c. 2005 Religion News Service
Man Arrested for Mailing Messages With Anti-Semitic Threats
LOS ANGELES (RNS) Two months after the Anti-Defamation League announced that a series of large manila envelopes with anti-Semitic phrases were being sent to Southern California Jews, federal agents have made an arrest in the case.
FBI agents and U.S. postal inspectors arrested a man Monday (June 13) who allegedly mailed 56 envelopes, 52 of which contained syringes, to Jewish homes, a hospital, a Hispanic congresswoman’s office and Los Angeles Police Department Chief William Bratton.
Stanley C. Jaroszenski, 64, was arrested at a downtown Los Angeles transient hotel that police began watching after large envelopes were mailed to two synagogues and home addresses of people with Jewish last names.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Pacific Southwest office in Los Angeles put out an April 14 press alert on the mailings. The ADL said the mailings included generic anti-Semitic statements such as “Die Jews, die,” “The only good Jew is a dead Jew” and “Jews cut sex organs.”
After the arrest, ADL Regional Director Amanda Susskind stated that some Southern California Jews “were understandably upset when they received this hateful mail. We were able to reassure them that the letters were part of a series of mass mailings and did not seem to be targeting anyone individually.”
The ADL’s April 14 press release generated TV news coverage but appeared to surprise law enforcement agencies. Former federal prosecutor and Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said she understood why the ADL wanted to alert the Jewish community, but she added, “If you have a pending investigation, it’s often not helpful to try to escalate it in the press.”
A 117-count indictment handed down by a federal grand jury stated that Jaroszenski allegedly mailed the 56 manila envelopes, including one sent last year with the phrase “C.I.A. to Kill Sanchez” to a field office of Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., and another to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, which prompted an entire floor’s evacuation.
U.S. Attorney Debra Wong Yang’s office stated that 52 of 56 letters contained hypodermic syringes “with needles attached.” Jaroszenski was indicted on 56 felony counts for allegedly mailing out those 56 letters plus 61 misdemeanor counts for what Yang’s office said was “mailing injurious articles, in this case the hypodermic needles.”
_ David Finnigan
New Jersey Court Upholds State’s Ban of Gay Marriages
(RNS) A divided state appeals court has upheld New Jersey’s ban on gay marriage, rejecting contentions by seven same-sex couples that their right to wed is guaranteed by the state constitution.
But the emotionally charged case, which has drawn national attention, ultimately will be decided by the state Supreme Court because one of the three appeals court judges dissented in the Tuesday (June 14) decision.
Gay-rights activists who want New Jersey to be the second state, behind Massachusetts, to allow gay marriage now have an automatic right of appeal to the Garden State’s highest court.
“Our society and laws view marriage as something more than just state recognition of a committed relationship between two adults,” Appellate Division Judge Stephen Skillman wrote. “Our leading religions view marriage as a union of men and women recognized by God, and our society considers marriage between a man and woman to play a vital role in propagating the species and in providing the ideal environment for raising children.”
He was joined by Judge Anthony Parrillo, who agreed that any change to the ages-old definition of marriage must be made by the Legislature, “not judicial fiat.”
The dissenting judge, Donald Collester, concluded that the New Jersey Constitution protects the right of persons of the same sex to marry each other.
“The right to marry is effectively meaningless unless it includes the freedom to marry a person of one’s choice,” Collester wrote. “To deprive plaintiffs of marrying the person of their choice, a right enjoyed by all others, on the basis of a tradition of exclusion serves only to unjustifiably and unconstitutionally discriminate against them.”
Gay-rights activists said they look forward to having the case reach the state Supreme Court.
“We’re disappointed, but we will move forward because all along we’ve known this was going to go to the New Jersey Supreme Court,” said David Buckel, who argued the case for the gay-rights organization Lambda Legal. “We hope they will adopt the reasoning in the dissent.”
Steven Goldstein, chairman of Garden State Equality, said, “We’re jubilant to be headed to the Super Bowl of justice,” adding that he expects the high court to rule in favor of same-sex marriage.
Opponents of gay marriage said they believe the state’s highest court will act to retain New Jersey’s ban.
“All of the research clearly indicates that marriage between one man and one woman is the building block of all societies,” said John Tomicki, director of the League of American Families. “To remove that protection in law is not good for society.”
Tomicki said he is “confident the current Supreme Court will not seek to legislate from the bench” but will leave the question of authorizing same-sex marriage “where it belongs: in the Legislature and therefore with the people.”
_ Robert Schwaneberg
Study: Abstinence-Only Education Encourages Pledges, Behavior Unclear
(RNS) Preliminary findings of a federally funded study on abstinence-only education say the programs generally encouraged more students to pledge to abstain from premarital sex but did not necessarily change students’ expectations about whether they would abstain.
Early results released Tuesday (June 14), however, did not answer perhaps the most important question _ whether the classes ultimately lead to changes in sexual behavior. Those results are expected to be released next year when Mathematica Policy Research Inc. of Princeton, N.J., releases its final report.
During the course of the study, the use of abstinence-only classes has expanded nationally, with the Bush administration increasing federal funding to $167 million for programs in the current fiscal year.
The approach, which stresses avoiding premarital sex, does not allow discussion of contraception except to mention failure rates.
Supporters of abstinence education say teaching students about birth control effectively encourages them to have sex and that birth control is less than 100 percent effective.
Critics charge that abstinence-only classes malign condom use and dangerously assume that teens will honor their pledges not to have sex.
“The battle lines are drawn on this issue as much as anything else I’m familiar with,” said Ron Haskins, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of an advisory board for the study. “There are really strong, strong feelings on both sides.”
The Mathematica study, considered the most comprehensive yet on the subject, examined four abstinence-only programs, in Florida, Mississippi, Virginia and Wisconsin, given to elementary and middle school students.
The results released Tuesday reflect a survey of the students, whose average age was about 12, one year after they finished the programs.
Researchers said they were eager to see if attitudes change as students get older, but those results will not be available until at least next year, said Haskins.
_ Jeff Diamant
Church Groups Urge Restraint and Dialogue in Ethiopia
(RNS) The World Council of Churches and the All Africa Council of Churches have called on the government of Ethiopia to ensure that security forces exercise “maximum restraint” in handling demonstrators protesting last month’s parliamentary elections.
“We have received reports of large numbers of arrests made by the security forces without due process,” the two church groups said in a June 10 statement. “Consequently, we request that those held in detention should be properly treated and not held incommunicado, tortured and/or beaten.”
The WCC and AACC said that “given the tense situation in the country,” the government should enter into dialogue with opposition political parties.
“We call on the churches of Ethiopia to play their prophetic and pastoral role in helping to bring the situation to normalcy, and assure them of our readiness to support their efforts towards bringing peace, justice and reconciliation,” the church bodies said.
Separately, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday (June 15) that the government crackdown on dissent has spread from the capital of Addis Ababa to the rest of the country.
According to the U.S.-based rights group, thousands of people have been arrested and 36 people killed in the clashes between police and protesters.
“Opposition rhetoric may well have contributed to last week’s unrest, but the government must take responsibility for the conduct of its own security forces,” said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director for the rights group. “The security forces have killed dozens of protesters and arbitrarily detained thousands of people across the country.”
Protests over alleged electoral fraud in the country’s May 15 elections erupted last week in Addis Ababa. The disorder reached its peak June 8 when security forces opened fire on large crowds, some of whom were throwing rocks, killing at least 36 and wounding 100.
_ David E. Anderson
Nuns Compromise With Animal Rights Groups on Removal of Cats
NEW YORK (RNS) The Dominican Nuns of Corpus Christi Monastery have reached an agreement that may silence critics who opposed their decision to remove eight feral cats from their walled, five-acre property.
For years, the nuns had fed the strays with food supplied by volunteers, said Valerie Sicignano of New York, a feral cat issues specialist for two animal rights groups, In Defense of Animals (IDA) and Neighborhood Cats. The sisters recently stopped in hopes that the animals would leave on their own. If that plan failed, the nuns intended to send the cats to city shelters.
The uproar began June 2, when animal activists learned of the cats’ impending eviction.
Sicignano said initial talks with the monastery broke down June 5. Afterward, Bryan Kortis and Sicignano started an Internet protest campaign through Neighborhood Cats of New York City and IDA, based in Mill Valley, Calif.
In a press release dated June 7, Kortis, executive director of Neighborhood Cats, stated: “The plan is … cruel for depriving these cats of their long-time home and causing their suffering and likely deaths.”
He argued that shelters would euthanize the cats because they are too wild for adoption.
Soon heated phone calls and e-mails barraged the monastery, the Archdiocese of New York and the media.
Because these Dominicans are cloistered, the vicars for religious _ the archdiocese’s officials in charge of men and women in consecrated life _ stepped in to mediate the dispute.
According to the animal rights groups, the agreement reached allowed rescuers to relocate the cats to the Pets Alive Sanctuary in Middletown, N.Y.
The move began June 9, at an estimated cost of $5,000 to the animal groups, Sicignano said.
“We are very pleased that the Dominican Sisters … and Neighborhood Cats have reached an agreement. It was never the sisters’ intention to cause the cats any harm. … The vicars for religious of the archdiocese are glad to have been able to act as an intermediary in bringing this to a happy conclusion,” archdiocesan spokesman Joseph Zwilling said.
In the end, In Defense of Animals and Neighborhood Cats were conciliatory. A joint press released stated, “The sisters have made a compassionate, humane decision.”
_ Lisa Haddock
Quote of the Day: Dean Hoge, Catholic University professor
(RNS) “Are there homosexual men in the priesthood? Absolutely. Are they good priests? Absolutely. Enforcing this is like enforcing the Rio Grande … as a border between the United States and Mexico. You can’t build a wall high enough.”
_ Dean Hoge, Catholic University professor and an adviser to an 84-page document on priestly training, regarding the decision by U.S. Catholic bishops to avoid a vague Vatican directive on the ordination of homosexuals into the priesthood. He was quoted by The Washington Times.
MO/PH END RNS
