Recently, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech at the Women in the World Summit in New York City.

It was not surprising that Hillary Clinton, who strongly opposes a ban on partial-birth abortion, would tell her feminist audience that she supports Planned Parenthood. What was surprising was her comment on the need to change religious beliefs on abortion. Here is what she said:

“Yes, we’ve cut the maternal mortality rate in half, but far too many women are still denied critical access to reproductive health [read: abortion] and safe childbirth. All the laws we’ve passed don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice, not just on paper. Laws have to be backed up with resources, and political will and deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be changed.” (Bill Donohue’s italics.)

In others words, Hillary has a problem with the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion—they must be changed.

Never before have we seen a presidential candidate be this bold about directly confronting the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion. It’s time for Hillary to take the next step and tell us exactly what she plans to do about delivering on her pledge. Not only would practicing Catholics like to know, so would Evangelicals, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and all those who value life from conception to natural death.

A few weeks ago, an op-ed written by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was featured in the New York Times.

Governor Bobby Jindal is more than a practicing Catholic—he is a man who will not change his “faith-driven view” of marriage, even if other public officials are willing to do so. Nor should he. His recent statement on behalf of marriage (properly understood) and conscience rights was superb. He is both a defender of religious liberty and an opponent of unjust discrimination.

Jindal is going to pursue legislation that would insulate individuals and institutions from government coercion on the subject of marriage. To be exact, he would allow them to exercise their deeply held religious convictions on the institution of marriage with impunity. Nothing he is proposing would create a new right to discriminate: gays and lesbians would live as freely as they do now. What would change is the authority of the government to invoke sanctions against those who hold to the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage, and who do not want to affirm alternatives to it.

Perhaps the boldest, and most refreshing, part of Jindal’s essay was his willingness to publicly chastise corporations: from Wal-Mart to Wall Street they have jumped on board the gay-marriage bandwagon, thus aligning themselves with the traditional enemies of religious liberty.

The problem with many Republicans, and some conservatives, is that they are only committed to Two “M’s”: markets and missiles. To be sure, a market economy is vastly superior to socialism, and a strong national defense is critical to the maintenance of a free society. But there is a Third “M” that is also indispensable: morality. A free society depends as much on the virtue of its citizens as it does any factor.

Governor Jindal embraces the Three “M’s.” He gets it. Hopefully he will inspire others to get it as well.

The following article by Bill Donohue was published by Newsmax on April 29:

“Why Doesn’t the Left Advocate for Persecuted Christians?” That is the question recently raised by Lucia Annunziata in the Italian edition of the Huffington Post.

Annunziata is a courageous woman—it takes guts for an atheist journalist to call out her friends on the Left. She hammered them for their deadly silence on Christian persecution: “I ask myself where is the Left, with a capital L?” She notes that its reticence is occurring “in front of the most terrible of crimes against the weakest—the massacres of Christians whose blood is shed in many parts of the world.”

The Italian leftist doesn’t mince words. “Why have I not received any petition to sign, though I receive many of varied kinds? Why has no one promoted, if not a public protest, a sit-in, or a meeting? I hear no slogans for persecuted Christians, nor do I get documents or petitions on the issue.” Though she is wrong to praise the Left for their “defense of the weakest” (e.g., they lead the fight to kill the unborn) she is right to say that “with few exceptions, never does the Left express pain or horror for the men and women who die because of their faith.”

The answer to Annunziata’s question is straightforward: The Left doesn’t care about Christian persecution because it doesn’t care about Christians. This is an understatement: it would be more accurate to say it has an animus against Christianity.

Why the hostility? Sexuality, pure and simple. It wants a no-holds-barred libertine understanding of sexuality. As such, it rightly identifies Christianity, especially Catholicism, as a bulwark to its advancement. Ironically, it is the West’s rejection of Catholicism’s sexual ethics, which prizes restraint, that is responsible for AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Christians are getting it at home as well as abroad. While Muslim barbarians are murdering Christians abroad, without any push back from the Left, left-wing Christian bashers at home are justifying anti-Christian bigotry. Consider the rants of Jeffrey Tayler, who writes for Salon.

Tayler’s most recent article on this subject is a congratulatory statement made on behalf of his hero, Bill Maher. If bigotry were against the law, Maher would have been jailed long ago. Tayler likes Maher’s brand of anti-Catholic humor, which is why he wants more of it. Earlier this year he implored readers to “offend religion more.”

It is one thing to be a proud bigot, quite another to be an historical dunce. Anyone who thinks that the world’s first totalitarians, namely, the architects of the French Revolution, are responsible for freedom of speech and rule of law is badly educated. If it weren’t for the Catholic Church, which gave us the world’s first universities and the world’s first successful opposition to tyranny, haters such as Tayler wouldn’t enjoy the protections they do.

The Left has spawned every secular totalitarian regime in history, and Islam is responsible for every religious totalitarian movement the world has seen. Conservatives and Christians, by contrast, have never bequeathed a single political, economic, social, and cultural dictatorship. Conservatism, as championed by Edmund Burke, believes in a small role for government; and Christianity, as championed by Catholicism, believes in natural law and natural rights. Both of these ideas are as anathema to the Left as they are to totalitarianism.

That is why Hitler chose to govern the National Socialist Party; he ruled from the Left. Moreover, from their crusades against Christianity in the 20th century—led by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot—to their current tolerance for Islamist terrorism—the Left has never been the friend of liberty. Just the opposite.

What motivates left-wing totalitarianism, as I point out in my new book, The Catholic Advantage: Why Health, Happiness, and Heaven Await the Faithful, is utopianism. The Left rejects nature, and nature’s God, as well as Original Sin, which is why it is so confident about reconstructing human nature and setting everything right. But in reality there is no such thing as heaven on earth. In fact, when the Left gets control, it delivers nothing but poverty and genocide. To be idealistic is admirable; to be utopian is dangerous.

We are lucky to have Lucia Annunziata’s voice heard. Too bad she is a freak among the Left.

Just recently, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on same-sex marriage. For some reason, Newsweek thought that this would entice the pope to change on this subject.

For example, here is what Newsweek tweeted a few weeks ago: “Pope Francis still is against gay marriage even as the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments.” It showed a picture of the pope looking undecided.

On April 29, Taylor Wofford of Newsweek commented: “One day after the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges—the outcome of which may dictate the future of same-sex marriage in the United States—Pope Francis on Wednesday publicly affirmed his stance on so-called traditional marriage between men and women.”

Of course, the pope doesn’t have a “stance” on marriage, or on any other doctrine of the Catholic Church: he is the Vicar of Christ who defends and promotes the teachings of the Magisterium that have evolved over two millennia. Moreover, there is nothing “so-called” about traditional marriage—the union of a man and a woman in the institution of marriage has long been a staple in Western civilization.

It is astonishing that anyone would think that the Vatican might actually take its cues from the Supreme Court on the subject of marriage, or on any other issue for that matter.

In 2013, the pope said, “Two Christians who marry have recognized the call of the Lord in their own love story, the vocation to form one flesh and one life from two, male and female.” Last year, the pope described same-sex marriage as “a maneuver by the devil.” There is nothing “so-called” about those pronouncements—they are quite definitive.

Kansas City Star editorial writer Yael T. Abouhalkah’s mother should have told her son to mind his own business. He writes for the notoriously anti-Catholic newspaper, the Kansas City Star, and recently lectured Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas about his decision to have Bishop Robert Finn preside at two ordinations that took place last month; Finn recently resigned as Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph, and Naumann is the apostolic administrator of the diocese.

Archbishop Naumann recently celebrated the ordination of priests in his own diocese on the same day that the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph held its ordinations. That is why he asked Bishop Finn to preside over his former diocese. As well he should: not only is Bishop Finn a bishop in good standing in the Catholic Church, he is a holy man who has done a magnificent job in securing bright and able men to the priesthood. Indeed, the number of men he has galvanized to become priests makes Finn the envy of bishops in much larger dioceses throughout the nation.

All of this upsets Abouhalkah a great deal. He called the decision to empower Bishop Finn to preside over the ordinations “repulsive” and “reckless.” Bill Donohue called Abouhalkah’s condemnation malicious, obscene, and intrusive. Catholics no more report to the Kansas City Star than its employees report to the Catholic Church. We respect those lines. Would that the Star do likewise.

During a recent episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Louis C.K. said the following about child molesters:

“Child molesters are very tenacious people,” Louis C.K. told the SNL audience. “They love molesting childs [sic]—it’s crazy. It’s like their favorite thing! It’s so crazy, because when you consider the risk in being a child molester…there is no worse life available to a human being than being caught a child molester. And yet they still do it. Which from—you can only really surmise—that it must be really good.”

This “joke” didn’t go over too well with the audience. But they should have expected it—he’s gone to the same sewer before.

Five years ago Louis C.K. accused Pope Benedict XVI of molesting children. He told Jon Stewart that in his new FX show, “Louie,” he could not utter certain words, offering as an example, “I was going to say that the pope f**** boys.”

Louis C.K. needs to explain why he has child rape on his mind.

A couple of weeks ago, President Obama spoke at the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty at Georgetown University.

Much of what President Obama said about poverty was insightful and accurate, but he made some statements that deserve a rejoinder.

President Obama clearly understands, intellectually, the need for character formation and the role that values play in accounting for social mobility. Why, then, hasn’t he promoted policies that address these issues? Because his real interest is not fighting poverty, or growing the economy, it’s fighting inequality.

Inequality can be resolved either by providing programs that allow those at the bottom to rise or developing tax schemes that punish those at the top. Obama has chosen the latter route, which explains, in part, why the poverty rate has increased during his tenure. Ironically, inequality has also increased under his watch: low interest rates, which is a signature of his administration, bolsters the equities market, making the rich richer.

Obama took the occasion to criticize Catholics and Protestants who are more concerned about abortion than poverty. Yes, Mr. President, the most fundamental civil right is the right to be born—it is not the right to eat. Just as important, the research overwhelmingly shows that conservatives (those associated with the pro-life wing of Christianity) are more generous to the poor than liberals (the social justice wing). So his side is neither compassionate to the unborn nor charitable to the needy.

It was remarkable to hear Obama say that we should not “buy the idea that the poor will always be with us and there’s nothing we can do.” Who is the “we”? What has he done about it? He spoke throughout the conference as if he was just another one of the academics on the panel. He has been president for six-and-a-half years and there are more poor people today—they are disproportionately African American—than when he took office. Obama desperately needs a reality check.

Viacom has long been known for its anti-Catholic fare on Comedy Central and other networks. The Catholic League has dealt with them many times, both before and after their split with CBS. And Bill Donohue treasures the letters from head honcho Sumner Redstone defending bigotry as purely a free speech issue.

Recently Viacom pushed new buttons: their outdoor campaign in New York City included a picture of a couple of gals from the Comedy Central show “Broad City” wearing an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; the depiction appeared inside votive candles and was posted on the outside of phone booths that line city sidewalks.

Bill Donohue knows Viacom’s first quarter ad sales were down 5 percent, and that they just laid off 264 employees in New York City, but nothing justified ramping up their audience by exploiting Catholic iconography.

If they thought the Catholic League was overreacting, and that this was just fun and games, then they should have demonstrated their much-vaunted fidelity to inclusion by posting Islamic iconography on street corners around the city.

The Catholic League encouraged Catholics to contact Viacom and demand that they discontinue this offensive ad campaign.

A recent New York Times op-ed page article by Frank Bruni applauded Pope Francis for remarks he made a few weeks ago on women where he called for equal pay for equal work. But the cheers didn’t last long. “He left out the part about women in the Roman Catholic Church not even getting a shot at equal work,” the columnist wrote.

Bruni works for a newspaper that paid its first woman executive editor, Jill Abramson, considerably less than the male editor who preceded her, Bill Keller; she was also compensated less than Keller in pay and pension benefits when she succeeded him as managing editor. She was fired last year and replaced by a man.

It was Bruni, not the pope, who omitted things. Immediately after that part of the pope’s address where he cited pay equality, he spoke about the need to recognize “women’s motherhood and men’s fatherhood,” a direct refutation of Bruni’s favorite subject, gay marriage. Indeed, earlier in his speech, the pope said that “Jesus teaches us that the masterpiece of society is the family: a man and a woman who love each other! This is the masterpiece!” The masterpiece has no role for two guys.

Bruni called on U.S. bishops to sponsor abortion. He chided the bishops for objecting to Obamacare’s mandate that Catholic entities “include contraception in workers’ health insurance.” He left out the fact that these same institutions would also have to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.

Finally, Bruni thought it would be wise for the Church to “follow some other Christian denominations and ordain women.” There’s another glaring omission: the mainline Protestant denominations—which take their teachings from the New York Times—are in free fall. Meanwhile, the numbers in the Catholic Church keep going up. So why would we want to copy failure?

There was a time when conduct deemed to be offensive, especially of a sexual nature, was condemned by everyone. But not today: what matters is the identity of the offender, not the conduct.

A couple of weeks ago, David Letterman warmed up his audience by making a joke about women. He said, “Treat a lady like a whore, and a whore like a lady.” The audience didn’t think this was funny, so he dropped it.

Just recently, three Orthodox rabbis from New Jersey were convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping. They were charged with forcing unwilling Jewish men to get a divorce (known as a get), using electric cattle prods and handcuffs to torture them.

On the same day that the Orthodox rabbis were convicted, young women went topless in Times Square—they were body-painted from the waist up—hustling young men on the street to have their picture taken with them, for cash. They accosted minors. A tour guide complained that this was child pornography, but others thought it was cute.

Letterman has told obscene jokes about priests on a regular basis, and even though the audience did not always approve, he never stopped.