Bill Donohue

Moms for Liberty is a pro-family organization dedicated to protecting the wellbeing of children. But to radical left-wing politicians and activists, it is a threat to their agenda. The latest public foe of this organization is Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine; he previously served in the New York City Council.

Levine went ballistic when he learned of an event that Moms for Liberty will hold in New York City on January 18. He said they “have no place here,” accusing them of supporting “book bans” and the harassment of teachers and school librarians. He added that they have been labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “far right extremist organization.”

Levine does not speak for all New Yorkers, so he has no business deciding which organizations have a “place” here. Indeed, as an agent of the state, his words are dangerously censorial: government officials should never threaten law-abiding voluntary associations.

The arrogance of this man is unfortunately not a novel experience for New Yorkers.

In 2011, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio [he would later become the mayor] publicly objected to a billboard erected by black pro-life Americans. Life Always posted a billboard that said, “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” De Blasio called for it to be removed, simply because he objected. He succeeded.

In 2014, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told pro-life conservatives that they “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” So he decided to speak for all New Yorkers, effectively telling pro-lifers to get out.

Levine shares the same radical politics that marked the tenure of de Blasio and Cuomo. His enthusiasm for abortion is so strong that he has invited “everyone in any place in the country” to come to New York to abort their babies. He also supports federal funding of abortion and abortions performed for sex-selection purposes.

During Covid, Levine proved to be more controlling than even Gov. Cuomo. When the governor issued an executive order at the end of May 2020, allowing groups of up to 10 to gather without a mask, Levine was livid. He called it a “shocking order.”

But not wearing a mask and not practicing social distancing was perfectly fine by Levine when it came to the rioters who destroyed New York City during this time. “If there is a spike in coronavirus cases in the next two weeks, don’t blame the protesters”; rather, he said, blame racism and the cops.

The man is also clueless. When there was an outbreak of monkeypox in New York—a direct result of gay sex practices—Levine tweeted that “95% of the cases are in men, for some unexplained reason.” He just doesn’t get it.

When he was a New York City Councilman, Levine showed his contempt for diversity and religious liberty when he refused to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in 2014. Gays were allowed to march in the parade but not under their own banner (the same was true of pro-life groups). But that didn’t matter—Levine wanted to force parade organizers to follow his politics.

It is one thing to adopt a radical political agenda; it is quite another to smear innocent Americans.

Moms for Liberty is not in favor of book banning. Like most Americans, they believe that there are certain books—e.g., those with graphic sexual content—that are not appropriate for children. Nor do they promote the harassment of school employees. In fact, what Levine calls “harassment” is what most would call free speech.

Most risible of all is Levine’s reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center for assessments of extremist organizations. This far-left entity has branded mainstream pro-family and non-profit law groups (the Family Research Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom) as extremist, yet when it comes to bona-fide urban terrorist groups—such as Antifa—it not only says they are not violent, it actually says that classifying them as such is “dangerous” and a “threat” to civil liberties.

The Catholic League, which is headquartered in New York City, welcomes Moms for Liberty. We also have a piece of advice for Levine: know your place, back off, and learn the virtue of tolerance.

Contact Levine’s director of communications, Winthrop Roosevelt: wroosevelt@manhattanbp.nyc.gov

Bill Donohue

Rev. Martin Luther King’s vision for the future, where everyone is judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin, will never be realized by following the dictates of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies. In fact, if a colorblind society is the goal, then adopting DEI as a means to achieving it is doomed to fail.

Race consciousness is at a fever pitch in America today. There is not a single corporation or college that is not infused with DEI policies, the holy trinity of social justice.

All of these DEI policies are integrally tied to Critical Race Theory (CRT), an ideology promoted by Ibram X. Kendi. He insists that white people are inherently racist and that discrimination on the basis of race today—against whites—is the best way to remedy past discrimination against blacks.

Dr. Jonathan Pidluzny is the Director of the Higher Education Reform Initiative at the American First Policy Institute. His research on this issue led him to conclude that “DEI is a direct offshoot of CRT.” Indeed, as he shows, the most prominent champions of DEI programs readily admit this is true.

This situation takes on even greater sociological significance when we consider that some of the same companies that are dedicated to DEI race-conscious policies in the workplace nonetheless seem to prefer a color-free world. Take, for example, the movies that Hallmark and Lifetime—home of the “chick flicks” (or films that cater to women)—like to air.

There is hardly a movie in recent years that these two cable stations offer  that doesn’t feature a racially mixed cast—mostly white, black and Asian. What is striking about these movies is that none of the characters ever seem to notice racial and ethnic differences. In fact, they are the most colorblind people on earth. But they sure are inclusive: When eating Chinese food, none of the non-Asians ever uses a fork—they love their chopsticks. Score one for multiculturalism.

Hallmark is owned by Hallmark Cards and last year it was named one of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity by Newsweek. It was also picked by Forbes last year as one of America’s Best Employees for Diversity.

Lifetime is owned by A&E, which is jointly owned by Hearst Communications and Disney. A&E’s commitment to diversity extends to hiring people who call themselves “non-binary.” Hearst has all kinds of reports and graphs showing how much it loves DEI. Ditto for Disney.

If the goal is a colorblind society how are we supposed to get there when workers are being indoctrinated with race-conscious propaganda? The disconnect is glaring.

Martin Luther King envisioned the kind of colorblind society that Hallmark and Lifetime present. But the means that he endorsed to achieve this end had nothing to do with having race on the brain 24/7. Nor did it have anything to do with promoting a racist ideology.

King was consistent. The corporate elite who own these channels are anything but, and much the same could be said about the big corporations in general.

Long live King’s vision. Say goodbye to Kendi’s.

Bill Donohue

Imagine if a state attorney general decided to investigate violent crimes that have been committed over a half-century ago, especially cold cases, hoping to prosecute as many as possible. Imagine if it dragged on for years, costing the taxpayers a small fortune, yielding practically nothing. To top it off, imagine if the probe were limited only to African Americans.

This would be labeled racial profiling. Indeed, it would be called a scam.

Why, then, is it okay to probe Catholic priests—and no one else—looking to nail as many of them as possible for sexual abuse offenses extending back decades?

This is what has been happening in many states, beginning with the now discredited 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report released by Josh Shapiro, then the state’s attorney general and now its governor. The latest scam involves Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.

In 2018, under Nessel’s predecessor, Bill Schuette, it was announced that all seven Michigan dioceses would be subjected to an investigation into the sexual abuse of minors; she took over in 2019.

As I pointed out in my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse, we have known for some time that the vast majority of predatory priests are either dead or have been kicked out of the priesthood. Moreover, the data prove that this problem is long over in the Catholic Church.

On January 8, Nessel released a report on the Diocese of Gaylord; in 2022 she released a probe of the Diocese of Marquette. Both turned out to be fishing expeditions, done to smear Catholics.

The investigation of the Gaylord diocese reviewed documents dating back to 1950, when Harry Truman was president. It found that there were “credible”—not substantiated—charges against 26 priests and two deacons.

Of the 28, 16 are dead, two are retired, and one is still active; no charges have been brought against any of the three because the alleged offenses involved adults. Consistent with what I uncovered, Nessel said the “vast majority” of these offenses occurred before 2002, the year when the bishops’ conference adopted new reforms.

Nessel also failed in her probe of the Marquette diocese. Of the 44 priests who were named in the report, extending back to 1950, 32 were “known or presumed to be dead.” Moreover, only 6 of the 44 cases had been substantiated by the diocese.

Nessel has a history of lashing out at Catholics. She wasn’t attorney general for two months before she put Catholics on notice: if they were asked by law enforcement about clergy sexual abuse, they should “ask to see their badge, not their rosary.”

According to one Michigan media outlet, SooLeader, to date the investigation of the Michigan Catholic dioceses has turned up 220 boxes of paper documents and more than 3.5 million digital documents. Only in 11 cases throughout the entire state have criminal charges been brought, resulting in nine convictions. None of the 11 cases involved the clergy from the Gaylord diocese.

The list of the 11 cases makes clear that three of the victims were male. The sex of the others is not identified. This sleight of hand is typical—it amounts to a cover up of the role which homosexual priests have played in the clergy sexual abuse scandal.

We know from the John Jay studies on this subject that more than 80 percent of all the sexual abuse of minors was at the hands of homosexual priests; only a very small percentage of the cases had anything to do with pedophilia. The most common victim was a postpubescent male.

The bias in Michigan is palpable. The attorney general’s office is not interested in pursuing cases of sexual abuse committed by members of the clergy of other religions, and it sure isn’t interested in probing the public schools.

What makes this so outrageous is that Michigan has a serious problem with sexual abuse in the public schools. In 2016, USA Today released a report on this subject, covering all 50 states: Michigan public schools received an  “F” in their handling of sexual abuse.

Three years later I wrote to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and the entire state legislature, asking for an investigation of sexual abuse in the public schools. No one was interested in taking on the public school establishment, and the unions that fund the Democrats.

Religious profiling, like racial profiling, is morally reprehensible. Covering up the identity of sexual abusers is also offensive. Thanks to Dana Nessel, both are alive and well in Michigan.

Contact Nessel’s director of communications, Amber McCann: agpress@michigan.gov

Bill Donohue

The war on Chick-fil-A has been going on for years, though in recent times it seems to have dissipated. The typical complaint is that because it closes on Sundays—to allow its workers to spend time in church and with their family—this is an antiquated Christian model that should no longer be tolerated. The fast-food chain has been closed on Sundays since it first opened in 1946.

The war was reignited recently when two New York State lawmakers, Democratic Assemblyman Tony Simone and Democratic Senator Michelle Hinchey, co-sponsored legislation aimed at forcing the evangelical-run company to open its restaurants on Sundays along the New York Thruway. They are saying that closing one day a week along the 570-mile-long highway gravely inconveniences travelers.

Chick-fil-A currently operates seven restaurants along the Thruway; three more will soon open. According to its critics, in one of the seven rest stops where it is located, the only other option is Starbucks. However, the Irish company that extended the contract to the chain restaurant, Applegreen, claims that alternative hot and cold food options are available in all current and future Chick-fil-A rest stops, 24/7.

Simone and Hinchey say that if their bill passes, it will only apply to Chick-fil-A restaurants not under contract (meaning it would not affect the first ten). U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham has threatened to introduce federal legislation to withhold federal funds from any state or city that demands Chick-fil-A to open on Sundays.

Simone and Hinchey claim that their bill is not motivated by religious animus. What is not in dispute is that both of them are rabid supporters of abortion-on-demand and the radical LGBT agenda. Of the two, Simone has clearly been the most vocal critic of Chick-fil-A.
Simone was elected to the Assembly in 2022 and assumed office on January 1, 2023. He represents the very liberal west side Manhattan neighborhoods of Chelsea and Hells Kitchen. He campaigned on LGBT issues, radical bail reform and the decriminalization of prostitution.

A review of the bills he has sponsored, and voted for, reveals that he tries to appease a wide swath of New Yorkers. Here are 40 of them.

• Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
• Jews
• Abortion providers
• Firefighters
• Disabled
• Minorities
• Women
• Children
• Teachers
• Police
• Jordanians
• Caribbean Islanders
• Ukrainians
• Developmentally Disabled
• Taiwanese
• Polish Americans
• Mothers
• Mental Health Workers
• Guidance Counselors
• Pakistanis
• Dominicans
• Canadian Americans
• Teenagers
• Public employees
• LGBTQ people
• Hospital Patients
• Retail Workers
• Bicyclists
• Students
• Tenants
• Public Retirees
• Drug Users
• Veterans
• Haitians
• Filipinos
• Nurses
• Arabs
• Blacks
• Ex-Cons
• Social Workers

Noticeably absent from Simone’s list of courted citizens are evangelical Protestants and Catholics. Nor does he seem to have any interest in advancing religious liberty.

This matters because he insists that targeting Chick-fil-A has nothing to do with the Christian convictions of its chairman, Dan T. Cathy. Simone can repeat this refrain all day long but he cannot walk back a comment he made in late December. He told reporters that Chick-fil-A has “a long, shameful history of opposing LGBTQ rights.”

In other words, Christians, and others, who believe that marriage should be the reserve of a man and a woman, and that a man can no more be a woman than he can be a spider, are the enemy. One would have to be delusional to think that Simone’s real target is not practicing Christians.

In the district that Simone represents, there are Jewish stores that are closed on Saturdays. Does this mean that a kosher deli cannot open shop along the rest areas of the New York Thruway? The contempt for traditional people of faith is astonishing.

If Applegreen is correct, and food is available at every one of Chick-fil-A’s rest stop areas, then there is no issue. Even if this is contested, there is an easy way to settle this matter. In the future, every rest stop along the New York Thruway should have at least one hot and cold food shop available, seven days a week. Bingo—“problem” solved.

We will contact all New York State lawmakers.

Contact Simone: simonet@nyassembly.gov

Bill Donohue

There is a front-page story in today’s New York Times on the widespread opposition by the African Catholic clergy to the Vatican’s declaration that same-sex couples are allowed to receive a blessing. There is also a story today, reported by other media outlets, about an American Catholic priest who recently blessed a same-sex couple in a church.

These two news stories illuminate the controversy that is taking place worldwide over the Vatican’s same-sex blessing statement; it was approved by Pope Francis. The question is whether the Vatican is willing and able to deal with situations like that in Kentucky which appear to run afoul of its intentions.

Fr. Richard Watson offered the blessing to a lesbian couple at Saint Paul Catholic Church in Lexington, Kentucky on New Year’s Eve; the couple claim to have been civilly “married” for 22 years. Had the blessing taken place in the home of the couple, it would not have drawn much attention. But it took place in a church, and the priest was wearing a rainbow stole. The Vatican document on this issue clearly states that it is not acceptable to allow “any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite,” citing the “confusion” it would incur.

The situation in Lexington should come as no surprise. After the Vatican declaration on same-sex blessings was issued, Fr. Watson pledged to open his doors to everyone, “no matter their circumstances.” Yet the Vatican statement is replete with qualifications, citing many circumstances where the blessing would not be appropriate.

The director of the gay, lesbian and transgender ministry of the Diocese of Lexington, “JR” Zerkowski, also heralded the new directive. In 2021, I wrote to his boss, Bishop John Stowe, asking whether he agreed with Zerkowski about his publicly stated support for the Equality Act, legislation that has been slammed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for its anti-Catholic provisions. He did not reply.

In my post of October 25, 2023, I mentioned that Pope Francis thanked Zerkowski for his work. I also questioned whether the pope knew of his association with extremist groups who reject Church teachings. I addressed another issue as well. “Does he [the pope] know that under the tutelage of Zerkowski that his ministry draped an image of Our Blessed Mother in a gay pride flag, posting it online, calling Jesus’ mother the ‘Mother of Pride'”?

In other words, it was to be expected that, given its history, the Diocese of Lexington would put its own spin on the recent same-sex marriage directive. It was also to be expected that the confusion that this statement would engender would begin as soon as it was released.

In March 2021, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith posed this question: “Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” It replied, “Negative.” It said that it “declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such.” To make its point crystal clear, it said that God “does not and cannot bless sin.”

On December 20, 2023, the New York Times, citing the latest document, ran a headline, “Gay Catholics Hear History: ‘God Bless You.'”

The author of the document, and the head of the Dicastery (previously the Congregation) for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, said on December 18 that this was his only statement on this issue—”no further responses should be expected.”

On January 4, 2024, Fernández issued another response, seeking to clarify his comments of December 18. Now Catholics learned that the original statement was not “heretical.”

Catholics from Kentucky to Kenya are supposed to believe in the same Church teachings, but given the confusion over same-sex blessings, this is in jeopardy. What makes this issue so important is that the Catholic Church is losing members in the United States while it is booming in Africa. Indeed, more than half of all the people who joined the Catholic Church worldwide in 2021 came from Africa.

If Africa is the future of the Church, the disillusionment that African Catholics are currently experiencing should be one of the most pressing issues facing the entire Catholic Church today.

Bill Donohue

The year 2023 ended with announcements from two prominent Catholic Republicans that they are no longer opponents of the LGBT agenda. Presidential candidate Chris Christie, citing Pope Francis’ decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples, said this was enough for him to rethink gay marriage.

In 2013, when Christie was governor of New Jersey, he denounced a Supreme Court decision (the Defense of Marriage Act) that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. At the time, he said this was a “bad decision.” Now he’s fine with it, trotting out the pope for cover.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine was also known as a reliable partner in the culture war. But last week he vetoed a bill that would have banned prescribing hormones, chemical castration and sex-reassignment surgery for minors.* He also said it was okay for boys who misidentify as girls to compete against girls in athletics.

Why is genital mutilation of children now considered proper? Why is the assault on female sports considered proper? DeWine says these matters are not the government’s business. Really? Since when has the welfare of minors not been the business of government? We have laws on the books barring parents from abusing their children. We also have laws, of more recent vintage, discriminating on the basis of sex. Allowing boys to compete against girls in sports eviscerates the rights of girls.

It looks like Christie and DeWine are following the lead of another Catholic Republican, Paul Ryan. The former Speaker of the House, who now sits on the board of Fox News’ parent company, admitted last year that “I’m not a culture war guy.” We don’t need convincing.

The 2024 Republican Platform will be decided this summer. The head of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, who is a Mormon, announced in 2021 that the “GOP is proud to have doubled down our LGBTQ support over the last 4 years” and will continue to do so. After considerable blowback, she modified her stand saying that her outreach was simply about mobilizing voters. She pledged to stand up for “religious liberty, family values and Republicans of faith.”

It is a sure bet that the Platform will be hotly debated at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. What it says about the LGBT agenda will reveal whether the Christie-DeWine-Ryan wing will encourage the Nervous Nellies like McDaniels to sell out “Republicans of faith.”

*DeWine subsequently signed an executive order to prevent gender transition surgeries on anyone under the age of 18 in any Ohio hospital or healthcare facility.

Bill Donohue

It is always wrong to generalize from the particular to the collective, as in using anecdotes to make sweeping generalizations, or in seizing upon extreme cases to indict an entire demographic group. To take a recent example, anti-Christian demagogues are trying to rally the public to watch their backs in this election year because Christians are allegedly out to kill them.

Atheist Revolution warns that “we stand to lose when Christian extremists gain power,” and this means that “We should vote like our lives depend on it because they do.” Indeed, the scaremongers contend that “if you value your life or the lives of other non-Christians,” then you must confront these Christians before it is too late. “It is about our survival.”

Where is the proof that Christian extremists are a threat to the safety of non-Christians? And what qualifies as a Christian “extremist”?

To the first question, the activists at Atheist Revolution cite the comments made by one right-wing nut job, Nick Fuentes. To be sure, he has made a series of totally irresponsible remarks. But his followers are small and ineffective. More important, to seize on the rhetoric of one person as proof that non-Christians are threatened—and therefore they must be vigilant in this election cycle—is not only Christian baiting, it is downright dangerous.

To the second question, Atheist Revolution defines Christian extremists as those who “overturned Roe.” That’s right, the Supreme Court Justices who sent the abortion issue back to the states—because it was wrongly decided in 1973—are Christian extremists. That would make the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was Jewish, a Christian extremist because she, too, thought Roe was wrongly decided. So did the secularist liberals at the New Republic in 1973.

Do you know who else is a “Christian extremist”? Atheist Revolution says there are Christian extremists in the United States who want to legally mandate all Americans to say “Merry Christmas” at Christmastime. It cites not one such person—it’s all in their head.

The year 2024 is just beginning and already the Christian bashers are in high gear. As we get closer to the election, expect more from this crowd.

It also needs to be said that they are aided and abetted by a cadre of intellectuals who continue to hawk the fallacious notion that “Christian nationalists” are out to take over America. While they are more sophisticated than the activists at Atheist Revolution, they are clearly feeding the anti-Christian bigotry that is raging in secular quarters.

Last month we posted a two-part series on how the medical profession has adopted the anti-science perspective on transgenderism. Today we are showing how Catholic medical associations remain faithful not only to the teachings of the Church, but to science as well.

Catholic Medical Association/ Linacre Quarterly (Journal)

November 2019: Linacre Quarterly reported that “often, a significantly higher percentage of transgender children, compared to controls, featured preclinical or clinical levels of anxiety. Parental support of transgender children may temporarily reduce levels of poor mental health for some transgender children, but it does not appear to eliminate those problems for all transgender children.”

February 2020: The Catholic Medical Association argued that “the care of people with gender dysphoria must be held to the same ethical and evidence-based standards demanded in other areas of medical practice. Despite claims to the contrary, there is so much that we do not yet know about sex-gender discordance. This makes it difficult if not impossible to adequately assess the long-term risks versus benefits of gender affirming medical interventions”

September 2023: The Catholic Medical Association noted that “when [gender dysphoria] occurs in the pre-pubertal child, it resolves in 80-90 percent of children by late adolescence as they naturally develop through puberty and gender awareness aligns with biological sex (Cohen-Kettenis, Delemarre-van de Waal, Gooren, 2008). Some of these adolescents may manifest same-sex attraction but without the desire to undergo sex reassignment.”

September 2023: The Catholic Medical Association posited that “puberty blockers are associated with depression and other emotional disturbances related to suicide. Furthermore, data support that in the long run transitioning may even exacerbate the psychological distress that could lead to suicide.”

National Catholic Bioethics Center

February 2017: National Catholic Bioethics Center released a statement arguing that “policies requiring affirmation of a ‘transitioning’ person’s perceived gender identity, including access to sex specific facilities and services, amount to formal cooperation with gender transitioning and are immoral.”

February 2017: National Catholic Bioethics Center released a statement arguing that “resolutions and policies of medical associations and legislative and regulatory actions promote so-called gender affirmation and gender transitioning, even in prepubescent children, and mandate the compliance of schools, health care providers, health care payers, social services, and others. Such regulations are coercive and based on a false understanding of human identity. Gender transitioning insists on affirming a false identity and, in many cases, mutilation of the body in support of that falsehood.”

February 2017: National Catholic Bioethics Center released a statement arguing that “attempts at gender transitioning can, in fact, have disastrous effects in the life of a person who continues to struggle to better understand and accept his or her own true value and full identity. Studies show that the surgical interventions do not ultimately resolve feelings of anxiety and dysphoria and appear to lead to a significant increase in attempted or completed suicides.”