If there's anything that makes my skin crawl, it’s a clergyman, who says he is pro-choice. Pro-abortion -- pro-choice, it’s all the same. If you condone and accept the proposition that a mother should be able to kill her unborn baby if she so chooses, you are pro-abortion. So let's not be cute and hide behind sugar coated words, like pro-choice and when a man of the cloth says he is pro-choice, it’s all the more disgusting.

    It must be nice to pick and choose certain parts of the Holy Bible to live by. And if you feel that ignoring certain Scriptures will advance your career, then so be it.

    This brings me to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, although I'm sure there are more, but Jackson is the one who was on TV the other day expressing his views and I just could not let it go by without a comment. Had it been any other member of the clergy, I would have done the same.

    It was the Geraldo Rivera TV show. The guests were the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Dan Lungren, a pro-life Republican, who lost in his bid for the governorship of California, Republican congressman Bob Barr and Bianca Jagger.

    The main subject of the show was the death penalty -- good or bad. As far as I was concerned, the highlight was the exchange between Lungren and Rev. Jackson. I taped the show, so the following is word for word, so if the grammar doesn't meet your expectations, or it’s mind boggling in places, don't blame me.

    After Jackson gave his reasons why the death penalty should be abolished, Dan Lungren said,

“When I ran for congress the second time in 77-78, Rev Jackson made an eloquent statement of morality with respect to right to life and the abortion issue. I looked at what he said. I was convinced of what he said. In fact it reaffirmed. He talked about innocent life in the area of abortion and he talked about how we had to protect them. He’s now changed his mind since then. I thought his reasoning was right then. I think the moral argument is necessary, but let's be clear. In abortion, when Rev Jackson was talking 25 years ago, he was talking about those who were absolutely innocent. When we're talking about the death penalty we're talking about those people who have been convicted by a jury of their peers, and then reviewed by courts -- both direct appeal and secondary appeal.”

    The Rev.Jackson replied, “I still do believe in the right to life and I believe in choice and most women choose to have their babies and there are others, due to circumstances, are limited to life options, so in the end we are free people and must suffer the consequences of our choices.”

    Lungren interjected, “It’s opposite to what you said in 77."

    Jackson answered, “the point is, I believe in the right to life. Those who make babies ought to raise them. I think women who are pregnant ought to have their babies, but there are extenuating circumstances and women must in the end, must live the choices that economics makes that choice. In the end, it’s not a choice that a man has to make. But I want to go back to the real point of tonight, is that the pattern is on these executions, etc., etc.

    Rev. Jackson changed the subject. It was apparent that he was getting nowhere with Lungren and his nonsensical views on the abortion issue. To the credit of Lungren, who apparently couldn't stand hypocrisy, a few minutes later, turned the subject back to the abortion issue.    

Lungren said, “the abortion issue is about life and death and the death penalty is about life and death.”

    He was trying to tell Rev. Jackson in a nice way, that he was a hypocrite. Caring about the death penalty, but not caring if unborn babies were killed.    

Jackson abruptly replied, “don't put me in a box on abortion -- while I support pro-life, but the women has the ultimate choice. I don't support late term abortions -- I think it’s runs dangerously close to infanticide. Jackson, again changed the subject and went on to talk about the current executions, which he condemned, since he is against the death penalty.

    Lungren was right and it’s a question, I always wanted to ask those, who are against the death penalty, but are pro-abortion/pro-choice. Especially to a man of the cloth, who at one time WAS pro-life, as Jackson was.

    It just goes to show you what an opportunist and Hypocrite Jackson is. How in the world can he be pro-life and pro-choice at the SAME time, but that's exactly what he said. I have never heard such double talk and all in one sentence. Have these people no shame? Do they think we're all “stupid?” They must all come from the same pod. Clinton, Gore and now a Reverend, are trying to insult our intelligence.

    Jackson will demonstrate at prisons before executions but not at abortion clinics. Not even at the Supreme Court when they were debating partial-birth abortions and yet he claims he is against late term abortions.

    These babies, who are killed in a barbaric manner with many of them suffering excruciating pain, do not seem to bother the Rev. Jackson. Maybe, if they were murderers and rapists, he might come to their aid. They have NOT been tried by a jury. It would appear that the Rev. Jackson has his logic and priorities all screwed up, but then, could it all be just political on his part -- It’s common knowledge that to climb the Democratic political ladder, one MUST be a pro-abort.

    He’s in the same category as Al Gore, who also, at one time was pro-life and switched for political gain.

    Maybe one might understand why some people are pro-choice -- because of their ignorance to the truth and the Holy Scriptures, but these so called Reverends, who cast aside certain Scriptures that don't suit their political agenda, to me, are just plain opportunists and are no more men of the cloth than I am.

    Morality cannot be changed. What was immoral 50 or 1000 years ago is immoral today. Lowering the bar on morality, only greases the slide into hell. And that's the state of our country today -- one foot in hell and the other on a slippery slide and if Gore is elected president -- Well, stop the planet, I want to get off!

Dr. Frank Joseph