Two stories of redemption interlaced at the New York City Rescue Mission last Monday: one in the lives of destitute men who depend on the luck of the draw for a bed at a mission, and one in the life of a man who made $65,000 a week at the height of his pro football career.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared last week “Souper Bowl Week” to highlight the work of homelessness organizations, and The New York City Rescue Mission brought in former New York Jets All-Pro defensive end Mark Gastineau to help serve food.

The people who come to NYCRM can have a meal with no strings attached, but if they want a bed they have to sit through a chapel service. The mission feeds people for as long as its food supply lasts. But because of its limited space, it has to have a lottery to determine who will stay the night. If it’s below 32 degrees, the city authorizes the mission to provide emergency services. Then staff can spread cots and blankets in the chapel, a room with walls adorned with Scripture like “How can we neglect so great salvation?” If it’s 33 degrees, the many homeless are out of luck.

Monday’s menu included  Italian wedding soup with spicy meatballs and vegetables bobbing in broth, chicken noodle soup, roast chicken, and salad. The soup was courtesy of the “Original Soup Man,” the company begun by Al Yeganeh,  the inspiration for the “Soup Nazi” of Seinfeld fame—a crotchety character on the show but known in real life as a generous man who gave soup away to the homeless and hungry.

One woman, who was impressed, asked if they fed people every night. A regular named John said, yes, “but they don’t feed like this every night.” Sometimes there is just macaroni and cheese, he added. He said he was a carpenter who had made mistakes but knew it. Just out of detox and now staying at the mission, John spoke of forgiveness and faith: “I’m not religious, but I follow Jesus.”

Gastineau has a rocky history himself—a player known for his cockiness on the field, his domestic struggles off the field, and his use of steroids. He spent 11 months at Riker’s Island prison. Then, according to ESPN, he attended Times Square Church in New York City as part of a church-sponsored program for first-time offenders. He found Christianity and said, “God gave Mark Gastineau his son Jesus. . . . He died on the cross and I’m forgiven for everything. I could not go on if it wasn’t for that. ”

But he tells me that he encountered God for the first time much earlier, when he broke his leg at age 10. It got infected—”I could see right through it,” Gastineau remembers—and the deep scar is still there. Doctors were afraid he would never walk again, but his mom, who was attending a Baptist church, told him the congregation was praying for him. He went on to walk again—and then become one of the quickest and most-feared pass rushers in the NFL.

“I thought I was God,” he said—until he lost his rich accoutrements and found his way back.

And here Gastineau is now, sitting across from a group of homeless men and reminiscing about his glory days on the gridiron. Some of the men are camera-shy but others are thrilled have their pictures taken with him and ask the photographer to send them the photos.

One older man looks at him in wonder: “You got old,” he says. “Yeah I did,” Gastineau replies. “I grew up.”

Over at First Things, Meghan Duke writes about going to the National Gallery of Art* after attending the March for Life. She was wearing a lime-green lapel pin that had a website address and showed a small hand inside a larger hand. Then she went through security:

After searching my bag, the two guards at the Gallery told me, “You’re good to go in, but first you need to remove that pro-life pin.” … The pin, they informed me, was a “religious symbol” and a symbol of a particular political cause and it could not be worn inside a federal building. Why, I asked, can I not wear a religious or political symbol inside a federal building? Bringing to bear the full weight of the supreme law of the land, the guards informed that it was a violation of the First Amendment of the United States’ Constitution: The combination of me, wearing a pro-life pin, in a federal building was a violation of the separation of church and state.

A spokesperson for the Gallery* later said the museum has no policy against lapel pins, that the guards acted on their own and that they would be censured. Read the rest of Meghan’s story here.

*The museum was the National Gallery of Art, not the Smithsonian as earlier written.

Although changing the definition of Christian marriage was not up for discussion, a committee for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) recommended developing resources that would guide churches in navigating the issues of same-sex civil unions and gay marriage—for instance, whether a church can be used for same-sex union ceremonies and whether clergy can participate.

However, three members of the Special Committee on Civil Union and Christian Marriage have voted “no” to the committee’s recommendations, worried that the recommendations would lead to local churches deciding these issues on their own. One pastor, Tracie Mayes Stewart, proposed a substitute that said, “Let us boldly proclaim that God has a place for sex. It is within marriage between a man and a woman and that commitment is for life.”

Immigrants still keep New York City, the funnel for the original melting pot, running. A recent report on shows that they account for $215 billion of 2008’s economic activity—about 32 percent of our gross city product.

That economic contribution has risen by 60 percent in the last eight years. Every one of our chemical engineers is an immigrant, four in ten of every accountant and auditor, and 27 percent of our chief executive and legislators. The ten city neighborhoods with the highest concentration of immigrants are flourishing—growing by 14.8 percent, compared to the rest of the City’s 3.3 percent.

Perhaps this is why any international crisis in Haiti affects New York in a different way—because New Yorkers and not some distant population are the ones who are actually affected. New York has 125,475 Haitians—the most of any state besides Florida—and most of them must live close to me. My neighborhood has a high concentration of Haitians and my old neighborhood, East Flatbush, had even more. It was 57 percent immigrant, predominately hailing from Haiti.  They run the grocery stores, corner bodegas, bakeries, restaurants, hair salons.

So when a crisis hits Haiti, it hits not just a minority population affected but the majority of my neighbors—the people who fill the half dozen churches I walk past on my way to the subway. There are communities in New York City that are collectively grieving. When I called up the pastor at the Haitian Ebenezer Baptist Church just two avenues from where I live, the pastor was too frantic to talk and could only say desperately that his school and church and family were in Haiti.

But for some who have been here longer I found a sense of detachment, since there’s a reason they’re here and not there. The older man I spoke to seemed to have no ties to Haiti anymore—only frustration with its lack of economic development and the matter-of-fact realization, “If I were in Haiti, I’d die.”

There have been Haiti fundraiser parties popping up across the city. Of course, given that it’s New York City, the fundraisers are often luxurious, celebrity-studded affairs at swanky clubs. People are drinking wine for Haiti, bowling, donating canned food, wearing Lady Gaga t-shirts—with New York celebrities from Jimmy Fallon to Tommy Hilfiger.

It’s good to see. Here, where the whole idea of a “native New York” seems somewhat dim, loving our Haitian neighbor actually means loving the person next door.

Russia’s underpopulation crisis has prompted the health minister to call for a reduction in Russia’s high abortion rate. Russia’s population has dangerously dwindled by 6.6 million since 1993 and its pop­ulation is due to shrink by another 11 million before 2025. It already provides incentives for people to have children and last year experienced its first population increase since 1995, but it’s not enough. According to Health Minister Tatyana Golikova,

“The topic of reducing abortions is definitely on today’s agenda. This won’t solve the birthrate problem 100 percent, but around 20 to 30 percent.”

Russia has one of the world’s highest abortion rates, with 1.714 million births in 2008 and 1.234 million abortions.

A study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seems to indicate that we’ve spent quite a lot of money on a program with very little impact. The study looks at Head Start, the early education program that began in 1965 as part of the War on Poverty. Researchers studied 5,000 3-year-old and 4-year-old children, randomly assigning them to either a Head Start group or a control group that had access to other early childhood programs. They found that Head Start makes a little difference at the beginning, but the impact fades:

Providing access to Head Start has a positive impact on children’s preschool experiences. … However, the advantages children gained during their Head Start and age 4 years yielded only a few statistically significant differences in outcomes at the end of 1st grade for the sample as a whole.

The Cato Institute argued last year that early childhood government programs are more costly than effective. Yet Cato notes that $5 billion of the stimulus package went to Early Head Start, Head Start and other early education programs.

Scott Roeder has publicly admitted to killing Kansas abortionist George Tiller and claimed that the murder was necessary to stop Tiller from performing late-term abortions. Roeder is now standing trial, but it looks like the trial will be more complicated than a clear, open-and-shut, first-degree murder case. The judge has allowed Roeder to defend himself by claiming the killing was “voluntary manslaughter” instead. According to AP, Kansas law defines voluntary manslaughter as “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force.” If Roeder can convince a jury that that he honestly (if unreasonably) believed Tiller’s danger to unborn children justified “deadly force,” Roeder could get a five-year prison sentence instead of a life term.

Sedgwick County Judge Warren Wilbert has said, “This is not going to be a debate about abortion,” but it looks like it might be.

Proposition 8, the voter referendum that banned gay marriage in California, is on trial as of yesterday. Two of the nation’s top lawyers are challenging Proposition 8’s constitutionality in the U.S. District Court, arguing that banning same-sex marriage is not just unconstitutional but also stems from bigoted and homophobic beliefs. Yesterday the testimony began with emotional accounts from the plaintiffs, in answer to questions like, “What does it mean to be a lesbian?”

Edwin Meese, former attorney general, argued in the New York Times that the pretrial rulings have stacked the decks in favor of Proposition 8 opponents. For instance, presiding Judge Vaughn Walker has ruled that the proceedings can be televised, that the trial can investigate the personal beliefs of those who vocally opposed same-sex marriage, and even that the Prop. 8 campaign’s internal communication is legitimate evidence. Some of these rulings have been overturned (the Ninth District Court of Appeals ruled out the internal communication evidence, and the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked video coverage of the trial).

Stay tuned for more coverage from WORLD later today.

ADDENDUM: Read Alisa’s Web Extra coverage of the trial.

In a possible race between Harold Ford Jr. and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, both politicians are repackaging themselves to appeal to a more liberal Democratic party.

Harold Ford Jr., a Tennessee transplant (or put less diplomatically by some, a “carpetbagger”) is contemplating a primary challenge against Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, who replaced former Sen. Hillary Clinton after Obama appointed her Secretary of State.

Democrats have  complained that Gillibrand is too conservative. She had a 100 percent voting record with the NRA and was tough on illegal immigration. Gillibrand herself has been accused of flip-flopping since she moved from representing a conservative upstate district to representing all of New York. She went from supporting civil unions to supporting gay marriage. She says she has broadened her focus on guns and softened her views on illegal immigration.

Now Ford has also changed his position on a number of issues. In Tennessee, he voted twice for constitutional amendments that ban same-sex marriage but now says he supports civil unions. He now says he supports abortion but in 2006 said, “I’m pro-life, I’m pro-life.”

The race illustrates the regional differences within the Democratic Party. Gillibrand was more conservative when she represented a conservative upstate district and has to move to the left to represent the whole state. Tennessee apparently requires its Democratic politicians to disavow gay marriage and call themselves pro-life, but a New York senator can’t do the same. Ford won’t be able to go back, Nashville blogger Kleinheider said: “By changing his voter registration, declaring himself pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, Ford Jr. has effectively disqualified himself from Tennessee politics.”

New York City has written a helpful pamphlet for heroin addicts. It’s not about how to get off heroin or why to get off heroin. It’s about how to use heroin safely.

The pamphlet—printed by the city in 2007—provides “10 Tips for Safer Use.” Always use with a friend and don’t share syringes, it says. It tells you where you can get clean syringes, and tells you how to “Prepare Drugs Carefully.” (Hint: “Don’t touch” the cooker!) It advises you to jump up and down before injecting and helpfully illustrates the instruction to “Tie off to make your veins visible.”

The point of the pamphlet, which cost $32,000 to print and distribute, is to at least make sure drug users are using drugs safely—an approach called “harm reduction.” But predictably it created a furor. City Councilman Peter F. Vallone told The New York Times the pamphlet was only helpful for drug-using novices, not hardened addicts. Others said it portrayed drug use as normal instead of harmful. But City Health commissioner Thomas Farley said the pamphlet would stay in circulation.

I asked Jim VarnHagen, executive director of the New York City Rescue Mission, what he thought of the pamphlet. He said it misunderstood the nature of consuming addiction. Addicts want what they want, when they want it: “They have the needle in one hand; they have the drugs in another hand. . . . They’re not going to be reading a pamphlet.”

Beyond that, though, the idea that we should settle for “harm reduction” belies the possibility of redemption. “It’s rather absurd,” said VarnHagen. “They’re not going to use clean needles. They need to be instructed not to use any kind of needle.”

The New York City Rescue Mission has a year-long program that tries to instruct just that, using Biblical principles to bring “spiritual regeneration.” Last year, of the 72 men enlisted in the program, about half made it through the first 30-day phase. Of those remaining, 15 graduated—the highest graduation rate the mission has seen. The mission has random drug and alcohol testing, and if participants violate the rules of the program, the mission asks them to leave—but always in a way that welcomes their return.

They don’t always hear from the people who graduate or the people who don’t graduate, but once in a while they do. VarnHagen said he got a letter the other day from an ex-addict who was now living in California, where he was renewing his relationship with his daughter. He had a place to live and a community. “We would never have known about that except he decided to write us a little note,” VarnHagen said, pointing out that it had been a full 10 years after he left.

He said the mission’s success rate is 100 percent, meaning it fills 100 percent of the empty bellies and preach the Gospel to 100 percent of the people who get a bed. VarnHagen calls that a lasting harm reduction: “We teach a message of salvation and we present the gospel in such a way that people realize that they can have a new way of life. They don’t have to live that old life of using drugs.”