Tag Archives: law

Bridgeport Diocese must release documents

Posted on by
Reply

gavel-300x200

Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens has ruled that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport must release thousands of pages of documents relating to allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ended nearly a decade of appeals by the diocese in its efforts to block public access to more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests.

While the nation’s highest court ordered the diocese to turn over the documents, it let stand a lower court ruling that a small segment of the records dealing with priests’ medical records and seven priests not named in the lawsuits could remain sealed.

More here from the Connecticut Post.

Disturbing find in Bridgeport highlights links between occult and crime

Posted on by
Reply

Narcotics officers in Bridgeport have made a gruesome discovery which highlights the link between crime and the occult. Traffickers in Mexico and other places are said to commonly perform grotesque rituals to obtain supernatural protection for their business but we don’t expect to see such things in these parts.

Members of the Tactical Narcotics Team expected to find the normal tools of drug dealers when they executed a search-and-seizure warrant at [address omitted - ed.] early Tuesday morning.

What they found even surprised them.

“There was blood all over the basement walls,” said Sgt. William Bailey, of the Tactical Narcotics Team. “We found what appears to be a human skull with an alligator head on top of it and possibly a sheep or goat’s head underneath.”

There were beads on the wall along with strange handwriting, kind of like what you would expect to see in a satanic horror movie. There were candles burning in glass and knives and animal horns nearby.

“I never saw anything like this before,” said Bailey. “We called in the detective bureau.”

The suspected human skull will be sent to the Chief States Medical Examiner’s Office to determine not only if it is a human skull, but whose skull it was.

Read more here. Continue to pray for Bridgeport and pray against the drug trade in our State.

Governor Rell vetoes death penalty bill

Posted on by
Reply

Governor Rell, as promised, has vetoed legislation that would eliminate the death penalty in Connecticut. And, as Channel 3 reports:

Its supporters in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly have said they do not have the necessary two-thirds majority of votes to override her veto. The bill, which would have replaced capital punishment with life in prison, passed 19-17 in the Senate and 90-56 in the House last month.

The Governor’s letter to Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz reads as follows:

Dear Madame Secretary:

I am hereby returning without my signature HB 6578, An Act Concerning the Penalty for a Capital Felony. This bill eliminates the death penalty as a sentencing option for crimes committed on or after the bill’s effective date.

There is no doubt that this issue evokes the deeply held passions of individuals on both sides of the issue. I sincerely respect the beliefs of those who support this bill and the passion with which they have presented their case. I cannot, however, sign this bill into law.

As I have stated previously, I understand and sympathize with the anguish and pain of those families who have lost a loved one due to a cruel and heinous crime. These are the crimes forever embedded in our minds, haunting us long after they have been committed. They cause us to lose our innocence relative to the world around us. The death penalty is, and ought to be, reserved for those who have committed crimes that are revolting to our humanity and civilized society.

The death penalty sends a clear message to those who may contemplate such cold, calculated crimes. We will not tolerate those who have murdered in the most vile, dehumanizing fashion. We should not, will not, abide those who have killed for the sake of killing; to those who have taken a precious life and shattered the lives of many more. Dr. William Petit recently quoted Lord Justice Denning, Master of the Rolls of the Court of Appeals in the United Kingdom, who said:


Punishment is the way in which society expresses its denunciation of wrong doing: and, in order to maintain respect for law, it is essential that the punishment inflicted for grave crimes should adequately reflect the revulsion felt by the great majority of citizens for them. It is a mistake to consider the objects of punishment as being deterrent or reformative or preventive and nothing else. . . . The truth is that some crimes are so outrageous that society insists on adequate punishment, because the wrong-doer deserves it, irrespective of whether it is a deterrent or not.


There is no doubt that the death penalty is a deterrent to those who contemplate such monstrous acts. The statistics supporting this fact, however, are not easily tabulated. How do we count the person who considered the consequences of the crime and walked away? We cannot, but we know that this occurs. We have a responsibility to act to prevent these heinous crimes and to ensure that criminals will not harm again.

I also take note of the concerns expressed by some regarding the tremendous financial cost to the state, the perception that the death penalty is inconsistently sought for certain crimes, the lengthy appellate process that is involved and the roles that race, gender and economics play when seeking the death penalty.

These very questions, and more, were the basis of a death penalty study commissioned by P.A. 01-151 and analyzed in a comprehensive report submitted to the Legislature on January 8, 2003. The report made significant and thoughtful recommendations that have been largely ignored by the Legislature, including training for public defenders and prosecutors. The goal of the report is to ensure that each decision to seek the death penalty is based upon the facts and law applicable to the case and is set within a framework of consistent and even-handed application of the sentencing laws, with no consideration of arbitrary or impermissible factors such as the defendant’s race, ethnicity or religion.

The co-chairmen of the legislature’s Judiciary Committee have asked that I submit a proposal for “fixing” the death penalty statute. I believe that the current law is workable and effective and I would propose that it not be changed. If the co-chairmen are seeking suggestions, however, I would urge them to review the above-referenced report, which has been largely ignored since its issuance.

In the meantime, for the reasons cited above, I must return House Bill 6578, An Act Concerning the Penalty for a Capital Felony without my signature.

Very truly yours,

M. Jodi Rell

Governor

If we have learned anything about our legislators in recent years, it’s that they can be persistent. We can expect to see this come up on an annual basis.

What’s behind Catholic Diocese lawsuit against the State?

Posted on by
Reply

In today’s Courant, Dave Altimari has a good background piece explaining the Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport’s lawsuit against the State of Connecticut.

In March, more than 4,000 Catholics descended on the Capitol to protest Bill 1098, which proposed having lay councils of seven to 13 people oversee the finances of local parishes, relegating Catholic pastors and bishops to an advisory role.

Church officials were sharply critical of the bill and organized the rally and, on their website, asked parishioners to contact their local legislators to protest the plan.

The bill was eventually withdrawn amid questions about its constitutionality.

But the issue did not end there. About a month later, church officials received a letter from the Office of State Ethics informing them that they were the “subject of an Office of State Ethics evaluation” to ascertain whether the diocese had violated state statutes by failing to register as a lobbyist before the rally.

In the letter, Thomas K. Jones, an ethics enforcement officer, said that the evaluation was only preliminary and did not necessarily mean that a formal complaint would be filed against the church.

Jones said that the diocese was being investigated for possible violations of three state statutes — failing to register as a lobbyist, failing to submit all appropriate lobbyist filings and failing to follow all applicable registration procedures.

We’re alarmed by the State action and can’t see why the Catholic Church or any church body would need to register as a lobbyist before urging its constituents to act as… well, citizens!

Bishop Lori stated on the Bridgeport Diocese website,

“The Diocese is not a registered lobbyist and does not devote itself primarily to legislative or political matters,” Bishop Lori continued. “Nonetheless, from time to time, the Diocese’s religious mission compels me and the pastors within the Diocese to take stands, consistent with our religious beliefs, on legislation that concerns the moral issues of the day, and to urge our parishioners to act on the basis of Church teachings. We communicate these messages to our parishioners through the Diocese’s website, in newsletters, at Mass and other religious services, and through a variety of other means.”

That’s very well stated in our opinion. Nothing could be more natural than a religious organization providing religious guidance to its adherents who pose moral and ethical questions to the religious organization.

Must churches keep silent on anything the State defines as political?  The history of the 20th century shows that such a policy is a major building block of any tyrannical system.

Resources related to this story:

Complaint against the State of Connecticut, May 29, 2009 (PDF)

Pastoral Letter from Bishop Lori (PDF)

John Rowland and repentance

Posted on by
Reply

Former Connecticut governor John Rowland appears on Mike Huckabee’s show and talks about his fall “into grace.” If it is possible to watch Mr. Rowland objectively (which is certainly difficult for some) you will see he has some interesting things to say about lies, a moral compass and… he even uses the R word: repentance. This video comes in at just under 10 minutes and is worth watching or at least listening to in its entirety.

(Can’t wait to see reactions to this one.)

One man, one woman – unless that offends you, of course!

Posted on by
1

The Church’s failure to compete in the spheres of vocabulary and language has brought our society to the place where it is about to get hit by a train.  It’s time for Christians to ask for, even insist upon, several things.  The Church needs to: (1) reclaim the true biblical concept of tolerance; (2) reclaim the vocabulary of civil rights; (3) explain biblical teaching on family issues; and (4) refuse to be browbeaten by comical, trendoid explanations of biblical concepts – as if the Church and Israel before it have been wrong or confused about homosexuality for 4,000 years.  American Christians must (preferably before tomorrow morning) cease to be intimidated by the possibility that someone may claim they are motivated by “hate.”

I was annoyed when I saw a clip of the pro-homosexual marriage video in which Jack Black appears as Jesus, castigating Christians by reminding them that shellfish, like gay sex, is an abomination in the Bible.  Is this really the best that supporters of gay marriage can do?  And have Christians become so utterly crippled in biblical knowledge and their ability to articulate it that hearing the phrase “God hates shrimp” paralyzes them?

Some time ago Christianity Today ran an excellent article by Edith Humphrey, a seminary professor, who explained for the confused what the Bible teaches: God is opposed to homosexuality.  This shouldn’t come as a newsflash, but in our day we have many who are deceiving themselves or are being deceived.  In her article, “What God Hath Not Joined,” Ms. Humphrey explains:

Leviticus 18:22 says bluntly: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” Some within the church argue that such prohibitions concern only cultic practices in ancient Israel and so are no longer binding on Christians. But some Levitical proscriptions concern immoral behavior, not simply ritual uncleanness. We need to ask, How does the general pattern of the Scriptures direct us to understand this prohibition?

The answer is that homoerotic behavior contradicts God’s purpose for all his creatures. It is not in the same category as the cultic or cultural prohibitions regarding non-kosher foods and the twining together of two types of thread. Like the prohibition of incest (Lev. 18:6-18), the prohibition of homoerotic acts addresses every age.

As the New Testament epistles show, the early church did not discard what the Hebrew Bible said about sexual ethics. When Corinthian Christians thought that their spiritual sophistication gave them license to sin, Paul challenged them (1 Cor. 6:9ff.): “Do you not know that evildoers will not inherit God’s kingdom?” Then he offered as examples those who steal, get drunk, scorn what is holy, pursue sexual immorality, and practice two modes of male homoerotic behavior.

Some argue that we cannot understand Paul’s reference to these two behaviors (malakoi and arsenokoitai, as in and ) in terms of homoeroticism. But arsenokoitai is in fact a compound word derived from the Greek version of Leviticus 20:13 for those men “who lie with a male.” Malakoi means literally “soft ones” and in Greek writings frequently identified the passive homoerotic partner. It is a mistake to limit the term’s meaning, as do some, to masturbation, or as the NRSV does, to male prostitution.

The Genesis narratives, because they are stories, and the Levitical passages, because they are part of a code given to Israel in particular, must be considered in light of the whole biblical narrative. When we do this, the lists of immoral behavior in and show that the early Christian communities held firm to Old Testament views of sexual immorality…

Of course.  But it’s worth thinking about these things in a little more depth than what we get in sound bites, which are more often than not pure sophistry.  It’s important we do so because the press is not going to let up, and is forever seeking to teach people of good will that the Bible can be read to support gay marriage.

This week, Newsweek’s Lisa Miller sticks her finger in the eye of everyone who has read the Bible, saying:

Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.

Is this for real?  The Jesus who said “go and sin no more” now wants two girls to marry each other?

Christians need to respond to this drivel every time it appears in print, for when we let these things go unanswered, others over time may accept them by default.

Albert Mohler, never afraid of a fight, takes Newsweek to task:

Disappointingly, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham offers an editorial note that broadens Newsweek’s responsibility for this atrocity of an article and reveals even more of the agenda: “No matter what one thinks about gay rights –- for, against or somewhere in between –- this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism,” Meacham writes. “Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt –- it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Well, that statement sets the issue clearly before us. He insists that “to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt.” No serious student of the Bible can deny the challenge of responsible biblical interpretation, but the purpose of legitimate biblical interpretation is to determine, as faithfully as possible, what the Bible actually teaches — and then to accept, teach, apply and obey.

It’s time to focus on teaching and proclaiming the truths that virtually all societies have taken for granted across those millennia, whether they had a Bible or not, and without being ashamed to do so.

Danbury takes crown as state’s safest city

Posted on by
Reply

Good news for Danburians – you live in Connecticut’s safest city:

Danbury tops the list of the safest cities in the state, according to a ranking of the safest — and most dangerous — cities in the nation.

The rankings of cities with populations greater than 75,000 were recently released as part of the “City Crime Ratings” book published annually by CQ Press. Danbury came in at No. 55 of all cities in the nation and first in Connecticut.

“Danbury is fortunate to employ some of the best police officers in our area, who show a deep commitment to the safety of our city’s citizens and visitors,” Mayor Mark Boughton said.

“Our city is proud of this ranking, and we will continue focusing our efforts and commitment to our officers and their needs.”

Stamford came in second of Connecticut cities and No. 71 in the nation. Hartford brought up the rear as the most dangerous city in the state; its national rank is 359 of 385.

Police Chief Al Baker said Danbury has consistently done well on the rankings over the years and often fell in one of the top two spots for the state. Stamford, however, has come out ahead of Danbury in past years.

Read more here.  Continue to pray for Hartford and New Haven, which reportedly was not ranked because it does not report certain categories of crime to the FBI.

Connecticut Supreme Court Justice says gay marriage “not going away”

Posted on by
Reply

A very interesting article in the Yale Herald explored the response of Christians to the recent decision of the Connecticut Supreme Court in Kerrigan v. Commissioner of Public Health, establishing a right to gay marriage in our State.  Writer Dennis Howe says Christians have sat silent but his article is also noteworthy for the revealing glimpses it gives of some of the participants at the center of the Kerrigan drama, particularly State Supreme Court Justice Richard Palmer.

The court issued its decision on Oct. 10, and, unsurprisingly, initiated an immediate backlash from opponents of gay marriage. Social conservatives and the religious right formed the Connecticut Constitution Convention Campaign to encourage voters to vote “yes” on a ballot proposal to call a constitutional convention that could reexamine the Supreme Court decision and potentially propose a constitutional amendment to overturn it. Supporters included Republican governor Jodi Rell, the Family Institute of Connecticut, and the state’s Roman Catholic bishops, who called on Catholic voters to vote “yes” on the convention. This was no small matter—46 percent of the state is Catholic, placing Connecticut second among the 50 states.

But in the weeks leading up to Election Day, this initially fervent conservative reaction began to steadily decline. In California, religious conservatives were busy raising $35 million in support of Proposition 8, and their amendment banning gay marriage in the state passed by four percentage points. In the closing days of the Connecticut campaign, however, proponents of the constitutional convention were being outspent 83 to 1 by their opponents, and despite polls that suggested that the majority of Connecticut citizens were opposed to same-sex marriages, the anti-gay marriage camp was conspicuously subdued. The convention failed by an overwhelming margin—almost 20 percentage points—and Kerrigan and Mock received their marriage license just one week later.

“People don’t seem to have a lot of energy to spend time undoing our decision,” said Justice Palmer when asked in a Trumbull College Master’s Tea on Mon., Nov. 20. “We can say with certainty that there is going to be gay marriage in this state for the foreseeable future. Unlike in California, it’s not going away.”

Justice Palmer has taken the spiritual temperature of the State’s Catholics and Evangelicals and found us to be as cold as ice. Time alone will tell but for the moment he is probably correct.

The piece also contains an in-depth profile of Evangelicals working at Yale and their response to the culture as a whole on these issues, which is well worth your time.

Read the rest here.

Connecticut after same-sex marriage: now what?

Posted on by
Reply

A reader writes with some concern asking what options pro-family forces have in Connecticut in the wake of the Kerrigan decision legalizing same-sex marriage:

Is there going to be an amendment or a vote that the public can make like in California to ban the same sex marriage here in Connecticut?  How do we ban it here as well?  Is it too late?

This is an important question: is it possible to overturn the Kerrigan decision by electoral or some other means?  There are indeed options, none of which, I hasten to say, has any chance of success absent divine intervention.  However, before we even begin to explore political or legal options, we do well to take stock of the new realities.  Do we really understand the place at which we have arrived?

In Connecticut, gay marriage will mean a mandatory and total acceptance of homosexuality in all spheres of life.  Make no mistake: this represents the true end of the long and deliberate process of divorcing society from its Christian underpinnings.  We must realize that there is no longer any sense at all in which we can say that Christianity is the animating principle of government or society in Connecticut, or any other place where there is homosexual marriage.

Think about it: in half a lifetime, homosexuality has gone from being an aberration and a psychiatric disorder not frequently discussed in polite society to being on a par with heterosexual marriage. Indeed, a new form of tolerance demands that we view it as such, but this new “tolerance” is not tolerance at all; it is intolerance of all who dare question the new orthodoxy.  Thus the crafters of the new orthodoxy have become the intolerant bigots they accused Christians of being.  If recent events are any guide, homosexual activists will not be willing to surrender what they have gained over the last 40 years.   Indeed, the acceptance of homosexuality will now be enforced with all the machinery that the State has at its disposal.  Religious conscience will be steamrolled in nearly all cases, as we are already seeing in the case of justices of the peace.

The full effects of this have not been seen yet in Connecticut, as they have in Massachusetts.  The language of civil rights, now just as fully applicable to homosexuality as it is to matters of race, will mandate indoctrination of children and trump all rights of parents to guide their children’s education.  Exaggeration?  Not at all. In Massachusetts, the schools openly promote homosexuality and parents can neither opt out nor even be notified!

Christians are now a minority in matters of morality despite whatever numerical majority they may still enjoy.  The court system, having severed itself from our Constitution, has become inimical to the faith.  The sooner we will simply grow up and face this the better off we will be.  Notice I did not say that there is no Christian influence, or remnant of Christians in the region.  However, it is past time that we woke up.  Just this month we have seen that even Californians, famously liberal, voted against homosexual marriage when they had a chance.  Perhaps their familiarity with in-your-face homosexual activism pushed them over the edge.  So is there hope?  Yes.  Will it require new approaches, new  mindsets, and new tools?  Absolutely.

Having said all of that, what options do we have?

Connecticut does not have any right of initiative such as Californians have to propose and create amendments to the Constitution or State laws.  So scratch that option right at the outset.

One option would be for the Connecticut Supreme Court to overturn its own decision in Kerrigan.  While anything is possible, this seems highly unlikely given the deference that judges give to their own precedents.  The Court would have to adopt the reasoning of the dissenting justices over time and acknowledge some error, some change in society’s views, etc.

Could someone appeal from this decision to the Federal Courts?  Extremely unlikely, as the Federal Courts do not like to interfere with decisions from the highest court of a State which interpret that State’s Constitution.  They taught us in law school that States can always recognize more rights than the Federal government, and this is one of those cases.  Incidentally, this means that even if a Federal Defense of Marriage Amendment were passed Connecticut might still have gay marriage, depending on how it was worded.

Another option is a convention which could amend the Constitution. There are two ways to call for a Constitutional Convention.  First, as we saw this year, the voters must be presented every twenty years with the option to vote for a Constitutional Convention. Since we’ve just seen this question go down in flames, we will not get another chance at this one until 2028!   A second way would be for the Legislature to vote for a Convention.  This requires a 2/3 vote of each house of the Legislature and cannot take place less than ten years after a previous Convention.  Again, this option is only to have a Convention, and does not guarantee what would take place at the Convention.  See Article Thirteen of the State Constitution here.

Yet another option, by far the quickest and easiest in some ways, would be for the Legislature to simply pass a Constitutional Amendment.  However, in our current political climate (and Connecticut being the State with the lowest percentage of Evangelicals), this would pose great difficulties.  The Sixth Amendment to the State Constitution provides:

Amendments to this constitution may be proposed by any member of the senate or house of representatives. An amendment so proposed, approved upon roll call by a yea vote of at least a majority, but by less than three-fourths, of the total membership of each house, shall be published with the laws which may have been passed at the same session and be continued to the regular session of the general assembly elected at the next general election to be held on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in an even-numbered year. An amendment so proposed, approved upon roll call by a yea vote of at least three-fourths of the total membership of each house, or any amendment which, having been continued from the previous general assembly, is again approved upon roll call by a yea vote of at least a majority of the total membership of each house, shall, by the secretary of the state, be transmitted to the town clerk in each town in the state, whose duty it shall be to present the same to the electors thereof for their consideration at the next general election to be held on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in an even-numbered year. If it shall appear, in a manner to be provided by law, that a majority of the electors present and voting on such amendment at such election shall have approved such amendment, the same shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of this constitution. Electors voting by absentee ballot under the provisions of the statutes shall be considered to be present and voting.

Let me put my lawyer glasses on.  As I read it, this is potentially a multi-year process, approved by 3/4 of the Legislators (or at least 1/2 of them and then 1/2 of the Legislators from the next session) and then submitted to the voters afterwards.

Is it really possible that Connecticut voters can apply enough pressure on their State Legislators, some of whom are openly gay, to make this last possibility become a reality?  There’s only one way to know, and that’s to try it.  In California this squeaked by.  What would happen here?

Can you refuse to marry a gay couple in Connecticut?

Posted on by
Reply

If you are a public official, the answer is clearly “no.”  Attorney-General Blumenthal has issued an opinion which recognizes gay marriage as being on a par with other civil rights, pursuant to the recent Supreme Court decision in the Kerrigan case.  Says Mr. Blumenthal:

Section 46b-22 does not impose a duty on persons authorized to perform marriages to perform a marriage for any particular couple or establish a right for couples seeking to marry to have the ceremony performed by a particular authorized person.  However, as is currently the case, public officials who have been authorized to perform marriages may not refuse to perform a marriage for discriminatory reasons, in violation of the Connecticut Constitution.

 

As I read this, clergy may refuse to marry anyone, but public officials who are authorized to solemnize marriages may not, as it would be a violation of those persons’ state constitutional rights.

The Greenwich Time ran an interesting piece last week about the impact of our new situation upon justices of the peace.

In the wake of his expanded duties, one justice of the peace was thinking about stepping down.

“I haven’t had to face that issue, thank God,” said justice Forbes Delany, asked if he would be willing to perform gay marriages. “I can turn down anyone.”

Three days after the release of Blumenthal’s legal opinion, Delany said he was no longer interested in being a justice of the peace. Asked if his decision was influenced by Blumenthal’s statement that justices may not refuse to marry gays, Delany said only, “I think I have to take my name off the list.”

Reactions from other justices range from disappointment to celebration.

Byram Republican Emil Smeriglio, a justice for 25 years and born-again Christian, said last week, “Frankly, it’s against my religion.”

“It’s a discretionary call, I thought,” he said.

 

I’m afraid that Mr. Delany and Mr. Smeriglio will have to make a call based on conscience in our Brave New State.  Indeed, this is only the beginning of a soft expulsion of committed Christians and other traditionalists from public life.