It was reported on April 1 that President Biden took the opportunity on “Transgender Day of Visibility” to commend the parents of transgender children for “affirming your child’s identity,” saying it is “one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe and healthy.”

This was not an April Fool’s joke. No, this is the mindset of the president and an administration that purports to being compassionate, but in reality is promoting child abuse on a massive scale. No need to impute malicious motive—cluelessness will do.

It’s too bad they don’t actually listen to the stories of young people who have undergone this abnormal process.

A recent story in The Telegraph about an English girl who transitioned to a boy, and back again, is heartbreaking. The April 6 article is titled, “I Was Allowed to Transition at 18 Without Question—But I Regretted It.” Here is a synopsis of her travails.

Allie was raised in Lancashire “in a very masculine environment.” Because her mother worked nights, she was cared for by her father. She shared a home with two stepbrothers, who were eight years older than her. Her parents divorced when she was 11. In that same year, she became convinced that she was “meant to be a boy.”

Allie learned through the internet about transgender people and thought this might be the answer to her condition. She decided she was “meant to be born male.” Initially, she found herself sexually attracted to girls, but then realized she was bisexual. At age 12, she suffered from anxiety and depression. She spent the next year fluctuating between feeling “girly” one day, and wanting to “dress like a man,” the next day.

At age 14, Allie was sexually abused by a stranger after “being groomed online.” Four years later she decided she wanted to transition to a boy. “The big narrative being pushed is that transition will be the answer to all your problems,” she said.

This is exactly the position of the Biden administration. It turned out to be tragically wrong.

Allie’s private doctor prescribed testosterone so she could transition. He never once attempted to explore “the possible causes of my gender dysphoria, such as my mental health problems or my difficulties fitting into society (our emphasis).” Thus did she prove to be more astute than her doctor.

Not only that, she was given a “30-minute phone consultation.” In fact, she never had “a face-to-face consultation.” When she was given her prescription, there was “no exploration of my sexual trauma, and no mention of my upbringing and how that could have affected things.” No one told her about possible side effects, “such as heart problems and loss of bone density, or the extent to which it could impact fertility.”

The first year after she transitioned she was “over the moon.” Her body became more muscular and her periods stopped. She felt “a lot more emotionally stable” and was treated well by her friends. This was all good, except that she came to the conclusion that she “was never completely comfortable.” She knew something was wrong, and events proved she was right.

During her first year at the University of Lancaster she experienced “a bad mental health episode.” She attempted suicide and was diagnosed with autism.

When Allie turned 20, she realized that “I really wanted a family—and I had chosen to self-sterilise for no good reason.” She then decided to transition back to being a female [she never really became a male—nature made that impossible], partly because “ever since transitioning, my menstrual cycle has been an absolute mess.” She is now being treated for polycystic ovary syndrome.

Allie was 11 when she learned of her mental health problems, and began to transition when she was 18. This needs to be said if only because she is a lot older than the young people Biden wants to empower. He is encouraging children to “go with the flow,” telling parents they need to be supportive.

At one of the presidential debates in 2020, Biden threw his support behind children as young as 8 and 10 who think they want to transition to the other sex. “The idea that an 8-year-old child or a 10-year-old child decided, you know I want to be transgender. That’s what I’d like to be. It would make my life a lot easier. There should be zero discrimination.”

Note that Biden sees this issue in terms of discrimination, not mental or physical health. This is the kind of robotic response he has been trained to develop.

Of course, chemical castration and body mutilation are the real issues here, not discrimination. Nobody thinks that eight and ten-year olds are being discriminated against because they cannot drink alcohol, drive a car or vote. Responsible adults are committed to the psychological and physiological wellbeing of children—they don’t allow them to be exploited by irresponsible adults.

At some point in the future, historians will look back at this period in history and wonder why so many prominent Americans aided and abetted child abuse. That day can’t come too soon.

Most Americans pay no attention to events in Finland, but what happened on March 30th merits their attention. A Helsinki court dropped all charges against two notable Christians for their alleged crime of voicing Christian beliefs.

Thus did Finland elude charges that it has become a fascist nation. No matter, the fact that charges were brought against Christians for being Christian is evidence of the war on Christianity in the West.

This ordeal started in June 2019 when Finnish parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen and Lutheran Bishop Juhuna Pohjola were investigated for making Christian statements about marriage and sexuality that may have violated the law.

What triggered this case was a statement that Räsänen made on Twitter raising the question why the Lutheran Church leadership decided to be an official sponsor of the LGBT “Pride 2019” event.

An investigation followed and found that she had committed an earlier offense. In 2004, she wrote a pamphlet about marriage titled, Male and Female He Created Them. The bishop was charged with publishing the booklet. A third charge against her was made after she appeared on a humorous radio talk show in 2019 and said, “What would Jesus think about homosexuals.”

Räsänen was charged with three counts of “ethnic agitation” under a hate speech law; it prohibits threatening, defaming and insulting a certain group of people. Her crime? Articulating a Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality.

The prosecutor said the Bible was not on trial. He lied—it most certainly was. Even the judicial ruling said that “it is not for the district court to interpret biblical concepts.”

The prosecutor never cited a single comment she made that could in any way be deemed hate speech. There were no slurs made against homosexuals, nor were there untoward remarks of any kind. His outrage was based solely on her willingness to offer a Biblical account of marriage and sexuality.

The prosecutor even admitted that Räsänen did not use “rude” language. But, he said, “she uses terms that are discriminatory and offensive. She portrays homosexuals as immoral and psychosexual broken.”

What really irked the prosecutor were Biblical declarations citing homosexual acts as sinful. Here is how a reporter characterized comments made by the prosecutor in a court proceeding.

“According to the prosecutor, it is not innocent to say that homosexuality is a sin. On the contrary, it could be more serious saying that it is a sin than a crime (our italics).”

Perhaps the most morally offensive gambit tried by the prosecutor was the attempt to privatize freedom of religion. “Everybody has the freedom of religion and belief. Everybody may believe and think what he wants,” he said. “But expressing all this has boundaries.”

Similarly, “The court does not address the religious views of the Bible and homosexuality. It is addressing expression of these views.”

So gracious of the prosecutor to say that everyone is free to “believe and think what he wants,” something he is powerless to stop anyway. Moreover, to say someone can “believe and think what he wants” about the Bible, but is not free to express it, is a flagrant violation of freedom of speech and religion. Indeed, this is the mark of totalitarian regimes, not free societies.

“When one judges deeds,” the prosecutor said, “the whole person is judged. Actions cannot be separated from identity because actions are part of identity. Understanding deeds as sin is derogatory.”

This would mean that those who condemn adultery are making derogatory comments and could therefore be prosecuted under the hate crimes law.

The media cheered this attack on freedom of speech and religion.

Helsingin Sanomat is the largest newspaper in Finland. It showed its fascist colors last year when it weighed in against the defendants. In an editorial, it said the real issue was not “an individual personal opinion,” rather it was “society’s long lasting cruel position against sexual minorities.” It noted that “just a little time ago such opinions represented the mainline view in society.”

So how have things worked out in Finland, now that it is proudly free of its Christian heritage? Are people still getting married at the same rate as before? Not at all. There were 30,557 marriages in 2010; in 2020 the figure was 22,082.

What about sexually transmitted diseases in libertine Finland? “In 2019,” a report revealed, “the number of sexually transmitted diseases increased significantly.” Small wonder why. According to the website Queer in the World, Finland is “one of the most progressive and gay-friendly countries in the world.”

But there are problems nonetheless. Gay travelers who like to prey on men in saunas should know that “there is only one explicitly gay sauna in Helsinki and overtures in traditional saunas will not go down well.”

This is what happens when Christianity collapses: radical individualism reigns supreme, and with it come assaults on religion and the creation of a morally debased society.

The International Lutheran Church called the decision to prosecute Räsänen and Pohjola “egregious.” Too bad it didn’t say the same about the decision of the Finnish Lutheran Church to herald “Gay Pride” events, the proximate cause of this unseemly episode in the first place.

More than 200 leaders of Polish American organizations signed a letter to members of Congress asking that a book which offers a vile depiction of Poles during the Holocaust be discontinued in the schools.

The letter was distributed to members of the House Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education. It follows a decision by a Tennessee school district to drop the book from its curriculum.

The best-selling graphic novel, MAUS, by Art Spiegelman, which is targeted at children, features illustrations that are outrageous and needlessly offensive. But it is the lies, and the vicious insults hurled at Poles, that merit the most serious condemnation.

The letter by the Polish American coalition, led by Edward Wojciech Jeśman, president of the Polish American Strategic Initiative, lists several reasons why Maus does not belong as an assigned or recommended book in the schools.

• The book offers a flagrantly inaccurate account of the Polish experience during the Holocaust. Poles are portrayed as Nazi sympathizers, which is a lie—they were the victims of Hitler’s genocidal agenda. Polish deaths were proportionately the greatest of any nation in World War II, which is why the deaths of Poles and Polish Jews constitutes a double Holocaust. Moreover, many Poles, drawing on their Catholic upbringing, risked their lives to save Jews.
• Poles are depicted as pigs. “Pigs in popular culture are viewed as disgusting, filthy animals,” the letter notes, “while in Jewish culture, pigs and pork are unclean in a way other animals are not. MAUS employs the same imagery of Poles found in Nazi propaganda, where they are routinely referred to as ‘Polish pigs.'”
• The takeaway for Polish schoolchildren who are required to read this book is that their people are morally debased and that their heritage is evil. No child deserves to be psychologically raped by educators.

Removing books from a school’s curriculum should never be taken lightly, but when the book in question (a) maligns an entire ethnic group (b) is historically indefensible and (c) is aimed at innocent, unsuspecting children, then to make it available in the schools is nothing short of educational malpractice.

Those who defend assigning MAUS would not assign a book which characterized blacks as pit bulls or American Indians as piranhas, never mind distort their historical heritage by depicting them as savages.

Many thanks to Ronald Rychlak, Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi, for bringing this issue to our attention. He is a member of the Catholic League’s board of advisors. Bill Donohue would also like to note that one of the signatories, Richard Walawender, serves on our board of directors.

Bill Donohue recently wrote to Craig Lissner, Acting Director for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organization Department of Reproductive Health and Research.

The following is an excerpt.

The recently released document, “Abortion Care Guideline,” is contemptible. The disrespect shown for medical personnel who invoke conscientious objection status to performing an abortion is outrageous. This would certainly include Catholic doctors and hospitals.

The document says that “conscientious objection continues to operate as a barrier to access to quality abortion care.” It instructs governments around the world to ensure that this does not happen, and then concludes that this basic right may be violated. “If it proves impossible to regulate conscientious objection in a way that respects, protects and fulfills abortion seekers’ rights, conscientious objection in abortion provision may become indefensible.”

What is really indefensible is the attack on conscientious objections to killing the innocent. It is not only morally offensive, it flouts international law.

Freedom of conscience and religion are assured by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The United Nations Charter also guarantees the right to self-determination. Indeed, the General Assembly provides that every nation “has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to in the elaboration of the principle of equal rights and self-determination….”

The plain language of these renowned declarations ensures the freedom to conscientiously object to mandates that would violate them.

WHO may not have any international enforcement power, but the fact that it would promote a frontal assault on such a fundamental right as freedom of conscience shows how thoroughly irresponsible it has become. Not only does it devalue innocent human life, it wants to punish those who reject its morally debased ethics.

Catholic medical personnel who are victimized by WHO’s agenda, or who resist sanctions against them, may need legal assistance. We will be happy to see they get it.

Reflecting on the meaning of Easter, we got thinking about secularists who scoff at the idea that Jesus was resurrected. What exactly are their beliefs? Before analyzing some of them, it’s worth taking a quick look at why the Resurrection story is true.

Faith, of course, is an abiding feature of all religions, but it is not on faith alone that the account of Jesus’ resurrection is persuasive.

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright notes that it is fatuous to believe that the early Christians invented the resurrection as a myth. To wit: The idea of the Messiah dying and coming back to life would have struck Jews at the time as bizarre—there was no concept for this belief in Jewish theological beliefs.

What about the empty tomb?

There is a passage in the Gospel of Matthew where it mentions the attempt by some Jews to discredit Christianity by saying the body was stolen. Of course, to make this claim they would have had to have been complicit in at least tacitly admitting that the tomb was empty. But why would Jews or Romans want to steal the body—wouldn’t that keep the story alive? It is even more unbelievable to maintain that the disciples stole the body. That would make them masochists. After all, why would they want to endure being beaten and killed for the sake of a lie?

Then there are the post-Resurrection accounts.

We learn from Paul (1 Corinthians 15:3-8) that Jesus “appeared to Cephas [Peter] then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than 500 brothers at once” and “then to all the apostles.”

Now some secularists will say that they don’t believe in the historical Jesus. Fine. So why do they believe in the writings of the ancients, those like Aristotle, who came before Christ? Lest we forget, it was the monks who preserved the writings of antiquity, and it was St. Patrick who played a pivotal role in this historic exercise. Looks like secularists can’t escape relying on our bounty.

What about their convictions? Just consider the content of some of their beliefs today.

It is now fashionable in elite circles, e.g., the White House and the nation’s leading colleges and universities, to believe that two men can marry and have a family. But men don’t have the anatomical equipment to pull this off, which is why they crib from the largess of heterosexuals.
It is also popular to say that male and female status is “assigned” at birth, and that it can be changed. This, too, is nonsense. No one “assigns” a person’s sex: Hospital personnel typically record the sex of the person (which was knowable prior to birth). Moreover, every person who has ever lived possesses either XX chromosomes or XY chromosomes, making them either female or male, respectively. There is no XYZ third option.

Secular elites believe—Joe Biden is one of them—that men can become pregnant. That is why they refer to pregnant women as “birthing persons,” so as to be inclusive. But everyone lucky enough not to have had his mind corrupted by delusional professors knows that it is always women who carry babies, deliver them and wean them. Furthermore, men can no more menstruate—no need to have tampon dispensers in their bathrooms, even at Ivy League schools—than women can undergo radiation for prostate cancer.

Some secularists believe in the Great Ape Project—Peter Singer does and he teaches at Princeton. They are convinced that chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans should have the same rights as humans. That may not be such a good thing. Before King Kong breaks out the champagne, he should know that Singer believes that parents should be allowed to kill their infants, meaning that little Kong may not make it past the chimp stage.

Other secularists, like the late Christopher Stone, a distinguished law professor, taught his students at USC that “valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland [and] air” should enjoy legal rights. More recently, a judge in New York had to rule on whether an elephant named Happy was entitled to be released from a prison called the Bronx Zoo. Unhappily for him, he lost.

Sorry secularists, you’re in over your skis. Don’t expect us to believe that the resurrection of Jesus is not believable but your fairy tales about pregnant men and tree rights are.

Bishop Robert McManus, who heads the Diocese of Worcester, has notified the College of Holy Cross that he will not attend the school’s commencement on May 27. He made his decision after the school’s president, Vincent Rougeau, was petitioned by some students, faculty and alumni to disinvite him. This marks the fifth consecutive year that the bishop has not attended a graduation ceremony at the Jesuit school.

This year the source of the controversy began on April 3 when McManus issued a statement that was critical of the Nativity School, a middle school affiliated with Holy Cross. The school had been flying a Black Lives Matter and a gay pride flag next to the American flag for over a year, but was only recently brought to the attention of the bishop. When he learned of what was going on, he asked the school to stop flying the two flags. That request sparked the online petition.

In his public statement on this issue, McManus wrote that while the Catholic Church respects everyone equally, “the flag with the emblem Black Lives Matter has at times been coopted by some factions which also instill broad-brush distrust of police and those entrusted with enforcing our laws.” He also said that “gay pride flags are often used to stand in contrast to consistent Catholic teaching that sacramental marriage is between a man and a woman.”

“As the Bishop of this diocese,” McManus said, “I must teach that it is imperative that a Catholic School use imagery and symbols which are reflective of that school’s values and principles so as to be clear with young people who are being spiritually and morally formed for the future.”

Bishop McManus is to be commended for telling the truth. If anything, he was too kind.

Black Lives Matter has not been coopted by anyone—from the very beginning this Marxist, anti-Christian organization has been very specific about its goals. It has explicitly called for the destruction of the nuclear family. As we have said before, this is precisely the kind of objective that the Klan would endorse. Nothing would further punish the black poor more than to further destabilize the intact family.

It is striking how the same left-wing students, faculty and alumni that deplore violence stand in unison with an organization that is responsible for the murder of at least 25 persons and has engaged in arson, vandalism and looting, often in black neighborhoods. The cost of its wanton destruction is upwards of $2 billion. White supremacists couldn’t have done a better job.

How ironic that these brave Catholic students are still defending an organization whose leaders have ripped off the public—no one more than blacks—by buying mansions for themselves, leaving the black community high and dry. Their refusal to pay taxes is now under investigation throughout the nation.

Flying a gay pride flag at a Catholic school sends an unmistakable message: We don’t buy the Church’s teachings on sexual ethics. As such, it is not a plea to respect homosexuals: on the contrary, it is an in-your-face rejection of Catholicism. That this should take place at a time when child abuse is taking place in some schools, and parental rights are under attack—in the name of sexual orientation and gender identity—makes the flag issue all the more reprehensible.

It is a shame what has happened to Holy Cross. It is not the college that once made so many of its graduates proud.

We cannot allow those who are responsible for this travesty to carry the day. We asked our email subscribers to show their full support for the courageous stance taken by Bishop McManus.

President Biden’s State of the Union address was mostly about the Ukraine-Russia war, the economy, Covid, and energy. That’s understandable given that these issues are paramount. Some, such as New York Times columnist Charles Blow, criticized Biden for not mentioning blacks even once. A more serious criticism was Biden’s use of Orwellian language to describe matters sexual.

We all know that abortion means the killing of an unborn baby, but almost none of those in the pro-abortion camp likes to say such things. Biden addressed this issue by saying, “Folks, advancing liberty and justice also requires protecting the rights of women.”

He did not mean the right of women to be free from sexual harassment in the workplace, or the right of women to exclusively compete with other women in women’s sports (which he rejects). He meant the right to abort their child.

“The constitutional right affirmed in Roe v. Wade, standing precedent for half a century, is under attack as never before.” He never said what that right was. Nor did he say why, when the issue of gay marriage was before the courts, he supported overturning two centuries of standing precedent.

“If you want to go forward not backwards, we must protect access to healthcare; preserve a woman’s right to choose—and continue to advance maternal healthcare for all Americans.”

In other words, aborting babies is healthcare. That in itself is Orwellian. He never tells us what the woman is choosing to do. To put it differently, what is the object of the verb “choose”? Why can’t he say what it is?

Saying things like “Maternal healthcare for all Americans” is total nonsense. Maternal healthcare cannot possibly be for men, so why not simply say, “maternal healthcare for women.” That’s because in his mind, sex is not an objective reality—there are men who believe they are a woman, so to speak about “maternal healthcare for women” would leave these sexually confused men out.

This teed up his remarks on “our LGBTQ+ Americans.” We know the L stands for lesbian, the G stands for gay, the B stands for bisexual, the T stands for “transgender” (there really are no such persons—there are only men and women), the Q stands for queer (a classic redundancy), but no one knows who the + people are. Someone needs to ask him about this at a press conference.

Biden said he wants to sign the Equality Act, the most radical, anti-nature, anti-religious liberty piece of legislation ever proposed. Among other things, it would do away with privacy rights—hurting women more than men—and it would force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.

Anyone who thinks we are exaggerating should read what Kara Dansky has to say about the Equality Act. Dansky is a self-described “radical feminist,” and the author of The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls.

“What all this means is that if the Equality Act is enacted, any man will be able to gain access to any women’s restroom, changing room, or locker room in all public accommodations, which includes all restaurants, bars, movie theaters, sports arenas, and recreational areas. Grown men will be able to enter areas that are intended to be restricted to women and girls across the country.”

If Americans knew what the Equality Act entailed, they would be overwhelmingly opposed to it. Hence the need to speak about it in a deceitful manner.

Biden ended his comments on this subject by invoking God. Speaking about so-called transgender persons, he said “I’ll always have your back as your President so you can be yourself and reach your God-given potential.”

He is seriously wrong. Sexually confused boys and girls who want to “transition” to the opposite sex do so because they don’t want to be themselves—they want to be something they’re not.

Worse, to say that God’s creatures can reach their potential by rebelling against their God-given nature is to say that the necessary corrective to God’s design is genital-mutilating surgery. That is borderline blasphemous.

Biden’s deceptive language is deliberate. He does not want the American people to ponder exactly what his sexual policies mean. His rejection of both nature and nature’s God is all the more sick given his self-proclaimed “devout Catholic” status.

Does the child belong to parents or the state? This issue is nothing new—Plato argued that the community in which children are raised is the proper locus of authority, not the parents. He envisioned a society where parents were denied their right to raise their own children: they would be collectively raised. He explicitly said in The Republic that the good society was one where “no parent is to know his own child, nor any child his parent.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom is no Plato, but he is also not a believer in parental rights. He objects to Florida and Texas officials who are seeking to stop the state from promoting “gender-transitioning procedures” for children behind the back of parents. “This is nothing short of a state-sponsored intimidation of LGBTQ children,” he said.

In other words, if parents object to child abuse encouraged by state operatives—that is what puberty blockers and the prospect of genital mutilation are—then they are the problem, not the government.

In many parts of the country, children are being prompted by school officials to question their sexual orientation. Some children are then encouraged to transition to the opposite sex, without the consent of their parents. How many? No one knows for sure, but we do know that some public officials, school administrators, school board members and teachers’ unions believe they know better than a child’s parents what’s good for their kids. They are modern-day tyrants who respect no boundaries.

In a sane society they would be put away. Instead, they are awarded tenure.

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan supported an anti-Catholic law in Oregon that required all children to attend a public school (thus closing down Catholic schools). The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary sued, and in 1925 the U.S. Supreme Court sided with them. “The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations (italics in the original).”

Today’s Klan is non-violent and well-educated, but they are just as dangerous as the men in white robes. Newsom and the educational establishment are wrecking the lives of young people, promoting the pernicious idea that it is normal to rebel against one’s own nature. It manifestly is not.

Young people are being exploited at a record rate—girls more than boys—by tolerating, if not actively promoting, the notion that switching one’s sex is very much like switching one’s diet. What’s wrong with being a boy today and a girl tomorrow? Isn’t that like being carnivorous today and a vegetarian tomorrow?

Modern society is made up of the individual, the intermediate associations that constitute social authority—the family, school, church, voluntary organizations—and the state. Beginning with the French Revolution, the road to totalitarianism has been greased when the state crushes the intermediate associations; when civil society collapses, only the individual and the state remain. As the 20th century proved in Russia, Germany and China, that means the end of liberty. The only bulwark to state power is the social authority grounded in civil society.

Children are not mere creatures of the state. They are the natural outcome of a union between a man and a woman, ideally forged in the institution of marriage, and it is the prerogative of parents—not the state—to decide what is best for them.

Since Newsom was telling the governors in other states how to conduct their business, we encouraged people all over the nation to tell him how to conduct his business.

We looked at the 12 most religious states and compared them to the 12 least religious states on several variables.

The difference between the two state groupings was negligible with regard to drug overdose rates and suicide rates.

However, 8 of 12 of the most religious states have a religious-liberty law, while only 1 of 12 of the least religious states do.

The average percentage of pregnancies aborted per 100,000 in the most religious states was 11.23 percent; it was 17.66 in the least religious states.

12 of 12 of the most religious states have restrictive abortion laws, but only 1 of 12 of the least religious states do.

11 of 12 of the most religious states has some sort of program that allows for private school choice, but only 3 of 12 of the least religious states do.

What does this tell us?

There is little that lawmakers can do to affect people from overdosing on drugs or killing themselves. Similarly, whether a state is religious or not does not seem to matter.

By contrast, lawmakers play a key role in affecting abortion rates. The more restrictive the laws are, the less the abortion rate.

When it comes to school-choice programs that include private schools, lawmakers tend to follow the culture: the most religious states are the ones that enjoy the widest array of school-choice programs.

While these conclusions do not settle the issue altogether, it does indicate that those who support traditional moral values are better off living in the most religious states.

On February 15, 2022 Edward McAlanis was sentenced to six months probation, $500 in restitution and 60 hours of community service. He was previously fired from his high salary job in financial services; he is now a pizza delivery driver. What did he do to merit these punishments? On January 6 last year, he joined a protest outside the U.S. Capitol, and entered the building without authorization. He posed for a picture in front of a statue of Abraham Lincoln. That was it.

By contrast, Antifa and Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters killed innocent persons, set buildings on fire, assaulted the police, looted department stores and participated in illegal street demonstrations. Practically nothing has been done to any of them. Moreover, the attacks these thugs made on Catholics have largely been ignored by the media.

Antifa sports a revolutionary ideology, one that is diametrically opposed to Catholicism; to say it hates Catholicism is an understatement. One of the leaders of BLM, Shaun King, stated in 2020 that all images depicting Jesus as a “white European” should be torn down because they are a form of “white supremacy.” He added that white people use Christianity as a “tool of oppression.”

During the many riots in 2020 and 2021, Antifa and BLM, or those directly inspired by them, heeded King’s statement by attacking Catholic institutions and iconic Catholic figures. Here is a sample of their work:

• May 28, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters broke into the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis and poured flammable liquid under the pews, lighting a fire that did significant damage.
• May 29, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters threw rocks shattering the rectory windows of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville.
• May 29, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters damaged the exterior of St. Jude Chapel in Dallas and threw rocks shattering its windows.
• May 30, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters laced the exterior of Our Lady of Mt. Lebanon-St. Peter Cathedral in Los Angeles with the following graffiti: “prosecute killer cops,” “ACAB” [All Cops Are Bastards], “Kill all cops,” and “Make America pay for its crimes against Black lives.”
• May 30, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters spray-painted St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City with various counter-cultural slogans.
• May 31, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters threw rocks at the Daughters of St. Paul Book Store in Chicago causing severe damages.
• June 1, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters caused serious damage to The Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver following several nights of rioting
• June 10, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters pulled down a statue of Columbus in Richmond, VA.
• June 10, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters pulled down a statue of Columbus in St. Paul, MN.
• June 10, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters tore down a statue of Ponce de Leon and spray-painted a statue of Columbus in Miami.
• June 19, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters tore down a statue of St. Serra in San Francisco.
• June 20, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters tore down a statue of St. Serra in Los Angeles.
• June 22, 2020—Keveon Gomera, who was inspired by Antifa and BLM, defaced gravestones of Dominican priests by painting swastikas and anti-Catholic language on them at Providence College.
• July 4, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters tore down and set fire to a statue of St. Serra in Sacramento.
• July 4, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters pulled down a statue of Columbus in Baltimore.
• July 6, 2020—An Antifa and BLM-inspired individual vandalized a crucifix outside of St. Bernadette Parish in Rockford, IL.
• July 11, 2020—Steven Anthony Shields, inspired by Antifa and BLM, drove a car into Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala, FL while parishioners gathered inside for Mass. He proceeded to pour gasoline in the foyer and set the building on fire. When he was arrested, he told police that what he did was “awesome” and that he was on a “mission.”
• August 1, 2020—Antifa protestors burned copies of the Bible and American flags in Portland.
• August 25, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters spray-painted anti-religious graffiti on St. James Church in Kenosha, WI.
• September 26, 2020—Antifa and BLM activists laced St. Peter’s Chaldean Catholic Cathedral and Our Mother of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in El Cajon, CA with swastikas.
• October 12, 2020—Antifa and BLM activists spray-painted and toppled a statue of St. Serra at St. Raphael, San Rafael, CA.
• November 3, 2020—Antifa and BLM rioters shattered the windows of St. Andre Bessette in Portland.
• January 19, 2021—Antifa and BLM activists attempted to burn down the Rosary Cathedral in Toledo, OH.
• October 13, 2021—An Antifa and BLM-inspired activist spray-painted satanic and BLM messages on the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver.

The disparate treatment afforded those who participated in the non-violent January 6th riot, and those who participated in the violent Antifa and BLM riots, is a national disgrace. This has everything to do with politics, nothing to do with justice.