Scalia says Constitution silent on abortion, race in school

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Justice Antonin Scalia on Sunday defended some of his Supreme Court opinions, arguing that nothing in the Constitution supports abortion rights and the use of race in school admissions.
Scalia, a leading conservative voice on the high court, sparred in a one-hour televised debate with American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen. He said unelected judges have no place deciding politically charged questions when the Constitution is silent on those issues.
Arguing that liberal judges in the past improperly established new political rights such as abortion, Scalia warned, "Someday, you're going to get a very conservative Supreme Court and regret that approach."
"On controversial issues on stuff like homosexual rights, abortion, we debate with each other and persuade each other and vote on it either through representatives or a constitutional amendment," the Reagan appointee said.
"Whether it's good or bad is not my job. My job is simply to say if those things you find desirable are contained in the Constitution," he said.
Scalia's comments come as the Supreme Court this term will hear closely divided issues involving partial-birth abortion and school integration. They are expected to test the conservative impact of the court's two newest members, Chief Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito.
Scalia, 70, has consistently voted to limit the use of race in school admissions and has called for the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing a woman's right to abortion to be overruled. But his influence was often limited by moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, who cast deciding votes on those issues against him.
With O'Connor now retired and Alito succeeding her, Scalia -- whom President Bush passed up for chief justice -- will have new opportunities to sway his new colleagues and centrist Anthony Kennedy closer to his viewpoints.
During Sunday's debate, Scalia outlined his judicial philosophy of interpreting the Constitution according to its text, as understood at the time it was adopted. He reiterated that race has no place in school admissions, a viewpoint that put him on the losing side in 2003.
"The Constitution very clearly forbids discrimination on the basis of race," Scalia said in response to a question by moderator Pete Williams of NBC. "It doesn't seem to me to allow Michigan to say we think it's good to discriminate on the basis of race when you want to make sure everyone is exposed to different backgrounds. We cannot use race as the test of diversity."
Scalia, who marked his 20th anniversary on the court last month, generally finds himself taking the opposite position to the ACLU. Most notably, he wrote a majority 5-4 opinion last term giving police more leeway to enter private homes.
He also unsuccessfully sided with the government in cases where the court struck down Ten Commandments displays in Kentucky courthouses and declared that the military commissions President Bush established to try suspected al Qaeda members were unconstitutional.
But during Sunday's debate, Scalia noted there were cases in which he and the ACLU agreed. They included rulings upholding flag burning and a 2004 opinion arguing that a U.S. citizen seized in Afghanistan in wartime could challenge his detention as an enemy combatant in U.S. courts.
Scalia, who has at times had a prickly relationship with the media, agreed to have C-SPAN televise Sunday's event live -- a more recent accommodation as the court begins to show greater signs of openness under Roberts.

Deformed babies killed for super race

October 16, 2006
THE North Korean regime's obsession with racial purity has led to the killing of disabled infants and forced abortions for women suspected of conceiving their babies by Chinese fathers, according to a growing body of testimony from defectors.
The latest description of Kim Jong-il's policy of state eugenics came from a North Korean doctor, Ri Kwang-chol, who escaped last year and told a forum in Seoul that babies with deformities were killed soon after birth.
"There are no people with physical defects in North Korea," Dr Ri said. Such babies were put to death by medical staff and buried quickly, he claimed. He denied ever committing the act himself.
Exiles in Seoul said Dr Ri was now keeping a low profile, fearing retaliation by North Korean agents, who have assassinated foes in the South Korean capital before. But his account added to the evidence that the Kim family dictatorship is founded on mystical notions of Korean racial superiority rather than Marxism - a reality that explains its deepening estrangement from China.
Along the 1370km border, North Korean women refugees have emerged with stories that speak of the regime's preoccupation with "deviant" sexual relations and its predisposition to violence in dealing with them.
One such account came from a 30-year-old woman who calls herself Han Myong-suk. She escaped twice and reached a safe haven in an undisclosed third country within the past year thanks to Helping Hands Korea, an American Christian group.
She said she was sold by traffickers to a Chinese farmer near the Great Wall, and was five months pregnant by him when she was caught by the Chinese police and deported back to North Korea. There she was held in one of three female detention centres, which have been identified in the towns of Sinuju, Onsong and Chongin.
Her account was taken down by Tim Peters, an American Christian activist who founded the group.
"I defied the order to abort the fetus the prison authorities contemptuously called a 'Chinese Chink' and was badly beaten and kicked in my belly by a guard. His name was Hwang Myong-dong," she said.
One week later, said Ms Han, she was led to a prison clinic "where in a most blunt manner they extracted the dead child from my body".
Ms Han survived the depraved conditions of a labour camp for several years before her release and eventual second escape. Her story represented important corroboration of a practice that was first detailed in a report in 2003 for the pressure group US Committee of Human Rights in North Korea that was compiled by David Hawk, a human rights investigator.
Mr Hawk found "extreme phenomena of repression ... unique to North Korea" and concluded that its regime practised "ethnic infanticide". He traced eight female witnesses who gave distressing accounts of child murder.
One took place at the women's detention centre in Sinuiju, a border zone visible across the Yalu River from the Chinese city of Dandong.
Choi Yong-hwa, 28, described how she was made to accompany a heavily pregnant woman, who had also been returned across the bridge from China, to a clinic where doctors induced labour.
After the infant was born, Ms Choi said she and other women stood by in disbelief as it was suffocated with a wet towel. The mother passed out.
A 66-year-old grandmother also testified to witnessing the deaths of babies at Sinuiju, two of them healthy boys born at full term. The first belonged to a 28-year-old woman called Lim.
The witness was holding the newborn in a blanket when a guard grabbed him by a leg and threw him into a large box lined with plastic.
A total of seven babies - five born prematurely after labour was induced - were left to die in the box. Two days later the premature babies were dead.
The two full-term boys were still blinking, although their lips had turned blue.
A guard battered them to death with forceps, the witness said. At the Nongpo centre in Chongjin, witnesses saw the "children of betrayers" tossed into a wicker basket, covered in plastic sheeting and left to die.
One woman watched the killing of seven babies, taken from their mothers and left face-down on the ground within their view. After two days the guards smothered any that were still alive. "Guards would say the mothers had to see and hear their babies die because they were Chinese," the report said.
The Korean Bar Association says that 58 per cent of defectors interviewed by its lawyers have testified to seeing or hearing of coerced abortions in the North Korean prison system.
The aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres left North Korea in 1998, citing among its reasons the regime's refusal to grant access to so-called "9-27 camps", where sick and disabled children were dumped. The apparent contradiction between the humanitarian group's statement and the recent claims by Dr Ri may be explained by the time that elapsed between them.
In the same period hardliners have come into the ascendant, throwing out almost all foreign aid workers, tightening up political controls and intensifying repression as the regime set out on its path of confrontation over its nuclear weapons program.
"It's vital to recognise that juche - the dogma of self-reliance - is not a theory but a cult and that Kim is worshipped as the leader of a religion," said a veteran Western diplomat who negotiated with the North Koreans on 19 visits.
"These Koreans genuinely believe they are a master race and that the peninsula will be united under the rule of the Kim dynasty."
Behind the facade of a Supreme People's Assembly, a presidium, a cabinet and the Korean Workers party, North Korea operates as a one-man military dictatorship founded on clan rule, blood ties and deification of the leader. Kim is falsely said to have been born on the sacred slopes of Mount Paektu.
This is used to legitimise behaviour by agents of the state which human rights activists believe will one day form the basis of indictments for crimes against humanity. Defectors have told of experiments to test Kim's chemical weapons, one giving an account of prisoners tethered to a hillside and gassed.
Unlike the child killings, though, this story has never been verified by more than one witness.
A study by three researchers at Seoul's Korean Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims surveyed the experience of 30 defectors among the 7400 people who have since found refuge in the south.
All had been subjected to torture, both physical and psychological, at the hands of Kim's military security agency. Again, one torture centre was identified at Sinuiju. More than half were punished merely for having Chinese currency and more than half said they experienced sexual violence.
They reported beatings, electrocution, submersion in water and the "doghouse torture" in which the victim is contorted into an unnatural and agonising posture.
"This study strongly suggests the need for international organisations such as the United Nations to put an end to the return of defectors from China," the researchers said. China has refused to allow the UN High Commissioner for Refugees any access to the border.

NBC: Bible Verses In Veggie Tales Offensive, But Not Madonna's Mockery Of The Crucifixion Of Christ
Send an email to NBC asking them to end their bias against Christians and stop censoring the references to God's love in Veggie Tales.
NBC anti-Christian bigotry continues. This time NBC censored Bible verses and expressions of Christian love from the children's cartoon Veggie Tales being shown Saturday mornings on NBC.NBC says comments such as "God made you special and He loves you very much" were offensive and censored them from the show.In response to the outrage over the allegations that NBC was ordering the removal of any references to God and the Bible from the animated series, the network first issued a flat denial. As reported in Broadcasting & Cable, NBC had to "clip off the beginning and ending tags, which are Bible verses, but they were also arguably the easiest cut to make."The creator of Veggie Tales, Phil Vischer, said NBC's excuse for censoring the Bible verses was not true. Vischer said, "Well, that's kinda funny, because as the guy required to do all the editing, I know that statement is false...The show wasn't too long, it was too Christian. The show was already cut down to the proper length, so timing had nothing to do with it." NBC then responded: "NBC is committed to the positive messages and universal values of Veggie Tales. Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view." Evidently NBC considers not being truthful as one of their "universal values."Vischer said had he known how much censorship NBC would exercise, he would not have signed on for the network deal.Censored were comments such as: "Calm down. The Bible says we should love our enemies." And "the Bible says Samson got his strength from God. And God can give us strength, too."NBC says using Bible verses or referring to God is offensive to some non-Christians. But NBC doesn't mind offending Christians by showing Madonna mocking the crucifixion of Christ. And they do not mind offending Christians in their new program Studio 60 with a segment called Crazy Christians. (Please read the review.)This will seem a strong statement, and it is: The real reason the religious content is being censored is that the networks are run by people who have an anti-Christian bias. I noticed this anti-Christian bigotry and spoke out against it over 25 years ago. I'm sorry if someone thinks that is too harsh, but I must speak the truth as God leads me to see the truth. (Please click here to read excerpts from a speech I gave to a group of TV officials in September, 1981—25 years ago.)TAKE ACTION!1. Send an email to NBC asking them to end their bias against Christians and stop censoring the references to God's love in Veggie Tales. 2. Forward this to friends and family so they will know of NBC's anti-Christian bias. NBC is owned by General Electric.3. Print out the AFA Pass Along sheet and distribute at your Sunday School class and church. Ask your pastor to encourage members to send an email.
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POPE WILL BROADEN USE OF LATIN MASS
Vatican, Oct. 11 (CWNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI is preparing to release a motu proprio extending permission for priests to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass, Vatican sources have confirmed.
The new papal document-- for which a publication date has not yet been set-- would give all priests permission to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V. This permission, a "universal indult," would replace the existing indult that dates back to 1988, when Ecclesia Dei authorized use of the Tridentine rite until more restricted conditions, requiring the permission of the local bishop.
Pope Benedict has long favored moves to accommodate traditionalist Catholics, and to integrate the Tridentine rite into the regular liturgical life of the Church. The motu proprio that he has prepared-- which, according to informed sources, is now in final form-- addresses other liturgical questions as well as the issue of the traditional Mass.
Vatican sources say that the papal document affirms the principle that there is only one liturgical rite for the Latin Church. But this rite has two forms: the "ordinary" liturgy (the Novus Ordo, celebrated in the vernacular language) and the "extraordinary" (the Tridentine rite, in Latin). These two forms have equal rights, the text indicates, and bishops are strongly encouraged to allow free use of both forms.
Pope Benedict is reportedly waiting for the best moment to release the new document, which is currently circulating among Vatican dicasteries. Speculation in Rome is that the indult will be announced at the same time that the Pope releases his apostolic exhortation concluding the Synod on the Eucharist. That document is expected soon, perhaps in November.
There is significant opposition to the indult among Vatican officials, and the papal text has been the subject of serious debate and criticism. But Pope Benedict has made it clear-- notably in his meeting with the College of Cardinals in March-- that he will move forward with efforts to accommodate traditionalists.
In 1988, with his own motu proprio Ecclesia Dei, Pope John Paul II allowed the celebration of the old Mass in parish settings, provided that the local bishop gave his approval. The Ecclesia Dei commission was created to supervise implementation of that policy. Despite the urging of Pope John Paul for a "broad and generous" use of the indult, many bishops have been reluctant to allow the traditional Mass, or have severely restricted its use.
The papal document is likely to take the form of an apostolic letter, with the added status of a motu proprio-- a document that carries the force of canon law. The document has been reviewed by the Congregation for Divine Worship and by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, the president of the Ecclesia Dei commission, as well as the Pope; it is now in at least its third draft.

Not Going To Win Mother Of The Year Award!
Police say Erie County mother used infant as bludgeon
Tuesday, October 10, 2006By Cindi Lash and Jim McKinnon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
After a night of drinking, Chytoria Lata Graham returned home early Sunday and quarreled with her live-in boyfriend, Deangelo Troop, she told police.
Chytoria Lata Graham
Pushing led to shoving and throwing things before she "snapped,'' the Erie woman told police. She grabbed the couple's month-old son and swung him through the air by the legs, using the blanket-swaddled infant as a weapon to strike her boyfriend.
Mr. Troop punched her back, prompting her to leave her apartment and call 911, she told police. When officers arrived, they found the baby, Jarron Troop, suffering from severe head injuries, and arrested Ms. Graham for causing them.
Ms. Graham, 27, remained in the Erie County Jail yesterday, unable to post $75,000 bond on charges of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and simple assault. Erie police said her baby, who was born Sept. 11, was taken first to an Erie hospital and later flown by medical helicopter to Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Hospital officials would not release information about the baby yesterday. Police, at different times yesterday, said he was in critical condition and in serious but stable condition.
Erie County District Attorney Bradley Foulk said the baby was injured during the brawl around 3:30 a.m. Sunday in the second-floor duplex apartment his parents shared in the 300 block of East Fourth Street in downtown Erie.
"Never, never, never -- I can never remember anything like this," Mr. Foulk said.
In an affidavit filed to support Ms. Graham's arrest, police said baby Jarron was in a drug-induced coma in an intensive-care unit at the hospital. They said he suffered a fracture of the right temporal region and bleeding in his brain after Ms. Graham swung him and smacked his head against her boyfriend's midsection.
Erie police Capt. Frank Kwitowski said Mr. Troop, 20, is the father of Jarron and another of Ms. Graham's four children. The Erie County Office of Children and Youth ordered the other children removed from the home.
Temporary custody was granted to their maternal grandparents, Gloria Graham and Cornell Petty of Erie. Officials in Erie County Family Court yesterday said no hearings had been scheduled pertaining to custody of Jarron or his siblings.
Ms. Graham surrendered to police Sunday after learning she was wanted in connection with the injuries inflicted on her son, police said. When investigators questioned her, she "gave a statement and admitted to all the facts as we know them," Capt. Kwitowski said.
According to the affidavit, Ms. Graham told police she was out drinking Saturday night and early Sunday and began arguing with and shouting at Mr. Troop when she came home. During the dispute, she said, she threw several items at Mr. Troop before turning and grabbing baby Jarron from the bed and swinging him to hit Mr. Troop, the affidavit states.
Ms. Graham said she put the baby down, then fled after Mr. Troop punched her in the eye. Police said they found furniture knocked over and broken household goods in the apartment.
Police said they later took a second statement from Ms. Graham in which she told them there was no chance Mr. Troop hit their baby. Two of her children corroborated her story, police said.
Mr. Troop could not be reached yesterday and other relatives declined comment.

Teen failed for stand on gays

A 13-YEAR-OLD student was failed after she refused to write an assignment on life in a gay community, because of her religious and moral beliefs.Her outraged mother, Christian groups and the State Opposition want an investigation into the treatment of the Year 9 student at Windaroo Valley State High School, south of Brisbane.

"It's no wonder our kids are struggling with the basics when the Government is allowing this sort of rubbish to be taught in the classroom," Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney told The Sunday Mail yesterday.
The uproar came as Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop this week announced plans for Canberra to take control of school curriculums from the states, accusing "ideologues" of hijacking the education system .
The girl was among a class of 13 and 14-year-olds asked to imagine living as a heterosexual among a mostly homosexual colony on the moon as part of their health and physical education subject.
They had to answer 10 questions, including how they felt about being in the minority and what strategies they would use to help them cope.
They were also asked to discuss where ideas about homosexuality came from.
Sources said the students were told not to discuss the assignment with their parents and that it was to be kept in-class.
They said many of the students were uncomfortable with the subject matter or did not understand the questions.
The 13-year-old girl instantly refused to do the assignment on religious and moral grounds.
"It is against my beliefs and I am not going there," she told the teacher, who responded by failing her.
After a series of discussions between the school and her mother, it was suggested the girl would be better off leaving the state education system and attending an independent school.
The girl's mother said yesterday she did not learn of the assignment until reading her daughter's report card several weeks later and discovered a first-ever fail mark for health and physical education.

The Church of England has privately blamed the Government for favouring Islam over other religions, it was revealed today.

A document prepared by the Archbishop of Canterbury's adviser on other faiths accused ministers of showing political preference to Muslims and using taxpayers' money to promote Islam.
But, it said, the result has only been to deepen the divisions in society.
And the report questioned why Britain is regarded as a 'multi-faith' society when more than seven out of ten people say they are Christians and only one in 20 follow another faith.
The protests within the Church of England are a further blow to the left-wing doctrine of multiculturalism that denigrates British history and tradition while insisting on the right of every minority group to develop its own culture.
The criticism of Labour's attitude to Muslims was presented to the CofE's bishops last week and is said to have been 'well received.'
In it, Dr Rowan Williams' advisor Canon Guy Wilkinson said that the Church of England had been 'sidelined' while 'preferential' treatment was accorded to Muslims.
The report cited a series of instances of bias in favour of Islam. These included public funding to fly Islamic scholars to Britain to preach, the abandonment of laws that would have made forced marriage a crime, and official encouragement for the development non-interest mortgage and loans that obey the letter of Islamic law.
But Canon Wilkinson, who made a reputation as an outspoken cleric in the 1990s while trying to maintain congregations at his inner city Birmingham church in the face of growing Muslim influence in his local area, said all of this had not helped to heal the gulf between some groups of Muslims and the rest of society.
His report said: 'One might argue that disaffection and separation is now greater than ever, with Muslim communities withdrawing further into a sense of victimhood, and other faith communities seriously concerned that the Government has given signals that appear to encourage the notion of a privileged relationship with sections of the Muslim community.'
It added: 'In relation to faith, there has been a divided, almost schizophrenic approach.'
The document said that the 'contribution of the Church of England in particular and Christianity in general to the underlying culture remains very substantial.
'It could certainly be argued that there is an agenda behind a claim that a five per cent adherence to other faiths makes for a multi-faith society.'
Canon Wilkinson, who was an archdeacon in Bradford during the 2001 riots, said that Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly's Commission on Cohesion and Integration that is designed to help bring Muslims into the mainstream is doomed to fail.
His report adds to the sense of frustration with multiculturalism within the CofE that was expressed last year by Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu. Dr Sentamu said the doctrine tended to suppress the benefits of majority culture.
A spokesman for the Church of England said: 'This internal briefing note, produced by a Church official, is not designed as an attack on the Government but as a contribution to debate.'