MSNBC show
Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesApril 10, 2002
ALAN KEYES, MSNBC HOST: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Now, I know a lot of you in the course of the last few days and last week are thinking, why, Alan, you're spending an awful lot of time talking about the Middle East and about the crisis in the Catholic church. This is true. But it's true because both from a personal point of view and from the point of view of what's happening in the world, I look through the news every day, we talk about it here, and there just doesn't seem to be coming at us right now anything in the way of events that equal the importance of these issues.
One of them, of course, dominating the headlines every single day, globally; the other, to be quite frank about it, is having implications that for me personally and for many others throughout the country and the world are very deep and very important, and this show does reflect a lot of the time the kinds of things that are close to my heart and very close to my own concerns.
And I think especially in the Middle East we also have a crisis that will deeply affect what happens to our own war on terrorism. That war, which if we haven't forgotten it, is a war for our very survival and the survival of our free way of life. The decisions we make, the kinds of things we do with respect to the Middle East are going to be determining factors in our ability to sustain that war on terrorism, both internationally and in terms of our own moral commitment. We have got to get it right.
So today on the program, we're going to switch the format a little bit in the first half hour of the show, and you're going to see a half-hour debate. It was sparked by the fact that when I opened the paper this morning, there was a big advertisement that had been placed by some folks who presented themselves as alternative voices in the American Jewish community, folks who essentially were aiming at trying to promote the idea that the Powell mission is wonderful and we should be pushing Israel harder to stop its incursions — a lot of things that I don't agree with, but which I thought would be important to present and debate tonight in a comprehensive way, in the context of three major concern that have emerged in the course of the last couple of weeks.
First, the security concerns, obviously. The intense conflict that continues in the Middle East, with the Israelis involved and their presence on the West Bank, the response, the suicide bombings, the whole range of security issues. We also have, of course, the diplomacy that focuses around Colin Powell's efforts to go to the region and try to find some way out of the present conflict. And, finally, the reaction that is taking place in Europe and elsewhere, including college campuses in the United States where people are starting to call for sanctions against Israel and trying to pretend that there's some kind of parallel between the situation of Israel today and, say, South Africa in the past.
I think that these are critically important issues, and tonight you're going to see a debate. We're going to have a panel that will be with us for the whole half an hour today, and that panel will consist, first of all, of Alan Dershowitz, well known I'm sure to many of you, and a Harvard university law professor, author of the book “Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age.” Also with us, Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of “Tikkun” magazine, which calls itself the alternative to voices of Jewish conservatism. His group is opposed to the current Israeli military offensive in the — and presence in the Palestinian territories. And finally, Mark Rosenblum, founder and policy director of Americans for Peace Now, an organization that supports a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in the Middle East.
I want to welcome all three of these guests to the show tonight. We are going to be talking, gentlemen, about these three areas. I want to start out, however, by taking a look at some of the events in each of these areas that provide the context for our discussion today. In Haifa, for instance, the first terrorist attack in nine days. A Palestinian suicide bomber kills eight unarmed civilians on an Israeli bus. More than a dozen were wounded.
Soon afterward, Prime Minister Sharon's cabinet said that it was going to continue the West Bank military incursion in spite of President Bush's both request and demands and so forth and so on. Also today, however, the Israeli Defense Ministry said that it's pulling troops out of three West Bank villages.
There were also moves into other areas in the West Bank. So obviously, the Israelis are basically, I think, basing their actions on what they think to be militarily necessary. There's the possibility also that in northern Israel, the Golan Heights area, we are going to see a second front open up, as Lebanese guerrillas fired more than a dozen rockets into Israeli territories in one of the most extensive attacks since Israel withdrew from Lebanon nearly two years ago. Israeli warplanes fired missiles at suspected guerrilla positions.
We also have seen a continuation, obviously, of the Palestinian response, the stubborn resistance to the Israeli presence in the West Bank, and that is continuing to intensify the conflict.
Now, gentlemen, in the context of that kind of violence, we have Colin Powell, we have others. Obviously there's an intense desire to see an end to the conflict. But the question I want to pose, first of all, for the panel's consideration, is whether that end to the conflict is possible in the absence of an objective situation that provides an answer to Israel's concerns about these terrorist attacks and the security of its civilian population.
Let me start with Rabbi Michael Lerner. In your ad today, you are calling for an end to the Israeli presence. But if the Israeli military simply pulls back in the face of what has been an extremely intense terror campaign, do you think that campaign is simply going to stop?
RABBI MICHAEL LERNER, EDITOR, “TIKKUN”: Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, who was formerly the general of the army, realized that the only way Israel could find security would be for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. And so he signed the Oslo Accord and tried to get Israel out of the West Bank and Gaza.
It was a right-wing Israeli who murdered him. And from that time on, the process went astray, and Israel instead of withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza increased the settlements from 1993, when he signed the Oslo Accord, there were 120,000 of us, to 2,000 when Ehud Barak came to Camp David with a plan that would not fulfill the terms of the original Oslo Accord. But at that point, Israel had increased the settlers to 200,000.
Well, frankly, the only way Israel is going to get security is to get out of the West Bank and Gaza. So those of us who love Israel, who want to support Israel and defend Israel, know that the realistic way to end that conflict is to give the Palestinians what they actually deserve, which is national self-determination on the one hand, or if we're not going to do that, don't let Israel call itself a democracy and let's give the Palestinians the right to vote inside Israel.
KEYES: Rabbi Lerner, let me ask you a simple question.
LERNER: Yes, please.
KEYES: Because the one thing that seems to be different in what you have just outlined from what I have seen coming from the Arabs in every instance is an insistence on what they call the right of return. Doesn't the right of return to Israel proper imply a Palestinian majority in Israel, and therefore an end to the Jewish character of Israel?
LERNER: I'm definitely not for the end of the Jewish character of Israel. I support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.
KEYES: I didn't — wait a minute. I'm sorry to interrupt, Rabbi Michael Lerner, but I didn't ask you what you were for. I'm asking you about what Palestinians are insisting on. And every single formulation of their demands, including the one that led Arafat to storm out of the last negotiations, was the right of return. Now, if they don't drop that, how are the Israelis to make peace? Can they give into that demand?
LERNER: Well, I think that the right of return that they've articulated has sometimes been articulated as that they all need to go back to their original homes, in which case Israel has to say no, and it can say no in the course of giving them West Bank state.
But Israel can't say no and also simultaneously deny them a place where they can be as independent peoples. And I think that we have to say — it's not true that Arafat stormed out. The truth of the matter is that as Yassi Beilin (ph), the minister of justice of the state of Israel at the time of the negotiations who was negotiating at Taba (ph), said in “The New York Times” two weeks ago that they were very close to a final agreement when Ariel Sharon was elected.
It's not true that the Palestinians had ended the negotiations. They were continuing the negotiations. What is true...
KEYES: I'm sorry, rabbi, but I got to say something just for a second here, but that certainly does not correspond to the account that, for instance, was given — is given by folks from the Clinton administration of those very discussions. Let me...
LERNER: Well, actually that's — “The New York Times” said something different.
KEYES: Let me turn to Alan Dershowitz for a moment here, because one of the things, Alan, that I find disturbing about this whole situation. President Bush demands that the Israelis should withdraw from Palestinian territories. We hear talk about making peace and so forth and so on. Is it possible to make peace in some abstract sense, or do we really have to see an end to the violence against Israel? And what are the prospects for an end to that violence if the Palestinians simply won't stop?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: Well, it's not only violence against Israel. What I'm very concerned about is that terrorism works. Terrorism has succeeded for the Palestinians, since 1968 when Yasser Arafat initiated the hijacking of airplanes, following by the massacre at Munich, following by the murder of our diplomats in the Sudan, terrorism has been rewarded. There's only one root cause of terrorism. It's not desperation, it's not disenfranchisement. Many people around the world are desperate, many people are disenfranchised. The only root cause of terrorism is its success, and the European community and some extremists in the United States want to reward Palestinian terrorism.
Every time they blow up another seder or another group of people, let's give them something more. If that happens, as Tom Friedman of the “New York Times,” certainly a very balanced reporter said, beware, because suicide bombers are coming to a theater near you.
This is a very important struggle for the soul and the survival of Western civilization, not just Israel. It transcends Israel. It really affects the United States, and if we give in to terrorism as a tactic, there will be no end. Every group of disenfranchised people will say to themselves, look at the Palestinians, look at how they achieved success, how did they — wait a second, one point — how did they leap-frog over the Armenians who deserve a state more than they do, the Kurds who deserve a state more than they do, who have been promised statehood for much longer periods of time, who are much larger in population, who have been exposed to genocide?
Only one reason. They have resorted to terrorism, have been rewarded for it. And so the world has to stand up straight and say, the Palestinians will get a state when they stop engaging in terrorism, not as a rewards for their terrorism.
KEYES: Alan, one of the things that I would add to that is it's not only coming to a theater near us, in point of fact has been there. The World Trade Center bombing was a suicide bombing. That's precisely what it was. The planes were the guided missiles that blew up our structures. And everybody forgets, Osama bin Laden put his dreadful terrorist act in the context of Palestinian demands and Israeli killing of people in the Middle East. It's already visited us.
DERSHOWITZ: Right. And one more point. Hamas has made it very clear that if a state is given to the Palestinians as the result of terrorism, as a result of the success of terrorism, they won't stop. They will engage in suicide terrorism until they recapture Tel Aviv and recapture Haifa and then eventually recapture, as far as they're concerned, the rest of the world and establishing an Islamic hegemony. That's their goal.
KEYES: Alan, let me get a reaction here from Mark Rosenblum. In the context of the efforts that are going on diplomatically, the one question I have to start with, Mark, is how can any kind of real diplomacy take place in the shadow of unmitigated, unbridled commitment to terrorism, which is what we still see on the Palestinian side?
MARK ROSENBLUM, AMERICANS FOR PEACE NOW: Because there's one fundamental, one inescapable question here for all those who love Israel and identify with its right to defend itself, and that is how to be effective in fighting and stopping terrorism.
I'd argue to you that the conversation we're having so far is generally correctly identifying terrorism as a primordial issue, and it has to be dealt with effectively. And I don't think that what Prime Minister Sharon has been doing militarily has demonstrated a great deal of success. And I suggest that a discussion that asks what would effectively counter terrorism does include military operations. I'm not a pacifist. The organization I work with started with 348 of the most decorated Israeli officers in combat (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They are now fighting. Peace people are now fighting against this Palestinian terrorism.
But going further into the cities and the kasbas (ph) the alleys of Ramallah and of Nablus and in Jenin is in our opinion not likely to do more than further enrage and incite a whole new generation of Palestinians that wear plastique and feel justified...
KEYES: Hold on, hold on, Mark, I have to stop you there for one second. Are you really seriously suggesting that the reason that an anti-terror strategy that goes after terrorists and tries to destroy their infrastructure is bad is because it might make the terrorists angry?
ROSENBLUM: No, I'm saying that so far the evidence, including the evidence that the IDF intelligence unit provided about three weeks ago that evaluated the last Israeli major incursion into the cities and refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza concluded that on the down side created more motivation, more rage, recruited more terrorists than the benefits that accrued to it.
DERSHOWITZ: But that's all true, that it recruits more terrorists. But terrorism is not caused by...
ROSENBLUM: But Alan, wait a second.
DERSHOWITZ: It is caused by those...
ROSENBLUM: Alan, you had a long time to speak, Alan. Can I finish my time?
DERSHOWITZ: No, we had about as much time.
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: Let me complete the logic here...
KEYES: Hold on, hold on, we're coming against a hard break. And so, we are going to have to restrain the discussion for a few more minutes. We're going to be back with more from our guests in just a moment. We'll talk about a war of words that is taking place between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon. We'll of course talk about the diplomatic efforts that are taking place, Colin Powell's efforts, and the reaction of the Europeans to those efforts.
And in that context, we're going to continue our great debate about what kind of support the United States should give to Israel and what our policy ought to be. You're watching MSNBC, the best news on cable.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Coming up in our next half-hour, we're going to continue our discussion of the crisis facing the Catholic church. Did tolerance for homosexuality inclined church leaders to look the other way when some of their priests were preying on young people?
A reminder too that the chat room is cooking tonight. Edward says: “I am buying Sharon the terrorist a one-way ticket to the Hague,” he says. And you can join in yourself, right now, at chat.msnbc.com.
But we are in the midst of a debate about U.S. policy toward the Middle East and our relationship with Israel. A lot of folks are looking at what's going on, what President Bush is doing, Europeans and others, and they are fearful, as I am, that we are on the verge of taking steps that will represent an abandonment of our traditional support for Israel's existence.
Joining us in this debate right now, Alan Dershowitz, law professor at Harvard University, Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of “Tikkun” magazine, and Mark Rosenblum, founder and policy director at Americans for Peace Now.
I want to go back to Rabbi Lerner to begin with, and I'm looking at all the diplomacy that's to-ing and fro-ing, and I can't help but continue, in my mind, to ask one simple question: In the context of the attack that came against the United States, we made clear to the world that terrorism is never justified. Nobody listened to Osama bin Laden when he said he was doing this because Arab sons are dying in the Middle East. It didn't matter a bit. All that mattered was that he had crossed the line and used force against innocent civilians in order to get his way. Isn't that exactly what the Palestinian leadership is doing, and how can we suggest that normal diplomacy continues with people who are committed to bin Laden-type tactics?
LERNER: One of the things that I think is making this discussion going astray is the unending attempt to say this is the bad side and the other side is the good side. The truth of the matter is that Israel, when Israel was fighting for its war of independence, that Yitzhak Shamir and Machancheim Begin, two people who later became prime ministers of the state of Israel, were terrorists who killed innocent civilians.
And the fact is that Jews have engaged in that not only in the past, but in these past two weeks a huge number of innocent civilians have been killed, have been targeted by Israel. Now, I don't accept that anymore than I accept what the Palestinians have done to Israel. But let's get away from this crazy discourse of you hit me first. No, you hit me first. Recognize that both sides...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... what this is about is clear...
LERNER: Alan, let me finish my sentence.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: No, that's not what this is about. What this is about...
LERNER: Let me finish my sentence, Alan.
KEYES: No, no, I'm sorry. What this is about, sir...
LERNER: Alan, please let me finish my sentence.
KEYES: No, what this is about is clear. What this is about is very clear.
LERNER: Let me finish my sentence. Please let me finish my sentence, Alan.
KEYES: The question that is actually on the table...
LERNER: Please, Alan, please...
KEYES: ... is not who did what first, but whether or not one side is crossing the line and consciously targeting innocent civilians. Not as collateral damage in war, but as the aim of their policy. And I see a difference here. Alan Dershowitz — just a second — I look at this...
LERNER: No, you're not giving me a chance to finish my sentence.
KEYES: I ask the same question of you.
LERNER: No, you're not giving me a chance to finish my sentence.
KEYES: Can we conduct diplomacy as usual while terrorism continues to be the major tactic of one side?
DERSHOWITZ: Well, I think that Israel ought to be allowed to pursue the same policy the United States is pursuing. The United States has said that any group that harbors terrorists are terrorists. The Taliban are terrorists, even though they didn't actually plant the bombs or fly the planes, and the Palestinian leadership is terrorist. And for Michael Lerner to compare Israel and the Palestinians, as he does in his ad today, and says both sides have killed civilians...
LERNER: Both sides.
DERSHOWITZ: Both sides teach hatred.
LERNER: Both sides.
DERSHOWITZ: ... you know, that's like comparing Nazis to Czechoslovakia.
LERNER: Forget about the Nazis.
DERSHOWITZ: There's just no comparison. And let me finish my point now, Michael.
LERNER: Both sides.
DERSHOWITZ: The point is that there is no moral equivalency here. You have one side that in 1948 gave the Palestinians an opportunity to have a state; the Palestinians said no. Between '48 and '67, they could have had a state; the Palestinians said no. In 1998, they could have had a state; the Palestinians said no. And they have always resorted to terrorism. And when Israel is trying to do precisely what the United States is doing and that is destroy the infrastructure of terrorism as a predicate to negotiations — because I believe in peace, too, I believe in ending the settlements — but I believe in a peace that is based not on a temporary solution where Palestinian state is a launching pad for the abolition of Israel...
KEYES: Alan, Alan...
DERSHOWITZ: You're not going to let me finish. Right?
KEYES: No. We have a limited time.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now, hold on, let Rabbi Lerner respond. Very quickly.
LERNER: Can Mark Rosenblum say anything?
KEYES: When he comes in. You can just jump in, but go ahead.
ROSENBLUM: I'm ready to jump in. I haven't had a chance to speak at all. You cut me off at the break.
LERNER: As he did with me.
KEYES: No, no, the break cuts everybody off. But don't waste your time now, then. Say what you have got to say.
ROSENBLUM: A central point that we've been ignoring in this whole discussion, a question of morality, whether it's moral equivalency or moral I think inequivalency. I think that it's not equivalent to talk about Israel's sins and Palestinian sins. Israel is right enough in this combat and this history of conflict to acknowledge when it's wrong.
The question today is not whether we're rewarding terrorism, but how to defeat terrorism. If you think that Sharon's policies can defeat terrorism by marching into the central cities of the West Bank and Gaza, destroy the Palestinian Authority, destroy its security agencies, destroy its jails, and then retreat and say OK, now fight terrorism — this is absurd.
There is one thing that Israel and lovers of Israel have to ask: How can Israel defend its citizens? I argue the way to defend its citizens is to fight against the terrorists and reward the moderates and the pragmatists.
DERSHOWITZ: I agree. I agree.
ROSENBLUM: Well, you didn't, Alan.
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: You did not talk about who the moderates are who are against the right to return...
DERSHOWITZ: The former moderates. The former moderates. I don't see very many moderates today.
ROSENBLUM: You're wrong. There is a group of Palestinians called the Palestinian Peace Movement that Seria Neseyba (ph) founded, in East Jerusalem. They're calling for a nonviolent struggle against Israel, while they assert to their right to an independent state in the West Bank.
DERSHOWITZ: I agree with you. I don't disagree with that.
ROSENBLUM: But policies in Washington and policies in Jerusalem should have one goal...
KEYES: Mark — one question, though.
LERNER: We're not going to get anywhere, Alan.
KEYES: Hold on, gentlemen. Hold on. Mark, I have one question. Are these the people that Colin Powell is going to talk to?
ROSENBLUM: They will be some of the people he will be talking to, you bet.
KEYES: No, see, you evaded the question. He is actually going to talk to Yasser Arafat. And has Yasser Arafat been just moderate...
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: Alan, excuse me. Yasser Arafat has one tragic reality that supports him. He is the elected leader of the Palestinian ...
DERSHOWITZ: Elected? Elected?
ROSENBLUM: Yes. There was an election. There was an election.
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, my God! You call that an election?
ROSENBLUM: Of course there was an election.
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, come on!
ROSENBLUM: It was certified by the international community. I was there to monitor.
DERSHOWITZ: That is a joke! An election?
ROSENBLUM: More importantly, if you don't want Yasser Arafat...
DERSHOWITZ: Next you're going to tell that to the Supreme Court, too, right?
ROSENBLUM: Excuse me, was there an election or not election, Alan?
DERSHOWITZ: There was no election.
ROSENBLUM: There was no election?
DERSHOWITZ: If you vote against him, you get shot in the head.
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: There were no murders in this election.
KEYES: Hold on, gentlemen, one second, let Rabbi Lerner have a word here.
LERNER: All I want to say is that this is indicative of the level of discourse. The only way we're going to get anyplace is to overcome the desire to say this one's bad and that one is bad, and instead recognize that right now you have two sides who have both co-constituted a reality, which is a terrible reality, that both have legitimate claims to the land and both have done terrible things to each other. And it's no way to read the history or even the present reality without recognizing that Israel is killing innocent civilians...
DERSHOWITZ: Not deliberately.
LERNER: ... and that the Palestinians have killed innocent civilians.
DERSHOWITZ: Deliberately.
LERNER: And the point is not to get into the blame game...
DERSHOWITZ: Yes, it is.
LERNER: The point is at this point is to say how are we going to stop the killing and that's what...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on. Hold on. You have made a point. Can I ask a question about that point?
LERNER: Yes, if you'll ask me.
KEYES: One of the interesting things I find in this whole discussion is, well, the Israelis have killed civilians. How many civilian Afghans did we kill during our effort in Afghanistan? Do you know?
LERNER: The United States...
KEYES: Answer my question, sir. Do you know?
LERNER: The United States...
KEYES: Don't ask another question. Just answer the question. Do you know...
LERNER: The United...
KEYES: No, answer the question!
LERNER: The United States...
KEYES: Do you know how many people killed — how many innocent civilians died?
LERNER: The United States was not occupying the Afghani people for the past 35 years.
KEYES: No, see, you won't answer the question. Rabbi Lerner...
LERNER: ... we were not...
KEYES: First rule of the game. I will let you talk, but will you kindly answer my question? Do you know, with all due respect, how many innocent civilian casualties there were in Afghanistan?
LERNER: The United States was not occupying Afghanistan.
KEYES: Just say yes or no, sir. Just say yes or no.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Alan, just one second.
LERNER: The United States is not occupying Afghanistan.
KEYES: Rabbi Lerner, do you know the reason you don't know the answer to that question? Because most Americans don't know. Because when we went into Afghanistan, in pursuit of our justifiable reaction to Osama bin Laden who crossed the line into terrorism, we don't stay up awake at night worrying about how many civilians died as collateral damage of that justified war...
LERNER: Shame on you.
KEYES: We don't.
LERNER: Shame on you. Shame on you.
KEYES: No, shame on you. You didn't know anymore than I did.
LERNER: Shame on you for not worrying about...
KEYES: You didn't know any more than I did, sir.
LERNER: Those people are created in the image of God just the way you were.
KEYES: You didn't know anymore than I did. The point I'm making here is that have applied...
LERNER: Those people were created in the image of God just the way you were.
KEYES: ... you are applying a standard to Israel that neither you nor I nor anyone else is applying to the United States.
LERNER: Alan, you are created in the image of God also. Alan, you're missing another standard here.
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Michael, are you against the American policy in Afghanistan? Are you against American policy in Afghanistan?
LERNER: The United States, in so far as are killing innocent civilians — of course I'm against it. I don't want to kill innocent civilians, and their lives are just as valuable as our lives.
DERSHOWITZ: How do you kill guilty terrorists without having occasionally to kill an innocent civilian? That's the nature of military actions.
ROSENBLUM: Here's a much more important point from a pro-Israeli perspective in this discussion of parallels between Afghanistan and what's going on in the West Bank and Gaza, and that is: Has the Israeli military response to date effectively projected a winning, successful model? However we feel about what happened in Afghanistan, it is truthful to say the Americans have effectively projected power and carried the day on the ground for now. The Israelis have failed, and instead have hardened the arteries and intensified the hatred...
KEYES: How long did it take? Hold on a second. How long did it take, Mark?
ROSENBLUM: But this is a problem...
KEYES: How long did it take?
ROSENBLUM: Alan, that's the wrong question. One of the restrains that the Sharon government faces...
KEYES: How long did it take, Mark?
ROSENBLUM: Eight months. No, this is...
KEYES: Mark, how long did it take?
ROSENBLUM: How — what is it that prevents Sharon from having as long? That's the question.
KEYES: No, the question I'm raising, the question I'm raising is very simple. We're putting artificial deadlines on what they have to do. The president was very clear.
ROSENBLUM: This is not an artificial deadline.
KEYES: When people asked him how long we were going to be dealing with Afghanistan, he said “as long as it takes.” And now everybody's acting like Ariel Sharon is the devil himself because he's saying the same thing.
ROSENBLUM: No, I don't think he's the devil himself. He's Mr. Security, who's failing to deliver security because he's not doing the two things he should do.
DERSHOWITZ: Michael Lerner has called him a devil, essentially, and Michael Lerner...
KEYES: OK, gentlemen, I'm going to have to — Alan, I'm sorry to cut you off, but we really have to go. We're down right to the wire here. I appreciate it. I hope we can all get together and continue this critical discussion at some point soon. Thank you all for coming.
Next, you already know about the latest church scandal, that leaders in Boston covered up the activities of this priest, Paul Shanley, seen here with Cardinal Bernard Law. Shanley publicly advocated sexual relations between men and young boys at a founding meeting of NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association.
What was the motivation behind this cover-up? We are going to debate that very question when we get back here on MAKING SENSE.
You are watching MSNBC, the best news on cable.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Tonight, we continue our discussion of the crisis in the Catholic Church.
Last night, I think, we were able to come to some understandings and join with many around the country who are calling for the resignation of Cardinal Law in Boston, for instance, and accountability from a hierarchy that looked the other way as all kinds of abuses were taking place by priests against young people in the Catholic Church.
Tonight, we're going to go a step further, looking at what might have been the motivation for that cover-up. In the context of our discussion, here is what the attorney for one of Paul Shanley's alleged victim had to say earlier this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RODERICK MACLEISH, JR., ATTORNEY FOR GREGORY FORD FAMILY: All of the suffering that has taken place at the hands of Paul Shanley, a serial child molester for four decades, three of them in Boston — none of it had to happen. None of it had to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: None of it had to happen? Well, then why did it happen? And this isn't just a question about management and mistaken judgments and so forth. It's also a question about the understanding — a misunderstanding of the grave, moral issues that were involved that appears to have governed the decision-making of prelates in — some prelates in the Catholic Church.
Well, joining us now to talk about these issues, William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and Monsignor Tom McSweeney, an MSNBC religion analyst and former national director of christophers.org, a Catholic media outreach organization.
Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
WILLIAM DONOHUE, CATHOLIC LEAGUE: Thank you. How are you doing, Alan?
MSGR. TOM MCSWEENEY, MSNBC RELIGION ANALYST: Good evening.
KEYES: Thank you.
Father Tom, I told you I'd have you back.
MCSWEENEY: You did.
KEYES: And here you are.
MCSWEENEY: You're a man of your word, Alan. Thanks a million.
KEYES: Now I want — I want to go right to it because basically I think you and I agreed that it is time for Cardinal Law to resign, and, last night, we were talking about that, but when I raised the issue of the role that tolerance for homosexuality may have had in generating this crisis, you took issue with me, and I think that that's an important discussion to have.
I deeply believe that the wrong attitude toward human sexuality is at the root of not understanding the grave dereliction that was involved in these decisions and that, unless one is willing to look at that moral and spiritual question, we're not really going to get to the roots of the crisis.
Now why would you object to that?
MCSWEENEY: Well, I — Alan, I — what I really resented was the zeroing in on the homosexual population as being the cause of this crisis.
What is needed and what you are contributing to enormously with this program — and NBC in many ways has most recently with Tim Russert — having a great panel of authorities getting together and discussing this issue — what is needed is a public examination — a very public examination of the Catholic Church's culture, its traditions, and its leadership so that we can answer that fundamental question.
How could it possibly be that the reputation of the institutional church would ever be more important than the welfare of children? What is the answer to that question? It's only going to occur, we're only going to find the solution by having a very public examination of the church systematically.
KEYES: Well, see, I think, though, that we have to look at the specific nature of the dereliction that was involved here.
And when you look at it, it's not an accident that this involved sexual sin and that, I think, one of the areas of the greatest confusion and mistaken judgment these days is about sexual sin, where prelates and others have borrowed from the secular world an understanding of human sexuality that contradicts the church's teachings.
And that then leaves the door open to the possibility that you wouldn't see an assault on a young person's soul through sexual sin in the same light that you would see an assault on their life and body through murder, and yet the church tells us the assault on the soul is the more grievous assault.
Why this failure to understand the moral proportion here?
MCSWEENEY: Well, it's been part of the tradition to avoid scandal. Secrecy has been the byword here. “We've got to keep this secret. Let's have an arrangement here so that we can deal with this. We want to save the church as much embarrassment as possible.” “Scandal” is anathema in the church.
That's what I mean by that group think, that systemic thinking of the church, and it doesn't just extend to homosexual issues or even the pedophilia issues. We have had prelates, as you know, that have been involved in heterosexual relationships. We have had the scandal of thievery, theft, all kinds of things where the byword, again, is secrecy. “Let's contain this so it doesn't frighten the people.”
KEYES: One of the questions — one of the questions that I have asked several times of guests on the show —
And, William Donahue, I'll start off asking you this question because it's related to what we were just talk about. If we had been talking about serial murderers here, people who had killed the bodies of children instead of assaulting their souls and their hope for salvation through sexual mortal sin — “mortal,” by the way, meaning deadly — I think people forget this — do you think that there would have been the same blase reaction and cover-up from these prelates?
DONOHUE: No. As a matter of fact, I'll go further. I think if you had a racist priest or a anti-Semitic priest who went around publicly saying that Jews were lousy or blacks were lousy, he would have been thrown out of the priesthood. Here we had a man going out joining the North American Man Boy Love Association in 1978 and is promoted after that.
Now why did this happen? Take a look what happened in the seminaries in the late 1970s. The year before he got involved in NAMBLA in '78 — in 1977, there was a book by Father Anthony Kosnick (ph), “Human Sexuality,” which was taught in the seminaries. You know what it taught? That the traditional church teaching on fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality was wrong. We should not have such a sweeping condemnation regarding homosexuality. We have to understand if there's a sincere affection that God is present in the relationship.
Now this book, in fairness to the bishops, was condemned in '79, but Kosnick (ph) stayed on as a seminarian teacher until '82. There is a direct line here between heterodoxy, that is to say dissent of Catholic teaching and sexual molestation and homosexuality.
There's a big elephant in the room, fellows, all right? We're not talking here about guys putting their hands on the girls. We're talking about guys putting their hands on the boys. But mostly — 90 percent of them — adolescents.
Now, look, I've come out publicly against gay bashing. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that this has nothing to do with it. I would agree with Father McSweeney at the macro level that what he's talking about has to be addressed. I don't disagree with him there. But we have guys back in the National Catholic Reporter who are already coming out now and saying it's homophobic just to mention the gay issue. Where is the guts of people to come out and say let's have an honest discussion?
KEYES: Now I would like to say to both of you that I think it is absolutely correct to say this isn't just about homosexuality. It is actually about the theology of human sexuality and whether or not one consistently applies the church's understanding of the sacred meaning of human sexual relationships across the board. But it's especially true that homosexuality violates in principle that understanding which the church has taught.
And, Father Tom, I don't understand how one can be blase about the possibility of tolerating sexual behavior that in and of itself, by itself, refutes the church's teaching about the nature of human sexuality. This is not a small matter. It's a theological matter of the highest importance, and when one is opened to this kind of heterodoxy, you're not just talking about tolerating behavior, you're talking about abandoning doctrine, aren't you?
MCSWEENEY: The doctrine, Alan, is that marriage is the sacred ideal. That is the sacrament. Any sexual activity outside of marriage is a sin. Whether it's homosexual activity, whether it's heterosexual activity, if it's somebody with animals — I don't know — those are sins.
What we are concerned about is — I think if we start picking up all the stones — and whoever has sinned let him — not sinned — throw the first stone — why are we — why is there this eagerness right now to pick up all the stones and throw them at the homosexuals on this particular issue?
DONOHUE: No, we shouldn't. We shouldn't throw...
KEYES: Gentlemen, wait. Wait. We're coming up against a break. Before we start again...
MCSWEENEY: Let me just finish the thought.
KEYES: Finish that thought quickly.
MCSWEENEY: The thought is let's run for the ideal of marriage. Let's argue for the good of marriage and build upon that rather than simply fault other people and their human weaknesses and sins.
KEYES: Bill Donohue, a quick response.
DONOHUE: Yeah. Well, let's take a look at the Catholic Theological Society of America which promoted the Kosnick (ph) book and has at their conventions people questioning what the Eucharist is and whether Christ was divine.
Now you know, Father McSweeney, there is no end to the Catholic theologians in so-called Catholic colleges who hate the Catholic Church and go against every single teaching in the Catholic Church, and if you want me to be specific, sir, I will be.
KEYES: Well, now I — when we come back, we're going to have more with our guests, and we want to look a little further into this question because I think it's not only a question of the what, but the why of the church's teaching on the sacredness of human sexuality, and it is that why, the reasoning behind it that is especially violated by homosexuality.
And later, my outrage of the day. Do universities have the right to help students evade the drug laws? We're going to talk about that.
We'll be right back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: A new NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” poll shows that the Catholic Church is taking a hit from its own constituency, Catholics, which just two years ago, gave high marks to the church. Seventy percent had high positive feelings then. Today, the number is 38 percent positive, 36 negative. Obviously, this crisis having a bad effect.
We're back with William Donohue and Monsignor Tom McSweeney. I want to address my opening question to you, Father Tom, because you mentioned, I think quite rightly, the focus of the church's teaching on sexuality on marriage, but I think we need to get behind that a little bit because it's not just a formal commitment to marriages and institution. It is a commitment to God's plan for the family. It is a commitment to the idea that human sexual relations reflect that loving plan of responsibility for children and of an order in society that will take that responsibility with the utmost seriousness.
Doesn't homosexuality in both form as well as substance deny that connection with procreation and, therefore, with the image of God implanted in our nature?
MCSWEENEY: Well, you're right to say that the church's teaching on the sacredness of marriage is very, very well delineated, and I must tell you in the last 10 years, the church's teaching on homosexuality is also very carefully delineated.
What it really boils down to, Alan, is that the church hates the sin of homosexuality, just as it hates any sin of sexual activity that is outside of the sacred bond of marriage. But it tells us — the church tells us — Holy Mother Church tells us that you can hate the sin, but you must love the sinner.
So much of my — my pastoral life, as I was up in New York City, was spent in the confessional up there at St. Patrick's, and I was hearing confessions. I mean, they were lined up. And I heard a lot of confessions of people who were homosexual, and they were simply asking, by the grace of that sacrament, to help them find a way to have purpose in their life, to strive for a celibate existence. They didn't want the fruit of life of homosexuality. They wanted to have a life of purpose...
KEYES: But Father Tom...
MCSWEENEY: ... and it is my job to incorporate them...
KEYES: Father Tom, I understand.
MCSWEENEY: ... and to fold them into the life of the church.
KEYES: Father Tom — Father Tom, the notion of hating the sin and loving the sinner is clear, but one hates the sin of murder, and even though you love the murderer, you don't put the murderer back in the parish where he killed a child.
It seems to me that there was a lack of understanding of the grievousness of this violation of the moral law, and to suggest that there wasn't — the question I've been asking myself time and again — and we're running out of time, so I want to make sure both of you have a chance to speak.
But, Bill Donohue, I've been asking myself again and again where's the outrage. Where's the sense that would surely attend child murder, if there was a physical assault? I didn't see anything like this from the prelates who were dealing with this issue, and yet the sin they were dealing with is a mortal sin, that is one that risks the soul and salvation of the individuals and scandalized the young and led them down the same path of perdition.
Where was the outrage, if not lying in a misunderstanding of the grievousness of the nature of this particular kind of sin?
DONOHUE: Well, you're absolutely right as usual, Alan, and that's because — that's why I'm so angry. That's why I'm so furious and so many good Catholics — and 47,000 Catholic priests are good priests like Monsignor McSweeney, but that's why we've got to speak up, though. We're not going to clear this thing up.
The fact of the matter is there is a very good group out there called Courage by Father Harvey (ph), which does minister to homosexuals. People don't know about it. There's a renegade group called Dignity. Guess which one's popular on the college campuses that are Catholic. Dignity. You know, Ken White (ph) had — a monsignor — read what a wonderful book about how the catechism was resisted amongst Catholic priests and nuns on Catholic campuses.
I mean, we've got to get the whole story out there. I love this church. That's precisely why we've got to get the dirty laundry out of there so we can move forward. We have too much to lose otherwise.
KEYES: And I think that the important point — thank you, both, gentlemen. I really appreciate the discussion, which I think will help folks to understand the issues at stake here, and I think one point clearly coming across now — this is not just management, it's not just behavior. This is a matter of doctrine and understanding that has to be corrected and correctly applied.
Anyway, my outrage of the day is next — and you're not going to want to miss it — about universities that are actually contributing to the criminality of their students. Ha! Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my outrage of the day.
Yale University says it's going to reimburse students who lose financial aid because of drug-possession convictions. Federal law prohibits students convicted of drug offenses from receiving federal financial aid, but Yale is going to aid and abet the criminals, make sure they don't suffer for their deed.
Well, I think schools like Yale ought to suffer for their support of evasion of the federal law. Are the folks in that building behind me listening? You need to go after these universities. They should lose their federal funding if they're helping law breakers to get around the law. That's my sense of it.
Thanks for being with me tonight. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you tomorrow.
Now, I know a lot of you in the course of the last few days and last week are thinking, why, Alan, you're spending an awful lot of time talking about the Middle East and about the crisis in the Catholic church. This is true. But it's true because both from a personal point of view and from the point of view of what's happening in the world, I look through the news every day, we talk about it here, and there just doesn't seem to be coming at us right now anything in the way of events that equal the importance of these issues.
One of them, of course, dominating the headlines every single day, globally; the other, to be quite frank about it, is having implications that for me personally and for many others throughout the country and the world are very deep and very important, and this show does reflect a lot of the time the kinds of things that are close to my heart and very close to my own concerns.
And I think especially in the Middle East we also have a crisis that will deeply affect what happens to our own war on terrorism. That war, which if we haven't forgotten it, is a war for our very survival and the survival of our free way of life. The decisions we make, the kinds of things we do with respect to the Middle East are going to be determining factors in our ability to sustain that war on terrorism, both internationally and in terms of our own moral commitment. We have got to get it right.
So today on the program, we're going to switch the format a little bit in the first half hour of the show, and you're going to see a half-hour debate. It was sparked by the fact that when I opened the paper this morning, there was a big advertisement that had been placed by some folks who presented themselves as alternative voices in the American Jewish community, folks who essentially were aiming at trying to promote the idea that the Powell mission is wonderful and we should be pushing Israel harder to stop its incursions — a lot of things that I don't agree with, but which I thought would be important to present and debate tonight in a comprehensive way, in the context of three major concern that have emerged in the course of the last couple of weeks.
First, the security concerns, obviously. The intense conflict that continues in the Middle East, with the Israelis involved and their presence on the West Bank, the response, the suicide bombings, the whole range of security issues. We also have, of course, the diplomacy that focuses around Colin Powell's efforts to go to the region and try to find some way out of the present conflict. And, finally, the reaction that is taking place in Europe and elsewhere, including college campuses in the United States where people are starting to call for sanctions against Israel and trying to pretend that there's some kind of parallel between the situation of Israel today and, say, South Africa in the past.
I think that these are critically important issues, and tonight you're going to see a debate. We're going to have a panel that will be with us for the whole half an hour today, and that panel will consist, first of all, of Alan Dershowitz, well known I'm sure to many of you, and a Harvard university law professor, author of the book “Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age.” Also with us, Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of “Tikkun” magazine, which calls itself the alternative to voices of Jewish conservatism. His group is opposed to the current Israeli military offensive in the — and presence in the Palestinian territories. And finally, Mark Rosenblum, founder and policy director of Americans for Peace Now, an organization that supports a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in the Middle East.
I want to welcome all three of these guests to the show tonight. We are going to be talking, gentlemen, about these three areas. I want to start out, however, by taking a look at some of the events in each of these areas that provide the context for our discussion today. In Haifa, for instance, the first terrorist attack in nine days. A Palestinian suicide bomber kills eight unarmed civilians on an Israeli bus. More than a dozen were wounded.
Soon afterward, Prime Minister Sharon's cabinet said that it was going to continue the West Bank military incursion in spite of President Bush's both request and demands and so forth and so on. Also today, however, the Israeli Defense Ministry said that it's pulling troops out of three West Bank villages.
There were also moves into other areas in the West Bank. So obviously, the Israelis are basically, I think, basing their actions on what they think to be militarily necessary. There's the possibility also that in northern Israel, the Golan Heights area, we are going to see a second front open up, as Lebanese guerrillas fired more than a dozen rockets into Israeli territories in one of the most extensive attacks since Israel withdrew from Lebanon nearly two years ago. Israeli warplanes fired missiles at suspected guerrilla positions.
We also have seen a continuation, obviously, of the Palestinian response, the stubborn resistance to the Israeli presence in the West Bank, and that is continuing to intensify the conflict.
Now, gentlemen, in the context of that kind of violence, we have Colin Powell, we have others. Obviously there's an intense desire to see an end to the conflict. But the question I want to pose, first of all, for the panel's consideration, is whether that end to the conflict is possible in the absence of an objective situation that provides an answer to Israel's concerns about these terrorist attacks and the security of its civilian population.
Let me start with Rabbi Michael Lerner. In your ad today, you are calling for an end to the Israeli presence. But if the Israeli military simply pulls back in the face of what has been an extremely intense terror campaign, do you think that campaign is simply going to stop?
RABBI MICHAEL LERNER, EDITOR, “TIKKUN”: Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel, who was formerly the general of the army, realized that the only way Israel could find security would be for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. And so he signed the Oslo Accord and tried to get Israel out of the West Bank and Gaza.
It was a right-wing Israeli who murdered him. And from that time on, the process went astray, and Israel instead of withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza increased the settlements from 1993, when he signed the Oslo Accord, there were 120,000 of us, to 2,000 when Ehud Barak came to Camp David with a plan that would not fulfill the terms of the original Oslo Accord. But at that point, Israel had increased the settlers to 200,000.
Well, frankly, the only way Israel is going to get security is to get out of the West Bank and Gaza. So those of us who love Israel, who want to support Israel and defend Israel, know that the realistic way to end that conflict is to give the Palestinians what they actually deserve, which is national self-determination on the one hand, or if we're not going to do that, don't let Israel call itself a democracy and let's give the Palestinians the right to vote inside Israel.
KEYES: Rabbi Lerner, let me ask you a simple question.
LERNER: Yes, please.
KEYES: Because the one thing that seems to be different in what you have just outlined from what I have seen coming from the Arabs in every instance is an insistence on what they call the right of return. Doesn't the right of return to Israel proper imply a Palestinian majority in Israel, and therefore an end to the Jewish character of Israel?
LERNER: I'm definitely not for the end of the Jewish character of Israel. I support the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.
KEYES: I didn't — wait a minute. I'm sorry to interrupt, Rabbi Michael Lerner, but I didn't ask you what you were for. I'm asking you about what Palestinians are insisting on. And every single formulation of their demands, including the one that led Arafat to storm out of the last negotiations, was the right of return. Now, if they don't drop that, how are the Israelis to make peace? Can they give into that demand?
LERNER: Well, I think that the right of return that they've articulated has sometimes been articulated as that they all need to go back to their original homes, in which case Israel has to say no, and it can say no in the course of giving them West Bank state.
But Israel can't say no and also simultaneously deny them a place where they can be as independent peoples. And I think that we have to say — it's not true that Arafat stormed out. The truth of the matter is that as Yassi Beilin (ph), the minister of justice of the state of Israel at the time of the negotiations who was negotiating at Taba (ph), said in “The New York Times” two weeks ago that they were very close to a final agreement when Ariel Sharon was elected.
It's not true that the Palestinians had ended the negotiations. They were continuing the negotiations. What is true...
KEYES: I'm sorry, rabbi, but I got to say something just for a second here, but that certainly does not correspond to the account that, for instance, was given — is given by folks from the Clinton administration of those very discussions. Let me...
LERNER: Well, actually that's — “The New York Times” said something different.
KEYES: Let me turn to Alan Dershowitz for a moment here, because one of the things, Alan, that I find disturbing about this whole situation. President Bush demands that the Israelis should withdraw from Palestinian territories. We hear talk about making peace and so forth and so on. Is it possible to make peace in some abstract sense, or do we really have to see an end to the violence against Israel? And what are the prospects for an end to that violence if the Palestinians simply won't stop?
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: Well, it's not only violence against Israel. What I'm very concerned about is that terrorism works. Terrorism has succeeded for the Palestinians, since 1968 when Yasser Arafat initiated the hijacking of airplanes, following by the massacre at Munich, following by the murder of our diplomats in the Sudan, terrorism has been rewarded. There's only one root cause of terrorism. It's not desperation, it's not disenfranchisement. Many people around the world are desperate, many people are disenfranchised. The only root cause of terrorism is its success, and the European community and some extremists in the United States want to reward Palestinian terrorism.
Every time they blow up another seder or another group of people, let's give them something more. If that happens, as Tom Friedman of the “New York Times,” certainly a very balanced reporter said, beware, because suicide bombers are coming to a theater near you.
This is a very important struggle for the soul and the survival of Western civilization, not just Israel. It transcends Israel. It really affects the United States, and if we give in to terrorism as a tactic, there will be no end. Every group of disenfranchised people will say to themselves, look at the Palestinians, look at how they achieved success, how did they — wait a second, one point — how did they leap-frog over the Armenians who deserve a state more than they do, the Kurds who deserve a state more than they do, who have been promised statehood for much longer periods of time, who are much larger in population, who have been exposed to genocide?
Only one reason. They have resorted to terrorism, have been rewarded for it. And so the world has to stand up straight and say, the Palestinians will get a state when they stop engaging in terrorism, not as a rewards for their terrorism.
KEYES: Alan, one of the things that I would add to that is it's not only coming to a theater near us, in point of fact has been there. The World Trade Center bombing was a suicide bombing. That's precisely what it was. The planes were the guided missiles that blew up our structures. And everybody forgets, Osama bin Laden put his dreadful terrorist act in the context of Palestinian demands and Israeli killing of people in the Middle East. It's already visited us.
DERSHOWITZ: Right. And one more point. Hamas has made it very clear that if a state is given to the Palestinians as the result of terrorism, as a result of the success of terrorism, they won't stop. They will engage in suicide terrorism until they recapture Tel Aviv and recapture Haifa and then eventually recapture, as far as they're concerned, the rest of the world and establishing an Islamic hegemony. That's their goal.
KEYES: Alan, let me get a reaction here from Mark Rosenblum. In the context of the efforts that are going on diplomatically, the one question I have to start with, Mark, is how can any kind of real diplomacy take place in the shadow of unmitigated, unbridled commitment to terrorism, which is what we still see on the Palestinian side?
MARK ROSENBLUM, AMERICANS FOR PEACE NOW: Because there's one fundamental, one inescapable question here for all those who love Israel and identify with its right to defend itself, and that is how to be effective in fighting and stopping terrorism.
I'd argue to you that the conversation we're having so far is generally correctly identifying terrorism as a primordial issue, and it has to be dealt with effectively. And I don't think that what Prime Minister Sharon has been doing militarily has demonstrated a great deal of success. And I suggest that a discussion that asks what would effectively counter terrorism does include military operations. I'm not a pacifist. The organization I work with started with 348 of the most decorated Israeli officers in combat (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They are now fighting. Peace people are now fighting against this Palestinian terrorism.
But going further into the cities and the kasbas (ph) the alleys of Ramallah and of Nablus and in Jenin is in our opinion not likely to do more than further enrage and incite a whole new generation of Palestinians that wear plastique and feel justified...
KEYES: Hold on, hold on, Mark, I have to stop you there for one second. Are you really seriously suggesting that the reason that an anti-terror strategy that goes after terrorists and tries to destroy their infrastructure is bad is because it might make the terrorists angry?
ROSENBLUM: No, I'm saying that so far the evidence, including the evidence that the IDF intelligence unit provided about three weeks ago that evaluated the last Israeli major incursion into the cities and refugee camps of the West Bank and Gaza concluded that on the down side created more motivation, more rage, recruited more terrorists than the benefits that accrued to it.
DERSHOWITZ: But that's all true, that it recruits more terrorists. But terrorism is not caused by...
ROSENBLUM: But Alan, wait a second.
DERSHOWITZ: It is caused by those...
ROSENBLUM: Alan, you had a long time to speak, Alan. Can I finish my time?
DERSHOWITZ: No, we had about as much time.
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: Let me complete the logic here...
KEYES: Hold on, hold on, we're coming against a hard break. And so, we are going to have to restrain the discussion for a few more minutes. We're going to be back with more from our guests in just a moment. We'll talk about a war of words that is taking place between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon. We'll of course talk about the diplomatic efforts that are taking place, Colin Powell's efforts, and the reaction of the Europeans to those efforts.
And in that context, we're going to continue our great debate about what kind of support the United States should give to Israel and what our policy ought to be. You're watching MSNBC, the best news on cable.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Coming up in our next half-hour, we're going to continue our discussion of the crisis facing the Catholic church. Did tolerance for homosexuality inclined church leaders to look the other way when some of their priests were preying on young people?
A reminder too that the chat room is cooking tonight. Edward says: “I am buying Sharon the terrorist a one-way ticket to the Hague,” he says. And you can join in yourself, right now, at chat.msnbc.com.
But we are in the midst of a debate about U.S. policy toward the Middle East and our relationship with Israel. A lot of folks are looking at what's going on, what President Bush is doing, Europeans and others, and they are fearful, as I am, that we are on the verge of taking steps that will represent an abandonment of our traditional support for Israel's existence.
Joining us in this debate right now, Alan Dershowitz, law professor at Harvard University, Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of “Tikkun” magazine, and Mark Rosenblum, founder and policy director at Americans for Peace Now.
I want to go back to Rabbi Lerner to begin with, and I'm looking at all the diplomacy that's to-ing and fro-ing, and I can't help but continue, in my mind, to ask one simple question: In the context of the attack that came against the United States, we made clear to the world that terrorism is never justified. Nobody listened to Osama bin Laden when he said he was doing this because Arab sons are dying in the Middle East. It didn't matter a bit. All that mattered was that he had crossed the line and used force against innocent civilians in order to get his way. Isn't that exactly what the Palestinian leadership is doing, and how can we suggest that normal diplomacy continues with people who are committed to bin Laden-type tactics?
LERNER: One of the things that I think is making this discussion going astray is the unending attempt to say this is the bad side and the other side is the good side. The truth of the matter is that Israel, when Israel was fighting for its war of independence, that Yitzhak Shamir and Machancheim Begin, two people who later became prime ministers of the state of Israel, were terrorists who killed innocent civilians.
And the fact is that Jews have engaged in that not only in the past, but in these past two weeks a huge number of innocent civilians have been killed, have been targeted by Israel. Now, I don't accept that anymore than I accept what the Palestinians have done to Israel. But let's get away from this crazy discourse of you hit me first. No, you hit me first. Recognize that both sides...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: ... what this is about is clear...
LERNER: Alan, let me finish my sentence.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: No, that's not what this is about. What this is about...
LERNER: Let me finish my sentence, Alan.
KEYES: No, no, I'm sorry. What this is about, sir...
LERNER: Alan, please let me finish my sentence.
KEYES: No, what this is about is clear. What this is about is very clear.
LERNER: Let me finish my sentence. Please let me finish my sentence, Alan.
KEYES: The question that is actually on the table...
LERNER: Please, Alan, please...
KEYES: ... is not who did what first, but whether or not one side is crossing the line and consciously targeting innocent civilians. Not as collateral damage in war, but as the aim of their policy. And I see a difference here. Alan Dershowitz — just a second — I look at this...
LERNER: No, you're not giving me a chance to finish my sentence.
KEYES: I ask the same question of you.
LERNER: No, you're not giving me a chance to finish my sentence.
KEYES: Can we conduct diplomacy as usual while terrorism continues to be the major tactic of one side?
DERSHOWITZ: Well, I think that Israel ought to be allowed to pursue the same policy the United States is pursuing. The United States has said that any group that harbors terrorists are terrorists. The Taliban are terrorists, even though they didn't actually plant the bombs or fly the planes, and the Palestinian leadership is terrorist. And for Michael Lerner to compare Israel and the Palestinians, as he does in his ad today, and says both sides have killed civilians...
LERNER: Both sides.
DERSHOWITZ: Both sides teach hatred.
LERNER: Both sides.
DERSHOWITZ: ... you know, that's like comparing Nazis to Czechoslovakia.
LERNER: Forget about the Nazis.
DERSHOWITZ: There's just no comparison. And let me finish my point now, Michael.
LERNER: Both sides.
DERSHOWITZ: The point is that there is no moral equivalency here. You have one side that in 1948 gave the Palestinians an opportunity to have a state; the Palestinians said no. Between '48 and '67, they could have had a state; the Palestinians said no. In 1998, they could have had a state; the Palestinians said no. And they have always resorted to terrorism. And when Israel is trying to do precisely what the United States is doing and that is destroy the infrastructure of terrorism as a predicate to negotiations — because I believe in peace, too, I believe in ending the settlements — but I believe in a peace that is based not on a temporary solution where Palestinian state is a launching pad for the abolition of Israel...
KEYES: Alan, Alan...
DERSHOWITZ: You're not going to let me finish. Right?
KEYES: No. We have a limited time.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Now, hold on, let Rabbi Lerner respond. Very quickly.
LERNER: Can Mark Rosenblum say anything?
KEYES: When he comes in. You can just jump in, but go ahead.
ROSENBLUM: I'm ready to jump in. I haven't had a chance to speak at all. You cut me off at the break.
LERNER: As he did with me.
KEYES: No, no, the break cuts everybody off. But don't waste your time now, then. Say what you have got to say.
ROSENBLUM: A central point that we've been ignoring in this whole discussion, a question of morality, whether it's moral equivalency or moral I think inequivalency. I think that it's not equivalent to talk about Israel's sins and Palestinian sins. Israel is right enough in this combat and this history of conflict to acknowledge when it's wrong.
The question today is not whether we're rewarding terrorism, but how to defeat terrorism. If you think that Sharon's policies can defeat terrorism by marching into the central cities of the West Bank and Gaza, destroy the Palestinian Authority, destroy its security agencies, destroy its jails, and then retreat and say OK, now fight terrorism — this is absurd.
There is one thing that Israel and lovers of Israel have to ask: How can Israel defend its citizens? I argue the way to defend its citizens is to fight against the terrorists and reward the moderates and the pragmatists.
DERSHOWITZ: I agree. I agree.
ROSENBLUM: Well, you didn't, Alan.
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: You did not talk about who the moderates are who are against the right to return...
DERSHOWITZ: The former moderates. The former moderates. I don't see very many moderates today.
ROSENBLUM: You're wrong. There is a group of Palestinians called the Palestinian Peace Movement that Seria Neseyba (ph) founded, in East Jerusalem. They're calling for a nonviolent struggle against Israel, while they assert to their right to an independent state in the West Bank.
DERSHOWITZ: I agree with you. I don't disagree with that.
ROSENBLUM: But policies in Washington and policies in Jerusalem should have one goal...
KEYES: Mark — one question, though.
LERNER: We're not going to get anywhere, Alan.
KEYES: Hold on, gentlemen. Hold on. Mark, I have one question. Are these the people that Colin Powell is going to talk to?
ROSENBLUM: They will be some of the people he will be talking to, you bet.
KEYES: No, see, you evaded the question. He is actually going to talk to Yasser Arafat. And has Yasser Arafat been just moderate...
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: Alan, excuse me. Yasser Arafat has one tragic reality that supports him. He is the elected leader of the Palestinian ...
DERSHOWITZ: Elected? Elected?
ROSENBLUM: Yes. There was an election. There was an election.
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, my God! You call that an election?
ROSENBLUM: Of course there was an election.
DERSHOWITZ: Oh, come on!
ROSENBLUM: It was certified by the international community. I was there to monitor.
DERSHOWITZ: That is a joke! An election?
ROSENBLUM: More importantly, if you don't want Yasser Arafat...
DERSHOWITZ: Next you're going to tell that to the Supreme Court, too, right?
ROSENBLUM: Excuse me, was there an election or not election, Alan?
DERSHOWITZ: There was no election.
ROSENBLUM: There was no election?
DERSHOWITZ: If you vote against him, you get shot in the head.
(CROSSTALK)
ROSENBLUM: There were no murders in this election.
KEYES: Hold on, gentlemen, one second, let Rabbi Lerner have a word here.
LERNER: All I want to say is that this is indicative of the level of discourse. The only way we're going to get anyplace is to overcome the desire to say this one's bad and that one is bad, and instead recognize that right now you have two sides who have both co-constituted a reality, which is a terrible reality, that both have legitimate claims to the land and both have done terrible things to each other. And it's no way to read the history or even the present reality without recognizing that Israel is killing innocent civilians...
DERSHOWITZ: Not deliberately.
LERNER: ... and that the Palestinians have killed innocent civilians.
DERSHOWITZ: Deliberately.
LERNER: And the point is not to get into the blame game...
DERSHOWITZ: Yes, it is.
LERNER: The point is at this point is to say how are we going to stop the killing and that's what...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Hold on. Hold on. You have made a point. Can I ask a question about that point?
LERNER: Yes, if you'll ask me.
KEYES: One of the interesting things I find in this whole discussion is, well, the Israelis have killed civilians. How many civilian Afghans did we kill during our effort in Afghanistan? Do you know?
LERNER: The United States...
KEYES: Answer my question, sir. Do you know?
LERNER: The United States...
KEYES: Don't ask another question. Just answer the question. Do you know...
LERNER: The United...
KEYES: No, answer the question!
LERNER: The United States...
KEYES: Do you know how many people killed — how many innocent civilians died?
LERNER: The United States was not occupying the Afghani people for the past 35 years.
KEYES: No, see, you won't answer the question. Rabbi Lerner...
LERNER: ... we were not...
KEYES: First rule of the game. I will let you talk, but will you kindly answer my question? Do you know, with all due respect, how many innocent civilian casualties there were in Afghanistan?
LERNER: The United States was not occupying Afghanistan.
KEYES: Just say yes or no, sir. Just say yes or no.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: Alan, just one second.
LERNER: The United States is not occupying Afghanistan.
KEYES: Rabbi Lerner, do you know the reason you don't know the answer to that question? Because most Americans don't know. Because when we went into Afghanistan, in pursuit of our justifiable reaction to Osama bin Laden who crossed the line into terrorism, we don't stay up awake at night worrying about how many civilians died as collateral damage of that justified war...
LERNER: Shame on you.
KEYES: We don't.
LERNER: Shame on you. Shame on you.
KEYES: No, shame on you. You didn't know anymore than I did.
LERNER: Shame on you for not worrying about...
KEYES: You didn't know any more than I did, sir.
LERNER: Those people are created in the image of God just the way you were.
KEYES: You didn't know anymore than I did. The point I'm making here is that have applied...
LERNER: Those people were created in the image of God just the way you were.
KEYES: ... you are applying a standard to Israel that neither you nor I nor anyone else is applying to the United States.
LERNER: Alan, you are created in the image of God also. Alan, you're missing another standard here.
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: Michael, are you against the American policy in Afghanistan? Are you against American policy in Afghanistan?
LERNER: The United States, in so far as are killing innocent civilians — of course I'm against it. I don't want to kill innocent civilians, and their lives are just as valuable as our lives.
DERSHOWITZ: How do you kill guilty terrorists without having occasionally to kill an innocent civilian? That's the nature of military actions.
ROSENBLUM: Here's a much more important point from a pro-Israeli perspective in this discussion of parallels between Afghanistan and what's going on in the West Bank and Gaza, and that is: Has the Israeli military response to date effectively projected a winning, successful model? However we feel about what happened in Afghanistan, it is truthful to say the Americans have effectively projected power and carried the day on the ground for now. The Israelis have failed, and instead have hardened the arteries and intensified the hatred...
KEYES: How long did it take? Hold on a second. How long did it take, Mark?
ROSENBLUM: But this is a problem...
KEYES: How long did it take?
ROSENBLUM: Alan, that's the wrong question. One of the restrains that the Sharon government faces...
KEYES: How long did it take, Mark?
ROSENBLUM: Eight months. No, this is...
KEYES: Mark, how long did it take?
ROSENBLUM: How — what is it that prevents Sharon from having as long? That's the question.
KEYES: No, the question I'm raising, the question I'm raising is very simple. We're putting artificial deadlines on what they have to do. The president was very clear.
ROSENBLUM: This is not an artificial deadline.
KEYES: When people asked him how long we were going to be dealing with Afghanistan, he said “as long as it takes.” And now everybody's acting like Ariel Sharon is the devil himself because he's saying the same thing.
ROSENBLUM: No, I don't think he's the devil himself. He's Mr. Security, who's failing to deliver security because he's not doing the two things he should do.
DERSHOWITZ: Michael Lerner has called him a devil, essentially, and Michael Lerner...
KEYES: OK, gentlemen, I'm going to have to — Alan, I'm sorry to cut you off, but we really have to go. We're down right to the wire here. I appreciate it. I hope we can all get together and continue this critical discussion at some point soon. Thank you all for coming.
Next, you already know about the latest church scandal, that leaders in Boston covered up the activities of this priest, Paul Shanley, seen here with Cardinal Bernard Law. Shanley publicly advocated sexual relations between men and young boys at a founding meeting of NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association.
What was the motivation behind this cover-up? We are going to debate that very question when we get back here on MAKING SENSE.
You are watching MSNBC, the best news on cable.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Tonight, we continue our discussion of the crisis in the Catholic Church.
Last night, I think, we were able to come to some understandings and join with many around the country who are calling for the resignation of Cardinal Law in Boston, for instance, and accountability from a hierarchy that looked the other way as all kinds of abuses were taking place by priests against young people in the Catholic Church.
Tonight, we're going to go a step further, looking at what might have been the motivation for that cover-up. In the context of our discussion, here is what the attorney for one of Paul Shanley's alleged victim had to say earlier this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RODERICK MACLEISH, JR., ATTORNEY FOR GREGORY FORD FAMILY: All of the suffering that has taken place at the hands of Paul Shanley, a serial child molester for four decades, three of them in Boston — none of it had to happen. None of it had to happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: None of it had to happen? Well, then why did it happen? And this isn't just a question about management and mistaken judgments and so forth. It's also a question about the understanding — a misunderstanding of the grave, moral issues that were involved that appears to have governed the decision-making of prelates in — some prelates in the Catholic Church.
Well, joining us now to talk about these issues, William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and Monsignor Tom McSweeney, an MSNBC religion analyst and former national director of christophers.org, a Catholic media outreach organization.
Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
WILLIAM DONOHUE, CATHOLIC LEAGUE: Thank you. How are you doing, Alan?
MSGR. TOM MCSWEENEY, MSNBC RELIGION ANALYST: Good evening.
KEYES: Thank you.
Father Tom, I told you I'd have you back.
MCSWEENEY: You did.
KEYES: And here you are.
MCSWEENEY: You're a man of your word, Alan. Thanks a million.
KEYES: Now I want — I want to go right to it because basically I think you and I agreed that it is time for Cardinal Law to resign, and, last night, we were talking about that, but when I raised the issue of the role that tolerance for homosexuality may have had in generating this crisis, you took issue with me, and I think that that's an important discussion to have.
I deeply believe that the wrong attitude toward human sexuality is at the root of not understanding the grave dereliction that was involved in these decisions and that, unless one is willing to look at that moral and spiritual question, we're not really going to get to the roots of the crisis.
Now why would you object to that?
MCSWEENEY: Well, I — Alan, I — what I really resented was the zeroing in on the homosexual population as being the cause of this crisis.
What is needed and what you are contributing to enormously with this program — and NBC in many ways has most recently with Tim Russert — having a great panel of authorities getting together and discussing this issue — what is needed is a public examination — a very public examination of the Catholic Church's culture, its traditions, and its leadership so that we can answer that fundamental question.
How could it possibly be that the reputation of the institutional church would ever be more important than the welfare of children? What is the answer to that question? It's only going to occur, we're only going to find the solution by having a very public examination of the church systematically.
KEYES: Well, see, I think, though, that we have to look at the specific nature of the dereliction that was involved here.
And when you look at it, it's not an accident that this involved sexual sin and that, I think, one of the areas of the greatest confusion and mistaken judgment these days is about sexual sin, where prelates and others have borrowed from the secular world an understanding of human sexuality that contradicts the church's teachings.
And that then leaves the door open to the possibility that you wouldn't see an assault on a young person's soul through sexual sin in the same light that you would see an assault on their life and body through murder, and yet the church tells us the assault on the soul is the more grievous assault.
Why this failure to understand the moral proportion here?
MCSWEENEY: Well, it's been part of the tradition to avoid scandal. Secrecy has been the byword here. “We've got to keep this secret. Let's have an arrangement here so that we can deal with this. We want to save the church as much embarrassment as possible.” “Scandal” is anathema in the church.
That's what I mean by that group think, that systemic thinking of the church, and it doesn't just extend to homosexual issues or even the pedophilia issues. We have had prelates, as you know, that have been involved in heterosexual relationships. We have had the scandal of thievery, theft, all kinds of things where the byword, again, is secrecy. “Let's contain this so it doesn't frighten the people.”
KEYES: One of the questions — one of the questions that I have asked several times of guests on the show —
And, William Donahue, I'll start off asking you this question because it's related to what we were just talk about. If we had been talking about serial murderers here, people who had killed the bodies of children instead of assaulting their souls and their hope for salvation through sexual mortal sin — “mortal,” by the way, meaning deadly — I think people forget this — do you think that there would have been the same blase reaction and cover-up from these prelates?
DONOHUE: No. As a matter of fact, I'll go further. I think if you had a racist priest or a anti-Semitic priest who went around publicly saying that Jews were lousy or blacks were lousy, he would have been thrown out of the priesthood. Here we had a man going out joining the North American Man Boy Love Association in 1978 and is promoted after that.
Now why did this happen? Take a look what happened in the seminaries in the late 1970s. The year before he got involved in NAMBLA in '78 — in 1977, there was a book by Father Anthony Kosnick (ph), “Human Sexuality,” which was taught in the seminaries. You know what it taught? That the traditional church teaching on fornication, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality was wrong. We should not have such a sweeping condemnation regarding homosexuality. We have to understand if there's a sincere affection that God is present in the relationship.
Now this book, in fairness to the bishops, was condemned in '79, but Kosnick (ph) stayed on as a seminarian teacher until '82. There is a direct line here between heterodoxy, that is to say dissent of Catholic teaching and sexual molestation and homosexuality.
There's a big elephant in the room, fellows, all right? We're not talking here about guys putting their hands on the girls. We're talking about guys putting their hands on the boys. But mostly — 90 percent of them — adolescents.
Now, look, I've come out publicly against gay bashing. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend that this has nothing to do with it. I would agree with Father McSweeney at the macro level that what he's talking about has to be addressed. I don't disagree with him there. But we have guys back in the National Catholic Reporter who are already coming out now and saying it's homophobic just to mention the gay issue. Where is the guts of people to come out and say let's have an honest discussion?
KEYES: Now I would like to say to both of you that I think it is absolutely correct to say this isn't just about homosexuality. It is actually about the theology of human sexuality and whether or not one consistently applies the church's understanding of the sacred meaning of human sexual relationships across the board. But it's especially true that homosexuality violates in principle that understanding which the church has taught.
And, Father Tom, I don't understand how one can be blase about the possibility of tolerating sexual behavior that in and of itself, by itself, refutes the church's teaching about the nature of human sexuality. This is not a small matter. It's a theological matter of the highest importance, and when one is opened to this kind of heterodoxy, you're not just talking about tolerating behavior, you're talking about abandoning doctrine, aren't you?
MCSWEENEY: The doctrine, Alan, is that marriage is the sacred ideal. That is the sacrament. Any sexual activity outside of marriage is a sin. Whether it's homosexual activity, whether it's heterosexual activity, if it's somebody with animals — I don't know — those are sins.
What we are concerned about is — I think if we start picking up all the stones — and whoever has sinned let him — not sinned — throw the first stone — why are we — why is there this eagerness right now to pick up all the stones and throw them at the homosexuals on this particular issue?
DONOHUE: No, we shouldn't. We shouldn't throw...
KEYES: Gentlemen, wait. Wait. We're coming up against a break. Before we start again...
MCSWEENEY: Let me just finish the thought.
KEYES: Finish that thought quickly.
MCSWEENEY: The thought is let's run for the ideal of marriage. Let's argue for the good of marriage and build upon that rather than simply fault other people and their human weaknesses and sins.
KEYES: Bill Donohue, a quick response.
DONOHUE: Yeah. Well, let's take a look at the Catholic Theological Society of America which promoted the Kosnick (ph) book and has at their conventions people questioning what the Eucharist is and whether Christ was divine.
Now you know, Father McSweeney, there is no end to the Catholic theologians in so-called Catholic colleges who hate the Catholic Church and go against every single teaching in the Catholic Church, and if you want me to be specific, sir, I will be.
KEYES: Well, now I — when we come back, we're going to have more with our guests, and we want to look a little further into this question because I think it's not only a question of the what, but the why of the church's teaching on the sacredness of human sexuality, and it is that why, the reasoning behind it that is especially violated by homosexuality.
And later, my outrage of the day. Do universities have the right to help students evade the drug laws? We're going to talk about that.
We'll be right back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: A new NBC News/”Wall Street Journal” poll shows that the Catholic Church is taking a hit from its own constituency, Catholics, which just two years ago, gave high marks to the church. Seventy percent had high positive feelings then. Today, the number is 38 percent positive, 36 negative. Obviously, this crisis having a bad effect.
We're back with William Donohue and Monsignor Tom McSweeney. I want to address my opening question to you, Father Tom, because you mentioned, I think quite rightly, the focus of the church's teaching on sexuality on marriage, but I think we need to get behind that a little bit because it's not just a formal commitment to marriages and institution. It is a commitment to God's plan for the family. It is a commitment to the idea that human sexual relations reflect that loving plan of responsibility for children and of an order in society that will take that responsibility with the utmost seriousness.
Doesn't homosexuality in both form as well as substance deny that connection with procreation and, therefore, with the image of God implanted in our nature?
MCSWEENEY: Well, you're right to say that the church's teaching on the sacredness of marriage is very, very well delineated, and I must tell you in the last 10 years, the church's teaching on homosexuality is also very carefully delineated.
What it really boils down to, Alan, is that the church hates the sin of homosexuality, just as it hates any sin of sexual activity that is outside of the sacred bond of marriage. But it tells us — the church tells us — Holy Mother Church tells us that you can hate the sin, but you must love the sinner.
So much of my — my pastoral life, as I was up in New York City, was spent in the confessional up there at St. Patrick's, and I was hearing confessions. I mean, they were lined up. And I heard a lot of confessions of people who were homosexual, and they were simply asking, by the grace of that sacrament, to help them find a way to have purpose in their life, to strive for a celibate existence. They didn't want the fruit of life of homosexuality. They wanted to have a life of purpose...
KEYES: But Father Tom...
MCSWEENEY: ... and it is my job to incorporate them...
KEYES: Father Tom, I understand.
MCSWEENEY: ... and to fold them into the life of the church.
KEYES: Father Tom — Father Tom, the notion of hating the sin and loving the sinner is clear, but one hates the sin of murder, and even though you love the murderer, you don't put the murderer back in the parish where he killed a child.
It seems to me that there was a lack of understanding of the grievousness of this violation of the moral law, and to suggest that there wasn't — the question I've been asking myself time and again — and we're running out of time, so I want to make sure both of you have a chance to speak.
But, Bill Donohue, I've been asking myself again and again where's the outrage. Where's the sense that would surely attend child murder, if there was a physical assault? I didn't see anything like this from the prelates who were dealing with this issue, and yet the sin they were dealing with is a mortal sin, that is one that risks the soul and salvation of the individuals and scandalized the young and led them down the same path of perdition.
Where was the outrage, if not lying in a misunderstanding of the grievousness of the nature of this particular kind of sin?
DONOHUE: Well, you're absolutely right as usual, Alan, and that's because — that's why I'm so angry. That's why I'm so furious and so many good Catholics — and 47,000 Catholic priests are good priests like Monsignor McSweeney, but that's why we've got to speak up, though. We're not going to clear this thing up.
The fact of the matter is there is a very good group out there called Courage by Father Harvey (ph), which does minister to homosexuals. People don't know about it. There's a renegade group called Dignity. Guess which one's popular on the college campuses that are Catholic. Dignity. You know, Ken White (ph) had — a monsignor — read what a wonderful book about how the catechism was resisted amongst Catholic priests and nuns on Catholic campuses.
I mean, we've got to get the whole story out there. I love this church. That's precisely why we've got to get the dirty laundry out of there so we can move forward. We have too much to lose otherwise.
KEYES: And I think that the important point — thank you, both, gentlemen. I really appreciate the discussion, which I think will help folks to understand the issues at stake here, and I think one point clearly coming across now — this is not just management, it's not just behavior. This is a matter of doctrine and understanding that has to be corrected and correctly applied.
Anyway, my outrage of the day is next — and you're not going to want to miss it — about universities that are actually contributing to the criminality of their students. Ha! Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my outrage of the day.
Yale University says it's going to reimburse students who lose financial aid because of drug-possession convictions. Federal law prohibits students convicted of drug offenses from receiving federal financial aid, but Yale is going to aid and abet the criminals, make sure they don't suffer for their deed.
Well, I think schools like Yale ought to suffer for their support of evasion of the federal law. Are the folks in that building behind me listening? You need to go after these universities. They should lose their federal funding if they're helping law breakers to get around the law. That's my sense of it.
Thanks for being with me tonight. “THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS” is up next. I'll see you tomorrow.