Candidates' debate focuses on mosque, abortion

ALBANY - Republicans seeking to unseat Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer want a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion overturned and want to see the proposed New York City Muslim center moved farther away from Ground Zero.

Gary Berntsen, of Port Jefferson, and Jay Townsend shared many of the same positions in opposing New York's senior senator and what they called an overspending Schumer-led Congress during yesterday's televised debate.

Berntsen warned "that [the] mosque will be a magnet to some fundamentalists who will want to use it to case downtown" for further attacks. He said that although he personally opposes the project, he recognizes the Constitution protects the religious project.

Townsend said he wants the mosque project moved to another site, but opposes "using the heavy hand of government to stop it." The Conservative Party nominee said he believes the court of public opinion is working against the project.

Berntsen, the Republican Party designee, is a former CIA officer. Townsend is a communications consultant from Cornwall-on-Hudson in Orange County.

Berntsen said his economic measures would include selling New York milk as powdered milk worldwide. He also would support natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, a massive rock formation underlying New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

Both supported cracking down on illegal immigration and the Arizona law that is intended to do so. Berntsen gave part of his response in Spanish, one of several languages he speaks.

Both said global warming doesn't exist. Berntsen called global warming a "charade," based on bad science. Town-send said the scientists pushing the theory of rising global temperatures blamed on industrialization have been discredited and their theory is a hoax.

Each had to be pressed on the question, but said Sarah Palin would make a good president.

They each also said the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal should be overturned by the court.