Time After Time: The Somewhere Under Heaven Series

The Press

Rachel Maddow Show

Rachel: This year, several key races are popping up all over the United States and one of the biggest ones making headlines is the race for governor in New Jersey to determine who is going to succeed current governor Chris Dunn.

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Rachel (VO): The race has pitted GOP nominee, Pemberton Township mayor Evan Kaufman against Democrat and former MSNBC commentator Casey Pattinson who is currently the speaker of the New Jersey General Assembly and this spring announced her retirement as president of Rider University. The race sparked big news when during a debate, Kaufman accused his opponent of only being famous for two things: running a second rate university and her marriage to a celebrity. Dr. Pattinson is the president emerita of Rider University and is married to actor Robert Pattinson. Her eldest daughter Katherine was recently crowned Miss America and her daughter Gráinne is a past winner of NBC's The Voice and is now a Grammy award winning recording artist. 

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Evan Kaufman's ties to fundamentalist groups such as Focus on the Family which has created a campaign against LGBTQ issues are coming into play because of a series of attack ads made about the New Jersey assemblywoman announcing that she would further codify LGBTQ rights in a move similar to both former governor Phil Murphy and current governor Chris Dunn whose wife is a transgender woman.  Meanwhile its sister organization Family Policy Alliance which produced their own attack ads against Kaufman's opponent calling her "unholy" because of her presence in the race. In one such ad, the organization said that Casey Pattinson goes against everything God stands for and her election will prompt New Jersey to be the portal to hell. 

The watchdog organization along with several others also swung back on her plan to not only reinforce the legality of abortion in New Jersey as well as access to contraception and all emergency reproductive healthcare. Recently the Knights of Columbus came out and said how Casey Pattinson should be excommunicated saying, "Life begins at birth and Casey knows it. She is basically going against God and nature."

Cut to Rachel w/graphic that says "CDA Under Fire" 

Also this week, the organization Catholic Daughters of the Americas has come out against the educator. In a recent article, an anonymous source who is only cited as a "state organization CDA leader" told the New York Times how the national office instructed its state and local chapters to advise members not to vote Democrat this year with one of the big examples being the New Jersey gubernatorial race. The source also told NBC News that the national director, Ethelene Algar sent out emails and messages to New Jersey chapters and officials saying, "If a member is found to have voted for Casey Pattinson or supported her campaign in anyway, that is ground for dismissal as CDA does not support Dr. Pattinson's liberal agenda." Algar has blasted the article saying, "It was all in jest" but as always Mighty Casey is not buying it. 

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The feisty assemblywoman from Princeton came out swinging with claims of how Kaufman paid thousands to Focus on the Family to create the attack ads against her stance on marriage equality saying in an article that appeared in the Washington Post, "Focus on the Family is a 501(c)(3) organization. They should not be creating any political ads."

When it came to the allegations from the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Daughters, Dr. Pattinson writes, "My father was a member of the of the organization until he saw how much hate there was. My mother left Catholic Daughters because of their cattiness and conservative ways when her chapter judged her harshly for becoming the superintendent in Riverside and she supported a move to teach LGBTQ history at Riverside High School. In theory, both of these organizations are supposed to be politically neutral because like Focus on the Family, their tax exemption makes it where they are not to make political statements, however, here we are. I get that the Bible and also Catholic doctrine says that abortion is a sin as is marriage equality, contraception, and gender affirming care for trans people but as a Catholic woman who was taught by Jesuits, may I remind these organizations of the words said by Pope Francis: 'Who am I to judge?' In other words, I still stand by my choices and say that this is simply things that every person must take up with their higher power and therefore I will continue to respect the fact that in New Jersey, women and the LGBTQ community have these rights."