Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Georgia, recently insulted Catholics when she said, “Satan’s controlling the Church.” Bill Donohue quickly called on her to be sanctioned by her colleagues in the House of Representatives.

Below is the text of the letter Donohue sent to Rep. Theodore E. Deutch, Chairman of the House Ethics Committee and Rep. Jackie Walorski, Ranking Member of the Committee; a copy was sent to every member of the Committee.

As president of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, I am requesting that you levy sanctions against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for her virulent anti-Catholicism.

On April 21, Greene was interviewed by Michael Voris, the head of Church Militant. In their discussion about the role of Catholic Charities working with immigrants, Greene said the Catholic Church was run by Satan.

Here is what she said. “I thought we had a separation of church and state, right? No, what it is, is Satan’s controlling the church.”

I asked for an apology and she publicly said there would be none. She responded by saying that her sweeping condemnation of the entire Catholic Church was meant only to apply to the bishops, as if that makes her hate speech acceptable.

Greene has a history of offending African Americans and Jews, so bigotry is something that is apparently baked into her.

The time has come for her to be either reprimanded or censured. Her irresponsible behavior has already caused her to be removed from committee assignments. Accordingly, her burst of anti-Catholicism now demands stronger sanctions against her.

Greene responded with boilerplate. She said she wanted Donohue to apologize to her and that he should have had someone from his office contact her before making accusations.

Greene was raised Catholic, left the Church and became an evangelical. She is an embittered ex-Catholic.
News of the clash between her and Donohue was widely picked up by the media. It made the front page of Yahoo! twice in one day.

We are well aware that Greene has a pro-life voting record and that she has been good to veterans, etc. But we cannot, and will not, allow anyone to tell us that the Catholic Church is run by Satan and get away with it. No one gets a pass when they slander the Church. (See p. 3 for more on this issue.)

We live in a time when elites are not content to simply disagree with others: they go for the jugular. The politics of personal destruction has now been extended to the politics of institutional destruction. Whether it is the Catholic Church, or the Supreme Court, that some want to malign, they must be answered with vigor.

“Roe says what all basic mainstream religions have historically concluded—that the right—that the existence of a human life and being is a question. Is it at the moment of conception? Is it six months? Is it six weeks?”

That’s what President Biden said following word that a draft of the Roe v. Wade decision had been leaked to the press.

Bill Donohue released the following statement to the media: “What ‘basic mainstream religions’ have to say about when life begins is interesting, but it should not be controlling. What matters is what science says. We have known for a long time that life begins at conception.”

Donohue said that people can debate all they want about when “personhood” begins, but they must be careful lest they slide down the eugenics slope.

The ultimate issue, he said, is this: “If what develops at fertilization proceeds undisturbed, the result many months later will be a baby boy or girl. Just as important, all of the characteristics that constitute the uniqueness of this new life were there from the time of conception. This is Biology 101.”

We are proud to note that the Catholic Church does not follow the science—it has been well out in front of it. There is no more “question” about when life begins: the answer is there for anyone not living in a state of delusion.

Biden’s biology is flawed. He needs to get up to speed.

William A. Donohue

Following the debacle with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, I found it necessary to write a statement that would clarify what we do. There are some conservative Catholics, and others, who think we should give anyone in public life who is pro-life a pass, no matter what they say or do. If we did that, we would not only compromise our mission, we would become an enabler of the very thing we were founded to do—fight anti-Catholicism.

Greene has apologized to Jews and others for her offensive remarks, but not to us. She seems to think that because she is a cradle Catholic, and was married in the Catholic Church, that she has a right to condemn the entire Catholic Church.

She bolted from Catholicism to become an evangelical, which is fine, but unfortunately she found common cause with those anti-Catholics who are still present in some evangelical circles.

Greene tried to worm her way out of the jam she created by saying she was only attacking the bishops. As I point out below, those who “make sweeping condemnations of the clergy, blaming all priests and bishops for the miscreant behavior of some” are the mark of a bigot. Here are the comments that I released to the press explaining our position.

We are delighted with all the kind comments we have received from Catholics, clergy and lay alike, about our denunciation of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Anyone who says the Catholic Church, or its leadership, is run by Satan is a bigot.

But we have our critics, too. There are those who hate the Catholic Church and therefore object to our comments about her. I am not interested in addressing these people—they are haters. I am interested in addressing those who don’t seem to know what we do.

Our primary mission is to combat anti-Catholicism. Secondly, we are strongly committed to religious liberty. These twin issues cover most of what we do. As a sociologist, I also write about issues that bear on the contours of our culture. After all, the Catholic Church does not exist independent of the dominant culture. Indeed, it is very much a part of it. This explains why we track the cultural currents of the day: they are bound to affect the Church.

We are not a wing of either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, and we certainly are not in business to serve either of them. If we go after Democrats more than Republicans—and we do—it is because secularists tend to be Democrats and the more militant among them tend to be anti-Catholic.

We aren’t a wing of the Catholic hierarchy. We are quite independent of them. To be sure, we are not some renegade Catholic organization—we are listed in the Official Catholic Directory as a bona fide Catholic entity. Just as the bishops don’t tell us what to do, we don’t tell the bishops what to do. We have neither the authority nor the will to do so. We know our place.

We do not go after critics of the Catholic Church who are upset with a particular public policy that it embraces. They have every right to do so. We only get involved when criticism spills into invective, into boilerplate, taking shots below the belt. We also object to those who make sweeping condemnations of the clergy, blaming all priests and bishops for the miscreant behavior of some. Those are the marks of a bigot.

It must also be said that we object to non-Catholics criticizing the doctrinal prerogatives of the Church: they have no more business doing so than Catholics have a right to criticize the internal strictures of another religion. Fairly criticizing the Church for its position on abortion is one thing; criticizing its teaching on priestly celibacy is another.

Most Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Protestants are good people. But there are some within each group that are intolerant of Catholicism. Among the first two, it is the militant secularists within their ranks that are a problem; among the latter two, it is their extreme interpretation of their religion that is the problem.

Angry ex-Catholics and militant secularists within the Jewish community are consumed with hostility over the Church’s sexual ethics. Practicing Catholics and observant Jews are not the problem—it is those who have lost their way.

When radical Muslims lash out at Catholics, it is usually the result of some twisted understanding of their own religion. Similarly, there is a strain of anti-Catholicism among Protestants, more commonly exhibited by extremists within the evangelical community.

Marjorie Taylor Greene belongs to two of these groups: she is an angry ex-Catholic and an extreme evangelical.

We do not give Republican pro-life politicians a break when they make remarks that are patently anti-Catholic and refuse to apologize. We denounce them. We don’t cut corners for them because to do so would violate our mission. It is up to Republicans to get bigots like Greene into line—don’t ever expect us to give anti-Catholics a break, no matter what their voting record is.

Bill Donohue

On May 14, I was awarded an honorary degree from Ave Maria Law School. I also gave the Commencement address to the graduating class.

Tom Monaghan founded Ave Maria University, located in Ave Maria, Florida and Ave Maria Law School, which is independent of the university and is located in Naples, Florida.

Tom is the founder of Domino’s Pizza, which he sold many years ago. He is a member of the board of advisors of the Catholic League and the founder of Legatus, an organization of Catholic business executives.

When Tom called me to receive the honorary degree and offer the Commencement address, I was delighted. There are not very many truly Catholic institutions of higher education left; most have succumbed to the dominant culture and have become increasingly secular.

Ave Maria University and Ave Maria Law School are different. They are both unapologetically Catholic. It is a tribute to Tom that he took his fortune and spent it on making two first-class Catholic schools.

The following is the transcript of the remarks which I prepared, though the address was given with more spontaneity than what appears here. The audience was appreciative and fun to be with on this special occasion.

In my lifetime I have had the opportunity to meet with many outstanding individuals, including presidents and popes, but of all the successful persons I have met, none has been more humble and more self-giving than Tom Monaghan. He is truly one of the great Americans of our age, and we Catholics are fortunate to count him as one of our own.

Tom had a vision: he wanted to build a first-class Catholic institution of higher learning, and he has done so. You graduates are testimony to his work.

Regrettably, there are many Catholic colleges and universities these days that have lost their moorings. Some have pro-abortion student clubs on campus—Georgetown has two—while others have openly rejected core Catholic teachings on marriage, the family and sexuality. Ave Maria University, and Ave Maria Law School, are different: they are faithful to the Catholic tradition, and they have done so without compromising their commitment to academic excellence.

Catholic colleges that have lost their way are not unique: most colleges and universities have lost their way. The typical college administrator and faculty member will tell you that higher education exists so that all ideas can be discussed, without favor for one set of ideas over another. They are wrong, seriously wrong.

The fact is freedom of speech does not exist anymore on most college campuses. Heterodox views are not allowed. Thought control is the rule, not the exception. I know—I spent 20 years on the board of directors of the National Association of Scholars, and I ran the Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania chapters for decades. This organization is wholly opposed to the politicization of the academy. As you might expect, it is very busy these days.

Philip Hamburger is a professor of law at Columbia University; he is also a courageous and brilliant scholar. He recently wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal about a Georgetown law professor who is on leave, pending an investigation. What did he do wrong? He issued an inoffensive tweet, one that nonetheless managed to anger the law dean. Here is what Hamburger said about it.

“The problem is now pervasive in law schools. On account of mere dissent, deans investigate faculty for their views, give them meager salary increases, bar them from teaching some subjects, and even threaten to fire them—as at Georgetown. It’s not only deans. Faculties or their appointment committees regularly refuse to hire people with the wrong views. Just as bad, student law-review editors exclude dissenting students from their boards and even threaten to fire editors whom they discover to have the wrong views, whether on pronouns or matters of law.”

In other words, administrators and faculty who tout higher education as citadels of free speech are wrong. As I have said many times on radio and TV, there is more free speech at your local neighborhood pub than there is on your local college campus.

The elites who run higher education are not only phonies, they are wrong to maintain that colleges and universities were founded as places where all ideas can be discussed and weighed. No they were not. Higher education was founded for one reason: the pursuit of truth.

A number of years ago I was asked to go on “The Today Show” to debate a Columbia University dean. He defended the school’s invitation to have Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak on campus. He made his case on free speech grounds.

I replied that colleges and universities constitute a community, and as such, they have normative strictures. They do not exist so that every voice can be heard; rather, they exist so that truth can be pursued. That is why Columbia should no more invite someone from the Flat Earth Society to speak on campus anymore than it should invite someone who denies the Holocaust, as Ahmadinejad does.

Does that mean that such persons should not be allowed to speak? Not at all. They should be allowed to speak at forums that were founded as free-speech venues, places like Madison Square Garden or Central Park. But higher education is different. If the existence of the Holocaust is subject to debate on campus, then the school should shut down.

To be sure, the pursuit of truth is contingent on freedom of speech. Therefore, restrictive lines that are capriciously drawn, or that defy reason—as they do at Georgetown Law—must not be tolerated. That leaves a lot of wiggle room for the pursuit of truth to be realized, without compromising the integrity of colleges and universities.

In the 1990s, I spoke to Ph.D. students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. After my talk, two male students cornered me saying, rather smugly, that I sounded like one of those patriotic American types. I plead guilty, referencing my veteran status. I said to them, “you obviously disagree with me, and believe that all cultures are equal, and that none is morally better than the other.” They smiled and said that is exactly what they believe.

I then said, “in this country we put pizzas into ovens, and in Hitler’s Germany they put Jews into ovens—that’s just a matter of different strokes for different folks. Isn’t that right?” That wiped the smile from their face and they nervously shook their heads saying no, that can’t be right. But it is, I replied, what I said is logically consistent with your position. Now if you are not happy with that, I commented, perhaps it’s time you rethought your position and spent more time assessing first principles.

Truth matters. To take another example, the Catholic tradition respects natural rights and natural law. Those who sneer at this tradition have not thought things through anymore than the CMU students did.

What did the Nazis who were on trial at Nuremberg say in their defense? They said they were only following orders when they put Jews into ovens. They were telling the truth, they said, yet they were convicted. But on what basis? They did not violate the positive law, the actual written law. No, they were convicted because the tribunal concluded that they were really not telling the whole truth.

Sir Henry Shawcross, the British prosecutor, said there could be no immunity “for those who obey orders which—whether legal or not in the country where they were issued—are manifestly contrary to the very law of nature from which international law has grown.”

It was the Nazis violation of the “law of nature,” or the natural law, that got them convicted. While it is true that Aristotle is regarded as the father of the natural law, it was Aquinas who gave it a Catholic cast, inspiring Catholic theologians and philosophers to provide it with such a rich tradition. From them, we learned that fundamental ideas of right and wrong are inscribed in the hearts of all of us.

The Nazis knew that, too. Naturally, Catholics are never given credit for their contribution to the very basis upon which the Nazis were found guilty. There is an objective moral order, and attempts to deny this truth are scurrilous. Indeed, they may even be lethal.

No matter, postmodernist thought has rendered the very idea of truth to be invalid. Indeed, postmodernist professors like to boast that only the badly educated—the “deplorables”—still believe there is such a thing as truth. They like to cite Nietzsche’s remark, “There are no facts, just interpretations.” I like to remind them that there is another figure in German history who similarly said, “There is no such thing as truth, either in the moral or the scientific sense.” His name was Adolf Hitler.

The latest iteration of the “there is no such thing as truth” school of thought is the fanciful idea that pregnant woman are not carrying a baby. So what is she carrying? Is it a seal? Have you ever heard of a pregnant woman who invited you to her “fetus shower?”

In 2005, Hillary Clinton said, “We can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women.” She never said why. By contrast, we never think it is “sad” when we learn that a family member has to get a root canal. It may be unfortunate, but it is not “sad.” Furthermore, the choice to undergo this dental procedure would never be deemed “tragic.” Her failure to tell the truth was itself telling.

Two men can say they are married, but everyone knows that marriage, which is a universal institution, was founded to facilitate the creation of a family. Two men cannot create a family—they have been disqualified by nature, and by nature’s God. We all know this to be true, yet some prefer to live in a state of denial.

Another fiction is the bizarre idea that the sexes are interchangeable. They are not. People may identify as someone of the opposite sex—they may identify as a giraffe—but that doesn’t change reality. You are either female, with XX chromosomes, or male, with XY chromosomes. No one is walking around with XYZ chromosomes. They may exist in their head, or on a professor’s blackboard, but the truth is that transgenderism is a fiction.

Unfortunately, these examples of postmodernism’s denial of truth are commonplace on college campuses. There are exceptions, of course, and Ave Maria Law School is a primary example. It is testimony to the gift that Tom Monaghan gave you, and indeed all Catholics. It is up to you, as graduates, to make good on his effort. You have been given the tools, now it’s time to execute.

We don’t need any more Catholic spectators. We need gladiators, men and women who have the courage to stand up for their Catholic convictions. If you do, you will not only endear yourself to God, you will make this a better country.

President Biden has condemned the firebombing of a Christian pro-life office in Madison, Wisconsin, but he did not address this crime as the work of pro-abortion arsonists. They left graffiti outside the building that said, “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”

Biden should’ve been as pointed in his condemnation of this hate crime as he is when he talks about right-wing violence. He has no problem blaming all “MAGA” people when right-wing extremists act up, yet he resorts to generic statements when left-wing extremists act up.

Worse, Biden has said nothing about the wave of anti-Catholic incidents that have occurred recently. In doing so, he is giving succor to bigots. Here are some examples.

• Outside the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York pro-abortion activists held signs and banners that taunted Catholics.
—”I’m killing the babies!”
—”Abortion is a Gift”
—”RIP Jesus, Killed by a ‘Woke’ Deadbeat Dad”
—”We Love Abortion”
—”Help Me Abort My Babies”
—”God Killed His Son, Why Can’t I?”

• In Chicago, pro-abortion activists assembled in a public square holding signs that read “End Catholic Tyranny” and “Abortion On Demand.”
• In Denton, Texas, vandals defaced a Catholic pro-life pregnancy center, leaving graffiti that read, “Forced Pregnancy is Murder.”
• The pro-abortion group “Ruth Sent Us” tweeted a message to Catholics vowing to “Burn the Eucharist.”
• In Boulder, Colorado, pro-abortion vandals struck Saint Mary’s Church, smashing windows and spray painting the church.
• In Los Angeles, pro-abortion fascists interrupted Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. They shouted at the parishioners and unfurled a large green banner. Disrupting religious services is a federal offense.

It is shameful that our “devout Catholic” president has not said a word about any of these anti-Catholic incidents. Not to comment on what happened in Los Angeles, in particular, is outrageous.

Moreover, Catholics on the Supreme Court are being singled out for harassment. The pro-abortion group, “Ruth Sent Us,” has explicitly called on activists to confront Catholic Supreme Court Justices: they encourage them to invade their privacy by demonstrating in front of their homes, seeking to intimidate them and their families.

This is another example of bigotry, yet Biden can’t bring himself to call it for what it is—rank anti-Catholicism. We Catholics would get more outrage from a non-Catholic president.

On May 11, Senator Chuck Schumer introduced the Women’s Health Protection Act, the most radical pro-abortion bill ever written. It would effectively guarantee abortion-on-demand. It would also gut First Amendment protections for religious liberty by exempting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).

Schumer’s actions epitomize the Democratic Party on abortion and religious liberty. Not too long ago, the Democratic Party was cautiously pro-abortion. Two days after becoming president in 1993, Bill Clinton said, “Our vision should be of an America where abortion is safe and legal but rare.” When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008, she repeated this line, adding, “By rare, I mean rare.”

Rare no more. There is not an abortion today that most Democrats wouldn’t support. Worse, they went from being pro-religious liberty to anti-religious liberty.

On March 11, 1993, less than two months after President Clinton carved out a relatively moderate stance on abortion, Rep. Chuck Schumer introduced RFRA in the House; Senator Ted Kennedy broached it in the Senate. The final vote: it passed unanimously in the House and the vote in the Senate was 97-3.

Schumer spoke from the floor of the House on May 11, 1993, saying that “We all know that the First Amendment guarantees the right of the free exercise of religion. Traditionally the Supreme Court interpreted that guarantee to mean religious freedom can be infringed only when the government has a compelling interest in doing so.”

He went on to say that a 1990 decision, Employment Division v. Smith, changed that tradition, promulgating a new standard where “government only has to show a legitimate interest in order to burden religion.” It was this relatively weak protection that RFRA rectified.

Schumer now thinks that he went too far in promoting religious liberty. In particular, he has a problem with religious liberty whenever it collides with issues of sexuality. His strong interest in abortion and gay rights clearly supersedes his interest in religious liberty, notwithstanding the fact that the Constitution explicitly mentions the free exercise of religion while saying nothing about abortion and gay rights.

The evolution of Schumer, and the Democratic Party that he epitomizes, has radically turned against life and liberty. It is no longer even a figment of its former self.

There are only two sexes: male or female.

That is what Bill Donohue said to the graduating class at Ave Maria Law School on May 14; his comments were well received. The same day, Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis spoke to the graduates at the University of Wyoming and she said the same thing. She was booed and later apologized for “disrespecting” people.

Sen. Lummis should never have apologized. She told the truth.
We will never beat those who deny the existence of nature, and nature’s God—which is what this madness is all about—if we yield to ideological maniacs who refuse to acknowledge the existence of truth.

There is a dangerous movement afoot seeking to punish anyone who refuses to bow to the thought-control police, namely those in education, government and the media who are telling everyone, especially students and employees, what pronouns they must use when addressing a man or a woman who claims to be something other than a man or a woman.

It doesn’t help when a sitting U.S. senator apologizes for merely telling the truth, and it is particularly wrong when the offenders are the administration, faculty and students at a state university.

Our side needs to be disobedient. There is no virtue in kowtowing to ideological zealots who live in a state of delusion.

Following the leak of the draft decision on Roe v. Wade, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement condemning those Justices who regard Roe to be wrongly decided. They said they “have lied to the United States Senate.” They cited not a single lie. The truth is that they lied about the Justices. In fact, from the very beginning, Roe has been based on lies.

Prior to the 1973 decision legalizing abortion, pro-abortion activists told the media that there were five thousand to ten thousand deaths a year owing to abortion. But it was a lie. We know it was a lie because the man who broadcasted about it at the time, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, a practicing abortionist and activist, later admitted that he lied. By the way, the actual number of women who died of an abortion the year before Roe was thirty-nine; the figure was published by the Centers for Disease Control.

The pro-abortion industry loves to say that prior to Roe, women were prosecuted all over the country for having an abortion. This is another lie.

There are only two cases in which a woman was charged in any state for having an abortion: Pennsylvania in 1911 and Texas in 1922. Since 1922, there have been zero documented cases in which a woman has been charged in an abortion case.

The woman in Roe, Jane Roe (whose actual name is Norma McCorvey), was 21 when she became pregnant for the third time. She sought an abortion in Texas. But there was one problem: Texas did not allow for abortions except if the mother’s life was endangered. So she lied. On the advice of her female lawyers, she said she was raped.

Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the decision in Roe arguing that “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” This was a remarkable admission. Did he not understand that this question was central to this issue? The reason why this ruling has proven to be so controversial has everything to do with this question. Moreover, if Blackmun—or anyone else—is unsure when life begins, why not err on the side of caution? Why assume life is not present at conception?

In fact, well before 1973 there was scientific evidence that life begins at conception. Indeed, twenty years earlier James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA, the very material that makes all of us unique human beings. It is present at the moment of fertilization—not a day later. Additionally, ultrasound technology was frequently being used when Roe was decided.

As important as anything, even distinguished pro-abortion jurists have slammed the decision in Roe for being without constitutional foundation.

Those who claim it is constitutionally sound are either ignorant or lying.

Harvard Law School professors Archibald Cox, Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe have said the decision was fatally flawed. Even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it was lawmakers, not judges, who should decide this issue.

The New Republic, a staunch supporter of abortion rights, said at the time that it was not the provenance of the courts to rule on abortion. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, another advocate of abortion-on-demand, said that inventing a right to privacy was irresponsible. “Whatever abortion may be,” he said, “it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.”

The biggest lie of all is the claim that abortion doesn’t kill an innocent human being. The Catholic Church has been on the right side of science on this matter all along. We welcome others to the fold.

Women exist. It’s true. The controversy is over. Anatomy texts settle the issue.

“Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?” This question was asked of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during the confirmation hearings. She could not. “I’m not a biologist,” she said.

It is hard to believe that as recently as a decade or two ago that this question would even be raised. But we live in strange times. Not only is our newest Supreme Court Justice not sure what a woman is—ironically she was chosen partly because the president thinks she is a woman—lots of well-educated persons are puzzled.

Alia E. Dastagir is a reporter for USA Today. “Scientists, gender law scholars and philosophers of biology said Jackson’s response was commendable, though perhaps misleading.” They “note that a competent biologist would not be able to offer a definitive answer either.”

So who are these people? Rebecca Jordan-Young teaches at Barnard College and claims to be a scientist. She says Jackson was not nuanced enough. “I don’t want to see this question punted to biology as if science can offer a simple, definitive answer.” But wouldn’t we punt to a dentist to explain what a root canal is? For that matter, wouldn’t we punt to an auto mechanic to explain what a car is?

Sarah Richardson is a Harvard historian and philosopher of biology, and she believes that science is not best suited to define what a women is. “As is often the case,” she says, “science cannot settle what are really social questions.” That’s funny. When Bill Donohue was studying for his doctorate in sociology at NYU, he was never taught that sociology was the best suited to know what a woman is. Maybe he missed that class.

Sometimes this issue gets very messy. St. Louis University identifies as a Catholic school, yet last year a student group was investigated by the Office of Student Responsibility and Community Standards because it raised the question in a social media video, “What is a woman?” Why they weren’t expelled remains a mystery.

So what do they teach in medical school? Surely no one wants to go to a doctor who doesn’t know the difference between a man and a woman. Donohue hates to get technical about this, but guys being treated for prostate cancer don’t want to go to a gynecologist.

Anne M. Gilroy is the author of Anatomy: An Essential Textbook, Third Edition, published in 2021 by Thieme Medical Publishers. Richard L. Drake, A. Wayne Vogl and Adam W.M. Mitchell are the authors of Gray’s Anatomy for Students, Fourth Edition, published in 2020 by Elsevier.

These textbooks are among the most widely used by medical students in the United States and abroad. Both clearly identify what a male and female are and what constitutes their biological status. Those who claim that there are sexes other than male and female find no support in these books. Here is what we found.

Thieme’s Anatomy: An Essential Text Book, Third Edition

• References to Female: 40
• References to Male: 25
• References to Transgender: ZERO
• References to Intersex: ZERO
• References to Other Sexes or Genders: ZERO

Gray’s Anatomy for Students, Fourth Edition

• References to Female: 8
• References to Male: 10
• References to Transgender: ZERO
• References to Intersex: ZERO
• References to Other Sexes or Genders: ZERO

Both books make it clear that there are female bodies and male bodies, and that’s it. There is no special transgender body or any of the other pantheon of sexualities or gender identities.

The loose term intersex is used to describe a medical condition where an individual is born with irregular chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals. In the wake of the passage of the Florida Parental Rights in Education law, left-wing activists and teachers quickly latched on to the notion that young children need to know about intersex because some of the students might have this anatomical anomaly. However, the textbooks did not offer a section on this category, so unusual is this condition.

In other words, those elites who are not sure what a woman is made the right decision not to pursue medicine. They would’ve flunked out of medical school.

There is no such person as a transgender—you are either male or female—but there is such a thing as transgenderism: it is an ideology that promotes the fiction that the sexes are interchangeable.

To win, proponents are bent on getting to children, prompting little kids to question whether they are satisfied being a boy or a girl. If they are in doubt, they should be advised to at least consider making the switch.

There is no more rabid advocate of transgenderism in America than the President of the United States. Indeed, transgender mania has gripped the White House.

Within months, the Biden administration will finalize changes to Obamacare that will make it easier for persons seeking to transition to the opposite sex. The Department of Health and Human Services is leading the way, treating gender identity as a status worthy of being covered by laws against sex discrimination. Changes will also be made to healthcare plans, so that sex-transition procedures can be covered.

This is a classic case of top-down politics. There is no national outcry demanding that those who want to flip their sex should be given the green light. If anything, there is a growing consensus that we need to hit the pause button on this subject.

When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently said that “Gender affirming healthcare for transgender kids is the best practice and potentially lifesaving,” she offered no evidence to support this outlandish claim. But she did make plain that gender-affirming care meant a) social affirmation b) puberty blockers c) hormone therapy and d) gender-affirming surgery.

This four-step approach is a sanitized way of saying that the White House is committed to encouraging the sexually confused to transition to the opposite sex, and that chemical castration and genital mutilation will follow.

Psaki also warned lawmakers who work against them that they have been “put on notice” not to mess with the president. She specifically said the White House will go after states that resist their agenda. She was supported by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra who said he wants taxpayers to pay for the drugs, incisions and genital reconstructions.

The White House says that gender-affirming care will help transgender adolescents who are suffering from mental health problems, drugs and suicidal thoughts. They should first inquire why these young people are so messed up in the first place and then seek to give them the help they need. It is nonsense to argue that their problems are due to social rejection—their maladies are a function of their mental state.

Dr. Paul McHugh is a noted psychiatrist who has studied this issue as well as anyone. The Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital maintains that transgender people suffer from a “mental disorder” and that “the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken—it does not correspond with physical reality.”

Undeterred, the Biden administration cites a Trevor Project survey to support its conclusion, never mentioning that two of the organization’s donors, AbbVie and Allergan, make drugs and medical products that facilitate sex transitions.

Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis apparently was not “put on notice,” or he is simply recalcitrant. His Department of Health has issued its own guidelines on this subject. It declared that because the evidence is inconclusive regarding sex-transition procedures, and could, in fact have “long-term, irreversible effects,” the best way forward is to recommend against treating children and adolescents at this time.

To back up its stance, the Florida agency cited evidence that 80% of those seeking to transition lose their desire to do so over time. It also cited the serious health effects of making the change. There is good reason to support this position.

We could learn a thing or two from the Europeans; they have a richer history of dealing with those who are in rebellion against their nature.

The Amsterdam University Medical Center surveyed 4,600 transgender men and women between 1972 and 2018. It found that transgender medical treatment shortened the lifespan of patients by 50%. This is an astounding finding, one that should make everyone reconsider the conventional wisdom on this subject.

After allowing cross-sex hormone treatment in children for 22 years, Sweden slammed on the brakes and made the practice illegal. Its health officials said these procedures are “potentially fraught with extensive and irreversible adverse consequences such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, infertility, increased cancer risk, and thrombosis.” Denmark and France did the same thing.

It must also be said that the psychological problems these people have are every bit as serious as their physical condition.

We look back today at controversial medical treatments that have proven to be a disaster and wonder why we went down this road. Some day we will do the same with regard to sex-transition treatments, but by that time the psychological and physiological damage will have been done, thanks in large part to our “devout Catholic” president.

There is a reason why Pope Francis calls gender ideology “demonic.” This mania has got to stop.