AP 10/21 17:03 EDT
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rules barring lawmakers from refusing to hire gay
people would interfere with their special need to employ whomever they
want and probably could not be enforced, House Speaker Thomas Foley
said Thursday.  
   Foley, D-Wash., made the remarks after criticizing three House
members from Oklahoma who told a newspaper that they would not hire
openly gay people for their staffs.  
   "I don't agree with that and I regret it," Foley told reporters.
"But I don't know exactly how one, under the present circumstances or
anything I can imagine, can require members to take particular
individuals on their staff that they do not wish to hire."  
   With his remarks, Foley tiptoed into an area that has become
increasingly sensitive for Congress and its leaders -- the fact that
legislators have exempted themselves from many laws, including those
that prohibit discrimination.  
   Their justification, which Foley reiterated Thursday, has been that
members of Congress, by the nature of their jobs, need freedom in
hiring that would be intolerable elsewhere. For example, liberal
Democrats should not be forced to hire conservative Republicans.  
   "Once you try to parse out whether an individual is a person that is
appropriate for a member to hire, I don't know how you can set up
standards other than serving at the pleasure of the member," Foley
said.  
   Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., one of Congress' two acknowledged
homosexuals, said in an interview that he agreed a rule forbidding such
discriminatory hiring would be hard to enforce.  
   But he said he still favored a rule giving lawmakers freedom to hire
or reject people based on political ideology but forbidding them from
discriminating because of sexual orientation, race, religion, sex or
other such attributes.  
   Gregory King of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, which lobbies in
Washington for homosexuals, said, "If a member of Congress stated he
wouldn't hire a black person or a Jew in his office, there would be
proceedings under way today to censure them."  
   Foley compared the leeway lawmakers need in hiring to that required
when presidents and corporate executives employ top, confidential
advisers.  
   "It happens in every line of work that people who have special
confidential relationships with business executives, with university or
academic leaders, with political leaders, are people that they have to
have a right to choose," he said.  
   Later in the day, Foley issued a statement reemphasizing his
opposition to employment discrimination. He also restated his support
for an effort led by Reps. Dick Swett, D-N.H., and Christopher Shays,
R-Conn., to apply civil rights, worker safety and other laws to
Congress.  
   On Oct. 3, the Tulsa, Okla., World reported that Republican Reps.
Jim Inhofe and Ernest Istook and Democratic Rep. Bill Brewster had all
said in interviews that they would not hire gay people for their
congressional staffs.  
   Inhofe said hiring an openly gay person for his staff would be
"disruptive in terms of unit cohesion."  
   Under House Rule 51, members cannot make job decisions based on a
person's race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age. Sexual
orientation is not mentioned.  

**** My personal note:  Yours truly attended the March on Washington
Party at Barney Frank's house last April.  Tom Foley was one of the
politicians in attendance.  He was also interviewed on site by opely gay
Bill Rosendahl, the host of Century Cable (West Hollywood) Public Affairs
Specials.  Foley is in no way anti-gay.  Remember the GOP's attempted
smear campaign to imply Foley's gay a few years back?

AP 10/21 13:16 EDT
   WASHINGTON (AP) -- You won't find Pat Robertson's name on a 1993
ballot. But Robertson and his Christian conservative political movement
are targets in two high-profile election contests next month.  
   In Virginia, one could easily get the impression that religious
broadcaster Robertson is running for governor. Democrat Mary Sue Terry
is aggressively trying to paint Republican nominee George Allen as an
ally of the so-called religious right and features a big photograph of
Robertson in a campaign ad. Allen's running mate, Mike Farris,
acknowledges his ties to the religious right. 
   In California, opponents of a statewide "school choice" referendum
are casting the voucher proposal as an attempt by religious zealots to
use public money in Christian schools.  
   These races have become not only test cases of the Christian right's
power at the ballot box but also of the effectiveness of using the
movement's support for a candidate or issue as a campaign attack
weapon.  
   Terry, trailing in recent polls, hopes that linking Allen to the
Christian right will win her votes from suburban moderates in Northern
Virginia, the populous area likely to decide the Nov. 2 election.  
   She is using the "religious right" as a wedge to attract support
from moderate Republicans and independent voters by raising fears that
her opponent would promote an arch-conservative agenda.  
   "George Allen and his right-wing allies Mike Farris and Pat
Robertson would take us back to the right by taking away a woman's
right to choose," Terry said this week, echoing the message of her
latest attack ad. The ad notes that Robertson has contributed $10,000
to the Allen campaign.  
   Republican Farris is challenging Democratic Lt. Gov. Don Beyer.
Farris has longstanding ties to the Christian right movement, having
worked for Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority as well as the Concerned
Women of America, a conservative group that opposes abortion,
homosexual rights and most sex education programs in schools.  
   Allen supports Farris but not necessarily all his positions, which
have included banning some books, like "The Wizard of Oz," from public
schools on grounds they promote witchcraft or other views that run
counter to the Bible.  
   Robertson's Christian Coalition, the most aggressive political
organization in the Christian right, has denounced Terry's strategy and
predicted it will backfire.  
   "George Wallace ran against blacks, Mary Sue Terry and Don Beyer are
running against Christians," said Ralph Reed, Robertson's top political
lieutenant. "Their campaign tactics are identical in their appeal to
baldfaced bigotry."  
   Earlier this year, Democratic candidates for Los Angeles mayor and
Arkansas lieutenant governor tried to paint their GOP opponents as
puppets of the Christian right. In both cases, the Republicans won.  
   "If Democrats would do their homework, they would find out it is not
working, and it has not worked," said Christian Coalition spokesman
Mike Russell.  
   Allen labels the Terry effort "more distortion" of his record and
views, and his relaxed campaign style has helped him ward off major
damage from the attacks so far.