This is definitely not safe for work, but I had to include it because you just know the Catholic League will freak out over it.
And remember: 30 September is International Blasphemy Day. What will you be doing to outrage the fanatics?
You must listen to this ghastly interview with Bill Donohue on the Irish Catholic scandal. He is calmly taken apart by one of the victims of priestly rape — his views are characterized as “obscene”.
What a nasty little man.
So far today, I have received 39 pieces of personal hate mail of varying degrees of literacy, all because I was rude to a cracker. Four of them have included death threats, a personal one day record. Thirty-four of them have demanded that I be fired. Twenty-five of them have told me to desecrate a copy of the Koran, instead, or in some similar way offend Muslims, because — in a multiplicity of ironic cluelessness — apparently only some religious icons must be protected, and I would only offend Catholics because they are all so nice that none of them would wish me harm. I even have one email that says I should be fired, that the author would like to kill me, and that I only criticize because Catholics are so gentle and kind.
Oh, and of course, the university president’s office has also received lots of mail demanding my immediate ouster (keep in mind, though…Catholics are no threat to anyone at all.) I don’t know how much, but since Donohue published the president’s email address and not mine, I imagine it’s much greater than what I’ve seen. Those lovely Dark Age fanatics at the Catholic League have started a write-in campaign to start up an inquisition.
So no poll-crashing today. Instead, I would appreciate it if you would write a short note to President Robert Bruininks in support (he’s going to hate me for this). I have to ask for a few constraints, though: only do so if you are willing to sign a real name to it — most of the complaint mail I’m getting uses fake names, making it much less persuasive — and that, unlike the religious screeds I’m seeing, you take the time to proofread and send him something that at least looks like a high school graduate wrote it, which will put you way above the level of the hate mail. Be polite and rational, too!
If you really want to impress, send him regular mail at this address:
President Robert H. Bruininks
202 Morrill Hall
100 Church Street S.E.
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Bill Donohue has a loud, braying voice, and he’s already trying to stir up a witch hunt. We need a counter-campaign from the secular community.
Whoa, this one is getting heavy traffic and we need to close it down and reroute. Continue the discussion here, if you must.
The Catholic League is preparing a stake for me. They’re going to go straight for the jugular and threaten my job — notice how they repeat that you can access my post from my faculty page, nicely avoiding the fact that the post they find so offensive is not hosted on any university server, and that they are urging everyone to harass the president of my university and the regents and the Minnesota legislature. Extortionists and witch hunters, that’s all these scumbags are.
Paul Zachary Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, has pledged to desecrate the Eucharist. He is responding to what happened recently at the University of Central Florida when a student walked out of Mass with the Host, holding it hostage for several days. Myers was angry at the Catholic League for criticizing the student. His post can be accessed from his faculty page on the university’s website.
Here is an excerpt of his July 8 post, “It’s a Frackin’ Cracker!”:
“Can anyone out there score me some consecrated communion wafers?” Myers continued by saying, “if any of you would be willing to do what it takes to get me some, or even one, and mail it to me, I’ll show you sacrilege, gladly, and with much fanfare. I won’t be tempted to hold it hostage (no, not even if I have a choice between returning the Eucharist and watching Bill Donohue kick the pope in the balls, which would apparently be a more humane act than desecrating a goddamned cracker), but will instead treat it with profound disrespect and heinous cracker abuse, all photographed and presented here on the web.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:
“The Myers blog can be accessed from the university’s website. The university has a policy statement on this issue which says that the ‘Contents of all electronic pages must be consistent with University of Minnesota policies, local, state and federal laws.’ One of the school’s policies, ‘Code of Conduct,’ says that ‘When dealing with others,’ faculty et al. must be ‘respectful, fair and civil.’ Accordingly, we are contacting the President and the Board of Regents to see what they are going to do about this matter. Because the university is a state institution, we are also contacting the Minnesota legislature.
“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ. We look to those who have oversight responsibility to act quickly and decisively.”
When dealing with others, I must be respectful, fair and civil. Hmmm. Doesn’t seem to say anything about when dealing with crackers.
That last paragraph is marvelously blind. Hey, Bill! I can think of something more vile! How about intentionally desecrating the bodies of young altar boys who respect the position of trust held by Catholic priests? I think that is a lot more vile than mistreating a cracker. In fact, I can think of innumerable vile acts going on all around the world right now, and not all of them even involve Catholicism. It takes the moral vacuum of a purblind ideological bigot like Bill Donohue to think that goring his sacred cow is the worst thing in the world.
Portrait of Bill Donohue
Bill Donohue has come out with his defense of the Catholic Church in the Pennsylvania case (pdf). A couple of things leapt out at me. He often parses the language finely to excuse the problems. For instance, it wasn’t rape.
Most of the alleged victims were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word “rape” means. This is not a defense—it is meant to set the record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the offenders.
Furthermore, Church officials were not following a “playbook” for using terms such as “inappropriate contact”—they were following the lexicon established by the John Jay professors.
Examples of non-rape sexual abuse found in the John Jay report include “touching under the victim’s clothes” (the most common act alleged); “sexual talk”; “shown pornography”; “touch over cleric’s clothes”; “cleric disrobed”; “victim disrobed”; “photos of victims”; “sexual games”; and “hugging and kissing.” These are the kinds of acts recorded in the grand jury report as well, and as bad as they are, they do not constitute “rape.”
It’s OK if there was no penetration! Is this a new Catholic rule? Priests get to get naked with teenagers while watching porn and grope them, and that’s not a problem?
Then he plays games with the numbers.
How many of the 300 were probably guilty? Maybe half. My reasoning? The 2004 report by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice found that 4 percent of priests nationwide had a credible accusation made against them between 1950-2002. That is the figure everyone quotes. But the report also notes that roughly half that number were substantiated. If that is a reliable measure, the 300 figure drops to around 150.
The Pennsylvania reports says that 300 cases of abuse were credibly supported by the evidence — this was a specific analysis of the evidence in Pennsylvania. So Donohue argues that other, national figures say that half of their cases are unsubstantiated…so he evades the specifics and tries to claim that half the Pennsylvania cases are unsubstantiated. You don’t get to do that.
Also, even if he were right (he’s not), it’s 150 child molesters in the Pennsylvania clergy. What number is acceptable? I’m saying zero would be a number to shoot for.
His next excuse: most of the cases can’t be tried, because we’ve past the statute of limitations.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh “Salacious” Shapiro admitted on August 14 that “Almost every instance of child abuse (the grand jury) found was too old to be prosecuted.” He’s right. But he knew that from the get-go, so why did he pursue this dead end?
Because even if the crime can’t be prosecuted, the criminals should be exposed? Because this is an ongoing problem in the Catholic Church, so the church needs to be constantly prodded to make changes? Because the law isn’t always about justice, but justice must be pursued?
And then, most despicably, he doesn’t mince words in one excuse. This isn’t a problem with pedophilia in the church; this is a problem with The Gays.
How do I know that most of the problem is gay-driven? The data are indisputable.
The John Jay study found that 81 percent of the victims were male, 78 percent of whom were postpubescent. Now if 100 percent of the victimizers are male, and most of the victims are postpubescent males, that is a problem called homosexuality. There is no getting around it.
It’s an 80/20 male/female ratio of victims, but priests are 100% male, and priests are mostly going to be in charge of boys and young men. This ratio sounds like a ratio of opportunity.
Did I say he doesn’t play word games with this one excuse? Not quite. You see, Donohue argues that if the victims were post-pubescent, it doesn’t count as pedophilia. I don’t see a difference that matters — they’re all minors under the supposed care of the priest. It’s a vile abnegation of responsibility and decency. But to Bill, it’s just plain The Gay Abomination.
How many were pedophiles? Less than five percent. That is what the John Jay study found. Studies done in subsequent years—I have read them all—report approximately the same ratio. It’s been a homosexual scandal all along.
No, Bill. It’s been a Catholic scandal all along, and you’re not helping.
The last time American Atheists came up with a billboard design, I panned it. The message was easily derailed, and they really needed a better, more professional look. Their new design this year is better, and I think the message is sharper.
But Dave Silverman is going to punch me hard next time I see him, because I think it still needs work. It’s a bit garish and the photos make it too fussy and complicated — under normal conditions, a billboard needs simplicity and clarity, since people are zooming past it at 70mph. What will save it is that it’s going up at the Lincoln Tunnel in New York, where hordes of commuters will creep very slowly past it every day, having time to absorb and critique the message.
It’s also going to be in place in December and over Christmas. Bill Donohue will be apoplectic.
You’re getting better, though, Dave! Don’t hit me too hard.
It’s like Bambi vs. Godzilla, except no one would consider Donohue cute and innocent. In an interview, Hawking talked about gods:
“What could define God [is thinking of God] as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of that God,” Hawking told Sawyer. “They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible.”
When Sawyer asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, Hawking said, “There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works.”
Straightforward and sensible, that’s a scientist talking. Bill Donohue, who is anything but sensible, took exception to all that.
How any rational person could belittle the pivotal role that human life plays in the universe is a wonder, but it is just as silly to say that all religions are marked by the absence of reason. While there are some religions which are devoid of reason, there are others, such as Roman Catholicism, which have long assigned it a special place.
Human life plays a pivotal role in the universe? How? Is the orbit of Mars influenced by human activities, does the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, care in the slightest about a species so remote that they’re still waiting for the glimmerings of light from the fires they used to roast a mammoth? We could wink out of existence right now and the universe would go on, fundamentally unchanged.
I agree that the Catholic church has assigned reason a special place: apologetics. Rationalizing the irrational. Throwing up a smokescreen of scholarship to hide the fact that deep down, they’re worshipping a jealous bronze age patriarchal myth wedded to a howling crazy Eastern mystery religion. But they aren’t any different than any other religion: for instance, the Baptists found universities and pay lip service to logic, too. As Hawking said, science works, and every charlatan in every church dreams of hitching a ride on its record.
It was the Catholic Church that created the first universities, and it was the Catholic Church that played a central role in the Scientific Revolution; these two historical contributions made possible Mr. Hawking’s career.
Reason, in pursuit of truth, has been reiterated by the Church fathers for nearly two millennia. That is why Hawking posits a false conflict: in the annals of the Catholic Church, there is no inherent conflict between science and religion. Quite the contrary: science and religion, in Catholic thought, are complementary properties. Ergo, nothing is gained by alleging a “victory” of science over religion.
The Catholic Church was a religion laced throughout the substrate of Western culture; everyone was Catholic (or alternatively, after the 16th century, some flavor of Protestant), and being anything else was not tenable because the Catholic Church would set you on fire. After centuries of waging war on every alternative that emerged, the Church does not now get to claim, “Oh, yeah, we did that” when a powerful and better way of thinking does manage to rise up out of the foolishness of superstition.
There is an inherent conflict between science and religion. Mr Donohue believes a cracker turns into a slice of god in his mouth; he thinks there is a magic man in the sky who speaks to the Pope; he believes a series of rituals will allow an invisible ghost in his body go to Disneyland in Space after his meat dies. He also believes that one young species of ape on this planet somehow plays a “pivotal role” in affairs on Jupiter. These are irrational, unscientific beliefs — they are anti-science, because he believes in arriving at conclusions because they are what he wishes to be true, or because the dogma has been repeated to him enough times, or because someone claims a supernatural revelation.
Sure, science arose out of Catholicism…in the same sense that plumbing, sanitation systems, and public health policies arose out of sewage.
Bill Donohue has put me on his mailing list, so I get these ‘alerts’ from the Catholic League several times a day. Here’s the latest (the colors are as sent to me: I guess it was very important!)
On Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 8:45 am ET, Catholic League President Bill Donohue will appear on Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends.”
He will discuss the recent attack on Jesus on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
“Attack on Jesus”. Jebus, what a loon.
Well, you know what the only reasonable response to such foolishness is. We must watch the Attack on Jesus, and laugh, even if I didn’t think it was that funny.
You know, I still have a stash of holy crackers. I might just have to escalate some more, just to witness Donohue’s public meltdown, and make a point: nobody, especially anyone who is not Catholic, has to revere Catholic icons, and demanding that we do is only gonna get Jesus hurt some more.
I’ll be traveling tomorrow, so I’ll have to miss the execrable Fox and Friends…but I’m sure the swollen and empurpled spitting Donohue will be on youtube when I get back.
Bill Donohue, the vitriolic cranky grandpa of the Catholic League, has a guest column in the Washington Post. It’s not very interesting — it’s more of Donohue’s tedious yapping about communists, godless libertines (that is, those wicked gays), and how the ACLU is out to smash Judeo-Christian culture — but it ends on a strange note I hear a lot lately.
The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.
Where does this nonsense come from? It’s wishful thinking and weird stereotyping and a kind of desperate hope that, while they may be totally outclassed on the intellectual front, religious conservatives can find solace in mindless rabbity procreation. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have my children propagate by way of the wastefully prolific r strategies. They are human beings, and they shouldn’t aspire to be lagomorphs or rodents or blatellids.
Also, when I recollect the many godless people I have known, most are fairly conventional middle class couples (self-selection, of course — most of the people I know are like me, conventional and middle class); most have a small number of children; most are concerned with raising those kids well. I also know gay atheists, atheists who are unmarried, atheists who are young and getting married, atheists who are in childless relationships by choice, etc. It’s true, I don’t know any atheists who have chosen to breed like rabbits.
Strangely enough, though, I also know a number of ordinary Christian people, and they all seem to have roughly equivalent demographics: middle class, some with kids, some without, some heterosexual, some homosexual, all diverse and following their own paths. I did know a few Mormons who bred like rabbits in Utah (one woman I knew had 15 kids!), but that was also correlated with a weird kind of poverty that was deeply dependent on government support, and wasn’t a model for family life that I was ever tempted to follow.
I suspect that the whole of the difference in reproduction rates that people like Donohue find so essential to propping up their self-esteem has nothing to do with atheism or religion at all, but is more a matter of affluence: people with wealth and education choose to have fewer children and invest more in the few that they have, and also people with more education tend to abandon conservative religious beliefs. That’s the real enemy of religion that Bill needs to rail against: intelligence and material success.
Which leads to my deepest wish for Bill Donohue and all the people like him. May your children and grandchildren be prosperous, healthy, and happy, and may they all succeed in finding wisdom in learning. And if my wish should come true, your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be more like me than like you. Godlessness is cultural, not genetic.
Oh, and in a final ironic twist, I am a fellow of perfectly ordinary conventional morality with a family and three healthy, well-adjusted, and well-educated children. Mr Donohue is divorced and has two children. Despite my radical secularism and cultural nihilism, I’ve managed to outbreed him!
Bill Donohue is at it again. He has pestered YouTube into putting age requirements on viewing videos of host desecration, and now he’s claiming that “we do not object to making fun of Catholics, or for that matter Catholic beliefs and practices, just so long as they are made in good taste”. ORLY? One name puts the lie to Donohue: Webster Cook. Cook wasn’t making fun of Catholics, he wasn’t doing anything in particular, and he certainly wasn’t doing anything I consider tasteless…yet Donohue tried to get him expelled from his university over that.
And now he thinks he gets to dictate what is good taste, and clearly, that now means any mockery of his cracker god.
