European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 23, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                May 2007 opinion stars and stripes Mideast edition Page 13 measure Borders on real immigration Reform los Angeles times editorial there have been Many breakthroughs on immigration re form Over the last two but the one reached by Senate negotiators thursday came with at least two things we Haven seen before a bipartisan plan for legalizing illegal Immi Grants and a meritocratic overhaul of the haphazard system for awarding but this hopeful like previous May come to pushing Long Over due Reform Back at least two the agreements controversial Center piece is the new z visa for undocumented if the Compromise eventually becomes All who came to the before could obtain probationary Legal status by passing a criminal background submitting Finger prints and filling out an Long Esterm z visas would be handed out after applicants pay thousands of dollars in files and pass tests in English and civics and demonstrate continuous pm Heads of households would be required to return to their country before obtaining a Green and z visa holders would be ineligible for upgrading their Sta Tus until All the existing immigration Back log is cleared after years of bruising debate Over am Nesty the misleading term preferred by legalization opponents its remark Able that the z visa gained bipartisan a there seems to be mounting appreciation for the fact that 12 million peo ple living in Legal shadows is corrosive to the Rule of also encouraging is the agreements Point system for Green attempting to quantify the attributes most desirable among would be factors such As work history and English ability would be scored to determine who gets priority for Green rather than just the usual family connection or employer although deem Pha sizing family unification goes against historic the Point plan would align policy More closely to another Amer ican and those family members already in line would be helped by nearly half a million visas a year for people who applied before the Spring of visas for far workers and High tech Talent also would be other elements of the plan Are More do a proposed guest worker program could prove top rigid by being renewable Only with a oneyear Gap in be care would have to be taken to avoid creating a new population of illegal not to thex ugh the but the single most objectionable aspect of the plan is that it probably wont the Senate has been Here but the House has never embraced comprehensive speaker Nancy Pelo has already expressed Seri Ous concerns about the and the fresh Man class of democrats does not seem in the consequences of failure this Spring would be catastrophic not Only would serious Reform Likely be put off until after the 2008 but few of the presiden tial candidates seem eager to tackle the the country cant wait until fall Elf Power sprang from his followers fears Jerry Falwell prosaic death in his Liberty University office an other unresponsive and pulse on a random elevated speaking ill of the dead to the level of the founder of the moral majority May have been a Man of Kathleen Parker god to is million but to oth he was a Charla a huckster and a dangerous atheist provocateur Christopher Falwell most Elo quent described the reverend As an evil old Man who fed lies to children and who interfered with the Middle East peace process by encouraging fanatics in whose intellectual virtuosity is an argument for Martini eulogized Falwell without Christian he called him a Chaucer an fraud who probably didst read the Bible or any Long Book and who pinched his Chub by Little flanks each morning in disbelief that hed gotten away with bilking the cred Ulous yet one More kitchens is nothing if not perfectly but was Falwell All that dangerous and deceitful or was he merely passionate in his belief that Ameri Ca was in decline because of its gradual slide away from Jude Christian Princi Ples like All Falwell was neither All Good nor All bad and not entirely even if he was often among his More infamous Falwell blamed the 11 attacks on our Toler Ance of Gays and True believers and even some secular liberals might agree that America could use some but Falwell state ment made him easy to dismiss As a rant ins fool other colourful assertions that Tinky the purse carrying Tele Tubby cartoon was and that the Antichrist is a jew and probably vate heard something from the fal alive Well Ian pulpit that rang close to Falwell a which what Falwell said May have sounded like is not the same As a he seemed bigotry and hatred to but to Evangeli to love the taste of his own Cal his incautious words sound whatever ones View of Falleus de like traditional hellfire Brand of he was not an a in another Falwell and other Tele Cimental that he didst come from Noth but emerged to fill an apparent need at a time when Many Ameri cans perceived that their Faith based world of decency was being Falwell a which is not the same As a he seemed to love the taste of his own evangelists would have remained on society preaching from Street Corners As kitchens Sug hawking pencils from not so Long polite people in America didst eroded by a leftist vision of godless relative Wear their religion Asty educated christians May have dressed As postmodernists gradually redefined up on sundays and kept a Bible in the decency or rather undefined it there but otherwise they whispered were no longer any whatever prayers at bedside and  consider Felt Good was the new moral Falwell holding hands to bless food in a articulated the aversion Many Felt As the it want broader culture became increasingly but come the sexual Abor alien same sex marriage and the main even people who might not routinely at streaming of porn along with a Media tend and for whom god is a Pri that facilitates characters in the service of ratings and the Street preacher got the same forces that created pole danc ing moms and partial birth abortion also created Jerry Falwell and the religious the problem with Falwell and others of his ilk is the problem All preachers have they and in Falwell he named himself As though others who dont tithe to the evangelical weal Are nothing quite makes one want to sign up with the immoral minority than a band of White males declaring them selves the moral it is axiomatic that if one declares one self More moral than the impulse is irresistible to prove implicit in the is the Pride that Al ways precedes the irony has never been the fundamentalists Strong Falwell left his earthly and opulent Cor pus including Liberty Vari Ous charities and a private Jet at peace with according to friends and Fame for americans ready to see religion re turn to the private his departure is the peace that pass eth All Kathleen Parker is a member of Washington Post writers prickly City by Scott Stantis a Tsumi