Thursday, May 21, 2009

Bigoted Bill Donohue

William Donohue fancies himself as some sort of modern day Martin Luther King, Jr. for Roman Catholics in America.

Donohue is the president of the Catholic League for Civil Rights and Religious Freedom. It postures itself as standing up for Catholics who are, they claim, constantly the victims of religious intolerance. That's fine in theory because religious bigotry and persecution is unacceptable no matter which religion is victimized. But, in fact, the Catholic League, and especially Donohue, are nothing more than shills for the Vatican. In the end, they do not represent, teach, tolerate or defend civil liberties, but instead are mouth pieces for Catholic policy and apologists for every position taken by the church whether religious or social in nature.

In addition, they will spew the most venomous tirades against anyone who expresses even the slightest criticism of the church or Catholicism.

In the past, Donohue has demonstrated that it is he who is the intolerant bigot.

For example...

He recently appeared on Fox News and supported the church's decision back in the 1600s to place Galileo under house arrest for the last 10 years of his life after accusing him of heresy because of his theories on astronomy. He is on record as saying that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity, especially Catholics." Later, he apologized for using the word "controlled." He also labels support groups for persons abused by Catholic clergy as "the enemy."

Among his more intelligent observations are:

"Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style."

"The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done."

Addressing former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) in a press release Donohue said: "Why didn't you just smack the clergyman in the face? After all, most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn't allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?"

"I'm saying if a Catholic votes for Kerry because they support him on abortion rights, that is to cooperate in evil."

"It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. Well, look, there are people in Hollywood, not all of them, but there are some people who are nothing more than harlots. They will do anything for the buck. They wouldn't care. If you asked them to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face."

The latest involves the report released a few days ago in Ireland in which a commission's nine-year investigation provided details of the inhumane abuse and treatment perpetrated by Catholic priests, nuns, monks and some lay people against children housed in Catholic-run institutions for roughly a 60-year period.

Just to prove that Wild Bill and the CL aren't going to back away any time soon from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the church, they issued the following news release yesterday within hours of the release of the commission report:

HYSTERIA OVER IRISH CLERGY ABUSE May 20, 2009

After nine years of investigation, Ireland’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has published its findings. More than 30,000 children, most of them delinquents, passed through one or more of Ireland’s Catholic-run institutions from the 1920s through the 1980s.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the report today:

Reuters is reporting that “Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children,” yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes “being kicked”; neglect includes “inadequate heating”; and emotional abuse includes “lack of attachment and affection.” Not nice, to be sure, but hardly draconian, especially given the time line: fully 82 percent of the incidents took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, “many of them [are] now more than 70 years old.” And quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants.

Regarding sexual abuse, “kissing,” and “non-contact including voyeurism” (e.g., what it labels as “inappropriate sexual talk”) make the grade as constituting sexual abuse. Moreover, one-third of the cases involved “inappropriate fondling and contact.” None of this is defensible, but none of it qualifies as rape. Rape, on the other hand, constituted 12 percent of the cases. As for the charge that “Irish Priests” were responsible, some of the abuse was carried out by lay persons, much of it was done by Brothers, and about 12 percent of the abusers were priests (most of whom were not rapists).

The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower. They think about rape.

By cheapening rape, the report demeans the big victims. But, of course, there is a huge market for such distortions, especially when the accused is the Catholic Church.

Gee, I guess if you follow Billy's logic, a nine-year-old little boy who had his genitals groped for a half-hour by a priest should be grateful that he wasn't buggered (which, I guess, would be rape even to Donohue.)

But, hey asshole Bill, more to the point. "Neglect" also includes depriving children of water and making them sleep outside in the cold. "Being kicked," you abhorrent son-on-of-a-bitch, goes beyond any normal and sane person's definition of corporal punishment.

Finally, he goes out of his way to make the argument that a lot of the abuse was by monks, not priests. Therefore, Dickhead Donohue seems to think there is some kind of moral difference in that. So Billy, are we to understand that a 12-year-old boy forced to perform fellatio on a monk suffers less psychological damage today than if he was forced to perform fellatio on a priest!! I guess the degree of emotional scarring in the eyes of Donohue and the CL is in proportion to the rank of the abuser. What would all that mean if you had to service a Cardinal?

I'm going to go throw up now. And Donohue...go fuck yourself!!



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