Bill Donohue

The Biden Administration never stops telling us about the virtue of diversity and how we must respect it. Yet when it comes to the diversity that foreign countries exhibit, especially in matters relating to sexuality, it shows nothing but contempt. Instead of respecting the diverse cultural norms and values that exist in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the Biden administration is shoving down their throats the corrupt sexual agenda of western nations.

We have prepared a report, “Biden Admin LGBT Imperialism,” that  documents the extent to which the administration is guilty of cultural imperialism. Here are a few examples.

President Biden hit the ground running, rolling out a slew of radical LGBT policies literally two weeks after he was inaugurated. He issued a memorandum on “Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Person Around the World.” It was given a national security number (NSM-4) to show its importance.But who asked Biden to promote his queer agenda around the world? And why the urgency? Aside from elites and wealthy left-wing advocacy organizations—who do not represent the masses—no one did.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is enthralled with this agenda. Early on he bragged that “We are engaging around the world in cultural diplomacy.” Wrong. The administration is engaging in cultural imperialism.

When U.S. embassies fly Pride Flags in countries that are averse to this indoctrination—including the Holy See—they are showing how little they respect the diversity that these nations represent. When the United States Agency for International Development tells educators what pronouns to use, and advises that when they learn of a girl who thinks she is a boy that they are under no obligation to tell her parents, this is a classic example of cultural imperialism.

The manipulation of religious groups, as has been done in Botswana, to promote LGBT policies that they reject, is another example of this malady. It got so bad in Ghana they even threatened to withhold funding unless officials there adopted laws on sexuality that the Biden administration favors. And why was it necessary to fund a film to be distributed in Portugal that features drag queens and depictions of incest and pedophilia? Do we have perverts working for us?

In the Fifties and Sixties, it was common to refer to Americans who disrespected local cultures abroad as “The Ugly American.” But they look positively beautiful compared to the bullies working for Biden today. They are disfiguring the cultures of foreign countries and are responsible for the increase in anti-American sentiment across the globe.

Most of the world does not want any part of being “included” in western programs that promote an offensive vision of sexuality. They want their diversity respected.

Contact Jessica Stern, the U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) Persons: Special_Envoy_LGBTQI@state.gov

You may want to ask her why she left the + off of her email address. By doing so she is showing her disrespect for inclusion.

Bill Donohue

Silicon Valley is home to tech companies that are known for their embrace of the queer agenda, as well as their animus to people of faith. When it comes to advancing this cause, Google is hard to beat. It has spent a small fortune promoting the politics of the LGBT crowd.

Google is all-in on “Pride Month.” On its website it is featuring “8 Ways to ‘Find Pride’ with Google.” We prepared a report so that everyone can see just how deep a dive it is doing to further the mission of homosexuals and the sexually confused.

To read it click here.

Bill Donohue

Caitlin Clark has done more for women’s basketball than any other person. One would think that the superstar, who excelled at the University of Iowa and was the number-one draft pick in the Women’s National Basketball Association (she plays for the Indiana Fever) would be treated with applause by fellow players, the media and pundits. While many have lauded her, she has been savaged by others. The stench of bigotry is in the air.

Clark is a white heterosexual Irish Catholic with a boyfriend. That is hardly exceptional, but unfortunately for her, that matters to some of her critics. [Note: All of the persons cited are black, with the exception of Clay Travis.]

Clark’s Catholic faith is important to her. In 2018, she gave an interview to the Des Moines Register about her time at Dowling Catholic High School. “We get to live our faith every day. Dowling starts every day with prayer and ends every day with prayer. This is a big reason why Dowling has such a special culture and is such a special place to go to school.”

Sports columnist and podcaster Jason Whitlock notes that “Caitlin Clark’s sanity cannot survive the racial, sexual, and political blender participation in the WNBA will cause. She’s a 22-year-old white woman with a boyfriend raised in the Catholic faith. She plays on a bad basketball team that has started the season 0-5. She’s playing in a league that is hostile to virtually everything about her – skin color, sexuality, and faith.”

“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin argues that “There is a thing called white privilege. There is a thing called tall privilege, and we have to acknowledge that… I do think that she is more relatable to more people because she’s white, because she’s attractive, and unfortunately, there still is that stigma against the LGBTQ+ community. Seventy percent of the WNBA is black. A third of the players are in the LGBTQ+ community and we have to do something about that stigma in this country.”

WNBA player A’ja Wilson claims that racism is buoying Caitlin Clark’s success. “I think a lot of people may say it’s not about black and white, but to me, it is.”

Atlantic sports writer and former ESPN commentator Jamele Hill claims, “We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity….”

Mike Freeman, a columnist for USA Today, contends it was a moral outrage that Clark received a shoe deal while none of the black WNBA players had a similar sponsorship offer. He maintains that it “shows how black women are being ignored in a league that they dominate.” He went on to say, “What so much of this comes down to is a lack of respect for the black women of the WNBA.”

In an effort to dismiss Clark’s potential, former WNBA player Sheryl Swoopes says that Clark is overrated because she played in college for five years, was a 25-year-old and could easily dominate the opposition, and took over 40 shots a game. When critics pointed out that Swoopes was factually wrong on all of these claims, she responded to the blowback by saying, “For people to come at me and say that I made those comments because I’m a ‘racist’, like, first of all, black people can’t be racist.”

Clay Travis, the host of “Outkick,” notes that “Caitlin Clark is white and straight in a league that is primarily minority and lesbian. I told you this was going to be an issue, and now you got everybody acknowledging it all over the place. The average WNBA player does not like Caitlin Clark because she is white, because she is straight, and because now she is rich and getting a lot of attention. There is a great deal of resentment about that….”

Stephen A. Smith, the host of “First Take,” defends Clark, saying, “There are girls – young ladies – in the WNBA who are jealous of Caitlin Clark. She is a white girl that has come into the league….Where the resentment comes in is the hard work, the commitment, the dedication, the pounding of the pavement, the being on the grind all of these years trying to uplift this brand that is the WNBA and is women’s professional basketball and all of their efforts were in vain until this girl comes along and takes the league by storm… and has accomplished in a short period of time what they haven’t been able to.”

NBA all-star LeBron James also came to the defense of Clark. He took aim at her critics. “If you don’t rock with Caitlin Clark game you’re just a FLAT OUT HATER!!!” He added, “I’m rooting for Caitlin because I’ve been in that seat before.”

Most fans don’t care whether a player is white, black, straight, gay, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. They cheer on the basis of performance, not the player’s demographic status. But to some players, pundits and journalists, these personal characteristics matter greatly. They are hung up on race, religion and sexual orientation. Their bigotry is palpable.

Part II 

Bill Donohue

This is the second of a two-part series. To read Part I, click here.

Part I of this series focused on the war on testing that is being waged by those who claim to be helping minority students, but are in fact keeping them from succeeding. These same persons want to dumb-down disciplinary measures, creating an untenable condition in the classroom.

Those educators, politicians and activists who are responsible for this development have such low expectations of minority students, especially African Americans, that it smacks of racism. They simply refuse to treat blacks as equals. They have sunk so low that they are no longer satisfied with lowering the bar—they want to do away with it altogether.

If there is one politician who epitomizes this vision of education it is Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York. Most Americans know nothing about him, with the notable exception of the irresponsible prank he pulled off last fall: he intentionally set off a false fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building. He was duly censured by the House for committing this criminal act.

Bowman took office in 2021 and fast became a member of the “Squad”; they are the most radical left-wing members in Congress. He made campaign promises when running for office in 2020 that were so extreme that even he had to walk away from some of them. [Note: What follows can no longer be found on his campaign website or his congressional one.]

Bowman is an enemy of school testing, not just standardized tests. He says those who believe in testing are part of a “test-and-punish regime,” one that stigmatizes students, teachers and schools that don’t pass the grade. He also doesn’t want to punish unruly students. “Instead of punitive discipline, such as suspensions and expulsions,” he advises, “let’s invest in restorative justice and trauma-informed pedagogy and care.” So when violence breaks out, bring in the therapy dogs.

Bowman listed 20 reforms that should be implemented in the elementary and secondary schools. We need more social workers and counselors, and less police officers. The professional talkers, he says, are best suited for dealing with students who refuse to go to school. This is his plan to “decriminalize truancy.”

Students should be required to spend “at least 60 minutes of gym/and or recess per day.” He does not say how much time should be spent on reading, writing, math and science.

Bowman wants to reform higher education as well. He wants free schooling in the public colleges and universities. Students should also be given grants to cover their living expenses. “This can be largely funded through raising taxes on Wall Street and a wealth tax.” For some reason, he did not apply his policy to Hollywood moguls or professional athletes.

The same wealthy Wall Streeters should also have to pay for all student loan debt. He does not say what is to be done about all those students and parents who shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars for their loans.

Should private colleges and universities also be tuition free? No. He says they shouldn’t even be allowed to exist. “Ban for-profit colleges.” Did you hear that Harvard?

What makes Bowman’s utopia so rich is that he wants to kill all charter schools, knowing full well that they are the best public school hope for minority students. Moreover, he ran a successful charter school before becoming a congressman.

In 2009, Bowman was the founding principal of Cornerstone Academy for Social Action Middle School in Manhattan; it was part of an educational initiative launched by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Like most charter schools, it quickly earned a stellar record. Bowman credited “High expectations” as the reason he succeeded.

So why would Bowman now want to drive charter schools out of business? Why would he want to force black kids to go to lousy public schools? Moreover, if having high expectations for black students worked well in his charter school, why the shift to low expectations now?

We know that the teachers unions give lavishly to Democrats who want to destroy charter schools, but if that is enough for Bowman to take the low road and sell out his fellow African Americans, then he has obviously become their enemy.

When Bowman was born in 1976, he lived in the East River Houses in East Harlem, more popularly known then as Spanish Harlem. I taught down the block from those units at that time, working with African American and Puerto Rican students in a Catholic school. My students were a model of academic excellence. One reason why they succeeded is because I demanded much from them.

There is nothing more racist than to treat blacks as second-class citizens, expecting little from them. But that is the way liberals treat them, including black radicals like Jamaal Bowman.

Contact Sarah Iddrissu, Bowman’s chief of staff: Sarah.Iddrissu@mail.house.gov

Bill Donohue

In the Olympics, we know who the fastest runner is by who crosses the finish line first. But it is not that easy to determine who is the best ice skater or springboard diver: whoever gets the highest composite score from a team of judges wins. When it comes to academic achievement, we rely on test scores.

Like the skater and the diver, judging academic success will never be as easy as determining who the fastest runner is; the fact that the judges usually differ is testimony to this verity. No matter, few conclude that it would be better not to have judges decide who should get the gold, silver and bronze medals.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of prominent educators, politicians and activists who want to kill testing. While they focus on standardized tests, they typically object to testing in general. They do so because time and time again, black students do the worst, followed by Hispanics. Instead of helping these students clear the bar, they want to jettison it.

It is a lie to say that “students of color” can’t do well in school. Asians do. Indeed, most white kids can’t compete with them, never mind black and Hispanic kids.

We have known since the Coleman Report on education in the 1960s (named after sociologist James S. Coleman) that it is not what happens in school that is the primary factor accounting for academic proficiency—it is what happens outside of school. To be exact, it is what happens in the home that counts the most.

We know that Asians spend more time doing homework than any other racial or ethnic group; blacks spend the least amount of time. This underscores Coleman’s research. The reason for this condition is not hard to figure out: the typical Asian student comes from a two-parent home; the typical black student comes from a one-parent home. Kids raised in two-parent homes—including black kids—do better than kids raised in one-parent homes.

No state has declared war on school testing more than Oregon. It has suspended the graduation requirement for math, reading, and writing proficiency until the 2027-2028 academic year. It is doing so in the name of “equity.”

Oregon never seems to learn. The previous governor, Kate Brown, initiated the war on testing after it was learned in 2017 that students were going backwards in reading, writing and math. As I noted in The War on Virtue, it was reported that “roughly 60 percent of Oregon public school students fell short in mathematics as did 45 percent in reading and writing. It was the worst showing yet by Oregon schools, particularly in the language arts.”

The movement to kill standardized tests is based on the assumption that the tests are racist. This is more of a political statement than a conclusion based on scientific evidence, but it is nonetheless endorsed by the National Education Association. This is also the position of Ibram X. Kendi, the guru of Critical Race Theory: he has made a fortune making the case against racism by advancing a racist agenda against white people.

Standardized tests are not infallible and are open to criticism. But to dismiss them altogether does not do anyone a favor, including black students. For example, SAT scores remain a key indicator of how well a student will do in college. And it is precisely because standardized tests are a helpful guide to assessing academic success that we know that charter schools are of great benefit to minority students.

A Gallup poll published at the end of November found that black parents are very much in favor of testing, as are Hispanic parents. How else are they to know whether their child is succeeding or not? When asked how they would feel if they learned that their child received a B in math but was scoring below grade level on standardized tests, 72 percent of black parents said they would be extremely or very concerned about these results; for Hispanics the figure was 56 percent; for whites it was 52 percent.

To make matters worse, “equity education” in Oregon not only means a war on testing, it means a war on discipline. At the end of 2023, Portland Public Schools announced that teachers must work with disruptive students, taking into account their race; then they are to develop a “support plan,” eschewing punitive measures. What if the student engages in violence? He can be removed from the classroom but not the school. Mandatory suspensions are now banned.

This is madness. It is also racist. Racists make judgments about people based on their race, not their individual attributes. Lowering expectations for blacks is the most racist thing that white liberal educators have done to African Americans. It is also a recipe for failure.

Bill Donohue

Bill Maher’s HBO show on May 31 featured a discussion between the host and filmmaker John Waters on the subject of Pope Francis and clergy sexual abuse. Waters, who is a homosexual and former drug addict, addressed molesting priests, saying, “They’re not all gay—they’re pedophiles. That’s different.” Maher replied, “They’re not all pedophiles.” Waters answered, “Most are.”

So who’s right? Waters or Maher? Maher.

Researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice issued the two most authoritative studies on priestly sexual abuse; most of the abuse took place between 1965 and 1985. They found that 81 percent of the victims were male and that 78 percent were postpubescent. When adult men have sex with adolescent males that is called homosexuality. As for prepubescent victims, they accounted for 3.8 percent of the abuse. That’s called pedophilia.

In short, there never was a pedophile problem in the Catholic Church—most of the molestation was done by homosexuals. For more detail on this subject see my book, The Truth about Clergy Sexual Abuse: Clarifying the Facts and the Causes. As I have said many times, most gay priests are not molesters but most of the molesters were gay.

The media, of course, as well as gay activists and liberal Catholics, continue to lie about this issue. They mouth the refrain issued by Waters, hoping to exculpate homosexuals. But blaming pedophiles for homosexual-driven offenses is simply dishonest.

It’s worse than this. The fact is that some of the most prominent gay leaders have been supportive of adults having sex with minors, and some even justify man-boy rape. Moreover, while there are heterosexual pedophiles as well, the only ones who have an organization dedicated to pedophilia are gays. See our report on this issue.

June is Gay Pride Month. It’s time that gay leaders spoke to this issue with clarity. If everyone can’t agree that the sexual abuse of children is an abomination, we will never get rid of this problem.