended the PTA's rejection of PFOX, which wants public schools to present sexual-orientation issues neutrally, portraying homosexuality as an acquired behavior, without projecting a civil rights claim for self-identified homosexuals. Mr. Schlittler said PFOX supports reparative therapy, which aims to help persons avoid homosexual behavior.
    "The whole reparative-therapy industry is selling snake oil," PFLAG's executive director said. "From my point of view, the PTA has no business providing a forum that presents as of equal merit that position. It's unethical, frankly, [as if] you can force a left-handed person to behave as a right-handed person. Our beliefs are superior."
    Regina Griggs, PFOX executive director, said her group "does not argue reparative therapy."
    "Ex-gays already exist, so there is nothing to argue about," she said.
    She said, "All individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions deserve the right to self-determination and happiness based on their own needs, and not the needs of others."
    Last week, PFOX won a decision as plaintiff in a federal lawsuit that argued religious discrimination in a sex-education program in Montgomery County, Md., public schools. U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. halted the curriculum on grounds it promoted one religious perspective regarding sexuality over other views.
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M0505011   Media spin
    "According to a recent Washington Post/ABC poll, President Bush's plan to restructure the Social Security system has lost public support. What the poll doesn't tell you is that the network news has focused so much on the liberal side of this debate that the result isn't a surprise. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy," Herman Cain writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com).
    "The Post story stated, '58 percent of those polled this time said the more they hear about Bush's plan, the less they like it.' And what are they hearing about Bush's plan? That it's a bad idea, of course. The networks have been beating up the idea of restructuring Social Security for months," said Mr. Cain, former U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia and now national chairman of the Media Research Center's Free Market Project.
    "A new study by the Media Research Center's Free Market Project finds that the evening news shows delivered liberal talking points on the Social Security debate more than twice as often as points from the conservative side advocating restructuring Social Security. The idea of personal retirement accounts doesn't stand a chance with numbers like those. ...
    "CNN and CBS battled it out for the honor of being the most biased. Fifty-six percent of the CBS stories had a liberal leaning, compared with just 20 percent conservative. Over at CNN, it was 61 percent liberal and 22 percent conservative. Although the tally was close, CBS won by undermining conservative positions whenever possible."
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H050511   Social engineers
    Hoping to prevent the U.S. court system from "dictating a radical redefinition of marriage," while stopping judges who are engaged in "social engineering," a California congressman is seeking to amend the U.S. Constitution by defining marriage as a legal union of one man and one woman.
    "Ironically, in 1878, the United States Supreme Court itself acknowledged the critical role of marriage in maintaining social stability," says Republican Rep. Dan Lungren. "As the court observed, 'Upon it society may be built, and out of its fruits spring social relations and social obligations and duties.' "
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R050511   NORTH CAROLINA   Pastor resigns in politics fight
    WAYNESVILLE -- A Baptist preacher accused of running out nine congregants who disagreed with his Republican politics resigned yesterday, two days after calling the issue "a great misunderstanding."
    Speaking from the pulpit during a meeting at East Waynesville Baptist Church, the Rev. Chan Chandler told church members that it would "cause more hurt for me and my family" if he stayed.
    "I am resigning with gratitude in my heart for all of you, particularly those of you who love me and my family," Mr. Chandler said, adding that the dispute was rooted in his opposition to abortion.
    Some congregants of the 100-member church in western North Carolina have said Mr. Chandler endorsed President Bush from the pulpit during last year's presidential campaign and told anyone who planned to vote for Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry to "repent or resign."
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R050511   Time to act on issue of judges, Frist says
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Senate will take up President Bush's filibustered judicial nominations next week, and Republican staffers say the ensuing debate will ultimately end with a showdown -- perhaps even the use of the so-called "nuclear option" -- if one side doesn't back down.
    Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, has threatened to end the impasse over seven judges with the rare parliamentary procedure that would prohibit filibusters against judicial nominees. And earlier this year, he told The Washington Times he had the 51 votes to do so.
    But yesterday marked the first time he has offered any timeline for using the maneuver.
    "It's time for us to move to the issue of judges," Mr. Frist said. "Each of these nominees deserve an up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate. Confirm them or reject them, vote yes or no, but allow them the courtesy of a vote."
    Later, Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, rejected a proposal Mr. Frist offered two weeks ago to avoid the major fight in the Senate. The proposal would have called for a vote on those nominees in exchange for prohibiting future nominees from obstruction in committee, as often happened during the Clinton administration.
    "Sen. Frist's proposal does nothing to end the judicial impasse, as it would wipe away the very checks and balances that have prevented an abuse of power for more than 200 years," Mr. Reid said. "The result is unacceptable."
    While senators on both sides of the aisle continue to try finding a way to avoid the nuclear option, Mr. Frist and Mr. Reid have made no headway in their negotiations.
    After dismissing Mr. Frist's offer -- which Mr. Reid termed "a big wet kiss to the far right" -- he said he won't consider a plan that confirms all the filibustered nominees.
    Mr. Reid is willing, however, to broker a deal on the five nominees that Democrats adamantly oppose.
    "I've said that they can pick one of the five, whatever one of the five they want," he said yesterday. "That leaves four that wouldn't be accepted."
    Such offers have been dismissed by Republicans.
    Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said earlier this week that "such deal-making confirms public cynicism about what goes on behind Washington's closed doors."
    One of those looking for a compromise is Sen. Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, who has suggested Democrats grant a vote on just some of the judges.
    Talk of compromise has brought criticism from conservatives, such as the Mississippi-based American Family Association.
    "This is exactly the kind of compromise the liberals have been looking for," said Donald Wildmon, chairman of the group. "Sen. Lott's proposal will do nothing but allow the liberals to still be in control. The vote to end the judicial filibuster is the most important vote in the Senate this year, and Lott's proposal means we lose."
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M050511   Conservatives rally around DeLay
 

By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Heading into tomorrow night's celebration banquet for Tom DeLay, conservatives say the House majority leader is in better shape to weather ethics accusations now than he was six weeks ago when they began to plan a defense strategy.
    "I think conservatives have rallied and sort of circled the wagons around Tom, more strongly than they had at that point. The case has really gotten out," said David A. Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU). "His position is probably stronger now than it was at that time — I don't mean internally, I mean in terms of the overall community; you don't have new stories every day, it's all recycled."
    He and other major leaders have organized the dinner at the Capital Hilton for about 800 conservatives, meant to stiffen Republicans' resolve to back Mr. DeLay and to send a signal to the political world that they do not intend to let him be chased from his leadership role.
    "As a movement, we do not stand idly by when our opponents and his single out a member of the movement, a leader of the movement, and attempt to politically kneecap him," Mr. Keene said.
    Six weeks ago, as the majority leader was being hit by a series of accusations that lobbyists paid for foreign travel in violation of House ethics rules, and by rumblings from a few members of his own party that he might step aside, a group of conservative leaders met and declared it was time to push back.
    They announced a litmus test for conservative lawmakers to stand up and defend Mr. DeLay, and decided to hold this week's dinner as a show of support.
    "The message here is not only is it not driving a wedge, but it's actually drawing his conservative base closer to him," said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, another of the dinner's major sponsors.
    He and Mr. Keene said they have been surprised by how Republican lawmakers have rallied to the Texas Republican's defense.
    "Usually when somebody gets tagged like this, there's this almost Jonah-and-the-whale thing where they start throwing people overboard so they can weather the storm," Mr. Perkins said. "Nobody is talking about throwing Tom DeLay overboard. In fact, people are saying we're in this together."
    Mr. Keene said there just haven't been defections.
    "Somebody asked me, 'Are you threatening people?' If there were any, I might think about it, but it hasn't really occurred," Mr. Keene said.
    The dinner will feature about 10 speakers and include video-clip expressions of support from House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, among others.
    Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman is also expected, organizers said, though President Bush is not. Mr. DeLay will speak briefly at the end of the dinner.
    "The majority leader is very appreciative of the level of support he's received from all across the country, especially his friends from within the conservative movement who have rallied around him while the Democrats and their liberal allies continue to attack," DeLay spokesman Dan Allen said.
    Liberal groups say Mr. DeLay is suffering from the accusations.
    The American Progress Action Fund, an arm of the Center for American Progress, said it won promises from three companies that had donated to Mr. DeLay's political defense fund not to do so in the future: Verizon, Nissan North America and Texas-based American Airlines, which clearly tried to distance itself from past contributions, noting that the person who made them is no longer with the company.
    "The fact that a major corporation that is based in his home state feels like they need to distance themselves from DeLay suggests his support is eroding," said Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman with the fund.
    She said the dinner itself "may be a eulogy" rather than a celebration.
    "When your friends need to rally around you, it doesn't say you're in a very strong position," she said. "The ACU may be behind him, but what he needs to worry about is crumbling of support within his own caucus."
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O050511   Lessons on 'values voters' in demand
 

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Rev. Jim Wallis is one man who has benefited from the so-called post-election Democratic soul-searching.
    Today, reveling in his newfound stardom with liberals who didn't believe there was such a thing as "values voters," Mr. Wallis, as editor of the D.C.-based Sojourners magazine and a pro-life Democrat, is living large.
    "The Democrats are now saying 'I've followed your stuff for years but I've never called,' " the 56-year-old said in an interview. "Well, they are calling now."
    Not only has Mr. Wallis conferred several times with party leaders on how to restore spirituality into the Democratic politic, but his newest book, "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It" has sold 120,000 hardback copies since its Jan. 18 release.
    Many like its mix of piety and politics. Passages such as, "The real theological problem with America today is no longer the religious Right but the nationalist religion of the Bush Administration," have pushed it to No. 13 on the New York Times hardback nonfiction best-seller list, where it has sat for 15 weeks.
    "People are really excited and invigorated by his message," said Melody Barnes, director of the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress. "Progressives are hearing boldly that you can be religious and have progressive values and those two things are not in conflict with each other."
    A Web site run by the liberal think tank, www.campusprogress.org, got 6,500 hits after it posted a recent interview with Mr. Wallis.
    The book has gotten its share of criticism.
    In February, the liberal magazine Nation criticized the author for not being pro-choice. A month later, World, a conservative weekly, said Mr. Wallis had left out "any talk of evangelism, conversion and the need for sinners to be saved."
    Still, when 125 United Methodist bishops gathered in the District last week for their annual conference, 50 of them asked to meet with the editor.
    Mr. Wallis told the bishops that Americans want a new way to mesh biblical faith and politics, using more conservative views on abortion and family issues with liberal takes on the poor, the environment and race issues.
    "We are not ideologically partisan. We are prophetic. We cut to the right and to the left," he said.
    Since the Nov. 2 presidential election, Mr. Wallis has been busy educating the left on the "values voters."
    For example, from May 1 to 8 he debated Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Southern Seminary President Al Mohler on MSNBC; appeared at Yale Law School to debate the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State; keynoted a spring clergy retreat for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts; met with the Methodist bishops; spoke to 1,500 students at the evangelically oriented Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich.; lectured to 1,000 persons at a Presbyterian church in Detroit; and appeared at a Harvard Divinity School conference on evangelicals.
    Although Mr. Wallis' prominence as the go-to man for religious liberals is fairly recent, he's been in Washington 30 years. The eldest son of a Plymouth Brethren pastor, he co-founded a magazine, the Post-American, in 1971 along with several seminarians at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. They changed the name to Sojourners, moved to Washington in September 1975 and formed a Christian community, also known as Sojourners, in Columbia Heights.
    The magazine, now at 30,000 circulation but with a much larger online readership, specializes in social justice, the environment, nuclear disarmament and opposition to U.S. government policy in Central America. It opposes abortion and same-sex "marriage," but favors civil rights for homosexuals.
    Mr. Wallis received invites to the Clinton White House and, since 2000, had several amicable encounters with President Bush. "But then," the minister said, "the Iraq war closed conversation down."
    Even before that the editor told the chief executive during a 2002 reception on faith-based initiatives, "Unless we drain the swamp of injustice in which the mosquitoes of terrorism breed, we'll never defeat the threat of terrorism."
    Mr. Wallis shrugs off the fact that the White House has not called since.
    "Presidents," he said, "sometimes have a hard time with criticism."
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R050513   LOUISIANA   Vitter backs prayers at school meetings
    HAMMOND -- Sen. David Vitter, a Republican, has supported officials in his state who are fighting a ban on prayers at Tangipahoa Parish School Board meetings.
    Mr. Vitter called the ban at Southeastern Louisiana University "flat-out ridiculous," the Daily Star of Hammond reported. The senator, who won support from Christian conservatives in last year's campaign, argued that legislative bodies frequently open meetings with prayers.
    But a February ruling by U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan noted that courts have barred school board prayers by distinguishing between educational bodies and other government groups. She decided that meeting prayers violate constitutional separation of church and state, siding with a challenge filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
    Mr. Vitter offered help in the school board's court fight and said he would introduce a U.S. Senate resolution to support prayer before school board meetings.
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R050513   Pryor passes
    Former Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor's nomination to the federal appeals court was narrowly approved yesterday for a second time by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
    Judge Pryor holds a temporary seat on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to which President Bush nominated him while Congress was in recess.
    "We stand here on the precipice of a constitutional crisis," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and committee member, referring to the so-called "nuclear option" that Republicans could employ as early as next week to break the filibusters. "Bill Pryor is the last of the four most controversial nominees that the president has sent our way."
    Democrats say Judge Pryor's opposition to abortion prohibits him from following the law. Republicans rebut this by pointing to his role in removing Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for refusing to dismantle a Ten Commandments monument that had been deemed unconstitutional.
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O050513   Pass the popcorn
    Make plans early to attend Sen. Tom Coburn's "safe-sex" slide show — "Revenge of the STDs" (sexually transmitted diseases) — at 11:45 a.m. on May 26th in Room HC-5 of the U.S. Capitol.
    "As a practicing physician, I have seen the ravaging effects of ... STD's first hand," the Oklahoma Republican writes to Hill colleagues. "I would therefore invite you, your staff and interns to join me for my 'safe' sex slide show. This presentation will be a frank, interactive medical forum about the emotional and physical consequences of the STD epidemic."
    Elected to the Senate in November after serving three terms in the House, Mr. Coburn's other priorities include reducing wasteful spending, balancing the budget, improving health care access and affordability, and protecting the unborn.
    In 2002, President Bush chose the doctor, a two-time cancer survivor who is married to a former Miss Oklahoma, as co-chairman of the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
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L050512   Stem-cell vote
    House Republicans are split over legislation on which they soon might have to vote that would expand President Bush's embryonic stem-cell policy, and a group is urging support for the bill with ads in two Capitol Hill newspapers and a soon-to-be nationwide television ad campaign.
    The Republican Main Street Partnership, a group of centrist House Republicans, have been promised a vote by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois on the issue of expanding embryonic stem-cell research. The group began running ads this week in Roll Call and the Hill in anticipation of a vote in coming weeks. Ads also will appear on national cable TV in a few weeks.
    The centrist Republicans are pushing for a vote on a bill sponsored by Delaware Rep. Michael N. Castle, Main Street president. The legislation would allow federal funding for research using embryos from in-vitro fertilization clinics that otherwise would be discarded. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, is pushing for a Senate vote on the bill, and supporters say prospects are good that it will pass both chambers.
    Mr. Castle's group also commissioned surveys of 800 Republican voters and 13 Republican districts nationwide. The polls, done by Republican firm the Winston Group, found Republicans favor embryonic stem-cell research 55 percent to 38 percent, and conservatives are split, with 46 percent supporting it and 48 percent opposing it.
    Meanwhile, some House conservatives are angry that the vote is being allowed. Derek Karchner, spokesman for Rep. Joe Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican who opposes the bill, said that when people are educated about how the embryos are destroyed to extract the stem cells, support for the research and for Mr. Castle's bill declines.
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R050512   Pastor in flap over politics quits N. Carolina church

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A Baptist pastor accused of threatening to banish from his church anyone who didn't vote for President Bush has chosen to depart, saying he spoke out on candidates' stances, but did not make political endorsements.
    The Rev. Chan Chandler, 33, walked out of the East Waynesville Baptist Church, which he had led for three years, after delivering a brief statement of resignation Tuesday night. With him went many of the young congregants he had attracted to the modest brick church on the outskirts of this small mountain town in western North Carolina.

    In an interview with a church publication Tuesday, Mr. Chandler denied endorsing any candidate from the pulpit, as critics had charged. "I don't know how these folks voted," he told Baptist Press, a Nashville, Tenn.-based press arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. "And I never endorsed any candidate."
    But he acknowledged citing from the pulpit what he thinks are the "unbiblical values" of some political hopefuls. "But those were negative endorsements -- never a positive endorsement" of any candidate, he said.
    Mr. Chandler said in the interview that he cited Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry's views on abortion and homosexuality in one sermon. He said he mentioned two Republicans whose views he said were out of step with the Bible.
    He was not more specific, and stressed that his sermons were issue-oriented and not based on party affiliation. "This never has been about politics," Mr. Chandler said. "It's always been about whether the Bible applies to the entire life of a Christian."
    Some church members had said that they were told to leave if they voted for Mr. Kerry.
    "For me to remain now would only cause more hurt for me and my family," Mr. Chandler said to the church members. "I am resigning with gratitude in my heart for all of you, particularly those of you who love me and my family."
    As Mr. Chandler and his wife drove out of the church's parking lot followed by a police escort, about 40 of his supporters walked out as well, with many saying they were resigning their memberships.
    "I'm not going to serve with the ungodly," an angry Misty Turner declared.
    But Maxine Osborne, 70, one of those who stayed behind, had a different view of what had transpired.
    "A lot of these young people had not been in the church more than a year," she said. The Chandlers "brought in a lot of young people, but they also brainwashed them."
    Tensions escalated last week, when several members said Mr. Chandler called a meeting of the church's board of deacons and declared his intention for East Waynesville to become a politically active church.
    Norman Jameson of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina said the convention-- from which individual churches are entirely and absolutely independent -- will try to help Mr. Chandler find a new church position if he so desires.
    "There was evidently a politicization of pulpit in that the pastor is passionate and he interprets that one political party had a stronger stance on abortion than the other," Mr. Jameson said. "Passion makes things happen. In a church leadership role, it can also divide people."
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R050512   Parties debate filibuster history
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A contentious point in the fight over President Bush's filibustered judicial nominees is whether nominations to the federal bench ever have been blocked from confirmation on the Senate floor by a minority.
    Republicans say the tactic is "unprecedented," while Democrats say history is filled with such examples.
    In explaining why he would employ the so-called "nuclear option" to end the current Democratic filibusters, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee told reporters this week he must "restore over 214 years of Senate history and tradition to this body."
    The nuclear option would lower the number of votes needed to end a filibuster over a judicial nomination.
    Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, disagrees that his party's filibusters against 10 of Mr. Bush's nominees are out of the ordinary.
    "I hear people say that until these judicial nominees were challenged with extended debate or filibuster, it never happened before," he said on the Senate floor before submitting a list of previously filibustered nominees.
    "This is not new, not novel," he added, listing 12 nominations between 1881 and 2000.
    Republicans say that, according to the Congressional Record, all but one of the nominations ultimately were confirmed. The one successfully blocked nominee was Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, who was nominated to be chief justice by President Johnson in 1968.
    Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican and a member of the Judiciary Committee, stood on the Senate floor this week to discuss what he called "ridiculous judicial filibuster defenses."
    The first issue he addressed was the argument that the judicial filibusters are part of Senate tradition and held up a chart of some of the nominees listed by Mr. Durbin.
    "The Senate confirmed each of these nominations," the former chairman of the Judiciary Committee said. "As ridiculous as it sounds, filibuster proponents claim ... that confirming these past nominations justifies refusing to confirm nominations today."
    Stephen G. Breyer, for instance, was nominated to a federal appeals court in November 1980 by President Carter, who had just lost re-election. In December, a bipartisan group of 68 senators voted for "cloture," the parliamentary procedure that requires 60 votes to end debate and move to a final confirmation vote. He was confirmed later that day. He was elevated to the Supreme Court by President Clinton in 1994.
    Democrats argue that merely invoking cloture represents a filibuster because it means that someone is trying to extend debate in order to delay confirmation. A failed filibuster is still a filibuster, they argue.
    Not so, say Republicans, who argue a cloture vote also can signify exactly what it's designed to end: an extension of debate so that arguments about a nominee can be made more thoroughly.
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R050512   GOP pulls evenin PR battle over nominees
 

By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Key Republicans said yesterday that although Democrats did a better job in the early fight over President Bush's judicial nominees, the GOP has achieved "parity" in the public relations battle.
    "We were a little slower on the draw," said a Republican strategist close to the effort. "But we're there now — at parity with them in terms of mobilization and intensity and breadth and depth of coalition effort."
    The strategist said Democrats went into battle mode over judges the day after Mr. Bush was re-elected in November. Republicans did not catch up until about two weeks ago.

    "It took conservatives and Republicans a little while to understand that we were going to have to do the same thing in order to get our message out," said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
    In recent weeks, the Republican strategy for ending Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees has grown into a multifaceted public relations offensive by the White House, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and outside advocacy groups.
    "It has all the tactical elements of a campaign," said Stuart Roy, a consultant with Progress for America, an advocacy group running TV ads in support of the nominees.
    Seeking to counter a similarly aggressive Democratic campaign to preserve the filibuster, Republicans are writing op-ed columns, booking Bush surrogates on cable news channels and deluging reporters with e-mails.
    "We've been mobilizing our grass roots on this issue," said Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman. "This is an incredibly important priority."
    The escalation in rhetoric is partly a response to intense pressure from rank-and-file conservatives who want Senate Republicans to insist on up-or-down votes on judicial nominees. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson yesterday railed against "waffling Republican" senators in a Boston Globe op-ed.
    Meanwhile, the Union-Leader newspaper in Manchester, N.H., ran a front-page editorial urging Republicans to "wise up and have the guts to stop the Democrats' current misuse of the filibuster."
    The conservative paper added: "We are quite sure the presidential primary voters of New Hampshire will be watching carefully to see how Republican senators act on this crucial matter."
    It was a veiled warning to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is expected to run for president in 2008. The Tennessee Republican is mulling a change in Senate rules that would block Democrats from filibustering judicial nominees.
    To prepare the public for such a move, Mr. Frist has been working closely with the White House, the RNC and outside advocacy groups. Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, a political consultant, is playing a leading role in coordinating the various roles of each group.
    For example, advocacy groups are in charge of running TV ads. Organizations like Progress for America are not prohibited from coordinating with the White House or RNC, because the campaign is not aimed at electing anyone.
    In recent days, the administration has assumed an increasingly vocal role, with Mr. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales speaking out on behalf of the nominees.
    Yesterday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan flatly rejected any talk of a compromise that would confirm only some of the president's seven blocked nominees.
    "They should all get an up-or-down vote," he told reporters. "Senate Democrats have gone to an unprecedented level to block nominees from receiving an up-or-down vote."
    But for every effort that the Republicans make to win public support in the burgeoning battle, Democrats are taking steps of their own to prevent the judges from getting an up-or-down vote.
    Yesterday, for example, Mr. Frist hosted a conference call with College Republicans to rally support for the Bush nominees. But today, two Democratic senators — Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Charles E. Schumer of New York — will join Princeton University students in a mock filibuster in front of the Capitol Building.

    An error in the last paragraph of this story in the print edition has been corrected in this online version. The last paragraph in the print version of the story incorrectly stated that Mr. Mehlman had hosted a conference call, when it was Mr. Frist who hosted the call.
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R0505113   Reid cites FBI file on judicial pick
 

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Minority Leader Harry Reid strayed from his prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday and promised to continue opposing one of President Bush's judicial nominees based on "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI."
    Those highly confidential reports are filed on all judicial nominees, and severe sanctions apply to anyone who discloses their contents. Less clear is whether a senator could face sanctions for characterizing the content of such files.
     "Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway," Mr. Reid said on the floor yesterday, about the Michigan Appeals Court judge who is nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
    "All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree that there is a problem there," Mr. Reid continued.
    Republican staff members and supporters of Mr. Bush's nominees were outraged.
    "Can you think of a better way to trash someone's reputation?" Sean Rushton of the conservative Committee for Justice asked after seeing a transcript of the remarks. "Say that there is bad stuff from an FBI investigation in a file somewhere and leave that hanging. This is character assassination of the lowest order and completely improper."
    Republicans on Capitol Hill weren't saying much publicly, but several denounced the action privately as an "underhanded smear" or worse.
    Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican who was chairman of the Judiciary Committee when Judge Saad faced his latest background investigation, declined to discuss the matter.
    "As important as Senator Hatch thinks these comments are, he never comments on FBI reports or anything pertaining to them, and he doesn't believe anybody else should either," Hatch spokesman Peter Carr said.
    Republican aides pointed to Standing Rule of the Senate 29, Section 5: "Any Senator, officer, or employee of the Senate who shall disclose the secret or confidential business or proceedings of the Senate, including the business and proceedings of the committees, subcommittees, and offices of the Senate, shall be liable, if a Senator, to suffer expulsion from the body; and if an officer or employee, to dismissal from the service of the Senate, and to punishment for contempt."
    Furthermore, a "Memorandum of Understanding" covering the use of FBI background reports limits access to committee members and the nominee's home-state senators. Mr. Reid would fall into neither category.
    Reid spokesman Jim Manley referred to an incident in June when the Senate Judiciary Committee met behind closed doors to review Judge Saad's file and inadvertently left a microphone turned on that broadcast part of the secret hearing onto the Internet.
    "The fact that there's an issue regarding Henry Saad's background is well-known," said Mr. Manley, who noted that Mr. Reid did not disclose any specifics from the file. "It's been discussed both in committee and on the floor before."
    Still, Mr. Reid's comments weren't part of his prepared remarks.
    "One of the three 6th Circuit nominees who were previously filibustered -- Henry Saad -- would have been filibustered anyway because there are serious concerns about his suitability to be a federal judge," said his prepared statement, provided by his office.
    Furious Saad supporters said they had never heard about the previous committee leak and called Mr. Reid's remarks an "unfounded smear" indicative of how nasty the debate over judges has become.
    "Harry Reid is a disgrace to the Senate and to [his] Church of Latter-day Saints," said Manuel Miranda, who was forced to resign as a Republican Senate staffer after downloading files on judicial nominees from Democratic computer servers.
    "Both bodies should censure him," said Mr. Miranda, who leads a private advocacy group for Mr. Bush's judicial nominees.
    Michael Bouchard, sheriff of Oakland County in Michigan and a personal friend of Judge Saad, said he is "absolutely" certain that the FBI file doesn't contain anything damaging.
    "I think Harry Reid is lying," he said. "He's hiding behind something he knows he'll never be asked to show. Harry Reid is a coward."
    Confidants of Judge Saad said yesterday that the judge would release the file but that he has never seen it, let alone obtained copies of it. Judge Saad is not permitted to see the file, Senate staffers said.
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E050507Md   Suspension of sex-ed course angers some supporters
 

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Supporters of Montgomery County public schools' new sex-education curriculum yesterday expressed confusion -- and some outrage -- over Superintendent Jerry D. Weast's decision to suspend the course after a federal judge had ruled against it Thursday.
    Members of the county school board, which unanimously approved the course in November, said they will question Mr. Weast about his decision during a closed-door meeting Tuesday.
    "We need to have a report on what the superintendent's thinking was," said Gabe Romero, a first-term school board member from Gaithersburg. "I would like to understand the factors that made him make that decision. That's what we need to understand as a board."
    Board member Steve Abrams said: "It will certainly make for some interesting times on the board."
    Meanwhile, some of the people who helped craft the curriculum said they were upset with the superintendent's decision.
    Jill Karpf worked on the citizens advisory board that approved curriculum materials and recommended the course to the school board.
    "I think this is a disgrace," she said yesterday. "It's an insult to us, it's an insult to all the teachers who came up with the curriculum, it's an insult to all the official organizations who understand what's going on, and so I think there needs to be a strong statement made."
    On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams Jr. granted a 10-day temporary restraining order to halt the teaching of the new course in a pilot program that was to have begun yesterday.
    Judge Williams agreed with the two groups that filed the lawsuit -- Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) -- who argued that the curriculum is biased toward homosexuality and dismisses religious perspectives on the subject.
    The judge, who was appointed in 1994 by President Clinton, said the curriculum likely violates the free speech rights of students who have moral objections to homosexuality because it "presents only one view on the subject -- that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle -- to the exclusion of other perspectives."
    The restraining order placed a 10-day halt on teaching the course, but Mr. Weast decided to suspend the course and a condom demonstration video, pending further review.
    The school system offered no further comment on the superintendent's decision yesterday.
    Erik Stanley, the Liberty Counsel lawyer who represented CRC and PFOX, said it is "too soon to say whether [the schools are] throwing in the towel or not."
    Mr. Stanley, whose group was started by Baptist pastor the Rev. Jerry Falwell in 1989, said the restraining order could lapse and give the schools an opportunity to go forward with the course -- or the schools could agree to extend the length of the order.
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E050508Md   Graduates' morality praised
 

By Sue Lindsey
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VIRGINIA BEACH -- The world needs leaders with the kind of moral courage engendered by Regent University to spread freedom to oppressed countries, Sen. George Allen told the Christian school's graduating class yesterday.
    "I hope and pray that God continues to bless our country with people of your character and especially your integrity," Mr. Allen told the class of nearly 900 at the Christian school founded by Pat Robertson.
    Mr. Allen, a potential Republican candidate for president in 2008, and Mr. Robertson made several references to their long-standing relationship.
    Mr. Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, emphasized his financial support for Republican candidates but said nothing about Mr. Allen's potential run for president.
    However, he said when Mr. Allen was governor, he sought his staff's advice on doing the right thing.
    "The country is on a good course with a leader who asks: 'What is the right thing to do?' " Mr. Robertson said.
    Mr. Allen said the cornerstone of freedom are the four tenets of the Virginia Declaration of Rights: freedom of religion, freedom of expression, private ownership of property and the rule of law. The declaration was the precursor to the Bill of Rights.
    Mr. Allen said the country needs judges who "apply the law, not invent the law." He told Regent law school graduates who aspire to be federal judges, "I hope you don't have to wait four years for Senate confirmation."
    Mr. Robertson has chastised Republican leaders for allowing Senate Democrats to stall confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees.
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E050510Md   Curriculum foes press sex-ed suit
 

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Court proceedings for a lawsuit against Montgomery County public schools' new sex-education course will go forward today even though Superintendent Jerry D. Weast suspended the curriculum last week.
    "We're not backing away from this. We're amenable to resolving this with the school district, but we're going to push forward on this issue," said Erik Stanley, chief counsel for Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based Christian law group representing the groups that filed the lawsuit.
    U.S. District Court Alexander Williams Jr. today will set a date for an evidentiary hearing in the case, unless the school system requests an extension of the temporary restraining order that he issued against the course last week.
    Judith S. Bresler, attorney for the school system, said yesterday she had not decided on a course of action.
    Meanwhile, the state Attorney General's Office yesterday said the county school board may discuss the lawsuit with Mr. Weast in a closed session this morning but must discuss any policy decisions in an open meeting.
    Mr. Weast suspended the course Thursday after Judge Williams ruled that it likely violated students' free-speech rights by including only moral and religious viewpoints that approve of homosexuality and condemn other perspectives.
    School board member Gabe Romero, Gaithersburg Democrat, said Friday that some board members did not understand why Mr. Weast suspended the course and that they intended to discuss it with him in closed session today.
    Rosanne Hurwitz, who heads one of the county's six PTA areas, asked the Attorney General's Office to investigate whether such a discussion would violate open-meeting laws.
    Assistant Attorney General William R. Varga yesterday spoke with George Margolies, the board's staff director.
    Mr. Margolies told Mr. Varga that the board would discuss "the status of the litigation" with Mr. Weast and "the impact of the superintendent's decision in connection with the litigation," according to a letter from Mr. Varga to the open-meetings compliance board.
    "However, Mr. Margolies assured me that discussion will be limited to issues in the context of the litigation," Mr. Varga wrote. "The board is aware that policy decisions in connection with the curriculum must be handled in an open session."
    The lawsuit was filed by Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), who said they filed last week only after the school board refused to meet with them, despite numerous requests.
    Mr. Stanley said the judge's temporary restraining order could expire if the lawsuit is dropped, and the school system could then implement the curriculum.
    CRC and PFOX have said they will not be content if the school system scraps teachers' resource pamphlets that Judge Williams found fault with and implements the rest of the new curriculum.
    David Fishback, chairman of the citizens advisory committee that approved the curriculum materials, said all "the materials cited [in Judge Williams' decision] were in background teacher-resource materials, which are not part of the curriculum."
    Mr. Stanley, however, said another problem with the curriculum is that it teaches that "homosexuality is innate."
    "You cannot pick a side and say ... that is fact because that is scientifically not true. We have gone after that, and we will go after that," he said.
    CRC spokesman Steve Fisher said: "Our position all along has been to scrap the whole thing and start over from scratch."
    CRC and PFOX are pushing for inclusion in the revision process.
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E050511Md   Schools expected to defer on sex-ed
 

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Montgomery County public schools today likely will agree to extend until December a temporary restraining order on teaching a new sex-education curriculum, an attorney for a group suing the school system said yesterday.
    Erik Stanley, an attorney for Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC), predicted the school system would agree to extend the 10-day restraining order imposed last week in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.
    The extension would allow school officials and CRC activists to address and reconcile differences over the new course. Mr. Stanley said if CRC cannot reach an agreement with school officials, it will press its lawsuit forward in December.
    Judith S. Bresler, the school system's attorney, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
    Yesterday, the Montgomery County school board held its first meeting since a federal judge imposed the restraining order Thursday. In a closed session, board members met for an hour with Superintendent Jerry D. Weast, who suspended the course indefinitely after the judge's ruling.
    During the board's open session, parents who support the course called opponents ?a few vocal malcontents? who have ?a clear, immediate, homophobic agenda.?
    But CRC President Michelle Turner said: "I don't think we're the radicals. We are trying to take a moderate position here."
    U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr. ruled last week that the course "presents only one view on the subject -- that homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle -- to the exclusion of other perspectives."
    Mrs. Turner and other CRC members have said they filed the suit days before the course was to be tested in six schools only because the school board refused to meet with them.
    They want their perspectives included in the curriculum inspection, which Mr. Weast has assigned to Deputy Superintendent Frieda K. Lacey.
    "Our hope is that the schools would uphold the diversity they profess to value by accepting and including all parents' viewpoints and allow the curriculum to reflect these as well," Mrs. Turner, a parent of four children in public schools, told the board yesterday.
    Some parents who support the curriculum are upset that CRC has been aggressive in its efforts to halt the curriculum.
    Paula Bienenfeld, who has a child at Tilden Middle School in Rockville, said she was alarmed that CRC sent a letter to her about its concerns with the course. She said CRC has a database with the names and addresses of every child at Tilden.
    She told the board that CRC has "a radical agenda ... to force our citizens to adhere to a radical far-right worldview."
    Ms. Bienenfeld also said CRC "receives their financial and organizational backing from the Liberty Counsel."
    Mrs. Turner said Liberty Counsel is providing legal counsel pro bono and all of CRC's money comes from private donations from within Montgomery County.
    Liberty Counsel is "loosely affiliated" with Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell, but has no working relationship with him, Mr. Stanley said.
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E050512Md   Cucumber will have to wait for its film debut
 

By Tom Knott

The increasingly famous Montgomery County cucumber has been sentenced to legal limbo with the ruling of a federal judge last week, which is too bad, considering the hype that has enveloped this normally modest side dish.
    The Montgomery County cucumber has been the subject of countless news stories and commentaries this spring, as America undergoes the uncomfortable process of learning everything it ever wanted to know about the cucumber but was afraid to ask.
    The Montgomery County cucumber is the co-star of a low-budget flick, "Protect Yourself," along with an actress who has all the lines. Of course, the latter is merely an assumption, given the film's limited release in Montgomery County. It is possible the cucumber could be a talking cucumber in the small-screen tradition of Mr. Ed, the talking horse.
    You just never know with directors, and in this case, the director could be Dr. Ruth, who once touted the multidimensional aspects of the cucumber on "Late Night With David Letterman." As for the actress, it is hard to determine whether this is good career move on her part. She runs the risk of being typecast, no doubt about it. The District will have to reserve judgment until the movie opens at the Uptown Theater.
    Unless you have been vacationing on Mars, you know that the leading public school educators of Montgomery County have decided that a cucumber a day keeps the pediatrician away, as well as a bevy of health issues, so long as the cucumber is ensconced in a condom.
    Of course, most cucumbers do not wear condoms, which is a dining issue.
    If you ever encounter a condom-wearing cucumber in a Montgomery County restaurant, which would be almost as bad as encountering a finger, you should not try to remove it and instead report it to the proper authorities.
    To be fair to the cucumber, it is especially delectable in the summer months, pickled or not, and its flesh contains a beneficial amount of vitamin C and acid that is good for the skin.
    Until the Montgomery County cucumber came along, the cucumber rarely received the good public relations of the vine-ripened tomato. Garden lovers often turn teary-eyed in the vicinity of a vine-ripened tomato, particularly after a winter of consuming the plastic variety from the grocery stores.
    So far, the leading public school educators of Montgomery County have left the tomato out of their sex-education curriculum. But give them time. Perhaps in "Protect Yourself, Part Deux" they can award supporting roles to two tomatoes, or just one if the intent is to discuss testicular cancer.
    In "Protect Yourself, Part Trois," perhaps the leading public school educators of Montgomery County could make it a thriller, as such: The actress punctures the condom with one of her neatly manicured nails while struggling with it and the cucumber. The actress pauses long enough to let the scene build, then reaches into her purse and pulls out another condom, saying, "Don't leave home without a baker's dozen."
    Not surprisingly, certain Montgomery County parents are uncomfortable with the cucumber and the whole notion of educators intruding on a fundamental parental responsibility.
    Of course, Montgomery County educators would argue that they are merely attempting to expand the sex-ed dialogue in an open, caring and safe environment, which, as we all know, depends on how you define open, caring and safe.
    America's public schools are some of the most open, caring and safe environments anywhere, so long as you are part of the cool crowd and do not spend half the school day popping zits.
    Seriously, the hope here is that the teachers, parents and teens of Montgomery County endeavor to keep the cucumber in perspective.
    It also is important that they know to consume copious amounts of condom-free fruits and vegetables each day.
    Obesity is an ever-growing problem in America, and Montgomery County undoubtedly has its share of porker teachers.
    Just think, if educators long ago had urged everyone to develop proper eating habits at an early age, we all would be lean, mean sex machines today.
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E050508L   Teaching the Bible
    As a retired high-school English teacher, I want to shout for joy because of the opinion of my colleagues: The Bible must be taught in our high schools so that students can appreciate allusions in literature, art and music ("Top English teachers see value of teaching Bible as literature" Page 1, Sunday). American history teachers would have to concur that most of our nation's founding documents are based on the Bible. James Joyce's works are nearly impossible to appreciate without knowledge of the Bible. Without the Bible, Shakespeare's works are a thorny stem without the rose.
    However, the wonderful news is that the Bible has been taught in public high schools in America for the past 10 years -- using the Bible itself as the sole textbook.
    The curriculum for this high-school elective was developed by Elizabeth Ridenour of Greensboro, N.C. No legal challenge has ever been made, for the Supreme Court has never ruled that the Bible cannot be presented for study in public schools.
    The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools has provided its curriculum to 300 school districts in 35 states; more than 200,000 students already have taken this course.

    BARBARA J. MACHEMER
    Annandale
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R050508L   Liberals are clueless
    Thank you for Jon Ward's article "Liberals gather to plumb depths of Christian right" (Nation, Tuesday). I found it very enlightening: In short, the liberals are trying to find ways to manipulate Christian voters ? without having a clue what we're really about.
    How typical ? and how pathetic. Obviously, they still don't understand that their insincerity and manipulative tactics are exactly what have fed up many voters (including many non-Christians). Voters are tired of being exploited by liberals to further their "social reconstruction" agenda.
    Truly, these folks are blinded by their own ideology.

    DIANA CLARK
    Tyler, Texas
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E050509E   A setback for Rockville's sexperts

Montgomery County Public Schools won't be able to force a controversial, one-sided sex-education curriculum on area students, at least not this school year. A federal judge, Alexander Williams, Jr., a Clinton appointee, has issued a temporary restraining order against the curriculum, saying it imperils parents' and childrens' First Amendment and Establishment Clause rights. It's heartening that a Clinton appointee in one of the country's most liberal counties can see a constitutionally suspect program of indoctrination for what it is, and move to make Montgomery County take its responsibilities to parents and students more seriously.
    If any doubt remained that the sex-ed curriculum was in fact indoctrination, Judge Williams demolished it. As he shows, the curriculum violates the very heart and soul of the Constitution's protections of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
    For one, it ventures into sectarian theological disputes over homosexuality where government simply doesn't belong. "Theological and Biblical scholars continue to differ on many Biblical interpretations," the curriculum asserts. "They agree on one thing, however. Jesus said absolutely nothing at all about homosexuality." Why government should be weighing in on what Jesus did or did not say was unclear to Judge Williams, as it is to us.
    The problem was widespread throughout the curriculum, even going so far as to endorse certain churches over others. In some sections, the curriculum attempts to portray some churches' views as theologically sound and others as unsound. "Fortunately," it reads in one passage, "many within organized religions are beginning to address the homophobia of the church. The Nation [sic] Council of Churches of Christ, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Society of Friends (Quakers), and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches support full civil rights for gay men and lesbians, as they do for everyone else."
    Elsewhere, it endorses the position of the Anglican Church of Canada and singles out Baptists for scorn. "Religion has often been misused to justify hatred and oppression. Less than half a century ago, Baptist churches (among others) in this country defended racial segregation on the basis that it was condoned by the Bible," it asserts.
    "The Revised Curriculum plainly portrays Baptist churches as wrongly expressing the same intolerance [sic] attitude toward homosexuals today as they did toward African Americans during segregation," Judge Williams writes. "The strength [of] Defendants' substantive theological arguments are irrelevant -- it is their exclusive nature that the Court finds troubling."
    'The public interest is served by preventing Defendants from promoting particular religious beliefs in the public schools and preventing Defendants from disseminating one-sided information on a controversial topic," Judge Williams wrote. He also noted that the curriculum manifests "viewpoint discrimination," which occurs "when government restrictions 'target not subject matter but particular views taken by speakers on a subject.'" In such cases " 'the violation of the First Amendment is all the more blatant,' " the ruling said.
    Among the most interesting aspects of Judge Williams' opinion is that it reasons from the reigning liberal judicial philosophies promoting separation of church and state, not from conservatism. As he quotes Felix Frankfurter opining on public schools' role regarding the Establishment Clause: "Designed to serve as perhaps the most powerful agency for promoting cohesion among a hetergeneous democratic people, the public school must keep scrupulously free from entanglement in the strife of sects. The preservation of the community from divisive conflicts, of Government from irreconcilable pressures by religious groups, of religion from censorship and coercion however subtly exercised, requires strict confinement of the State to instruction other than religious, leaving to the individual's church and home, indoctrination of the faith of his church."
    From a common-sense perspective, this ruling is a huge relief. This sex-ed curriculum teaches children, among other things, that "morality is a more subjective issue." Elsewhere, it teaches that people "form a variety of [sexual] relationships lasting from one night to many years," an apparent blind eye to promiscuity. It's worth noting the inspiration for such moral obtuseness: At least in part, it comes from Alfred C. Kinsey. Kinsey is the sex researcher who once declined to report a pedophile to police. In the words of columnist John Leo, the pedophile "kept detailed records of his child rapes, including those of a baby of 5 months and a 4-year-old he sexually manipulated for 24 hours." Kinsey and his supporters saw nothing wrong with this. The curriculum calls his research "landmark."
    Some conservatives will point out that it was regettable that the curriculum ended up in federal court, and we are sympathetic to that argument. Now that it has, however, at least Montgomery County will have to take its duty to parents and children more seriously. It can't expect to fob a radical curriculum on its students just because its sexperts want to.
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R050509E   Stereotypes and filibusters
 

By Nat Hentoff
 
 

    The judicial confirmation process has become so savage in recent years that it would take a brave nominee to offer himself or herself for consideration. California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, for example, has been charged in a recent NAACP "Action Alert" with being "hostile to civil rights" and "having extreme right-wing views."
     I do not agree with all of Justice Brown's opinions, but I write this to show how prejudicially selective the prosecution of her is by the Democrats, the NAACP, People For the American Way and her other critics. She was filibustered in the last Congress, and may be again, now having been sent to the floor on a 10-to-8 party-line vote by the Judiciary Committee.
    To my knowledge, not one of her attackers has mentioned the fact that in the case of People v. McKay (2002), Justice Brown was the only California Supreme Court justice to instruct her colleagues on the different standards some police use when they search cars whose drivers are black: "There is an undeniable correlation between law enforcement stop-and-search practices and the racial characteristics of the driver.... The practice is so prevalent, it has a name: 'Driving While Black.' "
    The three-page "Action Alert" I received from the NAACP ignored that opinion, in which Brown added that while racial-profiling is "more subtle, more diffuse and less visible" than racial segregation, "it is only a difference of degree. If harm is still being done to people because they are black, or brown, or poor, the oppression is not lessened by the absence of television cameras." This is right-wing extremism?
    An April 28 lead New York Times editorial accuses Justice Brown of being "a consistent enemy of minorities" who is "an extreme right-wing ideologue." Sen. Ted Kennedy has accused Justice Brown of hostility not only to civil rights but also to "consumer protection." But in Hartwell Corp. v. Superior Court (2002), she declared that water utilities could be sued for having harmful chemicals in the water that result in injuries to residents of the state who drink that water.
    Also in People ex rel. Lungren v. Superior Court (1996), Justice Brown affirmed the authority of California's attorney general to haul into court faucet manufacturers who include lead in their faucets.
    Another charge by the NAACP in its "Action Alert" is that Justice Brown dissented from "a ruling that an injunction against the use of racially offensive epithets in the workplace did not violate the First Amendment." I know this case, Aguilar v. Avis Rent A Car System Inc., well, having covered it from the beginning andinterviewed lawyers on both sides. Brown dissented from an astonishing decision by the California Supreme Court that authorized the trial judge to actually put together a list of words that would be forbidden for all time in that workplace, even if uttered out of the presence of employees.
    This extreme gag rule on speech turned the First Amendment upside-down, because as Stanley Mosk, a much-respected civil libertarian on that California Supreme Court, emphasized: "The offensive content of using any one, or more, of a list of verboten words cannot be determined in advance." As Brown said plainly and correctly: "We are not dealing merely with a regulation of speech, we are dealing with an absolute prohibition, a prior restraint." This could "create the exception that swallowed the First Amendment."
    As for this justice's hostility to civil rights and liberties, there was her dissent in In re Visciotti (1996) in which she declared that the sentence of John Visciotti, convicted of murder, attempted murder and armed robbery, be set aside because of his defense lawyer's incompetence. In another capital murder case (In re Brown) she reversed the death sentence of John George Brown because the prosecutor subverted the defendant's fundamental right to due process by not disclosing evidence that could have been exculpatory.
    Not a word about those two cases was in the NAACP "Action Alert" or the New York Times editorial.
    Were I on the Senate Judiciary Committee, a critical question I would ask Justice Brown is: "Is it true, as has been charged, that you believe the drastically anti-labor 1905 Supreme Court decision in Lochner v. New York was correctly decided?" In that decision, which placed bakery owners' contract rights over the health of workers and the health of buyers of the company's products, the high court ruled that employers had the right to insist that their employees work unlimited long hours, even if the public's health were to be endangered because sick workers couldn't even take the day off.
    If Justice Brown does indeed agree with that decision, which was influential until President Roosevelt's New Deal, I would have difficulty voting for her. But I would not unjustly accuse her of having nothing in her record that strongly upholds the interests of justice. She does not deserve being stereotyped as an archetypical reactionary. And her defense of the Fourth Amendment's protection of our rights against government search and seizure are much stronger than any current member of the Supreme Court.
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R050510E   Stop the filibustering
 

By Tod Lindberg

I have been wracking my brain for a while now for a good reason for Republicans in the Senate not to get rid of the filibuster in the case of judicial nominees. You know, something about the higher need for comity, respect for the traditions of the "world's greatest deliberative body," the need for majorities to act with restraint so that minorities do not feel oppressed, etc.
    I give up. There are no principles at stake here. The prerequisite for a Senate rule that requires 60 votes for cloture is sufficient institutional comity to ensure that the filibuster is not abused. That comity does not currently exist. The issue is entirely partisan. And there is no peace available as a result of Republican restraint: Democrats will argue quite plausibly that the pressure they generated forced the Repubican Party to back down and will take that as an indication that heightening the confrontation is their best strategy.
    If not out of loftier motives, then perhaps the Republican Party should exercise restraint for fear of the consequences? Democrats threaten to shut down the operation of the Senate for the foreseeable future; Republicans will not always be the majority and will then appreciate the filibuster as a protection of minority rights.
    Democrats will do what they think is in their political interest. At the moment, they think their political interest is better served by a declaratory policy of confrontation. I say "declaratory" because the Senate has actually been doing some constructive work. President Bush has been able to sign bankruptcy-reform legislation and class-action lawsuit reform so far this year. So, if Senate Democrats see that they have an interest in playing ball, they will play.
    As for the consequences of a future reversal of GOP fortune in the Senate, given the current frame of mind of Senate Democrats, Republicans should expect to see a Senate Democratic majority shove everything down the throats of the minority it can. If Republicans don't now end the filibustering of judges, and minority Republicans one day start filibustering judges nominated by a Democratic president, the Democratic Senate majority will end it then.
    For comedy, you can always count on the New York Times editorial page. On Jan. 1, 1995, here's what the Times said about the filibuster: "The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. In the last session of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him. ... Republicans surely dread the kind of obstructionism they themselves practiced during the last Congress. Now is the perfect moment for them to unite with like-minded Democrats to get rid of an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose."
    One would have to call that a principled position, coming as it did on the eve of a Republican-majority Congress. Here's the Times on March 29, 2005: "A decade ago, this page expressed support for tactics that would have gone even further than the 'nuclear option' in eliminating the power of the filibuster. At the time, we had vivid memories of the difficulty that Senate Republicans had given much of Bill Clinton's early agenda. But we were still wrong. To see the filibuster fully, it's obviously a good idea to have to live on both sides of it. We hope acknowledging our own error may remind some wavering Republican senators that someday they, too, will be on the other side and in need of all the protections the Senate rules can provide."
    In truth, the editorials are most striking for what they have in common: Republicans are bad. On March 29, 2015, when President Obama is in the White House and Karenna Gore is Senate majority leader, I fully expect to read a New York Times editorial containing a passage along the following lines: "Now, at last, it's time for this extraconstitutional, undemocratic tool of obstruction to go once and for all. A decade ago, this page retracted a position against the filibuster we had taken a decade before. We were wrong then and right the first time. We hope that acknowledging our own error of 10 years ago, embarrassing though it may be, will give others the strength to review and overturn outmoded positions that do not speak to the circumstances of today."
    Getting rid of the filibuster for judicial nominees would indeed be an escalation in partisan conflict. But wholesale derailing of potential Supreme Court nomi