On April 11, representatives from two homosexual groups, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and Dignity, along with a left-wing entity, Faithful America, are expected to present petitions to the Diocese of Rockville Centre requesting that Nicholas Coppola be reinstated to the post he held at St. Anthony’s in Oceanside. Coppola was dismissed from his voluntary positions at the parish after it was disclosed that he “married” his boyfriend.

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

The internal affairs of the Catholic Church are not the business of the public, and this includes outside advocacy groups as well as government agencies. Among the internal issues of the Church are employment decisions. Just as it is the right of a yeshiva to insist that its employees abide by Judaic strictures, it is the right of a Catholic school to insist that its employees respect Catholic teachings. Regrettably, GLAAD, Dignity and Faithful America show nothing but contempt for this verity.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hosanna-Tabor that employment decisions by religious institutions are free from government policing. At issue was the right of a midwestern Evangelical Lutheran school to terminate a religious teacher. The teacher argued that she was the victim of discrimination and asked to be reinstated. She lost 9-0.

Hence, those promoting the cause of Nicholas Coppola have already lost in the courts. So now they are trying to win in the court of public opinion. It won’t work. The American people respect the autonomy of religious institutions to craft their own rules and regulations, and they do not look kindly on bullying.

How ironic it is that those who have been screaming the most about the evils of bullying are the very ones who are its greatest practitioners—against Christians, no less. It’s time they learned the virtue of tolerance.

Bill Donohue comments on the decision by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ordering the Food and Drug Administration to make the “morning-after” emergency contraception pill available without a prescription to girls of any age:

A 12-year-old girl in a New York City school cannot be given an aspirin by her teacher, even if she has a fever. The same girl cannot buy a large soda during lunchtime because Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decreed that it is not good for her. But she can be given a pill, unbeknownst to her parents, that could arguably abort her baby.

Neither Judge Korman nor Mayor Bloomberg has said what the aspirin-denying teacher should do if he sees a girl reaching for a large Coke to down her abortion-inducing pill.

This is what we’ve come to in our culturally schizophrenic society. Our moral code is patently incoherent, and the contempt shown for parental rights is astonishing. Hopefully, this imperial decision will be overturned.

Bill Donohue is sending the following letter today to senior officials at George Washington University, as well as to others on campus:

I am writing to you about a serious civil liberties issue at George Washington University. It involves the right of a Catholic priest, Father Greg Shaffer, to practice his faith as Chaplain of the Newman Center. You should know that I have been contacted by students on campus who are disturbed about this issue.

Two students, Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen, are upset with Father Shaffer because of his embrace of Catholic teachings on homosexuality and abortion. The students, who admit to being in a sexual relationship, apparently want the priest to give his blessings to their affair.

Nothing that has been reported by the media suggests that Father Shaffer has said anything inflammatory about these subjects, and the students themselves do not offer any evidence of abusive speech or behavior. Make no mistake about it, their complaint transcends Father Shaffer: it is an attack on the freedom of expression of Catholics on campus to discuss their religious beliefs and practices with impunity. In short, this is a civil liberties issue involving both freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

Ideally, this issue should be the subject of a campus-wide discussion on the meaning of the First Amendment, as well as the true meaning of diversity. Those who seek to stifle these rights are not only demonstrating intolerance, they are working against the purported objective of higher education, namely the unfettered pursuit of truth.

It is my hope that you will address this problem justly and without delay. Thank you for your consideration.

Contact the Chief of Staff, Office of the President: porter@gwu.edu

Bill Donohue comments on the controversy over Dr. Benjamin Carson:

Last week, Dr. Ben Carson defended marriage as it has been understood since time immemorial. He added, “It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality—it doesn’t matter what they are—they don’t get to change the definition.” For this he has been vilified, even though he has made it clear that he wasn’t equating bestiality with homosexuality. But the attacks have not ceased.

Also last week, U.S. Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor asked attorney Ted Olson whether incest might be permitted if there were no state restrictions on marriage. No one condemned her.

Carson and Sotomayor were simply trying to find out whether those who support gay marriage recognize any limits to their redefinition of this basic social institution. This is a perfectly legitimate line of inquiry.

Moreover, it is a little late in the game for liberals to get exercised about bestiality. In 1948, Kinsey and his associates concluded that “sexual contacts between the human and animals of other species are at no point basically different from those that are involved in erotic responses to human situations.” Today, college textbooks on human sexuality speak of bestiality as nothing more than “atypical behavior.”

Princeton professor Peter Singer wants us to keep an open mind about Fred having sex with Fido. He says, “sex with animals does not always involve cruelty,” and that “mutually satisfying activities” of a sexual nature should be respected. Last month, Yale hosted a “sensitivity training” exercise where Dr. Jill McDevitt touted the merits of bestiality. Her goal is to “increase compassion for people who may engage in activities that are not what you would personally consider normal.”

Dr. Carson is a good man who was framed. It’s the sexologists and the Ivy Leaguers who need to explain themselves.

On four of the Easter weekend talk shows, Catholic leaders were asked to discuss current events. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was interviewed on March 29 on the Bloomberg show, “Political Capital with Al Hunt”; Cardinal Timothy Dolan was interviewed on Sunday by Bob Schieffer on the CBS show, “Face the Nation,” as well as by George Stephanopoulos on the ABC show, “This Week”; and Cardinal Donald Wuerl was interviewed by Chris Wallace on “Fox News.”

Commenting on the interviews is Bill Donohue:

Same-sex marriage was the subject of discussion in all four interviews. This is not surprising given that the U.S. Supreme Court just finished hearing oral arguments on two gay marriage cases. Bringing up women’s ordination, however (which is what Hunt and Schieffer did), had nothing to do with current events. Schieffer was the worst: one of his questions managed to touch on the homosexual scandal, abortion and celibacy (as well as gay marriage and women’s ordination).

Moreover, unlike marriage, which is a public policy issue, gender roles in the Catholic clergy are as much the business of outsiders as are the absence of female clergy among Orthodox Jews, Muslims, et al. Yet only Catholics are asked about this issue.

To demonstrate how engulfed the media are with this subject, consider the following: so far this year, a LexisNexis search of U.S. newspaper articles that mention either women’s ordination, or women priests, in the Catholic Church turns up 426 articles; in all of last year, there were 323. Similarly, there have been 63 transcripts on this subject over the last three months; in 2012, there was a grand total of 21.

To say that the papal transition accounts for this wide gap is incomplete: it also reveals media bias. Let’s face it, it is not rank-and-file Catholics who suffer from priest envy; it’s a small and dwindling number of Catholics, and a politically motivated segment of non-Catholics.