OUR COLUMNISTS Media Gives Porn Industry Pass -- Again Guest Commentary by James Lambert People magazine, like most media outlets, offers no viable solutions to the flood of porn coming into our homes though the Internet every day. The media should be placing the blame on the hard-core porn industry which is forcing this perverse material down America’s throat. Is Kobe a Monster? Commentary by Brad Locke If the latest allegations about Kobe Bryant turn out to be true, then judging by the details of the accounts, it will be time to change our perception of who Bryant is and what motivated him. Media Votes, Kerry Wins Commentary by David Sisler According to the media, we shouldn't even waste our time voting for George W. Bush because Mr. Kerry can't be beaten. Interestingly, a recent report says if only journalists voted, there would have been no Republican presidents during the last 40 years.

...The daughter of American missionary Mike Hines says his body has been found near the wreckage of his small plane, which crashed in the mountains of Honduras during the weekend. Mary Ann Nunez says her 66-year-old father was an Assemblies of God missionary who ministered in Latin America for more than 40 years. She says he was beloved in Central America for flying low and slow over remote villages and preaching the gospel from the air through his plane's built-in sound system. Mike Hines, who grew up in Washington state, spent the past 17 years in Honduras and helped that nation recover from Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands of people in 1998. Nunez says this is how her father wanted to die -- doing God's work until the end. [AP]

...The Democratic National Committee's new religious outreach advisor supported atheist Michael Newdow's effort to stop schoolchildren from reciting the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson, an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), joined other liberal clergy in a brief backing Newdow's case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Peterson and her co-signers called even voluntary recitation of "under God" in the pledge "more harmful than much of what the court has struck down." The Supreme Court rejected Newdow's argument because he lacks custody of his daughter. Peterson, who was named the Democratic National Committee's religious outreach advisor two weeks ago, says she is now working to "activate people of faith for John Kerry." With Peterson's selection, Catholic League president William Donohue says the Democrats are now 0 for 2 in appointing senior religious liaison directors. Donohue says his organization exposed Mara Vanderslice, an earlier Kerry Campaign appointment for director of religious outreach, as a "radical leftist" -- and that the Kerry staff has "stepped in it again" by selecting Peterson. "The selections of Vanderslice and Peterson suggest that either no one bothers to vet candidates for religious outreach, or the elites making the choices are anti-religious," he says. The Catholic League leader says the appointments indicate one of two things: either the Democrats place no priority on appealing to people of faith, or Kerry needs to "bring in a big broom and clean house." [AP/Jody Brown]

...Two leaders of a mosque in Albany, New York, are in FBI custody today in the wake of an extensive sting operation. Associated Press reports the two Muslim men were arrested on charges stemming from an alleged plot to help a man they thought was a terrorist purchase a shoulder-fired missile. Authorities say the two Muslims have ties to a group called Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to the al-Qaida terror network. The arrests came as the FBI and various other federal agencies executed search warrants at the mosque and at two Albany homes. The men taken into custody have been identified as the imam of the mosque and one of the mosque's founders. The supposed terrorist who was looking to buy the missile launcher was actually an undercover FBI agent working as part of an operation that has been going on for a year. [Fred Jackson/AP]

...A spokesman for the Christian Medical Association is denouncing the American Psychological Association's endorsement of homosexual "marriage." APA president Diane Halpern said recently that the organization will adopt a policy supporting homosexual marriage because, as she says, "keeping gays from marrying puts a particular stress on them because of their sexual orientation." But Dr. Robert Rogan with the Christian Medical Association says he believes the APA is overstepping its bounds by giving a green light to something once classified as a mental disorder. Rogan also contends there may be some political motivation behind the APA announcement. "I think there are certainly questions about the people's bias and preconceived notions and own past history that goes into making these decisions," he says. And speaking of Halpern, Rogan says "she's definitely going out on a limb -- and of course, she also knows that she's making a statement that clearly is against the majority of Americans who believe that this is wrong." Rogan states that his biggest concern are the consequences of asserting that something God proclaimed to be evil is really good and healthy. [Mary Rettig]

...The head of a Christian legal group says the U.S. Supreme Court is moving further away from making Constitution-based decisions and is relying instead on changing philosophies. Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel says the justices on the high court are basing their decisions on how they will be received by the general public, resulting in a court that is drifting toward becoming a "pragmatic" court. "I think we saw this earlier in a previous term in the Casey decision, where they upheld abortion, although for a different reason than the Roe v. Wade case, saying that society has grown used to abortion and it would be unfair to take that away," Staver says. He and other court critics fear the consequences when the Supreme Court begins to ignore the Constitution in its decision-making process. "When our courts become pragmatic as opposed to adhering to the Constitutional text, then essentially what they've done is create another branch of a legislative government," he says, adding that that is the last thing America needs right now. [Bill Fancher]

...A Vietnam veteran and former Green Beret says the veterans who support Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry have changed their stories about the Massachusetts senator's exploits as a "Swift Boat" captain in Vietnam. Ted Sampley, one of the founders of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, believes most of the veterans who are traveling with Kerry are paid for their services. According to Sampley, those veterans have changed their stories since hooking up with the Democratic nominee. "In the beginning, the way the crew told it was that Kerry leaped off the boat and executed a wounded Vietcong soldier," Sampley explains. "There's a difference between chasing down an armed soldier that is putting up a fight and jumping off a boat and putting a bullet between the eyes of a wounded soldier -- and that apparently is what he did." The veteran says one must put into proper perspective the story of Kerry's rescue of a Green Beret who fell off his boat. "He was skipper of the Swift Boat and apparently this Green Beret, from what I can tell, fell off or got knocked off the boat, and when they looked back he was in the water," Sampley explains. "And Kerry turned the boat around and went back and got him -- that's what he's supposed to do. What was he supposed to do, leave him in the drink?" Sampley says Kerry should have maintained his post and allowed an enlisted man to rescue the struggling man, instead of pulling the man out himself and then putting in for a medal for doing it. [Chad Groening]

...A conservative website and political action committee has taken out ads in Boston-area newspapers, calling on John Kerry and John Edwards to resign their Senate seats because they haven't been in Washington enough to do their jobs. William Green, founder and president of RightMarch.com, says Senator Kerry has missed nearly 90 percent of his Senate votes since he began his presidential run, and Senator Edwards has missed nearly half of his votes. Green says the two men have been shirking their responsibilities. "It's just wrong for somebody who has been hired for a job to keep that job when they know they're not going to be doing that job," Green insists. In contrast, Green says, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush did the honorable thing in 2000 when he was running for president. "He let them dock his pay for every day he was out of Texas campaigning for the White House," he points out. "Kerry and Edwards are taking their full amount; they're not returning any of the money. Federal law requires that their pay be docked when they're missing time in the Senate, but their pay is not being docked." Green says former Republican Senators Bob Dole and Barry Goldwater both resigned their seats to run for president, so Kerry and Edwards should do the same. [Chad Groening]

...A Bible targeting the video and Internet generation is being marketed by a Pennsylvania ministry. Back in 1991, James Fitzgerald says he was looking for a way to make the Bible more appealing to people. Fitzgerald came up with the idea of producing the Bible in a video format. He has now released the entire New Testament in a word-for-word video format called the "WatchWORD Bible." Fitzgerald says the WatchWORD Bible meets a specific need. "The average family has five, six, seven Bibles, but people are not reading them," he explains. "So this was a vision to take the Word of God from what I call 15th-century print in thick books and take it to 21st-century electronic media." Fitzgerald's company, WatchWORD Productions, also runs TheBibleChannel.com. [Allie Martin]

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