New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot share a similar record on their handling of violence, public health and religious liberty.
Both have done so disgracefully.
Over this past Fourth of July weekend, 19 people died of COVID-19 in New York City.
During that same period, 64 people were shot and 10 were killed. In Chicago, 9 persons died of the virus over those three days; 64 were wounded and 15 were murdered.
While it may hard to know where the blame lies in deaths due to coronavirus, it's not hard to know who bears responsibility for the violence. Both de Blasio and Lightfoot have made the police the enemy.
Everyone knows that, especially those doing the shooting.
When it comes to religious liberty, however, these two mayors sing a different tune.
To be exact, they've gone out of their way to punish church-goers for not complying with their public health edicts. Worse, they have done nothing about the public health threat posed by protesters — many of whom were violent.
De Blasio not only endorsed mobs taking to the streets, he granted them immunity from his contact-tracing mandate. New York employees charged with coronavirus contact-tracing were told that they could not ask anyone if they attended a protest.
But — they sure could ask if they went to church.
In other words, the mayor decided it was more important to guard the anonymity of someone who picked up COVID-19 while demonstrating side-by-side with thousands of others — in illegal marches — than it was to protect an innocent person from being infected by them.
Religious New Yorkers, however, were told to stay out of churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship.
They were also told they were a threat to public health.
Then a federal district judge stepped in and put a temporary stop to de Blasio's game: He accused the mayor (and Gov. Andrew Cuomo) of sending "a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment."
Like de Blasio, Lightfoot threw public health concerns to the wind by doing nothing to enforce social distancing among protesters. Churchgoers, however, are another story.
In May, Lightfoot threw down the gauntlet. She pledged to fine any church that was open. "This is not playing Russian Roulette. This is playing with a gun that is fully loaded and cocked."
Sadly, real guns do go off every weekend in her city, and she has done nothing about it.
Blacks kill blacks by the dozens, turning Chicago streets into a bloodbath. Yet Lightfoot will not condemn the killers with the kind of incendiary language she uses against innocent churchgoers.
De Blasio and Lightfoot are a threat to public health, public safety, and religious liberty. How much more must they do to their cities before their residents finally rise up demanding justice?
Dr. William Donohue is the president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The publisher of the Catholic League journal, Catalyst, Donohue is a former Bradley Resident Scholar at the Heritage Foundation and served for two decades on the board of directors of the National Association of Scholars. He is the author of eight books, and the winner of several teaching awards and many awards from the Catholic community. Read Bill Donohue's Reports — More Here.
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