The Year in Review

**red_square**Partial Progress Against Abortion Both sides in the abortion wars in 1996 emphasized their relative cultural and political strengths: Pro-abortion advocates concentrated on expanding early-term abortions, pro-lifers on restricting late-term abortions.

While the bigger debates blared, pro-life members of Congress quietly worked throughout the year to restore the Reagan/ Bush-era status quo ante, approving several small provisions in federal funding bills that existed prior to President Clinton's taking office in 1992. In Congress, successful rear-guard actions banned abortions in U.S. military hospitals; prohibited taxpayer dollars for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or where the pregnant mother's life is in jeopardy; and barred federally funded human-embryo research. One new but little-noticed initiative prohibited federal, state, and local governments from denying accreditation, licensing, or monetary aid to medical schools or hospitals that refused to train medical students or residents in abortion.

Meanwhile, an abortion-friendly executive branch gave the green light to the abortion-inducing drug RU-486 and recommended that doctors prescribe megadoses of birth-control pills for use by their patients as "morning-after" abortifacients. The morning-after recommendation came in June, one month before an FDA panel without a single dissenting vote said the agency should legalize RU-486. Formal approval of RU-486 came in September; the nonprofit group pushing the drug predicts that RU-486 will be on the market by the middle of 1997.

One dark corner of the abortion market suffered wider exposure in 1996. Pro-life lawmakers in Washington turned the spotlight on the "intact dilation and extraction" procedure that came to be known as partial-birth abortion. Publicity about partial-birth abortion--startling but medically correct sketches depicting the procedure displayed on the floors of the House and Senate and at congressional news conferences--and polls reflecting widespread public revulsion forced even pro-choice politicians to break with their abortion-industry sponsors and back legislation in Congress to outlaw the practice.

In the end deception and outright lies were the only cultural defense for abortion enthusiasts. This made even some liberal, pro-abortion columnists--most prominently Richard Cohen of The Washington Post--uncomfortable. Mr. Cohen, angered that he'd been lied to, wrote a column conceding that abortion-industry statistics about the number of partial-birth abortions were dramatically wrong. "Late-term abortions once seemed to be the choice of women who, really, had no other choice," Mr. Cohen wrote on the eve of the Senate's unsuccessful vote to override Mr. Clinton's veto. "The facts are now different. If that's the case, then so should be the law."

The abortion industry's political defense was the veto pen of Bill Clinton, which played right into the hands of some Republican presidential strategists who saw an opportunity to paint the president as an extremist on the abortion issue. But Bob Dole the candidate seemed more concerned with rooting out the influence of the abortion issue in his own party; he spent most of the '96 campaign at war with pro-lifers. Mr. Dole's blunder over the GOP platform--first he crafted a general statement of tolerance for differing views on a variety of controversial issues, then days later insisted the provision express tolerance only for differing views on abortion--set up an embarrassing defeat for him at the San Diego convention by conservative GOP delegates. Which set the stage for his electoral defeat in November.

**red_square**When Character Doesn't Matter Whitewater? Ho-hum. The Indonesian campaign-finance scandal? Everyone does it. Paula Jones? Tabloid trash. The FBI files? Yawn. The travel office? Zzzzz. Public indifference to the scandals du jour surrounding Bill Clinton, his wife, his White House, and his associates was a unique feature of the 1996 political season.

The year began with these discoveries: Jan. 3, a White House memo implicating Hillary Rodham Clinton in the political purge of the travel office; Jan. 5, a stack of subpoenaed but previously missing Rose Law Firm billing records in the White House residence; and Jan. 9, nothing in the U.S. Constitution protecting the president from sexual harassment lawsuits. Later in the month, Mrs. Clinton testified to a grand jury concerning her role in Whitewater-related crimes. Mr. Clinton also gave Whitewater testimony in 1996, in defense of three friends involved in a criminal fraud trial (which ended in guilty verdicts for all three) and in defense of two friends involved in a criminal fraud trial (which ended in a hung jury on some counts, acquittals on others).

Congressional investigations turned up other discoveries. Hours away from a contempt of Congress vote in May, White House lawyers under pressure turned over subpoenaed Travelgate documents that gave rise to Filegate and introduced America to White House personnel security chief Craig Livingstone--whom no one at the White House past or present has yet taken public responsibility for hiring. When the "bureaucratic snafu" (as White House officials called it) was first revealed, 329 confidential FBI files on Republicans were said to have been accidentally requisitioned, using an out-of-date Secret Service list of White House passholders, but no one ever looked at the files. Stories that drizzled out of the White House over the summer had the total number of FBI files improperly obtained increasing--finally to a total of more than 800.

Within days of the first word of the files scandal, stories changed (actually the files were read--carefully), sworn testimony was contradicted (the Secret Service didn't keep out-of-date lists), and lower-level heads rolled. The 37-year-old Mr. Livingstone was placed on "administrative leave" within 12 days, and 9 days later had "resigned." Before Mr. Livingstone left the White House, Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr was on the job investigating the question, Who ordered the files search?

The tabloid Star reported the person most in the know about Filegate was prostitute Sherry Rowlands. According to her highly placed source, political consultant and Ms. Rowlands's client Dick Morris, "It was Hillary, in 1993. She's a paranoid lady; she did it." Mr. Morris was called to testify to Congress in September concerning Ms. Rowlands's disclosures. Mr. Morris testified, "to the best of my recollection," that he revealed to the prostitute mere polling data concerning Filegate. Of the 39 percent of those surveyed who thought one of the Clintons ordered the files search, he said, 74 percent thought it was Mrs. Clinton. Republican leaders were incredulous that the White House was "polling on the issue instead of providing answers."

With an eye on their own polling, Republicans in October sought to make hay over another White House scandal: the influence of a wealthy Indonesian family over the Clinton White House and unlawful campaign contributions to Democrats by foreign interests. Republicans vowed to investigate a number of embarrassing facts that came out after the election.

**red_square**End of the Era "The era of big government is over," President Clinton declared in his 1996 State of the Union address in January. And with that, the GOP leadership of Congress won the debate, even as spending continued to climb in the Fiscal 1997 federal budget. The disciplined first year (1995) of the Republican Congress gave way to disarray in early 1996, with several partial government shutdowns widely perceived by the public as the fault of congressional leaders and not the president.

Nevertheless, Congress approved several key reforms that improved, but didn't eliminate, some government programs. The monumental reform of 1996 was of the federal welfare system, legislation that after two previous vetoes Mr. Clinton finally signed in a Rose Garden ceremony as the presidential campaign moved into full swing. For the first time since the advent of the Great Society, government aid is now no longer an entitlement. In addition to welfare reform, Republicans in Congress also reformed the welfare-for-farmers system of crop subsidies and put it on a glide path to oblivion. They reformed telecommunications laws for the first time since television was invented, but they failed to reform government programs for seniors--Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

**red_square**Affirmative Reaction Opposition to the decades-old employment and education policy known as "affirmative action" reached critical mass in 1996. Critics claimed affirmative action, initially designed to increase recruitment of racial minorities and women, had degenerated into a complicated crazy-quilt racial and gender spoils system that often froze out qualified non-minorities. While President Clinton urged a vague "mend it, don't end it" policy on affirmative action, opponents of the system had stronger and more precise actions in mind.

The year began with newly elected Louisiana Gov. Mike Foster, a Republican, issuing an executive order ending all affirmative action programs in his state. At the same time he proclaimed a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Foster claimed the late civil rights leader--who called for judging people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin--would have opposed present-day affirmative-action programs.

Also in January, the University of California board of regents reaffirmed its decision to end a race- and gender-based admissions policy in the state's university system, but then announced that the change, scheduled for 1997, would be delayed until 1998.

In March, four white applicants who claimed they had been denied admission to the University of Texas Law School because of their race won a lawsuit against the school. School policy, designed to foster "racial diversity" and "compensate" for past discrimination, called for less stringent admission requirements for black and Hispanic applicants than for whites. A federal appeals court overturned the policy, ruling it unjustified since it did not serve to remedy specific past wrongs. Though the decision has legal force only in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi--the three states in the 5th federal judicial circuit--analysts predicted the effect of the ruling would be felt nationwide.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that a New Jersey school district should not have fired a white teacher for the sole purpose of maintaining racial diversity. The 1989 case involved two equally qualified business teachers: one white, one black. When the school superintendent ordered a reduction in the business faculty, the white teacher was discharged based on her race. The appeals court ruled the school district had acted improperly, since the firing in no way constituted a remedy for specific past discrimination.

The 900-pound gorilla of affirmative action stories came in California, where voters approved the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), a ballot proposition calling for repeal of all racial and gender preferences in state hiring, contracting, and education. Those who feared affirmative action's days were numbered pulled out all stops to defeat CCRI, running television ads--featuring burning crosses and white-robed, hooded figures--that likened CCRI proponents to members of the Ku Klux Klan. Another uncivil, and untrue, ad implied that CCRI sponsors believed the only paid employment for which women were suited was prostitution. Despite the onslaught of negative advertising, the ballot initiative, known at Proposition 209, passed by a 54-to-46 percent margin.

Three weeks later a federal judge blocked implementation of CCRI in a manner that brought new charges of judicial tyranny.

**red_square**Judicial Tyranny Conservatives have long known that one of the front lines in the battle for the culture is in America's courtrooms. It was on that front that social liberals scored their biggest victories in 1996, often snatching their judicial victories from the jaws of legislative or electoral defeat.

In March, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, proclaiming a constitutional "right to die," struck down a Washington State law prohibiting doctor-assisted suicide. Ruling 8-3 that terminally ill patients had a right to a death that was "dignified and humane," the court held the state's obligation to preserve life was outweighed by the "right" to control "the time and manner of one's death." The ruling, based on the personal liberty guarantees of the 14th Amendment, was similar in reasoning to the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion-on-demand.

Less than a month later, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously struck down that state's assisted suicide ban. "What interest can the state possibly have in requiring the prolongation of life that is all but ended?" Judge Roger J. Miner wrote in the court's ruling, apparently confusing hastening death with prolonging life.

Medical and legal experts feared the two appellate court pro-death decisions would open the door to the killing of seriously ill and infirm patients without their permission.

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court startled Colorado--and the rest of the nation--by overturning a state constitutional amendment that a majority of Colorado voters had approved. In 1992, 53 percent of Colorado voters had supported an amendment nullifying various local laws that had created special protections for homosexuals. Striking down the amendment, the court--in a 6-3 vote--ruled that the amendment had no "legitimate governmental purpose" and appeared to be rooted in animosity toward homosexuals.

Justice Antonin Scalia--in a strongly worded dissent--said the decision had "no foundation in constitutional law and barely pretends to." He accused the majority of basing its decision not on "judicial judgment" but on "political will." Mr. Scalia defended the Colorado amendment as an "eminently reasonable" means of preventing "piecemeal deterioration of the sexual morality favored by a majority of Coloradans."

Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, said the Supreme Court ruling set a disturbing precedent by overturning the popular will: "Quite apart from the context of the Colorado case, all Americans should be profoundly troubled by the effect of this decision on our democratic way of life."

There was more trouble to come for the constitutionally concerned. In California, a federal district court judge blocked implementation of a democratically approved ballot initiative, Proposition 209, which called for ending racial and gender preferences in state hiring, contracting, and education. Judge Thelton Henderson, a Carter-era appointee and former ACLU board member, said it was probable that ending such discrimination was discriminatory. "[C]ourts must look beyond the plain language of an enactment," he ruled. The relevant question was "whether, in reality, the burden imposed by a law necessarily falls on minorities and women."

Judge Henderson's complicated--and, according to critics, "convoluted"--reasoning eventually may be reviewed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which, like Judge Henderson himself, has a history of judicial activism in areas of social policy.

In December, almost 55 years to the day after the Japanese bombed Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, a state circuit judge dropped a legal bombshell on Hawaii, and the radiating force of the explosion appeared certain to affect the rest of the nation as well. Tossing aside the centuries-old, fundamental societal understanding of the nature and purpose of marriage, Judge Kevin S.C. Chang ruled the state could not withhold legal sanction from homosexual "marriage." The next day, the decision--hailed by homosexual activists as a "historic moment"--was put on hold pending an appeal to the state's Supreme Court. A final decision could occur by mid-1997.

**red_square**The Gay Agenda Homosexual activists showed again in 1996 that they have not only "gay pride"; they have gay persistence. Continuing to cast their struggle in terms of "equal rights," homosexuals pressed toward their long-sought goal of societal acceptance and approval of homosexuality. They made several notable advances.

In March, about 175 same-sex couples were unofficially "wed" in a mass "domestic partnership ceremony" in San Francisco. Officiating was San Francisco mayor, and former California House Speaker, Willie Brown. Three days later, the Central Conference of American Rabbis--representing Judaism's most liberal faction--voted to endorse homosexual marriage. Orthodox rabbis denounced the vote.

Following the lead of other computer companies, once-staid IBM announced it would start providing health-care coverage and other benefits to "partners" of homosexual employees. Big Blue said it would not cover live-in partners in opposite-sex relationships because those couples had the option of getting married if they wanted to.

With the move toward legalization of "homosexual marriage" apparently running full steam ahead in Hawaii, Congress passed--and the president reluctantly signed--a bill allowing states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The law also defined marriage in federal law as between "one man and one woman." Homosexual groups planned to mount a legal campaign against the Defense of Marriage Act, claiming it to be unconstitutional.

The first constitutional challenge of the Clinton administration's compromise "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuals in the military reached the U.S. Supreme Court, but justices refused to hear the case. That meant a ruling by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals was left intact. That ruling upheld the Navy's discharge of an admitted homosexual pilot. Lt. Paul Thomasson had argued that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy violated his rights of free speech and equal protection.

**red_square**Tobacco (Rail)road The embattled American tobacco industry, under steady fire since the Surgeon General's mid-'60s warning about the health dangers of smoking, suffered heavy damage in 1996.

In March, the nation's fifth-largest cigarette maker agreed to settle its part of a class-action suit that alleged the tobacco industry knowingly had hooked people on nicotine. The settlement by the Liggett Group--which came seven months after the Food and Drug Administration issued a preliminary declaration calling nicotine an addictive drug--broke the industry's decades-long unified front against anti-smoking litigation and marked the first time a tobacco company ever had agreed to settle a smoking-related claim out of court. In a separate settlement, Liggett also agreed to make multi-year payments to five states that wanted reimbursement of millions of Medicaid dollars spent treating smoker illnesses.

Also in March, three former employees of Philip Morris Cos. Inc., the world's largest tobacco company, claimed the company had "routinely targeted and adjusted" nicotine levels in an effort to keep cigarette customers satisfied. The accusation, contained in affidavits released by the FDA, contradicted sworn congressional testimony given by a Philip Morris official in 1994.

In August, a state circuit court jury in Florida ordered Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. to pay $750,000 in damages to a man who, after smoking since 1947, had lost part of a lung to cancer. The jury was presented with internal documents showing company executives had for years known of the dangers of tobacco, even as they denied such knowledge publicly. Hailing the verdict as a "milestone," the American Medical Association said it was time for the "tobacco industry [to] stand up and take responsibility for its wrongdoing."

Two weeks after the Florida verdict, the FDA officially unveiled new restrictions on tobacco sales and advertising, ostensibly aimed at curbing smoking by teenagers. At a Rose Garden ceremony announcing the restrictions, President Clinton characterized cigarette smoking as "the most significant public health hazard facing our people." Though critics described the anti-tobacco regulations as an election-year political tactic designed to draw attention away from the administration's poor record on combating hard-core drug use, Mr. Clinton said the tobacco restrictions were simply "the right thing to do, scientifically, legally, and morally."

Legal challenges to the FDA rules from tobacco companies and tobacco-growing states could delay implementation for years.

**red_square**Violence and Tragedy When Susan Smith drowned her two sons in a South Carolina lake in 1995, the story grabbed the headlines and shocked the nation. This year, Susan Smith-type stories were so frequent they ceased making front-page news, and shock gave way to numbness.

Here's a brief sampling: A Texas woman was charged with the stabbing deaths of her two sons, ages 5 and 6. An Arizona father shot his five children, killing four of them. A South Carolina man shot his four stepchildren to death while they slept. A Florida man killed his two-year-old son by throwing him into a canal.

Three such stories of child-killing occurred in New York: A mother threw her three children off a 15-story building--miraculously killing only one of them--and then jumped to her death; another mother pleaded guilty to murder in the abuse death of her 6-year-old daughter; a third New York mom was charged with starving to death her 4-year-old daughter.

There was one deadly abuse case that did catch the attention of the nation: Two college students who grew up in the affluent suburbs of New York were charged with killing their out-of-wedlock newborn minutes after birth.

There was also child-on-child violence in '96.A six-year-old California boy was charged with attempted murder in the April beating of an infant, who suffered extensive brain damage in the attack. Charges against the boy later were dropped and he was ordered to undergo extensive counseling.

That same month, the issues of emotional child abuse and parental rights came to the fore after child pilot Jessica Dubroff died--along with her father and a flight instructor--in a crash in Wyoming. Seven-year-old Jessica was trying to set a record: becoming the youngest person to fly a plane across the United States. Her father had suggested the cross-country flight attempt.

A June plane crash in Croatia claimed the life of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others, including senior officers from more than a dozen U.S. companies. An Air Force investigation blamed pilot error and inadequate on-board navigation equipment.

Two other deadly air crashes topped the news for weeks in 1996: the fiery crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades and the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, New York. The ValuJet crash, which killed all 110 on board, occurred May 11. The Atlanta-bound DC-9 caught fire minutes after taking off from Miami. Investigators believe the fire was sparked by improperly stored oxygen canisters in the cargo hold.

In the wake of the crash, an embattled Federal Aviation Administration grounded ValuJet, a discount airline that had enjoyed rapid growth because of its low fares. After an investigation of ValuJet's training and procedures--and after a toughening of FAA oversight--the airline was allowed to resume flying.

The mysterious explosion and crash of TWA 800 occurred July 17, about a half-hour after the Paris-bound plane left New York's Kennedy International Airport. All 230 people on board were killed. After months of painstaking investigation, authorities seemed no closer to knowing the cause of the explosion than when they began. However, early theories about a terrorist bomb or missile attack evaporated due to lack of evidence.

There was indeed a bombing at the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, but the man the FBI paraded before the news media as the bomber later was cleared. The July 27 bombing at Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park killed one and injured 111. Within days, park security guard Richard Jewell was fingered as the top suspect, but three months later federal agents said Mr. Jewell was "no longer a suspect." In December, the FBI offered a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of the real bomber.

After 17 years of fruitless investigation, federal agents finally found the man they believe to be the anti-technology serial bomber known as the Unabomber. Former mathematics professor Theodore Kacyzinski was arrested at his remote cabin in Montana after authorities received a tip from Mr. Kacyzinski's brother. The suspect was charged in a multi-year series of bombings that had claimed three lives. In September, a federal prosecutor said Mr. Kacyzinski had kept detailed journals in which he admitted to each of the bombings attributed to the Unabomber.

The FBI gained another victory of perseverance during the year, finally wearing down an eccentric "Christian Identity" group known as the Freemen during an 81-day stand-off at a remote Montana farm. The last 16 members of the group surrendered peacefully June 13 when their food and water began to run out.

Following years of investigative dead ends, police finally arrested the man believed to be New York's "Zodiac killer." Heriberto Seda was charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with a crime wave in 1990 and another in 1992-93. In California, long-time criminal Richard Allen Davis was convicted in the kidnapping and murder of Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old he had abducted from a slumber party. He was sentenced to death.

John Salvi--who described himself in court as "pro-welfare state, pro-Catholic, labor union, and, basically, pro-life"--was convicted of the same-day killings of two receptionists at Boston-area abortion clinics. In November, Mr. Salvi was found dead in his prison cell. Prison officials said it was suicide, but Mr. Salvi's attorney claimed the evidence suggested murder.

Convictions finally came in the murder trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, two brothers charged with murdering their parents. Their first trial, in 1993, had ended in a hung jury. Each of the brothers was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without parole.

A Florida teenager was accused in November of killing her parents, with help from four other teens. All five were said to be part of a "vampire cult" that grew out of their experience with a popular role-playing game.

A millionaire philanthropist also faced a murder charge. John E. du Pont, one of the heirs to the du Pont chemical fortune, allegedly shot and killed former Olympic wrestler David Schultz, who coached a wrestling team founded and sponsored by Mr. du Pont. Acquaintances of the millionaire said he had become increasingly erratic and violent in his behavior. In December, however, Mr. du Pont was ruled competent to stand trial.

"Gangsta" rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Some of Mr. Shakur's top-selling records had taunted police and glorified violence.

**red_square**Advance of the Death Culture The culture of death tightened its grip in 1996, and the leading cultural icon was again Jack Kevorkian. Despite official opposition from the American Medical Association, the retired Michigan pathologist--long obsessed with the process of death--continued to wage his not-so-lonely campaign for the legalization of doctor-assisted suicide.

In March, Mr. Kevorkian, who at that point admitted to having attended 27 self-slaughters, was acquitted for a second time of violating Michigan's legislative ban on doctor-assisted suicide. On the stand, he claimed he never sought to help patients end their lives. Instead, the man known as "Dr. Death" said his patients had died as an unfortunate result of his efforts to end their suffering.

Two months later, Mr. Kevorkian was acquitted by a Michigan jury of violating the state's common-law ban on assisted suicide. On April Fool's Day, he showed up in court in colonial costume, citing elements of common law he claimed supported suicide.

Following the May acquittal, Mr. Kevorkian went on a suicide spree, claiming at least 11 lives from June through September, bringing his official suicide total to at least 40. However, his attorney revealed there were many other Kevorkian-induced deaths not previously reported, but he put the total number at "less than 100."

In late October, Mr. Kevorkian again was formally charged with violating Michigan common law by assisting in several suicides. That trial is yet to come. Meanwhile, the county prosecutor trying to gain a conviction of Mr. Kevorkian was defeated in a primary election. His opponent said the Kevorkian prosecutions were a waste of tax dollars.

While Mr. Kevorkian plied his trade in Michigan, state laws banning doctor-assisted suicide in Washington State and New York, respectively, were declared by federal circuit courts to be unconstitutional. The American Medical Association asked the Supreme Court to reconsider those rulings.

**red_square**The World of Religion Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth, were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest honors Congress can bestow, for their "outstanding and lasting contributions to morality, racial equality, family, philanthropy, and religion." Mr. Graham, the first clergyman to receive the medal, told hundreds of congressional and diplomatic leaders on hand for the ceremony that society was "perched on the brink of self-destruction" and needed the redeeming power of Christ.

Bill Bright, founder and president Campus Crusade for Christ, won the 1996 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. He pledged to use the $1.07 million award to educate Christian leaders worldwide about the benefits of fasting and prayer.

The Southern Baptist Convention voted to censure the Walt Disney Co.--the world's largest producer of "wholesome family entertainment"--for offering health insurance benefits to partners of its homosexual employees. The Baptists pledged to monitor Disney activities and move to a boycott beginning in June 1997 if the corporate direction does not change.

After years of wrestling with the issue of homosexual ordination, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) adopted a policy that would allow ordination of non-practicing homosexuals. The celibacy requirement also was extended to unmarried heterosexuals.

A church court of the Episcopal Church dismissed a heresy charge against Bishop Walter Righter, accused of violating church doctrine by ordaining a practicing homosexual. The court, ruling 7-1, found there is "no core doctrine prohibiting the ordination of a non-celibate, homosexual person living in a faithful and committed sexual relationship with a person of the same sex."

The former national treasurer of the Episcopal Church was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling more than $2 million from the denomination. Attorneys for Ellen Cooke had argued that she had been suffering from a mental disorder when the thefts took place from 1990 to 1995.

Christian colleges, ministries, and charities affected by the unexpected 1995 bankruptcy of the Philadelphia-based Foundation for New Era Philanthropy worked out a bankruptcy agreement that would give some of the groups part of their money back. Meanwhile, the founder of the now-defunct foundation, John G. Bennett Jr., was charged with 82 fraud-related counts for running what prosecutors labeled a "Ponzi scheme." Mr. Bennett's lawyers were said to be considering an insanity defense.

In September, an organization calling itself an alternative to the Christian Coalition and other politically conservative Christian groups held its inaugural convention in Washington. Leaders of the Call to Renewal criticized President Clinton for signing a Republican-backed welfare bill.

The Supreme Court in October agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law that made it more difficult for government to interfere with religious expression. The case at hand involved a Roman Catholic Church in Texas that, claiming protection under RFRA, planned to expand its buildings into a restricted city historic district.

An attempt to impose property taxes on church property in Colorado failed resoundingly at the ballot box, losing by a margin of 83-17 percent.

More than one million men attended a total of 22 Promise Keepers rallies in 1996, with the focus of many of the gatherings being racial reconciliation. A special clergy conference in Atlanta attracted 39,024 pastors, possibly the largest gathering of clergy in church history.

**red_square**Torching the Truth The church burnings of 1996 created much heat, but the news reporting generally shed little light. The whole media event can be traced to an obscure group that called a press conference in Washington early in the year to point out the increase in the number of black churches being burned.

Every politician and religious group, the Christian Coalition and a few Southern Baptists included, jumped uncritically aboard the denunciation train, apologizing for the obvious racist conspiracy that was taking out churches by the score. The problem was, the conspiracy wasn't so obvious. The number of burned churches belonging to white congregations was equal to the burned churches belonging to blacks.

And as the New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and the Associated Press eventually reported, few of the burnings could be directly attributable to hatred of a race. More often, the arsonist was angry at the pastor, angry at a girlfriend, or simply drunk and rowdy, burning whichever church building was the most handy.

And, in its fiery feeding frenzy, the national media rarely looked past the event, rarely followed up with the real motive or the aftermath. As much as anything, the fire story seemed to demonstrate the bigotry of a national press that assumed that if a church was burning in the South, racism must be the accelerant.

One tale overlooked after the nationally reported arrest of the arsonist was the story of Chris Deer, a 19-year-old volunteer firefighter who admitted to torching New Liberty Baptist Church in Tyler, Ala., just east of Selma. The dilapidated church was set back in the woods, with only a narrow, dusty cow path leading to it. A week after the fire, federal investigators were questioning the volunteer firefighters who helped to fight the fire, and young Mr. Deer tearfully admitted he had set it. To this day, Mr. Deer hasn't given a reason for burning down the church.

What followed was a miracle of forgiveness and reconciliation that was especially notable for the locale of the drama, so near to Selma and the heart of the civil rights movement.

From the start, members of the church, who only met once a month, said they forgave Deer. A group of white believers, many of them members of a Presbyterian Church in Selma, headed a drive to rebuild the church. Many companies donated to the effort, including International Paper, which contributed all the wood for the rebuilding.

Then 70 members of Mobile Baptist Builders, a group based in Mobile, Ala., volunteered their labor. In the last week of August they converged on the little community, and within four days they had the structure up, the roof on, the windows installed, the doors hung, and the insulation stapled in.

But here's the remarkable providence: On a day when volunteers were preparing the foundation, several members of the church were there to watch. A summer rain began, and they moved beneath a large oak for shelter. About that time, Chris Deer and his family arrived. Chris went before the church folk, most of whom are related, and told them he was sorry. This all occurred before Mr. Deer knew how his case would be handled. One of his lawyers advised against making the public apology because the case had not yet been tried. From a personal standpoint, it was a risky move, because by apologizing, he was admitting his guilt.

He began to weep, and the New Liberty members hugged him.

In the weeks that followed, Deer, a strapping 6-foot-5 youth of phenomenal strength, helped his father wire the new church, which with its brick exterior walls, carpet, and new pews is a far better sanctuary than the one young Mr. Deer burned.

When a judge was considering the Deer case, a dozen church members went before him to speak on behalf of Chris. The judge agreed to handle Mr. Deer as a juvenile and put him on two years of supervised probation. Once Deer completes his probation, his record will be clean.

And the Deers and the church members have become close friends. During the Thanksgiving season, Mr. Deer, who can't use a gun while he's on probation, bagged two deer with a bow and arrow. He dressed out the deer and took them to the families. The church won't be officially dedicated until early 1997. But New Liberty planned to hold its first service in its new sanctuary the weekend before Christmas.

Chris Deer planned to be there.