Proving once again that the paper's editors consider the US Constitution to be nothing more than toilet paper, today's editorial insists that the religious beliefs of a well-qualified nominee for public office be scrutinized carefully -- and that the nominee be rejected because of the religiously-based moral views he has expressed in the past.

What’s troubling is the view he once expressed — and may still hold — on homosexuality, through his activities as a lay leader in the United Methodist Church. On the church’s judicial council, he supported a minister who refused to allow a gay man to join his congregation and argued that a lesbian minister should be removed because church doctrine deems the practice of homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.” His supporters say these rulings should not be read as his personal views because the council can’t change church doctrine. However, some council members opposed his views, and the bishops later rejected one decision.

His strongest statement on homosexuality can be found in a murky, loosely reasoned paper that he wrote for a church committee in 1991. Titled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” the paper purported to be a scientific and medical review. It argued that gay sex was abnormal on anatomical and physiological grounds and unhealthy, in that anal sex can lead to rectal injuries and sexually transmitted diseases. Dr. Holsinger did not brand the large number of heterosexual women who engage in anal sex as abnormal, failed to acknowledge the huge burden of disease spread heterosexually and implied that women are more likely than men to avoid injuries with generous lubrication.

The Bush administration says the white paper reflected the scientific understanding of the time, but it reads like a veneer of science cloaking an aversion to homosexuality. The committee should examine whether Dr. Holsinger cherry-picked the literature or represented it objectively. Most important, it must determine whether Dr. Holsinger holds these benighted views today. The Senate should not confirm a surgeon general who considers practicing homosexuals abnormal and diseased.

This does, however, fly in the face of the clear command of Article VI of the US Constitution -- no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Interestingly enough, the paper produces no examples of Dr. Holsinger actually discriminating against homosexuals -- indeed, it notes that he has in the past stood up to political pressure to make sure that the health concerns of homosexuals are examined by medical professionals at government-sponsored conferences. Rather, they focus on one scientific paper that gay activists disagree with, and even more closely upon internal matters of church discipline and practice based upon his service in church leadership roles.

There was a time when the New York Times actually believed in the US Constitution as a matter of editorial policy. There was a time that civil rights and civil liberties were viewed as fundamental rights and freedoms not to be violated by the government. Today, however, that formerly great media outlet has clearly rejected the fundamental freedoms protected by that document, and in the name of political correctness demands that Congress do what is prohibited by the blueprint of American liberty. Congress -- indeed, every real American -- must reject the fundamentally unAmerican proposition put forth by the paper today.

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