Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Q: The initial story in the New York Times centering upon John McCain’s purported affair with… A: Wait, wait, wait. Let’s get it right. The affair was more than purported. It was reported in the Times, however obliquely. And that was the center of the story. All the other “news” in the story, most of it rehashed, was clustered around that volcanic charge. The Times was widely understood as asserting that there was an affair, and all the other reports and insinuations and gossip that followed that story was grounded in the certainty that McCain had an affair. Q: Okay, I got that. And you’re asserting that there was no affair . A: No, I’m not. But that’s the beauty of dirt: If you throw enough of it, some will stick – stick, not stain. McCain has denied an affair occurred, so has the woman. The editor of Newsweek, familiar with most of the details concerning the run-up to the story, says his journalistic rectitude would not have permitted him to run the story. The charge ventilated by th...

New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, the nation's first openly gay governor, lately retired from office, has risen to the defense of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, whose on again off again resignation from office, after he had got caught in a compromising position in a men’s stall at an airport, appears to be off again. McGreevey’s trials and tribulations began for him when, as a child, he recognized he was different from other kids. His Catholic upbringing was of no help at all: “No relief was forthcoming from my then-Catholic faith, which said the practice of homosexuality was a ‘mortal sin’ subject to damnation.” He carefully weighed his options: “… my only options were suicide, something for which I could never find the courage, or 'closeting' my homosexuality. You decide: I'll change it, I'll fight it, I'll control it, but, simply put, I'll never accept it. You then attempt to place ‘it’ in a metaphorical closet, keep it separate from open daily life and indulge it...

Amann Among The Lilliputians “I acknowledge that you can't keep an organization together without patronage. Men ain't in politics for nothin'. They want to get somethin' out of it” – George Washington Plunkitt Jim Amann, the powerful Speaker of the state House of Representatives, has come under fire for behavior that turn of the century Tammany Hall boss William Jefferson Plunkitt would have considered praiseworthy. In his day job, Amann raises funds for the Greater Connecticut Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, which pays him a yearly salary of $67,5oo. By tapping the shoulders of lobbyists for contributions to the charity, newspapers have said, Amann has created for himself, if not a conflict of interest, then the “appearance” of a conflict of interest. Are the lobbyists turning out their pockets for the charity because they are charitable or because they wish to curry favor with the speaker? Would they have given as avidly to, say, Mother Teresa, wh...

Catholic hospitals presently withhold Plan B pills from rape victims who are pregnant or ovulating. Plan B pills are administered to other rape victims in Catholic hospitals. In cases in which the pills cannot in good conscience be administered, the patients are referred to other near-by hospitals. The arguments presented by those who favor legislation forcing Catholic Hospitals to provide Plan B to patients that are referred to other providers include the following points: 1) Opposition to the use of Plan B pills in Catholic hospitals is being waged by “local Catholic bishops.” The implication is that local bishops have distorted the teaching of their church by viewing the use of Plan B pills after ovulation as aborticides. 2) Catholic bishops are “not competent” to make “scientific judgments.” But, of course, it is not Catholic bishops who presently make the scientific judgments that a) the rape victim is pregnant, or b) ovulation is occurring. These judgments are made by competent...

The Hartford Courant, in an editorial that oddly is not available online, has joined a chorus of voices protesting that Victim Advocate James Papillo has in his testimony at a public hearing “crossed the line” and wandered into “religious” territory. The Courant cites as proof the following statement made by Papillo to an Associated Press reporter: “victims here are being used as a hook to further an agenda they are hiding … The issue is an attack on the Catholic institutions.” First of all, it should be noted that the offending statement, which might be made by any atheist or agnostic editorialist, is untainted by religious doctrine. Whether Papillo’s statement is true or false is a separate question that would depend upon facts unexplored in the Courant’s editorial, but the statement itself is not a religious proposition on the order of “I believe in One God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth ...” Papillo was not here stating any of the doctrines of his faith; he was a...

“Malloy said that he was sensitive to the religious freedom issue but that emergency contraceptives are designed to prevent conception, not cause a chemically induced abortion.” This sunburst was teased out of Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat gubernatorial contender, by a reporter who then wrote a story under the title “Rivals Blast Rell Stance: Catholic Hospitals, Rape Victims At Issue.” The “emergency contraceptive” in question, called Plan B, is described by its producer as a backup method for preventing pregnancy when ordinary contraceptives fail, and the reporter helpfully explained that “Emergency contraceptives are a high-dose birth control pill that can reduce the risk of pregnancy when taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.” Plan B, some Connecticut legislators feel, ought to be adopted by every hospital in the state, including Connecticut’s four Catholic hospitals, and the pending bill that would enforce the use of Plan B has created some consternation within t...