It’s clear the Democratic Party is making a concerted effort to woo Catholic voters in 2020. Much has already been made of Joe Biden’s Catholicism. Gushing reporters remark repeatedly, voices hushed with awe, on Biden’s “devout” Catholic faith. At this week’s Democratic National Convention, Catholics have been featured prominently, giving the sense that Biden and his fellow Democrats are perfectly acceptable options for faithful voters.
But don’t be fooled. However much these politicos may claim their positions comport with Catholicism, the 2020 Democratic Party ticket is the most anti-Catholic slate in recent American history. Look no further than their choice of Sen. Kamala Harris as their vice-presidential nominee.
It’s no secret that Harris despises Americans who adhere closely to Catholic theology. Take, for example, her questioning of Brian Buescher following his nomination to serve as a District Court judge in 2018. Harris was shocked, shocked, to hear that Buescher was a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization devoted to charitable works.
The grounds for her concern? The knights hold to Catholic teaching on abortion and same-sex marriage. Even being associated with an organization that expresses Catholic doctrine was enough, to Harris, to potentially disqualify him from public service.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church expressly states the church’s opposition to abortion (CCC 270 ff.), gay marriage (CCC 2357 ff.), and transgender ideology (CCC 2297). Yet to Harris, adherence to any of these doctrines is enough to not only disqualify you from the judiciary but to force you out of the public square altogether. Harris’s agenda provides no room for dissent.
Take the instance of abortion, where Harris’s views are truly radical. Along with Biden (who recently overturned his decades-long position for political expediency’s sake), Harris supports requiring all taxpayers, even those with religious objections, to directly fund abortions. She has voted against bills to require medical treatment for infants born alive after surviving an abortion attempt.
When the Center for Medical Progress uncovered evidence of Planned Parenthood’s illegal sales of organs and tissues harvested from unborn babies, as attorney general of California Harris, who received hefty donations from the abortion giant, worked tirelessly to crush CMP and its leader, David Daleiden. Agents from her office conducted a raid of Daleiden’s home and coordinated with the chief legal counsel of Planned Parenthood’s California affiliates to amend the law to target the operations of CMP and other undercover journalists attempting to expose them.
When Christian businesses objected to regulations requiring them to provide contraceptives and abortifacients against their religious faith, Harris filed a brief with the Supreme Court against them. Not even nuns have escaped her wrath — when the Little Sisters of the Poor won their court case against such requirements, Harris decried the decision as “dangerous” and a “setback.”
One of Harris’s favorite targets has been a nationwide network of Catholic hospitals. As Newt Gingrich noted in a recent article, Harris “used her office’s power [while attorney general] to close a number of Catholic hospitals on behalf of her political ally,” the Service Employees International Union.
During her brief career in the Senate, Harris co-sponsored the absurdly named “Equality Act,” which would force all hospitals and all physicians to perform sex-changes and cross-sex hormone injections. She followed this up by introducing the even more absurdly named “Do No Harm Act,” which would strip legal protections for conscientious objectors to these practices.
Biden has fallen into line. His website now vows to make enacting the Equality Act a “top legislative priority” for the first 100 days of his administration
The double-whammy of the “Equality Act” combined with the “Do No Harm Act” would not only destroy religious protections for hospitals but religious protections for faithful Catholic organizations and individuals across the board. Catholic business-owners could see their businesses shut down for refusing to facilitate same-sex weddings or having separate facilities for biological males and biological females.
Schools would be forced to do the same, including allowing biological boys who identify as transgender to change in the girls’ locker rooms, use the girls’ bathrooms, and, in sports, compete on teams alongside girls. Similar laws in five different states have already forced Catholic Charities’s adoption and foster services to close their doors.
What exactly, under a Biden administration (or, as it may quickly become, a Harris administration) would Catholics be allowed to do? Where would a Biden-Harris administration allow faithful Catholics to adhere to the doctrines of their faith?
Catholic hospitals must bend the knee to Harris’s radical ideology or be shut down. Catholic doctors whose faith prohibits them from facilitating abortions, sterilizations, or sex changes must be forced to comply. Catholic therapists attempting to help a child with gender dysphoria come to terms with his or her biological sex will face harsh legal penalties.
Schools and teachers who do not permit biological male athletes to compete against girls will be punished. Catholic business owners who follow their faith’s teaching on marriage and gender will be crushed. And, if Harris were to get her way completely, anyone associated with an organization that espouses and promotes Catholic doctrine will be disqualified from ever serving in the U.S. judiciary — and perhaps in public service altogether.
Harris must be pressed on this, in the vice-presidential debate, or by any true journalists still hanging around. She must be asked, clearly and directly, “Senator Harris, are there any ways you think Catholics should be allowed to live out their faith in daily life?” Her and Biden’s public record indicates the answer is “very few” or “none.”
