There can be no tolerance for racism. But when it comes to tolerating anti-Catholicism, that’s a different story. We come to this conclusion after monitoring the reaction to a state legislator who forwarded an e-mail he received that contained racist and anti-Catholic statements.
In August, a lawmaker from Harnett County, North Carolina, forwarded a bigoted e-mail he had received to his fellow lawmakers. Rep. Don Davis received an e-mail from a white supremacist group that charged it was white men and Christianity that made America great; Catholicism was blamed for enslaving Europe and perverting the Bible.
When his colleagues got the message, they went bonkers. Over the racial remark, that is. No one was apparently offended by the slam against Catholicism.
The Legislative Black Caucus in North Carolina blasted Davis for seemingly endorsing the racial comment. Davis initially stood his ground saying, “I think there’s a lot of truth in that. The white men came from England and made this country great.” After being pressured, Davis issued an apology about the racial remark. There was no apology for the Catholic-bashing statement.
This story within a story didn’t end there. Not only did the local NAACP not object to the anti-Catholic comment, local Protestant clergymen followed suit. Both were disturbed by the “white men” quip.
This incident demonstrates what we’ve been saying at the Catholic League for a long time: some forms of bigotry are more equal than others.
