Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on recent remarks by presidential hopeful New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand:
It was not a gaffe—it’s who she is. Every time Kirsten Gillibrand mentions religion, especially Catholicism, she goes off the rails. Her latest embarrassment came this week in an interview with the Des Moines Register: She compared pro-life Americans (all religious in her mind) to racists. As always, her words were poorly constructed, but we got her point.
Gillibrand said that to appoint pro-life judges is the same as appointing racists to the bench. “There is no moral equivalency when you come to racism,” she said, “and I do not believe there is a moral equivalency when it comes to changing laws that deny women reproductive freedom.” In her usual rambling way, she blamed people of faith for the latter.
Racism involves two principal actors: the racist and his victim. Abortion involves three actors: the abortionist, the woman, and the victim (her baby). There are laws that punish racists for victimizing others, but there are no laws that punish abortionists (the woman in American jurisprudence has never been targeted) for victimizing others.
If justice were to prevail, we would extend more protections to the victims of abortion than we do to the victims of racism: unlike discrimination, abortion kills.
If Gillibrand, who says she is Catholic but does not go to a Catholic church and does not believe in several core teachings of Catholicism, knew more about her “claimed” religion she would know that the Church holds that abortion and racism are both “intrinsically evil.”
Gillibrand sees evil in racism but not abortion, which is why she is consistently out of step with the religion she was raised in. It remains a mystery why she hasn’t officially jumped ship and joined the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Unitarian Universalist, or the United Church of Christ (Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism are also options). All are in the pro-abortion camp.
Why stay where you don’t belong? We’re not going to change. Bet on it.
