It is no surprise that Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, is displeased with the Hate Crimes bill that is making its way through Congress. It’s also no surprise that he labeled Eric Holder a “master of demagoguery” after the Attorney General supported the bill and cited the recent murders of Dr. George Tiller and Stephen Johns, the fallen Holocaust Museum security guard, to show the hatred that still exists in our society.
What’s troubling is Donohue’s attempt to sever the connection between the actions of Scott Roeder and James von Brunn and the radical, hateful beliefs that they held. He claims that Roeder wasn’t propelled by an extreme anti-abortionist viewpoint and that von Brunn didn’t storm the Holocaust Museum due to anti-Semitic views. Rather their actions were solely prompted by possible mental illnesses:
Roeder was never involved in any pro-life organization, and von Brunn is an old man who was as much anti-Christian as he was anti-Semitic. In other words, it is nothing if not demagogic for Holder to exploit these two recent tragedies—committed by madmen, not political activists.
Obviously, the facts directly counter Donahue’s claim. Roeder had been in contact with Operation Rescue prior to Dr. Tiller’s death and was arrested in 1996 for having the ingredients to make a bomb in the trunk of his car. He was a regular member of anti-abortion rallies in Kansas and a member of the Freeman, a radical anti-government group.
Von Brunn is an anti-Semitic white supremacist whose views were known by federal authorities. The day of the Holocaust Museum shooting, police found a note in his car which undeniably portrays von Brunn’s ideals and motive:
“You want my weapons; this is how you’ll get them,” von Brunn wrote in a note he had signed, according to the arrest affidavit.
“The Holocaust is a lie,” the note read. “Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America’s money. Jews control the mass media.”
Roeder is an anti-abortion fanatic who killed Dr. Tiller for a political purpose. Von Brunn is an anti-Semitic white supremacist who chose the Holocaust Museum for a reason. Therefore, it is baseless for Donahue to label Holder a “demagogue” for simply explaining the need for hate crimes legislation by logically citing two very timely examples of political hate crimes.
