RELIGION IS IN: On June 6, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals reversed 20 years of bad precedent and decided to allow a church to use public school facilities that are available to secular groups in Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education. "This court saw the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in 2001, Good News Club v. Milford, and decided there had been a sea change," said Jordan Lorence, a lawyer with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund. "The federal appeals court reversed the New York City School Board’s policy that singled out religious instruction and worship from school buildings open to other community groups. The court struck down this discriminatory religious gerrymandering." The church had lost a previous case-but that was before Good News Club, in which the Alliance Defense Fund was involved.
STILL THERE: Despite all the attention focused on Islamic fundamentalism, the Communist Chinese regime is still around and still a threat to people at home and abroad. Even the United Nations has noticed China’s abysmal human rights record. On June 4, Rep. Christopher Cox (R.-Calif.), two Democratic congressmen, and others called attention to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s finding that "China has violated Dr. Yang Jianli’s rights as a citizen of China and a resident of the United States by detaining him in a Chinese prison for over a year with no access to family or a lawyer," according to Cox’s office. Said Cox, "Dr. Yang has been illegally held for over a year. The Communist government’s refusal to give an official reason for the detainment is a violation of the PRC’s own laws. We will continue to fight in Congress and around the world for the swift release of Dr. Yang Jianli."
AIR FORCE STAYS JUST: Continuing their refusal to cave in to politically correct demands from politicians and the media to punish Air Force leaders and cadets before guilt is established, Air Force leaders said last month that they are continuing their investigation into sexual assault charges at the Air Force Academy. Air Force Secretary James Roche, who has been nominated by President Bush to be secretary of the Army, said that the academy’s former top officials will face punishment only if misconduct is shown. So far, the academy’s top officials have only been reassigned. And Amy McCarthy, a 1982 academy graduate and member of the panel investigating the sexual assault allegations, violated PC orthodoxy by suggestion that some of the women involved may be lying. "Due to the fact that many of the women making the allegations were involved with drinking, partying, strip poker-what I call high-risk behaviors-my personal opinion is that a number of these allegations or the veracity of these allegations may be suspect," she told AP Radio.
KUCINICH KEEPS GOING: "We have to stop this march toward war," long-shot presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) said May 27 about the Bush Administration’s policy toward Iran during a campaign stop in Sacramento. "It is one hoax after another in the name of international security. . . .As President of the United States, I’m going to create an America that works and cooperates with the world in matters of international security." The problem was, according to Scripps-Howard, that there were "only two journalists and a handful of onlookers present."
ONLY WHITE MEN, PLEASE: Adding more evidence to Republicans’ charges that Democrats oppose qualified minority and female nominees when they are conservative in order to keep such constituencies on their plantation, Carolyn Kuhl is now facing strong opposition from Senate Democrats to her nomination to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "The key issue cited by Kuhl’s opponents, one of the President’s most qualified nominees with bench experience, is her involvement on a brief of an abortion-rights case, Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, while working for the U.S. Department of Justice in the 1980s. . .," reported the Committee for Justice (CFJ). "Yet in 2002-just months ago-Democrats gave a free pass to 6th Circuit nominee John Rogers, who contributed substantially to the Thornburgh brief while at the U.S. Department of Justice with Kuhl in the 1980s. Not only was Rogers not asked about the brief during his confirmation hearing, he was confirmed by unanimous consent on the Senate floor." Said CFJ Chairman C. Boyden Gray, "As with the current filibusters of nominees Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen, Senate liberals continue to hold ethnic minorities and women to a different standard than white males."
