False Witnesses?

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to review the most sweeping legal judgment against pro-life activists in history. But painstakingly compiled new evidence shows that pro-abortion witnesses in the case may have lied

WORLD Magazine
October 5, 2002

Fay Clayton takes no prisoners. In a legal brief delivered on Sept. 17 to the U.S. Supreme Court, the feminist attorney from Chicago blamed pro-life activists for a litany of violent acts that stop just short of murder:

Demonstrators "regularly assaulted clinic personnel and patients," Ms. Clayton wrote, "... hit and clawed them, choked them, threw them to the ground, shoved and elbowed them, and slammed them against buildings even as they begged to be let go because they were being crushed." Pro-life activists "applied so much force against bodies pinned against buildings that glass doors and windows were damaged or cracked from the pressure." In an assault on one Los Angeles post-surgical patient, pro-lifers "pulled her hair, struck her, and beat her with an anti-abortion sign until her sutures ruptured and she passed out."

Shocking behavior, if true. But in the 16-year-long federal case that yielded a landmark racketeering verdict against leading pro-life activists in 1998, an increasing array of evidence shows that much of it may not be….

Regular Joe

High court victory lifts “racketeer” label from veteran pro-lifer

WORLD Magazine
March 11, 2006

The U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 27 handed Joseph Scheidler his second victory in three years over the National Organization for Women (NOW), declaring that he and other pro-life activists are not "racketeers." But Mr. Scheidler, who has dwelt for 20 years in the shadow of a lawsuit that attempted to paint him as a mafia-style thug, is conflicted.

"I really enjoyed being a racketeer," he said, his smile beaming across the miles during a telephone interview with WORLD from his Chicago office. "There's sort of an honor to having done something so 'bad' that the other side labels you a racketeer. Real racketeers are some pretty tough fellows. I've decided I'm going to be a 'racketeer emeritus.'"….

Breaking Faith

As sex scandals rock the Roman Catholic Church, Protestants face a lurking sex scandal of their own

WORLD Magazine
March 30, 2002

In Homestead, Pa., William Michael Altman, senior pastor at nondenominational Grace Christian Ministries, visits the hospital bedside of Marcia Bezak. Mrs. Bezak, a childhood molestation survivor with a 15-year history of depression and eating disorders, has just attempted suicide for at least the third time. According to Mrs. Bezak's testimony in a civil suit she filed in 2000, Mr. Altman says he will counsel her and help her recover. During counseling Mr. Altman tells her that her husband does not understand or appreciate her; he also allegedly convinces her that it is God's will that she regularly perform oral sex on him. When confronted, Mr. Altman confesses the relationship to church leaders, but later claims it was a consensual affair.

Breaking Faith (Update)

WORLD Magazine
April 13, 2002

Campus Crusade for Christ last week suspended Pastor Haman Cross Jr. from its roster of speakers following a WORLD report on clergy sexual abuse ("Breaking faith," published March 22, cover date March 30).

On Our Turf

Experts say the threat of domestic terrorism is growing. But are officials ready to call it what it is?

WORLD Magazine
December 5, 2009

Since May of this year, federal agents have knocked down five elaborate terror plots to kill Americans on American soil…
And yet, with a string of thwarted terror plots capped by the spectacular strike at Fort Hood, there have been no threat-level changes by the Department of Homeland Security, no alerts to Americans of an uptick in domestic terror plots, no issuance of warning signs for the U.S. public.

The problem, one former Pentagon expert in jihadist law told me in a telephone interview, is one of doctrine:

"We're completely off our doctrine on this whole discussion," said the analyst, whose current job consulting with U.S. government agencies on terror threats requires him not to appear by name in media. The doctrine, called Intelligence Preparation of the Environment, requires analysts to create a profile of an enemy based first on who the enemy says he is. But U.S. analysts, constrained by politics, are loath to conclude and publicize what the facts already show: that jihadist Muslims who state that they kill non-Muslims because their religious ideology demands it are in fact doing so. They have successfully infiltrated the United States from foreign countries, have won and radicalized Muslim converts among U.S. citizens, and—if the uptick in busted plots is any indication—are planning violence at an increasing rate….

No Good Choices

With enemy spies in custody, Capt. Roger Hill faced an impossible situation; the choice he made is costing him his career

WORLD Magazine
January 31, 2009

A West Point graduate with a degree in environmental engineering, Capt. Roger Hill was by all accounts an up-and-coming young officer. He had completed the Army's punishing Airborne and Ranger schools, earned three Army Commendation medals and, during a 12-month combat tour in Iraq, received a Bronze Star for meritorious service. His fitness reports reflected a dedicated leader whose superiors wrote ringing recommendations for promotion.

The men who served under him also showed confidence in his leadership: The reenlistment rate in Dog Company, the high-action combat unit Hill led in Afghanistan, was the highest in the brigade.

But now Hill, 30, is back home in the States awaiting dismissal from the Army, possibly with an other-than-honorable discharge. His case illustrates what embedded journalist P.J. Tobia calls the terror war's "impossible mission"—and what can happen when the letter of military law clashes with a commander's duty to protect his men….

Army of Volunteers

Architects, businessmen, paramedics, moms, and dads by day, historic Tennessee National Guard unit paid the ultimate price in Iraq by night. This Memorial Day, we remember

WORLD Magazine
May 27, 2006

The blast blew the Humvee doors off, launched its outsized engine block skyward like a toy, and catapulted a flaming man out of the gun turret into the ink-black night.

Less than a mile away, inside Forward Operating Base (FOB) Bernstein near Tuz, Iraq, radio traffic exploded: "Eliminator Five Alpha attacked by IED! Eliminator Five Alpha attacked by IED!"

Commanding a Humvee gun-truck and with two Bradley Fighting Vehicles in trail, Sergeant First Class James Sanders, 42, of the 278th Regimental Combat Team's 2nd Platoon ripped through the FOB's front gate. He could see a yellow-orange fireball lighting the horizon 1,400 meters away and hear machine-gun fire chattering across the distance….

After the Blaze

Eighteen months since the deadly Harris fire, San Diego faith-based groups and volunteers find one thing left unscorched: Need

WORLD Magazine
April 25, 2009

DULZURA, Calif.—City folk sometimes wonder why anyone would live way out here in the sticks where it snows in the winter, broils in the summer, and often burns —literally—in between. But sitting here on a hay bale with Elsie Campbell, looking out over the valley at the foot of Echo Mountain, the answer becomes clear: It's a little helping of heaven…

Going on 74, Elsie has asked me to sit with her on the hay bale so she can rest her bones. Over her red flower-print dress, she wears a short-sleeved denim shirt embroidered with tiny daisies. Like a favorite aunt, Elsie radiates comfort. If she weren't living in a FEMA trailer, I suspect she would produce a platter of freshly baked cookies for us to munch on while we chat.

"When we bought the place, the only kind of trees out here were live oak and sycamores," Elsie says, peering through wire-rim specs at the 40 acres she and her husband, Steve, turned into Echo Mountain Bible Camp 33 years ago. She points to a willow-like tree at our 2 o'clock. "We put in that California pepper tree. And when we first moved in, we went out and bought a whole flat of a hundred eucalyptus seedlings. Planted them all."

Here Elsie smiles ruefully: "We didn't know any better."

What she means is that because of their natural oil, eucalyptus trees like to burn.

And burn they did on Oct. 21, 2007. Echo Mountain Bible Camp and the adjacent back-country towns of Dulzura, Jamul, Portrero, Deerhorn Valley, Tecate, and Barrett Junction burned like a string of small suns….

Prying eyes keep wounds fresh

Many people in Littleton just want to be out of the media spotlight

WORLD Magazine
June 10, 2000

First came the firestorm that left 14 students and a teacher dead. Then came the media glare that scorched Littleton, Colo., and its residents like a never-setting sun.

Neither, it seems, will go away.

On April 20 last year, Columbine High School juniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher, then shot themselves, in the worst school shooting in U.S. history. More than a year later, some Littleton residents say unceasing media attention, in part at least, is keeping the town from healing….

Roberts Rules

President Bush has picked for the Supreme Court one of Washington's top legal minds and resumés. But John Roberts' conservative record may tell us less than many think about the type of justice he will be

WORLD Magazine
July 30,2005

Until his confirmation to the federal bench in 2003, Washington, D.C., attorney John Roberts Jr. dropped in regularly at 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. to hassle other lawyers.

OK, not hassle exactly. Mr. Roberts, then in private practice, volunteered at the Heritage Foundation, teaming with conservative attorneys like Miguel Estrada and Jay Sekulow for "moot courts"—mock arguments in which lawyers gear up for the real thing by practicing before respected peers who play the role of fire-breathing judges.

During the moot courts, says Todd Gaziano, director of Heritage's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, "we used to tease him." Mr. Roberts had been tapped for the federal bench in 1992—a nod Democrats let die a procedural death—and his 2001 nomination was still on hold, so "we'd say, 'You know, with a nomination that's 11 years old and pending, this might be as close as you're ever going to get to being a federal judge.'"

Mr. Roberts' replies were always good-natured and self-deprecating, Mr. Gaziano recalls: "He'd laugh and say, 'You may be right . . . I'll just play the role today.'" ….

Gunpoint evangelist

An unlikely instrument of God's grace: An off-again, on-again youth group member, with a criminal record, no job, and on the verge of losing an apartment points a suicidal gunman to Christ, even as he looked down the barrel of a semiautomatic Ruger. Here is the story of Jeremiah Neitz.

WORLD Magazine
October 9, 1999

More than a hundred gunshots had already ripped through the Wedgwood Baptist Church sanctuary when Jeremiah Neitz faced off with Larry Gene Ashbrook. Ashbrook pointed his hot Ruger 9-mm semiautomatic at Jeremiah. The 19-year-old pointed Ashbrook toward Jesus Christ.

Standing a pew-length away from the man who had just murdered seven people because they were Christians, Jeremiah told Ashbrook: "What you need is Jesus Christ in your life." Ashbrook, a twisted loner, refused God's 11th-hour gospel offer and shot himself in the head. But that night, Jeremiah joined the Christians at Columbine in standing up for God while staring down the barrel of a gun….

Illegal procedures

Abortionist Bertha Bugarin goes to jail, but exploitation of Hispanic women goes on

WORLD Magazine
May 23, 2009

SAN DIEGO—On the 2nd floor of the San Diego County Courthouse in the sterile tile hallway outside Department 18, a motley crew of spectators gathered on April 24 to witness the felony sentencing of a criminal abortionist. After many delays, Bertha Bugarin, already serving time in Los Angeles for 18 felony counts of performing abortions without a medical license, would finally face the music for similar crimes farther south.

Straight Time

A pro-life Oakland pastor chooses jail over a plea bargain—and leads prisoners to Christ

WORLD Magazine
May 9,2009

For 19 days in March and April, Walter Hoye was locked in a cell with 29 other prisoners at the Santa Rita jail near Oakland, Calif. There were times when he wished he could have stayed longer.
When the metal door first clanged shut behind him on March 20, Hoye, 52, decided the space was really more of a cage than a cell. A metal grid penning in prisoners. Fifteen bunks lining two walls. Two toilets and a urinal for all 30 men, and a shower that inmates had gradually transformed into a pornographic shrine.

As Hoye made his way to an empty bunk, a few prisoners, mostly black and Latino, dogged his path. "You smuggle in any drugs, an?" one of them asked.

"No," Hoye said quietly...

A few minutes later, another man walked over to Hoye's bunk and jabbed his finger at a newspaper he was holding. "This you?" he said, eyeing Hoye skeptically.

Hoye peered at the Oakland Tribune headline: "Anti-abortion pastor chooses jail."

"Yeah, that's me," he said.

In the next moment, the inmate was striding up and down the length of the cell, announcing, "Hey, he don't have to be here! He turned down probation! He doing straight time for what he believed in!"….

A Coming Storm

A federal constitutional amendment may be the only way to head off a church-state clash over same-sex marriage

WORLD Magazine
June 10, 2006

In May, the Becket Fund published a series of scholarly papers generated from a December 2005 conference at which First Amendment scholars and lawyers—several of whom favor or are undecided on gay marriage—weighed in on a series of critical questions: If same-sex marriage is the law of the land, can government then force traditional religious groups to treat same-sex and different-sex marriages exactly alike? Can the government punish groups that resist by denying them government benefits—including tax exemption? What religious freedom defenses can be exerted and which will succeed?...

Among other scholars weighing in: Georgetown University law professor and gay-rights activist Chai Feldblum, University of Maryland law professor Robin Wilson, and Douglas Kmiec, a professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University. Messrs. Turley and Stern, as well as Ms. Feldblum, support gay marriage. Ms. Wilson is undecided and Mr. Kmiec is opposed.

Thus, the Becket Fund's panel could hardly be said to have an anti-gay-marriage bias. And yet its findings on the questions at hand showed same-sex marriage sharply curtailing, and in some cases wiping out, the religious freedom of its opponents in spheres ranging from taxation, charitable giving, housing, public accommodation, and employment to licensure, professional practice, education, and equal access.