Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on violence against  Christians:

With Good Friday and Easter upon us, it is a good time to remind ourselves of the degree to which Catholics are the targets of violent extremists.

The U.S. State Department recently released its annual report on religious violence around the world. It found that “80% of the world’s population cannot practice their faith without serious restrictions or risk.” It listed 12 nations as the worst offenders. We researched who controls them and who their principal victims are. They are listed in alphabetical order.

—Burma. Run by Buddhists, Christians and Muslims are the targets.
—China. Run by the Communist Party, Christians, especially Catholics, and Muslims, are the targets.
—Cuba. Run by the Communist Party, Catholics are the target.
—Eritrea. Run by the Communist Party, Christians and Muslims are the targets.
—Iran. Run by Muslims, all non-Islamic religions are the targets.
—North Korea. Run by the Communist Party, all religions are the targets.
—Nicaragua. Run by the Communist Party, Catholics are the targets.
—Pakistan. Run by Muslims, Christians and Hindus are the targets.
—Russia. Run by an ex-KGB agent, Jehovah’s Witnesses and evangelicals are the targets.
—Saudi Arabia. Run by Muslims, all non-Islamic religions are the targets.
—Tajikistan. Run by Muslims, all non-Islamic religions are the targets.
—Turkmenistan. Run by Muslims, all non-Islamic religions are the targets.

In Europe, the Observatory for the Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians recently documented more than 500 anti-Christian hate crimes, including four homicides, in 2021; the most vicious attacks were against Catholics. In addition to murder, there were approximately 300 acts of property damage. There were about 80 cases of theft, ranging from religious objects to consecrated hosts.

A new report from Canada showed that hate crimes against Catholics rose 260 percent in 2021; they were the most targeted of any religious group in the country.

In the United States, Catholic churches were targeted over 300 times since 2020. Just this week, a Catholic church in Nebraska was ransacked.

Pro-abortion protesters have resorted to violence in several cities, and in the wake of the transgender mass killer in Nashville, many in that community have made violent threats against those who are critical of their radical agenda. The urban terrorist group, Antifa, is among the worst of the pro-abortion thugs.

In 1989, when St. Patrick’s Cathedral was invaded by gay terrorists from ACT-UP—they interrupted Mass and spat the Eucharist on the floor—Fr. Benedict Groeschel tried to calm down Cardinal John O’Connor by telling him it is a backhanded compliment that we Catholics were chosen for violence. The enemy knows who stands the strongest against them.

Much the same could be said today, though that should not be read as a  plea for passivity. The violence against Catholics must end, whether it is coming from religious or secular extremists.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how some who represent a religious body are endorsing transgenderism:

There is no religious organization in the history of the world that has ever taught that there are more than two sexes. However, in the 21st century, there are members of the clergy, and in other religious roles, who disagree: they believe that everyone who came before us in human history, including the teachers of their own religion, got it wrong.

Micah Louwagie is a woman who pretends to be a man and who calls herself “they/them.” We don’t play that game at the Catholic League—we are committed to telling the truth and we encourage others to do the same. No individual, including the sexually confused and the mentally challenged, can ever be referred to as a collectivity.

Micah is in the news because she is a pastor of a Lutheran church in Fargo, North Dakota, and because she says that the primary victim in the Nashville slaughter was the mass killer, Audrey Hale. Micah compared Hale’s death to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Last month, the Episcopal Church issued a Resolution, adopted by the bishops, saying they “decry legislative initiatives and governmental actions targeting trans children and their families.” It would be more accurate to say they oppose legislation designed to protect children from those who seek to affirm transgenderism.

Adam Russell Taylor is an ordained clergyman in the American Baptist Churches USA and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. He, too, regards protective child legislation as illegitimate, saying it is designed to “marginalize, silence, and erase the very identities of transgender and other LGBTQ people, including children.” He wrote this in Sojourners, the far-left mainline Protestant publication.

Daniel P. Horan is a Franciscan gay-friendly priest who recently branded the bishops as “evil” because they do not accept the myth of transgenderism.

Over 6,000 nuns recently published an open letter calling on everyone to support Trans Day of Visibility. The heretical nuns condemned the Catholic Church for “oppressing” trans persons, though they did not offer any evidence to support their baseless claim.

Rabbi Mychal Copeland brags that, “At Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, San Francisco’s LGBTQI synagogue, any day is a good day for drag. But this year, with drag under legal attack in some states, we felt it was especially important to hire drag performers for our Purim celebrations.”

Rabbi Elliot Kukla says he is “transgender and nonbinary,” and claims that in the Jewish tradition there are six sexes.

It used to be that those who cannot distinguish between reality and fantasy were called schizophrenic, and were treated in mental facilities. Now they are actively engaged in their churches and synagogues, anxious to inform the rest of us that we are the crazy ones.

Wouldn’t it be great if they all bolted from their respective religions and established a new one, just for people like themselves?

Instead of depopulating the asylums, we need to build more of them.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a recent poll that received a lot of attention:

The recent Wall Street Journal/NORC survey (hereafter noted as the WSJ poll) on American politics and culture received a great deal of attention from all political perspectives. It had some good news and bad news for both liberals and conservatives. But the way some pundits interpreted the results was remarkable. Moreover, the poll itself was problematic.

The headline in Raw Story read, “New WSJ Poll Is Devastating For DeSantis And His ‘Anti-Woke Politics.’” To support this assertion, Josh Schwerin said, “A few findings from the new WSJ poll that should scare Republicans relying on ‘woke’ attacks” include the following:

1) Tolerance is as important as money

2) Book banning is far worse than offensive content

3) Majorities think society has been about right or not gone far enough on range of DEI issues

It is not hard to believe that most Americans believe tolerance is good, book banning is bad, and diversity in the workplace is good. The problem with this formulation is that it speaks to generalities, having little to do with the real world.

For example, to tolerate is to “put up with.” It does not mean approval. That’s not a small difference. One can tolerate people who wear earrings in their nose or tongue without approving of it.

More important, in the WSJ survey, it found that a plurality, 43 percent, said “our society has gone too far” in “accepting people who are transgender,” which was considerably more than those who said we have “not gone far enough” (33 percent), or we have been “about right” (23 percent). In short, when polls get specific, they better reflect the thinking of respondents.

It is incontestable that the censors of free speech in the United States are those on the left.

They won’t let conservatives speak on campus, and when they do they are shouted down. Any person who doesn’t approve of the LGBT agenda and who works in a college, university or Fortune 500 corporation is not likely to get ahead. Books and articles that challenge the reigning orthodoxy on campus are either never assigned, or their authors are subjected to vicious attacks by left-wing administrators, professors and students.

The book banning question in the survey would mean more if it made a deeper dive. For instance, New York Post columnist Betsy McCaughey recently described the contents of some children’s books found in school libraries.

“Sex ed in middle school now includes graphic lessons on anal sex, oral sex and masturbation, with stick figures to illustrate body positions.” In Massachusetts, she says, “curriculum tells seventh graders how to use cling wrap as a dental dam around their teeth for safe oral sex.”

Now if the question was, “Are books like these appropriate for middle school students?”, the response would likely be quite different.

When respondents were asked in the WSJ poll whether businesses have “gone too far,” “not gone far enough,” or have been “about right” in promoting “racial and ethnic diversity,” the figures were 28 percent, 39 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

Now if the same people were asked about corporate diversity programs based on critical race theory—they assume that all white people are racists and should admit to their racism—that would also elicit a different response.

There is something else about this survey that has gotten by virtually every person who has commented on it. The methodology is flawed.

In the WSJ poll, 44 percent identified as Democrats, yet in 2021 a Gallup poll found that only 29 percent of Americans identified as Democrats. Similarly, in the WSJ poll, 18 percent were Independents, yet in the Gallup survey, 42 percent of Americans identified as Independents. Republicans made up 38 percent of the respondents in the WSJ poll, yet according to Gallup the figure nationwide is 27 percent.

How can it be that in the Gallup poll of Americans, Independents are the largest segment of the country, yet in the WSJ poll they are the smallest?

In short, the wording of the WSJ poll was unsatisfactory and its sample was not representative of the population.