Bill Donohue comments on the results of a new survey on the subject of Hollywood and religion:

The Barna Group recently conducted a survey of Republicans and Democrats asking them whether Hollywood is biased against Christianity. It found that 32 percent of Republicans, and 5 percent of Democrats, believe that Hollywood generally portrays Christianity in a negative way.

We know from other surveys that Republicans are much more likely to attend religious services on a regular basis than Democrats, and that the latter are home to most agnostics, atheists, and the unaffiliated. It therefore does not surprise to learn that Democrats are more inclined not to see Hollywood’s portrayal of Christianity in a negative light; such depictions are more likely to be seen as accurate representations.

The anti-Christian bias is not new to Hollywood. Over a decade ago, actress Jennifer O’Neill remarked that “If you mention the name Jesus Christ in Hollywood, all hell breaks loose.” Right about that time, Mel Gibson validated her observation when he tried to find a studio for “The Passion of the Christ.”

In 1997, John Dart wrote for the Los Angeles Times that “Hollywood and organized religion have regarded each other with deep suspicion, and sometimes open hostility, since the days of the flickering silents.” But it never got really bad until the 1980s, and while things have turned around somewhat, it is no credit to the big Hollywood studios that they have.

“Frustrated with Hollywood, which shied away from making films with spiritual themes or religious characters,” wrote Andre Chautard for the Los Angeles Times in 2002, “a handful of independent producers are striking out on their own to make Christian-themed films to entertain more than preach.”

Hollywood should start treating Christians the way it treats gays. But then the moguls would have to suffer blowback from some in their own party.

Bill Donohue exposes the phony Catholicism of dissident groups like the George Soros-funded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. To read his latest CNSNews.com article, click here.

Bill Donohue comments on media coverage of the man who plowed a truck into a crowd in Nice, France:

Here is a sample of some of the most common statements and headlines issued by the media on Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the truck driver who killed at least 84 people in Nice, France:

• “A Frenchman of Tunisian descent drove a truck through crowds….”
• “French Tunisian Truck Terrorist Identified”
• “Truck Attack in France Kills at Least 80”
• “Attack in Nice: Driver of Truck Identified as 31-Year-Old French-Tunisian”

Rare is the story that identifies him as a Muslim. A Lexis-Nexis search found 162 articles on the massacre, and in 108 of them they cited his Tunisian descent. Even though many witnesses said they heard him shout “Allahu Akbar,” only 19 stories mentioned it.

If an Irish-Catholic madman were to mow down scores of people, yelling “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” every media outlet would identify him as a Catholic terrorist.

It’s not just the Obama administration that refuses to discuss the religious identity of Muslim madmen, the media are just as bad.

Bill Donohue comments on a recent BBC interview with British atheist Richard Dawkins:

The headline in a story run yesterday by World Religion News reads, “Richard Dawkins Still Says Religion is a ‘Force of Evil.”’ The story was occasioned by an admission Dawkins made that even after he had a stroke earlier this year, he still hasn’t changed his beliefs.

He really didn’t leave himself any wiggle room. After all, since the age of nine he has been a convinced atheist. Moreover, he has spent his entire adult life telling us that life is a crapshoot, having no meaning whatsoever. So it’s a little late in the game—he is 75—to pivot. But his recent BBC interview did yield interesting fruit.

Here is how a friendly journalist explained his remarks. “He believes we all are aware of our mortality and someday we all have to die, sooner or later, and that is the end of the journey.” Yes, the sentient readily admit to their own mortality, and he is certainly entitled to his belief that life on earth is the end of the road. It is ironic to note, however, that while he ridicules the faithful for not providing scientific evidence of an afterlife, he is curiously content not to offer any such data to support his beliefs.

In the interview, Dawkins says that while religion promotes evil, “the vast majority” of believers do not commit evil acts; only a minority do so. Which begs the question: Why, if religion is evil, are so few of its adherents evil? How does Dawkins know—does he have any evidence?—that evil acts committed by Christians, for instance, are an expression of their fidelity to Christianity? Would it not make more sense to say that it is precisely because so few Christians are evil that it is a tribute to their religious upbringing?

Hitler and Stalin were genocidal maniacs, and in both cases they were raised Christian. But they committed their evil acts after they became militant atheists. Too bad they converted.

Bill Donohue comments on yesterday’s congressional hearings on the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA):

Religious rights, encoded in the First Amendment, are under attack on many fronts, most conspicuously in the collision between those rights and the rights of homosexuals. That is why we need FADA.

This issue was brought to a head when the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Obergefell decision that eventually led to the legalization of same-sex marriage. At that time, the U.S. Solicitor General was asked if churches might lose their tax-exempt status if they opposed gay marriage, and he said it “certainly [is] going to be an issue.”

No other reason is necessary to prove the necessity for FADA. If the public good that houses of worship provide is going to be denied—that is what the forfeiture of their tax-exempt status would mean—simply because the clergy hold to biblical prescriptions regarding sexuality, then the principal victim is the First Amendment.

We have already seen public servants be punished for defending the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage in a book. Worse, we have seen lawmakers argue that municipal workers have no right to hold to “thoughts, beliefs, and opinions [that] are different from the city’s.” This isn’t a brief for liberty—it is a textbook endorsement of totalitarianism.

Gay activists want to add discrimination against sexual orientation to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That is what is driving this issue. But that law protects people based on their ascribed characteristics, such as race and sex, not their lifestyle.

Moreover, the 1964 law has been flagrantly misinterpreted by the courts to allow affirmative action, even though the plain language of the legislation prohibits discrimination against anyone. Ergo, if sexual orientation were added, it could pave the way for gay quotas in hiring, turning a bizarre issue into a positively absurd one.

Bill Donohue comments on the Conscience Protection Act:

On July 13, the House is scheduled to vote on the Conscience Protection Act of 2016. It would amend the Public Health Service Act to “codify the prohibition against the federal government and state and local governments that receive federal financial assistance for health-related activities penalizing or discriminating against a health care provider based on the provider’s refusal to be involved in, or provide coverage for, abortion.”

The bill is necessitated by a series of decisions forcing health care providers to cover elective abortions, including late-term abortions. Two years ago, California ordered all health care providers, including Catholic entities, to provide for abortion coverage in their health care plans.

Complainants then appealed to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and on June 21 HHS sided with California law, refusing to intervene. Thus did it expressly violate federal law on this subject. After the California law was passed, New York State passed a similar measure forcing employers to cover abortions, providing no exemptions.

This is lawlessness. The Weldon Amendment, a federal provision, makes it illegal for states that receive federal funds to discriminate against health-care providers that refuse to participate in abortions; it includes health insurers.

Conscience protection is the most elementary exercise of our First Amendment right to religious liberty. If it can be violated, especially in cases involving life and death, all rights can be violated.

There is only one morally defensible, and legally unassailable, position to take on the Conscience Protection Act of 2016, and we hope all members of the House vote to affirm it.

Bill Donohue comments on the Philadelphia mayor’s attack on Archbishop Charles Chaput:

James Kenney was elected mayor of Philadelphia. He seems to think that gives him the authority, or qualifications, to run the Catholic Church in his city. It does not.

Yesterday, Kenney ripped Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput as “not Christian.” The archbishop’s offense? He issued pastoral guidelines reiterating Catholic teaching on marriage, family, and reception of the Eucharist. There is nothing new in Chaput’s document. It merely calls—as the Church always has—for clergy to provide pastoral care for those living in relationships outside its teachings, while upholding the integrity of the sacraments. “Anything less,” Chaput correctly observed, “misleads people about the nature of the Eucharist and the Church.”

Kenney disagrees. Fine. But it is an abuse of his office to use his platform as mayor to publicly intrude on what is clearly an internal Church matter. And it is far from the first time he has used his position as a government official to attack the Catholic Church.

In what Philadelphia Magazine termed “Jim Kenney’s Long War with the Archdiocese,” he has criticized as “cowardly men” archdiocesan officials who determined that a woman in a homosexual marriage could no longer teach religion in a Catholic school. Prior to Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia last September, Kenney tweeted, “The Arch don’t (sic) care about people. It’s about image and money. Pope Francis needs to kick some ass here!” And he criticized the archdiocese for closing 49 Catholic schools—even though in recent years he has become a vocal opponent of school vouchers, abandoning his past support of a voucher program that may have helped keep those schools open.

Kenney labels Archbishop Chaput un-Christian for upholding Catholic teaching. The mayor is demonstrably un-American in misusing his public office to conduct his personal war on the Catholic Church.

Contact Mayor Kenney: James.Kenney@phila.gov

Bill Donohue comments on a July 3rd Washington Post editorial:

Here is the Washington Post’s interpretation of what Pope Francis allegedly said aboard the papal plane last week:

“In this case, the pontiff has acknowledged that, at times, the church has been and can still be the oppressor—whether by discriminating against gay people, treating women in its ranks as second-class citizens or preaching clerical celibacy while protecting child abusers in the priesthood.”

This is a lie—that is not what the pope said.

After initially saying that the Church “must not only ask forgiveness to the gay person who is offended…she must ask forgiveness to the poor too, to women who are exploited, to children who are exploited for labor,” he quickly explained what he meant by “the Church.”

“When I say the Church,” the pope said, “I mean Christians! The Church is holy, we are sinners!” In other words, it is not the institutional Church and its teachings that are the problem, it is Christians who sin. That is not a small difference—it’s a huge difference.

By the way, the pope had nothing to say about priestly sexual abuse—which was caused by homosexuals, not pedophiles—that was simply thrown in by the Washington Post for good measure.

The reporting on what the pope said in this interview has been widely distorted. But none can match the irresponsibility of this editorial. Indeed, it calls into question the integrity of the Washington Post.