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Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
OCTOBER 2002

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BILL SIMON'S FLIP-FLOP? Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon "has softened his position on domestic partnership laws," according to an August 28 San Francisco Chronicle report. According to a Campaign for California Families news release, Simon signed a pledge on February 6, 2002 in which he said he would "refuse to support 'domestic partnerships,' 'civil unions,' or any kind of relationship that compares itself to the sacred bond of marriage between a man and a woman." Yet, as reported by the Chronicle, in a questionnaire from the Log Cabin Republicans (a pro-homosexual group), Simon said in August that, though he stands by the February statement, he believes "that human beings enter into relationships with other human beings and that some of those relationships are deserving of recognition, not as the equivalent to marriage or as a substitute for marriage, but in order to allow two individuals who have established a strong caring relationship to more fully function within that relationship." Simon, though, stated that he did "not believe that sexual orientation should be a factor in the recognition by the state of such relationships. Simon also said he would not be in favor of undoing any domestic partnership laws passed during the Davis administration; rather, he "would be open about adding rights and responsibilities as would be appropriate and justified."

In the questionnaire, Simon voiced his support for a Gay Pride Day in 2003 and said he would "support the continued recognition and involvement of gay Republicans in state party activities." Simon said he "would back a state party charter for the Log Cabin (Republicans) of California."

Though the Campaign for California Families and other conservative groups were angry over Simon's support for homosexual causes, Senator Ray Haynes defended the Republican candidate. In an article posted on CatholicExchange.com, Haynes wrote that the questions posed by the Log Cabin Republicans "were awkwardly written and mislead many readers of Bill's true position on issues." Haynes said that he spoke to Simon, who said that "unlike other candidates, I will not alter or shade my position based on what I think you want to hear or because it might help me get elected. In the primary campaign I stated that marriage is an institution that should remain between one man and one woman. And that's what I believe."


CHANGE OF HEART? The August 28 San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Rev. Lou Sheldon with the Orange County-based Traditional Values Coalition was disappointed with Simon's answers to the Log Cabin Republicans ' questionnaire. "I spent months with Bill Simon touring Anglo and Hispanic churches where he vowed support for traditional values," Sheldon reportedly said. "His responses on this questionnaire tell me otherwise." Yet, in a September 3 e-mail "Action Alert," Sheldon referred to the Log Cabin questionnaire as "supposedly approved by. Bill Simon." Sheldon then included a letter written by Simon to Ray Haynes in which the gubernatorial candidate said that he continues to support Proposition 22's guarantee that marriage shall refer to a union of man and woman and that he does not believe that "other relationships should be elevated to that of marriage." Simon said he opposes "creating a special class of domestic partnership laws that is defined by sexual orientation or preference" and that he does not support a proclamation for Gay Pride Day.


DID HE, OR DIDN'T HE? Though Simon's letter referred to his "strongly held pro-family views that have recently been mischaracterized," it never stated that the answers to the Log Cabin questionnaire were not his own. The Bakersfield Californian on September 4 reported that the Republican Unity Coalition, formed to promote ties between homosexuals and heterosexuals, dropped Simon from a fundraiser with Mary Cheney, Vice-President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, because the gubernatorial nominee reneged on his support for gay issues voiced in the Log Cabin questionnaire. Simon had been scheduled to appear at the fundraiser with Mary Cheney.

In a September 3 interview on a Los Angeles radio station, Simon distanced himself further from the Log Cabin questionnaire. "The questionnaire," he said, "had not been reviewed completely by myself, I didn't see it. There were certain statements in there that I just can't support." According to the Californian, however, the questionnaire bore Simon's signature.


TAKE A TOKE WITH BILL? The Log Cabin questionnaire has Bill Simon saying that he supports the medical use of marijuana. According to the questionnaire, Simon said, "I supported the medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215, when it was on the ballot in November 1996. I know that the federal government is opposed to the measure. As Governor, I would seek to find common ground with the federal government so that we can avoid politicizing this issue and instead rely on medical evidence in implementing the will of the people of California."


SIMON AND HOME SCHOOLING. A September 9 Los Angeles Times story noted the Bill Simon's support for home schooling. The day after Labor Day, the Times noted, Simon "toured the Calvary Christian Center School in Sacramento, where he complained that state regulations impede home schooling." This is one of the signs, the Times intimated, the Simon was out of touch with California's "moderate voters."


THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE, during its summer session, debated and passed a number of bills which could undermine the family and the protection of human life. One bill (AB 727) would prohibit "anti-abortion extremists" from posting the home addresses of individuals (e.g. abortion clinic doctors) on web sites. Another bill, passed by the senate (AB 2194), would require all hospitals with designated rape crisis centers to offer "emergency contraception" (such as the abortifacient RU-486) to rape victims. Democratic senator Deborah Ortiz (Sacramento) has three pieces of legislation before the senate: one permits the destruction of human embryos for their stem cells (SB 253); the second establishes a panel to advise the state legislature on stem cell research (SCR 55); and the third would ask the United States congress and the president to reject any bills prohibiting stem cell research and the cloning of human embryos for research. Senator Betty Karnette (Democrat, Long Beach) introduced a resolution (SJR 51) asking Congress and the president to reinstate $34 million in funding to the United Nations Population Fund. In July President George W. Busch pulled this funding from the Population Fund because it underwrote coercive population controls in China.


GIVEN GOVERNOR DAVIS' RECORD, several pro-homosexual bills will likely receive his signature. One (AB 2215) grants domestic partners the same inheritance rights as married couples, and another (AB 2777) would grant domestic partners of county employees survivorship benefits equivalent to those enjoyed by spouses of county employees. A third bill expands the category for domestic partners in the probate code (which deals with wills). Another bill (AB 2651) would require foster parents homosexual and "transgendered" children to undergo sensitivity training and would forbid "harassment" of such children (such as, perhaps, taking them to a church which teaches that homosexual acts are immoral).


OPEN DISSENT. Diana Wear, a representative of the Women's Ordination Conference, addressed parishioners at St. Monica's parish in Moraga on August 14 as part of the parish's "adult education and enrichment" program, according to a report from Catholics United Restoring Orthodoxy in Christ Our King. Catholics United calls itself "a coalition of concerned Catholic groups, families, and individuals who are working together to advance and restore authentic Catholicism within the dioceses of Oakland and San Jose." According to its website, the Women's Ordination Conference "works for the ordination of women as priests and bishops into a renewed priestly ministry in the Roman Catholic church."

According to Catholics United, several attendees of Wear's lecture carried signs in protest of her talk. Father Declan Deane, St. Monica's parochial vicar, asked the sign carriers to leave. Eventually, three armed Moraga police officers arrived and escorted the sign carriers out of the church.

Catholics United has petitioned Oakland's Bishop John Cummins to repudiate the Women's Ordination Conference. For more information on Catholics United Restoring Orthodoxy in Christ Our King, call (925) 682-8649, or e-mail philcsevilla@aol.com.


"THIS CAME AT THE WORST POSSIBLE time in the church, but this shows that many people have no intention of leaving their church.... They love their faith," the Rev. James Murphy, spokesman for the Sacramento diocese, told the August 21 Sacramento Bee. Father Murphy was referring to the diocese's fundraising campaign, which raised more than $70 million. When the "Preserving Our Past. Protecting Our Future" campaign was launched last September, the diocese set the more modest goal of $50 million. Despite the clergy molestation scandals that arose in the intervening months, however, donations to the campaign exceeded expectations.

According to the Bee, the money raised by the campaign will go to a variety of projects, including the construction of a home for retired priests, the renovation of diocesan schools and parishes and restoration of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, in downtown Sacramento.


TO RESTORE AND UPDATE. Around $10 million of the $70 million of the diocese of Sacramento's capital fund will go to restoring Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, according to August edition of the Catholic Herald, the organ of the diocese of Sacramento. The diocese will supply the balance to the overall cost of $20 million. According to the Herald, the restoration of the cathedral, built in 1889, "will include structural reinforcement, restoration of the original dome, renovation of the chapels, lowering the east nave, revitalization of Cathedral Square at the extension of 11th Street, and reconstruction of the lower level."

But the cathedral's "worship space," it seems, will get more of an updating than a restoration. Henry Hallenbeck, the director of the renovation, told the Herald that "the centerpiece will be a new chapel at the east end of the church." Another change, the Herald noted, "will allow for a more flowing circulation around the altar."

The diocesan website, under the heading "Liturgical Opportunities," makes note of liturgical deficiencies which, presumably, the renovation will amend. "The primary liturgical elements, the Altar, Ambo, Cathedra, Tabernacle, Baptismal Font and Ambry, and the Reconciliation Chapels, are not well positioned and do not serve today's liturgy as well as they should," says the website. "The Gathering (and Sending) space is not well designed to provide a place for this activity." and "the Main Level has no toilet facilities."


"THIS IS THE BISHOP'S CHURCH, and in the office of bishop is found the fullness of Jesus Christ. One would expect to find the fullest expression of worship. for parish communities gathered at the mother church," said Christian Brother William Woeger, the liturgical design consultant for the renovation of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Sacramento. Woeger, the director for worship for the archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska, "has served," according to the Catholic Herald, "as a consultant nationally for more than 20 new church construction projects, nearly 30 church renovations, and numerous icon commissions." He is also the recipient of a number of art and architecture awards.

What Brother William has in mind for the mother church of the diocese has not been spelled out. His bent, though, seems anything but traditional. Brother William served as liturgical consultant for the "Worship Center" of St. Stephen's Catholic Community in Old Hickory, Tennessee. According to St. Stephens website, "the Center is one of the finest expressions of the guidelines contained in Environment and Art in Catholic Worship set forth by the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy in 1978." Never approved by the Vatican (and soon to be replaced by another U.S. bishops' document, Domus Dei), Environment and Art is responsible for many of the anti-traditional tendencies of modern church design, such as placing the altar in a more central position among the congregants, removing specific religious imagery, and relegating the Blessed Sacrament to a side chapel.

Woeger also shared the rostrum with the radical liturgical consultant Father Richard Vosko and with Cardinal Mahony and Archbishop Rembert Weakland at a conference entitled "Cathedrals for a New Century, Church Architecture at the Beginning of the Third Millenium," held at Notre Dame University in October 2001.


NINE MEN, CLAIMING they were molested by a Sacramento diocesan priest, have filed a lawsuit against the diocese in Sacramento superior court, according to an August 29 San Francisco Chronicle report. The men, ranging in age from 36 to 46, claim that the Rev. Mario Blanco had committed acts of fondling and sodomy on them in the early 1970s. Blanco served in the diocese from 1969 to 1973, when he was ordered out of the diocese. It is unknown what became of Blanco, but he is believed to be dead. Blanco, is one of 14 Sacramento diocesan priests who have been accused of sexually molesting minors over the past 30 years.


THE AUGUST 29 CHRONICLE also reported that the archdiocese of San Francisco has initiated a "zero tolerance" policy towards priests who have sexually abused minors. The new policy spares no guilty priest, even if he had been guilty of only a single act of molestation decades ago and has since repented. Thus far, the archdiocese has suspended at least seven priests under this policy.


PRO-ABORTION HAWK. Democratic U.S. Representative Tom Lantos addressed about 50 Catholic lay leaders at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco on August 26. According to Catholic San Francisco, the organ for the archdiocese of San Francisco, Representative Lantos told attendees that the Catholic just war theory needed updating because "in 2002, we are in a totally different world."

Lantos, a proponent of animal rights who voted against the partial birth abortion ban in Congress, said that the just war theory must move beyond the 17th century when, said Lantos, it was formulated. September 11 changed many things, he said. "It is as if the principle of gravity has been overturned," said Lantos. "Nobody declared war.... Al Qaeda has no address. You cannot punish them by going to their capital. They have no capital." Still, the San Mateo representative insisted, the United States must defend itself. "As long as it takes and wherever it takes us," said Lantos, the United States must not allow such an attack to happen again. The unconventional warfare of the period after September 11 makes it necessary to "rethink thinking that is prisoner to the 17th century."


WHAT DOES PLANNED PARENTHOOD PROMOTE? Chronicle Books and Alexis Bakery of Napa hosted a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, Shasta-Diablo on Friday, August 23, called the "Bad Girl's Guide to the Party Life" Party. According to the Responsible Choices Action Network newsletter, this event offered "an evening of music, food and drinks with best-selling author Cameron Tuttle, who will sign copies of her newest guide from the Bad Girl's series." Tuttle's book, Bad Girl's Guide to the Party Life, offers a "Party Life Plan" with accompanying "mantras." Examples of these: "Get great action in bed" ("I gave at the office. I'm here to get"); "Get naked with an evil ex" ("Love the sin, hate the sinner"); "Get naked with a born-again bad boy" ("Hate the sin, love the sinner"). One excerpt explains: "You can play now or you can play later. But why wait to celebrate? Good girls believe in the afterlife, bad girls believe in the party life."

The same newsletter listed another Planned Parenthood event on August 28 at the Community Services and Education Department in Concord -- "Teachers, Youth and Responsible Choices." This "open house" event was designed "to give teachers, administrators and school board members" information on the "educational services and programs" offered by Planned Parenthood, Shasta-Diablo. "We know that teachers have the power to help teens make responsible choices," said the newsletter, "and we want to give educators the chance to learn more about how PPSD can help them help their students."

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