My first college career took place amid the campus turmoil of the early 1970s.
Liberals and radicals at the Virginia school—among not only students but the professoriate as well — had a favorite term for anyone who disagreed with them.
We were "rednecks" —and, believing such name-calling did more to discredit our critics than it did us, my more conservative friends and I embraced the label with mock pride.
Except for one fellow student, a small-town Virginia boy who remains to this day a close friend. When I jokingly referred to him one day as a fellow redneck, he replied, calmly but very firmly, "I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t call me that."
"Okay," I said, still taking it lightly.
"Seriously," he added. "Okay," I said again.
"Very seriously."
Now this friend was, and is, one of the most easy-going guys I’ve ever known.
Amid light-hearted banter about everything from our favorite sports teams, to regional north-south rivalries, to our different accents and dialects, he was always quick to enjoy a laugh at his own expense.
Never, before then or since, have I experienced a cross word from him.
Except when I kiddingly called him a redneck.
And that’s when I, a New Yorker only passingly conversant with the term, came to understand what an offensive, deliberately hurtful, bigoted epithet it is when directed at a white Southerner.
Looking back, I realize that was my first experience with what I call the intolerance of the tolerant — the bigotries indulged by too many of America’s "enlightened" progressives, who can’t conceive themselves even capable of harboring any kind of prejudice.
In the ensuing years, my pro-life activism and professional involvement with the Church have brought me face-to-face with what is surely the most prevalent bias of America’s progressive cultural elite: anti-Catholicism.
That "enlightened" intolerance was on full display several weeks ago, when the Los Angeles Dodgers honored a group of cross-dressing gay men who like to dress up in the habits of Catholic religious sisters, while grotesquely mocking the beliefs and practices that Catholics hold sacred.
Mainstream media’s dutiful parroting of the group’s dishonest self-characterization—they dress as Catholic nuns and do charitable work—is not even close to describing the depth of their anti-Catholic depravity.
The Catholic League, which has been documenting their bigoted antics for decades, offers a much more accurate picture.
A recent Catholic League news release outlined acts by the group, which simulate graphic sex acts, while dressed as nuns. The "Sisters" also mock in the most offensive sexual terms possible, some of the most sacred masses as observed and practiced by devout Catholics.
According to the Catolic League, "The 'Sisters' go by names such as 'Sister Homo Fellatio' and 'Sister Joyous Reserectum.'
"Just last [April], they held an event mocking Our Blessed Mother and Jesus on Easter Sunday."
The Dodgers’ disgraceful honoring of such a group was matched by the cowardly response of (MLB) Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred.
"I trust their judgment as to what’s appropriate for their market," Manfred told Time.
"And there’s no right or wrong answer that applies across the 30 clubs."
Would the commissioner likewise "trust their judgement" if a major league team proposed to honor some group that dressed up in blackface, or one that cruelly mocked gay people?
Would he say "there’s no right or wrong answer" in that case?
Of course not.
Such a proposal should not — and would not — ever be deemed acceptable by any major league team.
And if it were, Manfred would surely fall over himself rushing to condemn and prohibit it.
But Catholics are fair game.
When Arthur Schlesinger Sr. described anti-Catholicism as "the deepest held bias in the history of the American people," Seattle Post-Intelligencer online columnist Joel Connelly wrote 10 years ago, he "was talking about the Ku Klux Klan, anti-Irish Know-Nothings of the 1840s, and attacks on John F. Kennedy.
"These days," Connelly observed, the bias seems "transposed out of the Bible Belt into the upper reaches of the media, entertainment industry and the blogosphere."
He might have included academia, where bigotry against Catholics, as well as Jews, is de rigueur these days on "woke" college campuses across the country.
And now, with Commissioner Manfred’s approval, anti-Catholic hate speech is welcome in Major League Baseball stadiums.
As the event took place, thousands of Catholics, joined by other believers and friends of religious tolerance, engaged in a peaceful, prayerful witness as they made their voices —and the voices of all of us across the nation who joined them in spirit — heard outside the stadium.
Yes, it was a protest, firm and wholly appropriate; but it was also a celebration, of faith and prayer, in response to the celebration of hate going on inside the ballpark.
While the Dodgers honored the bigots, it was the thousands of people of faith gathered outside the stadium who conducted themselves honorably.
For three decades, Rick Hinshaw has given voice to faith values in the public square, as a columnist, then editor of The Long Island Catholic; communications director for the Catholic League and the New York State Catholic Conference; co-host of "The Catholic Forum," on cable. He is now editor of his own blog, "Reading the Signs." Visit Rick’s home page at rickhinshaw.com. Read Rick Hinshaw's Reports — More Here.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.