Arkansas Reporter
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Catholic Church on McCullough resignation Mount St. Mary Academy has limited its public comments on the recent departure of English teacher Tippi McCullough to a brief statement by president and CEO Karen Flake. McCullough was forced to resign by Principal Diane Wolfe because she married her partner, Barbara Mariani, in New Mexico, where same-sex marriage is legal. Wolfe, McCullough said, cited Catholic church teaching and a contract “morals” clause. McCullough said her relationship was known to Wolfe, but MALONE publicly entering legal matrimony was cited as the reason the issue was forced. Critics of the decision have asked whether the school enforced the clause against, for example, teachers who used birth control pills. The Times has been provided by an anonymous source a copy of remarks made to Mount St. Mary staff recently by Msgr. Francis I. Malone, pastor of Christ the King Catholic Church, which sends many students to Mount St. Mary, where he once taught. He related the bishop’s feelings to the staff as well as reporting to staff on conversations he’d had with St. Mary students in religion classes. He said he was asked repeatedly by students why the action was taken since the couple was known to live together and he also said he was repeatedly asked for “clarification” of what Pope Francis said about homosexuality. Malone emphasized, among other points, the difference in public and private actions. He said most of his staff of 70 women at Christ the King are women and in child-bearing years, “but they’re all not spitting out babies.” He said the likelihood that some used artificial contraception was probably high. “But it’s none of my business ... we don’t police bedrooms.” But he added, if there was a public meeting, “and I found out that in my absence that one of these teachers got up and publicly said, ‘You know what? The church’s teaching about contraceptives is a bunch of hooey. I don’t believe it, my husband and I have been practicing artificial contraception for years, he has CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 10
NOVEMBER 7, 2013
ARKANSAS TIMES
Legislators seek stronger protection of water supplies But they’re powerless in the face of federal authority. BY ELIZABETH MCGOWAN
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tate legislators leery of lax federal oversight of oil pipelines have attempted to beef up safety standards to try to prevent another disastrous spill in their own backyard. They’re aware, however, that their efforts are largely symbolic. That’s because, in most instances, a state statute cannot infringe on the federal government’s constitutional authority to set and enforce rules about petroleum pipelines. SPECIAL But for local lawREPORT makers trying to calm constituent fears after a 65-year-old pipeline burst in Mayflower, going it alone seemed the only option in an environment where the U.S. Congress and federal regulators seem incapable of strengthening rules that pipeline safety advocates perceive as weak and ineffective. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) regulates most of the country’s liquid fuel pipelines. That includes ExxonMobil’s beleaguered Pegasus pipeline, which stretches 850 miles across four states from Patoka, Ill., to Nederland, Texas. Earlier this year PHMSA’s top pipeline safety official, Jeffrey Wiese, said the regulatory process he oversees is “kind of dying.” He announced that his agency is creating a YouTube channel to persuade industry to voluntarily improve safety at a time when it can take up to three years to issue a new regulation. Arkansas passed what amounts to an advisory law in April, barely a month after at least 210,000 gallons of Canadian heavy tar sands crude belched
EXPOSED: The Pegasus pipeline crossing Lake Maumelle.
from the Pegasus into Mayflower’s Northwoods subdivision on March 29. That calamity was an eye-opener about how poorly operators and regulators have monitored and maintained the nation’s aging and vulnerable pipeline network.
The three-page law “encourages” but does not force petroleum pipeline companies to take a series of safety measures, which are stricter than the federal government’s, on lines that cross watersheds that supply drinking water. CONTINUED ON PAGE 12