People of Faith CT

The Hartford Courant
31 January 2012

One Down, one to go.

East Haven Police Chief Leonard Gallo, who allowed and perhaps encouraged some of his cops to harass minorities and bullied those who tried to call him on it, has resigned.

Now, if Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. would follow suit, East Haven might have a chance to move into the 21st century.

Mr. Gallo's troubles may not be over. The New Haven Independent is reporting that he is a subject of an ongoing federal investigation for record tampering and possibly other violations. Also, two members of the town's police commission want to fire him instead of allowing him to retire.

Cowboy Culture

The conduct of the East Haven police department under Mr. Gallo has been the subject of two federal investigations, one criminal and one civil, that began in 2009 following the unwarranted arrest of a Catholic priest who was looking into charges that his Latino parishioners were victims of police discrimination.

The civil probe resulted in a scathingU.S. Department of Justicereport in December accusing the East Haven police department of "systematically discriminating against Latinos." The report found that East Haven officers targeted Latinos for discriminatory traffic enforcement, treated Latino drivers more harshly than non-Latino drivers after a stop and failed to take steps to stop such conduct, which it described as "deeply rooted in the department's culture."

The criminal investigation has thus far resulted in the arrests of four East Haven officers for harassing Latinos, with more arrests expected. Mr. Gallo, widely believed to be the "co-conspirator 1" in the federal indictment of the four officers, resisted efforts to root out problems, even arresting former Mayor April Capone Almon on a trumped-up charge. Ms. Capone Almon put Mr. Gallo on administrative leave when the Justice Department's preliminary report was issued in 2010.

In addition, Mr. Gallo interfered with the federal investigation, authorities said, and threatened officers who cooperated with it. His conduct was not just that of a bully, it was that of someone who didn't understand civilian control of the police department. Sources close to the investigation say the treatment of Mayor Capone Almon will be the subject of the next round of indictments.

Also, the cowboy behavior of the four officers described in the federal indictment is, in a broader sense, an indictment of Mr. Gallo's leadership, or lack of same. When some officers are getting away with beatings, improper searches and racial harassment, it's usually the result of poor management, poor oversight and lack of training — or because a green light was given.

Another Resignation

Mr. Gallo's close personal friend Mr. Maturo, who served as mayor from 1997 to 2007 and was re-elected in 2011, must also resign.

Mr. Maturo appointed Mr. Gallo to his position 14 years ago and backed him to the hilt. As is suggested by the mayor's now infamous comment that he might deal with his Latino community by having tacos for dinner, he doesn't get it. Indeed, he expressed surprise Friday when a New Haven Register reporter questioned why he chose a Puerto Rican to serve on a citizen commission looking into police department issues when his Latino community is predominantly Ecuadorean. He appeared to think all Latinos were from the same place.

Mr. Maturo reportedly was briefed about the federal investigation when he returned to office last fall, but still reinstated Mr. Gallo, from administrative leave, as police chief. When the Justice Department released its report in December, Mr. Maturo professed shock, saying the town had an outstanding police department. If Mr. Maturo doesn't understand the problem, he is completely incapable of fixing it.

Mr. Maturo's resignation would give the city the chance to right itself and give him the time to have his foot surgically removed from his mouth.

Hartford Courant Letter to the Editor
by Frank O'Gorman
26 January 2012

The Courant editorial equating East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo to an idiot seems to naively overlook his actions. [The Mayor Is An Idiot, Jan. 26 Editorial]. Consider that Maturo, upon becoming mayor, reinstated Police Chief Leonard Gallo, who had presided over the department's systematic culture of discrimination against Latino residents, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Then Gallo immediately banned the police commission investigating racial profiling complaints from setting foot in police headquarters and even the parking lot! [Jan. 25, Page 1, "Cops Called Racial Bullies"].

From these swift actions one could reasonably wonder whether Maturo and Gallo conspired to thwart the police commission investigation.

With this context in mind, impartial people could reasonably surmise that the mayor's spontaneous, derogatory remarks sound less like those of an idiot and more like those of an arrogant, calculating racist.

The mayor and police chief are a disgrace to those of us in public service. Their continued employment only adds insult to injury for East Haven Latinos terrorized by bullies with badges. Maturo and Gallo should resign immediately and forfeit any pensions.

Junta for Progressive Action Opposes Racial Profiling

January 25, 2012

Junta for Progressive Action applauds the US Department of Justice’s investigation and the FBI’s arrest of four East Haven police officers in connection with racial profiling of Latino residents. Junta supports any efforts to eradicate injustice against Latinos as well as people of any other race or ethnicity.

Many minorities have for years expressed apprehension about driving through East Haven at night, felt tension when walking down the streets, and have a true fear of the town’s law enforcement. Their fears and frustration have been validated by the arrest of these four officers.

We also condemn the remarks of East Haven’s mayor in regards to what he is doing for the Latino community now that discrimination has been found in a department he oversees. Mayor Maturo, when talking to a television news reporter who asked him what he would do for the Latino community, said he might “have tacos when I go home.” When officers in your police department are arrested for physically abusing people, and for arresting people under false pretenses, all allegedly because of the race of those abused and arrested; it is not the time for the chief elected official of a municipality to make
racist jokes – there's in fact no time to do so. We join Governor Malloy in condemning Mayor Maturo’s comments.

It is said that a fish rots from the head down. As leader of the town, Mayor Maturo’s remarks help explain how the kind of racial intolerance uncovered by the federal investigation was allowed to take hold in the East Haven Police Department.

It is our hope that the US Department of Justice’s actions can with the support of the entire community begin to change attitudes, stereotypes and misunderstandings about Latinos and other minority groups.

By DAVE ALTIMARI, DENISE BUFFA and DAVID OWENS

The Hartford Courant
January 25, 2012

They were known as "Miller's boys," a small group of East Haven officers on the
4-to-midnight shift arrested Tuesday following a long federal investigation and
charged with terrorizing Latinos who dared enter the town's borders.

Federal authorities called them "bullies" and the indictment against them
alleges a long list of crimes ranging from excessive force for beating suspects
with their hands cuffed behind them to obstructing justice. Federal prosecutors
argued in court that one of them — Dennis Spaulding — was so dangerous that he
should be barred from entering East Haven while his case is pending.

Besides Spaulding the other three officers arrested were Jason Zullo, David Cari
and Sgt. John Miller. All but Zullo were released late Tuesday after pleading
not guilty and posting bonds ranging from $100,000 to $300,000. Miller and Cari
were arrested at the East Haven police department just as their shift was
ending. Miller was whisked out so quickly he left his service handgun on his
desk. All are facing potential jail sentences of 10 years or longer if
convicted.

"The four police officers charged today allegedly formed a cancerous cadre that
routinely deprived East Haven residents of their civil rights," said Janice K.
Fedarcyk, assistant director-in-charge of the New York office of the FBI. "The
public should not need protection from those sworn to protect and serve. In
simple terms, these defendants behaved like bullies with badges."

"At its core, this is an abuse of power case," added Assistant Attorney General
Thomas E. Perez, of the justice department's civil rights division.

The investigation was prompted by a video recording of an encounter between some
of the officers arrested Tuesday and the Rev. James Manship, pastor of St. Rose
of Lima Church in New Haven. The federal probe found a pattern of discrimination
by police, particularly against Latino residents.

Connecticut's U.S. Attorney, David B. Fein, said more arrests and additional
charges could be forthcoming as the investigation continues.

Fein said the "indictment should serve as a powerful message that we in the
Department of Justice will not tolerate abuse of power or victimization of
civilians by anyone in law enforcement."

At arraignments Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport,
Spaulding was released after posting $300,000 bail. Conditions of his release
are that he is barred from entering East Haven and that he must live with his
father-in-law in New Haven. Spaulding has been on leave.

Zullo was ordered held until a bail hearing on Thursday. Cari was released on
$100,000 bail, pending the turnover of 12 weapons at his home to authorities.
Miller was released after posting $200,000 bail.

The government vehemently opposed allowing Spaulding to go free. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Krishna Patel said numerous victims and potential witnesses have beeen
intimidated by Spaulding.

"He has created so much fear and created so much terror in the very community
that he is supposed to be protecting" Patel told U.S. Magistrate Holly
Fitzsimmons.

by Chuck Colbert
Keen News Service
January 18, 2012

A group of nearly 40 conservative religious leaders released an open letter Jan. 12 that seeks to reframe the battle over same-sex civil marriage as a threat to their freedom of religion.

And in a new tactical twist, the signatories say their concern is not that their ministers will be forced to preside at same-sex weddings. Rather, they say, allowing gays to wed would end up "forcing or pressuring both individuals and religious organizations—throughout their operations, well beyond religious ceremonies—to treat same-sex sexual conduct as the moral equivalence of marital sexual conduct."

The signatories include New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; H. David Burton, presiding bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. It also includes the Bishop of Oakland, Calif., the Most Rev. Salvatore J. Cordileone.

"There is no doubt that many people and groups whose moral and religious convictions forbid same-sex sexual conduct will resist the compulsion of the law and church and state conflicts will result," the leaders caution, in the letter, entitled "Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together."

The signatories say that faith-based adoption agencies would be required to place children with civilly married same-sex couples and that religious employers would be required to extend medical health care benefits same-sex spouses.

The letter, posted on the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, holds out marriage between heterosexual couples as the "true definition" that "must be protected for its own sake and for the good of society."

The religious leaders also assert that, in opposing same-sex marriage, they and their followers have been "marked" as "bigots, subjecting them to the full arsenal of government punishments and pressures reserved for racists."

Nationwide, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has been at the forefront advocating against equal civil-marriage rights for gay couples. One leading opponent is Dolan, whom the pope will elevate to cardinal next month.

Days before conservative religious leaders released their letter, Pope Benedict said same-sex marriage posed a threat to "humanity" adding, "Pride of place goes the family, based on the marriage of a man and a woman."

"This is not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society," he said. "Consequently, the policies which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself."

Pro-LGBT Catholic advocates reacted swiftly to the pope's harsh words and the open letter.

"The pope has it wrong, but this time he has it diametrically wrong," said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of Mount Rainier, Md.-based New Ways Ministry, a gay positive ministry of outreach with LGBT Catholics, their families and friends.

"The threat to 'human dignity and the future of humanity' comes not from marriage equality but in opposition to it," he added in a New Ways Ministry blog posting.

In an email correspondence, DeBernardo said, the open letters' threat of "compulsion is a fantasy that exists in the conservative religious leaders' heads."

"No one is going to be compelled to do anything," he said. "If religious organizations do not follow government regulations, they will simply not receive government funding," he said.

by Mazin Qumsiyeh
14 January 2012

http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2012/01/20-puntipoints.html

Palestine is the Western part of the Fertile Crescent: an area that includes Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. In this Fertile Crescent the first human agriculture developed.  Here the first domestication of animals (e.g. goats, donkeys, camels) and plants (e.g. wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, olives) happened.

2- This is also where civilization began including development of the first alphabet (by Phoenician Canaanites) and the first laws.  It was where we first developed sciences like astronomy, engineering, and mathematics

3- The original inhabitants of the Western part of the Fertile Crescent were called Canaanites and the original language was called Aramaic which Jesus spoke (he was born in the country called then Palestine and thus he was Palestinian)

4- The old Aramaic language gave rise to derived languages including Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew and this language group is called Semetic languages

5- Arabic alphabet evolved in Southern Canaan (today’s Jordan and Palestine) while the Latin alphabet evolved in Northern Canaan (Phoenicia, present day Lebanon and Syria).  The Alphabet used in Europe today came from our part of the world.

6- The people of Southern Canaan including Palestine endured many invasions of armies with nearly 15 times that local people were ruled by kings or emperors (Persian, Roman, Umayyad, Abbasid, Israelite etc).

7- Local religious ideas evolved over the ages from Cananitic Pagan ideas to monotheistic ideas to Christianity (first century), Rabbinical Judaism (3rd century), Islam (7th Century).,

8- Palestine was always multi-cultural, multi-religious society despite attempts to homogenize it in certain periods (e.g. the Crusaders killed and exiled Jews, Muslims, and Christians of other sects).

9- Jews of today, like Christians and Muslims of today come from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds.  They are thus genetically (biologically) heterogeneous.

10- Before the wave of European Jewish immigration, Palestinians were of various religions: about 85% Muslim, 10% Christian, 5% Jewish and others. For hundreds of years Palestinians of various religions lived in relative harmony.

11- Zionism is a political idea that spread among a minority of European Jews who adapted to the European notions of ethnocentric nationalism and thus claims Jews of today should gather in Palestine and create a Jewish state because of discrimination in Europe.  Socialist Jews and other Jews believed in fighting for equal rights.  Zionists thought that anti-Jewish feelings in Europe serves their interests and thus even collaborated with racists.  There was a transfer agreement between the third Reich and the Zionist movement. Zionists also lobbied Western governments not to take in European Jewish refugees so that they all go to Palestine.

The Abstinence of Courage Comes to Connecticut
By Chuck Colbert / TRT Reporter
January 11, 2012

http://www.therainbowtimesnews.com/

HARTFORD, Conn.--The Catholic archdiocese of Hartford, Conn., is offering a spiritual support program, or ministry, for gay men and lesbians, holding out abstinence, or mandatory celibacy, as key to living a moral life.

News of the program, a chapter of the national ministry called Courage, first greeted readers of the Hartford Courant on Wednesday morning, Jan. 4, and spread quickly over the Internet and through national and other local print and broadcast media, prompting strong reactions from Connecticut Catholics, as well as national Catholic LGBT advocacy groups and organizations that minister with gay Catholics and their families.

“The purpose of the ministry is to support men and women who struggle with homosexual tendencies and to motivate them to live chaste and fruitful lives in accordance with Catholic Church teaching,” according the archdiocese’s press release.

“Through support and spiritual intervention, we can help people with same-sex attraction lead moral and fulfilling lives,” said Robert M. Pallotti, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Diaconate, in the press statement.

By design, Courage is in accord with official Catholic doctrine, which says homosexuality “is more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus, the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

Theologically speaking, the Courage ministry also stems from natural law theory, which holds that sex is morally acceptable only when expressed in sacramental marriage and only when sexual intercourse is open to procreation.

Other sexual (including heterosexual) activity - masturbation, artificial contraception, adultery, and sex outside of marriage - are also considered to be immoral under natural law.

During a lengthy telephone interview, Deacon Pallotti readily acknowledged the moral question of sexual activity is the rub for many gay Catholics.

In upholding the Church’s moral teaching, he said, “We know it’s going to be challenge and hard to live this [celibate] life.”

“We know within the Catholic Church there is a struggle about the [moral] teaching,” said Pallotti. Still, “We want to minister in light of that [teaching] for those who want to remain in the Church. We are here to offer them pastoral care and support for them and their families.”

Pallotti also said he expected "blow back" from the gay community.

He got it, as gay Catholics and Hartford LGBT community leaders pushed back, saying the Church’s view is outdated, unsound, and worse yet, harmful.

“It perpetuates a falsehood that gay people are somehow defective, when in reality we are wonderful people created in the image and likeness of God as is all creation,” said Frank O’Gorman, 47, of West Hartford.

Asked about the harm Courage does, he explained, “Many of us, gay Catholics of my generation, believed during our teen and into our 20’s that we were somehow defective and that was a period of great depression.”

“Only when we fully embraced our sexuality as a gift from God were we transformed from people who were walking dead into people who had a light to shine and offer other people,” said O’Gorman, who is a member of Dignity USA.

Medford, Mass.-based Dignity USA is the nation’s oldest and largest LGBT Catholic advocacy organization.

“Courage’s falsehood,” he added, “that gay people cannot live full, loving lives and express themselves [sexually] in a loving way” harms people as a “form of spiritual violence.”

“Religious people, of all people, should not be promoting spiritual violence,” said O’Gorman.

"I am deeply concerned about what seems to be an increase in the roll out of Courage and 12-step [addiction-model] programs in Catholic dioceses across the country," said Marianne Duddy-Burke, Dignity USA's executive director. "These kinds of programs promote exactly the kind of negativity that has been demonstrated to lead to substance abuse, depression, and even suicide."

“It’s bad enough that the bishops are attacking LGBT people politically. Now it seems they are launching a campaign to attack us pastorally, as well,” Duddy-Burke said.

“The main problem I see with the Courage ministry is that it primarily views lesbian/gay people in terms of sexual activity. This approach does not consider lesbian/gay people as whole people, but narrowly defines them in terms of sex,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, writing in a blog posting.

“A ministry which primarily focuses on the possibility of sexual activity is a very stunted ministry,” he added.

Based in Mount Ranier, Md., New Ways Ministry is “a gay-positive ministry of advocacy and justice” for LGBT Catholics  and of “reconciliation within the larger Christian and civil communities.”

“The direct implication [of Courage] is that who you are is not okay,” said Robin McHaelen, executive director of Hartford’s True Colors, a nonprofit agency that offers services to LGBT teens.

McHaelen also finds off-putting Courage’s “love-the-sinner-but-hate-the sin” perspective, which, she says, hurts kids.

While young people who seek services at True Colors say they generally don’t believe the line of reasoning, McHaelen said, “The fear still lingers. ‘But what if it’s true?’ some youth wonder.”

Courage’s approach, she added, “Is truly, absolutely invalidated, by every mainstream social science, psychological, and mental health organization,” which consider homosexuality as a natural occurrence, a variation of human sexuality.

As early as 1973, for instance, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its codification of mental health disorders.

Linda Estabrook, executive director of Hartford Gay&Lesbian Health Collective (HGLHC), bristled at the press-release language.

“It says gay people are not moral and not living fulfilled lives,” she said. “That is not accurate, along with beyond offensive.