His letter was protesting federally funded abortion under health care legislation.
An unstamped letter from former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop caused a security scare when Capitol Police shut down Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s for 45 minutes office yesterday.
Koop's letter, addressed to Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, protested federal funding of abortion in health care legislation.
"More specifically, I am troubled about the possibility of federal dollars being used to pay for elective abortions and Americans being forced to subsidize them," Koop wrote. "I firmly believe that strong protections must be included in this legislation so that health care providers are not forced to participate in abortions against their will."
Roll Call reports that the letter was stampless with "C. Everett Koop" written in the upper-left corner, and staffers reported it as a suspicious package to the police.
Reached at his home Wednesday, Koop confirmed that he wrote a few “beautifully typed” pages on his views of the health care legislation. The fact that it caused a Capitol Hill scare is “nonsense,” he said.
“I wasn’t aware that sending a hand-delivered letter was an offense,” he said, later adding: “I did it over a weekend. I don’t have a lot of secretarial help and I’m 93.”
Continue reading "C. Everett Koop's Letter Shuts Down Reid's Office"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 5, 2009 11:50AM | Comments (9)
Early exit polls show Maine heading towards a repeal of a state law that would have allowed same-sex marriage.
The Legislature passed the law in May, but the election offered voters the chance to repeal the measure.
With more than 84 percent of precincts reporting early Tuesday, voters seeking to repeal the law claimed 53 percent of the vote.
In Washington state, early election results showed that voters were approving the state’s “everything but marriage” law, which gives registered domestic partners additional state-granted rights currently given only to married couples.
Continue reading "Maine's Same-Sex Marriage Opponents Claim Victory"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 4, 2009 12:29AM | Comments (92)
Chris Christie became the first Republican in several years to become New Jersey's governor in the Democratic-leaning state.
He joins Virginia governor-elect Bob McConnell as the second Republican Catholic to be voted into gubernatorial office today.
The Associated Press reports that with 75 percent of the precincts reporting, Christie leads with 50 percent of the vote over his Democratic opponent Gov. Jon Corzine, who is left with 44 percent of the vote. President Obama invested in the race, campaigning with Corzine five times on three visits.
During the campaign, Corzine targeted Christie in an ad criticizing Christie's support of a constitutional ban on abortion and opposition of funding stem cell research.
Continue reading "Republican Chris Christie Takes New Jersey"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 3, 2009 9:32PM | Comments (3)
Republican Bob McDonnell won Virginia's governor race today, becoming the second Catholic governor of Virginia, the Associated Press reports. Outgoing Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine became the first.
The former state attorney general defeated Democratic candidate, R. Creigh Deeds, who attempted to slam McDonnell for his 1989 master’s thesis while attending Regent University. McDonnell had described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. Deeds's strategy didn't work, the Washington Post writes.
The strategy appeared to work for a time, as polls tightened. But McDonnell fought back with a series of TV spots featuring supportive testimonials from his daughter, an Army veteran who served in Iraq, and a gallery of professional women who had worked for him in the attorney general's office. Increasingly, voters said they saw Deeds's campaign as a largely negative one that failed to define his own vision for the state.
Continue reading "Republican Bob McDonnell Wins Virginia Governor's Race "
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 3, 2009 7:15PM | Comments (1)
The Maine Legislature legalized same-sex marriage in May, but voters will get a chance to repeal the new law on Tuesday.
This is the first time voters have had a chance to repeal a legislature-initiated law that extends marriage to same-sex couples. If voters repeal it, the law will not be implemented.
The campaign to approve the law, Protect Maine Equality, and the campaign for repealing the law, Stand For Marriage Maine are still fighting hard as Election Day approaches to get the voters out. Protect Maine Equality raised $4 million for advertising and other campaign material, compared to $2.6 million raised by Stand for Marriage Maine, according to The New York Times. In addition, Gov. John Baldacci (D) publicly supports the law.
The final public opinion polls taken before the election suggest that the vote is a dead heat, the Washington Post reports.
Continue reading "Maine Voters to Decide on Same-Sex Marriage"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at November 2, 2009 9:57PM | Comments (16)
Rep. Stupak, who has fought to keep federally-funded abortion out of health care reform, says he would probably vote for the bill at the end of the day.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to unveil a health care plan Thursday morning that could be up for a vote on the House floor next week.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Michigan) said Speaker Pelosi is not pleased with his effort to remove abortion from being funded through healthcare reform. "I'm comfortable with where I'm at," he said on CSPAN. "This is who I am. It's reflective of my district. If it costs me my seat, so be it."
Christianity Today posted an article last week that outlined how the issue is dividing Democrats. Focus on the Family Action is spending $400,000 to fight President Obama's health care proposals, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.
Update: Stupak says in a video released today by the Heritage Foundation blog that he would probably still vote for the health care at the end of the day.
“I offered an amendment that says no public funding for abortion; that’s been the law of the land for many many decades, and we lose that vote. Let’s say we lose that vote–we need 218 to win–let’s say we get 217, and we lose. Would I vote against health care? If I had a chance to vote my conscience on it, I probably would not. I probably would still vote for the health care bill at the end of the day.”
A man in the audience voiced his concern before Stupak defended his position again.
"If everything I want [is] in the final bill, I like everything in the bill except you have public funding for abortion, and we had a chance to run our amendment and we lost. OK, I voted my conscience, stayed true to my principles, stayed true to the beliefs of this district, could I vote for healthcare? Yes I still could."
In other news:
--President Obama signed the hate crimes legislation "to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray, or who they are."
Continue reading "House to Unveil Health Care Plan"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 28, 2009 5:01PM | Comments (5)
The Senate approved legislation today that broadened the definition of federal hate crimes to include attacks based on sexual orientation. The Senate voted 68-29 to approve the measure attached to a $680 billion defense bill.
The bill has frustrated several conservative Christian groups who feared that pastors would see repercussions from the law. The latest version of the bill included new language that explicitly protected an excused person’s free exercise of religion.
Scholars and activists have disagreed over whether a minister could be prosecuted, if he or she preached against homosexuality and a parishioner would later commit a hate crime against someone for being gay.
Continue reading "Senate Passes Hate Crimes Bill"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 22, 2009 10:40PM | Comments (45)
WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats framed their health care and climate bills with moral appeals and complained about Republican roadblocks during a roundtable discussion with reporters Wednesday.
"I want to get this off my chest," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is continuing to head up work on a health care plan this week. "We're trying to move forward to do something to take care of Medicaid. There are dozens of things they've held us up on and they're doing that because they're betting on our failure."
Reid was joined by senators including Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Ben Cardin (Maryland) and Bob Casey (Penn.).
Failure to reform health care will create a heavier burden for the faith community to care for the poor, sick and elderly, said Sen. Ben Cardin.
"The faith community is being called upon to provide more resources and do more things that should be in our system collectively," Cardin said.
Continue reading "Senate Democrats Push Health Care, Climate Change on Moral Grounds"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 22, 2009 2:27PM | Comments (6)
It's easy to ignore the Conservative Bible Project when there are so many Bibles out there tailored to your specific need. Last week, you could've had President Obama on your Bible cover (the website took the offer down).
But while The Green Bible highlights earth-friendly passages in green, The Tennessean finds that the Conservative Bible Project takes translation to a new level, taking out two sections.
One is the long ending of Mark's Gospel, which includes verses about snake handling and the story of the woman caught in adultery. Neither is found in most of the oldest Greek manuscripts used to translate the Bible. Schlafly says that adultery story, in which Jesus says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," should be cut because it portrays Jesus as being soft on sin.
"It's a liberal addition, put in by people who wanted to undermine the reality of hell and judgment," he said.
The story of the woman caught in adultery, known as the "Pericope Adulterae" and found in John 7:53-8:1, has troubled scholars for some time. Most Greek manuscripts have the story but not the oldest manuscripts. St. Jerome included it in his Greek New Testament, which was used as the basis for the King James Version of the Bible. Modern translators put a footnote or bracket around the story, pointing out the questions about its origins. But none removed the text.
Meanwhile, Stephen Colbert and Salon take a few jabs at the project. Colbert's fans inserted "In the beginning, Stephen Colbert created the heaven and the earth," which was edited back out.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Tip/Wag - Conservapedia, Louvre & Honda Unicycle | ||||
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Continue reading "Conservapedia's Bible Removes Passages"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 20, 2009 8:43AM | Comments (16)
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee comes in first among likely Republican voters for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll released today.
And even though former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s forthcoming autobiography has topped Amazon book charts for weeks, she trails (18 percent) Huckabee (29 percent) and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (24 percent). In July, voters placed Romney (25 percent) and Palin (24 percent) in a close tie while Huckabee finished a close third at 22 percent.
This time around among evangelicals, Huckabee leads Palin by 17 percent while Palin beats Romney by 14 percent.
In other news:
Continue reading "Huckabee, Romney Lead Early GOP Field"
Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at October 19, 2009 11:22PM | Comments (2)
