Historian John Higham once described anti-Catholicism as "the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history." Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. characterized prejudice against Catholics as "the deepest bias in the history of the American people." And conservative commentator Peter Viereck has said that "Catholic baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals."
But nowhere is this "paranoiac agitation" and hate-filled prejudice against Catholics more deeply ingrained than in today's Homosexual Hate Movement. There are parallels between this hate movement and the Ku Klux Klan at the early part of the twentieth-century. When the Klan enjoyed a resurgence in the 1920s, anti-Catholic rhetoric intensified to such a degree that it led to violence against Catholics and the burning down of a Catholic Church. Just two weeks after the Church of the Little Flower was erected in 1925, the Klan burned a cross in front of the church. Later the church would burn down in a fire.
Today, hate-filled rhetoric is being levelled against the Catholic Church by rabidly anti-Catholic extremists and this extreme rhetoric has led to open violence against Catholics and Catholic churches (not to mention Protestant and Mormon churches). See here. One radical anti-Catholic activist has compared the Holy Father to a vampire who is nothing but a bigot (See here). One of his associates (a professor of Sociology) has written that, "The Pope and the Vatican, modern day Pharisees, and their minions, have caused untold suffering to countless numbers of people, and no decent person, no Christian, no LGBT person, has any business giving credibility to that institution by his/her presence and money." (See here). Of course, this bright light offers no evidence to support his wild and irresponsible claims against the Church. But then how can we expect such an individual to be concerned with facts in the face of such blanket condemnations of a Church comprising more than 1 billion people? The classic definition of prejudice: "Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion."
Let's all pray that such irrational hatred will not lead to more violence against Catholics and others who morally oppose homosexuality while respecting the homosexual person.
