Alcee Hastings

While few religious leaders and scholars would doubt the commonalities that exist among the various religious groups, the followers of these religions unfortunately struggle in their effort to peacefully coexist.

The actions of the terrorist organizations, Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Hamas, in Gaza, against Israel are unconscionable. Instead of working towards peace, these terrorist organizations have chosen to perpetuate the violence.

I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt with them internally.

My first job in TV was hosting this young teen magazine show, and all these high school teenagers showed up from all over Sacramento, California, and they chose four of us to host the show, two boys and two girls. And of the two girls, I was kind of the perky smart one and the other girl was the pretty one.