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Catholic Charities D.C. Chooses To End Foster-Care Services

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In response to the Washington, D.C. same-sex marriage bill that will become law next month, Catholic Charities in D.C. has chosen the exact same path it did in Massachusetts — to end its management and support of its child foster-care services — this time transferring the entire operation over to the National Center for Children and Families, effective February 1.

It’s important to note that the new D.C. law did not force Catholic Charities to close its doors, as some organizations claimed it did in Massachusetts when that state adopted marriage equality. Catholic Charities chose to end its foster care and adoption services rather than make changes which would allow same-sex individuals or couples to adopt.

Catholic Charities’ own statement said,

“Foster care has been an important ministry for us for many decades…We regret that our efforts to avoid this outcome were not successful.”

Other religious and anti-gay groups were not as sensitive. The Catholic League, a bastion of anti-gay hatred, playing the victim card, issued its own press release, titled, “CATHOLIC FOSTER CARE IN D.C. FORCED OUT.” (It’s amusing to note that the immediately previous press release on their web site is titled, “GAY ACTIVIST RIPS POPE ON BEHAR SHOW.”)

By the way, the “Catholic League” is actually the “Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.” I’ll let you take that one on.

Via Americans United For Separation Of Church And State:

“The Rev. Barry Lynn, AU’s executive director, called the church’s demands “outrageous.”

“If ‘faith-based’ charities cannot or will not obey civil rights laws, they ought not benefit from public funds,” he said.

“I am amazed that church officials would threaten to stop helping the disadvantaged because they are being asked to treat all citizens of the District fairly,” he continued. “They seem to have lost all perspective. How strong is their commitment to helping the poor if they’re willing to take this hard-line stance?

“If Catholic Charities drops its participation in publicly funded social services,” Lynn concluded, “I am confident that other charities would be happy to pick up the slack.”

The Washington Post today reported,

“City officials knew of no other faith-based groups that said their city contracts were in jeopardy.

“Edward Orzechowski, president and chief executive of Catholic Charities, the archdiocese’s social service arm, said the group is optimistic that it will find a way to structure its benefits packages in other social service programs so that it can remain in partnership with the city without recognizing same-sex marriage.

“Asked if that meant looking at ways to avoid paying benefits to same-sex partners or ways to write benefits plans so as not to characterize same-sex couples as “married,” Orzechowski said “both, and.”

“Now we’re in a position where we need to scrutinize everything,” he said. “From our point of view, it’s important that we don’t in any way compromise our religious teaching.”

In Massachusetts, Catholic Charities decided to end its adoption services when that state’s high court found a ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. This, despite the fact its parishioners voted to keep the93-year old adoption running. It was not the law that forced the closing of Catholic Charities’ Boston foster care services, it was its own religious leaders, who decided against the will of its own parishioners.

Catholic Charities D.C. web site reads, “Catholic Charities | Opening doors to help and hope.” Perhaps that needs to be amended to limit the door-opening to straight couples?

Oh. Just three days before closing its foster care services, Catholic Charities posted this on their Twitter feed:

“At local #CatholicCharities agencies, emergency services in high demand…”

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Trump Expected to Grant Clemency to Almost All J6 Criminals, Including Violent Felons

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January 20, 2025

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President Donald Trump is expected to grant “sweeping” pardons and sentence commutations to all or nearly all the approximately 1600 people convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection and assault on the U.S. Capitol — including those convicted of some of the most violent acts against law enforcement. Trump, who was also charged with crimes related to the insurrection and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has called those serving prison time “hostages” and “political prisoners.”

Those convicted of violent crimes are expected to receive sentence commutations, which could mean lesser sentences or even release from prison.

ABC News’ Katherine Faulders also reports the actions would include “commuting the prison sentences of hundreds of his supporters who have been convicted of violent attacks against law enforcement, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.”

READ MORE: Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

Rather than look at each person on a case-by-case basis, Trump, according to The Washington Post, “would grant some form of clemency to virtually everyone prosecuted by the Justice Department, from the plotters imprisoned for seditious conspiracy and felons convicted of assaulting police officers to those who merely trespassed on the restricted grounds on Jan. 6, 2021.”

The U.S. Department of Justice “would also dismiss about 300 cases that have not yet gone to trial, including people charged with violent assaults, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss pending plans,” the Post added.

After the 2024 election, Trump had told TIME magazine, “I’m going to do case-by-case, and if they were nonviolent, I think they’ve been greatly punished.”

READ MORE: Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

He also told NBC News’ Kristen Welker, and supporters at his rallies, he would act “on day one.”

According to the Post, 14 of the January 6 defendants have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. At least 379 were charged with assaulting police or the media — the vast majority of them have also been sentenced. 287 were charged with “less violent or nonviolent felonies.” Most of them have already been convicted. And 869 were charged with “misdemeanor counts such as trespassing or disorderly conduct.” The vast majority of them have also been sentenced.

Contrary to claims by many of Trump’s supporters, including lawmakers and those in the media, the January 6 attack was not “peaceful,” or nonviolent, and weapons were used in the attack.

“Participants carried weapons including firearms, chemical sprays, stun guns, axes, baseball bats, a sword and a hockey stick. A female rioter was shot and killed by police inside the Capitol, and one officer succumbed to two strokes that were partly attributed to the stress of the attack. Three people died as a result of medical emergencies suffered during the riot. Four police officers later died by suicide,” the Post reports.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Skipping Hand on Bible, Trump Declares ‘We Will Not Forget Our God’ at Inauguration

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17 hours ago

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January 20, 2025

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During his presidential swearing-in inaugural ceremony, Donald Trump several times invoked God, while inexplicably not placing his hand on either of the two Bibles Melania Trump held at his side.

“I was saved by God to make America great again,” Trump told the former presidents, lawmakers, and billionaires in attendance at the Capitol Rotunda. “We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God,” Trump also declared, adding, “We will not forget our God.”

Many, including the Deputy Chief of Staff to a Democratic U.S. Congressman, noted that Trump did not place his hand on the Bible. And while not a constitutional requirement, it was a striking anomaly.

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Also reporting Trump not being sworn in with a hand on the Bible, The New York Post noted, “Trump used both a family Bible and the so-called Lincoln Bible, which was sworn on by the 16th president in 1861 as well as Barack Obama in 2009 and 2013.”

“Instead,”the Post reported, “Trump stood with his left arm down by his side as he raised his right hand for the oath of office.”

Few presidents have skipped the hand-on-the-Bible portion of the swearing in.

President John Quincy Adams in 1825 reportedly used a law book instead of a Bible, according to PBS.

“In 1901, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was hastily sworn in after the assassination of President Wil­liam McKinley,” notes Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “Roosevelt had rushed to Buffalo, where McKinley had been shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz. Roosevelt took the Oath of Office at the home of a friend, and no Bible was used during the private ceremony.”

In 1963, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, “believed it was best for a reeling nation to know that a president was in place immediately. As Johnson was preparing to take the oath of office aboard Air Force One, a Bible was not available. Kennedy’s personal Roman Catholic missal was found in his living quarters,” according to The Washington Post.

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But this may be the first time a president has been sworn in with a Bible by his side yet without putting their hand on it.

Watch the video below or at this link.


READ MORE: ‘Fear Small Crowds?’: Trump and Team Mocked as ‘Snowflakes’ for Inauguration Move

 

Image via Reuters

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Trump Expected to Target Citizenship of Children With Undocumented Parents

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19 hours ago

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January 20, 2025

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Almost immediately after being sworn in as America’s 47th president, Donald Trump reportedly will sign 200 executive orders across a wide range of issues, despite, as critics note, having Republican majorities in the House and Senate, which could allow him to achieve many of his goals through legislation. Among those orders is one that would, in theory, end birthright citizenship — the constitutional right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil — for children born to undocumented parents.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1898 dealt with birthright citizenship, a guarantee of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which clearly states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The portion that reads, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the Supreme Court ruled, meant children born in the U.S. to a parent or parents of diplomats of a foreign country.

Candidate Trump in 2015 said he wanted to end birthright citizenship.

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“In August 2015, Donald Trump sat down to talk with then–Fox News host Bill O’Reilly about one of his central campaign promises: the mass deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants. ‘Our country is going to hell,’ Trump said. ‘We have to start a process where we take back our country,'” Mother Jones reported last year.

“O’Reilly found the plan ridiculous. Such a colossal and expensive undertaking, the conservative host said, would take decades. Before then, the courts would stop sweeping raids. The idea, O’Reilly continued, was just ‘not going to happen.’ Perhaps the most obvious reason why, he said, was the 14th Amendment, which ‘says if you’re born here, you’re an American—and you can’t kick Americans out.’ O’Reilly almost screamed at one point: ‘If you’re born here, you’re an American—period! Period!'”

In 2018 he again said he would do so, with an executive order, that never materialized.

Now, it appears Trump will try to fulfill his decade-long wish.

“This executive order will ‘clarify’ the 14th Amendment, [an] incoming official said, such that ‘that on a prospective basis, the federal government will not recognize automatic birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens born in the United States,'” Semafor White House correspondent Shelby Talcott said.

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“The incoming official,” The Washington Post adds, “did not provide details on how the administration planned to implement a change that scholars say would be illegal. Trump’s order would reinterpret the words ‘and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to all people born on U.S. soil, and redefine the phrase to exclude babies born to parents illegally in the country.”

There are millions of Americans of all ages currently living in the U.S., (an estimated 5 million under the age of 18) who are children of undocumented parents. The claim, “on a prospective basis,” suggests Trump will try to deny any child born of undocumented parents, going forward, their right to citizenship.

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis declared, “Birthright citizenship is part of the 14th Amendment and the president cannot write it out with his pen.”

Professor of Law Steve Vladeck noted, “Trump’s effort to restrict birthright citizenship by executive order is (1) unlawful; (2) predicated on conflating two entirely distinct legal arguments; and (3) doomed to fail in (even these) courts.”

Mother Jones’ Isabela Dias last year wrote if it were to happen, “It would be nothing short of seismic.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens FBI Office, Alleges ‘Corruption,’ Demands They ‘Preserve All Records’

 

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