It was right out of the 19th century. A Catholic nominee for the federal bench is questioned about her Catholicity by two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is exactly what the nativists did—they argued that Catholics professed allegiance to Rome, and were thus un-American.

Welcome to America in 2017. Senator Dick Durbin and Senator Dianne Feinstein were not content to question the bona fides of Amy Coney Barrett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School; she was nominated to serve on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. No, they had to get into the dirt by implying that her dedication to the Catholic faith might compromise her judicial thinking.

Bill Donohue wrote a stinging letter to both Durbin and Feinstein as soon as the story broke and made media headlines about his response. He pointed out something that virtually every news story on this issue missed: both Democrats voiced the same line of bigoted reasoning in 2005; the victim that time was Judge John Roberts, who was being considered for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Donohue told Raymond Arroyo on his EWTN show, “The World Over,” that this was no coincidence. If Durbin and Feinstein smeared a high court nominee 12 years earlier—implying he exercised “dual loyalties”—then it was clear that both have anti-Catholic bigots working for them.

Durbin and Feinstein were guided in both instances by the Alliance for Justice. It is an umbrella group, funded by billionaire atheist George Soros, that represents scores of organizations dedicated to promoting a left-wing judiciary.

Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, who is the bishops’ point man on religious liberty, issued a statement on this issue. “People of faith—whatever faith they may hold—should not be disqualified because of that faith from serving the public good.”

Father John Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, defended professor Barrett, taking sharp aim at Feinstein’s remark that the nominee’s “dogma lives loudly” within her. “I am one in whose heart ‘dogma lives loudly,'” he said.

Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber sent a note to Feinstein saying, “Because religious belief is constitutionally irrelevant to the qualifications for a federal judgeship, the Senate should not interrogate any nominee about those beliefs.”

There were some other senators who made comments that smacked of anti-Catholic bigotry, but none matched Feinstein’s line of attack. Durbin’s remark—he questioned whether there was room for an “orthodox Catholic” on the bench—was more veiled, but just as bigoted.

It is hoped that Durbin and Feinstein got the message. They are a disgrace.

In two instances recently, a statue of Saint Junípero Serra was vandalized. Both crimes were committed in California.

In the first offense, “Murder” was written on a statue of Saint Serra near the San Fernando Mission, outside of Los Angeles. His hands were painted red and a swastika was depicted on the statue of the child standing next to him. Fortunately, everything was quickly cleaned up.

The second statue was defaced at the Old Santa Barbara Mission. Saint Serra’s statue was decapitated and splashed with bright red paint. It was also restored.

Pope Francis canonized Father Serra in 2015. The 18th century priest personally founded six missions, baptizing more than 6,000 Indians. He did more to defend the natural rights of Indians against Spanish conquistadors than any other leader at the time, secular or religious.

The assault on this revered priest comes on the heels of many attacks on historical figures, all stemming from the Charlottesville tragedy. As with those episodes, the persons involved in this barbarism have accepted the hate-filled propaganda of extremists, misrepresenting history to serve a radical agenda.

After Charlottesville, we predicted that the anarchists would vandalize the missionaries next. A week later, they targeted Saint Serra.

We are involved in a frontal assault on Western civilization, and the Judeo-Christian ethos that defines it. That is why the Catholic League is opposing these attempts at cultural cleansing—the ultimate goal is to undermine our religious heritage.

William A. Donohue

We live in strange times. Never before in American history have there been fewer victims of oppression, yet never before have more Americans laid claim to victim status. This is especially true of young people—the snowflake generation for whom every slight is seen as an unbearable affront—and those of my generation who are still living in the 1960s. Their latest grievance is the erection of monuments on public property.

The furor over the monuments is as contrived as it is baseless. With few exceptions, up until recently, no one felt put upon by these public tributes to prominent Americans. Why were they not seen as symbols of oppression until about a week ago yesterday?

It is not as though there was some new revelation about those honored in the public square. For example, everyone knew that many of the Founders owned slaves. What changed is our reaction.

This is a game, and it is a dishonest one. Most of those demanding that we take down the monuments are not driven by some noble sentiment—they are driven by hate.

Take a good look at Antifa and the other anarchists leading this fight. They hate America, and everything about it. They hate Western civilization, and, by necessity, they hate our Judeo-Christian heritage. These are the same people for whom the sight of a nativity scene on public property is seen as an obscenity, for whom the Pledge of Allegiance is an abomination.

The haters are not upset about slavery—many of the older radicals have long supported the slavery that marked the Soviet Union and Mao’s China—they are upset that their goal of subverting America hasn’t materialized. So they play their slavery card as a way to bring shame to our nation.

There is not a place on the globe that has not known slavery. The ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans not only tolerated slavery, they saw nothing wrong about it. Neither did the Chinese and Japanese. Slavery was outlawed in the U.S. in the 1860s, but was not made illegal in Africa until the 1980s (it still exists there today).

It was Western civilization that first put an end to slavery. It could not have done so without the leadership shown by the Catholic Church, though this will never be acknowledged by the snowflakes and their Sixties’ mentors. Indeed, St. Patrick was the first public person in history to condemn slavery.

Yes, Washington owned slaves, but he also freed every one of them. Many blacks in the U.S. who were not slaves also owned slaves. In fact, it was Africans who sold their slaves to Europeans—they were not captured in the middle of the night—thus opening the New World to slavery.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the Constitution did not legalize slavery. The truth is that nowhere in the Constitution is slavery mentioned. The words “slave,” “slavery,” “race,” “white,” “black,” and “color” are never cited.

There is, however, a clause in Article 1, Section 9 that, without explicitly mentioning slavery, made it clear that the Atlantic slave trade was set to end in 1808. True to form, the slave trade ended in 1808: Jefferson signed the statute, at the earliest constitutionally allowable date. This took courage: When Jefferson proposed the abolition of slavery, 40 percent of the nation was enslaved.

Another lie told to students is that the Constitution says that blacks are three-fifths human. In point of fact, the three-fifths reference had nothing to do with the humanity of blacks—it was a statement about apportionment.

Article 1, Section 2 speaks to this issue. To determine the number of representatives each state should have, the total was to be determined by “adding to the whole number of free persons, including to those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons.”

The Northern delegates did not want to count the slaves at all, and the Southern states wanted them to be counted as equals to free persons. According to the twisted logic of the perpetually aggrieved, this would suggest that the North was more pro-slavery than the South. This is nonsense.

If blacks weren’t counted at all, it would weaken the Southern base: the slave states would have only 41 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives. If they were counted as equal to whites, the slave states would have 50 percent of the House seats. The compromise—counting the slaves as three-fifths—meant that the slave states wound up with 47 percent of the seats.

The important point is that this controversy never had anything to do with passing judgment on the inherent human worth of blacks—the three-fifths discussion was over apportionment, and nothing else.

Those who hate this country don’t want any of this known. Why? They have a vested ideological interest in putting the worst possible face on America. Their anti-monument madness is only their latest foray into disabling the nation. They need to be exposed, resisted, and defeated.

Robert R. Reilly

Daniel C. Mattson, Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay: How I Reclaimed My Sexual Reality and Found Peace (Ignatius Press)

Why would someone with homosexual inclinations not call himself “gay”? After all, our popular culture practically screams for him to do so. The Supreme Court even offers to bless his “union” with another man. It seems he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by “coming out.” But with author Daniel Mattson, there is something even stranger here than his refusal to call himself “gay.” He once did consider himself “gay” and lived the “lifestyle,” but then threw it over for something better – a chaste life as a single Catholic man. One could hardly imagine a more unpardonable offense in the face of today’s Zeitgeist than to renounce “sexual freedom” for the sake of freedom in Christ.

Why did he do it – especially in light of the social rejection and splenetic invective he will inevitably receive as a result? The short answer is the profound unhappiness he experienced in trying to live out the homosexual fantasy. Of course, there are all kinds of unhappiness, but the greatest is caused by sin. The guilt from sin often drives a person to repentance and thus to a restored relationship with God, the true source of happiness. In a nutshell, this is what happened to Mattson, who had spent a good part of his life being angry at God. It was not an easy journey.

His book is a searing spiritual autobiography in which he lays his soul bare. He does not flinch in examining the evil into which he fell, the rationalizations that he gave himself for it, and the agony it caused him. This book is particularly invaluable because it comes from within the homosexual experience and reveals it for what it is. The book’s honesty is almost frightening. It’s as if we are eavesdropping on the most intimate and thorough confession, the experience of which makes the absolution he eventually receives all the more moving.

In fact, well before reading this book, I saw Mattson in the 2014 documentary Desire of the Everlasting Hills (https://everlastinghills.org/), in which he and several others with homosexual or lesbian tendencies tell the stories of how they lived active homosexual or lesbian lives, but then eventually returned to the Church. This film is the most powerful advertisement for Confession that I have ever seen. The restorative power of God’s overwhelming mercy is seen in the tears streaming down their faces. They are beneficiaries of it, and that is the story they want to tell.

This is why Mattson has written this book. He was willing to expose mercilessly the torment in his soul in order to show us God’s mercy to him—with the intention of drawing others into Divine Love, for which he has become an apostle. As he states toward the end of the book, “I want to help people see the face of Jesus.” He wants others to know that they too can be forgiven and are called to a higher love. The palpable joy Mattson expresses on his return to Holy Communion will bring tears to the reader’s eyes. Who would not wish to share in such joy? This is what makes the book so compelling.

The problem, however, is how to continue living this way, particularly in today’s culture. This is hardly a struggle only for those with homosexual inclinations (everyone has disordered desires of some sort), but it can be particularly acute for them. Consider the analogy of an alcoholic trying to achieve sobriety during a perpetual Happy Hour. With a great deal of spiritual perspicacity and practical wisdom, the latter half of the book addresses the problem of living chastely in a sexually depraved culture. As Mattson points out, for those with homosexual inclinations, the indispensable Catholic spiritual support group is Courage, which produced Desire of the Everlasting Hills.

While a good deal of the book is personal testimony and Christian witness, Mattson does not neglect what reason can tell us about reality in general and the purpose of our sexual powers specifically. In fact, these philosophical reflections played a role in his recovery. Central to these considerations is the role of nature.

One of the critiques of Mattson’s book posted on Amazon comes from someone who appears to be a parent of a homosexual. She counsels: “Hey everyone, did you know there are gay swans— it is just a part of nature, that’s all.” I wonder if she would be as accepting if her child had cancer: “Hey everyone, you know there are cancerous cells—it is just part of nature, that’s all.” Somehow, I don’t think so. Most likely she would object to the cancerous cells because they are killing her child and seek their removal. Why would she be able to see the danger in the one, but not in the other? Mattson addresses this important question in his chapter titled “What Does the Word ‘Disorder-ed’ Mean Anyway?” In it, he proves to be a good Aristotelian. It is worth spending some time on what constitutes order, so we can understand how we know what is disordered.

Aristotle said that “what is” operates according to the laws of nature. What are these laws? Aristotle taught that the essence or nature of a thing is what makes it what it is, and why it is not, and cannot be, something else. In The Politics, he said that “the ‘nature’ of things consists in their end or consummation; for what each thing is when its growth is completed we call the nature of that thing, whether it be a man or a horse or a family.” For example, as an acorn develops into an oak tree, there is no point along its trajectory of growth that it will turn into something other than an oak. That is because it has the “nature” of an oak tree and not of anything else. Hence, by nature or natural law, Aristotle meant the principle of development which makes any living thing what it is and, given the proper conditions, what it will become when it reaches its fulfillment. This end state is its telos, the reason for which it is. The telos of the acorn is a fully mature oak tree. The natural law for each thing is what allows us to speak of what it “ought” to be.

This means that what is “good” for a thing are those things or actions that assist it in reaching its perfection. Likewise, those things that inhibit or prevent something from reaching its end are “bad” for it, as drought or poisoned soil would be “bad” for an acorn. In each case, Aristotle would refer to the good things for the growth of the oak tree as natural to it, and the bad things for its growth as unnatural to it. What is good or natural for something is, therefore, intrinsic to that thing, internal to and inseparable from it. This is how we know that cancer is bad for human beings. Cancer may indeed happen but it is not natural to the body.

How does this relate to homosexual acts and the “gay swan” theory? Man is the only creature that has conscious knowledge of the end for which he is made. He alone has the ability to choose between those acts or things which are conducive to his end and those things which are not. Only man can act in defiance of his nature.

While man can come to know what is good or evil, he does not have the prerogative to determine what is good or evil. “Oughtness” is already in the given nature of things. Therefore, man is morally obliged to choose the good that will bring about what “ought” to be. Otherwise, he will become less than fully human and what he “ought” not to be—even something worse than a beast, as Aristotle warned.

Because we know what a human being is in the fullest, we can understand what a privation is. For example, we can know with certainty that 20/20 vision is the best for the eye and blindness the worst. In respect to a man’s sexual powers, which are unitive and generative by nature, the one whose state is best would be a man as husband and father, just as for a woman it would be as wife and mother. This is how we know that homosexual inclinations are privations and that homosexual acts are disorders. It is not a matter of “who says.” Homosexual acts cannot actualize sexual potential because they can be neither unitive nor procreative. As Mattson came to realize, homosexual inclinations are not part of what a human being is in his essence. A privation of the good cannot itself be good. In fact, as St. Augustine said, evil is a privation of the good. This is where the “gay swan” argument falls apart.

When Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, announced in 2014 that, “I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he substituted a privation of the good for the good itself. This is a metaphysical travesty. Unless blindness is the same as sight, one cannot say that the disposition to use sexual organs in ways unfit for either generation or union is the same as, or even superior to, their use for generation and/or union.

Mattson sets this sort of argument forth ably and does not flinch from its application. He writes: “I realize I live with a sexual disorientation, which is the lack of something within me that should be present.” He embraces the description in the Catholic Catechism of homosexual acts as “objectively disordered.” In a recent interview with the National Catholic Register, Mattson said, “For me, that language is vitally important for my moral safety. I need those hard words for a safety measure for me and my soul. Thanks be to God that the Catholic Church says to me that to behave in a sexual manner with another man is intrinsically disordered. They respect me enough and have enough compassion for me to tell me the truth…”

Mattson knows that the full truth of man is contained only in Christ, including in his Suffering. For our own salvation, we are called to participate in that Suffering—partly through our own times of loneliness. Mattson advises, “When they come, though they may chafe against us, the answer is to embrace them as Christ embraced the Cross, and offer them for the salvation of those whom we love.”

Our society is suffused with rationalizations for sexual disorders of all kinds. Mattson’s self-examination explodes them with spiritual realism of high-intensity. He has emerged from the darkness through which he has traveled bearing gifts. I cannot imagine a greater one than this book he offers us.

Robert R. Reilly served in the White House under President Reagan and was director of the Voice of America; he also taught at the National Defense University. He is the author of several books, including Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior is Changing Everything and The Closing of the Muslim Mind. He has also published many articles on classical music.

There is nothing wrong about criticizing the bishops for any position they take on public policy, though when invidious motives are ascribed to them, such conjecture is unacceptable. That is what Steve Bannon did with regard to their statements on immigration, during his September 10 appearance on “60 Minutes.”

It is certainly true that most of the bishops promote a liberal position on illegal immigration. That is open to fair criticism, but to say that their motive is to “fill the churches” is inaccurate and unfair. Indeed, it feeds the worst impulses of anti-Catholics. The bishops are making their case based on their compassion for the dispossessed.

Is the compassion overwrought? Is it dismissive of the rights of those who have waited legally on line to enter the United States? Is it insensitive to the abuses of power exercised by President Obama to deal with this issue? Is it neglectful of a whole host of cultural and economic issues attendant to illegal immigration?

There are many legitimate issues that can be raised about the approach that the bishops have taken, but not among them is the old saw about filling the pews. Besides, if filling the pews were the driving force, only a delinquent pastor would choose to attract those least likely to donate to, and most likely to draw on, parish funds.

The Catholic Benefits Association (CBA), which provides health coverage to many Catholic entities, is asking President Trump to repeal and replace the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that was sponsored by President Obama. We second that call: Trump’s Justice Department continues to inexplicably honor an appeal to the Tenth Circuit that seeks to undo the CBA’s injunctive relief from the HHS mandate.

“No government action in American history has ever resulted in more lawsuits by religious organizations,” says the CBA. Moreover, the reasons brokered are wholly indefensible.

The HHS mandate fundamentally guts the right of Catholic non-profits to provide healthcare that is consistent with Catholic teachings. Worse, it grants the government the right to decide whether a Catholic institution is sufficiently Catholic, thus obliterating church and state lines.

Make no mistake about it, granting the right of the federal government to decide whether a Catholic association is truly Catholic is a pernicious power grab, one that flies in the face of the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty. This is clearly the most draconian element of the HHS mandate.

What makes this all the more disturbing is the ruling by the Trump administration’s HHS declaring the ObamaCare HHS mandate illegal. Why, then, the foot dragging on the part of the Justice Department?

The Trump administration does not have to wait for a repeal of ObamaCare to do what is morally and constitutionally right—it can repeal the HHS mandate at any time.

We all understand the frustration that accompanies the slow rate of presidential appointees, but this issue does not turn on new personnel: Attorney General Jeff Sessions can withdraw the Tenth Circuit appeal without delay.

One way or the other, Catholics need to know whether the president is going to fulfill his pledge to protect the religious liberty of the Little Sisters of the Poor, as well as all the other Catholic groups that are party to these lawsuits.

The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania has released a new survey on the public’s knowledge of basic constitutional rights; it is disturbing on many levels.

More than a third of Americans, 37 percent, can’t name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Nearly half, 48 percent, list freedom of speech as a guaranteed right, but only 15 percent can name freedom of religion. The results of other survey houses indicate that matters have gotten worse.

The First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University has been tracking this issue for decades. In 2014, it found that 68 percent were able to identify freedom of speech as a guaranteed right, but only 29 percent could name freedom of religion. Twenty years ago, the respective figures were 49 percent and 21 percent.

Why is it that knowledge of our First Amendment right to freedom of religion always trails our awareness of freedom of speech? Is it because the rights crusade that began in the 1960s is more often associated with free speech rights? Yet the efforts by Rev. Martin Luther King were anchored more in religious rights than free speech rights.

Why is it that we are apparently going backwards on both measures, especially on religious rights? To be exact, between 1997 and 2017, our knowledge of free speech as a First Amendment right slipped by 2 percent, but our knowledge of freedom of religion dropped by 29 percent. Is it because the public schools harbor a phobia, or worse, about religious expression?

Freedom depends, in part, on our vigilance in protecting fundamental human rights. If the first freedom to go is freedom of religion—history shows that it is—then these survey findings are not encouraging. We are not likely to defend rights we barely know exist.

Given the normalization of hysteria in America, it was predictable that hyperbole would govern much of the discussion—if we can call it that—over the so-called Dreamers, the almost 800,000 young people who were brought to the United States illegally, mostly from Latin America. It’s time to see through the Dreamers maze.

This is one problem where culpability escapes neither Party: with some important exceptions, both the Republicans and the Democrats have shown little or no interest in grappling with the macro issue of immigration, and the micro issue of the Dreamers. They would prefer that the executive branch, or the courts, handle this matter, though this is clearly the purview of the Congress.

The last time comprehensive immigration reform was passed was in 1986, the Simpson-Mazzoli bill. In 2013, the Washington Post did a splendid piece explaining why “the 1986 reform act didn’t work.”

“The law was supposed to put a stop to illegal immigration into the United States once and for all,” the newspaper said. “Instead, the exact opposite happened. The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the country soared, from an estimated 5 million in 1986 to 11.1 million today.” It blamed an ill-crafted amnesty provision and the absence of meaningful enforcement mechanisms.

In the 16 years that President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama were in office, nothing was done by the Congress. Though they will deny it, the Republicans like the cheap labor that the business community applauds, and the Democrats like the cheap votes that government largess affords.

Obama proved to be more aggressive than Bush. When the Congress failed to do its job and pass immigration legislation, he took it upon himself to implement the provisions that the Congress explicitly rejected. This was an unconstitutional power grab by an Imperial president. In 2015, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said as much, and last year the U.S. Supreme Court kept the brakes in place.

This is the mess that the Congress, Bush, and Obama left for President Donald Trump. His decision to force the Congress to do what it is constitutionally authorized to do—pass immigration legislation—was legally sound and procedurally commendable. But that doesn’t settle the matter.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has made it clear that the Trump administration has not changed course. “The priorities remain the same: criminals, security threats and those who repeatedly violate our immigration laws.” What about the Dreamers?

Trump is on record saying that he is “not after the Dreamers,” and that they “should rest easy.” He has stressed that “we are after the criminals.” But as Sanders said, he not only wants the Congress to address this issue, he is asking all members to commit to comprehensive immigration reform.

Trump’s critics have slammed him for lacking compassion. But as Sanders indicated, where is the compassion for those who have been displaced from the workforce by the Dreamers? She pointed out that “there are over 4 million unemployed Americans in the same age group [as the Dreamers].” In that group, “950,000 of those are African American,” and “over 870,000 unemployed Hispanics [are] in the same age group.”

To be sure, the issue of the Dreamers is tricky for Trump. For example, in the election of 2012, by a margin of 55 percent to 42 percent, voters said that Mitt Romney shared their values more than President Obama did. But when voters looking for empathy in a candidate were asked to choose, Obama won 81 to 18. While empathy is a virtue for those who deal with pastoral issues, it is not a sufficient attribute for governing.

It is time to exhale: The Dreamers are not about to be booted. Those whose legal status has been approved, which is almost all of them, are good for up to two years, and those whose permits are due to expire in the next six months have until October 5 to renew.

“This gives Congress at least some time to enact the current Dreamer legalization process in a statute that is the proper legal path under the Constitution’s separation of powers,” says a Wall Street Journal editorial. It adds that “Mr. Trump signaled his willingness to sign such a bill.” He should. Penalizing the Dreamers because of the ineptitude of the Republicans and Democrats is indefensible.

Will such a bill reach the president’s desk? Democrat Senator Dick Durbin, an original author of the Dream Act, said, “I am hoping that this is a moment where we are forced to finally do something.” Agreed. And if this does happen, it will be because Trump forced Congress to do its job.

One of the most obscene shows ever aired on TV occurred on the August 21 episode of the AMC show “Preacher.”

It depicted Jesus in a grotesque sex scene. It was clearly meant to offend, and succeeded in assaulting the sensibilities of all Christians, as well as people of good will who are not Christians.

Bill Donohue summed up why this show was different. “We have been treated to this kind of fare from some pay-per-view channels, but we are not accustomed to AMC getting into the mud.”

He added that “If this is a signal of what it aspires to become, we will rally Christians against it.”

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has empanelled 18 persons to assess which monuments and other markers should be removed from city property. He said the panel “will develop guidelines on how the City should address monuments seen as oppressive and inconsistent with the values of New York City.”

It is telling that the mayor did not say that the panel should determine which monuments are inconsistent with American values. Instead, he cited the “values of New York City.” This begs two questions: What are New York City values, and who decides what they are? His past forays into this area are cause for grave concern.

In February 2011, a pro-life group, Life Always, displayed a huge billboard in the SoHo section of New York that showed a picture of a young black girl with the inscription, “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” Prominent African Americans endorsed the billboard; it was displayed during Black History Month.

The billboard incensed de Blasio, who was then New York’s Public Advocate. He not only failed to be an advocate for the unborn, or for pro-life New Yorkers, he actually recommended censoring it. “The billboard simply doesn’t belong in our city. The ad violates the values of New Yorkers.”

In other words, if an ad offends de Blasio’s values, it offends “the values of New Yorkers.” Not content to criticize an ad he objects to, he sought to muzzle the free speech rights of black pro-life men and women. He succeeded.

De Blasio’s passion for declaring abortion rights to be representative of New York values led him to support Governor Andrew Cuomo’s equally censorial approach to this subject. In 2014, Cuomo railed against what he called “extreme conservatives” who are “pro-life, pro-assault weapons, anti-gay.” He said such persons “have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.”

So New Yorkers opposed to abortion “have no place in the state of New York,” and should get out of town. De Blasio said he agreed with that position “100 percent.”

Let’s be honest about this: De Blasio is not asking the panel to develop guidelines that offend traditional moral values—he is asking them to craft recommendations that offend his trendy political values.

This explains why he is sure not to mess with the New York City street named after Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, despite the fact that she was a notorious racist and an anti-Catholic bigot. While he might be upset with her racism (the latter animus doesn’t even register with him), it is not likely to trump his fondness for Planned Parenthood. Look for the sign to stay.