Macy’s has fired an employee because he is a practicing Catholic. The case is now before the New York State Division of Human Rights. We jumped on this issue immediately, thanks to a tip by the attorney who is handling this case, Raymond Nardo.

In May, Javier Chavez, Senior Store Detective at the Macy’s store in Flushing, New York, received a phone call stating that a male had entered the ladies room with a female companion. A female customer, and her daughter, were afraid to enter because of the male’s presence. A security employee who reports to Chavez advised the man to leave and use the men’s room. He left claiming to be a female. He then complained to store officials that he was asked to leave.

Chavez was subsequently told by an Assistant Store Manager that certain males can use the ladies restroom. This was news to him. A few days later, an Assistant Security Manager told him that transgender persons can use the bathroom of their choice. He said he had just become aware of this policy, stating that it was contrary to his religion and the Bible. But he hastened to say that he would nonetheless enforce Macy’s policy.

Macy’s would not leave this alone, and this is where it crossed the line. Chavez was then summoned to meet with the Human Resources Manager, who suspended him. He was later terminated.

“After my employer learned that I was a practicing Catholic, with religious concerns about this policy,” Chavez says in his formal complaint, “I was terminated because of my religion, in violation of the New York State Human Rights Law.”

Bill Donohue responded as follows: “The most basic religious right is the right to believe; if conscience rights can be vitiated, the First Amendment means nothing. Macy’s has no legal, or moral, grounds to stand on. For merely holding beliefs that are contrary to the store’s policy, Chavez was fired. This is what totalitarian regimes do, not American commercial establishments.”

We are conducting a PR campaign alerting the public to Macy’s intolerance. We are focusing on all the other segments of the population that have been mistreated by the mega-department store. And we plan on doing much more.

To register your objections to the Macy’s thought police, please contact Jim Sluzewski, Senior VP, Corporate Communications and External Affairs, Macy’s, 7 W. 7th St., Cincinnati, OH 45202; email him at jim.sluzewski@macys.com; call him at 513-579-7764.

In August, Macy’s announced that it is closing 100 stores. But it has more than bad financial news to deal with—it has to deal with Catholics.

Last month, the Pennsylvania court system tossed out the unjust conviction of Msgr. William Lynn over his handling of sexual abuse allegations against other priests. It was the third time it had done so.

Yet the Philadelphia District Attorney vowed—for the third time—to pursue the discredited case. The judge set a date, May 1, 2017, for another trial, even though Msgr. Lynn has now served all but two months of his minimum three year sentence for a conviction that has been repeatedly reversed.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the trial court “abused its discretion” in allowing evidence unrelated to this case. Pointedly, as Msgr. Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, put it, it is D.A. Seth Williams who is in a clear abuse of his prosecutorial discretion. Indeed, as Bergstrom said, Williams “is just hell-bent on trying this case.”

Msgr. Lynn has “done 33 months along with 18 months house arrest for something the Superior Court has now ruled was an unfair trial,” Bergstrom noted. Yet, “for some reason” Williams “continues to want to beat up on this guy.”

From the start, this case has been a flagrant anti-Catholic witch-hunt, perpetrated by Williams, his predecessor Lynne Abraham, and others. One would think they would by now be satisfied that they have extracted their pound of flesh from this innocent man.

What is driving this campaign is a maniacal hatred for Msgr. Lynn and the Catholic Church he serves.

William A. Donohue

Historically, the Republican Party has been associated with Protestants, and the Democrats have been the choice of Catholics. “From the 1840s, when Democratic ward-heelers greeted the first great waves of Catholic immigrants on the wharves of New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and other East Coast cities,” writes political scientist George McKenna, “Catholics found a congenial home in the Democratic Party, one that permitted them at first a seat at the table of a great national Party and finally a chance to preside over it, divvying out the patronage and the power throughout much of the North.”

Another reason why Catholics were drawn to the Democrats was the fierce anti-Catholicism of the abolitionists. “By the late 1840s antislavery activists frequently denounced slavery and Catholicism as parallel despotic systems, opposed to education, free speech, and political liberty in predictable synchronicity,” says historian John T. McGreevy.  Among the Catholic bashers were Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frederick Douglass.

The Republican Party, born in the mid-1850s, was home to Protestants who entertained the Reformation theology that associated the pope with the Whore of Babylon. Obviously, there was no room for Catholics in this Party, nor was there any room in the virulently anti-Catholic Know-Nothing Party. Though Lincoln was appealing to many Catholics, the Democrats still had more to offer: it was the Democrats who opposed religious tests for state office and who showed tolerance for Catholicism.  Catholics would remain with the Democrats well into the 20th century.

It was the antipathy between mid-Western Republican Protestants and the Northeastern urban Catholic Democrats that resulted in Prohibition, the former proving triumphant over the latter. The 1920s also saw Republican anti-Catholicism peak with the presidential election of 1928.

Al Smith, the New York Catholic Democrat, was considered “the captive of Tammany Hall,” and Tammany Hall, as Catholic observer George J. Marlin notes, was considered by Republican Protestants as “a brothel whose allegiance was pledged to the ‘Whore of Babylon’—the Pope of Rome.”  The New York Times admitted that “Most of [the votes] were cast against the Democratic candidate because he was a Catholic,”  and a Midwestern newspaper reported the defeat of Smith with the headline, “THANK GOD, AMERICA IS SAVED.”  Reverend Bob Jones, founder of Bob Jones University, spoke for many Protestants when he said of Al Smith, “I would rather see a saloon on every corner than a Catholic in the White House. I’d rather see a nigger as President.”

Catholics gravitated toward FDR’s New Deal, remaining staunch Democrats, notwithstanding a rift after the war with Eleanor Roosevelt over public aid to parochial schools. But as Baruch College political scientists Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio have observed, the feud between the former First Lady and New York’s Cardinal Spellman over this issue “exposed fissures in the Democratic Party between its culturally traditional Catholic wing and the then-nascent culturally liberal secularist minority that would deepen over time and eventually split the Party two decades later during the 1968 and 1972 national conventions.”

Another sign that things were changing was the election of America’s first Catholic as president, John F. Kennedy. Though he  overcame some Protestant suspicions in 1960, he did so by downplaying his religion to a remarkable extent. “I never even once discussed religion with John F. Kennedy,” recalls Theodore H. White, the great chronicler of presidential elections, “except in the practical political terms that made it a campaign issue in 1960.”

If Kennedy dumbed-down his religious affiliation for prudential reasons, secular forces within his Party were starting to flex their muscles, and by 1968 New Left radicals mounted a strong challenge to conventional liberalism. When the 1972 presidential campaign unfolded, it was clear that the anti-traditionalists had succeeded in penetrating the Democratic Party, leaving Catholics with a sense of homelessness: they never felt welcomed by Republicans and now they felt abandoned by the Democrats.

“Secularists first appeared as a political force within a major Party at the 1972 Democratic National Convention,” note Bolce and De Maio. “Prior to then,” they say, “neither Party contained many secularists nor showed many signs of moral or cultural progressivism.”

Catholic author David Carlin understands what was happening. There had long been “FDR liberals” in the Democratic Party, men and women identified with the interest of labor unions and the working class, in general. “Civil rights liberals” were another important strand, activists and their supporters who stood for racial equality. As Carlin sees, the years between 1968 and 1972 witnessed the arrival of a third group, the “Moral/cultural liberals.” They pushed the boundaries of sexual freedom by embracing everything from abortion to homosexuality. Unlike the other segments of the Party, the sexual free-spirits alienated  many veteran members of the Democratic Party. Count Catholics among them.

So Catholics are politically homeless. Practicing Catholics tend to be Republicans, and non-practicing Catholics tend to be Democrats. Hispanics, now more than a third of Catholics, are overwhelmingly drawn to the Democrats. In many ways, Catholics are as divided among themselves as the nation is as a whole. Not a pretty sight.

Thomas C. Reeves

In 2003, Pope John Paul II beatified world-famous Mother Teresa. On September 4, she will be canonized. Bill Donohue, long-time president of the Catholic League, examined the extensive literature on the topic and discovered nothing that directly supported Mother Teresa’s critics. Donohue, as always, is careful with his research (the footnoting is extensive), and he is articulate and persuasive.

The author of Unmasking Mother Teresa’s Critics is a champion of the woman born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910, in a town that is now part of Macedonia. Donohue describes her heroic work in the slums of Calcutta among the poor and dying to the subsequent founding of the Missionaries of Charity, and her discovery and leap to fame in 1968 by British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge.

Donohue is unimpressed by her critics (who seem remarkably few in number). “It is one thing to point out her shortcomings, quite another to misrepresent her work and disparage her efforts,” he writes. “After reading their failed accounts, I am convinced more than ever that Mother Teresa is a role model for the entire human race.”

Her most voracious critic was British writer Christopher Hitchens, whose campaign against the nun began with a television documentary in late 1994.  Hitchens was a leftist, an atheist, and a practicing bisexual who hated Christianity and the Roman Catholic Church. He was also brilliant and articulate.

Hitchens claimed that Mother Teresa was dishonest, that she associated with crooks and dictators. He also accused her of denying the sick proper care. He attacked her personally, calling her the “ghoul of Calcutta.” He also mocked her lack of physical beauty, and heaped scorn on her by saying that she was “a presumable virgin.”

Donohue and Hitchens crossed swords in public debates on numerous occasions (some of the televised debates are available on YouTube). Donohue charged that his opponent was guilty of using half-truths and slander based on little or no research. His brief and devastating analysis of Hitchens’ book, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, is definitive.

The Left in general has opposed the sort of selfless charity practiced by Mother Teresa and her nuns, favoring government action that prohibits any religious emphasis. The Catholic idea of redemptive suffering is, of course, entirely out of bounds for Leftists. Moreover, the Church’s opposition to contraception and artificial birth control (not to mention sodomy) makes the Missionaries of Charity seem even more the enemies of “progress.”

In 2002, atheist Aroup Chatterjee joined the assault on Mother Teresa with his book, The Final Verdict. His cynicism was such that his book received little attention. Fellow atheist and screwball Hemley Gonzalez later joined Chatterjee in charging that the Vatican “manufactured” the nun to raise funds and advance its power.

In 2013, three left-wing Canadian professors published “The Dark Side of Mother Teresa” in a scholarly journal; they repeated earlier allegations against the sisters and the Vatican. They were especially critical of voluntary service to the poor. “Such a model of charity overshadow[s] the urgency of taking our collective responsibilities and getting organized with regards to social justice.”

The academics also criticized the lack of financial transparency by the sisters (they have in fact accepted donations that later proved to be of criminal origin), suggesting, without evidence, that donations often failed to reach the poor. Mother Teresa told a biographer, “I need money to use for my people,” not for investing. “The quite remarkable sums that are donated are spent as quickly on medicines (particularly for leprosy and tuberculosis), food and on milk powder.”

The Canadians also wrote of “the deplorable lack of hygiene on the premises” in Calcutta. As it turns out, a physician, quoted by the professors to substantiate their charge, actually undercut their bogus claims. Donohue reports what the doctor said. “So the most important features of the regimen are cleanliness, the tending of wounds and sores, and loving kindness.”

Donohue also discusses how a former volunteer and ex-Catholic wrote of Mother Teresa in the leftist Huffington Post: “Her fundamental belief is that everyone, absolutely everyone in this world deserves love and care.  She cherished every single life on this planet more than anyone ever did, and that’s why she created the Missionaries of Charity: to help and welcome the poorest of the poor, those whose life had not been judged worthy to live and who had been rejected by everything and everyone.”

Donohue quotes an assortment of witnesses who evaluated the work of Mother Teresa and her sisters. They all declared their praise for the work that they did in India and elsewhere. One, atheist Prabir Ghosh, exclaimed, “If she is bestowed with sainthood for her service to mankind, that will be a great thing.”

Navin Chawla, one of Mother Teresa’s biographers, wrote admiringly of the many professionals—physicians, dentists, nurses, and others—who generously volunteered their time and talents. He estimated that in Calcutta, Hindu workers outnumbered Christians ten to one. Chawla thought that the work with children (which often included help with their education as well as physical needs), the dying, and lepers were the crowning achievements of the Missionaries of Charity.

Mother’s labors even extended to the United States, where in the 1980s she founded New York’s first AIDS hospice in Greenwich Village. New York Mayor Ed Koch was astonished by the nun’s compassion. “She said that when AIDS patients were near death, she would sit at their bedside.  Often they would take her hands and place her fingers on their faces wanting her to feel their lesions and to close their eyelids for the last time.”

Why pay any attention to people who are about to die?  Mother Teresa’s response to this question was indignant, “For me, even if a child died within minutes, that child must not be allowed to die alone and uncared for.” One of her most famous quotes was, “If there is an unwanted baby, don’t let it die. Send it to me.” Of AIDS victims, she said: “They were asking for a ticket to heaven, and I gave them that ticket.”

Mother and her sisters were themselves extraordinarily austere. An American reporter wrote, “They own only three saris, sleep on thin mattresses, wash their clothes by hand and sit on chapel floors….In the kitchen, the food continues to be cooked on a charcoal fire, the fuel of the very poor.”  The food comes from volunteers who collect it for that purpose.

The nuns were not social workers and considered themselves outside the pale of the state. When British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher boasted to Mother Teresa of her country’s welfare system, the nun replied, “But do you have love?”

In 1979, Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize and used the occasion to defend the lives of the unborn. She declared, “The poor people are very great people,” adding that “they can teach us so many beautiful things.”  Abortion, she said, was the greatest enemy of peace. Mother spent the prize money on the poor in India.

In 2007, after her death, private letters exchanged between Mother Teresa and her confessors became public. They revealed that for 50 years the nun did not feel God’s presence in her heart or in the Eucharist.

Critics had a field day, going so far as to claim that she was insane. But wiser heads knew that many saintly Christians over the centuries have experienced the “dark nights” of the soul, and that overcoming them was a sign of sanctity. Donohue handles this issue wisely and thoughtfully, noting Mother’s continued faith and devotion despite the spiritual handicap given to her by God.

And so, after the Church carefully authenticated two miracles (causing a flutter among her atheist critics), Mother Teresa will soon be canonized.  Her legacy is one of love and service to countless numbers of people, by her deeds and her spoken and printed words.

Today there are 4,500 Sisters in the Missionaries of Charity, continuing the work of their founder. One way to get better acquainted with this remarkable saint is to read this book by America’s most courageous and active champion of the Catholic Church.

Thomas C. Reeves is a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. An historian, he is the author of several books, including ones on Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, John F. Kennedy, and Joe McCarthy. He serves on the advisory board of the Catholic League.

“Mother Teresa’s detractors have met their match. In this devastating response to persistent critiques, Bill Donohue corrects the record and turns the tables on Mother’s attackers. The truth within is a powerful antidote to the lies that have dogged Mother for too long.”
Raymond Arroyo
New York Times bestselling author and host, The World Over Live

“What Donohue has done is expose and analyze the fever swamps of ideological bias from which scattered attacks on this holy woman now and then arise. Unmasking Mother Teresa’s Critics is a valuable and enlightening book.”
Russell Shaw
author of Catholics in America

Over the past decade, there has been a raging argument in pro-abortion circles over messaging: Should they be discreet talking about abortion, or should they wear their pride on their sleeves? Recently, the latter path was on display at the Democratic National Convention.

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards was the first speaker at this event to drop the dreaded “A” word: instead of talking euphemistically about “reproductive rights,” she spoke about abortion. Good for her—let’s have an honest discussion. Now she needs to tell us what is being aborted.

The following night, NARAL Pro-Choice president Ilyse Hogue told the crowd how she handled a pregnancy years ago. “I wanted a family, but it was the wrong time. I made the decision that was best for me—to have an abortion….” She did not say whether it was best for her baby. But no matter, when she finished her confession, she paused, waiting for applause. There was little of it. Our only regret is that her speech was not given during prime time—it really should have been.

These two abortion advocates are not an anomaly. Indeed, they are very much in step with the Democratic Party Platform. The 2016 Platform breaks ranks with all previous party positions on abortion by calling for a repeal of the Hyde Amendment. It now wants to force taxpayers to pay for abortion.

In 1975, atheist Anne Nicol Gaylor published a book titled, Abortion Is A Blessing. It was endorsed by feminists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem. Friedan previously had close ties to the Communist Party, and Steinem had an abortion when she was 22. In 2009, Rev. Katherine Ragsdale, an Episcopalian priest, also boasted that “Abortion is a blessing.” Are the  Democrats now ready to join this merry band of abortion enthusiasts?

The Democratic Party Platform had some strongly worded statements underscoring the need to protect women’s rights. Yet one of the speakers at the recent Democratic National Convention was actress Lena Dunham.

In 2014, Dunham wrote a book, Not That Kind of Girl, about growing up on Long Island. She explained how she fondled her one-year-old sister: “Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her legs and carefully spread open her vagina. She didn’t resist and when I saw what was inside I shrieked.”

In another passage, she boasted, “As [Grace] grew, I took to bribing her for her time and affection: one dollar in quarters if I could do her makeup like a ‘motorcycle chick.’ Three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds. Whatever she wanted to watch on TV if she would just ‘relax on me.’ Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.” (Our italics.)

Dunham also admitted to sharing the same bed with Grace until she was seventeen, and that sometimes she “slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out” while sleeping next to her.

When asked about these behaviors, Dunham replied that “as a queer person,” she is “committed to people narrating their own experiences, determining for themselves what has and has not been harmful.” Swell. So she made that determination for Grace.

This is the kind of person that the party of women’s rights recently celebrated in Philadelphia. Will anyone in the media squeeze Hillary Clinton to explain why?

Tim Kaine wants to save the lobo, but not the kids.

We confess we had no idea what a lobo was until we looked it up—it’s a Mexican grey wolf. Tim says we are running out of them (he does not say whether we should build a wall to save them). How do we know? Because the Defender of Wildlife Action Fund gave him a 91 percent rating in 2015, and a 100 percent rating in 2013; on the front page of its website the #1 cause is “Don’t Let the Lobos Go Extinct.”

The Defender of Wildlife Action Fund is also worried about saving the eggs of the bald eagle, a goal that Tim no doubt shares (as do we). What about human eggs? Tim has no interest in protecting them. How do we know? Because he merits a 100 percent rating from both NARAL and Planned Parenthood, and they support abortion-on-demand.

The Washington Post calls Tim “A Pope Francis Catholic.” But the pope’s position on abortion would receive a 0 from NARAL and Planned Parenthood. The pope also supports marriage, properly understood.

In a Polling Company survey of Catholics we commissioned last year, we learned that 61 percent of Catholics reported that abortion should not be permitted in all or most instances; the figure for practicing Catholics was higher. That means Tim is not representative of most Catholics on this issue.

Tim likes gay marriage. How do we know? Because he received a 100 percent rating from the radical gay group, the Human Rights Campaign. Once again, Tim is out of step: our survey found that 58 percent of Catholics think marriage should be between a man and a woman.

If Tim were to treat unborn children the way he treats lobos, and acknowledge the obvious—marriage was meant for the only two people who can create a family—he would improve his standing among Catholics. As it is, his positions make him an outlier.

The following article written by Bill Donohue was recently published on CNSNews.com.

Finally, there is some justice in Pennsylvania. Its Attorney General Kathleen Kane has been found guilty on nine counts, including two felony perjury charges; she was also convicted of criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The six men and six women on the jury convicted her of leaking grand jury information, and then lying about it.

Amazingly, even after she was convicted, she remained the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, even though she was stripped of her law license. But today she stepped down, knowing she was toast.

Kane sought to destroy her opposition, and succeeded in ruining the lives of state officials; she even cost two State Supreme Court justices their jobs. Why should this matter to those outside Pennsylvania? Because Kane is a vindictive, radical feminist out to prove that she can “take down the boys.” And as I pointed out a few months ago, she also waged war against the Catholic Church.

Kane made a name for herself by promising voters that she would get to the bottom of the Penn State University scandal. She said she would review the investigation into Jerry Sandusky, the assistant coach who worked under Joe Paterno; he was convicted of sexual abuse.

So what did Kane find? No evidence of political interference, but some salacious emails by state officials; she leaked them to the press. When lawmakers pushed back, she played the woman’s card, claiming victim status against the “male-dominated political establishment.”

After flexing her feminist muscles against Penn State, Kane looked to score against the male clergy in the Catholic Church.

When the Cambria County District Attorney’s office asked Kane to launch a grand jury investigation into alleged sexual abuse that took place at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, she dutifully complied.

The state grand jury report, released on February 29, found widespread abuse by priests and others who worked for the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. The alleged abuse extended back to the 1940s.

When new reports surfaced, we did our own probing at the Catholic League. We found many unanswered questions. For one, why was the Catholic Church singled out by Kane for a grand jury investigation about alleged offenses that took place during and after World War II?

On March 10, I raised this question. “Anyone who knows anything about the subject of the sexual abuse of minors knows that there is not a single demographic group, or institution, that has not had a lousy record of dealing with this problem. Swimming coaches, camp counselors, Boy Scouts, psychologists, public schools teachers, rabbis, ministers, Hollywood producers—all have a sordid past. So why is it that only the Catholic Church is fingered?”

What was also striking was the presence of Mitchell Garabedian, a Massachusetts lawyer. Why was this out-of-state attorney, who has a long record of suing the Catholic Church—and who has a tarnished ethical record—pursuing this case?

Kane, her allies in the state legislature, and activists with a vendetta against the Catholic Church, also proved how phony they were by not campaigning for bills that would revise the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases involving minors that occur in the public sector.

The bills under consideration in Pennsylvania this year only targeted private [read: Catholic] schools. If a kid was raped by a public school teacher as recently as 91 days ago, and now wants to bring charges, he is out of luck: he has 90 days to file suit, otherwise it is too late. But when it comes to Catholic schools, the proposed legislation offered no clock—there was no time limit—thus allowing for lawsuits to be filed for alleged offenses dating back decades.

This is the kind of “justice” that Kane pursued. She had no interest in protecting all children—just Catholic school victims. Yet Pennsylvania ranks at the top as one of the worst states in the nation when it comes to child sexual abuse in the public schools. It should be noted that this problem hardly exists in Catholic quarters anymore.

Between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, .01 percent of the Catholic clergy had a credible accusation made against them regarding these offenses. There is no organization in the nation that has a better record on this score today than the Church, but don’t look for the media to report it. It is too busy waving the flag for “brave” feminists like Kane.

If this isn’t outrageous enough, consider that if a priest has a credible accusation made against him for groping, he must step down immediately while a probe is conducted. Yet here we have the spectacle of the Attorney General of Pennsylvania being convicted of felonies, and still remaining on the job. She has no law license, and the judge in yesterday’s trial ordered her to surrender her passport, but she is still in charge of law enforcement.

Following her conviction, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf asked Kane to step down. If she had any integrity, she would have done so immediately, without prodding. Good riddance.

A California bill that would have essentially gutted the heart and soul of religious colleges and universities was revised by its sponsor, deleting its most controversial provisions, in the face of strong opposition from Catholic and other Christian leaders. We were happy to add our voice to this effort.

As first introduced, SB 1146, sponsored by California state Senator Ricardo Lara, would have denied important exemptions to religious schools that have long been honored by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. And it would have exposed those schools to lawsuits simply for conducting themselves according to the tenets of their faith.

The so-called “Equity in Higher Education Act” would have forced religious schools that receive state funds, or whose students receive state aid, to adopt practices that conflict with their beliefs and teachings. The legislation would have mandated that religious schools provide bathrooms based on “gender identity” rather than male-female. It would have required that married dorms be opened up to same-sex couples. It had the government deciding what “religious practices” and “rules for moral conduct” would be acceptable. It could have restricted a school’s ability to teach its religious faith or require student attendance at worship services, and it could have been used to require that gay and lesbian clubs and activities be allowed on campus.

In short, the original bill went way beyond the issue of gay and lesbian rights. It was clearly an effort to use that agenda to attack and weaken the moral foundations of Christianity.

The measure would have especially hurt low-income and minority families, millions of whom, throughout California, utilize faith-based colleges and universities and depend on financial assistance to be able to do so.

It would also have gravely weakened faith-based institutions financially. It would have forced  them to either compromise their moral principles or incur costly litigation to fight the bill’s anti-religion mandates.  And it would have made it easier for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students at religious colleges to sue for discrimination if they are penalized for violating church doctrine.

The revised bill removes that provision, insulating these religious institutions from lawsuits that challenge their teachings on sexual ethics.

Sen. Lara is still seeking to make religious colleges comply with a provision requiring them to notify a state agency each time a student is expelled for violating the school’s moral code of conduct. This is classic state overreach and a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. As such, it should be eliminated.

No one wants to see any students denied basic civil liberties, but when cross-dressing men claim victim status for not being allowed to shower with women—in a college that respects the biological distinctions provided by nature and nature’s God—then such appeals must be rejected. To do otherwise is to counsel state control of religious entities, as well as to indulge in a political fiction.

There is a huge difference between advancing human rights and using the club of discrimination to force religious institutions to abandon their autonomy. Separation of church and state is not being disrespected by the faithful, but it is being trampled upon by militant secularists.

Kudos to Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez, Bishop Charles Blake of the Church of God in Christ, and the many activist organizations that protested the bill and pushed for the revisions.

In the latest email scandal to overtake the Clinton campaign, it has been learned that a top DNC official sought to exploit the Jewish roots of Sen. Bernie Sanders in an effort to help Hillary Clinton. “Does he believe in God?” wrote Brad Marshall, the DNC’s chief financial officer. “He skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage,” Marshall added. “I think I read he is an atheist.” He then said that to Southern Baptists, there is “a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”

That all of this comes from the titans of diversity and inclusion is striking, to say the least.

By contrast, when Bill Donohue was asked last April by Brooke Baldwin on CNN what he thought about Sanders being invited to address a Vatican audience, here is what he said: “Well, good for Bernie. I mean, there’s a pontifical committee out there that deals with social justice issues and he certainly will be welcomed, as he should. He is a good man.” Donohue then said that he and the Catholic Church differ on abortion and family issues.

Over the past six months, many have commented on the significance of having a Jewish candidate for president, and how little controversy it has engendered. That is a good sign. It is not a good sign to read how the DNC sought to squeeze political capital out of Sanders’ secular convictions.

This needs to be condemned by everyone, beginning with the benefactor of this exploitation, Hillary Clinton.