The following timeline shows how the Catholic League helped to defeat New York’s unjust bill on sexual abuse:
- On March 28, Assemblywoman Margaret Markey wrote an op ed in the Daily News touting her bill, while making no mention of the public schools.
- On March 30, Sen. Brad Hoylman, in an op ed, called for “every childhood sexual abuse victim” to have “the opportunity to confront their abuser in court.”
- On March 31, we sent him a letter, noting that his bill would apply exclusively to private entities, exempting the public schools. We urged him to “amend your bill to be inclusive of all institutions.”
- On April 1, we wrote to every member of the NYS Legislature, suggesting they submit a bill that would cover only the public schools.
- On April 10 Hoylman and Senate Democratic Minority Leader Andrea-Stewart Cousins announced that they would submit a new bill, which Hoylman said “creates a single standard for both private and public institutions.”
- On May 2, we published a full page ad in the Albany Times Union exposing the underlying agenda of professional activists pushing for the Markey bill: “to stick it to Catholics.” We highlighted the Catholic-bashing history of some of these professional agitators and organizations, and pointed out that the legislation they were pushing would still not address the unequal treatment between public and private institutions.
- On May 25, we continued to expose the agenda of the professional victims’ advocates, with a news release that hammered the anti-Catholic agenda of steeple-chasing lawyer Michael Dowd.
- On June 7, Markey resorted to a desperate smear of Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, telling the Daily News that he had offered her a $5,000 bribe—six years earlier—to drop her support for this bill.
- We immediately called for her resignation, in a June 7 news release that took apart her claim against the bishop, showing her numerous factual errors (she got the year, as well as the location of the meeting wrong) and calling out her well-known anti-Catholic bigotry.
- We followed up on June 8 with a letter to Assemblyman Charles Lavine, chairman of the standing Committee on Ethics and Guidance, calling on the Committee to investigate Markey for violating the Code of Ethics.
- On June 13, we named seven liars in the victims’ lobby. We listed specific lies they told about this issue.
- On June 18, the bill failed.
The Daily News engaged in an aggressive campaign to pass the Markey bill, growing increasingly strident in its attacks on the Catholic Church as the bill’s prospects dimmed.
- On May 30, the Daily News posted an article excoriating the Catholic Church for hiring lobbyists to push for desired legislative outcomes.
- Our May 31 news release noted that the Daily News ignored the far greater amounts spent on lobbying by other groups—including public schools and teachers’ unions, who had played a key role in defeating the 2009 version of the Markey bill. That bill, for the first and only time, had included the public schools.
- On June 5, Daily News reporters accosted Catholics leaving Sunday Mass at various NYC churches, asking them to comment on the statute of limitations bill.
- In a June 6 news release, we asked why no reporters were sent to any synagogues even though Orthodox Jews also opposed this bill.
- In our June 7 news release we called out the Daily News for hyping Markey’s slander of Bishop DiMarzio. We noted that no other reputable news outlet had picked up the story.
