Smoky Mountains Sunrise
Showing posts with label Planned Parenthood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Planned Parenthood. Show all posts

Thursday, August 6, 2009

High taxes = New American 'Slave Master'


From OneNewsNow
By Pete Chagnon


A black radio talk-show host says high taxes are the new "slave masters" in America. Herman Cain is the CEO and president of the New Voice, Inc., and also a conservative talk-radio host. On Wednesday, Cain gave a rousing speech at the 31st Young America's Foundation Conservative Student Conference on the campus of George Washington University.

Amidst a standing ovation, Cain shouted from the podium that conservatives will not surrender. He went on to say that in this era of entitlement, Americans need to realize they were granted the right to pursue happiness -- but never guaranteed the right to happiness.

Herman Cain (New Voice, Inc.)"In the Declaration of Independence, you don't stop there -- keep reading! The next paragraph says: When any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them," he noted. "So when you hear some of your friends asking, 'What can we do?' -- Tell them: keep reading!"

While he acknowledged he was not born into slavery, the conservative commentator shared that he does know something about it. "The tax code has become the present day slave master for all of us!" said Cain. "Abolish it!"

According to Cain, conservatives need to stop the liberal express that is currently destroying America.


Healthcare reform - 'Bailout' for Planned Parenthood

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, also spoke Wednesday to young conservatives attending the conference. He said it was time to have a frank conversation about the legacy of Ronald Reagan and the conservative movement -- a legacy that is being handed over to their generation.

"You know that you are heirs to a great tradition, a legacy," he pointed out. "And that tradition was captured in the run for office made by the most consequential president of the 20th century -- Ronald Reagan."

Perkins drew loud applause when he told the audience that Reagan believed the United States would never be a civil country as long as abortion is legal. Abortion seemed to be a hot topic yesterday, even during the question-and-answer time when a single mother told Perkins that she was tired of having her tax dollars pay for abortions.

Tony Perkins"I want my tax dollars to go to women who are doing what's morally right," said the woman. "I want to be able to set them up for success, not set them up for failure -- and I don't really feel like our country is helping us do that."

Perkins' reply: "I don't know that I could respond to that," he shared. "You stated it so succinctly -- and in fact, if you're concerned about that, you should be very concerned about this healthcare bill that's being pushed through Congress. I mean, this is a 'Planned Parenthood bailout bill.' They are going to receive millions of more tax dollars through this."

Another student stated that she was rethinking her choice to become a healthcare provider if the healthcare bill passes -- especially if nurses and doctors with ethics will be forced to perform procedures they do not agree with such as abortions.


Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Congressman Makes Bid to Strip Planned Parenthood of Title X Funds


From LifeSiteNews
By Peter J. Smith


A US Congressman today proposed an amendment that would eliminate millions of dollars in federal funds for Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider, which has lately come under public scrutiny after numerous employees across the country were caught on camera failing to inform law enforcement of child victims of sexual abuse.

U.S. House Representative Mike Pence, (R-Ind.) submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill funding the Department of Health and Human Services, which would make Planned Parenthood ineligible to receive Title X funds for "family planning" services. The Pence Amendment, submitted to the House Rules Committee, states, "None of the funds made available under this Act shall be available to Planned Parenthood for any purpose under Title X of the Public Health Services Act."

"According to their last annual report, Title X funds helped over 4.7 million women prevent pregnancy by a variety of ethical methods such as abstinence education and birth control," wrote Pence on The Hill's Congress blog. "There are many clinics funded by Title X that offer ethical family planning services - without providing abortions."

Legally a non-profit organization, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) depends upon $349.6 million in US tax dollars to free up other resources that sustain the financial operation of its abortion facilities. According to PPFA's financial report for 2007-2008, the abortion provider brought in total revenue of $1.038 billion and posted an $85 million profit.

"When Title X money goes to organizations that provide both abortions and family planning services, even though the money cannot directly fund abortions, it can be used to offset operational costs, freeing up money to promote and provide abortions," added Pence, pointing out that Planned Parenthood performed 305,000 abortions in its last fiscal year, which was a 5.3 percent increase from 2006-2007.

However Pence indicated that Congress should withdraw Title X funding from PPFA for the simple fact that the organization appears to have an endemic problem with "fraudulent use of Title X funding." Many of its affiliates, he pointed out, have deliberately failed to report victims of child-rape and have encouraged girls to lie about their age in order to obtain an abortion. These violations of state law have been documented in California, Indiana, Arizona, Kansas, Tennessee, and Alabama.

The undercover sting operation that unearthed these violations, known as the Mona Lisa Project and led by Live Action's 20-year-old president Lila Rose, has prompted the Tennessee legislature to revoke Title X funding from state PPs, and led the Attorneys General of Alabama and Arizona to launch investigations of PPs for violating their state laws.

California Planned Parenthood affiliates are also currently engaged in a multi-million dollar lawsuit over allegations they bilked the federal treasury by tens of millions of dollars by abusing the Title X program. The suit filed July 8 in federal court by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) contends that the California-based Planned Parenthoods fraudulently marked up the price of a number of birth control drugs far above their actual cost before submitting requests for reimbursement from the government.

In order for Pence's amendment to have the chance for an up-or-down vote on the floor of the House, the House Rules Committee, led by pro-abortion Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) must first give its approval.

"Regardless of your views on abortion, our nation cannot afford to throw millions of dollars at an organization not only shown to misuse tax funds but one that continually puts the lives of men, women and children in danger," said Jim Sedlak, vice president of American Life League, which has given its support to the Pence Amendment.

ALL has urged its supporters to encourage their Congressmen to support giving the measure a fair hearing by the full House.

"Planned Parenthood's agenda is putting our kids in danger from sexual predators on a daily basis," said ALL President Judie Brown. "The gravity of Planned Parenthood's crimes transcends party lines. Any American concerned about keeping our kids safe should support the Pence Amendment."

President Barack Obama has asked Congress to increase funding for the Title X program by $10 million, bringing the program's total annual budget to $317 million.



Thursday, July 9, 2009

IRS Demands that Pro-Life Group Swear it Will Not Oppose Planned Parenthood


Thomas More attorneys request IRS stop violating coalition's constitutional rights to legal protests


From LifeSiteNews
By Kathleen Gilbert

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has told a non-profit coalition of pro-life groups in Iowa to promise that it would not organize protests at Planned Parenthood abortion facilities before it is granted tax exempt status.

Pro-life lawyers say the organization has steadily kept within the guidelines for non-profit religious, educational and charitable groups. However, several months after the group applied for tax-exempt status, an IRS agent contacted Coalition for Life Iowa president Sue Martinek to inquire as to whether the group engages in any "picketing" or protesting at Planned Parenthood, and questioned the group's prayer activity outside Planned Parenthood facilities.

Lawyers with the Thomas More Society say the agent asked Martinek "to have all Coalition Board members sign a statement that the Coalition will not 'picket' or 'protest' outside Planned Parenthood or similar organizations and will not 'organize' others to do so," and indicated that the IRS "would approve the Coalition's pending form 1023 application once such statement was submitted."

The Thomas More Society issued a statement Monday decrying the "prejucidial" questioning and announcing they would take the IRS to court if it fails to grant the group tax-exempt status, apparently solely based upon its religious affiliation and speech.

"The IRS' requests come perilously close to violating the First Amendment constitutional rights of the Coalition's supporters," said the Society.

"The IRS's delay and questioning of the Coalition's tax-exempt, legitimate activities constitutes unnecessary and prejudicial interference with the Coalition's legal right to a tax-exempt determination. Consequently, the IRS should approve the Coalition's 1023 application without further delay."

The lawyers point out that many other organizations regularly advocate on both sides of these issues, and they have not been hindered in obtaining or maintaining tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3).

"The IRS not only erroneously forbade the Coalition for Life of Iowa from engaging in 'advocacy' as a section 501(c)(3) non-profit organization; they also never gave any explanation as to why their request was relevant," said Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Society.

"The Coalition has clearly and truthfully stated that all its activities fall in line with IRS guidelines. The IRS is protecting Parenthood and harassing the Coalition for Life of Iowa."

Warned Brejcha, "If the IRS can discriminate against one non-profit based on its beliefs and religious affiliation, then the IRS could regulate the speech of any other non-profit organization."

Coalition for Life of Iowa president Sue Martinek did not answer LifeSiteNews.com calls for comment as of press time.

"This is the way government oppression creeps into a society," commented American Life League president Judie Brown. "It starts when the government targets, and attempts to intimidate and silence the grassroots dissenters who will not dance to the tune of the Obama administration's radically pro-abortion policies."

"This is not only political intimidation by the Internal Revenue Service but it is a blatant violation of First Amendment rights," said Brown. "Neither the Coalition for Life of Iowa nor any other educational and advocacy organization should be subjected to such discriminatory scrutiny. This is a clear case of government repression."

Monday, June 8, 2009

In Defense of a Girl With a Bashful Smile


From Peace, Love, and Harsh Reality
By Dylan Sexton

I've been thinking a lot lately about something I witnessed in my classroom when I was in third grade. It happened in the Spring of 1974, when I lived with my family in a U. S. Army housing area in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

Our school was spread out on the side of a hill, with first and second graders occupying a single story building at the bottom, third graders in a two story building a little farther up, and then fourth, fifth and sixth graders in a much larger two-story building at the top. Oh, and there was a small green building that sat next to the third grade building. The green building---little more than a couple of classrooms---housed the children with mental disabilities.

One sunny afternoon, our class was involved in an activity---maybe it was a quiz, maybe we were drawing pictures, I don't remember---when a young girl, maybe a little older than us, walked into the room carrying a message on a piece of paper for our teacher, Miss Bradley.
The girl was from the green building. Her long brown hair was tied back with a barrette, and she wore a simple red dress. Walking with a quick shuffling gait, she held her head slightly down, almost hiding a bashful smile. After handing the note to Miss Bradley---who thanked her---she turned and quickly walked out of the classroom.

Then, a blond little boy who held the distinction in our class of being pretty cool, shook his head and asked out loud to nobody in particular: "Why is she smiling?"

Read the rest of this entry >>


Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Planned Parenthood Targets Poland for Abortion with US Funds, Courtesy of Obama


From LifeSiteNews
By Tim Waggoner

The International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF) has wasted little time in putting to use the millions of taxpayer dollars that have been made available to it by President Obama's decision to rescind the Mexico City Policy, which forbade U.S. funds from going to organizations that promote or perform abortions overseas.

In a letter advocating a series of Women's Day marches in Poland which took place yesterday and which were advertised with the words "Come and Join Us Because ... Poland is Ill," the IPPF urged support for the pro-contraception, pro-abortion and pro-homosexual agenda of the marchers.

The Women's Day event "has become a grassroots democratic movement," the "biggest demonstration of women's rights supporters," says the IPPF. According to the organization, last year Women's Day marches in cities around the country attracted some 4,000 participants.

"Among the demands, they make are: easy access to contraception; abolishing the gender role stereotypes that people are socialized into; right to decide about oneself and one's body; no more treating women as sexual objects; proper sex education in schools; and treating equally women who are elderly, poor, homosexual, of different ethnicity, of low social standing or handicapped."

In the letter IPPF also denounced a law being drawn-up by a bioethics committee aimed at protecting human life. According to the IPPF, the proposal seeks to ban certain in vitro procedures and some abortifacient contraceptives such as the morning after pill, as well as reverse the current law that forces doctors to refer patients to an abortionist even if doing so violates their conscience.

While abortion in Poland is illegal in many circumstances, it is permitted in cases where the mother's health or life is endangered by the pregnancy, where the pregnancy is the result of a criminal act, or where the fetus is seriously malformed. Poland has long been a target of anti-life forces due to its comparatively conservative abortion laws, traditional understanding of the family, and strong Catholic identity.

John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) and one of Europe's most prominent pro-life and pro-family activists, responded that in his view that the IPPF is just "patronizing" women of a country who know better than to trust the world's largest abortion provider.

In the Women's Day statement IPPF "blatantly and falsely claim to represent all Polish women in calling for easy access to contraceptives, including abortifacient contraceptive drugs and devices, attacking the Catholic Church, and opposing doctors' right to conscientious objection to abortion," said Smeaton.

"Armed with millions of US dollars promised by Barack Obama to fund the killing of unborn children overseas, they are now concentrating their anti-life propaganda on Poland.



Saturday, January 3, 2009

Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood's Racist Founder





The Smithsonian is honoring one of the 20th century's most notorious eugenics proponets, Margaret Sanger. American Life League exposes Sanger's racist plan to create a "master race."

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Obama's Abortion Bombshell: Unrestricted Abortion Over Wishes of Individual States a Priority for Presidency


From LifeSiteNews.com
By Peter J. Smith

Barack Obama, the presumptive pro-abortion nominee of the Democratic Party, has plans to reward the allies that helped him topple Hillary Clinton from her throne by making total unrestricted abortion in the United States his number one priority as president.

In light of Obama's recently achieved status as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Focus on the Family's CitizenLink has decided to remind its supporters that almost one year has passed since Obama made his vows to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that abortion would be the first priority of his administration.

The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,' Obama said in his July speech to abortion advocates worried about the increase of pro-life legislation at the state level.

The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is legislation Obama has co-sponsored along with 18 other senators that would annihilate every single state law limiting or regulating abortion, including the federal ban on partial birth abortion.

The 2007 version of FOCA proposed: 'It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.'

Obama made his remarks in a question-and-answer session after delivering a speech crystallizing for abortion advocates his deep-seated abortion philosophy and his belief that federal legislation will break pro-life resistance and end the national debate on abortion. (see transcript: http://lauraetch.googlepages.com/barackobamabeforeplannedparenthoodaction)

'I am absolutely convinced that culture wars are so nineties; their days are growing dark, it is time to turn the page,' Obama said in July. 'We want a new day here in America. We're tired about arguing about the same ole' stuff. And I am convinced we can win that argument.'

Besides making abortion on demand a 'fundamental right' throughout the United States, FOCA would effectively nullify informed consent laws, waiting periods, health safety regulations for abortion clinics, etc.

Furthermore, medical professionals and institutions that refused abortions also would lose legal protections. FOCA would expose individuals, organizations, and governments - including federal, state, and local government agencies - to costly civil actions for purported violations of the act.

'Thirty-five years after Roe, abortion supporters, like Senator Obama, are dismayed that abortion remains a divisive issue and that their radical agenda has not been submissively accepted by the American public,' states Denise M. Burke, vice president of Americans United for Life.

'Rather than confronting legitimate issues concerning the availability and safety of abortion, they choose to blatantly ignore the concerns and interests of everyday Americans, as well as the growing evidence that abortion hurts women.'

Hillary Clinton, once the longtime Democratic front-runner and anticipated abortion president, conceded defeat last Saturday to Obama, who captured the nomination from her after a long and bitter campaign.

Obama has won the crucial endorsement of abortion activist Frances Kissling, who broke from the ranks of other radical feminist leaders earlier this year to endorse Obama, saying Obama, not Clinton, would better use the bully pulpit of the presidency to accomplish their aims and end the culture wars over abortion.


Friday, April 18, 2008

Planned Parenthood Has 'Racist Agenda,' MLK's Niece Says

By Josiah Ryan

The niece of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is among a group of pro-life black leaders calling for an end to federal funding for Planned Parenthood because of what she calls Planned Parenthood's "racist agenda."

"Planned Parenthood is definitely a racist organization - they have a racist agenda," Dr. Alveda King told Cybercast News Service. "Since 1970, there has been something like 50 million abortions. About 17 million of those have been blacks. It's black genocide. They are killing our people and fooling us."

Last year, The Advocate, a student publication at the University of California - Los Angeles, placed phone calls to Planned Parenthood offices around the country offering to make donations specifically to subsidize the abortion of black babies.

The publication then posted videos on YouTube using audio recordings of calls on which Planned Parenthood officials agreed to accept race-targeted donations. Planned Parenthood officials issued an apology, stating it was not their policy to accept race-targeted donations for abortions.

In March, the National Black Pro-Life Union sent letters to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, NAACP, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Congressional Black Caucus and Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.).

The letters call on these groups and Fattah to support the termination of federal funding of Planned Parenthood, which currently exceeds $300 million a year.

The National Black Pro-Life Union is a coalition of 15 African-American organizations that includes the Coalition of African-American Pastors, High Impact Leadership Coalition, and King for America, which is led by King.

According to the National Black Pro-Life Union, none of the groups contacted, as well as Fattah, have responded to the letters.

King, who is also a pastoral associate for the conservative pro-life group Priests for Life, said she was partially motivated to join the campaign to terminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood because in the early 1970s she was fooled into getting an abortion by a Planned Parenthood office that told her that her baby was "just a blob" of tissue."

There are more Planned Parenthood clinics in black neighborhoods, because there is an artificial demand, which was created by Planned Parenthood," King told Cybercast News Service. "We were told by Planned Parenthood that abortion, which is actually murder, is therapeutic."

The Planned Parenthood Federation did not respond to Cybercast News Service's multiple requests for comment.

"It's very difficult for them to understand that we are part of one race - the human race - and racism is just fighting among ourselves," said King. "Congress needs to defund Planned Parenthood for participating in this agenda right away."


Thursday, August 16, 2007

Rudy's Don't Ask/Don't Tell Policy on Religion

By Don Feder

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, leading in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination, has his own don’t ask/don’t tell policy – Don’t ask him what kind of Catholic he is. If you do, he won’t tell you.

Giuliani is in a bind. He can’t talk about his religion – and he can’t not talk about it.

Voters want a candidate who’s religious. It doesn’t much matter what that religion is (excepting, of course, something really weird, like Wicca or Islam).

For most voters, it doesn’t matter if it’s their religion. In 2004, Catholics were slightly more likely to vote for Methodist Bush than for the first major-party Catholic (I use the term loosely) nominee since John F. Kennedy, who – in the midst of the campaign – suddenly recalled that he’d once been an altar boy.

Americans are comforted by the thought that they are electing a man to lead the nation who believes in God and the 10 Commandments, attends religious services (not as a campaign photo-op), and at least publicly adheres to the tenets of his faith.

Rudy is none of the above. That’s why, if asked about his Catholicism, he’ll respond with the equivalent of “no comment.”

The mayor needs to maintain the fiction that he’s a Catholic. At the same time, he needs to keep the discussion as far away as possible from his actual relationship with the Catholic Church. This is getting harder and harder.

On the Iowa campaign trail, Hizzoner was asked whether he considered himself “a traditional, practicing Roman Catholic,” and to discuss the role his faith played in helping him make decisions on issues like abortion.

Rudy responded, “My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to priests.”

The mayor cautioned that there should not be a “religious test for public office.” Silly me, I thought that when Article VI of the Constitution says “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States,” that meant an individual couldn’t be disqualified based on his religion, not that we’re not allowed to inquire about Rudy’s relationship to the faith he professes.

When asked to reconcile his pro-choice advocacy with his alleged Catholicism, Rudy has replied: “Issues like that are for me and my confessor.” (And who would that be, Father Guido Sarducci?) Also, ”I’m a Catholic, and that’s the way I resolve those issues, personally and privately” – otherwise known as Rudy’s Catholic code of silence. Instead of consulting Church teachings, as a Catholic would do, Rudy believes questions of theology can be resolved personally and privately.

Still, Rudy claims he’s devout, in his own private/don’t-ask-me-to-explain way. “Religion is very important to me. It’s a very important part of my life.” The foregoing is to be taken at face value, without a request for elaboration.

Unfortunately for Giuliani, the Catholic Church has rules.

In a June 26 Village Voice article (“No Wafer for Rudy”), Wayne Barrett notes the mayor “can’t have a confessor. He can’t receive the sacraments of penance, the Eucharist, or marriage.” That’s because Giuliani divorced Donna Hanover, his wife of 18 years, without obtaining an annulment (for which he would not have qualified), and married his third wife, Judith Nathan, outside the Church.

His first marriage of 14 years to his second cousin, Regina Peruggi, was annulled. While he was still married to wife #2, the mother of his two children, he carried on openly with Nathan, who he paid $10,000-a-month as his “speech writer” and marched with in New York’s annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, a walk mayors traditionally take with their wives, not their mistresses.

On Rudy’s campaign website, wives #1 and #2 are non-persons, like fallen members of the old Soviet Politburo airbrushed out of photographs. The site notes that he married Judith S. Nathan in May of 2003. There is no mention of any other marriages or of his children.

But this is typical of Rudy’s tendency to re-write history. Today, the mayor says “I hate abortion…. I would encourage someone not to take that option.” He’s also opposed to late-term abortions and Medicaid funding of abortion.

Still, unlike Mitt Romney, Giuliani isn’t doing a 180-degree pirouette here, probably because he’s seen the drubbing the former governor has taken for flip-flopping. Thus, while tacking right on the issue, the mayor still favors a woman’s right to choose, with qualifications.

The decision on whether or not to kill her unborn child “ultimately, a woman should make that (choice) with her conscience and ultimately with her doctor,” Giuliani explains. If this was the 1850s, Rudy would say that on the question of slavery, “Ultimately a plantation owner should make that decision in consultation with his conscience, and ultimately with his overseer.”

When he was mayor of what’s often called the abortion capital of America, it was hard to find a politician – of either party – more pro-choice than Giuliani.

· When asked why the far-left New York State Liberal Party endorsed Rudy’s 1989 mayoral campaign, the party chairman replied: “He agreed with the Liberal Party’s views of affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer and tuition tax credits. As mayor, Rudy Giuliani would uphold the Constitutional and legal rights to abortion.”

· Based on his answers to a candidate questionnaire, and/or his performance in office, Rudy received a 100% rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) in his 1993, 1997 and 2000 campaigns.

· Gloria Feldt, the former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), recalls an appearance the mayor made before the group’s New York chapter, where: “He spoke very eloquently about family planning (abortion). It’s hard to be that eloquent if you’re saying something you don’t believe.”

· He re-appointed PPFA President Pam Maraldo to the City’s Board of Health, which oversees 11 municipal hospitals where an average of 6,500 abortions a year were performed during Rudy’s tenure as mayor.

· Over the years, the Giuliani administration awarded a total of $2 million to Planned Parenthood’s New York branch.

· One of Rudy’s human-resources commissioners notes her ex-boss continued Ed Koch’s policy of allowing the city to pay for abortions, whether or not they met Medicaid’s “medically necessary” requirement, and even if the woman’s earnings were more than 85% above the limit for Medicaid eligibility. She describes Mayor Giuliani as “gung-ho abortion.”

· The fact that, on social issues, they are identical twins separated by party, may explain Rudy’s endorsement of Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo, the icon of New York liberals, when the latter ran for re-election. (“Our future, our destiny is not a matter of chance. It’s a matter of choice. My choice is Mario Cuomo.”) It’s hard to say which choice is more tragic – abortion or endorsing Cuomo.

· According to a former aide, it took Mayor Giuliani exactly 15 minutes to decide that he supported partial-birth abortions (“I’m fine with that!”), as he headed into a meeting with NARAL leaders. Now he opposes the procedure -- described by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who represented New York in the U.S. Senate from 1983 to 2001) as “fourth-fifths infanticide” – another conversion of convenience. He also supports parental notification, which he formerly opposed. Flip. Flop.

In a wink-and-nod to pro-lifers, Rudy says he would appoint “strict constructionists” to the federal bench, including the Supreme Court.

As mayor, he appointed or re-appointed 127 municipal judges – none could reasonably be mistaken for Antonin Scalia.

One had been executive director of the homosexual Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. Another ruled that city funds could be used for sex-change operations for indigents. And a third allowed a lesbian to adopt her partner’s child. The judge, Paula Hepner, later married another woman in a Canadian ceremony.

In fairness to Da Mayor, abortion isn’t the only issue where Rudy is trying to re-invent himself. There’s nothing about gay rights on his website – such reticence from a man who marched in every gay-pride parade as mayor, and welcomed the Gay Olympics to New York City.

He does, however, firmly assert his belief (arrived at in consultation with his conscience, his confessor and his pollster) that marriage should be between a man and a woman – or, perhaps, several women.

As America’s mayor, he pushed a domestic-partnership bill (described as “as far-reaching as San Francisco’s”) through the city council and supported similar legislation before the New York State legislature. The Archdiocese of New York blasted the former as “contrary to moral natural law.” Wonder what Rudy’s confessor thought about that one.

During the 2004 campaign, at least a dozen Catholic bishops announced that John Kerry could not receive communion in their dioceses, because of the Democratic nominee’s position on abortion. On those rare occasions when he attends Catholic services, Rudy tries to avoid embarrassment. According to a June 25 New York Times story, “Communion may be a moot point for Mr. Giuliani, who was seen leaving Mass at a church in Washington before the Eucharist.”

Still, for those Catholic prelates who’ve spoken out, the question of whether Rudy is a “good or not so good Catholic,” has been settled.

Newark Archbishop John Myers says the mayor is “being illogical” with his I’m-personally-opposed-but-can’t-impose-my-morality stand on abortion. “To violate human life is always and everywhere wrong,” the Archbishop declares.

Providence, R.I. Bishop Thomas J. Tobin is even more outspoken: “Rudy’s public proclamations on abortion are pathetic and confusing. Even worse, they’re hypocritical.” Tobin asks “if any politician could get away with the same pathetic (personally opposed but) cop-out” on any other moral question – say racism, sexual abuse, incest, prostitution or polygamy?

In May, speaking of Mexican legislators who voted to legalize abortion, Pope Benedict XVI said they had, in effect, excommunicated themselves.

The worst hypocrisy would be for Rudy Giuliani to receive the nomination of the party that’s been proudly and officially pro-life since 1980, the party that has won the presidency in five of seven elections since 1976 with the fervent support of the pro-life movement. According to the National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru, George W. Bush’s pro-life position netted him 2.4 million votes in ’04.

Rudy Giuliani doesn’t even do a passable impersonation of a Catholic. His Church understands it. Practicing Catholics understand it.

Republican primary voters must be made to understand it.