Topic: CNSNews.com
We've documented how CNSNews.com columnist Michael P. Orsi insists on acting like a right-wing activist instead of the Catholic priest he's supposed to be. That attitude continued in his Oct. 27 column, which began by complaining about a statue of Thomas Jefferson being removed from New York's City Hall, then quickly advanced to bizarrely likening vaccine mandates to abortion:
There’s an unfortunate tendency to judge the acts and standards of previous generations from the perspective of our own time. But on what basis do we assume that our current standards qualify us to call out previous wrongs?
Ours is a time when abortion is accepted, indeed advocated and encouraged. The proposed 2,500-page, so-called “infrastructure” bill even requires that abortions be paid for by public funds.
In addition, just now we face the prospect of vaccine mandates that would force us to inject unproven chemical formulations into our bodies against our will.
Do such situations not reflect a kind of slaveholding mentality?
All of this is part of the darkness that’s befallen our time, a darkness that includes a strong element of deception.
Vaccine mandates are like slavery too? Wow.
Orsi's anti-vaxxer attitudes continued in his Nov. 9 column: "What we’ve always assumed to be basic rights have been seriously eroded. The issue of vaccine mandates is only the most visible area in which the assault on personal autonomy is taking place. At any time we could be called upon to defend ourselves, our families, or our beliefs." Orsi then whined about the alleged moral dilemma of patronizing "LGBT-friendly" restaurants:
In our socially-networked age, when your every move is observed and can be posted online, did he wish people to question why he would frequent restaurants known as LGBT-friendly? More importantly, what right did his employer have to insist he patronize establishments that make it a point to publicly endorse sexual identities and behaviors to which he objects?
This was a serious intrusion upon his personal reputation and sense of morality.
This, unsurprisingly, turned into yet another attack on the idea of a bisexual Superman:
One small, recent incident got my dander up. Our local newspaper gave significant play to a national release about what some people probably consider an issue of great “progressive” importance: DC Comics has introduced a new story line that has the son of Clark Kent (AKA Superman) coming out as bisexual.
Displaying a rainbow banner with the declaration “DC Pride,” the new comic book series has 17-year-old Jon Kent in a “relationship” with a young (male) reporter. The two have determined to carry on a fight for global social justice.
I realize that, by current pop-culture standards, a bisexual Superman is nothing special. Indeed, the idea is as stupid as requiring that insurance clients be entertained at LGBT-friendly restaurants.
But the moral assumption by which such a concept is given national publicity shows how far we’ve moved beyond Christian virtue. Besides that, it’s an assault on the children who will read about such tripe and then buy the comic books.
Will the Church raise objections? Will individual believers write in to their local news outlets that ran this story? Is there anything we feel compelled, as a community, to say about such harmful nonsense?
Orsi spread more anti-vaxxerism in his Nov. 22 column:
All this is of a piece with the mandates being imposed on hospitals, doctors, and health workers over vaccination. Institutions that had provided services for two years during the pandemic are now being threatened with loss of Medicare payments if they don’t force their critical personnel to accept inoculation with substances whose effectiveness is highly questionable, and whose dangers are becoming increasingly obvious. Personal religious exemptions are being curtailed.
This assault on individual autonomy is a moral wrong. It’s an attack on religious freedom. And that is the truth.
Orsi also went on a rant against HHS secretary Xavier Becerra because he "had argued before the United States Court of Appeals that the Little Sisters of the Poor should be required to provide birth control-related insurance coverage to its lay employees under the Affordable Care Act." As we've noted, Becerra didn't sue the Little Sisters of the Poor; the order filed to intervene in a lawsuit Becerra had filed against the Trump administration over contraceptive coverage.
Orsi concluded his column by huffing, "Jesus is the king — not Joe Biden, not Xavier Becerra — and there is no truth but the Lord." Note that Orsi refused to concede that Donald Trump is not the king, an omission in line with his right-wing activism.
