Huckabee Stands by Christ Comment
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/huckabee_religion/2007/12/30/60640.html
Mike Huckabee, a Republican relying on support from religious conservatives in Thursday's hard-fought presidential caucuses, on Sunday stood by a decade-old comment in which he said, "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."
In a television interview, the ordained Southern Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor made no apologies for the 1998 comment made at a Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Salt Lake City.
"It was a speech made to a Christian gathering, and, and certainly that would be appropriate to be said to a gathering of Southern Baptists," Huckabee said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
He gave the speech the same year he endorsed the Baptist convention's statement of beliefs on marriage that "a wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." Huckabee and his wife, Janet, signed a full-page ad in USA Today in support of the statement with 129 other evangelical leaders.
The former governor, who rallied Christian evangelicals to make him a surprise force in Iowa, has put his faith front and center in his campaign. His stump speech sounds like a pastor's pitch from a pulpit. Campaign ads emphasize faith and call him a Christian leader. He frequently quotes Bible verses.
As his fortunes have improved, Huckabee has faced a drumbeat of questions and criticism about his gubernatorial record and the role of faith in his administration. He also has made some missteps while trying to fend off a challenge _ and critical TV ads _ from Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and Mormon whose faith unsettles some religious conservatives.
Four days before the caucuses Thursday, a new poll found Huckabee's surge may have stalled; his once double-digit lead over Romney has evaporated. Private polling shows the two in a dead heat.
The television interview was Huckabee's only campaign appearance Sunday.
With the media throng following him having grown immensely, Huckabee scrapped a public event at a church in favor of attending a private service closed to reporters. Instead of courting voters, he hunkered down to film new TV ads, perhaps spots responding to Romney's barrage of critical commercials.
As recently as Friday, Huckabee insisted he wanted to run a positive campaign. He also reserved the right to respond aggressively.
"Hopefully we'll just be talking about issues," Romney told reporters Sunday. In contrast to Huckabee, Romney had a full slate of events on a bus tour of eastern Iowa.
In the NBC interview, Huckabee, a longtime opponent of legalized abortion, said he does not believe that women should be punished for undergoing the procedure, but that doctors might need to face sanctions.
"I don't know that you'd put him in prison, but there's something to me untoward about a person who has committed himself to healing people and to making people alive who would take money to take an innocent life and to make that life dead," Huckabee said.
He also argued that his emphasis on his Christian beliefs does not mean he's alienating atheists. He said, if elected, he would have no problem appointing atheists to government posts.
"The key issue of real faith is that it never can be forced on someone. And never would I want to use the government institutions to impose mine or anybody else's faith or to restrict," Huckabee said.
Those skeptical of the role of faith in his presidency, he said, should look at his record in Arkansas.
"I didn't ever propose a bill that we would remove the Capitol dome of Arkansas and replace it with a steeple," he said. "You know, we didn't do tent revivals on the grounds of the Capitol."
La. village drops 666 from its number
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071228/ap_on_fe_st/odd666_exchange;_ylt=AkzsrOdlzla1Z.psi.IEUzDtiBIF
It's taken 40 years, but this southwest Louisiana village no longer bears the mark of the beast.
Beginning this month, residents and businesses can change the first three digits of their phone numbers from 666 — depicted in the Bible as the mark of the beast — to 749.
Mayor Scott Walker said one of the biggest hangups he's had, both as mayor and as a lifelong resident of Reeves, is the reaction he's gotten when giving people his number. He describes it as a pause, followed by the admonition: "Y'all have to change that."
"That's what we're trying to get rid of," he said. "This is a good town."
He worked with the phone company, CenturyTel, and the state Public Service Commission, among others, to make the change.
The switch is set to be official for City Hall on Jan. 2, and Walker said he'd had people contact him Friday morning about changing as well.
"This boils down to, this is a very, very religious community," Walker said.
4 Days to Iowa, Huckabee Assails Rival
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/caucus_countdown/2007/12/30/60588.html
Mike Huckabee called Mitt Romney a dishonest politician who couldn't be trusted with the presidency, turning up the heat Sunday in a close-and-getting-closer Republican race in Iowa.
As six candidates took their closing messages to morning talk shows, Democrat Barack Obama acknowledged that the criticism directed at him might be taking a toll.
"That may have some effect but ultimately I'm putting my faith in the people of Iowa that they want something better," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Headed into the final days of the closest caucuses in a lifetime, public and private polls showed that Obama, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards were locked in a three-way tie for the lead. A new poll of the Republican race suggested that Huckabee's surprise surge may have stalled _ his lead over Romney evaporated.
Huckabee said he may have been hurt by Romney ads and mailings criticizing his record as governor of Arkansas. Lacking Romney's resources, Huckabee used an appearance on the NBC show to accuse Romney of distorting his own public record.
"If you aren't being honest in obtaining the job, can we trust you if you get the job?" Huckabee asked.
He accused Romney of running "a very desperate and, frankly, distorted" campaign against himself and rival John McCain.
Calling the former Vietnam POW a hero, Huckabee said, "I felt like when Mitt Romney went after the integrity of John McCain, he stepped over the line."
Romney is fighting on two fronts, hoping to defeat Huckabee in Iowa and McCain in New Hampshire to vault himself to the nomination.
McCain said on ABC's "This Week" that Romney's criticism of him and Huckabee "shows they're worried."
But McCain, asked whether Romney was a "phony," declined to use the word.
"I think he's a person who changed his positions on many issues," McCain said.
A Mason-Dixon poll showed Romney at 27 percent and Huckabee at 23 percent in Iowa, both trailed by McCain, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul. The polls had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. On the Democratic side, the poll showed Edwards, Clinton and Obama all within a percentage point of each other.
Clinton told ABC that her husband, Bill Clinton, would take on the same responsibilities as traditional presidential spouses if she won the election.
"He will not have a formal, official role, but just as presidents rely on wives, husbands, fathers, friends of long years, he will be my close confidante and adviser as I was with him," she said on "This Week."
The idea of her husband participating in National Security Council meetings "wouldn't be appropriate," she added.
Laughing, Edwards said he couldn't imagine Bill Clinton staying out of the mix.
"I think it's a complete fantasy," he said on CBS. "If you watch him out on the campaign trail, he spends an awful lot of time talking about his views and not Senator Clinton's."
In the GOP race, Huckabee's surge to the top tier has forced him to answer questions about his record in Arkansas, a series of gaffes on the campaign trail and the role his faith _ he's an ordained Baptist minister _ plays in his public life.
"The key issue to real faith is it can never be forced on any one," Huckabee said, adding that he would have no problem appointing atheists to government posts.
Judge him by his record in Arkansas, he said: "I never proposed a bill that would remove the capitol dome and replace it with a steeple."
Huckabee, a long-time opponent of legalized abortion, said he does not believe that women should be punished for undergoing the procedure, but that doctors might need to face sanctions when they "take money to take life."
Thompson criticized Huckabee's missteps in discussing the turmoil in Pakistan after the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
"His ideas now are not consistent with someone who understands the nature of the world that we live in and the challenges that we face," Thompson said on "Fox News Sunday."
Clinton Preaches, Then Runs
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/political_play_of_the_day/2007/12/30/60636.html
Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a campaign sermon Sunday, but didn't stick around to hear the pastor do his preaching.
"We're still at church. We're still going to worship no matter what," the Rev. Lee Maxey said as the Democratic presidential candidate, her daughter, Chelsea, and their entourage left Corinthian Baptist Church, the media pack close behind.
Clinton stayed for about 20 minutes and, when she spoke, noted her support for children's rights.
The New York senator also highlighted a chapter in her book, "It Takes a Village," that talks about every child needing a champion. She said most children have someone in that role and she'd like to fulfill it for the whole country.
"I think the American people need a president who is their champion. And I've been running to be that champion _ to get up every single day and do all that I can to make sure I provide the tools that every single American is entitled to receive and make the most out of their own lives," Clinton said.
And with that, she hurried out.
The Rev. James Green took a poke at the just-departed Clinton as he began his sermon.
"When I first got here I was a little overwhelmed. All the dignitaries came in," he said. "I thought they were going to stay for service, but they're still campaigning."
Earlier this year, Democratic candidate Barack Obama also joined the mostly black congregation.
He, too, left early.
A Lesbian's Deliverance
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/180565.aspx
After 29 years as a gay activist, former lesbian magazine publisher Charlene Cothran stunned the homosexual community when she announced she had become a Christian.
She has renounced her homosexuality, and changed the format of her magazine to spread the Gospel to the gay community.
As a gay rights activist, Cothran was never afraid to fight for what she believed in. For 30 years, she was as vocal and in your face as they come.
She organized and marched with other lesbians in gay rights parades. And as editor-in-chief of Venus magazine , a national gay and lesbian publication, she wasn't about to change -- until something happened at a gay pride celebration that she never expected.
"In 2003, I was in Chicago at a gay pride event, in the middle of this beautiful park," Cothran recalled. "I took a panoramic view, and as far as I could see there were men with men and women with women, all just partying and having a good time. But a shame fell on me, I felt so out of place. I knew something in my spirit spoke that, 'this is that road that leads to destruction, and you're on it.'"
It took several years to come to terms with this vision, and during that time Cothran continued to publish her gay and lesbian magazine. But she couldn't escape the message she'd heard that day in 2003.
She said, "I kept myself busy with marches and activism and public appearances. But in the still of the night when everything is over, there was still that little voice, "You're not right with God."
Cothran says she longed for peace, but even in the midst of a long-term relationship, she felt intense loneliness. She'd grown up in a Christian home, and had come into the lesbian lifestyle at 19, after several bad relationships with boys.
"I didn't want anything to do with men anymore," she said. "I was away at college and that was a whole new world, and in that world there were many, many women who were attracted to me, and, of course, I was attracted to them. And these women were nurturing, wanted to get to know me intellectually -- they were organizers whom I found a lot of comfort in. It felt good, it felt right."
But it didn't feel right anymore. Then in June 2006, local Pastor Vanessia Livingston of Miracle Deliverance Church called Cothran, regarding an article in one her publications. She didn't know anything about Cothran's life and proceeded to talk to her about God.
Livingston asked Cothran, "What are you going to do about your life?" Then she told her, "'You need to get your life together.' Cothran said, 'I'm in the life.' I said, 'Yes, I know, that's why I'm talking to you, but you don't have to stay in the life. You can be delivered today, right now, right where you are.'"
They talked for awhile and Cothran remembers her words: "I can tell that you want to come back to God, but you feel unworthy, you feel that God can't use you because you've been marching and publishing and you've been such a proud lesbian all these years, but that's not true. He's waiting."
That day changed everything for Charlene Cothran, as she finally asked Jesus Christ to come into her heart and forgive her.
It was a personal transformation that she immediately wanted to share with her gay and lesbian followers. She wrote a front page article in her magazine called, "Redeemed! Ten Ways to Get Out of the Gay Life, if You Want Out."
"When the Lord saved me, I knew everything would change," she said. "All of the ads, the editorials, the mission of the magazine had changed. We're going to be calling people out of homosexuality."
Most of the response from the gay and lesbian community has been fierce and negative. But she says she knows that many of them are just as conflicted as she was.
Cothran said, "In order to fill up this empty space, they pretend to put on this wonderful face, 'how gay and happy I am,' when in fact -- there's a lot of loneliness in the gay community that's not talked about, and it's real."
But there has been positive feedback as well. Cothran says she gets lots of e-mails from people who say they struggle with homosexuality and want out.
CBN News asked Cothran, "I know people probably ask you, do you still have feelings for women, and are you dating a man?"
Cothran replied, "I'm living a celibate life. I'm so focused on the spirit right now, that I have no urges for anyone -- man or woman."
With a new outlook about herself and life, Cothran is still on the frontlines of the gay rights battle, only now she sees it as a spiritual fight to lead others to the freedom she's found.
"Our mission now," she said, "is to educate and to turn people away from the homosexual lifestyle simply by presenting the truth. We simply want people to question what they've learned through the pages of Venus magazine over the past 13 years."
Prior to Cothran's conversion, Venus circulated about 35,000 copies per issue which ran four times a year. But after the issue featuring her testimony, the gay political machine pressured advertisers to drop the magazine. And gay pride events and college campuses no longer subscribe.
But in her own words, Cothran has no regrets about her change.
She said, "There is a joy and a peace that you can't find in a club, I don't care how good the music is. You can't find it in the middle of a gay pride parade, I don't care if you have the biggest, prettiest float. I have a joy and a peace that I wouldn't trade for anything."
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