Bill Donahue: Moral Authority

Here's Captain Squirrel Nut speaking at that Justice Sunday event I mentioned:

BILL DONAHUE: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

It is great to be here amongst friends. You know, I know a lot of the people in the media are wondering why are Catholics and Evangelicals getting together? I have got news for you. Get used to it, all right.

We are here because we are concerned about the culture. The heart and soul of any culture has always been religion. But in our society over the last 30, 40 years, it seems that the courts are trying to take the heart and soul of our culture. The courts are making the decisions for us. It's not the legislative branches. And look at the decisions that they are making. They are making it out of whole cloth. They come up with this idea in 1965 of our constitutional right to privacy.

And then in 1973, they come with the idea that somehow it's okay to kill the kids, that this is somehow reproductive rights. This is a manmade kind of situation, people. There is nothing in the Constitution, which would allow anyone to argue that you can in fact abort a child. That is simply made up by the judges. (Applause.)

And equal protection before the law is written in 1868 so you couldn't have one law for whites and one law for blacks. How did they go from that to the idea that two guys can get married? How do you figure that one out? Then you get the idea of eminent domain. We understand that. The government takes the right of property to make a highway, not to make some rich developer richer. And this is what the judges have been doing. It has nothing to do with the reality that you and I know.

Transcript continues under the cut. Good chewy stuff in here, including his comparing evangelicals to Rosa Parks and his calling Hitchens an "atheist, anti-Catholic bigot." So apparently it's an all-purpose term:

And let me tell you something, I think Judge Roberts is a good man, that is fine. Personally, I have had it with these people who all they want to do is tinker with the courts. I think we need a constitutional amendment, which says unless the decision by the Supreme Court is unanimous, nine to nothing, you cannot overturn an act of Congress. That is what we need. We need to go beyond Roberts.

(Applause.)

That idea, by the way, is not new. That idea was by Chief Justice John Marshall, the fourth chief of justice of the United States. It was seconded by Sydney Hook, the Marxist, former Marxist professor whom I studied under at New York University. Look, Thomas Jefferson certainly knew that we had to have co-equals in the branches. Thomas Jefferson understood even then that the judges were making up their authority independent of what the Constitution granted. So we can't have this. We have to certainly respect the Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court is supposed to be a co-equal. You don't like it when judges usurp their authority. I wouldn't like it either. I don't want it with the executive branch, I don't want it with the legislative branch, and it seems to me we have got to do something about this.

Now, you mentioned structural change. The left says, well, wait a minute; that is really a major change. They are the ones always saying to us conservatives you have a hard time with change. They are the ones who have a hard time with change. But you know what, we are going to send in counselors for them to deal with change. (Laughter.) Though we won't send any priests or ministers or rabbis because we respect the fact that they don't believe in anything. We are going to send them grief counselors. (Laughter.) Right? Just like they do in the schools. (Applause.)

And the grief counselors will in fact properly hold their hands. That is what they do for a living. You see, because we respect the fact that they don't believe in anything. They believe in what I call the King Kong theory of creation. All of the sudden one day there were a bunch of apes up in the tree and then kerplunk, they fell down, lost most of their hair, they started walking around. That was Adam and Eve. If they want to believe that, that's okay, all right. So we have to respect that. That's where these people are coming from.

Now, I'm telling you, I have gotten this over the radio shows the last couple of weeks. Remember, I'm in New York City; I'm not down South. And I've been hit up with the same question over and over and over again: Why are you going to be with the Evangelicals? And I said what is wrong with Evangelicals? What have they ever done to me? What are you talking about? And, you know, they talk about you people, they demonize you people in a way they - if you did it about any other segment of the population they would call you a bigot. Well, when someone demonizes you, they are a bigot.

(Applause.)

And let's see, who are the people going after John Roberts? It's not evangelicals. I know who they are. Here's one guy who said this a week ago on "Meet the Press." Are you going - this is a proposed question - this guy said that he hopes the senators ask these questions of John Roberts. Here's one - are you going to say that because the Pope says this or the Church says that, you would do it no matter what? Who said that? Mario Cuomo, he's one of mine. He's a Catholic and he's the one saying this. (Laughter.) Right?

Here's another guy. If Roberts is confirmed, there will be quite a bloc of Catholics on the Court. Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas are strong in the faith. Is it kosher to mention these things? Well, it is if your name is Christopher Hitchens, that atheist, anti-Catholic bigot. Of course, he would mention it. That's where it's coming from.

And how about Nina Totenberg, out of National Public Radio. This is a great one. Listen to this one, people. I couldn't even make this up. "Don't forget, his wife was an officer, a high officer in a pro-life organization. He's got adopted children. And I mean he's a conservative Catholic."

So this is what you've got here, people. The people who want to raise the bar so high that we can't jump over it, they're not coming from the evangelical ranks. I know that. We're on the same side. It's coming from these people who are on the left. Many of them are secularists. Some of them are maybe people of faith. I'm not going to question that. All I'm simply saying is that I don't have anything in common with them. I have something in common with you. Those are the people who are my family. (Applause.)

Yeah, the left is getting nervous. You know, I got news for them. Remember that song by Bob Dylan that goes like this, he says, the times they are a'changin? They are a'changin and the vector of change is moving our way. It's not going their way any longer.

Let me give you an example here of what I'm talking about. Think of it - metaphor - as the culture is like several roads and that we're all in a big bus. Well, we know who has been driving the bus. It hasn't been us. In fact, the left has been driving the bus. They're so sweet they allow us to sit in the back of the bus. That's how tolerant they are, right? Now, they've been driving this bus down the wrong road for a long time. Now, I'm saying to you people, it's time that we move to the front of the bus and that we took command of the wheel. That's what I want to see. (Applause.)

I'm tired of being told that somehow if you have a religious-informed conscience that somehow you're a second-class citizen. Leave the driving to these guys. We've seen what they've done and as far as I'm concerned, if we're going to make some progress in this country, we're going to have to discover what our roots are. We're not imposing any kind of a strict, construction idea that where everybody has to go off to church on Sunday. I mean, they make us out like as if we're the theocrats. All we are are decent people who simply say this: that religion is a focal point in our lives. Ninety-four percent of the American people believe in God, 85 percent of this country are Christians. It's not a matter of shoving our ideas down somebody's throat. It's a matter of us saying that we want to be stand up and we want to be counted and we're tired of being second-class citizens to these people and we're not going to take it any longer. Thank you. (Applause.)

A.

Comments

[Nora]

It's not even just abortion with them anymore. Notice how he went after Griswold v. Connecticut? The whole notion of a constitutional right to privacy is on his agenda as something morally repellent.

People like him make me ashamed to admit to being Catholic.