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