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
L050529       When convenience trumps conscience
L050530C    Stem cell reasoning
L050601       Brownback's idea
L050601       Romney overridden
L050604Va   Late-term abortion ban nixed by court

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H050529       Kentucky marriage measure upheld
H050529Md Wise vetoes by Ehrlich
H050601       ARIZONA   Poll shows split on marriage law
H050601       Mayor fights back
H050601Md Gay rights foes end fight on 2 Maryland bills
H050604       California defeats 'gender neutral' marriage

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050529       Filibuster battle altering '08 presidential landscape
R050531E    No need for GOP outrage
R050601      CONNECTICUT   Street preacher sues police
R050601      Even his son
R050601      KENTUCKY   Judge offers worship as sentencing option
R050603      Counterattack
R050604      Christian comic books find audience
R050604C    Fractured compromise

EDUCATION
E050531       INDIANA   School officials cancel sex survey
E050531Md Halfway to a reasonable sex-ed policy
E050602       Air Force to review senior's religious e-mail
E050602Md  A clean slate for Montgomery sex-ed
E050603Md  Lost in the city

MEDIA
M050602      Big, bad Wolf
M050602C   PBS jousting
M050603      Honor thy Koran

OTHER
O050529      Sex offenders in 14 states given Viagra
O050529      Women 'worse off' when couples part
O050601      What feminism?

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M050603   Honor thy Koran
 

By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- The senior military commander of the prison camp here yesterday voiced "frustration" that journalists and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International unfairly portray the military's handling of terror suspects.
    "There is occasionally a sense of frustration," said Army Brig. Gen. Jay Hood. The challenge, he said, comes not from questions asked by reporters, but rather that the military's "openness and willingness" to work with the press is often dismissed by "reporters that have not bothered to come here and look for themselves."
    Gen. Hood said every organization that has shown an interest in coming to the facility in the past two years has been allowed to visit.
    Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have sent correspondents before, and Army Col. Brad Blackner, the chief public affairs officer at Guantanamo, said military officials recently invited Al Arabiya to make a return visit in the near future.
    But he and Gen. Hood said there is not a coordinated effort to specifically attract Arab journalists to report on the prison and its efforts to respect the religion and culture of the detainees.
    "We want them to come," said Col. Blackner, although he added, "We didn't want it to look like, 'Let's reach out to the Arab community' " exclusively.
    The general's remarks come amid several weeks of political fireworks in Washington and in the Muslim world, sparked by a heavily critical Amnesty International report and a since-retracted Newsweek magazine article about a prison guard flushing a Koran down a toilet.
    Gen. Hood said the results of an exhaustive Defense Department probe into the Koran-abuse accusations will be released in the coming days. He previously has said that although there was no toilet-flushing incident, the probe uncovered five other occurrences involving the "mishandling of the Koran" by prison guards.
    He refused to give details about the incidents yesterday, saying only that during the past two years, "there have not been significant complaints from detainees about the handling of the Koran."
    A photographer and reporter from The Times who spoke with military officials inside Camp Delta, the main prison complex where about 550 mainly Muslim men are being held, were shown a green hardcover copy of the Koran, which officials said is offered to the detainees in 13 languages, including Arabic and Pashtu.
    Gen. Hood, meanwhile, said he "was terribly disappointed" by a highly critical report issued last week by Amnesty International, which called the prison camp "the gulag of our time" -- a comparison to the Russian government's enslavement of millions of men and women into work camps during the early 20th century.
    President Bush this week called the report "an absurd allegation." He added that the Amnesty report was unreliable because it was based on the word of released Guantanamo detainees "who hate America, people that had been trained ... not to tell the truth."
    The leader of Amnesty International USA contributed the maximum $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign, Federal Election Commission records show. William F. Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty USA, this week dismissed the White House's criticism, saying officials are willing to use the group's reports when it pleases them, as the administration did in the run-up to the Iraq war.
    Reporters and human rights groups have been increasingly critical of activities at Guantanamo since last year, when news emerged of the prisoner abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In that scandal, dozens of graphic photographs were circulated, including one of a naked Iraqi prisoner being led on a dog leash by a female U.S. soldier.
    "Very obviously in the aftermath of what we saw at Abu Ghraib, there's a great deal of skepticism both around the world and some at home about what went on at Guantanamo and what has happened at other detention centers," Gen. Hood said. "I think the only way to answer that skepticism is to show people what we're doing."
    Despite the attempts to improve relations with the press, reporters who visit are often frustrated by lengthy ground rules that they are required to sign and heavy restrictions on photographing or reporting the names of most of the people working in the prison. Details about the detainees, such as accusations against them, also are scant.
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E050602   Air Force to review senior's religious e-mail

DENVER (AP) -- On the eve of his graduation, the top cadet at the Air Force Academy sent out a religious-themed e-mail to thousands of fellow cadets, even as the school is grappling with complaints that some evangelical Christians are harassing others at the school.
    The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail sent Tuesday by wing commander Nicholas Jurewicz to the freshmen, sophomore and junior classes -- about 3,000 cadets. ?Wing commander? is the title held by the top senior at the school.
    Second Lt. Jurewicz lists his favorite quotations in the message, including several about Jesus. One quotation, ?Bear one another's burdens, and so you will fulfill the law of Christ,? is a biblical verse.
    The academy has been under investigation because of complaints that evangelical Christians have harassed cadets who do not share their faith, in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
    Cadets have been required to attend religious-tolerance seminars, during which they have been reminded that Air Force policy bans the use of official e-mails for personal messages.
    ?We will look into it, and if he violated any Air Force or academy policy, we will take appropriate action after we've reviewed it,? academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker said.
    Reached by telephone, Lt. Jurewicz declined to comment. He told the Gazette newspaper of Colorado Springs that he ?didn't think? to delete any of the religious messages from the e-mail.
    Asked for comment about the academy's religious-sensitivity training and a prohibition against citing Scripture in government e-mail, he told the paper: ?I'll leave that to the senior leadership to explain.?
    Capt. Melinda Morton, a chaplain who claims to have been fired as executive officer of the chaplaincy corps because of her criticism of the power of evangelicals at the academy, said the e-mail was exactly what the religious-tolerance classes were meant to stop.
    ?It doesn't matter if it is Amway or preaching Jesus,? Capt. Morton said. ?It should only be official material if it is for general distribution.? She added that the message ?would have been fine if he had just sent it to his five best friends.?
    Mikey Weinstein, a 1977 academy graduate who has sent two sons there, said he wanted Congress to step in and address the atmosphere at the school.
    ?There couldn't be a more wretchedly-timed example of the total and dismal failure of the senior leaders of the academy than having the No. 1 cadet breach the most fundamental and elementary rules of the religious-tolerance program,? said Mr. Weinstein, who is Jewish.
    The results of an investigation by an Air Force task force charged with looking into the accusations of religious intolerance will be released later this month. Meanwhile, the Defense Department's inspector general is investigating Capt. Morton's claim about losing her job because of her complaints.
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M050602   Big, bad Wolf
    In response to a TV character on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" commenting after an appellate court judge was killed, "Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt," supporters of the embattled Republican leader will be distributing "Tom DeLay" T-shirts today at a Capitol Hill subway stop.
    Saying executives at NBC have used the "Law & Order" series to take jabs at President Bush, Mr. DeLay and conservatives in general, Free Enterprise Fund Vice President Lawrence Hunter says this "again demonstrates just how out of touch the entertainment business is with red-state America."
    "Incidents like this only serve to galvanize conservatives and drive more people into the movement," he says, criticizing in particular the show's executive producer, Dick Wolf.
    The front of the shirt sports a picture of Mr. DeLay, and the back of the shirt reads: "Who's Afraid of Dick Wolf?"
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R050603   Counterattack
    The Congress of Racial Equality yesterday criticized the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights for its new ad campaign attacking California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown.
    CORE ran its own ad last week supporting the nomination of Justice Brown to be a federal appeals court judge.
    "Janice Rogers Brown is being attacked by the Leadership Conference for one reason and one reason only, because she is a black woman who has dared to stray from the liberal plantation," said CORE national spokesman Niger Innis.
    "It has always been considered racist to believe that all blacks look alike, yet the Leadership Conference and their allies in Congress want to reinforce the myth that all blacks must think alike. If they dare do otherwise, they will be ostracized and attacked."
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H050601   ARIZONA   Poll shows split on marriage law
    PHOENIX -- Residents are split over a proposed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex "marriage," a poll of 357 registered voters shows.
    Forty-nine percent favor amending the state constitution to ban same-sex "marriage" and deny government-sponsored benefits to unmarried couples. Forty-one percent opposed such an amendment, and 10 percent were undecided or had no opinion.
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R050601   CONNECTICUT   Street preacher sues police
    NEW HAVEN -- Street preacher Jesse Morrell has filed a federal lawsuit against city police, claiming they tried to halt him from spreading the word of God outside bars and popular nightspots.
    Mr. Morrell, 20, says he has a constitutional right to recite Bible verses, sing hymns and pray on the sidewalks outside of bars. Bonnie Winchester, a spokeswoman for New Haven police, said she couldn't comment because of department policy not to discuss ongoing lawsuits.
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R050601   KENTUCKY   Judge offers worship as sentencing option
    LONDON -- A Kentucky judge has been offering some drug and alcohol offenders the option of attending worship services instead of going to jail or rehabilitation -- a practice some say violates the separation of church and state.
    District Judge Michael Caperton, 50, a devout Christian, said his goal is to "help people and their families." "I don't think there's a church-state issue, because it's not mandatory and I say worship services instead of church," he said.
    Alternative sentencing is popular across the country, but legal analysts said they didn't know of any other judges who give the option of attending church.
    Judge Caperton has offered the option about 50 times to repeat drug and alcohol offenders.
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L050601   Romney overridden
    The Massachusetts legislature yesterday overrode Gov. Mitt Romney's veto and approved a bill designed to propel Massachusetts to the forefront of embryonic stem-cell research.
    The bill immediately became law over Mr. Romney's objections, after both chambers exceeded the two-thirds vote needed to override a veto. The vote was 112-42 in the House and 35-2 in the Senate, the Associated Press reports.
    Under previous state law, scientists who wanted to conduct embryonic stem-cell research in Massachusetts needed the approval of the local district attorney. The new law seeks to expand stem-cell research by removing that requirement but giving the state Health Department some regulatory controls.
    The Republican governor vetoed the bill last week because it allows the cloning of human embryos for use in stem-cell experiments -- a practice Mr. Romney said amounts to creating life in order to destroy it.
    Mr. Romney has said he supports research using either adult stem cells or cells extracted from leftover frozen embryos from fertility clinics.
    The new Massachusetts law bans cloning that results in a baby, but that practice is already prohibited under federal law.
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H050601   Mayor fights back
    Spokane, Wash., Mayor James E. West said yesterday he believes he will survive investigations into reports he committed criminal acts by trolling homosexual chat rooms and offering city jobs to men he met there.
    Mr. West told NBC's "Today" show that he expects to be exonerated by FBI and city investigations.
    "The e-mails that are coming to me are in my favor not to resign. Stand your ground," Mr. West said. "They say, 'If the allegations are true, you ought to go.' Well, they are not true."
    The Spokesman-Review has reported accusations that Mr. West molested two boys in the late 1970s and early 1980s when he was a Boy Scout leader, and that he offered gifts, favors and jobs at City Hall to young men he met online.
    The mayor has denied those reports, but acknowledged having relations with adult men.
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O050601   What feminism?
    A new book detailing the purported sexual improprieties of former President Bill Clinton charges that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, played a major role in threatening and intimidating her husband's accusers.
    Candice E. Jackson, a lawyer and author of "Their Lives: The Women Targeted by the Clinton Machine," tells Cybercast News Service's senior Washington writer Marc Morano that "Hillary's involvement is just as devastating and just as important in all this."
    "[Mrs. Clinton] was right there in the inner circle taking a lead in giving these women zero credibility, in attacking them in the public and through the press and in participating in all of these scare tactics, like hiring private investigators to threaten them and follow them," the author says.
    Ms. Jackson says the former first lady is "either as misogynistic as her husband or she is simply willing to conspire to mistreat women if that's what it takes to preserve their political careers."
    Describing herself as a "libertarian feminist," the author says the Clintons "have really gotten away with a political reputation of being defenders of women's rights and women's issues."
    "To me that really says a lot about the state of feminism in this country."
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E050531   INDIANA   School officials cancel sex survey
    BLOOMINGTON -- Monroe County school administrators canceled plans to survey students about their sexual behavior after parents complained that the questions were too explicit.
    The district's health programs coordinator said the survey will be revised. Officials said they planned the survey last year after parents expressed concern that some middle school students were sexually active.
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R050601   Even his son
    Sen. Mike DeWine, Ohio Republican, has come under intense criticism for joining the gang of 14 senators that derailed a Republican attempt to end judicial filibusters once and for all.
    How bad has it been? Well, more than 50 prominent social conservatives in the state held a conference call last week to discuss a primary challenge to Mr. DeWine next year, the New York Times reports. And even Mr. DeWine's son is distancing himself from his father's action.
    "I wouldn't have voted the way he did," Pat DeWine, a candidate for Congress, told the Cincinnati Inquirer.
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L050601   Brownback's idea
    Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, yesterday called for restrictions on the number of embryos that could be created during fertility treatments, hoping to lessen the number of unwanted embryos left over when the procedures end.
    "In a number of countries, they limit the number of these in vitro fertilizations from outside the womb," Mr. Brownback said on ABC's "This Week."
    "They say you can do this, but you have to do these one or two at a time, so that they're implanted in that basis. And that might be the better way to look at this.
    "That's a way that you can look at that, instead of going on this massive scale of what we've done here," Mr. Brownback said.
    His remarks came after the House last week passed a bill to loosen federal funding restrictions on medical research using stem cells from the unwanted embryos.
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R050529   Filibuster battle altering '08 presidential landscape
 

By Ralph Z. Hallow
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Last week's Senate compromise that averted a showdown over filibustered judicial nominees was actually the opening salvo of the 2008 presidential campaign, several veteran political observers say.
    The unexpected consequence of the filibuster compromise is to give a boost to the presidential prospects of Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican.
    "Allen was very vocal in support of changing the rules to eliminate the filibuster of judicial nominees and took the right position in condemning the compromise," said Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich.
    Conservatives have strongly condemned the compromise as a politically motivated gambit by Arizona Sen. John McCain, key Republican broker in the deal that ensured confirmation of three of President Bush's nominees to federal appeals courts.
    "George Allen is helped to the extent that the other potential [Republican] nomination competitors are not helped," said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "Allen was on the right side and said the right things."
    The compromise — supported by six other Republican senators — negated Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's demand for up-or-down votes on all of the Bush nominees. Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican, is an early favorite of many religious and social conservatives looking ahead to the 2008 presidential campaign.
    With Mr. McCain alienating the conservatives who dominate Republican primary voting, and by making Mr. Frist look like an ineffective leader, the filibuster compromise helped Mr. Allen by default.
    "McCain is now dead meat, and Frist is hurt," said Mr. Weyrich.
    Mr. McCain was Mr. Bush's chief rival for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination and had been seen as the leading contender for 2008, since Vice President Dick Cheney has said he will not seek the presidency. But Mr. McCain's central role in crafting the compromise could prove fatal to his hopes.
    "Conservatives who are unhappy with this compromise are going to blame McCain, not Frist," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
    Morton Blackwell, a Virginia Republican and member of the national party's executive committee, also said Mr. McCain will be the chief target of Republican wrath. "Nobody in his right mind could blame Frist for the actions of John McCain, who has further alienated our party's voter base," he said.
    Mr. Frist's base of support remains strong, said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. "I don't think Frist is wounded — betrayed by McCain and a few of his other Republican senators, but not wounded, not among social conservatives," he said.
    But Mr. Keene said the compromise did serious damage to Mr. Frist's credibility.
    "Frist is the loser in that he has demonstrated an inability to hold his own majority together," said Mr. Keene. "But out in the country and among the Republican base, he will be viewed as someone who at least tried."
    "Frist is hurt to the extent he had an opportunity to be seen as a hero to the conservative movement and that opportunity was taken away from him by John McCain," said Mr. Weyrich.
    The compromise was hailed as a victory by Democrats, and many conservatives questioned Mr. McCain's motives in recruiting other Republican senators to join an ad-hoc coalition — now derided by some critics as ?the Seven Dwarfs? — in support of the deal.
    "McCain could not bear to see Frist as the big winner, so he got his buddy [South Carolina Sen.] Lindsey Graham and [Ohio Sen.] Mike DeWine involved in this," Mr. Weyrich said. "That's what this is all about."
    Some conservatives who distrust Mr. McCain said they are concerned that, in a large 2008 primary field where several candidates divide conservative voters among them, Mr. McCain will emerge as the Republican nominee by default.
    One veteran of the Reagan administration who is now a leading social conservative activist said privately that the compromise might signal Mr. McCain's abandonment of his White House ambitions.
    "This deal says to me McCain is not running," the activist said. "I don't see how you go into the Republican presidential primaries and have this level of anger aimed at you by the Republican base — by the people who man the polls and stuff the envelopes for the candidate."
    However, with more than two years remaining before the 2008 campaign begins in earnest, future events — especially the confirmation battles over any future Bush appointees to the Supreme Court — will affect the political impact of the filibuster compromise.
    "What will matter for Frist is where we go from here," said Wendy Wright, senior policy director for Concerned Women for America. Mr. Frist may yet emerge as a conservative hero, she said, "if the president makes Supreme Court appointments and the Democrats filibuster them, and Frist succeeds in getting a filibuster rules change."
    And Mr. McCain may yet make peace with the GOP's conservative base, said Republican consultant Cleta Mitchell, if Democrats break the agreement by filibustering Mr. Bush's future judicial nominees — and thereby prompt Mr. McCain to join conservatives in backing a Senate rule change to require a floor vote for nominees.
    "Then McCain might not look so bad to some of the Republican base," Mrs. Mitchell said.
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O050529   Sex offenders in 14 states given Viagra

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    Nearly 800 convicted sex offenders in 14 states got Medicaid-funded prescriptions for Viagra and other impotence drugs, with the majority of the cases in New York, Florida and Texas, according to a survey.
    A study by the Associated Press found the states that provided registered sex offenders with subsidized impotence drugs are: Florida, 218 cases; New York, 198; Texas, 191; New Jersey, 55; Virginia, 52; Missouri, 26; Kansas, 14; Ohio, 13; Michigan, seven; Maine, five; Georgia, three; Montana, three; Alabama, two; and North Dakota, one.
    Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor, is administered differently in every state. Thus, while some states allowed Medicaid payments for prescriptions for the drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra, other states did not.
    New York, acting on a tip, was the first to uncover that Medicaid had paid for Viagra prescriptions for sex offenders. Its report prompted the federal government, which provides states with funds for Medicaid, to order states to take steps to stop the coverage for these felons.
    In Virginia, the cost came to at least $3,085. Gov. Mark Warner issued an emergency order barring Medicaid from continuing to pay for the drugs for these men.
    Kyle Smith, a spokesman for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, put it this way: "Do we have programs giving clubs to wife beaters or drinks for those committing DUI? Weird things happen in this world, and this is one of the weirder."
    In Alabama, officials said the federal government previously had mandated that states pay for erectile-dysfunction drugs. "Now that we are armed with new information from the federal government, Alabama can and will deny this coverage for registered sex offenders," Carol Herrmann, the state's Medicaid director, said last week.
    Some states had relied on a 1998 letter from the Clinton administration as a basis for providing coverage, said Matt Salo, a staff member of the National Governors Association. But that letter also said restrictions could be put in place to curb abuse. For example, the letter said states should limit the number of refills or the quantity of pills per prescription.
    That letter, sent to then-Govs. Michael O. Leavitt of Utah and Lawton Chiles of Florida, said Medicaid must cover all FDA-approved drugs with certain exceptions. Those exceptions included drugs used for weight control, for cosmetic purposes or to promote fertility.
    Some states did decline to provide coverage for impotence drugs to any male. South Dakota considers Viagra and similar drugs to be fertility drugs. "Our rules are specific in that we do not cover agents to promote fertility or to treat impotence," said Larry Iverson, director of South Dakota's Office of Medical Services.
    Wisconsin officials simply ignored the directive. The state's health and human services chief "thought the directive was ill-advised and chose to disregard it," said a department spokeswoman, Stephanie Marquis.
    Tennessee took the position that the treatment of erectile dysfunction is not medically necessary. The state has approved coverage of Viagra in five cases, not involving sex offenders, for treatment of pulmonary hypertension.
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H050529   Kentucky marriage measure upheld
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A Kentucky judge dismissed a challenge to the state's voter-passed marriage amendment, saying it was properly written and presented to voters.
    In a decision issued Thursday, Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Roger L. Crittenden agreed with the state that the Kentucky marriage amendment was based on a single subject and correctly presented to voters.
    Three Kentucky citizens, supported by the homosexual rights group Kentucky Fairness Alliance, challenged the amendment, saying it illegally addressed more than one subject and used "vague" and "ambiguous" language.
    The amendment says that "only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be a marriage in Kentucky, and that a legal status identical to or similar to marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized."
    A reasonable voter, the plaintiffs said, would not be able to understand whether the proposed amendment would affect "civil unions" and "domestic partnerships."
    State officials argued that the amendment was on a single subject -- marriage -- and was presented verbatim to voters so there would be no misunderstanding about it.
    The judge also rejected a third argument from the plaintiffs that the amendment didn't describe "the impact" it would have on such things as inheritance rights, funeral arrangements and hospital visitations.
    Amendment proposals don't have to articulate their "possible consequences," Judge Crittenden said.
    It was not clear last week whether the plaintiffs would appeal.
    Separately, on Friday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court dismissed a second request to put a temporary hold on the so-called Goodridge decision, which legalized same-sex "marriages" in that state as of May 2004.
    C. Joseph Doyle, a leader of the Catholic Action League, had argued last year before Justice Roderick Ireland that the court should suspend its ruling until the public had a chance to vote on the matter, possibly in 2006. Justice Ireland denied the request.
    This year, Mr. Doyle made the same request before the full court. The high court replied Friday that Justice Ireland's decision was correct and that "nothing has transpired in the interim that materially changes the situation or which warrants the truly extraordinary measures sought now."
    Michele Granda, a lawyer with Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, applauded the ruling. "Goodridge is the law of the commonwealth and nothing has happened to change that," she said.
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O050529   Women 'worse off' when couples part
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Women are more likely to suffer financially than men when marriages or cohabitational relationships fail, a new study says.
    Economically, when either kind of co-residential relationship dissolves, "women are definitely worse off," said Sarah Avellar of Mathematica Policy Research Inc., co-author of a new study with Pamela J. Smock of the University of Michigan.
    For instance, after divorce, married men averaged nearly $29,000 a year while ex-boyfriends averaged $22,000, according to the study, which appears in the May issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.
    The financial loss is significant for both groups of men: Married men's household income drops 22 percent, and cohabiting men's income drops 10 percent.
    But for women, the economic decline is "precipitous," Ms. Avellar said.
    The household incomes for ex-girlfriends fell 33 percent, to $19,000 a year, while the incomes for ex-wives dropped an extraordinary 58 percent, down to $16,000. These findings are especially important for black and Hispanic women because they cohabit more than other racial groups, Ms. Smock said.
    Cohabitation can be economically beneficial, especially for couples who are struggling financially, Ms. Smock said, but the breakup is rough on women -- particularly blacks and Latinos. She noted that almost half of these women end up in poverty.
    The new study is based on a sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The researchers studied nearly 800 cohabiting men and women who ended their relationships between 1983 and 1994. The cohabitants were compared to 1,583 married men and women who divorced during the same time period.
    In addition to examining differences in median household income before and after the relationship, the researchers looked at poverty rates and found once again that women bore the financial brunt of the breakup.
    For instance, the poverty level for married men actually decreased -- 9 percent lived in poverty while married but after divorce, only 7 percent were in poverty. Among cohabiting men, the percentage living in poverty rose, but only modestly, to about 20 percent from 18 percent.
    But nearly 30 percent of girlfriends and nearly 38 percent of wives lived in poverty after their relationships failed. The researchers said both wives and girlfriends tend to have lower incomes than their partners and when couples separate, women have less to live on.
    Moreover, wives and girlfriends are more likely to have custody of the children, which means more mouths to feed with less income.
    Regardless of the relationship that ends, though, the researchers concluded, "women end up in strikingly similar positions; some just fall farther to get there."
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M050602C   PBS jousting
 

By Donald Lambro

The question of a left-wing tilt in public television is in the news again, this time posed by the man who runs the federal agency that funds public broadcasting.
    Veteran journalist Ken Tomlinson, board chairman at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has raised the ire of public television executives by having the temerity to suggest some of the documentary and other news programs aired on PBS are often lopsidedly liberal. He says Bill Moyers' program "Now" is one of the worst offenders, though Mr. Moyers -- the former flack for the Johnson White House -- left the show in December. The show now has a new host, as liberal as ever, and Mr. Moyers plans to return with another program in the fall.
    Pat Mitchell, president of the Public Broadcasting Service, among others, has sharply criticized Mr. Tomlinson's accusations of PBS' liberal bias, denying any suggestion public television is in need of balance. These are people who still insist PBS and National Public Radio are "private" corporations that should answer to no one. But how many "private corporations" receive nearly $400 million a year in direct taxpayer support and have a board of directors appointed by the White House?
    One of the steps Mr. Tomlinson (originally appointed to the board by President Bill Clinton) has taken is to appoint an ombudsmen team made up of legendary Reader's Digest editor Bill Schulz and longtime TV journalist and educator Ken Bode (a former PBS program host). Their assignment: examine public television programming and cite examples where no attempts have been made to present a balanced view of a subject.
    Mr. Moyers' "Now" was a particularly outrageous example of a program that let a journalist attack the Bush administration and other favorite liberal targets, while hosting a rarely interrupted series of liberal rants by guests about "corporate greed," environmental pollution and a government that does not spend enough on the poor.
    "Washington Week in Review," a weekly talk show that brings together a bunch of liberal journalists to examine the news, is another offender. Its panel's singular achievement: 35 years without a hint of disagreement on any topic.
    Anyone who watched the program regularly during the 2004 election year heard an analytical stream of consciousness about how George W. Bush was doing everything wrong in his campaign, how much trouble he had gotten himself and the country into, and how badly his campaign was going at every turn. When Mr. Bush won, it must have come as a huge surprise to "Washington Week in Review" viewers, who were led to believe Mr. Bush was losing the election.
    A recent PBS program on land use and the environment in New Jersey paraded a long line of environmental talking heads who pointed to all kinds of dreadful things happening to that state's suburban landscape, farms and way of life.
    No one had anything good to say about New Jersey's land use, though it has one of the nation's strongest economies. The impression the show left was that virtually nothing grows in the state, that people were packed into overcrowded housing developments built on land tracts bulldozed and exploited by evil, rapacious land developers.
    This was a show that underscored Mr. Tomlinson's cry for balance, where someone could have and should have been allowed to present the other side. Obviously, New Jersey is a very popular place to live, with some of the country's prettiest towns and most bucolic landscapes, not to mention a thriving agricultural sector. But you wouldn't know it from watching PBS' tilted presentation.
    This is not to suggest PBS does not offer many really great, well-balanced programs, like "Nature" and Ken Burns' documentaries on the Civil War, Thomas Jefferson, the Jazz Age and the civil rights movement.
    Nevertheless, Mr. Tomlinson is onto something. He told The Washington Post last month that the ideological resistance of veteran PBS people like Miss Mitchell is "symbolic of the tone-deafness" and "intellectual dishonesty" among PBS' entrenched liberal bureaucracy.
    Three cheers, then, for Ken Tomlinson and his get-tough attitude on PBS' left-wing cabal. It's time someone called them to account for programming that all too often refuses to tell the other side of the story.

    Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent of The Washington Times, is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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L050530C   Stem cell reasoning
 

By Mona Charen

The Kansas City Star, editorializing about the president's threat to veto the stem cell bill passed by the House, described human embryos as the "excess products of fertility procedures." The Los Angeles Times, contemptuous of the president's ethical misgivings, declared: "It's not a choice between a human life and an embryo's life. It's a choice between real human lives and a symbolic statement about the value of an embryo."
    The New York Times and others object that majorities in public opinion polls support this research. Is that how we should evaluate moral claims? Majorities also support the judges President Bush has nominated, and yet the Times has gone gooey for the "rights" of minority senators and the sanctity of the filibuster.
    Critics of the president's position frequently charge Mr. Bush is influenced by religious belief and that his objections to stem cell research are therefore illegitimate. The New York Times is the master of this argument. In an editorial titled "The president's stem cell theology," the paper asserts "his actions are based on strong religious beliefs on the part of some conservative Christians, and presumably the president himself. Such convictions deserve respect, but it is wrong to impose them on this pluralistic nation."
    Let's have a show of hands: Who thinks the New York Times would object to a president who, say, endorsed unrestricted immigration on moral grounds? Would the Times chide such a president for imposing his private religious sentiments on "this pluralistic nation"? Hardly.
    It isn't moral reasoning the Times and other liberal organs dislike; it is moral reasoning that threatens to pinch. Advocates of unlimited stem cell research believe or hope this science will bring early cures to diseases like diabetes and Parkinson's. Everyone hopes for such breakthroughs -- though level-headed scientists caution against overly optimistic expectations from this line of inquiry. Yet morally serious people cannot focus only on the imagined cures and ignore the hard facts about destroying or cloning human embryos.
    The suggestion, repeated so often in the press, that only conservative Christians oppose stem cell research, is simply false. One influential voice against the practice belongs to William Kristol. As editor of the Weekly Standard, he has offered moral objections to stem cell research, euthanasia, abortion and other assaults on the sanctity of life. Mr. Kristol is Jewish, but his arguments are couched in non-sectarian -- indeed, in nonreligious -- terms.
    Steve Chapman, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, dispensed with the sectarian argument in his title: "You don't have to be a believer to think there is something wrong with destroying human life, however immature."
    By pigeonholing the president's position as that of a "conservative Christian," cheerleaders for stem cell research hope to avoid grappling with the moral question altogether. The New York Times objects, "The president's policy is based on the belief that all embryos, even the days-old, microscopic form used to derive stem cells in a laboratory dish, should be treated as emerging human life and protected from harm. This seems an extreme way to view tiny laboratory entities that are no larger than the period at the end of this sentence."
    Yes, it's difficult to think of human embryos ("entities") as members of the human family. But those tiny dots, no larger than the period at the end of this sentence, if implanted in a woman's womb, will not grow up to be paragraphs or essays, but full-term infant boys and girls.
    An embryo does not look like a baby, but that is part of the miracle of creation (or reproduction, if you look at it clinically). Surely the stem cell enthusiasts can recognize, if they reflect on it, that denying the humanity of others is at the root of countless atrocities in human history.
    And yes, many of these potential human beings are destroyed at fertility clinics around the nation. That is wrong. But using them for medical research does not mitigate that wrong, it compounds it. Even if destroying embryos were certain to bring a cure for grave diseases (and it is far from certain), it is never justified to use one human being -- or even potential human being -- as a source of spare parts for another.

    Mona Charen is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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L050529   When convenience trumps conscience
 

By Steve Chapman

Tuesday, President Bush went before cameras holding a month-old baby named Trey Jones. The picture raised a question supporters of embryonic stem cell research would rather not answer: Would the world be better off if Trey had been killed as an embryo to advance medical research?
    That is what would happen to thousands of other embryos under the bill passed last week by the House of Representatives, at least if the supporters' hopes are realized -- and it would happen with the federal government's approval and help. The measure would scrap the policy Mr. Bush adopted in August 2001, when he agreed to government financing of such research only if it relied on already created stem cell lines.
    He drew a clear line: Medical science can exploit the products of embryos that had already been killed, but the federal government would not be an accomplice to studies that require additional killing. It was a modest restriction, since it did not prevent researchers from destroying other embryos, if they got their money from somewhere other than Washington. But it established the principle there are some things we should not do, even in the hope of healing.
    That principle doesn't seem terribly popular on Capitol Hill. The House bill would allow federally funded research on embryos created in fertilization clinics that would otherwise be discarded, and that are donated by the parents. Never mind that frozen embryos not needed by their parents don't have to be destroyed. They can be implanted in the wombs of willing mothers, as Trey Jones was.
    Mr. Bush has promised to veto the bill. But this may not be the last word from Congress: Other bills would not only allow destruction of "surplus" embryos but permit cloning new embryos that would also be destroyed.
    Californians voted last year to provide $3 billion in state money to subsidize experimentation on embryos created solely for that purpose. The Massachusetts legislature has sent the governor a bill to allow such "therapeutic cloning."
    Supporters promise vast benefits if scientists are allowed to clone and destroy embryos as they see fit. In the House debate last week, advocates held out hope of curing paralysis, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and other illnesses.
    Even some anti-abortion lawmakers found ways to rationalize ending lives to combat disease. "Who can say prolonging life is not pro-life?" asked Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, Missouri Republican.
    The claims, though, are speculative. David Shaywitz, a Harvard stem cell researcher who opposes existing restrictions, recently in The Washington Post lamented the "extravagant claims of progress" and noting that "growing these stubborn cells is notoriously difficult."
    While advocates extol the possible benefits, it was up to opponents to state the cost plainly. The research, said House Republican Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, would "kill some in hopes of saving others."
    You may not like getting moral instruction from a politician known mostly for his ethical lapses. But Mr. DeLay's position is indistinguishable from that of the late Pope John Paul II.
    Supporters of embryonic stem cell research say opposition can only be attributed to dogmatic religious faith, and that Mr. Bush is pandering to the religious right. But you don't have to be a believer (I am not) to think there is something wrong with destroying human life, however immature, just because it may be advantageous for those of us already born.
    It is easy to ignore the nature of what are called mere "clumps of cells" or "blastocysts." But all of us are clumps of cells, and all of us were once tiny blastocysts -- separate and unique human beings at the earliest stage of life. The House-endorsed research means ending some human beings' lives.
    Why do we blind ourselves to that irreducible fact? Because we fervently hope to gain something from it -- in this case, the chance of longer or better lives for ourselves.
    Few would indulge scientists who proposed to dismember an actual baby, even if it were guaranteed to save lives. But we find ways to excuse dismembering embryos that need only nine months to become babies. Convenience trumps conscience.
    Those who want to remove existing limits say we could get a lot from embryonic stem cell research. What would we lose? Wait a few years, and Trey Jones might be willing to tell you.

    Steve Chapman is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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R050531E   No need for GOP outrage
 

By Tod Lindberg

The Republican Party is in political trouble as a result of the compromise on judicial nominees, but the situation is hardly beyond recovery: Democrats, too, are in some peril.
    As matters stand, in accordance with the deal struck by seven Democratic senators and seven GOP senators, two of President Bush's appellate-court nominees will continue to be filibustered, will accordingly never reach the Senate floor and will therefore in all likelihood be withdrawn by the White House.
    Many conservative Republicans think this is an outrage. And there is a distinct possibility that, if conditions persist, by November 2006 outrage will have turned to dismay and demoralization, with the result that GOP base turnout will be depressed: a classic scenario for the opposition party to pick up seats in Congress.
    Whence the outrage? It is, simply, the conviction among party activists that "moderate" Republicans in the Senate sold out principle on judicial nominees. The principle is that all judicial nominees deserve an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, especially if such a vote would yield the majority required for confirmation. The idea that the hurdle judicial nominees have to clear is 60 votes — the number Senate rules require to end a filibuster — is a bald-faced minority hijacking of the Senate's "advice and consent" responsibility, in the view of the party's activist wing. And seven Republicans have now gone along with this hijacking by refusing to agree to pass by majority vote a rule change that would stop the abuse of the filibuster.
    Under the compromise, Democrats will have bagged two of the nominees they targeted. But three will make it through. And here, one ought to take pause. If this had been, from the beginning, a fight over a Democratic effort to block two of the president's nominees by any and all of the ample means of chicanery available to members of the Senate, including the filibuster, and if it had been successful, Republicans would have been steamed. But they would not have worked themselves into anything like their current lather.
    There would have been no talk of a "nuclear option" or a "constitutional option" to change the Senate rules. The general rhetorical point that nominees deserve an up-or-down vote would be declared in full knowledge that the history of the process shows Republicans and Democrats alike acting to keep the other side's nominees from getting to the Senate floor. The notion that there is something somehow "unconstitutional" about the Senate's rules would never have arisen or, if it did, it would have been dismissed as no more than a rhetorical flourish. And Republicans would probably be pleased by the confirmation of nominees of such quality as the three who are going through.
    Now, if you want to really aggravate your own people, what you should do is elevate an issue to a position of maximum prominence, localize the argument around your maximal demands and the maximal means of achieving them, build the expectation that anything less than total victory is utter defeat, keep the issue at a rolling boil for about two solid months in which nothing else much is going on politically — then lose control of the process in such a fashion that an outcome that would have been entirely acceptable in any past context looks to your side like you have been routed.
    I thought Democrats would have a hard time accepting any of the filibustered nominees. To a degree, that's true. But they seem to be exhibiting a certain amount of tactical flexibility. And that makes sense, because Republicans are, in the immortal phrase of Weekly World News columnist Ed Anger, "pig-biting mad." What to do? Well, this has all really been about the Supreme Court, hasn't it?
    To recover, the White House needs exactly the right nominee for chief justice should William Rehnquist step down. That would be Justice Antonin Scalia. (Justice Clarence Thomas would solve the problem with the right, but would create an opportunity for Democrats to try to block the appointment in a way that Justice Scalia doesn't.) It will then be up to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to persuade the seven GOP dealmakers that a Democratic filibuster of Justice Scalia would be unacceptable under the terms of their deal. After all, Justice Scalia's elevation would do nothing to the balance on the court, and the idea that the constitutionally mandated position of chief justice of the United States would sit vacant because of a Democratic filibuster of a nominee who is already on the court and commands majority support in the Senate is outrageous. It will be up to the GOP seven to make that position clear to their seven Democratic counterparts.
    Who, then, takes the Scalia seat? From the vantage of optimal GOP political impact, one of the three who get through according to the terms of this deal. They will just have been confirmed in accordance with it; it would be difficult for the Democratic seven to switch sides and now argue "extraordinary" unacceptability.
    That's the point at which Democrats might begin to regret (and Republicans grudgingly accept) last week's deal.
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E050603Md   Lost in the city
 

By Diana West

Good thing the Montgomery County School Board's sex education pilot-plan in Maryland was so flagrantly in violation of the First Amendment that a federal district judge just had to hand down a restraining order last month, or else maybe turn in his gavel forever. With the sex-ed plan's legal route blocked, the school board ditched the whole thing for now, along with the citizens committee that waved it through in the first place, despite all those flapping, red flags.
    There were two really big ones. Judge Alexander Williams Jr. called one "viewpoint discrimination" because, as he wrote, the new curriculum for 10th-graders was supposed to teach that "homosexuality is a natural and morally correct lifestyle -- to the exclusion of other perspectives." Also outrageous was the way the curriculum promoted certain religions to the exclusion of others. In touting "the moral rightness of the homosexual lifestyle," the judge wrote, the curriculum suggested that "the Baptist Church's position on homosexuality is theologically flawed," and reminiscent of the racial prejudice of the segregation era. At the same time, the curriculum applauded Reform Jews, Unitarians and Quakers for promoting an activist homosexual political agenda. If you're wondering when religious prejudice or favoritism became a subject fit for the public schools to preach -- I mean, teach -- the answer is never. And that's what the court ruled.
    But imagine if the school board had been smart enough to reel in those First-Amendment red flags on which this particular sex-ed course was hung out to dry. Would Montgomery County teens be sitting down to become both "informed" and de-sensitized by the course's instructional video on how to apply a condom to a cucumber? Would these kids be reflecting on their curriculum's no doubt scholarly treatment of all manner of sexual experimentation? In this hyper-sexualized culture of ours, I'm afraid the answer has to be yes.
    But it's an answer that demands rethinking. That is, kudos to the parents in Montgomery County who banded together to stop this sex-ed train on its way out of the station. But after it retools, the same basic train will chug away in the fall. My question is, do we like where it's going, and, if not, how do we get off?
    It's a track we've been stuck on for a long time -- since 1930, in fact, when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals "forever changed the course of obscenity law," writes Rochelle Gurstein in her illuminating book "The Repeal of Reticence." It was then, in an acclaimed case, that the court ruled that sex-education material could no longer be considered illicit. According to Judge Augustus Hand, "accurate information, rather than mystery and curiosity, is better in the long view and is less likely to occasion lascivious thoughts than ignorance and anxiety." But, as Miss Gurstein points out, "accurate information" did more than remedy "ignorance and anxiety." After all, she explains, "ignorance and anxiety" were only part of the human condition. "Equally important," she writes, "were considerations of the inherent fragility of intimate life, the tone of public conversation, standards of taste and morality, and reverence owed to mysteries. These defining characteristics of the reticent sensibility had been lost."
    "Lost" isn't the word. Something more forceful (pulverized? mutilated?) is in order to describe the, well, fallen condition of a world in which -- just to take a random example -- a new Simon & Schuster teen title, "Rainbow Party," brings lipstick-and-oral-group-sex parties to the 12-and-up set (Thanks, Bill Clinton). I'm both happy and resentful to report that so-called rainbow parties -- reportedly a real-life trend -- are a new one on me: Happy that I've lived multiple decades without an inkling; resentful that I'm now and forever stuck with the knowledge. Who needs it?
    More important -- what does making such berserk sexual adventurism a mass-cultural commonplace do to the individual human psyche? Are we better off so limitlessly coarsened? Are our children? Certainly, the publishing industry is better off. According to the New York Times, publisher Judith Regan, among others, has capitalized on sex-in-the-citified sensibilities to inaugurate a "growing and increasingly racy genre of how-to sex books ... extolling the excitement that could come from oral sex, anal sex, fetishism and S&M."
    So glad to hear what now constitutes "racy." What we really need, though, are some new definitions of pornographic, obscene, lewd -- categories the courts told us decades ago don't really exist. I think they do. And I think we've wallowed in them long enough.
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E050602Md   A clean slate for Montgomery sex-ed

The Montgomery County school board surprised opponents of its sex-education curriculum last week by dropping the curriculum and dissolving the committee that created it. Coming from one of Maryland's most liberal counties, the move is a clear victory for reasonable sex education. Now, Montgomery County should use the opportunity to build a curriculum that focuses on education -- one that doesn't push ideological agendas, and one that respects parents' and students' rights and remains open to viewpoints from outside the education establishment.
    At the very least, Montgomery County showed what not to do: Don't stack advisory committees with advocates of "transgenderism" and homosexuality; don't quash opposing viewpoints you happen not to like; and don't make unwarranted distinctions between religious groups. Even in a liberal county, even in a region with liberal federal judges, public opposition will mount and a jurist will spot the constitutional problems.
    The point of a sex-education curriculum is to teach facts about sex, not to propagate dubious theories. If such theories are put forward, then, at minimum, alternative approaches must also be presented. In Montgomery County, they were not. That was one of the principal reasons why Judge Alexander Williams Jr., the Clinton appointee who blocked the curriculum last month, ruled against the school board, citing First Amendment protections for free speech and expression.
    The other reason was that the school board presumed it could pass judgment on certain religions on the basis of their teachings on homosexuality. The public expression of such preferences by government entities are at best constitutionally suspect, but apparently the board wasn't aware of this. Thus it cited Quakers and Unitarians as right-thinking denominations while singling out Baptists for scorn. "Religion has often been misused to justify hatred and oppression," it stated. "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." All of which says far more about the curriculum's authors than it does about Baptists or Quakers.
    Calling such sentiments "viewpoint discrimination," Judge Williams ruled that "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."
    We hope the rest of the country is watching. Specifically, we hope the sexperts and education activists learn that even in the country's most liberal regions, they cannot expect to foist dubious ideologies onto the public under the guise of public health.
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E050531Md   Halfway to a reasonable sex-ed policy
    Regarding "County schools ditch sex-ed class" (Metropolitan, May 24), Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum approves the resolutions adopted by the Montgomery County Board of Education. However, we wonder why, despite hundreds of letters, 4,000 petition signatures against the curriculum, dozens of statements and detailed objections by medical experts, it took a federal lawsuit to convince the board to do the right thing.
    At the board meeting May 23, Superintendent Jerry D. Weast indicated that the whole nation and other superintendents are watching how Montgomery County handles this situation. We would add that parents on both sides of this issue are watching as well. The decisions made here will be felt across the country. Considering this national spotlight, the board should keep in mind that respecting parents' wishes in this highly sensitive area is no longer an option but a mandate.
    If solutions are what we're all looking for, then we're halfway there. Before the curriculum can be rewritten, a balanced citizen advisory committee that is committed to respecting the values of all parents and citizens in this community and is open to a range of professional advice on this controversial issue needs to be in place. This is vital. The tightly controlled nature of this committee in the past was vastly responsible for the production of a one-sided curriculum that was more indoctrination than education.

    ELLEN CASTELLANO
    Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum
    Montgomery Village
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H050529Md   Wise vetoes by Ehrlich

Once again, Marylanders owe Gov. Robert Ehrlich a tremendous debt of gratitude for his willingness to use his veto power in an attempt to prevent bad legislation from becoming law. Once again during the 2005 legislative session, Mr. Ehrlich's third as governor, Democrats in Annapolis demonstrated that they continue to lurch further and further to the left.
    The Democrats, who control the Senate and House of Delegates by majorities of more than 2-1, rammed through legislation that, among other things, would jeopardize jobs, treat homosexuals and unmarried heterosexuals the same as married couples for tax purposes and facilitate vote fraud. For his part, Mr. Ehrlich showed he will not let bad bills pass without a fight.
     Democrats need to win 60 percent majorities in both houses in order to override a gubernatorial veto. Here are some of the governor's most important vetoes, all of which deserve to be sustained:
    • The Wal-Mart bill. On May 19, Mr. Ehrlich traveled to Princess Anne on the Eastern Shore, where Wal-Mart is building a distribution center, where he vetoed legislation that would have forced the company to spend at least 8 percent of its payroll on employee health-care benefits, contribute an equivalent amount to Maryland's Medicaid program or pay a $250,000 fine. The bill -- which would only apply to Wal-Mart, a retailer that employs more than 10,000 people in Maryland -- is widely seen as retaliation for the company's resistance to organized labor's efforts to unionize its workforce.
    During his visit, the governor rightly warned that the bill jeopardized jobs and economic growth in Maryland. Princess Anne is located in Somerset County, which has a 7 percent unemployment rate, second-highest in the state. Wal-Mart has indicated that if the General Assembly overrides Mr. Ehrlich's veto when it meets in January, it may reconsider its decision to build a distribution center in Princess Anne that could employ 1,000 people.
    • The minimum-wage increase. Despite study after study demonstrating that the increases in the minimum wage jeopardize the jobs of the least-skilled and most-vulnerable workers, the Democrats rammed through the General Assembly legislation increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 to 6.15 an hour. As the governor noted in his May 20 veto message, employers "have few options to recover the increased costs imposed by government. They can either pass along these costs to consumers or they can cut their costs by firing their employees."
    • Medical decisionmaking for unmarried couples. The governor also vetoed a bill, heavily pushed by homosexual-rights advocates, that would have allowed unmarried couples -- heterosexual and homosexual -- to designate "life partners" that would have in essence the same rights as married couples. In his veto message, Mr. Ehrlich quite properly objects to the fact that by treating so-called life partners in essence the same as married couples, the legislation undermines traditional marriage.
    m Tax exemptions for domestic partners. Mr. Ehrlich also vetoed a bill exempting "domestic partners" and "former domestic partners" from recordation taxes and state and county transfer taxes. Not only does the bill undermine the sanctity of traditional marriage, the governor said, but it also could allow people to form "so-called domestic partnerships as a tax avoidance technique" and "create significant administrative burdens for Clerks of the Court and county finance offices to confirm existing and former relationships prior to granting the exemption."
    m Absentee voting on demand. Mr. Ehrlich also vetoed House Bill 22, which would eliminate existing requirements for receiving an absentee ballot, such as service in the armed forces, illness or absence from the polling place on election day. The bill permits people to receive absentee ballots without having to provide a reason, and it lacks more stringent requirements for voter identification in the absentee ballot process, such as requirements that ballots be notarized or signed by two witnesses. Mr. Ehrlich is right to be concerned that the legislation would be "an invitation for greater voter fraud in the state."
    Given the present composition of the General Assembly, Mr. Ehrlich will face difficult challenges is sustaining his vetoes. In some cases, they may be overridden. Either way, we fully expect that the governor will use all of the above bills to illustrate the differences between his administration and the legislature next year, when he and all 188 members of the General Assembly will be on the ballot.
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H050601Md   Gay rights foes end fight on 2 Maryland bills
 

By Gretchen Parker
ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANNAPOLIS -- A Republican delegate and conservative activists have abandoned efforts to overturn two of the bills passed this winter by the General Assembly that would broaden homosexuals' rights.
    One bill would establish a domestic partnership registry that would allow homosexual and straight partners to make medical decisions for each other. The other bill would grant a transfer tax exemption to homosexual couples who make their partners co-owners of property. Both bills have been vetoed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., but the General Assembly could override the vetoes when it convenes in January, keeping alive the possibility that the bills could become law.
    Elections officials still expected to receive petitions to overturn two other bills that were not vetoed by Mr. Ehrlich. One would amend the state's hate-crime law to expand protections for homosexuals. The other would require schools to report bullying incidents.
    The deadline for petitions, with signatures from 17,062 registered voters on each, was midnight yesterday. Elections officials say a successful petition drive would suspend the hate crimes and school reporting bills from becoming law until after the 2006 general election, when voters would decide the issue.
    Less than a week ago, those pushing the referendum drives announced they were moving ahead with their efforts. But the logistics of collecting thousands of signatures on petitions for four bills were difficult, said Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr., whose group High Impact Leadership Coalition collected about 1,000 signatures in the D.C. suburbs.
    "I think when you start talking about hate-crimes bills or whatever, it's just so complicated. There isn't a clear rallying cry," Mr. Jackson said.
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H050604   California defeats 'gender neutral' marriage
 

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The California Assembly has defeated a bill to make marriage "gender neutral," dashing hopes among homosexual-rights groups that lawmakers in the nation's most populous state would become the first to legalize same-sex "marriage" without a court order.
    On Thursday, the last of three votes on the "marriage equality" bill -- AB 19 -- fell four votes short of the 41 needed to pass the Assembly.
    The bill, pushed by openly homosexual San Francisco Assemblyman Mark Leno and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, would have defined marriage in California as a civil contract between "two persons" instead of "a man and a woman."
    Conservatives cheered the bill's demise, but warned that "more attacks" on traditional marriage are coming.
    Californians must pass "a true-blue state constitutional amendment" to protect marriage from politicians and judges, said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families.
    But Geoffrey Kors, executive director of Equality California, said homosexual-rights advocates should be pleased that the Assembly vote, while disappointing, was "the farthest" a same-sex "marriage" bill had ever gotten in a state legislature without court-ordered action. His group was one of 200 that supported the Leno bill.
    Republicans and their allies had argued that the bill contradicted Proposition 22, a ballot measure passed by voters in 2000 that says only marriage between one man and one woman is valid or recognized in California.
    Their position seemed to be buttressed by a California Court of Appeal ruling in April.
    The appellate court, which ruled that the state's new domestic-partnership law was legal under Proposition 22, also noted that "[w]ithout submitting the matter to the voters, the Legislature cannot change this absolute refusal to recognize marriages between persons of the same sex."
    An undaunted Mr. Leno said Thursday that the same-sex "marriage" issue was not over.
    "Gay and lesbian couples are not going to disappear as of tonight," he said.
    However, they will continue to face some tough opposition.
    A group called the Voters' Right to Protect Marriage Initiative plans a petition drive next month to put a marriage amendment before voters in 2006. The group will need to collect more than 1 million signatures in five months.
    The proposed marriage amendment defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman and repeals some of the rights unmarried couples are now allowed under California's domestic-partnership law.
    Homosexual-rights groups such as the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force have announced a campaign to raise $1 million to defeat the proposed amendment.
    The American Civil Liberties Union also is creating a public education campaign to convince Americans nationwide that it is unfair to deny legal protections to same-sex couples and their families.
    Meanwhile, a landmark lawsuit to determine the constitutionality of same-sex "marriage" is wending through the state's courts.
    In March, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples "marriage" licenses.
    Last week, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he would appeal the ruling.
    The case, which combines four lawsuits, is likely to end up before the California Supreme Court.
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R050604   Christian comic books find audience
 

By Jeff Baenen
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MINNETONKA, Minn. -- Zap! Pow! Amen!
    Whether it's fanciful tales of jewel-colored angels battling demons for a man's soul or retellings of familiar stories from the Bible, Christian comic books are taking wing.
    "Christians have the best stories to tell," said Sherwin Schwartzrock, a Christian comic book artist and graphic designer. "The world is full of hurting people, with drug abuse and with all types of problems that we have as human beings. Jesus Christ is an answer."
    Creating comics is a delicate balance for Christian artists and writers using a medium sometimes viewed as frivolous or tawdry. But Mr. Schwartzrock said comics are like movies: They can spread an uplifting message as easily as an immoral one.
    The number of Christian comic books has grown rapidly in the last few years. Some creators teamed up to form Community Comics LLC, a cooperative that links Christian comic-book artists and helps promote and distribute their books.
    While reliable sales figures aren't available, the number of titles has at least doubled, if not tripled, in the past year alone, said Steve MacDonald, who runs the Web site www.christiancomicbooks.net, which lists Christian comic books and graphic novels and where to get them.
    Mr. MacDonald estimates there are 40 to 50 ongoing Christian series.
    Mr. Schwartzrock has adapted and illustrated Old Testament stories, including Korah's rebellion against Moses and Absalom's revenge against his half-brother. Other comics use superheroes: The PowerMark series, published by PowerMark Productions of Springfield, Mo., has a hero who wears a suit emblazoned with a cross.
    Mr. Schwartzrock, 35, who works at his studio in suburban Minnetonka, said Christian comics don't get a pass with fans just because of their content.
    "We have to create professional-quality stories that will stand on their own two feet and not be labeled, 'Well, it's Christian and God will bless it,' even though it looks" lousy, he said.
    Among other titles is "David's Mighty Men," an adventure featuring King David and his three warrior companions created, written and drawn by Javier Saltares, who has worked for Marvel, DC and Dark Horse Comics.
    Coming this month is "David: The Shepherd's Song," a retelling of the early life of the boy who became king of Israel, by Royden Lepp. "ArmorQuest," written by Ben Avery and illustrated by Mr. Schwartzrock, is an allegorical tale of a boy putting on the "full armor of God" from Ephesians to battle the Dragon Prince. It's set to be published next month.
    Mr. Schwartzrock said comics can help reach preteen boys, who are attracted to the bright images and action.
    "Most boys learn to read by reading comics. I was reading comics in the newspaper before I could read," said Mr. Schwartzrock, who learned to draw while herding goats on his family's small farm near Rollag in western Minnesota.
    But children don't want to be preached to, Mr. Schwartzrock said. "If you're going to spend three dollars on a comic book, and you're a kid, you don't want to be educated -- you want to be entertained."
    Religious comics and tracts are not new. In the 1970s, Spire Christian Comics told inspirational stories of Jesus and Johnny Cash, and cartoonist Al Hartley illustrated such titles as "The Cross and the Switchblade" and a line of Christian-themed Archie comics. Marvel Comics published biographies of Pope John Paul II in 1983 and Mother Teresa in 1984.
    "Archangels: The Saga," produced by Cahaba Productions of Houston, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The nine-book series, featuring sword-wielding, armored angels battling grotesque demons for a man's salvation, has sold 729,000 copies worldwide in 10 years.
    "Your time is short, demon. The Almighty God has prepared a place for you and your kind," a muscular angel declares as he punches a helmeted, winged demon with a mighty "KRAK."
    "It's definitely a ministry tool," said 36-year-old "Archangels" creator and writer Patrick Scott. "It's really meant to evangelize and to plant a seed of hope in the minds of people that have no hope."
    Ten-year-old Lewis Tuck of Eden Prairie said he's "crazy" about comic books, including Christian comics.
    "I think that comic books is the clever way to give messages," he said. "I just think it's a cool, different way to read comics."
    His father, Mike, said he's glad his son discovered an alternative to violent superhero comics.
    "When he found these, it was like, 'These -- keep buyin' 'em,' " Mike Tuck said.
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R050604C   Fractured compromise
 

By Linda Chavez

Pardon me while I wipe the egg off my face. Last week I was one of a handful of conservatives praising the Senate compromise on judicial nominees, which preserved the filibuster while guaranteeing several of President Bush's most conservative nominees an up-or-down vote.
    I argued Democrats would be chastened into using the filibuster judiciously -- only "under extreme circumstances" in the words of the compromise itself. Boy was I wrong. In less than a week, the Democrats were back to their old tricks, filibustering John Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations.
    I know "the deal," as it's come to be known, did not formally bind Democrats to forgoing all future filibusters on judicial nominees, much less other executive appointments. But the spirit of the compromise was to render the filibuster the exception, not the rule, in dealing with Bush nominees. And even if all Democrats were not bound by it, the signatories certainly had some obligation to abide by its spirit. Yet, by week's end, only three of the seven Democrats who signed onto the compromise were willing to invoke cloture on the Bolton nomination, which would have allowed the nominee to be confirmed or rejected by the full Senate.
    Democrat Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Ken Salazar of Colorado -- all of whom promised only "extreme circumstances" would justify a filibuster -- nonetheless voted against ending debate on Mr. Bolton. Three other Democrat signatories and all seven Republicans who forged the compromise supported allowing the nomination to move to a vote. One Democratic signer, Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, and one moderate Republican not part of the compromise group, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, did not vote on the cloture motion. So, Mr. Bolton's nomination remains in limbo.
    Key Democrats claim they are only using the threatened filibuster to force the administration to turn over classified documents. They want to know why, as undersecretary of state for arms control, Mr. Bolton sought the identity of some U.S. citizens whose names were blocked out in certain intelligence intercepts and hope the documents might reveal a motive. But the chairman and the ranking Democrat of the Senate Intelligence Committee have seen the documents and say there is nothing unusual or incriminating about them -- which suggests the stalling is simply more partisan games.
    Many Democrats -- including a fair number of members of Congress -- seem unwilling to accept the results of last year's election. They believed they were cheated out of the White House in 2000 and were sure they would win it back in 2004. When Americans didn't oblige them, they tried to block the president's ability to get his agenda through. They don't want the president to appoint federal appellate judges, much less nominate a Supreme Court justice. They want to punish the president for daring to pick candidates who reflect his own conservative values, though the voters affirmed his leadership.
    And some Democrats would love nothing better than to embarrass the president in international opinion, which is where Mr. Bolton's nomination delay comes in. Nothing could please these sore losers more than to see the president humiliated before the United Nations if Mr. Bolton fails of confirmation.
    There's still time for cooler Democratic heads to prevail. Messrs. Byrd, Lieberman, Salazar and Inouye could still do the right thing and vote for cloture on the Bolton nomination when the Senate returns from its Memorial Day recess. But I'm not holding my breath. Bipartisanship has become a one-way affair. No matter how unprincipled the Democrats behave, they are rarely called to account. Only when Republicans cave in to Democratic demands are there accolades about statesmanship.
    I still don't like the "nuclear option," but the Democrats may leave Republicans no choice. There's still one last chance to salvage the compromise, but the Democrats must play fair and abide by its spirit as well as its words.
 
    Linda Chavez is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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L050604Va   Late-term abortion ban nixed by court
 

By Larry O'Dell
ASSOCIATED PRESS

RICHMOND -- A Virginia law banning a type of late-term abortion is unconstitutional because it lacks an exception to protect a woman's health, a divided federal appeals court ruled yesterday.
    The decision by a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams of Richmond.
    The Center for Reproductive Rights challenged a law passed by the 2003 Virginia General Assembly that bans a procedure generally performed in the second or third trimester, in which a fetus is partially delivered before being killed. People who oppose abortion call the procedure "partial-birth abortion." The Virginia statute called it "partial-birth infanticide."
    Judge Williams blocked enforcement of the Virginia law on July 1, 2003, the day it went into effect, calling it a "no-brain case." Six months later, he granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and declared the law unconstitutional.
    The Supreme Court struck down a similar Nebraska law in 2000 because it did not contain a health exception, the appeals court stated.
    "Because the Virginia Act does not contain an exception for circumstance when the banned abortion procedures are necessary to preserve a woman's health, we affirm the summary judgment order declaring the act unconstitutional on its face," Judge M. Blane Michael wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by Judge Diana Gribbon Motz.
    Judge Paul V. Niemeyer said in a dissent the Virginia statute differs substantially from the Nebraska law because it makes it a crime to kill a "human infant who has been born alive, but who has not been completely extracted or expelled from its mother."
    Opponents of the law argued that it was written so broadly that it would outlaw some of the most common and safe abortion procedures. They had the same criticism for a similar Virginia statute that was ruled unconstitutional five years ago.
    "Today, yet another federal court has found these dangerous abortion bans unconstitutional because they not only fail to protect women's health, they shamelessly endanger it," said Priscilla Smith, a lawyer with the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.
    Virginia Attorney General Judith Williams Jagdmann said she was disappointed in the court's decision, but noted there was a dissenting opinion among the three-judge panel. She also said the office will review the decision and determine the next appropriate step.
    The state could ask the full appeals court or the Supreme Court to review the decision.
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