Bill Donohue comments on media coverage of the gay pride parades that took place last weekend:

 

According to Time Out Chicago, there were “some real gems,” including “half-naked, hairy men in bath towels” in the Windy City’s gay pride parade. A.V. Club, an entertainment media source, reported that the Episcopal Lesbians for Peace and Nudity marched in the Minneapolis gay parade, along with Dykes on Bikes. AP spotted men wearing nothing but jock straps marching in New York’s parade. In Seattle, moviecitynews.com noticed a “giant walking penis, and a pack of naked dudes with body paint covering their kibbles and bits.” But it was in San Francisco where they let it all hang out.

 

AP said the Bay City parade had “more than a little nudity,” while the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the march “had its share of nudity and dog collars.” [Note: Dogs were not wearing the collars.] The New York Times said, “Among the usual sights at San Francisco’s annual gay pride parade on Sunday—rainbow flags, lesbians on motorcycles, unfortunately naked men….” [No explanation was given for the use of the judgmental term “unfortunately.”]

 

The electronic media that covered the San Francisco gay pride parade uniformly did not show pictures of the naked men marching down the street. Indeed, only KRON, the NBC affiliate, even mentioned the nudity. Those television stations that reported on the march, without mentioning the nudity were: CNN and MSNBC at the national cable news level; and KTVU, KPIX, KGO, KQED, KCBS and KNTV at the local level.

 

There is no demographic group in the nation, among all the racial and ethnic affiliations, which ever features nudity, half-nudity and simulated sex acts in their parades. Indeed, they don’t even march in dog collars. But to those whose idea of freedom is genital liberation, sexuality is their central identity. The real problem here is the reluctance of the media to accurately cover gay pride events. The bias is palpable

 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is quoted as saying that the State Department was “instrumental in sealing the deal” for Lady Gaga to appear at the June 11 Euro Pride concert in Rome. 

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:

 

The Obama administration has U.S. troops fighting in four wars—Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Yemen—and yet the Secretary of State has time to lobby Lady Gaga to attend a homosexual extravaganza in Rome. The fact that the Queen Monster performed near the Vatican was clearly not a problem for Secretary Clinton. 

 

Lady Gaga is known in Catholic circles for strutting like a tramp while dressed as a nun, swallowing rosaries, taking liberties with the Cross, and parading around in glossy-red habits. None of this, obviously, is seen as problematic by the Secretary of State. One would think that a feminist might object to a video that features a simulated rape of Lady Gaga by her S&M boyfriends.

 

The fact that Lady Gaga is being courted by the White House provides a window into the mindset of this administration. As the adage says, “What you see is what you get.” And what Catholics see is not a pretty sight.

 

 

A young Muslim woman has sued Abercrombie & Fitch after she was fired for violating the clothier’s “look policy,” which the company interpreted as not permitting Muslim headscarfs.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue weighed in today:

As a private company, Abercrombie & Fitch has a legal right to determine its own policies. But from a moral perspective, what it did to this woman is a joke. This is the same company that directs its models not to wear clothes while selling its line of clothing. Indeed, it can’t even sell men’s cologne these days without dabbling in soft porn.

As I said about its 2003 Christmas catalog, “the photos more closely resemble an ad for a nudist colony.” Two years earlier, it released a catalog titled, “A&F XXX Adventure: Get Wet Set & Go on Spring Break.” It was so replete with male and female nudity that it had to put a “Warning Label” on the cover.

At bottom, Abercrombie & Fitch has a religion problem. In the aforementioned 2001 “Spring Break” catalog, it advised readers to adorn their spring break hotel rooms with “palm fronds” that can be taken “for free if you crash a Catholic mass [sic] on Palm Sunday.” In the same issue, a creepy cult movie was reviewed, and to the utter delight of the reviewer, readers were instructed to learn how to “make wry comments after bashing a dead nun’s head to a pulp.”

So it’s not just Muslims that Abercrombie & Fitch likes to bash. My guess is that if some smart-aleck woman wore nothing but a loincloth—using a hijab to cover her genitals—she would pass the company’s “look policy” with flying colors. They really are a sick bunch.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on where gay marriage is headed:

 

Whenever the American people have had a chance to approve gay marriage, they have rejected it. In the more than 30 states that have put this issue to a vote, homosexuals have never won. The only arenas they have been able to score a victory are in some state legislatures and courts. In other words, this is a classic case of the people vs. the elites. 

 

Ultimately, this issue will not be resolved in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court: it will be decided by a constitutional amendment. Though the Federal Marriage Amendment prevailed in the House in 2006 by a margin of 236-187, it failed to achieve the necessary 290 votes required to pass a constitutional amendment; two-thirds of both chambers of Congress, and three-fourths of the states (38), are needed. 

 

Standing in the way of a constitutional amendment is the legitimate reluctance on the part of federal lawmakers to decide what many believe to be a matter for the states. But given that we are left with the scenario of the people vs. the elites, we are quickly reaching a tipping point, and when that happens, chances are good that this issue will be resolved by a constitutional amendment.

 

Currently, 30 states have constitutional language defining marriage as being between a man and a woman. At the federal level, the Defense of Marriage Act also defines marriage in the traditional sense. But unless there is a constitutional amendment, we will continue to have an uneven playing field, one that is ripe for further exploitation. Once marriage is separated from procreation, and Tom and Dick are allowed to marry, there is no principled reason why Tom, Dick and Harry can’t do so. After all, wouldn’t it be discrimination to say no to Harry?

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains why he is opposed to funding faith-based programs under President Obama:

 

A few dozen left-wing organizations, some of which are no friend of religious liberty, sent a letter to President Obama this week asking that he rescind an amendment to an Executive Order that allows faith-based programs to limit hiring to people of their own faith. The Catholic League would like to go further: it’s time to shut down the faith-based program altogether. 

 

President George W. Bush sincerely wanted to end discrimination in awarding federal contracts to social service agencies by including faith-based programs. When Sen. Obama was running for president three years ago, he pledged support for faith-based programs provided they were emptied of any faith component: he opposed the right of faith-based programs to maintain their integrity by hiring only people of their faith.

 

In 2009, the Obama administration balked: it said it would decide on a case-by-case basis whether a funding request from a faith-based program was acceptable. In 2010, many members of this program pushed to pare back religious liberty provisions that were extant. 

 

When faith is gutted from faith-based programs—when Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Jews can’t hire their own—we are left with a carcass. It would be better to save the money (Obama’s faith-based program received $140 million in stimulus money last year) than to pretend that we are helping religious social agencies. The goal, obviously, is to convert these religious entities into full-blown secular organizations. It would be better not to let them hijack these programs in the name of assisting them, thus it makes sense to shut them down.

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the battle for gay marriage in New York State: 

 

Before the New York State legislature decides whether to ratify homosexual marriage, it would be nice if one of the lawmakers were to ask what in the world is going on in the gay community. 

 

A new report issued by the New York City Health Department, “Take Care New York 2012: Tracking the City’s Progress,” shows that while progress is being made to stem smoking, the intake of sugary drinks, and teenage pregnancies, we are going backwards on preventing sexually transmitted diseases among gays.

 

Between 2007-2009, there was a 6 percent decrease in gay men using condoms. Furthermore, homosexuals account for 60 percent of all newly diagnosed HIV infections each year; in addition, 60 percent of gays who have syphilis also have HIV. Moreover, 85 percent of gays with syphilis continue to have sex. 

 

It can’t be said that lack of education is the problem. In the last few years, New York City has featured a condom wrapping design contest, and has posted a NYC Condom Facebook page. Also, there is a NYC Condom Finder, a free app that uses GPS to find them. Moreover, condoms are distributed at 45 different events, including LGBT Pride events. During the years when condom use by gays declined, New York City gave away approximately 40 million free condoms per year!   

 

The lawmakers need to ask gay leaders to testify about this issue. While they’re at it, they might also ask why, unlike all other parades in New York City, the organizers of the Gay Pride Parade (which is this Sunday), must warn marchers not to go naked in the streets. The public has a right to know.

 

On last night’s edition of “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” the host claimed that Galileo was punished by the Catholic Church for “his belief that the earth orbited the sun and not the other way around.” He also said that “the Church acknowledged errors had been committed in assessing Galileo’s scientific beliefs. They did that in 1992.”

 

Commenting on this is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

 

It is not for nothing that Olbermann’s new show is drawing such phenomenal advertisers like “Furniture Fix” and “Gyro Bowl.” Indeed, whenever a show has to rely on junk products for revenue (the sure give-away is when they advertise that the buyer gets “two for the price of one”), it’s an ominous sign. More than ominous is the intellectual acuity of Olbermann. 

 

The fact is that the belief that the earth revolves around the sun was first broached by Copernicus, in 1543, and that was many moons before Galileo was even born. Copernicus not only did not get into trouble with the Catholic Church—he was a priest. Moreover, when Galileo first floated Copernicus’ idea, he was bestowed with medals and gifts by Pope Urban VIII. What got him censured was his arrogance: Galileo argued that his hypothesis was a scientific fact, something which even the scientific community of his day scoffed at. It is instructive that Father Roger Boscovich didn’t get into hot water with the Church at the time, and yet he also explored Copernican ideas. 

 

It is false to say that in 1992 the Catholic Church acknowledged errors in dealing with Galileo. That happened in 1741 when Pope Benedict XIV granted an imprimatur to the first edition of the completed works of Galileo. What happened in 1992 was the release of a Pontifical Academy report on the controversy.

 

If Olbermann were simply wrong, that would be one thing. But it was his snide delivery that was really offensive. Glad we taped his new show—we knew it wouldn’t be long before he threw a low-blow at the Catholic Church.

 

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the impending New York State bill on same-sex marriage:

 

New York State does not believe in “power to the people,” and that is why it is not submitting the issue of gay marriage to a ballot initiative. If it did, it would lose: in the more than 30 states which have put this matter to a vote, never once have the people failed to affirm marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Only elites differ with that judgment.

 

The New York State legislature is one vote away from passing a gay marriage bill. What is holding it up is pressure from Catholics, Protestants, Jews and others: they want to insulate religious institutions from state encroachment. That they have to fight for their First Amendment rights shows how threatening gay-marriage legislation really is.

 

The threats to religious liberty are not hypothetical. A New Mexico photographer who refused to photograph a gay couple’s commitment ceremony was forced to pay the couple’s attorney’s fees; Christians in New Jersey who objected to allowing a gay union ceremony in their privately owned facility have had their tax-exempt status stripped; a psychologist from Georgia was fired after she declined to counsel a lesbian about her relationship. And so on.

 

In other words, there are real concerns that if gay marriage passes in New York, religious liberty will be jeopardized. That is why if this bill passes, it is imperative that religious rights be firmly locked in from the get-go. And it is nothing if not bizarre to insist that marriage be extended to two people who are positively disqualified by nature, and nature’s God, from starting a family.

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds to yesterday’s article by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd: 

 

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, like most Americans, and like most people throughout the history of the world, thinks marriage should be reserved for the only two people capable of rendering a family, namely a man and a woman. In Maureen Dowd’s world, all these people are wrong. It was telling that she wrote her screed on Father’s Day, a day which victimizes innocent children who have two mothers or two fathers.

 

Dowd singles out Dolan for opposing gay marriage. She needs to talk to some non-white people for a change. She should go to Harlem and talk to blacks leaving church on Sunday about the glory of two men marrying. Then she could visit churchgoers in a Latino neighborhood. Then she could have lunch in Chinatown and speak to the people. Finally, she could visit an Orthodox Jewish community (after all, it was Jews, not Catholics, who first crafted strictures against homosexuality). 

 

Dowd says it is hypocritical for the Church to accept homosexual priests while finding fault with homosexuality. Is it also hypocritical to accept heterosexual priests while finding fault with those who are sexually active? Celibacy cuts equally for straights and gays. 

 

Dowd says the recent report on the causes of the sexual abuse scandal was “put out” by Dolan and the bishops, and that it advanced a “blame Woodstock” explanation. She is twice wrong: (a) the report was the work of social scientists from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and (b) the timeline of the problem—mid-1960s to mid-1980s—was exactly the period of the sexual revolution, so to cite it was important. Evidently, Dowd never took Intro to Soc. 

 

Finally, Dowd finds fault with the John Jay study for not listing homosexuality as a cause. Her complaint is accurate, which makes unintelligible her reference to “pedophile priests.” In fact, the abusive priests were mostly homosexual, though she should be careful not to stereotype.

 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the three most prominent so-called victims’ groups:

 

BishopAccountability, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the National Survivors Advocates Coalition (NSAC) are so consumed with their agenda that they are ready to throw the constitutional rights of accused priests overboard. 

 

Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz expressed his concerns this week that unscrupulous lawyers may try to plunder the bishops’ conference for making commitments on how best to handle accused priests. For merely raising this concern, SNAP urged Catholics in his diocese to stop making contributions. Last month, when a case against the Louisville diocese was thrown out, SNAP lashed out at the judge for dismissing it on the basis of a technicality. The technicality? The First Amendment.

 

BishopAccountability said this week that priests should be removed from ministry before the accusation is investigated. Similarly, SNAP said this week, “We strongly and repeatedly beg people to call authorities—police and prosecutors—with any information or suspicions no matter how small or seemingly insufficient.” Here’s a good one: after typing “rights of priests” in the search engine of NSAC, the first article to appear calls for the suspension of rights for accused priests. 

 

When an innocent Jesuit priest was recently nominated to be the House Chaplain, both SNAP and NSAC opposed him simply because some accused priests belong to his religious order. 

 

BishopAccountability openly admits that it does not verify allegations made against priests before listing information on its website. That includes Father Charles Murphy, who died last weekend after being victimized by two bogus lawsuits against him that went nowhere. Worse, after NSAC ripped a columnist who pointed out what a travesty the Murphy case is, it concluded, “Perhaps Rev. Murphy was an innocent man, poorly treated.” It just doesn’t get much lower than this.