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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 9, 2003)
NEWS a y. July 9,2003 )ctors able save ins D'Arcy Doran SSOCIATED PRESS PORE — Fifty gruel- into an unprecedented to separate adult twins) at the head, Dr. il sank, is working o save Laleh bleeding profusely tie) irgeons made the I rate her from her sister. | as the sound of class- that played the da; | the small, gleamin; | room crowded id assistants in : room now was most- cept for the surgeons ; and the beeps and ic monitors, loh glanced over at was losing blood eve: I year-old Iranian twin. | y thereafter . (2:30 a.m. EDI)and I inutes later. Both were | mesthesia. very saddened.” said | ead surgeon. “1 sa« ’ling — of course at | ne we were si homeland, Iranians shock or wept as stale inounced the deaths p: | )m a poor family who j world with theirdeter- lead separate lives- i dch other face-to-face, n a mirror, beloved Ladan real; anymore?” Zari,i told The Associated the first death was Iran. Seconds later, s were aware of the high risks but had he surgery anyway, te more talkative of d wanted to continue w and become a h, also a law si : she had little choice ter, had hoped irnalist. lay, diplomats were I r the return of their i for burial—insep-1 t we helped them dream of being sep- said. lion, the first attempt | pair of adult t at the head, difficulties not seen | repeatedly encoun- :s that preoperative j sts couldn’t detect, ie was denser than expected, the t brains had ft i tissue and their | es and brain pres- instable. from page 1 ■vill pay them bad lion’s share of the nen suffer in TTTs, Iraft, because they le mass to generate lower necessary to mph for 43 miles, ant they don’t lose the team, though, would lose several e end of the stage l eliminated from ers finishing more t slower than the aren’t allowed to ring day. ostal Service will e final 10 kilome- " with all nine rid- get tired and slow end of the stage- earn that slows the ner of the day. as a cohesive uni! possible, the U.S- should finish in earns in the ITT- nstrong in con- s fifth Tour de Opinion The Battalion Page 5 • Wednesday, July 9, 2003 Separating church and state \ Appeals court right to remove statue of Ten Commandments from courthouse L ast Tuesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta unanimously ruled that a statue of the Ten Commandments must be removed from the Alabama State Judicial Building for violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore secretly installed the monument in the rotunda of the building during the evening of July 31, 2001, without the knowledge of the other eight justices of the court. The ’ll statue has been embroiled in contro- 11 versy ever since. Moore is appealing ' I the decision, even though he has lost twice already, and for now, the monu ment stays in place pending appeal. The monument is an undeniable example of a violation of the separation of church and state. The 11th Circuit has done the right thing in upholding the lower court’s decision and protecting Americans from having someone else’s reli gious views forced upon them. Moore has no right to use his position as a judge to impose his particular religious views onto other Americans. One’s own religion is a highly personal decision — one that should not enter so noticeably into the public sphere. Moore is free to have his beliefs; however, he is not free to use a government building to express them. The Constitution prohibits him from doing so. Moore’s defense of the statue was based on the language of the First Amendment, according to CNN. Because it says, “Congress shall make no law respect ing the establishment of religion,” and because he is not “Congress,” the amendment does not apply to him. He claims he can put statues of the Ten JENELLE WILSON Commandments up wherever he pleases. Moore’s argument may have worked 100 years ago, but since the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 and the incor poration of the religious aspects of the First Amendment in 1947, state government officials are bound to respect the religious free dom of others. “Congress” no longer means the legislative body in Washington, D.C.; it is any government official, from legislators to public school teachers and administrators to judges. As a government official, Moore cannot force his religious views onto other Americans, which is exactly what this display is meant to do, and it clearly violates Supreme Court prece dents regarding religion. In the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court established the doctrine to test Establishment Clause cases. The Lemon test is a three-pronged test: first, a governmental action must have a secular purpose; second, it must have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion to the reasonable observer; third, the action must not foster excessive gov ernmental “entanglement” with religion. Moore fails in all three areas. When a state representative proposed plac ing a monument with the Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech near the Ten Commandment statue, Moore rejected the idea, saying, “a speech of any man alongside the revealed law of God would tend to dimin ish the very purpose of the Ten Commandments monument.” The appeals court found that the monument promotes religion due to its appearance, location and setting and Moore’s denial to allow other statues to “diminish” the monument. Any rea sonable observer would conclude that a highly recognizable religious symbol placed across from the main entrance of the building promotes Christianity. The State Judicial Building houses the Alabama Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal Appeals, the Court of Civil Appeals, the state law library and the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts. Because of its impos ing shape and size, every govern mental agency in the building is now highly entangled with the statue and its implications. The rotunda is open to the public, but is not a public forum. Moore solely gets to decide what goes there, and anyone who enters the building and wishes to get to the elevator, stairs or restrooms must pass within 10 to 20 feet of the monument. Thousands of peo ple enter the building each year, including every fourth-grader in the state. They are all forced to see and walk by the statue; they have no choice. The Ten Commandments monument in the State Judicial Building rotunda is there to pro mote Moore’s interests and his views of morali ty. It sends a message that the government is directly supporting his beliefs. It also serves to create a hostile environment for anyone who believes otherwise, be it other judges, state employees, lawyers or fourth-graders, which is unacceptable, not to mention unlawful, in today’s society. Jenelle Wilson is a senior political science major. Graphic by Radhika Thirunarayanan America must stay out of Liberian conflict Bush is bowing to Democrats and the U.N. by considering U.S. involvement F or conservatives, President George W. Bush is a mixed bag. He has won their approval with strict constructionist judicial appointments by pushing economically sound policies, such as tax cuts, and through morally important restrictions on cloning and stem cell research. However, he has met conservative scorn for abandoning school vouchers, by push ing for subsidized prescription drug coverage and for praising a Supreme Court ruling that legalizes racial discrimination in college admis sions. Throughout his ups and downs though, Bush has been solid on foreign policy. Until now. The U.S. military should not be in Liberia. Bush, on Sunday, caved in to Democratic and United Nations’ calls for intervention in the Liberian civil war, sending military experts to the country to evaluate the situation. Liberia has been at civil war for more than 20 years, moving from one military thug in control to another. The United Nations has called for 2,000 American troops, and Liberian political experts are esti mating that they would be needed for at least two years. If Bush sends American armed forces to Liberia, negative results and a negative prece dent will soon follow. Bush was right in sending troops to Iraq to MATTHEW MADDOX overthrow Saddam Hussein. Saddam had used nerve gas on his own people, and intelligence reports and Iraqi defectors indicat ed he was working on worse weapons to be used against America. However, in Liberia no such situation exists. There is no threat to American security posed by the strife in Liberia, yet almost everyone who opposed U.S. action in Iraq is clamoring for America to jump into this fray. Let’s take a look at the hypocrites. For starters, there is Kofi Annan, U.N. secre tary general. He, along with France, has called on America to get involved in Liberia, despite being the largest objectors to the U.S. led over throw of Saddam. Annan and France reason that since freed American slaves colonized Liberia 188 years ago, it is now America’s responsibility to baby the country two centuries later. This is a baseless reason to charge America with responsibility. In 1847, Liberia claimed its independence and cited American injustices as its reason. Despite its independence, advocates of U.S. intervention still think America is the world’s police and social services department. Another hypocrite is 2004 democrat presi dential candidate Howard Dean. Dean has been on the campaign trail ripping Bush for sending troops to Iraq. Just last week, Dean urged Bush to send troops to Liberia to prevent a humanitar ian crisis, the same kind of crisis that existed in Iraq before U.S. troops arrived. Dean argued that Liberia is different than Iraq because the world wishes U.S. intervention. In January, The Associated Press quoted Dean criticizing Bush on Iraq. “It would be un-American to plunge our country into conflict without clear justification.” Yet that is exactly what Dean wishes in Liberia. Similarly, 2004 democrat hopeful A1 Sharpton has used the issue as a chance to criti cize Bush for being on the wrong side of inter- j national opinion when troops went to Iraq and warned against Bush repeating this. Apparently, the litmus test for getting into a war for both candidates is a popularity contest, not the viola tion of principles. Recall the weeks before American troops invaded Iraq. Critics of the war and Bush claimed that focusing on Iraq distracted from the War On Terrorism and away from larger threats such as North Korea. Where are these critics now? They are out gathering votes. Monday, CNN said of Bush’s intervention in Africa, “Bush hopes to reach out to ... liberal blacks, the voting bloc from which he faces his most intractable resistance.” Similarly, as conserva tive talk show host Rush Limbaugh recently stated, “Howard Dean and the Democrats are simply trying to make sure Bush doesn't score an increased percentage of the black vote by making it clear we have to go into Liberia.” Prior to the invasion of Iraq, critics of the war constantly claimed that it would set a prece dent for American invasions of despotic leaders who threaten the United States. While that may be a worthy precedent, Liberia sets a poor one. In 1993, American forces were in the African nation of Somalia to. end the country’s civil war and to put a stop to its humanitarian crisis. In October, L.S. troops were attacked by thousands of Somalians. There were more L.S. combat casualties that day than there have been since Vietnam, and today, Somalia is still in civil war. If America sets the precedent of policing every country with a civil war or humanitarian crisis, American armed forces will forever be sent to die in countless foreign countries without vital L.S. interests. Bush must stick to interven ing in countries that pose a risk to America. It takes only one glance at Iraq to realize that American military lives are at stake. Intolerance 'intertwined' with affirmative action In response to David B. Prior's July 8 mail call: In Dr. Prior's letter to The Battalion, he states that he believes that "Our University community deserves a news paper that is progressive and looks ahead to be on the forefront of impor tant issues, not one that dredges up painful memories of the past and fea tures an organization that has its roots in hate and intolerance." The Battalion, however, is not respon sible for the dredging up of painful memories. Affirmative action and its related laws were created more than 40 years ago to deal with hate and intoler ance, and Mr. Prior must understand that hate and intolerance are intertwined with affirmative action. If we insist on dredging up affirmative action, we must realize that other things Will surface with it. Ignoring this and looking only ahead will cause problems down the road. Hate and intolerance created the need for affirmative action and now affirma tive action is itself creating a growing resentment and intolerance. Being told you are excluded based solely on your skin color is not a pleasant feeling, no matter your race. I am not always pleased with what I read in The Battalion, but I remain critical of editorial judgment on their news sto ries only, not of what is printed in their opinion page. It is an "opinion page" and The Battalion has shown an excellent ability to provide opposing viewpoints on a wide variety of issues. Tackling these issues will only help us in becoming a better university, while pretending they don't exist will only cause us to decline. Michael Clement Class of2001 Sexual assaults not all done by homosexuals In response to a July 7 mail call: Where does Mr. Gardner get his statis tics? Most child molestation acts are per petrated by heterosexual men related or closely tied to the victim (i.e. an unde, boyfriend, father, etc.). It is a horrible misinterpretation of fact that you assign MAIL CALL this horrendous crime to homosexual men solely because of your intolerance for their lifestyle. Additionally, the rate of HIV and STDs are increasing, not among gay men, but among young women and children at the highest rate. Some might attribute this to beliefs you claim to be moral as articulated by Mr. Webster. But it is these same conservative, limiting, educational goals and indoctrinations that keep us from educating our children about sex, HIV and pregnancy, thus exacerbating these problems. You mentioned sexually deviant behavior. By whose standards might I ask? I personally find the rise of gratu itous sexuality and nudity in mainstream culture and media to be offensive, the stacks and stacks of pornographic mate rial available on the shelves of conven ient stores and local video stores to be repulsive, and the predisposition of het erosexuals, such as yourself, to condemn others for private acts of sexual expres sion repugnant. Our state, our country and our way of life were founded on individualism, free dom and protection of rights under the assumption that all men and women are created equal - regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, veteran sta tus, disability, sexual orientation, gender, age, etc. We do not "owe" anything to Christianity - unless you cite the long history of discrimination, bigotry, vio lence, condemnation, racial hatred, oppression of women, and many other horrible acts among people who call themselves Christian. The Supreme Court is upholding the separation of church and state put forth in our Constitution. The bottom line is this: those who consider themselves protectors of the Constitution, conservatives who seek to limit the role of government, and speak for morality should acknowledge the Matthew Maddox is a senior management major. Supreme Court's decision as a victory for privacy and limited government inter vention - yours, mine, and theirs. They are not making a moral judgment; instead, they are saying that what two consenting adults, involved in a non- coercive relationship, can engage in whatever acts they would like to in the privacy of their own home. I'm sure you'd agree that you don't want the state making decisions about what you do in your home, would you Mr. Gardner? Jennifer Parrott Class of 2001
