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

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050620C    Here come the judges
R050621       Alexandria seminary official to defend gay clergy
R050621Md Ten Commandments can stay in Frederick park
R050622C    Moral agenda's safest hands
R050623       Air Force Academy cleared
R050623      Christian group makes debut
R050623      Doctors embrace religion, study shows
R050623      TENNESSEE   Southern Baptists end Disney boycott

EDUCATION

MEDIA
M050624      House rejects public broadcasting cuts

OTHER
O050619       Saying 'I do' benefits dads, research shows
O050619Va  The Virginia campaign begins
O050621       New book highlights Hillary's ambitions
O050623       Gandy's moment
O050624C    Making prey of the predators

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M050624   House rejects public broadcasting cuts

June 24, 2005

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    Big Bird and National Public Radio won a reprieve yesterday as the House restored $100 million that had been proposed as a budget cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
    The 284-140 vote came on the same day that CPB chose Patricia S. Harrison, a former Republican Party co-chairwoman, as its president and chief executive officer. Liberal activists immediately denounced Mrs. Harrison as "too partisan" to be in charge of public broadcasting.
    The House vote followed a high-profile campaign Public Broadcasting Service undertook to have the proposed cut defeated. Lawmakers were flooded with letters and phone calls. The funding is part of a $142.5 billion spending bill for health, education and labor programs for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
    The House Appropriations Committee had cut $100 million from $400 million in previously enacted support. Republicans who favored the cuts said federal subsidies provide only about 15 percent of the public broadcasting budget. The rest comes from private and corporate donors, as well as licensing and royalties from programming.
    The $100 million cut would amount to only about 4 percent of all spending on public broadcasting. "Big Bird and his friends can fly on their own," said Rep. Ernest Istook, Oklahoma Republican.
    Opponents of the cut said public broadcasting provides programming not available elsewhere. "Do we want to live in a society where pop culture dictates all that is offered on the airwaves?" said Rep. Nita M. Lowey, New York Democrat.
    CPB Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a Republican appointee, recently made news by saying that public broadcasting is too liberal.
    Mrs. Harrison, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, was selected after three days of closed meetings by the corporation's board of directors. She was co-chairwoman of the RNC from 1997 to 2000.
    Her appointment as CPB president "is a fatal blow to the historic political neutrality of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," said Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat.
    Mr. Lautenberg, along with fellow Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, last week sent a letter to Mr. Tomlinson urging the CPB to put off choosing a new president and expressing concern about political interference in public broadcasting by Mr. Tomlinson.
    Chellie Pingree, president and chief executive of the liberal group Common Cause said the Harrison appointment "sets the wrong tone" for public broadcasting.
    "She has all the wrong experience and comes across as too partisan of a player for this particular job," Miss Pingree said.
    Political appointments in public broadcasting are not new, noted Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative Media Research Center. Frank Mankiewicz, former president of National Public Radio, had previously served as press secretary to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and as presidential campaign director for Sen. George McGovern.
    "The problem we have here is that when Democrats work in public broadcasting, nobody seems to notice," Mr. Graham said.
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O050623       Gandy's moment
    A prominent women's group says National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy is "in hysteria mode."
    "Ms. Gandy and her fellow feminist leaders are so 'open-minded' their brains are falling out," the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute says in a statement. The women's group, named after the late Connecticut congresswoman who was also managing editor of Vanity Fair, was reacting to the NOW president's recent directive at the "Take Back America Conference" to oppose Social Security reform, oppose parental notification on teen abortion and oppose faith-based initiatives.
    "The Taliban used religion to suppress the basic rights of women. The Southern Baptists and the Promise Keepers preach submission of women as part of their religion," Miss Gandy told the crowd, calling for support of universal health care, "marriage" for homosexual couples and a continuing blockage of President Bush's judicial nominees.
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R050623       TENNESSEE   Southern Baptists end Disney boycott
    NASHVILLE -- Southern Baptists ended an eight-year boycott of the Walt Disney Co. for violating "moral righteousness and traditional family values" in a vote on the final day of the denomination's annual convention yesterday.
    "We believe for the boycott to be effective, it had to have a beginning and an ending," said Gene Mims, chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention committee that put the Disney resolution before about 12,000 members at the meeting.
    SBC delegates also approved a resolution that encourages parents to investigate their children's public schools to determine whether they are too accepting of homosexuality.
    The Disney resolution, passed at the SBC's 1997 convention in Dallas, called for Southern Baptists to refrain from patronizing Disney theme parks and Disney products, mainly because of the entertainment company's decision to give benefits to companions of homosexual employees.
    "We felt like it was time to end it. We're hopeful Disney will do what the resolution calls for," Mr. Mims said. The resolution states Disney should serve "families of America by providing only those products that affirm traditional family values."
    Southern Baptists also should continue to monitor the "products and policies of the Disney Company," said the resolution, which also urged members to "practice continued discernment regarding all entertainment products from all sources."
    Disney officials in California had no comment.
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R050623   Christian group makes debut

By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 23, 2005

A new liberal Christian group announced its entry into the national political debate yesterday as a voice to "reclaim" Christianity, the latest in a line of Democrat-leaning organizations trying to fight the conservative political message of prominent evangelical leaders.
    But unlike other groups, the Christian Alliance for Progress does not think Democrats need to alter their message to appeal to religious conservative voters. Rather, the group's leaders said they want to present a biblical justification for socially liberal positions.
    "The language spoken by the religious right is Christian. Our view is, this requires a Christian response," said Patrick Mrotek, the group's founder, at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday.
    The alliance, based in Jacksonville, Fla., wants to go head-to-head with conservative Christian figures such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson, arguing that the Gospel calls for liberal policies.
    "Jesus said that your spirituality goes through the front door of your neighbor. If your neighbor doesn't have health care and you've got it, you need to be working to see to it that the same advantage that has accrued to yourself also accrues to this other person," said Rev. Timothy F. Simpson, the group's director of religious affairs and a Presbyterian pastor. "That's how you test your ethics, that's how you test your spirituality."
    The group also specifically supports abortion rights and homosexual "marriage," arguing that the latter is part of a biblical call for equality and justice. And they said progressive politics used to be linked with evangelical Christianity.
    "If you look back on the history of American fundamentalism, 30, 40 years ago there were plenty of moderate folks theologically and politically in the Southern Baptist Convention," Mr. Simpson said, also pointing to William Jennings Bryan's "railing against the corporate interests" as an example of progressive Christian activism.
    Evangelical voters were credited with helping President Bush and Republicans to solid victories in November's election, and with helping pass referendums in states across the country codifying the definition of marriage.
    In the months since, some Democrats said their party needed to craft a message to attract those voters. The book "God's Politics" by Jim Wallis, arguing that Democrats must adjust, was among the most popular reads for Washington politicos earlier this year.
    But Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said those groups have not made a dent in evangelical Christians' political backing of Republicans.
    "What I've seen is the opposite," he said, adding that evangelical voters have also remained much more engaged since November's election.
    He also said neither Republican or Democrats have a lock on evangelical voters -- "It's really not about labels, it's about really the issue.
    "For an organization created under a new name to reach a particular group with the same worn-out policy positions that have been rejected by values voters is not going to get them anywhere," he said
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R050623   Air Force Academy cleared

June 23, 2005

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) -- A Pentagon investigation into complaints that evangelical Christians at the Air Force Academy have bullied Jews and cadets of other faiths found no overt discrimination, but "certainly insensitivity," military officials said yesterday.
    "There is a lack of awareness on the part of some faculty and staff, and perhaps some senior cadets, as to what constitutes appropriate expressions of faith," said Lt. Gen. Roger Brady, Air Force deputy chief of staff for personnel.
    The investigators' report said academy leaders and the Air Force should clarify policies on religious expression so religious minorities do not feel discriminated against or pressured.
    Seven incidents were referred up the chain of command for possible investigation, but Gen. Brady did not provide details, saying only that "there's certainly insensitivity" at the academy.
    The investigators' report came on the same day that a chaplain who spoke out against religious intolerance at the academy, Capt. MeLinda Morton, said she had resigned her commission after 13 years in uniform. She has said that she was fired from her position at the school and that a transfer to Japan was hastened for speaking out about the academy's religious climate.
    School officials said her transfer was routine.
    Air Force investigators spent several days at the 4,300-student school near Colorado Springs earlier this year looking into complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment had become pervasive. About 85 percent of the academy's students identify themselves as Christian.
    Gen. Brady said some problems were related to the maturity level of cadets -- who are 18 to 22.
    "Most of them know how to behave," he said. "Some of them need a little work."
    An attachment to the 100-page report said the school's No. 2 officer, Brig. Gen. John Weida, a born-again Christian accused of pressuring students, was cleared of wrongdoing on all but one accusation. The report did not detail the matter, saying only that it was under review.
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R050623   Doctors embrace religion, study shows

June 23, 2005

From combined dispatches
    CHICAGO -- Most doctors believe in God and an afterlife, according to a study released yesterday that contradicts earlier research showing people tend to become less religious as education and income levels rise.
    In the survey of 1,044 doctors nationwide, 76 percent said they believe in God, 59 percent said they believe in some sort of afterlife, and 55 percent said their religious beliefs influence how they practice medicine.
    "We did not think physicians were nearly this religious," said Dr. Farr Curlin, a researcher at the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics.
    "We suspect that people who combine an aptitude for science with an interest in religion and an affinity for public service are particularly attracted to medicine," Dr. Curlin said.
    "There's certainly a deep-seated cultural idea that science and religion are at odds," and previous studies have suggested that fewer than half of scientists believe in God, Dr. Curlin added.
    The report, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, also found that 90 percent of doctors said they attend religious services at least occasionally.
    "Physicians are more likely to describe themselves as 'spiritual' as distinct from religious, whereas for the general population, spirituality and religion appear to be more tightly connected," the study says.
    The study is based on responses to questionnaires mailed in 2003. A previous survey showed about 83 percent of the general population believes in God.
    Dr. J. Edward Hill, president of the American Medical Association, said religion and medicine are completely compatible, as long as doctors do not force their own beliefs on patients.
    Belief in "a supreme being ... is vitally important to physicians' ability to take care of patients, particularly the end-of-life issues that we deal with so often," said Dr. Hill, a family physician from Tupelo, Miss.
    The study says doctors and patients are also likely to differ on relying upon God for help in coping with a major illness.
    "While most patients will 'look to God for strength, support and guidance,' most physicians will instead try to 'make sense of the situation and decide what to do without relying on God,'?" it said.
    Religions among physicians are more varied than among the general population, the survey found. Although more than 80 percent of the U.S. population is Protestant or Catholic, 60 percent of doctors said they fall into those categories.
    Compared with the general population, more doctors were Jewish -- 14 percent vs. 2 percent; Hindu -- 5 percent vs. less than 1 percent; and Muslim -- almost 3 percent vs. less than 1 percent.
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R050621   Alexandria seminary official to defend gay clergy

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 21, 2005

The vice president of Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria will be among a team of seven Episcopal bishops and clergy in England today, making the case for homosexual clergy in the 70-million-member Anglican Communion.
    The Rev. Michael Battle, also the associate academic dean, will help present a document "To Set Our Hope on Christ" during a 90-minute presentation to 78 members of the Anglican Consultative Council, which governs day-to-day Anglican affairs.
    Mr. Battle and professors Timothy Sedgwick and the Rev. Katherine Grieb were three of the six theologians who wrote the document.
    The involvement of three faculty members from the seminary -- the only Episcopal seminary cited -- stems from faculty involvement with national and international issues, said seminary spokeswoman Susan Shillinglaw.
    "We just have a dynamic faculty here," she said.
    The seminary, founded in 1823, is considered middle-of-the-road theologically, she said. But it has been criticized by conservatives for having openly practicing homosexuals as teachers and students in recent years.
    It received a nod of appreciation from Presiding Episcopal Bishop Frank Griswold, who thanked the writers for producing the document, which will explain "how a person living in a same-gender union may be considered eligible to lead the flock of Christ."
    The meeting in Nottingham, England, will help decide whether the U.S. Episcopal and Canadian Anglican churches can remain in the Anglican Communion. In February, the denomination's archbishops said the Americans and Canadians could attend the meeting only to defend their views on homosexuality.
    Mr. Battle, a specialist in black church studies and spirituality, came to the seminary in January from Duke Divinity School in Durham, N.C. He was trained and ordained in 1993 by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has said Anglicans should be "inclusive" on homosexuality.
    Miss Grieb, an associate New Testament professor, serves on a theology committee for the Episcopal House of Bishops. She is on staff of St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church in the District.
    "I hope our work is helpful," she said of the document. "All of us have been involved in this for a very long time."
    Mr. Sedgwick is an ethics professor who has been on a variety of national and diocesan committees and task forces since the late 1970s. The Anglican Theological Review has called Mr. Sedgwick's style "irenic, inclusive and pious."
    The Rev. Matthew Kennedy, a Binghamton, N.Y., priest who studied under both professors before graduating from the seminary in 2002, says the two scholars are in the "moderate to leftist" side of the Episcopal Church.
    "Dr. Grieb is a serious New Testament scholar," he said. "She was quite tough but fair in her grading and even assigned [theological conservative] Richard Hays' 'Moral Vision of the New Testament' as required reading, which speaks well of her."
    "She did have a tendency to metaphorize the Gospel narratives, especially in passages intended to be both historical narrative as well as metaphor," he said. For example, "the raising of Lazarus was either a real miracle or a literary metaphor. She didn't seem to think it could be both and came down hard on the metaphorical side of things."
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O050621   New book highlights Hillary's ambitions

June 21, 2005

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A Hillary Rodham Clinton biography that hits bookstores today portrays the senator from New York as a ruthless and ambitious woman, but relies heavily on earlier works about the former first lady.
    Conservatives say the 305-page book is so damning that it could destroy any bid for the presidency in 2008.
    "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President," by Edward Klein, portrays the Democratic senator as someone who would stop at nothing to protect her husband's presidency and promote a Clinton II administration headed by her.
    Promotional material from Sentinel books, a conservative imprint started by the Penguin Group, promises a work that "contains shocking new accounts of key moments in Mrs. Clinton's private and political life," but the book relies heavily on earlier works.
    "She's been written about so frequently that it's impossible not to cover some of the same ground," Mr. Klein said yesterday. He added, however, that the book contains plenty of new material and insights.
    There are 30 pages of end notes, many of which cite those previous works as grist for Mr. Klein's coverage of Bill Clinton's womanizing, his wife's efforts to save him from the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the prominent role the first lady played during her husband's White House years. Other sources cited by Mr. Klein are often anonymous.
    The Clinton camp lashed out at the book yesterday.
    "We don't comment on works of fiction, let alone a book full of blatant and vicious fabrications contrived by someone who writes trash for cash," said Philippe Reines, a spokesman for the senator.
    Jim Kennedy, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton, also called the book "trash."
    Will Weisser, Sentinel's associate publisher, said 350,000 copies have been printed.
    Such works, said Clinton adviser turned critic Dick Morris, can backfire.
    "Personal attacks on Hillary Clinton and her marriage only tend to invigorate her and permit her to characterize all criticism as extreme and personal," Mr. Morris wrote in an e-mail exchange with the Associated Press. "These personal shots obscure the more serious questions about her lack of qualifications to be a good president."
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H050620   Gay 'marriage' foes hail California ruling

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 20, 2005

Conservative advocates are heartened by a recent federal court decision upholding traditional marriage in California, but are angered by an Iowa court ruling that left intact the "divorce" of a lesbian couple.
    The Iowa Supreme Court Friday ruled that District Court Judge Jeffrey A. Neary was within his jurisdiction when he terminated the Vermont civil union of Kimberly Brown and Jennifer Perez, both of Sioux City.
    Seven Iowa lawmakers, including Republican U.S. Rep. Steve King, as well as a pastor and a church, challenged Judge Neary's decision, saying he couldn't end a union that the state didn't recognize.
    However, the Iowa Supreme Court said the issue wasn't whether Judge Neary "was correct or incorrect in dissolving the Vermont civil union," but whether the plaintiffs had a right to challenge a decision when they weren't a party to it or injured by it.
    "We conclude they don't have such a right," the court said, throwing out the case.
    The decision showed "you can't use another person's private case to pursue your own political agenda," said lawyer Camilla Taylor of Lambda Legal, which joined the Iowa Civil Liberties Union and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Central Iowa in supporting Judge Neary.
    Chuck Hurley of the Iowa Family Policy Center said the high court "dodged" the issue and predicted it was "only a matter of time before homosexual activists try to use this ruling to further redefine marriage in Iowa."
    Separately, in Santa Ana, Calif., U.S. District Judge Gary L. Taylor ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is constitutional.
    "Because procreation is necessary to perpetuate humankind, encouraging the optimal union for procreation is a legitimate government interest. Encouraging the optimal union for rearing children by both biological parents is also a legitimate purpose of government," Judge Taylor wrote in his June 16 ruling in a case filed by Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer of Orange County, Calif.
    Judge Taylor abstained from ruling on the constitutionality of California's marriage laws because they are the subject of a state lawsuit.
    Mr. Smelt and Mr. Hammer are suing county and state officials, as well as seeking to strike down DOMA, for denying them a "marriage" license. Their attorney, Richard Gilbert, said he has been asked to appeal the ruling, according to news media reports.
    Some homosexual activist groups are unhappy with the Smelt case, which they see as premature. "We wish this case had not gone forward," Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights told the San Francisco Chronicle.
    The Alliance Defense Fund in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Liberty Counsel of Orlando, Fla., who are representing California traditional-values groups in the case, were pleased with the ruling.
    "Surely the state has legitimate interests in preserving marriage as a complementary opposite-sex relationship," said Liberty Counsel's Mat Staver. This was "a common-sense decision."
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O050619   Saying 'I do' benefits dads, research shows

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 19, 2005

Pastor Carl Rawls walks the neighborhoods of Selma, Ala., looking for men he can turn into good fathers and husbands. His own family experiences motivate him.
    "My parents were married and had eight kids," he said. "I saw my father work hard and take care of the family. He took me to work with him when I was 12."
    Today, as a married father of four, Mr. Rawls talks to an endless stream of men who are fathers but not married. Many of these fathers are good providers, dedicated caregivers and satisfied with living together with the mothers of their children, common-law style, he said.
    But marriage is better, and it can happen in a low-income family, he said. "You just need to do it."
    Mr. Rawls' viewpoint is both supported by research and dogged by controversy.
    Researchers such as Steven L. Nock argue that marriage is good for fathers because marriage is good for men.
    In general, married people have better health, higher earnings, longer life spans, better mental health, better sex lives and more happiness than unmarried people, according to Mr. Nock, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and author of the 1998 book, "Marriage in Men's Lives."
    Men, however, gain something especially beneficial from marriage: identification as a competent, capable adult male, Mr. Nock said. Historically, mature masculinity is defined by three things -- fatherhood, working hard to provide for a wife and children, and protecting the family and estate.
    He added that marriage has long served -- and still serves -- as the ideal entree into these core dimensions of masculinity, and marriage confers a powerful new set of social expectations on men.
    Married men are expected to be responsible, generous, faithful and engaged in civic life, he says. "Good husbands are expected to achieve, to help others and remain true to their promises. Good husbands are good men."
    These expectations are a big part of the reason why men -- especially fathers -- who don't marry "are regarded differently" by others, Mr. Nock said.
    Married fatherhood remains the predominant arrangement in America: Two-thirds of the 39 million family groups with a child under age 18 are married-couple homes, according to 2003 census data. But married fatherhood has been eroded by cohabiting and unwed parenting.
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R050621Md   Ten Commandments can stay in Frederick park

By David Dishneau
ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 22, 2005

BALTIMORE -- A privately owned Ten Commandments monument may remain on display in a Frederick city park, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
    U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr. concluded that no reasonable observer would think the 5-foot-tall granite marker is meant as an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion.
    Judge Quarles also found that the city's sale of the monument and an accompanying strip of parkland to the local Fraternal Order of Eagles (FOE) chapter in 2002 was proper. Plaintiffs Roy J. Chambers and the District-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State had claimed the transaction was a sham designed to keep the monument on what appeared to be city land.
    Frederick Mayor Jennifer P. Dougherty said the ruling affirmed the the city's decision to sell the monument to avoid a legal battle with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The sale caused the ACLU to drop a lawsuit challenging the display.
    "We sold the land, and the Eagles could do with it what they will, and they have, and that's that. And I hope this puts an end to it," Miss Dougherty said.
    Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, was dismayed by the ruling.
    "I still believe that a passer-by would still think this is a government display of a religious monument and would not understand the long, tortured history of this lawsuit," he said.
    Judge Quarles made a distinction in his written opinion between a passer-by and a reasonable observer. He defined the latter, in language borrowed from another case, as one who is "aware of the history and context of the community and forum in which the religious display appears."
    He said a passer-by might interpret the monument as a government endorsement of religion.
    "But a reasonable observer, familiar with the history of the commandments monument, and the litigation surrounding its location, would understand that Frederick sold the property to the FOE to dissociate itself from whatever message the monument conveys," Judge Quarles wrote.
    Mr. Chambers, of Frederick, and his attorney, Benjamin C. Block, said they needed more time to study the ruling before deciding whether to appeal.
    Attorneys for all parties expressed surprise that Judge Quarles had ruled instead of waiting for the Supreme Court to announce decisions in similar cases involving a monument on the grounds of the Texas state Capitol and framed copies of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses. The high court heard arguments in those cases in March and is expected to rule within days.
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O050619Va   The Virginia campaign begins

June 19, 2005

In Tuesday's primaries, where Virginians selected their nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, voters have set the stage for a number of classic liberal-conservative political battles. The political highlight of 2005 will certainly be the gubernatorial race between former state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, who won the Republican nomination with 82 percent of the vote, and current Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
    Conservatives and Republicans have plenty of reason to feel confident. Mr. Kilgore, a strong campaigner who was elected in a 20-point landslide four years ago, provides an excellent record of accomplishment as attorney general. He has been tireless in pushing the General Assembly and Congress to make it easier to prosecute criminal street gangs, in particular the violent Salvadoran MS-13 gang, a group comprised largely of illegal aliens who have terrorized Northern Virginia. He has fought Gov. Mark Warner's efforts to permit illegal aliens to pay lower in-state tuition rates, has opposed efforts by state colleges and universities to institute racial preferences and has worked harder than just about any prosecutor we have ever seen to lock up violent sexual predators.
    Mr. Kilgore has energetically worked to prosecute abusive spammers who prey on consumers. He has opposed the efforts by Mr. Warner, aided by Senate Republicans (aside from public-employee unions, perhaps the most energetic high-tax advocates in the state) to increase taxes. He supports the death penalty. Mr. Kilgore has provided solid, steady leadership. This is in sharp contrast to Mr. Warner, who has shown a disconcerting tendency to disappear from public view and let aides snipe at Republicans when faced with difficult issues like taxes and immigration -- matters on which sound public policy was directly at odds with the political interests of Democratic constituencies.
    Unfortunately, just like his political mentor, Mr. Warner, Tim Kaine seems very much like a left-of-center red-state politician pretending to be a moderate. With Mr. Kaine's record of trying to be all things to all people, he is a very inviting political target for Mr. Kilgore and the Republicans. For example, Mr. Kilgore favors the death penalty. Mr. Kaine counters that he personally opposes it, but will enforce the law. Given the fact that Mr. Kaine has suggested that capital punishment is analogous to practices in the Soviet Gulag, there's legitimate reason to question whether he is emotionally prepared to enforce the law. On abortion, Mr. Kilgore is pro-life. Mr. Kaine claims he is pro-life, while denouncing General Assembly Republicans for refusing to include an exception for the "health" of the mother in a partial-birth abortion bill -- a loophole that would in essence permit abortion on demand. He is in favor of amending the Virginia Constitution to ban homosexual "marriage," but opposes a federal constitutional amendment banning it -- in effect permitting the federal courts to impose it at any time.
    Mr. Kaine claims to be a friend of the Second Amendment, but he's understandably having a difficult time squaring this with the proposal he made as mayor of Richmond to spend taxpayer money to bus city residents to Washington to lobby for gun control. Don't be surprised if the third candidate, renegade Republican Sen. Russ Potts, who lags in the single digits in the polls and spends most of his time attacking Mr. Kilgore, drops out of the race and endorses Mr. Kaine.
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O050624C   Making prey of the predators

By Mark Foley/Orrin Hatch
June 24, 2005

We have all heard the names Jessica Lunsford, Megan Kanka, Jacob Wetterling and Adam Walsh -- all beautiful children carrying the same hopes and dreams of every young child in this country. Tragically, all these children were denied those dreams and torn from their parents because they were killed by sex offenders.
    Their deaths shine a harsh light on gaps in our laws and testify to the ongoing fight to strengthen our justice system against sex offenders. Their cases make one point very clear: We need to completely change how we treat these predators.
    For too long, too many sex offenders have been treated like petty criminals. As a result, too many children and too many lives have been lost. These pedophiles prey on our children and will continue to do so unless stopped.
    In 1994, Congress passed sweeping legislation that required -- for the first time -- convicted sex offenders to register their whereabouts with the government. Several other measures have followed, all designed to let local communities know where these predators live.
    Though these measures were groundbreaking, we need to do much more to close gaps in the law to ensure our children have as much protection from these criminals as possible.
    More than convicted 500,000 sex offenders now live in the United States. Of those, about 100,000 to 150,000 are missing -- roaming the streets with no one watching over them. According to the U.S. Justice Department, released sex offenders are 4 times more likely to be rearrested. And, on average, child molesters serve only 43 percent of their sentence. These statistics are frightening.
    We need to stop playing Russian roulette with children's lives. We need to stop these pedophiles now.
    In May, we joined to introduce the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. This legislation would overhaul completely overhaul the nation's laws addressing sex offenders, strengthening state and federal authorities' tools to keep track of these criminals while providing more avenues for information-sharing among law enforcement across state lines.
    Our bill has broad support nationwide, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Fraternal Order of Police, the National District Attorneys Association and the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association. These groups and many others know we must reverse the present lenient and outdated laws to prevent sexual predators from victimizing our children.
    Our bill has been developed in consultation with John Walsh of TV's "America's Most Wanted," whose son Adam was kidnapped and murdered 24 years ago, and Ernie Allen, president and chief executive officer of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
    This proposed Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act is the product of dozens of meetings with the Justice Department, the FBI and other federal agencies. We also sought the guidance and support of the real warriors in this battle against sex offenders: the victims and their families. Ed Smart, whose daughter Elizabeth was kidnapped from her own bedroom by a sexual predator, and Patty Wetterling, whose son Jacob remains missing, have vocally supported our efforts.
    We have drawn up a bill that includes sweeping provisions to:
• Require sex offenders to wear monitoring devices during their supervised release and repeat offenders to wear such devices the rest of their lives.
    • Force offenders to update their registration in person every six months, or every three months if they are a sexually violent predator, as well as their photograph once a year. Failure to update or register would be a felony.
    • Mandate the U.S. attorney general's office notify states if offenders plan to move from another state.
    • Establish a federal sex offender DNA database.
    • Create a multifield, searchable statewide registry of sex offenders and their communities for each state.
    This is a common-sense approach on those who seek to harm our most vulnerable citizens. Those who break such a sacred trust and prey on our children -- no matter who they are, where they are from, or where they commit their crime -- should have to make their whereabouts known or be subject to additional jail time.
    As case after case of missing or abducted children is broadcast, many parents wonder if their child is safe. Every day that goes by without this bill is another day we risk another victim.
    Now, more than ever, we need to stand together and unite cities, communities and states in the effort to stop the assault on America's children.

     Rep. Mark Foley, Florida Republican, is co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus in the House of Representatives. Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, is the Senate Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican member and its former chairman.
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R050622C   Moral agenda's safest hands

By Cal Thomas
June 22, 2005

Former senator and U.N. Ambassador John Danforth has performed a valuable service between elections by writing about a Christian's role in contemporary American society.
    In an op-ed in the New York Times last Friday, Mr. Danforth, an ordained minister, observed: "Many conservative Christians approach politics with a certainty that they know God's truth, and that they can advance the kingdom of God through governmental action."
    He writes the "only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves." One can quibble over where Mr. Danforth's "absolutist" position may lead politically (and I do, given the position of religious moderates and liberals when it comes to a host of other issues in which they are engaged -- from antiwar activism and the environment, to civil rights and same-sex "marriage"), but his central thesis is correct: Christians are limited in what government can do for them and for an earthly agenda.
    That does not mean government can't do some things. It simply means it cannot advance a moral and spiritual agenda, because it the church, not the state, is commissioned to preach and observe God's message.
    That much of the country is preoccupied with materialism and pleasure further limits the state's capabilities in this area. Conservative Christians, while seeking legislation that reflects their moral views, increasingly have found it difficult to impose their morality on themselves.
    The pollster George Barna, who regularly checks the spiritual temperature of the Christian church, has chronicled important facts conservative Christians should consider before demanding government act to repair the "moral slide."
    Mr. Barna has noted as many conservative Christians are divorcing as are those of different religious persuasions, or of no religion. And as many of the children of conservative Christians are having sex as non-Christian children.
    But the ordained and self-appointed conservative Christian leaders do not seem to preach as much to their own about these shortcomings (or, if they do, they are not heeded) as they do to the rest of the country about theirs.
    Wouldn't these conservative Christians have greater moral power if they put their own houses in order before trying to cure the disorder in other houses? Isn't that the principle behind Jesus' story about noticing a speck in the other fellow's eye, while ignoring the beam in one's own eye?
    In a week when evangelist Billy Graham is visiting New York for what may be the last mass meeting of a long and noble ministry, Richard Ostling of the Associated Press asked him about social issues. Mr. Graham replied: "I don't give advice. I'm going to stay off these hot-button issues."
    Mr. Graham hasn't always shied away from those topics, but he learned where the greater power comes from, and it isn't government. The 86-year-old Mr. Graham "now seeks to shun all public controversies -- preferring a simple message of love and unity through Jesus," writes Mr. Ostling.
    John Danforth seems to flirt with universalism when he says he and his fellow religious moderates believe "religion should be inclusive." Not exactly. Different religions make competing claims and the Christian faith separates "sheep from goats," the saved from the lost, and heaven from hell.

    Jesus said he came to bring a sword. A sword divides. The primary objective for the Christian should be to seek and to point others toward Jesus, not to political parties and agendas.
    The social ills confronting us have not produced our collective indifference to a moral code. They reflect that indifference. Fixing social ills does not begin in the halls of Congress or Supreme Court, but in individual human hearts.
    Government can't go there. God can. But if God's servants prefer government to God, or seek to attach God to political parties and earthly agendas, they are doomed to futility.
    Mr. Danforth notes Jesus sat with "tax collectors and sinners" and sees these acts as part of Jesus' "tolerance" and inclusiveness. But his purpose was not to justify their often corrupt tax-collecting practices and other sins. It was to lead them to repentance and faith in himself. He told the woman taken in adultery that while he did not condemn her, she was to "go and sin no more." To a moderate, I guess that was intolerant.
    These concerns were never raised when religious moderates and liberals had the public square to themselves. They're upset because they have been marginalized. Still, Mr. Danforth is right about where true power to change people comes from, and it isn't from the state.

    Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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R050620C   Here come the judges

By Donald Lambro
June 20, 2005

When the "Gang of 14" agreed last month to oppose Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's attempt to prohibit use of filibusters to block President Bush's judicial nominees, it was seen by many as a big victory for the Democrats.
    But several weeks later, following the swift confirmation of a half-dozen or more of Mr. Bush's long-delayed judicial appointments (a number that could grow to 10 or more in the weeks to come), Mr. Frist is now seen as the victor in the GOP's battle to put more conservative jurists on the bench, and the liberal Democrats are emerging as the losers.
    As this is written, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter and Mr. Frist had moved six of Mr. Bush's nominees swiftly through the Senate. Two more, Terrence Boyle in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and Brett Kavanaugh to be placed on the Circuit Court in the District of Columbia, were scheduled to be taken up late last week.
    Several other nominees were awaiting votes before the July Fourth recess. "We're going to keep pushing them through as fast as we can," a Senate majority leadership staffer told me.
    Democratic leaders who wanted to preserve their use (abuse would be more accurate) of the Senate's unlimited debate rule to kill Mr. Bush's Appeals Court nominees, spun the story as an abject defeat for Mr. Frist and the White House. They had preserved their use of the filibuster in judicial fights, which is what they really wanted after all, they said.
    Many conservatives, too, saw the deal as a betrayal by the seven GOP senators who signed onto the agreement to break the logjam and prevent a vote on Mr. Frist's motion. But a different picture is coming into focus. Mr. Bush is putting a bunch of very conservative judges on the Appeals Courts and changing the complexion of the nation's judiciary.
    Mr. Frist believed he had a simple majority of 50 plus one (Vice President Dick Cheney) to get his motion approved, but the gang of 14 (half of them Democrats and half Republicans) agreed to stand together, opposing the rules change, but also agreeing an undetermined number of nominees should get an up-or-down vote.
    That robbed Mr. Frist of seven votes and killed any chance of his motion being approved at that point, though it remains at the Senate clerk's desk, ready to be called up at a moment's notice. But it cost Democratic Leader Harry Reid much more -- seven crucial votes needed to uphold his party's filibuster. Mr. Reid, from any point of view, lost more in this tradeoff.
    The reason: The deal worked out with the seven Democrats who signed on to it committed them to opposing the filibuster except in what they termed "extraordinary" circumstances. That has opened the judicial floodgates in the Senate, as one by one they have been approved, often by large majorities.
    Last week the Senate easily confirmed Thomas Griffith to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, with 20 Democrats joining Republicans for the 73-24 vote.
    Earlier, the Senate in rapid succession cleared five nominees that the Democrats once vowed would never see the light of day: Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, William Prior, Richard Griffin and David McKeague.
    None of this would have happened had Mr. Frist not challenged the filibuster abuse that had tied up the Senate in knots. It was the threat of losing a key weapon in parliamentary tactics that forced seven Democrats to cave in and agree to give Mr. Bush's nominees the votes they deserved.
   And that motion remains a real threat if Democrats try to stall future judicial nominees. Not only is Mr. Frist's so-called "nuclear option" still at the desk, ready to be ignited, but two of the seven Republicans, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have said they will vote to approve it if the Democrats resume their filibuster war. They would give Mr. Frist the votes he would need to forever end the filibuster's use in judicial politics.
    This emerges as a much more pivotal weapon in the Supreme Court battles to come, one the Democrats fear more than anything else. And many believe this is what this fight was really all about anyway, a test run for the coming debate over the next high court vacancy, perhaps later this year.
    Parliamentary battles can be complicated, and sometimes it isn't always clear who won a rules struggle until the smoke clears and regular order is restored. Last week, it became very clear who won and who lost.
    Mr. Bush was putting a bunch of his previously filibustered nominees on the federal bench. Mr. Frist had forced a key bloc of Democrats to back down in the face of his threats to prohibit judicial filibusters, making him a majority leader to be reckoned with. The federal judiciary was being redirected in a much more conservative direction.
    Who says nothing is getting done in Congress?

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