Bush Surgeon General Nominee Raisin' A Ruckus

President Bush's nominee for surgeon general, Kentucky cardiologist Dr. James Holsinger, was nominated for the post just before Memorial Day and has already come under fire from gay rights groups. Among the charges:

• As president of the Methodist Church's national Judicial Council, Holsinger voted last year to support a pastor who blocked a gay man from joining a congregation;
• In 2004, he voted (against the majority of his Church's governing panel) to expel a lesbian pastor from the United Methodist Church;
• In 1991, he wrote a paper for the church in which he likened the reproductive organs to male and female "pipe fittings" and argued that homosexuality is therefore biologically unnatural and unhealthy. (Holly Babin, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has said Holsinger's writings reflected scientific beliefs that were over 10 years out-of-date at that time);
• He helped found a Methodist congregation that, according to activists, believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be "cured."

"He has a pretty clear bias against gays and lesbians," said Christina Gilgor, director of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, a gay rights group. "This ideology flies in the face of current scientific medical studies. That makes me uneasy that he rejects science and promotes ideology."

68-year-old Holsinger has only fanned the flames of discontent by declining all interview requests. The previous surgeon general was Dr. Richard Carmona, whose term was allowed to expire by the Bush administration last summer after he issued an unprecedented (and unexpected) report condemning secondhand smoke.