This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

On December 4, the House Report of the Committee on the Judiciary and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released its findings on the FBI’s probe of Catholics.

It is painfully clear that there is an anti-Catholic cell group within the FBI. Most alarming, even after the release of the evidence showing how compromised certain units in the FBI have become, the Report concludes that “the FBI still apparently desires to convey the outrageous message that some Catholic Americans with traditional beliefs pose a domestic threat to our country.”

We first learned of the anti-Catholic FBI caper in February when a whistleblower disclosed a startling memo produced by the Richmond Field Office: it revealed an investigation of traditional Catholics. In February, the House Judiciary Committee began its own investigation.

On February 9, we made public our concerns. We were not convinced that the FBI was limiting its probe to “Radical-Traditional Catholics.” We raised two questions: “What’s next? Will it be a war on Catholics who are orthodox?”

Our hunch proved to be right. The FBI subsequently said that “mainline Catholic parishes” and “local diocesan leadership” were selected for investigation.

Bill Donohue wrote to Rep. Jim Jordan on July 24, July 26, August 10, September 21 and December 6 asking him to find out why ordinary Catholics were being investigated. We applaud the response of Jordan and his staff.

While other field offices assisted the Richmond Office, the Report found that the greatest delinquency was committed by Richmond employees. For example, though the memo was peer-reviewed by other employees at the Richmond facility, none had expressed any concerns, constitutional or otherwise.

The Report criticized the process as a “rubber-stamp review,” one that received the blessings of the top lawyer involved. He said the memo “look[ed] good” and that there were “no legal issues.”

What was the end goal? It was poised to expand its reach nationwide. It was revealed that “the FBI had plans for an external, FBI-wide product based on the Richmond memorandum.” Meaning, as the Special Agent in charge of the Richmond Field Office put it, that the memo “could be [used] to inform…other intelligence analysts across the country.”
This is the most alarming finding in the Report. It should be the focus of future investigations.

It’s important to realize that the FBI was never interested in investigating dissident, left-wing Catholics. No, the only ones on their radar were those who are “pro-life, pro-family, and support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction as potential domestic terrorists.”

There is an anti-Catholic cell group in the FBI. It needs to be purged.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

By mid-December, we had had it with atheist bullies. That’s why we begged an atheist hate group from Wisconsin, Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), to sue us. They declined.

FFRF registered a complaint about a nativity scene being displayed by the Toledo Fire Department in Toledo, Iowa, outside of Des Moines; they said religious symbols cannot be displayed on public property. City leaders initially gave in and removed the nativity scene.

Toledo Mayor Brian Sokol then decided to surround the crèche with secular symbols, thus pulling the constitutional rug out from under FFRF. They backed off. But we did not.

Every year since the mid-1990s, the Catholic League erects a life-size nativity scene in Central Park. We get a permit from the City of New York’s Parks Department.

We don’t have any secular symbols surrounding our display—no Jack Frost or reindeers. It is purely a religious expression. That is because Central Park is considered a public forum, open to all points of view.

If we were to display a nativity scene on or near City Hall, the seat of government, we would have to include secular symbols; otherwise it might give the impression that the government is endorsing Christianity.

Bill Donohue publicly stated that if FFRF believes it is illegal to display religious symbols on all public property venues, they should sue the Catholic League. We called their bluff—they didn’t have the nerve to do so.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

William A. Donohue

The FBI spy operation on Catholics has nothing to do with dissident Catholics—the focus is 100 percent on those Catholics who are “pro-life,” “pro-family,” and who “support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction.” These practicing Catholics are labeled “domestic terrorists.”

The use of the present tense is purposeful: the FBI, according to the probe conducted by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the FBI, says the Bureau still believes that traditional Catholics pose a “domestic threat to our country.”

The FBI did not dream this caper up by itself: it was assisted by left-wing media and activist organizations.

Regarding the infamous memo that outlined the FBI probe of traditional Catholics, we learned the following: “The two FBI employees who co-authored the memorandum later told FBI internal investigators that they knew the sources cited in the memorandum had a political bias—sources including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Salon, and The Atlantic.”

Three years ago, The Atlantic published a piece titled, “The Real Threat to American Catholicism.” And who might that be? Why the bishops, of course. It was their opposition to abortion that made them a threat to Catholicism.

Two years ago, Salon ran a story on how the Catholic Church is “dictating reproductive health care—even in blue states.” It was concluded that we have too many Catholic hospitals nationwide, facilities that do not permit abortion. That is the source of the alleged dictatorship.

SPLC is the real clincher. As corrupt as it is partisan, it can no longer lay claim to being a beacon of information on hate groups in the United States. Its penchant for smearing innocent individuals and institutions is legendary.

The Report said that one of the FBI analysts even acknowledged that the “SPLC was known to have a political bias.” Despite this, they accepted “with high confidence” the information they gleaned from SPLC on the Catholic Church (their italics.)

On the SPLC website, they offer a list of “hate groups.” Lumped in with real hate groups is an organization of mothers concerned about what their children are being taught in the public schools. It has 220 entries on Moms for Liberty. Only a deranged person would consider them a hate group.

Other organizations that espouse traditional values, but are in no way hateful—yet are labeled as such by SPLC—include the Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom and the American College of Pediatricians.

In 2017, when Carol Swain was a professor at Vanderbilt University, she recommended against allowing the president of SPLC to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee. She did so for a principled reason. “Rather than monitoring hate groups,” she said, “the Southern Poverty Law Center has become one.” As a result, SPLC conducted a smear campaign against her, claiming she is “an apologist for white supremacists.” Swain is black.

Other notable Americans who are anything but hateful, but who have been branded as such by SPLC, include Somali refuge Ayaan Hirsi Ali, political scientist Guenter Lewy, and Princeton professor Robert P. George (he is a member of the Catholic League’s board of advisors).

SPLC’s smear tactics backfired when a noted evangelical organization, D. James Kennedy Ministries, sued SPLC in 2017 for defamation. It accused the far-left “hate group” specialist of making “false and misleading descriptions,” subjecting it to “disgrace, ridicule, odium, and contempt in the estimation of the public.”

In other words, SPLC is a master propagandist, branding as “hate groups” institutions that are merely advocates for traditional moral values.

One might think that Antifa, which is a real terrorist group—it is responsible for countless acts of violence against innocent persons—might be included in SPLC’s list of hate groups (if for no other reason than to give it cover as an objective source). Instead, it is one of their biggest fans. In 2020, it posted an article entitled, “Designating Antifa as domestic terrorist organization is dangerous, threatens civil liberties.” Just substitute the Klan for Antifa to get a sense of how absurd this sounds.

SPLC agents know a thing or two about domestic terrorism. In early 2023 one of its attorneys, Thomas Webb Jurgens, was charged with domestic terrorism after engaging in violence at a future Atlanta police training facility.

Having an anti-Catholic cell group in the FBI is bad enough. It is made worse when its agents turn to anti-Catholic journalistic sources, and to anti-American outlets. Indeed, it makes us wonder why these FBI employees are still on the public payroll, funded, in part, by traditional Catholics.

Relying on radical journalistic and activist sources for dirt on the Catholic Church is one thing; it is quite another if outsiders actually planted the idea within the FBI that traditional Catholics pose a domestic threat.

There are enough left-wing Catholics in Washington these days to make it plausible that some of them pitched this probe to the FBI. That is why I have asked Rep. Jim Jordan to look into this.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Michael P. McDonald

For 50 years the Catholic League has led the charge in every major cultural battle, and in 2023, we continued this tradition.

We started the year off with a bang when we released our documentary, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom: How Disney is Losing its Way.” The film explores how the once family-friendly media titan devolved into a woke behemoth promoting the most radical elements of the LGBT agenda.

The movie was made available on several different platforms. We reached an enormous audience and generated multiple friendly radio and TV interviews.

Further, “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” won critical acclaim earning recognitions at major film festivals. At the L.A. International Short Film Festival, we won four prestigious awards. Additionally, our movie was nominated for honors at The Prisma Film Festival in Rome, Italy; The Perth Christian Film Festival in Australia; and The Arizona Faith and Family Film Festival.

The biggest sign of our success was the troubles that plagued Disney. We had no illusions about taking down Disney. We wanted to educate the public and inspire Disney to reconsider its woke programming. Nevertheless, Disney had a rough year, and “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” helped contribute to their woes.

We followed up this success with a major fight with the L.A. Dodgers. In mid-May, the Dodgers announced they intended to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of virulent anti-Catholic men who dress up as nuns, at the team’s Pride Night.

We sent a letter to the head of Major League Baseball (MLB) about this outrage, and on the following day, the Dodgers disinvited the “Sisters.” But then gay and trans activists, along with local government officials, besieged the Dodgers. Soon after, the Dodgers reinvited the “Sisters,” offering them an apology, thus endorsing anti-Catholic bigotry.

We anticipated that the “Sisters” could be reinvited, and Bill Donohue personally prepared a report documenting their bigotry. We called on Catholics in the Los Angeles area to boycott the game to send a message to the Dodgers, and MLB, that anti-Catholicism cannot be tolerated.

We sent Bill’s report to over 300 parishes in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, asking pastors to support the boycott. In the following weeks, we contacted other important Catholic stakeholders in the area. We expanded our reach by including prominent individuals of other religions and Latino business owners. In every case, we sent the report and our plea to boycott Pride Night.

We also hit the public airwaves. For the two weeks before the game, we ran scores of ads promoting our boycott. Our media blitz on KABC radio caught the eye of the Los Angeles Times. Moreover, we gave multiple TV, radio, newspaper, and internet interviews on the controversy.

Almost no one showed up for the ceremony honoring the “Sisters,” and we drove down the game’s attendance by 3,500.

On the heels of this win, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the First Amendment rights of a Colorado woman, Lorie Smith, must be respected when it comes to forcing her to express beliefs that are contrary to her conscience. This was a great victory for free speech and freedom of religion. We submitted an amicus brief in this case, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. We are delighted with this outcome and to have played a role in it.

In 2023, the most serious threat to religious liberty came from the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) set its sights on Catholics.

We first learned of the anti-Catholic FBI caper when a whistleblower disclosed a memo from the Richmond Field Office investigating “Radical-Traditional Catholics.” The memo drew heavily on anti-Catholic sources, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. We weren’t convinced this was a limited probe and publicly asked if orthodox Catholics were next.

We were right. It soon came to light that the FBI had looked into “mainline Catholic parishes” and “local diocesan leadership.” We wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking him to release those documents related to the memo. He didn’t reply, but we didn’t give up.

The House Judiciary Committee was also looking into the FBI for this. Although the Committee had some documents from the FBI, they were heavily redacted. When Wray testified before the Committee in July, he told Chairman Jim Jordan that the probe was contained to the Richmond Field Office and agreed to send less redacted documents.

Unsatisfied with Wray’s response, we wrote to Jordan asking him to find out why ordinary Catholics were being investigated. The following day, the FBI finally gave the Committee less redacted documents, and we learned that it was not “a single field office.” Rather, the memo grew out of work from several offices.

We wrote Jordan several more times proposing a series of questions that Wray needed to answer, and the Committee was very receptive.

The Committee produced a report in December revealing the FBI violated important procedures and safeguards. Further, the report exposed the FBI had no interest in dissident, left-wing Catholics. They had their sights on Catholics who are “pro-life, pro-family, and support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction as potential domestic terrorists.”

We thanked Jordan and offered our support in the fights to come. In total, we wrote 11 letters to hold the FBI and DOJ accountable. We will keep at it as long as necessary. Ultimately, it will only end once the anti-Catholic element is purged from the FBI.

Unfortunately, this trend is not limited to the DOJ and FBI. Across the Western world, people of faith, mostly Christians, are being harassed and arrested by government agents at an alarming rate. The most common reason why they are bullied is their biblical objection to the LGBT agenda and opposition to abortion. Their rights are being trounced.

No one received a greater public flogging than House Speaker Mike Johnson. The all-out assault on him is meant to discourage younger Christian conservatives from running for office and to discredit the Founders and our Judeo-Christian heritage. We warned Catholics that the same people behind these vicious assaults against Speaker Johnson hate the religious principles upon which America was founded and those who cherish them.

Some lambasting Catholics were exposed as frauds in 2023. For years, we heard from activists that the residential schools in Canada, some of which were run by Catholics, amounted to genocide against indigenous people. This reached a fevered pitch last year when it was alleged that mass graves had been discovered. In 2023, when these grave sites were excavated, no bodies were found. We issued a report showing this was a hoax.

This year the Biden administration announced a new rule requiring foster parents to affirm LGBT children. This gives all the power to kids and tramples the religious liberty rights of parents.

This rule implies that foster children would do better in the affirming care of transgender parents. We examined this claim and found that the transgender community is predisposed to violence. Particularly when it comes to “intimate partner violence,” transgenders are more prone to this than any other demographic. We compiled a report highlighting this.

Transgender violence is not just limited to themselves. This year, we witnessed a wave of trans domestic terrorism. We documented these attacks in a report. The biggest of these was the shooting at Covenant Christian School in Nashville. A woman pretending to be a man targeted the school and killed six people, including three children. Although police recovered a manifesto indicating the shooter’s motive, the authorities continue to keep its contents a secret.

Another critical front in the culture war was education. We prepared a report on the many ways in which public schools are deliberately sexualizing children.

The endemic radicalism in education stems from years of Christian bashing on campus. We documented how “Christian Privilege” classes, workshops, and lectures have been in vogue at universities across the country.

This now permeates into the lower grades. We contacted over 80 public officials in Washington State after a teacher called parents concerned about the sexual indoctrination “Christo-fascists.” Even more troubling, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, lambasted parents who support school choice claiming they had a “particular Christian ideology to dominate the country.” We called on her to resign.

The Biden administration rescinded a rule created by Trump that protected the religious rights of students on campus. We issued a report on how prior to Trump’s rule religious students regularly had their rights eroded.

In 2023, a report by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops confirmed that the clergy sexual abuse scandal ended long ago and is now practically non-existent. The number of credible allegations against the clergy consistently fell between 2004 and 2022. This is good news, and we will keep flagging this.

During the “Synod on Synodality” we issued a report highlighting the successes of Catholic communities that adhere to orthodoxy and decline of those that embrace heterodoxy. Additionally, we kept tabs on the dissidents, who tried to hijack the proceedings.

On October 7, Hamas launched the deadly attack on Israel. The radicals in this country rallied in support of the Islamic terrorist group. We noted that Israel had met the requirements for a “just war,” as defined by the Church and called out the radicals for celebrating the attack and promulgating anti-Semitism.

We continued displaying our life-sized nativity scene in Central Park. Building on this tradition, this year we also had a huge digital billboard celebrating Christmas in Times Square. It was shown four to six times an hour for the two weeks before Christmas. We played off the theme of “diversity” turning it back on the people that use it as a cudgel to marginalize Catholics.

After the atheists at the Freedom From Religion Foundation forced a small town in Iowa to take down a crèche on public property, government officials added some secular symbols and the nativity scene was restored. We begged the atheists to sue us for displaying our own crèche in Central Park, and the bullies refused to do so.

2023 was a milestone year for the Catholic League, marking our 50th anniversary. First founded in 1973 by Fr. Virgil Blum, the league has grown into the largest Catholic civil rights group and remains one of the last grass-roots advocacy organizations in the country.

We celebrated this occasion on April 27, at the New York Athletic Club. Many prominent clergy and lay people were in attendance. Raymond Arroyo served as the Master of Ceremonies, and Walter Knysz, Cardinal Dolan and Bill Donohue gave remarks. It was a great evening.

Bill also released his book War on Virtue: How the Ruling Class is Killing the American Dream and marked his 30th year as president and CEO of the Catholic League.

This year perfectly encapsulated our last 50 years. We had major accomplishments and scored critical victories. What the next 50 years will bring is anyone’s guess. But with dedicated supporters, the Catholic League will surely keep winning in the years ahead.

Michael P. McDonald is Director of Communications at the Catholic League.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Left is very good at making up bogeymen, and one of their favorites is Christian nationalism. The latest iteration of this madness was an article in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion; a subsequent analysis of it was recently published in psypost.org.

Bill Donohue was particularly interested in this issue because of his training as a sociologist: sociologists are the ones promoting the fiction that America is threatened by Christian nationalists.

The journal article, written by sociologist Fanhao Nie of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, claims that Christian nationalists are likely to have negative views of atheists.

What exactly is Christian nationalism? Nie says it is “broadly defined as an ideology that calls for the integration of Christianity and American civic life.” We get the gist of it, but this is so elastic a definition that it might mean something as innocent as noting that our rights come from God. In fact, one of the sociologists cited by the author, Andrew Whitehead, has said exactly that.

When Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association (NRA), gave a speech on the Founding documents, Whitehead, in a piece he co-authored, saw Christian nationalism written all over it. The NRA chief said our freedoms were “granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.”

This is not the voice of a Christian nationalist—it is the voice of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Our unalienable rights, he said, come not from government but from our “Creator.” Whitehead may not like this, but what LaPierre said is historically accurate.

“The genius of those documents, the brilliance of America, of our country itself,” LaPierre also said, “is that all of our freedoms in this country are for every single citizen.”

The fact that LaPierre did not say that our freedoms are for Christians—he said they were “for every single citizen”—should have given Whitehead pause. After all, it seriously undercuts his position.

If Christian nationalism were the threat that those who promote this nonsense say it is, most Americans would oppose it. In fact, most never heard of it. In a survey released last year, Pew Research found that 54 percent never heard or read anything about it, and an additional 16 percent said they heard of it “a little.” Of the few who had heard of it, more held an unfavorable view (24 percent) than a favorable one (5 percent).

There is a reason for this. Christian nationalism doesn’t exist, save for faculty lounges, sociological circles and left-wing activist organizations. And it is they who have influenced those who hold a negative view.

The Pew story on this survey printed some of the comments made by those who had a favorable and unfavorable view of Christian nationalism.

Here’s a sample of those who hold a favorable view:

• “People who love God and USA.”
• “A society in which patriotism and religion are inseparably entwined doing the will of God in and for America and believing God is on America’s side.”
• “Values of society based on Judaic-Christian values and priorities.”
• “Religious people who love their country.”
• “A nation that espouses Christian principles and prioritizes the faith above secular humanistic principle that are more prevalent in the secular society of the U.S. today.”

Here’s a sample of those who hold an unfavorable view:

• “Attempting to use the government to impose an extreme, fringe version of Christianity on everyone in the nation, regardless of others’ religious views. They are no different than al-Qaida or the Taliban.”
• “Racist, misogynistic, White, older, retro group of people wanting to return the U.S. to a time when everyone ‘knew their place.’ Narrow-minded view that the Bible is key to life for everyone.”
• “Militant Christians openly attempting to install a right-wing Christian theocracy leading to a Christian ethno-state.”
• “It’s code used by extremists to indicate government for White Christians by White Christians.”
• “White supremacists and male superiority.”

All of those who offered a favorable view were Catholic or Protestant. All of those who offered an unfavorable view said they ascribed to no religion.

Regarding the latter, notice the hysteria. And the hate.

It is not those who are proud to live in a country founded on our religious heritage who are a threat—it is those who portray them as a threat. They are the real menace. Inventing bogeymen so as to trash patriotism and Christianity is a sick preoccupation of those on the Left. It’s time our side ripped the mask off these demagogues.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

The Holly Jolly Drag Show performed on December 8 at a local restaurant in Albertville, Alabama, outside of Huntsville. Jessica Turner’s catering business, Baked and Boozy, hosted the event. Because it was held on private property, the local mayor, Tracy Honea, said he could not do anything about it.

Fortunately, several local Christian leaders, among them Justin Childers, pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Albertville, mounted a protest: it was held December 4-8, in advance of the event. He urged local churches to “cross denominational lines” and join with him.
We supported him 100 percent. Bill Donohue was interviewed by NBC in Huntsville calling on all Christians to join the protest.

The purpose behind these events is to confuse children about sexuality. That’s not an opinion. It’s the explanation afforded by Judith Butler, a prominent lesbian professor: She proudly admits that these performances are a “subversive enterprise.” So does the founder of Drag Queen Story Hour, known as Michelle Tea. She admits that her drag queen events are targeted at children.

Homosexuals and the sexually confused (a.k.a. transgender persons) used to choose one day in late June as their day of celebration. Then it became a week. Then it became a month. But even that’s not enough.

This Holly Jolly Drag Show was held in December because it is Christmastime. It is not being done to complement, but to demean. Anyone who can’t see this for what it is—the exploitation of Christmas for a sick cause—is deceiving himself. Or worse.

We contacted the 17 Christian churches in Albertville. We also contacted St. William Catholic Church, as well as the Diocese of Birmingham. LGBT groups lashed out at us, but to no effect.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

During the Christmas season, the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin hosted a Festival of Trees representing 66 organizations. Only six of the trees were sponsored by Christian groups; the others were sponsored by various businesses. Two of the trees ignited a backlash: one by a Satanic group, and the other by an LGBT group.

The Satanic Temple of Wisconsin featured a tree with an ornament that says, “Hail Satan.” There was also a depiction of Satan, as well as upside-down crosses.

The parent group of the Green Bay affiliate, The Satanic Temple (TST), is proud to be known as a champion of abortion-on-demand: it justifies abortion at any time of pregnancy and for any reason, seeing it as a source of liberation. It also raises money to further the cause.

When the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, returning the issue to the states, TST said “the abortion ban is inspired by a religious dogma that asserts that life begins at conception, which contravenes TST’s belief that non-viable fetal tissue is part of the pregnant person and is free to be voluntarily removed.”

What it calls “non-viable fetal tissue” is actually nascent human life. As such, the baby is independent of the life of the mother. To say it is anti-science would be an understatement.

The Trans Christmas tree was less offensive, but it did have ornaments with the inscriptions “Drag Queen” and “Be Weird.” Atop the tree was an angel holding a rainbow flag. The Green Bay group that sponsored the tree said it stands for “non-binary, cross-dressing, transgender persons.” Its affinity with the National Railroad Museum was made clear when one of its most active members, Justin Tenpenny, was hired by the Museum to be its Marketing and Communications officer.

Perhaps the most disingenuous person involved in this anti-Christmas scam is Jacqueline Frank, the CEO of the National Railroad Museum.

When asked why she allowed the Satanists, she invoked the tired refrain of inclusion. According to a local Green Bay news source, she said she “would not reject an organization simply because it goes against certain values or ways of life, traditional or not.” Really? So if the Klan wanted to be included in an event honoring Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Frank would welcome them?

“I think there’s a lot to be said of being able to include everybody, to respect everyone and to promote dignity for everybody,” Frank said. How the dignity of Christians is being respected by allowing Satanists to defile Christmas needs to be explained.

It does not help Frank’s decision for her to say, “We’re not discriminating against anyone.” The issue is not discrimination—it is hostility to religion. And that is unconstitutional.

In the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote that the Constitution “affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any (our italics).”

There is no other way to interpret the TST anti-Christmas display at the Museum than to say that it is demonstrating hostility to Christianity.

This is the article that appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.

Elites in the medical profession have taken up the cause of transgenderism. They know that what they are promoting cannot be scientifically validated, but their politics overrides such considerations.

Pages 10-11 cover the medical schools; pp. 12-13 cover medical journals.

#1 Harvard Medical School
Mass General is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The hospital has a specialized gender-affirming care unit. According to Mass General’s website, the unit “performs a variety of highly specialized gender-affirming surgical procedures tailored to meet the needs of transgender and gender-nonconforming patients.” These surgical procedures include:

• Vaginoplasty, a surgery used to create a vulva, labia, and vaginal canal
• Orchiectomy, a procedure in which the testicles are surgically removed
• Hysterectomy, a surgery to remove the uterus
• Oophorectomy, a procedure to remove the ovaries
• Phalloplasty, a surgery to create a penis and can include a variety of different procedures, depending on individual goals
• Mastectomy, a surgery to remove breast tissue from the chest
• Breast augmentation, a surgery that uses implants made of silicone or saline to enhance the size of a person’s natural breasts
• Facial feminization or masculinization, a surgery to alter facial features—the chin, nose, cheeks, forehead, etc.—to create a more feminine or masculine facial structure
• Vocal feminization or masculinization

Boston Children’s Hospital is also a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. According to the hospital’s website, its “Gender Multispeciality Service” is “the first pediatric and adolescent transgender health program in the United States.” It claims to have cared for more than 1,000 families. It also professes its support for “a gender-affirmative model of care, which supports transgender and gender diverse youth in the gender in which they identify. This is a standard of care grounded in scientific evidence, demonstrating its benefits to the health and well-being of transgender and gender diverse youth.” To this end, Boston Children’s Hospital offers:

• “management of bleeding, pelvic pain, or other gynecologic concerns for people on gender-affirming testosterone therapy”
• “menstrual suppression”
• “contraception counseling”
• “gender-affirming hysterectomies”
• “dilation therapy and care of neovaginas for people who have undergone gender-affirming vaginoplasty”

In a video on Boston Children’s website Dr. Kerry McGregor, who is also an instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, said that “a good portion of children do know as early as—seemingly—from the womb….And they will usually express their gender identity as very young children, some as soon as they can talk… kids know very, very early.”

#2 Johns Hopkins Medicine
John Hopkins Medicine runs the Emerge Gender and Sexuality Clinic for Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults. This clinic “offers fully integrated and interdisciplinary expertise and clinical services in pediatrics, adolescent and young adult medicine, endocrinology, nursing, social work, child and adolescent psychiatry, and mental health care designed to improve the health and well-being of gender variant, gender diverse and transgender youth and young adults.” These clinical services are available for individuals between the ages of 5 and 25 years “include education, family and individual support, pubertal blockade, cross-hormonal therapy and mental health support and treatment.”

These include:
• Top surgery
• Penile construction
• Vaginoplasty
• Hormone Treatment

#3 Stanford Medicine
Stanford runs a “LGBTQ+ Health Program.” It offers “compassionate, comprehensive, and unparalled LGBTQ+ focused care to members of the LGBTQ+ community in the San Francisco Bay area and from around the world.” The program also touts its “safe, comfortable, and affirming environment.”

Stanford Children’s Health offers reconstructive chest surgery to adolescents and young adults removing “breast tissue and excess skin to create a masculine-looking chest.”

Stanford Medicine’s Obstetrics and Gynecology claims “to be a leader in providing gender-affirming surgery, including vaginoplasty and orchiectomy.” To provide these procedures, it works “hand-in-hand” with the Stanford LGBTQ+ Health Program.

#4 University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Penn Medicine offers a “Program in LGBTQ Health.” It is one of the only programs in the nation that is dedicated to serving the LGBTQ community by providing “culturally-competent, judgment-free health care.” It works in partnership with Penn’s Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity and the Penn Medicine Center for Health Equity Advancement.

The Penn Medicine Program for LGBTQ Health has been recognized by the Human Rights Campaign, one of the most powerful LGBT advocacy groups in the nation, as a “Leader in LGBT Healthcare Equality.”

Penn Plastic Surgery provides a number of gender-affirming procedures, including:

• Facial feminization and facial masculinization surgeries
• “Top” surgery
• Voice Gender Reassignment Surgery
• Hysterectomy
• Orchiectomy

Perelman School of Medicine promulgates standards for professionalism that it expects all students, staff, and faculty to follow. These standards emphasize diversity, equity, and inclusion. For instance, the code of conduct forbids “refusing to use the name or pronouns with which a person self-identifies.” Further, the standards prohibit “refusing to allow people to use single-gender facilities or programs most closely aligned with their gender identity.”

#5 Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians & Surgeons
Columbia’s website claims that “Everyone Has a Role in Gender-Affirming Care.” It goes into great detail about “medically necessary, evidence-based, gender-affirming care,” and the active role society must play in helping people realize their “gender identity.” It extols people to recognize “a person’s gender identity and using their correct pronouns,” avoid “making assumptions about a person’s sexual orientation or sexual activity,” and demands the use of “gender inclusive language.” Further, it insists medical professionals should display “medical office signs and health information that lets people know they are safe.”

Columbia’s website offers a “Gender Identity Glossary.” Its definitions include:

• Gender affirmation: Medical, social, and legal changes a person makes to support their gender identity; can mean switching to a new gender from gender assigned at birth.
• Gender expansive: Beyond perceived societal norms for gender, this term describes people who expand notions of gender expression and identity.
• Gender identity: The gender a person identifies with regardless of their assigned sex at birth. The only way to know someone else’s gender identity is for them to tell you.
• Gender diverse: Beyond the binary (male-female) framework. This term describes people who do not identify with or wish to be defined by one gender or do not have a gender identity.
• Gender dysphoria: A condition in which a person experiences discomfort or distress because their gender identity is not their gender assigned at birth, and their gender identity is not being affirmed or recognized.
• Sex assigned at birth (AKA assigned sex at birth): The label a medical professional gives a newborn baby, usually based on external anatomy or chromosomes.
• Sexual orientation: A person’s enduring physical, romantic, and/or emotional attraction to another person. Sexual orientation is not determined by gender identity.

Columbia’s website also has a section on youth and gender-affirming care. It notes the importance for “children as young as 4 years of age to have a stable sense of their gender identity.”

#6 The David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
The UCLA Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery offers “a one-year fellowship focused on Facial Gender-Affirming Surgery.” It also gives these fellows some experience in chest and genital “reconstruction.” In addition to providing UCLA medical students with hands-on-experience, the program aims “to generate leaders in gender-affirming care. As such, the fellowship includes time with gender health primary care physicians, endocrinology, behavioral health, urology, as well as collaborative projects with the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.”

#7 Yale Medicine
Yale Medicine offers reproductive health services to transgender individuals. These services primarily focus on allowing men and women who have irrevocably damaged their bodies in their forlorn pursuit of changing their sex to continue to live out their fantasies to become fathers and mothers. To this end, these services utilize freezing reproductive cells prior to undergoing medical procedures.

Since 2018, Yale has offered a Gender Affirming Surgery Program. The program provides training for all levels of medical professionals. Ranging from clinical receptionists up to attending physicians, the goal is to train health care providers in creating a welcoming environment for transgender patients.

On August 12, 2022, professors from the Yale Law School, Yale School of Medicine, Yale Child Study Center, and several other academic institutions filed an amicus brief opposing Alabama’s legislative ban on gender-affirming care for adolescents under age 19.

#8 Duke University School of Medicine
Duke University has a “Sexual and Gender Diversity Advisory Council (SAGDAC).” It promotes LGBT initiatives at Duke. SAGDAC has representation from clinical specialties within the School of Medicine, across Duke Health entities, as well as other organizations such as the Office of Institutional Equity, DukeMed Pride, Nursing, the Duke Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity along with other LGBT stakeholders at the university.

Duke Health provides gender-affirming hormone therapy for children 16 and older. For younger children, Duke Health offers therapies to “delay puberty.”

In promotional material for why students should consider Duke’s School of Medicine, the university promises students an opportunity to “work with a plastic surgeon experienced in gender-affirmation surgery.” It also highlights that the surgeon is a member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, one of the leading advocacy groups promoting transgenderism in medicine.

Duke’s medical facilities have earned a perfect score by the LGBTQ+ group within the Human Rights Campaign. It received high marks for patient care, support services and health insurance policies for LGBTQ+ patients.

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Scientific American/Nature
Scientific American and Nature are two of the most prominent scientific journals in the world. Both publications are owned by the same parent company.

August 29, 2017: Scientific American featured an article claiming that “sex, gender, and sexuality are all distinct from one another (although they are often related), and each exists on its own spectrum. Moreover, sex cannot be depicted as a simple, one-dimensional scale.”

September 1, 2017: Scientific American featured an article claiming that “as science looks more closely, however, it becomes increasingly clear that a pair of chromosomes do not always suffice to distinguish girl/boy—either from the standpoint of sex (biological traits) or of gender (social identity).”

October 30, 2018: Nature featured an article claiming that “biology is not as straightforward…by some estimates, as many as one in 100 people have differences or disorders of sex development, such as hormonal conditions, genetic changes or anatomical ambiguities, some of which mean that their genitalia cannot clearly be classified as male or female.”

June 13, 2019: Scientific American featured an article claiming that “the science is clear and conclusive: sex is not binary, transgender people are real. It is time that we acknowledge this. Defining a person’s sex identity using decontextualized ‘facts’ is unscientific and dehumanizing.”

October 24, 2023: Scientific American featured an article claiming that “both among the general public and in academia, the core argument boils down to the question of how many sexes exist. The tricky thing is that the answer to this question differs depending on the context.”

New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
December 2019: A NEJM study found that “as part of their gender affirmation, some nonbinary people may pursue body modification through surgical procedures, hormone therapy, or both. For nonbinary patients, it’s more appropriate for discussion of these procedures to focus on achieving specific features than on ‘feminization’ or ‘masculinization.'”

January 19, 2023: A NEJM study found that “increasingly, transgender and nonbinary youth receive medical care to alleviate gender dysphoria, including gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists to suppress gender-incongruent puberty and gender-affirming hormones (GAH; testosterone or estradiol) to foster gender-congruent secondary sex characteristics. An important goal of such treatment is to attenuate gender dysphoria by increasing appearance congruence—that is, the degree to which youth experience alignment between their gender and their physical appearance.”

January 19, 2023: A NEJM study found that “In this 2-year study involving transgender and nonbinary youth, [gender-affirming hormones] improved appearance congruence and psychosocial functioning.”

American Medical Association (AMA)/JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)
June 15, 2021: AMA Board Member Michael Suk, MD, JD, MPH, MBA stated that “the AMA opposes the dangerous intrusion of government into the practice of medicine and the criminalization of health care decision-making. Gender-affirming care is medically-necessary, evidence-based care that improves the physical and mental health of transgender and gender-diverse people.”

June 15, 2021: AMA issued a statement claiming that “the majority of transgender and diverse-gender patients report improved mental health and lower rates of suicide after receipt of gender-affirming care.”

February 25, 2022: A JAMA study found that “in this prospective cohort of 104 [trans non-binary] youths aged 13 to 20 years, receipt of gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and gender affirming hormones, was associated with 60% lower odds of moderate or severe depression and 73% lower odds of suicidality over a 12-month follow-up….these data suggest that access to pharmacological interventions may be associated with improved mental health among [trans non-binary] youths over a short period.”

February, 25 2022: A JAMA study found that “specifically, [puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormones], and gender-affirming surgeries have all been found to be independently associated with decreased rates of depression, anxiety, and other adverse mental health outcomes. Access to these interventions is also associated with a decreased lifetime incidence of suicidal ideation among adults who had access to [puberty blockers] during adolescence.”

Endocrine Society
September 1, 2017: The Endocrine Society declared that “gender-dysphoric/gender-incongruent persons should receive a safe and effective hormone regimen that will suppress the body’s sex hormone secretion, determined at birth and manifested at puberty, and maintain levels of sex steroids within the normal range for the person’s affirmed gender.”

June 12, 2023: The Endocrine Society issued a statement on AMA House of Delegates passing its “resolution to protect access to evidence-based gender-affirming care for transgender and gender-diverse individuals….In the resolution, the AMA committed to opposing any criminal and legal penalties against patients seeking gender-affirming care, family members or guardians who support them in seeking medical care, and health care facilities and clinicians who provide gender-affirming care.”

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)/Pediatrics (AAP Journal)
September 17, 2018: AAP releases its first policy statement to provide guidance for parents and clinicians through a gender-affirming approach. Additionally, AAP recommended “providing youth with access to comprehensive gender-affirming and developmentally appropriate health care. Supporting insurance plans that offer coverage specific to the needs of youth who identify as transgender, including coverage for medical, psychological and, when appropriate, surgical interventions.”

October 1, 2018: A Pediatrics study found that “gonadotrophin-releasing hormones have been used to delay puberty since the 1980s for central precocious puberty. These reversible treatments can also be used in adolescents who experience gender dysphoria to prevent development of secondary sex characteristics and provide time up until 16 years of age for the individual and the family to explore gender identity, access psychosocial supports, develop coping skills, and further define appropriate treatment goals. If pubertal suppression treatment is suspended, then endogenous puberty will resume. Often, pubertal suppression creates an opportunity to reduce distress that may occur with the development of secondary sexual characteristics and allow for gender-affirming care, including mental health support for the adolescent and the family.”

February 1, 2020: A Pediatrics study found “there is a significant inverse association between treatment with pubertal suppression during adolescence and lifetime suicidal ideation among transgender adults who ever wanted this treatment. These results align with past literature, suggesting that pubertal suppression for transgender adolescents who want this treatment is associated with favorable mental health outcomes.”

October 1, 2020: A Pediatrics study found that “late pubertal stage and older age are associated with worse mental health among [gender-incongruent] youth presenting to [gender-affirming medical care], suggesting that this group may be particularly vulnerable and in need of appropriate care.”

August 3, 2023: The New York Times reported that “the American Academy of Pediatrics renewed its support of gender care for minors while commissioning a fresh look at the evidence.”

Journal of Adolescent Health
December 2021: Journal of Adolescent Health issued findings supporting “a relationship between access to [Gender-affirming hormone therapy] and lower rates of depression and suicidality among transgender and nonbinary youth.”

American College of Physicians (ACP)/Annals of Internal Medicine(ACP Journal)
July 2019: A study by Annals of Internal Medicine found that “transgender persons are a diverse group whose gender identity differs from their sex recorded at birth. Some choose to undergo medical treatment to align their physical appearance with their gender identity. Barriers to accessing appropriate and culturally competent care contribute to health disparities in transgender persons, such as increased rates of certain types of cancer, substance abuse, mental health conditions, infections, and chronic diseases.”

May 19, 2023: ACP declared that it “firmly believes that gender-affirming care is an important component of comprehensive health care services for transgender and nonbinary patients. The College has long had policy affirming that public and private health benefit plans include comprehensive transgender health care services and provide all covered services to transgender persons as they would all other beneficiaries, including gender-affirming care.”

May 19, 2023: ACP declared that “for individuals with gender dysphoria, gender-affirming care seeks to support them in exploring and living their life in a way that aligns with their gender identity. It includes medical interventions that facilitate the alignment of one’s physiology with their gender identity, such as the use of puberty blockers and other forms of hormone therapy, combined with other social, psychological and behavioral interventions.”

American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
December 2011: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement claiming that “although the care for [transgender] patients is often managed by a specialty team, obstetrician–gynecologists should be prepared to assist or refer transgender individuals with routine treatment and screening as well as hormonal and surgical therapies.”

January 2017: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued consensus guidelines “initiating medical therapy after an adolescent has an established diagnosis of transgender identity and has reached Tanner stage II development. Medical management involves the suppression of puberty (typically in the form of gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists) followed by cross-sex hormone therapy to induce puberty at age 16 years. A variety of surgical options are available, including bilateral mastectomy, hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy or salpingectomy, and possible neophallus creation.”

March 2021: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released a statement claiming that “The majority of medications used for gender transition are common and can be safely prescribed by a wide variety of health care professionals with appropriate training and education, including, but not limited to, obstetrician–gynecologists, family or internal medicine physicians, endocrinologists, advanced practice clinicians, and psychiatrists.”