Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the problem Sen. Kamala Harris will have with Catholics:
Once Catholic voters learn more about Kamala Harris’ positions on an array of moral issues, Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick will have a hard time winning them over.
To begin with, Harris has tainted herself with the brush of anti-Catholicism. In 2018, she sought to stop a Trump nominee for a seat on the federal bench simply because he was Catholic. In doing so, she invoked a religious test for the bench, a patently unconstitutional act.
Here is how I characterized the Catholic League’s effort to help the nominee for a federal district job; my remarks were published in the Catholic League’s “2019 Year in Review.”We were among the first to come to bat for [Brian] Buescher, and our effort paid off. After much haggling, he was seated on the court in August [2019].”
The day after Christmas, 2018, I unloaded on Harris for questioning the suitability of Buescher for the job. His offense? His affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. She objected to his membership in the Knights because it is pro-life. Of course it is—it is a Catholic entity. In short, her real target was the Catholic Church.
Her craving for abortion rights is so strong that in 2019 she bludgeoned pro-life activist David Daleiden for his undercover video work showing how abortion operatives harvest and sell aborted fetal organs. Unlike the American people, the vast majority of whom want restrictions on abortion, Harris insists there should be none. She led the fight against a 20-week abortion ban.
Last September, following a Democratic presidential candidate debate, Harris criticized ABC panelists for not asking about abortion. The debate, she said, “was three hours long and not one question about abortion or reproductive rights.” She is so pro-abortion that in 2015, in her capacity as California’s Attorney General, she sought to cripple crisis pregnancy centers with draconian regulations. She was sued and lost in the Supreme Court three years later.
Catholics will be delighted to know that Harris is a co-sponsor of “The Equality Act,” legislation that would effectively gut Catholic hospitals. As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said, it would put freedom of speech, belief, and thought “at risk,” thus vitiating conscience rights. It would also disable the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, making mince meat out of religious liberty.
Harris’ passion for gay rights led her to become the keynote speaker at the 2017 Human Rights Campaign dinner, the prominent homosexual entity. She thrilled the crowd, saying, “Together we’ll fight when Planned Parenthood clinics are being threatened to shut down.” The audience was ecstatic when she boasted that she “felt patriotic when on Valentine’s weekend in 2004, I performed marriages of gay couples at San Francisco Hall.”
What about men who think they are women, and vice versa? She’s fine with that. Do they belong in the military? Sure. What about biological males who think they are girls competing against real girls in girls’ sports? She loves it.
Harris’ persona is something to keep an eye on. She will fight to the end of the earth to keep black kids trapped in public schools, denying them the same school choice options she has exercised. Yet her stepchildren attended an elite private school in Los Angeles, Wildwood School, that costs about $44,000 a year. She made sure not to stick them in a public school.
If this shows her classist streak, her penchant for believing any sexual allegation made against men shows her sexist side. When Supreme Court nominee Bret Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Harris said about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations, “I believe her.” That was before Kavanaugh testified. A year later, after Ford’s tale was blown wide open, Harris tweeted that Kavanaugh “lied.”
Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is another man whom Harris smeared. When he was charged with sexual assault, she immediately labeled it a “credible account.” The accusation died on the vine. He still has his job.
More seriously, when her running mate was charged with sexual assault last year, Harris said of his accusers, “I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.” She has never taken that back. Does she still believe Biden is a predator? If she hasn’t changed her mind, what does that make her?
Finally, Harris supports reparations for African Americans. That would not include her: her father is Jamaican and her mother was born in India. So she wouldn’t get a dime. But she would have to fork up lots of cash. Why? As her father disclosed—he is a Stanford University professor—one of her ancestors, Hamilton Brown, was a slave owner.
In fairness, then, if the average American has to pay X amount for slavery, Harris should at least have to pay 10X. Isn’t this what redistributive justice is all about? Catholics need to know.
