Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:
Most people on the west coast have never heard of Gustavo Arellano, even though he is a writer based in California; elsewhere, he is invisible. He has come to our attention because we fight anti-Catholicism, and this is something he has learned to perfect. He’s also a rank hypocrite.
Arellano writes for one of those newspapers that no one will pay for, OC Weekly. It is owned by Village Voice Media, owner of the Village Voice, another paper that no one will pay for (it used to feature outstanding writers like Nat Hentoff and Wayne Barrett, but now no one save for the likes of Arellano will write for it).
Arellano is perpetually exercised about allegations of priestly sexual abuse, but it is not the issue that interests him, just the offenders: he has never published a piece on the sexual abuse of minors by the clergy of any other religion. Nor has he written about the epidemic of sexual abuse in the public schools. Though Planned Parenthood learns of cases of statutory rape all the time, he has never written about this either.
More telling, Arellano has never written an article about human trafficking. Nor has he ever written a column about Backpage.com. Where am I going? Backpage.com is the Village Voice Media’s online classified advertising service that is very popular with those in the business of human trafficking: it’s where they get their leads. That is why 53 leading anti-trafficking experts and organizations have demanded that Village Voice Media immediately put an end to this magnet. Indeed, 51 Attorneys General have condemned Village Voice Media for its role in facilitating this barbarism.
Arellano won’t go near it. Maybe that’s because one out of every seven dollars raised by Village Voice Media comes from this sordid advertising. Besides, he’s too busy writing about Father Murphy’s alleged groping in the 1950s to comment. He’s simply not man enough to turn his guns on the purveyors of human slavery, namely his boss.
Contact: GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM
