Because, of course, as we all know, Santa is the reason for the season. Cue the world’s dumbest man:
A politically correct West Village YMCA has fired Ol’ St. Nick in favor of Frosty.
Kids who once thrilled at sitting on Santa’s lap at the 14th Street McBurney YMCA’s wildly popular annual holiday luncheon will now suffer the icy embrace of a talking snowman and his sidekick, an anonymous penguin, at today’s event.
[...]
“Christmas is not about Jack Frost; it’s not about snowmen,” fumed Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. “We’re not talking about some secular organization that has no religious roots. If they can’t celebrate Christmas, then they should check out. What a bunch of cowards.”
Noted: The conservative Catholic who defends child rapists on a regular basis is upset that kids won’t get to sit on an old stranger’s lap at the Y this year.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a December 3 statement by the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) on the video that was pulled from the Smithsonian last week:
AAMD calls it “extremely regrettable” that the Smithsonian pulled the vile video. Nowhere does it even imply that Christians might rightly be offended by the sight of large ants crawling all over Jesus on the Cross. As such, AAMD has made the case for withdrawing all public support for the arts. If this is what they call art—never mind the pornographic images of gay men—and if this is how they treat Christians, then let them find private sources for their work.
AAMD is also guilty of rank hypocrisy. In 2006, it released a report on sacred objects, maintaining that “art museums should strive to accord equal treatment and respect to all religions in the interpretation of religious works of art.” Does AAMD not regard a crucifix as a “sacred object”? Christians would love to know. Or is their interest in “sacred objects” limited to those found in “indigenous societies,” as their policy seems to indicate?
In a large survey of museum-going households released in April, it was found that they are significantly better educated and affluent than the U.S. population; they are also overwhelmingly white. The time has come, then, to stop funding the leisure of rich white people: all public monies for the arts should cease. Quite frankly, to make the working class pay for the leisure of the rich amounts to class discrimination. In the spirit of social justice, a better case could be made to fund professional wrestling—it’s what the working class enjoy.
First of all, Billiam, crucifixes are really only a sacred symbol to Catholics; Protestants tend to find them morbid. [They are.] Second, Wilhelmina, OF COURSE museum goers are better educated than the rest of the population. That’s why none of your hick followers had brought this to your attention until the exhibit had been up for over a month! But it’s been shown that encouraging and funding a wide range of artistic endeavors is GOOD for the people, as it encourages them to run away from the instinct/temptation, promoted by intellectual lightweights like yourself, to be as stupid as humanly possible from cradle to grave. But of course, that’s kind of a moot point, since the Smithsonian exhibit in question is privately funded, no matter how much you lie and say otherwise.
Note to Smithsonian: Do not, under any circumstances, put Frosty the Snowman anywhere in the Portrait Gallery, because Bill’s little head will explode.
Says more about him than it does about gay artists, I think.
Christopher Knight at the LA Times wrote a piece which pointed out that the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue’s characterization of David Wojnarowicz’s work “Fire In My Belly” [part of the Smithsonian Hide/Seek exhibit of work depicting gay love until it was removed due to the caterwaulering of the Thomas Kinkade Prints As Fine Art set] as “anti-Christian” was completely incorrect. I would add that it’s asinine and reveals that Donohue either never watched the video installation in the first place, or he is stupid. There are no other choices.
“It is a sad commentary on gays that they cannot display gay art that is not homoerotic. But then again, if your sole identity is your sexuality, it makes sense. No matter, don’t ask the public, most of whom are Christians, to fund your pornography.”
Uh. First of all, as Knight points out, the exhibit is privately funded, so stuff it on that point, Donohue.
But secondly, much of the art in the exhibit has nothing to do with homoeroticism, much less anything resembling pornography. Knight posted pictures of quite a few of the pieces, so click over to see them. Here are a couple of shots that, presumably, make Bill Donohue’s bits tingle, due to how homoerotically gay they are:
It’s sort of a slow news day, but there are three interesting pieces sitting here as open tabs on my screen, so I will share them with you so that I may then close them:
1. Damon Root has an interesting analysis at Reason about the state of the Prop 8 case and its chances when it inevitably reaches the Supreme Court. Reason is often an intellectual wasteland, but this is one case where their libertarian perspective and analysis is worthwhile reading, especially as it pertains to Anthony Kennedy:
As for Monday’s proceedings, the outcome looks likely to be favorable to Prop. 8’s opponents. Earlier this week the 9th Circuit announced that Judges Michael Hawkins, Stephen Reinhardt, and N. Randy Smith will hear the appeal. Hawkins and Reinhardt are both widely known as judicial liberals. Indeed, National Review’s Ed Whelan promptly denounced Reinhardt as arguably “the most aggressive liberal judicial activist in the nation.” But perhaps more importantly, as George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr pointed out, “Reinhardt writes like there is no Supreme Court, and as a result his opinions have a remarkable ability to annoy the Justices.” That makes the chances of Perry reaching the Supreme Court even higher.
Assuming that happens, much will depend—as it often does—on the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy. And when it comes to gay rights, Kennedy leans libertarian. In Lawrence v. Texas, for instance, Kennedy declared that “Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct.” Similarly, in his 1996 majority opinion in Romer v. Evans, Kennedy struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment forbidding state officials from taking any action designed to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. As he wrote, “the amendment imposes a special disability upon those persons alone. Homosexuals are forbidden the safeguards that others enjoy or may seek without constraint.” Together, these decisions suggest Kennedy will once again join the Court’s liberal bloc.
2. Re: the Wingnut Freak-out over gay things at the Smithsonian, a writer named Mark Judge has a piece at Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller which is, somehow, worth reading. This is officially the first time I’ve read anything at that site that made any sense. It’s interesting because Judge is, like Bill Donohue, a conservative Catholic, but somehow his panties aren’t all in a wad about the gay stuff! Indeed, he appreciates the art for what it is, and, unlike Bill Donohue, Judge is intelligent enough to understand the controversial installation about AIDS:
“A Fire in My Belly” shows a crucifix being covered by ants. To me — a conservative Catholic and supporter of Bill Donahue and the Catholic League — it made perfect sense. Christ took on our sins, which meant enduring the terrible humiliation that can come with suffering. This doesn’t mean one needs to resort to blasphemy or scatology, as (yawn) avant-garde artists have done in the past; but it also means that showing Christ with sores, or bruises, or even bugs on him can be an expression of faith and solidarity. If David Wojnarowicz was identifying a friend’s suffering with the suffering of Christ, he was just doing what Christians are called to do. Of course, liberals love to identify their suffering with Christ while ignoring the Lord’s call to conversion, of rejecting sin and becoming a new man. And gay art can particularly suffer from watch-me-suffer kitsch and bombast — “Angels in America,” etc.
He’s wrong about Angels in America, and he’s wrong about the value of blasphemy [I would argue that blasphemy is an extremely appropriate subject matter for art], but it’s nice to see a conservative religious person who hasn’t completely checked his brain at the door. The writer actually loved much of the art in the Hide/Seek exhibit, and even talks about which piece of art in the exhibition was his favorite and why.
3. Finally, former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper has a message for troops who would complain about having to serve with people they know are gay: Deal with it.
Happily, the vast majority of service personnel will do what they’re told. Which will not be a hard sell given that most have already gone on record that they will not mourn the inevitable death of DADT.
Of course, if what bugs you as a pro-DADT warrior is the idea (or the reality) of being forced to get naked in a shower or jammed into a tight submarine or fox hole with someone who’s attracted to members of the same sex, the answer for you is simple: Deal with it. That brother or sister is a human being, you are a human being: Work it out. Straight cops across the country have been lathering up with openly gay colleagues for a long time now. Yet, incidents of locker room misconduct are so uncommon as not to register at all in internal affairs data.
Having spent three-and-a-half decades in a paramilitary institution, I can attest to the rarity of a policy, any policy, that is embraced by all. But I can also confirm that most police personnel adhere to even those policies they find onerous. Why? In part, because they’re made to understand the penalty for not following orders. There’s every reason to believe military personnel will likewise comply.
As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who served with many gays throughout his long and distinguished service, pointed out, military personnel who can’t or won’t accept the new policy will have to find another line of work. (Don’t look for a mass exodus.) The same is true for those considering military service in the future.
Bill Donohue is a sick, twisted individual. Herein, the latest proof of that statement, as Bill Donohue explains that a young boy molested by a priest wasn’t “raped,” but merely “rubbed,” that since the abuse started when the victim was thirteen, it wasn’t pedophilia, and that really, if the victim had a problem with it, he should have said something:
On September 28, the Chicago Tribune reported that “former Chicago priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormick sexually abused him [Doe] while he was a grammar school student.” We then learn that the student was really a middle-school student, in the eighth grade, when the abuse began. The abuse reportedly continued for five years. According to the lawsuit, “McCormack inappropriately sexually touched, hugged, rubbed and/or abused Doe.”
It’s time to ask some tough questions. Why did this young man not object earlier? Why did he allow the “abuse” to continue until he was 18? The use of the quotes is deliberate: the charge against the former priest is not rape, but rubbing. While still objectionable, there is a glacial difference between being rubbed and raped.
Here’s what we know. We know that this case, like most of them, was the work of a homosexual, not a pedophile. And like most of the cases of priestly sexual misconduct, there was no rape involved. Inappropriate touching is morally wrong, and the offenders should be punished, but the time has come to object to all those pundits who like to say that the scandal is all about child rape. Most of the cases did not involve children—they were post-pubescent males—and most weren’t raped.
Why does this matter? Because those looking to sue the Catholic Church for being inappropriately rubbed decades ago are not exactly the poster boys for the victims of child rape. And because those who hate the Church continue to use the term child rape as a way of discrediting the Church. They lie about this being a pedophilia problem and they lie about the nature of the misconduct. That’s reason enough to call them on it.
Bill Donohue is a pig who defends rape. And yes, Bill, that is rape. My god, what kind of moron doesn’t understand that inappropriately touching a child in any way is child rape?! I understand why Bill Donohue is completely devoid of morality, though; he was raised under the abusive thumb of the Catholic Church, where child rape is so prevalent as to be mundane.
What can be said about this week that doesn’t involve either Christine O’Donnell or Lady Gaga? Very little, so let’s not try.
Lady Gaga went to the VMAs with soldiers discharged under DADT; then she carried it further by calling on her “Little Monsters” to call their Senators, so they did; then she taught everybody a civics lesson, explaining to an uninformed American public what a “filibuster” is; and then she talked directly to the Senate via a recorded video, and encouraged people to continue calling their Senators.
Music this week comes from Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, for two reasons: A. Sharon is awesome. If you like neo-soul/blues/whatever, and ladies with big voices, you will like Sharon. B. I’m going to see her live this weekend, and I’m giddy with anticipation. The songs we’ll start with are “How Long Do I Have To Wait For You?” and “Tell Me.” The first one has shown up in a Late Friday Random Ten before, and I try not to repeat things, but I don’t care, because I make the rules. So let’s listen to these two amazing songs, and then we’ll hit shuffle on the second one and see what the iTunes [which crashed this week, which caused me to have about three panic attacks as I rebuilt the library] does. More videos after the jump.
PZ Myers reposted a long, long list of quotes from Adolf Hitler, who Bill Donohue stupidly thinks was an atheist. Here are a couple of them, and then go over to Pharyngula for the rest:
“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”
[Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed.”
[Adolf Hitler, speech in Munich on April 12, 1922, countering a political opponent, Count Lerchenfeld, who opposed antisemitism on his personal Christian feelings. Published in "My New Order", quoted in Freethought Today April 1990]
“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”
[Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941]
Sounds like a major league atheist to me.
Yeah. That’s it.
Seriously, PZ’s list is HUGE. Hitler was no atheist. He was a committed man of Catholic Christian faith.
Um, Bill, weren’t there a hell of a lot of Catholics complicit in Hitlers crimes? And isn’t it stretching the truth beyond recognition to call Hitler an “atheist”?
The pope cited Hitler today, asking everyone to “reflect on the sobering lessons of atheist extremism of the 20th century.” Immediately, the British Humanist Association got its back up, accusing the pope of “a terrible libel against those who do not believe in God.”
The pope did not go far enough. Radical atheists like the British Humanist Association should apologize for Hitler. But they should not stop there. They also need to issue an apology for the 67 million innocent men, women and children murdered under Stalin, and the 77 million innocent Chinese killed by Mao. Hitler, Stalin and Mao were all driven by a radical atheism, a militant and fundamentally dogmatic brand of secular extremism. It was this anti-religious impulse that allowed them to become mass murderers. By contrast, a grand total of 1,394 were killed during the 250 years of the Inquisition, most all of whom were murdered by secular authorities.
Why should atheists today apologize for the crimes of others? At one level, it makes no sense: apologies should only be given by the guilty. But on the other hand, since the fanatically anti-Catholic secularists in Britain, and elsewhere, demand that the pope—who is entirely innocent of any misconduct—apologize for the sins of others, let the atheists take some of their own medicine and start apologizing for all the crimes committed in their name. It might prove alembic.
Honestly, no sane person would claim that it was the “atheism” of Hitler, Stalin and Mao that drove them to their crimes against humanity.
Sounds to me like somebody’s pissed off that his Church has such a soiled name around the world these days, for so many reasons. A lot of it is the child rape problem, which isn’t going to go away.
Oh well, this has been another edition of Words With Bill Donohue.
UPDATE: I wasn’t going to go to the trouble of fact checking this crap, but Joe Jervis did, so here you go:
As Donohue knows, Hitler was in fact a Catholic JUST LIKE BILL DONOHUE and sang in the choir at the Benedictine monastery he attended as a child.
Hitler publicly denounced atheism as inherently communist. “For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant.”
The Catholic Hitler also denounced secular education. “Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.”
Joe also adds this picture of Bill Donohue’s Pope, for everybody’s viewing:
According to Bill Donohue, gay sex is not abusive if it happens between a priest and an altar boy who’s almost a man anyway:
If a 17-year old guy has sex with an older guy for twenty years, and continues to have sex with him at the age of 38—while he is married with children—is there anyone who would believe his claim that he was sexually abused?
Bill says no. BUT! To clarify: Bill Donohue is completely not gay!
Let me be very clear about this: if some guy tried to kiss me when I was 17, I would have flattened him. I most certainly would not go on a retreat with the so-called abuser
Gotcha.
unless, of course, I liked it.
In which case, Bill Donohue woulda said “BRING IT, Father Bonerpants.” I can’t outdo the self-parody here, so I’m out.
From what I can tell, we’re dealing with a story of a Chilean priest who had a twenty year long affair with a guy, which started when the guy was 17 and under the priest’s authority. Donohue also (accidentally, of course) omits the fact that there are three other accusers for this priest.
So, to sum up, Bill Donohue is basically saying that the teenage boy probably liked it, because if Bill Donohue were gay, which he is super not, it would have been super hot, so quit yer cryin’.
Angry butt-rape apologist Bill Donohue wants you to know that a former abuse victim totally loved it and kept coming back for more so this means that the whole priesty-popey-rapey thing is totally overblown.
Q.E.D. Case closed. In your face. Suck it.
Heh. “Priesty-Popey-Rapey.” Filing that one way for later use.
The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is similar, in some respects, to last year’ financial meltdown. In both cases, powerful, arrogant abusers were shielded from the consequences of their predatory behavior, while the victims were offered pain, platitudes and empty promises.
Like the gargantuan firms in lower Manhattan, the Vatican believes it is too big to fail and demands a bailout from the faithful. However, the overpaid bankers and the clergy banking on infinite forgiveness from their flock are in grave denial. Major religions come and go — whether it is worshipping the unbridled corporate casino or a church that does not protect its most vulnerable members.
Alarmingly, new rules and systematic restructuring to prevent future catastrophes from occurring have still not come to fruition. It is breathtaking to watch these behemoths act so contemptuous of the law and reckless in their responsibility to those that they were created to help.
The United States is wealthy enough, for the time being, to withstand the fiscal fiasco. However, the same tax code and lax regulations are still in place that encourage irrational marketplace speculation. Unless substantive changes are made, history is almost certain to repeat itself. And, if it does, the public will be in no mood to play Santa Claus to these very naughty children.
Likewise, the Catholic Church and its surrogates believe that spin and slander can distract the masses from impious priests defiling children. I suspect the Church may be correct and barely weather the scandal — at least temporarily. They will blame gays, play the victim card and pretend that significant changes have been made to stop future child abuse.
It doesn’t take a genius, however, to figure out that the grotesque scandals will continue. As soon as the current crisis subsides, a new crop of equally shocking sins will emerge. The tragic fact remains that the rules for priesthood encourage sexually dysfunctional and emotionally stunted human beings to apply at disproportionate rates.
There are certainly many wonderful priests who feel called to serve the church. These individuals should be commended for their heroic work, such as feeding the hungry, helping the poor and providing guidance for young people. But one can’t deny that the institution is uniquely set up as a magnet for unhealthy men who view the priesthood as an escape hatch. The collar provides an effective way for sexual reprobates to command respect from society.
What better cover than celibacy for a child molester or tormented homosexual than joining the Catholic clergy? It ensures the adulation of friends and relatives who no longer ask pesky questions about sexuality or relationships. By ending the celibacy stricture, the church would no longer serve as an oasis from those hiding from their inner-demons. Quite simply, the question, “who are you dating” would once again be asked, thus ending a sanctuary for sick minds.
Exacerbating matters is the “good ole boys” club that is the priesthood. This insular world would immediately end if the Vatican allowed female priests and heterosexual priests to marry. It would also behoove Rome to allow openly gay priests, who would end the incentive of using the vocation as a desperate, last ditch measure to suppress homosexuality. Until these concrete steps are taken, no one should expect different results.
Still, the pit bulls and the bullheaded living in their bubble continue to defend the Vatican’ bumbling response. For example, a New York Times ad by the Catholic League criticized that newspaper claiming, “The Times continues to editorialize about the “pedophilia crisis”, when all along it has been a homosexual crisis.”
But most people aren’t buying this smear campaign because the fondling and fiddling is occurring in church confessional booths — not predominantly gay neighborhoods, community centers or churches.
What amazes me the most is the incompetent efforts by the Vatican to mitigate the fallout. They have an exorcist blaming the devil, a priest comparing the church’ predicament to the historic plight of Jews and another holy man confusing “gossip” with playing “grab ass” with minors.
Another excuse is that these cases are old news from another era. But just this week we learned of a priest in India who is still working after allegedly sexually assaulting a 14-year old girl a few years ago in Minnesota.
A friend of mine e-mailed this week saying his traditionalist father was heartbroken after a neighborhood Catholic school had shut down. He said parents were afraid to send their children for matriculation because they feared priestly ejaculation. What kind of future does such a church hold?
The Vatican pretends to be serious about ending the crisis. But, how can this be if there are 400,000 priests and only 10 people working on the avalanche of abuse cases?
Whether it’ groping by priests or greed on Wall Street — institutions that don’t change in the face of crisis and public indignation will eventually become irrelevant. If history has shown one truism, it is that nothing is too big to fail.
(Weekly Column)
