By Leonidas Editor's Note: Is it simple compassion for victims, or an agenda to smash Christ's oldest church, that motivates three Democrat-sponsored bills declaring open season on sex-abuse lawsuits against Roman Catholics (but not others) in Colorado? "Leonidas," an experienced state-government observer and participant, suspects the latter. The hasty back-pedalling by sponsors to put public schools in similar legal jeopardy comes too late to mask the legislation's real intent. Even if recent editorial heat forces further changes in these bills, the cat's out of the bag. Our contributor is quite right, I believe, in seeing this as evidence of a war on religion by liberals. -- John Andrews
What do you do about a political party that dares not tell the people what they’re really about, a party that knows if they did come clean the only elections they’d ever win would be in places like Boulder, Berkeley, or Greenwich Village?
What do you do about a party whose candidates must pretend to like things they actually detest in order to fool people into voting for them? Remember a helmeted and unhappy looking Michael Dukakis staring at you from the turret of a tank? More recently we had Senator Kerry inviting the press corps on a hunting trip to snap photos of a camouflage wearing, shotgun toting John starring in the role of hunter, outdoorsman, and regular guy.
Now, let’s be fair to Democrats. They’re not all left-wing liberal extremists. Just the ones who run the party, that’s all.
Now, elderly people can actually remember when there were “conservative Democrats,” an extinct species formerly inhabiting the southern USA. Not yet extinct, but definitely an endangered species, are “moderate Democrats.” Long disappeared at the national level, they’re still occasionally found at the local level.
We all remember how embarrassed Richard Nixon was when his "enemies list" was leaked. Now, of course, liberals have their own enemies list (think Hillary’s “vast right-wing conspiracy”) but they usually hide it. However, there are slip-ups, occasions when the public gets an inkling of who the left-wing really hates.
A huge such slip-up has recently occurred in Colorado, and it has exposed one of the liberal extremists' darkest secrets: their War on Religion."
Thanks for this timely exposé (or blame if you’re a liberal) goes to Democratic Senate President Joan Fitzgerald and other Democratic leaders for sponsoring no less than three bills (SB-143, HB-1088, and HB-1090) that would overturn a foundation of American law – the Statute of Limitations – thereby enabling friendly trial lawyers to bankrupt as many churches as possible through an endless series of multi-million dollar lawsuits.
Senator Fitzgerald earnestly protests that she only seeks justice for victims of sexual abuse. Every one would applaud that goal as long as justice is applied equitably, but Fitzgerald’s bill specifically prohibits equity.
Fitzgerald also insists she has no intention of targeting Catholics, but the facts now emerging in the press say otherwise.
Caught in the media glare, Fitzgerald has now admitted that she conferred with California Democrats who succeeded in passing a nearly identical bill that unleashed a flood of over 800 lawsuits mainly targeting the Catholic Church that resulted in settlements in the millions. Coincidentally the same lawyer who helped write the California law is now handling most of the Colorado lawsuits.
Fitzgerald was assured by the California Democrats that there was no political fuss because the churches didn’t fight back. What now has Democrats in Colorado running for cover is that religious bodies are defending themselves -- led by Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput, who publicly urged his flock to resist the blatant discrimination inherent in the Democratic bills.
Backed by supporters in the State teachers union, Democrats at first stoutly resisted expanding their bills to equitably include public schools where statistically there are far more cases of sexual abuse.
Finally they relented and accepted amendments, but their initial logic clearly reveals the anti-religious mindset: It’s okay to bankrupt churches, but not schools. Churches can lose tens of millions, but public institutions are shielded.
So, why pick on the Catholic Church? Any trial lawyer could answer that. Because of its centralized organizational structure (“deep pockets”) a single lawsuit can harvest millions and ruin hundreds of churches – destroy an entire diocese – at one fell swoop.
Archbishop Chaput best articulates the real reason the Democrats have singled out his church: “An attempt to silence and punish her” for opposing abortion, and gay marriage.
Liberals wage their hidden War on Religion – similar to the enviros' “War on the West” or the atheists' “war on Christmas” – because churches – defenders of family values and traditional morality – are the last great obstacle to the left-wing’s vision of a socialist utopia in which “Big Brother” (i.e. big government) is the final arbiter in deciding what Americans can and can’t do.
What can ordinary citizens do to resist this Orwellian nightmare? When next you go to the polls – elections still matter – think what the Democratic “stealth party” is up to. There’s more at stake than you might realize.