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The Democratic Party is pushing away the religious vote with "anti-Christian" policies as former President Donald Trump works to court Catholics and other Christians, Catholic League President Bill Donohue said.
"They're anti-Christian, and it's driving people out," Donohue said in a phone interview of Democrats, citing similar comments from former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who recently endorsed Trump. "And the guys I'm talking to, it's not even so much abortion. It's just they feel like they don't speak their language anymore. This whole idea of letting men compete against women in sports abuses the bathrooms, they think they've just gone off the deep end."
Donohue spoke to Fox News Digital about the Trump campaign launching the "Catholics for Trump" coalition, which aims to build "a nation where the rights of every individual to practice their faith freely is protected."
"Kamala Harris hates Catholics and everything we hold sacred. We can’t pretend otherwise. Our institutions, families, culture and belief in the sanctity of all human life are the antithesis of her vision for America. Donald Trump and JD Vance — and now RFK — are the antidote to the ruling class that has destroyed our country," Brian Burch, president of conservative non-profit, CatholicVote, said in the Trump campaign’s press release.
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Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a Fox News Town Hall with Sean Hannity at the New Holland Arena on September 4, 2024, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Trump on Sunday even wished the Virgin Mary a happy birthday. The Catholic Church recognizes the birthday of Jesus’ mother on Sept. 8, which falls nine months after the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on Dec. 8 each year.
President Biden, who is Catholic, dropped out of the presidential race at the end of July. Donohue said that Biden exiting the race likely won’t affect the Catholic vote overall, beyond perhaps benefiting Harris due to voters not being as familiar with her policies.
"I would suspect that in terms of Biden dropping out, it might help Harris a little bit, if only because she's less well known. But once people find out that her views are indistinguishable from that of Biden's, including born alive protection laws … when the baby is born as a result of a botched abortion, the Democrats – for most of them, not all, most of them –say that the doctor has no obligation to rescue the child. You can just let the child die at the table. Most Americans are opposed to that," Donohue said.
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Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024, in Houston, Texas. The American Federation of Teachers is the first labor union to endorse Harris for president since announcing her campaign. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)
Harris voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, legislation that would have penalized health care workers who fail to help care for babies born alive after a failed abortion, in 2020 when she served as a California senator. Harris is an ardent supporter of abortion access overall and made history alongside her future 2024 running mate when she visited a Minnesota Planned Parenthood earlier this year – in what was seen as the first time a sitting U.S. vice president has ever visited an abortion provider.
An abortion-rights demonstrator holds a sign during a rally, May 14, 2022, in Chattanooga, Tenn. (AP)
Trump secured the majority of the Catholic vote in his successful 2016 election cycle against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at 52% to Clinton’s 45%, Pew Research data show. In 2020, 52% of all Catholic voters cast their ballots for Biden, and 47% for Trump, according to Gallup.
Donohue noted that there’s a vast difference between how practicing Catholics vote, versus baptized Catholics who no longer practice their faith, explaining that religious Catholics "have almost nothing in common" with secular Catholics, who more frequently vote for Democrats. He added that the same is often true for religious Jews versus cultural Jews, and evangelical protestants versus mainline protestants.
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In addition to the Catholics for Trump coalition, the campaign launched the "Believers for Trump" coalition, which works with various religious communities to end the Biden-Harris administration's "anti-faith agenda for good," according to its website.
"The Democrat Party and the Harris-Biden Administration have waged war on Christianity with their support for abortion up until birth, the Department of Justice targeting and imprisoning pro-life activists, and the FBI plotting to infiltrate Catholic masses to spy on attendees," Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital.
"Kamala and Biden also shamefully declared the Holiest Day on the Christian Calendar as 'Trans Visibility Day' and allowed a transgender activist to take off their shirt and expose themselves on the White House South Lawn. President Trump will restore the Christian conservative values of faith, family, and freedom, end the Harris-Biden Administration’s discrimination against Christians, and stand up for religious freedom, as he did in his first term."
Donohue added that the Catholic vote historically supported Democrats until the 1960s.
"Everybody was a Democrat. All Catholics were Democrats. That didn't shift until really late ‘60s, early ’70s, certainly by the time ‘72, when McGovern was running against Nixon. And people said, ‘wait a minute.’ But then Catholics felt homeless, because the Republicans never wanted the Catholics. The Republicans were always the party of abortion," he said.
George McGovern ran against President Nixon as a Democrat in the 1972 presidential election and was billed as the candidate who supported "amnesty, abortion and acid," just a year ahead of the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
Pope Francis holds a thurible of incense as he celebrates a mass for the Virgin of Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) in St. Peters Basilica on December 12, 2018, at the Vatican. (Photo by Filippo Monteforte / AFP via Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Fast-forward to current times, the GOP has become the pro-life party. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, with Trump praising the decision and now campaigning on a platform where abortion laws are left to the individual states.
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"Since Dobbs, abortion has been more of a monkey on the back of Republicans. They've lost because some of the pro-life extremists in the Republican Party tried to go for all or nothing, but that's a fool's proposition. We always lose on that. You have to make exceptions, the proverbial exceptions everybody accepts. And you know, later into the term, there's less tolerance for abortion. So you have to play off of that. So Trump was advised, I think correctly, to get the abortion issue off your back, because it's a loser for Republicans. And just simply say, 'Listen, the goal was to get rid of Roe v. Wade so that it's up to the states to decide what they want to do,'" Donohue said.
Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is embraced by U.S. President Joe Biden during a campaign event at IBEW Local Union #5 on September 2, 2024, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. President Joe Biden joined Vice President Harris for her second Labor Day event, for the first time on the campaign trail since he departed the Democratic ticket and Harris was confirmed as the Democratic Party's nominee for the 2024 presidential election against Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump. The event was attended by members of the IBEW, United Steelworkers, AFSCME and other unions. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Trump did spark the condemnation of some pro-life conservatives for the GOP’s more muted language on abortion this election cycle, and for saying last month that Florida’s six-week abortion ban "is too short." He has since said that he will vote against a Florida amendment that would legalize abortion through the 9th month of pregnancy, and has doubled down that abortion laws and issues should be left up to the states to decide.
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St. Peter's Square during the Holy Mass with the College of Cardinals for the Opening of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on October 4, 2023, in Vatican City. The Solemn Mass for the Opening of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops began with a modern version of the traditional Laudes Regiae hymn, invoking God's protection and blessing on the Church, on Pope Francis and the Bishops and the flock entrusted to him, and on civil leaders and all women and men. (Photo by Antonio Masiello/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Anti-Catholic attacks have meanwhile increased in recent years, most notably after the Dobbs decision, when radicals attacked Catholic churches, and when reports of an anti-Catholic FBI memo that targeted traditional Catholics as potential "racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists" made national headlines. The DOJ absolved the FBI of wrongdoing earlier this year in an Inspector General review that found the agency did not intentionally target traditional Catholics.
"A lot of Catholics do feel alienated," Donohue said, while commending Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for his work investigating anti-Catholic bias in the federal government.
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"Many of them have found a new anchor with the Republicans. And listen, the guys that I hang out with in my Irish Pub," Donohue said. "Every one of these guys are union guys, and many of them are retired. They're all lifelong Democrats, and every single one of them are voting for Trump. Every single one of them are voting for Trump, because they say the Democrats have abandoned them."
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