Without wading into the debate on Harrison Butker’s comments toward and about women (there are good arguments on both sides), I want to bring attention to a section of Butker’s speech that should be garnering more criticism: his assertion that “Congress just passed a bill where stating something as basic as the biblical teaching of who killed Jesus could land you in jail.” He is undoubtedly referring to the Jews.

I am not someone qualified to comment on Catholic theology, but as an outsider, I find Haley’s account persuasive (though I am certainly inclined to credit it by fact of my Jewishness):

Nostra Aetate did in 1965 and as Pope Benedict XVI did years later — [supports that] “Temple aristocracy,” not the Jews as a collective people, is to blame for Jesus’s crucifixion. (And, really, the most Catholic answer to the question of who killed Jesus is, “I did.”) The categorical blame of Jews for Jesus’s death caused centuries of Christian antisemitism. Thank God that Church leaders clarified that such despicable teaching justifies theological persecution and is therefore unacceptable.

So it seems Butker gets the theology wrong. Or maybe he’s right. I don’t know — it doesn’t matter. What I do know is that no one is going to jail for claiming that the Jews killed Jesus. If Butker is referring to the proposed Antisemitism Awareness Act, he ought to be aware that all the bill does is list factors that the Department of Education should use in determining if a certain action on campus was antisemitic. That’s it. There is no provision that sends anyone to jail for claiming that the Jews killed Jesus or for issuing any statement at all, no matter how overtly antisemitic.

Butker is either misinformed or lying. I’m happy to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the former. But even so, being misinformed enough to tell a class of Catholic graduates that they are going to go to jail for perceived antisemitism deriving from their theological beliefs can only have the effect of making Jews look bad. Perhaps his comments on gender roles can produce honest disagreement, but here Butker ought to be universally condemned. Especially in today’s world, there is no place for falsely claiming that stating a belief, true or false, about the Jews will land one in jail.