Most people don’t need to hack into the Clinton campaign to know the campaign’s hostility toward Bible-believing Christians. From the paring down of the freedom of religion to the freedom of worship to the basket of deplorables, Hillary Clinton’s comments were certainly clues of her campaign’s disdain for those whose faith is important in their lives. Those clues were confirmed this week in a scandal involving two chiefs of the campaign. Proving that Donald Trump’s mouth isn’t the only liability in this race, Clinton’s Communications Director, Jennifer Palmiere, has gotten the campaign in plenty of hot water with her 2011 email exchange with equally prejudiced John Halpin from the Center for American Progress.

The messages (which also included Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta) surfaced in the latest WikiLeaks dump, giving undecided voters plenty to think about before November 8. Halpin kicked off the insult-fest with a nod to the CEO of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, a Catholic who — shock of shocks — raised his children Catholic. “Ken Auletta’s latest piece on Murdoch in the New Yorker starts off with the aside that both Murdoch and Robert Thompson, managing editor of the WSJ, are raising their kids Catholic. Friggin’ Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus,” he wrote to Palmiere and Podesta. Going on, he added, “Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups. It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”

They’re probably Catholic, Hillary’s Communications Director chimed in, because they think it’s “the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion.” Then, taking a swipe at Protestants, she said, “Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.” The comments are revealing because they show that Hillary Clinton’s attack on Bible-believing Christians (when she called them a “basket of deplorables,” in front of an LGBTQ crowd) were consistent with the broader campaign’s contempt for conservative Christians. Even more telling, she not only smeared those who believe in biblical morality as deplorable, she also said they were “irredeemable” (which was a bit ironic, considering that redemption is the crux of the Christian faith).

Unfortunately, this is just par for the intolerant course in the Clinton campaign, which has just as much contempt for Christians’ beliefs on issues like abortion, religious liberty, marriage, gender identity, and sexuality. A staunch supporter of the culture of death, Planned Parenthood, abortion mandates, same-sex marriage, transgender rights, and more, Hillary has been offending the Christian faith that she claims to hold for the last 30 years. And it’s clear that her staff is cut from the same cloth. What’s even more infuriating is that the campaign will go to the mat to protect American Muslims, but when it comes to conservative Catholics and evangelicals, Clinton — like most liberals — thinks that’s an acceptable form of discrimination.

As I told Megyn Kelly [Tuesday] night on Fox News (video below), this should be troubling to anyone who wants to live by their faith. Clinton and her staff honestly believe that people who actually want to live by their faith are backwater people. The elitists see religion as a glorified social club — but if you want to live your life according to Scripture, they hold you in disdain. And talk about a double standard! The Left is demanding Donald Trump’s head for his deplorable comments about women, but they give Clinton’s campaign a pass for abusing the world’s largest religion! Imagine if the GOP’s team had said what Halpin and Palmiere did. They’d be in the streets with pitchforks! Trump alluded as much at a rally today, where he blasted his opponent for harboring such animosity in her camp.

“The new e-mails also show members of the Clinton team attacking Catholic and Evangelicals… viciously. That will not be tolerated by the voters… This is hatred from Hillary Clinton… I tell you what, can you imagine me if any of this pertained to me? Front page headlines.”

Let this be a lesson to any Christian who thought Hillary Clinton may be a viable option to Donald Trump. Her campaign doesn’t respect your faith — and it sure doesn’t respect your right to practice it.

Originally published here.

Procter Doesn’t Gamble in North Carolina

Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble (P&G) is hardly immune to pressure from LGBT (“lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender”) activists. It has boasted to its shareholders about treating “sexual orientation” and “gender identity and expression” as protected categories and about receiving a perfect score on the pro-LGBT Human Rights Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index.” It has even endorsed “U.S. federal legislation that would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity” (presumably, the dangerous so-called “Equality Act”).

However, this week its shareholders drew the line at joining the corporate witch hunt against states that have passed modest legislation to protect religious liberty, privacy, and safety. P&G’s shareholders soundly rejected a proposal offered by NorthStar Asset Management, a small investment group headed by Julie Goodridge (lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health, that first brought same-sex “marriage” to Massachusetts). NorthStar criticized varied bills adopted this year by Mississippi (forbidding government discrimination against religious views), Tennessee (protecting conscience rights of counselors and therapists), and North Carolina (protecting bathrooms in government buildings), and requested that P&G prepare a report “detailing the known and potential risks and costs to the Company” from such laws.

Justin Danhof of the National Center for Public Policy opposed the measure at the shareholders’ meeting, pointing out false claims in the NorthStar proposal, and noting that the issues involved are largely irrelevant to P&G’s business. Danhof said that the proposals could damage the company’s brand and “harm the company’s bottom line while helping no one.” (Interestingly, NorthStar itself apparently engages in sex discrimination — hiring only women!) P&G’s Board of Directors concluded the proposal was worded too “broadly and vaguely,” and the proposed report “is unnecessary and would not provide meaningful information.” Shareholders agreed, with only six percent of the shares outstanding voting in favor of this attack upon state laws. Corporations should stay neutral in the culture wars; and certainly should not ally themselves with those attacking religious liberty.

Originally published here.

Bad Company: CA Takes Baby Body Parts Dealers to Task

On Tuesday, the District Attorney of Orange County, California, filed a lawsuit against several medical research companies alleging they illegally profited off the sale of baby body parts or “fetal tissue.” According to the Orange County Register, the suit alleges that these companies are “illegally profiting off the sale of fetal tissue donated from abortion providers.” While the law allows firms to have their expenses covered for supplying “fetal tissue,” they cannot profit off it.

However, the Orange County DA “alleges that DaVinci Biosciences and its sister company DV Biologics advertised and sold hundreds of units of fetal tissue and stem cells to research facilities around the world, collecting tens of thousands of dollars in revenue.” If proven, this is both atrocious and illegal.

Interestingly, as the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) points out, the targets of the suit are “Planned Parenthood of Orange & San Bernardino Counties’ longtime baby body parts business partners [and] sister companies.” It turns out that what’s atrocious may have occurred here. In a scheme taking place over the course of eight years, according to CMP, “Planned Parenthood supplied aborted baby hearts, lungs, brains, and intestines to DV Biologics, which DV Biologics then resold for profit. In exchange for merely providing access to aborted baby body parts, Planned Parenthood received kickback contributions from DaVinci Biosciences over the course of their eight-year contract.”

It’s no surprise that DaVinci Biosciences and DV Biologics also profited from the sale of baby body parts as did its competitors StemExpress and Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), two such companies that were under investigation by the Select Panel on Infant Lives. The Select Panel already revealed in its interim report how StemExpress and ABR have profited from the sale of baby body parts, as evidenced by receipts, invoices, order forms, purchase orders, internal emails, and sales spreadsheets.

One thing’s for sure — this case will shed light on some important issues. If DaVinci Biosciences is found guilty, it points to Planned Parenthood’s involvement and guilt as an accomplice in these matters. Could DaVinci Biosciences really have sold baby body parts for profit without Planned Parenthood’s intimate involvement in giving it access to fresh, intact fetal organs? Eight years is a long time, and it’s reasonable to infer that Planned Parenthood either knew or should have known what DaVinci Biosciences was doing over the course of those many years.

Moreover, if one district attorney in California can bring such a case, evidence likely exists for authorities to bring such charges in other jurisdictions. Law enforcement elsewhere should follow suit and look into these allegations in the other states where they have arisen.

We may ask, and the public should be asking: Could it be that CMP was right all along? Doesn’t this show what its videos claimed and what it previously alleged? When the CMP videos surfaced throughout last year, the mainstream media and many abortion supporters tried to minimize them and brush them away because of the inconvenient truths they contained and the implications for their biggest abortion patron: Planned Parenthood. The truth won’t go away, however, and this lawsuit and latest incidence of these atrocities at a minimum demand an honest investigation and accounting.

Originally published here.

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This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.