Posted on 10/27/2005 4:10:42 PM PDT by Coleus
Florida's Catholic community is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to the battle over embryonic stem-cell research.
Four of the state's seven diocese top the list of donors to Citizens for Science and Ethics Inc., a political action committee working to keep tax money from being used to finance embryonic stem-cell research. The head of the committee is Boca Raton businesswoman and media personality Susan Cutaia.
The Florida Catholic Conference, an agency of Catholic bishops, asked each diocese to make a contribution based on its size.
Topping the list is the Archdiocese of Miami, which pitched in $18,452 — more than half of the $35,000 the committee has collected for its nascent campaign. The Diocese of Palm Beach made a $5,550 contribution, according to the committee's campaign finance report. Venice and St. Augustine dioceses contributed $4,686 and $3,456, respectively.
Last month, Cutaia launched her petition drive seeking to place a constitutional amendment on the November 2006 ballot that would ask voters to prevent tax dollars from being used for experiments that involve the destruction of a "live human embryo."
Cutaia did not return several calls for comment, but she said during an interview last month that she sought support for her proposed amendment from the Florida Catholic Conference a few months ago.
A competing constitutional amendment, which Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson proposed in July, would ask Florida voters to approve $200 million in taxpayer money over 10 years to be used for stem-cell research. Aaronson's group, Floridians for Stem Cell Research and Cures, has not posted campaign contributions. Aaronson said no financial report would be filed until December.
"We have amassed a great deal of money, far greater than they have," he said, declining to elaborate.
Aaronson complained that Citizens for Science and Ethics has turned the debate over stem-cell research into a religious issue.
"We are not making it a religious issue," he said. "It's a life-saving issue."
The other donors are Juan Tierra, a Miami accountant and the citizens group's treasurer, and Alfred Cioffi, a research ethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
Diocesan representatives referred questions to the Florida Catholic Conference, which deals in matters of public policy and serves as liaison to the government. The bishops of the seven dioceses in Florida make up its board of directors.
Mike McCarron, the conference's director, said the bishops decided to make the contributions out of their own coffers as a way to encourage others to give.
"I don't know if all of the diocese are going to make contributions. I know (the bishops) are strongly in support of the effort that CSE is advancing," McCarron said.
On Sept. 26, the Catholic conference issued a statement from the state's Catholic bishops supporting what it called "ethical stem-cell research" and encouraging support for Citizens for Science and Ethics' amendment.
As early as March, the bishops had issued a statement opposing the use of public funding for embryonic stem-cell research.
Boy some nutty copyrighter has managed to completely confuse the reader.
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