Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the resignation of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman:

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer championed women’s rights, even as he paid for prostitutes behind his wife’s back.

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner championed women’s rights, even as he used his 5-year-old son as a “chick magnet” to lure minors while sexting.

New York celebrity Harvey Weinstein championed women’s rights, even as he abused scores of women.

And now we have learned that another champion of women’s rights, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, regularly beat the women whom he dated.

In many ways, Schneiderman is the most interesting of them all. He lived a double life, and it was not limited to his duplicity with women. His behavior frequently belied his ideology.

Ideology:

Schneiderman was a rabid supporter of the #MeToo movement, and brought suit against Harvey Weinstein over his sexual harassment offenses. He was aghast at Weinstein’s behavior. “We have never seen anything as despicable as what we’ve seen right here,” he said. Until now.

Behavior:

He liked his sex rough. He beat his dates until they bled, slapped them across the face, spat on them, called them “whores,” and threatened to kill them. Michelle Manning Barish, one of his four victims (that we know of), said he warned her, “If you ever left me, I’d kill you.”

Ideology:

When he was in the New York state senate, he sponsored a bill making life-threatening strangulation a felony, and made it a misdemeanor to “impede breathing.”

Behavior:

He frequently choked his dates while having sex with them.

Ideology:

He was a big proponent of animal rights. Last year he prosecuted three men on animal cruelty and dogfighting charges on Long Island, noting that three of the dogs had to be euthanized.

Behavior:

Following in the footsteps of his father, who was a former treasurer of NARAL, he was a strident advocate of abortion-on-demand. He also blamed many in the pro-life community for the killing of abortionist Dr. Bernard Slepian, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Ideology:

He was a radical egalitarian who opposed laws that did not treat all segments of the population equally.

Behavior:

In 2009, he supported a bill that discriminated against Catholics by holding the Catholic Church to a much higher set of standards regarding the sexual abuse of minors than afforded the public schools.

Ideology:

He deplored racism. Here are two of his quotes: “Racism has no home in New York.” “When racists try to intimidate our communities, they need to be condemned and condemned strongly.”

Behavior:

One of his victims, Tanya Selvaratnam, who is from Sri Lanka, said, “Sometimes, he’d tell me to call him Master, and he’d slap me until I did.” He took note of her dark skin, calling her his “brown slave,” demanding that she acknowledge that she was his “property.”

Ideology:

In 2010, he proposed more jail time and stiffer fines for barbershops and bodegas that sell “nutcracker,” a sweet alcoholic drink. Two years later he spoke at the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, condemning alcohol and drug abuse.

Behavior:

According to all of his victims, he was a heavy drinker and drug abuser. One of them said he “would almost always drink two bottles of wine in a night, then bring a bottle of Scotch into the bedroom. He would get plastered five nights out of seven.” He also availed himself of her Xanax.

Ideology:

When he was in the state senate, he sponsored a bill called the Gun Violence Prevention Act; it was a response to the NRA’s efforts against gun control. Just a few weeks ago, he sat down with high school students marking the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

Behavior:

He mocked anti-gun activists, calling parents and protesters from Sandy Hook Elementary School “losers.”

Ideology:

He worked with the extremists from the Southern Poverty Law Center imploring everyone to “stand up to hate.”

Behavior:

He arranged for a convicted felon, Oscar Lopez Rivera, co-founder of FALN, a terrorist organization, to lead the Puerto Rican Day Parade last year.

Ideology

In 2011, after taking over as state attorney general, he boasted that “no one is above the law.”

Behavior:

After one of his victims complained that he was violating the law against jaywalking by “yanking” her across the street, he replied, “I am the law.”

CONCLUSION:

Schneiderman’s misogyny, violence, alcoholism, racism, and utter hypocrisy make him unusual, but it is a fair question to ask how many other prominent left-wing public figures and activists experience a disconnect between their ideology and their behavior. Too many it seems.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a controversial California bill:

There are many moral, legal, and professional issues involved in a California bill, AB 2943, which seeks to amend the state’s consumer fraud laws by banning gay and transgender conversion therapy. Whether such therapy works or not, or is morally defensible, may not be as important as the free speech implications of this piece of legislation.

“Sexual orientation change efforts,” the bill says, refer to “any practices that seek to change an individual’s sexual orientation.” It is the absolutist language—any practices—that is most troubling.

Though the bill’s sponsors, such as Assemblyman Evan Low, argue that the bill does not ban people from selling conversion therapy books or talking about it, this position is not convincing. Moreover, it does little to calm fears by saying that the proposed law is limited to bans on advertising and the sale of conversion therapy.

The Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights organization, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, a prominent left-wing organization, have already sought to censor organizations that feature conversion therapy. Neither group has any standing in the mental health field. So it is not a matter of idle speculation what might happen if AB 2943 passes in the Senate—free speech will suffer.

The threat to the First Amendment has led the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times to say that the critics of the bill should be taken seriously. “It’s possible that the critics of the bill are being alarmist,” it said May 7, “but the language of the legislation is ambiguous enough to justify at least some of their concerns.” It recommended that the Senate amend the bill “to make it clear that it can’t be used against books or religious preaching or counseling about sexuality.” That is a reasonable request and should be honored.

What is making this issue needlessly complicated is the Ninth Circuit decision declaring conversion therapy to be conduct, not speech. This is absurd. In making this ruling, the appeals court removed this practice from First Amendment considerations.

To be sure, there are cases where expression can plausibly be seen as conduct. For instance, U.S. Supreme Court Judge Hugo Black identified himself as a First Amendment absolutist, yet he determined that flag burning was conduct, not speech, and was therefore subject to censorship (the practice was later ruled to be speech and was therefore entitled to First Amendment protection).

Counseling is clearly speech. The fact that the high court ruled that flag burning was not conduct—it is certainly more akin to conduct than counseling is—suggests that AB 2943 would not survive scrutiny by the Supreme Court.

This bill represents the politicization of the mental health profession. The subject of conversion therapy is the proper domain of professional licensing organizations, not lawmakers.

We are contacting the California Senate asking legislators to amend this bill. As it stands now, this bill would do serious damage to free speech, as well as to the autonomy of mental health practitioners.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the legacy of Karl Marx:

May 5th marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. He is being celebrated by those who are horrified by Hitler, which makes their opposition to genocide phony. What Marx bequeathed—his legacy is written in blood—makes Hitler look benign. This is why anyone who condemns Hitler without also condemning his communist counterparts is a fraud. It is not Hitler’s body count that matters to them, it is the cause. As the Marxists are fond of saying, the truth is that which serves the cause.

Marx lived a parasitic existence, squeezing his parents for every dime he could get; he even managed to get an advance on his inheritance. His own pampered life was a far cry from the daily grind of the working class that he championed (how many workers had a maid?) As the great British historian Paul Johnson pointed out, Marx’s knowledge was not gleaned firsthand—there is no evidence that he ever set foot in a factory.

The classless society that Marx predicted would emerge under communism showcased his anthropological and sociological ignorance. Hierarchy and inequality are an essential and irrevocable part of the human condition, which is why no society in the history of the world has lacked either property.

Marx conceded that before the classless society was achieved there must be a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” He even went so far as to say that “In order to establish equality, we must first establish inequality.” But as history shows, the path to the classless society always ends with the dictatorship. Who did Marx say would staff the “dictatorship of the proletariat”? Why people like him—that job would fall to intellectuals.

What would the communist paradise look like? In his famous work, The German Ideology, Marx waxes romantic, explaining how each man would act. Under communism, “nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity…[making] it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

Ironically, communism is supposed to follow the advanced capitalist industrial order, yet what Marx described is more like a pre-industrial society. It wouldn’t matter much if his rendering of what happens under communism amounted to nothing more than childlike musings, but unfortunately his prescription was taken seriously. It gave us the Gulag in the Soviet Union and the Laogai, or “Bamboo Gulag,” in China.

There are those who, such as Cardinal Reinhard Marx, an advisor to Pope Francis, deny that there is a line between Marx’s ideas and genocide. They are wrong. The line is direct and ineluctable. As Solzhenitsyn put it, Stalin didn’t pervert Marxism, he perfected it.

R.J. Rummel, a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on genocide. The following data are taken from his work and can be found in my book, Why Catholicism Matters.

Under the Soviet Union, a Marxist state, 61 million people were killed; Stalin was responsible for 43 million of them. Under Mao, another Marxist state, 77 million were killed. By contrast, under Hitler, 21 million were killed, including 6 million Jews. Proportionately, Pol Pot beat everyone: in his Marxist state, he killed 2 million Cambodians out of a population of 7 million.

Marx’s fans live in a parallel universe. Consider what Jason Barker, a South Korean professor, wrote in the New York Times on April 30. “Social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, owe something of an unspoken debt to Marx through their unapologetic targeting of the ‘eternal truths’ of our age.”

Barker is badly educated and the New York Times is just as delinquent for publishing this trash.

Here’s what Marx thought about blacks. He called the German labor leader Ferdinand Lassalle a “Jewish Nigger.” Marx was also a self-hating Jew. He told us who “the real Jew” is. “What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money.”

Invoking the #MeToo crusade also makes Barker look foolish.

Is he aware that after Marx married he impregnated his maid? Lenchen was her name, and his son was called Freddy. Marx never supported his out-of-wedlock son because he didn’t want anyone to know he had one. So he got his colleague, Friedrich Engels, to assume paternity. How do we know this? Because on his deathbed, Engels admitted that Freddy was Marx’s son.

Everything I have written is well documented. Unfortunately, it is almost never discussed in the classroom. We have a whole generation growing up that knows absolutely nothing about the genocide committed in Marx’s name, nor his racism, anti-Semitism, or misogyny.

Not for nothing did Marx’s daughter, Eleanor, write him a letter telling him what a classic phony he was for feigning compassion for the poor. She later committed suicide. That’s another part of his bloody legacy, and it is one that the professoriate will never discuss.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the House Chaplain controversy:

“No one is better suited to step into this role [as chief of staff] than Jonathan Burks,” said Rep. Paul Ryan in December 2016. “Simply put, he can do it all…[T]here’s never been a job I couldn’t throw at him.”

Wrong. Ryan threw the job of firing the House Chaplain at Burks and he blew it.

In his letter rescinding his resignation as House Chaplain, Father Patrick J. Conroy (Ryan has reinstated him) said that it was Burks who told him, “Maybe it’s time that we had a chaplain that wasn’t Catholic.”

It’s time Ryan found himself a new chief of staff. Anti-Catholic bigotry cannot be tolerated anywhere, and certainly not in Washington.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a new congressional association:

A congressional club for atheists? Yes, one was founded this week, but it did not get off to a roaring start: Of the 535 members of Congress, we can count on one hand how many members there are: four. There are probably more left-handed vegans on Capitol Hill than that.

So who are the members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus? Not surprisingly, they are all Democrats (this is the Party that threw God out of the 2012 Platform): Jared Huffman and Jerry McNerney of California, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, and Dan Kildee of Michigan. Huffman and Raskin are humanists who don’t believe in God. McNerney and Kildee tell their constituents that they are Catholic; they need to update their resume.

Given that there are only four members of the Atheist Club, it is appropriate that they have four goals:

• Promoting public policy based on reason, science and moral values
• Protecting the secular character of U.S. government and the separation of church and state
• Opposing discrimination against atheists, agnostics, humanists, seekers, religious and nonreligious persons
• And providing a forum for members of Congress to discuss their “moral frameworks, ethical values, and personal religious journeys”

These claims are bogus.

Science tells us that life begins at conception. All the properties that make us human are present at fertilization—not months, or even days, later. It is striking to note that all four members of the Atheist Club ascribe to an unscientific interpretation of the beginning of life.

For example, they have a 100% record from both Planned Parenthood and NARAL. They also have a 0% rating from the National Right to Life. They not only like abortion rights, they have voted against a congressional resolution to ban abortion after 20 weeks. Their beliefs, then, do not accord with reason or science: they are more akin to superstition.

They say they want to protect the secular character of the federal government and separation of church and state. This claim is also bogus.

The Declaration of Independence makes four references to God, holding that our inalienable rights come from our Creator, not politicians. The First Amendment protects religious liberty—something they fail to mention—and its reference to prohibiting “an establishment of religion” does not support their position: it was crafted precisely to guarantee religious liberty, not separation of church and state (which is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution).

Their third claim, opposing discrimination on the basis of beliefs, is likewise bogus: none of the four has a record of opposing discrimination against practicing Christians. More important, it is not atheists who are stigmatized in our society today, it is the faithful. From college campuses to media pundits and comedians, atheists are almost never the target of insults. No, the bigots save their heat for Christians.

As for having a place to talk about morality, ethics, and religious journeys, that’s what bars are for.

Much of the media hype about the Atheist Club has to do with the increase in the so-called “nones,” those persons who say they have no religious affiliation. The discussion typically assumes that this segment of the population is monolithic. This is another bogus claim.

In 2012, Gallup chief Frank Newport wrote that 80% of Americans were Christian, and that 95% of “all Americans who have a religion are Christian.” (His italics.) That number has decreased slightly since then, but not by much. He also found that more than 90% believe in God.

To be sure, the “nones,” or the “unaffiliated,” are growing: a 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center put the number at 16.1%. But only 1.6% of all Americans identify as atheist; 2.4% are agnostic; and 12.1% report “nothing in particular.”

A 2014 Pew survey found that one in three of the unaffiliated (34%) say that religion is either “very important,” or “somewhat important,” to them. Astonishingly, 61% say they believe in God; only 33% do not. Belief in heaven is held by 37% of the “nones,” but it drops to 27% when asked about belief in hell. One in five (21%) believe that the Bible is the word of God.

The data do not feed the narrative that the “nones” are mostly atheists, or that they have given up on God. Which means the Gang of Four who comprise the Atheist Club are less representative of America than either they, or the media, believe.

Recruiting new members will not be easy. How many people want to join a club where everyone sits around discussing why they believe in nothing? Can’t imagine it taking too long.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the firing of a New York Times reporter:

The New York Times is not coming clean. It has another problem with a male reporter sexually harassing female employees, and it won’t give us the details.

I knew there was something fishy when I read a small story on May 1st in the Times about its metro editor, Wendell Jamieson, resigning for unexplained reasons. Of course, his “resignation” was forced—he was effectively fired—coming as it did after an internal investigation. “I regret and apologize for my mistakes and leaving under these circumstances,” Jamieson said.

Were they “mistakes,” or was it a crime? We don’t know because Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the newspaper, and Joseph Khan, the managing editor, told employees that they will not discuss what happened. It’s a secret. Why are they refusing to speak? “To protect the privacy of those involved, we do not intend to comment further.”

We now know from the Times’ May 2nd brief story that Jamieson “was accused of inappropriate behavior by at least three female employees.” It is important to note that we don’t know this because the newspaper has decided to become transparent: We know this because some who are familiar with the investigation have broken their silence.

This is the same newspaper that recently won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct. This is the same newspaper that treated the world to its non-stop coverage of sexual misconduct at Fox News. And this is the same newspaper that has demanded that the Catholic Church come whistle clean with every priest who has ever been accused of sexual misconduct.

Sexual harassment in New York State involves sexually charged comments, whether verbal or written, as well as unwelcome physical touching. If Jamieson was fired for such reasons, then the New York Times should have reported his offense to the District Attorney. That’s what Cardinal Timothy Dolan does when he learns of a priest accused of sexual misconduct, and that’s what the Times insists he should do!

Last year, the New York Times had to discipline another male reporter, Glenn Thrush, for his alleged sexual misconduct. It did not fire him—instead it took a page from the teachers’ unions and moved him to another office—choosing to allow him to undergo counseling. How convenient.

Why are the media not covering this story? Only Fox News has picked it up on cable, and neither ABC, CBS, nor NBC has touched it. Local New York newspapers, such as the Daily News and the New York Post, have covered it, but the Washington Post and other prominent newspapers are ignoring it. With the exception of “Good Day New York” (a Fox affiliate), local New York TV stations are also giving the Times a pass.

If a New York City priest were accused of groping someone 50 years ago—he may now be dead—there is not a media outlet, local or national, that would not cover it. That the media refuse to do some digging on this story, about the so-called newspaper of record, only reinforces the perception of deep-seated media bias. Or is it because they don’t want their competitors to start digging for dirt in their own house?

And where is Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist who loves to write about priestly sexual misconduct? Does she have the guts to press her superiors on what’s behind the Jamieson story?

Contact her: dowd@nytimes.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin’s decision to reject a nominee to the federal bench:

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin has told her home-state nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Gordon Giampietro, that she will not support him by returning a favorable blue slip to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Giampietro, a former federal prosecutor, has impeccable credentials, but his support for marriage as the exclusive union between a man and a woman created controversy in some circles.

Baldwin’s decision reeks of an anti-Catholic animus. She wants to punish someone who, despite his qualifications to serve on the federal bench, holds to the same conception of marriage as taught by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (as well as many other world religions): marriage is not open to members of the same sex. It is open only to those who have the prospect of creating a family, and that is not something that two men or two women are capable of doing.

Her decision is anti-Catholic because it effectively says that those Catholics who accept the teachings of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, on the subject of marriage and the family, have no legitimate role to play in public life. It is important to note that if Giampietro were some kind of Catholic extremist, he would not have earned the unanimous support of the Wisconsin bishops.

What Baldwin is doing is setting a dangerous precedent, one that is grounded in bigotry. She is up for reelection this year and has now effectively alienated a wide swath of the Wisconsin electorate, a move that could prove to be politically suicidal in November.

Senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has the power to grant Giampietro’s nomination a hearing, based on the fact that a favorable blue slip was returned by Wisconsin’s other senator, Ron Johnson. But Grassley has indicated that he is not generally disposed to doing so for nominees to the federal district court (he prefers to exercise his prerogative when nominees to the federal circuit court are being blocked).

Grassley’s thinking is not without merit. However, the fact that he is not unequivocally opposed to making an exception for district court nominees leaves him with an option. Such an exception should be made with Giampietro’s nomination. The role that religious bigotry is playing in this case warrants it.

Contact Grassley’s communication director: michael_zona@grassley.senate.gov

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Australian Cardinal George Pell’s day in court:

Cardinal George Pell pleaded “not guilty” on May 1 to charges of sexual misconduct dating back decades ago. Though the majority of the charges against him were either thrown out or withdrawn, including the most serious accusations, Melbourne Magistrate Belinda Wallington said there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial on some of the other charges.

Last week I said that Wallington “is already on record noting the inconsistencies in the testimony of his [Pell’s] accusers, about which the prosecutor readily admits to as well. But both have indicated that any discrepancies could be sorted out in a trial, which suggests that the process will go forward.” Pell will appear in court on May 2 to learn of the details of the trial.

Sometime in the future—it could be a year or more—Cardinal Pell will appear before a jury on charges that he molested two boys at a pool in Ballarat in the 1970s, and for forcing two boys to engage in a sex act with him in the 1990s in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Both cases are so contrived that only Church haters would be inclined to believe them.

The swimming pool incident involves horsing around with two boys, Lyndon Monument and Damian Dignan. Pell admits to tossing them in the air, but nothing else. They maintain that while he was tossing them he also managed to fondle them.

Did anyone see this? One witness came forward saying he had seen Pell playing with the boys, launching them in the air, but he never saw anything “untoward.” Another witness, a woman who often took her daughter to the pool, said she never saw Pell do anything wrong.

Moreover, the court had previously heard that one of the accusers gave police a wholly different account from what he told others. This same person also confessed that he was having trouble remembering the exact placement of the cardinal’s hand.

There is a reason why this accuser cannot remember exactly what happened: the alleged offense took place 40 years ago. Why did neither of the two boys say a word about this until a few years ago? And why have the media been so quiet about their identity? Here’s what we know.

Monument was a big boozer, a drug addict, and a thug who beat and stalked his girlfriend. An ex-con, he was also arrested for burglary, assault, and making threats to kill. Dignan, who died earlier this year, also had a record of violence, and had been arrested for drunk driving. To top things off, both of them have made accusations against former teachers.

The St. Patrick’s Cathedral incident involves two choir boys who are accusing Pell of making them perform oral sex on him after Mass two decades ago. The police investigated this matter and found nothing to support it. One of the boys has since died, having overdosed on drugs. On two occasions, the boy’s mother said her son admitted that Pell never abused him.

Father Charles Portelli, who assisted Pell during cathedral ceremonies, says that Pell was never alone, either before, during, or after Mass. “There was never an opportunity for the archbishop to be alone in the priest’s sacristy.” Maxwell Porter, who was sacristan at St. Patrick’s at the time, agreed with this assessment. Rodney Dearing, a pastoral associate, testified that it would not be easy for Pell to reveal his genitals since his robes were not able to be parted in the middle or to the side. Moreover, he said, the robes were too heavy to be easily lifted to expose himself.

We have been following this case carefully for several years, and have no reason to doubt the veracity of Cardinal Pell.

Pell’s morally challenged accusers, and their supporters, have never been interested in him, per se: He is a prominent surrogate for their real enemy—the Catholic Church. To be exact, Cardinal Pell is the whipping boy of the Church haters. That’s what this witch-hunt has been about all along.