Looks like a repeat in the 26th district next November.

Democrat Lowell Fulk has all but announced his candidacy for the House of Delegates, telling a group of party leaders that he “looks forward to debating Glenn Weatherholtz on the real issues that face our Valley.” Weatherholtz represents the 26th District, which includes Harrisonburg and much of Rockingham County. All 100 seats in the House are up for grabs in November. Fulk, 47, of Linville, made his comments on Saturday night at a Rockingham County Democratic Committee banquet, where he announced his resignation as committee chairman. The farmer and former county School Board member said he would resign “to explore a candidacy” for the 26th District seat.

Apropos of my comment yesterday, E.J. Dionne has an op-ed today commenting on the spate of Christian lawsuits seeking a greater recognition of Christmas in public venues.

The great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that “the chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.” I fear that in these Christmas debates, Christians are behaving not as Christians but as a tribe: “We will pound them if they get in the way of our customs and rituals.”

Tribal behavior is antithetical to the spirit of peace and good will. In this season, we ought to be taking the most expansive possible view of our obligations to others.

Update: Margaret Edds also had a column about this yesterday.

The controversy is gaining traction, however, because it fits a popular, post-election narrative: A “values” divide is supposedly rending the nation – secularism and multi-culturalism on one side, traditional Christianity on the other.

If that’s the case, and the premise is certainly open to dispute, this latest outgrowth strikes me in three ways: silly, odd, and – if it’s genuine – not nearly far-reaching enough.

Silly because, seriously now, who cares? A strong, vibrant religious movement isn’t going to be undone because a storefront says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Odd because I view militant Christianity as an oxymoron. The most convincing faith radiates from a well-lived life, not from pushy actions such as boycotts or sit-ins.

And ultimately short-sighted, because if we’re determined to go this route, even “Merry Christmas” isn’t exactly “O Holy Night” and the real apostasy in the season is spending more time in a shopping mall than at the local homeless shelter.

Any Christianity-based objection to Macy’s “Holiday 2004” press release ought not to stop with the word “holiday.” Consider this marketing twist: “Throughout the store, shoppers will see alluring signs highlighting holiday-season sentiment … Who can resist a display of recliner chairs labeled ‘Goodwill Toward Men’ or cashmere sweaters under a sign reading, ‘Comfort and Joy’?”

The Committee to Save Merry Christmas’s real complaint ought to be the national linking of lavish consumerism to its holy season.

Jerry Kilgore is not as shy as anti-abortionists (see below) about calling legislation what it is. He wants to pass the Death Penalty Enhancement Act. It “would drop the requirement that the death penalty be applied only to the triggerman in a killing.” And he’s willing to use Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine’s religious beliefs to his political advantage.

…In a debate with Kaine this month, Kilgore promised to remind voters that his opponent “actually represented death row inmates, those who escaped from prison.”

Jeff Kraus, a spokesman for Kaine, said the lieutenant governor’s opposition to the death penalty is derived from his religious beliefs but would not interfere with Kaine’s determination to enforce the death penalty statutes if he is elected governor.

Kilgore wants his pound of flesh.

Kilgore also wants to eliminate the automatic life imprisonment measure if a jury cannot unanimously vote for death in the punishment phase of a capital murder trial. Instead, the judge “will be able to dismiss the hung jury and impanel a different one to consider whether a defendant should receive the death penalty,” Kilgore said.

“What he seems to be saying is that if the jury refuses to issue the death penalty, then he wants a new jury,” [Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia American Civil Liberties Union] said. “It’s a very aggressive law that looks as if its purpose is to send more people to the death chamber more frequently. It has nothing to do with justice.”

And Kilgore wants that pound at any cost.

“He is still trying once again to appear tough on crime, when what he’s really doing is being stupid on crime,” said Jack Payden-Travers, executive director of Virginians for Alternatives for the Death Penalty.

Payden-Travers believes Kilgore wants to use post-Sept. 11, 2001, security needs for political gain. Putting a criminal to death does not make Virginians any safer than putting him behind bars for life without parole, Payden-Travers said.

But it does cost the taxpayers more money, he said.

A second trial for Muhammad, who had already been sentenced to death, would have cost taxpayers another $2.5 million, Payden-Travers said.

“Any time you indict someone and they face the death penalty, you increase the cost of the trial by an exponential factor, and you don’t gain anything, because the execution of the individual costs more than it would to keep the individual behind bars for the rest of their natural life,” Payden-Travers said.

Anyone know of the “studies” referred to here?

[Kilgore spokesman Tim Murtaugh] argued that the death penalty does make society safer and does not cost the state more money than a life sentence.

“Recent studies show executions in fact deter other would-be murderers,” Murtaugh said. “If that is true, then the cost to society of not executing capital murderers is high, as it allows more murders.

Two editorials today contrast the newspapers’ different views of the political landscape. The Richmond Times-Dispatch criticizes national Democrats for seeking to re-label some of their views, calling same-sex marriages a “right to marry issue, for example.

In other words, Democrats should employ euphemistic rhetoric, find different words. But decking out gun control, homosexual marriage, racial preferences, high taxes, class warfare, and a fetish for the United Nations in fancy euphemisms will not make voters forget Michael Moore, wild-eyed protesters, and the blame-America-first, red-staters-are-morons mentality of the professional left. The party’s problem in wooing the electorate is not that it needs a new dress; the problem is that it is a nag and a scold and a snob. Voters don’t like that. Or, to borrow from the title of a popular self-help book: They’re just not that into you.

Of course, RTD makes no mention of the GOP’s use of rhetorical flourishes to advance their causes, calling anti-abortion stances as “pro-life” or legislation to restrict political liberties the Patriot Act, for examples.

Meanwhile, the Virginian Pilot says name-calling is about all the state GOP party apparatchik can do.

Speaking at Old Dominion’s University’s winter graduation, [Gov. Mark] Warner called for both parties to lower the decibels on political rhetoric and strive for common ground while addressing critical needs.

He urged graduates to “be respectful” of political opponents, taking time to listen to their concerns and create dialogue, not diatribes, around issues.

And what was the response of Shawn Smith, executive director of the RPV, to that appeal for civility?

“Mark Warner is just another high-tax, liberal Democrat hoping to mask his legacy by spouting perceived centrist rhetoric,” said Smith.

…Spitting at your opponent when he asks for a handshake may make sense in some national political play book. But Virginians are not well-served when narrow party interests and name-calling veto the search for real solutions to real problems. The Republican Party dominates political life in Virginia. Virginians will hold it accountable for its results, not its rhetoric.

The religious right, many of whom decry “activist judges” when it comes to asserting gay rights, is not shy about using the courts to push their agenda as evidenced by legal challenges to the separation of church and state.

In Virginia, one family was rebuffed by a judge when they tried to force a school principal into allowing a student to sing a religious song called “The Prayer” at a graduation ceremony.

“Unlike a street corner or even a city council meeting, this is a closed forum,” said Robert MacFarland, a lawyer for the school officials. “Anyone doesn’t have the right to make a speech. The principal can restrict the content of that forum.”

There is also a more sinister reason behind the ban.

One unidentified School Board member told Ashby that if they allow his daughter to sing that song then they would have to allow “Muslims to stand up and say, “‘Oh, Allah, bless us, for there are planes with bombs on it so we can kill people, help us, oh God, Allah,”’ according to [the family’s] deposition.

[The father] responded that his daughter’s request was different because “we’re Christians,” two board members said in depositions.

So one side is afraid of giving Muslim’s free speech and the other thinks their religion gives them special privileges.

Still, the lengths to which some jurisdictions go to remove religious references seem extreme.

After years of legal assaults on municipal displays of Nativity scenes and Christmas observances in public schools, Christian groups are now mounting court challenges in the other direction. Doug Morgan said his son was a victim of “political correctness spiraling out of control.” He noted that the school had informed parents that only white paper plates and napkins — no Christmas red and green — would be allowed at the generic “Winter Break” party.

“They are so determined not to offend anyone,” he said, “that we’re being silenced and made to feel that what we want to share is not appropriate to share in a public environment.”

That is an increasingly common holiday sentiment, said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a legal advocacy group founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson.

Twenty or 30 years ago, Sekulow said, the vast majority of lawsuits over Christmas displays were filed by secular groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, to block the placement of religious symbols on public property. Though there are still some gray areas, he said, those cases established fairly clear precedents about what does and does not violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment of religion.

…On Friday, the ACLJ persuaded officials in Pasco County, Fla., to reverse their decision to remove Christmas trees from all public buildings. Daniel R. Johnson, an assistant county administrator, said the removal had been triggered by a request from a resident to put a Hanukah menorah next to the Christmas tree in the public library.

At first, county officials feared that “if you open the door to one, then you must open the door to all, and not just during the holiday season, but all year long,” Johnson said. But on further review, he said, the county’s attorney decided there would be “little legal risk” in a temporary display of both a menorah and a Christmas tree, along with a sign saying they are symbols of “our legacy of freedom.”

In other cases across the country, Christian groups have argued in court this month against a New York City school policy that allows menorahs during Hanukah and the Islamic crescent during Ramadan but not Nativity scenes during Christmas. A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday ordered the town of Bay Harbor Islands to grant a resident’s request to erect a creche next to a local synagogue’s menorah on public property.

What’s not clear here is whether the menorah was on private or public property. If it was on private property, it seems the desire to put a crèche next to it is provocative. It’s as if Christians see the menorah as a challenge to them, rather than the simple freedom to express one’s religion when on private property.

In too many cases, aggression seems part of the mix.

…Anthony R. Picarello Jr., a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which works for greater freedom of religious expression, said it is not easy to say which side is truly the aggressor. “If these Christmas pageants and displays have been done for a long time and now there’s a push to exclude them, then it appears to be aggression from the left. If they haven’t been done and someone’s suing to add them, then it appears to be aggression from the right.”

The Virginia Pilot thinks former Governor Jim Gilmore would be a good choice for Secretary of Homeland Security.

Of huge importance, Gilmore also champions the need for careful balance between civil liberties and homeland security. His commission recommended creation of an independent board to monitor that relationship. “We must resist the urge to seek total security,” Gilmore wrote in a cover letter to the commission’s final report.

Let’s hope so.

Rep. Edward L. Schrock (R-Va.), who did not seek re-election after accused of hypocrisy for his stands against gays, has been hired by U.S. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) as “the top staff person for one of the subcommittees of the Government Reform Committee, which Davis chairs and Schrock has served on.” Regarding the charges, which Schrock never admitted to, that he solicited sex from gay men while voting and campaigning against gay rights, Davis said,

“A, I don’t care. B, What my employees do in their private lives is not my concern….Professionally, the taxpayers will get their money out of Ed Schrock. We don’t have any hiring discrimination on this committee.”

Good for Davis, if he doesn’t care that Schrock may be gay; not so good if he doesn’t care about hypocrisy.

Update: Alas,

In one of his final votes this fall, Schrock voted in favor of a constitutional amendment that would prohibit gay marriage.

Michael Rogers, a gay activist who publicized the allegations about Schrock, called the vote hypocritical. But the conservative Christian Coalition praised Schrock for standing by his political principles despite alleged turmoil in his private life.

A student refuses to write a letter to Marines as demanded by his teacher. Angered by the assignment, he says either that he wishes “American soldiers — and indeed all Americans – would die” (his teacher’s recollection) or that the Marines “might as well die, as much as I care.” Either way, not pretty, but teenagers are known to say some outrageous things as they try to sort out their political views. And in this case, the kid’s not even a teenager, but an 11-year old with a “foreign sounding name.”

So what was the consequence? The kid was suspended and sheriffs showed up at his home — a month later — to interrogate his mother for two hours.

They asked how she felt about 9/11 and the military. They asked whether she knows any foreigners who have trouble with American policy. They mentioned a German friend who had been staying with the family and asked whether the friend sympathized with the Taliban. They also inquired whether she might be teaching her children “anti-American values,” she said.

…[The mother], a U.S. citizen, and her husband, an Israeli citizen who manages a Leesburg moving company, say the investigators’ visit and the school’s response were a paranoid overreaction in a charged post-9/11 environment. But law enforcement officials say the terrorist attacks and the Columbine school shootings require them to consider whether children who make threats might post a danger to their classmates. The case illustrates the balancing act that schools and law enforcement must find between the free speech of minors and community safety.

…His parents said the boy’s words were those of a confused adolescent, whose views of the world are still being formed. They believe that authorities were called partly because he has a foreign-sounding name and accented English from years of living abroad. The family lived in India, Europe and Israel before moving to the United States in 2000.

The Washington Post editorialized.

Did it really make sense to send law enforcement officers to interrogate his parents, especially if the questioning had a political tone? It is true, as Loudoun Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson suggested, that the county needs to take threats of violence in the schools seriously; if not, he told The Post’s Rosalind S. Helderman, “something tragic [could] happen down the road that we could have prevented.” But so far as is known, Yishai [the boy] made no credible threat of violence directed at teachers or students. Although Yishai’s mother acknowledges that he has been a rambunctious student, no previous incident at school was grave enough to result in serious disciplinary action or even a letter in Yishai’s file. Moreover, if school officials or the sheriff’s office regarded Yishai as a genuine threat to public safety at Belmont Ridge, why did nearly a month pass between his outburst and the investigators’ visit to his home?
Perhaps the idea was to scare Yishai straight or to impress on him the indecency of his views. If so, there were probably better ways to deliver the message, starting with the teachers, guidance counselors, principal and other administrators at his school. Let the deployment of sheriff’s deputies to a schoolboy’s home be a last resort in the event of a specific, well-founded threat of violence.

One would certainly hope that schools use this type of likely immature reaction to teach a lesson.

Yishai said he has learned that it is not worth challenging authority. “At the end of the day, you lose,” he said, adding: “All of these freedoms and things they’re supposed to uphold, they bash them.”

Not the lesson I’d hoped for.

Paul Trible, former Senator and now the chairman of another group that includes business folks wanting greater investment in core infrastructure in the state, the Foundation for Virginia, has an op-ed in the Hampton Roads Daily Press. He cites transportation as unfinished business for the group but makes no suggestions for solving the problem. What I’d curious about is the Foundation’s stance on the “Charter Schools” idea that will separate UVa., Tech and W&M from the rest of the state’s colleges. There are those who think the rest of the Commonwealth’s higher ed institutions will get the short end of the stick. And that’s where Mr. Trible’s views as president of Christopher Newport University will be of interest.

The Hampton Daily News editorial page thinks Paula Miller’s victory in Norfolk yesterday might send a chilling message to the no-tax crowd.

Essentially, the contest pitted a pragmatist against a populist. Former TV reporter Miller pitched her candidacy in moderate, bipartisan terms; her Republican opponent – Regent University fund-raiser Michael Ball – adopted the have-it-all-for-less posture of the departing Drake.

This time the have-it-all-for-less pitch tanked.

Ball appears to be a decent enough fellow – he was gracious in defeat – but public patience may be running out with the proposition, lovingly advanced by the noisy wing of the GOP, that somehow you can continuously cut taxes while still fulfilling the state’s core commitments to public services, i.e. education, public safety and transportation.

But there was also a little assist – $50,000 – from the newly formed political action committee “Leadership for Virginia.” Created and funded primarily by Republican businessmen and entrepreneurs (whose patience was long ago exhausted by the fiscal folly of populism and who are willing even to put money behind Democrats to get the point across), this PAC will be active in the House races in 2005, particularly in support of those members who supported Warner’s budget compromise.

The long-term intent of the PAC, says one of its organizers, is to get Virginia “to pay its bills” and discourage the free-lunch politics of recent years. That’s an admirable ambition, and now the House of Delegates has one more member – Del.-elect Paula Miller – committed to it.

Though the turnout (22+%) might have been better than expected for a special election, the margin was so thin (less than 100 votes) that we can’t read too much into it. Yet, it suggests that painting no-taxers as out of touch with reality might have traction. Or at least that being a no-taxer doesn’t always get you elected. But the greatest damage to the GOP is the continued erosion of business support for their candidates. The question is can Dems keep their support without giving away the store. Next November could be fun.

The Virginian-Pilot is also looking forward to November and thinks “moderation” was the winner.

The precinct results make clear that Republicans abandoned Ball and crossed over to the Democrat.

They rallied behind Miller’s urgency for bipartisan problem-solving in Richmond, particularly for transportation, law enforcement and education.

And for at least two reasons, it’s a bigger setback for the right wing of the Virginia GOP than the closeness of the results would suggest.

First, the district was remapped three years ago to include some of the city’s most reliably Republican precincts along Little Creek Road.

This was intended to make it very hard for a Democrat to oust Drake. It was so hostile that Democrat Del. Don Williams, now a city councilman, gave up without a fight. Ball inherited not only that friendly district but the warmest embrace of Drake and the right’s standard-bearers, including U.S. Sen. George Allen and Attorney Gen. Jerry Kilgore. Yet he still lost.

Second, the district is tailor-made for the anti-tax message the Virginia GOP has ridden to dominance. The district includes seven miles of bayfront homes hit with huge real estate assessment increases in the last several years.

Ball relentlessly attacked tax increases secured last winter by Gov. Mark Warner and endorsed by Miller. In daily mail drops, Ball promised even more cuts in car taxes, real estate taxes, the gross receipts tax, and refunds of state surpluses.

That these promises failed to carry him to victory in the conservative 87th District is evidence perhaps that voters are wising up to the right wing’s funny math. Just two of Ball’s ideas, for example, would have cost Norfolk 172 teachers and aides, several dozen deputies and blown a hole so large in Norfolk’s budget that it would have required a 20-cent property tax increase to fill.

For 10 years, the Republican right has pretended that Virginians can have tax cuts without losing essential services. Tuesday’s election suggests that the truth may be catching up with that fantasy. That realization will be tested much more thoroughly in general elections in 11 months.