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Contents © 2005
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
October 2005
LOCKYER MUST WAIT. Though California attorney general Bill Lockyer wanted the state supreme court to bypass the appeals court and decide the constitutionality of same-sex marriage case, the supreme court on August 10 refused. In March, San Francisco superior court judge Richard Kramer ruled that forbidding marriage to same-sex couples violated the California constitution. The supreme court said it would not hear the appeal of the same-sex marriage case decided by Kramer until it had passed through the lower court of appeal. This means the supreme court will not be able to decide the case for at least a year.
NO REASON? The California supreme court ruled on August 22 that both members of a lesbian couple have parental rights over the children birthed by one of them, even after the couple breaks up. "We perceive no reason," the supreme court ruled, "why both parents of a child cannot be wo men." In three decisions, answering to three different cases, the court ruled that parental rights belong to both members of a couple, even where an adoption or a legal domestic partnership are lacking. In one of the cases, a lesbian, "K.M.," sought parental rights over her former partner's children who were conceived using K.M.'s ova. But K.M. had signed a waiver of parental rights when she donated the ova. In another case, two lesbians went to court in Los Angeles County to declare joint parental status over one partner's unborn children. After the women split, the mother successfully challenged the pre-birth agreement in court. In the third case, a lesbian mother demanded child support from her former lover who helped raise her children and even claimed them as dependents for taxes and insurance.
These decisions may presage how the state supreme court will rule on the status of homosexual marriage in California. "If these cases are any indication," Mathew Staver of the Libery Counsel told the August 23 New York Times, "it makes it look like they're tending toward recognition of gay marriage."
A BILL THAT WOULD LEGALIZE same-sex marriage was approved by the California state senate on September 1 and the state assembly five days later. AB 849, sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Leno, changes the legal definition of marriage from "a civil contract between a man and a woman" to "a civil contract between two persons." Though through Proposition 22, California voters in 2000 said that marriage is defined as a union between a man and woman, Assemblyman Leno has said that such language only applies to marriages contracted outside the state. Given their respective votes, a majority in both the senate and the assembly agree with the San Francisco assemblyman.
In June, a similar bill, sponsored by Leno, was defeated by four votes in the assembly. In late June, Leno used the gut-and-amend process in which an older bill can become the vehicle for another bill it closely resembles in content to reintroduce his same-sex marriage bill, this time in the state senate. The old AB 849, which was before the senate, dealt with marine fisheries research. Leno told the August 26 San Francisco Chronicle that he thought his bill had a better chance of passing than it did in June, especially because of the recent supreme court decision granting homosexual couples equal guardianship of children. Homosexual couples "are considered no different than married couples with regards to responsibility for children," Leno said.
Leno's bill passed the senate 21 votes to 15. In the Assembly, no Republican voted for the bill while 41 Democrats supported it. Four Democrats opposed the bill, while two abstained. Two key votes in favor of the bill came from Tom Umberg (a Catholic) of Anaheim and Gloria Negrete-McLeod of Chino. Both had abstained in June.
STATE SENATOR SHEILA KUEHL (D-Santa Monica) haled the passage of the bill. "Gay and lesbian people fall in love," she said. "We settle down. We commit our lives to one another. We raise our children. We protect them. We try to be good citizens. This is a bill whose time has come."But Senator Tom McClintock (R-San Fernando Valley) said, "can't you see that marriage is a fundamentally different institution? Marriage is the institution by which we propagate our species and inculcate our young."
VETO. A day after the senate voted to approve the same-sex marriage bill, the Governor Arnold Schwarz enegger's spokeswoman Margita Thompson announced in a prepared statement that Schwarzenegger would veto it. "The governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action -- which would be unconstitutional -- but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state," said the statement. "We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote." But, said the statement, the governor "believes that gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against."
Schwarzenegger's popularity has been plummeting of late, according to polls. Whether his veto will help him with any but his Republican base remains to be seen. According to an August poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, 68 percent of Republicans in California oppose same-sex marriage (56 percent of Democrats support it.) But the public at large is divided, the poll indicated; of those who will vote in November, 46 percent support legalizing same-sex marriage while 46 percent oppose it.
CALIFORNIANS COULD TAKE PRIDE in their state legislature, approving homosexual marriage as it did, if it weren't for Governor Schwarz enegger, said an unsigned Los Angeles Times editorial. According to the September 8 editorial, in vetoing the bill, "the governor is disingenuously claiming that the Legislature has overturned the intent of voters who, in 2000, passed Proposition 22." Though the text of Proposition 22 read, "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California," the Times editorial explained that the proposition had nothing to do with marriages contracted in the state but "with recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other states." (Why voters would object to homosexual marriages contracted in other states but not in California is a mystery to which the Times did not provide the key.) The fact that Schwarzenegger would leave the question of same-sex marriage to the voters and the courts, "not mere lawmakers," said the editorial, makes one wonder, "does he not believe in the American system of representative democracy?"
The governor's argument that same-sex marriage is being forced on the public by lawmakers and judges is "incoherent," said the Times. That homosexual marriage "is being foisted on anyone is dubious," according to the editorial, for "until early Wednesday morning, in fact, opponents were fond of pointing out that no legislature had ever approved same-sex marriage." But now that the California legislature has approved it, opponents "are reduced, like the governor himself, to demanding the intervention of those same courts that just a few days ago were supposedly stacked with liberal activists."
But no branch of government has final say, said the Times. "Even the majority, as the founders recognized, must be prevented from tyrannizing the minority; just because most voters agree on something doesn't mean it's right." But the courts will decide whether a ban on same-sex marriage violates the state constitution's equal protection clause, said the editorial, and the decision will be probably not be what Schwarzenegger wants (though what he wants is unclear, for the editorial says the governor is said to "favor gay marriage personally.") But that outcome, whatever it is, is inevitable, the editorial declared; "it's only a question of timing." And when the court does make its inevitable decision, "judges will be reaffirming the Legislature's intent."
"WHO AM I?" Alex Rivas asked his two-year-old son.
"Daddy," the child replied.
"What else am I?" Rivas asked.
"Mama."
Three years ago, Rivas decided he would become a woman to show his "true self," the July 30 Riverside Press Enterprise reported. He began to dress like a woman, until about a year ago, when going through divorce proceedings, his lawyer advised him to adopt male dress. Last year, so attired, he volunteered in his older son's classroom at Temescal Valley Elementary School, south of Corona. He wanted to do so again this school year, but in drag. (He has been seen, when bringing his first-grade son to school, dressed in a bright orange t-shirt and a white and orange floral skirt, and sporting teardrop-shaped earrings and pink lipstick.)
Several parents, however, have protested Rivas' presence in the classroom; about 20 parents met with school officials during the last week of July to convince them to remove him as an aide. The parents say that the transformed Rivas will confuse their children; after all, he was a man last year and this year he is, well, a man dressed as a woman (though his hormone treatments will gradually make him appear to be a member of the fair sex.) Rivas, though, said he didn't think the parents had anything to worry about. "After a while, they will get used to it and think it's normal," he said. "But if [the parents] make a big deal out of it, they will make them prejudiced."
School officials, who, Rivas said, supported his decision to move woman-ward, it appears, will do little to accommodate parents' concerns for one reason, at least: in 2000 the California legislature passed the Student Safety and Violence Prevention Act, which prohibits discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation. Parents, however, have said they may send their children to another public school or to private school if Rivas continues as a classroom aide.
NO PDA. A 17-year-old Garden Grove high school student is suing the Garden Grove Unified School District because, she claims, officials at Santiago High School disciplined her for hugging and kissing her girlfriend on campus, the September 8 Los Angeles Times reported. Charlene Nguon, a senior, says that nothing in the school handbook forbids such public displays of affection and school officials do not take similar action against heterosexual students. According to the lawsuit, Santiago High principal Ben Wolf eventually told Nguon's mother about her daughter's relationship with another girl and, in March, both students had to attend separate schools. Nguon's grades have suffered because of the transfer to Bolsa Grande High School, the lawsuit alleges. This summer, Nguon's lawyers met with Santiago High School officials, and Nguon was allowed to re-enroll at Santiago.
Nguon filed the lawsuit along with her mother and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network; she is being represented by the ACLU. Along with unspecified damages, the lawsuit seeks district policy changes prohibiting administrators from revealing to parents their child's sexual orientation and selectively discriminating against homosexual students.
"A SOLID SOCIETY is born ... from the commitment of all its members, but it has need of the blessing and support of that God who, unfortunately, is often excluded and ignored," said Pope Benedict XVI on August 31 in an address on Psalm 126 (127). "The Book of Proverbs," he continued, "underlines the primacy of divine action for the well-being of a community and it does so in a radical way, affirming that 'the blessing of the Lord makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it' (Proverbs 10:22)." Though man labors "to support his family and to serve the development of society," said Benedict, "the psalmist does not hesitate to affirm that all this labor is useless if God is not beside the one who labors.... In serene and faithful abandonment of our freedom to the Lord, our works also become solid, capable of lasting fruit."
Speaking of the psalm's exaltation of the gift of children, referring to them "as arrows in the hand of a powerful man, so are the children of one's youth," "the Lord," said the pope, "gives the gift of children, seen as a blessing and grace, a sign of life that continues and of the history of salvation moving toward new stages." The psalm's image of a father "surrounded by his children, who is greeted with respect at the gate of the city, seat of public life," shows, said Benedict, that "procreation is ... a gift bearing life and well-being for society." We are even aware of this truth "in our days in the face of nations that are deprived, by the demographic loss, of freshness, vitality and the future incarnated in children," said the pope.
TWO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PRELATES were chosen by the Holy See's Pontifical Council for the Laity to lead catechetical sessions at World Youth Day, August 16-21, in Cologne, Germany. According to an August 12 Catholic News Service report, Cardinal Roger Mahony and Orange auxiliary bishop Jaime Soto joined several other U.S. bishops and cardinals in addressing English-language catechetical groups. The U.S. delegation included Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee, and Ukrainian archbishop Stefan Soroka from Philadelphia. Bishops from outside the United States who also addressed American pilgrims were Cardinal George Pell of Australia, Cardinal Francis Arinze (prefect of the Vatican's liturgy congregation), Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of South Africa, and Bishop Terrence Prendergast of Canada.
A BALLOT MEASURE for the November 8 election would require public employee unions to obtain written permission from their members each year before their dues money could be spent for political purposes, the August 14 Los Angeles Times reported. Proposition 75, if passed, would affect teachers, prison guards, and other local and state workers. Supporters of the measure say that many conservative members object to the fact that their unions direct political monies to candidates and causes to which the members object. Most of these monies go to Democratic candidates. Opponents of the proposition, however, say that it would weaken public employees' political clout and further erode union influence in the state.
Similar measures in other states have dramatically reduced unions' political funds, though in Washington state, for instance, a similar measure targeted political contributions to candidates alone, allowing unions to use funds for ballot measures without the membership's approval. Proposition 75, however, would apply to all union political funds, including those directed to ballot measures. James Galley, a Catholic and a San Diego city employee, said his AFL-CIO local has "contributed to organizations that endorse gay, lesbian and pro-choice measures." According to the Montana-based Institute on Money in State Politics, California's public and private unions contributed 5.7 percent of the money received by state candidates last year, while various business interests -- including finance, insurance, real estate, construction, agriculture -- contributed 13.7 percent of state candidates' war chests. "Labor money tends to be dwarfed by the aggregate money by business interests," the institute's Edwin Bender said.
As of August, the yes on Proposition 75 campaign had raised $1 million, including $200,000 from the Republican party and $555,000 from the Small Business Action Committee, which the Times called "a Schwarz enegger-aligned group that is funded primarily by large corporations and wealthy businessmen." A union coalition, the Alliance for Better California, had raised $10 million to fight this and six other ballot measures, with large donations from the California Teachers Association and the state chapters of the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union.
In related news, unions have begun signature gathering for a proposition that would require corporations to get their shareholders' approval before spending money on political campaigns.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH'S 2002 "No Child Left Behind" education bill contained a provision that is getting increased attention. The provision requires high schools that receive federal money to provide student contact information to military recruiters as well as give them the same access to high school campuses that college recruiters and, in some cases, employers have. The law specifies that schools must withhold the names of students if their parents sign an opt-form; however, most parents do not know either that recruiters receive their children's contact information or that opt-out form is an option.
A movement to spread the word about the "No Child Left Behind" policy and the opt-out provision is growing in California, according to the August 7 Los Angeles Times. In Santa Ana, a group of women has formed to inform parents of the government policy; in Sylmar, students stage a delete-your-name campaign whenever recruiters come to their campus; and a group in Pacific Palisades distributes opt-out forms to students in a dozen area high schools.
The United States military is having an increasingly harder time filling its quota of recruits. Between October 1, 2004 and June 1, 2005, the army needed 55,000 enlistees but fell 7,800 soldiers short of that goal. The Army National Guard fell 10,000 short of its required 45,000 enlistees. However, the Army blames the shortfall on the allegedly improving economy and the Iraq war -- not on "counter-enlistment" forces.
TO RAISE RECRUITMENT, the military is turning to television to appeal to parents to let their children join the armed forces, the August 13 Chicago Tribune reported. The message spread by a series of television advertisements to parents is "help them find their strength." One advertisement, "Dinner Conversation," features a black teenage boy telling his mother that he has found a way to pay for his college education -- the military. Skeptically the mother says, "go on," and continues to express disapproval.
"I already checked them out," the boy says. "And I can get training in about any field I want. "And besides," he adds, "it's time for me to be the man."
This mollifies the mother somewhat, who says, "OK, tell me more."
Two other advertisements, one for the Army and another for the Army Reserve, feature white fathers and sons. Another advertisement is in Spanish. The advertisements were scheduled to run 4,000 times from July until September. In early August, the Army announced that it would open up a competition among at least six companies for an advertising contract of more than $1 billion -- the largest government advertising contract ever, according to the Tribune.
ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH in Newport Beach, which separated itself from the Los Angeles diocese of the Episcopal Church last year, will be able to keep its church property, an Orange County superior court judge ruled on August 15. St. James and All Saints Episcopal in Long Beach withdrew from the jurisdiction of Episcopal bishop J. Jon Bruno over the Episcopal Church's doctrinal deviations -- its ambiguity on the necessity of confessing Christ for salvation and the ordination of the active homosexual V. Gene Robinson as Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. St. James has remained in the Anglican communion, coming under the jurisdiction of Bishop Evans Kisekka of the Anglican diocese of Luwero in Uganda.
In court, the diocese of Los Angeles argued that St. James held the church property, including buildings and even hymnals, in trust for the diocese and had to hand it over when it split with the diocese. But Judge David Velasquez ruled that the diocese failed to show that it had ever had title to St. James' property or that St. James had held it in trust. In response to the diocese's appeal to canon law, Velasquez wrote, "California courts are not bound by canon law" but have followed "neutral principles of law" in resolving church disputes. Velasquez referred to the First Amendment, arguing that St. James was exercising its right to free speech. "The views expressed by the defendants concern matters of public interest," the judge wrote. "How churches in America are reacting to the different viewpoints of homosexuality is currently a topic of much public significance."
Though the fight is not over (the diocese said it will appeal the ruling), the court decision is significant, according to the Rev. Canon David Anderson of the American Anglican Council, an Atlanta-based organization which assists churches leaving the Episcopalian church. The decision, said Anderson, "gives great encouragement to Episcopalians and people of other Christian denominations that hold to the fact that the local congregation that buys the property and buildings does, in fact, own their property."
ADVOCATES FOR VICTIMS of sexual abuse by priests have criticized Archbishop Levada, now prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, for his handling of the abusive priests in both Portland and San Francisco, the August 3 Los Angeles Times reported. Another case has recently stirred up more criticism of Levada. In 1991 a Redemptorist seminarian, Arturo Uribe, had an affair with a woman, Stephanie Collopy, while he served at a Portland parish. Uribe is currently pastor of Our Lady of the Assumption parish in Whittier. Collopy became pregnant, and the affair ended; but the then-26-year-old Collopy went to court seeking child support from Uribe and to sue the archdiocese of Portland for $200,000 because Uribe, as a seminarian working in a archdiocesan parish, had, she claimed, breached the fiduciary duty he owed to someone who "performed pastoral duties for the archdiocese." The archdiocese, then under Archbishop Levada, had the case thrown out of court. Since it had never directly employed Collopy, the archdiocese said, she and Uribe alone were responsible for the child, and Collopy was negligent since she engaged in "unprotected sex."
Did Levada suggest that Collopy should have used birth control? No, said Richard Kuhn, a Portland lawyer who handled the case for the archdiocese of Portland. According to an August 11 Associated Press report, Levada, said Kuhn, simply signed paperwork; the birth control defense, Kuhn said, was his own. "It certainly had nothing to do with the archbishop at the time, and nothing to do with church doctrine," said Kuhn. "It was just a defense I raised." Kuhn said he doubted that the archbishop had received a copy of the pleading and that, to the best of his knowledge, he worked entirely with the archdiocese's risk management department. "The archbishop shouldn't be criticized for something I did that didn't have anything to do with Catholic doctrine," Kuhn said. "It would be a different story if we sat down together and said, 'Let's do this.' " Bud Bunce, director of communications for the Portland archdiocese, agreed, saying Levada "had no input" in the legal arguments.
GREGORY ELDER, the former Anglican priest who will be ordained to the Catholic priesthood in the diocese of San Bernardino, explained his journey to the Catholic faith in the July 28 installment of "Daily Facts," a column published in the Los Angeles Daily News. Elder has made national news as the first married Catholic priest in the diocese of San Bernardino. Elder related how he had been ordained an Episcopal priest in 1983 and, despite his conversion, still has "nothing but fond memories of my service in the Anglican Communion." In 2003, he said he was "convinced that it was impossible that a merciful Christ would allow the vast majority of Christians who call on his name, both over the centuries and today, to be led into gross error," and so it was he "left the beautiful and gracious house of faith I was raised in and entered the huge and complex basilica which is the Roman Catholic Church."
Under a "seldom-used rule" established by Pope John Paul II, Elder applied for ordination to the Catholic priesthood. Since only the pope could grant the dispensation for the ordination of a married man, said Elder, he, sponsored by San Bernardino's Bishop Gerald Barnes, applied to Rome. "My applications seemed to languish," he said, "but this was not the case."
By the time of Pope John Paul's funeral, Elder had heard nothing of his application and "was almost certain that my cause would be delayed indefinitely, and perhaps terminated. Years of spiritual struggle seemed to have come to naught." But Cardinal Josef Ratzinger had taken up Elder's cause, and 12 days before he died, Pope John Paul approved Elder's application.
Elder said the date of his ordination has not been set. He explained that, as a married priest, he will not be able to "transfer" his priesthood "outside the United States without papal approval" and that he will not serve as a pastor. If his wife should die, Elder said, he may not remarry, and his canon law tutor told him that he would kick Elder "in a most fundamental manner" if ever he should divorce his wife -- "but that was nothing in comparison to what she threatened to do in such an unlikely event," Elder said.
ELDER CONTINUED that the media have asked him whether his case means the Church will one day change its "general policy on the ordination of married men." No, Elder said, explaining that "exceptions to the rule are made every few centuries, but the rule has and almost certainly will remain. Anglican priests who left Catholicism at the Reformation in the 16th century and French Catholic priests who were forced to marry in the French Revolution of the 18th century were allowed to return to the church and keep their wives, but the general rule remained." Elder continued, "many people have asked me what my own views on the law of clergy celibacy are. The answer is that I have none.... My own view is that I personally have absolutely no moral right to pontificate to a celibate community how they should live their lives for better or worse. On the question of marriage or celibacy in the priesthood, I can only recall the words which St. Francis of Assisi said on his deathbed: 'I have done what is mine to do. May God show you what you are to do.'"
Will other Episcopalians follow Elder into the Church? "To this I can simply say that I do not know and I cannot read the future," Elder said. "Some might join us, most will not. I have had a number of quiet inquiries from ministers and their wives and from laity about our pilgrimage." But all those, he said, remain "totally confidential."
IN WHAT SOME CALLED an attempt to recover past glory, the United Farm Workers union once again took on one of the largest table grape growers in the world, Giumarra Vineyards, the August 31 Los Angeles Times reported. Forty years ago this year, Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers began a grape strike against Giumarra; five years later, the late John Giumarra, Sr., signed a United Farm Workers contract, ending the strike. Three years later, however, the contract expired; and since then, though it has continued to represent a shrinking number of farm workers, the union has not won a major victory in 35 years. This year, the union hoped, the record would change and that it could convince a majority of Giumarra workers to vote to join the union.
Among the causes of the union's new attempts to organize Giumarra workers are five deaths of field workers in the San Joaquin Valley over the past year; two of these deaths occurred in Giumarra's fields -- Asuncion Valdivia last summer and Augustine Gudino this past July. Giumarra workers, too, pack grapes into boxes, under the hot sun, on their knees, while other growers provide tables with umbrellas where the workers can stand sheltered from the sun. According to the company's vice president, John Giumarra, Jr., "many of the workers prefer the way we pack as opposed to standing all day long. Certainly it's not something that can be changed overnight."
According to the Times, Giumarra workers have to lug grapes on their shoulders, while other growers provide wheelbarrows. Workers -- many of whom are undocumented immigrants -- charge that as trainees they work the first week without pay; the company denies this. Workers say that even after eight and ten years of work, they still make an hourly wage little above minimum wage plus ten cents bonus for each box.
One worker, Aguileo Rangel, told the Times that he, his wife, and eldest son (the Rangels have three children), earn $175 a day during peak harvest; this comes to about $1,050 for a six-day work week. Their room and board come to $850 a month. Rangel's son recently collapsed in the fields, working in 104-degree heat; he suffered from West Nile Virus and heat stress. "No matter how hot it is, they make us work this fast," said Rangel, snapping his fingers quickly. "A man like me can take it. I pick 40 boxes a day by myself. But the older and younger ones need to be treated more humanely."
In a campaign against the United Farm Workers, Giumarra Vineyards passed out fliers to workers saying the union would take two percent of workers wages for dues and use them to do nothing more than support a political agenda that includes support for homosexual marriage.
GIUMARRA OFFICIALS told workers that working conditions would improve more quickly if they did not unionize, the September 2 Los Angeles Times reported. Company fliers told workers, as well, that a furniture store in Bakersfield went out of business after its workers had joined the United Farm Workers. The union claims, however, that before the September 1 election, in which a narrow majority of Giumarra workers apparently voted against joining the union, the company threatened workers working in vineyards in Edison. Giumarra allegedly told workers they might lose their company housing if they unionized, that undocumented workers might be fired, and that the company might decide to switch from growing table to wine grapes, which is less labor intensive. The United Farm Workers has brought these complaints before the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which will decide if they have merit. Giumarra denies the charges.
In the September 1 election, workers cast 1246 votes against, and 1121 in favor, of joining the United Farm Workers. The union challenged 171 ballots, so the vote fell to the labor relations board for review, a process that could take weeks.
THE UNITED FARM WORKERS, however, won a contract for workers at Gallo Vineyard's Sonoma Valley operations, the September 14 Los Angeles Times reported. The contract, which concerns 308 of Gallo's employees and contract workers, followed a boycott of Gallo wine that the union called for in June. Under the new contract, Gallo workers' base wage will rise 9.5 percent to $8.98 an hour in a year and a half. Direct employees will receive a 70 percent reduction in health insurance premium co-payments. Contract workers, for the first time, will be able to file grievances over discipline and seniority issues and will have $400 bonus in lieu of medical coverage. The United Farm Workers sees the Gallo contract as a first step in increasing its presence in the wine industry. The union currently has about 1,100 members in the wine industry statewide.
CHURCH LAWYERS in San Diego are trying to get a federal court to declare unconstitutional a 2003 California state law that removed the statute of limitations in civil cases involving sexual abuse, the August 29 San Diego Union-Tribune reported. In 2003, the United States Supreme Court struck down a California law that removed the statute of limitations in criminal cases involving sexual abuse of minors but did not touch civil cases. A case before Judge William Hayes in U.S. district court in San Diego has allowed the Church its opportunity to get this law overturned.
The case involves a woman from Escondido who is suing the Sisters of the Precious Blood in Ohio over molestation accusations against a priest involved with the order; the priest also worked for the San Diego diocese. The California Conference of Catholic Bishops has joined the diocese in requesting a constitutional review of the state law, as have the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the diocese of San Bernardino. Lawyers for the Church argue that the law unfairly targets the Catholic Church and prevents an effective defense, since the cases are so old, many of their principle actors are dead, and relevant documents may have been destroyed. "When you turn back the clock and deal with 70-year-old cases and 30-year-old cases, you are at a complete disadvantage in seeking the truth," J. Michael Hennigan, a lawyer representing the San Diego diocese, said.
Defenders of the law, including Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, have submitted documents in the case before Hayes, which, they claim, show how the diocese knowingly shuffled priests who abused minors from parish to parish.
AMONG THE DOCUMENTS is a sworn declaration from a priest convicted of molesting children. Edward Anthony Rodrigue, who is serving a ten-year sentence for child molestation at Corcoran state prison, served as a priest for the San Diego and San Bernardino dioceses from the late '60s until 1991, when he resigned. About 19 men have sued either the San Bernardino or San Diego dioceses, alleging that Rodrigue had molested them when they were boys. Riverside and San Bernardino counties were part of the San Diego diocese until 1978, when the San Bernardino diocese was formed.
According to the August 11 Riverside Press-Enterprise, Rodrigue said he was accused of inappropriately touching a boy in 1972 at Eagle Mountain but was then reassigned to parishes in Heber, Calexico, and El Centro. Because an incident with altar boys in 1975, Rodrigue said he was moved from El Centro. He said he met with San Diego's Bishop Maher in 1976, who sent the priest for treatment and afterwards reassigned him to St. George's parish in Ontario.
In 1979, Rodrigue pleaded no contest to charges of child molestation in Ontario and was placed on three-years' probation under the supervision of the first bishop of the San Bernardino diocese, Philip Straling. After undergoing treatment, Rodrigue said Straling sent him to St. Joseph the Worker parish in Loma Linda. Rodrigue said he then underwent more treatment in New Mexico and in Cherry Valley, where he remained until 1985. He resigned from the priesthood in 1991 and in 1998 pled no contest to charges that he had molested an 11-year-old boy in Highland. During the investigation for this case, Rodrigue told detectives that during his 20-year priesthood, he molested five or six boys a year.
San Diego diocesan attorney J. Michael Hennigan said Rodrigue's declaration is not sufficient to prove that church authorities had been neglectful. "Because everybody who was associated with the decisions on the part of the diocese is (now) deceased, we are left to speculate about their knowledge, understanding and motivation through the words of this obviously troubled man," Hennigan said. "There is clarity of 20/20 hindsight in all of this," Father Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the San Bernardino diocese said. "We're very sorry for the actions of Anthony Rodrigue. His conduct was reprehensible and tragic. Under our current zero-tolerance policy, he would have been permanently removed from all ministry in our diocese."
"THEY ARE TRYING TO INFLUENCE the jury pool and maintain a level of anger in the community that is inappropriate in civil proceedings," Donald Woods, an attorney for the archdiocese of Los Angeles, said of a court order to unseal testimony in sexual abuse lawsuits. According to the Ontario Daily Bulletin, Los Angeles superior court judge Haley Fromholz on August 30 ruled that depositions of 13 witnesses in cases involving the archdiocese and the dioceses of San Bernardino and San Diego should be opened to public scrutiny; only names will be redacted from the documents. Said Fromholz, "there is a great deal of public interest" in the sexual abuse cases against the dioceses. Those groups opposing the diocese of San Diego in the lawsuit filed in the district court in San Diego hope that these released documents might help bolster their case.
Though lawyers for the archdiocese decry Fromholz's ruling, Wilfrid Lemann, who represents the San Bernardino diocese, did not complain. "We work very hard to be open and accountable," he said.
THE STATE WILL COMMIT $50 MILLION in funds to build housing for chronically homeless people, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced August 31. The state will use money earmarked for mental health services and housing and so will become eligible for further federal funds for similar projects, the governor said. According to Schwarz enegger, the home less measure will be part of a collaboration of private agencies, the state, and local and federal government and will aid in establishing an interagency council to deal with homeless ness. According to the September 1 Los Angeles Times, California has been only one of three states which does not have such an interagency council.
WAGE HIKE. The California legislature voted September 7 to raise the minimum wage by one dollar an hour, the September 8 Los Angeles Times reported. Three Republicans joined the Democrat majority in support of the bill. The measure would raise the state minimum wage from $6.75 to $7.25 an hour in July 2006 and then add another 50 cents to that rate in July 2007. In addition, the measure indexes the minimum wage to inflation.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger indicated in early September that he would veto the bill, as he did a similar bill, which did not include the price-indexing provision, last year. Last year, the governor said, "now is not the time to create barriers to our economic recovery." This year, according to his spokeswoman, Margita Thompson, "the governor's biggest concern is this indexing component, because it takes away the government's ability to be flexible to the state's economic indicators." According to some, Schwarz enegger told the legislature that he would agree to raising the minimum wage by one dollar over the next two years if the Democrats agreed to dropping automatic indexing increases. The governor also wanted more employees classified as managers, so they would not have to be paid overtime, and an exemption from overtime of employees who work four ten-hour, rather than five eight-hour, days a week.
ACCORDING TO THE SEPTEMBER 8 Times, a minimum-wage worker, working full time without vacations, would earn $14,040 a year, $2,050 below the poverty level for a family of three. According to the California Budget Project, a non-profit organization that favors raising the minimum wage rate, 1.4 million Californians last year earned no more than one dollar over minimum wage. The Project also claims 59 percent of those earning less than $7.74 an hour last year worked at least 35 hours a week, and 65 percent of these were at lest 25 years old.
THE PACIFIC JUSTICE INSTITUTE has filed a federal lawsuit in Orange County on behalf of a man who claims he suffered unjust workplace discrimination for his political convictions, LifeSiteNews.com reported on August 24. Since his supervisors reportedly have allowed his co-workers to post personal political and religious messages in their cubicles, the plaintiff posted a bumper sticker, "Marriage = man + woman." When his supervisor ordered him to remove the bumper sticker because it was deemed "offensive," the plaintiff complied. Still, he claims he was reprimanded and demoted.
The Pacific Justice Institute contacted the plaintiff's employer, informing him that his actions violated federal and state law. When the employer refused to settle the dispute amicably, the Pacific Justice Institute filed the federal suit.