Andrew Bolt: Dominic Perrottet the latest victim of Left-wing bigots

The ABC has been leading the charge when it comes to treating the new NSW Premier as some religious freak from a dangerous faith.

Catholics are the new Jews, hated and persecuted. And Dominic Perrottet is the latest victim of our new bigots.

Perrottet (pictured), now the NSW Premier, has been treated by some in the media Left as a religious freak from a dangerous faith.

That word “Catholic” triggers them, especially in the ABC, which infamously led the witch hunt that saw the innocent Cardinal George Pell jailed for sex crimes he could not possibly have committed.

Before that, the ABC also treated Tony Abbott as the enemy, asking: “So how will Mr Abbott’s Catholicism influence his term as prime minister?”

Here we go again. On Monday the ABC’s Media Watch warned that “conservative Catholic Dominic Perrottet” would be premier, and an ABC backgrounder carried the headline: “Meet Dom Perrottet – the conservative Catholic and father-of-six who will be NSW’s next premier.”

Already the ABC was waving the leper’s bell. Did it ever introduce its public to the “Armenian Apostolic Gladys Berejiklian”, the “Anglican Kevin Rudd”, the “Anglican Bill Shorten”, the “Uniting Church’s Penny Wong”, or even the “atheist Julia Gillard”?

Why did the ABC consider Perrottet’s faith the key to his political leadership, as it didn’t with these others?

It can’t be the novelty value, given one in five Australians is Catholic, too.

And be clear: his Catholicism wasn’t called out like it was a good thing.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has been treated by some in the media Left as religious. Picture: Getty Images

ABC news interviewed crazy-left rent-a-quote Jane Caro on the threat of Perrottet, after she’d tweeted she was “terrified” of this “fanatical” man and thought there was “far too much religiosity in our political institutions already”.

The ABC even implied there was something sinister and secretive about Perrottet’s faith, and used the word “sect” to damn him.

“As a child he attended the Roman Catholic school Redfield College in Dural, which is run by Opus Dei priests,” it informed.

“The Opus Dei sect has been tied to secretive dealings, along with aggressive recruitment methods and accusations of elitism and misogyny.”

“Sect”? And who made those accusations? Was there any truth to them? Any relevance?

As it happens, Perrottet is not a member of Opus Dei. More telling, in my opinion, is that he’s a member of the free-market and libertarian Institute of Public Affairs, a far better clue to the policies he’ll push as premier.

But, no, to the Sydney Morning Herald, too, it was this Catholic thing that was stinking up the room. It ran a rant by writer Stephanie Dowrick, identifying herself as a “reverend”, which might lead readers to think she was damning Perrottet as too extreme even for a fellow Christian and a priest.

In fact, Dowrick is one of those supermarket spiritualists preferred by most journalists – an “interfaith minister” who’d trained with a Jewish teacher, studied Islam and Hinduism, and picked from every faith the shiny bits she preferred. Which makes Dowrick her own messiah.

Dowrick predictably condemned Perrottet as “ a highly conservative Catholic with views that represent the most extreme end of a rigidly male-dominated institutional church”.

People like him, she fumed without a flicker of self-awareness, were “highly divisive”, demanding “high levels of conformity” and thinking “the world consists of ‘us’ – and the rest of you”.

So decreed Dowrick, conforming to every cause of the left – global warming, anti-Trump, anti-Scott Morrison, pro-refugees – and writing in a newspaper demanding such high levels of conformity that it employs not one conservative columnist on staff.

And that’s the big clue to the media left’s hostility to Catholicism. This is tribal.

Catholics keep getting in the way of the great movements that appeal to collectivists, and not just of the secular left – communism, fascism, extreme nationalism and now this great green movement.

True Catholics, all true Christians, believe every human life has value, and none should be sacrificed for the convenience of the State, the Fatherland, the Internationale, the Leader or, now, the Planet. That’s also why most Catholics, like Perrottet, are troubled by abortion and euthanasia.

And that’s why journalists on Tuesday peppered Perrottet with hostile questions: would he roll back abortion laws, fight euthanasia laws? Even this: did gays and lesbians have anything to fear?

But here is one difference between Perrottet and the likes of “Reverend” Dowrick of the pitchfork left: he believes in the freedom of the individual. He said he would not impose his own views on such issues of conscience on his MPs.

Fancy that. A premier inspired to defend freedom and who on Tuesday preached tolerance – including tolerance for his own Catholic faith. How sad that he had to.