Bill Donohue

Former Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp has joined the Catholic League’s board of advisors. A committed pro-life Catholic, he served for 14 years in the Kansas Legislature and six years as a member of the House of Representatives. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from American University, and prior to that he spent two years in a Catholic seminary. He was Senior Advisor to CatholicVote and was a member of Catholics for Trump in 2020 and 2024.

We are delighted to have Congressman Huelskamp on our board of advisors and we look forward to working together.

Bill Donohue

With one notable exception, news stories on the death of Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, did not fail to mention that he was a convicted sex offender. Only Reuters, the British news wire, failed to mention it. Initially, the American news wire, the Associated Press, failed to mention it as well, but it corrected itself in later editions. Reuters did not.

The media outlets that did the best job on reporting Yarrow’s abuse of a minor were Rolling Stone, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Now some might say that it could be that Reuters has little interest in reporting on sexual abuse. But that is not the case. From May 2021 to December 2024, the British news agency ran nearly 300 stories on the Catholic Church and abuse, even though it was given very little to report on: most offending priests are either dead or have been kicked out of ministry.

Reuters is so anxious to report on priestly misconduct that it can’t even get its facts straight. We had to correct the U.K. journalists in 2018 when it ran a piece on Father Kevin Lonergan of the Diocese of Allentown (PA) who groped a 17-year-old girl and sent nude photos of himself to her. Reuters wrote that “The Allentown Diocese removed Lonergan from his duties after prosecutors alerted them to the case.”

This is false. It was Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert who notified the authorities, right after he learned about it.

What exactly did Yarrow do that Reuters is covering up?

In 1970, a 14-year-old and her 17-year-old sister went to his hotel room after his concert to get his autograph. He came to the door naked and then sexually abused the younger girl in front of her sister. He was sentenced to a one-to-three-year prison sentence, but only served three months.

Yarrow later gave himself a pass, blaming it on the sexual revolution. “In that time, it was common practice, unfortunately—the whole groupie thing.” He also said, “It was an era of real indiscretion and mistakes by categorically male performers.” So child abuse is a “mistake.”

If this isn’t sick enough, consider that the child molester was pardoned in 1981 by none other than President Jimmy Carter, just as he was going out the door. Yarrow was not at all contrite. Indeed, he took the occasion to blast those who nailed him. “With the mean-spiritedness of our time,” he said, “it gets hauled out as if it’s [the sexual abuse of the 14-year-old girl] relevant.” That it might be relevant to his victims does not matter.

After I read that in 2014, I said, “It just makes me want to reach for the vomit bag.”

There’s a lot to chew on with this story, but don’t look for Reuters to educate its readers.

Contact the president and CEO of Thomson Reuters: [email protected]

Bill Donohue

For the past four years, the Catholic League has been fighting an array of public policies initiated by the Biden administration that touch on serious moral issues. We are happy to report that they have finally succumbed to pressure and are dropping four of their most morally bankrupt policies.

On December 23, Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it has withdrawn a rule change that would have barred religious non-profits from claiming an exemption to the HHS mandate that was initiated by the Obama administration; it would require employers to provide abortion and contraceptive coverage in their healthcare plans.

This means that the Little Sisters of the Poor, and other religious social service agencies, have cleared another bar in their pursuit of maintaining fidelity to their mission. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court twice granted religious exemptions to the HHS mandate, the Biden team still sought to deny them; they have finally backed off.

We have been fighting the HHS mandate from the get-go. It was added to the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, in August 2011 (it became law one year later). On September 19, 2011, a month after it was announced, we registered the first of a long series of objections.

We noted that the HHS mandate “made an exception for religious employers,” but we hastened to add that “when looked at closer, it became apparent that the exception was flatulent. To wit: a religious employer was defined, in part, as one that primarily employs, and serves, persons who share its religious tenets.”

This was meant to cover houses of worship, but would extend no further. For example, it would punish the Little Sisters, and Catholic schools and hospitals, because they serve non-Catholics. But they wouldn’t be Catholic if they were forced to discriminate on the basis of religion!

Over the next four months, we issued six additional public statements on the flawed HHS mandate. Then, on January 23, 2012, we made our first comment noting that the mandate was meant to force these Catholic agencies to provide for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plan. Though the HHS mandate does not mention these drugs, per se, it was cleverly inserted in the provision that said “contraceptives” covered “emergency contraception (ulipristal acetate), and any additional contraceptives approved, granted, or cleared by the FDA.”

In other words, abortion-inducing drugs such as ulipristal (known as “Ella”)—which is similar to the abortion pill RU-486—was to be included in Catholic employee healthcare plans. We subsequently issued more than a dozen public statements condemning the HHS mandate. Now, finally, this intolerant policy has been scrapped.

The second policy change made by the Biden administration prohibits the Department of Defense (DOD) from covering transgender drug prescriptions of minors. But it was not done for principled reasons. This  provision was part of the huge defense spending bill that Biden wanted, but due to Republican resistance on including transgender drug coverage for minors, he had to nix it.

In Biden’s first year in office, we released a three-part series on the physical and psychological damage that transgender health procedures can cause; we also addressed how young people are being indoctrinated into thinking this is normal. So we are delighted that Biden had to kill the drug prescription provision in the DOD budget.

The third policy change that Biden made at the end of December was its decision to withdraw a rule that would force schools that receive federal funds to allow boys and young men to compete in girls’ and women’s sports.

On his first day in office, Biden issued an executive order saying that children “will not be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports” on the basis of their declared sex. This was a perverse reading of Title IX, the 1972 law that mandated that women could not be discriminated against in sports. It has nothing to do with males competing against females.

From 2019 to the present, we issued nearly 50 public statements and reports warning of the dangers of men crashing girls’ and women’s spaces, including sports. We also published over 40 articles on this subject in our monthly journal, Catalyst, and I included a chapter on transgenderism in my 2024 book, Cultural Meltdown. To say we are delighted with this outcome would be an understatement.

We are most proud of our role in getting the Biden administration to withdraw a proposed rule that would have rescinded a rule initiated when Trump was president that secured the right of religious student organizations at public colleges and universities to maintain their beliefs and practices, free from administrative interference.

The Department of Education said it made the change because during the period when public comment was allowed, it received 58,000 comments, and many expressed opposition to rescinding the Trump rule. On February 28, 2023, we detailed how the rights of religious students were being decimated on campus. More important, we called for Catholics to register their objections, providing them with directions on how to make their voice heard.

Resistance matters, and we are happy to have participated.

Bill Donohue

On January 4, President Biden gave the Medal of Freedom to George Soros. It is the nation’s highest civilian award, given to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.” The White House said those who received the award are “great leaders because they are good people who have made extraordinary contributions to their country and the world.”

The truth is that George Soros has done more to destroy western civilization and the United States, in particular, than any single person in the world. An inveterate anti-Catholic bigot, his anti-law enforcement policies have impoverished and punished legions of innocent black Americans. A self-hating Jew, he has been condemned by Jewish leaders in the United States and Israel.

Soros uses his Open Society Institute to help “reset” America’s priorities. He contributes to “dark money” organizations that make it hard to trace the origins of their funding services. This includes funding the Tides Foundation. According to the Capital Research Center, “If the Left does it, Tides funds it.”

Among the most important American values is freedom of speech. Soros has worked overtime to kill it, donating to causes that fight “disinformation,” or speech that the Left deems worthy of censoring. He was particularly active in promoting President Obama’s efforts at censorship.

Soros has sought to destabilize America by supporting open borders, welcoming those who have illegally entered the country. His embrace of Black Lives Matter, which has openly said it wants to destroy the nuclear family, is of a piece with his attacks on the criminal justice system. He gave Alvin Bragg $1 million when he was running for the DA in Manhattan in 2021; he gave George Gascón nearly $3 million when he ran for DA in Los Angeles in 2020. In 2022, he gave $40 million to elect seventy-five “social justice” prosecutors.

Between 2016 and 2022, Soros gave more than $29 million to a personal network of political action committees specifically established to back radical DA candidates. By mid-2022, one in five Americans, or seventy million people, were living in a jurisdiction overseen by a Soros-backed prosecutor. Soros DAs were running New York, Chicago, Saint Louis, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. Crime-ridden Austin, Texas, was made worse when he gave $500,000 in 2021 to defeat a ballot initiative that would have provided more money to hire police officers (cops were retiring at record levels).

[See my book, War on Virtue: How the Ruling Class is Killing the American Dream, for the documentation.]

Soros’ Open Society Institute has waged war on Catholics for decades. It funds many dissident organizations, activist groups that falsely claim to be Catholic. They include Catholics for Choice, a pro-abortion, anti-Catholic letterhead funded by the likes of Soros. He was also the money behind Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United, two front-groups set up by Clinton aide John Podesta to create a “Catholic Spring” revolution in the Church.

Though Soros is Jewish, he has been accused by the ADL of blaming anti-Semitism in Israel on the Israeli government, and the Jerusalem Post has accused him of weakening support for Israel in the Democratic Party. The editor of the New Republic, Martin Peretz, called him “a cog in the Hitlerite wheel.”

As a young man in Hungary, Soros became a Nazi collaborator. In a 60 Minutes interview he admitted that he helped confiscate property from Jews. He told Steve Kroft that he never regretted doing so. When asked if this was difficult, Soros said, “Not, not at all.” Stunned, Kroft said, “No feeling of guilt?” “No” came the reply.

Biden has been telling us for four years how much he supports DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). His decision to honor George Soros, the world’s most influential anti-Catholic bigot, shows what a liar this “devout Catholic” really is.

Contact the White House Secretary: [email protected] 

Bill Donohue

A decade ago, I ran into Alan Dershowitz in the green room at Fox News, awaiting a TV interview. We exchanged some small talk, and then he said something that has stayed with me.

He said he has lived through the McCarthy years, the 1960s and so much more, but never has he seen such hatred in America as there is today. Given what we have witnessed in the past few years—most conspicuously the past few days—it’s a sure bet he would conclude that matters have only gotten worse.

What happened in New Orleans was Satanic. Planned, coordinated assaults on innocent human life—done in the name of evil—are a sign of just how much hatred has flourished. And it is not confined to New Orleans. From the Tesla car explosion outside Trump’s Hotel in Las Vegas, to New Yorkers celebrating Hamas—to say nothing of people being set on fire and pushed into subway tracks—it is clear that hatred is ubiquitous.

There are non-violent expressions of hatred that need to be checked as well.

From December 16 to December 29, the Catholic League paid for a billboard to be displayed in the vicinity of Madison, Wisconsin. It was a short statement against atheists who have tried to neuter Christmas; we chose this beltway location because Madison is home to the headquarters of Freedom From Religion Foundation, an anti-Catholic atheist organization known for its annual attacks on Christmas.

While our members were happy that we responded with vigor, we received dozens of hateful emails. Here is a short list of the remarks.

• “No one is ‘striking out’ at Christmas! Clear-thinking, non-brainwashed and non-deluded people” know better.
• “And you wonder why more and more people are calling bull**** the worthless Bible and its monstrous God who condones slavery and rape. So how are you doing with your altar boys?”
• “When was your mythical savior born? Certainly not in December.”
• “Good day to you, have a happy solstice, and hail Satan!”
• “I hope you find some peace in the coming year before you meet the devil in hell.”
• “We are celebrating Solstice before your God started leering at thirteen year olds.”
• “You are a fascist, racist, nazi organization.”
• “It’s Christians who usurped the winter solstice as part of its scheme to indoctrinate the ‘heathen pagans.’”
• “Your behavior is equal to the evangelical Christians worship of a sexual predator and felon. God has nothing to do with your business model and behavior.”
• “You really need to f***ing kill yourselves, you baby raping monsters.”
• “You don’t own winter, you child raping motherf******.”

[While writing this post, I had to stop on three occasions to notify the hotel that is catty-corner to our office building about two teenage girls who were hurling dozens of glass objects, cans, etc. from their balcony on the 34th floor onto the street below. Security finally put an end to it. Another sign of our times.]

It is impossible to reason with those imbued with such deep-seated hatred. But it is equally important that they not succeed in intimidating Catholics and other people of faith.

The year 2025 promises to be tumultuous. There are good reasons to believe, however, that our adversaries are on the defensive, and that is something that should inspire the vast majority of Americans not to give up. Evil must be confronted and defeated.

The Catholic League’s 2024 Year in Review is now available. It contains an overview of some of our most important battles and victories over the last year. To read it, click here.

Bill Donohue

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision in March of 2021 to launch Operation Lone Star—bussing migrants from Texas to cities across the nation—turned out to be one of the most consequential issues affecting the 2024 presidential election. Trump would not have won without him. What he did was to turn a regional issue into a national one. That was a stroke of sociological genius.

Washington D.C. and New York City were targeted in the first wave, with bus after bus arriving in Union Station and Port Authority, respectively. Chicago and points west were next up.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also played a vital role. His decision to fly migrants to Martha’s Vineyard—home to wealthy supporters of President Biden’s open border policy—hit a chord: The illegal aliens were moved out of the liberal paradise with dispatch.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey got into the act, bussing migrants to the nation’s Capitol. All participants signed a waiver that their free trip was voluntary.

If these governors had not acted, there would have been little sympathy in most parts of the country for their plight. After all, the citizens in most states were never threatened by those who crashed our borders, so they had no reason to take this issue as seriously as those who were impacted.

Gov. Abbott did what he had to do—he had to shock the conscience of the nation. He sent a message to his critics: everyone needs to have some skin in the game.

Michael P. McDonald, Director of Communications

For the PDF version, click here.

2024 will go down in American history as a pivotal year. The people standing for tradition, reason, and faith fought to reclaim their country, and the Catholic League was right there in the thick of it.

By far, the biggest story of 2024 was the presidential election, and as history unfolded, we tirelessly worked to educate Catholics on the critical issues at stake.

To this end, we published a report on the religious liberty policies of Donald Trump and the Biden-Harris administration. We noted how Trump was pro-religious liberty and never supported groups hostile to Catholics. We could not say the same for Biden-Harris and found their record sorely lacking. Our comprehensive report did more to educate Catholics on this subject than any other document put out by other organizations.

We additionally pointed out Harris’ outright hostility to Catholics on several occasions. She stiffed Catholics this year by refusing to go to the Al Smith Dinner. While serving in the Senate, she was openly hostile to judicial nominees who were faithful Catholics. As California Attorney General, she crippled pregnancy resource centers and targeted pro-life activists.

While Harris had problems with Catholics that upheld the teachings of the Church, in her corner was a whole slew of Catholic dissidents. We called out these rogues.

Ultimately, Trump decisively won the election, in large part thanks to him carrying approximately 58 percent of Catholics. Moving forward, the work will turn toward ensuring that the safeguards for religious liberty are as robust as they can be. To that end, Bill Donohue urged Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to resign early in the new Trump administration so they can be replaced by younger justices who will protect the court’s religion friendly majority for years to come. Bill also raised concerns over Robert F. Kennedy’s departures from Catholic teachings and the prudence of appointing him as Secretary for Health and Human Services.

While Trump’s victory represents a return to tradition and commonsense, the opposition went down swinging. In 2024, we saw a concentrated effort from the federal and state governments targeting Catholics and other people of faith.

We called out the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network after the Federal agency flagged “the purchasing of books (including religious texts)” as a sign of extremism. We also went after the Department of Justice (DOJ) for using the FACE Act to punish peaceful pro-life activists while giving a pass to violent pro-abortion radicals.

The FBI continued to stall in revealing the truth behind its probe of Catholics from 2023. Even after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report on the matter, several critical questions remained. For now, it appears that our doggedness to uncover the whole truth has at least curtailed the worst of it. Hopefully, the new administration can definitively put this issue to rest.

Another area we battled with the FBI was the release of Audrey Hale’s manifesto. In 2023, Hale, a woman who falsely believed she was a man, attacked the Christian Covenant School in Nashville, killing six people including three children. For over a year, the FBI withheld the manifesto from the public. Normally, such documents are released right away. We hounded them to disseminate the manifesto.

When it was finally released, it was clear why the FBI kept it hidden for so long. The manifesto showed that Hale was a very sick person, and her woes were further compounded by identifying as transgender.

We also pushed back on the Department of Homeland Security after it came to light that an internal advisory board recommended flagging those who served in the military, are religious, and support Trump as potential extremists and domestic terrorists.

We proved Biden’s White House and the media were wrong to insist the ban on religious symbols at the annual “egg roll” party was in line with previous administrations. We found evidence to the contrary highlighting their deception.

Another disturbing trend was how the Biden administration used Orwellian language to influence public thought and sideline traditional Catholic values. We issued a report examining this.

On the state level, perhaps the greatest display of anti-Catholicism came from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. While wearing a “Harris Walz” hat, Whitmer mocked the Eucharist by placing a Dorito on the tongue of a kneeling Liz Plank, a podcaster. We led the charge against Whitmer, alerting all Catholic parishes in Michigan of her horrendous act. We created such a media firestorm that she was compelled to put out a statement.

In the statement, Whitmer tried to say she was not mocking the Eucharist. Instead, she was championing the CHIP Act also insisting that no one was kneeling. Of course, this was a flimsy excuse and photographic evidence quickly proved she was lying. We did not fall for it and jumped back into the fray to confront her dishonesty.

We also called out a dangerous ballot initiative in New York that would trample parental rights and religious liberty. We mobilized Catholics across the state to vote no on Proposition 1. Bill wrote an excellent booklet highlighting the adverse impact the initiative would have, and we sent the booklet to important stakeholders in the Empire State. Unfortunately, New York is too far gone, and Proposition 1 passed.

Joining the government in targeting Catholics came a large swath of characters from all walks of life.

Twice in 2024, anti-Catholic activists defiled St. Patrick’s Cathedral. In the first instance, LGBT radicals hijacked the cathedral to stage a funeral mocking Catholic traditions for a man who falsely claimed to be a woman. Then again, during the Easter Vigil Mass, protesters invaded the cathedral screaming “Free Palestine” and holding a banner that read “SILENCE = DEATH.” In both instances, we called out the crashers and the media, which either ignored the story or tried to frame the radicals as the victims.

After Harrison Butker, the kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs, spoke in defense of traditional Catholic values at Benedictine College, he was criticized by the NFL and slammed on social media. We happily came to Butker’s defense with greater effect than any other Catholic organization.

The Olympics’ opening ceremony featured a skit mocking the Last Supper starring transgenders. We wasted no time in contacting International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach and other officials around the world, targeting the Olympics’ sponsors, and calling out those telling us it was not intended as an insult to Catholics.

Additionally, we called out the NBA for its selective interest in “human rights.” While the league claims to promote social justice in America, it partners with China, one of the worst persecutors of Christians.

We also confronted the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) after they tried to intimidate us. The atheists complained to the IRS that we “engaged in unlawful political campaigning.” We were undeterred, because we did nothing wrong, and promised to continue to publicly hammer anti-Catholic bigots.

Meanwhile, a coordinated effort by Christian bashers attempted to discredit Trump nominees Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee. We exposed the bigots targeting these men for their faith.

All of these attacks were not just acts of random bigotry. The secular left needs to weaken the power of the Church and the resolve of individual Catholics to advance their agenda, particularly on the issues of abortion and transgenderism.

In 2024, the media covered for the pro-abortion extremists in the Democratic Party. Repeatedly, we were told there was no such thing as late-term abortions by the “fact checkers” and the talking heads.

Even during the presidential debate between Trump and Harris, and again during the vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz, who as governor of Minnesota signed a law which repealed protections for infants born alive following a botched abortion, the pundits lied saying that late term abortions are “misinformation” and babies born alive receive lifesaving care following an abortion.

The worst was the New York Times, which omitted the relevant portion of the sentence that proved Walz repealed safeguards for newborn babies.

We routinely pointed out the truth to correct these false narratives.

There was also a lot of action on transgenderism. The secularists went on a tear trying to advance this cause. Across the country parents and religious people saw their rights eroded so that men and women can pretend to be the opposite sex. In several instances, parents lost custody of their children or children were permitted to “transition” without parental consent. Additionally, faithful Catholics and Christians were denied the opportunity to provide loving homes to children in need.

Fortunately, we may have reached a tipping point on this issue. Across Europe, many nations have pulled back on their support for transgenderism. Closer to home polls throughout the year showed people rejecting this anti-scientific ideology.

We struck while the iron was hot with an ad blitz at both the Republican and Democratic conventions calling on both parties to commit to protecting children from this insanity. We also showed our support for those who realized they were hoodwinked by transgenderism and have decided to “detransition.” Look for more of these people in the year to come.

We also fought back on several other key issues and scored critical victories in the process.

We exposed the myth of “Christian nationalist” violence comprehensively showing that the “violence” often cited has almost nothing to do with Christianity. It is just a fraudulent attempt to silence Catholics.

We set the record straight after the Washington Post published a report on abuse at Catholic-run Indian boarding schools in the United States. We thoroughly tore apart the erroneous conclusions.

When the media was totally silent about a report by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops noting the almost complete eradication of clergy sexual abuse, we highlighted this good news.

Bill also released his new book Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, and our documentary “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” won its ninth award.

We continued displaying our life-sized nativity scene in Central Park. Additionally, we arranged for a billboard this year in Madison, Wisconsin, home to FFRF. Our ad took aim at them for their mockery of Christmas with their Winter Solstice exhibit. We also defended a Catholic League member who wanted to display a Nativity alongside a menorah but was denied. The building decided to do the equal but intolerant thing and removed all displays. Meanwhile, around the country, atheist and satanic groups tried to dilute Christmas, but we pushed back.

We achieved great things this year, but it is only the beginning. It will take time to utterly route the secularists that maligned and marginalized Catholics in the last few years. The cultural forces that engendered these attacks remain potent and will attempt to corrode our values in the future. The culture war cannot be won in a single election cycle. It takes years of dedicated effort. The forecast for 2025 looks brighter. However, there is still work to be done, and the Catholic League will be there to see it through.

Bill Donohue

We’ll take a slow learner over one who never learns, which is why we are happy to report that Disney continues to move away from its offensive fare. Are they family-friendly again? Not quite. But they are moving in the right direction.

“Win or Lose” is a forthcoming Pixar animated miniseries set to premiere on Disney+ in February of next year. Disney has reworked a story arc featuring a “transgender” youth that plays on a co-ed softball team. Initially the miniseries was set to explore this character’s backstory and perspective, like it does with several other characters. However, Disney ultimately decided that this controversial topic should be omitted from the show.

A spokesperson for Disney said, “When it comes to animated content for a younger audience, we recognize that many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.” Considering that Disney became the epitome of woke corporate politics by leading the charge against Florida’s “Parental Bill of Rights” in 2022, this is a massive reversal of the entertainment giant’s position.

This pivot reflects the thinking coming from the top.

During a Q&A with Disney shareholders in April of 2024, Disney CEO Bob Iger stated he believed it was Disney’s job to “entertain, first and foremost.” He went on to say, “I’ve always believed that we have a responsibility to do good in the world, but we know our job is not to advance any kind of agenda.” This builds on previous comments Iger made since retaking the helm of Disney in 2023.

The change in direction is evident in other Disney fare.

“Inside Out 2” premiered in theaters in June and quickly became the top-grossing animated film of all time, raking in a total of $1.7 billion globally. A huge part of this success stemmed from efforts undertaken by Disney executives to ensure that the Pixar film had no LGBT content. Throughout its production, executives went to great lengths to portray the characters as normal. Many scenes were reworked to remove any suggestions that any characters were LGBT.

In August, Disney announced “The Acolyte” would be cancelled after streaming for a single season on Disney+. Even with the media loudly cheering on the series and bashing anyone complaining about its weak characters or poor writing, it was largely panned by fans for sacrificing quality storytelling in favor of promoting woke content. The series leaned heavily into LGBT themes and also saw the debut of Disney’s first openly “transgender” actor Abigail Thorn (a man pretending to be a woman) in a supporting role.

“Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” is an animated series that airs on Disney+.

One episode revolved around Brooklyn, the captain of the girls volleyball team. He is a male who falsely claims to be a female. When a rival coach finds out that Brooklyn played on the boys soccer team, the coach moves to have Brooklyn disqualified. The showrunners present this coach as motivated by bigotry and partially interested in giving the opposing team an unfair advantage.

As the title “Gatekeeper” suggests, it is strongly implied that anyone opposed to letting boys compete in girls sports is a bigot and concerns over fairness and safety are just a ruse by weaker teams trying to eliminate better athletes from competition.

Disney pulled the episode “Gatekeeper” featuring a transgender storyline. “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur” was cancelled in October; ten more episodes are slated to air in 2025.

This turn about would not have happened without considerable pressure being applied to Disney executives.

We take pride in helping to mount that pressure. In January of 2023, we released “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom,” a documentary with an all-star cast that detailed Disney’s departure from a family-friendly company. Our documentary won nine awards and has been seen by millions of people around the world. It is streaming  on Amazon and the DVD is available from the Catholic League.

Christmas is a time for reflection, as well as joy. It is our hope that Disney continues to reflect on the damage it has done and moves with dispatch to bring about the joy that made it so famous in the first place.