Catholic League

Republicans block child nutrition, Catholics protest gay portrait exhibit

An update on things famous assholes are doing to wreck your life. First – more on the GOP being assholes to poor people:

Republicans block child nutrition bill

WASHINGTON – House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill, which would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier.

House Democrats said the GOP amendment, which would have required background checks for child care workers, was an effort to kill the bill and delayed a final vote on the legislation rather than vote on the amendment.

Because the nutrition bill is identical to legislation passed by the Senate in August, passage would send it to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature. If the bill were amended, it would be sent back to the Senate with little time left in the legislative session.

And while that’s going on, our old friend William Donohue is up to his old anti-gay hatred:

VIA NPR – Smithsonian Under Fire For Gay Portraiture Exhibit
The Smithsonian Institution is under fire for an exhibition called Hide/Seek that is being touted as the “first major exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture.”

There are some very famous artists represented in the show: Andy Warhol, Walt Whitman and Jasper Johns, among many others. But the work that so far has been the most controversial is a provocative video from 1987 by the late artist David Wojnarowicz called A Fire In My Belly.

Martin Sullivan, director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, says the artist created the piece as a response to the “agony and suffering” of his partner who at the time was dying of AIDS. Using “vivid colors, and some fairly grotesque scenes, it’s more a meditation on the fragility of the human flesh,” Sullivan says.

But included in that meditation is a crucifix — a cross bearing the body of Christ — crawling with ants. The image, according to Catholic League President Bill Donohue, is offensive. He calls the video “hate speech” and says that “the Smithsonian would never have their little ants crawling all over an image of Muhammad.”

Donohue says he complained to members of Congress and the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. “My principle is very simple,” he says, “If it’s wrong for the government to take the taxpayers’ money to promote religion, why is it OK to take taxpayers’ money to assault religion?”

We don’t need taxpayer money to assault Donohue’s religion – I’ll do it for free! Leave the arts alone, you noxious windbag of hate.

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Edwards Blogger Resigns

Although John Edwards decided against firing the two bloggers from his campaign that were under attack by notorious homophobe and anti-semite Bill Donohoe, one of them, Amanda Marcotte, has decided to resign anyway.

Days after Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards decided against firing two liberal bloggers with a history of inflammatory writing, one resigned last night with a blast at “right wing shills” for driving her out of the campaign.

Amanda Marcotte, whose writings were assailed as anti-Catholic, wrote yesterday on her blog that the Edwards camp had accepted her resignation. She blamed her most vocal critic, Bill Donohoe, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, writing that he “and his calvacade of right wing shills don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills, and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics,” which Marcotte described as being “anti-theocracy.”

I have to say, if I were receiving mail from Catholics like this, I would resign in order to respond to it as well:

From my mailbag:

I pray that I had some small part to play in your “resigning” from the Edwards campaign you libelous fraud!

—
Catholics are concerned about killing unborn children, you stupid bitch. Chop away if it suits you, but we don’t have to accept that as moral. That’s why it’s called a religion. Look into it.

—
Amanda,
after reading your vile screed against Catholics and the Holy Spirit, I just had to see what you looked like. (I envisioned you eyebrow-less, with no visible pupils, and a blank, dead stare.) I see I was correct about the blank, dead stare, but other than that you’re not too bad. I then thought maybe you were mad at God (and by proxy Catholics) for making you ugly, but now I’m figuring you’re just mad at him for making you a woman.

—
Andy Driggers from Dallas, TX:
Problem with women like you, you just need a good fucking from a real man! Living in Texas myself, I know you haven’t found that real Texan yet. But once your liberal pro feminist ass gets a real good fucking, you might see the light. Until then, enjoy your battery operated toys b/c most real men wouldn’t want to give you the fucking you deserve b/c the shit that would come out of you ears.

—
From Paul Bernard of Scottsdale, AZ:
i like the way you trash talk i don’t particularly want to have sex with you but i would like a blow job.

—
Bud Phelps, another person who opposes “bigotry”:
It’s just too bad your mother didn’t abort you. You are nothing more than a filthy mouth slut. I bet a couple of years in Iraq being raped and beaten daily would help you appreciate America a little. Need a plane ticket ?

I linked above to some choice quotes by “Catholic League” president and anti-semite Bill Donohue, but here’s new one that will make your eyes pop. You can watch the video of him saying it at this link.

DONOHUE: Look, just hold on here. You had your time. Look, the kid’s a phony and here’s why. I dealt with him earlier today on an MSNBC show, and I said we could hypothesize that there’d be a Columbia University ping-pong team made of Asians, and somebody goes out there and says “All gooks go home.” So I — I asked him about my gook joke. And guess what? Andy’s — Andy’s sense of humor just collapsed. He found that offensive. You see what you are? You’re a phony. You’re a typical Ivy League little brat who thinks it’s OK to dump on Catholics, but you don’t like my gook joke. Now, what’s wrong with a gook joke?

Continue ReadingEdwards Blogger Resigns

Melissa gets to keep her job

I mentioned yesterday that there was some question about whether blogger Melissa McEwan, aka Shakespeare’s Sister at the site of the same name, would get to keep her job with the John Edwards campaign after complaints from the nutty rightwing blowhards over things she’s said in the past on her personal blog.

Turns out that she does get to keep her job.

That part is really cool. I wasn’t thrilled with the wishy-washy support that Edwards gave her, though.

I can’t believe that people who are certifiably crazy get to shake the trees and get a response like this from Edwards.

Continue ReadingMelissa gets to keep her job

Catholic League Bill Donohue Quotes

According to transcripts of his speech at Justice Sunday:

The most insane idea I’ve heard in my whole life, of two men getting married, I mean – that’s something that you expect in the asylum, quite frankly.

Donohue on MSNBC:

Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It’s not a secret, OK? And I’m not afraid to say it. That’s why they hate this movie. It’s about Jesus Christ, and it’s about truth. It’s about the messiah. Hollywood likes anal sex.

Donohue on homosexuality:

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.

Read more about what this crazy nutjob has to say.

Fuck you, Bill.

Continue ReadingCatholic League Bill Donohue Quotes

Melissa McEwan is a Goddess

One of my favorite writers is Melissa McEwan, who hosts a group blog called Shakesville – which I link to all the time here, so you should be at least familiar with it if you follow along with what I write at all.

Melissa is one of the most eloquent, intelligent writers I’ve ever run across. She seems to have some of the same ideas I do, but where mine are half-formed notions that cross my mind, she examines them in detail and depth that would never have occurred to me. She is, in a word, brilliant. I’ve thought for ages that she should be writing on a national level – for a major paper or magazine, so when I heard she was hired by the John Edwards campaign I was ecstatic – finally, she’d get her due. I hope every one there realizes how extraordinary she is — please.

However, the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue and some other right-wing attack groups like Michelle Malkin have started publicly criticizing the Edwards campaign for hiring Melissa, based on feminist posts she’s made in the past on her blog, criticizing the Catholic church for being the homophobic, misogynist bastards that they are.

The story has shown up in major papers like Salon and now the New York Times, and there are rumors that the Edwards campaign is considering firing Melissa.

I hope to goodness they don’t succumb to pressure and do that, because that would be the indication to me that Edwards doesn’t have the stones to be my president in 2008.

I’m going to make a list of all the angry things I’ve ever written about the Catholic Church on this blog — and you know I grew-up Catholic, so there are dozens of inflammatory things I’ve written — and post them all in one place, so if there’s ever any question, they’ll know right where to look.

Continue ReadingMelissa McEwan is a Goddess