President Joe Biden awarded a pro-abortion activist and two gay “marriage” advocates with the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of the highest civilian awards an American can receive.
The medal is awarded to Americans who “have performed exemplary acts of service to their country or their fellow citizens,” according to a press release issued on Thursday, January 2, by the White House. Activists in favor of abortion and gay “marriage” were three of the 20 people who received the honor at a ceremony held Thursday at the White House.
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“President Biden believes these Americans are united by their common decency and their commitment to serving others,” the White House press release reads. “The country is better thanks to their dedication and sacrifice,” he adds.
Biden, the second Catholic president of the United States, has long disagreed with the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of human life and sexuality. In early 2024, Biden awarded to the former leader of Planned ParenthoodCecile Richards, the highest civilian honor: the Medal of Freedom.
Other recipients named included civil rights activists, legislators and veterans.
Eleanor Smeal, abortion activist
Eleanor Smeal, a longtime feminist activist, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and former president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), was one of Thursday’s Presidential Citizens Medal recipients.
While serving as president of NOW in 1986, Smeal led the first national abortion rights march in Washington, D.C., with more than 100,000 marchers, according to the Feminist Majority Foundation. He has campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment and has spoken out against pro-life laws that restrict abortion.
Smeal, who was raised Catholic, has also been critical of the Vatican and the Catholic Church for its teachings on the sanctity of life, its opposition to birth control and its teachings on human sexuality.
In 1987, Smeal was arrested during a protest at the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See — the Vatican embassy — in which speakers criticized the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, abortion and birth control, according to the Washington Post.
“Because of my sex, I am forever second class in my church,” Smeal said at the time. “Because of my sex, I could have been sentenced to death at a young age (if I had not disobeyed the Church’s ban on birth control),” she said.
When President George W. Bush nominated Samuel Alito to serve as a Supreme Court justice in 2005, Smeal warned about his Catholic faithwriting that “the majority of the court would be made up of Roman Catholics, which would underrepresent other religions, not to mention nonbelievers.”
Mary L. Bonauto, gay “marriage” activist
One of the lawyers who defended homosexual “marriage” before the United States Supreme Court, Mary L. Bonauto, was also awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal on Thursday.
Bonauto, who was also raised Catholic, is the senior director of civil rights and legal strategies for GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders (GLAD). She defended clients in Michigan and Kentucky fighting states’ bans on gay “marriage.”
In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that state bans on gay “marriage” violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and required all 50 states to provide “marriage” licenses. to homosexual couples who requested them.
Before the Supreme Court ruling, Bonauto also fought legal cases in favor of gay “marriage” in Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine.
“Their efforts brought millions of families together and forged a more perfect union,” the White House press release stated.
Bonauto also wrote a writing friend of the court in favor of Philadelphia’s refusal to hire Catholic Social Services due to its policy of not placing children with same-sex couples. The Supreme Court failed unanimously in favor of Catholic Social Services for reasons of religious freedom.
Evan Wolfson, defender of homosexual “marriage”
Biden also awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to Evan Wolfson, an attorney and founder of Freedom to Marrywhich advocated for the nationwide legality of homosexual “marriage.”
“For 32 years, beginning with a visionary thesis in law school, Evan Wolfson worked with a singular focus and tireless optimism to change not only the law, but society, pioneering a policy manual for change and sharing his lessons, even now, with countless causes around the world,” the White House statement reads.
Wolfson was also co-counsel in a lawsuit in Hawaii against the state’s ban on gay “marriage” in the 1990s. according to Freedom to Marry. He has worked on numerous other legal cases supporting gay legal rights and cases involving HIV and AIDS, according to the organization.
Civil rights activists, legislators and veterans receive medals
Biden also awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 17 other people, including civil rights activists, lawmakers and veterans.
These awards included a posthumous award to Collins J. Seitz, who was the first judge to integrate a white public school, which, according to the White House press release, “broke down the walls of separation to help us see each other as fellow Americans.” Another posthumous medal went to Louis Lorenzo Redding, a black lawyer who argued against racial segregation in two cases, which “(laid) the legal framework for Brown v. Board of Education” according to the White House.
Biden also awarded a medal to former Republican Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, who represented Kansas from 1978 to 1987 for “supporting a woman’s right to choose (and) reforming health care,” among other things. In 1983, Kassebaum was one of the 19 republicans who opposed a constitutional amendment that would have allowed states to pass pro-life laws restricting abortion.
The president also awarded the medal to lawmakers who served on the U.S. House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 attack, including former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney and Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson.
Biden also presented a medal to Thomas J. Vallely, a Vietnam War veteran who helped restore relations with the country after the war; and Diane Carlson Evans, an Army nurse in the Vietnam War who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in CNA.
Tyler Arnold
Tyler Arnold is a reporter for the National Catholic Register. He previously worked at The Center Square and has published in a variety of outlets, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative, and The Federalist.