On the home page of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) website, democrats.org, there is a link to organizations of interest. Until late July, the “Catholic” heading listed only one group, Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). But when syndicated columnist Mark Shields mentioned this as his “Outrage of the Week” on the CNN show “The Capital Gang,” the DNC added another Catholic source to its “Catholic” listing: catholic-USA.com. We jumped on this “solution” immediately.
On July 31, William Donohue wrote to DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe imploring him to “act quickly and decisively by removing Catholics for a Free Choice from the DNC’s links of interest organizations.” The very fact that this group was the only Catholic listing on its website until recently suggests that the DNC believes its Catholic base is led by Frances Kissling.
That the DNC added a legitimate Catholic website to its listing only complicated things for Mr. McAuliffe: if CFFC were an authentic Catholic group, it would have been named in the umbrella Catholic site, catholic-USA.com (i.e., there are scores of bona-fide Catholic groups posted there, including the Catholic League). Ergo, the DNC knows CFFC is bogus yet continues to provide cover for it.
Our position, as explained to the media, is as follows: “It is flatly wrong to tag CFFC as merely a ‘pro-choice’ group of ex-Catholics. Kissling has openly admitted that it is her goal to ‘overthrow’ the Catholic Church. That is why she works so hard to subvert the Church by attempting to get the Holy See kicked out of the U.N. Twice the U.S. bishops have condemned CFFC as a fraud, yet the DNC amazingly gives legitimacy to this anti-Catholic front group.”
When no response from McAuliffe was forthcoming, and when we were continually stonewalled by DNC operatives, Donohue wrote to every Democrat in the House and Senate asking for assistance. His request? For them to persuade the DNC to drop Catholics for a Free Choice from its website.
On August 6, Donohue issued the following news release to media outlets across the nation:
“The Democrats are playing with fire. As I said in my letter, the Catholic League previously fought then-Governor George W. Bush on his appearance at Bob Jones University and we also fought the Republicans on the House Chaplain issue. I went on the ‘Today’ show to accept Gov. Bush’s apology and, as everyone knows, we prevailed in the House Chaplain controversy by seeing to it that a Catholic priest was finally appointed to the post. Now I am telling the Democrats that ‘I pledge to you that I will do nothing less than fight the DNC just as hard over the listing of Catholics for a Free Choice.’
“There are dozens of abortion-rights organizations in the nation. Because the Catholic League is not a pro-life group, per se (we are certainly pro-life in our convictions), it would not make sense to fight Democrats or Republicans on this subject. But the issue here is anti-Catholicism and that falls smack in the bull’s-eye of the Catholic League’s mission.
“This could be a long Fall for the Democrats if they decide to string this one out. We are prepared to spend considerable resources informing the public of what the DNC considers its Catholic base to be. Mark Shields is right: it is both insensitive and ignorant of the DNC to associate itself with Catholics for a Free Choice.”
This fight is not over. We are prepared to give the DNC free advertisement, making sure that every Catholic knows how fond the Dems are of Frances Kissling.
