In Michigan, New York, and Ohio, churches are exempt from bans on large gatherings at this time due to the coronavirus. Indiana, Louisiana, and Virginia have decided to extend the ban to churches. This is definitely a state issue: the Trump administration has wisely stayed out of it.

At the state level, this is a difficult issue. Our first impulse is to defend religious liberty, but like any freedom, it is not absolute. For example, in New York, it was reasonably decided, after much discussion, not to exempt religious bodies from mandated vaccinations.

Whenever religious liberty collides with public health, the government is obliged to put the least restrictive measures on religion. If that is done, and the motive is purely to protect the public, then in a crisis situation, temporary bans may be legitimate.

Motive counts. Why? Because we must always consider the source of an objection to religious exemptions. If the source is the medical community, and reasonable temporary restrictions are called for in a crisis situation, that is one thing; if the source is a hostile force, that is another. Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples of the latter.

Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Center for Inquiry have all issued statements against allowing religious exemptions for bans on large gatherings at this time. Their motives are not benign.

The best way to proceed with this issue is for religious leaders to work with state officials in coming up with a compromise during these difficult times. What we don’t need is the advice of those who are anything but religion-friendly.

Should abortions be considered elective surgery and therefore not be permitted during the coronavirus pandemic, or are they an essential healthcare issue that should be permitted? Predictably, in pro-life states like Ohio and Texas officials are saying abortions constitute elective surgery and should therefore not be allowed, while in pro-abortion states like Massachusetts and Washington, officials are defending them.

This issue has even split those in the medical community working in the same facility. Nearly 300 doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center recently sent a letter to management asking them to “postpone procedures that can be performed in the future” so that they can accommodate the expected surge in patients due to the coronavirus.

The central issue in this case transcends the usual abortion debate: any elective surgery that is being performed during this crisis uses resources that are needed to help those who are hospitalized with the coronavirus.

Chethan Sathya is a pediatric surgeon and journalist in New York City. Here is his analysis of what is at stake. “Surgeries are resource-intensive—requiring surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, transport teams, medical beds and equipment such as ventilators. Suspending elective surgeries will free up those doctors, other medical personnel, and rooms and equipment.”

Dr. Sathya is also concerned about the effect that doing elective surgeries is bound to have on medical staff. “Because of the number of health-care workers required to work close to one another for each surgery,” he writes, “I have no doubt that continuing to perform non-urgent surgeries would lead to further spread of the virus among health-care workers.”

In other words, those who are pushing for abortions during the coronavirus are endangering the lives of healthcare workers. But do they care?
Here is how Planned Parenthood has responded. “We’re closely monitoring the spread of the new coronavirus, or COVID-19. The health and safety of our patients, staff, and communities is our top priority.”
Notice that Planned Parenthood is only interested in its own agenda. It says not a word about tying up resources needed by those who are truly sick. By taking away needed personnel, gear and equipment from servicing those who are infected with the coronavirus, it is jeopardizing the lives of those at risk.
The heart of this dispute rests on the question of whether abortion is elective surgery or not. Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and others in the abortion industry argue that abortion is not elective surgery and must be provided at all times. But is it?
Take two women, Joy and Jane. Joy has a life-threatening heart problem and is scheduled for surgery. Jane wants an abortion. No one in his right mind would equate the two. If Joy doesn’t get heart surgery, she will probably die. If Jane is denied her abortion, she lives (as does her baby).
It comes down to this: Joy has a need; Jane has a want. No woman wants to have heart surgery—they either need it or they don’t. Conversely, no woman needs an abortion—it is, as they like to say, a matter of choice.
Does that mean that abortion is like any other elective surgery, such as a facelift (rhytidectomy) or a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty)? No. In those cases, only the person’s face or tummy is affected. In the case of an abortion, another person is affected. And there is nothing elective about that person’s fate.

It is not unusual for authors of a new book to seize opportunities to plug their work. But the March 27 op-ed in the New York Times by Katherine Stewart breaks new ground. After inventing a bogey man—”Christian Nationalists”—she then blames them for the coronavirus. Here is some background information.

When George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, no issue brought voters to side with him more than “values.” These “values voters” sent a shock wave through the ranks of the secular elite in the Democratic Party, and they responded by founding rogue lay Catholic groups such as Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. They also discovered the virtue of “God talk” and an expressed interest in government faith-based social programs (absent the faith element, of course).

Those phony tactics were buttressed by an onslaught of bigoted attacks that branded conservative Christians “theocrats.” It didn’t get them one vote. Now the same crowd is back arguing that “Christian Nationalists” are a threat to the country.

In July 2019, those who hate religious conservatives released a document, “Christians Against Christian Nationalism.” They said this new enemy “demands that Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian.” One wonders why these nefarious Christians settled for implying that everyone be a Christian—why didn’t they demand it.

Stewart is one of the proponents of this crazed idea. In her op-ed she drops a few anecdotes citing some wild-eyed remarks made by a few pastors, and then unloads by blaming Trump for listening to these people, resulting in an allegedly poor response to the coronavirus.

This is a cheap game. It would be like conservatives blaming left-wing cable television channels for the coronavirus. How so? By suggesting, and in some cases stating, that Trump is a bigot for putting a ban on travel from China. He did that on January 31, ten days after the first case of the virus hit the U.S. This led the Chinese-Communist friendly head of the World Health Organization to label Trump a “racist,” and Joe Biden responded by saying he was fomenting “xenophobia” and “fear-mongering.”

The medical community acknowledges that Trump saved an untold number of lives by making this decision. Would it now be fair to blame his left-wing critics for the coronavirus? No, only a Christian conservative who thinks the way Stewart does would blame them.

Finally, to show how much Stewart hates religious conservatives, consider that she is upset with Trump for saying he hopes we are “just raring to go by Easter.” What’s wrong with that? “He could have said, ‘by mid-April.'” Yup, this is proof that Christian Nationalists are running the country.

This is the level of intellectual scholarship that the New York Times fancies these days. The newspaper of record is now mainstreaming paranoia.

Organized atheists, unlike most Americans who are non-believers, are more often than not driven by hatred of religion and the faithful. Their impulses are totalitarian: they would ban all religious expression if they could. A classic case is Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF).

FFRF has gone ballistic because Vice President Mike Pence recently implored Americans to make donations to their church, even if they cannot attend during the coronavirus crisis.

The atheists said that no American public official “should lend the power and prestige of their office to a particular church or to religion in general.” They even accused Pence of being un-American. “Leveraging a global pandemic to drum up church donations is an egregious betrayal of the country’s founding principles in order to benefit religion.” The atheists added that Pence “should not further encourage Americans to give their money to those who least deserve it.”

Their reasoning is bankrupt. Here are three reasons why.

First, Pence was exercising two of his First Amendment rights: freedom of speech and freedom of religion (religious expression is a core constitutional right). Even vice presidents maintain those rights.

Second, Pence did not order anyone to give to their church or offer new tax incentives if they did. His terms were purely volitional.

Third, what Pence said not only did not betray America’s founding principles, it affirmed them. Every president in American history has made public appeals expressing the critical role that religion plays in society, especially during times of adversity.

During the Civil War, Lincoln once told his secretary, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” Similarly, William McKinley, struggling with his decision to seize the Philippines, said to a group of ministers, “I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night.”

Atheists like those at FFRF are poorly educated. There is a profound difference between the government sponsoring religion and freedom of religious expression, but they don’t understand—or don’t want to understand—the difference.

Rev. Franklin Graham could have chosen to simply ask his people to pray for New Yorkers hit hard with coronavirus. But instead he recruited 72 doctors, nurses and other medical personnel from Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical group, to set up a 68-bed facility in Central Park; it is operated in partnership with the Mount Sinai Health System and is equipped with ten ventilators.

How was he received? Many New Yorkers welcomed Graham’s efforts, but some have reviled him. Militant secularists have bombarded him with vitriol, including such notables as New York State Senator Brad Hoylman and playwright Paul Rudnick. Hoylman called Graham a “notorious anti-gay bigot” and Rudnick branded him a “vicious homophobe.”

Hoylman should not throw stones. In 2018, he wrote an insulting anti-Catholic tweet. Bill Donohue slammed him for it and he quickly called Donohue to apologize. Donohue accepted it. But he should know better. As for Rudnick, he is known for his filthy anti-Christian play, “The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told.” So he has no leg to stand on—he knows a thing or two about bigotry.

All of this attack on Graham stems from his belief that the institution of marriage was designed for the only two people who can naturally make a family, namely a man and a woman. Up until about a week ago yesterday, figuratively speaking, every normal person believed the same, all over the world.

Anyone is free to disagree with Graham, but to portray him as a hater is malicious. Graham explained who his medical staff serves. “We do not make distinctions about an individual’s religion, race, sexual orientation, or economic status.” More important, there is zero evidence that any of his ministries discriminates against anyone.

No one is to blame for these attacks on Graham more than New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. When he first learned of the relief efforts of Samaritan’s Purse he acted as if New York had been invaded by a hostile force.

“I said immediately to my team that we had to find out exactly what was happening. Was there going to be an approach that was truly consistent with the values and the laws in New York City, that everyone would be served and served equally?” He wasn’t done. “We’re going to send over people from the Mayor’s Office to monitor” the park facility. That is the mindset of an authoritarian.

What makes de Blasio’s attack on Graham most despicable is his failure to take coronavirus seriously. His record is an utter disgrace. Consider the following.

• “While de Blasio said he will announce new restrictions on large gatherings in the coming days, leaders in other cities and states across the U.S. have already enacted measures to slow the spread of the infectious disease.” [www.foxnews.com, 3-12]
• “New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said Saturday he plans to keep schools in the country’s largest school system open as long as possible, standing in stark contrast to the majority of the country’s largest city school districts and governors in more than a dozen states who have shuttered their entire K-12 education systems to stem the spread of the coronavirus.” [www.usnews.com, 3-14]
• “De Blasio’s decision to keep New York City’s schools open goes against guidance released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommended that all schools close for a period of six to eight weeks, especially in states with high numbers of cases.” [www.usnews.com, 3-14]
• “New York City is one of the few large school districts left in the country that has yet to cancel classes due to the coronavirus outbreak and the teachers that run the classroom say they’re ‘furious,’ according to Facebook posts and statements from the teachers themselves.” [www.nbcnews.com, 3-15]
• “New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio started rebuffing any effort to close schools last week saying, ‘we are going to do our damnedest to keep the schools open.’ By the end of last week, the second and third largest education systems, Los Angeles and Chicago, had announced the suspension of classes. Several large states such as Florida and Ohio have announced the cancellation of classes, too. On Sunday, it was announced that Nassau and Suffolk county schools will be closed for two weeks.” [www.nbcnews.com, 3-15]
• “‘Because of his irresponsible decision to keep the public schools open, Mayor Bill de Blasio can no longer assure the health and safety of our students and school communities,’ wrote Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, in an email to its members. ‘The mayor is recklessly putting the health of our students, their families and school staff in jeopardy by refusing to close public schools.'” [www.nypost.com, 3-15]

This same delinquent mayor is now worried that someone who is sick with coronavirus may catch the “Christian virus,” simply because he was attended to by one of Franklin Graham’s volunteer corps of medical professionals. Is he paranoid? Or just a bigot?

De Blasio is an embarrassment. No wonder his presidential bid fell flat. Who in his right mind would want him to run anything?

On March 27, Bill Donohue addressed the conflict between public health restrictions and religious liberty protections. “Whenever religious liberty collides with public health, the government is obliged to put the least restrictive measures on religion.”

On April 11, U.S. District Judge Justin Walker invoked a temporary restraining order blocking Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer’s ban on drive-in church services. The Kentucky governor, Andy Beshear, did not support the ban but he still warned against drive-in church services.

The Catholic League stands with Judge Walker. The Louisville mayor’s directive is a classic case of government overreach: his ban was clearly not “the least restrictive measure.” Judge Walker called his decision “stunning” and “unconstitutional.” Moreover, the mayor’s reasoning is deeply flawed.

Once the coronavirus pandemic hit, and social distancing was recommended, the clergy from many religions acted prudently by discontinuing services in church. But some sought to be creative by allowing drive-in services in church parking lots. Instead of applauding these efforts where they made sense (they are impractical when the weather is cold), Louisville Mayor Fischer banned them.

What infuriated Christians in Louisville was the decision to allow drive-through restaurants and liquor stores. Judge Walker seized on this disparity, noting that parking lots of liquor stores were not prohibited.

“When Louisville prohibits religious activity while permitting non-religious activities,” he said, “its choice ‘must undergo the most rigorous of scrutiny.’ That scrutiny requires Louisville to prove its interest is ‘compelling’ and its regulation is ‘narrowly tailored to advance that interest.'”

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs and Rep. Jody Hice have sent a letter to President Trump, Vice President Pence and Attorney General Bill Barr asking them to address restrictions placed on religious liberty. Barr said he is “monitoring” this issue and may take action.

The clergy have, for the most part, been reasonable in balancing public health and religious liberty interests, and so have most mayors and governors. But the exceptions are egregious, and none more than the decision by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer to ban drive-in church services on Easter Sunday. The Department of Justice should weigh in without delay.

The apostles of inclusion always draw the line when it comes to houses of worship and religious non-profits. They have done so again now that religious non-profits qualify for financial assistance from the Small Business Administration. This bothers them: they want to discriminate against these entities.

The Trump administration does not believe it is proper to discriminate against any organization in the distribution of funds attendant to the coronavirus pandemic. American Atheists calls this an “unconstitutional giveaway” and Freedom From Religion Foundation says it is “alarmed” by the policy. Neither can match the bigotry of Charles Pierce, the veteran religion hater (he has a special hatred of all things Catholic) who writes for Esquire.

Pierce objects to the funding of religious groups, saying it is unconstitutional “even if the Supreme Court’s Papist majority” may think otherwise. He has much in common with nativists and the Ku Klux Klan—they routinely called Catholics “papists.”

Pierce is angry that there are five Catholics on the Supreme Court. Yet proportionately there are more Jews: Jews are two percent of the population but make up a third of the high court, while Catholics are a quarter of the population and make up a little over half. No one but an anti-Semite objects to having three Jews on the Supreme Court, and no one but an anti-Catholic bigot is livid over having five Catholics.

It does not help the bigot’s case for him to invoke James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance as support for his position. If he were better read, he would know that Madison’s statement was nothing more than an argument against the government’s granting tax support for only one religion. Hence, Madison is on the side of the Trump administration.

Indeed, if the bigot knew something about the Founding he would know that the same Congress that passed the First Amendment accepted the third article of the Northwest Ordinance without emendation: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and happiness of mankind, schools and the means of learning shall forever be encouraged.”

As Walter Berns said, “It is not easy to see how Congress…could promote religious and moral education under a Constitution that promoted ‘the absolute separation of church and state’ and forbade all forms of assistance to religion.”

Kudos to the Trump administration for its policy of inclusion and its rejection of intolerance and discrimination.

Playwright Terrence McNally has died as a result of complications from coronavirus; he was 81. The four-time Tony award winner came to the attention of the Catholic League when his play, “Corpus Christi,” was performed at the Manhattan Theatre Club. The play featured Christ having sex with the twelve apostles and was the source of a demonstration Bill Donohue led when it opened in October 1998.

The New York Times got a copy of the script during the summer, before the play debuted. It said that “from the beginning to the end [the script] retells the Biblical story of a Jesus-like figure—from his birth in a Texas flea-bag hotel with people having profane, violent sex in the room next door to his crucifixion as ‘king of the queers.'” It added, for good measure, that the Christ-like character, Joshua, “has a long-running affair with Judas and sexual relations with the other apostles.” The script ended with a statement to Christians. “If we have offended you, so be it.”

The play, interestingly, was replete with gay stereotypes, ranging from the sexual to the scatological. There was crotch grabbing and a clear obsession with the male sex organ. The Christ-like figure pretended to urinate in front of the audience, and he was joined by three of the apostles, complete with sounds of urination piped into the theater. No doubt this was considered creative.

Joshua had sex with Judas at a high school prom and then another romp with Philip. At one point, Philip said to Joshua, “I hope you have rubbers.” He then asked the Jesus-figure to perform oral sex on him.

According to the New York Times, the demonstration Bill Donohue led drew 2,000 on a rainy night; only 300 joined a counterdemonstration. “The protest began with a fiery speech by William A. Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights,” the newspaper said. “Mr. Donohue shouted criticisms at the opposition. ‘You are the real authoritarians at heart. We’re the ones that believe in tolerance, not you phonies.'”

The counterdemonstration was organized to protest the free-speech rights of the Catholic League. Donohue never called for censorship. Our critics were led by People for the American Way. They were joined by the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, the National Coalition Against Censorship, and the PEN American Center. All of these organizations were founded to defend freedom of expression, and all were there to condemn our free-speech rights.

The play turned out to be a bomb. Fintan O’Toole of the New York Daily News called it “utterly devoid of moral seriousness or artistic integrity.” Clive Barnes of the New York Post said it was “dull,” and David Lyons of the Wall Street Journal rebuked it for its “fatheadedness.” The Washington Post said “the play plummets to a whole new level of grandiosity,” and the New York Times pronounced the writing “lazy” as well as “flat and simpleminded.” None were critical of the play’s Christian bashing, or the fact that McNally singled out Catholics for special treatment.

McNally is gone. Let him rest in peace.

There is a picture of Trevor Noah on the homepage of “The Daily Show” which shows him with a photo of the Easter Bunny on one side and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the other. He looks like an unshaven filthy pig.

Noah is not just a dirty looking man, he has a thing about homosexual priests. No, he doesn’t come right out and attack these priests by name—he’s a liberal—so he prefers innuendo as his weapon.

On the April 13 edition of “The Daily Show,” Noah commented that on Easter Sunday it was hard on many church-goers who are used to attending services, “but for the Catholic Church, this is a good thing—keeping the priest separate from the congregation might not be the worst idea.”

Now we know he was not talking about heterosexual priests: the John Jay studies on clergy offenses report that almost all the sexual misconduct committed by priests were male-on-male sex. Moreover, almost none of it involved kids—over 95 percent involved adolescents. In other words, homosexual priests are responsible for most of the sexual abuse, and almost all of those cases are from the last century.

Noah wallows in the dirt. As a black man, he would take offense if someone portrayed black men as thugs. Yet he has no problem portraying homosexual priests as abusers, even though most homosexual priests are not molesters. The man is a bigot. He also needs to take a bath.

In his March 29 briefing on coronavirus, President Donald Trump alluded to the social consequences of not taking seriously the threat it poses. He mentioned the “massive” rates of drug use, depression, and suicide that might happen if he took a more relaxed approach to the disease.

Trump’s critics have played their “fact check game,” questioning how accurate his statement is. Even if we allow for hyperbole, Trump is right to call attention to these often neglected side effects associated with the stress and isolation engendered by a pandemic.

What Trump did not say is that one of the greatest tonics guarding against these conditions is religion; it is also true that those most at risk are non-believers. This is not a grey area: the studies are numerous and the findings are impressive. [The evidence is cited in Bill Donohue’s book The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful.]

Dr. Harold G. Koenig is the nation’s leading scholar in the study of well-being. He teaches psychiatry and medicine at Duke University, and is the director of Duke’s Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health. He and his associates examined 278 studies on the relationship between religion and alcohol and drug use. They found that 86 percent of the studies concluded that the more religious a person was, the less likely he was to indulge. They also found that of the 185 studies on religion and drug abuse, the inverse relationship between religion and drugs was found 84 percent of the time.

Frank Newport is editor-in-chief of Gallup, and his surveys disclose that “very religious Americans are less likely to report that they have been diagnosed with depression than those who are moderately religious or nonreligious.” Dr. Koenig and associates found that in 61 percent of the studies, religious Americans are less likely to be depressed than nonbelievers, and are more likely to recover at a faster rate from depression. Atheists, they learned, are more likely to be depressed. Worse, the secular care they choose leaves them more likely to be stuck in their condition longer than those who avail themselves of religious care.

Wayne State University sociologist Steven Stack did a study in which he rated twenty-five nations on a scale that measured religious commitment, and then sought to see if there was any relationship with suicide rates. He found that the more religious a person is, the less likely he is to commit suicide. Sociologist Rodney Stark looked at the data in America’s largest metropolitan areas and found that the higher the church membership rate, the lower the suicide rate. Similarly, one review of more than 100 studies found that in 87 percent of them, religion was related to a lower incidence of suicide.

None of this is to suggest that people treat religion as some sort of mental-hygiene drug. Make no mistake about it, the beneficent effects of religious convictions and practice are dependent on their sincere application. But if they are, chances are that in times of stress and isolation such persons will fare much better than their nonbelieving counterparts.

It would be great if President Trump were to call attention to these findings. It might inspire many Americans to reconsider their personal relationship with God.