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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
March 2006

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JUST BARING HIS BREAST? In September of last year, Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary priest, Father Rich Danyluk, pastor of St. Joseph's basilica in Alameda, announced in the homilies of his three Sunday masses that he "is gay." While Danyluk is certainly not the first nor the only priest to suffer from same sex attraction disorder, his story was picked up by Jill Tucker of ANG Newspapers and ran on the front page of six major dailies on January 19 . Suddenly, Father Danyluk's story was familiar to readers all around the bay, who read it in the Argus, the OaklandTribune, the Tri-Valley Herald, the San Mateo County Times, theAlameda Times Star, or the Daily Review.

Several of the statements reported in the ANG piece, as well as in the LifeSiteNews.com piece that followed, seemed to lead the readers to think that Father Danyluk was defying the Church's teaching, particularly timed to be in the face of the Vatican instruction forbidding the ordination of homo sexuals. However, parishioners who were at the Masses in question adamantly deny that Father Danyluk made his confession with anger or defiance. Instead, they paint the picture of a priest with the habit of "laying it out on the table" as to his personal struggles. Several years ago, for instance, he was arrested for driving under the influence and admitted to his congregation that he was an alcoholic.

While some parishioners questioned the propriety of using the pulpit for such personal expressions, especially at Sunday Masses, they said that he was not calling the Church's teaching into question, nor was he snubbing his vow of celibacy, which he maintains that he faithfully observes.

Oakland's Bishop Allen Vigneron had no comment to make regarding Father Danyluk's confession or the article; rather he reaffirmed his role to support his priests in faithfully living out their commitment to celibacy and his expectation that they all strive to do so.

IN AN "UPDATE ON LITIGATION," published in the December 15 Catholic San Francisco, the San Francisco archdiocese gave a picture of its "progress" in resolving sexual molestation cases against it. Filings against the archdiocese were divided as pre- and post- "Burton Bill," referring to the law the California legislature passed in 2002 that removed for a year (2003) the statute of limitations in civil sexual abuse cases (the legislature's removal of the statute of limitations in criminal cases was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.) According to the "update," over the past 25 years, the archdiocese and its insurers have settled about 104 cases, paying out approximately $170 million. About 20 of these cases were settled before the "Burton Bill era," for about $7 million. The remaining, post-Burton cases were settled for approximately $63 million (on average, $750,000 per case.) About 70 percent of monies paid out came from a combination of archdiocesan funds and insurance (both outside and self-insurance). The remaining settlements and defense costs came from archdiocesan reserves, real property collateral and sales proceeds. "No parish or school assets have been used to fund the settlements and costs," said the update. "Likewise, no funds raised through any Archdiocesan Annual Appeal (the annual parish collection to assist with the programs and centralized services of the Archdiocese), have been used."

Of the "Burton era" cases, only 15 remain, said the update. Of these "are 11 cases where the Archdiocese is the primary defendant; and four cases that should be dismissed because they were filed too late," according to the update.

SPECTRE OF THE "SWINGING PRIEST." Archbishop William Levada, ordinary-emeritus of San Francisco and now prefect for the Holy See's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was in San Francisco on January 9 to give a deposition in a bankruptcy case involving the Portland archdiocese, where Levada served as archbishop from 1986 to 1995. In 2004, the Portland archdiocese filed for bankruptcy after paying out $53 million to settle over 100 claims of priestly sexual abuse of minors. Shortly before the deposition, the San Francisco Weekly's Ron Russell, in a January 4 article, "Levada's Secret," speculated that in the deposition, the archbishop would "have to come clean about a priestly child molester he protected in Portland."

That priest is Father Joseph Baccellieri, whom in 1992 Levada, when archbishop of Portland, removed from the priesthood after receiving a report that Baccellieri committed sexual abuse against minors in the 1970s. After two years, however, Levada restored Baccellieri to the active ministry. In April 2004, lawyers representing alleged victims of sexual abuse questioned Levada under oath. Asked about Baccellieri, Levada said, "I believe there was some allegation that occurred while I was there." However, according to Russell's article, the archbishop's lawyer intervened to prevent further testimony about the Portland priest. A few months later, in response to a San Francisco Weekly article on the Baccellieri affair, Levada (in the archdiocese's July 16, 2004 Catholic San Francisco), wrote, "with regard to Father Baccellieri, I removed him from ministry in 1992 when I received an allegation of sexual abuse back in the 1970s."

BUT LEVADA DID NOT TELL all he knew, according to Ron Russell. Citing "sources familiar with the matter ... who spoke on condition of anon y mity," Russell wrote that in 1993 (a year before reinstating Baccellieri), Levada knew that the priest had molested not only one but three minor males (one allegedly over several years). Furthermore, claimed the unnamed sources, Levada authorized secret payments to the alleged victims (then adults), who agreed to keep the settle ments confidential and not sue the arch diocese. Bud Bunce, who has been spokes man for the Portland archdiocese since 1991, told the Weekly that he knew nothing of these secret payments. However, he said, "in general, if someone approaches us and wishes not to file a lawsuit and they have an allegation regarding child abuse, those situations can be settled [confidentially]." Levada's Berkeley attorney declined to comment on the allegation.

Why did Levada restore Baccellieri to priestly duties? In his letter to Catholic San Francisco, Levada said, "after thorough investigation by the Portland Archdiocese and extensive therapeutic treatment for [Baccellieri], in 1994 I judged that he had been truly repentant and could be trusted to engage in limited ministry with proper supervision. The Portland Archdiocese received no reports of inappropriate behavior by the priest after his return to limited ministry. Until 2002, when the US Bishops adopted a policy of 'zero tolerance' for any priest offender, such careful reassignment was a legitimate option." Levada's successor in Portland in 2002 removed Baccellieri from the active ministry.

Baccellieri may not have abused minors after he re-engaged in "limited ministry," but in 2004, in a recorded telephone conversation with one of his former victims, Baccellieri said he had never told Levada about all the youth he had molested. Since 1992, Baccellieri said he had been attending a sex-addicts support group and that his years of serving under Levada were "the best years of my life, because I was sober."

It turns out that Baccellieri has another claim to fame besides being a sexual molester. According to a 1995 article in the Portland Oregonian, the priest has long been a talented accordianist; he even had formed a band, the Gemstones, with former students. In the mid-'90s, Baccellieri was something of a wandering minstrel, playing at fairs and festivals. His stage name was the Swinging Priest.

ARCHBISHOP LEVADA managed to dodge reporters when entering and leaving the Sansome Street office tower to give his January deposition, but he could not elude one Anthony Piscitelli, said the January 18 San Francisco Weekly. Piscitelli served the archbishop with yet another subpoena -- this one ordering him to appear in March in San Francisco to testify in a suit against the San Francisco archdiocese in which a Marin County woman says she was abused by a priest serving under Levada. According to Piscitelli, when he tried to serve Levada with the subpoena, the prelate turned away. But, said Piscitelli, "I stuck it beneath a newspaper he had wedged under his arm and said, 'Sir, you are served.'"

Whether Levada will appear for the March deposition or claim diplomatic immunity as a Vatican official remains to be seen. Meanwhile, what he said in his January deposition concerning Baccellieri remains confidential.

THE "RESULTS" OF IMPLEMENTING the Sacramento diocese's synod have been "uneven," said Bishop William Weigand in a January 16 homily at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Sacramento. In this homily concluding the synod's second session, Bishop Weigand said, "at both the diocesan level and in the parishes and deaneries, some important things have been accomplished or initiated," but nevertheless, "some parishes got off to a faster or better start than others. Perhaps a few have yet to begin in earnest."

Still, the bishop said he is "encouraged by the signs of progress" and "not discouraged even by the slow start in some places. Things are not always what they seem," said Weigand. "In all matters human, some take longer than others. What is very clear to me -- and I hope encouraging to all of us -- is that we have, in fact, moved in the direction of implementing the vision of the Synod, even though there is much to be done yet." The bishop asserted that "we shall do it" -- implement the synod. "With the Lord's help, we will gradually and lovingly pull along with us the slow starters, the complacent, those who need extra help. Ours must be the Lord's attitude, heard in the first reading from Ezekiel: 'The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal....'"

"Go back to your parishes," Weigand said to synod delegates, "and do whatever you can with your parish councils and parish leadership, and with the people in general, to reactivate the Synod vision and to assist developing or expanding a parish pastoral plan that will involve at least one small action in each of the eight pastoral initiatives of the Synod." Along with other measures, said Weigand, "Bishop Garcia and I will be frequently encouraging the diocesan vicars, deans, and pastors regarding Synod implementation -- trying to help them and gently holding them accountable, calling them to the Synod vision and its implementation."

THE THIRD AND FINAL SYNOD SESSION will be held October 9, 2006, said Weigand in his homily. This session "will ensure that our efforts at all levels of the Diocese will be ongoing for implementing the conclusions of the Synod ... In the meantime, we will be continuing to work on the draft diocesan statutes, the legislative part of the Synod -- and gathering together all of our diocesan policies, sets of guidelines and diverse directives ... For the most part, the statutes reflect the law and norms of the universal Church -- with some specifications for our Diocese...."

The effort to implement the synod, said Weigand, might be seen "as clarifying and standardizing the rules for the [diocese's] journey ... We have to pull together," he said, "walk together in this multi-ethnic and diverse Diocese. Ignorance or ambiguity about the rules does not help us. Chaos could destroy us. But the rules have to be seen in the light of the vision of who we are and where we are going."

Last year, synod delegates drew up a list of proposals for initiatives in the diocese. These were: faith formation -- evangelization; vocations -- collaborative ministry and shared responsibility; Eucharist and sacraments; formation and training -- lay ministry and lay apostolate; youth and young adults; social service and social justice ministry; and cultural diversity. The April 2005 Faith gave a more detailed look at the synod and its initiatives in the article, "Not a Perfect Plan."

THE SUPREME COURT IS SOCIETY? The United States Supreme Court's January 17 decision to uphold Oregon's assisted suicide law encouraged supporters of euthanasia in California. Last year, state assembly members, Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys) and the Eureka Democrat Patty Berg (a Cath olic) introduced a "death with dignity" bill into the assembly, only to withdraw it in July because of lack of support. But, according to the July 18 Los Angeles Times, the bill has been resurrected in the senate, where its backers expect greater support than in the assembly. The hope is that passage of the bill by the senate will provide the momentum necessary to pass it in the assembly. But, said Assemblyman Levine, the Supreme Court's decision already gives backers of the suicide bill "a lot of momentum. We've had a lot of members say, 'well, let's see what the Supreme Court says.'" But, despite the decision, said Levine, members will still be hard to convince. "Members still have this knee-jerk fear of death," he said. "The Supreme Court vote gives them a little bit more comfort that this is OK, society says it's OK."

What has California society thus far said about assisted suicide? According to a February 2005 Field Poll, 70 percent of Californians support the proposition that "incurably ill patients have the right to ask for and get life-ending medication." Since 1979, according to the Times, Field Polls have shown that most Democrats and Republicans support this proposition. Still, in 1992, Californians failed to approve a ballot measure calling for the legalization of assisted suicide.

VOX POPULI, VOX ARNOLDI. In his annual meeting with the Sacramento Press Club on January 24, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger "signalled" (said the January 25 Los Angeles Times) that he would veto any legislation allowing for physician assisted suicide. The Catholic governor, however, did not spell out any principled reasons for opposing the measure, save that assisted suicide is an issue that should be decided by the voice of the people, not the legislature. "I personally think this is a decision probably that should go to the people, like the death penalty and other big issues," Schwarzenegger said. "I don't think 120 legislators and I should make the decision. I think the people should make the decision, and whatever that is, that is what it ought to be."

Assemblyman Lloyd Levine indicated that he was "disappointed" (according to the Times) with the governor's comments. The issue, said the Democratic lawmaker, should not go again before the people (who rejected assisted suicide in 1992) but should rest with the 120 mostly Democratic legislators and the governor. "The governor was elected to make tough decisions," Levine said.

BIRTH CONTROL, SEX ED -- YES! Most Californians think "access to birth control methods or contracep tion is very important in reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies," according to a "Special Survey on Population," released in December by the Public Policy Institute of California. According to the survey, 71 percent of Californians surveyed affirm the importance of birth control or contraception. However not as many of those calling themselves "conservative" (59 percent) or Republican (55 percent) support this proposition as those who call themselves "liberal" (84 percent) or Democrat (78 percent). A, perhaps, surprising number (65 percent) of those calling themselves "evangelicals" supported the proposition. Among racial groups surveyed, 79 percent of Latinos, 53 percent of Asians, 74 percent of blacks, and 69 percent of whites affirmed the importance of access to birth control or contraception.

The survey also said that the "vast majority" (78 percent) of those surveyed "prefer sex education programs that also teach children about obtaining and using contraceptives." Among those surveyed, 74 percent of Latinos and 66 percent of evangelical Christians said they preferred such programs. Most of those surveyed (75 percent) said sex education is a very important part of a school's curriculum, while 76 percent said they favored the government funding of birth control options for teenagers.

As for Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision striking down state laws against abortion, 71 percent of those surveyed said they wanted it to hold while only 22 percent said they wanted it overturned. More Latinos (32 percent) and Asians (25 percent) favor overturning the decision than do blacks (19 percent) and whites (17 percent). Surprisingly, perhaps, 52 percent of those calling themselves evangelical Christians do not favor overturning Roe v. Wade; and of the 40 percent who said they are morally opposed to abortion, 38 percent favor overturning it while 54 percent do not. However, most of those surveyed (56 percent) favor reducing the number of abortions, with 66 percent favoring more access to contraception to achieve that goal and 20 percent supporting more restrictive laws.

Pollsters surveyed 2,504 California adult residents from November 30 to December 14, 2005. The sampling error was plus or minus 2 points.

A FEDERAL APPEALS COURT in San Francisco on January 31 unanimously declared a federal partial birth abortion law unconstitutional, the February 1 San Francisco Chronicle reported. The 3-0 vote was followed hours later by a similar ruling by a New York federal appeals court. These rulings are the second and third to strike at the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, enacted by Congress and signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. The ban never took effect because an appeals court declared it unconstitutional in July 2004. The Bush administration appealed this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2000 had declared a similar Nebraska state law unconstitutional.

While the New York appeals court stopped short of declaring the entire ban unconstitutional because the Supreme Court recently ruled that constitutional flaws in a New Hampshire parental abortion notification law did not necessarily invalidate the entire law, the San Francisco court said the ban was constitutionally irreparable. The court said the law could be interpreted in a way to ban all abortions after the first trimester, since abortionists performing the dilation and extraction procedure often partially remove the baby intact before killing him. Judge Stephen Reinhardt said the ban "imposes an undue burden on women's right to choose a pre-viability abortion" and does not sufficiently inform doctors as to what procedures are legal and which are not. Reinhardt said that, despite Congress' claim that partial birth abortion is never necessary to protect a woman's health, medical evidence is against them.

Judge Reinhardt, a Carter appointee, was joined in his decision by Judges Sidney Thomas and William Fletcher, both Clinton appointees. In New York, Carter appointee, Judge Jon Newman, wrote the opinion; he was joined by George H.W. Bush appointee, Chief Judge John Walker, who nevertheless expressed his reluctance to so rule. Judge Chester Straub, a Clinton appointee, dissented.

REPUBLICAN ACTIVISTS in January gave Governor Arnold Schwarz enegger an ultimatum -- either dump his new Democrat chief of staff, Susan Kennedy (who worked with Governor Gray Davis in support of pro-abortion groups), or lose the Republican nomination 2006, said the January 20 Los Angeles Times. In an apparent act of reparation after his ballot measures went down in resounding defeat during the November 2005 special election, Governor Schwarzenegger publicly apologized for calling the election and appointed Kennedy as his chief of staff. In December, Republican chairman Duf Sundheim met with the governor and other Republicans over the appointment of Kennedy. After the meeting, Sundheim said, "the Susan Kennedy issue is over." But it was hardly over, as Sundheim admitted to the Times in mid January. "There have been some concerns expressed, and we're in the process of engaging in a dialogue with regard to those concerns," he said.

But Republican anti-Schwarzenegger insurgents hope to convince pro-life activists, gun owners, and other "conservatives" in the party to support a resolution to give the governor an ultimatum at the party's February 25-27 convention, to be held in San Jose. Said Michael Schroeder, a Corona del Mar attorney and former chairman of the California Republican party, "we've gotten to the point where we've just had it with the guy. It's become clear that he's no longer pursuing a Republican agenda."

Of course, some might argue, he never has. But that fact, alone, did not preclude Republican support in the past and probably will not in the coming election. One member of Schwarz enegger's political team told the Times that donors who would contribute to Schwarzenegger might well refuse to support Republican candidates if the party pulls its endorsement.

In his annual meeting with the Sacramento Press Club on January 24, Schwarzenegger said he would not dismiss Kennedy because, said the January 25 Times, "she is even more 'fantastic' than when he hired her." Fantastic, indeed.

GOVERNOR SCHWARZ EN EGGER'S first appointment to the state supreme court was unanimously confirmed by the state commission on judicial appointments on January 4. Judge Carol Corrigan replaces Justice Janice Rogers Brown, who resigned in June to serve on the U.S. court of appeals in Washington, D.C. But while Brown was called "conservative," Corrigan has described herself as a "centrist." Corrigan told the commission before its vote that "judges do not own the law. We are not a super-legislature." A judge, she said, is "not to impose our privately held views, but to constantly strive for that balance of competing views." During a news conference following the approval, she declined to say how she would vote on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage, saying she would have to deal with it when on the court. But should discrimination be based on sexual orientation? "Americans think that everybody should be equal before the law," she said.

Justice Corrigan has served as Alameda County prosecutor. For the past 18 years she has been a judge, serving on the state court of appeal in San Francisco for 11 of those years.

GOOGLE, INC., fought a subpoena to turn over information on internet search requests to the federal government while Yahoo, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, and American Online, Inc. complied, the January 20 Los Angeles Times reported. The compliant companies gave the United States justice department a week's worth of online queries from American citizens but did not turn over names or computer addresses. Google, however, which argues that search queries themselves can reveal user identities, resisted the court order. The United States Patriot Act expanded the use of "national security letters" by which the government can ask companies like Google to turn over data, even about citizens who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. The government may bar the company from revealing such requests.

The justice department said it wanted information on what people search for online as part of the department's effort to restore the Child Online Protection act, an anti-pornography law approved by Congress in 1998 but blocked by a subsequent court injunction. The Supreme Court in 2004 upheld the injunction but sent it back to a lower federal court. The high court said that it could remove the injunction if government officials could demonstrate that the proposed law would be more effective than internet content filters in protecting children from pornography while also protecting the free speech rights of web site operators.

Civil rights advocates worry that the justice department's subpoena presages further governmental intrusions that would demand more detailed user information. In the meantime, Google said it would continue to resist the subpoena, while lawyers for the government filed a brief in U.S. district court in San Jose to try to force the company's compliance.

WHY HE DID IT. David Sylvester, an Oakland Catholic man who was arrested for trespassing at Fort Benning, Georgia, on November 20 described in a January 23 Catholic Voice article why he "crossed the line." Describing the yearly protest at what was formerly the School of the Americas but now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, Sylvester wrote, "for the past 16 years, Maryknoll Father Roy Bourgeois and his School of Americas Watch has organized these protests against the torture, extortion, blackmail and false imprisonment taught by the SOA to thousands of Central and Latin American military and police officers, including 19 of those who killed the Jesuits, their housekeeper and her 14-year-old daughter in 1989." Under its new name, the School of the Americas, said Sylvester, "continues to produce graduates involved or suspected in human rights atrocities, such as last year's murder of eight members of the San José de Apartado peace community in Colombia."

So, why did Sylvester "cross the line," going onto the grounds of the School of the Americas with 40 others (out of about 20,000 priests, religious, and lay folk gathered for the protest)? Sylvester said, "I didn't cross the line, the line crossed me long ago. In El Salvador, in Guatemala, in Colombia. And now, in the most shocking way of all, in Iraq." Sylvester said, when he saw the torture pictures from Abu Ghraib, he knew that such torture "disgraces our whole society, myself included, for ignoring, denying, or when pressed, excusing it with ideological slogans emptied of meaning. In seeing that photo, I had been stripped of my own dignity and integrity as an American citizen."

"Mass by Mass, prayer by prayer," God removed his "fearfulness," said Sylvester, and "gently eased the bonds that constrain me from being who I really am.... As I sat on the red Georgia dirt, the MP filling out his form for Prisoner 01, my hands cuffed with plastic strips as I've seen so many Iraqis held, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. It was as if some shred of my dignity had been restored and some imbalance righted. Perhaps in a microscopic way, I had brought the thousands of suffering Iraqis, the Jesuit professors and the unknown victims like Domingo Gomes [a 17-year-old victim of the war in El Salvador] back to where it all started, to Ft. Benning and the School of Americas."

Sylvester, who attends Our Lady of Lourdes parish in Oakland, was scheduled to face trial beginning January 30 before a federal magistrate in Columbus, Georgia. He could be sentenced up to six months in jail and fined $5,000.

A LAWSUIT FILED in federal court in Washington, D.C. to block federal money to restore the California missions has been dropped, said Associated Press on January 19. Under the 2004 California Missions Preservation Act, the U.S. interior department was to give $10 million to the California Missions Foundation, a private, non-profit organization, to seismically retrofit and otherwise restore the state's historic Spanish missions, some of which are in a dangerous state of disrepair. The money grant, which would have been good through 2009, would have required matching state and private funds. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, however, filed a lawsuit to block the federal grant because, said the group, it would have represented a violation of the separation of church and state, since many of the missions are used for Catholic worship. The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said his group is "certainly not against the missions, but you simply can't dole out millions of dollars to repair religious institutions that are being used for religious purposes." However, as proponents of the funding have noted, the federal government has long given money for historically significant houses of worship, including Boston's Old North Church, Rhode Island's Touro Synagogue, and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King, Jr. preached. Americans United never protested such funding before it was earmarked for the California missions.

But on January 17, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State withdrew its lawsuit. However, this does not mean any money will be given to mission restoration, since the $10 million was not appropriated for the purpose in 2005. Americans United said it would refile its lawsuit if further money is appropriated for the missions -- something California's senator Barbara Boxer said she would seek.

BLACK CLERGY FOR SODOMY. In 2004, during the presidential election, a large number of black clergy condemned same-sex marriage, even in San Francisco; but in 2006, other black clergy have joined to welcome homosexuals and lesbians and to stand for homosexual marriage, said the January 19 San Francisco Chronicle. In mid January, the Black Church Summit, organized by the National Black Justice Coalition, met at the First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, to organize against "homophobia." The summit featured such figures as the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, San Francisco's Bishop Yvette Flunder of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ, and other black leaders from across the United States. "We need to rally our forces as African Americans around things that impact our community," said Flunder. "We need a strategy that is aggressive and determined and brings people to conversation on human sexuality without preconceived answers about things they have no experience with. Our parishioners need an affirming environment," said Flunder before the summit. Flunder and others say the organizing by white ministers of black clergy opposed to homosexuality during the 2004 presidential election helped President George W. Bush win 11 percent of the black vote. "The Karl Roves of the world wrote an agenda on how to mobilize the African American vote, and part of that was to suggest the vote against same-gender marriage," said Flunder. "Homophobia was maximized during the election, and African American pastors were mobilized by aggressive white people."

Black proponents of homosexual acceptance say the condemnation of homosexuality has led to a rise in HIV infection among black women because of what is called the "down-low" phenomenon; that is, black homosexual men having relations with other men while outwardly acting heterosexual. Summit organizers say rejection of homosexuality is not consistent with the social justice commitment of black churches.

"A STRATEGY OF CO-OPTION," is what the Rev. Kevin Sauls called recent cooperation between white and black clergy, first on the issue of homosexual ity, and now on abortion. Sauls, who the January 15 San Francisco Chronicle said is the pastor of Downs Memorial United Methodist Church in Emeryville and a board member of Planned Parenthood, said the white clergy and their co-opted black brethren are not interested in the real issues confronting the black community. "These people are not interested in what do we do with single-parent families or absentee fathers," said Sauls. "If you are not interested in that, then you are not interested in the community."

In 2005, the Rev. Clenard Childress of New Jersey, a black minister, addressed East Bay religious leaders on what he calls the "black genocide," abortion. (According to a 2002 study by the national Centers for Disease Control, though only 12 percent of the population, black women had 36 percent of the abortions in the United States in 2002.) Childress was scheduled to attend a meeting of Christian clergy in Oakland on January 19, which would include organizers of the Walk for Life West Coast, held January 21. The meeting is part of what the Chronicle called a pro-life "recruiting effort in the Bay Area's predominately black churches."

Some black pastors, however (according the Chronicle), said pro-life activists will find it harder than marriage advocates to recruit blacks. "For one," said the Chronicle, "there is political pressure not to speak out against abortion, which is one of the Democratic Party's core values." The Rev. Fred Jackson, pastor of Oakland's Faith Presbyterian Church, opined that abortion "isn't the major concern in a lot of our neighborhoods." Rather, "people are worried about people killing each other and jobs and housing. These are more pressing."

FIVE TEACHERS AT SAN LEANDRO HIGH SCHOOL refused to comply with the San Leandro school district's December order to post a pro-homosexual poster in their classrooms because, said the teachers, its message violates their religious beliefs. The poster, designed by the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, displays a rainbow flag and reads, "this is a safe place to be who you are." The school district said the posters are an attempt to comply with state law that requires schools to combat discrimination and harassment of homosexual students. Superintendent Christine Lim told the January 25 San Francisco Chronicle, the order to post the posters "is not about religion, sex or a belief system. This is about educators making sure our schools are safe for our children, regardless of their sexual orientation." Since her hiring in 2003, Lim has pushed a campaign against teasing and harassment of homosexual students. She has brought homosexual students to speak with teachers throughout the district about harassment they have experienced and has required teachers to attend every year three-hour sessions on "homophobia."

Amy Furtado, San Leandro High's principal, said she intends to see that the five teachers comply with the order. (Another teacher said that he would not comply because he didn't think the district should be enforcing political speech.) "We work in a public school," said Furtado. "I have no wish to change anyone's personal belief, but we want all kids to feel safe. That's where we have common ground."

ACTIVISTS IN SANTA CRUZ are calling for a raise in the minimum wage in the city to $9.25 an hour, $2.50 above the state minimum, Associated Press reported on January 18. Citing the high cost of housing in the coastal region, the Working Alliance for a Just Economy says the city has the duty to make sure businesses pay "responsible wages" to their employees. Four out of seven of the Santa Cruz city council support the measure, which, if it garners 3,338 signatures of support by mid-May, will appear on the November ballot. Opponents of the measure say it will drive businesses out of Santa Cruz and make it harder for the city to attract new business.

TO RAISE OR NOT TO RAISE. The California Budget Project in Sacramento recently issued a study that concluded that moderate increases in the minimum wage do not lead to any significant employment loss, or any at all, said the January 6 Los Angeles Times. The project's executive director, Jean Ross, said that between 1997 and 2004, "sectors that employ large shares of low-wage workers actually increased employment at a faster rate than the state economy as a whole." According to Ross, "most employers are already working with the lowest number of employees that they can. And another study done by the Institute of Industrial Relations at the University of California at Berkeley said that San Francisco's $8.82 per hour minimum wage (which is indexed to inflation) has not adversely affected employment or resulted in business closures. San Francisco restaurants, which offer low wage jobs, according to the study have increased employment faster than the overall business average since 2003, when the city's wage law was enacted. Menu prices have risen three percent above those of restaurants outside the city; and this, coupled with improved worker productivity, has kept the job rate stable and increasing. The study surveyed a minority of San Francisco businesses which can pay minimum wage -- mostly restaurants.

But, according to the January 4 San Francisco Chronicle, Kevin Westley of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association disputed the Berkeley study. According to Westley, the restaurant association itself conducted a study in 2004, the first year the city wage increase took effect. "Ninety-eight percent of restaurants raised prices, and more importantly, 89 percent raised prices significantly," said Westley. "To say there is no impact is simply incorrect. Fifty-four percent of restaurants reduced the number of employees. Ninety-one percent reported lower profits"-- and this during a time when tourism and the city's economy in general were growing more robust, according to Westley. He added that "we've seen people who have closed their original restaurants and reopened outside San Francisco just based on the cost of doing business here."

According to economics professor Michael Reich, an author of the Berkeley study, even with its relatively high minimum wage, San Francisco's wage "is still about the same as what the real minimum wage was 40 years ago," when adjusted for inflation. "People just don't remember."

A GARMENT FACTORY IN SAN FRANCISCO agreed to pay over $500,000 in severance pay to low-wage workers it laid off between October 2004 and March 2005, said the January 13 San Francisco Chronicle. The NOVA Knits company, which produces clothing for such companies as the Gap and Abercrombie and Fitch, laid off the workers, Chinese immigrants, with only an hour's notice, which, said the workers, violated federal law, which requires an employer to give 60 days' notice of a mass dismissal or plant closure. Some of the workers had been employed at NOVA for over 20 years. The workers were represented by the Chinese Progressive Association.

A COALITION OF UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA students has for nearly a year been lobbying the University of California's board of regents to use its investments to influence companies doing business in the northeastern African country of Sudan. The Islamic government of Sudan has for several years carried on a genocidal campaign against its non-Arab, African people as well as a violent persecution of Christians. In early 2003, rebels in Sudan's Darfur region accelerated their attacks against government military installations, and the Sudanese government responded with attacks on non-Arab inhabitants of the region, including those who have had nothing to do with the rebels. According to the January 17 San Francisco Chronicle, University of California students, primarily at UCLA, and the university's Berkeley and San Francisco campuses, have called on the university's regents to divest the estimated $100 million it holds in oil and energy companies doing business in the African republic. Jason Miller, a student on the San Francisco campus, said, "we're asking UC to completely divest from companies that we've identified as offending companies. We've pulled together thousands of faculty, staff and students in support." Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth universities, along with the states of Illinois, Oregon, and New Jersey have either commenced divestment in Sudan or restricted investments in companies doing business there. According to human rights groups, since February 2003, Sudanese military and the Arab Janjaweed militia have killed about 400,000 Darfur civilians, while nearly 2.5 million Darfurians have been displaced from their homes.

The student task force in October sent a 51-page divestment proposal to the university's regents, and in November the regents investment committee directed the university's president to look into the legality and feasibility of divesting. The regents looked into the possibility of divestment at their January 19 meeting in San Diego. According to university spokesman Trey Davis, "the regents have had a general policy of making investment decisions strictly on the basis of financial and market criteria." However, they "could choose to make an exception to that policy." According to the web site of UC Divestment Sudan (www.inosphere.com/sudan/home.asp), because the university president' s report had "inadequate research," the regents at their meeting took no vote on divestment; but they did "approve a plan to send letters of concern to the University's fund managers," agreed to investigate divestment, and present a plan for divestment at their meeting in Los Angeles in March. "Importantly," said the web site, the university "has committed to investigating divestment from both direct and indirect holdings in target companies, a significant step beyond the divestment decisions of Harvard, Stanford, and Dartmouth."

Some have criticized the policy of divestment. Bill Reinach, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said his group "would probably say it's a mistake. You get kind of short-term satisfaction on the part of the univer sity, but in the long run, you mostly hurt poor people.... Basically, there's a negative economic impact on the poorest people, and it doesn't affect government policy or the people running the government." The student coalition, however, says that Sudan has shown itself responsive to economic pressure. With divestment, foreign companies would have an incentive to urge Sudan to stop its slaughter of its citizens.

U.S. CHAMBER FOR IMMIGRATION. Because of impending labor shortage in the United States, the Washington D.C.-based U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants more immigrant laborers, Associated Press reported on January 4. At a news conference, Thomas Donohue, the chamber's president and CEO said that in the face of the retirement of 77 million baby boomers, the United States do not have "an adequate supply of working taxpayers to run a growing economy and support an explosion of retirees." Donohue said he wants congressional immigration legislation to include a guest worker program. Those who say businesses favor such a program so as to secure access to cheap labor, said Donohue, have a "crummy argument." The chamber president said "what American companies want is labor," and we're going to be in a bad way without it. The Senate was expected to take up the House of Representatives immigration bill, which makes no provision for a guest worker program, in February. The U.S Chamber, said Donohue would be "working to obtain a bill that provides the workers and is in keeping with our legacy as a welcoming nation."

A LOOK AT DAY LABORERS. A recently released national survey, conducted by professors from the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Univer sity of California, Los Angeles, and New York's New School University, gives a picture of what life is like for day laborers, most of whom are Latino and many of whom are undocumented. The results, according to a January 23 Associated Press story, were gleaned from interviews conducted between July and August 2004 with 2,660 workers at 264 hiring centers in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Of those interviewed, 49 percent said they were hired by homeowners (for such tasks as gardening and carpentry jobs) while 43 percent said they were hired by construction contractors. Two-thirds said they worked frequently for the same employers. Eighty percent of those interviewed said they relied solely on day labor for their income, earning on average $10 an hour or about $700 a month. Twenty percent of respondents said they had suffered on-the-job injuries; over half of these said they received no medical care for these injuries either because they could not afford it or their employers would not provide it. Almost half of the day laborers said employers had withheld wages from them. Most of the respondents (three-fourths) said they were illegal.

Over half of the day laborers interviewed said they attended church regularly, and about two-thirds said they had children; 36 percent said they were married, and seven percent said they lived with a partner. One man interviewed, Martinez, a native of Guate mala, said he has been in Southern California illegally for 15 years. He said every month he sends $300 to $500 to his six children, ages two to 14. Once, he said, an employer refused to pay him after three weeks of work. ''I couldn't complain because I'm not here legally," he said, "but I was so angry because I need every cent. I'm always thinking, 'Are they going to pay me, am I going to get to work eight hours on this job, will I get hurt doing it?'"

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