Bill in the News (The Right Take): Bill discusses Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, on “The Right Take with Mark Tapson.” To listen click here.

Bill in the News (The Todd Starnes Show): Bill discusses Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, with Todd Starnes. To listen click here. (Bill begins at the 1:42:50 mark)

Bill Donohue

The term “equity education” is a misnomer: it has nothing to do with fairness. Rather, it has everything to do with dumbing-down academic standards. It also carries racist undertones.

From as long as most New Yorkers can remember, high school graduates had to pass Regents exams to receive a diploma. But in the name of “equity education,” they are doing away with it. Soon students will be able to graduate by showing “knowledge and skill” in seven areas, including something called “cultural competence.” If this sounds like another diversity and inclusion game, it’s because it is.

The education gurus promoted this idea worked on the New York State Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures, and made their recommendation to the New York State Education Department. So reassuring to know it is a “blue ribbon” panel. Their idea of academic excellence is to water-down standards: proficiency in math and science are no longer required.

Why the change? The savants will tell you it has to do with “equity.” In actuality, it has to do with racism. Liberal white racism.

In 2020, 71 New York City schools had English Language Arts proficiency rates below 20 percent and 100 had math proficiency rates below 16 percent. That put them among the 250 lowest-scoring schools in the state.

Instead of demanding more from all students, regardless of race, the education establishment is bent on lowering standards. The reason we are lowering standards is because we are lowering expectations, and the reason for that is because too many educators have given up on black students. Instead of helping them to clear the bar, they lower it.

Black students can learn as well as white students. But they have to be challenged, and they have to go to schools that insist on traditional educational norms. For example, black students who attend New York City charter schools outperform black students in traditional New York City public schools by 35 points in math and 23 points in English.

Seattle was one of the first to experiment with “equity education.” Math courses were replaced with classes on “power and oppression.” Guess what happened? Math scores crashed. That’s because students were taking “math ethnic studies,” meaning they had to explain how math is “used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color.”

This insanity lasted a few years before even the liberals in Seattle said “enough is enough.”

If white liberals were not so eager to throw in the towel, they would not be giving up on black students. Ditto for black leaders such as New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman. He was the founding principal of a New York charter school, and his black students excelled. Now he wants to do away with charters, consigning these students to schools that are so bad that those who teach in traditional public schools more often send their children to a charter or private school.

We need to get over the image of white racists being red-necked hillbillies. Today they often wear suits and dresses, and typically have some alphabets after their name.

Bill Donohue discusses the decline of Western culture and his new book Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis. To watch, click here.

Bill in the News (Catholic Connection): Bill discusses Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, with Teresa Tomeo. To listen click here.

Bill Donohue

In his eighteenth century classic, Letters from an American Farmer, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur said he had never seen such assimilation as in America. The French writer said our ability to “melt” disparate peoples into a new man was remarkable and unparalleled. Thus was the idea of a “melting pot” born. What he said is nicely acknowledged in our national motto, E pluribus unum, “out of the many one.”

That was then. Now we are a badly divided people, and most of the reasons for our predicament are not an accident: they represent the logical consequences of a series of policies and programs, many of which originated at colleges and universities; they are designed to divide us.

From multiculturalism, which teaches hatred of western civilization, to the promotion of mass migration, which makes mince meat out of the “melting pot” ideal, we are nation divided; it is evident along racial, ethnic, religious, class and sex lines.

In June, Pew Research Center released survey results that show the effects of the culture war on politics. The differences between Biden and Trump supporters are vast.

“Someone can be a man or a woman even if that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth.” This question, which is biologically illiterate—no one “assigns” our birth (it is determined by our father)—is seen by Biden supporters as true. But not for Trump supporters. Six-in-ten of Biden’s fans (59 percent) believe this to be true, but only one-in-ten (9 percent) of Trump’s fans believe it makes sense.

“The criminal justice system in this country is generally not tough enough on criminals.” Only a minority of Biden enthusiasts (40 percent) agree, but most of those drawn to Trump (81 percent) agree.

“Society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority.” A mere 19 percent of Biden supporters agree with this statement, as contrasted to 59 percent of Trump supporters.

Whether the question is how much slavery still explains racial inequality (Biden fans think it does) or America’s openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as nation (Trump fans are not buying it), the chasm is wide.

There is also a lot of hatred. I use the word intentionally. I am not talking about people disagreeing—that is commonplace—I am talking about hatred.

I have met a lot of conservatives who say they hate so-and-so (a public figure) because he is a liberal. In some cases, I know the person rather well, and while I may have sharp disagreements with him, I know him as a friendly and honest person. So I reply by saying, “Do you know him personally?” Of course they don’t. That gives me an opportunity to defend my characterological assessment, insisting on drawing a difference between disagreeing with someone and hating him.

Those who love Biden hate Trump, and vice versa. The hatred of Trump, often called “Trump derangement syndrome,” is so bad that 86 percent of Biden’s biggest supporters, as reported in a recent Rasmussen survey, approve the Justice Department’s authorization of “the use of deadly force” in retrieving documents at Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago.

It is interesting to note that most Democrats disagree that we are not tough enough on crime, yet believe that Trump should be subjected to a raid where deadly force is authorized—for an alleged crime of a non-violent nature. The hatred runs deep.

What’s driving these outcomes? As I show in my new book, Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, the divisions we are seeing are ultimately traceable to a conflict between a religious vision of man and society and a secular one.

The data show conclusively that when it comes to religiosity, or beliefs and practices, Republicans are clearly more likely to say that religion is important to them. Not so for Democrats—they are the Party of secularists. To show how this plays out, consider the Pew question on marriage and the family.

Democrats do not agree that “Society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority.” But why? Secularists see such a conviction as an anathema because it challenges their belief in autonomy. That which might interfere with career goals is not an option, and in any event it smacks of patriarchy. It also carries a religious meaning, and that is taboo.

Now it may be that for any particular individual, making marriage and the family a priority is to interfere with his or her personal goals, at least at that time. But the question wasn’t about the respondent’s personal life; it was about what is in the best interests of society. To those fixated on themselves, which is more common among secularists, that is not a viable choice. They are drawn to thinking in terms of me, not we.

This, too, shall pass. But in the meantime, that which divides us remains real. It is also eating away at our social fabric.

The following letter by Catholic League president Bill Donohue to Rep. James Comer, Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, explains why he wants the FBI to authorize the release of the “Nashville Manifesto” kept by mass murderer Audrey Hale.

June 17, 2024

Hon. James Comer
Chairman
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-6143

Dear Chairman Comer:

As president of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, it is my job to combat anti-Catholicism. I am writing to you because you are in a position to inquire why the FBI is stopping the public release of documents pertaining to the mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee on March 27, 2023. That is when a 28-year-old female, Audrey Hale, shot and killed three children and three adults at Covenant School.

Hale, who falsely identified as a male, kept a journal, more commonly known as the Nashville manifesto. Nashville Police Chief John Drake said after the shootings that “There’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school.”

Covenant is a Christian school. The police said that the school and the church were both targeted. Hale once attended the school and reportedly disparaged her parents for not supporting her “transition.”

On April 24, 2023, I issued a news release asking, “So where’s the manifesto? Who’s holding it back? What’s driving this decision?” Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said at that time that it was the FBI that was holding it back. He was right.

We now know that it was the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit that “strongly discourage[d]” the Metro Nashville Police Department from releasing the manifesto. It said it represents a “legacy token” that could be exploited by other mass murderers.

I am a sociologist who has taught courses on criminology and written extensively about it. Moreover, in my role as a Catholic civil rights leader, I have investigated, and written about, the extent to which a strong anti-Christian animus is prevalent among transgender persons.

Accordingly, it is imperative that Christians learn if Hale’s offenses were in any way driven by hatred against them. The police have admitted that she planned her attack “over a period of months.” Indeed, they said her crimes were “calculated and planned.” Given that she gave great thought to what she was planning, it would be instructive to know what she had to say about Christians. Moreover, the Daily Wire recently obtained selections from her journal entry that expressly show a strong hostility to Christianity.

As I pointed out last year, the FBI elite have had their reputations sullied by probing innocent traditional Catholics. “Given this situation,” I said, “are we to believe that if a crazed Catholic were to blow up an abortion clinic, killing six people, and law enforcement found a manifesto detailing his motive, that the FBI would censor its release? Or would it be more likely to make it public?”

Please do what you can to have the FBI release Hale’s manifesto. Christians should not be kept in the dark, especially when the contents of her journal may reveal information that is threatening to them.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.

President

cc: Rep. Tim Burchett

Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman, House Committee on the Judiciary

Bill in the News (Faith and Freedom with Shemane): Bill discusses Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis, on “Faith and Freedom with Shemane.” To listen click here.

Bill Donohue

Rachel Levine, President Biden’s assistant secretary of health, should be celebrating Father’s Day—he has two children—but he won’t be. That’s because he thinks he is a woman. But he didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day either. Why would a parent not celebrate one of these two days?

Rachel was born Richard Levine. Even though virtually all of the mainstream media falsely refer to him as a she, he knows he’s a man and he knows he fathered two children. But he doesn’t like it when people tell him the truth. He prefers it when they lie.

Four years ago, a Pittsburgh-area lawmaker wished him a Happy Father’s Day. That didn’t sit too well with Rachel or his friends. Cora Brna, a transgender advocate, said, “It’s just hateful. It’s disguised as a joke, but it’s not funny.” But why is it “hateful” to congratulate a father on Father’s Day?

Rachel was raised in Boston by two lawyers. He attended an elite all-male Hebrew school. After graduating from Harvard he went to Tulane Medical School. He didn’t “transition” until he was in his fifties, after seeing a therapist. Did he finish the job and have his genitals cut off? He won’t say.

When asked by Sen. Rand Paul at his confirmation hearing, the senator asked if he believed minors should be able to “amputate their breasts or amputate their genitalia.” He wouldn’t say. The best he could do was to say the issue is “very complex.” He did not indicate why a question about self-mutilation was complex, especially given that those undergoing the knife are children.

It needs to be added that the Biden administration and the National Education Association are both on record saying that minors should be able to “transition” behind the backs of their parents.

For more on this subject, and many other issues, see my new book, Cultural Meltdown: The Secular Roots of Our Moral Crisis. It will be published by Sophia Institute Press on June 18 and is available now for pre-order at Amazon.

Bill Donohue

Pope Francis is obviously worried about “fags” in the seminaries, and even in the Vatican.

On May 28, it was reported that in a private meeting with 250 Italian bishops the week before, the pope said he opposed having openly homosexual men in the seminaries. He said the seminaries were already too full of “frociaggine,” or “faggotry.” After being criticized, the Vatican said the pope “extends his apologies.”

Now the Italian news agency, ANSA, is reporting that when the pope met privately with priests at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome on June 11, he said, “In the Vatican, there is an air of ‘faggotry.’”

The use of the gay slur is not the real issue, though it is surprising to hear the pope speak this way twice within three weeks, and just two weeks after his apology was issued for the first infraction. The real issue is the prevalence of homosexuals in the seminaries and in the Vatican.

As I recount in my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes, the damage that homosexuals—not pedophiles—have done to the Catholic Church cannot be overstated. They are responsible for 81 percent of all the cases of the sexual abuse of minors from 1950 to 2002; almost all of the males were postpubescent.

Pope Francis didn’t need the data to know that homosexuals have taken over too much of the Catholic Church. He has previously spoken openly about the “gay lobby” and the “gay mentality” in the Church.

When a bishop told the Holy Father that it was no big deal that several priests in his diocese were homosexuals—it was just an “expression of affection”—the pope strongly disagreed. “In the consecrated life and in the priestly life, there is no place for that kind of affection,” the pope said. He also warned priests against aligning themselves with the “gay movement.”

Pope Benedict XVI has also warned of the damage that homosexuals have done to the priesthood. This explains why he said that those with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should not be ordained. Pope Francis has continued this policy.

It is not just Pope Francis who has expressed concern about the number of homosexuals in the Church. Father Andrew Greeley said in 1989 that “Blatantly active homosexual priests are appointed, transferred and promoted. Lavender rectories and seminaries are tolerated. National networks of active homosexual priests (many of them administrators) are tolerated.” In 2000, he testified that seminary professors “tell their students that they’re gay and take some of them to gay bars, and gay students sleep with each other.”

In 2002, Bishop Wilton Gregory (now a Cardinal) said, “One of the difficulties we do face in seminary life or recruitment is when there does exist a homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes heterosexual men think twice” about joining the priesthood. He said it is “an ongoing struggle” and that the Church must be careful not to be “dominated by homosexual men.”

Pope Francis is clearly worried that there are still too many homosexuals in the priesthood. Calling gays “fags” should not mask what is bugging the pope. His critics are trying to divert attention from the real problem.