Is there a bigger and more ridiculous blowhard than Bill Donohue of the Catholic League? I’d be hard pressed to name one. He’s all verklempt over an organized boycott of an organization that funds anti-gay groups and he was distributing some major league manure on a radio show with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.
Yesterday, Bill Donohue joined Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, on his radio program Washington Watch. “Radical proponents of gay marriage have taken the culture war to the marketplace,” Donohue said in a statement on the CGBG controversy, charging them with declaring “economic war against any organization that embraces the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage.” He told activists: “If these extremists get their way, they will silence the Christian voice. Which is why the bullies must be defeated.”
See, when Donohue and Perkins call for boycotts of companies, that’s just doing their righteous work. If their opponents do the same thing, that’s a terrible infringement on the free market of ideas by a bunch of bullies. Worse yet, he claims his side never does such things:
During his interview with Perkins, Donohue denied that Religious Right organizations like the Catholic League or the Family Research Council lead similar pressure campaigns, saying “our side doesn’t do likewise,” continuing, “I don’t want people to say, ‘oh well you know Catholics and Protestants and Christians in general when we don’t get our way we try to do the same thing through retaliation,’ we do not.” He asserted, “we’re not asking companies, corporations to take sides in the culture war…we’re not asking for reprisal against those people with whom we disagree, we just leave the marketplace to itself.”
This from the guy who started a campaign to get PZ fired from his job for putting a nail through a cracker. Oh, and did you know that gay people are just like the white government in South Africa?
If people don’t realize what we’re up against here, they may be a minority but you know it was a minority of people in South Africa who took away the rights of Black people. You can be a well-organized minority in this country here such as those on the left, gay and straight alike, and have a tremendous amount of influence if you have this lust and appetite for power.
Yes, of course. In the analogy between gay people and South Africa, the gay people are the oppressors, not the oppressed. Imagine how insane one has to be to believe such a thing.
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Rambling T. Wreck
August 31, 2011 at 10:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Still waiting to find out how marriage equality has destroyed my own marriage . . .
daveau
August 31, 2011 at 10:39 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You don’t have to be insane, just intellectually dishonest. You can make a good living at intellectual dishonesty.
Bronze Dog
August 31, 2011 at 10:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Traditional marriage: One man, some wives, several concubines, all gathered in the interest of economic and political goals as well as producing heirs to inherit those economic and political benefits.
Real, modern marriage: People who want to spend their lives together because they love each other.
zyxek
August 31, 2011 at 10:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I hate this “they’re the bullies” meme in the anti-gay movement. It’s such a transparent spin on the fact that people like Perkins oppose LGBT-specific bullying rules in schools. They don’t care that some kids will commit suicide, or suffer severe anxiety of depression, or have traumatic memories of middle and high school: it’s almost as if they want that to happen.
But no, it’s the poor, hateful bigots of the world who are being bullied. I wonder how many people have killed themselves for being told ceaselessly that their 2,500 year-old holy book is wrong about human sexuality.
Wes
August 31, 2011 at 10:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He has to be knowingly and deliberately lying here. He has done precisely the same thing himself in the past. It says so on his own website:
So a farcical parody is enough to boycott a whole company, but gays are “bullies” if they boycott a company that funds groups that are actively trying to block their marriage rights?
Donahue is a liar and a hypocrite.
emaa
August 31, 2011 at 10:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…we’re not asking for reprisal against those people with whom we disagree….
Bwahaha, no we just daintily cross them off the crosshairs list once they’re assassinated.
andre3
August 31, 2011 at 11:04 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Googled Catholic League boycott: Miller Beer, Wal-Mart, “The Golden Compass” movie, Showtime, and some hotel for making a chocolate Jesus.
And that was just the first page of Google. Most were press releases from their own website.
fastlane
August 31, 2011 at 11:18 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think it might be time to roll out your updated list of companies that these good catlick bigots need to boycott again, Ed.
I’d highly recommend linking to Billy D’s comments here too, just for laughs!
Chiroptera
August 31, 2011 at 11:27 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wes at 10:49:
Wes, the Catholic League engages in boycotts against companies and organizations that make fun of or show a lack of respect for Catholicism.
These particular gays are boycotting companies for sponsoring oranizations who advocate discrimination and the abuse of basic human rights.
Surely you can see the difference?
abb3w
August 31, 2011 at 11:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Right Wing Watch mentions “Wal-Mart, Disney, Target, Showtime, Fox, Calvin Klein, and NordicTrack, as well as the Jewish Museum, Madonna, and the entire city of San Francisco” in an article about the Miller beer boycott.
How does one submit this to PolitiFact to get an official “Pants On Fire” status?
John Pieret
August 31, 2011 at 11:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But, you see, as Donohue says:
We only trigger boycotts when we’ve been grossly offended.
So, there’s all the difference in the world between them and homosexuals, since everyone knows gays can’t be grossly offended
… or sumptin …
MikeMa
August 31, 2011 at 11:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bill Donohue, making religion look even more ignorant, hateful and hypocritical since 1993. Aren’t these religious cults having some difficulty keeping their membership numbers up? This kind of rank bigotry is not going to help. Way to go Bill! Keep up the good work.
raven
August 31, 2011 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Most of them are slowly dying.
It’s hard to find information on the RCC’s numbers. They are very secretive.
They used to offer an option that was very involved to get your name off their membership roles. They no longer offer it, because too many people were jumping through the hoops.
AFAWK, the kiddie sex scandals and the present Pope’s medieval mentality has cost them a lot of church goers and loot from the faithful but how much is unknown.
The RCC mostly counts baptisms so their official numbers will always be going up. That means my relative who is a mid level officer in a Protestant church is still counted as a Catholic.
ehmm
August 31, 2011 at 12:07 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@MikeMa – Indeed. Donahue is the kind of spokesman you *want* your opponents to have.
This guy is so stupid I can barely keep up with it. I think he basically formulates his arguments to work in the context of the 2 person panel discussion between commercials. “Equal rights for Homosexuals = Apartheid” is a sound bite that can’t be properly rebutted with another sound bite except “Fuck you. You reason like a child.” Come up with something so ridiculous that your opponent trips and can’t respond properly and you win by TKO.
Oh, and at the moment I can’t think of a radio program with a bigger scumbag quotient than one with Bill Donohue & Tony Perkins.
MikeMa
August 31, 2011 at 12:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ehmm,
Bryan Fischer and almost anyone else comes close.
bahrfeldt
August 31, 2011 at 12:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
IIRC, Mr. Donahue, early on, called for a boycott of the movie “Showgirls”. No surprise, one would expect him to declare mock alarm regarding naked women. But, on tv, his only complaint was that during a verbal altercation, one of the characters retorted “Sure, and I’m the Virgin Mary”. Blasphemy!
JoeBuddha
August 31, 2011 at 12:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Seems to me lying is a sin. Why isn’t he upset at his own rhetoric?
John Hinkle
August 31, 2011 at 1:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
He says that like it’s a bad thing.
That’s better.
MollyNYC
August 31, 2011 at 4:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
You can make a good living at intellectual dishonesty. (daveau)
Finally, someone who understands Donahue.
The reason everything Donahue complains about is so batsh|t isn’t that he’s batsh|t. He’s actually quite rational in a morally bankrupt sort of way.
Donahue’s job is to scare his rich, elderly donors into thinking that Catholicism is under ongoing external attack (and that he will fight it if they give him the money to do so [1]).
Unfortunately, he can’t use the most reliable cause of the RNC’s dwindling influence–the many ways the Church is shooting itself in the foot–or he’ll just sound like he himself is attacking it. He’s got to look for other things. And he has to come up with these attacks on a regular basis, or former donors will think giving him money is wasted, and possible future donors will think anti-Catholicism isn’t a big threat [2].
So most months, he’s gotta just grab at whatever’s out there. Doesn’t have to be consistent, just has to be something he can sell to his fundraising list. Hey, a job’s a job.
________________
[1] Also, Jesus will like them better if they give money to Donahue. Whatever they give to Donahue will be the equivalent of slipping a C-note to the bouncer outside the Pearly Gates.
[2] Ironically, there is a certain amount of genuine anti-Catholicism around; but it tends to come from the religious Right (like you might find in the Family Research Council), and Donahue’s a firm believer in IOKIYAR.
MikeMa
August 31, 2011 at 5:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Giving monet to Bill Donohue is apparently a big deal because, according to Wiki, he pulled in $400k last year. Not bad for pimping pedos, hating gays and raising HIV rates in Africa.
democommie
August 31, 2011 at 9:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
MikeMa:
“Giving monet to Bill Donohue is apparently a big deal because, according to Wiki, he pulled in $400k last year. Not bad for pimping pedos, hating gays and raising HIV rates in Africa.”
I would love to see that lying fuckbags 1040 and find out if he’s giving Motherfucker Church their cut.
MikeMa
August 31, 2011 at 10:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@democommie,
This is the wiki quote on the Catholic League & Donohue’s earnings and holdings:
No mention of payments to the mothership.
Dr X
September 1, 2011 at 8:42 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@MikeMa:
From what I could tell, it was just salaries and operating expenses. It seems they’re accumulating a great deal of money.
Boycott | Epsilon Clue
August 31, 2011 at 2:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
[...] (HT Ed Brayton.) [...]
form 8917
September 26, 2011 at 4:06 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
form 8917…
[...]Bill Donohue’s Latest Bit of Buffoonery | Dispatches from the Culture Wars[...]…