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Contents © 2006
by Jim Holman.
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NEWS
April 2006

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CARDINALS ROGER MAHONY of Los Angeles and Justin Rigali of Philadelphia attended the February 15 installation of George Niederauer as archbishop of San Francisco. Mahony, Niederauer's "friend and classmate," "came all the way to The City," the new archbishop quipped, "from A City to the south of us!" Archbishop William Levada welcomed Niederauer at St. Mary's Cathedral. "I welcome and thank my brother bishops and archbishops who have come to celebrate with our Archdiocese of San Francisco today," said Niederauer. "Together we seek to be a sign of unity among the successors of the apostles, with Peter as the head."

Archbishop Niederauer focused his installation Mass homily on Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical, Deus Caritas Est. "In Christ, Pope Benedict tells us," said Niederauer, "God himself goes in search of his stray sheep.... In our second reading, from the second letter of Peter, we hear the apostle exhorting those who shepherd in Christ's name and power:Watch over the flock, willingly, generously, selflessly, serving as humble examples, not as arrogant lords."

Niederauer reminded those gathered that "God calls those who would follow his son to become free and fulfilled through self-giving, not through getting.... That is why we gather here around this table today, and every day, week after week. Eucharist draws us into this all-important self-giving act of Christ on Calvary. We become one with Christ and with one another when we receive the Body and Blood he gave for us." Such "oneness with Christ," continued Niederauer, "is social in character" and should remind us Americans, "steeped in individualism from our cradles," that "the most important experiences in life cannot be attained alone, because they are relationships: you can't be a disciple of Jesus Christ in splendid isolation.... Eucharist makes us one around the altar and one as a universal, Catholic church."

ARCHBISHOP NIEDERAUER dedicated much of his installation homily to the subject of charity. "As the Holy Father's letter continues," he said, "he tells us that we cannot neglect charity any more that [sic] we can neglect the sacraments ... whom are we called to serve in love? To echo the question in the gospel, 'Who is my neighbor?' The Pope tells us that Jesus teaches a universal concept of neighbor, that is, anyone who needs me, anyone I can help." But, continued Niederauer, "for the Church, the Holy Father goes on to explain, 'Charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her being." The state alone can not have the care for human welfare, said the archbishop, for "Pope Benedict recognizes that no state eliminates the need for a service of love, that there will always be suffering, loneliness and material need."

But, said Niederauer, "Catholics are committed to justice as well as charity, called to advocacy as well as immediate relief of suffering." This is where the Church's social doctrine comes in, which "does not give the church power over the state" nor is a means of "impos[ing] faith and its practice on non-believers." Indeed, it is "principally the responsibility of the lay faithful to work directly for a just ordering of society," said Niederauer. Still, while "the Church cannot take on herself the political battle for a just society" and "cannot replace the state, "neither can the Church remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice."

The Church, in the midst of the "many moral dilemmas" of our day, said Niederauer, is supposed to be "a compass, not a weathervane;" she is to "point toward the true North of God's loving will, and not merely track where the winds, or the polls, are blowing." Quoting T.S. Eliot, Niederauer said, the Church "'is hard where they would be easy:' think of abortion and euthanasia; 'Easy where they would be hard:' think of capital punishment and immigration law."

"What then are citizens to do, when they disagree?" asked Niederauer. "Well, first of all, disagree without being disagreeable. Presume good faith until it is proven otherwise.... Please presume that if the Church challenges an action, a policy or a program, it is because she loves the world around her, and wants what is best for it."

BROKEBACK ARCHBISHOP? "Local gay and lesbian parishioners will be disappointed if they expect [Archbishop George Niederauer] to contradict the church on same-sex relationships," said the February 8 San Francisco Chronicle. In a "wide- ranging interview with the newspaper (presented in a podcast at www.sfgate.com), then Archbishop-designate Niederauer said that "it is the constant teaching of the church that sexual activity outside of marriage is a serious offense" and that, according to the Church, marriage is reserved for heterosexual couples. Referring to Christ's teaching that a man and a woman become "one flesh" in marriage, Niederauer said, "the words of Christ in the 10th chapter of Mark are not going to change miraculously."

However, Archbishop Niederauer, it seems, despite his fidelity to Catholic doctrine on marriage, will not be implementing the Holy See's November instruction, which says men "who are practicing homosexuals, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called 'gay culture'" may not receive holy orders. In response to a question about the document, Niederauer said he has read it "several times, and I certainly don't hear the document saying, 'Please engage in a witch hunt,' " He said he doubted that he would need to change the entry requirements at St Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park. The Vatican instruction, he said, "is important, and we must pay attention to it, and we must see it in the context of the entire program of priestly formation." And what is this context? According to a February 13 LifeSiteNews.com report, Niederauer said in the podcast, "someone who is going to be a priest has to be able and willing, and this has to be tested by time of course, has to be able and willing to subordinate all relationships and conduct all relationships with others in a way that's compatible with a celibate lifestyle.... And I think that would be true also for the heterosexual candidate." But if this is the case, the interviewer asked, then why did the Vatican "single out homosexuals?" Because, said Niederauer, the issue has been to the fore "since Stonewall" (referring to the 1969 riots in New York City that inaugurated the homosexual rights movement.)

Niederauer also mentioned that he had seen the homosexual cowboy movie, Brokeback Mountain. What did he think of it? It was "very powerful," said the soon-to-be archbishop. And he said that "one of the [film's] lessons is the destructiveness of not being honest with yourself and not honest with other people and not being faithful, trying to live a double life."

NEW RED BEANIE BOY. Pope Benedict XVI on February 22 named 15 new cardinals, among whom was San Francisco's archbishop-emeritus, William Levada, Associated Press reported. Before the new appointments, the college of cardinals had 178 members, only 110 of which were under 80 and thus eligible to elect a pope. Pope Paul VI decreed that the maximum number of cardinal electors must be 120; the new appointments bring the number to only two more than that required. (Three of the new cardinals are over 80 and so unable to vote in a conclave.)

With Levada, those who will be wearing cardinal red include Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston. (Both Levada and O'Malley have had to deal with the priest sexual abuse crisis -- the former, critics say, dealt with it badly.) Another new appointment is Joseph Zen, bishop of Hong Kong, who has been an advocate for the persecuted underground Church in China. Besides Bishop Zen, two other Asians were also appointed cardinals, giving Asia the same number of cardinals, 20, as North America.

THE VATICAN'S NOVEMBER INSTRUCTION that men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" should not be admitted to holy orders "is not directly related to the U.S. sexual abuse crisis, but it is not without relevance for it," said archbishop and cardinal-elect William Levada on February 26. Levada was presiding over a Mass for the installation of a new rector at Rome's Pontifical North American College. According to a February 27 Catholic News Service report, Levada said the instruction was relevant because a study the U.S. bishops commissioned noted that homosexuality played a part in many cases of sexual abuse by priests. Levada noted that "one of the more immediate challenges facing seminaries" is the implementation of the instruction, which was issued by the Holy See's Congregation for Catholic Education. The question of homosexual behavior, said the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "also needs to be viewed from its theological perspective," in light of the fact that scripture speaks of God's relationship to His Church as a "marriage" and of the Gospel image of Christ as the bridegroom.

In particular, said Levada, a priest's public announcement of his homosexuality puts him "at odds with the spousal character of love as revealed by God and imaged in humanity." And, continued the archbishop, "I think we must ask, 'Does such a priest recognize how this act places an obstacle to his ability to represent Christ the bridegroom to his bride, the people of God? Does he not see how his declaration places him at odds with the spousal character of love as revealed by God and imaged in humanity?'Sadly, this provides a good example of the wisdom of the new Vatican instruction."

It is important that the faithful, said Levada, "hear us priests preach and teach about the fundamental character of God's love imprinted upon humanity in the original act of creation: 'God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them.' It is here that we find the basis for church teaching about marriage and about the family. It is here, too, that we find the basis for church teaching about homosexuality and the reason why proposals for recognition of homosexual marriage are contrary to sacred Scriptures and the natural law."

ETHICS FOR THE IMMORAL? The Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, which oversees California's $3 billion stem cell research program, on February 10 endorsed a new set of ethical guidelines, said the February 11 San Francisco Chronicle. Among the new provisions, women who suffer complications from donating their eggs for research will have their medical bills covered by the institutions conducting stem-cell research. But, under the new rules, women would not receive payment for donating their eggs, nor would they have any rights to royalties or other compensation from the sale of anything produced from their eggs. Though under the new rules donors can restrict the use of their eggs, the institute would prefer those donors who consent to the unlimited use of their eggs for research. The rules specify that donors be told about the potential health complications that may arise from harvesting their eggs.

Two provisions elicited some controversy. Shannon Smith-Crowley, an American College of Obstericians and Gynecologists lobbyist, objected to a provision that would require institutional review boards to give potential donors "an adequate period of time" to "deliberate" about their decision. Smith-Crowley said that such language smacked of "waiting period" rules proposed for abortion procedures and was "undermining" the hard-won notion that women can make reproductive decisions on their own. Board member and venture capitalist Michael Goldberg objected to language that would require grantees to draw up plans to make therapies accessible to the state's uninsured. Goldberg wanted the word "indigent" added to this provision, since some of the uninsured, he said, could afford the therapies on their own. Other board members thought the word "indigent" too restrictive, and all decided to try to come up with better language during the 270-day legal process before the rules are finalized.

DJ BORN AGAIN, the emcee, had the "crowd rocking at Changed Life Church in Pittsburg on a recent Friday night," said the January 31 San Francisco Chronicle. The service at this Bay Area evangelical church featured "whirling strobe lights" and a "frenzied crowd" of youth. Changed Life is one of six churches in the Bay Area, said the Chronicle, that feature "holy hip-hop" in their youth ministry services. According to DJ Born Again (Ramon Jackson), "youngsters have to have something done in a way they can understand. I deliver the message, but I still keep it raw." About 40 youths attended the Friday night service at Changed Life.

Curtis Germany, publisher of the Oakland-based gospel trade magazine, U-Zone, said that, though churches in the Bay Area have been slow to embrace gospel rap, "doors have been opening, and a lot of people are waking up to it." Philip Tindsley, pastor of Oakland's Church of Jesus Our Lord, said his congregation did not welcome gospel rap when he first introduced it five years ago. "People were kind of resistant at first because of tradition," said Tindsley. "It's grown on them. People realized we could use it to reach young people, and we have reached a lot of young people." Some of these are aspiring gospel rappers, and the church has had plans to open its own music studio. A group that performs at the church calls itself D.A. Sciples.

Changed Life's hip-hop service, according to the Chronicle, also featured "a dance-off where challengers showcased their best break and krunk-style moves and the 'Faith Factor' finals, in which contestants ate a mixture of liver, clams, chili sauce and mustard." After these events, said the Chronicle, "youth minister Kirk Waller delivered a sermon on the biblical figure David, a teenager who rose to become king of Israel"

A PARTY OF PRINCIPLE. Attempts by conservatives to wrest the Republican party's endorsement from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger failed at the party's state convention in San Jose on the weekend of February 25-26. Conservatives, according to the February 27 Los Angeles Times, criticized Schwarzenegger for calling for a higher minimum wage, for appointing Democrats to judgeships and state offices, and for endorsing a new $68 billion debt for public works projects. But the insurgency failed because Republican delegates saw the governor as their best chance to deal with the Democratic majority in the state assembly. "Winning is more fun than losing," said Michael McSweeney of San Diego in a floor speech. Conservative attempts to assail Schwarzenegger, said McSweeney, were "about how can we spank the governor and form the circular firing squad." The party 's final endorsement of Schwarzenegger for the upcoming gubernatorial election was "the best I could have expected," said state party chairman Duf Sundheim. "We leave here united."

The governor, who was in Washington, D.C. during the convention, told NBC's Meet the Press, "there are some on the right wing who are not happy about" his governing style, "who think I should only govern for Republicans, but that's not what I promised the people of California." Quoting Ronald Reagan, Schwarzenegger said, "if 80 percent of people are your friends, then you don't have 20 percent enemies, you have 80 percent friends. So I mean, that's really the bottom line."

GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER'S minimum wage proposal that would raise the state's $6.75-an-hour minimum wage by $1 an hour over the next two years "is likely to provide only a slight improvement to those living on the margins in the nation's costliest state," said a February 13 Associated Press story. With a median house price of $460,000 (almost double the national average), California is a very expensive place to live. Because of this, a coalition of service and labor groups have been collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that would raise, by 2009, the minimum wage by $2 an hour. Others have called for a minimum wage with increases indexed to inflation, something the governor opposes. While opponents of raising the minimum wage said it would raise prices and thus hurt businesses by discouraging consumer buying, economist Michael Reich of the University of California at Berkeley disagrees. Reich, who helped author a study on the effects of San Francisco's 2004 minimum wage boost, said, "individual business owners are looking at their books and their bottom-line. They are not thinking about this as across-the-board. All of their competitors will be covered, too. These are increases, small increases in cost, but they will be the same for everyone."

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, said that raising the minimum wage is unlikely to have any dramatic effects on California workers or businesses. "This issue has actually taken on a bigger profile than it really warrants," said Kyser. "It's really a very small part of the work force that earns the minimum. And let's face it, it's time to raise it some."

BUT DANIEL WEINTRAUB, writing in the February 6 Sacramento Bee, opined that "the net effect" of a minimum wage hike "is to hurt more poor families than it helps while actually providing a benefit to some of the wealthiest families in society." Weintraub cited a 2000 study by the Public Policy Institute of California, which investigated a minimum wage hike in the mid-'90s. According to the study, 43 percent of the benefit of the minimum wage hike went to the 40 percent of families with the lowest incomes, while 34 percent of the benefit went to families with the highest incomes (presumably through children who worked for a minimum wage.) According to the study, 21 percent of the wage increase went to higher taxes. Furthermore, said Weintraub, while proponents of a wage-hike have argued that a wage hike does not much affect employment, the Public Policy Institute study found that the "mid-1990s minimum wage hike likely cost California consumers about $1.4 billion." While more of this "was paid by higher-income families, low-income families paid a higher percentage of their incomes, because the goods and services most likely to be produced by low-wage workers made up a larger share of their purchases," said Weintraub. The study found that families with at least one low-wage worker (about one in four of families in the lowest-income bracket) received a net benefit of $415 a year from the minimum wage hike, the remaining 75 percent of poor families without low-wage workers lost on average $84 a year through higher costs.

What is Weintraub's alternative to a wage hike? Income redistribution, "to expand the earned income tax credit, which is based on annual family income and adjusted for family size." This tax credit, said Weintraub, "targets only the working poor for assistance, not the teenage kids of middle class and wealthy families. And its costs are spread across the entire tax base instead of penalizing employers for doing something that society should be rewarding: creating jobs."

DIRECTOR AND ACTOR Rob Reiner ("Meathead" in the 1970s sitcom All in The Family) stepped down as chairman of a state commission to promote early education after accusations of conflict of interest surfaced, said the February 25 Los Angeles Times. The First 5 California Children and Families Commission, which Reiner has chaired since 1999, was created after voters in 1998 approved an initiative that raised taxes on cigarettes by 50 cents. Beginning last November, the commission spent $23 million on television advertisements to promote preschool. At the same time, Reiner was backing an initiative to raise taxes on the wealthiest Californians to fund pre-school for all four-year olds. Voters will decide on this initiative, Proposition 82, on June 7.

Though Reiner denies doing anything wrong, Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman (Irvine) and Assemblyman Dario Frommer (D-Glendale), who is running for state controller, have called for an audit of the First 5 commission. (Tony Strickland, the Republican candidate for controller, afterwards called for an audit.) The commission's airing of the commercials while Reiner stumped for his initiative "appears to be far more than a coincidence and certainly not what the voters had in mind when they created this commission," said Ackerman (an opponent of Reiner's Proposition 82) in a letter to state controller Steve Westly. Reiner, in a letter to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said he was stepping down from the commission until after the June election in order "to avoid any political distractions that might impede First 5's important work."

"FARMERS ARE SCARED TO DEATH right now, like deer caught in the headlights," said Luawanna Hallstrom, head of the California Farm Bureau Federation's labor advisory committee. According to the January 30 Fresno Bee, farmers are so frightened because, last August, they did not have nearly enough laborers to harvest their crops. During the mid-August grape raisin harvest, only about a third of the workers needed for picking showed up in the fields. According to Fresno's Nisei Farmers League, citrus worker crews were down by 15 to 30 percent. In some cases, farmers have had to pay better wages to lure workers from other, more lucrative industries, such as construction.

California farmers' groups, thus, support a guest-worker program as part of the federal government's immigration reform measures. Last fall, the U.S. Congress approved the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act, which calls for the construction of about 700 miles of fences along the U.S.-Mexico border as well as increased penalties for smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country, but no guest-worker program. Nisei's Manuel Cunha, Jr. criticized congressional discussions on immigration because they are "focusing around pure enforcement, strengthening the border and going after employers who will have no program for getting labor. It would shut this country down."

"I'D BE HAPPY to give you an application, but we can't process it," San Francisco deputy county clerk Margaret Tseng told the dozen or so same-sex couples lined up for marriage licenses at the San Francisco county clerk's on Valentine's Day, February 14. It was the second anniversary of the couples' reception of marriage licenses from Tseng, licenses that were later voided by the state supreme court as contrary to state law. Tseng, said a February 15 Inside Bay Area article, was "clearly sympathetic ... at one point crossing her fingers in hopes this will be the last year in which she must turn same-sex couples away."

Proponents of homosexual marriage have been given some hope since Valentine's Day 2005. The state assembly approved a bill legalizing same-sex marriage (though it was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger); activists are hoping the assembly will pass another bill soon, possibly this year. Then the two ballot measures that would have forbidden homosexual marriage by constitutional amendment will likely not be on the November ballot, giving the state supreme court time to decide on a case that challenges a state law, passed as Proposition 22 in 2000, that declares marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Homosexual marriage advocate and San Francisco assessor-recorder Phil Tang at a city hall news conference was confident that same-sex marriage was inevitable. "I know that history is on our side because we're doing what's right," he said.

LESBIAN POSTER "FAMILY," the Gattos (Ramona Gatto, Arzu Akkus-Gatto, and Ramona's daughter, Marina) appeared for the second year at the office of the San Mateo County clerk-assessor recorder's office on Valentine's Day to ask for a marriage license. Again, they were refused. To commemorate the non-nuptials, Marina Gatto organized a rally in front of the office. "It is so important we stand together today to stand up for this important issue," said Marina Gatto. "I am a legal stranger to one of my parents, and my parents are legal strangers to one another." Politicians supporting same-sex marriage joined the demonstration, including the San Mateo county clerk-assessor, Walter Slocum, himself, Assemblymen Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) and Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City), San Mateo County supervisor Richard Gordon, and Barbara Pierce, mayor of Redwood City. A Daly City police officer, Doug Wilson, complained that though "I put my life on the line every day for all of you," he and his "partner" Rob Sampera don't have the same right to marry as heterosexual couples do. "We should be able to have the same protections as everybody else," he said.

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE? Tanda Rucker, a former basketball coach at Encinal High School, was on Valentine's Day sentenced to one year at a private corrections facility near Los Angeles for statutory rape, Inside Bay Area reported. While working as coach at the high school from 2000 to 2002, Rucker had sexual relations with two of her female students, both 16, and another Richmond girl. Said the press report, Rucker "engaged the students in provocative games such as kissing vigorously enough to fog the mirrors and a game she called 'in and out,'" according to an attorney for the girls. Rucker was arrested in March 2004.

The former coach's sentence is not heavy. In a plea deal, she has to register as a convicted sex offender and may never again work as a coach for youth. She will have to serve a five years' probation. The 32-year-old Rucker will only be required to sleep at the detention facility, the El Monte Center, while she works at her family's Los Angeles-area movie production company.

The victims' parents, at least, were outraged at the sentence, which they called a mere "slap on the wrist." One parent said she thought Rucker benefited from her political connections. But Rucker's lawyer, Elizabeth Grossman, denied this. She presented to the court 50 letters vouching for Rucker's character. Her client did not molest the girls, Grossman said. Their relationship was consensual, she said.

"THERE'S NOTHING ELSE like this in the United States of America," said San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom of a health care planned to insure the uninsured he unveiled January 31. Newsom calls his plan a private-public partnership, said the February 1 San Francisco Chronicle, with the costs to be shared by employers, the city, and the uninsured themselves. Participation in the plan would be voluntary for uninsured San Francisco citizens, but employers who do not already provide health insurance for their employees would be required to pay into the program. The mayor did not say how much his program would cost, but estimates range from $50 to $100 a month for each uninsured person in the city. Estimates of the number of uninsured San Franciscans run from 85,000 to 148,000. Details of the plan are to be worked out by business, labor, city, consumer interest, and health care representatives.

Under Newsom's plan, the uninsured, who would use the 20 neighborhood health clinics throughout the city, would receive a health plan card and be assigned to a primary care provider. Emphasis would be placed on preventive care. Hospital costs would be capped so as not to overburden the system.

Newsom announced his plan the day before a supervisors' hearing on another health care proposal by Supervisor Tony Ammiano. Ammiano's proposal, which would have required businesses with 20 or more employees to provide health insurance, was opposed by business interests and Mayor Newsom. After the mayor's announcement of his alternative plan, Ammiano said he would support it.

"INTEMPERATE AND EVEN ABUSIVE" were what U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a January 9 memorandum called the behavior of some federal immigration justices. In the memorandum, sent to immigration judges, in which Gonzales announced an upcoming review of the nation's immigration courts, the attorney general told the judges, "to the aliens who stand before you, you are the face of American justice. I insist that each be treated with courtesy and respect."

According to some, not merely courtesy and respect but simple justice have been absent from some immigration courts. According to the February 12 Los Angeles Times, a judge in San Francisco, after failing to verify the authenticity of a birth certificate and tax records, wrongly deported a U.S. citizen to Mexico. Another judge in Boston verbally abused a Sudanese man, Moses Cirrilo, who said he was seeking asylum in the United States to escape persecution as a Christian. Both Cirrilo's wife and son had been killed in his country's civil war. Judge Thomas Ragno, however, wanted Cirrilo to prove he was Catholic by reciting the Ten Commandments and expressed surprise that the Sudanese man was not familiar with parochial schools, even though there are none in Sudan. In the end, Cirrilo was granted asylum by an appellate court, which criticized Ragno's "confrontational attitude" and called him "an embarrassment to the court."

The U.S. justice department said it does not keep records on the number of complaints about immigration judges it receives; however, the Executive Office for Immigration Review said it has received complaints against about 20 judges in the last five years. But Dana Leigh Marks of the National Association of Immigration Judges said that some of the criticism of judges comes from disgruntled lawyers. Judges, too, she said, have a heavy case load and are only human. "There can be an intemperate remark on occasion, and on occasion conduct that is questionable and perhaps abusive," she said.

TWO OAKLAND CATHOLICS who were arrested for trespassing on the grounds of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas) last November were each sentenced to three months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $500 fine, the February 8 Catholic Voice, the newspaper of the Oakland diocese, reported. David Sylvester, 54, of Our Lady of Lourdes in Oakland and Cheryl Sommers, 68, of St. Joseph the Worker in Oakland, were sentenced with 32 other defendants, including Franciscan Father Louis Vitale, 73, formerly pastor of St. Boniface's church in San Francisco, who got five and a half months in federal prison. All were protesting the Fort Benning, Georgia school's alleged training of foreign military personnel in torture tactics.

Father Louis served three months in 2003 for "crossing the line" at Fort Benning in 2002 along with the late Father Bill O'Donnell of St. Joseph the Worker parish, who received six months in federal prison. Both, said Cheryl Sommers, were an inspiration to her. "When I heard that Fr. Louis was going over again this year, I knew this was the time for me to cross over for Fr. Bill," said Sommers.

School of the Americas Watch, which organizes the yearly protest at Fort Benning, noted in a press release that the peaceful protestors like Sommers and Sylvester were sentenced one week "after a military jury in Colorado decided not to jail an Army interrogator even after they found him guilty of negligent homicide in the torture and killing of an Iraqi detainee."

THEY MUST HANG! It seems no teacher refused to hang homosexual-tolerance posters in his classroom at San Leandro High School, though the January 25 San Francisco Chronicle reported that five teachers said, because of religious beliefs, they wouldn't do so. On January 26, the Chronicle ran a correction saying it had "mischaracterized" a statement made by the school's principle, Amy Furtado. Though, said the paper, "notes of the interview indicate that Principal Amy Furtado told the Chronicle that the teachers, who were not named, had voiced objections based on their religious beliefs," she later said "no one ... had declined to display the posters."

But, according to the Chronicle, principal Furtado is taking no chances. The 8.5 x 11 posters, designed by the school's Gay-Straight Alliance, sporting pink triangles, a rainbow banner, and the message "safe space," must and will hang, Furtado said in late January. All teachers had exactly a week to hang the posters and, said the Chronicle, Furtado would "check all 200 classrooms ... to see if the posters are visible, and she said she'd have 'a private conversation' with teachers who don't comply." Said Furtado, "the expectation is compliance. It's board policy. But what's great is that today we have some very conservative teachers who've already put it up."

The posters, according to the Chronicle, were a requirement of a 2002 lawsuit filed by San Leandro teacher Karl Debro, "who was disciplined after teaching those topics in his honors English class in the mid-1990s." Debro, who was rewarded $1.1 million and still teaches at the school, said it "has changed a lot since then, but then, society's changed a lot, too. A lot of kids have relatives who've come out. The Gay-Straight Alliance has helped a lot. The poster could be a way to get people to think even further about it."

MAY RELIGIOUS SERVICES BE BANNED from public library meeting rooms? A federal judge has said no, but in mid-February the federal ninth circuit court of appeals was undecided, according to a February 17 Associated Press story. The Rev. Hattie Hopkins of Faith Center Church Evangelistic Ministries had sued Contra Costa County last year because it forbade the group from holding a "prayer, praise and worship service" at the library in Antioch. A federal judge agreed with the Faith Center that the county was discriminating against its speech and applying unequal treatment. On February 17, Benjamin Bull, attorney for the Rev. Hopkins, renewed this argument before appeals court. "To bar them is viewpoint-based discrimination," he said. Judges on the appeals panel asked Contra Costa County attorneys why they banned the Faith Center and not, say, Alcoholics Anonymous, whose meetings often include prayer. Judge Richard Tallman observed that "there's nothing in the [county] policy that tells a government official how to define a religious service." Kelly Flanagan, representing the county, said there is a distinct difference between religious services and informal religious discussions or performances of religious songs. Allowing prayer services, she said, would be tantamount to a public subsidy of religion.

But attorney Bull replied to Flanagan that allowing a religious service "would no more turn the meeting room into a church than allowing Narcotics Anonymous to use it would turn it into the Betty Ford Clinic."

ATHEISTS are taking their cue from the homosexual rights movement in quest for civil recognition of their rights as unbelievers, said the February 20 San Francisco Chronicle. Lori Lipman Brown, a lobbyist for the Secular Coalition for America and a former Nevada state legislator, was in San Francisco during February as part of a tour to promote the cause of making atheists another protected minority. "You can be elected as an openly gay politician in this country, but you can't be elected as an openly atheistic one," said Brown. "Think of where the LGBT movement was 25 years ago," she said. "That's where atheists are today."

Brown, 47, raised a "humanistic Jew," uses the language of the "gay" rights movement; she "came out" several years ago, and most atheists, she said, are not "out yet." Another atheist activist, Rick Windgrove, 56, federal lobbyist for the group American Atheists, uses the homosexual analogy as well. "We're saying, 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it,' " said Wingrove, who added, "and I'm not gay."

Homosexual rights groups, however, have not embraced the atheist cause. "Privately," said the Chronicle, some homosexual rights advocates "point out that the comparison of atheists to historically persecuted groups isn't exact -- atheism is arguably a choice, not an orientation, and unlike racial minorities, the godless aren't discriminated against on the basis of their looks."

JURY SELECTION began February 14 in the trial of Lodi residents, Umer Hayat and his son, Hamid, who were arrested last June in a federal terrorism probe. The elder Hayat, a 48-year-old ice cream vendor, stands accused of making false statements to the FBI. According to an Associated Press report, he claimed his son, who traveled to Pakistan in April 2003, did not attend a terrorist camp; investigators, however, claim that Hamid Hayat attended a religious school in Pakistan as well as an al Qaida camp. Prosecutors say the son failed a lie-detector test, admitted to attending a terrorist camp for three days in 2000 and another for six months in 2003 and 2004, and returned to the United States intending to carry out attacks on hospitals and supermarkets. FBI agents said they found a book, the Virtues of Jihad, in Hamid's bedroom.

Umer Hayat's attorney, Johnny Griffin III, said his client "told the FBI on several occasions that he did not know of any terrorist training camps and his son did not attend any terrorist training camps, those were true statements." As for "additional statements he made," said Griffin, "we will demonstrate to the jury the circumstances under which those statements were made and why they were made." The Hayats' defense attorneys claim that their clients were pressured by investigators and did not have attorneys and interpreters present when they allegedly confessed.

If convicted, Umer Hayat faces eight years in prison; his son, Hamid, 31 years.

GOVERNOR DENIES CLEMENCY. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on February 17 denied to halt the execution of condemned murderer Michael Morales, 46. On January 8, 1981, Morales, under the influence of PCP and alcohol, raped and murdered, Terri Winchell, a 17-year-old girl, leaving her body in a Lodi vineyard. Morales had agreed to help his cousin, Rick Ortega, frighten Winchell, whose boyfriend was also Ortega's homosexual partner. Morales tried to strangle Winchell in a car driven by Ortega. When the belt he was using broke, Morales struck Winchell several times on the head, and then dragging her into the vineyard, raped her and stabbed her four times in the chest. Ortega, in a separate trial, was sentenced to life in prison.

Morales' defense attorneys, which included Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr, argued for clemency based on their client's remorse for his crime and on the claim that a jailhouse informant lied in key testimony during the penalty of Morales' trial. Six of the jurors who convicted Morales in 1983 and decided on the death penalty for him, based on the fact that the informant, Bruce Samuelson's testimony that Morales boasted of assaulting Winchell and made derogatory references to her, said today they would not give him the death penalty. (Morales' lawyers removed the declarations of the six jurors from the governor's consideration after prosecutors in mid-February charged they were forgeries.) Judge Charles McGrath, in whose court the Morales case was tried, concurred with the six jurors. In a clemency petition to the governor, McGrath wrote, "new information has emerged to show the evidence upon which I relied in sentencing Mr. Morales to death -- Mr. Samuelson's testimony -- is false."

But the state attorney general's office said Schwarzenegger should not commute Morales' punishment to life imprisonment. According to the office's spokesman, Nathan Barankin, "these jurors reached a judgment when the facts and evidence were fresh in their mind. That's the judgment that counts."

In refusing clemency for Morales, Schwarzenegger wrote, "there is no compelling evidence that the jury's punishment is not appropriate in this case. All the reviewing courts have upheld the jury's punishment. Morales' claim that he is a changed man does not excuse the brutal murder and rape of Terri Winchell." The issue of the informant's faulty testimony, said the governor, has been reviewed and rejected by the state supreme court.

On February 20, the United States Supreme Court refused to halt Morales' execution.

BUT MORALES' EXECUTION did not come off as scheduled, at 12:01 a.m., February 21. A week before the execution was to take place, federal judge Jeremy Fogel ruled that the three-stage drug California uses in executions -- a sedative, a paralysing agent, and a chemical that stops the heart -- needed to be accompanied by anesthesia, since, he said, it isn't clear that those executed do not feel pain. Two doctors had, therefore, to be present at the execution to make sure the sedative was sufficient to deaden pain. The two anesthetists, however, balked at assisting in an execution, saying in a written statement, "any such intervention would clearly be medically unethical." This initially only delayed the execution, which was rescheduled for 7:30 p.m. the same day; Judge Fogel said he would allow prison officials to give Morales a lethal dose of the sedative, barbiturate sodium thiopental, alone. But it had to be administered by a licensed medical practitioner; however, said a San Quentin spokesman, the state "was not able to find any medical professionals willing to inject medication intravenously, ending the life of a human being. The warden felt it was not ethical to approach an individual who would potentially be putting their license in jeopardy. How would it affect their careers by being involved in the execution process in the manner we've been discussing?" Thus, about two hours before the scheduled time, the execution was indefinitely called off.

Under California law, a death warrant allows only 24 hours to carry out an execution on a designated day. To get a new warrant for Morales' execution, officials would have to go to Ventura County superior court, to the judge who originally sentenced him. The problem is, noted the February 22 Los Angeles Times, that the judge, Charles McGrath, is now convinced that Morales should not be executed. As matters stand, Morales may be executed in May, when Judge Fogel will hold a full hearing to examine whether the state should modify its execution procedure. But given the fact that this examination may not be quickly concluded, Morales may not be executed for several more months.

OPPONENTS OF THE DEATH PENALTY applauded the delay in Morales' execution. Natasha Minsker, director of the death penalty project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California told the Times, "we think this is appropriate. There will be a hearing so both sides can present their evidence. It is a serious issue that needs careful consideration." Others say that the problem with lethal injection as pointed out by Judge Fogel demonstrates that there is no humane way of executing criminals. Bryan Stevenson of Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama said, "government officials don't want the American public to view the death penalty as a lethal, destructive, violent act that isn't really necessary. Therefore we sanitize and obscure the act of killing a person, who is no longer a threat to anyone, with protocols and procedures that are aimed at comforting the public."

But the family of Terri Winchell, Morales' victim, were dismayed by the execution's delay. Winchell's mother, Barbara Christian, said it "was just like someone hit you in the stomach. You feel weak, and the pain hurts.... We have lived with a knife in our hearts for all these years, and this makes the knife even sharper." Mark Winchell, Terri's father, now 78, said, "it's awfully hard to put faith in God, then have something like this. I will tell you what. I am having a hard time coping with this the last couple months. The strain and stress of it, every day of your life. You just can't get that girl out of your mind."

THE LEGACY CONTINUES. Despite the fact that he is emeritus bishop of Oakland, the influence of Bishop John Cummins continues in that diocese, according to the February 8 Catholic Voice, which announced the appointment of Father Gerald Moran as the pastor of St. Isidore's parish in Danville. Moran, said the Voice, "has some good plans and dreams for his new parish. They are similar to the ones he has implemented at other assignments." Said Father Moran, "I'm looking to build a ministry based on Bishop (Emeritus) John Cummins' personable collaborative style. I want to develop lay leadership. There are a lot of talented lay people at St. Isidore's."

Father Moran had been at Holy Spirit parish in Fremont for 21 years, where he "upgraded the parish plant and constructed a pre-school and science center," said the Voice. "He was in the midst of a major school expansion project and the building of a religious education center when Bishop Allen Vigneron called him to Danville." Moran became pastor two years after Father Vincent Ignatius Breen, pastor from 1953 to 1982, resigned to avoid criminal charges for molesting dozens of girls. Breen died in 1986. In May 2005, Bishop Allen Vigneron publicly apologized to Holy Spirit's parishioners for Breen.

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