Feminists from the New York chapter of the National Organi-zation for Women (NOW) exploited Christmas by singing carols laced with vulgar lyrics. Their stunt was done in protest of Donald Trump’s election victory.
The activists showed up outside the Trump Tower and other venues. They promoted “holiday gifts for nasty women,” acting more like pornographers than gift givers. No wonder NOW’s numbers are collapsing—its appeal is limited to the crazies.
If a priest is accused of inappropriately touching a minor, it makes the news. When other segments of society—teachers, Hollywood studio executives, therapists—are accused, the media show much less interest, and sometimes practically none at all. The latter is now evident in the way most media outlets treated the story about USA Gymnastics that recently broke.
Over the years, IndyStar, the home page of the Indianapolis Star, has done fine work covering the sexual abuse of gymnasts, but nothing can compare with the report it released on December 15. It is the most comprehensive examination of USA Gymnastics ever issued (USA Gymnastics is headquartered in Indianapolis). Its investigation found widespread abuse: 115 adults at every level of the sport were accused of molestation.
The study reflects an IndyStar-USA Today Network review of “hundreds of police files and court cases across the country”; its findings are stunning.
Not all gyms are members of USA Gymnastics, but it is the nation’s largest gymnastics organization, and it is the most influential body affecting a path to the Olympics. Its membership includes more than 125,000 athletes, 25,000 professional members (coaches, et al.), and 3,450 clubs.
One of the most disturbing findings was the way USA Gymnastics dealt with Doug Boger. In 2009, he was named USA Gymnastics Coach of the Year and was sent with the U.S. team to the World Championships in St. Petersburg, Russia. He was also under investigation at the time for molesting women gymnasts in the 1980s. Incredibly, officials at the organization said that those who awarded Boger Coach of the Year were unaware of the probe.
When children as young as 6 are secretly photographed by coaches, and a 12-year-old is molested during a “therapy session,” something is seriously wrong. That a coach can have sex on an almost daily basis with a 14-year-old at one of the most prestigious gyms in the nation—supposedly unbeknownst to everyone—is just too much to believe.
What does USA Gymnastics do about these cases? The reporters found that “it makes no effort to track fired coaches moving through its system of independent gyms, or to enforce many of the rules it recommends for its members.” This explains why Jeffrey Bettman was able to make 469 videos of 49 gymnasts in changing rooms, many of them naked or partly naked; they ranged in age from 8 to 16. He was repeatedly fired from gyms, and no one bothered to track him.
To their credit, the reporters cite the progress made by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in handling cases of priestly sexual abuse. The reporters note that the bishops “adopted restrictions that exceed those of USA Gymnastics.”
The media blackout is inexcusable. The only story in the New York Times was a 93-word story taken from a French media outlet. The Washington Post has said nothing, save for a blog post. The AP ignored the report altogether. TV broadcast news and the cable TV networks were no better.
There were a few web posts by these outlets on the IndyStar report, but that was about it.
No media outlet was worse than the Boston Globe. When it comes to priests, this newspaper pulls out all the stops, garnering the interest of Hollywood to make the film, “Spotlight.” But it has said nothing about USA Gymnastics.
As if to prove us right about its selective interest in this subject, the Boston Globe had a front-page story in its December 11 Metro section titled, “Across New England, Outdated Sexual Abuse Laws Contain Loopholes that Fail to Protect Students.” The first sentence is about a teenage girl who was involved in a sexual relationship seven years ago in a Catholic high school with her Spanish teacher.
Oh, yes, it did say something about other schools. “A national study suggested sexual misconduct is common at public schools as well.” That was it in a 2000-word story. There have actually been many studies, and none “suggested” anything. To cite one example, a decade ago the AP ran a series on the public schools that was rich in detail.
The public schools are home to “passing the trash” (moving predators from one school district to another). Moreover, tenure regulations make it all but impossible to fire child rapists. And this is going on right now, though readers of the Boston Globe would never know it. The reporters are too busy securing allegations against Father Murphy for groping a kid 50 years ago.
Kudos to IndyStar reporters Tim Evans, Mark Alesia, and Marisa Kwiatkowski for doing such a splendid job. And shame on the rest of the media, most especially the Boston Globe.
The following article written by Bill Donohue was recently published by CNSNews.com.
U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks has put a pro-life provision on hold in Texas. At issue is a new rule requiring that the remains of children killed in utero by an abortionist must be buried or cremated.
The new rules were written by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission “to protect the dignity of the unborn.” Governor Greg Abbott agreed, saying that fetal remains should not be “treated like medical waste and disposed of in landfills.”
The new regulations, which have the backing of Texas bishops, do not apply to women who have abortions or miscarriages at home, nor do they require birth and death certificates, or a funeral; the latter were considered an invasion of the woman’s privacy.
No matter, the rule makes a clear political and cultural statement: abortion kills. There is no legitimate argument to the contrary. After all, burial and cremation are predicated on, and indeed are expressive of, life. We don’t bury and cremate inanimate objects.
As expected, the new provisions were condemned by Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the entire abortion industry. An official at the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute expressed grave concerns about how “the products of conception,” as she called them, will be treated. Her sanitized language masks the reality of what is, in actual fact, the tissue and organs of a human being.
Some of the opponents of the new rules are Satanic. I choose my words carefully. To be exact, the Satanic Temple is a big advocate of abortion and a vocal adversary of the new regulations. Its members say the new Texas requirement “goes against their religious belief” in the “inviolability of one’s body.”
The Satanic Temple claims to be a “non-theistic religious organization dedicated to Satanic practice and the promotion of Satanic rights.” So what are these rights? The Satanic Temple’s top issues are abortion and gay marriage (it has no position on climate change).
What do the adherents of the Satanic Temple do when they meet? They dance, visit porn rooms, celebrate phallic imagery, and engage in sadomasochistic acts. They also like nudity. This is obviously a very unconventional religion. Apparently, it has no choir.
The most radical chapter of this organization is the Satanic Temple of Detroit. It is livid over the new Texas rules.
Last spring, when pro-life Americans protested Planned Parenthood, the Detroit chapter responded by crashing these events dressed “in bondage fetish wear, baby masks and diapers and engaged in group flagellation.” They called this their “Satanic BDSM Babies” stunt (bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism and masochism). “The action was intended to expose fetal idolatry and the perpetuation of fictional, coercive propaganda” against Planned Parenthood.
The Satanic Temple of Detroit is run by someone who goes by the pseudonym, Jex Blackmore. The Texas regulations are driving her crazy. She is urging her fellow Satanists to “mail their sperm-soaked rags, socks and condoms to Governor Abbott’s office.”
Blackmore is obsessed with abortion, so much so that she induced an abortion on Thanks-giving, 2015, and then blogged about it. What was it like? I’ll let her speak for herself.
“Well, you basically go into labor. You have contractions. The experience is a little different for everyone, but I know several women who have told me stories that were similar to my experience. The pain starts off like normal menstrual cramps but then it becomes intense, deeper. It’s certainly manageable, but about an hour or so before I passed pregnancy tissue I experienced blinding pain. It was really intense, but as soon as it was over, it was over. There wasn’t a gradual decrease in pain; it was really painful and then it was done.”
Blackmore may be extreme, but what she champions—homicide in the womb—is embraced by many. Thank God Texans are showing their grit. Hopefully, Judge Sparks will not permanently block its implementation.
Bloomington, Indiana Mayor John Hamilton stuck his middle finger in the face of all Christians by taking his axe to Good Friday. And he did so in the name of tolerance, diversity, and inclusion. He also nixed Columbus Day.
The name Good Friday offends the censorial mayor, and that is why he renamed it “Spring Holiday”; Columbus Day offends him as well, which is why it will forever be known as “Fall Holiday.” He did not say why Martin Luther King, Jr. Day would not be renamed “Winter Holiday.”
Let’s be honest. Hamilton would not rename Martin Luther King, Jr. Day “Winter Holiday” because he does not want to offend blacks. He opted to rename Good Friday “Spring Holiday” because he doesn’t mind offending Christians. Yes, it is just that simple.
“These updated names for two days of well-merited time off is another way we can demonstrate our commitment to inclusivity,” Hamilton said. Inclusivity is a ruse—it is a multicultural weapon used to foster intolerance of our Judeo-Christian heritage. In actual fact, Christians are being excluded by denying recognition of a central day in their religious calendar.
If Hamilton were honest, he would simply cancel Good Friday and make it a workday. Instead, he exploits a Christian holiday so that government workers can freeload off the taxpayers in the name of celebrating springtime. There is no “well-merited” meaning to that contrived argument.
Mayor Hamilton comes from a home where religious bigotry is not only tolerated, it is celebrated. His wife is Dawn Johnsen, an Alt-Left extremist and anti-Catholic activist.
In 2010, the Catholic League waged a successful battle against her: Johnsen was forced to withdraw her name from nomination to head President Obama’s Office of Legal Counsel. As Bill Donohue explained, “we have been on a relentless PR campaign alerting the public, and U.S. senators, to her anti-Catholic record. On April 9, our wish came true: she withdrew her name from nomination.”
Why did we oppose her? On March 4, 2010, Donohue wrote to every member of the senate asking just one question: “Are you aware that Dawn Johnsen, who will be voted upon by the full Senate, sought to strip the Roman Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status in 1988?” At that time, Johnsen supported an attempt by the ACLU and others to rescind the Catholic Church’s tax exempt status because of its pro-life position.
The radical secular assault on our religious ethos must be fought every time the religious cleansers rear their ugly head. This is what we did with Mayor Hamilton.
“Family Guy” is a typically juvenile prime time cartoon show that airs on Fox. Its Christmas episode that aired on December 11 was true to form, and most of its adolescent humor would not have drawn a response from us. But the show crossed the line with its mockery of the Eucharist.
As the show’s Griffin family debated whether to go to church or go sledding on Sunday morning, Dad said, “after all, sledding was the second passion of the Christ.” With that, Jesus was shown sledding down a mountain, saying, “Eat this, for this is my dust.”
The “passion” comment was silly, and the humorous image of Jesus sledding didn’t offend us. But the Eucharist is sacred: the body and blood of Christ, the source and summit of our Catholic faith. It is not fair game for ridicule.
On the same day that we took Fox’s “Family Guy” to task for their episode ridiculing the Eucharist, we also called out Turner Broadcasting’s TruTV for “Rachel Dratch’s Late Night Snack.” This television program also mocked this most sacred of Catholic sacraments.
The offensive skit featured a pitch man’s voice promoting “Cheez-Its Christ” as “the one, true, mid-day Communion snack that belongs in your child’s lunch box.” For good measure, the skit also threw in a shot at the Catholic sacrament of Penance: “Cheez-Its Christ. The only snack that fills them up and absolves their sins.”
We know it was the Christmas season, which to Hollywood is always open season on Catholics. But apparently their hatred is so deep that they must sink to attacking the very essence of our faith. They know the centrality of the Eucharist to Roman Catholics, which is precisely why they defamed it. Many Americans, as we recently witnessed, are fed up with these politically correct assaults. We can only hope that in 2017 more Americans push back stronger than ever.
The following article written by Bill Donohue was recently featured on CNSNews.com.
After Hillary Clinton lost the election, she, her staff, and her supporters were sent reeling. Many have yet to recuperate.
In times past, such distraught persons would be attended to by priests, ministers, and rabbis, but today they have been replaced by grief counselors and puppies. Coloring books and playdough were given to soothe the anguish of law students at the University of Michigan, and therapists of every shade of grey were summoned to talk to the afflicted.
Others rioted. They baited the police, beat up Trump supporters, destroyed property, and tied up traffic. Some were pros—veterans of Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter. Others were brats: affluent young men and women so bored with life that they spend most of their waking hours microanalyzing perceived microaggressions against them. For relief, they take to the streets, providing it is not raining or too chilly.
We are now in the third stage of this post-election trauma: the weeping and the violence have given way to hysteria. It is being led by left-wing activists, left-wing politicians, and left-wing media outlets. They are laboring to convince Americans that we are witnessing an unprecedented increase in bigotry, all traceable to Donald Trump.
Since the election, no organization has done more to promote the myth that bigoted offenses are spiking than the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). That its data are weak is incontestable, but that hasn’t stopped the mainstream media from treating its claims as gospel.
On November 28, the SPLC released a report, “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the 2016 Presidential Election on Our Nation’s Schools.” It is being touted by the media as proof positive that Trump has triggered an avalanche of bigotry. But a more sober judgment reveals that the report is so methodologically flawed that it would not receive a passing grade in any second-tier graduate school.
The SPLC says that over 2,500 educators described “incidents of bigotry and harassment that can be directly traced to election results.” The survey, however, is scientifically invalid. To be specific, it was not a random sample of educators; rather, it was a self-selected, and therefore spurious, online survey. Worse, only those educators who subscribe to the SPLC newsletter, “Teaching Tolerance,” knew of it.
“The Trump Effect” is short on hard data and long on anecdote. It lists one uncontested observation after another, most of which undercut its own thesis about the gravity of current conditions. For example, a high school teacher in New Jersey writes, “The day after the election I had a group of Hispanic girls in my homeroom targeted by a boy who told them Trump was going to deport their families.”
If this is proof of how out-of-control matters are—one boy voicing his ignorance—the reporting teacher has nothing to worry about. In Chicago, black kids live in fear of being killed every day, and bigotry has nothing to do with it.
The SPLC is also sounding the alarms over an alleged increase in hate crimes. It says that in the first 10 days after the election, there were 867 “hate-related incidents” across the nation. Not surprisingly, it blames Trump. In actual fact, that number represents offenses submitted by SPLC supporters, all of which lack independent verification. Yet these “findings” are being passed off by sympathetic journalists as if they were dispositive. The SPLC even admits that “many” of the incidents reported “remain anecdotal.”
It is not just journalists who are following the lead of the SPLC, many in government are as well. For example, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman recently held a press conference with civil rights leaders imploring the public to “stand up to hate.” What made his effort such a failure was his decision to enlist the support of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, an organization known more for promoting hate than combating it.
So where are they getting their evidence, besides the SPLC? Hotlines help. They have recently been set up in New York and Massachusetts, as well as in some cities on the west coast. Who’s calling the authorities? In most cases, it is precisely those demographic groups that have been instructed by educators, over and over again, that they constitute an exploited minority, victimized by white, Christian, heterosexual males.
What exactly are they reporting? Intimidation.
The FBI hate crime statistics for 2015 lists intimidation as the number-one reported offense—it counts for over 40 percent of all such crimes. Yet nowhere does the FBI offer a precise definition of what constitutes “intimidation”; they rely on reporting precincts for the numbers. A standard legal definition says, “Intimidation means to make fearful or to put into fear.”
Given the elasticity of what constitutes intimidation, it is not surprising that hate crimes are reportedly increasing at a time when cultural and political divisions are worsening. What is most striking about this subject, however, is the dishonesty that marks the conversation: the same persons who say that obscenity laws are suspect because they rely on subjective judgments are quick to elevate intimidation to a mantle of objectivity. But if obscenity is in the eye of the beholder, and therefore meaningless, what makes judgments about intimidation meaningful?
The left is very good at playing these games, and no one is better at it than the SPLC. It has perfected the politicization of hate crimes.