NEWS
2005 NEWS STORIES
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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
NEWS
April 2005
AN ASSISTED SUICIDE BILL was introduced into the California state assembly on February 17, said a LifeNews.com news report. Assembly Bill 654, introduced by the assembly members Patty Berg (D-Sebastopol) and Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) is modeled after Oregon's assisted suicide law. Assemblywoman Berg is Catholic. The bill would allow a patient to commit suicide if two doctors determine that the patient has six months or less to live and is competent to decide. The doctors must submit reports to the state health department and the patient must request suicide twice orally and once in writing. Both pro-life groups and the California Medical Association oppose the bill. Similar measures have met with defeat in California; a ballot initiative failed in 1992 and a bill was defeated in the state legislature in 1999.
California's suicide bill will find some organized opposition. In mid February, religious and disability rights groups formed a coalition, Californians Against Assisted Suicide, to fight the bill. Both the American and California Medical Associations oppose physician-assisted suicide.
IT MAY BE MERELY COINICIDENTAL that recent Hollywood movies, Million Dollar Baby and The Sea Inside, which sympathetically portray people seeking suicide, have come out at the very time that lawmakers in California and Vermont are considering legislation that would legalize physician assisted suicide. One advocate for legalizing assisted suicide thinks these movies might improve the chances for the bills' passage. Barbara Coombs Lee, co-chief executive of Compassion and Choices, a Denver-based euthanasia advocacy group, told the March 7 Los Angeles Times that these movies "are connecting with people because they fear they don't have control over how they would die if they found themselves in a situation like that." But Bill Balch, director of medical ethics for the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, D.C., told the Times that many people are repulsed by movies that give a sympathetic portrayal of suicide. Balch even predicted a public outlash if doctors remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tubes. "The majority of people don't believe it's ethical to help someone die," Balch said. "They don't condone suicide."
But, the Times said, "polls show the majority of Americans favor physician- assisted suicide if it's done under strict supervision and only in specific circumstances," and cited a Field Poll, released in late February, that claims 70 percent of Californians favor allowing physician-assisted suicide. Still, except for Oregon, pro-suicide bills have been defeated every time they have been introduced. Besides the California attempts, in 2002, the Hawaii senate narrowly defeated a physician-assisted suicide bill.
NO TO NO FAULT DIVORCE. Citing the bad societal effects of easily obtainable divorce, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine) on February 22 introduced legislation that would allow married couples to opt out of the possibility of taking advantage of the state of California's no-fault divorce law. The bill would allow couples this choice if they agree to undergo premarital counseling or have been married for five or more years. The bill would also require couples who opt out of no-fault divorce to undergo marital counseling before they can enter into a separation agreement. The bill would not bind couples to their agreement in certain cases, such as spousal or drug abuse.
ATTACK OF THE HARPIES. The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and Planned Parenthood have joined forces against the Westside Pregnancy Resource Center in Santa Monica, a service for expectant mothers and families. According to a February 7 press release from the center, Planned Parenthood and NARAL are upset that the center has received $25,000 from Proposition 10 California Tobacco Tax monies earmarked for the care of children from before birth to age five. The abortion advocacy organizations want the Los Angeles County supervisors to pull the funding from the center. The Westside Center offers pre-natal care, ultrasounds, counseling, adoption referral, and post abortion care, but does not provide abortions.
"When the people of California passed Prop 10, they didn't think funds would go to such a group," said NARAL spokeswoman, Amy Everitt. NARAL's beef, it seems, is that Westside Center does not provide abortions, and so its services are "limited." The NARAL website complained that the Center is associated with Last Harvest Ministries, Inc., "an anti-choice group based in Texas 'serving the pro-life movement since 1984.'" What's more, NARAL said, "in December, the center's website had a picture of a woman's stomach with a dialogue box saying 'don't forget about me.'" The Center has even "with your tax dollars ... updated its website, making it more difficult for women to differentiate it from clinics offering comprehensive reproductive health services. But make no mistake — the WPRC is using misleading information and deceptive techniques to keep women from exercising their freedom to choose."
The Westside Center asked supporters to contact county supervisors to encourage them to maintain the funding. The Center may be reached through its website, www.wprc.org. Or call (310) 581-1140.
EIGHT WOMEN HOLDING SIGNS that read "I regret my abortion" addressed a small crowd on a rainy January 28 outside the Riverside city hall, said the Inland Empire Press-Enterprise. The women told how their abortions led to problems with depression, infertility, and other medical complications. Karen Ayres said she had had an abortion in 1990. She was 21-years old and undergoing a divorce; she suffered from a drug and alcohol addiction. Though she is now married and has two children, Ayres said that she will never forget the child she aborted. "I will always, for the rest of my life, carry the memory of that small person," she said.
The women's testimony was part of the National Silent No More Awareness Campaign, organized by an Anglican anti-abortion ministry and Priests for Life.
THE FIGHT OVER ABORTION in the Democratic Party is not over, according to a February 16 New York Times story. Though a strong supporter of "abortion rights," the new party chairman, Howard Dean, has said Democrats need to be more inclusive of pro-life members. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has been trying to recruit two pro-life Democrats for the 2006 U.S. Senate elections. One of these is Robert P. Casey, Jr., currently Pennsylvania treasurer, whom the Democrats might run against Republican Rick Santorum. Casey's father is former Pennyslvania governor Bob Casey, a strong abortion opponent.
But abortion proponents in the Democratic Party are not lying down. Some pro-abortion organizations have said they will put up a pro-abortion candidate against Casey in the primary. The power of pro-abortion forces (in both Democratic and Republican parties) was indicated by Ann Stone, president of Republicans for Choice. "The Democrats have to be very careful about this because they could end up undercutting themselves with the donor base," Stone told the Times. "The pro-choice donors in both parties tend to be the more wealthy." Indeed, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, single-issue pro-abortion donors gave $1.4 million — more than twice as much money as pro-abortion donors — to candidates for national office.
CARDINAL FRANCIS ARINZE, head of the Holy See's Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Sacraments, has confirmed — in a non-official way — that persons wearing a rainbow sash to demonstrate their opposition to Church teaching on homosexuality may not receive communion. On February 11, EWTN broadcasted an interview with Cardinal Arinze in which host Raymond Arroyo asked whether, as Archbishop Harry Flynn of Minneapolis has claimed, Arinze was open to priests giving communion to Rainbow Sash activists. Flynn had said that Arinze had indicated his openness in a conversation with the archbishop. "Did such a conversation take place between you and this archbishop?" Arroyo asked. "Yes," Cardinal Arinze responded. "And were you open to allowing this group to receive Communion as he inferred in some of the newspapers?" Arroyo continued. "No, no," Arinze replied. "You see, let's get it clear. These rainbow sash people, are they really saying we are homosexuals, we intend to remain so and we want to receive Holy Communion? The question arises; take the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It says it is not condemning a person for having homosexual tendency. We don't condemn anybody for that. But a person stands condemned for acting on it."
Last year, members of Rainbow Sash announced that they would present themselves, wearing rainbow sashes, for communion on Pentecost Sunday in cathedrals and churches throughout the country to proclaim their active sexuality and protest the Church's teaching on homosexuality. While Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, said he would refuse communion to Rainbow Sash wearers, Cardinal Roger Mahony notified Rainbow Sash that his cathedral would welcome sash wearers and give them communion.
A PARAPLEGIC ROBBER may face life in prison under the Three Strikes law, said the February 16 Los Angeles Times. Juan Romero Robles, also known as Miguel Angel Corlione, has been charged with second-degree robbery, attempted robbery, and dissuading a witness from reporting a crime. On December 10, he allegedly placed a toy gun to the head of a woman at a bus stop in La Puente, telling her he would kill her if she reported him to the police. Ten minutes later, at the same bus stop, Robles allegedly lifted his shirt to show a man the toy gun tucked in his pants, and demanded the man's watch and shoes. The man refused and got on the bus. Robles was arrested while being lifted, with his wheelchair, into the bus.
Robles, a former gang member, was convicted of six felonies between the years 1986 and 1992. In 1988, he was convicted of robbery and in 1990 of assault to commit rape, for which he is a registered sex offender. In 1995, he was shot in a gang-related incident, which rendered him paralyzed.
Robles' attorney, David Diamond, said classifying his client's crime as a third-strike case "is definitely without merit. It's not supported by the evidence or his physical condition."
A MONTH AFTER President George W. Bush announced that the government would end the search for non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Congressman Chris Cox (R-Newport Beach) made a startling revelation. The February 25-March 3 Orange County Weekly reported that at a February 17 banquet for the Conservative Political Action Conference, Cox disclosed that "America's Operation Iraqi Freedom is still producing shock and awe, this time among the blame-America-first crowd.... We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq." When Orange County Weekly reporter Steve Lowery contacted Cox's office to ask about this quotation (which appeared first on Salon.com), Cox replied with an e-mail message claiming that the Salon.com writer "tendentiously" edited his statement. Cox said he was speaking of biological agents, not weapons of mass destruction — a fact which, he said, is clarified by the two sentences following what Salon.com quoted: "a plan to disperse sarin and the lethal poison ricin in the United States and Europe was actively being pursued as late as March 2003. The facility in which the weapons were being made also housed a large inventory of perfume atomizers of various shapes and sizes to mimic the existing brands on the store shelves in the United States."
WHERE DID COX get his information? Presumably from intelligence reports — after all, Cox is head of the House's committee on homeland security. But no. According to the e-mail message sent to Lowery, what Cox said "came straight from news reports the preceding weekend." At least one of these news reports was from Fox News.com (dated February 13), and Cox included it in his e-mail. "The Iraqi Survey Group also found that supposed 'humanitarian' imports under Oil-for-Food gave Saddam the ability to restart his biological and chemical warfare programs at a moment's notice," said FoxNews.com. UN weapons inspector Richard "Spertzel said what scared him the most in Iraq was the discovery of secret labs to make deadly weapons like the nerve agent sarin and the biological poison ricin in spray form.
"'If that were released in a closed [area], such as Madison Square Garden or even some, some of your smaller closed malls, shopping malls, it would have a devastating effect ... killing hundreds or thousands,' Spertzel said."
So, chemical-producing labs were found by the Iraqi Survey Group. But Lowery points out something not mentioned by Congressman Cox. To wit, the Iraqi Intelligence Service under Saddam Hussein had a plan to produce chemical war agents, but it was just a plan. According to the Iraqi Survey Group, the Iraqi Intelligence Service "had a plan to produce and weaponize nitrogen mustard in rifle grenades and a plan to bottle sarin and sulfur mustard in perfume sprayers and medicine bottles, which they would ship to the United States and Europe. The source claimed that they could not implement the plan because chemicals to produce the CW [chemical weapons] agents were unavailable."
In another place, the Iraqi Survey Group says simply that it "has no evidence that IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] Directorate of Criminology (M16) scientists were producing CW [chemical weapons] or BW [biological weapons] agents in these laboratories."
Presumably, Congressman Cox did not know this.
MOCK MARRIAGES of homosexuals were performed at Silverado High School in Victorville on February 11, said the San Bernarndino Press-Enterprise. The school's Gay Straight Alliance sponsored the event during lunch break at the school. Nine male and female couples were "married." Celsie Garza, 16, who came out as a lesbian a year ago organized the event. "When we planned it, it wasn't like, 'Let's make this big political statement.' It was just 'Let's do this cute little ceremony,' and that's about it," she said. But a February 16 GSA News report suggested Garza intended something more than a "cute little" event. The Gay Straight Alliance leader "said she hopes their action will inspire other GSAs to do similar actions fighting for marriage equality."
The "cute little event" became a "big political statement." Irate parents called the school; a group of 60 sign-wielding parents, grandparents, and residents gathered in the school's parking lot to protest the faux nuptials; students, wearing red shirts, also protested the event, while other students voiced their support of it. Eggs were thrown at the couples, though none hit their mark. School officials, however, remained apparently neutral. Students were exercising their freedom of speech, they said. And Greg Lundeen, Victor Valley high school district superintendent, noted, "it's a student activity. We're staying out of it." But a February 16 GSA News report said, "Silverado H.S. administrators, led by their principal, Susan Levine, were in support of the event and fully backed the GSA. With a copy of the district ruling on hand to show parents and concerned community members, the GSA students were assured of their right to freedom of expression."
The event was a local celebration of Freedom to Marry Day, which commemorates San Francisco's solemnizing of homosexual marriages last year. Though it falls near Valentine's Day, this is only coincidental, said L.J. Carusone, director of Equality California. Rather, he said, the day was chosen for its proximity to Lincoln's Birthday.
CATHOLIC PARENTS of a student in a Simi Valley school who charged that the school violated their rights in regards to sex education have received justice, said a February 16 Pacific Justice Institute news release. The release did not mention the name of the school or the family. According to the press release, a teacher showed students a video dealing with sensitive sexual topics without first notifying parents, as required by state law. When the parents demanded that their son be exempt from sex education, the teacher placed him alone in a hall with no assignments — an action which also violates state law. The boy was then required to take a test on material from which he had been lawfully exempted and received low grades. When the Pacific Justice Institute sent a legal demand letter to the school' s principle, pointing out the violations of the law, the principle contacted the family and apologized. The school's health department was then reminded of the legal protections for those who object to sex education. The student' s grades were raised to reflect what he knew of the material he was required to study.
"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING in L.A. County in 2005. No way," said Robin Williams-Nohara of Valencia, a black woman and mother of multi-racial children. Williams-Nohara and other parents are saying that the Santa Clarita Valley — seen as a haven for former Los Angeles residents — has a growing problem with racial-based violence. Black, Latino, and Jewish youth have experienced violence from white youth, say parents and the sheriff's department. On February 5, Williams-Nohara's son Akira was chased by white youth at neighborhood park; the youth were carrying metal poles and were shouting, "I'm going to kill you niggers." In 2003, Akira and his brother Shin were attacked by white youth who hit them with chains and struck Shin in the head with brass knuckles. Another black boy, Devin Pope-Jordan, last fall was attacked by white youth at a bus stop; they tore Devin's shirt and backpack and stole his hat and CD player. A few weeks later, Devin was bullied when a group of white teenagers crashed a friend's — a white girl' — party. Parents charge that other incidents have occurred against other minority youth.
Percentage-wise, the number of blacks in Santa Clarita — comprising Valencia, Saugus, Canyon Country, and Newhall — hasn't increased from its historical two percent. But the Latino population has grown while the white population has declined from 73 to 69 percent, according to U.S. Census figures.
THE INCIDENCE OF RACIALLY-MOTIVATED crimes has risen in Riverside and San Bernardino counties while falling in the rest of the state, said the February 28 Los Angeles Times. While declining by ten percent statewide, racially-based crimes in the Inland Empire rose 19.5 percent, said the Times. A similar phenomenon has been noted in the Antelope Valley.
The source of the problem in the Inland Empire is twofold, it seems: rapid urbanization bringing a large influx of minorities into traditionally white areas and the presence of white supremacist groups and gangs such as High Desert Freak Boys and Angry Nazi Soldiers. The gangs are responsible not only for violence but drug dealing. The Times noted that, besides the presence of former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon Tom Metzger in Fallbrook, "among the factors experts attribute to the rising hostility include absentee parents who commute long hours to coastal jobs" and "alienated kids finding 'street' families in gangs."
A NEW JUDGE will oversee the settlements in the over 500 sexual abuse cases pending against the archdiocese of Los Angeles, said a February 16 Associated Press report. Los Angeles superior court judge Peter Lichtman, who has overseen settlement talks for the past two years and negotiated the recent $100 million settlement in cases brought against the diocese of Orange, will be replaced by Judge Charles "Tim" McCoy. The only reason stated for the change is that insurance companies for the archdiocese objected to how Lichtman has handled the cases.
A SAN BERNARDINO DIOCESE priest has filed a lawsuit against a man who alleges the priest abused him in the 1980s, said the February 14 Inland Empire Press-Enterprise. The Rev. Michael Bucaro was accused of molesting the alleged victim, now 26 years old, at St. Matthew church in Corona. When the accusations surfaced, Father Bucaro agreed that he would remove himself from public ministry; he had been serving as a prison chaplain. But now Bucaro is fighting back. His lawsuit alleges that the priest's accuser had in 2004 told his mother of the molestation; this, says Bucaro's lawsuit, opened the priest to "hatred, humiliation, contempt, [and] ridicule." Though included in the alleged victim's lawsuit against Bucaro, the diocese of San Bernardino is not a party to Bucaro's lawsuit.
Bucaro's accuser is currently serving two years at Wasco State Prison for vehicle theft and burglary — a fact that perhaps lends credence to a claim by Bucaro's lawyer David Hershorin that the lawsuit against Bucaro is "an attempt to get money, plain and simple." But Anthony DeMarco, the attorney for Bucaro's accuser, told the Press-Enterprise, that children who are molested are more predisposed to crime. DeMarco said Bucaro's lawsuit against his client is "purely in response to our client exercising his legal rights." Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests have condemned Bucaro' s lawsuit, saying that it could discourage other victims from coming forward with lawsuits. But attorney Hershorin said that Bucaro's litigation "is not an attempt to quell their (the victim's) right to file a lawsuit. What this lawsuit says is this person is saying false things about Father Bucaro and damaging his reputation and that's slander."
THE UNITED STATES BISHOPS reported on February 18 that they had received 1,092 new accusations of sexual abuse by clergy in their second annual survey of how the Church is handling the issue of sexual abuse, said the New York Times. The new accusations were made against 756 priests, most accusations concerning events that occurred about 30 years ago. There were, however, 22 abuse accusations made by children in 2004. Those making the accusations numbered 1,083; most them were men.
SPIRITUAL COUNSELING, once the domain of priests, monastics, or one's grandmother, has gone professional. That is, it isn't cheap anymore. In a February 18 Los Angeles Times column, "Career Counselor," Susan Miller, M.A., describes a spiritual counselor, thus: "Spiritual counselors are licensed therapists or counselors who integrate ideas of spirituality in counseling." Spiritual counselors, also known as "pastoral counselors," are more likely to be found in denominational than non-denominational churches, and are for the most part independent contractors, said Miller. Theirs is a delicate job, since "spirituality means different things to different people." It is thus "important that the counselor first assess the client's beliefs to know how to proceed with the therapy." Spiritual counselors are usually already therapists of one sort or another, with professional degrees. Perhaps it is for this reason that they can charge fees that even a priest would blush at. According to Miller, "spiritual counselors typically charge from $95 to $150 per session. They also may charge by a sliding scale for clients who can't afford the regular session fee. Sliding scale fees can range from $25 to $35 per session."
THE POPE'S SICKNESS teaches us about the character of health and the value of suffering, said some Vatican officials. A February 17 Associated Press story quoted the Rev. Maurizio Faggioni, a moral theologian with the Holy See's Pontifical Academy for Life, who said the pope's sufferings give the lie to the "religion of health" found in first world countries. Said Father Faggioni, "while millions of people in the world struggle to survive hunger and disease, lacking even minimal health care, in rich countries the concept of health as well-being figures in creating unrealistic expectations about the possibility of medicine to respond to all needs and desires. The medicine of desires, egged on by the health care market, increases the request for pharmaceutical and medical-surgical services, soaks up public resources beyond all reasonableness." Manfred Lutz, whom the Associated Press described as a psychiatrist and "Vatican academic," said of John Paul' s ailments, "precisely in the handicap, in the disease, in the pain, in old age, in dying and death one can, instead, perceive the truth of life in a clearer way. The pope's message is 'suffering is part of life and has meaning.'"
In the context of the "religion of health," Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, the Holy See's chief bioethicist, said people need to ask the question, "does a right to health at all costs exist? Or is it rather a right to treatment? Medicine has become impossible to manage because it can't fulfill the desires." Though, said the Associated Press, "Vatican officials" said that all people should have access to basic health care, it is uncertain what that entails. "It is difficult to establish what a decent minimum is," Father Faggioni said.
SEEKING SOLUTIONS to the city's homeless problem, homeless advocates in San Bernardino are considering building a "homeless mall," said the February 24 Press-Enterprise. The $2 million project would be modeled after a similar project in Los Angeles, in operation since 2002 and run by a coalition of 20 community and governmental agencies. The mall, working out of a 40,000 square foot building in Los Angeles' Rampart District, provides a convenient and central location for homeless to get medical and mental health care, find jobs, and even get haircuts and manicures. Without the mall, homeless people often miss appointments because of the difficulty of finding transportation to far-flung areas of the city. The Los Angeles mall serves over 6,000 homeless out of a total homeless population of 80,000. San Bernardino, where social service providers hope to implement a mall, has a population of at most 8,351 homeless on the street at any given time.
ABOUT THIRTY CHURCHES in the Hemet area met during the last week in January to discuss how to keep their local homeless shelter open, said the February 1 Press-Enterprise. Valley Restart Center, which serves the roughly 400 homeless in the San Jacinto Valley, would have closed its doors had not city offiicals given it a one-time grant of $10,000. San Jacinto Valley city leaders, homeless advocates, and church leaders called the late January meeting to discuss how churches could keep Valley Restart open. The church leaders agreed to take on the homeless issue and speak to their congregations about supporting the center. "The church leaders were very generous with their efforts to help," said Bill Dew, director of operations for the center and pastor of Doing God's Work Ministries in Hemet.
WAL-MART NEEDS TO EXPAND in California, some analysts say, according to the February 24 Los Angeles Times. The rapid growth of Wal-Mart — the largest employer in the United States — has slowed in recent years, said the Times; the retailer's attempts to expand in international markets, including China, have met opposition. Thus, the retail giant needs to expand in California; "Southern California is their most important market in the world right now," Burt Flickinger, a retail consultant, told the Times. But Wal-Mart's plan, announced three years ago, to build 40 supercenters (combination grocery and discount stores) in California by 2008 is not coming to fruition; only three have opened so far. Wal-Mart's chief executive H. Lee Scott, Jr., who was in California in February on a publicity run, told the Times that his company plans to build 25 stores in the state in the next year, but declined to say how many of these would be superstores.
Besides Scott's trip to California, Wal-Mart has been engaging in an image-building campaign during the last year. The company claims it is a good employer and citizen which contributes enormously to the local and state tax base. All this is seemingly belied by recent events. For instance, the state of Alabama announced that Wal-Mart employees use state medical benefits at a higher rate than those from other companies. Alabama has joined a small group of states that have identified Wal-Mart as the biggest drain on state health care costs. Wal-Mart has also been accused of pressuring manufacturers to transfer their operations overseas in order to benefit from cheap labor costs. Scott admits that Wal-Mart has made (as the Times put it) some "missteps" — such as the ballot measure it sponsored last year to get a superstore in Inglewood, thus bypassing the city's planning commission, which rejected the project. This company's move in this case, said Scott, "came across as arrogance."