Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) - A children's music video that conservatives charge is part of an effort to encourage acceptance of homosexuality is being distributed to more than 60,000 schools nationwide, producers said Thursday. The video features about 100 children's TV characters including SpongeBob SquarePants, Miss Piggy and Oscar the Grouch singing the 1979 disco hit "We Are Family." It will be accompanied by a teaching guide that promotes tolerance of diversity. "The opportunity to bring that message to children around the entire country is truly exciting," said Caryl Stern, senior associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "We know at...

Covington woman arrested for raping boy 12-year-old told parents about alleged incident BY GEOFFREY SHANNON SLIDELL -- St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's detectives arrested a Covington woman Tuesday for allegedly molesting a 12-year-old boy. Juvenile investigators arrested Angela Wattler, 25, 15361 Tchefuncte Dr., Covington, on aggravated battery and two counts of delinquency of a juvenile, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office spokes-person Tiffany Tate said. The alleged incident occurred Jan. 3, while the 12-year-old was spending the night at the Slidell-area home of a 14-year-old friend, Tate said. Wattler, who knew the 14-year-old's mother, was also staying the night at the house,...

Sacramento Teaching Intern Accused Of Having Sex With Student Police Think It Is Isolated Incident POSTED: 11:06 am PST February 23, 2005 UPDATED: 11:55 am PST February 23, 2005 SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A 30-year-old teaching intern has been arrested after police found her with a 16-year-old male student in her car as the woman's toddler was strapped into a car seat in the back. Margaret De Barraicua (pictured, right) and the student are believed to have been having "an ongoing consensual sexual relationship for several months," Sacramento police spokesman Sgt. Justin Risley said. The investigation began Saturday when police...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A renowned University of Southern California gene therapy scientist accused of molesting two children over the past 20 years posted bond and was released from jail, authorities said Monday. William French Anderson, 68, was released shortly after 5 a.m. on bond, according to the county Sheriff's Department Web site. No other information was immediately released. Anderson is accused of molesting a girl he instructed in martial arts between 1997 and 2001. He has pleaded not guilty to a count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under age 14 and five counts of committing a lewd...

Police: Man Molested Several Boys Reported By: Kevin Rowson Police in Marietta, Ga., have jailed a 44-year-old man on charges he molested several children at his home and at a hunting camp in Henry County. Mark LaBrecque is charged with several counts of child molestation, aggravated child molestation, and aggravated sodomy. Investigators believe the suspect committed the crimes against young boys. Police LaBrecque befriended his alleged victims through a scouting group. Police say LaBreque is not affiliated with the group. He was arrested at his home on January 14th where three of the boys –- ages 9 and 10 –-...

Who protects the innocent angels? Where school boards fear to tread by John David Powell Question: What is the biggest non-academic crisis facing our public schools? If you follow the news, you may be tempted to answer Christmas, or the lack thereof. And who could blame you? The recent edition of the Christian Science Monitor (www.csmonitor.com) detailed some of the brouhaha surrounding the banning by schools and cities of Christmas observances and music. One mother is so upset by what happened in her son’s Scarborough, Maine, school that she and another mother have a web site (www.bringbackchristmas.org) to gather support...

The Mullahs' Killing Fields By Donna M. Hughes FrontPageMagazine.com | December 14, 2004A former political prisoner and the daughter of two slain parents vowed to make sure the voices of Iranians who have suffered under the Islamic fundamentalist regime heard. The two women said they stand by other activists who continue to be arrested, tortured, and executed in Iran for supporting freedom and democracy. On the occasion of International Human Rights Day (Friday, December 10), the torture and execution of political prisoners in Iran was the focus of a briefing in New York hosted by the non-governmental organization Women’s...

PAKISTAN has tried, without much success, to crack down on the madrasses, religious schools, which are often subsidized by Islamic conservatives from Saudi Arabia. Now a weakness has been found; child abuse. Many of the madrassa students are children under 14, and its common knowledge that some of the clerics and teachers running the madrasses will sexually molest their students. In the past, not much attention was paid to this, because it was so shameful. In the province of Punjab (the largest in Pakistan), there have been 500 complaints about such abuse in the last six months. The government decided...

TAMPA - When a young Hillsborough County teacher was accused this summer of having a sexual affair with a 14-year-old student, many people's first reaction to the notorious case was, 'She's crazy.' Tuesday, Debra Lafave's attorney announced that his client would indeed be using an insanity defense. Lafave, 24, is facing charges of lewd and lascivious behavior, stemming from accusations that the former Greco Middle School teacher had sex with the student both at school and in a car driven by the student's cousin in Ocala. The case has garnered international attention, but since turning herself in to police in...

In the battle for Fallujah, terrorists used women and children as human shields against American soldiers. On April 27, 2004, in Jerusalem, Hamas used a Palestinian human bomb to kill two Palestinian alleged "collaborators." On April 28, 2004, even as UN envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, was busy characterizing Israeli policy as the "great poison in the region," Jordanian police arrested Al Qaeda operatives who were quite literally trying to launch a chemical poison attack that might have killed 80,000 Jordanians and Americans. And, on May 1, 2004, in Gaza, Palestinian gunmen shot and killed a Jewish woman who was eight-months pregnant...

BOLIVIA, N.C. (AP) - Prosecutors threw out charges Friday against a man who served 20 years in prison for the sexual molestation of two girls who recanted their allegations. The victims, who were 4 and 6 when they made the charges, testified that they falsely accused the man under pressure from their grandmother because she wanted to protect the real abuser - a cousin of the girls. More than 40 members of the family of Sylvester Smith were in court when the charges against him were dismissed. Smith's reaction to the dismissal was "a jubilation," said his attorney, Roy Trest....

A Hicksville woman pleaded guilty to three counts of rape and sex abuse Wednesday, for having intercourse with a legally blind 11-year-old boy she tutored. Kathy Tuifel, 46, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree rape and two counts of second-degree sex abuse before Judge Jeffrey Brown in Nassau County Court in Mineola.

Report says 1 in 10 students faces sex misconduct by school workers Tribune Staff and Wire Services WASHINGTON -- More than 4.5 million students endure sexual misconduct by employees at their schools, from inappropriate jokes all the way to forced sex, according to a report to Congress. The best estimate available shows nearly one in 10 kids faces misbehavior ranging from unprofessional to criminal sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade, says the report by Charol Shakeshaft, a Hofstra University professor. "Most people just don't think this can really happen," said Shakeshaft, hired by the Education Department to study the prevalence...

Costumed character at Disney World charged with fondling girl, mother. Orange County Sheriff's Office investigators have arrested a Walt Disney World employee who worked as the character "Tigger" and charged him with molesting a 13-year-old girl and her mother while posing with them for pictures in February.

Key West The Newspaper KWTNBLUE@ bellsouth.net 305 292 2108 February 27, 2004 Opinion By Dennis Reeves Cooper , Editor and Publisher Julio: It’s Okay For a Cop To Have sex With a Minor - As Long As I Wasn’t Yesterday City Manager Julio Avael continues to argue that it’s okay for a cop to have sex with a 17-year-old-boy as long as it didn’t happen yesterday. It’s also apparently okay with Avael for an officer to lie on his application to get a job with the Key West Police Department - as long as it didn’t happen yesterday. That’s what...

<p>The high school principal who accused a Catholic priest of molesting him as a young man has died in an apparent suicide, police and school officials said.</p> <p>Service High School Principal Pat Podvin was found dead Wednesday at his home, Anchorage School District spokesman Roger Fiedler and police spokesman Ron McGee said.</p>

A two-day workshop that will mix "children" from ages 14-22 will be held on Saturday and Sunday, March 13-14, at Simmons College, Boston. Does GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Educational Network) check the birth certificates of those who attend this session which is designed for molestation of teenagers? Of course not. It undoubtedly will include 12- and 13-year-olds as well, plus some at 25, 26 or older. This is the lifeblood of homosexuality. It is men in their twenties molesting the 13-year-olds. Once entrapped, the vulnerable boy finds it extremely difficult to get out of the lifestyle and in a...

SEXUAL ABUSE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT: CATHOLIC CLERGY AND OTHER PROFESSIONALS Special Report by Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights February 2004 PREFACE The purpose of this special report is to put the recent scandal in the Catholic Church in perspective. It does not seek to exculpate anyone who had anything to do with priestly sexual misconduct, but it does seek to challenge those who continue to treat this issue in isolation. Indeed, to discuss the incidence of sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests without reference to the level of offense found among the clergy of other religions, or...

The scope of sex-abuse accusations against Roman Catholic clergy since 1950 appears to be much greater than previously estimated by victims' groups and the media, an Associated Press review of reports from dioceses has found. The U.S. church will make an unprecedented, nationwide accounting of abuse claims and costs later this month, and some bishops already have started releasing local figures. The AP contacted dioceses across the country and found that 1,341 clergy members have been accused of molesting minors, with more than half the dioceses yet to report. "What it's really doing is showing us in black and white...