Did Sarah Palin cut funds to Catholic charities?

This is an update on the collection of claims that Sarah Palin cut everything in sight as Alaska Governor.
Various bloggers have claimed that Palin cut funds to Catholic charities and it made at least one mainstream source as well. In a September 11 op-ed, Margaret Carlson claimed:

Palin, who said parents of special-needs children would have an advocate in the White House, cut funds for the Special Olympics, Catholic Charities and Covenant House. It would be good to know what she favors that parents need.

I have examined the Special Olympics and Covenant House claims here and found them false. The Catholic charities claim is a similar kind of claim but a bit more complex.
First, I cannot find a line-item or listing for Catholic Charities in the FY 2008 or FY 2009 Alaska budgets. In the FY 2008 budget (7/1/07-6/30/08). However, Catholic Community Services in various locations was allocated funding for several projects. Here is the FY2008 breakdown:
FY2008 CCS
By my calculations, the AK legislature proposed $582,925 in four capital projects and the Palin administration left $62,925 intact. According to the Palin administration’s rationale for vetoes, the $20,000 for the freezer would have been duplicate funding (apparently another source was found) and the $500,000 would have created “new facilities and programs.” Wilda Laughlin, spokesperson for the AK Department of Health and Social Services told me that most requests for new facilities were not funded with the priority given to refurbish existing infrastructure (e.g., the parking lot).
Now look at the FY2009 budget and funding for Catholic Community Services:
FY2009 CCS
The Angoon folks still didn’t get their freezer and frig but the Juneau branch received $50,000 for Hospice care and the Fairbanks branch received $150,000 that they did not have before. Again, the charge regarding a cut relates to a reduced increase, and not a cut. As a legislator, it is relatively easy to ask for money for a constituent’s project knowing that the Executive branch has to balance the budget. In summary, the legislature proposed $370,000 in three line items, with the final budget allocating $200,000 to Catholic Community Services. CCS received almost six times as much funding in FY2009 as in FY2008. I do not see how this can be considered a cut.
In fact, the Director of the Catholic Community Services was happy to get the funding, saying in this May, 2008 article,

Palin also halved funding for counseling and adoption services at Catholic Community Resources. But Camille Connelly-Terhune, the group’s executive director, said the group was “thrilled” with the $150,000 it did get.
“It gives us the option to continue our services,” she said.

Dr. Francis Collins comments on homosexuality and genetics

There is a dust up being reported at ExgayWatch over comments made by Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project. Here is the background.
NARTH Dean Byrd wrote an article for the NARTH website dated April 4, 2007 quoting Collins’ book, The Language of God, on genetics and homosexuality. Byrd’s review provided accurate quotes but implied that Collins believes free will is involved in the development of homosexuality. Subsequently, David Roberts at XGW wrote Collins to find out if Byrd had captured his views properly. Collins responded by saying in an email:

It troubles me greatly to learn that anything I have written would cause anguish for you or others who are seeking answers to the basis of homosexuality. The words quoted by NARTH all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.
The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.
Your note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

Collins is certainly correct when he says: “But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.” There is a pattern in NARTH publications to assume that evidence against genetic factors is somehow proof for reparative ideas. Evidence suggesting that genetics is not determinative does not support any particular alternative view or the view that genetics play no important role.
Then recently, Greg Quinlan, reacting to the news that Christian singer-songwriter, Ray Boltz had come out as gay quoted Dr. Collins as negating any genetic factors. Quinlan said in a 9/15 interview with Onenewsnow:

In fact, just last year in March, the director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, said this: homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

Well not exactly. The last sentence goes beyond what Collins said. What has made this into a controversy is that Quinlan said in an email to Roberts that the Collins statement was fraudulent and that Quinlan’s statement better captured Collins views (you can read the detail at XGW).
Along the way, David Roberts asked me if he could copy me on correspondence with Dr. Collins in order to have verfication that Dr. Collins had made the statement reported by XGW. Dr. Collins did so and as far as I can tell these are authentic communications. Dr. Collins wrote,

Hello David and Warren,
I am happy to confirm that these e-mail communications from May 2007 and yesterday are indeed authentic, and represent my best effort at summarzing what we know and what we don’t know about genetic factors in male homosexuality. I appreciate your continuing efforts to correct misstatements that seem to be circulating on the internet.
Regards, Francis Collins

For the record, I think the genetic influence might be a little closer to 30% for the trait, but this is a matter of debate and discussion, not dogmatism. Some people may be more influenced by genes than others. In my view, the body of research available provides a picture of complicated and individual factors leading to adult outcomes in ways we simply cannot delineate with specificity.
Regarding statements about research on causal factors, see my unanswered request to NARTH here

Obama tells a whopper about McCain and Social Security: Factcheck.org

For a candidate who says he is different kind of politician, Obama is looking pretty predictable. Go to Florida and tell retirees the other guy is going to take away your Social Security. Common tactic.
According to Factcheck.org as reproduced in Newsweek, Obama’s claim about John McCain and Social Security is just plain false. Check it out:

In Daytona Beach, Obama said that “if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week.” He referred to “elderly women” at risk of poverty, and said families would be scrambling to support “grandmothers and grandfathers.”
That’s not true. The plan proposed by President Bush and supported by McCain in 2005 would not have allowed anyone born before 1950 to invest any part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. All current retirees would be covered by the same benefits they are now.

and then…

In our “Scaring Seniors” article posted Sept. 19 we took apart a claim in an Obama-Biden ad that McCain somehow supported a 50 percent cut in Social Security benefits, which is simply false. Then, on Saturday Sept. 20, Sen. Barack Obama personally fed senior citizens another whopper, this one a highly distorted claim about the private Social Security accounts that McCain supports.

Factcheck has some ink on McCain’s claims as well so they are pretty objective it seems. How many days until the election?
I am not sure what is most amazing, Obama’s claims or his campaign worker’s tortured effort to defend it.

Obama's misleading new ad on Born Alive Infant Protection Act

It is hard to know where to start with this one.
Ben Smith at Politico posted this new ad from Barack Obama blasting McCain for another ad by Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor.

First, the Jessen ad is not John McCain’s ad. Second, McCain does support the availability of abortion in cases of rape and incest (Sarah Palin does not). And third, Barack Obama voted against legal recognition to infants of quesionable viability while an Illinois state senator. Obama has yet to clarify his conflicting statements about why he said he would vote for the federal version of the BAIPA but did not vote for it at the state level.
I recently had an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on this topic: When does a baby get human rights?

Who's the centrist in the 2008 election?

Both McCain and Obama want the mantle of a change agent and one capable of reaching across party divide. This article in the Philadelphia Inquirer from John Lott, research scientist at University of MD, contests the Obama charge that McCain is McSame, or a clone of George Bush. He writes:

Does John McCain represent a third Bush term? The Obama campaign claims the two are almost indistinguishable. It was the mantra during the Democratic convention, and it is the theme of new ads Barack Obama is running. The ads claim that McCain is “no maverick when he votes with Bush 90 percent of the time.”
This week Obama has begun a constant refrain that there is “not a dime worth of difference” between Bush’s and McCain’s views. It is a consistent theme of Democratic pundits on talk shows.
Is this the same McCain who drove Republicans nuts on campaign finance, the environment, taxes, torture, immigration and more? Where has McCain not crossed swords with his own party?
As it’s being used, the 90 percent figure, from Congressional Quarterly, is nonsensical. As Washington Post congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman explained, “The vast majority of those votes are procedural, and virtually every member of Congress votes with his or her leadership on procedural motions.”
Obama might want to be a little careful with these attacks, as the same measure has him voting with Democrats 97 percent of the time.

Anyone who has followed McCain’s career knows that he has not been an easy vote for the Republican leadership on certain issues. Dr. Lott details some of those issues. Attempts to paint McCain as a lock-step Republican fail when scrutinized.