Bill Donohue

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Catholic League’s documentary on Disney, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom.” Millions of Americans have watched it on multiple platforms, including Amazon. It is a critical look at how the once family-friendly giant lost its moorings and joined the culture war against our Judeo-Christian heritage. The all-star cast helped make it a success.

Our video was masterfully done by Jason Meath Productions, and was well received by Americans all across the country. It won many awards in several film festivals, including Best Short Documentary.

The year 2023 was not kind to Disney. Indeed, it headed south. How much a role our documentary played in that development we cannot say with any precision, but it is fatuous to say it was without effect.

In terms of market share, Disney slid to second place last year; Universal Pictures came out on top. Also, for the first time in many years, Disney didn’t have one of the top three movies. Pixar, the Disney branch most responsible for pushing the LGBT agenda, did so badly that it shed 20 percent of its staff; more than 300 employees have been let go. In addition, attendance at Disney theme parks declined in 2023.

The man most responsible for this disaster, Disney CEO Bob Iger, is not complaining, at least not about his compensation. Why should he? His collective bosses paid him $32 million for his performance.

The good news is that there are signs that Disney got the memo. In September, after a summer of lousy box office receipts, Iger told investors he will seek to “quiet the noise.” The noise came from parents who do not want to expose their children to raunch.

At the end of November, we learned from a corporate disclosure that Disney is rethinking its woke policies. “We face risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products, which impact demand for our entertainment offerings and products and the profitability of any of our businesses.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley picked up on this admission and explained why Disney departed from the kind of wholesome fare that made it famous.

“For shareholders,” he said, “it may seem counterintuitive that corporate executives would trade off profits for political or social agendas. However, it does serve as a rationale for individual corporate executives who are professionally advanced when they champion such causes.” In other words, veterans like Iger are the most likely to let their ideological agenda trump their obligations to shareholders.

But when investors revolt, even guys like Iger have to listen. He said something in early December at a summit in New York that was unexpected. “Creators lost sight of what their No. 1 objective needed to be. We have to entertain first. It’s not about messages.”

That was refreshing, if not altogether honest. Those who create Disney fare do not do so without the blessing of their bosses, and that certainly includes Iger.

If Disney seriously wants to rebound, it can begin by treating Americans the way they do the masses in China. Last June, Americans were treated to Pride Month in Orlando and Los Angeles. But guess what? There was no four week celebration of homosexuality and transgenderism in Hong Kong or Shanghai.

Similarly, Disney has long cut morally objectionable footage from its movies to accommodate Muslims in the Middle East. So why are American kids treated to their sexual grooming films?

We would love to see Disney get back to basics and treat children as children again, sparing them of any sexual agenda. If they do turn the corner, the dividends will be morally impressive for the country and financially impressive for Disney. That’s a win-win.

Contact Disney’s communications chief: Kristina.Schake@disney.com

If you would like a copy of our DVD documentary, please contact info@catholicleague.org. The cost is $10, including shipping and handling. 

Bill Donohue

Most Americans would not approve of graphic sex advice being prominently featured on the homepage of a popular search engine. They would be more outraged if it were posted midday when after-school boys and girls could easily access it. But this is exactly what Yahoo did on January 30.

[Yahoo is mostly owned by Apollo Global Management, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.]

The first post below the headline story on Yahoo read, “My Boyfriend Has a New Request for When I Go Down on Him. I Have Concerns.” Below, in smaller print, it said, “I want to at least try.”

Clicking on this post takes the reader to an advice column that originated on Slate. It is the kind of sex advice that one would expect from a hard-core sex website or magazine, not from a conventional search engine’s homepage. That it was posted at 3:13 p.m. makes it totally irresponsible.

Because of the graphic nature of the advice column, we will not make it widely available. Suffice it to say that it is an explicit description of fellatio, with some novel, and quite sick, suggestions.

Members of the media, or adults who would like to read the column so as to better inform others, can email us at pr@catholicleague.org and we will send it to you.

Contact: Joanna Rose, Global Head of Corporate Communications, Apollo Global Management, Inc.: Communications@apollo.com

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Left is very good at making up bogeymen, and one of their favorites is Christian nationalism. The latest iteration of this madness was an article in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion; a subsequent analysis of it was recently published in psypost.org.

Bill Donohue was particularly interested in this issue because of his training as a sociologist: sociologists are the ones promoting the fiction that America is threatened by Christian nationalists.

The journal article, written by sociologist Fanhao Nie of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, claims that Christian nationalists are likely to have negative views of atheists.

What exactly is Christian nationalism? Nie says it is “broadly defined as an ideology that calls for the integration of Christianity and American civic life.” We get the gist of it, but this is so elastic a definition that it might mean something as innocent as noting that our rights come from God. In fact, one of the sociologists cited by the author, Andrew Whitehead, has said exactly that.

When Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association (NRA), gave a speech on the Founding documents, Whitehead, in a piece he co-authored, saw Christian nationalism written all over it. The NRA chief said our freedoms were “granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.”

This is not the voice of a Christian nationalist—it is the voice of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Our unalienable rights, he said, come not from government but from our “Creator.” Whitehead may not like this, but what LaPierre said is historically accurate.

“The genius of those documents, the brilliance of America, of our country itself,” LaPierre also said, “is that all of our freedoms in this country are for every single citizen.”

The fact that LaPierre did not say that our freedoms are for Christians—he said they were “for every single citizen”—should have given Whitehead pause. After all, it seriously undercuts his position.

If Christian nationalism were the threat that those who promote this nonsense say it is, most Americans would oppose it. In fact, most never heard of it. In a survey released last year, Pew Research found that 54 percent never heard or read anything about it, and an additional 16 percent said they heard of it “a little.” Of the few who had heard of it, more held an unfavorable view (24 percent) than a favorable one (5 percent).

There is a reason for this. Christian nationalism doesn’t exist, save for faculty lounges, sociological circles and left-wing activist organizations. And it is they who have influenced those who hold a negative view.

The Pew story on this survey printed some of the comments made by those who had a favorable and unfavorable view of Christian nationalism.

Here’s a sample of those who hold a favorable view:

• “People who love God and USA.”
• “A society in which patriotism and religion are inseparably entwined doing the will of God in and for America and believing God is on America’s side.”
• “Values of society based on Judaic-Christian values and priorities.”
• “Religious people who love their country.”
• “A nation that espouses Christian principles and prioritizes the faith above secular humanistic principle that are more prevalent in the secular society of the U.S. today.”

Here’s a sample of those who hold an unfavorable view:

• “Attempting to use the government to impose an extreme, fringe version of Christianity on everyone in the nation, regardless of others’ religious views. They are no different than al-Qaida or the Taliban.”
• “Racist, misogynistic, White, older, retro group of people wanting to return the U.S. to a time when everyone ‘knew their place.’ Narrow-minded view that the Bible is key to life for everyone.”
• “Militant Christians openly attempting to install a right-wing Christian theocracy leading to a Christian ethno-state.”
• “It’s code used by extremists to indicate government for White Christians by White Christians.”
• “White supremacists and male superiority.”

All of those who offered a favorable view were Catholic or Protestant. All of those who offered an unfavorable view said they ascribed to no religion.

Regarding the latter, notice the hysteria. And the hate.

It is not those who are proud to live in a country founded on our religious heritage who are a threat—it is those who portray them as a threat. They are the real menace. Inventing bogeymen so as to trash patriotism and Christianity is a sick preoccupation of those on the Left. It’s time our side ripped the mask off these demagogues.

Bill Donohue

A new poll on LGBT rights has been published by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), a left-wing outfit with a reputation for crafting politically skewed surveys. Its most prominent researcher, sociologist Robert P. Jones, is well known for demonizing so-called Christian nationalists.

PRRI recently released its 2023 American Values Atlas report, “Views On LGBTQ Rights In All 50 States.” It offers more proof that the aforementioned flaws are extant. As a sociologist and a Catholic leader, I have great interest in this subject.

First a word about LGBT people (there is no need to add a “Q”—it stands for Queers and is therefore a redundancy).

The typical LGBT person is a young Democrat with no religious affiliation. This makes perfect sense.

Transgenderism, the ideology that falsely holds that the sexes are interchangeable, is a culturally induced phenomenon that is more attractive to young people than older Americans. Democrats are mostly liberals, and as such they have an expansive view of sexuality. Secular-minded persons reject nature, and nature’s God, and are therefore easy bait for transgender influencers.

To put it differently, the older a person is, the less likely he is to buy into this mad idea. Republicans tend to be conservatives and are therefore more immune to trendy fashions unhinged from reality. Religious Americans appreciate nature, and nature’s God, and are thus inhospitable to militant secular ideas.

There are two aspects of the survey that deserve a riposte.

One of the questions asked respondents was whether they supported or opposed “allowing a small business owner in your state to refuse to provide products or services to gay or lesbian people if doing so would violate their religious beliefs.”

This is a dishonest question. In fact, it is a red herring designed to make religious persons look intolerable.

It is dishonest because PRRI knows that this issue, which was broached in two similar Colorado cases that wound up in the Supreme Court, had nothing do to with denying homosexuals products or services because of their sexual orientation. It had to do with the religious rights of Christians being violated for having to affirm conduct they could not in good conscience do.

Neither Jack Phillips nor Lorie Smith ever denied serving a customer who was gay or lesbian. Phillips sold them cakes and Smith serviced their websites. But when Phillips was asked to personally inscribe a wedding cake for two men, he refused. Smith issued a preemptive strike by publicly stating that she would not provide web services celebrating gay weddings. The high court agreed with them, noting the obvious religious liberty issues involved.

PRRI, following Jones’ obsession with Christian nationalism, claims that those who believe that America was founded as a Christian nation and should return to its moorings are a threat to democracy.

If someone were to say that America was founded as a secular nation and should become even more secular, would it be fair to say that this person is a threat to democracy? Of course not. One may disagree, but to assert that we are on the verge of a despotic secular regime would be as irresponsible as saying that Christian nationalists are about to establish a theocracy.

PRRI is not simply reporting survey results—it is setting the political table for liberals.

For example, Politico, a mostly responsible liberal media outlet, seems to go off the rails when it comes to Christian nationalism. Last month it maintained that if Trump wins in November, his allies are ready to infuse Christian nationalism in his second administration. It claimed to have the evidence to buttress its position, yet it conceded that “The documents obtained by Politico do not outline specific Christian nationalist policies.” That’s because there are none.

Heidi Przybyla wrote a piece for Politico last month that set off the alarms. The issue was the conviction, shared by millions of Americans, and encoded in the Declaration of Independence, that our rights come from God, not from government (that was what Stalin, Hitler and Mao believed). This simple observation was enough to send her into orbit. Now it would have come as a shocker to Jefferson, who was not exactly a religious guy, that he was a Christian nationalist.

PRRI knows what it is doing. None of what they did was a mistake. Which is why they are not to be trusted.

Contact Robert P. Jones: rjones@prri.org

Bill Donohue

Part I of this two-part series on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) focused on six conservative organizations that SPLC falsely labels as “hate groups”; to read it click here. Part II assesses its claim that two genuine hate groups, Antifa and Black Lives Matter, should not be treated as such.

“Designating Antifa as Domestic Terrorist Organization Is Dangerous, Threatens Civil Liberties.”

That is how SPLC views Antifa. The evidence shows that its characterization is seriously inaccurate.

Antifa is a loosely-knit group that espouses, and engages in, violence. In July 2019, police shot and killed Willem van Spronsen after he tried to ignite a 500-gallon propane tank attached to a government building in Tacoma, Washington. He was armed with a rifle and incendiary devices. Shortly before the attack he sent a manifesto to friends, saying, “I am antifa.” After his death, Antifa colleagues called him “a martyr.” Memorials were organized in Washington and Oregon.

A month later, Connor Betts killed nine and injured dozens in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio. Though he was not a member of Antifa, he openly supported them on social media.

Mike Isaacson is the founder of an Antifa group in Washington, D.C. He proudly justifies violence. According to Mark Bray, a Dartmouth historian, people like Isaacson justify their use of violence as self-defense against fascists. Their idea of self-defense includes hurling glass bottles and bricks at the police. This has led liberals such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi to condemn Antifa’s violence.

Attorney General William Barr, under President Donald Trump, referred to Antifa as a “new form of urban guerrilla warfare,” similarly to what Mao Zedong promoted.

Antifa members have been arrested many times for carrying guns, knives, hatchets, gasoline, clubs, chemical irritants, pipes, hammers, fireworks,  and homemade explosives.

A Baltimore Antifa activist explained that when peaceful protests don’t succeed, you “fight them with fists,” and if that doesn’t work, you “fight them with knives,” and if that fails, you “fight them with guns,” and if that doesn’t get the job done, you “fight them with tanks.”

In 2016, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI warned state and local officials that Antifa was engaging in “domestic terrorist violence.”

Yet SPLC says it is dangerous to label Antifa a domestic terrorist group.

“Black Lives Matter Is Not a Hate Group.”

After George Floyd was killed by a police officer in 2020, Black Lives Matter (BLM) labeled it a hate crime committed by a white cop, Derek Chauvin. That led to over 600 attacks on 220 American cities.

Yet when the left-wing African-American Minnesota attorney general, Keith Ellison, examined this case, he said it was not a hate crime. “I wouldn’t call it that because hate crimes are crimes where there’s an explicit motive and bias.” He added, “We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did.”

This led author David Horowitz to comment, “All the outrage against police racism and all the mayhem fueled by that outrage, was based on no evidence whatsoever.”

The fact is that during the 103 days of unrest following the death of Floyd, there were 633 violent protests all across the nation, and BLM was involved in 95 percent of those incidents. The riots were responsible for an estimated two billion dollars in insured property damage and untold more in uninsured  property damage. There were twenty-four deaths and countless others who were injured, including many cops.

Yet SPLC says “Black Lives Matter Is Not a Hate Group.”

But guess who is a hate group? White Lives Matter. SPLC calls it a white supremacist group, led by a middle-age homemaker, Rebecca Barnette. If she doesn’t sound like a violent Antifa or BLM analog on the right, that’s because she isn’t.

The only violence associated with White Lives Matters occurred years ago when they clashed with counter-protesters in Anaheim, California. White Lives Matter was responsible for stabbing three of them. As it turned out, the five who were arrested were released by the police after it was determined that they acted in self-defense.

Are there things that White Lives Matter has said that are hateful? Yes, and it stands to reason that they should be included in any list of hate groups. But in comparison to BLM, these racists are at least not a violent threat to the social order. They are more kooky than a menace.

SPLC not only unfairly labels respectable social conservative organizations as hate groups, it shamelessly exculpates left-wing violent organizations, defending them as if they were the Boy Scouts.

Worse, the mainstream media cites SPLC’s list of hate groups as if it were the Gospel truth. It is for these reasons that the Catholic League concludes that SPLC is a bona-fide hate group—it goes to the mat for true hate groups while smearing those that are not.

As with Part I, we are sending Part II to Washington lawmakers and many other interested parties. It’s time SPLC was outed as a dangerous fraud.

Contact LaShawn Warren, Chief Policy Officer, SPLC: lashawn.warren@splcenter.org

Catholic League president Bill Donohue addresses a story by the Associated Press (AP) on mandatory reporting laws:

An AP story last week on mandatory reporting laws didn’t get much traction. That’s because it broke no new ground.

Written by Jason Dearen and Michael Rezendes, they found that 33 states exempt the clergy from mandatory reporting laws governing the sexual abuse of minors. “This loophole has resulted in an unknown number of predators being allowed to continue abusing children for years despite having confessed behavior to religious officials.”

The reason why no one knows how many predators have continued to abuse children for years “despite having confessed behavior to religious officials” is because no one has been able to identify a singular instance when this has happened. The real story here has less do with legal loopholes than it does with crashing the confessional.

The AP story mentions legislation on this issue that was sponsored in recent years by Democrats. Utah Rep. Angela Romero, and California state Sen. Jerry Hill, both sought to close the loophole, but ran into fierce resistance. They both lost. The Catholic League played a major role in both victories.

I wrote to Romero in January 2020. “You are treading on dangerous territory. When the government seeks to police the sacraments of the Catholic Church—or encroach on the tenets and practices of any world religion—it is gearing up for a court fight. The First Amendment secures religious liberty, and that entails separation of church and state.”

In my letter to Romero, I said there was “no evidence” showing that breaking the seal of the Confession would result in prosecuting molesters. Just as I expected, she provided none.

The year before I wrote to Hill. His bill said that “the clergy-penitent privilege has been abused on a large scale, resulting in the unreported and systemic abuse of thousands of children across multiple denominations and faiths.” I asked him for the evidence that supports this outrageous claim. He offered none.

There’s a political game going on here. For years, Family Planning Advocates, the lobbying arm of Planned Parenthood, fought legislation in New York State that would require its counselors to report instances of statutory rape to the authorities. It was supported by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Yet there was no AP story or public outcry about their effort.

Moreover, in 2015 the Alliance Defending Freedom issued a report documenting “multiple instances” where Planned Parenthood failed to report statutory rapes to the authorities. Why didn’t the AP do a story on this?

The AP stance is untenable. Consider the 2014 study published by the University of Michigan Law School. Two professors, one from Michigan Law School and one from New York University School of Medicine, authored, “Effects of Clergy Reporting Laws on Child Maltreatment Report Rates.” They found that states that mandated religious leaders to report cases of child maltreatment had 10 percent fewer confirmed reports of child maltreatment.

Father Roger Landry, a well-respected priest and writer, says it is preposterous to think that a child abuser is going to confess his sin in the confessional. “No abuser, not to mention others guilty of serious crimes, would come to confession if he knew that the confessor was basically a state informant who would betray his confidence.”

On September 29, I asked our communications director, Mike McDonald, to email AP reporter Rezendes (he was part of the Boston Globe  “Spotlight” team that reported on clergy abuse in the Boston archdiocese). I wanted to know his response to two questions.

“Do you know how many cases have been reported by the clergy, especially priests, to the authorities of cases involving the sexual abuse of minors in the 17 states that do not afford such an exemption? Has anyone ever been prosecuted after the clergy reported the abuse?”

I knew he had no evidence and that explains why he never answered. This is a scam. The AP’s record of reporting on the Catholic Church has long evinced a bias.

Contact: mrezendes@ap.org

Bill Donohue

A heralded Catholic football player defends traditional moral values at a Catholic college—how novel—and within no time he’s being bashed all over the place. Had he endorsed transgenderism, or Hamas, he would now be praised to high heaven.

The man is Harrison Butker, the phenomenal kicker for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Butker is not in the news for his athletic heroics but because he gave a commencement address at Benedictine College in Kansas on May 11 that espoused traditional Catholic values. He has been criticized by the NFL, slammed on social media and is the subject of a change.org petition (it claims to have 100,000 signatures).

The attack has three targets: Butker, Benedictine College and Catholicism. Make no mistake, the war on Butker is driven by anti-Catholicism.

Butker has been condemned for his remarks about women, abortion, President Biden, Gay Pride Month, gender ideology, and the emasculation of men. Those who signed the petition don’t want to debate his remarks—they want him fired. “We call upon the Kansas City Chiefs management to dismiss Harrison Butker immediately for his inappropriate conduct.”

Spoken like true fascists. Moreover, they are plain dumb: they don’t know the difference between speech and conduct.

Butker spoke positively about moms who elect to work at home taking care of their children.

“I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you…Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world. But I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.

“I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and a mother. I’m on this stage, and able to be the man I am, because I have a wife who leans into her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”

He ended this part of his speech noting how blessed he is to have a wife who embraces “one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”

For this, Butker has been accused of wanting to put women back in “the kitchen.” Mike Freeman at USA Today was apoplectic, saying, “Her vocation? Really? Did I slip and fall into a time machine and travel back to the 1950s?”

In fact, Butker actually speaks for most moms.

In a Gallup poll released in 2019, 50 percent of women with children under age 18 said they would prefer to stay at home; 45 percent disagreed. To those on the left, this is bad news. The French feminist, Simone de Beauvoir, spoke for many when she said, “Women should not have that choice [of staying at home to raise their children], precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.” So much for being “pro-choice.”

“Things like abortion, IVF, surrogacy, euthanasia as well as a growing support for degenerate cultural values and media all stem from the pervasiveness of disorder.” Well said. But to those who like abortion, this is grounds to fire him.

Butker referenced Biden when he took him to task for making the sign of the cross during a pro-abortion rally. Good for Butker. He was also right to call attention to the “deadly sins” associated with Pride month. His reference to “dangerous gender ideologies” was understated—we are dealing with a child abuse crisis.

To say that we need to fight against “the emasculation of men” is good advice. The feminization of society is not a good omen. For this we can thank the schools, the media and the entertainment industry.

“These are the sorts of things we are told in polite society to not bring up.” Butker nailed it again. His courage and his commitment to Catholicism is laudatory.

Regarding the latter, it is risible to read Toriano Porter’s column in the Kansas City Star ripping Butker’s sincerely held beliefs and then conclude that although he doesn’t “know much about Catholicism,” his stinging remarks are “not an attack on religion—not even close.” The reason he felt obliged to make this defensive quip is precisely because he knows how guilty he is.

The Associated Press (AP) let the cat out of the bag altogether.

It unleashed a string of red flags about Benedictine College being “part of a constellation of conservative Catholic colleges that tout their adherence to church teachings and practice—part of a larger conservative movement in parts of the U.S. Catholic Church.” This comes on the heels of an AP story sounding the alarms about the growth of orthodox Catholicism.

AP’s idea of a good Catholic college is Georgetown—it has two pro-abortion clubs on campus and has a segregated graduation ceremony for transgender students.

Please show your support for Butker by commending the president of Benedictine College, Stephen D. Minnis.

Contact: sminnis@benedictine.edu

Bill Donohue wants to share with the public his letter to the principal of a Catholic school. If you would like to contact the school, here is its email address: office@stbonaventureschool.org

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      May 22, 2024

Ms. Mary Flock
Principal
St. Bonaventure Catholic School
16377 Bradbury Lane
Huntington Beach, CA 92647

Dear Principal Flock:

News reports say that you ordered a middle-school student, Jimmy Heyward, to remove from a speech he planned to give “all parts about patriotism.” His speech reportedly speaks positively about veterans, the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance.

In a statement issued by your school to the media, it says that “school administrators felt encouraged by the words of patriotism but were discouraged by what is perceived as some negative comments and sought adjustments to make it more positive.”

I am a veteran. I am also the president and CEO of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization. Accordingly, I would like you to share with me, and with the public, precisely which parts of the speech you found objectionable.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President