Part-Time Pundit

Culture & Cosmos: Kennedy Using Katrina to Attack Private Schools

The area affected by Hurricane Katrina has a much higher than normal percentage of students in private (usually Catholic) schools. This is because of the imfamously poor state of public education in the area. If you want to be left behind and assured of no resources with which to get out of New Orleans because of a Hurricane, public schooling is your best bet.

Because of the amount of people displaced who would otherwise go to private schools, President Bush proposed to give them assistance in getting into private schools where they ended up. Instead, Kennedy insists that all children must be put in public schools unless the families (who now have no jobs) can come up with a second set of tuition money to pay on their own.

I agree, it is ironic that the opposition to the Bush plan is coming from 4 Irish Catholic senators.

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One of the Senate’s best known Catholics has worked to reject a proposal by President Bush that would have given families displaced by Hurricane Katrina financial aid to send their children to private or parochial schools. A bipartisan student relief package put forth by Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy and Wyoming Senator Michael Enzi did not include a provision that would have given students up to $7,500 because Kennedy opposed the provision, according to a high level Congressional staffer who spoke with Culture & Cosmos.

Culture & Cosmos also learned that a prominent Church prelate said he was furious that aid to private schools had been kept out of the package and he was especially angry that it is being blocked by “four Irish Catholic Senators.”

The proposal for financial aid came from the Bush administration and the Department of Education and noted that, “Communities in Louisiana significantly impacted by the hurricane had an above average number of children enrolled in private schools — 61,000 students in private schools compared to 187,000 in public schools in four severely impacted parishes. These significantly impacted Louisiana communities averaged 25% of students attending private K-12 schools — much higher than the 11% national average of private school students.” Out of the 61,000 students in private schools, 81%, or 50,000 attend Catholic schools. In fact, New Orleans public schools have long had a reputation for poor quality and the Catholic school system there is seen as an affordable refuge.

The total price tag for the Education Department’s proposal which aims to cover most of the cost of educating students displaced by Katrina is $1.9 billion. The administration estimates that of that total, 25% or $488 million would be needed for educational support if their proposal was implemented.

Kennedy publicly criticized aid for private schools yesterday in a statement: “But I am extremely disappointed that [President Bush] has proposed providing this relief using such a politically-charged approach. This is not the time for a partisan political debate on vouchers.” Despite the high percentage of New Orleans students who attend private school, Kennedy said “we need to focus on rebuilding the public school systems which are the cornerstones of the Gulf Coast communities and economies.”

Catholic League president William Donohue praised the proposal. “This is more than an education issue – it is a matter of fundamental civil rights. Having been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, the residents of New Orleans want to put their lives back together as soon as possible. What they don’t need now is for federal lawmakers to stand in their way by playing politics with the choices they make.”

Legislators are still hashing out the final details of the relief package they will send to the president so it is still possible that money for vouchers will be added back into Senators Enzi and Kennedy’s legislations.

One observer pointed out that “it is a joke that Kennedy still thinks he is the preeminent Catholic politician in America. He is a disgrace on this and other issues important to Catholic.”
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September 22nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos, Hurricane Katrina, Law / Legal Issues, National, Politics, Religion | one comment

NARAL: All Legitimacy Left Behind

NARAL has hit rock-bottom…

And they’ve started to dig.

They pulled the commercial but are still insisting Roberts supports violence against abortion clinics. Read more from Culture & Cosmos below.

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NARAL Website Still Portrays Judge John Roberts as Defender of Violence

Despite their decision to pull a misleading television ad that accuses Judge John G. Roberts of defending violence against abortion clinics, NARAL Pro-Choice America remains strongly opposed to Roberts’ nomination to the Supreme Court. Their website, ProChoiceAmerica.org, features a special section devoted to providing talking points and other documents designed to hurt Roberts’ confirmation chances including one that continues to portray him as a defender of clinic violence.

NARAL has come under intense criticism for a recent television ad that implied that Roberts defended the perpetrators of 1998 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala. abortion clinic. The accusation stems from an amicus curiae brief Roberts co-authored seven years before the bombing when he was Deputy Solicitor General in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. In a brief for the case Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, Roberts argued that protestors at an abortion clinic could not be prosecuted under a Civil War era civil rights law. In his oral argument before the Supreme Court, Roberts makes it clear that the protesters should be prosecuted for any state laws they violated such as trespassing, disturbing the peace or inciting a riot.

The ad came under a barrage of criticism, including from supporters of abortion like Frances Kissling, president of “Catholics” for a Free Choice. After a letter denouncing it was sent to NARAL by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, who is pro-abortion, the ad was pulled. In a letter to Specter, NARAL president Nancy Keenan did not apologize for the ad’s content but did say she regretted “that many people have misconstrued our recent advertisement about Mr. Roberts’ record.”

The day after pulling the ad, NARAL communications director David E. Seldin announced he was resigning immediately. In an e-mail to coworkers he said, “I’ve been thinking for a while that I would most likely leave after the Supreme Court nomination fight was over, and by leaving now I can spend the next two weeks in Cape Cod with my family relaxing, instead of trying to find a place with good cell phone reception.” A Washington Post report said Seldin was among a group of Democrats who thought they should be tougher on Roberts.

Despite pulling the ad, NARAL is using the same rhetoric as the ad in its online campaign to stop confirmation of Roberts saying he “argued in support of the violent clinic protesters at Operation Rescue who have tried to block women’s access to basic health care services with bombs and threats of murder.” The document accuses Roberts of being “so driven by ideology that he will excuse lawless conduct against women and other Americans.”

In a list of talking points on the website, NARAL says that the “Bush administration owes it to the American public to disclose all relevant information about John Roberts, including his taxes, records from his job as Deputy Solicitor General, and the radical right’s role in his selection.”

Copyright 2005—Culture of Life Foundation.
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Culture of Life Foundation
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August 16th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos, Law / Legal Issues, National, Pro-Life | 3 comments

Culture & Cosmos / Liberal Pundits on Roberts: No Catholics Allowed

Liberal pundits, like they did in Europe, are seeking to exclude orthodox Catholics from public life. The following is Culture & Cosmos on the subject.

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Pundit Class Says Roberts’ Faith Open for Questioning

A number of prominent pundits have written columns saying it is entirely legitimate to question Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts about whether his Catholic faith would interfere with his ability to serve on the bench. And in a recent interview former New York Governor Mario Cuomo went so far as to say that Congress should get assurance from Roberts that he will uphold the Constitution even if the pope tells him to do otherwise.

Writing for the online magazine Slate.com, Christopher Hitchens says that Catholic judges and the effect their beliefs would have on the way they carry out their duties are deserving of special scrutiny. “Why should this question be asked only of Catholics? Well, that’s easy. The Roman Catholic Church claims the right to legislate on morals for all its members and to excommunicate them if they don’t conform. The church is also a foreign state, which has diplomatic relations with Washington.” Hitchens also takes a swing at the Catholic Justice Antonin Scalia. Noting a speech Scalia gave in Baton Rouge in which he called on audience members to be “fools for Christ” Hitchens remarks, “Whether for ‘Christ’ or not, Scalia is certainly a fool. He should have fewer allies and emulators on the court, not more.”

Self-identified Catholic E.J. Dionne wrote a column for the Washington Post titled “Why It’s Right to Ask About Robert’s Faith.” In it Dionne asks, “If Roberts’s religious views are important to him, why should they be off-limits to honest discussion?” Writing for beliefnet.com Amy Sullivan accuses Republicans of hypocrisy saying they were the ones to make faith an issue. “It was conservatives who spent much of last year arguing that John Kerry’s religious beliefs were insufficiently reflected in his position on abortion,” she writes though conservatives never argued that Kerry’s faith would prevent him from carrying out the duties of the presidency.

One of the more outspoken proponents of the notion that Roberts’ faith should be a potential target of criticism is Cuomo. Speaking this Sunday on Meet the Press, he said, “Everybody takes an oath to support the Constitution, including especially judges. So why not ask them: Will you, Judge, apply a religious test to the Constitution? Will you start by saying, ‘I’m not going to support the Constitution if my pope tells me not to’?” Cuomo reiterated the point that assurances should be obtained from Roberts that he was not taking directions from the Pope. “Here, ironically, if you want to say religious test, the question for Judge Roberts is, Are you going to impose a religious test on the Constitution? Are you going to say that because the pope says this or the Church says that, you will do it no matter what? You will overturn Roe against Wade.”

Conservative constitutionalists and Catholics are increasingly concerned at what appears to be a growing religious test for the Supreme Court. They are reminded of what happened a few months ago in Europe where noted Italian statesman Rocco Buttiglione was denied a seat on the European Commission because of his Catholic beliefs. As one observer put it, “Let them question him on his political positions, or on his judicial philosophy, fine, but asking him about possible religious underpinnings of these positions is establishing an unconstitutional religious test for public office. It is particularly appalling that this is coming from supposed Catholics like Cuomo.”

Copyright 2005—Culture of Life Foundation.
Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Culture of Life Foundation
1413 K Street, NW, Suite 1000
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Phone: (202) 289-2500
Fax: (202) 289-2502
E-mail: clf@culture-of-life.org
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August 9th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos | 4 comments

Justice’s Nomination Brings Issue of Catholic Faith to Forefront

Are Catholics welcome to serve in the offices of this country or are they banned and condemned to second class status?

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Supreme Court justice nominee John G. Roberts has begun to face increased scrutiny over his Catholic faith and the role it would play were he to be confirmed by the Senate. Whether or not Catholic bishops will weigh in on the question remains unknown but it seems likely that many of the issues surrounding Catholic politicians, Catholics in the voting booth and reception of the Eucharist that arose during last year’s election will once again become prominent.

Following the resignation of Sandra Day O’Connor from the high court, Spokane Bishop William S. Skylstad wrote a letter on the vacancy to President Bush. In the July 6 letter, Bishop Skylstad, who serves as president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote that while the bishops could not endorse nominees they did urge him “to consider for the Court qualified jurists who, pre-eminently, support the protection of human life from conception to natural death, especially of those who are unborn, disabled, or terminally ill.”

Since then, Roberts, a practicing Catholic, was nominated and people have begun to ask whether or not his Catholicism will interfere with his ability to carry out the duties of a Supreme Court justice. Opinion pieces appeared yesterday in the Los Angels Times and Boston Globe both saying Roberts’ faith should not be off limits. Writing in the Times, Michael McGough said, “Catholic antiabortion activists and some bishops have suggested that canon law requires that Catholic politicians who support abortion rights be denied Holy Communion.” McGough asks if the same reasoning would be applied to a judge who rules to uphold Roe v. Wade.

During last year’s election many Catholic bishops spoke out against pro-abortion Catholics who hold public office saying they should not receive communion prompting numerous news stories. One bishop even said those voting for pro-abortion candidates should not receive the Eucharist. The question of Catholics in political life was even addressed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote a memo to Washington Cardinal Theodore McCormick saying Catholics are obligated to oppose laws that permit abortion and euthanasia. A Catholic politician “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” is guilty of formal cooperation according to the memo. In such a situation the politician’s pastor ought to explain the Church’s teaching and tell him not to receive Communion, “warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.”

Though the bishops themselves have not spoken out, the National Committee for a Human Life Amendment, an organization that operates under the oversight of the bishops, has led several efforts dealing with the Supreme Court. In April, in anticipation of a vacancy in the Court, the NCHLA distributed some 7 million postcards to 70 percent of the nation’s dioceses urging senators to reject making support for Roe v. Wade a prerequisite for being confirmed. They are now directing their efforts to promoting the website EndRoe.org. Visitors to the site can send their senator an e-mail telling them not “to require support for Roe v. Wade as a condition for determining a nominee’s fitness for judicial office.” According to Loretta Fleming, field coordinator at NCHLA, they hope the site becomes a one-stop educational resource advocating the end of Roe v. Wade. “People think that Roe is the law of the land and that it’s never going to change. We want to change the mindset,” she said.

Copyright 2005—Culture of Life Foundation.
Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Culture of Life Foundation
1413 K Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington DC 20005
Phone: (202) 289-2500
Fax: (202) 289-2502
E-mail: clf@culture-of-life.org
Website: http://www.culture-of-life.org

August 2nd, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos | one comment

Friday Fax / Let’s Keep Trying the Same Failed Strategies til We Get Different Results

Despite the fact that these programs have no ability whatsoever to contain AIDS, they keep trying them anyway, expecting different results. The only difference is that want even MORE money with which to fail with. That’s the UN for you, the potential for so much good, but insists on being a big hole in the center of Manhattan you sink money into and never get any results.

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UN Calls for Closer Links Between AIDS Prevention Programs and Abortion

Yesterday the UN wrapped up a high-level conference to evaluate the progress achieved in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS since the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS. While the UN acknowledged a failure to make significant progress and admitted that it was unlikely to reach its original goal of containing the disease by 2015, the blame was apportioned to insufficient funding rather than ineffective strategies. The UN called for more financial support for its current strategies, including the integration of HIV/AIDS prevention programs and “reproductive health services,” which in UN speak include abortion.

The UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan admitted that HIV/AIDS is still expanding at an accelerating rate, and last year saw more new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths than ever before. There are now 39.4 million people worldwide living with HIV. The hardest-hit region continues to be sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 64 percent of all HIV infections. In Swaziland, the most affected country, 42.6 percent of pregnant women tested HIV-positive last year.

Jean Ping, the President of the General Assembly, also stated that the threat of HIV/AIDS today is far greater than four years ago. By the end of 2006, 11 countries in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to lose more than 10 percent of their workforce due to AIDS.

Speakers focused on the shortfall of funding for current efforts rather than questioning the effectiveness of current UN strategies to battle HIV/AIDS. Peter Piot, the Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), claimed that UN programs would succeed if the current amount of funding were doubled from $8 billion to $14-16 billion annually.

Access to conference proceedings was mostly restricted, and the final recommendations were not made public but were summarized at the closing session by Jean Ping, the President of the General Assembly. However, the proceedings merely reaffirmed the need for a scaling-up of current UN efforts, rather than recommending new strategies.

The preparatory document on HIV/AIDS prevention stressed the need for “linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS.” According to Ping, the actual discussion recommended the breaking down of “taboos” regarding sexuality and high-risk behavior, and called for a closer link between “sex, hygiene and procreation” programs and HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

Among the papers circulated at the conference was the Stockholm Call for Action, a radical manifesto created on April 12 at a conference sponsored by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Government of Sweden. This Call declares that “access to reproductive and sexual health information and services is integral to efforts to curb the HIV/AIDS epidemic” asks for young people to have “access to gender-sensitive reproductive and sexual health . . . education and services,” and supports the inclusion of “universal access to reproductive health by 2015 as a target for MDG 5″ at September’s Summit at the UN on the Millennium Development Goals, the UN’s current major initiative.

Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).

Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

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June 8th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos | one comment

Culture & Cosmos / Senator Brownback

The latest from C-FAM…

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Brownback Devotion To Life, Other Issues Makes Him A Standout Senator

Since coming to Congress in 1994 and the Senate in 1996, Kansas Republican Sam Brownback has distinguished himself as one of the most stalwart defenders of human life while simultaneously developing a diverse legislative portfolio that includes efforts to defend religious freedom around the globe, to stop genocide in Darfur and even to build a museum honoring African-Americans on Washington DC’s Mall.

One of the causes to which Brownback has lent his leadership is a total ban on human cloning. Brownback has led the charge in the Senate for a total ban by sponsoring legislation that would make cloning illegal not only in instances when a cloned embryo is carried in a pregnancy, brought to full term and delivered but also in cases when a human embryo is created for the purposes of being destroyed for scientific research such as for embryonic stem cells.

Brownback has also threatened to filibuster a recent bill that gained passage in the House that would provide federal funding for embryo destructive research if it reaches the Senate floor. He has also led the way in cleaning up the pop-culture airwaves by sponsoring legislation that would increase the amount of money the Federal Communications Commission can fine TV and radio stations for broadcasting indecent content.

Though his principled stands on these issues as well as his good standing with Christian conservatives might lead some to stereotype as only a social conservative, Brownback has put considerable effort into developing bipartisan initiatives, a fact illustrated by his work with Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu on cloning. He has even won the accolades of Nicholas Kristof, a liberal columnist with one of the left’s favorite institutions, The New York Times. In a December column Kristof praised the senator for taking the lead on a number of international human rights issues including most notably his efforts to intervene on behalf of Sudenese citizens in the region of Darfur who are, according to many, experiencing genocide. “Members of the Christian right, exemplified by Brownback, are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad — thus creating opportunities for common ground between left and right on issues we all care about,” Krstof wrote. “. . . I’m embarrassed to say that Democrats have been so suspicious of Republicans that they haven’t contributed much on those human rights issues where the Christian right has already staked out its ground.”

Brownback may have his eye beyond representing Kansas in the US Senate. In recent months, he has made has made visits to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, states where the first presidential primaries are held. He recently told RightWingNews.com that he is examining a presidential run but that, “No final decision has been made. . . . It’s quite a challenge and so I’m taking time and looking at it quite carefully.”

Brownback may harbor high aspirations, but he is not like the usual politician. He believes that government can be a force for moral good and personally demonstrates a profound interior life of faith. At a recent address to the graduates of Christendom College makes it clear that Brownback approaches his work with humility and awareness of its limitations. “The temptation that many of us in public life face is to treat public policy issues as if they were of transcendent importance. In fact, that can become a handy excuse for treating people as means to an all-important end, as well as all sorts of other omissions of responsibility,” he said. “But it is this constant interior struggle to do our work well and to fulfill our obligations with the right intention that will have the most profound effect on society. This is the re-evangelization in action: the positive influence we can have on the souls we touch each day.”

Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).

Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 427
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Phone: (212) 754-5948 Fax: (212) 754-9291
E-mail: c-fam@c-fam.org Website: www.c-fam.org

June 8th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos | no comments

Friday Fax - Ok we lied, we really are trying to push abortion

This Friday Fax brings us a document that admits people are pushing for legalized abortion as a human right everywhere by abusing the Beijing conference that explicitly did not make abortion a human right. They continue to parrot the lie that strict abortion laws lead to higher maternal mortality despite the fact that even they don’t believe that any more. Here it is.

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New Report Shows How Beijing Document Promotes Abortion

Merely two months after the close of the “Beijing +10″ conference at the United Nations, where pro-abortion lobby groups and delegates from several countries vehemently denied that the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action supports a right to legal abortion, a prominent abortion advocacy group has released two briefing papers admitting that Beijing promotes legalized abortion.

In “Abortion and the Law: Ten Years of Reform,” the Center for Reproductive Rights, the world’s only organization of human rights lawyers focusing exclusively on abortion, states that Beijing “provides vital support to advocates seeking abortion law reform in their countries.”

The report explains that Beijing, while not directly calling for legalized abortion, provides a “global commitment to stopping unsafe abortion.” The report highlights Beijing’s call upon governments to “to deal with the health impact of unsafe abortion as a major public health concern.” According to the report, Beijing thus “link[ed] women’s health to abortion law reform” and “affirmed what has become increasingly clear to governments and advocates worldwide: that removing legal barriers to abortion saves women’s lives, promotes their health, and empowers women.”

In its second recent briefing paper, “Beijing and International Law: UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies Uphold Reproductive Rights,” CRR explains how Beijing supports the activities of other UN bodies that are pressuring countries to legalize their abortion laws. CRR states that Beijing “focuses primarily on the impact of unsafe abortion,” and various UN treaty monitoring bodies have found illegal abortion to be unsafe.

According to CRR, such committees have “made the important connection between illegal, unsafe abortion and high rates of maternal mortality.” According to these committees, “maternal mortality caused by unsafe abortion [is] a violation of women’s rights to health and life.” Thus, these committees argue that women’s rights to life and health mandate legalized abortion.

CRR highlights activities of the Human Rights Committee (HRC), which monitors implementation of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Covenant, created at a time when most countries banned abortion, does not refer to abortion in any way. However, HRC has nonetheless frequently used its ICCPR mandate to pressure countries to liberalize their abortion laws.

For example, in March 2005 HRC told Kenya that it is concerned about the “maternal mortality…caused, inter alia, by a high number of unsafe or illegal abortions,” and stated that Kenya “should review its abortion laws.”

In 2004 HRC told Poland that it “reiterates its deep concern about the restrictive abortion laws in Poland, which may incite women to seek unsafe, illegal abortion…the State Party should liberalize its legislation and practice on abortion.”

Copyright 2005 - C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute).

Permission granted for unlimited use. Credit required.

Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute
866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 427
New York, New York 10017
Phone: (212) 754-5948 Fax: (212) 754-9291
E-mail: c-fam@c-fam.org Website: www.c-fam.org

May 26th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Friday Fax / Culture & Cosmos | one comment