Techcordance

Terrorism

A former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization who converted to Christianity says the recent arrest of four Muslim men suspected in a plot to blow up two New York synagogues illustrates that homegrown terrorism is a growing threat in the United States and elsewhere.
Three of the Muslim men who were apprehended are Americans, and one is a Haitian national. A federal magistrate has ordered the four men to remain in custody. Prosecutor Eric Snyder told the court that the men are extremely violent, pose an extreme danger to the community, and were eager to bring death to Jews.
The suspects, who were under FBI surveillance for more than a year, planted what they thought were bombs in cars parked outside each synagogue. They then intended to shoot down planes with guided surface-to-air missiles, but the missiles and the car bombs — which were provided by an FBI informant — had been deactivated. Police say the suspects all had criminal records and may have converted to Islam while in prison. Authorities say they had no known ties to al-Qaida.

Prop 8

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage Tuesday, but it also decided that the estimated 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot before the law took effect will stay wed.
The 6-1 decision written by Chief Justice Ron George rejected an argument by gay rights activists that the ban revised the California constitution’s equal protection clause to such a dramatic degree that it first needed the Legislature’s approval.
The court said the people have a right, through the ballot box, to change their constitution.
“In a sense, petitioners’ and the attorney general’s complaint is that it is just too easy to amend the California constitution through the initiative process. But it is not a proper function of this court to curtail that process; we are constitutionally bound to uphold it,” the ruling said.
The announcement of the decision set off an outcry among a sea of demonstrators who had gathered in front of the San Francisco courthouse awaiting the ruling. Holding signs and many waving rainbow flags, they chanted “shame on you.” Many people also held hands in a chain around an intersection in an act of protest.
Gay rights activists immediately promised to resume their fight, saying they would go back to voters as early as next year in a bid to repeal Proposition 8.
The split decision provided some relief for the 18,000 gay couples who married in the brief time same-sex marriage was legal last year but that wasn’t enough to dull the anger over the ruling that banned gay marriage.

Right Respect

If you wanted a book title to speed the pulse of liberal academics, journalists and politicians, you couldn’t do much better than “The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right.” For many people that’s a title akin to “The Winning Ways of Serial Killers.”
The two leading arguments of the book, written by Jon A. Shields and published last month by Princeton University Press, are no less provocative.
“Many Christian-right organizations,” Mr. Shields writes, “have helped create a more participatory democracy by successfully mobilizing conservative evangelicals, one of the most politically alienated constituencies in 20th-century America.”
Well, actually that thesis, which the book supports with all the requisite tables and data about party identification, voter turnout, and political knowledge and activity, might be accepted by many of Mr. Shields’s fellow political scientists.
It is his second argument that is sure to stir cries of “No, no, no; impossible.”
“The vast majority of Christian-right leaders,” he writes, “have long labored to inculcate deliberative norms in their rank-and-file activists — especially the practice of civility and respect; the cultivation of dialogue by listening and asking questions; the rejection of appeals to theology; and the practice of careful moral reasoning.”
Mr. Shields, a 34-year-old assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California, reached this conclusion after interviewing leaders of 30 Christian-right organizations, attending training seminars and surveying the materials used to instruct the rank and file.

Plan B
The Food and Drug Administration said 17-year-olds will no longer need a doctor’s prescription to get the Plan-B birth control pill.
This comes after a federal judge ruled the Bush administration let politics drive their decision to allow over-the-counter access only for women 18 and older.
Pro-life groups say it is the equivalent of an abortion pill.
Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America told CBN News that politics affected the FDA’s decision.”This decision is driven by politics, not what is good for parents or minors. Parents should be furious at the FDA’s complete disregard of parental right and the safety of minors,” she said.
Wright called the decision a “very bad precident.”