FTA: If you like having the words “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, you can thank the Knights of Columbus. They launched a successful lobbying campaign in the 1950s that led to this change, in part by simply adding the words themselves at every turn. Those of us who can’t say those words in good conscience are unworthy of patriotism, in the Knights’ view.

Since the 1970s, the Knights of Columbus have been at the forefront of political efforts to re-criminalize abortion. Their supreme knight insisted in the last presidential election that good Catholics cannot vote for anyone who supports a woman’s right to choose, regardless of the candidate’s position on any other issue. From 2005 to 2012 the organization spent nearly $16 million battling against the right to same-sex marriage.