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
H050625        Spellings avoids PTA ties to pro-gay advocacy group
H050627        At PTA gathering, no tolerance for ex-gays
H050628        Pro-gay group seeks support at PTA convention

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050625       Thousands flock to see Billy Graham
R050626       Curtain to fall on Supreme session
R050626C     Forum: Religious debate?
R050627       CALIFORNIA   Court overturns sale of public TV station
R050627       Judicial activism
R050627C     As the vacancy nears
R050627E     When intolerance stalks faith
R050628       Court splits on Commandments
R050628       Desperate liberals
R050628       Tense moment
R050628C    Chief justice benchmarks
R050628E    Taking down the Ten Commandments
R050628L    The coming judicial battle
R050628Md High court ruling may affect Frederick
R050629       A 70 percent majority
R050629       Church leader backs gay 'marriage'
R050629       Congress to step into Ten Commandments fray
R050630C    'Mainstream' judges
R050630C    Supreme obfuscation
R050702E  Justice O'Connor retires
R050701      Justice O'Connor retires
R050701E    When the law gets big for its pants
R050701L    God's law and the courts
R050702      Bush revisits options
R050702      Democrats warn Bush to consult
R050702      Justice O'Connor had pivotal role in big rulings
R050702      The battle for the court begins
R050702      UCC likely to give nod to gay unions
R050702C   Foreign law fantasies
R050702C   Unholy spectacle
R050730E   Religion in the Air Force

EDUCATION
E050628Md   Board reaches pact on sex education

MEDIA
M050626C    Battle for balance
M050627C    Why press gets 'bad press'
M050628E    Bias, what bias?
M050629      Times nabs 6 AP editorial awards
M050630E    Liberal sprinklings of bias
M050701      Dorgan's complaint

OTHER
O050626       Court OKs religious abstinence content
O050626E    Liberal vs. conservative in Virginia
O050627      Senator-doctor wants to keep both roles
O050629       PBS and Playboy
O050630      Condoms' efficacy questioned

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H050625   Spellings avoids PTA ties to pro-gay advocacy group

June 25, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Education Secretary Margaret Spellings urged 1,700 National PTA members yesterday to lead the way toward increased parental involvement in schools, but sidestepped the PTA's embrace of a pro-homosexual advocacy group at its yearly convention here.
    "The PTA is an organization that can help tackle negative issues head-on," Mrs. Spellings told state delegates in the gathering's keynote speech.
    Asked at a meeting with reporters whether increased parental involvement was encouraged or discouraged by the National PTA's taking sides on the sticky issue of youth sexuality, Mrs. Spellings said, "Those are issues that local community and state officials deal with. The federal role must be about the neediest kids and raising the level of academic achievement."
    Linda Hodge, the National PTA's outgoing president, also declined to comment on whether the organization's embrace of a group called Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), which holds a convention workshop today on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender issues in schools, was appropriate.
     The PTA rejected the exhibitor application of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), which recently won a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr. against a Montgomery County sex education program that PFOX claimed "discriminates between religious sects in that it prefers those sects that are friendly to the homosexual lifestyle."
    The PTA's board of directors on Thursday voted to ratify exclusion of PFOX from its formal convention program, but the group rented a conference room in the adjoining Hyatt Regency Hotel for a teach-in about its differences with PFLAG's encouragement of middle- and high-school students to adopt a homosexual identity, if that is their choice.
    Mrs. Hodge would not explain why the National PTA embraced PFLAG's positions but was unwilling to include discussion of views on youth homosexuality by both PFLAG and PFOX. "We think that PTA's position is to work for all children," she said.
    Warren Throckmorton, a clinical psychologist and professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, moderated the PFOX teach-in, which was attended by PFLAG Executive Director Ron Schlittler.
    "A 10-year-old who is experiencing confusing new [same-sex] attractions and [is] out of the mainstream is going to be frightened and want guidance" in school, Mr. Schlittler said. "Kids need a safe place to sort through their questions."
    Mr. Throckmorton said it was wrong to encourage young students into a "gay identity" track. "Young people are very confused about their sexuality," he said. "A great deal of change occurs between middle school and adulthood."
    He said if sexual orientation issues are to be taught in school, "then opinion should be distinguished from fact and all opinions should be considered." He called on the National PTA "to reconsider its choice to present only one point of view to its delegates and members."
    Erika Henderson, who runs a PFOX chapter in Iowa, said her son struggled with same-sex attractions, but at school "he was only referred to gay-affirming organizations and he was never offered ex-gay resources and that it was possible to overcome unwanted same-sex attractions."
    Greg Quinlan of Dayton, a former homosexual and founder of Pro-Family Network of Ohio, attended the meeting with his wife, Cheryl, a former lesbian.
    "The Parents and Teachers Association decision to snub PFOX and deny them exhibit space at their convention here in Columbus is a direct assault on myself and to those who have left homosexuality," he said.
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O050626   Court OKs religious abstinence content

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 26, 2005

Louisiana's abstinence program has not violated a court order with its religious content, a federal judge ruled this week.
    The Governor's Program on Abstinence has religious references on its Web site as well as links to other sites that promote prayer and repentance, but these references do not constitute an excessive entanglement between government and religion, U.S. District Court Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. ruled Thursday.
    Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Democrat, did not comment, but had previously defended the Web site as offering constitutionally protected "discussion of religious issues."
    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has twice brought the state abstinence program to court, said it was "disconcerted" by Judge Porteous' ruling.
    "The evidence in this case is clear," said Louise Melling, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.
    A 2002 court order requires the state to stop using public dollars to promote religion in any way, she said, and the abstinence program violated that order when it featured religious materials and promoted "one religious perspective" on its Web site.
    At issue were quotes from "state-appointed experts," such as one from a 17-year-old girl who said staying chaste makes people "really, truly 'cool' in God's eyes."
    The ACLU also objected to a feature article that said "God chooses this one sin above all others as destructive to your soul and spirit," referring to nonmarital sex.
    "If telling kids that abstaining from sex will bring them closer to God isn't religion, I don't know what is," Joe Cook, executive director of the ACLU in Louisiana, said after Thursday's ruling.
    In May, the ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over its funding of another abstinence program.
    The Silver Ring Thing program, which has won more than $1 million from the federal government, "urges students to commit themselves to Christ," said lawyer Julie Steinberg, who is employed by the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project. This shouldn't be done with taxpayer dollars, she said.
    Last week, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative legal-defense group based in Scottsdale, Ariz., filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of the Silver Ring Thing.
    The Pennsylvania-based abstinence program, which encourages teens to sign a virginity pledge and wear a silver ring in honor of their promise, "has abided by all the federal requirements."
    "None of the funding is used for religious indoctrination," said ADF lawyer Joel Oster.
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R050626   Curtain to fall on Supreme session

By Gina Holland
ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 26, 2005

The Supreme Court ends its work tomorrow with the highest of drama: an anticipated retirement, a ruling on the constitutionality of government Ten Commandments displays and decisions in other major cases.
    Traditionally, there is an air of suspense as the justices meet for the final time before breaking for three months. Justices usually wait until then to resolve blockbuster cases.
    Added to that is the expectation that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is presiding over the court for the last time. Chief Justice Rehnquist has thyroid cancer and many court experts believe his retirement is imminent.
    Long lines have formed several hours before the court's recent sessions so people could get a seat in the packed courtroom. Tomorrow, the crowd will include supporters and opponents of Ten Commandments monuments. Supporters usually gather outside the court praying and singing hymns.
    "It's a big day; history being made. That's a lot of what it's about," said Maureen Mahoney, a Washington lawyer and former Rehnquist law clerk.
    Also expected are nine women in judicial robes who call themselves "Roe Rangers," to bring attention to uncertainty about the court's makeup and abortion rights.
    Justices have a few cases left to resolve, including two of the most-watched of the term: the Ten Commandments appeals from Texas and Kentucky and a case that will determine the liability of Internet file-sharing services for clients' illegal swapping of songs and movies.
    Also tomorrow, justices are expected to announce whether they will hear appeals from two journalists who may face jail time for refusing to reveal sources in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.
    Attorneys for Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and the New York Times' Judith Miller have asked the court to clarify protections reporters have in keeping sources confidential. The cases could not be heard until December.
    The Supreme Court term already has covered cases involving the execution of teenage killers, state bans on Internet orders from out-of-state wineries and federal sentencing rules.
    Overshadowing it all, however, has been Chief Justice Rehnquist's health and questions about the future of the court, which has not had a vacancy for 11 years, a modern record.
    In addition to Chief Justice Rehnquist, 80, older members of the court include Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, 75, and John Paul Stevens, 85.
Chief Justice Rehnquist was absent from the bench for five months after disclosing in October that he had cancer. He has refused to say whether he has the most serious type of thyroid cancer. He speaks with difficulty because of a trachea tube inserted to help him breathe.
    The chief justice could announce his decision at the morning session. He could wait until later in the day after justices hold their last private meeting of the term. He could wait until later in the week, after the crowds have left the court.
    The final rulings of the term often come down to 5-4 votes. Sometimes, justices who dissent read objections from the bench.
    "It's a zoo," veteran Supreme Court lawyer Carter Phillips said of final-ruling days.
    The Ten Commandments issue has received the most attention, in part because it has been 25 years since the court last dealt with it.
    Justices ruled then that the Ten Commandments could not be displayed in public schools. Now they will decide if a granite monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol and framed copies of the Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses are allowed.
    Rulings are also awaited in a Tennessee death-penalty case, an appeal that will decide police departments' liability for not enforcing restraining orders, and a challenge to the tight control cable companies hold over high-speed Internet service.
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R050627   Judicial activism
    "Almost anyone on President Bush's short list of Supreme Court nominees will rouse Senate Democrats to filibuster," Douglas W. Kmiec writes in the Los Angeles Times.
    "No one seriously believes that this will happen because his picks will lack proper training, integrity or temperament. Rather, what riles Democrats is Bush's repeated assertion that he will not appoint someone who 'legislate from the bench.' They and their allies believe that Bush's opposition to judicial activism cloaks his real desire to fill the court with like-minded conservatives," said Mr. Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University.
    "They are wrong. The president's view on activist judges is a defensible, neutral principle of appointment.
    "Democrats and Republicans are quick to hurl the term 'judicial activism' at each other. The Warren court is condemned for elevating criminal-defendant rights over police needs, the Rehnquist court for expanding the power of states at the expense of the federal government.
    "A study praised by both liberals and conservatives -- and that happens to have been done by my son, Keenan -- found the phrase used thousands of times in scholarly articles and judicial opinions, but its meaning frequently came down to 'a decision one does not like.' Even Justice Antonin Scalia, one of Bush's favorite jurists, described 'judicial activism' as 'totally imprecise ... just nothing but fluff.' The problem is that common usage doesn't tell us where judicial restraint ends and judicial activism begins.
    "A clue to where the line should be drawn can be found in the words of the late Democratic Sen. Sam Ervin, who chaired the Watergate hearings. He said a 'judicial activist ... is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the founding fathers, had written it.'"
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R050627   CALIFORNIA   Court overturns sale of public TV station
    SANTA ANA -- A state appeals court has overturned a community college's sale of a public television station to a local foundation, ruling that it illegally accepted a lower bid to make sure the station didn't go to a television evangelist group.
    The Coast Community College District must hold a new sale of KOCE-TV, or, "if the district's trustees find the prospect of television evangelists eventually acquiring KOCE to be too distasteful, no sale at all," said the opinion Thursday.
    The Orange County district violated the law by not selling KOCE-TV to the highest bidder, the court ruled. Milford Dahl, an attorney for the college district, said he would recommend that the district appeal to the state Supreme Court.
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O050627   Senator-doctor wants to keep both roles

June 27, 2005

MUSKOGEE, Okla. (AP) -- It's a Monday morning, and by 7:30 a.m., Tom Coburn already has put 2? hours on the job as a doctor.
    He's made the rounds at the hospital. Now, expectant mothers and an elderly man with hardening of the arteries await exams at his clinic in a rambling strip mall. Lab reports sit a foot high in his office chair.
    As he strides down the hallway, Mr. Coburn glances at his watch. If he doesn't leave his medical office in his northeastern Oklahoma hometown by 9 a.m., he could miss the flight to his Senate office in Washington.
    The doctor is running out of time -- in more ways than one.
    The Senate Select Committee on Ethics has given Mr. Coburn until Sept. 30 to wind down his family and obstetrics practice after finding that it violates Senate rules that limit outside compensation.
    The freshman Republican plans to comply. But he also wants to change the rule that he says "creates a class of kings" contrary to the "citizen legislators" that the Founding Fathers wanted.
    "I'm immersed in people's lives in a way most senators aren't," Mr. Coburn says.
    Mr. Coburn delivered 480 babies while he was a congressman from 1995 to 2001. The House allowed him to practice medicine as long as he took in only enough payment to cover his roughly $200,000 in costs for staff and malpractice insurance.
    He wants a similar waiver from the Senate. But rules there prohibit senators who are physicians and lawyers from receiving any compensation from a medical or law practice.
    Changing those rules could put the Senate on a slippery slope toward undermining its credibility, said Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
    "The rules are meant to stop the appearance and reality of a conflict of interest that may exist if you have outside employment," Mr. Noble said.
    In a letter to Mr. Coburn, the committee quoted the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, who said when the rule was created in 1977, "The first obligation of a professional is to his client; the first obligation of a senator to his constituency. Mr. President, we cannot serve two masters."
   Carlisa Rogers, 31, the mother of three, said she thinks Mr. Coburn can.
    Nine months ago, Mr. Coburn delivered her twins by Caesarean section at 1:30 a.m., and appeared later the same day at a candidate forum in his contentious Senate race against former Democratic Rep. Brad Carson.
    "He came in early at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. to make rounds," Mrs. Rogers recalls. "I'm sure he went into that day with no sleep."
    Mr. Coburn specializes in high-risk pregnancies. He says the patients who come to him, many of whom are American Indians or on Medicaid, are not seeking to buy his influence.
    "There is no conflict of interest here," he says.
    Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, the only other physician in the Senate, sometimes volunteers his surgical services, including trips to developing countries. Mr. Frist, however, has not sought compensation.
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H050627   At PTA gathering, no tolerance for ex-gays

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 27, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Signs for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, which encourages homosexuals to reform their behavior, were removed from a hotel at the National PTA convention under pressure from homosexual advocacy groups, the reform group says.
    Managers of the Hyatt Regency Columbus took down the signs posted outside the hotel conference room rented by the parents' organization as part of its participation in workshops on diversity.
    The 1,500 PTA delegates were feted Saturday afternoon by the annual Columbus Gay Pride Parade, with dozens of rainbow-draped cars and decorated floats passing the downtown convention center on High Street during a workshop break.
    The Hyatt's senior catering manager, Theresa A. Mullins, dispatched a uniformed hotel security guard to order removal of two signs outside the rented conference room that questioned the PTA's exclusion of the group from the convention exhibit hall and three-day workshop program, which ended yesterday.
    Hotel sources and convention delegates said Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays complained about the signs across the hall from a banquet room where the PTA state presidents' luncheon was held Friday and insisted they be removed.
    One sign urged PTA delegates to ask why the support group for reformed homosexuals was barred from exhibiting along with other parents' groups in the convention hall. The other sign called for "respect and the facts."
    National PTA and staff rejected the reform group's application to participate in the convention, so it paid for its second-floor conference room in the Hyatt, adjoining the convention center, for a three-day teach-in on its view that homosexuality is a personal lifestyle choice and not an inborn genetic trait.
    "The two signs outside your room have a definate [sic] taunting message to some of the other guests in the hotel," Ms. Mullins wrote in memo to the reform group. A PTA spokesman denied any role in the hotel's decision.
    A Saturday workshop on building PTA membership was titled "Growing and Thriving With Diversity and Inclusion." Narmen Fennoy-Hunter said the PTA must be "more open to anyone and everyone" and must foster "more open, honest discussions" of issue, "be open to differences, walk the talk."
    The main convention business was to adopt a resolution against the "pervasive problem of bullying" in the nation's schools.
    State Rep. Diana Fessler, a Republican who attended workshop sessions, deplored the exclusion of the parents' reform group. "The PTA has its position of power to bully a minority group," she said. "They're certainly not practicing what they preach when it comes to inclusion."
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R050628   Tense moment
    The mystery surrounding Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's future took much of the attention yesterday as the Supreme Court finished its business with no retirements.
    Justice Rehnquist is 80 and has been battling thyroid cancer. He chose not to make any comments about his plans while in court, although he appeared weak, the Associated Press reports.
    The chief justice, who uses a trachea tube, had difficulty as he announced the final ruling of the term -- his opinion that upheld a Ten Commandments display in Texas. His breathing was labored, and he kept the explanation short.
    Yesterday morning, hundreds of people had waited for seats in the courtroom, including some who camped out overnight on blankets. The atmosphere in court was tense, as spectators leaned forward in their seats trying to hear Justice Rehnquist's closing remarks.
    Justice Rehnquist, sometimes taking long pauses, announced the Oct. 3 starting date for the fall session and thanked the staff for outstanding work.
    He then gaveled the session to a close, stood up slowly and leaned on the back of his leather chair as he turned away from the audience, stepped carefully down a few steps and disappeared behind the court's massive curtains along with his fellow justices.
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R050628   Desperate liberals
    "It is a true sign of desperate times when liberals are fretting over the expected retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist," Jonathan Turley said yesterday in an opinion piece in USA Today.
    "It is not that they have come to love Rehnquist -- once called the 'Lone Ranger' for his strident conservative dissents on the Warren Court. Yet, liberals have learned that there are actually judges to the right of Rehnquist, a number of whom are on the short list to replace him. It is like Luke Skywalker celebrating the demise of the Emperor, only to learn that he was considered the mild-mannered runt of the litter," said Mr. Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.
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H050628   Pro-gay group seeks support at PTA convention

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 28, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The goal of safe-schools programs on behalf of children with same-sex attraction should be to "encourage them in their identity," workshop presenters for a pro-homosexual group told delegates at the national PTA convention.
    "Most gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) kids do not feel safe in school," said Roy Gilbert-Higginson, deputy director of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). "They stay away, they truant, they don't get value of an education."
    The Rev. Lawrence Rezash, pastor emeritus of St. John's United Church of Christ in Dayton, Ohio, said PFLAG has developed a program for school staff awareness and "interventions," with the help of Centerville High School and Wright State University, to increase acceptance of homosexuality and eliminate harassment in schools.
    "There are so many subtle ways that school administrators, counselors and teachers can let GLBT students know they are welcome and accepted," Mr. Rezash said. "Put a rainbow ribbon on the school counselors' bulletin board."
    Mr. Rezash said he makes school staff aware that students as early as elementary and middle school age are confused about sex and sexuality. He said some boys feel "transgendered" -- that they are girls trapped in a male body, while some girls wish they were male.
    To help address the issue, PFLAG in Dayton has run workshops for school staff "to increase awareness of GLBT students, their families and the issues pertaining to them in the school environment," said Frederick Peterson, assistant professor at Wright State.
    Goals are "to develop support for diversity," he said, and "interventions to prevent harassment of sexual-minority students and how to effectively do that."
    Mr. Peterson also said he brings in a "transgenderite" friend who had "gender reassignment" surgery to turn from male to female 10 years ago, which the professor attended.
    "This is a veteran, a world-class martial arts athlete who was made fun of and beat up as a young boy," the professor said. "He comes in and makes a presentation that students will not forget in a long time."
    Teachers get one hour of continuing education course credit toward their master's degree for attending the 20-hour two-day weekend workshop, "which is the part that brings people in," Mr. Peterson said.
    Mr. Rezash said PFLAG in Dayton sought support through a friendly assistant superintendent of public schools.
    "We are targeting school administrators as champions," he said.
    Attendees at the packed workshop at the Greater Columbus Convention Center largely supported the presentation, but at the end, delegate Mary Sloan, PTA vice president in Mississippi, stood up to speak against the pro-homosexual effort until she was cut off.
    "I don't know why you need to teach this in the schools," Mrs. Sloan said.
    Afterward, Mrs. Sloan said the PTA in her state had lost 14,000 members -- half its numbers -- because of strife over school, cultural and political issues.
    "Mississippi people are dropping out of PTA because of this homosexual agenda thing they pursue, as well as differences on school choice issues," Mrs. Sloan said. "I think those are the two issues that have cost us the most members."
    Only three state delegates traveled to Columbus because "the members who are left are either too poor or not willing to spend school money on national PTA," she said.
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R050628   Court splits on Commandments

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 28, 2005

The Supreme Court yesterday, in separate 5-4 decisions, upheld the constitutionality of displaying the Ten Commandments on government property, but said their presence should be scrutinized on a case-by-case basis to guard against governmental promotion of religion.
    In the highly anticipated rulings, the high court said a 6-foot monument displaying the Ten Commandments at the Texas state Capitol in Austin was permissible because of its historical context. But the court rejected the framed posting of the Commandments at two Kentucky courthouses, saying the purpose was to "advance religion."
    Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote the majority decision in the Texas case and was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen G. Breyer. Those dissenting were Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
    In the Kentucky case, Justice Breyer joined the majority opinion with Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Ginsburg and Souter, who wrote the decision. Those dissenting were Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas.
    Various religious and advocacy groups had vastly different takes on the rulings, but mainly agreed on one thing: The Supreme Court had sent a mixed and confusing message.
    The Interfaith Alliance praised the Kentucky ruling but criticized the Texas ruling, saying the latter "threatens the protection of religious freedom for minority religions."
    "Yet another assault on the once-thought untouchable wall of separation between the institutions of religion and government has launched," said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, Interfaith Alliance president. "I had hoped to be able to say that Lady Liberty can take a deep breath of relief, but instead she is gasping for the air of freedom."
    The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations, styling itself "as representatives of the faith to whom the Ten Commandments were initially given on Sinai," applauded both rulings.
    They were "a victory for a sensible and moderate approach to the Constitution's protection of religious liberty and defeat for the extremists of both political poles," spokesman Nathan Diament said.
    As the Supreme Court closed its 2004-05 term, Justice Souter's majority opinion in the Kentucky case said that when the government openly favors religion, it violates the First Amendment's establishment clause, which prohibits Congress from supporting a national religion.
    "By showing a purpose to favor religion, the government sends the ... message to ... nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members," he said.
    Justice Souter noted that the majority do not think a sacred text can never be integrated constitutionally into a governmental display on the subject of law or American history, in effect, saying the question of displaying potential religious material in courthouses had to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
   After two Kentucky counties each posted large, readily visible copies of the Ten Commandments in their courthouses, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued to stop the displays on the grounds that they violated the establishment clause. The counties then adopted nearly identical resolutions calling for a more extensive exhibit intended to show the Ten Commandments were Kentucky's "precedent legal code."
    A U.S. District Court judge found that the original display lacked any secular purpose because the Ten Commandments were a distinctly religious document. The counties then revised the exhibits to include "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the Declaration of Independence, but a federal appeals court eventually ruled against them.
    In a stinging dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia said that what distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority "is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle."
    "That is what prevents judges from ruling now this way, now that -- thumbs up or thumbs down -- as their personal preferences dictate," he said. "Today's opinion forthrightly (or actually, somewhat less than forthrightly) admits that it does not rest upon consistently applied principle."
    Justice Scalia said the United States was founded by men who proclaimed their faith in "Almighty God" and took an oath with the phrase "so help me God," adding that government officials should be permitted to "acknowledge God" and show their belief in a "single Creator."
    In writing the majority opinion in the Texas case, Chief Justice Rehnquist noted that it had been 40 years since the monument was placed on the grounds at the state Capitol in Austin and that its display of the Ten Commandments had gone unchallenged until a man who had "walked by the monument for a number of years" brought a lawsuit.
    "Those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their belief systems, are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to establish religion," he said.
    "The public visiting the Capitol grounds is more likely to have considered the religious aspect of the tablets' message as part of what is a broader moral and historical message reflective of a cultural heritage. For these reasons, the Texas display falls on the permissible side of the constitutional line," he said.
    Justice Stevens, in the dissenting opinion, argued that the "sole function of the monument" was to display the full text of one version of the Ten Commandments and that it was not a work of art and did not refer to any event in the history of the State.
    • Julia Duin contributed to this report.
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R050629   Church leader backs gay 'marriage'

June 29, 2005

ATLANTA (AP) -- With a possible historic vote looming on a measure supporting homosexual "marriage," the head of the United Church of Christ yesterday publicly endorsed the resolution for the first time.
    The Rev. John H. Thomas said that the church's General Synod "should affirm the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender persons" to have unions "equal in name, privileges and responsibilities to married heterosexual couples."
    "I believe our local churches, as they are able, should move toward the development of marriage equality policies," Mr. Thomas added during a speech at Emory University.
    That remark drew a lengthy standing ovation from the audience of about 200.
    The same-sex "marriage" resolution is one of three expected to be voted on by the General Synod at its annual meeting this weekend in Atlanta.
    If it passes, the church would be the first of the historic mainline Christian denominations to offer support as an official body to homosexual "marriage."
    Church members could also choose to support a "one man, one woman" marriage resolution or a resolution calling for prayer and study of the same-sex "marriage" issue. Recently, backers of the third option endorsed the resolution backing homosexual "marriage" and condemned the "one man, one woman" language as discriminatory.
    UCC churches are autonomous, meaning that the General Synod does not create policy for its more than 5,700 congregations.
    Mr. Thomas said he was disappointed that some congregations are considering leaving the denomination if the same-sex "marriage" resolution is approved.
    The 1.3 million-member United Church of Christ has a history of supporting homosexuals in its denomination, dating to 1972, when it ordained mainline Christianity's first open homosexual minister and established a homosexual caucus.
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R050629   Congress to step into Ten Commandments fray

By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 29, 2005

The fight over the Ten Commandments after Monday's two Supreme Court decisions now moves to Congress, where Republicans say they might have to legislate a solution to help clear up confusion from the rulings.
    "I don't see how if you have one document in two district cases, that the display of that very same document can in one instance be unconstitutional and in another instance constitutional," said Rep. John Hostettler, Indiana Republican.
    Mr. Hostettler already has the most likely avenue for congressional action on the rulings. Two weeks ago, he won passage of an amendment to a House spending bill that would prevent U.S. marshals from carrying out a court order to remove a Ten Commandments display from the Gibson County Courthouse in Indiana.
    In two 5-4 rulings Monday, the Supreme Court upheld a Texas monument of the Ten Commandments, but struck down two Kentucky displays, saying it must evaluate each case separately.
    Mr. Hostettler said the federal district judge in Indiana might lift his order, but added, "Until that happens, I'm going to push for my amendment."
    The amendment prohibits any funds from being spent to remove the display -- an exercise of Congress' power of the purse. The Senate's version of the spending bill does not include similar language, but House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said the Senate will have to deal with Mr. Hostettler's amendment at some point.
    "I would hope that the Senate will take it up and deal with these issues. If they're not, it's in the bill, and we'll deal with it in conference when we get there," he said. "But if the Congress has an amendment that says no such funds will be used to enforce it, then the Congress has spoken, and hopefully, people will understand that."
    Mr. DeLay said House Republicans aren't afraid to use that type of legislation to address what he called "incredibly confusing" decisions in the past 20 years on the Ten Commandments and the role of religion.
    "To base decisions on religion upon a letter written by Thomas Jefferson and having no relevance to the Constitution of the United States gets you into this mess," he said, referring to an 1802 letter in which Jefferson coined the metaphor "a wall of separation between church and state."
    Elsewhere in Congress, Rep. Ernest Istook, Oklahoma Republican, said he is going ahead with plans to introduce a constitutional amendment that would allow the posting the Ten Commandments and the Pledge of Allegiance with a reference to God and would permit, but not mandate, school prayer.
    "Things have gotten out of control. The courts aren't going to stop until we stop them," he said.
    Some Democrats defended the court's rulings as striking the right balance between displays meant for religious purposes and those for which the religious meaning is incidental.
   House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, said the decisions "taken together send, frankly, an appropriate message."
    "It is not the government's role to promote that religion," Mr. Hoyer said. "That's really what the distinction is between those two cases."
    Mr. Hoyer also said Mr. Hostettler's amendment was "unfortunate."
    "Legislation which is designed to undercut the enforcement of the law as found by the courts, until that law is changed, undermine a nation of laws," he said.
    In addition to the Ten Commandments ruling, last week's decision allowing broader use of eminent domain also is drawing a legislative response.
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, this week introduced a bill to declare Congress' view that eminent domain should only be exercised for public use and to limit state and local governments' use of eminent domain on projects that include federal money.
    Seven other senators have signed on to Mr. Cornyn's bill, and a companion measure has been introduced in the House by Rep. Denny Rehberg, Montana Republican.
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M050629   Times nabs 6 AP editorial awards

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 29, 2005

Washington Times reporters, photographers and graphic-design artists took six "Mark Twain" editorial awards in the Chesapeake Associated Press annual awards competition this week.
    Times business reporter Jeffrey Sparshott won for the best news series with a three-day report called "Retooling America." The series, which ran in April 2004, offered an in-depth look at how three small U.S. cities are coping with the loss of their major manufacturing businesses.
    Patrice Hill, also a business reporter, won the award for best business story for an article on how inflation woes don't "add up," according to economic-index data.
    Times sports reporter Barker Davis won the award for best sports feature with "On the road again," a lively profile of veteran college basketball referee Tim Higgins.
    Graphic artists Alex Hunter and Scott Haring won in the new category for best sports-page design. Their 24-page "Evil Empire" special section on the start of baseball season depicted the New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox rivalry as another "Star Wars."
    Times editorial writer Deborah Simmons won for best column with her poignant "In faith and deed." Her column, which ran during the national mourning period for President Reagan, honored those who "soldier on" despite losing loved ones to Alzheimer's disease.
    Times photographer Liz O. Baylen won for best photo story with her "Separate Lives" photos, taken in Beslan, Russia, not long after that community's tragic school massacre.
    The Chesapeake AP awards were presented Monday in Baltimore.
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O050629       PBS and Playboy
    Some House Republicans are not happy with a new PBS documentary about sex education that was funded, in part, by the Playboy Foundation.
    "The Education of Shelby Knox," which premiered June 21, is about a 15-year-old Texas girl who pledges to refrain from sex until marriage, but becomes an advocate for sex education that teaches teens about contraception and condom use. The teen also fights for a homosexual-heterosexual student alliance in her school.
    The House Republican Study Committee put out a one-page document arguing that there is false information in the movie, and noting funding comes partly from the Playboy Foundation. The PBS Web site lists a number of groups that provided funding for the movie, including the Playboy Foundation.
    House conservatives are also sending a letter to PBS asking for details on the exact nature of the link between PBS and the Playboy Foundation, sources said.
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R050629       A 70 percent majority
    Seventy percent of Americans would have no objection to posting the Ten Commandments in government buildings, and 85 percent would approve if the Commandments are included as "one document among many historical documents" when displayed in public buildings, according to a survey conducted for the First Amendment Center.
    The State of the First Amendment survey, conducted since 1997, samples the American public's opinion each year on a variety of First Amendment issues.
    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday on two cases, from Kentucky and Texas, concerning Ten Commandments displays. In a case involving Kentucky courthouse displays, it said county officials crossed a constitutional line and were, in effect, endorsing religion even though other documents were added. But in the Texas case, the court approved an outdoor display where the commandments are part of a larger exhibit on the grounds of the Statehouse that recognized the history of the nation's legal system and religious heritage.
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O050630   Condoms' efficacy questioned

June 30, 2005

TRENTON, N.J. -- Birth-control advocates and detractors want to find out the effectiveness of condoms to determine whether labels on the contraceptive packaging should be changed.
    On one side are abstinence proponents, including a senator who is blocking the appointment of a new federal drug agency chief until the labels are changed. On the other side are "safe sex" advocates who fear label changes could undermine confidence in condoms and increase the spread of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
    Condoms are effective against the AIDS virus, but data for their effectiveness against some other STDs is surprisingly sparse.
    "They do not provide 100 percent protection, but for people who are sexually active, they are the best and the only method we have for preventing these diseases," said Heather Boonstra, a public-policy official with the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit group affiliated with Planned Parenthood that researches reproductive health issues.
    Miss Boonstra said that Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, who is a doctor, and the abstinence-promoting Medical Institute for Sexual Health are "manipulating this data to drive home their own anti-condom, anti-contraceptive message."
    James Trussell, who serves on the board of the Guttmacher Institute and is director of Princeton University's Office of Population Research, said there is "absolutely incontrovertible evidence" that condoms reduce transmission of the most serious sexually transmitted disease, AIDS.
    "To my mind, everything else is gravy," Mr. Trussell said. "All of this is ideologically motivated. What they're really concerned about is people who are not married having sex."
    Coburn spokesman John Hart said the senator's June 15 hold on Lester Crawford's nomination as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration is an attempt to encourage Mr. Crawford obey a 2000 law Mr. Coburn sponsored when he was a congressman. It requires the FDA to change condom labels to give more information on their "effectiveness or lack of the effectiveness in preventing STDs."
    Mr. Hart said FDA officials recently have said they will have a draft of the language soon. FDA spokeswoman Julie Zawisza said she could not discuss policy issues.
    Currently the FDA requires condom packages to state: "If used properly, latex condoms will help to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV infection (AIDS) and many other sexually transmitted diseases." Many brands state condoms are highly effective in preventing pregnancy.
    When latex condoms are used every time they reduce chances of pregnancy over a one-year period to 3 percent, compared with 85 percent without birth control. Condoms cut risk of HIV infection by about 80 percent, to less than a 1 percent chance of infection per year.
    A 2001 NIH expert panel, convened at Mr. Coburn's request, examined dozens of published studies. It reported that for STDs besides AIDS and gonorrhea, for which condoms cut transmission by 50 percent to 100 percent, the evidence on protection is unclear because of weak and contradictory studies.
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R050625   Thousands flock to see Billy Graham

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 25, 2005

FLUSHING, N.Y. -- Evangelist Billy Graham began his final American crusade last night with a multi-ethnic extravaganza translated into 21 languages and supported by 1,424 churches nationwide.
    More than 85,000 people attended the revival, filling five overflow sections, jamming the Long Island Expressway and swamping the local transportation systems to get here.
    "I have stars in my eyes," Mr. Graham said in opening his 30-minute speech. "It's great to be back in New York."
    Mr. Graham, 86, who ascended to the 8-foot-high stage via a hydraulic lift, was given a lengthy standing ovation by the enormous crowd. It was the first of three rallies this weekend.
    "After all this music and all you've read and heard, I am probably a anticlimax," he said.
    "Nooo," the crowed cheerfully responded.
    Mr. Graham welcomed new Christians attending the event and urged others to atone.
    "We are Christians, maybe. We go to church. We've been baptized. We've been confirmed. But deep inside we need something else, and that something else can be brought about by Jesus," he told the crowd.
    The new converts represented a cross-section of the world that has moved to New York. Seating sections under the trees surrounding the stage at Flushing Meadows Corona Park were designated for Hungarian, Arabic, Thai, Polish, Armenian, Korean, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese speakers.
    When introducing Mr. Graham, the Rev. A.R. Bernard, the Panama-born pastor of the 24,000-member Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn who headed the crusade, commented on how diverse Mr. Graham's audiences have become since he began preaching some 50 years ago.
    "In 1957, his chairman was white," Mr. Bernard said regarding Mr. Graham's first crusade in Madison Square Garden. "In 1991 [in Central Park], it was a white business executive. Here it is in 2005 and it's a pastor of a mega-church who is a person of color."
    Mr. Bernard sat alongside Mr. Graham last night on the main stage surrounded by an acre of Kelly-green carpet, where inquirers stood before Mr. Graham in answer to his call to become Christians.
    "He's reached beyond denominational and racial lines," Mr. Bernard said. "In 1957, he invited Dr. Martin Luther King to share the platform with him. He's had the most integrated meetings for people of color and this is how he's closing out 60-plus years of ministry.
    "For me, it's a changing of the guard, a passing of the mantle. It's also the entering of a new season, the 21st century, with new sets of leaders to emerge."
    The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's decision to locate its last crusade in polyglot Queens, home to speakers of some 130 languages, was a strategy crafted on the understanding that evangelism's future is multicultural by necessity.
    "Queens is considered a microcosm of the world," said Ralph Castilla, chief marketing officer for Christ Tabernacle, a Spanish- and English-speaking church in Brooklyn. "Everyone is here. Proverbs 11:30 says, 'He who wins souls is wise.' It is wise for the Billy Graham association to be deliberate about outreach to people groups in the area."
    One subway stop away in downtown Flushing, the service times for St. George's Episcopal Church are listed in Spanish, Chinese and English. Across 39th Street from the church at the Sheraton LaGuardia East, one of the breakfast specialties is scallion pancakes, Shanghai style. ATMs at banks a half block away carry instructions in Chinese, English and Braille.
    The boroughs east of Manhattan have fueled an amazing growth in Christianity, chronicled by a late 1990s Columbia University survey that turned up 7,100 evangelical Protestant, charismatic and Pentecostal churches with an average membership of 212 persons in New York City. In South Bronx, one new church opens every three weeks.
    "That's 1.5 million New Yorkers who attend Protestant churches," Mr. Bernard said. "For too long, New York has been painted as a city in spiritual darkness, a stronghold of Satan. The reality is things have changed dramatically. There's a spiritual transformation taking place in New York City."
    Translators for the event were provided by the participating churches, said Art Bailey, crusade director. "As word got out in these communities that Mr. Graham was coming, most of them came to us to ensure there'd be an outreach in their language," he said.
    In order to reach everything from the largest Korean assembly to the smallest African Pentecostal storefront, crusade organizers had 153 organizational meetings with local churches, "three times as much as we've done elsewhere," Mr. Bailey said.
    Organizers also recruited volunteers from churches separated by two rivers and four states.
    "There's eastern New Jersey, southern Connecticut, Philadelphia, Long Island, the five boroughs, Westchester County -- there is no central location for people in a 50-mile radius of here. People don't cross those boundaries. It's hard to get someone from the Bronx to come down to Staten Island or someone from Staten Island to go to Brooklyn."
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R050628   Court splits on Commandments

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 28, 2005

    After two Kentucky counties each posted large, readily visible copies of the Ten Commandments in their courthouses, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued to stop the displays on the grounds that they violated the establishment clause. The counties then adopted nearly identical resolutions calling for a more extensive exhibit intended to show the Ten Commandments were Kentucky's "precedent legal code."
    A U.S. District Court judge found that the original display lacked any secular purpose because the Ten Commandments were a distinctly religious document. The counties then revised the exhibits to include "The Star-Spangled Banner" and the Declaration of Independence, but a federal appeals court eventually ruled against them.
    In a stinging dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia said that what distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority "is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle."
    "That is what prevents judges from ruling now this way, now that -- thumbs up or thumbs down -- as their personal preferences dictate," he said. "Today's opinion forthrightly (or actually, somewhat less than forthrightly) admits that it does not rest upon consistently applied principle."
    Justice Scalia said the United States was founded by men who proclaimed their faith in "Almighty God" and took an oath with the phrase "so help me God," adding that government officials should be permitted to "acknowledge God" and show their belief in a "single Creator."
    In writing the majority opinion in the Texas case, Chief Justice Rehnquist noted that it had been 40 years since the monument was placed on the grounds at the state Capitol in Austin and that its display of the Ten Commandments had gone unchallenged until a man who had "walked by the monument for a number of years" brought a lawsuit.
    "Those 40 years suggest more strongly than can any set of formulaic tests that few individuals, whatever their belief systems, are likely to have understood the monument as amounting, in any significantly detrimental way, to a government effort to establish religion," he said.
    "The public visiting the Capitol grounds is more likely to have considered the religious aspect of the tablets' message as part of what is a broader moral and historical message reflective of a cultural heritage. For these reasons, the Texas display falls on the permissible side of the constitutional line," he said.
    Justice Stevens, in the dissenting opinion, argued that the "sole function of the monument" was to display the full text of one version of the Ten Commandments and that it was not a work of art and did not refer to any event in the history of the State.
    • Julia Duin contributed to this report.
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M050701   Dorgan's complaint

    Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota Democrat, says he's a little miffed over a study commissioned by the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that tries to measure liberal bias in public broadcasting.
    Mr. Dorgan said the study -- commissioned by Kenneth Tomlinson early this year -- was "a little nutty" and "a complete waste of more than $14,000 in taxpayer funds."
    He said the man hired to do the study, Indiana consultant Fred Mann, is "an armchair analyst with little or no professional preparation for the task."
    The study examined a handful of public television and radio programs and found a liberal bent. For instance, it found that out of eight guests on two Tucker Carlson shows, four were liberal, two were conservative and two were neutral.
    A look at "The Diane Rehm Show" for one month found that out of 46 guests, 22 were liberal, five were conservative, 14 were neutral and five were entertainment.
    It also examined "NOW" with Bill Moyers, and found that out of 33 guests in spring 2004, 16 were "anti-Bush," five were "anti-corporation," six were "anti-DeLay," two were "pro-Bush" and four were neutral.
    But Mr. Dorgan said guests were labeled in terms of both ideological and party leanings with no established criteria, frame of reference or explanation.
    Mr. Dorgan wrote to Mr. Tomlinson in May requesting a copy of the study and was sent one, which he copied and handed out to reporters at a press conference yesterday. Mr. Dorgan said the study, combined with the recent hiring of a former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee to be the president of CPB has him worried "that Mr. Tomlinson is taking the CPB down a very dangerous path."
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R050701   Justice O'Connor retires

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 1, 2005

Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement from the high court today, kicking off what promises to be an acrimonious summer confirmation fight over her successor.
    The retirement took many in Washington by surprise, since speculation had centered on Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist--who suffers from thyroid cancer--to retire. Both sides had lined up to fight a massive and expensive battle over his replacement.
    The fight over Justice O'Connor's replacement likely will be even more contentious because, unlike the reliably conservative chief justice, Justice O'Connor has been the swing vote in many 5-4 court decisions on the most significant court cases. Replacing her with a reliable conservative--which President Bush and the Republican-led Senate are expected to do--could shift the court to a more conservative route.
    Justice O'Connor joined liberals on key decisions -- upholding abortion rights and preserving the constitutionality of affirmative action. She also has been the key swing vote on the death penalty, siding with conservatives in preserving it, but siding with liberals in outlawing executions of minors.
    On Capitol Hill, lawmakers scrambled to pay tribute to Justice O'Connor.
    "For nearly 23 years, Justice O'Connor lent America her brilliant mind and fair impartial judgement," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said in the well of the chamber moments after the announcement was made.
    Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way, also applauded Justice O'Connor.
    "When Ronald Reagan was faced with his first Supreme Court vacancy, he chose Sandra Day O'Connor, a consensus conservative nominee who became one of the most respected members of the court," said Mr. Neas, who also warned of the looming fight to replace her.
    "In the coming weeks the president and Senate will decide whether we have a Supreme Court that will preserve the social justice achievements of the 20th century, or whether we will retreat to a 19th century interpretation of the Constitution, with individual rights given far less protection against state power and corporate irresponsibility," he said. "The American people must be part of this great debate over our future."
    Ralph Z. Hallow contributed to this article.
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R050701E   When the law gets big for its pants

July 1, 2005

There's no mystery about why the U.S. Supreme Court threw the Ten Commandments out of the courthouse.
    You can't engrave "thou shalt not steal" or even "thou shalt not commit adultery" and certainly not "thou shalt not lie" on the walls inside a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians without creating a hostile work environment.
    Look no farther than the U.S. Court House in Washington. A prosecutor in over his head and a judge with an inflated opinion of what a big fellow he is conspire to scuttle one of our most important constitutional guarantees in the name of the "law."
    To save the bungling prosecutor's face, the judge threatens to jail two reporters for failing to take notice of the prosecutor's predicament and the judge's own eminence, which he regards as at least titanic. The judge, Thomas Hogan of the U.S. District Court in Washington, calls the case "curiouser and curiouser," and cites a fairy tale as evidence. "Alice in Wonderland," in fact, appears to be the judge's favorite authority. He quoted Lewis Carroll twice in one hearing this week.
    But it's not really curiouser. The case has descended into an exercise in prosecutorial revenge and judicial aiding and abetting, and its origins are rooted, like nearly everything else in Washington, in partisan politics. What happened is this: Joseph C. Wilson IV (not to be confused with Joseph C. Wilsons I, II or III), a onetime diplomat passed over when George W. Bush handed out promotions, wrote an op-ed commentary for the New York Times mocking the war in Iraq. Eight days later, Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist, wrote that "two senior administration officials" had told him that Mr. IV had taken his wife, Valerie Plame, along on a "fact-finding" trip to Africa to keep him company at government expense, and identified her as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Everyone assumed, maybe inaccurately, that the Novak sources were Bush administration figures angry about Mr. IV's carping about the war in Iraq. An "agency operative" could be almost anyone, from a Mata Hari or an Antonia Ford to someone who clips newspapers and pastes them in the CIA scrapbooks. Mzz Plame was neither a Mata nor an Antonia. Then Matt Cooper of Time magazine wrote about it, and Judith Miller of the New York Times asked around, collecting information, and wrote nothing.
    The Justice Department was eager to punish someone, if only to show how evenhanded the Bush administration was (or is), and appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to find a violation of a 1982 law prohibiting the identification of a CIA agent the spooks are trying to keep under cover. The only covers Valerie Plame was under were Mr. IV's covers. The law says further that the revelation must be part of a "pattern" of trying to harm "intelligence." The CIA has, as God and everybody else knows, done a lot to harm intelligence over the past few years, but Mr. Fitzgerald wanted to put someone in jail. His superiors expected at least an indictment, since any prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. But Mr. Fitzgerald couldn't even come up with two slices of stale bread.
    So he demanded contempt citations against Matt Cooper and Judith Miller. We don't know why. The judge sealed eight full pages of his reasons. "Some legal minds," writes William Safire, the conservative (if that matters) sage emeritus of the New York Times op-ed page, "think [the prosecutor] is falling back on the Martha Stewart Theory of Prosecution. That is: if the underlying crime has not been committed, justify the investigation by indicting a big name for giving false information." The prosecutor gets his ham sandwich, a few headlines, the judge gets to exercise his ego and authority, impressing his wife if no one else, and only a couple of reporters go to jail, where Official Washington thinks all reporters and editors belong.
    Both Mr. Cooper and Mzz Miller insist they'll waive their freedom before breaking their promises to the source(s), but Time magazine, with the usual courage of corporations, caved yesterday and said it would hand over certain documents, which may or may not satisfy the prosecutor and his judicial accomplice in this crime against justice. The New York Times, courage intact, says it will stand fast with Judith Miller. Mr. Cooper regrets his employer's wimp-out, and well he should. Who will trust a Time assurance of confidentiality now?
    This sordid episode will strike Americans outside the Beltway as hardly rising to the level of trivia. Abusing newspapers is only what newspapers deserve. But Official Washington understands very well what this is all about. As the government draws abusive "security" ever tighter, the First Amendment must be chipped down to size.

    Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
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R050702   UCC likely to give nod to gay unions

July 2, 2005

ATLANTA (AP) -- The United Church of Christ is poised to become the largest Christian denomination to endorse same-sex "marriage."
    But as with other mainline Protestant churches, taking a pro-homosexual stand could come with a price.
    "I don't think it's possible to overestimate the prophetic role that the passage of the resolution would have in terms of the impact on the religious and secular debate in this country," said the Rev. Rebecca Voelkel of Cleveland, national interim director of the UCC Coalition for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns.
    Eight congregations in the liberal denomination of 1.3 million members say approving the same-sex marriage resolution at the church's upcoming annual meeting would be a bad idea -- even as they concede the measure is likely to win approval.
    The meeting concludes Tuesday.
    The Rev. Brett Becker, pastor of St. Paul United Church of Christ in Cibolo, Texas, and a spokesman for the conservative congregations, predicted the eventual collapse of the UCC if the measure passes.
    "If we're going to call ourselves Christian and be followers of Christ, we need to follow his teachings on marriage," said Mr. Becker, whose group has proposed an alternative resolution defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman.
    Mr. Becker said he and other conservative pastors should continue to welcome homosexuals into the church, but encourage them to change their behavior.
    A third proposal calls for study, prayer and discernment on same-sex "marriage" -- though its proponents said the "one man, one woman" resolution was discriminatory and backers recently voted to support "the spirit" of the same-sex resolution. The resolutions will be discussed at the meeting tomorrow immediately after worship services.
    Mr. Becker's group also will put forward a measure that defines the UCC as a Christian denomination -- a resolution that notes some pastors have strayed so far from the mainstream that the UCC has earned the derisive nickname "Unitarians considering Christ."
    Traditionally strong in New England, the church was criticized last year for a TV advertising campaign featuring a homosexual couple, among others, being excluded from a church. CBS and NBC rejected the 30-second ads.
    But the church's support for homosexuals is not new. In the early 1970s, the UCC became the first major Christian body to ordain an openly homosexual as a minister and establish a homosexual caucus.
    "It's important for religious groups that are supportive of [homosexual] rights to get out in the public arena and articulate that there is not a monolithic understanding of these issues and it's not fair to say that in order to be a good Christian, one has to be anti-homosexual," Miss Voelkel said.
    UCC churches are autonomous, meaning the General Synod does not create policy for its more than 5,700 congregations. Still, if the resolution supporting same-sex marriage passes, it would be "a very disturbing thing," Mr. Becker said.
    No hard data exist on how many homosexuals are in the UCC, but Miss Voelkel said about 2,000 people are on the mailing list for the coalition, and about 1,000 clergy or seminarians are homosexuals. The denomination has 10,323 ordained ministers.
    The momentum for the same-sex resolution has encouraged the Rev. Libby Tigner, minister of the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Long Beach, Calif., and sponsor of the measure.
    Miss Tigner said the proposal was largely a response to "the social reality of many of our members," many of whom flocked to San Francisco last spring after the mayor directed courts to issue marriage licenses to couples, regardless of sex.
    She said the resolution is not a mandate for other congregations and hopes the issue does not divide the church.
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R050702   Democrats warn Bush to consult

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 2, 2005

Capitol Hill braced yesterday for the first Supreme Court confirmation fight in nearly 11 years, and Democrats warned President Bush to consult them "face-to-face" before offering a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
    "If the president abuses his power and nominates someone who threatens to roll back the rights and freedoms of the American people, then the American people will insist that we oppose that nominee -- and we intend to do so," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and member of the Judiciary Committee, said.
    Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and a member of the committee, told reporters it would be "a shame" if Mr. Bush makes his nomination "without real face-to-face, back-and-forth consultation." Democrats argue that this is the correct meaning of the Senate's constitutional "advice and consent" role.
    A group of liberal activists reserved a room across the hall from the Senate chamber yesterday to add their warnings, calling the abortion rights as upheld by Justice O'Connor the most fundamental American freedom.
    "On Independence Day weekend -- as we all celebrate the freedoms that make America so special -- there is no freedom more fundamental to our rights than the ability for women to decide whether and when to parent," said Karen Pearl, interim president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
    Amid all the threats, lawmakers on both sides joined in lauding the first woman named to the Supreme Court.
    "Throughout her 24 years of service on the nation's highest court, Justice O'Connor worked to restore common sense to our criminal justice system and due regard for the power reserved to the states under the Constitution and to limit restrictions on faith in the public square," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Judiciary committee. "Thanks to Sandra Day O'Connor, victims of crime are more likely to receive justice, and inner city children are no longer constitutionally barred from access to school choice programs."
    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid agreed: "Justice O'Connor has been a voice of reason and moderation on the court."
    The warm remarks put several Democrats in the unlikely position of urging Mr. Bush to go about nominating a replacement in the same manner as President Reagan, who nominated Justice O'Connor 24 years ago.
    "Ronald Reagan was, arguably, the most conservative president of our time, and he chose someone who was confirmed with a vote of 99 to nothing," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat. "This president ought to use the Reagan standard in choosing a nominee."
    Mr. Reagan also nominated Justice Antonin Scalia to the high court and elevated William H. Rehnquist to chief justice. Justice Rehnquist anchors the conservatives on the court, and Justice Scalia has become the left's favorite "bad" conservative.
    Justice O'Connor's announcement comes after the Senate narrowly averted a showdown in May over 10 Democratic filibusters of Mr. Bush's judicial nominations to lower federal courts.
    Seven Democrats agreed to surrender most of the remaining filibusters in exchange for seven Republicans' promise not to support a leadership effort to employ the so-called "nuclear option," which would have prevented such judicial filibusters.
    One of those Democratic signers, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, said he expects the deal to stick. "Once a nominee is put forward, I'm sure the 'Gang of Fourteen' senators will meet and begin discussions about the nominee to ensure that the agreement we reached will remain intact," he said. "Any speculation on potential nominees is obviously premature. We will cross that bridge when we get there."
    Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican and one of the Gang of Fourteen, reiterated yesterday that the "nuclear option is definitely on the table" but spoke against confirming a nominee in that manner. "For, if we did, and that were the process by which this body gave advice and consent on that Supreme Court justice, that justice would be tattooed with the nuclear option for the rest of his or her life on that court," he said.
    Mr. Warner joined Democrats in warning Mr. Bush to find a nominee Democrats find acceptable. President Bush's first Supreme Court nomination "gives him an opportunity to be a uniter, not a divider," he said.
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R050702   Justice O'Connor had pivotal role in big rulings

By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 2, 2005

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor provided the critical swing vote on a series of important 5-4 decisions during her tenure, essentially setting the current legal standard on issues from abortion to religion to affirmative action.
    "Justice O'Connor has been the pivot on most of the major decisions that were decided 5-4," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican. "I argued two cases to the United States Supreme Court when I was [Texas] attorney general and, as every lawyer will tell you who argues to the United States Supreme Court, you argue to get Justice O'Connor, and Justice [Anthony M.] Kennedy, in close decisions. You virtually ignore the rest of the justices in terms of your strategy, because if you can get a Kennedy and an O'Connor, you win."
    With four solidly liberal justices, three solidly conservative justices and one conservative leaner in Justice Kennedy, Justice O'Connor's vote was usually the tie-breaker between the two positions.
    She wrote the majority opinion in a 5-4 case upholding the University of Michigan law school's affirmative action policy in 2003. Earlier this week, she sided with the liberal justices in a 5-4 case prohibiting a display of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky courtroom.
    Kevin J. Hasson, founder of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative group that defends free expression of religion, said he is happy to see Justice O'Connor go.
    "We have a living Constitution, her name is Sandra Day O'Connor and thank God she's retiring," Mr. Hasson said, adding that whoever replaces her will bring "clarity" to constitutional law on religion. "Right, left or center, the law will be clearer, and that in itself is a good thing."
    Justice O'Connor was also part of the 5-4 majority that upheld the severe restrictions on donations to federal political campaigns that were part of the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. And she was part of the 5-4 majority that overturned a ban on a late-term abortion procedure commonly called partial-birth abortion.
    But she sided with the court's conservatives in limiting federal power on cases such as overturning the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. That ruling prevents rape victims from suing their attackers in federal court.
    And on the death penalty, she usually sided with the conservatives in upholding it, though she acknowledged in a 2001 speech that "serious questions are being raised" about its implementation.
    With Republicans in control of the confirmation process, her retirement provides them with a chance to solidify the rulings in which she sided with the other conservatives on the court. Democrats find themselves playing defense in trying to preserve the balance when she sided with the court's liberals.
    Nelson Lund, a former clerk to Justice O'Connor and now a law professor at George Mason University, said she didn't set out to be the key vote.
    "She has been a pragmatic judge, and also a cautious judge, disinclined to make sweeping theoretical pronouncements," he said. "I think just by chance it's turned out there were enough people on either end of the ideological spectrum of the court that are willing, that that makes her the swing vote."
    Justice O'Connor was a leader on the court on the issue of federalism, siding with the conservatives on the court in limiting the extent of federal power. Still, true to form, Mr. Lund said, she often wrote concurring opinions that "could be read as suggesting a little more caution" than the rest of the majority.
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R050702   Bush revisits options

By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 2, 2005

The White House was caught off guard yesterday when Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement, forcing top administration officials, who had been readying for the departure of the court's conservative chief justice, to reconsider its options.
    Bush administration officials already have interviewed some top candidates for the nation's highest court, but the group of contenders were front-runners to replace the ailing, 80-year-old Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, not to fill the seat of the court's first female justice, who is considered moderate.
    Now the small group of top candidates, which includes Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, 49, and three appeals court judges, Samuel Alito, 55, J. Michael Luttig, 51, and John Roberts, 50, is expected to expand to contain more women.
    Court authorities consider Edith Hollan Jones, 56, and Edith Brown Clement, 57, both judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as possible contenders, and also think White House Counsel Harriet Miers, a longtime Bush confidante, is in the mix.
    Besides possible pressure to nominate a woman to the court, Mr. Bush's political base will lobby to replace Justice O'Connor, whose swing vote supported abortion and affirmative action, with a more conservative voice.
    The White House got the first indication of Justice O'Connor's retirement about noon on Thursday. Pamela Talkin, the Supreme Court's head marshal, called Mrs. Miers to tell her that she had a sealed envelope to deliver the next morning.
    The marshal did not say who the envelope was from or what it contained. After the notification, Mrs. Miers told Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who were having lunch together, that a letter was coming from the Supreme Court the next day.
    About 9 a.m. yesterday, Mrs. Talkin told the White House that the letter was from Justice O'Connor, and Mrs. Miers alerted the president.
    A few minutes later, the president spoke with Justice O'Connor in what the White House described as a brief but emotional phone call.
    "For an old ranching girl, you turned out pretty good," he told the El Paso, Texas, native, who grew up on an Arizona ranch. She laughed, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
    After talking with Justice O'Connor and before going to the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush held a meeting with senior advisers to talk about the selection process.
    The meeting included Mr. Cheney; Mrs. Miers; Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff; Mr. Gonzales; Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Senior Counselor Dan Bartlett. Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. participated by telephone from Maine.
    Mr. Bush yesterday pledged to seek input from Congress on his nomination and said "the nation also deserves a dignified process of confirmation in the United States Senate, characterized by fair treatment, a fair hearing and a fair vote. I will choose a nominee in a timely manner so that the hearing and the vote can be completed before the new Supreme Court term begins."
    Mr. McClellan said Mr. Bush spoke yesterday with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican. The president spoke this week about the Supreme Court with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and yesterday tried unsuccessfully to reach him, the spokesman said.
    He added optimistically: "I just can't imagine that Democrats are going to want to engage in controversial tactics when it comes to a nominee for the Supreme Court."
    Yesterday's retirement does put the White House in another bind -- and a well-documented one, at that. In 1987, President Reagan nominated Robert Bork for the high court. He was lambasted by liberal activist groups throughout the summer and his nomination was all but dead on arrival when the Senate returned from its August recess.
    With Congress set to take nearly all of August off this year, the White House must decide quickly when to make the nomination. There are just 90 days until the gavel falls to open the fall Supreme Court term on Oct. 3, and it typically takes 70 to 75 days from the time a justice announces retirement until the Senate Judiciary Committee is ready to hold confirmation hearings.
    The White House said yesterday that Mr. Bush will not make a nomination until at least next Friday, when he returns from a trip to Denmark and Scotland. But he will use the long flights to and from Europe to review material about possible replacements, Mr. McClellan said.
    The president made clear that he will not rush a decision in hopes of moving a nomination through the Senate before the August recess.
     "I will be deliberate and thorough in this process. I have directed my staff, in cooperation with the Department of Justice, to compile information and recommend for my review potential nominees who meet a high standard of legal ability, judgment and integrity and who will faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our country," Mr. Bush said.
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R050702   The battle for the court begins

By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 2, 2005

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, resigned yesterday, setting the stage for a fierce battle over who will succeed her.
    President Bush praised Justice O'Connor as a "discerning and conscientious judge" and vowed to offer a nominee who "will faithfully interpret the Constitution." The White House said it would not offer a candidate until after Mr. Bush returns from Europe on July 8.
    While her retirement leaves Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal appointed by President Clinton, the lone woman on the court, few names mentioned have been those of women. Among the most mentioned are Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, thought to be a particular favorite of the president, and federal appeals court judges J. Michael Luttig and John G. Roberts.
    In a note to the White House, Justice O'Connor, 75, was brief. She said she will stay on until a successor is confirmed and that she was leaving "with enormous respect for the integrity of the court and its role under the constitutional structure." Court officials said she spoke of a need to spend more time with her husband of 53 years.
    A moderate conservative when President Reagan appointed her in 1981, Justice O'Connor delivered tie-breaking votes in more than dozen landmark cases affecting civil rights, environmental protection, abortion and the 2000 presidential election among others. She became less conservative as the years went on.
    While there had been speculation Justice O'Connor might step down, the timing of her announcement was a mild surprise, because Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was espected to retire first, at the end of the court's term ending June 30.
    At 80 and recovering from thyroid cancer, the chief justice's condition during recent months had prompted the mention of several prospective replacements, who are now considered as successors to Justice O'Connor. Court watchers said her retirement indicates Justice Rehnquist will probably not step down this year, honoring a tradition of not having more than one vacancy per term.
    Justice O'Connor will leave a legacy for women lawyers. Those who worked for or with her cite her intellect and scholarship.
    "She's very smart, very dedicated and very savvy, but she's also extremely charming," said Jeffrey Lamken, a partner with Houston-based law firm Baker Botts, who clerked for Justice O'Connor in 1992 and 1993. "There is not going to be another Justice O'Connor. I think anyone who ever worked for her would tell you that."
    It was her seriousness that made her a target for humor over the years, such as an incident at a White House Correspondents Dinner in the mid-1980s when a tipsy Washington Redskins running back, John Riggins, memorably called across a table to her: "Come on, Sandy baby, loosen up." Mr. Riggins was beseiged by calls yesterday, but declined to talk about it.
    Lawmakers on Capitol Hill paid tribute yesterday.
    "Today marks a great loss for America, but it's also a day to reflect on all that we have gained because of Justice O'Connor's service to our country," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said. "For nearly 24 years, Justice O'Connor lent America her brilliant mind and her fair and impartial judgement."
   The Senate, which the Constitution tasks with confirming the president's nominee to succeed a justice, is preparing for a summer-long battle over Justice O'Connor's replacement. Democrats, who have led filibusters against lower court nominations by Mr. Bush, said the president has an obligation to preserve the precarious balance of the court with whomever he chooses to replace Justice O'Connor.
    Republicans said the president should not be constrained. "Elections have consequences," said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. "The president clearly stated when he ran for re-election that he would be appointing conservative nominees to the Supreme Court. It comes as no surprise if a conservative nominee comes over."
    Born in 1930 in El Paso, Texas, Justice O'Connor earned undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, where she married classmate John Jay O'Connor III. Despite graduating third in her law school class, few law firms were willing to hire a woman lawyer during the early 1950s, so she took a job as deputy county attorney of San Mateo County in California.
    After two years, she took a job as a civilian attorney for a firm in Frankfurt, Germany, and by the late 1950s had returned to the United States, to Arizona, where a private firm hired her. By 1965, she was emerging as a leading lawyer, later becoming the assistant attorney general of Arizona.
    Beginning in 1969, she served three terms in the Arizona state Senate, and in 1973 became the first woman to serve as a state senate majority leader. Two years later she was elected judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, where she served until being appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals in 1979.
    In 1981, President Reagan nominated her to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. She was unanimously confirmed and, at the time, quickly became a conservative ally of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.
    But in the years after, she was criticized by conservatives on some issues and hailed by them on others. Perhaps the most important case of her tenure came in December 2000, when she joined Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy overrule a decision by the Florida Supreme Court, which had overruled a Florida state circuit judge, finally tipping the election to George W. Bush.
    • Brian DeBose and Charles Hurt contributed to this report.
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E050628Md   Board reaches pact on sex education

By Jon Ward
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 28, 2005

The Montgomery County Board of Education has reached an agreement that binds them to include members of a conservative parents group and a group of former homosexuals in redesigning a new sex-education curriculum.
    The board began talks with Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum (CRC) and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) after a federal judge halted the course in May, just days before it was to be taught.
    CRC and PFOX said the course had promoted homosexuality and promiscuity while disparaging religious views that say homosexuality is immoral.
    The county had argued that the course taught scientific facts about homosexuality and transgenderism and would decrease harassment and bullying experienced by homosexual students.
    The agreement, signed at a board meeting last night in Rockville, does not make any guarantees about content, however, and the board rejected requests by PFOX and CRC that the perspective of former homosexuals be included in the curriculum.
     "I'm quasi-satisfied," said Michelle Turner, CRC president. "I don't like the way the board has gone about this."
    CRC attorney John Garza said his group signed to have peace with the board.
    "It's a good agreement," he said. "It will hopefully lead to a successful new curriculum next year. But we won't know how good it is until we see what the new curriculum looks like."
    Superintendent Jerry D. Weast will work with school staff in the fall to design a course that includes instruction on "sexual variations," including homosexuality.
    "We were prepared for a good fight in court, if necessary, but it would've been costly in terms of both time and resources," Mr. Weast said. "Reasonable leadership of the school system requires that we find a way of settling this dispute without compromising the Board of Education's sole authority over the curriculum of our school system."
    This will be the school system's second try to replace its current sex-education course, in which teachers may discuss homosexuality only if a student asks about it.
    On May 23, the board scrapped the entire curriculum it had designed to take the place of the old one, as well as the citizens advisory committee that had crafted much of the content.
    Under the agreement, the schools agreed not to "discuss religious beliefs on the issues covered by the revisions or characterize beliefs as attributed to specific religious denominations or sects."
    The schools also agreed to give ample notice of parent information meetings before the content is taught and to have all materials available for parents at the meetings.
    The Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development, which is mandated under state law, will have only 15 members. There were 27 members on the previous committee.
    CRC and PFOX each are guaranteed one spot on the committee, though that agreement expires after the new course is implemented.
    The schools also will pay $36,000 to the two groups to reimburse them for their legal fees, as required by federal law in cases involving infringement of civil rights.
    Mr. Garza said most of the money will go to Liberty Counsel, a Christian law group that helped with the case.
    Tomorrow, Mr. Garza will file to terminate the lawsuit brought by CRC and PFOX against the school system. The temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr. then will be void.
    David Fishback, who had been chairman of the advisory committee, had argued against a settlement with CRC and PFOX. In a letter sent to the board Friday, Mr. Fishback said he was surprised to learn from an attorney for Parents, Families and Friends of Gays and Lesbians (PFLAG) that the schools were negotiating with CRC and PFOX.
    In the letter, he said the groups' ideas were "dubious."
    "To agree to such a settlement in order to avoid litigation costs ... would be an act that would make the people of Montgomery County ashamed," Mr. Fishback wrote.
    However, Jim Kennedy, of the parents group teachthefacts.org, said he did not mind if CRC and PFOX were on the committee.
    "If they were going to include ex-gays then that was going to be serious," he said.
    Last night, a handful of high school students, organized by teachthefacts.org, protested against the current curriculum because they say it marginalizes homosexual students.
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R050628Md   High court ruling may affect Frederick

By Foster Klug
ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 28, 2005

BALTIMORE -- Attorneys in Maryland are examining a pair of U.S. Supreme Court decisions made yesterday about the Ten Commandments to determine how the rulings might affect a recent decision by a federal judge that allowed a privately owned religious display in a Frederick, Md., city park.
    An authority in constitutional law says the underlying question is one of purpose: Whether the city intended the monument to promote religion.
    "It really turns on the difficult decision of how you go about discerning what the motive is behind a decision that allows something religious in nature to be on public property," said Robert Percival, a constitutional law professor at the University of Maryland.
    In one of yesterday's Supreme Court cases, the justices said a 6-foot-high granite monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol -- one of 17 historical displays on the 22-acre lot -- was a legitimate tribute to the nation's legal and religious history.
    In the other, the court said framed copies of the Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses went too far in endorsing religion.
    The justices effectively said that issues of Ten Commandments displays in courthouses should be resolved on a case-by-case basis.
    In the Frederick case, U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr. in Baltimore ruled last Tuesday that no reasonable observer would think a privately owned, 5-foot-high granite marker in the city park is 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 chapter in 2002 was proper.
    Plaintiffs Roy Chambers and the Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State argued the transaction was a sham designed to keep the monument on what appeared to be city land.
    Mr. Chamber's attorney, Ben Block, said yesterday that he and his client would have to read both decisions before they can decide whether to appeal the ruling.
    But other opponents of the monument seemed certain that the Supreme Court rulings would mean the Quarles decision would be overturned, should an appeal be sought.
    "These opinions will be incredibly important for an appeal," said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United. "The court of appeals will have to focus on the purpose for the land sale, and not just say the land is no longer owned by the government and therefore there's no violation."
    A supporter pointed out that the Frederick monument, like the one in Texas, is in a space with dozens of other displays.
    "I think Frederick is in fine shape after today -- in fact, they're in better shape," said Francis Manion, senior counsel with the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington-based group that supports public expressions of religion. "This type of display is valid."
    Mr. Percival compared the Frederick issue to cases during the civil rights struggle, when public accommodations that had been ordered to integrate sometimes shut down, only to later reopen as private property.
    "It really all turns on whether the government has put something on public property with the motive of promoting religion," Mr. Percival said. "It's always really difficult in these cases to discern intent."
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R050702E   Justice O'Connor retires

July 2, 2005

The announcement yesterday that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will retire from the Supreme Court will touch off a bruising political fight over her successor, who President Bush expects to nominate some time after he returns from the G-8 summit later this month. The stakes are great.
    Over a generation the Supreme Court has delivered opinions on such volatile issues as racial preferences, sodomy, the death penalty and abortion that are grounded more in a desire to advance a political agenda than in interpreting the Constitution. The justices, including on occasion Justice O'Connor, have even cited the opinions of foreign courts as the basis for deciding.
    Nevertheless, in the 24 years since President Reagan nominated her as the first woman to serve on the court, Justice O'Connor has conducted herself with grace and dignity. We have disagreed with certain of her decisions, particularly those dealing with racial preferences, limits on abortion and the death penalty. But she has frequently agreed with her more conservative colleagues on important cases, and she has been was one of the staunchest defenders of federalist principles.
    Justice O'Connor evolved into a pivotal swing vote on the high court. She was "open to persuasion," she once said, when others were not. Her departure offers Mr. Bush the opportunity to nominate as her replacement a jurist with a judicial philosophy similar to that of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. The president must seize this opportunity. By nominating such a person to the court, he will incur the wrath of the left led by Sens. Ted Kennedy, Christopher Dodd and Joseph Biden and organizations such as People For the American Way and the Alliance for Justice. These ideologues, who cannot prevail when the issue is honestly drawn, will attempt to do to a Bush nominee precisely what they did to Robert Bork 18 years ago -- distort his record with false accusations to caricature him as an extremist.
    From President Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren onward, every Republican president has put someone on the court whom those most devoted to the true meaning of the Constitution have come to regret. Richard Nixon gave us Harry Blackmun, for example; the president's father gave us David Souter. As George W. Bush deliberates on his his first nominee to the high court, he must keep in mind that millions of Americans who voted for him in both 2000 and 2004 did so precisely because they believed that he would nominate judges, and particularly Supreme Court justices, determined to be faithful to the Constitution as it was written, judges not so open to persuasion where first principles are concerned.
    The President must understand that if he does not choose wisely he will disappoint these friends and supporters, probably beyond reconciliation. His staunchest friends and allies are prepared to join with him in the trenches to get a principled constitutionalist confirmed.
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M050630E   Liberal sprinklings of bias

By Douglas MacKinnon
June 30, 2005
 
 

    Karl Rove's recent remarks on the demise of liberalism in the UnitedStates elicited the expected knee-jerk reactions from the usual suspects in the Democratic party, and many of their watch dogs from the mainstream media. While the rehearsed, hate-filled rhetoric pouring out of the mouths of congressional Democrats is to be expected, the assist from some in the mainstream media is to be pitied.
    The liberal media's reaction to Rove's remarks illustrates, potentially, their greatest weakness. That being that their professed staunch belief in diversity is an unethical fraud. Why? Let's examine the typical "diverse" newsroom at one of the major daily newspapers in the United States such as the New York Times, or The Washington Post, or one of the major networks like NBC, ABC or CBS News.
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