The American Spectator

Yes, James, to some on the Left, it really is scandalous if you believe in the core teachings of the Catholic Church. Note how quick the Left was to assert that the only reason the Supreme Court refused to outlaw a law against partial birth abortion is that five members of the Court are Catholic. Note how quickly Chuck Schumer repeatedly says he worries about the “deeply held beliefs” of Catholic court nominees while almost never using that language about non-Catholics. Note how, in the battle over Bill Pryor’s nomination to the court, a very confused Dianne Feinstein was all aflutter about a Pryor speech to his Catholic high school alma mater because she thought Pryor was suggesting that American government ought to be Christianized, when in fact Pryor was quoting Thomas Aquinas to argue that the graduating students, as Catholics, have a duty to participate in civic and political life—in other words, to be good citizens. Hence the headline to my first piece on the Jindal controversy, namely “No Catholics Need Apply.” It was a reference to a commercial run against the Democrats for their opposition to Pryor —an ad led by the visual of a big wooden door with that saying scrawled on a banner across the door. The Dems had an absolute fit over it, and the MSM backed up the Dems, saying that the ad was accusing the Dems of anti-Catholic bigotry. No, that’s not what the ad did: It said that the EFFECT of the Dems’ questions and their bizarre standards for what disqualifies a nominee from confirmation would be that it would keep all strict, traditional Catholics from the court. Not the INTENT, but the EFFECT. And the ad was largely accurate. Now the state Demo Party of Louisiana has gone further. Not only the effect, but the intent, of their ad against Jindal is to inspire or at least benefit from anti-Catholic bigotry. It is the single most vicious and despicable American political ad since LBJ ran the “Daisy” ad attacking Goldwater. Indeed, it is probably worse than the Daisy ad. But the ad, and Kos’ response to it, amplify an underlying truth: To many of the elites of the New Left, traditional Catholicism is indeed scandalous, not to mention frightening. The national Democratic Party ought to be forced to publicly state whether it stands with the New Left, and with the Louisiana Demo Party, or whether it rejects such bigotry outright.