Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times:
The latest liberal voice worried stiff over the Catholic Church’s resistance to the Obama administration’s war on Catholicism is the Los Angeles Times. Today they accuse Donald Cardinal Wuerl of the Washington Archdiocese of “censorship” for speaking out against Georgetown’s embrace of abortion champion Kathleen Sebelius; the paper says the students should be exposed to “a variety of viewpoints.”
Ironically, the last thing the Los Angeles Times is known for is exposing its readers to “a variety of viewpoints.” In 2003, its editor, John Carroll, sent a memo to his editors complaining about the one-sided liberal stories the paper runs. In 2005, a UCLA study of media bias listed the paper as one of the most biased in the nation. In 2009, veteran Washington Post reporter Tom Edsall said the paper was composed in large part of the “liberal elite.”
Nor does the paper have any moral standing to lecture anyone about “censorship.” Two years ago, it pulled a patently inoffensive cartoon, “Where’s Muhammad?” Were they being respectful of Muslims? Or were they fearful? Either way, they engaged in censorship (as they define it). Ten years earlier they showed their respect—or was it fear?—of Muslims when they dropped a promotional ad that featured images of Muslim women in chadors mixed in with bikini-clad women. To show how deeply respectful—or fearful—the boys and girls at the paper were, over 200 editors and reporters signed a petition calling for the ad to be censored.
In other words, the Los Angeles Times shuns diversity of opinion, loathes equal treatment of religion, and likes censorship. Which is why it is such a beacon of liberal thought.
Contact editorial board chief Nicholas Goldberg: nicholas.goldberg@latimes.com
