CONGRESS IN SESSION

"Gunman" shuts down Capitol Hill: RFC Executive Director Peggy Birchfield was attending a meeting at the Capitol Building on Thursday, October 30th when the building was "locked down" because someone carrying a "gun" had penetrated security in the Cannon Office Building. All congressional office buildings and the Capitol Building are connected by tunnels. Peggy was allowed to leave the Capitol after it was discovered that the "gun" was part of a Halloween costume belonging to congressional staff. The incident has delayed both legislation and hearings.

THE SENATE

GLOBAL AIDS BILL

The deep abiding faith of President George W. Bush led him to propose a war on AIDS in Africa. As I stated in July, "The AIDS issue in Africa has become a security issue. Governments are collapsing and there is constant warfare. Warlords and drug dealers are taking over entire regions of this great continent..." That is still true today. Unfortunately good ideas are frequently corrupted in Congress by those with a liberal agenda. Senators such as Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton wanted to hang their pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-family agenda onto the $15 billion Global AIDS Bill.

In one version of the bill, faith-based organizations would have been denied funding to work on the AIDS problem in Africa unless they agreed to pass out condoms. Condoms are not a cure for AIDS; only abstinence and faithfulness to one lifetime partner can stop AIDS. In May of this year Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) added an amendment that would allow faith-based groups who are not willing to pass out condoms to participate in programs. Global AIDS passed with those provisions intact in May of this year. But the vampire just keeps coming back to life. A separate appropriations bill, the Foreign Operations bill of 2003, somehow had language added to it that stripped the protections of faith-based organizations from the Global AIDS bill.

On Tuesday, Majority Leader Senator Bill Frist added an amendment to the Foreign Operations bill that continues to allow participation by faith-based groups and also prohibits any groups that promote legalized prostitution from receiving funds. Social conservative groups in Washington pushed Senators to vote for the Foreign Operations Bill with the Frist Amendment attached. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) led a fight as late as Thursday night to pass an new amendment to Foreign Ops to drop all abstinence requirements. Her amendment failed and the final Foreign Ops bill was passed by voice vote. This is the kind of battle being fought behind the scenes in the Senate virtually every day. Thank you and God bless you Senator Frist for continue the good fight for what is right!

THE JUDICIAL BATTLE

On Thursday, October 30th the Wall Street Journal ran a stinging editorial against liberal Democrats for blocking California Supreme Court Judge Janice Rogers Brown from moving to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Journal made it clear that the Democrat attacks against her led by Judiciary Committee member Senator Richard Durbin were racial in nature. The Journal stated: "As Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Justice Thomas and others can attest, liberals reserve their harshest and most personal attacks for minorities with the audacity to wander off the ideological plantation..." In his attacks against Judge Brown, Durbin questioned her appointment by the President because she was "from California" and that was "3,000 miles from Washington, DC" where her new job would be. He also said she was "insensitive" to rape victims. The Senator's real problem is that she is a black conservative and liberals don't want any of those "kind of people" to serve in government. What it sounds like to me is plain old fashioned racism. In case you would like to drop Senator Durbin a note about his position on black conservatives, his e-mail address is dick@durbin.senate.gov.

THE HOUSE

MARRIAGE PROTECTION

I am continuing to promote The Marriage Protection Act of 2003 proposed by Congressman Hostettler (R-IN), who is a member of the House Subcommittee on the Constitution. His bill would strengthen the already existing Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 by restricting the jurisdiction of federal courts. In Hill lingo this is referred to as the "super-DOMA" because it uses Article III, Section I and II of the Constitution to restrict the jurisdiction of federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

For background on the attack on the institution of marriage and the family I highly recommend The Broken Hearth by Dr. William Bennet.

RESOLUTION ON PORNOGRAPHY Congressman John Sullivan (R-OK) has introduced a resolution asking the Administration and Justice Department to vigorously enforce the nation's pornography laws. "As the father of four young children, I am extremely concerned about the ease in which Americans, especially children, obtain utterly depraved material," Sullivan said. "These images are a mouse click away, despite the fact that they are illegal and depict scenes that shock the conscience. We must enforce current law and eliminate this refuse." H.Con.Res 298 was introduced by the congressman with more than thirty co-sponosrs. While a congressional resolution has no force of law, it sends a message to those whose job it is to enforce existing laws. To contact your congressman and ask him to co-sponsor HCR-298 go to www.congress.org. This week had already been proclaimed as Protection From Pornography Week by President George W. Bush.

THE PRESIDENCY

On Tuesday I debated Dr. James Zogby of the Arab-American Institute on CNN-International. While James Zogby claims to represent all Arab-Americans, he is actually a Democrat party activist. He is the chairman of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee. During our debate he claimed that General William Boykin should be fired by President Bush because of "insensitive" remarks he made at a church about Islam. The General had made the mistake of identifying our enemy, which is the Islamic Jihad movement. I defended General Boykin's comments about the war on terror being a spiritual as well as physical war, because it is just that. Unfortunately the President is being pushed by his advisors to fire General Boykin for fear that his remarks have made Muslims "mad" at us. I have news for those advisors; the Muslims who attacked our civilians and murdered them do not have to be incited. They hate Christian Americans because they are Christian and they hate secular Americans because they are secular. No matter what we say or do they are going to continue to hate us and continue to want to kill us all because they are followers of Mohammed. Firing General Boykin who is the Pentagon's man in charge of the war on terror would simply be a victory for the enemy. If you support General Boykin please e-mail President Bush at president@whitehouse.gov.

NOT A RELIGION OF PEACE

It appears that the Catholic Church has joined General Boykin in declaring that Islam is not a religion of peace. For decades the Roman Catholic Church has been silent on the issue of Islam fearing that Catholics who still live in Islamic countries would be worse off if the church spoke up. But, the treatment of Christians has become so unbearable in Islamic nations that the Catholic Church may now understand that silence helps nothing. In the October 18 edition of La Civilta Cattolica, the Catholic Church broke that silence by saying, "Thus, in all its history, Islam has shown a warlike face and a conquering spirit for glory of Allah .... convert to Islam or die." The official paper of the Roman Church said that for "...almost a thousand years Europe was under constant threat from Islam which twice put its survival in serious danger." This is an important document that every Christian should read. Original Italian / English Translation

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