NEBRASKA SENATE CHALLENGED ON ANTI-IRISH AND ANTI-CATHOLIC ACTION
Posted By: June 08, 2015
Belated Discovery of Mac Bride Principles Repeal
Capitol Hill. June 7, 2015— Irish-Americans in the State ofstunned to belatedly discover that the Nebraska Senate had sneakily repealed the Mac Bride Principles back in 2011: LB303, sponsored by Omaha Senator Beau McCoy, March 4, 2011.
The Mac Bride Principles — a corporate code of conduct for American companies doing business in Northern Ireland — were launched by the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus on November 5, 1984. The Principles were passed by the Nebraska Senate in 1994 to ensure that Nebraska dollars would not subsidize anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland.
Fr. Sean Mc Manus, President of the Irish National Caucus, said: “ In 1994, the Nebraska Senate took an admirable stand against anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland.
And in 2011 — sneakily and in an underhand way— the Senate, in effect, became complicit in an anti-Catholic and anti-Irish act of repeal. None of us who led the Mac Bride campaign were consulted; no Irish-American organization, nationally or in the State of Nebraska was consulted. The repeal was sneakily slipped past everyone— a sure sign it could not stand the light of day.”
Fr. Mc Manus has written to all 49 Nebraska State Senators: “Surely the then Senate Members [2011] had to be aware that repealing Mac Bride— passed to ensure that Nebraska dollars would not subsidize anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland— would inevitably be seen as anti-Irish and anti-Catholic? Would the Senate have been similarly complicit in an act that would be seen as anti-Jewish-American or anti-African-American? This betrayal of Catholics and Irish -Americans was done in order, allegedly, to save the sum of $8, 500 — the Nebraska Senate’s equivalency of Thirty Pieces of Silver.”
Fr. Mc Manus tells the Senators: “By this letter, I am polling you and all the other Nebraska Senators on this matter. Your response— or lack thereof —will be widely shared among the Irish and Catholic population of Nebraska, and with all 213 media outlets in the great State of Nebraska.
Please answer this direct question: “Will you continue being complicit in the Nebraska Senate’s anti-Irish and anti-Catholic act of having repealed the Mac Bride Principles legislation?”
Fr. Mc Manus concluded:“ I am aware that the Nebraska State Senators may have been duped into being complicit, and we want to give them the benefit of the doubt. This is their chance to make right a great wrong, to reinstate the Mac Bride Principles and to show due respect to Catholics and Irish-Americans.”
END.
