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
L040701      Conservative target
L040701E    Aborting voters

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
H040629      Anti-George
H040629      Marriage issue
H040630      ARKANSAS   Marriage measure gets signatures
H040630      New ban on gay unions to begin
H040702      COLORADO  Religious freedom wins in custody case

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R040626E    Stifling freedom
R040628      Army curbs religious medallions
R040628      NEA still waiting to file lawsuit
R0406281E  Secular faith
R040630      Court rejects Internet porn law
R040630      Massachusetts court upheld
R040630      Presbyterian parley split
R040630     ACLU sues to block teen-nudist law
R040630     Pledge is secular, not a prayer
R040701      Kerry cited in Catholic heresy case
R040702     ACLU hits Virginia civil-union ban
R040702     Evangelicals can include fliers in school packets
R040702     Fallen Friend medals are OK'd
R040703      Presbyterians delay decision on gays
R040703     Evangelical leaders warn of link to GOP
R040703L   Kerry's heresy
R040704     The Declaration of Independence
R040728L   An ACLU agenda
R040728L   Government in the boudoir?

EDUCATION
E040628      COLORADO   Court rules vouchers are unconstitutional
E040629      ACLU protests dress code
E040701      Millions of students see sex misconduct
E040703      NEA groups protest award to gay studies activist
MEDIA
M040628      Family friendly forum works to clean up TV

OTHER
O040629E    Beauty on demand
O040630E    Accurate abstinence
O040701E    Face the realities
O040704      Black leaders back Cosby's straight talk

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R040630   Pledge is secular, not a prayer

Dear Sgt. Shaft:
    The Supreme Court made our Flag Day. Their ruling means the nation's public-school teachers will not be banned from leading their students in the Pledge of Allegiance.

    Anyone with common sense realizes that the Pledge of Allegiance is a secular building block in the development of good citizenship. The words "under God" are a tribute to America's constitutionally protected religious freedom, not a prayer. There is nothing wrong with schoolchildren acknowledging the fact that the founders of our republic openly stated in their writings before the Pledge was even developed: The United States is indeed "one nation under God."
    After President Bush justly directed the government's attorneys to appeal the 9th Circuit's ruling, I am proud to say that the American Legion filed a brief to the Supreme Court in support of the government.
    We may not have heard the last from those who would rewrite constitutional law to make atheism the official state religion. Whenever and wherever challenges to the constitutionality of the Pledge will be raised, the men and women of the American Legion will be there, fighting with all of our legal and legislative might, to protect the right of schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
    John Brieden, American Legion national commander
    Washington

    Dear commander:
    As you know, the Senate Judiciary Constitution, civil rights and property rights subcommittee recently voted on a straight party line (five Republicans for, four Democrats against), approving a constitutional amendment to prohibit the physical desecration of the American flag.
    The proposal, Senate Joint Resolution 4, goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I join you in urging members of the American Legion family to contact their senators who are on the committee and ask them to support passage when the full committee meets.

    Dear Sgt. Shaft:
     I want to thank you for the generous assistance you gave my daughter, Dorothy, in obtaining an "Order of the Blue Nose" certification card for me. I was one of nine survivors from the 34 personnel in the Navy Command Center on September 11, 2001. The replacement of the Blue Nose Card means a lot to me as an "old Navy guy" remembering a time in which our potential enemies were clearly identified and were not cowardly jackals who hijacked airliners to carry out their evil designs. I never thought I would give our Soviet navy counterparts any words of appreciation.
    Keep up the good work in protecting the interests and obtaining justice for our veterans. Thank you. Respectfully,
    Paul B.
    Arlington

    Dear Paul:
    A special thanks also should go to one of my favorite flacks, Capt. Kevin Wensing in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. He spearheaded the effort to obtain your "blue nose special."
    Shaft kudos
    The Sarge salutes the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNS), Learn and Serve for issuing more than $4 million in grants to support activities that teach students about and engage them in efforts related to the nation's homeland security needs.
    The grants will go to 10 agencies and nonprofit organizations, including six state departments of education, which will then make "sub-grants" to local organizations and education agencies. The grants are aimed at making tens of thousands of young people better prepared to deal with emergencies.
    "These organizations represent the cream of the crop in terms of devising innovative ways to use America's youth as a resource to plan for and respond to the health, safety, and security concerns associated with natural and manmade disasters," said David Eisner, chief executive officer of CNS, which oversees Learn and Serve America.
    "Young people often feel great anxiety when facing unknown dangers. Their participation in these programs should give them the knowledge and power they need to deal positively with those fears and to make an important contribution to the security of their communities," he said.
    The grant recipient groups will link community service to academic achievement, as a way to increase students' awareness of potential dangers and prepare students, communities and schools for emergencies.
    "The service-learning model can be an excellent means of training students in homeland security activities," said Amy Cohen, director of Learn and Serve America. "These grants will advance our knowledge of the most effective ways to help young people get involved in a critically important issue to our communities early in life."

    •Send letters to Sgt. Shaft, c/o John Fales, PO Box 65900, Washington, D.C. 20035-5900; fax 301/622-3330; call 202/257-5446; or e-mail sgtshaft@bavf.org.
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M040628   Family friendly forum works to clean up TV

NEW YORK (AP) — Pfizer's Kaki Hinton scheduled a lunch five years ago with executives at nine other corporations, all frustrated by the scarcity of family-oriented TV programs on which they felt comfortable placing their company's commercials.
    What might have been nothing more than a gripe session instead became the birth of a group, the Family Friendly Programming Forum, that can claim a real impact on the kind of shows that the major broadcast networks air.

    The forum provided seed money to help develop seven programs on the networks' fall schedules — four holdovers and three new series.
    "I think we've turned around attitudes," said Bill McCarron, co-chairman of the forum with Ms. Hinton. "Every network talks about family-oriented programming now. Five years ago they were afraid to."
    At that time, broadcast networks were nervous about seeming old-fashioned compared to cable outlets that had fewer content restrictions, Ms. Hinton said.
    The advertisers who founded the forum — including Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg, IBM, Sears and Coca-Cola — had no idea how to promote alternatives until Jamie Kellner, then chief executive of the WB network, suggested the executives read prospective scripts and help finance ones they believed families could watch together.
    The WB submitted nine scripts that first year, the only network to participate. This year, the forum, which has grown to include 40 companies, reviewed 51 scripts sent in by ABC, CBS, NBC and the WB, Ms. Hinton said. Thirty-seven scripts have received money, generally $45,000 to $75,000.
    Mr. Kellner understood the initial reluctance.
    "The tendency to not want to let advertisers into your business was always there in the network culture," he said.
    The WB learned the value of family-friendly programs through the success of "7th Heaven," which has done as well as other, more publicized shows.
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R040628   NEA still waiting to file lawsuit

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    The nation's largest union boldly pledged a year ago to rally states to sue the Bush administration over education spending under the No Child Left Behind law.

    It turns out that the National Education Association has been the one left behind.
    At least 30 state legislatures, including some led by Republicans, have expressed their displeasure over the law. Not one state, however, has agreed to join the lawsuit the teachers union announced one year ago and planned to file by last summer.
    "Maintaining a good relationship with the federal government that oversees your programs and suing them at the same time makes it a very difficult proposition," said Patty Sullivan, deputy executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers.
    "You have to be pretty certain that you're going to win, because you really will jeopardize your ability to get other things. You have to think through the politics of that," she said.
    The threatened challenge, which would have been the most direct shot at the heart of President Bush's domestic agenda, is not dead, the union says. A few school districts have agreed to participate, and the union is weighing when to go on if no state joins the fight.
    The 2.7-million-member NEA begins its annual meeting this week in Washington, when it expects to endorse Democratic Sen. John Kerry for president and raise perhaps $1 million for its political committee.
    Union leaders say the primary reason the suit has stalled is that states fear retaliation by the Education Department. Yet participation by states is critical because they would have the strongest standing to sue, the union says.
    "It's difficult to think that in 2004 there is fear of reprisal, intimidation and harassment," said NEA President Reg Weaver.
    Added the group's general counsel, Bob Chanin: "I would have thought [states] would be jumping at this. We have a solid legal theory. We're prepared to do all the work. We just want to enlist them, but for a variety of reasons we haven't been able to push any state over the hump."
    Union leaders could not offer proof of threats against states or name ones that fear retaliation. But they said state and local school officials tell them they fear cuts in discretionary programs or rejection of changes they want in state school plans.
    Education Department spokeswoman Susan Aspey said the claims were "utterly baseless" and that the administration has proved it works closely with state policy-makers.
    "We're pleased the states have chosen to work directly with us rather than through the courts," she said.
    A lawsuit would hinge on a provision of the law that says states and school districts would not have to use their own money to pay for any of the law's requirements. An ongoing debate has addressed whether the government is paying enough to implement the law.
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R040628   Army curbs religious medallions

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Since 1995, Bob Parker has sent nearly 2,000 honorary medallions to families of soldiers, police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.
    But the Army recently told Mr. Parker that it won't help him distribute the medals anymore because they include a reference to a Bible verse.

    "The denial is based upon the religious content on the medallion. There are some next of kin that may find the inscription offensive to their personal religious beliefs," Lt. Col. Kevin Logan, chief of the casualty operations division, wrote in one of two letters Mr. Parker received from the Army.
    The Marines, Navy and Air Force have continued to provide Parker with names — but only after asking the families if they want to receive the medallions.
    Parker's nonprofit organization Fallen Friend has 17 more medallions ready to send, including one for Pat Tillman, the football player who quit the NFL to become an Army Ranger and was killed in Afghanistan in April.
    Mr. Parker, 70, an Army veteran, believes all the families should have a choice to accept the medals or refuse them.
    "I will not compromise," he said. "I told the lieutenant colonel who sent the first [letter] I will go to a higher-up. This will not stop here."
    He says he had never received any complaints about the medallions before and no family has ever returned one.
    The gold-colored medallion is inscribed with the words "A Fallen Friend," the service member's name and "John 15:13," for the Bible verse "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
    It also bears a picture of hands cupped around a bell with the words "Liberty Rings for All Nations" and "United We Stand, Divided We Fall."
    "These people die for a choice. That's what really broke me up," Mr. Parker said. "The families that would like to have the medallions don't have the choice to say yes or no. They are denying them the very thing that these people are dying for — freedom of choice."
    The military branches provide Mr. Parker the names of the soldiers, and he sends the medals to the military to be distributed to the survivors.
    In April, the Army returned 16 medals he had already engraved. And an April 27 letter from the Army told him each group wishing to send gifts or letters to next of kin must seek approval and fill out a questionnaire.
    Mr. Parker returned the questionnaire, and the Army responded with a May 4 letter denying his application.
    A spokeswoman for the Army human resources command, Shari Lawrence, said the Army reviewed its practice of helping people send things to survivors and found some items were inappropriate.
    "They should have not been sent in the first place," she said.
    The Army receives numerous requests from people who want to send condolences to families and cannot pass along all of them, she said.
    "It's not picking on any person or any particular religion, it's just a matter of trying to manage a program this huge," Miss Lawrence said.
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E040628   COLORADO   Court rules vouchers are unconstitutional

    DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the state's school voucher program is unconstitutional because it strips local school boards of control over education.
    Colorado's voucher law — the first in the nation since the U.S. Supreme Court said in 2002 that voucher programs are acceptable — was never put into effect because of legal challenges.
    The high court's 4-3 decision upheld a lower court ruling.
    The law would have offered vouchers of $4,500 a year to public school students to help cover their tuition at private or parochial schools.
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H040629   Anti-George

    A Virginia-based pro-family group has been attacking Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican, claiming he is a "conservative fraud" because he voted June 15 to add "sexual orientation" to the list of federal hate crimes.
    Joe Glover, president of Family Policy Network, said that as a candidate, Mr. Allen promised not to support such legislation, which FPN calls "pro-homosexual."
    "We counted on George Allen's promise to defend our values in Washington. Now he can count on us to expose him as a conservative fraud," Mr. Glover said.
    The senator doesn't run for re-election until 2006, but Allen spokesman John Reid said the June 15 vote is consistent with his past position, because the proposal — which was approved as an amendment to the Defense authorization bill — would not automatically give the federal government jurisdiction over hate crimes based on sexual orientation. Instead, it lets states and localities request help from the federal government on these cases, if they so choose.
    He said this is consistent with Mr. Allen's long-held commitment to provide more help to local law enforcement, but prevent homosexuality from being elevated to a civil rights issue.
    Mr. Reid said it is "disappointing" to hear criticism from a group like FPN, and Mr. Allen has been taking aggressive efforts to explain his vote to constituents.
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H040629   Marriage issue

    The U.S. conference of mayors yesterday voted to table a resolution that would have opposed the federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
    The resolution was sponsored by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and Providence, R.I., Mayor David Cicilline.
    The federal marriage amendment they oppose is being pushed by a coalition of groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose president, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, endorsed the measure Friday.
    The U.S. Senate is set to vote on the marriage amendment the week of July 12.
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E040629   ACLU protests dress code

LOUISVILLE (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union is objecting to a ban on sports jerseys, sleeveless shirts and backward baseball caps in Louisville's new nightclub district, saying the dress code is biased against blacks and poor people.
    The city has given the developer of the month-old Fourth Street Live power to enforce its dress code three nights a week during special events along the block-long stretch of restaurants, bars and shops. During those nights, the city street is blocked off, and bouncers decide who meets the dress code.

    "If the city is going to turn over a public street to a private entity, they need to make sure it remains open to the public," said Beth Wilson, executive director of the Kentucky ACLU, who wore a cap backwards during a protest yesterday in the district.
    "When you look at the team shirts, the names on those shirts, it's an urban thing, it's an inner-city thing being restricted," said the Rev. Louis Coleman, who led about a dozen protesters in the demonstration.
    Mr. Coleman and his protesters met with representatives of developer Cordish Co. yesterday and offered a compromise that would reverse the ban on many items, except for sagging pants, bare midriffs and "gang-related clothing."
    Unless a settlement is reached, Mr. Coleman said, anyone offended by the dress code should take their money elsewhere.
    Zed Smith, who manages properties for Cordish, said the dress code has nothing to do with race. "It's not just the jerseys we're singling out," Mr. Smith said. "It's a range of dress that's acceptable."
    He said the company is within its rights to enforce a minimum standard of dress on nights when the street is blocked off.
    Fourth Street Live, a $75 million project, replaces a former indoor mall that blocked off the street. The area was Louisville's central downtown shopping district before the advent of suburban malls, and has been the target of a number of revitalization efforts.
    Jay Blanton, a spokesman for Mayor Jerry Abramson, said the permit granted to the Fourth Street Live developer is no different from those given to other groups that use public property for special events. He added that there has been no evidence of discrimination.
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H040630   ARKANSAS   Marriage measure gets signatures

    LITTLE ROCK — Supporters of a proposed state constitutional amendment that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman said they have the 80,570 signatures needed to place the measure on the Nov. 2 ballot.
    The group will submit the signatures tomorrow to the Secretary of State's Office, which must count and certify them.
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R040630   Presbyterian parley split

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

RICHMOND — Debates over whether the nation's most liberal Presbyterian denomination should evangelize Jews and ordain homosexuals, plus a last-minute accusation against the outgoing church moderator, are the major issues this week at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly.
    Presbyterians debated Monday and yesterday at the Richmond Convention Center whether the Philadelphia Presbytery, a regional body, did the right thing last fall in founding a Messianic Jewish outreach, the Congregation Avodat Yisrael in Plymouth Meeting, Pa.

    "It's portrayed itself as a half-synagogue and a half-church," said Rabbi Gilbert S. Rosenthal, executive director of the National Council of Synagogues, who flew in for the assembly.
    He was one of several Jewish leaders from around the country who attended a private Feb. 2 summit with the denomination's leaders at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda to complain about Avodat Yisrael.
    "It seems to us after 40 years of efforts to mend relationships between Christians and Jews," he said, "it is inappropriate and painful that the Presbyterian Church would fund — for $350,000 — such an enterprise."
    Avodat Yisrael, which opened its doors last September on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, is the only Messianic Jewish-Presbyterian church in the country. There are hundreds of such Jewish-themed churches around the country, but most are independent or affiliated with missionary-minded denominations such as the Southern Baptist Convention or the Assemblies of God.
    Starting late today, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will vote on 25 resolutions, including one calling on it to "re-examine" its relationship with Jews and to freeze funding for any new Messianic Jewish churches.
    The assembly ends Saturday morning.
    The 3,000 people attending the church's 216th annual meeting are also considering ways to stem the church's steep membership decline, among the worst in mainline Protestantism.
    The denomination released figures this week showing that 46,658 people left the church last year, the largest percentage decline since 1983, when the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and the Presbyterian Church in the United States joined to form the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), with 4.2 million members.
    The Rev. Susan Andrews of Bethesda was on her last day as moderator of the now 2.4-million-member denomination last Saturday, when Reston lawyer Paul Rolf Jensen presented her with a list of ecclesiastical charges accusing her of clergy misconduct by assenting to the ordination of a homosexual pastor.
    Although church policy forbids the ordination of active homosexuals, her associate pastor at Bradley Hills, the Rev. Scott Winnette, admitted to being a practicing homosexual at a past General Assembly.
    Mr. Jensen said Miss Andrews "has spoken often of Winnette's open and self-affirming, practicing homosexuality even though she had acknowledged that such conduct makes a person ineligible for ordination."
    In an interview, Miss Andrews said her assistant has never told her he is sexually active and that he only discovered his homosexuality two years after his 1998 ordination.
    She called Mr. Jensen's charges, which were presented just before the opening session of the assembly, "hurtful both to individuals but, more importantly, to the whole community of faith."
    On Monday, hundreds of Presbyterians packed a conference hall to hear arguments on revising the denomination's ordination standards on sexual misconduct. The church's constitution requires its ministers "to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness."
    Repeated attempts to repeal this rule have failed, and a church task force has been assigned to produce a report on ordination standards in 2006.
    Still, among the resolutions up for debate at this week's assembly meeting is one that would replace the "covenant ... between a man and woman" language with "a covenanted relationship between two persons where a lifetime commitment is intended."
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R040630   Massachusetts court upheld

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A federal appeals court yesterday rejected arguments that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court usurped power from other branches of government when it ruled that homosexual couples must be allowed to "marry" in that state.
    The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled yesterday that the Nov. 18 Goodridge decision by the Massachusetts high court did not violate the Guarantee Clause in the U.S. Constitution, which calls for a republican form of government in each state.
    The proper way to contest a state court ruling such as Goodridge, the appeals court said, is to change the state constitution.
    Massachusetts lawmakers have started such a constitutional process, although a public vote on changing the constitution cannot be held before 2006.
    The ruling yesterday was the latest victory for the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) of Boston, which won the Goodridge case.
    "We were confident that this attempt by our opponents to block marriage for gay and lesbian couples would fail," GLAD lawyer Mary Bonauto said yesterday.
    Arguments that the high court didn't have the authority to legalize same-sex "marriage" had "no merit before May 17 and it has no merit after May 17," she said, referring to the day Goodridge went into effect.
    Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, who represented the 11 lawmakers and Boston citizen Robert Largess in the lawsuit, said yesterday that they would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
    It is "vitally important" that the separation-of-powers principle is upheld in Massachusetts, Mr. Staver said. "The republican representative form of government must be restored so the people can have a chance to define marriage, instead of having the decision foisted upon them by the Massachusetts judiciary."
    According to a Boston Globe survey, conducted during the week of May 17, at least 2,500 same-sex couples "married," including 164 from out of state.
    The licenses to out-of-state couples have sparked another legal battle.
    Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, backed by state Attorney General Tom Reilly, told town clerks that they must not issue licenses to nonresident same-sex couples because a 1913 residency law says nonresidents cannot be married in Massachusetts if they cannot be married in their home states.
    No other state recognizes same-sex "marriage."
    On June 17, GLAD and the American Civil Liberties Union filed lawsuits challenging the 1913 law on behalf of eight out-of-state homosexual couples and 12 municipal clerks.
    "We believe [the 1913 law] violates both the liberty and equality provisions of the Massachusetts Constitution," Miss Bonauto said. "Plainly stated, the constitution trumps [the 1913 law] under the Goodridge decision," she said.
    "The 1913 law is a law we vigorously enforce, as we do all the laws of the commonwealth that I know of," Mr. Romney said a few days later at the Heritage Foundation, where he spoke after a Senate appearance.
     Mr. Reilly "will defend that [1913] law," the governor added.
    A hearing on the case is scheduled for July 13 with Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Carol Ball.
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R040630   Court rejects Internet porn law

By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Supreme Court yesterday barred the Justice Department's enforcement of a law aimed at keeping Internet pornography from children, saying it was likely unconstitutional when remanding it to a federal court for a new trial to resolve the issue.
    The high court, in a 5-4 decision, upheld an injunction against enforcing the Child Online Protection Act and sent it back to the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia for a trial to consider changes in technology and the law since its 1998 adoption.

    "Content-based prohibitions, enforced by severe criminal penalties, have the constant potential to be a repressive force in the lives and thoughts of a free people," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote, adding that COPA "presumes that parents lack the ability, not the will, to monitor what their children see.
    "By enacting programs to promote use of filtering software, Congress could give parents that ability without subjecting protected speech to severe penalties," he said.
    Justice Kennedy was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Clarence Thomas, who agreed that holding a new trial in the matter would allow further discussions on what technology, if any, might allow adults to see and buy material legal for them while keeping it out of the hands of children.
    Writing for the minority, Justice Stephen G. Breyer said COPA "imposes a burden on protected speech that is no more than modest," it did not act as a censor for all materials and it should be upheld as constitutional.
    Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist joined the dissent, and Justice Antonin Scalia wrote his own dissent.
    Justice Breyer said the law "requires providers of the 'harmful to minors' material to restrict minors' access to it by verifying age. They can do so by inserting screens that verify age using a credit card, adult personal identification number or other similar technology.
    "In this way, the act requires creation of an Internet screen that minors, but not adults, will find difficult to bypass," he wrote.
    The ruling in an appeal by the Justice Department and Attorney General John Ashcroft prevents prosecutors from filing criminal cases under COPA, which restricts and sets civil and criminal penalties for displaying sexually explicit material deemed "harmful to minors" on commercial Web sites.
    The act was signed into law by President Clinton and has been endorsed by the Bush administration, which said it would continue to defend it. COPA was enacted in response to pressure from anti-pornography organizations, but challenged in court by the American Civil Liberties Union.
    "Our society has reached a broad consensus that child obscenity is harmful to our youngest generation and must be stopped," said Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo.
    "Congress has repeatedly attempted to address this serious need and the court yet again opposed these common-sense measures to protect America's children," Mr. Corallo said. "The department will continue to work to defend children from the dangerous predators who lurk in the dark shadows of the World Wide Web."
    COPA, which never took effect, set fines up to $50,000 for placing material "harmful to minors" on the Internet.
    The ACLU had argued that COPA restricted too much material that adults could legally see and buy. Yesterday, ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson said she was "pleased" with the ruling, adding that "the status quo is still with us and the court made it safe for artists, sex educators and Web publishers to communicate with adults without risking jail time."
    She said she plans to ask the Justice Department to drop the case, given the Supreme Court's "very strong indication" that the law violates the First Amendment.
    "The government has wasted enough tax dollars trying to defend twice a law that the court has said twice is unconstitutional," she said. "The facts have not changed, and as Justice Kennedy pointed out, they have swung in our favor since the law was enacted."
    A federal judge in Philadelphia struck down the law as unconstitutional in February 1999 and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia upheld that decision. The Supreme Court heard the case in May 2002, but said it wanted additional analysis from the appeals court, which again reviewed the law and for a second time, ruled that it violated First Amendment guarantees.
    Rep. Michael G. Oxley, Ohio Republican who co-authored COPA, said he planned to press the Justice Department to "mount an aggressive case" on behalf of the law.
    "I don't think that pornographers have any more right to shove their smut into the faces of children in cyberspace than they do at the corner newsstand," Mr. Oxley said. "The pervasiveness of pornography on the Internet is going to be a barrier to its development."
    Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the only vote against COPA when it passed in the Senate 98-1 said yesterday's ruling "echoes the doubts expressed by some of us in Congress years ago when this legislation was being considered.
    "I opposed this law as being constitutionally flawed and warned it would have a difficult time withstanding judicial review because Congress had failed to consider less restrictive means of protecting children from harmful online materials, such as filtering technology," Mr. Leahy said.
    He said six years after the law was enacted, it had done nothing to protect children online, "while generating interminable litigation that has already produced two Supreme Court decisions."
    "The task before us is finding legislative solutions that do not just lull parents into a false sense of security in the short term, but that can withstand the test of time and the scrutiny of the courts," he said. "The Internet was born here, and the world watches closely whenever we move to regulate it."
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L040701   Conservative target

    The nation's leading pro-choice group is trying to dig up information on a White House aide they believe to be President Bush's liaison to conservative and Christian groups.
    NARAL Pro-Choice America sent a request to the administration yesterday, under the Freedom of Information Act, for a full accounting of the activities of Bush adviser Timothy Goeglein. A NARAL press release says Mr. Goeglein was described in Monday's New York Times as "the official White House liaison to conservatives and to Christian groups," and Karl Rove's "legman on the right."
    "We've always known that responding to the far right's concerns was priority one in George Bush's White House, so it only makes sense that it would require at least one full-time staffer," said Elizabeth Cavendish, NARAL's interim president. "But if the president is going to use a public employee to foment activism against women's rights, we should at least have the right to know what he is up to. It's time for the White House to stop stonewalling, respect the law, and let us see just how deeply involved anti-choice groups are in making national policy."
    NARAL requested information on other top White House officials in January to review their schedules and determine "how closely involved anti-choice groups have been in major administration decisions," the NARAL press release explains. Because they haven't received a reply, NARAL also sent letters Tuesday to the administration telling them they are violating federal law by not responding.
    The NARAL press release says that — according to "a variety of public accounts" — Mr. Goeglein has used his White House job "to further a career of aggressive and vocal advocacy for eliminating the right to choose. Last year, speaking to a 'Celebration of Life' event hosted by Lutherans for Life, he described abortion rights as 'a cancer within our country.' "
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E040701   Millions of students see sex misconduct

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

More than 4.5 million students were victims of sexual misconduct by teachers and other school officials in the past decade, says a study released yesterday by the Education Department.
    The study shows that more than half of reported adult sexual predators were teachers, classroom aides and coaches. School principals made up 6 percent and student counselors 5 percent.

    The students ranged from kindergarten to 12th grade and made up one-tenth of all children to pass through public schools in the decade surveyed.
    Findings were based primarily on 2,065 student interviews in two studies conducted for the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in the past 10 years. The report does not differentiate between verbal or physical sexual misconduct and criminal abuse, as defined under federal law.
    The results were released as more than 9,000 members of the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest school union, converged on Washington for caucus meetings before their annual convention Friday through Wednesday.
    Charol Shakeshaft, a Hofstra University research professor and author of the report, said no studies available separate criminal sexual abuse in schools from other sexual misconduct.
    The study does not determine how many teachers are accused of committing sexual misconduct or abuse, she said. "This is just the number of students reporting their experience. It could be that one teacher has sexually abused 60 students. We don't know anything about the number of teachers."
    Miss Shakeshaft said the pattern of verbal and physical sexual behavior exhibited by students and educators surveyed in 24 studies, including five newspaper investigations, is part of a "grooming" process.
    "While almost all children respond to positive attention from an educator, students who are estranged from their parents, who are unsure of themselves, who are engaged in risky behavior, or whose parents are engaged in such behavior, are often targeted, not only because they might be responsive but also because they are more likely to maintain silence," the report says.
    She reanalyzed data from a study conducted in 2000 that showed 57.2 percent of reported sex offenders in schools were men and 42.8 percent were women.
    "Analysts speculate that female abusers might be underreported if the target is male, because males have been socialized to believe that they should be flattered or appreciative of sexual interest from a female. On the other hand, it is hypothesized that males might also underreport sexual abuse by another male, because of the social stigma of same-sex sex," the report says.
    Miss Shakeshaft said the percentage of reported "same-sex misconduct" — 15.2 percent male educator and male student, and 13.1 percent female educator and female student — was unreliable because the studies' sample size was too small for each category.
    The NEA criticized the report.
    "Lumping harassment together with serious sexual misconduct does more harm than good by creating unjustified alarm and undermining confidence in public schools," the union said.
    "The National Education Association takes the issue of sexual harassment very seriously, and cases of inappropriate sexual contact even more seriously," it said. "Statistically, public schools remain one of the safest places for children to be."
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R040701   Kerry cited in Catholic heresy case

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A Catholic lawyer has filed heresy charges against Sen. John Kerry with the Archdiocese of Boston, accusing the Democratic presidential candidate of bringing "most serious scandal to the American public" by receiving Holy Communion as a pro-choice Catholic.
    The 18-page document was sent to the archdiocese June 14, but released to the public only yesterday by Marc Balestrieri, a Los Angeles-based canon lawyer and an assistant judge with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles' tribunal, an ecclesiastical court.

    "Heresy is a public, ecclesiastical crime," said Mr. Balestrieri, 33, whose complaint is posted at www.defide.com. "It affects entire communities. It is one of the greatest sins you can commit."
    If the Boston Archdiocese, which is refusing comment on the case, decided to press heresy charges, the Massachusetts senator could be excommunicated.
    "My goal is his repentance, not excommunication," Mr. Balestrieri said. The charges do not seek monetary damages.
    The Rev. Arthur Espelage, executive coordinator for the Canon Law Society in Alexandria, said a Catholic layman can legitimately bring a case against another layman in a church court. The charges, known in church parlance as a "denunciation," are similar to a criminal complaint in secular law.
    But "this is really unique," he said. "I have never heard of a case like this being processed before."
    The charges must be filed in the diocese where Mr. Kerry lives. If the Archdiocese of Boston rejects the case, Mr. Balestrieri can appeal it to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in Rome.
    Father Espelage said church officials, not politicians, are the ones usually accused of heresy. But this suit may change that.
    "It's as if someone has launched the nuclear missile now," the priest said. "I'd suspect there will be communication between the [Boston] Archdiocese and the Holy See on this."
    A spokeswoman for Mr. Kerry refused comment because the campaign had not seen the document.
    Mr. Balestrieri said he filed the heresy charge — plus an additional complaint charging "harm" to himself as a result of Mr. Kerry's pronouncements on abortion and related issues — because canon law entitles Catholics to "possession of the faith unharmed."
    "By spreading heresy, he is endangering not just mine by every Catholic's possession of the faith," he said.
    "I am inviting all baptized Catholics who feel injured by Kerry to join the suit as third parties" by reading the document on the Web site and then sending a certified letter of agreement to the Boston Archdiocese.
    "People are saying you can be pro-choice and be a good Christian, that it is not contrary to the faith to support aborted murder," Mr. Balestrieri said. "This is a life-threatening heresy."
    "Bishops have had 31 years [since the Supreme Court made abortion an individual right] to do something on this matter, but they've done nothing," he said.
    Charles M. Wilson, director of the St. Joseph Foundation in San Antonio, which has filed numerous complaints in church courts across the country on behalf of Catholic laity, doubts the Boston Archdiocese will respond to the case.
    The weak point of a "denunciation" suit, he said, is that the bishop need not take action. Usually a bishop will first investigate the case and determine whether the charges have substance, Mr. Wilson said, but Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston is under no obligation to prosecute the accused.
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R040702   Fallen Friend medals are OK'd

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Army has reversed itself and will continue to help a nonprofit group distribute honorary medallions that cite a Bible verse.
    Fallen Friend, which since 1995 has distributed nearly 2,000 medallions to survivors of those killed in the line of duty, had been told by the Army in May that it could no longer help forward the medallions because the inscription "John 15:13" was inappropriate and might offend some families.

    The verse, which is not on the gold-colored medallion, reads, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
    The chief of the Army's Casualty Operations Division notified Fallen Friend President Bob Parker yesterday of the Army's change of heart.
    "Upon further evaluation, it has been determined that while there is a biblical reference on the medallion, this reference is not of such nature that it is likely to be offensive to most next of kin," Lt. Col. Kevin Logan wrote in e-mail to Mr. Parker. "I am sincerely sorry for any inconvenience our earlier decision made on you and your organization."
    Since word spread of Mr. Parker's troubles with the Army, he has received numerous e-mail and letters in support.
    "This is what makes America beautiful," Mr. Parker said in a telephone interview from his home in Clairfield, about 40 miles north of Knoxville. "If people hadn't gotten involved, the Army wouldn't have changed its mind."
    The military branches provide Mr. Parker the names of the deceased, and he sends the medals to the branches to be distributed to the survivors.
    Each medallion is also inscribed with the person's name and the words "A Fallen Friend."
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O040704   Black leaders back Cosby's straight talk

By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Black leaders and members of Congress are embracing comments by Bill Cosby illustrating the lack of social responsibility from some in the black community, but said the entertainer's charges are nothing new.
    While celebrating the achievements of black Americans on the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act yesterday, several black leaders took time to reflect on the need for more personal responsibility. And several praised Mr. Cosby for voicing what needs to be done.

    "I am going to write [Mr. Cosby] this week, because he is filling a void," said Donna Brazile, who managed the 2000 presidential campaign for Al Gore.
    Thursday at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's Citizenship and Education Fund annual conference, Mr. Cosby enumerated problems within the community and said those who are speaking against him are trying to hide "black people's dirty laundry."
    "Let me tell you something, your dirty laundry gets out of school at 2:30 every day, it's cursing and calling each other 'nigger' as they're walking up and down the street," the comedian said. "They think they're hip ... they can't read, they can't write, they're laughing and giggling, and they're going nowhere."
    Mr. Cosby made headlines in May for speaking out about how some blacks are "not holding up their end of the civil rights deal." He criticized young people dropping out of school and black men and women who are having children but not raising them. He made the comments during a commemoration event sponsored by the NAACP for the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against school segregation.
    "The first time, people were shocked," Miss Brazile said. "And forget the fact that he is a comedian/actor — he has been a scholar on black issues for decades and he has written a book on fatherhood — and the people who should be ashamed of themselves are the leaders who are being silent."
    She said one of the reasons Mr. Cosby's comments have drawn so much attention is because blacks generally engage in this type of critical discourse behind closed doors. "We ask white people to leave the room because we're going to have a family discussion," she said.
    D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's nonvoting congressional representative, agreed.
    "He has been one of the great fighters for civil rights, and he is simply saying what African Americans — leaders, congressmen, parents and grandparents at home — say to each other all the time," Mrs. Norton said.
    Mr. Cosby, who has a doctorate in education, was praised for identifying the self-inflicted problems currently facing the black community, but he has been criticized by some for oversimplifying the issues of black America and not discussing solutions.
    A former head of the Black Panther Party said Mr. Cosby's comments were out of line.
    "Bill Cosby will go down in the annals of history along with the bloody activity of Colin Powell and the bootlicking of Condi Rice," Elaine Brown told the Cox News Service. "He has nothing good to say about the black community that he has done nothing but profit from as a minstrel."
    Mary Francis Berry, chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said Mr. Cosby is right to speak out, but added that the government has to play a role in helping blacks recover from centuries of institutional racism and slavery.
    "There are a lot of things that need to be done so that we can reach the goal of equal opportunity and liberty and justice for all," Miss Berry said. "Some things government needs to do [such as] more civil rights enforcement, better judges, and some of them the community needs to do, so that when the doors of opportunity open wide, people should enable themselves to walk through."
    Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat, also said government and the private sector have a role to play.
    "I believe it starts with self, government has a role and the private sector has a role to play as well," Mr. Cummings said.
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R040703   Evangelical leaders warn of link to GOP

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    The bond between the Republican Party and white, conservative Christians is so strong that other Americans often think of them as synonymous. Yet a document circulating among evangelicals warns that being too enmeshed in partisan politics could undermine Christians' moral agenda as they seek to become even more engaged in civic affairs.

    "What they're trying to say is, 'Don't link the Christian message with a party, so that people link your religion with a political ideology,' " said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington think tank. "They're warning, 'Don't confuse the Gospel with a political movement.' "
    The National Association of Evangelicals has released the draft statement, titled "For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility."
    Written by a team of evangelical leaders, and under review by top Christian thinkers, the document is part of a multiyear project mapping out a strategy for future political involvement. It will be presented to the board of directors of the National Association of Evangelicals in October, and a book on the subject is scheduled to be released next year.
    The authors of the draft statement encourage evangelicals to join political parties but caution that "they must be careful not to equate Christian faith with partisan politics."
    The drafters also advise against unquestioning patriotism, saying Christians "must keep their eyes open to the potentially self-destructive tendencies of our society and our government."
    "They're not arguing that individual level partisanship is necessarily a bad thing," said John Green, a University of Akron political scientist and observer of religion and politics. "They're warning against the overidentification — not of people but of the evangelical community — with the Republican Party."
    Mr. Green said evangelicals are much more diverse than most people realize, and the document shows that.
    The statement explores a range of evangelical views on issues such as U.S. trade policy, environmental protection, abortion and homosexual "marriage." Some of the policy goals — such as reducing global poverty and providing proper health care and education for all Americans — could fit with either major party platform.
    "There is broad agreement that it is our obligation to care for the poor. There's broad agreement that it is our obligation to care for the environment. But there are disagreements about what responsibility to give to the government," said Diane Knippers, president of the conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, and a leader of the evangelical project.
    The Rev. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington advocacy group that has been critical of the Christian right, called the document "a recognition of reality" about uncomfortably close ties between evangelicals and the Republican Party.
    "My own experience is that scores of people in the evangelical tradition have long resented the rhetoric of their leaders indicating an affinity only for the Republican Party," said Mr. Gaddy, who is a Baptist.
    But Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptists' public policy arm, said the Democratic Party has to bear some blame for any Republican tilt.
    According to a poll released in April by U.S. News & World Report and PBS' "Religion & Ethics Newsweekly," 69 percent of white evangelicals say they are Republican or lean Republican.
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E040703   NEA groups protest award to gay studies activist

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Leaders of two groups within the National Education Association objected yesterday to plans of union leaders to confer a human rights award tonight on the founder of a homosexual network in schools.
    Heads of the NEA Republican Educators Caucus and NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus formally protested plans to give the award to Kevin Jennings of the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN), whose stated goals "extend to incorporating homosexual concepts into all curriculum."

    NEA President Reg Weaver was given a tape recording of a GLSEN conference in 2000 at Tufts University, where Mr. Jennings was keynote speaker and Massachusetts Department of Education HIV/AIDS coordinators discussed with teenage students ways to perform various homosexual acts.
    The recording, made by a participant and publicly distributed, caused a public outcry and led to the dismissal of state education department employees and the state-funded GLSEN contractor.
    Mr. Weaver did not respond to requests for comment.
    Mr. Jennings, who also did not respond to interview requests, is slated to receive the 2004 Virginia Uribe Award for Creative Leadership in Human Rights tonight at the NEA's annual human rights dinner, which precedes the union's yearly convention that starts tomorrow at the D.C. Convention Center.
    The award is named for Virginia Uribe, a teacher and counselor at Fairfax High School in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 42 years, who developed a program to help address problems faced by homosexual students. The program was called Project 10 in honor of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey's disputed theory that 10 percent of the population is homosexual.
    In her protest letter, Diane Lenning of Huntington Beach, Calif., chairwoman of the NEA Republican Educators Caucus, asked Mr. Weaver: "Is it a good idea for NEA to honor as exemplary a teacher who engages in unethical practice?"
    Mrs. Lenning said Mr. Jennings' 1994 book, "One Teacher in 10," shows that he "did not report sexual victimization of a student to the proper authorities."
    In the book, Mr. Jennings related advice and sympathy he gave in 1988 to a sophomore student in Concord, Mass., named Brewster, who confided emotional difficulty over his homosexual involvement "with an older man he had met in Boston."
    Child protection laws in Massachusetts required a teacher to notify child welfare authorities within 48 hours if a child under 18 "is suffering physical or emotional injury resulting from abuse inflicted upon him ... including sexual abuse."
    State authorities said Mr. Jennings filed no report in 1988. "As mandatory reporters, teachers must uphold the legal requirements and report student sexual involvement with adults," Mrs. Lenning wrote.
    In a separate letter personally presented to the union president yesterday, Jeralee Smith of Riverside, Calif., head of the NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, objected that "Mr. Jennings has also singled out ex-gays for particular scorn and discrimination in his public statements and writings," which she submitted.
    "Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation's public schools," Mr. Jennings said in one GLSEN publication. "A line has been drawn. There is no 'other side' when you're talking about lesbian, gay and bisexual students."
    Mrs. Smith said: "This hostility is inconsistent with NEA's commitment to create a safe environment for all and is very intolerant toward those who have decided not to embrace a homosexual life."
    "If we are to be truly democratic in our support of each person's right to pursue their own happiness, then there would be no stigmatizing of any individual for choosing to leave a homosexual life or, for that matter, in choosing to reverse such a decision," she told Mr. Weaver.
    A former teacher at Concord Academy in Concord, Mass., Mr. Jennings founded GLSEN in 1990 to fight harassment and bullying of homosexuals by forming "gay-straight alliances" in schools.
    According to the group's publications, GLSEN's mission "is about changing schools and school culture around [homosexual-bisexual-transgender] issues and people."
    Its goals "extend to ... holding diversity seminars for teachers and students and ensuring that only positive discussions about homosexuality are allowed into elementary school classrooms, including kindergarten," according to the GLSEN Web site.
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R040703   Presbyterians delay decision on gays

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

RICHMOND — Presbyterian leaders decided last night to delay until 2006 a decision on whether to ordain homosexuals upon hearing multiple pleas by delegates to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA in order to keep unity in the fractured denomination.
    Immediately after the 297-216 vote, newly elected moderator Rick Ufford-Chase, a church liberal from Tucson, Ariz., announced a special meeting for "our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters" who were "deeply disappointed" with the decision.

    Church leaders were asked to choose between approving a series of resolutions setting aside church language condemning homosexuality or a minority report that kept the language and refer the matter to a theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church. The task force will make its final report at the 2006 Assembly in Birmingham, Ala. The vote to replace the series of resolutions with the minority report barely passed, 259-255.
    Also at the meeting, the current church head, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, easily defeated three conservative challengers yesterday to win a third term as the denomination's stated clerk.
    Mr. Kirkpatrick said one of his jobs will be to reverse the denomination's steep membership losses — about 1.8 million over the past 20 years — by supporting immigrant and ethnic churches.
    Presbyterian "commissioners" (delegates) yesterday also approved a resolution calling the U.S. invasion of Iraq "unwise, immoral and illegal," while at the same time voting down an amendment supporting conscientious objectors.
    "Do we understand what this means for our troops in Iraq?" said John Judson, a commissioner from San Antonio. "If we declare this war 'illegal,' we are declaring our soldiers are engaged in an illegal war, which makes them war criminals. I think this is a dangerous step for us."
    The commissioners overwhelmingly approved a second resolution calling on Presbyterians to "engage in repentance" for treatment of prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
    "I am grateful to God to serve this church, which I love, to serve Jesus Christ, who I love, and to be a witness throughout the world," Mr. Kirkpatrick said when the results were announced.
    Parker Williamson, CEO of the Presbyterian Lay Committee, a conservative group, called Mr. Kirkpatrick's re-election "a disappointment."
    "It means more of the same," he said, "the predictable loss of members, fewer contributions to the General Assembly budget, a continued weakness on the part of the stated clerk to defend the [PCUSA] constitution and continued erosion in the life of the Presbyterian Church USA."
    Mr. Kirkpatrick acknowledged that many church members are unhappy with his perceived reluctance to discipline presbyteries (regional church bodies) who have ordained practicing homosexuals to the ministry. The PCUSA constitution does not allow sexually active homosexuals to minister.
    "Obviously, there are some folks who feel alienated and that the standards of the church aren't being upheld," he said. "But I think the constitution is being honored and upheld. ... I don't know of a single case where an allegation has been brought up that has not been followed up by a committee."
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R040702   Fallen Friend medals are OK'd

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Army has reversed itself and will continue to help a nonprofit group distribute honorary medallions that cite a Bible verse.
    Fallen Friend, which since 1995 has distributed nearly 2,000 medallions to survivors of those killed in the line of duty, had been told by the Army in May that it could no longer help forward the medallions because the inscription "John 15:13" was inappropriate and might offend some families.

    The verse, which is not on the gold-colored medallion, reads, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
    The chief of the Army's Casualty Operations Division notified Fallen Friend President Bob Parker yesterday of the Army's change of heart.
    "Upon further evaluation, it has been determined that while there is a biblical reference on the medallion, this reference is not of such nature that it is likely to be offensive to most next of kin," Lt. Col. Kevin Logan wrote in e-mail to Mr. Parker. "I am sincerely sorry for any inconvenience our earlier decision made on you and your organization."
    Since word spread of Mr. Parker's troubles with the Army, he has received numerous e-mail and letters in support.
    "This is what makes America beautiful," Mr. Parker said in a telephone interview from his home in Clairfield, about 40 miles north of Knoxville. "If people hadn't gotten involved, the Army wouldn't have changed its mind."
    The military branches provide Mr. Parker the names of the deceased, and he sends the medals to the branches to be distributed to the survivors.
    Each medallion is also inscribed with the person's name and the words "A Fallen Friend."
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H040702   COLORADO  Religious freedom wins in custody case
    DENVER — An appeals court yesterday threw out a judge's order that barred a woman who left a lesbian relationship from teaching her adopted daughter anything that might be considered "homophobic."
    The Colorado Court of Appeals sent the case back to the lower court to determine whether barring anti-homosexual religious instruction violates the woman's First Amendment rights.
    District Judge John W. Coughlin of Denver earlier granted joint custody of the 9-year-old girl to Elsey McLeod and Cheryl Clark. The women had raised the girl together until Miss Clark left the relationship.
    Miss Clark's attorneys said Judge Coughlin's "homophobic" instruction, issued as part of the custody order, was so broad it could require Miss Clark to black out parts of the Bible before her daughter reads it.
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E040701   Millions of students see sex misconduct

By George Archibald
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

More than 4.5 million students were victims of sexual misconduct by teachers and other school officials in the past decade, says a study released yesterday by the Education Department.
    The study shows that more than half of reported adult sexual predators were teachers, classroom aides and coaches. School principals made up 6 percent and student counselors 5 percent.

    The students ranged from kindergarten to 12th grade and made up one-tenth of all children to pass through public schools in the decade surveyed.
    Findings were based primarily on 2,065 student interviews in two studies conducted for the American Association of University Women (AAUW) in the past 10 years. The report does not differentiate between verbal or physical sexual misconduct and criminal abuse, as defined under federal law.
    The results were released as more than 9,000 members of the National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest school union, converged on Washington for caucus meetings before their annual convention Friday through Wednesday.
    Charol Shakeshaft, a Hofstra University research professor and author of the report, said no studies available separate criminal sexual abuse in schools from other sexual misconduct.
    The study does not determine how many teachers are accused of committing sexual misconduct or abuse, she said. "This is just the number of students reporting their experience. It could be that one teacher has sexually abused 60 students. We don't know anything about the number of teachers."
    Miss Shakeshaft said the pattern of verbal and physical sexual behavior exhibited by students and educators surveyed in 24 studies, including five newspaper investigations, is part of a "grooming" process.
    "While almost all children respond to positive attention from an educator, students who are estranged from their parents, who are unsure of themselves, who are engaged in risky behavior, or whose parents are engaged in such behavior, are often targeted, not only because they might be responsive but also because they are more likely to maintain silence," the report says.
    She reanalyzed data from a study conducted in 2000 that showed 57.2 percent of reported sex offenders in schools were men and 42.8 percent were women.
    "Analysts speculate that female abusers might be underreported if the target is male, because males have been socialized to believe that they should be flattered or appreciative of sexual interest from a female. On the other hand, it is hypothesized that males might also underreport sexual abuse by another male, because of the social stigma of same-sex sex," the report says.
    Miss Shakeshaft said the percentage of reported "same-sex misconduct" — 15.2 percent male educator and male student, and 13.1 percent female educator and female student — was unreliable because the studies' sample size was too small for each category.
    The NEA criticized the report.
    "Lumping harassment together with serious sexual misconduct does more harm than good by creating unjustified alarm and undermining confidence in public schools," the union said.
    "The National Education Association takes the issue of sexual harassment very seriously, and cases of inappropriate sexual contact even more seriously," it said. "Statistically, public schools remain one of the safest places for children to be."
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R040704   The Declaration of Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
    We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

    He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
    He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
    He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
    He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without, and convulsions within.
    He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
    He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
    He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
    He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
    He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
    He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to the civil power.
    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
    For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
    For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
    For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
    For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
    For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences;
    For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;
    For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
    For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
    He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.
    He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
    He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
    He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
    He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
    In every state of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
    Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.
    We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance, to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

    Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
    North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
    South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
    Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
    Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
    Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
    Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
    Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
    New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
    New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
    New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple
    Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
    Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
    New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton
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R040728L   Government in the boudoir?

    Does anyone else find yesterday's commentary pieces "Disguised as news" by Dan K. Thomasson and "More than a 'lifestyle choice' " by Jennifer Marshall, completely bewildering?

    Why is it "no one's business" when Illinois Senate hopeful Jack Ryan supposedly pressures his wife to have public sex in fetish clubs — yet the government has an obligation to protect the "foundation of the intact family" by prohibiting "marriage" between loving, committed same-sex couples?
    If, as Miss Marshall proposes, marriage is "more than a lifestyle choice," doesn't the public have a right to expect senatorial candidates who don't degrade the dignity of marriage by frequenting lewd sex clubs? Or, on the other hand, if even a candidate for public office has a right to some personal freedom — "unless there are charges of wrongdoing" — maybe we as a society should lighten up and let same-sex couples enter into the same legal unions as everyone else.

    JONATHAN BAUM
    New York
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R040728L   An ACLU agenda

    "Stifling freedom" (Editorial, Saturday) says, "The ACLU seems to aim at nothing short of a complete eradication of religion from the public sphere."
    It would be more accurate to say that the American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Supreme Court and most of the lower courts are in league to supplant Christianity with secular humanism as the prevailing religion of the United States.

    FRANK CONNER
    Newnan, Ga.
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R040703L   Kerry's heresy

    The filing of a heresy charge against Sen. John Kerry based on his long-standing and obstinate support of abortion ("Kerry cited in Catholic heresy case," Nation, Thursday), has provided Archbishop Sean O'Malley with an opportunity to revise his archdiocese's policy to comport with canon law and show that neither Mr. Kerry's political status nor his wife's vast wealth put them above canon law.
    The catechism of the Catholic Church defines heresy as "the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith." That surely includes the truth that abortion must be opposed with maximum determination. As Pope John Paul II explained in his 1988 Apostolic Exhortation: "Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights — for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture — is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and condition to all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination."
    Mr. Kerry — baptized Catholic, former altar boy and presumptive Democrat presidential candidate — is supporting even partial-birth abortion, calling abortion a woman's right instead of a wrong and vowing to keep abortion legal. At the dinner hosted by NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, Mr. Kerry proudly and passionately proclaimed, "We are not going to turn back the clock. There is no overturning of Roe v. Wade. There is no packing of courts with judges who will be hostile to choice."
    Of course, Mr. Kerry shamelessly wants to have it both ways: to be NARAL's champion and a practicing Catholic presenting himself to receive Communion as though he is in a state of grace and in full communion with the church and therefore fit to receive. He should be declared a heretic and refused Communion until he repents.
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R040626E   Stifling freedom

Over the past few years, the American Civil Liberties Union has intensified its attacks on religious symbols throughout America, arguing that religious activities or symbols that are implicitly or explicitly sanctioned by the government are prohibited by the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. From local communities that display nativity scenes to city seals that bear religious insignia, no public display of religion is exempt. Most recently, the ACLU has targeted the Los Angeles County seal, which bears an image of the cross. The ACLU seems to aim at nothing short of a complete eradication of religion from the public sphere.
    The ACLU's war against religion reveals the unfortunate twist that Establishment Clause jurisprudence has taken in recent years. Instead of being read to restrain government, the way the founders intended, it's instead read as a restriction on religion. By the ACLU's reckoning, the government cannot pay for learning equipment for the developmentally disabled if they attend private, parochial schools. This argument was even brought before a federal appeals court in the case of Zobrest v. Arizona, where the majority ruled that a deaf child, upon transferring to a parochial school, was no longer eligible for government assistance. The case then reached the Supreme Court, which reversed the appeals court despite an amicus brief urging affirmance filed by the ACLU.

    Traditionally, the government's refusal to subsidize an activity raises the question of whether that activity is a legitimate one. The government refrains, for example, from funding pornography, out of concern for its corrosive effect on public morals. A refusal to allow public funds to go toward religion, by implication, raises the question of whether religious activities themselves are worthy ones.
    That's a bizarre concept indeed for a republic "whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being," as the Supreme Court put it in 1952. Indeed, the individual rights that the ACLU professes to hold so dear find their ultimate grounding in the religious and moral understandings that the ACLU seeks to eliminate. The Establishment Clause was written merely to prevent an official state establishment of religion, not to eliminate religion from the public sphere. What a long way we've come.
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R040702   ACLU hits Virginia civil-union ban

By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia announced yesterday that it will challenge a new state law that bans civil unions.
    "This is one of the most reprehensible acts of the Virginia General Assembly in years," said Kent Willis, the Virginia ACLU's executive director, calling the law "mean-spirited and morally indefensible."

    The ACLU and many legal experts say the law is poorly written and could be used to prevent same-sex business partners or family members from entering into contracts such as buying property or medical directives.
    The law, which went into effect yesterday, amends the state's Affirmation of Marriage Act to prohibit recognition of same-sex unions performed in other states.
    It states: "A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited."
    Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore said the law is not intended to prohibit business partnerships, medical directives, joint bank accounts or any other rights or privileges not exclusive to marriage. He said in April that he will defend the law against any court challenge.
    The ACLU said it is seeking same-sex couples to come forward and serve as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
    Specifically, the group is looking for homosexual couples who have contracts or other arrangements that have been invalidated by the law.
    "The more information we have the better," Mr. Willis said. "Once we have a clear picture of who is being directly affected by the law, we will be able to make decisions about litigation."
    Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, tried to amend the original bill by deleting the phrase "partnership contract or other arrangement" and a clause nullifying contractual rights associated with them.
    In April, the legislature rejected his amendments and enacted the law without his signature. It passed by a 69-30 vote in the House and a 27-12 vote in the Senate.
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R040702   Evangelicals can include fliers in school packets

By Larry O'Dell
ASSOCIATED PRESS

RICHMOND — An evangelical group's plan to distribute fliers to students in two Montgomery County, Md., elementary schools does not amount to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, a divided federal appeals court has ruled.
    In a 2-1 decision on Wednesday, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal judge's ruling blocking the Child Evangelic Fellowship's (CEF) access to the Montgomery schools' take-home flier program.

    The court sent the matter back to U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte of Greenbelt, Md., for further proceedings.
    Judge Messitte's ruling barred CEF from giving literature to students at Mill Creek Towne Elementary School in Rockville and Clearspring Elementary School in Damascus. The materials, to be taken home to parents, invited students to attend Good News Club meetings, which offer Bible lessons and other religious activities after school.
    CEF had asked in August 2001 to include fliers and permission slips in informational packets compiled by the school and sent home with students. Packets typically include day care information, forms for community sports leagues and fliers from a variety of groups.
    Among the religious groups that have been allowed to send fliers home are the Norbeck Community Church, the Jewish Community Center and the Holy Redeemer Summer Play School, the appeals court said.
    The school district said it barred CEF because the flier program is not open to "proselytization" or "evangelical groups." The appeals court said that amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
    The court relied in part on a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling requiring public schools to give CEF equal access to school space for Good News Club meetings.
    Montgomery school officials said their case was different because teachers or other employees would be distributing the fliers during school hours, when students are required to be in school.
    Judge Diana Gribbon Motz wrote that simply issuing a communication involving a religious organization during school hours does not render the communication state speech, nor does it invariably create a perception of endorsement or coercion by government officials."
    She also said that teachers' involvement was minimal and that distribution of the literature did not rise to the level of unconstitutional government coercion.
    Students have received hundreds of fliers promoting environmental, athletic, artistic and religious activities.
    "Directing them to take home these diverse materials does not coerce them to engage in a religious activity, any more than it coerces them to engage in an environmental activity," Judge Motz wrote in the majority opinion, which was joined by Judge Dennis Shedd.
    Judge M. Blane Michael wrote in a dissenting opinion that the distribution of CEF fliers would, in effect, force students to engage in religious activity in violation of the Constitution.
    "The school system's interest in avoiding an establishment clause violation should prevail in order to protect the individual freedom of the students," Judge Michael wrote.
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H040630   New ban on gay unions to begin

By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A ban on civil unions will become law in Virginia tomorrow, and homosexual- rights activists are planning statewide protests as well as a legal challenge.
    The law, passed by an overwhelming majority, amends the state's Affirmation of Marriage Act to prohibit recognition of same-sex unions performed in other states. It bans civil unions, "partnership contracts" or other arrangements between homosexuals.

    Homosexual-rights activists have planned seven coordinated protests statewide today at state government centers and at the state Capitol in Richmond.
    Dyana Mason, executive director of homosexual-rights advocacy group Equality Virginia, said a legal challenge is in the works. She said the group has help from Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union.
    "It could cast doubt on a contract between two friends or business partners," she said. "They would have to prove somehow that their relationship is not intimate, and that's not something you would want to drag through court."
    The law doesn't change much in Virginia, which has never recognized civil unions or same-sex "marriage." Its supporters say it is necessary because of actions in Massachusetts and San Francisco, where same-sex couples from other states have been allowed to "marry."
    Opponents say the law is overly broad and could prevent same-sex relatives or business partners from entering into contracts, such as those required for buying property, and that wills between same-sex partners could be challenged.
    Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore said the law is not intended to prohibit business partnerships, medical directives, joint bank accounts or any other rights or privileges not exclusive to marriage, adding that he will defend it against a court challenge.
    Mr. Kilgore, a Republican, wrote a letter in April stating the bill "provides a needed safeguard for the institution of marriage while not depriving any individual rights currently available to all citizens."
    But Dan Ortiz, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said the law's "broad" language goes further than its intent.
    Under Mr. Ortiz's interpretation, an elderly woman who wants her granddaughter to make medical decisions for her would be breaking the law because both parties in the contract are female. "It goes far beyond civil unions and addresses regular contracts and property arrangements," he said.
    Delegate Robert G. Marshall, who wrote the law, said it clearly targets homosexuals and protects the sanctity of marriage.
    "It says we are not accepting counterfeits for marriage," the Prince William County Republican said. "A homosexual couple from Virginia who gets married in another state ... could not claim that they deserved to be treated as if they were married."
    Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat, tried to amend the original bill by deleting the phrase "partnership contract or other arrangement," and a clause nullifying contractual rights associated with them.
    In April, the legislature rejected his amendments and enacted the law without his signature. It passed by a 69-30 vote in the House and a 27-12 vote in the Senate.
    The new law has prompted homosexual-rights advocates to boycott Virginia.
    Activists in Seattle started the Web site www.VirginiaIsForHaters.org, which urges tourists to boycott Virginia companies and their products. The site's name satirizes the state's tourism slogan, Virginia Is for Lovers.
    Site founder Jay G. Porter said he has no data on how tourism has been affected but receives mail from people who say "they will never step foot in Virginia again."
    Alisa L. Bailey, president and chief executive officer of the state's tourism corporation, said last week that numbers for the summer are "very encouraging."
    "It looks like we're going to have a robust tourism year," she said. She said it is difficult to track if the boycott is having an effect, and that her organization has received about 80 e-mails from boycotters.
    Warner spokeswoman Ellen Qualls said the governor's office has received several letters supporting the boycott but added that it's difficult to measure the financial impact a boycott might have.
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R040630  ACLU sues to block teen-nudist law

By Christina Bellantoni
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia yesterday filed a lawsuit in Richmond's federal court against a new state law that makes it illegal for teens to attend a nudist camp without their parents.
    The ACLU said it is seeking a preliminary injunction from the court to prevent the state from blocking a teen nudist camp planned for July 24 to 31 at Camp White Tail Park, a nudist resort in Ivor in southeastern Virginia. The group said the law infringes on the constitutional rights of the teens and their parents.

    Earlier this year, the General Assembly overwhelmingly passed the law that says teens can attend a nudist camp only if a parent, grandparent or legal guardian is present. The law is scheduled to go into effect tomorrow.
    The law was written to target Camp White Tail, which runs an annual weeklong nudist camp for nearly 50 teens and preteens.
    As first reported in The Washington Times on June 22, the Virginia ACLU and the camp's manager, Bob Roche, find the law to be discriminatory against teen nudists.
    The ACLU criticized a "pun-filled statement" issued by Gov. Mark Warner earlier this year. Mr. Warner, a Democrat, supports the bill and issued the statement to explain a technical amendment proposed by the bill's author.
    Mr. Warner's statement included lines such as "This bill has been the butt of many jokes, so with naked admiration for its patron, I am offering this amendment" and "Stripped to its bare essence ... ."
    Rebecca Glenberg, legal director of the Richmond-based ACLU of Virginia, said the ACLU mentioned Mr. Warner's puns in the motion for a preliminary hearing.
    "It supports our argument that there is no real legitimate government interest supporting this law and that it's based on preconceptions that people have about nudism," she said.
    Warner spokeswoman Ellen Qualls said that the law passed the General Assembly by overwhelming margins and that the state expects the court to uphold it.
    Three families are plaintiffs in the case. The children from the families planned to attend this year's camp.
    The ACLU notes in its filing that the camp's rules prohibit "intimate contact, suggestive behavior, overt sexuality or sexually provocative behavior."
    The ACLU had lobbied for Mr. Warner to veto the bill.
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L040701E   Aborting voters

    "More than 40 million legal abortions have been performed and documented in the 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court declared abortion legal. The debate remains focused on the legality and morality of abortion. What's largely ignored is a factual analysis of the political consequences of 40 million abortions. Consider:
    "•There were 12,274,368 in the Voting Age Population of 205,815,000 missing from the 2000 presidential election, because of abortions from 1973-82.
    "•In this year's election, there will be 18,336,576 in the Voting Age Population missing because of abortions between 1972 and 1986.
    "•In the 2008 election, 24,408,960 in the Voting Age Population will be missing because of abortions between 1973-90.
    "These numbers will not change. They are based on individual choices made — aggregated nationally — as long as 30 years ago. Look inside these numbers at where the political impact is felt most. Do Democrats realize that millions of Missing Voters — due to the abortion policies they advocate — gave George W. Bush the margin of victory in 2000?"
    — Larry L. Eastland, writing on "The Empty Cradle Will Rock," in the June issue of the American Spectator
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O040701E   Face the realities

    "Part of what was supposedly useful and liberating about the feminist message was its insistence that women's value was not linked inextricably to appearance or reproductive powers. But eventually, most women make the fertility link themselves (how else would we have a sense of something like a biological clock?). And eventually, all women must face the realities of aging. ...
    "By the time we reach middle age, women — and increasingly, men — must confront our successes and failures in arenas where we might not feel we exercise as much control as we once did — careers, relationships, perhaps even in our family lives. Cosmetic surgery offers us control over one thing: our physical appearance. ...
    "Feminist critics are correct that the demand for cosmetic surgery is closely linked to a society's cultural norms regarding aging, especially for women. ... In our youth-oriented, image-driven democratic culture, visible signs of aging, particularly for women, will soon be markers of declining status."
    — Christine Rosen, writing on "The Democratization of Beauty," in the spring issue of the New Atlantis
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O040630E   Accurate abstinence

    "Memo to teen-sex advocates: Women who pledge to remain abstinent until marriage are about 40 percent less likely to have a child out of wedlock. That's according to data compiled by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a 10-year study of 12,000 teens. ... In a May report, Heritage Foundation researcher Robert Rector concluded that making a public or written abstinence pledge — the kind encouraged in a number of abstinence-only sex-education curricula — can reduce teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock childbearing.

    "Not that that will matter much to groups like the National Abortion Rights Action League or the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. They and others are behind a state-by-state campaign to eradicate abstinence-only programs from public schools. The weapon of choice: legislation that requires sex-education curricula to be 'medically accurate,' a term critics say is political code for 'not abstinence-only.'
    " 'You will find that the people promoting what they call "medical accuracy" actually want to drive authentic abstinence out of the classroom and replace it with the latest version of "safe sex," ' Mr. Rector said."
    — Lynn Vincent, writing on "Healthy skepticism," in the June 19 issue of World
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O040629E   Beauty on demand

    "Once the province of strippers and porn actresses, breast implants eventually became popular among Hollywood celebrities. Today, it is middle-class American women who scrimp and save to achieve the figures they've always wanted. ...
    "Breast implants are a good example of some of the ironies of our pragmatic, democratic approach to cosmetic surgery. Women who get them to feel more sexually attractive are making a strange bargain. In the process of looking more sexually appealing, they rob themselves of several uniquely female experiences.
    "Women with breast implants frequently report a loss of sensation in their breasts, eliminating a site of natural sexual pleasure. They canno