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Is NOM’s Brian Brown Standing With Cardinal Dolan Against Church Child Rape Victims?

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Among the many motives that the Catholic Church of Rome has for scapegoating LGBTers worldwide is that of attempting to distract world attention from the Church’s seemingly endless child rape scandals.

In the United States, nobody fights harder than the Catholic Church against proposed laws to lift the statutes of limitations for prosecution of child rape. And the Republican Party is the Church’s political ally in its war against such proposed legislation.

New York State Senator Thomas Duane, a Democrat, proposed Senate Bill S3333. The proposed legislation seeks to extend “the statute of limitations in criminal and civil actions for certain sex offenses committed against a child less than eighteen years of age.”

A Duane staffer told this reporter: “If you think Cardinal Dolan fights hard against marriage for same-sex couples, you should know that that is nothing, compared to how fiercely Dolan fights against laws designed better to hold child rapists accountable for their crimes.” The staffer added that Republican state legislators — not Democrats — lead the charge against the proposed legislation.

A perfect example of why the statutes of limitations should be lifted comes from California. Though the Los Angeles diocese settled with many of the Church’s child rape victims there for a total of over $660 million — (without any admission of wrongdoing) — attorney Ray Boucher found that the Church subsequently engaged in cover-ups, even allowing known child rapist priests to hide out in rehab centers until the statute of limitations for prosecutions ran out.

The statutes of limitations need to be lifted, additionally because Church officials sometimes engage in attempted intimidation of victims while the victims are still minors.

For example, in August, 2011, Father Jaime Duenas of the Bronx was arrested on charges he had repeatedly molested a 16-year-old girl working in the rectory. After victims’ advocates criticized then Archbishop Dolan for his handling of the matter, Dolan teamed up with Catholic League president Bill Donohue, took to his blog and trashed the 16-year-old girl. Dolan and Donohue were not only attempting to intimidate that victim, but also sending a very public message: “Dare to come forward as a young victim, and you too will be trashed to the public by the most powerful Catholic Church leaders in the country.”

And the Church’s intimidation related to statutes of limitations is not limited to youngsters. As President of the Colorado State Senate, Joan Fitz-Gerald, a Democrat, proposed legislation to lift the statute of limitations on child rape. Fitz-Gerald spoke to the New York Times about the Catholic Church’s war against her proposed legislation: “It was the most brutal thing I’ve ever been through. The politics, the deception, the lack of concern for not only the children in the past, but for children today.”

At its upper echelons, the National Organization for Marriage is united with the Catholic Church in political strategy. There apparently is no political strategy which NOM has that is not also promoted by the Church. NOM founder and mastermind Robert P. George sits on the advisory board of the Catholic League. Catholic League president Bill Donohue often attempts to scapegoat homosexuals to distract attention from the Church’s child rape scandals. NOM’s Brian Brown appears to abet his NOM boss Robert George and Bill Donohue in those efforts.

For example, very shortly after the 2011 arrest of Father Jaime Duenas, NOM’s Brian Brown attempted to smear gay rights advocates by alleging that gay rights are connected to a (non-existent) push to “normalize pedophilia.” Brown hate-and-fear-mongered against gays by mischaracterizing a medical experts’ symposium session that was aimed at improving treatment for pedophiles. The symposium had less than nothing to do with gay rights. Brown’s reprehensible actions in that anti-gay smear match the apparent Catholic Church political strategy of scapegoating and falsely blaming gays to distract public attention from the Church’s child rape scandals.

In his outlandish and completely unsupported anti-gay smear, NOM’s Brian Brown referenced alleged “Biblical views of marriage.”

In a debate Brown had with Dan Savage, Savage raised the point that the Bible has been used to justify slavery, that such pernicious abuse of the Bible was discontinued, and that people today must discontinue all gay-bashing abuses of the Bible.

In his gay-bashing propaganda produced after the debate, Brown lies about the extent to which the Bible historically was used to justify slavery. Brown actually says that Popes have condemned slavery, as though nobody knew anything about the history of the Catholic Church.

Pope Nicholas V, Pope Callixtus III, Pope Sixtus IV, Pope Leo X and Pope Alexander VI all issued papal “bulls” authorizing the slave trade and sometimes citing Biblical justifications for it.

If it is true that 1) later Popes condemned slavery, then 2) Brian Brown and all of his fellow NOM anti-gay bigots should 3) take that papal movement away from Bible-justified slavery, towards human enlightenment as 4) a model for ending all present-day Bible-based gay bashing.

As explained above, the appearance is that through NOM’s Robert George’s position of authority in the Catholic League — and Robert George’s position of power and influence in the Republican Party — NOM’s despicable tactic of smearing gays as pedophiles is coordinated with the Church’s political strategies.

If the Catholic Church and NOM are not coordinating political strategies against lifting the statutes of limitations for prosecution of child rape, then when will NOM’s Robert George, Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher and Thomas Peters make public demands that the statutes of limitations be lifted?

New York City-based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT-interest by-line has appeared on Advocate.com, PoliticusUSA.com, The New York Blade, Queerty.com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide” is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.

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News

Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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April 25, 2024

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

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She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

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News

‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

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4 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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The county clerk for Ingham County, Michigan blasted Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump after the ex-president’s daughter-in-law bragged the RNC will have people to “physically handle” voters’ ballots in polling locations across the country this November.

“We now have the ability at the RNC not just to have poll watchers, people standing in polling locations, but people who can physically handle the ballots,” Trump told Newsmax host Eric Bolling this week, as NCRM reported.

“Will these people, will they be allowed to physically handle the ballots as well, Lara?” Bolling asked.

“Yup,” Trump replied.

Marc Elias, the top Democratic elections attorney who won 63 of the 64 lawsuits filed by the Donald Trump campaign in the 2020 election cycle (the one he did not win was later overturned), corrected Lara Trump.

READ MORE: ‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

“Poll observers are NEVER permitted to touch ballots. She is suggesting the RNC will infiltrate election offices,” Elias warned on Wednesday.

Barb Byrum, a former Michigan Democratic state representative with a law degree and a local hardware store, is the Ingham County Clerk, and thus the chief elections official for her county. She slammed Lara Trump and warned her the RNC had better not try to touch any ballots in her jurisdiction.

“I watched your video, and it’s riveting stuff. But if you think you’ll be touching ballots in my state, you’ve got another thing coming,” Byrum told Trump in response to the Newsmax interview.

“First and foremost, precinct workers, clerks, and voters are the only people authorized to touch ballots. For example, I am the County Clerk, and I interact with exactly one voted ballot: My own,” Byrum wrote, launching a lengthy series of social media posts educating Trump.

“Election inspectors are hired by local clerks in Michigan and we hire Democrats and Republicans to work in our polling places. We’re required by law to do so,” she continued. “In large cities and townships, the local clerks train those workers. In smaller cities and townships, that responsibility falls to County Clerks, like me.”

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She explained, “precinct workers swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Michigan.”

“Among the provisions in the Michigan Constitution is the right to a secret ballot for our voters,” she added.

Byrum also educated Trump on her inaccurate representation of the consent decree, which was lifted by a court, not a judge’s death, as Lara Trump had claimed.

“It’s important for folks to understand what you’re talking about: The end of a consent decree that was keeping the RNC from intimidating and suppressing voters (especially in minority-majority areas).”

“With that now gone, you’re hoping for the RNC to step up their game and get people that you train to do god-knows what into the polling places.”

Byrum also warned Trump: “If election inspectors are found to be disrupting the process of an orderly election OR going outside their duties, local clerks are within their rights to dismiss them immediately.”

“So if you intend to train these 100,000 workers to do anything but their sacred constitutional obligation, they’ll find themselves on the curb faster than you can say ‘election interference.'”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

 

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OPINION

‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

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21 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is mocking House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer over a CNN report revealing the embattled Kentucky Republican who has been alleging without proof President Joe Biden is the head of a vast multi-million dollar criminal bribery and influence-peddling conspiracy, has given up trying to impeach the leader of the free world.

CNN on Wednesday had reported, “after 15 months of coming up short in proving some of his biggest claims against the president, Comer recently approached one of his Republican colleagues and made a blunt admission: He was ready to be ‘done with’ the impeachment inquiry into Biden.” The news network described Chairman Comer as “frustrated” and his investigation as “at a dead end.”

One GOP lawmaker told CNN, “Comer is hoping Jesus comes so he can get out.”

“He is fed up,” the Republican added.

Despite the Chairman’s alleged remarks, “a House Oversight Committee spokesperson maintains that ‘the impeachment inquiry is ongoing and impeachment is 100% still on the table.'”

RELATED: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Last week, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) got into a shouting match with Chairman Comer, with the Maryland Democrat saying, “You have not identified a single crime – what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going?” and Comer replying, “You’re about to find out.”

Before those heated remarks, Congressman Raskin chided Comer, humorously threatening to invite Rep. Moskowitz to return to the hearing.

Congressman Moskowitz appears to be the only member of the House Oversight Committee who has ever made a motion to call for a vote on impeaching President Biden, which he did last month, although he did it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

It appears the Moskowitz-Comer “bromance” may be over.

Wednesday afternoon Congressman Moskowitz, whose sarcasm is becoming well-known, used it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

“I was hoping our breakup would never become public,” he declared. “We had such a great thing while it lasted James. I will miss the time we spent together. I will miss our conversations. I will miss the pet names you gave me. I only wish you the best and hope you find happiness.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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