The time has come to defund National Public Radio (NPR). Its latest policy directive to employees removes any pretense of its objectivity.

In July, NPR rolled out its revised ethics policy. Its public editor, Kelly McBride, said it “eliminates the blanket prohibition from participating in ‘marches, rallies and public events,’ as well as vague language that directed NPR journalists to avoid personally advocating for ‘controversial’ or ‘polarizing’ issues.”

What changed? The riots of 2020.

Kelly cites several examples of the kind of activism that fuels NPR. Black Lives Matter is mentioned, along with other references to racially charged news events. Indeed, in anticipation of questions from NPR reporters, she rhetorically asks, “Is it OK to march in a demonstration and say, ‘Black lives matter?’ What about a Pride parade? In theory, the answer today is, ‘Yes.'” [Notice she did not choose a pro-life rally as an example.]

“Protests organized with the purpose of demanding equal and fair treatment of people are now permitted,” Kelly says, “as long as the journalist asking is not covering the event.”

In practice, however, this is untenable. Even if a journalist who joins a Black Lives Matter or Antifa protest does not write about it, who is going to stop this person from writing about counterprotesters? Moreover, if an employee has had an abortion, would that stop her from covering the subject?

To show how utterly void of professional journalistic ethics NPR is, consider what its chief diversity officer, Keith Woods, had to say about conflicting opinions held by NPR employees about this issue. He says the views range from “people who would go so far as to use the word ‘objectivity,'” to those who are the “burn-it-all-down kinds of folks.”

Those who would “go so far as to use the word ‘objectivity'”? Wow. That’s really pushing it. Apparently, there are still some dinosaurs at NPR who believe it is their professional duty to be as objective as they can! They have obviously been crowded out by the “burn, baby, burn” folks.

To top things off, NPR has an anti-Catholic history, dating back until at least 1997. It has featured Catholic-bashing songs, made fun of Jesus dying on the Cross, claimed it was “not that unusual” for a priest to be accused of raping a child, and has consistently complained about Catholic nominees for the Supreme Court.

Its most recent offense, while not expressly anti-Catholic, occurred two years ago when its new style guide instructed reporters to stop using terms such as “fetal heartbeat,” “partial-birth abortion,” “abortion doctors,” and “abortion clinics.” It even went so far as to ban the word “unborn,” claiming that “Babies are not babies until they are born.”

This is the kind of bias that NPR evinced before its new ethics policy was promulgated. We can only guess how bad things will become now that its reporters can engage in direct activism with impunity.

We have contacted all members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees asking them to defund NPR.

On the 10th of August 258, St. Lawrence was roasted to death on a gridiron for remaining loyal to the Catholic Church. Fast forward to August 10, 2021, when another Catholic, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is being roasted by the media for his disloyalties. Indeed, he’s toast.

Even in leaving, Cuomo still doesn’t get it. “In my mind,” he said, “I’ve never crossed the line with anyone. But I didn’t realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn.”

He should have—he was the one who redrew it. In 2019, he bragged that New York is “the most aggressive state in the country on women’s rights. Anything I can do on sexual harassment we will do.” Thus did he unwittingly lay the trap that would eventually ensnare him.

In 2019, the “former altar boy,” as he liked to refer to himself, signed the Child Victims Act, a law which suspended the statute of limitations for sexual offenses against minors. At the time, he singled out the Catholic Church for condemnation, knowing full well that this problem was most acute in the public schools. Last year, he authorized a one-year extension of the law (the statute applied to others but rapacious lawyers focused almost exclusively on the Catholic Church).

How ironic it is to note that the Child Victims Act, which was never about justice for everyone, is set to expire on August 14, the same week Cuomo packed it in following multiple sexual misconduct allegations.

Now, at least, there may be justice for his many alleged female victims. As such, this is making for a very Catholic ending.

Six days before we issued the above news release we ran this statement.

“Mario Cuomo showed me the benefits of being an irritable, thin-skinned and dismissive person. He showed me that arrogance ultimately works.”

That is what Mario’s son, Andrew, said about him in 2002. Ironically, the arrogance that he acquired from his father was ultimately his demise.

The Cuomos will do anything to win and stay in power. When Mario ran for mayor of New York City in 1977 against Ed Koch, posters appeared all over Queens, saying, “Vote for Cuomo, not the homo.” Cuomo’s gay bashing didn’t end there. He accused Koch of endorsing the right of gays to “proselytize,” and even hired a private detective to find out who his “boyfriend” was.

Not to be outdone, Cuomo’s campaign approached a Catholic group in Greenwich Village hoping it would publish a statement saying Koch was gay. It even agreed to pay for this smear.

This kind of thuggery defined Mario, and it obviously defines his son.

The New York Attorney General’s report on Gov. Andrew Cuomo involves much more than the testimony of 11 women who say they were sexually harassed by him. In fact, 179 witnesses were interviewed by investigators. What they found is not pretty.

The investigators found that Cuomo and his aides helped enable “harassment to occur and created a hostile work environment.” That alone is a violation of federal and state civil rights law, never mind what he is accused of personally doing to women. Here are a few examples.

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, runs his hands down a woman’s spine, kisses her, and asks why she is not wearing a dress? This is not a “he said, she said” account: he did this in an elevator in front of others.

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, kisses and gropes a woman staffer and asks her to play “strip poker”?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, asks a woman employee whether she ever had a relationship with older men? Why would he tell her he was “lonely” during the pandemic and “wanted to be touched”?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, subjects his executive assistant to unwanted hugs and kisses, including on the lips, and grabs her butt?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, reaches under the blouse of another executive assistant and grabs her breasts?

What kind of man, especially one in a position of superior power, rubs the palm of his hand on a state trooper’s bellybutton while she opens the door for him?

Andrew Cuomo’s arrogance explains why he is being hoisted by his own petard. It was he who pushed for an expansive sexual harassment law in 2019. He bragged how New York is “the most aggressive state in the country on women’s rights. Anything I can do on sexual harassment we will do.”

He then got specific. “We will make it easier for claims to be brought forward and send a strong message that when it comes to sexual harassment in the workplace, time is up.”

Gov. Cuomo, your time is up. You said your father showed you that “arrogance ultimately works.” Not this time. Better get out of town before they take you out in cuffs.

In the late 1980s, the ACLU filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit that sought to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church because of its teaching on abortion. Now abortion is the subject of a threat to do the same, this time coming from a sitting member of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Jared Huffman is a Democrat from California, an atheist, and an anti-Catholic bigot. He showed his real colors when he recently tweeted the following: “If they’re [the Catholic bishops] going to politically weaponize religion by ‘rebuking’ Democrats who support women’s reproductive choice, then a ‘rebuke’ of their tax-exempt status may be in order.”

Huffman obviously objects to the First Amendment’s provisions on freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Accordingly, he should resign from the Congress of the United States. There are plenty of other countries where he would fit in just fine, ranging from Iran to North Korea.

In 2018, Huffman co-founded an atheist congressional group. He is so much in love with abortion and gay rights that he has received a 100% voting record from NARAL and the Human Rights Campaign. Not surprisingly, he was a co-sponsor of the Equality Act, the most anti-religious liberty congressional bill ever introduced.

It is important for the Catholic League to know how many other Democrats believe that the Catholic Church should lose its tax-exempt status. Hopefully, they will now come out of the shadows and let us know.

Seems like everyone is lecturing the bishops these days.

The latest to do so are 59 Democrats who identify as Catholics. Leading the charge is Rep. Rosa DeLauro. On June 18, DeLauro issued a “Statement of Principles” that chastises the bishops for addressing the issue of Catholic public figures who reject core Catholic moral teachings; 73% of the bishops voted to consider a document on the suitability of these self-identified Catholics to receive Holy Communion.

DeLauro has a long history of telling the bishops what to do.

In 2006, she issued a “Statement of Principles,” signed by 55 self-identified Catholic Democrats, saying that one can be a Catholic in good standing and promote abortion rights. In 2007, she was one of 18 self-professed Catholic Democrats to criticize Pope Benedict XVI on this subject. In 2015, she led a contingent of 93 self-identified Catholic Democrats telling Pope Francis what issues he needs to address when he comes to the United States: the right to life was not among them, but climate change made the cut.

In the latest “Statement of Principles,” DeLauro and company say they are proud to be part of the Catholic tradition that “expresses a consistent moral framework for life,” adding that they “agree with the Catholic Church about the value of human life.” Yet virtually all the signatories have a pro-abortion voting record.

DeLauro has voted for human embryonic stem cell research, a process that involves the killing of nascent human life. She opposes making human cloning for reproduction against the law. DeLauro has consistently voted against bans on partial-birth abortions, and has a 100% rating from NARAL on pro-abortion legislation.

The “Statement of Principles” expresses dismay over poverty, saying what is needed is greater “access to education for all.” Yet DeLauro voted against requiring able-bodied welfare recipients to work. In other words, she wants to keep the poor on the dole instead of enabling them to work themselves out of poverty.

She has also voted against every school choice bill ever proposed, making it risible for her to suggest that she wants “access to education for all.” In fact, she voted against reauthorizing the Washington D.C. opportunity scholarship program, the initiative that has worked so well for poor African Americans.

DeLauro and her self-identified Catholic Democrats have made their biggest media splash saying how hypocritical it is of the bishops to focus on abortion and not the death penalty, both of which the Catholic Church opposes. Perhaps that is because they are not equal.

It is estimated that between 1973 and 2019, 61,628,584 innocent children were killed in their mother’s womb. The number of convicted criminals who were executed during that time was 1,512.

Curiously, the “Statement of Principles” encourages “alternatives to abortion.”

But why are alternatives needed if abortion does not kill? Is there something lurking inside these pro-abortion self-identified Catholic Democrats that is giving them pause? We need to know what it is, because if they do, in fact, understand that abortion kills innocent human life, they would be getting off easy if the bishops simply denied them Communion.

A sex education bill is being considered in some states that is the most wildly irresponsible assault on common decency and common sense ever proposed. In a stealth move, it was passed by Illinois state lawmakers on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend; Governor J.B. Pritzker did not sign it, but if he does nothing, it becomes law after 60 days.

We fought it, enlisting our base of email subcribers. It has little to do with sex education as most people understand it; rather, it is a radical sex engineering bill. We are well aware that young family members may read Catalyst so we are not going to print some of the more graphic material that is in the curriculum.

The National Sexuality Education Standards is an initiative of the Future of Sex Education and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States; the latter was established in the 1950s by disciples of the sex-abusing king of sexology, Alfred Kinsey.

The scope of the curriculum goes far beyond conventional sex education programs. Indeed, it is the most extreme attempt to transform the norms and values of young people ever envisioned.

By the end of the 2nd grade, when most students are 7-years old, they will be expected to list “medically accurate names for body parts, including the genitals.” They will also define “gender, gender identity, and gender-role stereotypes.” Bodily autonomy will also be stressed, as well as knowledge about different family forms, including “cohabiting” and “same-gender” variants.

By the end of the 5th grade, students will be expected to “distinguish between sex assigned at birth and gender identity and explain how they may or may not differ.” They will also learn about the “differences between cisgender, transgender, gender nonbinary, gender expansive and gender identity.”

By the end of the 8th grade, students will be expected to explain what it means to be “bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, two-spirit, asexual, pansexual.”

By the time students are ready to graduate from high school, they will be taught to become an “advocate” for “all genders, gender expressions, and gender identities.”

There is another part of the curriculum that speaks to issues of anatomy and physiology. Fifth graders, for instance, will be taught about “hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender.” Tenth graders will learn about “the role of hormones and pleasure.” By the time they graduate from high school, they will be instructed to become “advocates” for “people of all sexual orientations.”

There is a glossary for students to learn as well. Terms such as “gender expansive,” “gender nonbinary,” “gender nonconforming,” and “genderqueer” appear in the Appendix. “Gender pronouns” that are considered normal include referring to oneself as “they/them/theirs.”

Abortion is treated as a “pregnancy option.” “Sexual intercourse,” students learn, “may mean different things to different people, but could include behaviors such as vaginal sex, oral sex, or anal sex.”

The curriculum is a wholesale attack on parental rights and traditional moral values. Worse, it sanctions behaviors that are positively dangerous.

No one is ever “assigned” his or her sex. Fathers determine the sex of the child born as the result of a heterosexual union; hospital staff validate it. Not all family types are equal: not to tell students that there is a gold standard, one that provides the greatest opportunity for a boy and a girl to be a success in school, work and marriage—it is called the intact family—is intellectually dishonest and does them a disservice.

Terms such as “gender nonbinary,” “gender expansive,” “asexual,” “pansexual,” and the like are linguistic inventions that are not based on medical science; they are ideological predilections. Moreover, no one in his right mind goes around calling himself “they” anymore than someone goes around calling himself “we.”

Teaching ten-year-olds about hormone blockers is done to advance the transgender movement. What will not be taught is how such therapies can create all sorts of long-term problems—they are irreversible—for those who take them. Just as irresponsible is to teach tenth graders about sexual pleasure. Why are they not instead being instructed on the merits of individual responsibility and the necessity of exercising restraint?

The curriculum crosses the line in a serious way when it instructs high school students to become “advocates” for the LGBTQ agenda. Students can advocate for any cause they want, but it is not the right of educators to tell them which cause they must adopt.

Finally, to teach students that anal sex is the equal of vaginal sex is pernicious. If they want to teach about this subject, they should teach what webmd.com says about it. It has a frank discussion on the health dangers that anal sex incurs. No wonder it concludes, “The only way to completely avoid anal sex risks is not to have it.” That is what students should be taught.

Educators need to know their place. They are employed to help students become literate, master the basics, and become good citizens. They are not there to sexually engineer them.

There is nothing new about the National Catholic Reporter working to undermine Catholic teachings, but their June 3rd editorial is in a class of its own.

The backdrop to the Reporter’s angst was the June 16 virtual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The bishops discussed, among other items, what to do about Catholic politicians who persist in flouting Church teachings on salient issues such as abortion. Our “devout Catholic” president, of course, has never found an abortion he could not justify. Indeed, now he wants us to pay for them.

The Catholic League is officially agnostic on what the bishops should do. Unlike the editors at the Reporter, we know our place and are not about to preach to them. But that doesn’t mean we are blind to what Biden is doing. In fact, we detailed his departures from Catholic teachings on pp. 8-9.

The Reporter tried hard to be cute by encouraging the bishops to deny Biden Communion. “Just do it,” they said. Why? So that way “if there happens to be a Catholic remaining who is not convinced that the bishops’ conference, as it stands today, has become completely irrelevant and ineffectual, they will be crystal clear about that reality after the conference leaders move forward with this patently bad idea.”

The Reporter did not speak to the bishops—it spoke down to them. The journalists love to lecture the theologians, as in telling the bishops that “excessive attention to the worthiness of those receiving Communion is contrary to a proper, traditional theology of the sacraments.” Their arrogance is appalling.

According to the Reporter, it was not just the bishops who are wrong—the Catholic Catechism is also wrong.

Here is what the Catechism says about abortion. “Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception.” It also says, “Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense.”

Regarding the paramount role of Communion, it lays out very clearly why it is the premier sacrament. It says, “the Eucharist occupies a unique place as the ‘Sacrament of sacraments’: ‘all other sacraments are ordered to it as to their end.'” It also says, “Anyone who desires to receive Christ in Eucharistic communion must be in a state of grace.”

If we had a racist Catholic president, the Reporter would be calling on the USCCB to excommunicate him. But when it comes to abortion, they swing the other way. The Church regards both abortion and racism to be “intrinsically evil.” It is the Reporter that is inconsistent, not the bishops.

The Reporter was not content to disagree with the bishops; no, it chose to insult them. They accused the bishops of creating a “MAGA church,” one that sees “Donald Trump instead of Jesus as its savior.” To top things off, they accuse them of being “lazy, out of touch” and “in the pockets of wealthy donors pushing a political agenda.”

Make no mistake about it—this is character assassination. The fact that it emanates from an alleged Catholic source makes it all the more despicable.

President Biden says he is a “devout Catholic,” yet he continues to oppose many of the most serious Catholic teachings that bear on public policy. This is of great concern to the bishops, and a large contingent of them are considering whether Biden is deserving of Holy Communion. They took up this issue in a virtual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Enter Faithful America. It sponsored a petition aimed at pressuring the bishops to “cancel your planned anti-Biden vote.” They claimed to have over 20,000 signatures.

Who is Faithful America? It is not an organization like the Catholic League. No one goes to the office because there isn’t any—it has a P.O. Box listed on its website. There is no one to call because it has no phone number. It says it is an “online community.” But it is not a community—it is simply a website that functions as a front group for Catholic haters.

Who funds it? George Soros, the atheist billionaire who hates Catholics.

Why did Faithful America launch this attack on the USCCB? Because it wanted to protect President Biden. They like his pro-abortion and anti-religious liberty record.

There is nothing “anti-Biden” about the USCCB. To be sure, the bishops are rightly concerned about the message that he is sending: The president of the United States can be a Catholic in good standing and still reject core Church teachings on the rights of the unborn, marriage, the family, sexuality, and religious liberty. Indeed, he can seek to force Catholic doctors to perform sex transition surgery and close down Catholic hospitals that refuse to perform abortions.

The USCCB will not be intimidated by phony “organizations” that have no anchor in the Catholic community.

Critics of the bishops are accusing them of being political partisans. They are wrong. It is simply false to argue that the USCCB is a political tool of either the Republicans or the Democrats. The USCCB has praised and criticized the leaders of both parties, depending on their policies and how they mesh with Catholic teachings on public policy matters.

Bishops Pro-Obama

“We are heartened by a recent address delivered by President Obama on immigration reform reaffirming that it is a priority for his Administration, and that he is committed to supporting legislation and working for its enactment in the future.” – Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas (July 14, 2010)

“On behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I welcome the announcement by President Obama today that consistent with his executive authority, he will grant deferred action on a case-by-case basis to youth who entered the United States by age of 15 and have not committed certain offenses.” – Archbishop Jose H. Gomez (June 15, 2012)

“We, the bishops of the United States – can you believe it – in 1919 came out for more affordable, more comprehensive, more universal health care.” – Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan (December 4, 2013)

“Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki responded to the Obama administration’s plans to legally permit 5 million undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States temporarily, saying in the history of the Catholic Church, helping immigrants is not something new.” – Archdiocese of Milwaukee (November 21, 2014)

“The bishops welcome this important move by the [Obama] administration to adopt long-awaited standards to mitigate climate change and safeguard health, which are significant ways to live our responsibility to care for God’s creation.” – Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski (August 4, 2015)

Bishops Anti-Trump

“The President’s decision not to honor the U.S. commitment to the Paris agreement is deeply troubling…. President Trump’s decision will harm the people of the United States and the world, especially the poorest, most vulnerable communities.” – Bishop Oscar Cantú (June 1, 2017)

“Yesterday, President Trump unveiled a budget plan, ‘Efficient, Effective, Accountable: An American Budget’ that again calls for deep cuts to vital parts of government, including underfunding programs that serve the poor, diplomacy, and environmental stewardship.” – Bishop Frank J. Dewane (February 13, 2018)

“We are deeply concerned about the President’s action to fund the construction of a wall along the U.S./Mexico border, which circumvents the clear intent of Congress to limit funding of a wall.” – Bishop Joe S. Vasquez (February 15, 2019)

“We are deeply disappointed that the [Trump] Administration continues to push forward to end DACA…. We urge the President to reinstate the original protections that DACA provides to young people currently enrolled in the program, as well as begin accepting new prospective DACA applicants.” – Archbishop Jose H. Gomez (July 30, 2020)

“Sadly, we must call on the Administration yet again to stop an execution…. We ask President Trump and Attorney General Barr, as an act of witness to the dignity of all human life: stop these executions.” – Archbishop Paul S. Coakley and Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann (November 18, 2020)

Bishops Pro-Biden

“We welcome the announcement preserving and fortifying DACA. For years, DACA youth have been enriching our country…. We applaud President Biden’s restoration of the DACA program….” – Archbishop Jose H. Gomez and Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville (January 21, 2021)

“We welcome [the president’s] Proclamation, which will help ensure that those fleeing persecution and seeking refuge or seeking to reunify with family in the United States will not be turned away because of what country they are from or what religion they practice.” – Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville (January 21, 2021)

“Biden signed an executive order requiring all U.S. residents to be counted in the U.S. census and reversed the prior administration’s unprecedented policy of excluding undocumented immigrants…. ‘We welcome this return to more than a century of American precedent that ensures all residents will be counted and included in the census and apportionment.'” – Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville (January 22, 2021)

“We welcome the Biden Administration’s actions to promote racial equity.” – Archbishop Paul S. Coakley and Bishop Shelton J. Fabre (February 1, 2021)

“Biden announced yesterday that the United States will rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change. It is our hope that the United States will not only seize this challenge to meet the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050…but also become the global climate leader….” – Archbishop Paul S. Coakley and Bishop David J. Malloy (April 26, 2021)

Michael Powell has done some great work at the New York Times, and his lengthy 3615-word article on the ACLU that was published June 7 is no exception.

Bill Donohue knows the ACLU well. As part of his Ph.D. dissertation on the ACLU that he did at NYU, Donohue interviewed the founder of the organization in 1978. Donohue has also authored two books on the ACLU, as well as many articles and pamphlets. There are some aspects of the ACLU that Powell did not address but are worth mentioning.

“ACLU is Torn Over Free Speech Mission and New Voice” is the title of his story. In actual fact, from the very beginning the ACLU was never the kind of principled free speech advocate that many have long believed it was. Moreover, as Powell details, the “new voices”—meaning the unprincipled ones—are ascendant; the role of non-partisan civil libertarians is declining.

When Roger Baldwin founded the ACLU in 1920 (the current leadership falsely claims there were ten founders of the organization—there was only one), he did so to serve the interests of labor, using free speech as a means to that end. This explains why the ACLU did not protest the 18th Amendment legalizing Prohibition (which Baldwin later regretted) and why it sided with the Communist Party. In the 1920s, Baldwin went to the Soviet Union and published a book about his experience, “Liberty Under the Soviets.”

In 1934, when millions of Ukrainians were being massacred by Stalin, Baldwin wrote, “I champion civil liberties as the best non-violent means of building the power on which workers’ rule must be based….When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever.”

Donohue titled his first book, “The Politics of the ACLU,” to challenge the myth that it has always been a principled civil liberties institution. To be sure, it has won many important victories, and it has long been home to some of the most distinguished civil libertarians in American history (e.g., the late Nat Hentoff and Alan Dershowitz), but there are also too many cases where it has patently violated its purported mission as a non-partisan watchdog.

In the 1930s, the ACLU threatened a libel suit against the American Mercury because it published an article that was critical of the organization. It led to quite a public dustup at the time when both the ACLU and the magazine decided to enlist the famous Baltimore journalist, H.L. Mencken, to review both sides and offer his assessment. He concluded that there was nothing libelous about the article and that the ACLU was not a non-partisan entity. For that he was called a “fascist” by some of the ACLU’s leaders.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the ACLU moderated its policies, mostly in response to threats occasioned by World War II. For the first time, it balanced national security issues with individual rights, showing more deference to the former than ever before. It even went so far as to justify the internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans. To this day the ACLU falsely claims that it opposed the internment. The national organization did not; only the Northern California affiliate did.

From the 1960s to the turn of the century, the ACLU turned left again—taking up non-civil liberties issues such as economic justice. Its extremist positions on narcotics, pornography (including child porn), prostitution, students’ rights, prisoners’ rights, and the like, evinced an atomistic view of society, one that showed little interest in the need to balance individual rights with individual responsibilities.

The ACLU did not become fully politicized until Anthony Romero took over as executive director in 2001. As the New York Times story demonstrates, the ACLU today has evolved into a highly partisan organization that balks at defending conservative speech while embracing the left-wing agenda. It talks more about white supremacy than it does civil liberties, traditionally understood.

Romero is driven by ideology and money. He is further to the left than any of his predecessors, and his fundraising ambitions make him sound more like an activist for the Southern Poverty Law Center than the ACLU.

Not surprisingly, religious liberty, which was never a priority, is now seen through the lens of the LGBTQ agenda, making it a threat to their “progressive” cause. The ACLU never lifted a finger to help falsely accused priests and it left unchallenged state restrictions on houses of worship during the pandemic. And, of course, it considers the rights of the unborn to be non-existent.

In other words, while there is some truth to claim that the ACLU is “torn over its free speech mission,” it is not exactly a 50-50 split. There are still some principled officials left, but most of them have departed. Just as the Democratic Party has moved sharply left, the ACLU has as well, even to the point of funding Democratic candidates for public office.

Baldwin, who started as a Communist sympathizer and moved toward the middle, would not recognize what it has become.