Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
First, complaints against the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to protect the religious liberty of Hobby Lobby and corporations like it set off a wave of hysteria among “reproductive rights” supporters – now it’s the Catholic-basher’s turn.
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League highlights some of the new accusations being made against the Supreme Court.
“Once again an all-Catholic, all-male, all-ultra-conservative majority of five has voted en bloc to eviscerate fundamental rights,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor of the atheist Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Donohue destroyed this nonsensical comment by pointing out that if Catholics always vote “en bloc”, shouldn’t Catholic Justice Sonya Sotomayer have concurred with the majority rather than with the minority?
Margery Eagan’s article in the Boston Herald combined the vitriol of feminists with that of the anti-Catholic crowd: “Court’s Catholic Justices Attack Women’s Rights”.
And no one was surprised when the American Humanist Association issued a statement with a picture of a rosary next to birth control pills.
Ryan Grim wrote an article appearing on the Huffington Post noting that “these men [the five judges who voted for religious liberty] are Christians,” and that “the Supreme Court ruled Monday that Christian business owners are special.”
News alert to Grim! The ruling applies to people of all faiths.
Authors are also lamenting the loss of JFK’s wonderful philosophy of putting politics before religion, which Donohue colorfully describes as “throwing his religion overboard to win votes.”
He cites an article written for the Kansas City Star by Philip F. Cardarella saying that when JFK ran for office, the question was whether someone who owed his religious obedience to the Pope in Rome could be trusted. JFK insisted he could. But now Cardarella believes that “Five men on the Supreme Court—all Catholics—may well just have proven him [JFK] wrong.”
So why is it that Catholics, who comprise 25 percent of the population and comprise two-thirds of the high court are a problem but not Jews, who are 1.8 percent of the population and have a comparable representation on the high court of one-third?
Perhaps it has something to do with a nasty little thing called bigotry.
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