The RECORD

Editor's Note: This column was written in 2005, and refers to an incident that occurred in 2003.

A fourteen-year-old retarded girl was abducted from the Maine Mall and raped two years ago. Three Nigerian immigrants were arrested and charged with gross sexual assault. Newspaper and television coverage was widespread and, this being every parent's nightmare, a lot of people heard about it. Very few, however, know how it finally turned out. I didn't know myself until the girl's mother, Laurie Stanley from Bridgton, called me. She was crying with frustration and asked me to write about it.

The Nigerians got away with it, essentially, and this fact was all but ignored by local media. Charges against Kingsley Nwaturocha were dropped. Dan Eneagu and Okey Chukwurah pled guilty to misdemeanor assault. Eneagu got a suspended sentence and two years probation. Chukwurah got a $1000 fine. That's it. The Portland Press Herald ran a tiny news brief buried in the December 10, 2003 issue, saying: "A Nigerian man accused of raping a 14-year-old Gorham girl in Old Orchard Beach last year has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault charges and has been released after his attorneys said the man would receive a death sentence if deported."

The York County District Attorney's office contacted Laurie Stanley the day before trial to tell her that Eneagu would be killed in Nigeria if he were deported. Is that what you want? A woman from the DA's office asked her over the phone. As mad as I was that they raped my daughter, she said, "I didn't want that." I didn't want them to die. I listened silently. What would you have done?

"If they raped my daughter," I said, "execution would be fine with me."

Semen found in the girl matched Eneagu's DNA. A rape conviction would have been a slam-dunk, yet the DA's office offered a plea bargain on the belief that the men would be deported and executed in Nigeria if convicted of felony rape. That seemed suspicious to me. Checking into it, I discovered that a rape conviction is extremely difficult under Islamic law and it would have been highly unlikely for those men charged with rape in Maine to be accountable there. I called Eneagu's attorney, Nicholas Mahoney, several times to ask where he got his information but he didn't return my calls.

Islamic law, or Sharia, considers a woman's testimony worth only half that of a man's. Robert Spencer, author of Islam Unveiled, wrote in his article Rape in Islam: Blaming the Victim that four Muslim male witnesses are required for a conviction and that without these witnesses and a confession from the accused rapist, the victim will stand condemned by her very accusation: she wasn't raped, so she must be guilty of zina. Zina, under Islamic Law, is sexual activity outside of marriage. In Nigeria, women found guilty of zina are sentenced to death by stoning.

York County Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Moskowitz negotiated Eneagu's plea bargain and I asked him if he verified the defense attorney's execution claim. He told me he called the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, but they had no idea about it. Then, he consulted an immigration lawyer in Portland, who referred him to a Nigerian in Portland whose opinion was that there was a good chance Eneagu would be killed. When I related what I had learned about Islamic law, he said I was comparing apples to oranges because Eneagu would have been deported already convicted, and would not likely be re-tried in Nigeria. When I asked Moskowitz if he thought justice was done, he said he had no regrets about how he handled the case and would do the same thing again.

I called the immigration lawyer Moskowitz talked to, an attorney named George Hepner. He said he didn't have an opinion about Eneagu at the time and referred Moskowitz to Najim Animashaun of South Portland. Animashaun is Muslim, a practicing attorney in Maine. He has also practiced in the UK and in Nigeria. He told me he didn't specifically recall consulting with Moskowitz on the Eneagu case either, although he might have. He said he often discusses hypotheticals concerning certain legal cases and does remember talking to Eneagu's attorney, Nick Mahoney. He told me it was very unlikely Eneagu would have been executed. Eneagu is not a Muslim and Islamic law is only applied to Muslims. He said though Islamic law is practiced only in some parts of Nigeria and death sentences are often made, they're seldom carried out. When I asked why, he said Islamic officials are afraid of executing someone wrongly because they themselves would be accountable in the afterlife if they made a mistake.

Laurie Stanley called me originally, not just because the men were never convicted of rape, but also because she read another tiny news brief in the Portland Press Herald that day last September about Kingsley Nwaturocha against whom the rape charge was dropped. He was granted $95,000 because he claimed to have been beaten by corrections officers at the York County Jail while awaiting trial. I was trying to get my daughter into a residential school to protect her because it was getting to point that I couldn't handle her, Stanley said. I was afraid she might go off with someone like she did at the Maine Mall, but the school wouldn't pay for it and the state wouldn't either. And now he gets all that money. My daughter was raped, bitten, and burned with a cigarette. They gave her herpes. She had to be tested for AIDS. She was robbed of her innocence, and he gets $95,000!

Stanley found an attorney willing to file suit against Nwaturocha, but he discovered that the Nigerian had gotten his payoff three months earlier and moved to Maryland. Believing the money to be gone by then and because it would be difficult to file suit in a state so far away, the attorney dropped the case. Stanley's frustration became unbearable and she wanted the story told. After seeing how everything turned out, she wishes now the men were executed.

My inquiries into this sad case produced as many questions as answers. Why didn't the York County DA's office scrutinize the defense's execution claims more closely? Why didn't they just enforce Maine law instead of worrying about Nigerian law? Why would the local media virtually ignore the plea bargain? Were they afraid of public outrage? Was it overzealous opposition to the death penalty? Why delay reporting the $95,000 settlement for three months? Was it sympathy for immigrants? Whatever it was, two of those men are still here, free to walk among us, and they don't have to register as sex offenders because they were never convicted of rape.

Tom McLaughlin is a teacher and columnist living in Lovell, Maine. Hundreds of his columns have been published in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts newspapers as well as online at familysecuritymatters.com, realclearpolitics.com, freerepublic.com and many other venues. He can be reached on his blog at http://tommclaughlin.blogspot.com/

By Rev. Dallas E. Henry

Col 2:6-8

Mel Gibson has been quoted as saying, "America is Bible illiterate," meaning that people don't have a clue what the Bible says concerning today's issues, and therefore do not live what the Bible says. It's really because of ignorance. Apparently in the ministry of many churches, the truth has not been taught nor communicated to people. They have not been told Jesus is the answer for our lives, and for the crisis the world finds itself in.

Perhaps you are already aware of the surprising statistics concerning Pastors and certain Faith groups: Half the Christian leadership in America don't have a Biblical worldview.*

A Biblical worldview means that we make our decisions and live our lives according to the Word of God and not the world's philosophies. Therefore, if 50% of church leaders don't have a Biblical worldview, what do our congregations think? What do they believe in?

A church will never take a stand on issues if they don't believe something to be true. Christians must understand the core values of the Bible and be able to explain them to unsaved people. We can't explain something or tell someone about something if we don't know what we are talking about.

According to God's Word, we need to give an answer when the reason for our faith comes into question. We need to know why certain issues are wrong, so we can be a witness and give an answer to our community.

Below are six core beliefs that I would like to offer for consideration for the Church to live by. They should be taught to our children and families, our friends and community. These core beliefs are what shaped our nation before, and they need to be taught again and lived by in our generation.

Core Value 1: Understanding Salvation

Our world says there are many ways to God. Many people have differing views about getting to Heaven.

The Bible is clear concerning salvation:

1. Salvation is available to all - Isaiah 45:22 says, "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other."

2. Salvation is based On Faith - Romans 4:3 says, "What does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Romans 10:9-10 says, "That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

3. Salvation is conditional - Ezekiel 18:24 says, "But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked man does, will he live? None of the righteous things he has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness he is guilty of and because of the sins he has committed, he will die."

4. Salvation involves freedom from sin - John 8:36 says, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." I John 3:10 says, "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother."

5. Salvation is by grace - Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast."

Core Value 2: To Live In Holiness (Obedience)

Anyone can say a prayer, but the truth of that prayer needs to be lived out. When a sincere heart confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and gives his life to Him, a change takes place. Some people view holiness as a threat, a loss of fun. People think living a Holy life can be boring. But, Bible Christians know that is not the case. This misconception is a trick of the enemy so that we will not live holy lives unto the Lord. When we receive Christ into our life, we are forgiven, and God takes residence in our lives. Now we must live for Him, but how? We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit - "It's for power to be a witness and to live out the Christian life." Acts 1:8.

We need to seek Him and commit ourselves to learning. I Peter 1:2 says, "Who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His Blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance." So a person must willing strive to live a holy life before the Lord, but understanding Jesus is the one who makes us clean before God.

Core Value 3: The Second Coming Of Jesus

The Bible says in I Thes 4:16-17 says, "For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."

II Tim 4:8 says, "Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing."

We must be a people who are longing for His return. We need to encourage people with these words because our world is in a terrible mess. Many people think that God is slow in His promise and will not return and that God has forgotten us and abandoned us. I Peter 3:3 says, "First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, 'Where is the promise of His coming? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.'"

Core Value 4: The Existence Of The devil (Isaiah 14:12-15)

Some people believe that these verses not only refer to the King of Babylon (vs 16) but also refer to Satan because of what Jesus says in Luke 10:18, He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lighting from heaven." Satan is real and his whole objective is to destroy Christians and non Christians. Satan is deceptive and exists to deceive. John 10:10 says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

One of the greatest tricks of the devil is to convince people that he doesn't exist. His goal is to deceive the Christian in walking away from God. The Bible says in II Cor 11:13-15, "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve."

Through deception, Satan and his servants have made playing around with occult games like the Ouija board, Dungeons and Dragons, etc. appear as harmless and fun. Also astrology, fortune telling, and psychic readings are portrayed as harmless. And anyone who says they are wrong is labeled a religious fanatic. Satan is also out to get our children. The intoduction of Harry Potter who goes to a school to learn wizardry, to cast spells, and to invite demonic spirits etc. has captivated even children who live in Christian homes. The devil always tries to prove that He doesn't exist, trying to work his way into every life to destroy it. On the other hand, God's plan is to give full life and not to trick anyone. [John 10:10]

Core Value 5: Prayer

Did you ever consider the fact that Jesus didn't teach His disciples to preach, but He did teach them to pray? In Matthew 6 we see the prayer of our Lord that He taught His disciples. Prayer is communication with God. Failing to pray one for another is sin. I Sam 12:23 says, "As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you." We need to pray to develop our relationship with God. When we fail to pray our relationship with God, weakens, the presence of the Lord is not as strong, and we fail to hear the voice of the Lord.

There are many things we need to pray for, some are:

1. Praying against evil - Psalm 35:1-38;
2. Praying against anxiety - Psalm 142:1-7;
3. Praying for Forgiveness - Psalm 38:1-22;
4. Praying for God's Will to be done.

Core Value 6: Tithing and Giving

In Malachi 3:6-12, we have the account of the people robbing God by failing to bring Him their tithes. When believers don't tithe, the potential of a curse is placed on the individual. But for those that do, a blessing is promised. (Malachi 3:10) If the people would repent, return to God, and as a sign of their repentance, begin to support God's work and ministers with their tithes and offerings, God would abundantly bless them. We express our love and devotion to God when we tithe and give offerings to support God's work and extend the Kingdom. The tithe goes to the local church to support its ministry.

This is a very brief overview of some of the core values of the Christian today. It would be helpful if everyone had this information. They could provide it to their church members to help them live by and apply it to their lives. The world needs to see that the Church has the answer to life's problems. These basic core values will bring hope, peace and security from God to our world.

The Christian Civic League of Maine has been fully engaged in this war of the clashing of worldviews for over a century now and has some experience at the battle. Churches, ministries and individuals who partner with the League are also engaging in this battle and helping to win it. Please consider supporting the League with regular contributions if you haven't already. Another very important blessing to the ministry of the League is prayer. Pray for Executive Director Michael Heath, the staff and Board of Directors. The League has a prayer partnership network that receives regular prayer updates. You can contact the League office to become part of the network. Thank you for your support and may God richly bless you and your ministry.

May we be found faithful and fully committed to the cause of Christ here in Maine. May we be willing to endure persecution as we stand unashamed for the truth of the Gospel of Jesus.

The League is committed to proclaim the truths of Jesus Christ. It is bringing its influence to the State House. You can log on to the Record website here and read about the proposal to ban ministers from "Approving" marriages in Maine. By the way, we won on that one. After the response through the Citizen Action Center, one of the Judiciary committee members said "With the hundereds of emails we have received, the will of the people is abundantly clear."

Also keep your eyes open for a report in the RECORD of the hearing having to do with granting homosexual couples even more benefits. It is LD 375. You can express your opinion on this one too. It is even more important than LD 779. A church denominational representative lobbied at the hearing IN FAVOR of the bill.

If you haven't checked out our Citizen Action Center on the internet you need to do it. This is a very easy and quick way to communicate with your legislators and others who you select. It can be done from the comfort of your home or office. To further help you, a message has been prepared for you to use or, even better, you can write your own. An initial registration is required and then you can use it on a regular basis. You will see a list of issues the League is interested in bringing a Christian/Biblical influence to. Please pass on this information to others you regularly communicate with.

And finally, if you are not aware of it, Mike Heath regularly speaks on current issues of today, from a biblical perspective. He speaks at regional conferences and radio programs, and also speaks in churches across Maine bringing an update of the work of the League.

Please consider having Mike Heath speak at your church for a "League Sunday". He teaches adult/teen Sunday School classes, using multimedia and leading a discussion. Mike also preaches on the subject of Christian Citizenship, bringing a biblical sermon in morning and evening worship services. He is glad to provide pulpit supply for pastors.

You may contact Paulie Heath to schedule an event with Mike.
Phone: 207.215.6886
Email: paulie@paulieheath.com

EqualityMaine Names Leather Fetishist Children's Performer Their "Homosexual of the Year"
Homosexual activist Lewis (Lew) Alessio of Greene, Maine was recently announced by EqualityMaine to be the 2007 recipient of the Cameron Duncan Award. The annual award is the radical homosexual lobbying group's "homosexual of the year" award. The award was presented to Alessio at EqualityMaine's 23rd Annual Awards Banquet on March 10 at the Holiday Inn by the Bay in Portland.

The EqualityMaine press release spoke of Alessio as a homosexual demonstrating extraordinary accomplishment, commitment, and service within the AIDS community and an outstanding leader in Maine's gay community. Lew Alessio is better known in the central Maine community as being the leader of a homosexual men's social club called Just Guys. The Just Guys motto from their website is¦ the new men's social group for men who have sex with men. The group meets at MaineGeneral Health's Green Street location, located immediately adjacent to the Green Street United Methodist Church in Augusta.
Less well known is Alessio's recent past, where he competed, and was named 1st runner up, in a homosexual leather bondage fetishist contest in 2001 in New York City. Alessio placed 1st Runner Up in the homosexual leather bondage "New American Leatherman 2001" according to the homosexual leather bondage fetish website Leatherweb.com. Later that same year, Alessio married his homosexual partner, Jim Shaffer.

Besides being a leather bondage fetishist and leader of a homosexual sex men-only social club, Alessio is also self-employed as part of the theater troupe Actors Theater of Maine. The State of Maine Arts directory website states the theater group charges $500 per performance and caters primarily to children, from pre-kindergarden to 8th grade. Alessio's ˜Actors Theater of Maine troupe stages plays that all use students in the performances along with the professional casts. [The performances] are accompanied by extensive teaching materials, according to the Maine government website.

Additionally, Alessio has been a speaker with the homosexual activist Maine Speakout Project for a number of years. In 2004, he wrote a column promoting homosexual marriages for the Lewiston Sun Journal. The column was later published as part of a newsletter for the group. In the column, Alessio assures readers it is perfectly acceptable and appropriate to allow children to attend a homosexual "wedding" ceremony. If [children] are invited, sure! What a wonderful opportunity to help them understand this historic societal event. Tell [the children] this is new for you, too. Kids are great at helping adults adjust to change.

By Michael Heath

Todd Benoit writes in favor of cleaving the sacred and the secular in his March 10 column, "Make marriage's benefits accessible to more people." He allows that churches should be free to create whatever marriage rules they want, while the state "a thoroughly secular institution" should simply create a "legally binding civil contract neutrally available for heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals and noncommitalsexuals." He says this is a conservative ideal.

He suggests that the legally binding civil contract that will replace the traditional definition of marriage in this brave new world will improve society. He suggests that the possibility of a civil contract will lead to family cohesiveness.

Benoit's argument is seductive because it envisions the possibility of a peaceful public square. Everyone will enter the public arena silent about their most deeply held beliefs as they relate to the common good, and everything will run along just fine.

Scandinavia, and much of Europe, has moved further down this road of moral relativism than the United States. It is, therefore, possible to put Benoit's ideas to the test.

In 2004, writer and researcher Stanley Kurtz observed, "Marriage is slowly dying in Scandinavia." Kurtz did extensive research on Norway and Sweden before writing his now-famous article "The End of Marriage is Scandinavia."

Kurtz reported sadly that most children are now born out of wedlock in those countries. A fair reading of the Kurtz finding does not allow one to conclude that a legally binding civil contract is going to lead to family cohesiveness. Just the opposite is what actually happens. Willful ignorance of the real definition of marriage (one man, one woman, one lifetime) destroys family, devastates children and ruins society.

While Benoit's Orwellian redefinition of terms has hurt the Scandinavian family, Kurtz believes that it will devastate America. "In the American context," he writes, "this would be a disaster. Beyond raising middle class family dissolution, a further separation of marriage from parenthood would reverse the healthy turn away from single-parenting that we have begun to see since welfare reform. And cross-class family decline would bring intense pressure for a new expansion of the American welfare state."

Ominously, Kurtz concludes his report, "By the time we see the effect of gay marriage in America, it will be too late to do anything about it."

This year Maine has another chance to begin pushing the camel's nose out of the tent to avoid reaching the point of no return. A bill to expand the reach of Maine's bizarre definition of domestic partnerships is bottled up in the Labor Committee. To avoid the ire of 47 percent of Mainers who saw through the lies of sexual orientation theorists in the 2005 vote over marriage, the Roman Catholic Chancery and Maine's most radical homosexual rights group have teamed up to promote domestic partnerships again. They created a same sex registry in 2003, and now they are promoting an expansion of the homosexual partnership definition they enacted that year.

The Chancery, and Maine, is between a rock and a hard place. The Chancery is promising to fight same-sex marriage. I'm not sure what their position is on civil unions. The radical homosexual lobby owns the Maine Democratic Party and a good chunk of the Maine Republican Party. This gives the so-called gay lobby a lock on the State House.

It appears that political forces within Maine's largest religious group, the Roman Catholic Church, and Maine's most powerful immoral group, the homosexual lobby, struck a deal. Everyone wanted to avoid a political war over same-sex marriage after 2005's brutal ordeal. To avoid the fight, the Catholic Chancery and the gay lobby decided to become domestic partners.

Don't believe me? Read the press release from the misnamed radical pro-homosexual group "EqualityMaine" (They think children should be raised without a mother in some cases, and with a father in others. That obviously has nothing to do with equality). They saved the best for last in their list of endorsements of their highest priority this year "LD 375, An Act to Amend the Family Medical Leave Act." They list the Roman Catholic Diocese last in their list of endorsees.

Maine's binding civil contract called marriage will continue to be defined as one man, one woman, one lifetime or Maine will lose family cohesiveness. Benoit wants society-wide family cohesiveness, and the opportunity for everyone to live however they want sexually. Europe shows that won't happen. I want family cohesiveness and sexual normalcy. While we can easily have both, those who want same-sex marriage will have to choose one or the other.

At least we can agree on the desirability of family cohesion.

From the March 19, 2007 edition of the Bangor Daily News.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is reproduced for non-profit educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

By Michael Heath

Maine appears to be equally divided on the question of homosexuality.

The emphasis here must be put on "appearances." Maine is not as divided as voting over the past few decades makes it appear.

While Maine people, like all people, feel compassion for victims, they also feel either ambivalence toward immoral sexual practices or outright disdain. Nobody thinks that unhealthy, immoral sex is good.

Political activists, their friends in academia and all forms of the media have brilliantly manipulated our ambivalence. They have persuaded many of us to feel compassion for something we dare not think about.

It is fascinating how this sleight of hand has been accomplished. It is breathtaking to witness its success.

A case in point is playing out in the Maine Legislature right now in the form of L.D. 375. This bill appears to be a benign expansion of an obscure law known as the Family Medical Leave Act. But this seemingly innocent bill attracted strong support from the radical homosexual lobby.

My interest turned into anguish when I learned that Maine's largest and most powerful Christian congregation had thrown its support behind the bill.

But Maine's Roman Catholic Chancery flatly rejected our offer to join a partnership in defense of traditional marriage in 2005. Nevertheless, working nearly alone against overwhelming political odds, we attracted 47 percent of the electorate to our side.

For some reason there appears to be a great deal of synergy between the chancery and the so-called "gay" lobby. LD 375 is one more example on a growing list of sad incidents that will culminate in the final battle over "same-sex marriage." It is only a matter of time.

While the chancery promises to fight "same-sex marriage," we need look no further than two states to the south to see what that means.

Massachusetts is the only state in America that has legalized same-sex marriage, and it is where faithful Catholics suffered greatly from sexually abusive clergy. Words are cheap, and their actions obviously ineffective, in this matter.

LD 375 gives homosexual activists something they must have to gain what they must not get (for their own good). Their relationships gain the coveted title in law of "family."

A judge sometime in the near future is going to put Maine's domestic partnership definition (which includes homosexual partnerships) together with the recently enacted sexual orientation law and force either civil unions or same-sex marriage -- and there will be nothing anyone can do about it.

When Maine joins Massachusetts, know that it didn't happen simply because politicians caved into the demands of a vocal minority. Maine's Christians gave up. They stopped practicing their freedom to speak out and consequently lost their civilization to the oldest religion in the book -- paganism.

This sad tale of loss, pain and difficulty doesn't mean that Maine people agree with the homosexual apologists. They do not. They feel compassion for people. We are, most of us, good and decent citizens.

It does appear, however, that we may have lost our courage and independence.

We also seem to have lost something more basic for Christians, and that is, an interest in simple righteousness. The Bible and all of human history are full of examples of men and women taking a stand for it.

In this matter, such a stand would simply uphold marriage as the chief building block of civilization.

Leaders taking this stand would proactively work to make marriage the only warm hearth for sex. They would do this by teaching in a million ways that sex outside of marriage is immoral, it is wrong.

Hearts would swell while children frolicked in their restored innocence. Schools would be organized around parents, instead of against them. Communities would become strong as families grew in stature.

This is the future all of us want. Why settle for less?

From the March 19, 2007 edition of the Portland Press Herald.

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is reproduced for non-profit educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml