Bush picks another winner!

President Bush's nominee for surgeon general insisted Thursday that he
harbors no bias against homosexuals in spite of his 1991 writings viewed by some
as anti-gay.
Dr. James Holsinger faced tough questioning at his Senate
confirmation hearing over his views on homosexuality and how he would react if
he were pressured to put politics ahead of science in his role as the nation's
doctor.
"I would resign," Holsinger said emphatically.
Concerns about his
independence were spurred by former Surgeon General Richard Carmona's testimony
two days earlier that the Bush administration muzzled him on issues such as
abstinence education and stem-cell research because of politics.
A vote on
the nomination of Holsinger, a Kentucky doctor, wasn't expected for several
weeks.
At Thursday's hearing, he distanced himself from a paper he wrote 16
years ago that has been attacked by gay rights organizations and public health
experts as inaccurate and inflammatory. The paper cited data showing elevated
rates of disease among gay men, but some medical experts say he completely
ignored other data that would contradict the paper's point that homosexuality is
an abnormal function.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, asked Holsinger on several occasions to
address various aspects of his paper on homosexuality for a study committee of
the United Methodist Church.
"Dr. Holsinger's paper cherry picks and misuses
data to support his thesis that homosexuality is unhealthy and unnatural,"
Kennedy, D-Mass., said.
Holsinger said it was not intended to be a scientific
paper and that he relied on the information available to him at the
time.
"First of all, the paper does not represent where I am today. It does
not represent who I am today," Holsinger said.