The RECORD

HOW TO JUDGE A FALSE TEACHER

"...by their fruits ye shall know them."

(Matthew 7: 20)

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"As he brews, so shall he drink."

(Ben Jonson)

"Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences."

(Robert Louis Stevenson)

"A bad ending follows a bad beginning."

(Euripides)

"SEND THEM THE BUG LETTER"

The RECORD is pleased to offer the following column by Pro-Life activist Terry Hughes.

Inspired by the peaceful sit-ins at abortion facilities by Operation Rescue, a small band of Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholic began public witnessing at abortion facilities in Maine about thirteen years ago. The core of this group consisted of Elizabeth and Jeff Harden (Hancock), Ed Gerrish (Stockton Springs), Ron Stauble (Unity), and myself (Orono). Since then, Ed has died and others have become involved from time to time.

Our most sustained witness has been in Bangor, where we witnessed at four sites where abortionists were active, and then in the neighborhoods where they lived. The Bangor City Council enacted a series of ordinances to curb our activities, but Steve Whiting, our lawyer from Portland (who also represents the MCCL), won rulings in District Court every time that protected our First Amendment activities.

These successes emboldened about a dozen of us to witness for unborn babies in front of St. John's Catholic Church in Bangor in May of 2002 while it was hosting a spaghetti fundraising dinner for the Baldacci campaign when Congressman John Baldacci was running for governor. Joseph Gerry, Bishop of Portland, had authorized that dinner, despite letters and phone calls opposing it.

After the dinner, three or four of us, all Catholics, began a prayer vigil in front of St. John's every Sunday at the 9 and 11 am Masses. We displayed large posters of babies in the womb, aborted babies, newborn babies, and Jesus Christ nailed to His cross, while we prayed the rosary, a traditional Catholic prayer centered on the life of Jesus and His mother. When Bishop Gerry retired at age 75, a new priest, Richard Malone, was appointed Bishop of Portland. He accepted an invitation to address the annual awards luncheon of the Pro-Life Education Association (PLEA) that had been founded by Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics who were opposed to abortion.

On that occasion, in Augusta in September of 2004, at the height of the election campaign, Bishop Malone pledged to us that he would never allow fundraising dinners in any Catholic facilities that advanced the political careers of pro-abortion Catholic politicians.

Perhaps one hundred people witnessed his pledge. On that basis, we curtailed our prayer vigils in front of St. John's Church in Bangor -- after thirty months.

Now it is 2006 and a new election cycle has just begun. It began with Bishop Malone opening wide the doors of the Catholic Church in Westbrook to host a spaghetti dinner for two militantly pro-abortion Democrat members of the State Legislature, Pat Driscoll and Bob Duplessie. They even voted against parental notification before a minor girl could be aborted and against informed consent before women could be aborted. In mockery of the proverbial hillbilly who wants women kept barefoot and pregnant, Driscoll and Duplessie would keep women ignorant and aborted.

As had Bishop Gerry before him, Bishop Malone ignored all our letters to have the dinner cancelled, and then he went one step further. At a White Mass for health-care professionals (which abortionists claim to be), Bishop Malone announced his support for these dinners from the pulpit of Saints Peter and Paul Basilica in Lewiston on Sunday, the day after the dinner in Westbrook.

So Bishop Malone pulled up the drawbridge and poured more alligators in the moat around his Chancery when pro-lifers tried to gain access to him, but the bridge was lowered and the red carpet rolled out for pro-abortion Democrat politicians running for re-election.

Some time later, those of us who wrote Bishop Malone urging him to cancel the dinner got a letter from him. Those writing included former State Senator Carolyn Gilman, who delivered first-hand knowledge of "the shenanigans" pulled by these and other pro-abortion Catholic politicians. All of our letters from the Bishop were identical. He assured us he was 100 percent pro-life, "Anyone who knows me will testify to this fact," and then went on to state, "I will work with people who are pro-choice on issues on which we CAN agree." This was a form letter that ignored various specifics brought to his attention in our individual letters.

When I was a research scientist at the Institute of Polar Studies at The Ohio State University, the Associate Director told me that he and his wife were greeted by bedbugs in a Big Name motel during their honeymoon. He wrote the president of the corporation to complain. Some time later he got a letter in reply signed by the president and assuring him that the corporation was totally committed to providing the best accommodations possible, this matter would be investigated and corrected, and please feel confident in patronizing us again. Then he spotted a little inter-office memo that was left in the envelope.

In the president's handwriting was this instruction: "Send him the bug letter."

Bishop Malone sent us his "bug" letter. He never intended to curtail the spaghetti dinners. In the next issue of the monthly Record (June), I'll share with you what I think controls Malone's decisions and why. Here's a hint: Catholic Charities gets 85% of its money from taxpayers through governments controlled by Democrats. -- by Terry Hughes

LIBERAL PAPER PRINTS THIRD LETTER FROM CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER

The Kennebec Journal has printed yet another letter from a convicted sex offender who is still listed on the Maine sex offender registry. The letter, the third from this particular individual to run in the Kennebec Journal, calls on the public to patronize "any business that the Christian Civic League has insulted."

The author of the letter goes on to claim that the League's high-profile battle with Spellbound was a major blunder, because Mainers prefer to support small businesses instead of conservative extremists. The letter goes on to confidently predict that in the battle between Spellbound and the League, "Spellbound will be the last one standing." Unfortunately for the author of the letter and the Kennebec Journal, Spellbound closed over a week ago, although the paper only reported the story yesterday, perhaps in response to our own report which appeared a day earlier.

SECURITY CAMERAS WILL MONITOR TWO SOUTHERN MAINE SCHOOLS

Security cameras have long been a fixture in crime-plagued urban schools, but they are a relatively new phenomenon in Maine. Now the town council of Falmouth has approved the use of twenty security cameras for their high school and middle school. No decision has been made on whether any of the cameras will be used inside the schools.

The level of school violence is difficult to quantify, but even apart from the horrific incidents at Columbine, Paducah, Jonesboro and other places, the statistics are extremely alarming.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics, over one five year period, teachers were the victims of 1,708,00 nonfatal crimes, including 1,073,000 thefts and 635,000 violent crimes, including rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault. During this period there was a decrease from 12% to 6% in the percentage of students who carried a weapon to school such as a gun, knife, or club. In one year, 20% of all public schools reported one or more serious violent crimes.

Although these statistics in no way reflect trends at the Falmouth schools, it must be noted that the sole purpose of the cameras outside the schools are to prevent crime. One newspaper reported that in a late night incident last year, a Falmouth high school student threatened another student with a shotgun.

But it is a mistake to say "It can't happen here." In February of last year, a student at Cony High in Augusta -- our own capital city -- was stabbed repeatedly in an active hallway during school hours. Almost a year later, a spate of bomb threats at Cony High School forced school administrators to remove locks from exterior doors, and to use volunteers to watch the other doors. In addition, three Augusta police officers were sent to guard the school.

MORAL CLARITY, OR THE BABBLE OF THE MASS MEDIA?

"No wonder that the earthy city, the City of Man, has been given the symbolic name of Babylon, for Babylon means confusion." Actually, her diabolical king does not care a straw how many contradictory opinions she harbors or how her people squabble over them, so long as he goes on in possession of them, and all their errors -- a tyranny they deserve by reason of their enormous and manifold ungodliness.

How differently has that other people, that other commonwealth of men, that other City, the people of Israel, to whom was entrusted the word of God, managed matters! No broad-minded, muddle-headed mixing of true prophets with false prophets there!

They have recognized and held as the authors of Holy Writ only those who are in perfect harmony with one another. These writers are for them their philosophers, that is, their lovers of wisdom, their sages, their theologians, their prophets, their teachers of good living and or right believing -- all in one. They know that if they think and live according to what these men taught, they are thinking and living according to God -- who spoke through the inspired writers, and not according to man. They know that when these writers forbids sacrilege, God Himself forbids it. When they say, "Honor thy father and mother; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not kill; Thou shalt not steal" and the rest, they recognize these for God's commands -- not human, but divine revelations.

(Augustine, The City of God)

A NOTE TO OUR READERS

The next issue of The RECORD will appear on Monday May 1st.

The editor of The RECORD is on his way to the Article 8 Alliance Annual Banquet. It promises to be quite a different event than the Equality Maine Annual Awards Banquet, which The RECORD covered. As it turned out, The RECORD was the only news outlet in Maine which reported on that event. We thank you for your faithful readership, and we look forward to seeing you again next Monday!

HUSBANDS, LOVE YOUR WIVES

" Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself."

(Ephesians 5:25-28)

QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind.

The refinements of life corrupt while they polish the relations between the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion. The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners gives a luster to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination.

Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female frailty. From such dangers the unpolished wives of the barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a domestic life.

The barbarian huts, open on every side to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a Persian harem. To this reason, another may be added of a more honorable nature. The barbarians treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human."

(Edward Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire")

SPELLBOUND CLOSES DOORS TO STORE IN AUGUSTA

A mere four months after the Kennebec Journal touted the Spellbound lingerie store in Augusta as sassy and so New York, the store has closed.

When the news about Spellbound first broke, the national media quickly picked up the story, and within a few days, the news had traveled around the world. The media did its best to glamorize the goings-on at the store, and the City Council of Augusta came to the inane conclusion that seminude dancers in a shop window was a matter of "free speech." Bolstered by the support of the mass media, the display of indecency grew worse, and Felicia Stockford, the owner of the store, even made plans to introduce male models. At one point, Stockford boasted that she had turned the location on Water Street into "her own personal Sodom and Gomorrah."

In the meantime, the Kennebec Journal published two letters from a convicted sex offender in Augusta who praised Spellbound. Stockford's other supporters included a self-proclaimed warlock, who issued a vaguely-worded threat against a member of the League. But many average citizens, among them mothers with children, called the League to complain about what they saw. The League was also contacted by a former police officer who said that Stockford's actions were exposing the young women to danger.

In early February, a small group of Christians gathered outside the store for a prayer vigil led by Mike Hein, and the organization CLAD. Among them were Paul Madore, Pastor Mike Panosian of Moriah Ministries International, Pastor Bob Celeste, and Jan Elizabeth Hein. Many stories have been circulating about why the models were taken out of the window. One thing is clear, the models came out of the window on the day of the prayer vigil, and never returned. Four months later the shop closed its doors.

It should be noted that the models disappeared immediately after Councilwoman Donna Lerman rushed into the store on the day of the prayer vigil. The City Council apparently feared the bad publicity the prayer vigil would bring. The prayer vigil provoked Stockford into crossing the line by putting an almost-nude male model in the window, dressed in a bizarre fish net costume. We can only speculate that Lerman warned Stockford to take down the models. Without the courage and initiative of Mike Hein and CLAD, none of this would have happened. Other stories were invented after the fact to explain why the models were removed, and these stories received wide coverage in the media.

So now after the Kennebec Journal boasted that Spellbound would "spice up a bit of the downtown area" and would bring a "bit of New York City" to Augusta, all that remains of Spellbound is a vacant storefront, a rapidly-fading sign, two pop bottles, and a empty bag of potato chips -- litter yes, but not enough to fulfill the liberal establishment dream of turning Augusta into another New York City.

SEVEN REASONS WHY THE ROMAN EMPIRE COLLAPSED

The following seven reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire were taken from Ancient and Medieval History, a textbook used in Coney High School in Augusta in the 1920s.

1. The decay of patriotism, leading to the use of barbarians in the Roman military forces.

2. The prevalence of divorce.

3. The heavy taxation, which discouraged business enterprises.

4. The disappearance of liberty.

5. The lack of a law of succession for emperors.

6. The disappearance of the free middle class.

7. The settlement of barbarians within the empire.

The historian Edward Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, states that the Roman Empire collapsed approximately forty years after the demise of the institution of the Roman family.

FROM THE HEART

"Because from inside, from the heart of men, come evil thoughts and unclean pleasures; the taking of goods and of life, broken faith between husband and wife, the desire of wealth, wrongdoing, deceit, sins of the flesh, an evil eye, angry words, pride, foolish acts; all these evil things come from inside, and make the man unclean."

(Mark 7:21-23)

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe because they love the lie:
But truth itself, if clouded with a frown;
Must have some solemn proof to pass her down."

(Charles Churchill)

"A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men who believe in truth."

(Thomas Carlyle)

"Truth is always straightforward."

(Sophocles)

LIBERAL COLUMNIST BLAMES CHRISTIANS FOR OBSCENE PHONE CALLS
WHICH ENDED THE SPELLBOUND CONTROVERSY

Yesterday the Kennebec Journal published a column which was intended to turn the public against the Christian Civic League, its supporters, and the Evangelical community in general. The column was by Jim Brunelle; and it made the suggestion that the threatening, obscene and violent phone calls which brought an end to the indecency at Spellbound were made by someone in the Evangelical community. Brunelle compared the phone calls to the reaction of Moslem extremists; and he coined a new term, as liberals often do, for a non-existent reality. That is, Brunelle called the phone calls "censorship activism," -- an absurd, meaningless phrase -- and said that the controversy had gone "over into the darker realm of intimidation and potential violence."

Yet there is a major difficulty with Brunelle's story. Everyone else, the Kennebec Journal included, has stated that the phone calls came from someone close to one of the women at Spellbound. In an article published in the Kennebec Journal, Nikki Hunt, the woman who received the calls, was quoted as saying that the calls were from "people she knew" and "that was the saddest part of it all."

Since there is no real disagreement over the fact that the calls came from someone close to Nikki Hunt, the real issue becomes Jim Brunelle and the journalistic integrity of the papers which run his column.

It may be that in his haste to write a column Brunelle did not bother to get the facts. Or it may he simply misrepresented the facts to suit his own purposes. The most probable explanation is that his bias against Evangelical Christians led him to a hasty conclusion. No doubt he was overly eager to spread the liberal canard, often expressed by the ACLU and other organizations, that Evangelicals are evil fundamentalists on a par with the Taliban.

But as eager as liberals like Jim Brunelle are to turn the mind of the public against Evangelical Christians, they are also quick to praise the forces of social decay. After all, it was the Kennebec Journal who praised Spellbound in an editorial on December 2nd, calling it "sassy" and "So New York." The Kennebec Journal acted as an enabler in the matter, even as Christians were working hard to protect the community. In the twisted reasoning of the mass media, Spellbound performed a useful social function, and Christians were, once again, the villains.

There is still a modicum of truth in the mass media, and a glimmer of moral clarity -- enough to retain the trust of the public for a bit longer. But no society is so corrupt as to think it good policy to blame the benefactors of society, and to praise the instigators of social decay. Even the most naive will eventually awake to the conclusion that such a system of values means the end of society, and represents in the final analysis, the most diabolical form of hypocrisy.

The Executive Director of The Christian Civic League of Maine, Michael S. Heath, is calling on Jim Brunelle to publicly apologize for equating Evangelical Christians to Moslem extremists; and is asking Brunelle to publicly retract the hateful and demeaning suggestion that Evangelical Christians were behind the obscene phone calls which ended the controversy over Spellbound.

MIKE HEATH TO APPEAR ON WLOB TO DISCUSS
ALLEGATIONS BY JIM BRUNELLE

Michael S. Heath, Executive Director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, will appear on Ray Richardson's Morning News show on WLOB, 96.3 FM on Monday at 7:00 a.m. to discuss the Brunelle column.

Heath will also discuss the League's support for Jessica's Law, a bill in the Maine Legislature which would impose lengthy sentences on child molesters. Ray Richardson, the co-host of the Morning News show on WLOB, has taken a brave and principled stance in support of the bill, which is opposed by many in the Legislature. Richardson revealed yesterday that the average time served by child molesters in the state is less than two years. The families of Maine owe Richardson a great debt for speaking out forcefully on this issue.

It is interesting to note the connection between Jessica's Law and the controversy over Spellbound. Both issues are a reflection of society's collapsing sexual mores, and the inability or indifference of those in power to protect the public. The RECORD recently revealed the fact that a convicted sex offender listed on the Maine Sex Offender registry voiced his support for Spellbound in the Letters to the Editor section of the Kennebec Journal, an opinion also expressed by an editorial in that same paper.

DECENT APPAREL

"In like manner also, the women should adorn themselves in decent apparel, with modesty and sobriety"

(1Timothy 2:9)

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself."

(Joseph Pulitzer)

"In the United States there is no phenomenon more threatening to popular government than the unwillingness of newspapers to give the facts to their readers."

(Nelson Antrim Crawford)

"The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world."

(Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

KENNEBEC JOURNAL REMAINS SILENT ON SPELLBOUND -
AND ATTACKS PRO-FAMILY ACTIVIST INSTEAD

More than a week after the scantily-clad models were removed from the window of Spellbound in Augusta, the Kennebec Journal is still remaining silent on the whole matter -- perhaps with good reason. Shortly after Spellbound made news worldwide, the Kennebec Journal ran a letter from a convicted sex offender who viewed the goings-on at Spellbound favorably, an attitude shared by the Kennebec Journal itself.

The individual in question, a resident of Augusta, is still listed on the Maine Sex Offender Registry. The writer of the letter said that the worldwide publicity over Spellbound would be good for business in downtown Augusta, but he stopped short of praising the antics in the window of the store. The Kennebec Journal went further; and in an editorial published on December 2nd, praised Spellbound for being "sassy" and "so New York." The editorial went on to say that Spellbound "spiced up a bit of downtown Augusta that needed improving."

As our own Mike Hein correctly predicted, it was precisely this "sassiness" that posed a danger for the young women at the store. As it turned out, one young woman at Spellbound eventually received threatening "violent and graphic" phone calls, prompting owner Felicia Stockford to remove the young women from the window. But by the time all this happened, she had already taken indecent photos of her employees, at the store, out of sight of the public, while the doors were locked, and posted them on her online blog.

The Kennebec Journal is in agreement with this registered sex offender on another point, and that is, the character of Mike Hein. In February, shortly after Hein's prayer vigil at the store, the Kennebec Journal ran another letter from the convicted sex offender, in which he called Hein's prayer vigil "evil" and "unchristian" and criticized Hein for harassing August city councilors. Not to be outdone, the Kennebec Journal ran an editorial yesterday criticizing Hein in nearly the same terms used by the convicted sex offender. The sex offender, incidentally, was sentenced to five years for the sexual abuse of a minor.

It is indeed noteworthy that a newspaper would share the opinion of a convicted sex offender, not once, but twice in a matter that involved sexual morality and the character of a pro-family crusader. More shocking is the failure of the paper to report that Mike Hein was the key figure behind the victory at Spellbound. Instead of giving him credit, the Kennebec Journal singled him out for blame, and ran an editorial which they knew would torpedo his chances for obtaining a house seat in the upcoming election.

The public needs to think long and hard why the Kennebec Journal agrees more with a convicted sex offender than with someone like Mike Hein who has the interest of the people of Augusta at heart. What should be of even more interest to the people of Augusta, is why anyone would be so eager to prevent him from holding public office. -- by Fritz Spencer

THE HOME RULES THE NATION

"The real seed corn whence our Republic sprang was the Christian households which stepped from the cabin of the Mayflower, or which set up the family altar for the Hollander and the Huguenot on Manhattan Island or in the sunny South. All our best characters, best legislation, best institutions, and best church life were cradled in those early homes. They were the tap-root of the Republic, and of the American churches.

For one, I care little for the government which presides at Washington in comparison with the government which rules the eight or ten millions of American homes. No administration can seriously harm us if our home life is pure, frugal, and godly. No statesmanship or legislation can save us, if once our homes become the abodes of ignorance, or the nestling places of profligacy. The home rules the nation. If the home is demoralized, it will ruin the nation."

(T.L. Cuyler)

AN ACCEPTABLE THING FOR GOD

"If you do wrong and receive a blow for it, what credit is there in your bearing it patiently? But if when you do right and suffer for it you bear it patiently, this is an acceptable thing with God."

(1 Peter 2:20)

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."

(Helen Keller)

"They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!"

(Longfellow -- Footsteps of Angels)

PRO-LIFE ACTIVISTS PROTEST DINNER
HONORING GOVERNOR AND LEGISLATORS

A group of Pro-Life activists led by Paul Madore gathered in front of the St. Paul Center in Augusta last night to protest a dinner hosted by Bishop Malone for the Governor, Senate President Beth Edmonds, Speaker of the House John Richardson, and other legislators. The crowd was larger than expected, and the activists held signs which graphically depicted the horror of abortion. One very minor incident occurred when a young man leapt from a car and shouted hysterically at an older gentleman to remove the signs. The older gentleman patiently explained that all social reforms have taken place only after the hard truth of injustice was brought to light.

The question of whether or not the legislators and the Governor should be honored either singly or as a group is an interesting one. Certainly virtuous conduct on behalf of society should be honored. But virtue consists of among other things, justice, gentleness, liberality and wisdom; and these virtues work together to build up a government and a people. But should a legislator or a Governor who increases our tax burden, endorses same-sex marriage, works toward socialized medicine, meets with Fidel Castro, trades recognition of Cuba for oil, and supports a Creative Economy modeled on San Francisco -- should he also be honored for his service to our State?

Setting all this political mischief aside, and considering instead, forty-four million lives ended by abortion, should anyone who has abetted this slaughter be honored for his virtue? If so which virtue -- wisdom, gentleness, courage, perhaps? Or, for advocating the destruction of life within the womb, perhaps one could be honored for the virtue of justice.

Looking beyond the glitter of power and politics, and the pomp and circumstance of a formal dinner, how difficult is it to determine if one who abets the Culture of Death should be honored for his contributions to society? Unless of course, one is willing, like the irate young man at the demonstration last night, to simply look the other way.

THE SPELL IS BROKEN

According to various news sources, the Spellbound lingerie store has decided to end its display of public indecency on Water Street in Augusta. The owner Felicia Stockford is reported as saying that the continued use of models in the store was "depressing," and that she is thinking about moving the store to another city.

The circumstances surrounding the removal of the models from the windows were just as Mike Hein had predicted. Hein, who is a member of the League's Board of Directors, had forwarded the League emails from former police officers who said it was almost a certainty that the situation at Spellbound would encourage criminal behavior by troubled individuals -- and that is exactly what happened. One of the models received threatening phone calls from an anonymous phone caller. Stockford then correctly concluded that it wasn't safe for the models to be in the window.

Some in the press openly encouraged Stockford's behavior, despite the warnings of the dangers involved. But after Hein revealed the contents of Felicia Stockford's online blog, many in the public began to have second thoughts. The bizarre phone calls -- which were apparently disturbing even to Stockford -- were the final act in what Hein had called "Augusta's Immorality Play," and others had called a "Carnival of Sin."

Yet the news organizations who reported the story yesterday left out one important fact, and that is that the models were removed from the window on the same day Mike Hein led his prayer vigil. City Councilwoman Donna Lerman visited the shop on the day of the prayer vigil, where she caught sight of a nearly naked man in the window. After muttering the word "Disgusting!" Lerman went inside, and after a five minute discussion, came back out. The models then disappeared from the window. But the threatening phone calls provided the final proof that the matter was a very bad idea indeed. Stockford then resolved to keep the young women out of the store windows, which was good for everyone concerned, Stockford, the City of Augusta, and most of all, for the young women.

LEAGUE ISSUES ACTION ALERT ON "JESSICA'S LAW"

LD 1717, An Act to Create Mandatory Minimum Sentences for Persons Convicted of Certain Sex Offenses against Victims under Twelve Years of Age, will be taken up by the full legislature -- the House first, then the Senate -- any day now. This bill is also commonly referred to as "Jessica's Law," so named after the Florida nine-year-old who was killed after being abducted and sexually assaulted by a neighbor -- a known sex offender -- who Florida police had lost track of weeks before the crime. If passed, LD 1717 would require a minimum mandatory twenty-five year prison sentence for anyone found guilty of sexual assault on children under the age of twelve and a life sentence for anyone charged with a second offense of the same crime.

If you are concerned about the children of Maine, and want to impose a straight forward tough sentence when they have been sexually abused, then please contact your legislator now to tell them to support passage of LD 1717, "Jessica's Law." Just go to the League's Citizen Action Center and use the "DO WE REALLY CARE ABOUT MAINE'S CHILDREN" Action Alert:

http://www.cclmaine.org/citizenaction/pgac_login.php