By Catholic League president Bill Donohue
Why is Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel continuing her
harassment of the Catholic Church? That is what her latest investigation of clergy sexual abuse amounts
to, hunting for guilty priests going back over 70 years ago in the Diocese of
Marquette. The record shows that this is not an anomaly.
Nessel’s animus against Catholics is palpable and well
documented.
She wasn’t in office for two months before she put
Catholics on notice: if they were asked by law enforcement about clergy sexual
abuse, they should “ask to see their badge, not their rosary.” She couldn’t
wait to get the Catholic Church and intimidate Catholics.
Even before Nessel took office on January 1, 2019, she
started her war on Catholics. She flat out said she would not enforce a
religious liberty bill that protected the religious freedom of faith-based
foster care and adoption services. In fact, she said those Catholics who
disagreed with her were part of a “radical fringe” and were “hate mongers.”
Less than three months after she took office, Nessel made
good on her anti-Catholic pledge, partnering with the ACLU of Michigan to
challenge these Catholic services for children. Indeed, she said she would
not defend this state law. In a settlement, she decreed that the
Michigan Department of Health and Human Services must end state contracts with
faith-based agencies.
Nessel got her comeuppance later in the year when a federal
district court judge upheld the religious freedom of St. Vincent Catholic
Charities, a foster care and adoption agency. District court judge Robert
Jonker explained in his 32-page ruling that in 2015 the Michigan legislature
enacted a law upholding the right of faith-based agencies to adhere to the
teachings of their Church.
Jonker wrote that Nessel’s 2018 campaign, coupled with her
statements as attorney general, “create a strong inference that the State’s
real target is the religious beliefs and confessions of St. Vincent, and not
discriminatory conduct.”
Moreover, the judge said, she sought to terminate the
state’s contract “simply because St. Vincent adheres to its sincerely held
religious belief that marriage is an institution created by God to join a
single man to a single woman.” Furthermore, this “strongly suggests that the
State’s real goal is not to promote non-discriminatory child placements, but to
stamp out St. Vincent’s religious belief” and replace it “with a
State-orthodoxy test that prevents Catholic believers from participating.”
“All of this,” he concluded, “supports a strong inference
that St. Vincent was targeted based on its religious belief, and that it was
Defendant Nessel who targeted it.”
The judge said Nessel’s policy—which would “flout the
letter and stated intention of the Michigan legislature”—“actually undermines
the state’s stated goal of preventing discriminatory conduct and maximizing
available placements for children.”
“Shuttering St. Vincent would create significant disruption
for the children in its care, who already face an unpredictable home life and
benefit from stability,” Jonker said. “It would also hurt the foster and
adoptive parents who rely on St. Vincent for support and would have to find new
resources.”
It is not just this judge, and the Catholic League, that
have noted Nessel’s anti-Catholic bigotry. She no sooner took office when
Michigan State Rep. Beau LaFave went after her for retweeting a statement
citing the hiring of a retired judge by Michigan State University to address
sexual abuse. The tweet in question noted his ties to the Catholic
Church. LaFave further noted Nessel’s previous comments attacking
Catholicism.
Nessel’s latest attack on the Catholic Church—her vacuous
report on the Diocese of Marquette—is a reflection of who she is.
There is no room for bigots in public life.
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