Detroit Suburb Rejects Homosexual Ordinance

ROYAL OAK, Michigan — Voters in a Detroit suburb noted for its generally liberal outlook emphatically rejected a proposed human rights ordinance that would have enshrined homosexual rights, the Detroit News reported.

The ordinance, which sought to ban discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” and 13 other characteristics, failed by a 2-1 margin.

After city commissioners voted in February to let residents decide directly whether to adopt the ordinance, pro-family activists and homosexual groups both lobbied voters vigorously.

Jessica Taubert, spokeswoman for Royal Oak Citizens Voting No to Special Rights Discrimination, was ecstatic over the outcome, the News reported. Said Taubert, “People are saying loud and clear that Royal Oak does not need this ordinance.”

(The Detroit News)

Viva Las Vegas!

LAS VEGAS — Phil Audet was scheduled to become the first priest ever ordained in the Diocese of Las Vegas on May 22, the diocese reported.

It has been a long road to the priesthood for the Las Vegas precedent-setter. Audet first entered a seminary in Phoenix 20 years ago, but left soon afterward because he felt unready for the priesthood.

But following a stint in the Navy, where he assisted on-board chaplains, he worked on a fish boat in Alaska and discerned there that his vocation was to be a fisher of men, not of fish.

Bush's SEC Nominee Linked to Porn Company

WASHINGTON — Harvey Pitt, President Bush's nominee to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, helped a pornography distributor clear up a regulatory dispute with the NASDAQ stock exchange, Associated Press reported.

Directors of New Frontier Media Inc. hired Pitt in 1999 to perform legal work to help the company keep its NASDAQ listing, according an SEC filing by the company. NASDAQ officials agreed last year to continue trading the company's stock after its executives restructured stock sales that ran afoul of NASDAQ rules.

New Frontier Media bills itself as “America's Most Turned-On Media Company,” operating pay-per-view satellite and cable television channels that show adult movies and a network of Web sites offering teen sex videos and other sexually explicit material.

Pitt was nominated May 11 as chairman of the SEC, which regulates U.S. stock markets. He was the agency's general counsel from 1975 to 1978. (Agape Press)

Controversial Pope Sculpture Sold For $886,000

NEW YORK — A controversial sculpture of Pope John Paul II fetched $886,000 at a New York auction May 17, the New York Daily News reported.

The sculpture, “La Nona Ora” (“The Ninth Hour”) by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, is a wax effigy of the Pope being struck by a meteorite while holding a cross. The title is a reference to the hour of Christ's death.

When the artwork was displayed in Poland, two members of Poland's parliament moved the meteorite and tried to right the Pope.

U.S. reaction has been less hostile, the Daily News reported. Said Catholic League President William Donohue, “Cattelan's ‘The Ninth Hour’ strikes us as being bizarre, but not necessarily anti-Catholic.”

The Archdiocese of New York had no comment.

(New York Daily News)

Court Postpones Kopp Extradition Hearing

RENNES, France, — James Kopp, the American pro-life activist indicted in the United States for the murder of New York abortionist Barnet Slepian, appeared in a French court May 17 for a first extradition hearing, Agence France Presse reported.

However, the judge agreed to suspend proceedings until June 7 to allow Kopp's lawyer to prepare his case.

Kopp was captured in the western French town of Dinan in March, and in mid-May U.S. diplomats filed an official request for his extra-dition. He has been indicted for the murder of Slepian, who was shot by a sniper using a high-powered rifle at his home in Amherst, N.Y., in October 1998.

The French court is likely to demand guarantees that Kopp will not face the death penalty once he is put on trial before it will approve his extradition.