Bill Donohue

The average New Yorker has no time to read New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s 375-page report, “New York City Preliminary Racial Equity.” As a sociologist who has written extensively on racial issues, and as someone who has worked with racial and ethnic minorities for many years, reading this report was right up my alley.

What I uncovered was disturbing: Mamdani and his administration have a very warped, indeed dangerous, vision of race in America. The document is an extreme left-wing assessment of American history.

The report informs the reader that all of those immigrants who came to New York to seek a better life were wrong to do so. “New York’s history has been one of colonization, exploitation, and racial oppression.” Why the immigrants kept on coming it never explains.

“The land New York City stands on today once belonged to the Lenape people, who were forcibly displaced through settler colonialism.” In fact, the land never “belonged” to the Lenape anymore than it “belongs” to those who live in New York today. The Lenape migrated to New York from the west coast, and their ancestors migrated to North America from Asia. The Indians crossed through Beringia, a land bridge between Asia and America that existed during the ice ages.

The report mentions that Wall Street was home to the slave trade. What it doesn’t mention is the origin of the term “Wall Street.” The Dutch built a wall downtown to protect their colony from Native Americans and the British, both of whom were attacking them.

The language used to describe conditions for the millions who migrated to New York City speaks volumes about the report’s politics. There are 103 mentions of “racism,” 91 of “bias,” 84 of “discrimination,” 24 of “slavery,” 14 of “enslaved,” 9 of “exploitation,” 6 of “oppression” and 5 of “colonization.”

There are two mentions in the entire report of “freedom” and two of “liberty,” and in three of the four citations, they are employed with derision and sarcasm.

It complains a lot about “pay equity.” It offers as an example the fact that whites are overrepresented as CEOs compared to African Americans and Hispanics. It offers no evidence that this outcome was achieved by illegitimate means. Hispanics are overrepresented in the landscaping industry, and as jockeys in the horse racing industry. Is that a problem?

In the real world pay disparities are mostly a function of market forces. Professional athletes, many of whom are black, are multimillionaires, and that is because the demand for sports is great and the revenue that is generated is a function of it.

The report says that “For many years, Black and Hispanic communities in New York City have been overrepresented in its jails.” There is a reason for this: they commit a disproportionate number of crimes. Just as important, they typically mug and kill their own people. But these inconvenient facts are never mentioned.

The report notes with horror “the introduction of punitive policing policies in the 1990s,” such as “stop and frisk,” and that this led to “mass incarceration” of blacks and Hispanics. What it doesn’t say is that these policies were a smashing success.

During the 1990s in New York City, the crime rate fell by more than 40 percent, so much so that the Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton, said “the decline in homicides and other violent crimes between 1990 and 2000 constitutes one of the great achievements in the history of urban America.”

The “stop and frisk” policies continued under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Contrary to what the Mamdani report suggests, not only did this not result in an uptick in police brutality, in 2012 the number of civilian complaints was the lowest it had been in the previous five years.

Turning to education, the report wants to eliminate “racial disparities that disproportionately affect Black and Brown learners.” It also wants to ensure that “Children and youth receive a quality public education that prepares them for college and/or career, regardless of zip code.”

Notice that it wants “quality public education,” not quality education. Yet the data show that for decades minorities want the opportunity to send their children to a private school, often a parochial one, yet cannot afford to do so. Mamdani, of course, is opposed to school choice.

It is also untrue to say he wants “quality public education.” The most effective public schools are charter schools, which he would like to crush. Minority parents want them but he won’t buckle. There is no mention of charter schools in the report, just as there is no mention of school choice, school vouchers or parochial schools.

There is also no mention of the high absentee rate among minority students. The report does talk about discipline problems, but not in the way most would think about them. It complains that too many black and Hispanic kids are being disciplined. Would Mamdani’s team feel better if more Asian kids were disciplined?

This report will do nothing to enhance the social mobility prospects of African Americans and Hispanics, but it will increase racial polarization. Is that an accident? Or is it the desired result?

Bill Donohue

The most common way to live, across the globe and from the beginning of time, is in a state of authoritarianism. Slavemasters, feudal lords, monarchs, warlords, pharaohs, czars, barbarians—they are the very stuff of history. In other words, historically speaking, to live in a free society is a freak. It’s an even bigger freak to maintain a free society; most free societies decompose rather quickly.

In 2026, an estimated 20 percent of the world lives in a free country (historically, that is an exceptionally high number); 80 percent live in non-free countries. Instead of asking why are so few free, the right question should be, “why are any people free?” It makes sense to ask this question given that living in a state of despotism is the most natural way to live.

From ancient times to today, cultures worldwide have found it necessary to build walls. Similarly, were castles built, often atop mountains. In both cases, they were made to protect people from being invaded by hostile forces. In other words, living in peace is an historical anomaly—war has always been the rule, not the exception.

Those who prevail in war become the new leaders, and almost never do they divest themselves of power—they typically grab more of it. It is also true that when the oppressed succeed in overthrowing tyrannical rule, they almost always become the new oppressors.

There are a few instances when those who take power seek to limit it. This was true of Cincinnatus: he exercised dictatorial power to save Rome, but then gave it up a few weeks later. What’s even more unusual is for new leaders to adopt a set of principles that allow for the making of a free society, and then to craft an institutional structure that facilitates this end.

This describes what the Founders yielded.

George Washington could have done what almost all new leaders have done in history—aggregate power to himself, declaring himself king. He did not do so because he believed in republican values, meaning he wanted a society where those who rule do so with the consent of the governed.

Garry Wills, an astute student of American history, noted that Washington gave up power twice: at the end of the revolutionary war when he resigned his military commission and returned to Mount Vernon, and at the end of his second term as president—he refused the opportunity to seek a third term.

We would not be free today without the principles and the tenets of America’s three founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration, insisted that our rights were inalienable and that they come from God, our Creator. All men are created equal, he said, and are entitled to equal treatment before the law. Government exists to protect the rights of citizens, receiving its legitimacy by ruling with their consent.

The Founders knew that these foundational principles were not uniformly observed, but they also knew that they gave the American people the legal edifice upon which to secure liberty and equality.

The authors of the Constitution, like most of the Founders, had a good grasp of human nature. Unlike the French, who saw man as being essentially good, the British understood that self-interest is baked into the human condition. As such, the Brits understood the need not to deposit too much power in the hands of any person or group of persons. Hence, the need for separation of powers.

Those who executed the laws should not be the ones who wrote the laws, and those who sat in judgment about the meaning of laws should be independent of both. Thus, the establishment of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

The Founders also knew that to concentrate decision-making at the national level would eviscerate the power of leaders who are closer to the people. That is why they insisted on federalism.

This outcome has served us well. Vertically, powers are divided between those at the federal, state, and local level. Horizontally, they are divided by the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

Majority rule is the basis of a democracy, but without protecting the rights of the minority, freedom flounders. That is why the Founders gave us the Bill of Rights, ensuring that the most fundamental human rights—freedom of religion and speech among them—are not up for a vote. Provisions for amendments were made, and in due course the Constitution was amended to abolish slavery.

Has its operations been pretty? No. But has it worked? Yes.

Churchill once said that democracy is “the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” So true. Democracy is sloppy and inefficient, and can be taxing. But the historical alternatives are a disaster.

We are free today because the Founders knew that human nature existed,  and that it was unalterable. Taking self-interest into account, they allowed for the three branches of government to be co-equals, while not allowing any one branch to dominate. Madison said it best: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”

Happy Birthday, America!

Bill Donohue

Most Americans are justly proud of their country, but some, primarily those on the Left, are not. They are fond of comparing America’s treatment of various segments of our society to conditions that would exist in an ideal world. Obviously, by this measure, we fail.

That’s their point—they have rigged the game so as to make the U.S. look bad. Why? So they can rush to save us. They are convinced of the superiority of their political agenda, and insist that if they take command, or if their policies are implemented by like-minded radicals, there will be liberty and justice for all.

What a joke. Every country that has ever adopted the politics of the Left has ended in poverty and oppression. A much more realistic way of judging America is to compare us to other countries around the globe, both historically and today.

To that end, the policy staff of the Catholic League chose to examine the status of religious liberty, the status of racial and ethnic minorities, and the status of women that existed in 1776 and that exists today. The result was a short summary comparing conditions in the USA to that of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Eurasia (Russia), Europe and Asia.

The never-never land approach favored by the Left has its roots in the Enlightenment. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was common to compare current conditions to the ideal. This conclusion is contrived and ordained: of course current conditions are found wanting. Today, left-wing professors use the blackboard to describe their utopian vision of how people should be treated, and then they can do what they delight in doing—showing how we failed.

We didn’t fail—they did. They failed their students by comparing America today to some fairy-land of perfection. That is not realistic. What is realistic is to do a cross-cultural analysis of social conditions, past and present.

To read our scorecard on this subject, click here.

Bill Donohue

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that states can ban males from competing in women’s sports. At issue is whether males, who falsely identify as female—so-called transgender females—can compete against girls and women in athletic events.

The high court cited Title IX, enacted in 1972, to support its decision. It bars discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs. It also ruled that the 14th Amendment “equal protection” clause was not violated when states ban males from competing against females.

The majority opinion said that “forcing women and girls to play against biological males can deter some women and girls who would otherwise participate in sports from doing so—out of understandable concern about suffering serious injury or participating in what they view as an unfair competition.”

Such an observation would no doubt strike most Americans as common sense, but that is not the way the media are already spinning this decision.

CNN opines that this ruling means that it allows the “conservative majority” on the high court to “further cement its power in ways that has benefited Trump and Republicans.” This remarkably inane comment comes the day after the Supreme Court decided against three of the four cases that Trump wanted.

Nina Totenberg of NPR, ever the left-wing zealot, is even more sinister. She begins her commentary by noting that the majority opinion was written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh “who has long coached his daughters’ and other girls’ basketball teams at school.” Got it? In other words, this principled decision was written because Kavanaugh likes his girls to play hoops against girls.

In her dissent Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who cannot define what a woman is, showcases her biological acumen once again by referring to “biological sex” as “sex assigned at birth.” Wrong. Sex is never “assigned” by anyone—it is always determined by the father.

Ten times in her short dissent she talks about “sex assigned at birth.” She is an outlier again—no other Justice uses this imbecilic term.

Justice Clarence Thomas knows better. In his concurring opinion, he writes, “Sex is an immutable ‘biological’ characteristic,” and “sex is binary.” It’s a shame that Biology 101 truisms need to be said. But they must be—so many elites are ideologically drunk these days.

Kudos to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Catholic League has been making the same argument in favor of women’s rights for many years, and now it is the law of the land.

Bill Donohue

The role that the Catholic Church has played historically in securing freedom is not well appreciated. Whether due to ignorance or bias, we need to set the record straight, especially now that we are about to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria is a secular-minded former Muslim who has a good grasp of history. He says it is wrong to cite Greece as the birthplace of liberty as we know it. That trophy belongs to the Catholic Church.

“The Catholic Church was the first major institution in history that was independent of temporal authority and willing to challenge it. By doing this it cracked the edifice of state power, and in nooks and crannies individual liberty began to grow.” He concludes that “the rise of the Christian Church is, in my view, the first important source of liberty in the West—and hence the world.”

Zakaria is right to call attention to the fact that when liberty was established in the West, it was the first to do so in the world. We can look in vain for the historical unfolding of freedom in Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. The truth of the matter is that, historically, Eastern civilizations have had no notion of freedom. Indeed there was no word to describe freedom in China and Japan until the nineteenth century.

What made Catholicism special was its understanding of human rights. It has long been a staple of Catholic thought that human rights inhere in every human being as a gift from God. They are not awarded to us; they are natural to us. Made in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ, humans the world over—in every society throughout all of history—possess natural rights. Governments may proclaim certain individual rights, but in Catholic thought governments can never be the origin of such rights. Our rights are inalienable and irrevocable.

If this sounds familiar, it should: it is the heart and soul of the Declaration of Independence.

There is a confluence between Catholic thought on the subject of liberty and the thinking of the men who founded America. While it is true that some of the Founders were Deists—men like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Paine who doubted the inerrancy of Scripture and the divinity of Jesus—all of those who forged the new social order, whether they were religious or not, understood the need for religion in a free society. They had in mind Christianity, not Taoism.

Jefferson, the author of the Declaration, made numerous references to God in our founding document. He spoke of “the laws of nature and nature’s God”; “the Creator”; “the supreme judge of the world”; and “the protection of Divine Providence.” And, of course, our rights, he said, come from our “Creator,” not from government.

Moreover, Jefferson was hardly the “separation of church and state” zealot that he has been made out to be. As president, he gave $300 to the Kaskaskia Indians to build a Catholic church. Today, secularists fret over students in Catholic schools getting textbooks paid for with public dollars.

The ideas about freedom that guided the Founders have been realized worldwide. The 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins by recognizing “the inherent dignity” and “equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” Several popes, both before and after this human rights touchstone, wrote extensively about these issues.

It is for this reason that former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican and Harvard law school professor Mary Ann Glendon has written that “the Church has emerged as, intellectually and institutionally, the single most influential champion of the whole, interconnected, body of principles in the Universal Declaration.

Is it ignorance or bias that explains why so few Americans know about the Church’s proud role in bequeathing to us the freedoms we take for granted? Both. Catholic schools, at all levels, have not done a good job in educating students about this subject, thus their ignorance. On the other hand, not all secularists in education and the media can plead ignorance—some allow their anti-Catholic bias to color their thinking.

The truth is that Catholics should be justly proud of Catholicism’s role in the making of freedom throughout the world, and especially in the United States.

Bill Donohue

As we approach our nation’s 250th anniversary, it is instructive to learn who are the most patriotic Americans and who are the least patriotic. The survey data are quite revealing.

In terms of political affiliation, the most patriotic are Republicans. In terms of economic class, the poor come out on top. The least patriotic are Democrats and young people.

Every survey finds that Republicans are much more religious than Democrats, and surveys also reveal that the more religious a person is, the more likely he is to be patriotic. Moreover, a recent survey found that the religiously unaffiliated were the least proud to be American.

There are other reasons as well that explain the political gap, education being the most prominent. Those with college degrees—especially those with post-graduate degrees—are much more likely to be critical of America.

It is not hard to figure out why young people, and those with the highest degrees, are less likely to be patriotic.

Two distinguished researchers, Richard D. Kahlenberg and Lief Lin, released their findings early this year of a major study of almost 100 articles published over a three-year-period in American Quarterly, the flagship journal of the American Studies Association; the publication is widely considered the most premier journal of American studies in the nation.

They found that 80 percent of the articles published between 2022 and 2024 were critical of America, 20 percent were neutral, and none were positive. “It’s astonishing that we couldn’t find a single positive article over a three-year period.” Is it any wonder that young college students come away with a hyper-critical view of their country, and that many indeed hate it?

The authors are correct to note “the complete lack of gratitude on the part of [these] scholars,” even though they “benefit every day from the country’s commitment to liberty.” Regrettably, too many of them are spoiled brats who have never served a day in the armed forces.

By contrast, the poor, who have shared the least in America’s bounty, are the most patriotic. In a General Social Survey, it was found that more than 90 percent of the poorest Americans said they would rather be citizens of the United States than of any other nation.

The working class also scores high on patriotism scales. This makes sense given that the police, firefighters and construction workers are more likely to be veterans than those with college and post-graduate degrees, and most veterans love America.

Nurturing a healthy dose of patriotism is important to the defense of the country. If young people are constantly treated in school to highly negative assessments of America, past and present, they are not likely to want to serve in the armed forces, even when their nation calls them to do so.

Let’s not mince words. A free society that turns its young against its nation’s heritage is engaged in sabotage. Indeed, it is suicidal.

Yes, there are super-patriotic zealots who refuse to acknowledge any of our nation’s faults. But they are not representative of most Americans who love our country. They can be annoying but they are not a threat.

On the other hand, those who are obsessed with our nation’s shortcomings—real and contrived—pose an existential threat, and that is doubly true of those who work in higher education. No one is asking for a loyalty test in education, but when it is impossible to find one journal article in American studies that conveys a positive image of America, this presents a problem that cries out for a solution.

To put it differently, if someone is suffering from self-hatred, it is rightly seen as pathological and in need of a remedy. Why is it not pathological, and in need of a remedy, when legions of young people are taught to hate their country?

Bill Donohue

Celebrations of our nation’s 250th anniversary are underway, yet America’s malcontents—who wallow in negativity—are predictably upset at all the hoopla. “Don’t forget about slavery,” they bellow.

The best of individuals have a dark side, and so do the best of nations. No news there. But if they are among the best, isn’t that something to cheer about? Why harp on shortcomings when the biography of good individuals, and the history of good nations, is much more positive than negative?

Here’s a sample of America’s malcontents.

The 250th Birthday of the U.S. Is Just a Few Years Away. Get Ready for Controversy” — TIME (March 31, 2022)

Argues the 250th anniversary should be used to rethink how Americans tell the story of the nation’s founding, with greater emphasis on slavery and other historical injustices.

“The anniversary provides an opportunity to reshape public understanding and ensure an enduring and inclusive legacy.”

“America 250 Cannot Celebrate Freedom While Honoring Slaveholders” — TIME (March 30, 2026)

The article argues that America should reconsider celebrating founders who owned slaves during the 250th anniversary. The author contends that honoring figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson creates a conflict with modern ideals of equality and liberty.

“America’s 250th should not become an active celebration of people who enslaved other human beings.”

“America’s 250th Is Repeating a Familiar Mistake” — TIME (April 7, 2026)

This article argues that those who planned America’s 250 celebratory events did not place enough emphasis on slavery and its role in American history.

“Our disagreements about the history of slavery, or of the founders, are never simply about the past.”

“How Jefferson’s Faults and Contradictions Reveal the Paradox at the Heart of the American Story” — Washington Post (February 17, 2025)

This article examines Thomas Jefferson through the lens of slavery and race and argues that those issues are central to understanding his legacy. As the author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson is presented as a symbol of the contradictions within America’s founding.

“For more than two centuries, Jefferson’s friends, family and defenders have all tried to create a more perfect Jefferson.”

“Ranking Member Huffman Blasts Whitewashing & Corruption Surrounding America’s 250th Birthday” (Rep. Jared Huffman) — House Natural Resources Democrats (May 20, 2026)

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) argues that the anniversary is presenting an overly favorable version of American history. He accuses organizers of minimizing the country’s failures and controversies.

“The darker parts of our past are airbrushed out.”

“Brianna Turner Says WNBA Should Not Wear ‘USA 250’ Patches Due to History of Slavery” — New York Post (June 6, 2026)

Phoenix Mercury player Brianna Turner criticized plans to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, arguing that the country’s history of slavery and discrimination makes such celebrations inappropriate.

“We are some of the most elite female athletes. 250 years ago we would have been breeders or in the fields working all day.”

“The Celebration of the Nation’s Birth Is Still a Sham” — The Nation (June 9, 2026)

This article argues that America has not lived up to its founding principles and therefore has little reason to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

“The Celebration of the Nation’s Birth Is Still a Sham.”

So who are these people? A look at them upfront shows they don’t come to the table with clean hands.

Time and the Washington Post both treated Hitler with kid gloves. Time featured him on the cover several times, highlighting the military strength of the Nazis and its economic prowess, not what happened during the Holocaust. Similarly, the Washington Post editorial board has been criticized for decades for not hammering Hitler for his murderous rampage against Jews. Just as bad, The Nation is infamously known as the great defender of Joseph Stalin.

Rep. Jared Huffman showcased his anti-Catholic muscles in 2021 when he threatened to take away the tax-exempt status of the Catholic Church. He did so simply because the Church is against abortion. Brianna Turner’s criticisms of slavery in the U.S. fall flat when we learn that she  never condemns slavery that exists today in places like Africa. Moreover, her support for biological men to crash women’s sports shows her contempt for women’s rights.

These malcontents will never be happy with America, but the good news is that they are outliers. Most Americans are proud of their country, justly so. And they don’t pretend to come to the table with clean hands.

Bill Donohue

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is torn over the USA’s 250th birthday. On the one hand, he knows he has an obligation to celebrate this key moment in American history. But on the other hand, his heart is not really in it.

I put the test to AI, asking, “Has Zohran Mamdani Ever Said Anything Positive About U.S. History That Was Unqualified?”

AI reports that Mamdani is a democratic socialist “whose worldview is rooted in a systemic critique of American institutions.” It also found that “Extensive reviews of his legislative record and public statements indicate that he rarely, if ever, offers ‘unqualified’ praise for U.S. history.”

I then asked the same question about me.

AI reports that Donohue “views the American founding as a monumental achievement but one that is inextricably linked to, and dependent upon, Judeo-Christian values.” It also found that he “argues that the American experiment in ordered liberty was only possible because of the cultural and moral capital provided by the Christian tradition.”

AI is twice accurate. Owing to his radical political views, Mamdani is at best vexed about America’s historical record. Owing to my Catholic conservative views, I am proud of America’s historical record.

Mamdani is not an American—he was born in Uganda. I decided to put his home country under the same critical lens (it should be noted that Mamdani owns four acres of land in Uganda).

Slavery exists today in Uganda. According to the 2023 Global Slavery Index, an estimated 190,000 people live in conditions of modern slavery. It is known as a hub for forced labor and sexual exploitation; children are treated the worst. This is consistent with its past record: it was a major transit and trading zone during the East African slave trade.

In addition to slavery, Uganda today is known for the persecution of Christians. Muslims routinely kill those who convert to Christianity, including members of their own family. Pastors are terrorized, churches are burnt to the ground, and wives abandon their husbands if they convert.

Here are six cases of this kind of barbarism in 2026.

May 2. A Christian convert received a call from his Muslim in-laws that his young child was seriously ill. When he arrived, he was severely beaten and left unconscious.

April 17. A recent Christian convert had his hands chopped off by his Muslim family members. The convert’s father said, “That is what sharia [Islamic law] instructs us to do to those who deny the religion of Allah.”

April 9. A Christian evangelist was murdered by several Muslim men after he and his wife spoke at an event to preach the Gospel.

March 11. A mother of six was severely beaten by her Muslim husband after he discovered she converted to Christianity and was attending Bible study.

January 30. Two Christian preachers were brutally beaten by five mask-wearing Muslim men after they were returning home from an all-night prayer meeting.

January 28. A 62-year-old man murdered his 33-year-old son with a long knife after the son converted to Christianity.

Mamdani is quick to find fault with America. Yet he has virtually nothing to say about slavery in Uganda today. Similarly, he fails to address the killing of innocent Christians by Muslim barbarians in his home country in 2026.

Regarding the latter, innocent Christians are not being slaughtered by roving Muslim gangs—they are being slain because their religious laws demand it. There is no analog in Christianity. In those instances when Christians kill Muslims, not only are they not compliant with Christian teachings—they are in clear violation of them. That’s the difference between Islam and Christianity: Muslims who murder converts to Christianity are being faithful to their religion.

Mamdani is too busy fretting over income disparities between whites and blacks to worry about his homeland’s wholesale abuses of human rights.

AI is too generous to him. A more thorough examination of his views indicates that he has one set of rules for assessing America (he condemns our alleged history of “colonization, exploitation and racial oppression”) and another for assessing Uganda (he never questions its fondness for slavery and religious persecution).

We are the home of the free. Uganda is the home of the oppressed. But listening to our Muslim mayor, he makes it sound like it’s the other way around. Spoken like a true Marxist.

Bill Donohue

America’s most vociferous critics love to trot out horror stories about slavery in the U.S., mostly as a way of saying we need to chill our enthusiasm about our nation’s 250th anniversary. As usual, they’re wrong.

To begin with, slavery is one of the most common institutions in the history of the world. In fact, it began as soon as it became possible—the first slaves were prisoners of war. Slavery has been part of humankind ever since.

Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson, who has written voluminously about the subject, found that there is not a place on the globe that has not witnessed slavery. The ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans not only tolerated slavery, they saw nothing wrong about it. Neither did Aristotle. Similarly, the Chinese and the Japanese were right at home enslaving their people.

In the U.S., free blacks owned black slaves. Indians also owned slaves. While slavery was interracial in the U.S., historically this was unusual: master and slave have typically been of the same racial and ethnic stock.

The U.S. outlawed slavery in the 1860s. It was outlawed in Africa in the 1980s. Regrettably, it still exists today in some African countries. It is an old African institution, one that enriched their warlords. But this is seldom taught in the schools, and as a result people like TV celebrity Don Lemon grow up ignorant of the subject.

In 2022, Lemon invited Hilary Fordwich, an English global consultant, to discuss the need for the English to provide reparations to Africans for the role the English played in the slave trade. He was stunned by her reply.

“If reparations need to be paid,” Fordwich said, “we need to go right back to the beginning of that supply chain and say, who was rounding up their own people and having them handcuffed in cages. That was Africa.”

Fordwich continued by saying it was a Christian Brit, William Wilberforce, who started the abolitionist movement. “In Great Britain, they abolished slavery. Two thousands naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because African kings were rounding up their own people. They had them in cages waiting in the beaches. No one was running into Africa to get them.”

Also left out of discussions on slavery is the enslavement of white people by Africans. It is estimated that between 1530 and 1780, there were between 1 million and 1.5 million white European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast. This exceeded the number of Africans enslaved in the U.S. As economist Thomas Sowell wryly said, “Nobody is going to North Africa for reparations, because nobody is going to be fool enough to give it to them.”

At the time of the Founding, there were slave states and free states, and there could not have been a union at that time if abolition had been a condition of forming the new nation. But this did not stop the Framers of the Constitution from setting in motion its eventual demise. Article I, Section 9, provided for the end of the Atlantic slave trade in 1808. Thomas Jefferson made it happen when he signed the statute that year, at the earliest constitutionally allowable date.

This history lesson was apparently never learned by Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under President Biden. She said “the original sin of slavery weaved white supremacy into our founding documents and principles.” Wrong. It was our inalienable rights—encoded in the Declaration of Independence—that ultimately abolished slavery in America.

It was up to Lincoln to finish the job. He could not have done so without invoking natural rights and natural law. Lincoln did not care if the people wanted slavery—it was against natural law (i.e., we know in our heart of hearts whether something is inherently wrong) and against natural rights (all of us possess equal rights, rights that are inalienable, and they come from God, not man).

The reason why slavery persisted in other nations, and the reason why it exists today in many nations throughout the world, is because they have no notion of natural law and natural rights. It was the application of these very Catholic concepts that led to slavery’s abolition. This explains why, at the time of the Founding, the only place in the world without slavery was a Christian nation, namely, Great Britain.

As we celebrate our nation’s birthday, we should indeed discuss our flaws, as well as our heroics. But it is intellectually dishonest to do so in a vacuum.

Once we put our failures in historical perspective, we come to a very different conclusion than the one favored by our carping critics. And once we factor in our stunning achievements, the overall assessment—especially when compared to other nations—is sufficient to make every American proud.

Michael P. McDonald

While the rest of the world is enjoying one of the largest sporting events that brings people together from all over the world, LGBT imperialists in Seattle are planning to turn a World Cup match into a vehicle to promote their disordered ideology. The local organizers have gone so far as to bill the game between Egypt and Iran on June 26 at Lumen Stadium as the “World Cup Pride Match.”

Festivities celebrating “the mother of all sins” will take place around the stadium on game day. The Pride+ Match Impact Council is assisting the local organizers in coordinating the spectacle. They pledge to take advantage of this “once-in-a-lifetime moment to showcase and celebrate LGBTQIA+ communities in Washington.” To this end the council will “validate [LGBT] community-informed priorities,” “curate Pride stories,” provide “economic opportunities for LGBTQIA+-owned enterprises,” and help “shape…cultural programming.”

Fans en route to the match will be subjected to the grotesque scenes of Seattle’s annual “Pride” weekend, which in recent years featured a large contingent of naked men on bicycles joining in a public parade. Closer to the stadium, local organizers will display the winning art work from the Pride Match Design Contest. This artwork will celebrate “the creativity, inclusion, and the vibrant spirit of Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community.”

What could possibly explain why the local organizers would move ahead with these efforts and continue to brand the game as the “World Cup Pride Match?”

Seattle Mayor Kate Wilson, a radical socialist, opined on social media that it is an “incredible honor” to lead the charge for diversity and inclusion. “With matches on Juneteenth and pride, we get to show the world that in Seattle, everyone is welcome.”

Interestingly, the governing bodies for soccer in Egypt and Iran have made it widely known that they do not feel welcome.

The Egyptian Football Association said of the “Pride” festivities that it “completely rejects such activities, which directly contradict the cultural, religious, and social values in the region, especially in Arab and Islamic societies.”

Meanwhile, the Iranian Football Federation described the event as “an unreasonable and illogical move that essentially signals support for a particular group.”

Both have called on FIFA, the global governing body of soccer, to do more to prevent Seattle’s “Pride” celebrations from being foisted upon their teams and fans.

For its part, FIFA has long standing rules designed to ensure that messaging extraneous to soccer is kept to a minimum so the focus can be squarely on the competition. Of particular importance, Section 15(a) of the FIFA Statutes requires the national governing bodies of soccer “to be neutral in matters of politics and religion.” Forcing players and fans to participate in promoting an ideology that runs contrary to their deeply held religious convictions is a blatant violation of this neutrality rule, and FIFA has asked the local organizers to comply with the statute.

However, FIFA’s authority is limited only to the stadium and officially sanctioned “fan zones.” While there appears to be some walking back of “Pride” celebrations inside the stadium, the local organizers, along with other Seattle-based LGBT groups, have promised to do as much as they can as close as they can to the match to celebrate “Pride.” This may not be a technical violation of FIFA’s rule, but it certainly flaunts the spirit of the law.

Even though the teams involved asked for the festivities to be tapered back and FIFA mandated that the local organizers comply with its rule “to be neutral,” the “Pride” celebrations are scheduled to continue and the local organizers persist in calling it the “World Cup Pride Match.” Clearly this is not about sending the message that “everyone is welcome.” No, it is something much more sinister.

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines cultural imperialism as “the imposition by one usually politically or economically dominant community of various aspects of its own culture onto another nondominant community.” The “Pride Match” is a textbook definition of this.

Wealthy elites in Seattle are telling athletes and fans from countries that do not embrace the LGBT agenda that they need to get onboard with it. The cultures of the nations involved in the match need to take a back seat to the machinations of LGBT imperialists in Seattle. While the teams thought they might be there to partake in a heated battle that will most likely determine a spot in the knockout rounds, the organizers are eclipsing their hopes and dreams to put the spotlight on this disordered ideology and forcing them to be complicit in these celebrations.

The “World Cup Pride Match” has nothing to do with diversity or inclusion, and it is certainly not making the traveling teams and fans feel welcome. Rather, it is cultural imperialism domineering over all other aspects of the beautiful game and overshadowing it with radical LGBT ideology.