Catholic League president William Donohue commented today on the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) new Senior Advisor for Religious Outreach, Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson:
“We know that Rev. Peterson wants ‘under God’ thrown out of the Pledge, and that she believes ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ means paying taxes. Now we will show the positions of the Clergy Leadership Network (CLN), the organization she recently left as its executive director.
“In the CLN’s ‘Debate’ section of its website, it says a lot about separation of church and state, but virtually nothing about religious liberty (e.g., it is against faith-based initiatives). Regarding tax policies, it would be an understatement to say it likes taxes: ‘Taxes provide a way to look out for our neighbors….Slashing taxes denies that!’ It then says that slashing taxes is ‘inevitably an appeal to our greed, not to our generosity or compassion.’ In other words, the greedy want to keep the money they’ve earned; those who want to take it from us are the altruists. No wonder Rev. Peterson says, ‘The federal budget is a moral document.’
“Under the ‘Current Issues’ section, there are three issues listed: stem cell research, global security and the federal marriage amendment. It has something to say about the first two issues, but, inexplicably, the third issue cannot be accessed. This is deceitful. Consider that the CLN’s CEO, Albert Pennybacker, is on record favoring gay marriage. And another senior official, William Sloane Coffin, has said that most of the other CLN officials ‘view marriage as a human right, not a reward for being heterosexual.’ The ‘Focus Statement’ of the CLN website even says that ‘gay, lesbian, bisexual [and] transsexual people are being attacked through legislation and even constitutional amendments.’ It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Rev. Peterson believes.
“The website even provides a link to an anti-Catholic site, Chuck Currie (see his piece, ‘When Catholic Girls Go Wild’). To top it off, there is a link to MoveOn.org, a smear site that has nothing to do with religion. Remember, Rev. Peterson presided over it all, and for this she was rewarded by the DNC as its number-one liaison to religious groups.”
