Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on last night’s “The Jim Jefferies Show”:

Last night on “The Jim Jefferies Show” the host used the fire that devastated the landmark Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris last April to launch an anti-Catholic diatribe.

On his “Unpopular Opinions” segment, Jefferies offered, “I don’t care about Notre Dame burning down.” When 67 percent of his audience agreed with that sentiment, Jefferies ranted, “Who gave a f*** that some pedophile temple burned to the ground. Churches are s***. They take up too much real estate in the center of the city.”

He followed that with, “If God didn’t care enough to stop the fire, why should I care? The Church can afford to lose their old s*** in a fire.”

Why would someone show such hatred for innocent persons? It’s not hard to figure out: Jefferies is an atheist. To be sure, not all atheists are haters, but many of those in public life are. It is a backhanded compliment that they aim most of their venom at the Catholic Church. If the Church were just another player on the world scene, it would be ignored.

Jefferies fits in with Comedy Central, home to bigots and second-class comedians.

Contact Renata Luczak, Vice President, Communications: renata.luczak@cc.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on “Saturday Night Live’s” firing of Shane Gillis:

Less than a week after he was hired, Shane Gillis was bounced from “Saturday Night Live” after a video surfaced of him making remarks offensive to certain groups.

“SNL” was moved to fire Gillis because of his past denigration, on his podcasts, of Asians, homosexuals, women in the military and those with mental disabilities.

“The language he used is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable,” said a statement from “SNL.” But the long-running NBC show is rather selective in what it finds “unacceptable.”

“SNL” has long demonstrated a tolerance for anti-Catholic bigotry, and indeed has contributed to it on several occasions.

Just this year, we’ve been treated to:

• Colin Jost commenting that “Pope Francis ended a Vatican summit by promising the Catholic Church would confront the clergy sex abuse head-on, instead of their usual way, face down, ass up”
• Michael Che Campbell, in a quip about Pope Francis warning against the negative aspects of gossip, asking, “Did you hear what happened to those altar boys?”
• Pete Davidson, in reference to allegations of sexual abuse against singer R. Kelly, saying, “But if you support the Catholic Church, isn’t that like the same thing as being an R. Kelly fan?”

Shane Gillis just picked the wrong groups to mock. Had he targeted Catholics instead, he surely would still be working on “Saturday Night Live.”

Contact Laura Manasevit, press manager for “SNL”: lauren.manasevit@nbcuni.com 

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a report by the Attorney General of Missouri:

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has issued a 185-page report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church committed by priests, deacons, seminarians, and nuns. The Attorney General’s office reviewed more than 2,000 files on priests who worked in Missouri since 1945. It also read the files of more than 300 deacons, seminarians, and nuns. News reports and communication gleaned from victims were also accessed.

The alleged offenses (many were never substantiated) range from “boundary issues,” such as inappropriate communication, to sexual acts. The report found 163 priests and deacons involved in some form of sexual misconduct. In other words, approximately 8 percent had an accusation made against them, extending back to World War II. Of the 163 accused clergymen, more than half (83) are dead, and most of the offenses are time barred by the statute of limitations. The Attorney General’s office is pursuing 12 cases of alleged abuse.

One of the more curious aspects of the report is the failure to identify the sex of the victims, though it is obvious that most were male. I draw this conclusion because in some cases the report speaks about “her” or “she,” yet it rarely uses male pronouns. This is pure politics: the homosexual cover-up continues.

Some news reports, and comments made by professional victims’ groups, are making it sound as if the abuse is ongoing. In fact, there is little in the way of misconduct. “Only a small percentage of the abusive priests described in this report are reported to have committed misconduct after 2002 [the year that the bishops announced the Dallas reforms].” Unfortunately, this important fact is not mentioned until p. 133 of the report.

I decided to do some of my own digging, and what I found is not the kind of data that critics of the Church want the public to know about.

I broke down the 163 cases according to the decade in which the abuse occurred (if there were multiple offenses that extended into another decade, I counted only the decade of the initial misconduct).

No date could be determined by the report in eight of the cases; there was one case which did not involve abuse (it was listed because of a failure to report an incident). Some priests were laicized and others simply ran off, abandoning their ministry. Unrealistically, the report says the dioceses should track them down and bring them to justice.

Here are the 154 cases listed by the decade in which the offense occurred.

• 1940s: 3
• 1950s: 14
• 1960s: 33
• 1970s: 51
• 1980s: 33
• 1990s: 8
• 2000s: 7
• 2010s: 3

This is consistent with everything we have learned about clergy sexual abuse. The timeline is clearly associated with the sexual revolution, a phenomenon that infected the Church as well as the rest of society. Most of the abuse took place in the 60s and 70s, and if we include the 80s (when the sexual revolution was trailing off), fully three-quarters (76%) of the misconduct took place during that time. Only 8 percent of the cases were alleged to have occurred in this century.

Since 2002, the report says of the Catholic Church, “it has taken steps towards significant reform,” crediting it with strengthening “independent oversight and an integrated approach to supervising all clergy working in Missouri.”

While this acknowledgement is appreciated, the report still has a hard time noting just how much change has taken place. It cites the latest report by the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People, commissioned by the bishops. That report noted that “seventeen years after the approval of the 2002 Charter…existing auditing procedures were not sufficiently thorough or independent.”

Yes, improvements can always be made: One incident of sexual misconduct is unacceptable. But the Attorney General’s report could have discussed the data from the latest National Review Board report. It should have.

The 2018 National Review Board report covered the period of July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. During this period, there were 26 new allegations involving current minors. But only three could be substantiated (all three clergymen were removed from ministry). Seven were unsubstantiated; three were unable to be proven; two were referred to a religious order; two were reported as unknown; and three were “boundary violations,” not instances of sexual abuse.

If we consider the three cases that were substantiated, this means that only .006 percent of the 50,648 members of the clergy had a substantiated accusation made against him in that one-year period.

Is there any demographic group, or an institution, religious or secular, where adults intermingle with minors on a regular basis, which has a better record than this?

Will Missouri Attorney General Schmitt now commence a similar probe of sexual abuse in the Missouri public schools? If the real issue is sexual abuse, he will. If it’s a matter of “getting the Catholic Church,” he will not. If he is like his colleagues in other states, we already know the answer.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on what Sen. Kamala Harris said about abortion last night:

Following last night’s Democratic debate, Sen. Kamala Harris criticized ABC panelists for not asking about abortion. The debate, she said, “was three hours long and not one question about abortion or reproductive rights.”

Maybe that’s because no one on the stage was pro-life. Indeed, what separates one Democratic presidential candidate from the other on abortion is miniscule. But if there were a first prize for lusting over abortion, Harris would surely be the winner.

In 2016, when Harris was California’s Attorney General, she bludgeoned pro-life activist David Daleiden. It is not abortion that appalls her—it is people like Daleiden who use undercover videos to expose how abortion operatives harvest and sell aborted fetal organs. Harris authorized her office to raid his home: they seized his camera equipment and copies of revealing videos that implicated many of those who work in the abortion industry.

Earlier this year, Harris defended abortion at any time during pregnancy, right up until birth. She also rolled out her plan to stop states from restricting abortions: she wants abortion laws that are struck down by the states to obtain federal approval from the Department of Justice before implementing such measures.

There is something else going on here that we need to know more about. Quite frankly, it is not normal for anyone to have such an extreme fixation on aborting babies. That Harris touts herself as a champion of social justice makes her obsession with abortion all the more sickening.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the legal arguments put forward by counsel for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) regarding Title VII:

When the Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act it was principally concerned about undoing racial discrimination against African Americans; to a lesser extent, it was aimed at providing equal protection for women. Title VII bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. LGBT activists have long argued that the category of sex should include sexual orientation.

Oral arguments for three related cases will be heard next month by the U.S. Supreme Court. One case, Altitude Express v. Zarda, involves a skydiving instructor who was fired when a customer found out he was a homosexual. The USCCB is not involved in this case.

R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC and Aimee Stephens, involves a male funeral home director who was fired when he said he was going to dress like a woman while working at a Christian funeral home.

Bostock v. Clayton County turns on a decision to fire a child welfare services coordinator when the employer learned he was a homosexual.

More than 200 corporations have weighed in on the side of LGBT activists. They want Title VII to include sexual orientation as a protected class, alongside the category of sex.

Everyone concedes that when Title VII was rendered, it was designed to level the playing field for blacks and women, having nothing to do with sexual orientation. No matter, the corporations are attempting to do just that: they want sexual orientation to be indistinguishable in law from sex.

The USCCB’s friend-of-the-court briefs on the latter two cases maintain that of the five protected categories in Title VII, four are immutable characteristics, not subject to change: race, color, sex, and national origin. Religion, being a constellation of beliefs and practices, is clearly amenable to change. Most important, it is simply wrong, on many levels, to conflate sex with sexual orientation.

Sex is immutable; sexual orientation is not. Despite efforts to criminalize those who work in professions that help homosexuals to transition to a heterosexual status, the fact remains that some homosexuals have been able to change their orientation. Ergo, sexual orientation is not an immutable characteristic analogous to sex.

Lawyers representing the LGBT activists see no difference between arguing on behalf of homosexuals and defending transgender persons—it’s all a matter of treating people equally regardless of their sexual orientation or their gender identity. But such characteristics are not in any way analogous to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

In the Harris Funeral Homes brief, the USCCB says, quite rightly, that “Sex cannot be changed even by surgical alteration of the genitals.” That is correct. Bruce Jenner may call himself Caitlyn Jenner, have his genitals changed, and dress like a woman, but he cannot change his chromosomal makeup: he still carries a Y chromosome (as well as an X). In other words, he is a man. No amount of self-identification, which is a psychological variable, can undo what nature has ordained.

In the Bostock brief, the USCCB makes an equally sound argument when it contends that many religions hold that “there is a difference between an inclination toward homosexual conduct, which they do not regard as per se immoral, and homosexual conduct, which they do.” This commonsensical view eludes the corporate brief in behalf of the LGBT agenda.

It is fundamentally wrong to equate discrimination based on race or sex with sexual orientation. Being white or black, or a man or a woman, doesn’t orient anyone toward anything: race and sex are attributes anchored in nature and have nothing to do with conduct. The same is not true of sexual orientation: The object of the orientation is behavior. As such, this puts it into a moral category, one that may rationally elicit approval or disapproval. Those who harbor religious objections to certain sexual acts or relationships should not be told they have no right to object.

In the Harris brief, the USCCB says, with good reason, that if Title VII were to forbid discrimination based on gender identity, it could mean “the ability of faith-based and other schools to deal effectively and prudently with the problem of gender dysphoria, in such areas as locker room and bathroom access, use of pronouns, single-sex housing, and the preservation of athletic opportunities for women.”

Similarly, in the Bostock brief, the USCCB argues that “Interpreting ‘sex’ to mean ‘sexual orientation’ could affect the ability of faith-based homeless shelters, transitional homes, and schools to offer and to make appropriate placements with respect to housing.”

When I first took over as president of the Catholic League, I was contacted by a woman who had placed an ad for someone to be a live-in provider for her mentally disabled son. One of the persons who sought the job complained when he was disqualified because of his homosexual status. Was not the mother entitled to reject his application based on his sexual orientation and her Catholic convictions?

Let’s pray the right decision will be reached when the high court renders its final decision next year.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on church vandalism following a protest of a Drag Queen Story Hour in Chula Vista, California, outside of San Diego:

Last week, when the leader of the South Bay Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California learned that the city was sponsoring a Drag Queen Story Time event at the local public library, he protested. Pastor Amado Huizar, and his congregation, found it inappropriate to use taxpayers’ dollars to fund a Drag Queen Story Hour. The mayor sided with the LGBTQ activists.

On Sunday, vandals trashed the church. “Lucifer” and other Satanic messages were spray-painted on the church, alongside sexual vulgarities. The police are investigating the incident as a hate crime. As of now, there is no direct evidence tying the two events, though obviously the pastor and his flock are suspicious.

Leaving aside the vandalism, the larger question is the propriety of using public funds to sponsor such events. This is now the subject of debate in conservative quarters. National Review author David French takes the libertarian position, arguing that Drag Queen Story Hour events should be protected by the First Amendment. New York Post op-ed editor Sohrab Ahmari takes a social conservative position, saying they should not be protected. These kinds of debates are hardly new, but this latest one has sparked considerable controversy.

The stance outlined by French sees freedom of speech as an end. It is not.

The Founders saw the First Amendment provision on free speech as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. The end is the makings of the good society, a goal that is best achieved by allowing robust political discourse. This explains why the Founders opposed an absolutist reading of the First Amendment: not all exercises of speech are equal, and some are worthy of censorship. Indeed, the same Congress that passed the First Amendment in 1791, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, barring seditious speech, seven years later.

There are many exceptions to the First Amendment that make good common sense. We have laws against libel, slander, perjury, obscenity, incitement to riot, “fighting words,” speech which presents a “clear and present danger,” copyright infringement, racist notices put in homeowners’ mailboxes, harassing phone calls, false advertising, lying about one’s credentials when seeking employment, verbal agreements in restraint of trade, contemptuous speech in the courtroom, treasonous speech, lying on tax returns, solicitation of a crime, etc.

No serious person regards these expressions as contributing to the makings of the good society—they actually retard that end—which explains why their proscription is uncontroversial.

The mayor of Chula Vista, Mary Salas, defends the Drag Queen Hour by saying the event is not designed to “propagandize a lifestyle.” She is sadly mistaken. It is nothing but propaganda. Don’t take my word for it—read what the stated goal of the Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) is.

“DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.” By “gender fluidity” it is meant that sex is not an immutable characteristic. To put it differently, the LGBTQ goal is to teach kids that a person can switch sexes, being a boy today and a girl tomorrow, depending on one’s self-identification (and/or surgical changes).

DQSH focuses on children 3-8. Yes, there are readings, songs, and the like. There are also “dress-up” exercises aimed at celebrating “gender diversity and all kinds of difference[s].” To what end? The objective is to see that kids are “free from the constraints of prescribed gender roles. In other words, there’s no such thing as ‘girl clothes’ and ‘boy clothes,’ or ‘girl toys’ and ‘boy toys.’ DQSH teaches children that there are many ways to express themselves and their gender, and they are all OK.”

This is pure propaganda for the LGBTQ agenda. Of course they say there is no such thing as boy and girl clothes or toys—they teach that there is no such thing as a boy or a girl!

Teaching that gender is fluid is a lie. Gender is a sociological term that describes socially learned roles that are appropriate for boys and girls. Importantly, such roles take their cues from nature—their social construction is rooted in the biological differences between men and women.

For example, boys are more aggressive than girls, but not because they have been taught that way—they have more testosterone. Similarly, motherhood is not a cultural invention (as the president of Smith College maintains)—it is an expression of what nature ordains. Which explains why male and female attributes are so common in every society in the history of the world.

Most important, a free society depends on nurturing virtue, or good habits, all of which depend on inculcating a modicum of restraint. What does DQSH nurture? “DQSH teaches children to follow their passions and embrace gender diversity in themselves and others.”

That’s just what our narcissistic society needs more of—teaching kids to follow their passions. They do that quite well, thank you, without tutoring. What they need is the ability to harness their passions, directing their energy toward socially constructive ends. That takes discipline, a property not advanced by the devotees of Drag Queen Story Hour.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the way leading Democrats have turned on people of faith:

On August 24, the Democratic National Committee unanimously passed a resolution, spawned by the Secular Coalition for America, that formally embraced agnostics, atheists, and the unaffiliated. The resolution heralded their “value, ethical soundness, and importance,” boasting of their multiple contributions to society.

There is nothing wrong with any political party reaching out to those who are not religious. But there is a big difference between the rank-and-file and the extremists who claim to represent them.

This is not the first time that senior officials in the Democratic Party have laid anchor with militant atheists. In 2010, several officials from the Obama administration met with representatives from the Secular Coalition for America. This entity represents every extreme anti-religion organization in the nation, including American Atheists and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. As I said in 2010 of these people, many “would crush Christianity if they could.”

Two years earlier, President Obama announced the formation of his Catholic National Advisory Council. On public policy issues such as abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and school vouchers, not one of the twenty-six named agreed with the Church on all three. In other words, dissident Catholics were favored over those who are loyal to the Church.

The following underscores what I have said. Consider the policy positions of those Catholics who in 2019 declared their candidacy for president.

Joe Biden: The former vice president had, as a U.S. Senator, supported various restrictions on abortion funding and even expressed reservations about Roe v. Wade. But Biden has now fully abandoned any pretense of moderation. As recently as June he revoked his long-held support for the Hyde Amendment, which restricts federal funding for abortions.

In 1996, Biden voted in favor of the “Defense of Marriage Act,” which upheld marriage as between one man and one woman. But in 2012, as vice president, he reversed his position and endorsed gay marriage. Moreover, in 2016, in clear defiance of Catholic teaching, he officiated at a gay wedding.

Biden also supports the Equality Act. It is the most comprehensive assault on religious liberty, the right to life, and privacy rights ever packaged into one bill. The U.S. Bishops have opposed it as an assault on religious liberty and the right to life. Yet Biden promises that it will be his top legislative priority.

Julian Castro: While saying “the Catholic faith has never been far from my life,” Castro supports unrestricted abortion. He vigorously opposed a Texas law banning abortion after 20 weeks. He has even proclaimed that “trans females” should have access to abortion—even though a “trans female” is actually a biological male who cannot get pregnant!

Castro has long supported gay marriage. He states that “I separate any one faith or belief system from the responsibility that one has in public service.”

John Delaney: Rep. Delaney also touts his Catholicism, yet he supports the entire pro-abortion agenda, including taxpayer funding for abortions. He also supports forcing Catholic non-profits to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans. He wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment and the Mexico City policy, which blocks federal funds for promoting abortion overseas. Most astonishingly, he voted against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Not surprisingly, he supports gay marriage, another deviation from Church teachings.

Kirsten Gillibrand: Gillibrand has vowed to “prevent all restrictions” on abortion and to protect taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. She has a 100% pro-abortion voting record and voted against a bill to protect newborns from infanticide earlier this year.

Gillibrand wants to codify the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage into federal law. She brags that she “led the effort to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act” and she is “a proud original cosponsor of the Equality Act,” openly declaring her opposition to religious freedom.

Beto O’Rourke: Former Congressman O’Rourke, a lifelong Catholic, has a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL. While in Congress, he voted against a resolution to ban abortion after 20 weeks, urged President Obama to fund abortions in foreign countries through American foreign aid, and voted against a bill which would reinstate the federal ban on taxpayer dollars being used for abortions. During the presidential campaign, a questioner asked O’Rourke, “On abortion, you said it’s a woman’s right to choose. Does that include up until the third trimester?” “Absolutely,” he answered.

O’Rourke supports gay marriage, as well as the Equality Act, stating, “We cannot allow religious freedom to be used as a guise for discrimination.”

Tim Ryan: Rep. Ryan’s record on abortion has been mixed, but that recently changed when he fully embraced the pro-abortion position. He also flipped against Church teachings when he voted to expand embryonic stem cell research. He even went so far as to vote against the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. This explains why he has earned a 100% rating from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. Predictably, he supports gay marriage and boasts that he is an original co-sponsor of the Equality Act.

Bill Donohue

According to left-wing activists who are scared to death about religious liberty, the twin devils of our day are White nationalism and Christian nationalism. They say they go hand-in-hand. That is what those who issued the statement “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” contend.

Most of the Christians who are featured as the leading critics of Christian Nationalism are Protestants: of the nineteen, there are only two Catholics among them. Baptists from various denominations are the most overrepresented (none of whom belong to the Southern Baptist Convention—those conservatives would be among the bad guys).

One of the two Catholics is Sister Simone Campbell of “Nuns on the Bus” fame. She is the head of a Catholic dissident group, NETWORK. She is known for working against the religious rights of the Little Sisters of the Poor—hoping to make them pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plan—and for endorsing the Equality Act, which would decimate religious liberty, especially for Catholics.

The other Catholic is Patrick Carolan, who runs the Franciscan Action Network. He is opposed to Catholic schools that insist that their teachers abide by Catholic tenets on marriage and family. He argues that a Catholic teacher who is “married” to someone of the same sex should be permitted to teach at a Catholic school, even if it means violating a contract that he voluntarily signed upholding Catholic teachings. He also thinks Catholic lay groups should support gay marriage.

If there is one religious entity that is in full support of Christians Against Christian Nationalism, it is the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC). It came down squarely in favor of two gay men who sought to deny a Christian baker his right not to endorse their “wedding.” On August 10, BJC leaders attended the Progressive National Baptist Convention in Atlanta, a conference that addressed the horrors of Christian nationalism. For the record, BJC hates to see “In God We Trust” banners in public spaces.

Andrew Whitehead is generally regarded as the intellectual force behind Christians Against Christian Nationalism. I share one thing in common with him: we are both sociologists. The Clemson University professor was recently asked if Christian nationalists “think you have to be Christian to be truly American?” He said yes, that’s what they believe. He did not name anyone who supposedly entertains this view.

Whitehead says that his research convinces him that “the more strongly you embrace Christian nationalism, the more likely you are to hold negative attitudes toward racial and religious minorities.” He did not say why Christians are far more generous in their charitable giving than secularists are (much of that charity goes to racial and religious minorities). Nor did he say why Catholics, who are a religious minority, are subjected to “negative attitudes” by the secularists who comprise the cultural elites: from Hollywood to Harvard, Catholic bashing is sport.

In his interview with Deseret News, Whitehead wondered about the religious affiliation of the El Paso and Dayton mass shooters. We don’t know much about the former mass murderer, but we do know that the latter was a hard-core Satanist.

In a 2018 paper he co-authored, Whitehead made the claim that there was a connection between Christian nationalists and gun ownership. He fingered Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, as Exhibit A. Whitehead cited a portion of a speech that LaPierre made in 2018, after the shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

“The genius of those documents [the Founding documents], the brilliance of America, of our country itself,” LaPierre said, “is that all of our freedoms in this country are for every single citizen.” Whitehead’s argument imploded right before his eyes, but he didn’t get it. LaPierre did not say that the United States was founded exclusively for Christians—he said our freedoms apply to “every single citizen.” What is it about that sentence that Whitehead doesn’t get?

Whitehead also quoted LaPierre saying our freedoms, such as the right to bear arms, were “granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.” This is not the voice of a Christian nationalist—it is the voice of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Our unalienable rights, Jefferson said, come not from government but from our “Creator.” Whitehead needs to take a remedial course in American history.

In 1892, the U.S. Supreme Court said, “This is a Christian nation.” It was simply acknowledging that our nation’s heritage is rooted in Christianity. Not to recognize this historical fact is plain stupidity. What is worse is the attempt to silence those who proudly proclaim this verity.

There are no Christians organized to take over the nation, making non-Christians second-class citizens. This is pure propaganda, a vicious lie told by those who believe that Christian conservatives are somehow un-American and a threat to liberty. The threat is not coming from them, but from those who are making this charge.

Conservative Christians are a net asset to America, and should be defensive about nothing.

This is the first of two articles on Christian nationalism by Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

We live in a world of fiction: the fiction that a pregnant woman is not really carrying a baby; the fiction that two men can actually marry; the fiction that a male is a female merely because he says he is. And so on. We even have ideological strands of fiction, the latest of which is Christian nationalism.

Most Americans have never heard of Christian nationalism. With good reason: it exists only in the minds of left-wing activists, some of whom are alienated Christians. The latter are now organized and have set forth their convictions in a statement, “Christians Against Christian Nationalism”; it was released in July 2019.

The statement never tells us who these people are. Surely they could have found one poster boy to be the face of this scourge, but they did not. So what is this ideology? “Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.”

In other words, Christian nationalists seek a special status, one that should be ratified by the state. They can’t name anyone because the concept is a fiction. If they knew anything about the history of the First Amendment provisions on religion, which were written by Madison, they would know what he said when asked what the meaning of the establishment provision is.

Madison said it meant that the government could not create a national church and that it could not show favoritism of one religion over another. That was it. Are we to believe that Christians are so angry with Madison’s reasoning that they have formed a nationalist movement? Nonsense.

According to the logic of these left-wing activists, the Founders were Christian nationalists. After all, they had no problem with state religions—they existed in Massachusetts until 1833. The fact is we were founded on Judeo-Christian principles: that is not debatable. Indeed, the Founding, absent the role that Christianity played, is unintelligible.

Jefferson, allegedly Mr. Separation of Church and State, paid homage to the nation’s beginnings when he awarded $300 to the Kaskaskias Indians so they could build a Catholic church. He authorized spending $100 a year for seven years to support a Catholic priest. He also authorized setting aside government lands for the sole purpose of religious activities, allowing Moravian missionaries to promote Christianity.

Would that make Jefferson a Christian nationalist? According to today’s separation of church and state extremists, it would.

Let’s get back to the definition of Christian nationalism. The statement says this ideology “implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian.” Why do these nationalists only imply such a belief? Why don’t the proponents of this dangerous belief system make their convictions unambiguous? Here is the answer: because those who are responsible for inventing Christian nationalism can’t quote any public figure who has commented as such.

The statement then takes the leap of asserting that Christian nationalism is a close cousin to White nationalism. Surely there are Klansmen-like racists, but they are not the ones terrorizing urban America: it is those who wear black masks and head gear who have taken to the streets, beating up innocent persons. That’s what the fascists from Antifa do.

The left is good at inventing a crisis and then offering solutions to fix it, the result of which is more intolerance and oppression of those they hate. That’s what is driving their push to eradicate Christian nationalism.

There is nothing new about the fiction of Christian nationalism; it’s just that its latest iteration is being rolled out to prop up White nationalism. Consider the following observation.

“Over the past few decades, religious conservatives have forged an alliance to confront the unremitting secular assault on the nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage. Unfortunately, whenever the conservatives fight back—usually to maintain or restore the status quo, for example, to keep ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance—they are demonized for doing so. In fact, demonization is one of the most popular weapons in the arsenal of those out to annihilate our culture. The most common accusation holds that traditional Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and Orthodox Jews desire nothing less than a theocracy in America.”

I wrote those words a decade ago in my book, Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America. What’s changed is the conjoining of religion with race, making Americans believe that some dark forces, rooted in Christian and White nationalism, are threatening our liberties. Those who are behind this ploy are engaged in religious and racial baiting.

This entire campaign of demonization is designed to further divide the nation, pitting Americans against each other. The left thrives on division, seeing it as an opportunity to marginalize and ultimately destroy their adversaries. For freedom to prevail, a robust public expression of religion must exist. That is what scares the daylights out of these activists.