In June a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of a lesbian employee of St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Westchester, New York seeking medical coverage for her spouse.

It is not the Catholic Church that has sought to impose its agenda on others, it is homosexual activists who voluntarily join a Catholic institution and then seek to upend its strictures. For “Jane Roe” to file suit seeking to punish the Church for exercising its doctrinal prerogatives shows intolerance and a contempt for diversity.

Because St. Joseph’s Medical Center is self-insured, it is not bound by New York State law that recognizes gay marriage; it is therefore exempt from granting medical benefits to a “married” lesbian. That is why the attorney for Roe is challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a federal statute.

What made this case possible were the political machinations of the pro-gay marriage lawmakers in New York State, along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, President Obama, and the Justice Department. The New York State officials sought to impose the gay agenda by a) refusing to hold public hearings on homosexual marriage, and b) refusing to allow the voters to decide this issue in a referendum (the way most states have). President Obama is just as devious: though he is sworn to uphold congressional legislation, he directed his Justice Department not to enforce DOMA; it was signed into law by President Clinton without controversy in 1996 (only 14 Democratic senators opposed the bill).

So here’s where we’re at. Owing to sleuth, deception, and a wholesale disregard for the democratic process, the right of a Catholic entity not to recognize something that nature never ordained—the union of two people of the same sex as a married couple—has wound up in the courts.

After a recent private e-mail exchange between Bill Donohue and Rabbi Arthur Waskow was leaked to the press, we quickly set the record straight.

Donohue wrote to Waskow following his screed condemning the bishops for standing up for the First Amendment rights of Catholics. Not content to act civilly, he said of the bishops, “For these men, ‘religion’ happens only in the genitals.” In the same article, Waskow cited “Vatican arrogance” for its inquiry into an internal Church matter, i.e., legitimate concerns over a minority of nuns who have gone “beyond Jesus.”

Donohue’s comment about Ed Koch saying Jews should not make enemies with their Catholic friends was a summation of Mayor Koch’s statement made in January before a Jewish audience: “We’re 13 million Jews in the whole world—less than one-tenth of 1 percent. And we need allies. The best ally we can have is the Catholic Church.” On January 30, we publicly commended him for his remark, adding, “The Catholic League is proud to stand with the Jewish community in this time of unrelenting attacks on both Catholics and Jews.” We also said that Ed Koch was “one of the greatest friends that Catholics have ever had.”

It is not just this one article by Waskow that is upsetting to the Catholic community. In February, he said that the bishops’ opposition to the Obama administration’s HHS mandate seeking to force Catholic entities to pay for abortion-inducing drugs in their health plans was “an outrageous attempt to impose sharia law on the U.S. government and the American public.” Sharia law? So when the bishops defend constitutional rights they are, in effect, seeking to impose totalitarianism! Waskow has also said of Pope Benedict XVI, “He was a villain before he became Pope, and he is a villain still.”

It should be obvious that Rabbi Waskow has a Catholic problem.

To read the full Donohue-Waskow exchange and other related statements, see our news release on this subject posted on our website. [click here]

At a recent commencement ceremony at Georgetown University, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius addressed the outgoing class, quoting selectively from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 address on separation of church and state to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association.

In her address, Sebelius said she shares Kennedy’s vision of America “where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against us all.”

This was obviously meant as a shot at the bishops who allegedly want to impose their will on the public.

In that same speech, however, Kennedy told the audience, “I would not look with favor upon a President working to subvert the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty.”

Perhaps someone can gently explain to Sebelius why this shows JFK’s astonishing prescience.

This summer, the “Annual Student Art Exhibition” at California State University, San Bernardino (a publically-funded school) was on display. Among the student art was a grotesque example of anti-Christianity.

This year the exhibition featured the work of Humberto Reynoso, a student in desperate need of attention, as well as in desperate need of professional counseling. Reynoso’s ceramic figure, “Self Portrait,” depicted a man lying on his back with a red cross inserted in his anus. This figure was displayed from June 15 through the end of July.

A “WARNING” sign was posted at the exhibit in the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art that housed this “art.” It said, “This exhibition contains explicit adult content and works that may be disturbing to some. Viewer discretion is advised.” It’s not hard to figure out who wouldn’t be disturbed.

What was most telling about all of this was the statement below the “WARNING” sign: “Art is about many things, including—and especially—ideas; and a university is precisely the place for the free expression of ideas, especially controversial ones. CSUSB supports students’ rights to free expression.” (Italics in the original.)

When asked about this statement, Bill Donohue said: “It is factually incorrect. The university is not about ‘the free expression of ideas’: it is about the pursuit of truth. Those who believe the earth is flat, or deny the existence of the Holocaust, should not be welcome at any college or university: such ideas have been fully discredited. Thus, to give their proponents a platform in higher education is to say that the pursuit of truth no longer matters. Should such crackpots be censored from speaking? Not at all—they belong in a public park, or in a private venue, for example, an arena known for hosting the circus.”

It would have been interesting if the campus newspaper had asked Mr. Reynoso why he decided to choose a cross rather than choosing to insert a Star of David or crescent and star.

When Comedy Central flashed a picture of a naked woman with her legs spread and a nativity scene ornament in between—what Jon Stewart called “the vagina manger”—Viacom’s executives weren’t the slightest bit offended (Comedy Central is owned by Viacom). But these same people got ticked off recently when Don Rickles cracked a joke about President Obama.

On June 7, Rickles performed before a Hollywood crowd at the American Film Institute tribute to Shirley MacLaine. He quipped, “I shouldn’t make fun of the blacks. President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke.” When they showed this event on TV Land (a Viacom network) on June 24, Rickles’ Obama joke was not aired.

On May 8, we mailed a color photo of the “vagina manger” shot to Viacom’s directors; we asked them to direct Stewart to apologize. They refused. But it didn’t take anyone from the NAACP to ask Viacom to nix Rickles’ joke—they did it themselves.

Rickles’ PR man offered this lame comment soon after the decision was made to censor the joke: “Before all of this started, we knew Don’s spot would be cut a bit for time.” More honest was Rickles himself: “Some jerk-offs got offended.”

Such is the state of Viacom’s ethics.

As a result of an Oregon Supreme Court decision, 20,000 pages of files kept on suspected perverts by the Boy Scouts of America were recently released. The most striking aspect of this disclosure was the timeline: the data show the sexual abuse that took place from 1965 to 1985—the exact same period when priestly sexual abuse peaked. It also shows the role played by homosexuals.

The John Jay Report on the “Causes and Context” of sex abuse by priests found that “three quarters of the priests whom we have data had sexual relations with an adult and/or minor after ordination.” Also, “Priests with pre-ordination same-sex sexual behavior who did sexually abuse a minor after ordination were more likely to have a male child victim than a female child victim.”

Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist who has spent years treating abusive priests has said, “Every priest whom I treated who was involved with children sexually had previously been involved in adult homosexual relationships.” [Our emphasis.] Kinsey found that 37 percent of all male homosexuals admitted to having sex with children under the age of seventeen.

While homosexuality does not cause such behavior, whenever there is an overrepresentation of any demographic group with deviant behavior, it bears scrutiny. Most of us know this, but because of intimidation, few will say it.