Catholic League

Catholic League President Bill Donohue’s time in public life has been centered on pushing anti-gay bigotry, ridiculing progressive Christians, and promoting censorship and boycott campaigns. He most recently won a notable victory when, with the help of GOP leaders and other social conservatives, he convinced the Smithsonian to censor an exhibit on the marginalization of gays and lesbians in America. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery removed a film by the late artist David Wojnarowicz exploring the suffering of people with HIV-AIDS because the video, which included a short clip of ants crawling on a crucifix, might “spoil the Christmas season.”

Rattled by the Smithsonian’s decision to censor its exhibit, other museums began screening the film. Today, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced that it has acquired Wojnarowicz’s banned film, A Fire In My Belly, leading to a swift and ugly response from Donohue and the Catholic League.

In a statement released today, Donohue tried to use President Obama’s speech in Tucson, which called for greater civility and dialogue in American politics, as a reason for the MoMA to keep challenging and provocative artwork such as Wojnarowicz’s film out of the public eye. (Of course, there is a very significant difference between the violent imagery and incendiary rhetoric that the President criticized and the intense, but nonviolent, debate that the artwork in question might engender.) And then, after misusing the President's call for civility, Donohue switched gears and engaged in the same gutter politics and hate mongering, even calling MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry a “corporate welfare queen,” that have long-defined his career:

In Tucson, President Barack Obama correctly noted that "our discourse has become so sharply polarized" that it has disfigured our society. He made note of the "lack of civility" which marks our culture, beckoning us to "sharpen our instincts for empathy." And just one day later, MoMA announced that he was wrong. It wants a sharply polarized society; it delights in incivility; and it abhors empathy. That is why it has decided to assault Christian sensibilities by hosting the vile video.

"We really do live in a time when anything can be hailed as a work of art. This has naturally led to a proliferation of pretentious and often pathological nonsense in the art world." Those words were penned ten years ago by noted art critic Roger Kimball. As evidenced by the reaction to this "artwork" by the artistic community, nothing has changed.

Unlike the Smithsonian, which is federally funded, MoMA is largely supported by fat cats like Glenn D. Lowry, the museum's director, thus alleviating some of our objections. Lowry makes over $2 million a year and lives for free in a $6 million condo atop the museum. Unlike the rest of us, he pays no income tax on his housing.

Looks like the artistic community got fleeced twice: once by embracing the "pathological nonsense" of this masterpiece, and once by the corporate welfare queen who runs—and lives in—the joint.

• Twice-divorced, thrice-married Newt Gingrich has been confirmed as a speaker for the FRC's Values Voter Summit.
• The Traditional Values Coalition, of all groups, opposes "Burn a Quran Day."
• David Barton, Rick Green, and Tom DeLay go on and on about how poor DeLay was the victim of a partisan witch-hunt because he was such an awesome Congressman and Christian.
• Focus on the Family is outraged that George Soros donated $100 million to the "Anti-Family, Anti-Faith Group" Human Rights Watch.
• I genuinely have no idea what the point of this Catholic League press release is supposed to be.
• Finally, the quote of the day from Alan Sears of the Alliance Defense Fund: "Judges and politicians can ignore all the legal and constitutional standards they want to ram the homosexual political agenda down our throats. But they will never make the actions at the base of that agenda anything but a sin—and like any other sin, its indulgence brings only misery, for individuals, and for a nation."

Yesterday, the Catholic League sent out an email announcing that Bill Donohue would be taking a short break from tirelessly defending the Catholic Church from any and all criticism regarding the sex abuse scandal in order to protest violence against Christians in Nigeria:

Please join the Catholic League on Wednesday, April 7 to protest recent massacres of Christians and others at the hands of radical Muslims. Bill Donohue will be speaking at the event as well as other religious and secular leaders. The protest will take place at 5 PM at the Nigerian U.N. Consulate.

Among the others who have endorsed this event are Gary Bauer, Harry Jackson, Frank Gaffney, Niger Innis, and Andrea and James Lafferty, all with the mission of highlighting the victimization of Christians in Nigeria:

On Wednesday, April 7th from 4:45 pm on, religious, civic and human rights leaders of many faiths and backgrounds will gather in front of the Nigerian Consulate in New York City to raise their voices of conscience about the continuing massacres of Christians as well as the ongoing barbaric persecution of non-Muslim minorities by jihadists in Nigeria and elsewhere across the globe.

While there are no official figures yet to confirm the numbers killed in the March 7th Massacre of Christians in Nigeria, we do know that many of the victims were children, women and the elderly. They were trapped in nets and hacked to death, slashed as they slept in their beds, beheaded, and set on fire. Those arrested reportedly belong to the Muslim Fulani terror group.

As I explained a few weeks back when Donohue first started commenting on this issue, the cycle of violence in Nigeria has been going on for years: 

If you read this Human Rights Watch report on the recent massacre, it says that hundreds of Christians were murdered by "Muslim men speaking Hausa and Fulani" and that "the attacks appeared to be in retaliation for previous attacks against Muslim communities in the area ... on January 19, more than 150 Muslim residents were killed in an attack on the nearby town of Kuru Karama."

This Human Rights Watch report on the January massacre states that more than one hundred Muslims were killed by Christians in an attack that was set off by either "an argument over the rebuilding of a Muslim home destroyed in the November 2008 violence in a predominately Christian neighborhood" or an "attack by Muslim youth on Christian worshippers in the Nassarawa Gwom district of Jos."

So the current massacre of Christians by Muslims is believed to be retribution for an earlier massacre of Muslims by Christians, all of which is wrapped up in a cycle of violence in which "more than 13,500 people have died in religious or ethnic clashes since the end of military rule in 1999." 

And according to a recent HRW report, the March 7 attack was part of this on-going cycle of violence.  And do you recall Donohue, Bauer, Jackson or any of the others speaking out in January when Christian mobs murdered 150 Muslims?

Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that groups of armed men attacked the largely Muslim population of Kuru Karama around 10 a.m. on January 19, 2010. After surrounding the town, they hunted down and attacked Muslim residents, some of whom had sought refuge in homes and a local mosque, killing many as they tried to flee and burning many others alive. The witnesses said they believed members of the armed groups to be Christians.

I certainly don't.

It would make sense of Donohue and others were hosting a rally calling for an end to the cycle of religious violence that has killed thousands of people over the last decade. But that is not what they are doing; they are merely protesting the violence against Christians. 

Apparently, the related slaughter of Muslims by Christians is perfectly okay.

Last week we noted that Bill Donohue of the Catholic League was outraged by the New York Times continuing coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, declaring that the recent article reporting that "top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys" was "the last straw."

Today, Donohue struck back ... with an ad in the New York Times:

As indicated in our New York Times op-ed page ad today, the pope is innocent. Indeed, he is being framed. No one has any evidence that he even knew of the case of Father Lawrence Murphy. Indeed, his office didn't find out until 1996 and then it did the right thing by summoning an investigation (it could have simply dropped an inquiry given that the statute of limitations had run out). No matter, the pope's harshest critics are blaming him for not defrocking a man whom he may never have heard of, and in any event was entitled to a presumption of innocence. Or was he? There are not just a few who would deny civil liberties protections to priests.

It is a sad day when al-Qaeda suspects are afforded more rights than priests. That this kind of intellectual thuggery should emanate from those who fancy themselves tolerant and fair-minded makes the sham all the more despicable.

You can see the ad itself here [PDF] in which Donohue tries to blame the entire thing on gays:

The Times continues to editorialize about the "pedophilia crisis," when all along it's been a
homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of
them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most
gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.

Here's what's really going on. The Times has teamed up with Jeffrey Anderson, a radical lawyer who has made millions suing the Church (and greasing professional victims' groups like SNAP), so they can weaken its moral authority. Why? Because of issues like abortion, gay marriage and women's ordination. That's what's really driving them mad, and that's why they are on the hunt. Those who doubt this to be true need to ask why the debt-ridden Times does not spend the same resources looking for dirt in other institutions that occurred a half-century ago.

• Several state Attorneys General have already filed suit against the health care reform legislation that President Obama just signed into law today.
• In related "news," the Religious Right doesn't like the health care bill and is ready to fight.
• Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott will receive the "Vision America Guardian of the Family Award" at the organization's dinner and gala on Monday, March 29.
• A tea party organizer who urged activists “to drop by” Rep. Thomas Perriello’s house to voice their displeasure with his health care vote, but mistakenly gave out the address of Perriello’s brother stands by his research skills.
• Erick Erickson is urging people to send Rep. Bart Stupak (aka "Judas") 100 pieces of silver.
• I genuinely have no idea what the point of this Catholic League press release is supposed to be.
• Finally, the quote of the day from Dennis Prager: "I write the words 'civil war' with an ache in my heart. But we are in one. Thank God this civil war is non-violent. But the fact is that the left and the rest of the country share almost no values. The American value system and the leftist value system are irreconcilable. If the left wins, America's values lose."

Say what you will about Bill Donohue, but the man never misses an opportunity to play the victim, even when the issue has nothing at all do with him or his mission and doing so is in disgracefully poor taste.

Take, for instance, this press release the Catholic League just put out:

According to The Australian, “dozens of bodies lined the streets” of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria. “Other victims of the weekend’s Muslim fury jammed a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.” Children were scalped, “most had severed hands and feet,” and “officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by rampaging Muslim gangs.” According to one eyewitness media account, “They then set homes on fire and attacked men, women and children. Many were decapitated.”

Now here is how CNN is reporting the story. “Gangs of machete-wielding Muslims have been blamed for the weekend slaughter of hundreds of Christian villagers in Nigeria, but analysts say it would be wrong to assume the conflict was rooted in religion.” Of course: When Muslims massacre Christians, religion never has anything to do with it.

“Some analysts,” the story continues, “believe the weekend slaughter was a revenge attack for the killing of around 150 members of the Hausa Muslim community by Christian mobs in Kuru Karama south of Jos, in January 2010.” Well, let’s see. Back in January, a U.N. media outlet reported that Muslim and Christian leaders in Kuru Karama, a predominantly Muslim village, “met to make a pact with the police to defend any attacks by outsiders.” But guess what happened? “Several hours later youths armed with machetes attacked the village.” And we know who likes machetes.

Donohue says "it’s time to stop viewing Muslim-Christian violence through the lens of moral equivalency" which apparently means that Muslims killing Christians in Nigeria is far, far worse than Christians killing Muslims in Nigeria.

If you read this Human Rights Watch report on the recent massacre, it says that hundreds of Christians were murdered by "Muslim men speaking Hausa and Fulani" and that "the attacks appeared to be in retaliation for previous attacks against Muslim communities in the area ... on January 19, more than 150 Muslim residents were killed in an attack on the nearby town of Kuru Karama."

This Human Rights Watch report on the January massacre states that more than one hundred Muslims were killed by Christians in an attack that was set off by either "an argument over the rebuilding of a Muslim home destroyed in the November 2008 violence in a predominately Christian neighborhood" or an "attack by Muslim youth on Christian worshippers in the Nassarawa Gwom district of Jos."

So the current massacre of Christians by Muslims is believed to be retribution for an earlier massacre of Muslims by Christians, all of which is wrapped up in a cycle of violence in which "more than 13,500 people have died in religious or ethnic clashes since the end of military rule in 1999."

But to Bill Donohue, it is little more than an opportunity to shamelessly exploit this tragic violence in order to claim that Muslims are bloodthirsty killers of Christians and that the media is somehow complicit in covering up this basic fact.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about the Liberty Counsel freaking out over this ad campaign from the American Humanist Association:

Liberty called the campaign a "temper tantrum" ... but the only ones throwing a temper tantrum are those on the Right, as the Texas Freedom Network points out by highlighting this statement from In God We Trust:

The national advocacy group In God We Trust today condemned efforts of national atheist organizations and left-wing legal groups aimed at terrorizing Americans into not celebrating Christmas.

“Americans have become accustomed to the whining and calls for censorship of anti-religion activists during the Christmas season,” says In God We Trust’s Chairman Bishop Council Nedd. “However, this year opponents of the holiday are escalating their ‘War on Christmas’ to a whole new level. Their goal is harass, mock and scare people into censoring themselves and hiding their Christmas celebrations.”

“Americans are being terrorized into banishing Christmas from public life,” Nedd warns. “The hate and venom spewing from some of these anti-religious groups is so great that some jurisdictions are tearing down even secular Christmas displays as fast as they can.”

And of course, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is weighing in as well, blaming mean-spirited secular elitists for ruining Christmas ... and urging people to sue: 

Disputes about Christmas displays, he charged, are “contrived by elitists of a secular mindset.” They are “bringing forth every possible secular holiday that might fall in December and trying to give it equal billing with Christmas.”

According to Donohue, many Jews will acknowledge that Hanukkah is a minor holiday. He added that the Hindus he knows celebrate Christmas as part of being Americans.

“Now in the workplace, in the schools, we have to be ever-conscious of offending people who are not Christians,” he charged.

Donohue blamed this situation on the “language police” and diversity consultants, whom he claimed to be part of a $1 billion industry active in the private and public workplace.

“These people are the ones selling the propaganda that non-Christians are offended by Christian symbols in December. There is no evidence to this,” he said, reporting that about 96 percent of Americans do not object to Christmas displays or greetings.

He blamed Christmas disputes on “a very small percentage of mean-spirited people year after year.”

He suggested Catholics respond to the suppression of Christmas displays by filing lawsuits or showing up at town hall meetings and school board meetings when the displays become an issue.

Last month, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League appeared on The 700 Club to promote his new book, "Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America."

During the interview, the question of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church came up when Robertson asked if "all these scandals in the Catholic Church [were] part of this secular agenda to undermine to undermine the moral fabric of the church."  Donohue replied that indeed they were [the section begins around the 3:45 mark]:

There's no question that within the Catholic Church you have a you a left element ... I regard them as termites sitting within, trying to eat away the fabric of the Catholic Church.  So they lie about it in the Catholic Church, they say "oh, we had a pedophilia problem." It's been a homosexual problem all along. It's not my opinion, it's the actual data from the John Jay Criminal Justice System College [sic] here in New York City which looked at the data. I'm not saying homosexuality causes predatory behavior; I'm saying that most of the priests who have been predators have been homosexuals.

What do you supposed Donohue has to say about this?

A preliminary report commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops to investigate the clergy sex abuse scandal has found no evidence that gay priests are more likely than heterosexual clergy to molest children, the lead authors of the study said Tuesday.

The full report by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice won't be completed until the end of next year. But the authors said their evidence to date found no data indicating that homosexuality was a predictor of abuse.

"What we are suggesting is that the idea of sexual identity be separated from the problem of sexual abuse," said Margaret Smith of John Jay College, in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "At this point, we do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now."

...

The bishops commissioned the $2 million study as part of widespread reforms they enacted at the height of the abuse crisis. The scandal erupted in 2002 with the case of one predator priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, then spread to every U.S. diocese and beyond.

Almost 14,000 molestation claims have been filed against Catholic clergy since 1950, according to tallies the bishops have released in recent years. Abuse-related costs have reached at least $2.3 billion in the same period.

At the meeting Tuesday, Bishop Edward Braxton of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill., asked the researchers whether their study indicated that homosexuality should be considered when evaluating a candidate for the priesthood. In 2005, the Vatican issued a policy statement that men with "deep-seated" attraction to other men should be barred from the priesthood.

Smith said: "If that exclusion were based on the fact that that person would be more probable than any other candidate to abuse, we do not find that at this time."

• LifeNews: The man who allegedly shot and killed pro-life advocate James Pouillon and a local businessman last month has been declared mentally incompetent to stand trial.
• AP:  Louisiana Democrats have accused GOP Sen. David Vitter of accepting campaign money illegally funneled to him by a former Mississippi congressman through a political action committee of that state's governor.
• I have no idea how the Catholic League has managed to release a statement about David Letterman that is really an attack on Penn and Teller.
• It looks like Mike Huckabee has his own crazy right-wing conspiracy theorist to deal with.
• Finally, speaking of Huckabee, here's a photo of him hanging out with Lynyrd Skynyrd.