Show 0 1 4A 0 Thursday July 30 Standard-Examin- er 1 998 OUR VIEW Leavitt shouldn’t condone polygamy State should find ways to help women escape an institution that deserves to be buried along with Utah’s other fossils has a problem with of polygamy as an excuse for the physical or emotional abuse of women the state prepares to present its best face Leavitt tried to make that to the world during the 2002 point but it got lost when he Winter Olympics a creature said polygamy may be constihas arisen from its tutionally protected because past that almost everyof the religious freedom quesone hoped had been relegated tions it raises Leavitt who to the boneyard of history' grew up in southern Utah said he knew many polygaThe fossil is polygamy mists “For the most part The Mormon church has they were hard working and the last of spent a good part 100 years attempting to stamp good people” he said out die practice of polygamy The governor was apparentthat flourished among the early unaware that years ago the ly pioneers but that the church US Supreme Court rejected has thoroughly disavowed the argument that polygamy is since 1890 Today the LDS a protected religious practice Church's staunch emphasis on Today’s more lenient legal notions of privacy might be used family values and the sanctity of marriage is the very antithe- to legalize it according to sis of plural marriage University of Utah law professor Michael McConnell but But a courageous freedom of religion argunot exis to girl threatening ments pose Utah’s dirty little secret to the world This doesn’t mean the state should launch a massive The girl says her father crackdown to enforce the ban John Daniel Kingston beat on polygamy in the Utah Conher 28 times with a belt bestitution That backfired in cause she tried to run away 1952 when authorities raided from an arranged marriage the border community of with her uncle The girl says Short Creek - now Hildale she became her uncle’s 1 5th Utah and Colorado City ‘wife in a secret family cereAriz - to arrest polygamists mony The pictures of children being Box Elder authorities reacted swiftly and appropriately to pulled from their parents’ arms turned the raid into a the girl's allegations They relations disaster public charged Kingston with second-degre- e But there are state laws felony child abuse placed the girl in foster dealing with incest and child abuse that should be vigorouscare and have taken steps in ly enforced The state also can juvenile court to remove her use school truancy laws to from her father’s custody innohas thoroughly investigate the reaKingston pleaded sons some young women drop cent to the child abuse charout of school ges Gov Mike Leavitt’s comMore importantly the state ments on polygamy however should create a climate that haven’t been so politic gives women who feel they are being coerced into polygaWhen he was asked about mous marriages support if the Kingstons at his weekly they want to escape news conference Leavitt had an opportunity to make it Polygamy is not a quaint clear that the state will not alrelic of the past to be toleratlow anyone to use the practice ed It’s a monster Utah pre-stateho- od i J I I I ANOTHER VIEW Security in perspective Building over-rea- ct a Capitol visitors’ center may make sense but let’s not to a madman’s bloody rampage shock and grief the killing of twi guards at the US Capitol by an apparent deranged gunman there is a heartening note of sanity in the public response: Rather than panicking and calling f Draconian new security mea sures most comments tend reiterate the belief that the Capitol and those who worl there must remain accessibl Amid a $ I I 4 $ I I I 4 I I 4 t i I t w Ifrun hm That doesn’t mean just shrugging off this tragedy as part of the price of having an open society As medical experts have noted there are upward of a million paranoid schizophrenics in this country An old proposal to build an underground visitors’ center 100 yards or so from the Capitol is being revived it merits consideration - Sacramento Bee COLUMNS Logic not part of tobacco bill argument Skepticism about anti-tobac- sions implausible? EPA’s report came in 1993 when the infant Clinton administration was preparing to micromanage the nation's health and hence its behavior Furthermore do not all bureaucracies tend to try to maximize their missions? EPA’s mission is to reduce environmental hazards What kind of people are apt to be attracted to work in EPA? Those prone to acute anxieties about hazards Is an agency apt to get increased appropriations and media attention by moderate assessments of hazards? What is the evidentiary value of the EPA defenders’ assertion in response to the judge that in California (where smoking has been banned even in bars) the state EPA agrees that secondhand smoke is a serious carcinogen? The crusade was a money grab by government which had the grab succeeded would have acquired a dependence on a continuous high level of smoking to fund programs paid for by exactions from a legal industry selling a legal product to free people making foolish choices The crusade’s rationale was co crusaders douds the issue WASHINGTON - Before the tobacco bill was blow'll to rags and atoms by its supporters' overreaching they substituted reiteration for reasomng But then for years now the debate about smoking has been distorted by vehement people who rarely suffer even temporary iapses into logic A new reason for skepticism about the evidence and motives of the crusaders comes in a ruling by a federal judge in North Carolina concerning a 1 993 report by the Environmental Protection Agency EPA said secondhand smoke is a Class A carcinogen that causes 3000 lung cancer deaths per year The judge said: “EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun excluded industry by violating the (1986 Radon Gas and Indoor Air Quality Research) Act's procedural requirements adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency’s public conclusion and aggressively utilized the Act’s authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiffs’ products and to influence public opinanti-tobac- ion” anti-tobac- The judge charges EPA not just with bad science but with bad faith - with having “cheny picked its data” Granted this is just one judge’s opinion EPA demurs the litigation already five years old will chum on Still what disinterested person considers the judge’s conclu Secondhand smoke is deadly to nonsmokers people start smoking because they poor things are putty in the hands of advertisers The last rationale is inconvenienced by the fact that there are almost as many American as smokers The assertion of the irresistible power of advertising is so condescending toward the supposedly malleable masses (notice tH people who assert the power of advertising never include themselves among the crusade susceptible) the ! had to become a children's crusade Hence the reiterated assertion that al- - 90 percent most as many of them - recognize Joe Camel as Mickey Mouse This assertion akin to EPA’s “science” was based on interviews with 23 Atlanta pre- schoolers There has been no demonstration that advertising by tobacco brands increases tobacco consumption One mechanism of the money grab ! was to be a tax increase of up to $1 SO per pack However John E Calfee of The American Enterprise Institute writ- ing in The Weekly Standard notes that in the late 1970s when teen-ag- e smoking declined nearly d cigarette prices were declining about 15 percent Given that teen-ag-e smokers smoke an average of only eight cigarettes a day adding even a dime per smoke (S2 per pack) would not deter them George Hill writes a the Washington Post Writers Group and is a regular panelist on ABCs three-fol- d: anti-tobac- rec-ogni- ze en-tire- ly one-thir- ! twice-week- "This ly or Week" Capitol slayings show what’s important Policemen’s sacrifice puts meaningful news in perspective ton being subpoenaed to testify about an alleged extramarital affair seems just plain petty - except for the effects it has on the nation A madman and two heroes have put things in perspective A week ago the president’s Secret Service detail had to testify before Starr’s grand jury This week two men guarding Congress were gunned down in the line of duty One was Republican Whip Tom DeLay’s personal bodyguard who stopped the madman right outside DeLay’s office Will presidents wishing a little privacy push the Secret Service detail back out of earshot where they’re useless as a line of defense? Starr may have the right to call Secret Service agents before a grand jury but do we really need to jeopardize public officials? And just to learn about alleged hanky panky in the White House? I know the question is whether President Clinton asked the young intern Monica Lewinsky to lie about whatever it is they were supposed to have done Oh no it’s not the extramarital affair itself people say It’s the president asking someone to lie Heaven forbid that a politician should ask anybody to lie They’re so good at idoing it themselves And just roll those words “extramarital affair” and “lie" around and see if they don’t go together like fries and ketchup to put it in terms of another Clintonian appetite If this is obstruction of justice it’s not By ROB MORSE San Francisco Exanwwr Americans know the important news that comes out of Washington and they can distinguish it from the usual politically motivated junk The two have been side by side on the front pages for the last few days The important news the powerful news was the slaying of two Capitol policemen Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson who died defending the Capitol against an armed madman Next to that was the dumb yet constitutionally important news that President Clinton has been subpoenaed by special prosecutor Kenneth Stan to testify before a federal grand jury about his sex life We are divided as a nation on Starr and Clinton We are united in our love of our democracy and its architectural symbol We stand together in respect and grief for the men who died defending us Defending us - there’s no other way to put it That’s exactly what these average family men did for America Suddenly we remember we're a faipily Whatever we think of the politics or personalities of House Speaker Newt Gingrich or Rep Tom DcLay we felt the hurt they felt over the dcaih of men they knew Suddenly the story of President Clin - quite in the same league as Nixon send- ing a private gang to harass and play dirty tricks on his political enemies and break into their offices to steal documents And then Nixon fired the special prosecutor Are we going to drive Clinton from office for messing around with a young woman? Or will he be tarred as a stone-wallfor resisting a subpoena? That seems to be Starr’s aim I’m not a Clin- ton fan at all but I just don’t see it There are a lot more important things in the world and sometimes we forget especially we in the media We get pretty carried away with the chase sometimes especially when the chase is led by the hounds of gossip And it seems like ev-- 1 eryone is a gossip hound Besides the security worked Sadly it was at great cost but the cost could have been higher Two highly professional policemen died protecting us and our elected officials They stopped the maniac J We all feel bad for his family who ) had to live with his madness for two and now have to live with the deaths he caused They’re honest people ! and they’re so sorry it hurts Most Americans arc pretty sensible! This is the important thing We can only kt Ken Starr continue in dubious battle against our president of doubtful personJ al morals We pay tribute to Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson They were our best Distributed by Scripps Howard AV j er do-cad- Service |