Pope Benedict XVI was a towering intellectual, something he shared with his predecessor, St. John Paul II. His philosophical and theological writings will be studied for decades. But it was his courage that endeared him to so many Catholics.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he served St. John Paul II as enforcer of the Church’s doctrinal teachings. He did so with prudence and justice, setting an example for those who would come after him in this post.

In 2006, he sparked much controversy for his comments on Islam. In his address at Regensburg University, he said, “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

Unfortunately, most of the media did not emphasize that he twice said, “I quote.” He was referring to a remark made by a 14th century Byzantine emperor. Cardinal Ratzinger’s point was that faith and reason must exist together, and just as the universities must be criticized for promoting radical skepticism—reason without faith—there are those who purport to be followers of religion who promote faith without reason. Both are unacceptable.

In 2005, the day before Ratzinger assumed his duties as pontiff, he addressed the cardinals in Rome. He spoke about the “doctrine of relativism,” the popular and pernicious notion that there are no moral absolutes, and no moral hierarchy of virtues.

In the same historic Good Friday homily, he unloaded on abusive priests. “How much filth there is in the Church, even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!”

No one did more to purge the Church of the homosexual subculture than Benedict. He made it clear that men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should not become priests.

Benedict’s critics were often as inaccurate as they were unfair. Laurie Goodstein of the New York Times wrote in 2013 that Benedict never removed predators from the priesthood. She was wrong. All total, from 2005 to 2013, he defrocked some eight hundred molesting priests.

Benedict’s detractors called him “God’s Rottweiler” for being too draconian in his sanctions against dissidents. They were factually wrong. No one’s license to teach theology was pulled and no one was fired from teaching at a Catholic college or university because of Rome’s intervention.

Bill Donohue is proud of the fact that the New York Times called him the “Rottweiler’s Rottweiler,” a backhanded tribute to his strong defense of him.

Pope Benedict XVI was a selfless man, and his contributions to the Church, both in word and in deed, will be heralded for years to come.

The Catholic League movie “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” is set to open on several media platforms. Please check our website for information on where it can be accessed (when we went to print this matter was being fine-tuned).

We will report in the March issue the kind of reception the documentary garnered, but the early indications suggest it will be a hit. We put a lot of effort and money into this project, knowing the time was right to take on Disney.

Disney, of course, is just a microcosm of what is wrong with our culture. But it symbolizes how aggressive the ruling class has become in shoving its secular agenda down our throats. That’s why we made the movie.

Here’s some good news that is not widely known. An investor, Kenneth Simeone, has filed a 22-page lawsuit against Disney demanding the company turn over its internal records about its opposition to the Florida law that seeks to stop sexualizing children in the public schools. This could prove to be very revealing.

Had the previous Disney CEO, Bob Chapek, agreed to meet with Tony Perkins, the evangelical leader, and Bill Donohue, perhaps the company would have been able to skirt the problems it is now experiencing. But that’s now too late.

The first public showing of the movie trailer was at the Legatus event in New York City (see p. 2). It was very well received. We expect that the movie will also hit a chord.

William A. Donohue

No institution in American history has been more resolute in its opposition to abortion than the Catholic Church. Protestants and Jews were almost in lockstep praising Roe v. Wade in 1973, largely because our side was against it. Then things changed.

In the 1970s, evangelical Protestants moved away from their reflexive anti-Catholicism and took a more sober look at what abortion entailed. They joined our side. Regrettably, most of the mainline Protestants—the United Church of Christ, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, American Baptists, and Episcopalians—stayed in the abortion rights camp.

Among Jews, those who are observant—the practicing Jews—may not share the Catholic understanding of abortion altogether, but they are much closer to us than they are to their secular cousins; they clearly reject abortion-on-demand. Unfortunately, most Jews are secularists and are therefore on the pro-abortion side.

The political parties flipped in the 1970s. The Republicans, led by the WASP elite, were always on the side of the abortion activists. They founded Planned Parenthood with Rockefeller money, quietly saying that abortion was the answer to the “urban problem,” meaning blacks. By the end of the decade, most Republicans became pro-life.

Until the 1970s, the Democrats, led by Catholics, wanted nothing to do with abortion. But the radical feminists booted Catholics from power and took over the party. In the early 1970s, Sen. Edward Kennedy wrote passionately against abortion (I have a copy of one of his letters) and Rev. Jesse Jackson said it was “genocide” against black people. Both became abortion proponents by the end of the decade.

All along, the Catholic Church stood fast. We were the only ones who were both consistent and on the right side of the issue. We should never forget that, and indeed more Catholic students should be made aware of this verity.

After almost a half century of legal abortion, the issue was returned to the states last year. We are now in the post-Roe era, and this means we must adjust our strategies to meet current needs.

Ever since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, many in the pro-life camp decided to change state laws in a dramatic fashion, hoping to make abortion illegal in every case, or at least in most cases. Voters, who certainly did not approve of the very liberal abortion laws in the states prior to Dobbs, did not want to go full circle either. They hit the pause button on initiatives that would ban virtually all abortions.

The all-or-nothing strategy doesn’t work. We need to start with the most indefensible of all abortions—late term abortions—and work our way back. If we have a choice of trying to ban all abortions, and failing, and banning many of them, and succeeding, the latter is preferable. After all, each abortion not performed means another life saved.

We also need to challenge the myth that everyone who is an abortion rights advocate is not truly pro-abortion. While this may be true of most Americans on the abortion rights side, it is not true of all of them, and it most certainly is not true of abortion activists who exploit women by telling them they should feel good about their abortions.

The Nation magazine is the oldest radical left-wing publication in the country. In the last century, it proudly defended Stalin, even after his mass murders were exposed. Virulently pro-abortion, it recently offered a Thanksgiving gift to its readers. It published the comments of nine women who bragged about their abortions. Six of them admitted to having more than one.

The common denominator was their happiness over having children when they felt like it. One woman said, “I am thankful for both of my abortions. I am thankful that I didn’t want to be a parent then, so I didn’t have to be a parent then (her italics).” Another woman said, “I am thankful for the freedom of self. Some people may call this selfish, but I don’t think it is.” The others voiced similar sentiments.

Their self-absorption is stunning. It’s all about me. What I want and when I want it. They make it sound like they are ordering from a fast-food joint, tailoring their order to fit their wants.
The men in their lives come out as winners. After they get what they want, they hand over their credit card and tell their pregnant girlfriend (if she is even that) to get rid of the baby on her lunch hour.

Young women need to be educated. Not about sex—unwanted pregnancies and STDs have spiked since sex ed became mandatory decades ago—but about being exploited. They need to know that there are legions of men who will use them as a means to their ends. They need a radical wake-up call.

The young men also need to be educated, morally speaking. They need to learn why engaging in reckless sex hurts themselves and others, and they need adult men to tell them this to their face.

We won on Roe, and now we have to set our sights on more victories. We need to adjust our sails, without ever losing our resolve.

Michael P. McDonald, Director of Communications

The forces working to undermine the Catholic Church and our Judeo-Christian values doubled-down in 2022. One might expect a traditional-minded organization to focus on mitigating losses; however, the Catholic League went on the offense undertaking many bold projects and played a significant part in the major culture war victories of the last year.

The biggest of these projects was the making of our documentary “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom: How Disney is Losing its Way.” It has a star-studded cast, and Jason Meath, the film’s director, did a magnificent job. We anticipate it will garner a wide audience when it is released in January 2023.

Another major undertaking was a survey of Catholics for the 60th anniversary of Vatican II. We did this to counter the narrative that Catholics were largely dissatisfied with the Church and wanted to see changes. To this end, we contracted McLaughlin & Associates to conduct the poll. They did great work, and the results will greatly help us set the record straight for years to come.

We also filed an amicus brief in 303 Creative LLC v Elenis. This case involves a Christian web designer, Lorie Smith, who launched a preemptive strike against the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act: it would require her to build wedding websites for “gay marriages.” Represented by the Pittsburgh law firm of Gallagher Giancola, we support Lorie Smith in her quest to maintain her First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court will rule on this in 2023.

While we undertook these bold projects, there were several key victories before the high court. One case involved the religious rights of a football coach, who lost his job because he prayed on the field following games. The other involved the state of Maine discriminating against religious schools.

While both of these victories are important, the most critical decision from the Supreme Court in 2022 was the reversal of Roe v. Wade. After nearly 50 years of determined efforts by Catholics across the country, Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the 5-4 majority in Dobbs v. Jackson, held that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.” That is why, he said, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Many organizations, particularly the Catholic Church, kept the fight for life going over the years, and in doing so, they contributed to this victory. We, too, played an active role in keeping this issue in front of the public through scores of media appearances.

Even before the ruling came out, the pro-abortion fanatics desecrated two of the most prominent Catholic churches in the nation. On January 20, 2022 during the Vigil for Life at the National Basilica in D.C., Catholics for Choice used a light projector to broadcast their anti-Catholic message.

Two days later, another anti-Catholic outfit, New York City for Abortion Rights, projected “God Loves Abortion” and other vile slogans on the exterior of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Supporters of the group shouted obscenities at pro-life Catholics entering and exiting the Cathedral.

Then in May, when a draft decision was leaked suggesting the Supreme Court was prepared to overturn Roe, the pro-abortion fanatics began to increase their violence. When the court ultimately ruled in June, things reached a fever pitch.

We put together a representative list of the incidents of violence against Catholics so we could call for action from the proper authorities.

To this end, we sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to investigate Jane’s Revenge, a radical pro-abortion group that uses domestic terrorists’ tactics. Rather than take action against physical violence perpetrated against Catholics, the leadership of the overtly politicized Department of Justice (DOJ) chose to target pro-life activists instead.

On September 23, a Catholic pro-life activist, Mark Houck, was arrested by two dozen FBI agents—they came into his house with guns drawn—for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

This kind of overreaction for a minor infraction of the law is deeply troubling, and it becomes even more troubling when paired with the DOJ’s under-reaction to attacks on the pro-life side.

We wrote to the FBI and DOJ about this, but when they did not get back to us, we contacted several congressional leaders calling on them to hold the FBI and DOJ accountable.

While it is troubling enough for Federal law enforcement to target Catholics, equally disturbing was the silence of prominent Catholics in Washington when pro-abortion radicals attacked Catholics. Both President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “devout Catholics,” remained mute on these instances of violence.

For his part, Biden has grown more radical over the years in his support for abortion. This is evident in the people he has working around him. Six of the eight Catholics in his cabinet have long track records of championing abortion. Another prominent figure in Biden’s White House is John Podesta, who previously tried to orchestrate a “Catholic Spring” to encourage Catholics to revolt against Church teachings.

In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, even the corporations decided to join the radicals on the abortion issue. We made a tally of the companies that announced they would pay for abortions in their healthcare plans, thus short-circuiting states with laws protecting the unborn.

In addition to abortion, transgenderism—the dangerous idea that the sexes are interchangeable—was another major flashpoint in the culture war in 2022.

While it is bad enough that the Biden administration is promoting this fantasy, it took steps to thwart efforts by the states to protect children and promote the truth. Fortunately, several governors, particularly FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, pushed back against Biden’s tyrannical tactics.

But Biden’s most dangerous proposal was the effort to amend Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. ObamaCare) to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex to include “sexual orientation and gender identity.” This would utterly shatter the religious liberty protections of Catholic hospitals and force them to provide transgender services. Beyond infringing on the First Amendment rights of Catholics, it would threaten the well-being of children.

During the public comment period, we asked Catholic League members to register their complaints by strongly emphasizing this threat to religious liberty. While this might not have been enough to totally deter Biden from his objective, it sent a strong message to Washington.

While the Biden Administration was promoting transgenderism and actively undermining religious liberty, the courts were pushing back. Two appellate courts ruled that other Biden initiatives could not force Catholic hospitals and doctors to perform transgender procedures.

Additionally, corporations joined in promoting transgenderism in the past year. Twitter was one of the worst offenders. This prompted us to send a letter to Twitter after the company began sanctioning people for complaining about a male University of Pennsylvania swimmer competing on the women’s team.

But perhaps the biggest promoter of transgenderism was academia. We even had to call out the U.S. Air Force Academy for promoting it. Many prestigious private schools, too, taught this twisted ideology to young students behind their parents’ backs.

The most egregious incident occurred at Tennessee Tech when a drag performer partnered with a student group to put on a display of anti-Catholic bigotry. Fortunately, the university president condemned this outrage cancelling all campus events by the groups involved. He said that he was “also offended by disparaging mockery toward any religious group.”

In addition to being heavily involved in the fight against abortion and transgenderism, we had to contend with expressions of anti-Catholicism that we thought were long over.

We had to confront Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. She insulted Catholics by saying “Satan’s controlling the Church.” We called for an apology. When she refused, we sent a letter to the House Ethics Committee calling on them to levy sanctions against her for her anti-Catholic remarks. Greene is an outspoken Republican, and this exchange highlighted our independent streak.

Additionally, we had to call for an investigation of a DOJ lawyer who labeled organizations promoting religious liberty “hate groups.”

We had to intervene after Bridget Fleming, a member of the legislature for Suffolk County, Long Island, introduced a resolution that would have forced all prayers before official business to be “neutral.” We quickly sprung into action and within hours, Fleming’s resolution was dead. We were happy to help because this resolution was in response to an invocation led by Msgr. Robert Batule, who is on our board of directors.

We also had to get involved when the assistant principal of a school in Connecticut was caught on camera saying he would never hire a Catholic teacher “because if someone is raised hardcore Catholic, it’s like they are brainwashed.” We wasted no time contacting officials across the state to hold him accountable.

The media have long been an antagonist of Catholics, and 2022 was no exception. In the fall the Associated Press published a hit piece complaining about the confessional seal. It had no evidence to back up its claim. When we asked the authors to see their evidence, they never got back to us.

The forces seeking to undermine our Judeo-Christian heritage love attacking Christmas, and this year was no exception. In Massachusetts, a human rights commissioner was forced to resign after making anti-Christian statements when residents wanted to display a Christmas tree in the town’s public library.

We contacted over 350 Catholics associated with Cardinal Newman chapters at colleges and universities asking them to let us know of any anti-Catholic activities around Christmas.

We condemned a play at Harvard that reimagined Jesus as a “gay Asian.” We sounded the alarm over several bloody horror movies with Christmas settings. We confronted government officials in King County, Washington seeking to limit their employees’ abilities to display Christmas decorations. We also called out a Christmas parade in Texas that included drag queens.

In a more tasteful salute to the season, we continued the decades-long tradition of displaying a nativity scene in Central Park. We do this every year not only to honor the birth of Christ, but also to help educate others who wish to display a crèche on public property about the rules.

In 2022, we were delighted to learn our work continues to earn recognition.

Bill Donohue was featured in a documentary on Mother Teresa that originally aired in May on Sky in the U.K. and Ireland; it was also seen in Israel and Australia.

Donohue also received an Honorary Doctorate of Law from Ave Maria Law School. Additionally, the Catholic Herald named him as one of the top Catholic Leaders in the United States for 2022.

While the forces working against the Catholic Church and traditional Judeo-Christian values were in overdrive in 2022, we responded with equal vigor. We undertook several major projects and played a part in the important victories in the culture war this year.

“Bob [Chapek] is the right leader at the right time for The Walt Disney Company, and the Board has full confidence in him and his leadership team.” That’s what Susan Arnold, chairman of the board, said in June when Chapek was unanimously elected to a three-year term as the Disney CEO.

On November 20, Chapek was fired. Arnold wrote, “We thank Bob Chapek for his service to Disney over his long career….”

What went wrong so fast? When the markets closed on November 18, Disney stock had lost 40% of its value last year. Disney’s streaming business lost $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter. Talk of massive layoffs and a hiring freeze have seen employee morale take a nose dive.

Among Chapek’s lousy decisions was his caving into a loud, but small, group of LGBT employees and activists. They wanted to thrust Disney into the culture war head-first by opposing a parental rights bill championed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; the bill barred teaching kids in pre-K through third grade about sexuality.

Chapek initially resisted getting involved in this issue because he didn’t think it was good policy for Disney to become a political actor. But he quickly gave in to pressure and apologized for not getting involved.

After Chapek enlisted Disney on the side of the groomers—encouraging kids to question whether they are happy being a boy or girl—he incurred a backlash. Not only did parents condemn what he did, Gov. DeSantis stripped Disney of its special tax status (the company had previously been allowed to function like a municipality).

Chapek held on but his days were numbered. So distraught were Disney executives that they have brought back Robert Iger for two years. Iger replaced Michael Eisner as CEO in 2005; after Chapek took over in 2020, he remained as chairman through 2021.

The money boys on Wall Street, who care not a fig about Disney’s war on traditional moral values, are cheering Iger’s return. Parents should not.

In 1998, five years into this job as president and CEO of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue locked horns with Iger—it was the first of many battles—when he was president of ABC. [We had recently killed the ABC show, “Nothing Sacred,” by going after the advertisers.] He had just told the National Association of Broadcasters that it was ill-advised to put the Jerry Springer show on TV. “Programs that are embarrassments to our business will, in the long run, alienate our viewers.”

Really? As Donohue pointed out in a letter to the Wall Street Journal right after Iger spoke, ABC had just aired a show, “That’s Life,” that was beyond the pale. Here is part of what he said.

“The show trashed Christ’s crucifixion, the Host, transubstantiation, Holy Water, Catholic prayers, Midnight Mass, salvation, Catholic rituals, the Vatican, the New Testament, the Stations of the Cross, Confession, nuns, priests and laypersons. That it was shown during Holy Week, with specific references to Easter, was all the more incredible.”

In 1995, two years into this job—the same year Disney bought ABC—Donohue held a press conference at the Archdiocese of New York criticizing Disney’s film distributor, Miramax, for making the anti-Catholic movie, “Priest.” Disney’s Miramax, under the tutelage of Harvey and Bob Weinstein, continued to offend Catholics by releasing a slew of bigoted flicks. In more recent times, ABC’s “The O’Neals” and “Family Guy” treated Catholics the way they would never treat LGBT people.

Iger is not content to make children’s fare that services a radical agenda. He has a passion for abortion rights. In 2019, he led Hollywood studios to gang up on Georgia over newly passed restrictions on abortion. As Donohue pointed out at the time, this was rich. Hollywood goes out of its way to eroticize the culture, sending the wrong signals to young people, and then when promiscuity leads some women to opt for an abortion, Tinseltown just winks.

Iger refuses to connect the dots, except when it comes to smoking. In 2007, Iger said Disney “will place an anti-smoking PSA [Public Service Announcement] on DVD’s of any future film that does depict smoking.”

In other words, depictions of smoking on the big screen may induce young people to smoke, but depictions of sex have no behavioral consequences. Iger knows better—he can’t have it both ways.

The governing board at Disney did not fire Chapek because he caved into the groomers. They fired him for financial reasons, not cultural ones. They are the real problem, and now they have gone back to the well, dragging up their most ethically challenged hack from the past.

Bob Chapek, who was fired as the Disney CEO, certainly made enemies in and out of Disney. But he is not entirely to blame. Much of that goes to his predecessor, and now successor, Bob Iger.

Few outside of Disney even heard of Chapek until he made a big splash sticking his nose into politics early last year. In March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, a measure that prohibits attempts to sexualize little boys and girls in grades kindergarten through third grade.

Chapek’s initial stance was to stay out of the controversy. But Iger, who had retired, couldn’t resist undercutting the man he handpicked to succeed him.

On February 24, while the bill was being debated—in Florida and around the country—Iger tweeted his opposition to it, siding with President Biden. Our “devout Catholic” president called the attempt to protect children from being sexualized “hateful.” Iger added that the bill “will put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy.”

Less than two weeks later, Chapek folded. On March 7, he pledged his opposition to parental rights. “I want to make it crystal clear: I and the entire leadership team unequivocally stand in support of our LGBTQ+ employees, their families, and their communities.” On March 11, he dug himself in deeper when he apologized to the radicals who pressured him.

It would be a mistake to think that Iger opposes parental rights for business reasons. No, he does so for moral reasons.

On March 31, CNN aired an interview that Iger had taped with Chris Wallace a few weeks earlier.

“A lot of these issues are not necessarily political. It’s about right and wrong.” Similarly, he said, “When you’re dealing with right and wrong or when you’re dealing with something that does have profound impact on your business, I just think you have to do what is right and not worry about the potential backlash to it.”

Iger’s statement could not be more clear. The man who now leads Disney thinks it is morally right for teachers to question kids about whether they are content being a boy or a girl—that is exactly the kind of grooming exercise that DeSantis, and millions of Americans, oppose.

Look for things to deteriorate further, on the moral front, at least.

Chapek’s biggest weakness was in working with the creative team at Disney. One of Iger’s first comments as CEO was to assure that this will be corrected. “It is my intention to restructure things in a way that honors and respects creativity as the heart and soul of who we are.”

By “creativity,” the woke masters at Disney mean such things as women kissing each other in children’s films. That’s why the LGBT crowd pressured executives to include a gay kiss in the movie “Lightyear.” They got what they wanted.

Well, not exactly. Disney did not show the gals kissing in the Middle Eastern and Asian version, electing not to offend Muslim despots and the Communist slavemasters in China. As for religious folks in America who would like to be spared such fare, that’s just too bad—they need to be reeducated.

It’s not just Iger who wants to morally pollute America—it’s Disney’s president Karen Burke. She likes to brag that she has “one transgender child and one pansexual child.” More important, she boasts Disney has “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters.”

Disney won’t stop until parents rebel. While there are some very encouraging signs that parents have had it, there needs to be more resistance to those who want to eroticize children. We need to teach Iger what “right and wrong” should really mean.

Candace Cameron Bure wants Christmas movies to feature moms, pops and kids, and for this she is being blasted by homosexual activists and Christian bashers in Hollywood. She has been called a “bigot,” “rude and hurtful.” And apparently she is guilty of the worst sin of them all, for using “tradition as a guise for exclusion.”

All customs and traditions are based on exclusion. In February, we celebrate Black History Month, a time of celebration that excludes everyone who is not black. In March, we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, a time of celebration that excludes everyone who is not Irish. We just got finished celebrating Veteran’s Day, excluding all non-Veterans.

Isn’t this what diversity is all about?

Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and it therefore excludes the celebration of all other religions. Christmastime is also a special time of the year for families, for children, in particular.

Now it is a fact of nature that homosexual acts are incapable of reproduction, and therefore homosexuals are denied the opportunity to naturally create a family. Does that mean that homosexuals cannot celebrate Christmas? Of course not. Celibate priests cannot naturally create a family either, but they certainly celebrate Christmas.

Everyone is able to celebrate Christmas, but no one has the right to hijack the holiday to promote their own agenda. It’s time gay activists showed more respect for traditional moral values and stopped with the vitriol against practicing Christians like Candace Cameron Bure.

In December, President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, codifying gay marriage. Among the guests invited were Marti Gould Cummings. “To be a non binary drag queen artist invited to the White House is something I never imagined would happen.”

Cummings is not who he says he is. There is no such thing as a “non-binary” person—such creatures are a figment of his imagination. In 2019, he was more honest when he said, “I’m a gay man in dress.”

Why was a drag queen invited to a White House ceremony heralding same-sex marriage? It is telling that it did.

Drag queens have nothing to do with the lives of most homosexuals, but they are integral to the radical LGBT agenda. And what is that agenda? To normalize homosexuality, beginning with two-year olds. This is not an exaggeration. Here’s the proof.

Cummings is known to partake in Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH), seizing the opportunity provided by libraries to “entertain” little kids. But to what end? Clowns entertain kids, too, but there is nothing sexual about their performance.

Michelle Tomasik, who goes by the name Michelle Tea, founded DQSH in San Francisco in 2015. She told a gay media outlet that the goal was to introduce kids to the “LGBTQ+ culture.” And what might that be?

Responsible for the spread of DQSH across the country is the American Library Association (ALA); local libraries pay homosexuals to run the events. A blog post to the ALA a few years ago encouraged librarians to promote the LGBT agenda by “sneakily fit[ting] stuff in current programs.” Sneaking it by parents, of course.

One of the most popular books stocked by libraries is The Gender Fairy. It is meant for infants. It tells them “only you know whether you are a boy or girl. No one can tell you.” Again, this is aimed at subverting parental rights. Similarly, a teacher was caught on video telling her class, “It’s OK to be different. There is no such thing as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ things.” The students were first graders.

It’s all about “gender fluidity,” the intentional warping of children’s minds, beckoning them to question whether they are really happy being a boy or a girl. This is called grooming. It is also child abuse.

So what has any of this to do with an event that purports to celebrate gay marriage? The White House knows the answer, otherwise Cummings would not have been invited. The purpose is to demonstrate that drag queens are integral to LGBT culture.

No one epitomizes the link between drag queens and the LGBT culture better than Ru Paul. Not only is he the most famous drag queen of all time, he boasts of his relationship with Georges LeBar, calling it an “open marriage.” It would be astonishing to learn that he was monogamous.

In other words, the link between “gender fluidity” and promiscuity is tight: both are an assault on the Judeo-Christian understanding of sex—God created male and female—and a sexual ethic that stresses the virtue of restraint. Libertinism—the absence of sexual strictures—is what defines the radical LGBT agenda.

Cummings says he began his role as a drag queen as a testimony to “genderf***ing.” What does this mean? According to its adherents, it is “a form of gender expression that seeks to subvert the traditional gender binary or gender roles by mixing traditionally masculine (such as a beard) and traditionally feminine (such as a dress) components.”

In short, the goal of drag queens is “to intentionally confuse the audience.” The target audience, remember, is children. Drag queens want to get to the kids because children are formative, and they resent the fact that they are denied by nature from having children of their own. Hence, the impulse to groom.

We mentioned how the LGBT agenda is to normalize homosexuality, beginning with two-year olds. According to Billboard, in 2019, Cummings posted a video on Twitter and Instagram of him singing “Baby Shark” to “a 2-year-old boy.”

There is something very sick going on in the White House. Even more perverse, it is being championed by our “devout Catholic” president.

When Kathy Hochul succeeded Andrew Cuomo as governor of New York (she was his lieutenant governor), she was asked about the culture of sexual abuse that had arisen under her boss. “Anyone who crosses the line will be addressed by me.” Not true.

Hochul gave a pass to an accused sexual abuser in her administration, Ibrahim Khan, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Letitia James: he is accused of sexually harassing a former AG employee. Hochul said that she does not support an investigation of this matter. But when it came to probes of accused priests, she supported all of them.

James was also tough on Cuomo, but when allegations were made about her chief of staff, she insisted on due process rights for him. But she never demanded due process for accused priests.

The double standard is glaring.

In December, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case in which the Catholic League filed an amicus brief. We are supporting the First Amendment rights of web designer Lorie Smith.

At issue is the judicial merits of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act. It would compel Smith to design a website that celebrates same-sex marriage. Smith has never refused to service anyone on the basis of sexual orientation, or any other demographic factor. But she draws the line at forcing her to express a message that runs counter to her Christian beliefs.

Smith is pointed in her position. “As a Christian who believes that God gave me the creative gifts that are expressed through this business, I have always strived to honor him in how I operate. Because of my faith, however, I am selective about the messages that I create or promote.”

The Catholic League amicus brief, prepared by Kathleen A. Gallagher and Russell D. Giancola of Gallagher Giancola LLC, a Pittsburgh-based law firm, argues that “it is clear that the First Amendment provides dual protections for religious expression (or non-expression) in its guarantees of free speech and free religious exercise. This reality compels the conclusion that religious speech enjoys the highest constitutional protection.”

Critics of Lorie Smith maintain that the real issue is not the First Amendment. One of the most prominent persons to take this position is Father James Martin.

“Let’s call it what it is: homophobia,” Martin says. Now if this were true, Smith would have a record of refusing to serve homosexuals, but this is manifestly not the case.

Would Martin also call the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops “homophobes”? The USCCB filed an amicus brief in support of Smith. It would be great to hear from him about this issue.

“In the guise of ‘religious liberty,’ Catholic business owners could deny services to Protestants and, more broadly, Christians could deny services to Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, and so on,” says Martin.

Father Martin is wrong. Indeed, he misses the point completely.

There is a profound difference between refusing to serve someone because of his demographic characteristics, and refusing to affirm a message that runs counter to one’s sincerely held religious beliefs.

For example, if a Jewish artist refuses to draw a swastika on a picture of a synagogue, is he exercising his First Amendment right to freedom of speech, or does he harbor a phobia about Nazis and should be forced to accede to the request?

The high court will not rule on this key religious liberty case until the spring. Stay tuned.