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Rick Rodriguez: Griego Erwin resigns amid internal inquiry into her columns By Rick Rodriguez -- Bee Executive Editor Published 2:15 am PDT Thursday, May 12, 2005 Diana Griego Erwin, whose column has appeared in this space three days a week, resigned Wednesday amid an internal inquiry into whether some people mentioned in several recent columns actually existed. During our inquiry we found we could not authenticate the existence of several people even though they were identified by name, age and sometimes by the neighborhoods in which they were reported to have lived. We used extensive online database searches as well...

Pope John Paul the Great is not yet buried, but the divisions among American Catholics have already taken center stage on cable television: Will the next pope be Catholic? Maggie Gallagher Of course, JP II's critics don't put it that way. But the long-deferred hopes of this group (call them sexual liberals) -- that the Catholic Church is about to abandon its ancient teachings on premarital sex, abortion, divorce, homosexuality and, above all, birth control -- have burst out anew in the 24-hour coverage of the pope's death. The latest ammunition? A Gallup opinion poll released this weekend that shows...

Congressional investigators will look into whether the Bush administration violated any laws when it paid syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher to help promote a marriage initiative, Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg said. The Government Accountability Office told the two senators, who had requested the inquiry, that it would investigate in a letter sent to their offices late Thursday. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is already looking into the Education Department's relationship with several public relations firms, which includes the agency's $240,000 contract with syndicated columnist and TV personality Armstrong Williams. The Education Department had hired Williams to...

Congressional investigators will look into whether the Bush administration violated any laws when it paid syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher to help promote a marriage initiative, Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg said. The Government Accountability Office told the two senators, who had requested the inquiry, that it would investigate in a letter sent to their offices late Thursday. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is already looking into the Education Department's relationship with several public relations firms, which includes the agency's $240,000 contract with syndicated columnist and TV personality Armstrong Williams. The Education Department had hired Williams to...

In the ivory tower today, the idea that marriage is good is apparently considered an extremist notion. On the other hand, the idea that there are few real differences between normal men and convicted rapists is regarded as cutting-edge theory. That, at least, seems to be the conclusion of Harvard University Press, which recently, and under highly unusual circumstances, rejected an important new book on the benefits of marriage. The book — The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off — is by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, and has just been published, to considerable...

A journalistic scandal involving payment of thousands of dollars has received massive attention in the mainstream media. One concerning the exchange of 30 pieces of silver has not, so far. In January and early February, four American journalists came under fire to various degrees, as indicated by the number of Lexis-Nexis mentions during the month beginning Jan. 8: Armstrong Williams, 1,133; Maggie Gallagher, 238; Michael McManus, 43; Eason Jordan, 12. Let's start with conservative columnist Williams, who found himself in trouble after news reports revealed he quietly took $241,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to promote its policies on...

In a prominent move, The New York Times offered a correction on its editorial page today regarding a previous editorial concerning columnist Maggie Gallagher. She had sent the newspaper an e-mail, E&P has learned, charging "reckless disregard of the truth." This is the latest twist in the current controversy over payments from government agencies to newspaper columnists and whether some are being paid as advisers or with the expectation they may also promote certain policies in their published writing. The Times correction reads: "An editorial last Thursday incompletely described the contract between the Health and Human Services Department and the...

NEW YORK Maggie Gallagher released a statement this afternoon taking issue with aspects of the Washington Post article by Howard Kurtz that today broke the news that she received $21,500 from the Department of Health and Human Services for marriage-themed writing projects. She called one of the Kurtz passages "completely false." Kurtz, after being contacted by E&P, read a rebuttal statement over the phone, in which he said she was attempting to "blame the messenger." Here are Gallagher's comments, followed by Kurtz': "On January 26, 2005, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post wrote that I 'had a $21,500 contract with...

Syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher issued the following statement today: On January 26, 2005, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post wrote that I "had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal." To me, this is an extremely serious charge. It is also completely false. -snip- I was not paid to promote the President's marriage proposal. In 2001 I was approached by HHS to do research and writing, not on the President's $300 million marriage initiative, but on marriage... -snip- Moreover on Jan. 25, I offered Howard Kurtz copies of my contract...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday ordered his Cabinet secretaries not to hire columnists to promote their agendas after disclosure that a second writer was paid to tout an administration initiative. The president said he expects his agency heads will "make sure that that practice doesn't go forward." "All our Cabinet secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet," Bush said at a news conference. Bush's remarks came a day after syndicated...

A QUESTION OF DISCLOSURE Tue Jan 25, 7:59 PM ET  Op/Ed - Maggie Gallagher By Maggie Gallagher I just got off the phone with Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post. He called me with a very good question: "You had a contract with HHS to do some work on marriage issues in 2002. Should you have disclosed that?" Maggie Gallagher   Hmm, good question, Howard. First the facts. In 2001, the Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites) approached me to do some work on marriage issues for the government, including a presentation of the social science...

Guns, abortion, and gay marriage “really, really motivate people.”What does it mean that "moral values" emerged as the single most important issue in this election?David Brooks's post-election column in the New York Times was called "The Values-Vote Myth." "Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying 'moral values.' But that phrase can mean anything — or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result."...

For John Kerry, this religion thing is a problem. On the one hand, he wants to appeal to Dem elites who tend to be (let's face it) more secular than not. On the other hand, he doesn't want to offend the vast majority of voters who consider themselves religious folk, especially black and Hispanic Democrats. Unlike George Bush, John Kerry has to straddle not only the difference between his base and the swing vote on religious themes, but a radical difference in taste between key constituents of the Democrat Party. A June Time magazine poll, for example, showed just 7...

I. Why Does Marriage Matter? When their mothers and fathers don't get and stay married, bad things happen to more kids more often: more poverty, welfare dependence, child abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse, physical illness, infant mortality, accidental death, homicide, premature and promiscuous sexuality, early unwed pregnancy, suicide, juvenile delinquency, educational failure, conduct disorders and adult criminality. Children suffer and whole communities pay the cost in crime, social disorder and high taxes as government steps in to deal with the needs created when families fall apart. Family structure matters and the family form that does the best job for kids...

For three years the Alliance for Marriage has been working to create a consensus around the need for a federal marriage amendment. When President Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment on marriage, the "Musgrave/Allard" language crafted by the Alliance for Marriage was the only language on the table. The main thrust of this Federal Marriage Amendment is to create a common national definition of marriage, and to leave the question of civil unions or other partnership benefits to state legislatures: Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither...

Why we need a national definition of marriage. I HEARD IT ON FEBRUARY 27, 2004, for the very first time: an argument on a major media outlet for polygamy. "It doesn't really matter to me who marries who," said attorney Ron Kuby on ABC 770 talk radio. "You can't deny millions of people rights because you are afraid other people might demand their rights too." The good news is, the latest polls show 92 percent of Americans oppose polygamy. The bad news is, the pollsters are asking the question. In San Francisco, Nyack, Portland, Asbury Park, Seattle, and New Paltz,...

Tuesday President Bush announced his support for a constitutional amendment to protect marriage in the strongest possible terms. Meanwhile, in California, a majority of San Franciscans support gay marriage. And so, despite the fact that a few short years ago, a majority of Californians voted to define marriage in state law as the union of a man and a woman, the mayor of San Francisco decided he was above the law and ordered clerks to issue putative marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Americans have a tradition of civil disobedience, in which ordinary citizens risk jail in order to affirm a...

Oh, say it ain't so, Dave! When Britney got married-and-annulled in a Las Vegas minute, the headlines screamed. It was not just the standard anti-Hollywood moralizers. Pundits, talking heads and (judging from my mail) lots of regular people wanted to moralize that because Britney acted like, well, a 22-year-old pop tart, marriage should be redefined to include same-sex couples. The state of Gwyneth Paltrow's womb was a matter of intense public interest. Elizabeth Hurley's spontaneous pregnancy grabbed similar public space. But when a Midwestern icon (and at 56, a grown man) like David Letterman has a baby out of wedlock...

The package came to Austin Ruse's office in Washington, D.C., about a month ago, anonymously. Austin runs a small think tank, The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, whose mission, he says, is to be "a U.N. watchdog on social policy." No doubt that is why the document ended up on his desk. The thing sat on his desk for several days before he realized what a time-bomb someone had sent to him: a secret plan to create an international right to abortion. The Center for Reproductive Rights apparently realized how damaging the memo is, too. I have in my...

For me, the first, last and most important question about gay marriage is: Will it help or hurt marriage as a social institution? Is it, in other words, a good idea? But for political elites a second question naturally comes close behind: What are the likely political consequences of making same-sex marriage a highly visible issue, through a federal marriage amendment, or some other means? Conventional wisdom has it that this is a difficult issue for both Democrats and Republicans. This perception is probably fueled by the reality that GOP and Democratic elites live in the same zip codes and...