Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on impending threats to religious liberty:

Left-wing advocacy organizations are wasting no time pressing Joe Biden to do away with the religious liberty protections afforded by the Trump administration. As we have previously detailed, no president has done more to secure religious liberty than Donald Trump.

The three most prominent organizations asking Biden to undo Trump’s progress are the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Center for American Progress.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is obsessed with sex: it wants to make sure that homosexuals, the sexually confused (transgender people), and women seeking an abortion never have rights that are subordinate to religious rights. It does not matter to the civil libertarians that the former are nowhere mentioned in the Constitution and the latter are enshrined in the First Amendment. The ACLU is worried that “a new wave of bills seeking to create religious exemptions” will succeed, endangering the rights of “LGBTQ” people.

No right is more important than conscience rights, a liberty which is ineluctably tied to religious rights. It is this premier right that the ACLU loathes. In a statement released after the election, it condemned “attempts by the Trump administration to invoke religious or personal beliefs.” It said that such exercises can be used to discriminate against LGBTQ people. It further stated that “invoking religious or moral objections” to the LGBTQ agenda cannot be tolerated.

On November 11, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) issued its “Blueprint for Positive Change 2020.” It is chock-a-block full of recommendations for Biden. One of its priorities is to upend the new direction taken by the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Health and Human Services under President Trump. It specifically takes aim at the Office’s enforcement of “federal conscience and religious liberty laws.” Once again, the LGBTQ agenda is considered to be more important. Thus HRC joins the ACLU in the left-wing assault on conscience rights.

HRC also wants to pare back the religious liberty protections afforded faith-based programs by the Trump administration. If its position were followed, it would essentially excise the faith element in faith-based initiatives. This, of course, is its goal.

The most draconian recommendation promoted by HRC is its call for the Department of Education to reconsider its standards for accrediting religious institutions of higher education. In short, it wants to deny accreditation to religious colleges and universities that do not meet its secular vision of education.

HRC is incensed over the current mandate that accreditation agencies “respect the stated mission” of these religious institutions. It takes particular umbrage at the religious liberty protections cited in the Higher Education Opportunity Act, a law passed by the Congress during the outgoing Bush administration in 2008.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) encourages the Biden Administration to do everything the ACLU and HRC want, focusing on doing away with religious exemptions initiated by the Trump administration. However, it does have a few novel ideas of its own.

CAP is big on “diversity outreach” efforts to minority religions. This multicultural game, of course, is less interested in recognizing minority religions than it is in whittling away at our Judeo-Christian heritage. It does not stop there.

“Religious outreach efforts should also specifically include secular humanist or nonreligious groups, as well as faith-based or spirit-rooted communities who do not observe a specific religious tradition.” If the gurus who wrote this were honest, they would simply say that religious outreach efforts should embrace organizations founded to subvert religion. Inviting atheists to have a table at religious gatherings is like having racists participate in a forum on racism. Yes, there are non-bigoted atheists, but organized atheist entities invariably harbor an animus against religion.

CAP urges the Biden administration to “safeguard the separation between religion and government.” Really? Then why does it say, “Together with Pope Francis, the Biden administration should organize a global gathering of religious leaders to discuss climate change and refugee issues”?

Whatever happened to that proverbial “wall” separating church and state? No matter, if the pope is to have a voice on climate change (not exactly his specialty), why not invite the Holy Father to share his views on gender ideology—the fanciful notion that we can switch our sex? He properly calls it “demonic.”

Constitutional law professor Patrick Garry notes that it was never the intent of the Founders to “place religion and nonreligion on the same level.” In fact, “Textually, the Constitution provides greater protection of religious practices than for any secular-belief-related activities.” This is what gnaws at the ACLU, HRC and CAP.

Much is being made of Biden’s alleged “devout” Catholic status. Yet many of his polices on life, marriage, the family, and sexuality are at variance with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Now he is being besieged by organizations that are positively inimical to his professed religion. He cannot have it both ways any more. It is time for him to draw a line in the sand, before his allies eviscerate it altogether.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a story by the Associated Press about the way lay Catholics allegedly responded to Archbishop Gomez’s statement on Joe Biden:

Most of the news stories on the alleged widespread division in the ranks of the Catholic laity are bogus. How do I know? Because most writers, and many pollsters, fail to disaggregate on the basis of religiosity. To be exact, those who do not make a distinction between practicing Catholics and non-practicing Catholics are intellectually dishonest. Lumping them together yields a distorted profile of the Catholic community.

Virtually all polls that disaggregate on the metric of religiosity have long found that most non-practicing Catholics reject Church teachings on life, ordination, marriage, the family, and sexuality. To what extent can they be called Catholic? If their views are practically indistinguishable from non-observant Americans, why are they not classified as secularists?

This is not a new phenomenon, but it is already clear that if Joe Biden is elected president next month by the Electoral College, this issue is going to escalate in the media.

A clear case in point is the November 18 AP story by David Crary, “Catholics Divided as Bishops Examine Biden’s Abortion Stance.” While Crary properly notes that Catholics split the vote on Trump-Biden (50% to 49%, respectively), he makes the point that there is an alleged Catholic divide over comments recently made by Archbishop José Gomez, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Gomez told his fellow bishops that Biden’s record on many policy positions, such as abortion, is problematic: it posed a “difficult and complex situation” for the Church. According to Crary, Catholics are “sharply divided” over Gomez’s remarks.

Crary cites no evidence, save for a few comments made by so-called progressive Catholics. He provides no survey data. That is because most Catholics—you can take it to the bank—have no idea what Gomez said, and this includes real Catholics (i.e., those who are practicing). So why the need to make up a controversy when there isn’t any?

Here’s what’s going on. Catholics who reject Church teachings on the aforementioned issues are all ginned up these days, hoping to press the bishops to fall in line with Biden (or at least not to challenge him.) That’s what this is all about. Just consider the comments made by left-wing Catholics.

David Gibson of Fordham’s Center on Religion and Culture says, “The USCCB leadership simply can’t embrace the idea of engagement and goodwill that Pope Francis has asked of them.” It apparently does not occur to Gibson that it is Biden, not the bishops, who can’t embrace many central teachings of the Catholic Church, and it is that—not episcopal recalcitrance—that is driving this issue. If only Biden would obey.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, who teaches religious studies at Manhattan College, also blames the bishops. She says, “they’d like to start an antagonistic relationship” with Biden. The truth is that Biden is at war with the Catholic Church: He opposes teachings on abortion, marriage, sexuality (he is a big transgender fan) and religious liberty. That’s the cause of the antagonism. Her attempt to portray Biden as the victim is risible.

Thomas Groome of Boston College blames Gomez for his “dreadfully unfortunate” address. Spoken like a true dissident. Crary also quotes Jamie Manson, another dissident—she is now the head of an anti-Catholic and pro-abortion letterhead (Catholics for Choice)—lashing out at Gomez for his “condescending remarks.” Practicing Catholics would be more inclined to see his statement as unpretentious, even humble, like the man himself.

Left-wing Catholics cited by the media are not representative of Catholics found in the pews. Indeed, they are more closely aligned with secularists. This is a shell game, designed to shape public opinion with a false narrative. Biden is the problem, not the bishops.

Contact Crary: dcrary@ap.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is asking newly elected Rep. John Jacob (R) from Indiana to renounce the anti-Catholic remarks he posted on Facebook prior to taking office. To read Donohue’s letter, click here.

Contact Jacob’s press secretary: samantha.holifield@iga.in.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the U.S. bishops and their relationship with Joe Biden:

Assuming Joe Biden is chosen as president next month by the Electoral College, he will pose a problem for the bishops. Indeed, the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Archbishop José Gomez, indicated this week that the bishops are already beset by Biden. If Biden were a Protestant, it would not complicate matters for the bishops, but he is a baptized Catholic.

At the USCCB meeting this week, Gomez said there were some policies, such as immigration, where Biden’s “faith commitments will move him to support some good policies.” But there are other issues, such as abortion, which Gomez stressed is “our preeminent priority,” where Biden deviates sharply from Catholic teachings. To deal with this dilemma, Gomez appointed Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron to head a working task force; he will coordinate efforts among the various USCCB committees.

Among Biden’s top priorities is to codify into law the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade. In other words, Biden wants to lock in the right of a woman to abort her child at any moment of pregnancy, for any reason whatsoever, thus blunting any future court challenges.

Biden explained his stance last year saying that he “personally” agrees that life begins at conception. Thus, he said, he was in agreement with the “doctrine of my church.” He failed to note that the consequences of his decision as a public official on a matter that ineluctably impacts the public cannot logically be seen as a personal one. Moreover, his “personal” decision is dismissive of scientific evidence on the beginning of human life.

Biden also wants to get rid of the Hyde Amendment, thus forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions. Biden was a supporter of the Hyde Amendment when it was introduced in the 1970s, and stayed the course right up until June 2019. That was when—two months after he announced he was going to run for president—he flipped sides. Similarly, he wants to change Title X so that Planned Parenthood, and other family planning entities, can receive federal funds to pay for abortions.

Gomez said at the bishops’ conference that these policies are going to create “confusion among the faithful about what the Church actually teaches on these questions.” How could it not?

No organization, including secular ones, can expect its members to practice fidelity to its strictures if its leaders do not. We see this playing out right now across the country when many local, state, and federal officials are insisting that the public abide by strict Covid-19 rules, all the while making exceptions for themselves. Such hypocrisy engenders cynicism and disrespect for their authority.

The confusion that Gomez mentioned is heightened when we learn of a Catholic elementary school in Baltimore that is accommodating a third-grade girl in her fictional quest to identify as a boy. It is not just Biden that is contradicting Church teachings. Biden, by the way, announced at a town hall event last month that “on day one” he would ease all restrictions on “transitioning” to the opposite sex.

If this isn’t enough to deal with, Gomez also cited Biden’s interest in restoring the Health and Human Services mandate that requires employers, including Catholic non-profits, to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans. To put it differently, the “devout Catholic” wants to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to pay for these life-ending drugs.

The Equality Act, which would be the most serious assault on religious liberty ever countenanced, is championed by Biden. This was not lost on Gomez, who referenced it in his remarks. This legislation would lead to an assault on the autonomy of Catholic hospitals and ensure that boys who think they are girls can compete against biological girls, sharing locker rooms and showers with them.

Biden is already under pressure from the likes of Linda Sarsour, a Muslim activist with an anti-Semitic record, to make good on his extremist agenda. She said the approach favored by her side now goes from “defensive to offensive.” From the way things are shaping up, she may not be as busy as she thinks: the scheduled assault on life, marriage, the family, and sexuality looks to be on automatic pilot.

Weeks before the Senate Judiciary Committee began its hearings on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, Bill Donohue predicted that she was not likely to be subjected to another round of anti-Catholic assaults like she endured in 2017 when she was being considered for an appellate job. He was right.

Donohue reasoned that those who made Catholic-bashing remarks three years ago paid a heavy price for doing so, and would therefore be more careful this time. It was also too close to the election for bigoted politicians to go down this road again.

The Catholic League played a major role in putting these unjust critics of Barrett on the defensive in 2017. More than any other Catholic organization, we led the fight against Barrett’s foes. We did so again in 2020.

When Barrett was grilled in 2017, we issued 10 news releases on her, garnering 32 media hits: we were cited on TV, radio, newspaper, and internet stories. Most important, we mobilized Catholics to contact Senator Charles Grassley, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee when Barrett was being considered for the appellate position. They did so in droves.

On September 17, 2017, Donohue wrote to Senator Dick Durbin and Senator Dianne Feinstein objecting to their line of questioning. In both instances, Catholic-baiting questions and comments were made. What made this news release special was providing our subscribers with Grassley’s email address: they let him know of their concerns.

In Donohue’s statement to the media, he said, “Senator Durbin and Senator Feinstein came perilously close to applying a religious test to circuit court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. Such a test is unconstitutional.”

On October 31, 2017, Grassley took to the floor commenting on Barrett’s critics, noting that “Others have spoken on the issue of a ‘religious test’ but I’ll remind my colleagues the Constitution” bars such a measure. He added that “we received many letters on this topic.” We made sure he did.

What we did in 2017 paid a huge dividend in 2020. We knew there would be some “oblique shots” at her religion, as Donohue put it, but nothing like what happened last time.

The media sought out Donohue for several TV and radio interviews, and many internet sites picked up our news releases. Mike McDonald, our new communications director, was also interviewed on TV and radio. The Catholic League presence in this controversy was significant.

While anti-Catholic politicians still exist, we are here to stop them.

U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would like the high court to revisit the 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that granted a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. They made their plea in October when the court declined to review the case involving Kim Davis, the Kentucky court clerk who refused to issue a wedding license to two gay men.

It is not just that the Supreme Court invented a right to gay marriage five years ago, the Justices said; it’s that it triggered a wave of anti-religious bigotry. Thomas wrote the opinion and Alito joined it.

“Due to Obergefell, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society,” Thomas wrote. The ruling, he said, “enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman as bigots, making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss.”

Since this decision was reached, Thomas wrote, “people of good will” have been branded “as bigots merely for refusing to alter their religious beliefs in the wake of prevailing orthodoxy.”

Thomas and Alito do not exaggerate. It is now commonplace in the media and in the schools to mock and shame practicing Catholics and evangelicals for holding to biblical truths on marriage and sexuality.

These Justices sent an unmistakable message to their colleagues on the bench. We hope they’re listening.

William A. Donohue

To prove his own existence, Descartes famously said, “I think, therefore I am.” To prove their own identity, we now have people saying, “I identify as X, therefore I am X.”

In my lifetime, never have I seen more intellectual dishonesty than exists today. Many live in a world of fiction. Adult men and women, especially those drugged by higher education—they are overwhelmingly white—are playing a child’s game of pretend. They pretend to be someone they manifestly are not.

Males claim to be female and females claim to be males. Not too long ago, they would be placed in an asylum. Now they are running diversity programs on Wall Street.

I recently had to fill out a form before I underwent a routine medical procedure. Most of the questions were unexceptional. But there was one page—an entire page—that asked questions about my gender. [This was factually incorrect: gender refers to socially learned roles deemed appropriate for men and women. I should have been asked about my sex.]

One of the options I was given was “non-binary,” meaning neither male nor female. Another option I had was to check off “intersex, genderqueer or gender non-conforming.”

At least the guy who pretends he is a woman may get a beer at half price on ladies night. What do these poor folks qualify for?

After answering that I am male, one of the questions asked whether I identify as a male. Another asked what pronouns I would like the medical staff to use when speaking to me. I was given choices such as “she/her, he/him/they/them.” I have never met a “them” and would not care to meet such a creature in a restroom.

At this point, I refused to cooperate. I put a big X across the page, adding that this is all nonsense. Two healthcare persons saw this and just smiled. They knew it was nonsense too. But they did not want to lose their job by admitting that those who insist on this form are certifiably insane.

If only they were certified as insane. Then we could get them committed. Unfortunately, those responsible for this madness have graduate degrees. They are mind-control freaks. They want us to affirm their sick politics. Moreover, they have infested the vast majority of professions throughout the nation. The corporate boys and the government bureaucrats—taking their cues from screwed-up educators—are attempting to shove down our throats this preposterous self-identity scam.

It’s not just male-female identity that is a victim of subjectivism. Race is as well. Remember Rachel Dolezal? She was the white gal who said she was black. Her parents are white. She later admitted she was a liar. She is not alone.

Jessica A. Krug, who is white, changed her name to Jessica La Bombalera and claimed to be black. She is a real gem. She actually got the prestigious Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to award her financial support so she could write a book about slavery. One day she came clean.

She admitted that she lied about “my lived experience as a white Jewish child in suburban Kansas City.” One of her other lies was to say she was from Spanish Harlem, where I used to work. Funny, I recall a lot of my students’ names, but I never met a La Bombalera. That one I would remember. Oh, I forgot to say that Jessica was recently forced to retire from George Washington University: it was learned that she is white. She was a professor of African American history.

There are men who have sex with men and claim they are not homosexuals; many social scientists believe them. We have Catholic women, many of whom are ex-nuns, who call themselves a priest, claiming they were “ordained” by feminist ex-Catholics. Indians, who came to America from Asia, consider themselves to be Native Americans (our elites agree). And so on.

It is important not to lose our sense of humor over this scam. I loved what happened over the summer when a male cop had to conduct a body search of a female rioter on the street. Her fellow rioters screamed at him, “You can’t search her, you’re a man.” To which he replied, “No I am not—I self-identify as a woman.”

I myself have said on TV that some people think I am a big Irishman. “I am not,” I say. “I identify as a Chinese dwarf.”

Not sure just how far the elites will push these delusional ideas, but it is clear that it all stems from the postmodern assault on truth. Once truth doesn’t matter—the law allowing two men to marry—everything is possible.

This has happened before. In the last century, Jews were identified as less than human. We know what happened. In fact, Hitler is on record saying there is no such thing as truth. Now he is in good company—legions of professors in the arts and sciences agree with this assessment. Are they so drunk with ideology that they can’t connect the dots? You got it.

Mike McDonald

From a young age, I wanted to get involved in politics. My earliest memories on the subject are from riding around in my father’s pickup truck on my way home from Catholic preschool listening to Rush Limbaugh. At the time, I thought it was the coolest thing ever, and I knew I wanted to get involved in the political battles that I heard about on the radio.

For the past several years, I have had the opportunity to work in Congress and the Trump Administration. During that time, I had a lot of great experiences that allowed me to see firsthand how the system works.

One of the earliest lessons I learned was the importance of having a good team. I was an intern in a freshman office on Capitol Hill. The member had just won a special election, and midterms were looming. In less than a year, he had to make the case to voters that he was their man for the job. To make matters more interesting, the district was a swing district. It was anyone’s guess how the election would go.

While we were all very different people, the electoral sword of Damocles dangling over our heads pulled us all together. We worked great as a unit. The odds were long, but thanks to the siege mentality that quickly crept into our minds, we came together and succeeded.

I have been a part of several different teams in Washington since then, and I can think of only one that was better.

Though, I have also seen first-hand how a bad team can fail. In another office, the district was a rural GOP stronghold, and victory was guaranteed. The boss listened to you based on how long you were there but gave little credence to what you could do for the good of the team.

The other staffers all had radically differing views on what the office should be doing. I thought we should be doing our best to represent the people of our district, but other staffers wanted to use the office to advance their own careers. One wanted to become a staff director of his favorite committee, another wanted to do his time and become a lobbyist, still another was a leftist who wanted us to go against the wishes of the district because she knew better. There were ten people on that team, but we got less done in two years than I did as an intern in five months.

Ultimately, these experiences would culminate in one of my great rules for governing, “personnel is policy.” Putting together a team, dedicated to a common purpose, can achieve more in Washington than a collection of policy wonks and fanatic partisans pulling in separate directions. To get anything done, requires the right personnel for the job. This is true for both their capability to do their job but also their ability to work together.

For the most part, I worked in speechwriting and communications. I always naturally gravitated towards working in communications roles. I was fascinated as a child by talk radio. I was on the debate team in high school. I have always been blessed to be a good writer. All of those factors pushed me into communications, but what I genuinely love about this type of work is that it is about verbal battles for why your ideas are the best for the American people.

Growing up, it often appeared that working-middle class families, like mine, were not the focus of conversation, and I wanted to go into politics to help fight for policies that would make their lives better. I also had the good fortune of growing up in a home where the Church was the cornerstone of everything, and I wanted to make sure that Catholics had the ability to live their faith because America can only be great with a vocal moral-majority. I sincerely wanted to use political power to help people, and I learned quickly that communications must be paramount if you want to make a difference.

This led me to my second great rule, “communications is policy.” Unless you actively engage the American people in a conversation explaining why your policies are best, your agenda is doomed to fail. You can only put into action your principles if you robustly defended them. Without dedicated communications work, you can have the best policies in the world, and they still will be dead on arrival.

A lot of people I have worked with in Washington consider communications to be unessential fluff. I have had chiefs of staff tell me that we do not need a communications strategy because we are a policy office. As a result, you have probably never even heard of those offices. I frequently got myself a lot of “stern talking to’s” because I always argued that we could only do what we were sent to do in Washington by boldly explaining our position.

That probably comes down to the fact that a significant portion of the people in Washington have very little sense of fighting for a cause they believe in. I can name only a few people that actually thought deeply about the philosophic questions of governing and how that impacted our ability to help the American people.

But for the most part, staffers fall into one of three camps. You have policy wonks that only care about advancing their special interests. You also have staffers that only are interested in their side beating the other side. Finally, you have a handful of politicos that can navigate the swamp based on the compass of winning the next election.

I never really fit into any of these camps. I could never fully embrace the hive-mind mentality of so many staffers that the only thing that mattered was beating the other team because our side was right and their side was going to burn for all eternity. A lot of the politicos were more interesting, but they only cared about winning elections and would never do anything with the authority that came from winning elections. They played too cautiously and were afraid of doing anything that might cost a vote. The policy wonks were the ones I understood the least. They could go on for hours about one specific issue, like labor policy regarding automated cars, and could not be bothered to think of anything else.

So, I ended up charting my own course in Washington. I did this by staying true to my principles, and always working hard to go the extra mile. I would stay late and go in on weekends. I would drop everything and travel across the country to go work on campaigns. I would always volunteer to be part of new working groups.

It is in volunteering for extra working groups that I had the opportunity to work on a lot of policies dealing with the intersection of faith and politics. I have always been passionate about my Catholicism, and in my own way I have tried to give back to the Church by ensuring Catholics could be part of shaping public policy.

At my core, I passionately believe that for our nation to truly flourish the Catholic Church must have a strong presence in the public square and an active voice in our ongoing debates. The teachings of the Church are timeless, and they provide the first principles we need to succeed. However, for this to happen, Catholics need the freedom to live their faiths free from bias and other forms of overt or covert prejudice. As a result, I often found myself working on faith-based issues and religious outreach projects.

Many staffers in Washington treat faith-based policy as a bottom tier issue, but my genuine desire to advance the teachings of the Church and my willingness to take the jobs no one else wanted greatly helped me in my career. More importantly, battling to promote morality in the public square was perhaps the greatest reward of my time in Washington.

So even though I am not in government anymore, my fight for people like me and to champion causes near and dear to the Catholic Church continues. Fortunately, there are several key advantages to working at the Catholic League, and serving as our communications director, I am in a prime position to continue this battle.

First, the Catholic League is a much faster organization in terms of getting things done. In my short tenure here, the Catholic League has done more to try to influence the national conversation and public policy than I have at any one place in government.

In part, that is because we have a great team. Everyone deeply cares about our mission, and no one is actively working against us from inside. I have seen the deep state up close, and it is scary just how deep it truly is.

And unlike the deep state, the Catholic League does not have a byzantine bureaucratic network to negotiate. When I worked in government, I would have to write correspondence and speeches about a month in advance to get everyone to approve them. As a result, these materials were less timely because they were a month past their prime. Instead of producing a message that would convey the boss’s opinion on a given topic, every staffer would water down the writing to justify their particular policy positions, which, more often than not, were in direct competition with one another. For the deep state, communications work is not about talking directly to the American people. They are battlegrounds for policy decisions.

This meant I spent more time trying to navigate the approval process between competing staffers that were ostensibly on the same team, and less on fine tuning what we needed to say to a particular audience. Instead of crafting a message, I would frequently bounce back and forth between deep staters trying to find some sort of compromise. The amount of time I worked on writing was limited; working on getting approval of the message was the biggest part of the job.

At the Catholic League, we do not have that problem. When we see an issue, we target it immediately. There is no waiting for people to take a month to decide how they feel about the topic at hand. As a result, the days here are much busier, but always more rewarding.

In large part, that is because the Catholic League values the importance of a robust communications strategy. The team knows that unless we bring our issues to the people and enlist them to help in the fight, we cannot get anything done. We do that every day, and we accomplish a lot, which is good because I hate being bored.

So, my days are busier, the team is better, and there is a deeper appreciation for communications work, but my mission remains the same. I still want to be involved in the important fights about how best to improve the lives of average Americans, and the Catholic League has given me a great opportunity to do that. In a lot of ways, I guess I still am that kid riding around in his father’s truck listening to talk radio.

Amy Coney Barrett had the deck stacked against her. Five senators should have recused themselves given their past bigoted comments. Their remarks were made as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

1) Sen. Dick Durbin

On September 7, 2017, Bill Donohue wrote to him regarding his remarks of September 6 on the suitability of University of Notre Dame Law School professor Amy Coney Barrett to be seated on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Donohue accused him of crossing the line when he drilled down on her Catholicity.
“Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” This was a remarkable question posed by Durbin. After all, he attended Catholic schools for 19 years. He said he had “never seen [that term] before.” He then asked, “What’s an orthodox Catholic?” This was disingenuous. Durbin was trying to get Barrett to opine on her Catholic values and how they may affect her judicial decisions. He would never do this to any nominee who was Jewish or Muslim.
Barrett was not perturbed. “It is never appropriate for a judge to apply their personal convictions, whether it derives from faith or personal conviction.”
This was not the first time Durbin showed his true colors. In 2005, when considering the qualifications of John Roberts, a Catholic, for the Supreme Court, he told a CNN correspondent that senators need to “look at everything, including the nominee’s faith.” Yet there is no record of Durbin looking into the faith of non-Catholic nominees for the federal bench.

2) Sen. Dianne Feinstein

On September 7, 2017, Donohue wrote to her about comments she made while questioning Barrett on September 6. “When you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”
Donohue wrote the following to Feinstein. “No one was fooled by your question. Why didn’t you come right out and ask her if she takes her judicial cues from the Vatican? That would be more honest.” Donohue also asked her, “Do you, as a matter of course, probe the propriety of having a person of deep faith on the court who is not Catholic? If so, please share that information with me. If not, try treating Catholics as equals.”
In 2005, when questioning John Roberts, Feinstein asked him if he agreed with President John F. Kennedy when he pledged to respect separation of church and state. Thus did she dig up the old canard about “dual loyalties.” Apparently, she was unaware that Kennedy made his Houston remarks in 1960 following an outburst of anti-Catholicism by leading Protestants.

3) Sen. Kamala Harris

In 2018, Harris questioned the suitability of Brian C. Buescher to be seated as a federal district judge. On December 26, 2018, Donohue issued a news release condemning Harris for attacking the nominee because he was a member of the Knights of Columbus, a pro-life Catholic organization.
Harris asked Buescher, “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?” Her real target was the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion and sexuality. Harris has also declared war on pro-life activists who expose the ugly practices of abortion mills.

4) Sen. Mazie Hirono

Hirono took the same position against Buescher as Harris did, which is why Donohue included her in his statement of December 26, 2018. Here is what she said to the Catholic nominee. “The Knights of Columbus has taken a number of extreme positions. If confirmed, do you intend to end your membership with this organization to avoid any appearance of that?” She cited the Knights’ opposition to gay marriage as an example.
If the Knights are “extreme,” then millions of Americans, most of whom are not Catholic, are on the fringes. Those who believe that marriage should be reserved for one man and one woman are hardly extremists. They are simply stating the obvious (only a man and a woman can make a family). No matter, Hirono wants those who believe this verity to be excluded from the judiciary.

5) Sen. Chuck Schumer

On August 13, 2003, Donohue issued a news release criticizing Schumer’s remarks opposing Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor’s nomination to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Pryor oversaw the removal of the Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building.
“His beliefs are so well known,” Schumer said of Pyror, “so deeply held, that it’s very hard to believe—very hard to believe—that they’re not going to deeply influence” him if he gets confirmed.
In effect, Schumer was subjecting Pryor to a “de facto” religious test. Charles Krauthammer said “the net effect of Schumer’s ‘deeply held views’ litmus test…is to disqualify from the bench anyone whose personal views of abortion coincide with those of traditional Christianity, Judaism and Islam.”

These five senators should never been allowed to vote on Barrett. Their bias is palpalable.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett may have escaped bigoted attacks by senate Democrats, but she did not get a pass from the media and activists.

Organizations that are either expressly atheistic or are wholly secular, of course, ripped Barrett’s Catholicism. American Atheists and Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued news releases arguing that Barrett’s commitment to religious liberty means she will discriminate against LGBTQ people.

Freedom From Religion Foundation contends that Barrett would “complete the Christian Nationalist takeover of the high court for more than a generation.” Similarly, the American Humanist Association maintains that Barrett would be the sixth Catholic on the Supreme Court, a red flag; her reported membership in a charismatic Christian group was deemed “particularly concerning.”

The Daily Kos ran two articles hammering Barrett. One called her a “religious extremist,” and the other said she is “primed and ready to substitute the Church’s particular teaching [on abortion] as the only true religious position on the matter.” (Notice abortion was not framed as a biological issue.)

Left-wing activist Katie Hill, who runs a political action committee, said questions about Barrett’s religion are fair game: we need to know if she “will impose her faith on the American people.” (The way secularists impose their beliefs in education?)

Elizabeth Bruenig used her New York Times column to state that Barrett’s nomination has “renewed attention to a fundamental conflict, centuries underway, between Catholicism and the American ethos.” (This is a polite way of wondering if practicing Catholics—in the 21st century—can be good Americans.)

Mother Jones ran a piece that was long on innuendo and short on facts calling attention to Barrett’s alleged membership in a Christian charismatic group. Bill Maher sounded the alarms saying Barrett was “really, really Catholic.” Imagine someone saying Ruth Bader Ginsburg was “really, really Jewish”—everyone would know what that means.

MSNBC’s Joy Reid was more forthright on this issue, leading Megyn Kelly to condemn her “bigoted attacks on Catholics.” Ron Charles of the Washington Post, and Lindy Ki, a Biden delegate, raised questions about Barrett’s respect for separation of church and state (they have it backwards—respect for the autonomy of religious organizations is the pressing issue).

First prize goes to David Atkins of the Washington Monthly. “In reality, there is no anti-Catholic bias against Barrett from the left.” Looks like the secular dogma lives loudly within him.

The Trump campaign was doing more than blowing political smoke when it said that Biden should end his silence about the anti-Catholic attacks on Barrett. He should. If a Muslim Supreme Court nominee were the target of bigotry stemming from Republicans or conservatives, he would surely condemn it.

Bill Donohue is happy to say that he has been contacted by New York City Councilman and Pentecostal minister Ruben Diaz Sr., and Rabbi Aryeh Spero, both of whom have pledged to condemn anti-Catholics. Too bad Biden, a professed Catholic, can’t do the same. However, if he did, he would have to start by condemning his running mate.