Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Hollywood’s reaction to recent abortion legislation:

Hollywood has long been out of touch with most Americans, which is one reason why few bother to watch its annual self-congratulatory pageant called the Oscars.

If there is one issue that divides Hollywood from the rest of the nation, it is abortion. It’s not hard to figure out why: Those who work in the entertainment industry want sex without consequences, and that means no more unwanted babies (and no more STDs). Which is why they are so passionate about abortion.

It does not exaggerate to say that Hollywood has a love affair with abortion. How else can one interpret the mania displayed by Tinseltown over recent state laws restricting abortion? Look at the reaction to the “heartbeat” bill that was passed in Georgia.

Led by Disney (Walt must be turning over in his grave) chief Bob Iger, the big thinkers in Hollywood have all lined up, single file. Netflix, WarnerMedia, CBS, Showtime, NBCUniversal, AMC Networks, Sony Pictures, STX and Viacom have all said they may pack up and leave Georgia if the bill becomes law. They currently receive generous tax incentives to produce movies there.

What makes this issue so rich with irony is the fact that Hollywood contributes mightily to one of the root causes of abortion: promiscuity. To be specific, the kind of graphic sexual fare that Hollywood produces—it has been eroticizing the culture for decades—helps to create an environment where men and women are more likely to abandon restraint.

Hollywood denies any cause and effect between its sexual fare and promiscuity. But it won’t work. Why did Hollywood decide long ago not to feature smoking in movies? Because it didn’t want to create an environment which induced young people to smoke. They can’t have it both ways.

Here’s more irony. The same guy leading the fight against Georgia, Bob Iger, has admitted that movies which show actors smoking induces people to smoke. In 2007, he said that Disney “will place an anti-smoking PSA [Public Service Announcement] on DVD’s of any future film that does depict smoking. In addition, we will work with theater owners to encourage the exhibition of an anti-smoking PSA before the theatrical exhibition of any such film.”

So Hollywood not only stopped making as many movies that featured smoking, it launched an educational anti-smoking campaign.

Imagine if Hollywood stopped making as many sexually saturated movies, and decided to launch an educational anti-promiscuity campaign? That might lead to behavioral changes, one of which would be a decrease in sexual recklessness, which in turn might lessen the need for an abortion option.

Bob Iger, and his colleagues in Hollywood, know what’s going on, but they don’t have the will to do anything about it. Instead, they are content to declare war on Georgia.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on remarks made yesterday by New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand:

Imagine someone running for president of the United States who claims to be a Buddhist yet he rejects many of the central teachings of Buddhism. Imagine if this same person attends a Methodist church and frequents a pantheistic religious study group. Is he a Buddhist, a Methodist, or a pantheist? Or is he simply schizophrenic?

Merriam-Webster is very helpful. “Schizophrenia often involves an inability to orient oneself with reality….” It specifies three subtypes, one of which accurately depicts the person we have identified: hebephrenia is “a form of schizophrenia characterized especially by incoherence, delusions lacking an underlying theme, and affect that is usually flat, inappropriate, or silly.”

Silly Gillibrand. That is a good way to describe presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand.

Her schizophrenia was on grand display in a National Public Radio podcast interview she gave on May 29. She says she is a Catholic yet she rejects the Church’s teachings on life, marriage, and ordination. Not only that, she claims the Church’s teachings are biblically wrong. Moreover, she does not go to a Catholic church, and is known to frequent a multidenominational Bible study group.

In other words, Gillibrand evinces “an inability to orient oneself with reality,” and a capacity for “delusions lacking an underlying theme.”

Silly Gillibrand. Why would anyone take her seriously?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on last night’s edition of “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah”:

Trevor Noah will now be subjected to the same relentless attack on a select list of his sponsors that Samantha Bee experienced. That gambit paid off: After we managed to kill seven of her most prominent sponsors last year, she got the message and laid off Catholics. We will now go after Noah’s sponsors.

On his May 29 show, Noah once again showed what a bigot he is when he allowed one of his correspondents, Ronny Chieng, to make what he called a “pedophilia joke” about Catholic priests. Using the sale of video games by an alleged Catholic group as his theme, Chieng said, “I don’t think an institution known for priests luring children should put out a game to lure more children. Where do you even catch the final Pokémon Jesus—Father Garrity’s tickle room?”

In April, Noah took the occasion of the Notre Dame fire to say, “Why doesn’t France ask the Catholic Church to pay for the repairs? A billion dollars is nothing to them. It’s like three child abuse settlements.”

In March, he noted that the pope pulled his hand away when people sought to kiss his ring, saying that “it’s a nice change of pace to see a priest not want to touch people.”

Like all bigots, Noah goes back to the well for material, but this time he has gone too far.

The first company we will ask to stop advertising on Noah’s show is Burger King. It frequently sponsors his show, having done so again earlier this month.

It is a good choice because it is one of the companies that dropped its sponsorship of Samantha Bee’s show. Jose Cil, president of Burger King, acted responsibly by pulling the fast food giant from advertising on her show, and we hope he will respond to our call to drop Noah’s show as well.

Contact: JCil@rbi.com

May 29, 2019

Hon. Jerry Hill
State Capitol, Room 5035
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Sen. Hill:

Regarding SB 360, you have been quoted as saying that “the clergy-penitent privilege has been abused on a large scale, resulting in underreported and systemic abuse of thousands of children across multiple denominations and faiths.”

Could you please provide my office with documentation to support that claim? I will not be coy: I don’t believe you can. But go ahead and prove me wrong.

There have been several inaccurate reports in the secular and Catholic media about the number of states that do not honor the clergy-penitent privilege in cases involving the sexual abuse of minors. There are six: New Hampshire, West Virginia, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, and Texas (See “Clergy As Mandated Reporters of Child Abuse and Neglect,” www.childwelfare.gov).

If you are right, then these states must have a trove of evidence showing how “the systemic abuse of thousands of children” has been uncovered now that the clergy-penitent privilege is no longer operative. I don’t believe you have such data, and that’s because it doesn’t exist.

The sexual abuse of minors is an outrageous crime. It is also outrageous to sponsor a bill that allows the state to encroach on religion while doing nothing to resolve this issue. That’s a lose-lose. That is why I am asking you to withdraw your bill.

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an abortion bill that is pending in Illinois:

New York and Virginia are proud of their abortion record—a child can be aborted for any reason and at any time of pregnancy—and now Illinois lawmakers are playing copycat.

The “Reproductive Health Act” would allow for partial-birth abortion, which means that the skull of a baby who is 80 percent born is crushed, thus going well beyond what Roe v. Wade allowed. Senate Bill 25 may be passed this week. Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he would sign it.

“A fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this State.” That is the Hitlerian language of the bill.

The language is efficiently sanitized so as to blunt any perception that what is at stake is an innocent human life. Even so, the fact that it mentions the word “fetus” means that it runs afoul of the style guide used by National Public Radio (NPR), a taxpayer-funded media outlet.

As recently disclosed by Thomas D. Williams, the NPR style guide does not permit journalists to talk about a “fetus.” Other words or expressions that are banned include “partial-birth abortion,” “abortion clinics,” “abortion doctors,” “personhood,” “crisis pregnancy centers,” “taxpayer funding of abortions,” “chemical abortion,” and “unborn babies.”

NPR has mastered the Orwellian language of abortion: “The term ‘unborn’ implies that there is a baby inside a pregnant woman, not a fetus. Babies are not babies until they are born.” (My italics.) It makes me wonder: Are pregnant women who work at NPR allowed to have a “baby shower”?

Illinois already has a reputation for tolerating murder—almost 900 people have been shot in Chicago thus far this year, resulting in almost 200 homicides. Almost all are African Americans. Now it wants to legalize abortion through term, and that means that a disproportionate number of the victims will be African Americans.

Is Illinois run by racists?

Catholic League members in Illinois need to contact their state senator. Click here and scroll down to do so.

Bill Donohue comments on a vote yesterday by the California state Senate:

In a frontal assault on religious freedom, the California state Senate yesterday voted overwhelmingly to require Catholic priests to violate the seal of the confessional.

By a 30-4 vote, the Senate passed SB360, requiring Catholic priests to report to civil authorities when a penitent confesses to sexual abuse of a minor. The bill received the votes of 27 Democrats and 3 Republicans. Four Republicans voted No, while three Republicans and one Democrat did not vote.

While the bill had previously been amended to include only confessions from fellow priests or co-workers, it is still an unacceptable intrusion by government into a sacred sacrament of the Catholic Church. We stand with Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez in calling on California’s government to strengthen mandatory reporting requirements while respecting “the sanctity of penitential communications.”

This bill is absolutely unenforceable. No priest is going to respect it and violate the sanctity of the confessional. Moreover, Catholics are not required to respect unjust laws—and this is a clear example of such a law.

The bill now moves to the state Assembly, where hopefully more enlightened minds will see through its false presumptions. It is all smoke and mirrors. It will do nothing to help protect minors from the scourge of sexual abuse.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Pete Buttigieg’s position on abortion:

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has degrees from Harvard and Oxford and was a Rhodes scholar. The New Republic is in love with him, calling the son of two college professors a “genius.” When it comes to abortion, however, the “genius” hasn’t a clue what he is talking about. He even admitted that last year.

In 2018, Buttigieg declared that abortion was too hard a subject for him to figure out. He told the South Bend Tribune that “Issues on the legality or morality of abortion are dramatically beyond my pay grade as a mayor.”

On May 1, 2019, presidential candidate Buttigieg said on Meet the Press that “in my view, [abortion] is a question that is almost unknowable. This is a moral question that’s not going to be settled by science.”

Abortion is unknowable? Not to Planned Parenthood, the abortion-mill behemoth that Buttigieg likes. He is right to say that abortion is a moral issue, but he is wrong to say it’s not going to be settled by science. It already has. Science tells us that life begins at fertilization, and not a day later. If left unobstructed, the life that begins at conception develops into a man or a woman.

Between May 1 and May 19, it was apparent that Buttigieg took a crash course on abortion, one that lifted him above his pay grade and allowed him to opine on what science tells us. On Sunday he told a Fox News audience that pro-life legislators were “ignoring science” by pushing for restrictions. He must have meant science fiction.

Buttigieg also said on Sunday that aborting a baby just prior to being born is “an impossible, unthinkable choice.” Wrong. It is not only possible, it is done all the time. He was also being deceitful. He said in the interview that he favors no restrictions on abortion at any time during pregnancy.

Some reporter should ask Buttigieg about the baby that was cut from his mother’s womb over the weekend. A Chicago pregnant mother was murdered but doctors were able to save the child.

Buttigieg should be asked if the doctors did the right thing. If he disagrees, what would he say to the father who wants to raise his son? If he agrees that the doctors did the right thing, how can he explain his support for late-term abortion? What does he think it does?

This “genius” has a lot of sorting out to do.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a federal judicial nominee:

Michael Bogren is a nominee for the U.S. District Court for western Michigan. During Senate judiciary committee hearings yesterday, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley called out the nominee on his unconscionable attempt to equate Catholic teaching against same-sex marriage with the Ku Klux Klan’s opposition to interracial marriage.

Bogren made the comparison in a 2017 legal brief. He was defending the city of East Lansing’s decision to bar Catholic family farm owners from the city’s farmers’ market because they would not rent their farm property out for same-sex weddings.

As Bogren tried to hedge under Hawley’s questioning, the Senator finally asked him point blank: “So you think these things are equivalent? You think that the Catholic family’s pointing to the teachings of their church is equivalent to a KKK member invoking Christianity?”

“From a legal perspective,” Bogren answered, “there’s no distinction.”

Bogren needs to retract that statement immediately.

Biblical teaching is clear that marriage is exclusively the union of one woman and one man. Anyone is free to disagree with that teaching. But to equate it with the racist ideology of the Ku Klux Klan is reprehensible.

Moreover, as Bogren should know—if he doesn’t, he should educate himself about the Klan before invoking them in a legal brief—the KKK’s history is one not only of racist hatred, but of virulent anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic hatred as well. This makes it doubly offensive for Bogren to link a faithful Catholic family to the bigotry of the Klan.

He owes all Catholics an apology.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in the May 21 Buffalo News:

Editors at the Buffalo News are demanding that New York’s attorney general investigate alleged collusion, decades ago, between Buffalo police and the Catholic Church. Their professed indignation is bogus for several reasons.

To begin with, their claim that the alleged collusion involved “church and law enforcement conniving to shield priests at the expense of the children they molested” is contradicted by the very news story—in their own paper—that they are citing.

The May 19 news story is built on the recollections of two retired Buffalo Police vice squad officers that “Starting around 1968, when you picked up a priest, you had to call the bishop’s office. The bishop’s office would send someone to pick up the priest. No arrest was made. The diocese handled these problems.” The practice ended, one of the retired cops said, in 1994, when a new police commissioner took over.

More importantly, both retired vice squad officers, as well as several other retired Buffalo cops, told the Buffalo News that none of these instances involved a priest accused of molesting a minor.

“I never had any experience with priests who molested children,” said one of the retired vice cops. They had arrests of priests caught with pornography, he said, or picked up for publicly masturbating. But “I never heard of any priests molesting children.”

Thus the very basis for the editors demanding a state investigation—”church and law enforcement conniving to shield priests at the expense of the children they molested”—is false, according to their own newspaper’s account.

Then there is, once again, the selective outrage. Last July, the Buffalo News reported on two women who say they were sexually abused more than 40 years ago by different teachers at the same public school in the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District, near Buffalo.

Both women said that years later, in the 1990s, as adults, they tried to report the teachers to school authorities. In both cases, they said, nothing was done, and they never heard back from school authorities. Moreover, one of the women said she also contacted local newspapers, including the Buffalo News. “I never heard anything back from anybody,” she said.

So where was the Buffalo News editorial demanding an investigation of this school district—or, for that matter of the Buffalo News itself—for “conniving to shield teachers at the expense of the children they molested”? And where, over the years, have been the Buffalo News editorials calling for state investigation of the public school practice of “passing the trash”—allowing predator teachers to quietly leave one jurisdiction only to continue landing jobs—and abusing children—in other public school districts?

As usual, the double standard persists. Attack the Catholic Church—even if you have to distort the facts to do so. But look the other way when it comes to children victimized in our public, taxpayer-funded schools.

Contact editorial page editor Kevin Walter: kwalter@buffnews.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a Catholic church vandalized in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania:

On Sunday, pro-abortion activists vandalized Notre Dame de Lourdes Roman Catholic Church in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. On the three glass front doors of the church, the vandals spray-painted a pro-abortion message, “You do not have the right to decide what people can do, #ProChoice.” The same inscription was painted on the side of the church.

This is the kind of hate speech we have come to expect in an environment where the abortion-happy Hollywood elite are promoting retaliation against pro-life Christians. Swarthmore enjoys a liberal-left reputation, one that is a safe haven for pro-abortion activists. It’s a sure bet the vandals didn’t take a bus from Philly to desecrate the church.