On November 9, we started a boycott against Wal-Mart, citing discrimination against Christians. On November 10, the world’s largest retailer refused to give in to our demands. On November 11, Wal-Mart folded, yielding on all counts. Ergo, we called off our boycott.

Over the past decade, Wal-Mart has been the object of a great deal of criticism. Much of it, we believe, has been patently unfair and politically motivated. But when Wal-Mart began the Christmas season with discriminatory policies—treating Hanukkah and Kwanzaa with respect while showing nothing but disrespect for Christmas—we took off after the behemoth. And we won. (For a detailed account of exactly how this case developed, see p. 5.)

In a nutshell, what happened is that a woman from Allentown, Pennsylvania complained to Wal-Mart about its penchant for calling Christmas the “Holidays.” The response she received from the customer service department was absurd at best, and insulting at worst. She was told by someone named Kirby that in essence Christmas has nothing to do with Christ. She forwarded the incredible e-mail to us.

It was our opinion that this offensive response must have been the product of some underling. After all, the store is gigantic and the top brass probably had nothing to do with it. So we contacted their top public relations officer to see what he might say about Kirby’s comment. To our surprise, he not only agreed, he offered some “words of wisdom” that only angered us further.

Then we checked the Wal-Mart website to see how it was treating the so-called holidays. What we found was discriminatory treatment: the Hanukkah and Kwanzaa sites were easily accessed, and a list of items was presented; Christmas, however, was renamed the “Holiday” site.

That was it. We immediately called for a boycott and contacted 126 religious organizations spanning seven faith communities for assistance (we won before they even received our mailing). But Wal-Mart remained adamant and stuck by its story, essentially parroting the tired diversity/inclusion argument.

What Wal-Mart didn’t count on was our resolve. We don’t know what the word “quit” means at the Catholic League. Indeed, the more stubborn our adversary becomes, the more unyielding we become.

This victory, which took less than 48 hours to achieve, was sweet. What made it so special is the fact that Wal-Mart has a reputation of never giving in to the demands of any protest group.

Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire, and the first openly gay Anglican bishop, attacked the Catholic Church in November while visiting London.

“I find it so vile that they [the Catholic Church] think they are going to end the child abuse scandal by throwing out homosexuals from seminaries. It is an act of violence that needs to be confronted.” He added: “Pope Ratzinger [sic] may be the best thing that ever happened to the Episcopal Church. We are seeing so many Roman Catholics joining the church.”

Our response to the media spared him no quarter: “Gene Robinson is a walking embarrassment to Episcopalians everywhere, and is profoundly ignorant of what has been happening to his own church.”

We then questioned his erudition: “Had he read David Shiflett’s splendid book, Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity, he might have been able to connect the dots: it is because of people like him—a practicing homosexual—that his church is imploding. And prior to Shiflett’s work we had the ground-breaking volume by professor Thomas C. Reeves, The Empty Church: Does Organized Religion Matter Anymore? His book is also about what happens when the likes of Robinson assume power.”

We saved the best for last: “Here’s to you, Mr. Robinson. Your proselytizing efforts are deeply appreciated by Roman Catholics.”

William A. Donohue

John Gibson, who anchors the Fox News Channel’s “The Big Story,” has written a splendid book about the culture wars over Christmas. It is aptly titled, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.

Gibson recounts a series of anti-Christmas cases that have evolved over the past few years, and provides first-hand responses from the offenders. Friendship trees have replaced Christmas trees; holiday parades are in and Christmas parades are out; winter parties are all the rage and Christmas parties are yesterday’s news; “Happy Holidays” is the preferred greeting and “Merry Christmas” is verboten.

Those who think that this is a blue-state phenomenon where mostly liberals live are wrong: it’s all over. Small towns and big towns, southern cities and northern ones, Christian-dominated neighborhoods and multi-religious communities—all have been hit by the anti-Christian fever. But if, as Gibson’s subtitle indicates, this is the work of liberals, then why is it that the crusade to kill Christmas is ubiquitous?

If it were the product of anti-Christian bigots alone (and they have surely played a big role), then why would Christians not only put up with it, why would some of them actively promote it? After all, there aren’t enough anti-Christian bigots to pull this off by themselves. Christians are 85 percent of the population, so it must be that a fair number of them have joined the war on Christmas.

The problem with these Christians is that too many of them have drunk from the well of multiculturalism, namely, the pernicious idea that all cultures are equally valid. Add to this the invidious effects of what Christina Hoff Summers and Sally Satel call “therapism”—the touchy-feely world where everyone must be made to feel good about himself—and the result is a collapse of nerve.

Here’s how it works. Take the friendship tree. When a parent asked the school principal why the Christmas tree has been renamed, he was told, “Oh, we’re trying to make sure we don’t offend people.” Not really. It’s a sure bet that many Christians were offended by this generic tree, but who cares about them? What makes this all the more bizarre is the fact that 96 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas.

Plano, Texas is home to some of the biggest Christmas censors on earth. “Jesus Is the Reason” pencils and “Legend of the Candy Cane” pens were confiscated because of their “religious” message. Saying “Merry Christmas” and writing “Merry Christmas” on greeting cards were punishable offenses. Red and green were banned at the “winter party” in favor of the “white only” policy: students were ordered to bring white napkins, white paper plates and cups and white cakes and cupcakes. Too bad someone didn’t sue the school for promoting racism.

Gibson correctly notes that, in effect, Christians “were being asked to celebrate something they didn’t celebrate—winter—as if they were pagans in the Roman Empire.” Protesting students were told by their teacher that to allow “Merry Christmas” would “offend someone.” The assumption is that Jews, Muslim and others are all raging bigots who go bonkers every December. But this is nonsense.

To be sure, there are bigots. Consider Florence Roisman, a left-wing professor of law at Indiana University. Roisman, and two students, all of whom are Jewish, objected to a Christmas tree on the campus. And they succeeded in getting it removed. The offense? The tree was labeled “exclusionary” because it didn’t represent them.

What to do about all this? Gibson quotes my response as follows: “If a Catholic is offended by a Star of David, or a crescent and star, wouldn’t the right corrective be to educate the Catholic and get him out of his dim-wittedness and bigotry?” Instead, we reward the bigots.

Too often, school administrators lack the courage to challenge organizations like the ACLU. Gibson gets it right when he says that “the tactics and strategies of the ACLU in its war on Christmas are the very definition of bullying, and to avoid costly and time-consuming litigation from the ACLU, school boards and local governments frequently submit to ACLU demands that far exceed the limitations on religious observance on government property that is actually required by law.”

The Catholic League, I am proud to say, was one of the first organizations to directly confront the Christmas censors. Now we are joined by many other groups, most of whom are Protestant.

You can help, too. Let the censors know what you think, contact us and get your family and friends to do the same. And don’t be afraid to say “Merry Christmas.” Speaking of which, we at the Catholic League wish all of you a Blessed and Merry Christmas.

By David L. Gregory

General Counsel, Catholic League

Professor of Law, St. John’s University Law School

The Right to be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America is the latest, and perhaps the most engaging and lucid, entry in the burgeoning “culture war” literature. But, unlike all of the others, this book proposes an interesting way to end hostilities.

The author of the book, Kevin (Seamus) Hasson, has been the Chairman of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty since 1994. The Becket Fund is a stalwart ally of the Catholic League, defending the free expression and exercise of all religious traditions. Hasson, armed with graduate degrees in law and theology from Notre Dame, brings formidable scholarly insights, a superb litigator’s rhetorical eloquence and an obvious ability to tell engaging stories to this fine book.

Hasson writes with verve and tenacity; he tells remarkable stories in page-turning style. His tragic-comic metaphors of the “Pilgrims” (who believe that their religious truth requires them to suppress the free exercise rights of others) and the “Park Rangers” (who believe that all must remain silent in public, rather than make any claims about transcendent truth), are certain to become part of the constitutional law lexicon. Indeed, the first sentance of the book refers to Pilgrim/Park Ranger annual “trench warfare” and the inevitable flurry of litigation: “Every December some group is suing to take both the Nativity scene and the menorah off the courthouse steps.”

Deciphering the disastrous incoherence of what purports to be constitutional jurisprudence will not be made any easier in the wake of the decisions this past summer by the United States Supreme Court on the displays of the Ten Commandments. In two 5-4 decisions, with Justice Breyer the crucial swing vote in both cases, the Court allowed a six foot granite statue of the Ten Commandments on public land in Texas, but rejected as unconstitutional establishment of religion the posting of framed copies of the Ten Commandments in a Kentucky state courtroom. Decided in the Supreme Court’s building, complete with a frieze of the Ten Commandments, where the Court opens each session with the prayer that “God save the honorable Court,” and whose Chief Justice administers the oath to the newly elected President who vows “so help me God,” go figure.

It is not a conundrum that Kevin Hasson, or anyone else, I am afraid, is likely to solve any time soon. A possible preview of coming attractions may be the decision in 1999 by Judge Alito, now nominated to the United States Supreme Court. In American Civil Liberties Union v. Schundler, he wrote the majority opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, holding that a holiday display in Jersey City was not an unconstitutional establishment of religion because, in addition to the Nativity crèche and the menorah, Kwanzza, Frosty the Snowman and a banner proclaiming diversity were also present in the display at City Hall (thanks to the “Park Rangers!”)

In 1984, the Supreme Court endorsed a similar Park Ranger display in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. But in 1988 in Pittsburgh the crèche display was unconstitutional because it was displayed under a banner that proclaimed (that’s right, in Latin!) “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” (which was just too much for Justice O’Connor who cast the deciding vote of its obvious unconstitutionality.)

The Right to be Wrong is in the direct legacy of the pioneering scholarship of Judge John Noonan, the great jurisprudential champion of the free exercise of religion who taught for many years at the Notre Dame and Berkeley law schools before being appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan. Likewise, the book continues in the tradition of the path-breaking The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America, written by Reverend Richard John Neuhaus in 1984.

Hasson, just as Noonan and Neuhaus, asserts that all religious traditions should be fully protected in the free exercise of religion, which will enrich and invigorate the life of the nation. By recognizing and protecting one another’s “right to be wrong,” all religious traditions, and the broader civic society, will more fully flower.

Extremists have dominated the terrain since the Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower. The Pilgrims, the first extremists, banned (or executed) religious dissenters, and imposed religious tests for public office. There are some heroes: Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, and the Quaker conscientious objectors to the military draft, beginning with the Civil War, are prominently featured.

The first six chapters blend synoptic, crisp colonial era and early republican history with tragic-comic contemporary vignettes, illustrating the madness of the “Pilgrims versus the Park Rangers.” With the Orwellian ascendancy of the “Park Ranger” bureaucrats, Christmas and Hanukkah are replaced by the “holiday season,” Halloween becomes the “fall festival,” St. Valentine’s Day becomes “special person day,” and Easter is trumped by “special bunny day.”

Chapters seven through ten trace the evolution from tolerance to natural rights. Disestablishment in Virginia, the counterproductive Thomas Jefferson, and the compromised efforts of James Madison failing to make the individual states immediately and completely subject to the First Amendment are highlighted.

According to Hasson, tolerance has become intolerable, because, unfortunately, tolerance has been usurped by government bureaucracy. In the government’s hands, Hasson calls the notion of tolerance “a Rasputin of an idea.” Government arrogantly marginalizes and trivializes religious faith and practice, regarding tolerance of religion as a governmental prerogative rather than as, in fact, the fundamental right of the people.

The free exercise right in the First Amendment, according to Hasson, did not unequivocally apply to all of the states. Therefore, the states continued to deny rights to, and viciously persecuted, religious minorities. For many decades, Catholics and Jews were the special targets of persecution in many states.

Chapters 11 through 13 propose “authentic freedom.” Hasson examines the roots of religious liberty, grounded in universal truth—in God—rather than left to the contingencies and vagaries of government bureaucracy. Hasson implicitly invokes St. Augustine’s observation that we will be restless and thirsty unless and until we rest in God.

Hasson then directly states his proposed way out of the morass of the Pilgrims versus the Park Rangers. It is profoundly simple; we must allow all religions to operate without restraints and in the authentic pluralism that opens the public square to all faiths. When the free exercise rights of all religions operate, as Madison insightfully observed, it necessarily precludes the unconstitutional establishment of religion.

This respect for the conscience of everyone to practice their religion without any governmental interference, Hasson submits, is the solution to ending the culture war. He maintains that we can recognize everyone’s right to free exercise of their religion without compromising our own religious beliefs. Everyone will thus strenuously protect everyone else’s “right to be wrong.”

The book has many strengths. The legal history is concisely, cogently, and provocatively presented. It is extraordinarily well-written, and it is a pleasure to read. The descriptive aspects of the book are especially compelling. Hasson surely diagnoses the many difficulties caused by the Pilgrims and the Park Rangers throughout our history.

I doubt, however, that the book ultimately provides a workable, achievable agenda for ending the culture wars. That is a very tall order indeed. I fear that the culture wars are bound to continue unabated. To offer one example, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee has announced that it will not commence hearings on the confirmation of President Bush’s nominee to the United States Supreme Court, Judge Alito, until January 9, 2006. So for the next two months, the culture wars will be at fever pitch. Respecting the free exercise rights of all in the public square will, unfortunately, not prevent or resolve the cultural battle royale already commenced over the Alito nomination.

We are more diverse, but we are not necessarily more pluralistic. We may, alas, be even more brittle in our diversity, and more wary and suspicious of the other.

Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington wrote, more than a decade ago, the book that is becoming the classic book of the post-Cold War era—The Clash of Civilizations. His thesis was that Muslims in the West are an “indigestible minority.” Hasson takes a more optimistic view. He properly celebrates, for example, being taken seriously by Al-Jazeera TV (despite a call-in from “Mohammed from Mecca” who condemned him as an infidel) because he successfully defended the free exercise right of two Newark Police Officers, who were Sunni Muslims, to wear beards and to keep their jobs. “I had demonstrated respect for their consciences by successfully defending their rights. This, in turn, had won me a respectful hearing as to just why they should dialogue with this infidel rather than peremptorily wage jihad on me.”

Terrific. Unfortunately, Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl, who also unfailingly treated Muslims with great respect, found that was no defense when Islamofascists brutally beheaded him.

While Kevin Hasson is an astute scholar and a terrific lawyer, he may underestimate the growing clash of civilizations—tellingly, the great book is not cited, let alone addressed, in The Right To Be Wrong. For the foreseeable future, the culture wars will continue to rage. The good news is that the intrepid Kevin Hasson and the Becket Fund will continue their important positive work undeterred. Perhaps in a subsequent volume, or, better yet, in a spring 2006 epilogue to the present book, and after the Alito nomination plays out, Hasson will be able to chart an even more compelling path out of the culture wars.

See p. 2 for book order information.

After what Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) did, Bill Donohue called his friend Don Feder, president of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, to join forces against Foxman’s recklessness.

During the first weekend in November, Foxman met with members of his national commission in New York. According to an article in the November 7 edition of Haaretz.com (a large Israeli news outlet), Foxman warned the group of alleged efforts by Evangelical organizations to “Christianize America.”

Foxman said, “Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!”

How about them apples? Christians entertaining a Christian worldview in a nation that is 85 percent Christian! It would be instructive to learn from Foxman precisely whose views Christians should be expected to entertain.

Foxman identified Focus on the Family, Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association and the Family Research Council as the “major players.” He accused them of wanting “to Christianize all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional, collegiate and amateur sports; from the military to SpongeBobSquarePants. No effort is made to hide their goals or their ambitions, and their vision of America is far different from ours.”

In other words, Christians are taking over America—better man the gates. Isn’t this just the type of claptrap that the ADL regularly complains about when similar things are said about Jews? Moreover, Foxman talks about Christianity as if it were a disease that Jews need to be inoculated against. Doesn’t he realize that—as many Jews have said—it is because the U.S. is rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethos that Jews have fared so well here?

After reading these remarks, Don Feder issued the following statement: “Abe Foxman is hysterical, paranoid and agenda driven. There is no conspiracy to Christianize America unless Foxman considers keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance and maintaining the traditional definition of marriage to be Christianizing America. Where does Foxman think the so-called Christianizers got the morality they are trying to force on America? From the Bible! The Torah is the foundation of Western ethics.”

Bill Donohue said: “For Foxman to demonize Christians is morally reprehensible. And as Don Feder suggests, his comments reek of a profound historical ignorance. Foxman now has to answer to both the Christian and Jewish communities for the damage he has done.”

Just in time for the release of the film The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on the the first book of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, comes Ted Baehr’s, Narnia Beckons.

This study of Lewis’ work will delight readers with abundant illustrations and in-depth scholarly analyses. Christians of all ages stand to gain from the thoughtful questions Narnia Beckons provides for religious reflection.

This fine volume is available from all major booksellers.

It has been 10 years since the Catholic League raised its dues by $5 for family households (dues for seniors remained unchanged). During this time, the cost of everything associated with the Catholic League has steadily increased—postage, printing, salaries, rent, office supplies, electricity, maintenance, housekeeping, telephones, computers, etc.

We have good news. Notwithstanding these increases, the board of directors of the Catholic League has decided not to increase your membership dues. Why? Because we want to keep you, and we know that for some of you, any increase might prove to be prohibitive.

But we do have one request: those of you who are in a position to give more, please do so. As you know, we have appeals every other month: February, April, June, August, October and December. The money that is left over after paying for the cost of whatever project our appeal is about goes back into our operating account. It’s the only way we can pay our bills.

Thank you for your consideration, and for your generosity.

Our troubles with Wal-Mart began when a woman e-mailed the company complaining about its policy of encouraging its employees to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” The response she got, from a Customer Service employee by the name of Kirby, was astounding. Here’s what Kirby said (we are reproducing his statement exactly as it was sent, errors and all):

“Walmart is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this. The majority of the world still has different practices other than ‘christmas’ which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberain shamanism. The colors associated with ‘christmas’ red and white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom. Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world.”

The woman then e-mailed Kirby’s statement to us. Our first reaction was that this was obviously the work of some underling. Wal-Mart, being a behemoth of an organization, could not possibly police everyone in every department. But we decided that Wal-Mart’s top public relations person should know about this; we were curious to see what he or she might say.

So we e-mailed Kirby’s remark to Dan Fogleman, Wal-Mart’s senior manager in public relations. To our surprise, Fogleman not did not disagree with Kirby, and even proceeded to give us a lecture on diversity. Here is part of what he told us (again, we are not correcting the errors):

“As a retailer, we recognize some of our customers may be shopping for Chanukah or Kwanza gifts during this time of year and we certainly want these customers in our stores and to feel welcome, just as we do those buying for Christmas. As an employer, we recognize the significance of the Christmas holiday among our family of associates…and close our stores in observance, the only day during the year that we are closed.”

After being insulted again, we then decided to do one more thing: to see how Wal-Mart treats Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. What we found was revealing.

By typing Hanukkah into the search engine of its website, 200 items appeared. Typing Kwanzaa yielded 77 items. But when Christmas was entered, here’s what appeared on the screen: “We’ve brought you to our ‘Holiday’ page based on your search.”

That was it. On November 9, we issued a news release titled, “Wal-Mart Bans Christmas; Boycott Launched.” In it, we said that when we initially read Kirby’s statement, we assumed “he might be drunk.” We also said, “It’s nice to know that Wal-Mart is closed on a federal holiday.” We immediately contacted 126 religious groups spanning seven faith communities asking them to join with us in the boycott.

On November 10, worldnetdaily.com flagged this story on its website as the lead news story. This led to a string of interviews on talk radio around the nation. In every case, listeners were livid: they felt betrayed that the “family- friendly” retailer would do this. So they e-mailed Fogleman to let him know what they thought. Bill Donohue e-mailed Fogleman his own missive: “Now that Wal-Mart is standing by its position, I hope you’re ready for our next move. Don’t forget, we have the next six weeks to pull out all the stops, and we will.”

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jolanda Steward told the press that the store was just trying to help its customers “celebrate their individual needs and wants.” To which Donohue said, “I thought Wal-Mart was a department store—not a Wellness Center.”

Then Donohue got hold of the e-mail address of a senior Wal-Mart official, Ryan Loken, sending him the following note:

“Wal-Mart has made a huge mistake taking us on just at the start of the Christmas buying season. Why you are keeping Fogleman on as your PR man is mind-boggling. Have you seen worldnetdaily.com? Are you aware that our staff has been doing one radio talk show interview after another all day, with many more scheduled? Ask Fogleman how many e-mails he has received and what people are saying.

“The Left has unfairly attacked Wal-Mart for years. But now you’ve angered your base—conservative Christians.

“To put an end to our boycott, read the news release I wrote today. I’m not asking for the moon. But I will tell you this much: we have the money, time and determination necessary to keep this up for the next six weeks. In other words, the ball is in your court.”

The November 10 news release listed three demands: “We want a) an apology for insulting Christians by effectively banning Christmas b) a withdrawal of its insane statement regarding the origins of Christmas and c) a revision on its website.”

When Donohue got to work early on November 11, news reports were carrying the Wal-Mart apology, saying that Kirby had been fired. Then Donohue checked Wal-Mart’s website and found that by typing Christmas in its search engine, customers were taken to the Christmas site. We thus declared victory and an end to the boycott.

By November 3, the Catholic League had already seen the first attempts to censor Christmas in 2005. Bill Donohue had to this say:

“The regional director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in San Diego announced this week his disdain for ‘Christmas programs’ and his support for ‘winter programs.’ Morris S. Casuto explained his reasoning by saying, ‘School and public events should be designed to enable diverse communities to participate without feeling left out or marginalized.’

“When Casuto hears about what’s happening this year at Marshall University in West Virginia, he’ll be dancing in the street: they’ve instituted a decoration contest emphasizing non-Christmas symbols. ‘The main idea in our contest is to enrich [the] campus according to the winter tradition,’ explains Christina Burgueno, associate professor of modern languages and a member of the contest committee. Her reasoning? ‘There is such an amount of diversity right now at our campus. We want to celebrate the traditions of other people, people from other places.’

“Following Casuto’s logic, the schools should ban Black History Month because it leaves white kids ‘feeling left out or marginalized.’ As for Burgueno, it’s nice to know she feels it is necessary to emphasize diversity at Christmastime so that those other people’ can feel included. Just imagine her reaction if straight kids on her campus organized a ‘Straight Is Great’ celebration during Gay Pride Week? That would sure make for diversity.

“They really do hate Christmas, don’t they?”

The Catholic League was bombarded with complaints on the morning of November 4. Those who contacted the league were upset by “Secrets and Flies,” the November 3 episode of the CBS program CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. “Secrets and Flies” revolves around the murder of Christina, a single mother. After an autopsy reveals that Christina was a virgin, it is learned that she adopted a fertilized embryo from Project Sunflower, an organization devoted to finding surrogate mothers for abandoned embryos.

Here’s what Catholic League president Bill Donohue had to say:

“A talented writer could easily spin an interesting who-done-it from this plot, but CSI chose to advance a pro-abortion rights agenda by portraying those who are opposed to abortion as religious nuts not to be taken seriously. The murder victim, who gave life to a baby who would otherwise be left to die, is described as a ‘prude’ for being chaste. A remark is made about her being ‘our Virgin Mary.’

“According to the CSI website, the doctor in charge of Project Sunflower is ‘a very unlikable woman.’ The pro-abortion rights forensic investigators sneer at her work and beliefs, informing us that a pope once decreed that a baby isn’t a human until quickening. (Of course, it is not explained that the Church has always considered abortion to be illicit, regardless of the status of the baby. Never mind the fact that we have learned a few new things about biology in a few hundred years.)

“It is a rare Hollywood big-wig who doesn’t embrace the right to abortion. Clearly, those in charge at CSI don’t buck convention. ‘Secrets and Flies’ speaks volumes about the way CBS executives view those who hold pro-life convictions.

“Americans who respect human life in all of its stages have become the target of public ridicule. Enough is enough. Let CBS know how you feel by visiting the station’s website and submitting your feedback at http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/fb_global_form.shtml.”