Bill Donohue: Charlie Hebdo Had It Coming

Jim Burroway

January 8th, 2015

The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue — okay, who am I kidding; Donohue is the entire “league” — has decided to throw his two francs in on yesterday’s bombing:

Bill Donohue

Those who work at this newspaper have a long and disgusting record of going way beyond the mere lampooning of public figures, and this is especially true of their depictions of religious figures. For example, they have shown nuns masturbating and popes wearing condoms. They have also shown Muhammad in pornographic poses.

While some Muslims today object to any depiction of the Prophet, others do not. Moreover, visual representations of him are not proscribed by the Koran. What unites Muslims in their anger against Charlie Hebdo is the vulgar manner in which Muhammad has been portrayed. What they object to is being intentionally insulted over the course of many years. On this aspect, I am in total agreement with them.

Stephane Charbonnier, the paper’s publisher, was killed today in the slaughter. It is too bad that he didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death. In 2012, when asked why he insults Muslims, he said, “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me.” Had he not been so narcissistic, he may still be alive. Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him. …Madison was right when he said, “Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as the abuses of power.”

Donohue threw in the obligatory bone that the violence in Paris “must be unequivocally condemned.” But then he adds, “But neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction.” So let’s do the math: 23 words to condemn the violence, 254 to justify it. That pretty much sums it up.

JCF

January 8th, 2015

“But neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction.”

See, IF ONLY France had locked-up Charbonnier & Co, then they wouldn’t have been out there for the Islamists to gun them down!

Got it. “Freedom is Slavery”, per Big Brother…

Richard Rush

January 8th, 2015

It’s quite revealing, but not really surprising, that Donohue used 254 words to condemn “the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction,” but used only 23 words to condemn the killing. I think the proper characterization of those 23 words would be lip-service. One (or perhaps the only) major difference between rabidly fanatical Christians and rabidly fanatical Muslims is that Western societies manage to keep the Christians on a short leash.

MattNYC

January 8th, 2015

Repugnant cup of primordial ooze…

Priya Lynn

January 8th, 2015

“Donohue threw in the obligatory bone that the violence in Paris “must be unequivocally condemned.””.”.

What a hypocrite. He spent 254 words equivocating on the violence before falsely claiming it must be unequivocally condemned.

Sharon B

January 8th, 2015

Authoritarians all have similar characteristics. Subservience to their tribal authority figures, defense of conventionality and the status quo, and propensity / support of violence to prop up the first two. Donahue is an arch-authoritarian.

MattNYC

January 8th, 2015

Actually, I’d like to apologize for insulting primordial ooze… (and I even used more words than I did in my original insult)

MattNYC

January 8th, 2015

You just KNOW he keeps a Pope outfit (or at least a FABULOUS Cardinal Burke creation) in his closet and–when he’s depressed or feeling ignored–dresses up and parades back and forth in front of a full-length mirror issuing Papal edicts and pretending to excommunicate liberal Catholics…

https://imgur.com/r/TheSimpsons/vbFcwYE

CPT_Doom

January 8th, 2015

Good thing Donohue has never done anything to antagonize or offend anyone else, because I’d hate for someone to use that to justify violence against that putz.

Timothy Kincaid

January 8th, 2015

Richard:

One (or perhaps the only) major difference between rabidly fanatical Christians and rabidly fanatical Muslims is that Western societies manage to keep the Christians on a short leash.

I disagree. I think the distinction is that Western societies allow Christians and their critics a long leash. Reining in fanaticism does not diminish the level of fanaticism; it only creates martyrs.

This is one reason I worry about a recent trend to curtail religious expression and to mock the very idea of religious freedom. Forcing conformity – be it to a faith system or in opposition to a faith system – results in extremism. Open religious expression when paired with freely expressed opposition tends to diminish extremism through popular response.

In other words, allowing freedom to anti-gay activists – paired with public response – has worked amazingly well. It’s the reason why NOM’s mantra for the past two years has been, “we’re not bigots, no really we’re not bigots!!”. They were allowed to freely state their views, and then the public rightly saw them for what they are.

But if we go down the road of silencing those who hold anti-gay views, denying them the right to compete in the market place or to hold jobs, and criminalizing public statements of condemnation (as some countries have and as the US has toyed with), we will have a backlash. And probably violence.

Timothy Kincaid

January 8th, 2015

CPT_Doom…

yes, yes, and yes.

Donohue is the last person who should be “warning” that offense leads to violent response.

Priya Lynn

January 8th, 2015

I’m not familiar with anyone in western society mocking the idea of religious freedom and there has been precious little effort to curtail religious expression that hasn’t been illegally undertaken by government entities.

I have also not heard of any attempts to deny bigots the right to compete in the market place or any attempt by any country to criminalize statements of condemnation. Certainly many countries have rightfully criminalized calls to put gays to death but there has been no effort to pass laws criminalizing the mere condemnation of gays.

I think the difference in extremism between Muslims and Christians has more to do with the relative power of each religion. Islam has great power over countries and citizens and hence extreme interpretations of the Koran are given lots of respect and support. Christianity is relatively unpowerful compared to Islam, christians as a whole are much less tied to and controlled by their religion and hence there’s a lot less authority, power, and tolerance given to extreme interpretations of christianity.

Priya Lynn

January 8th, 2015

If there were a lot of christian theocracies causing christian dogma to dominate and saturate the worldview of citizens of whole countries we’d see a lot more extremist acts by christians.

Priya Lynn

January 8th, 2015

Anti-gay christians in western societies certainly aren’t oppressed to even the slightest degree. They just falsely think their religious freedom should be absolute and in no society is anyone’s freedom absolute – it just can’t be.

Anti-gay christian business owners are not themselves compelled to engage in sexual behavior they find sinful, their objection is that it is sinful for others to engage in gayness. Therefore not having the right to refuse service to gays is a trivial or insubstantial infringement on their religious freedom in that it does not interfere with actual religious beliefs or conduct.

MattNYC

January 8th, 2015

@Priya

Like murdering doctors and other workers in clinics that provide abortions? Including assassinating Dr. Tiller *IN* his church? Or a Christian extremist moron who killed Sikhs (thinking they we Muslims)? I think we have plenty of extremist acts here by “Christians.”

Also, I suspect Timothy was referring to the businesses that are penalized (under public accommodations laws) for refusing services to gay couples. I disagree with Timothy–that’s the Rand Paul argument that businesses should be free to discriminate and the court of public opinion or the hand of Ayn Rand will force them to adapt or die off.

Timothy Kincaid

January 8th, 2015

Matt, you gotta admit, though, that Ayn Rand does have a pretty mean bitch-slap

Mark F.

January 8th, 2015

My argument is that gay people shouldn’t want to do business with anti-gay bigots. Unless maybe it’s some dire emergency where their life is a stake.

Timothy Kincaid

January 8th, 2015

Mark,

Unfortunately, “doing business” does not seem to have been the intent in many of the lawsuits I’ve seen. It’s seems “how dare you, I’ll shut you down” is the primary motivation.

And, in the long run, that isn’t a winner for us. In addition to just being wrong, it alienates those who might otherwise be sympathetic.

In my opinion, it’s overreaching, it’s autocratic and authoritative, and it’s stupid public relations.

Joseph Singer

January 8th, 2015

Donohue doesn’t mention that Christofascists are very bit as bad as Islamofascists. They have no tolerance for anyone other than their own.

Timothy Kincaid

January 8th, 2015

Joseph,

nevertheless, they seem less likely to engage in mass slaughter.

Timothy (TRiG)

January 8th, 2015

They seem less likely to engage in mass slaughter for overtly religious reasons. The US drone programme has killed many many innocent people, and arguably the US populace would be a lot quicker to condemn the drone programme if it was Christians it was killing.

TRiG.

MattNYC

January 8th, 2015

I’ll avoid Godwin’s Law…

How about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Christianity_and_violence

?

Richard Rush

January 8th, 2015

Timothy,

My assertion that “Western societies manage to keep the [rabidly fanatical] Christians on a short leash” was NOT intended to imply limitations on free speech rights or freedom of religious expression. It WAS intended to refer to limitations on imposing their will on others through various government channels, and more general social restraints in areas such as discrimination, violence, and the majority’s opposition to going in the direction of theocracy.

But, despite the “short leash,” and the whining from the fanatics, Christians in the United States enjoy an abundance of special rights, freedoms, privileges, and exemptions that are denied to the rest of us. Here is a concise rundown from Americans United for Separation of Church and State:

https://au.org/church-state/march-2014-church-state/featured/persecution-complex

Ryan

January 8th, 2015

My belief is that Donohue would not have said a word if Charlie Bedo had only mocked Muslims, but they depict Christian iconography just as grotesquely. I do think that it’s rude and unnecessary to depict people’s religious icons in sexually graphic ways, but Donahue couldn’t have picked a worse time to bring that up. And name-calling a dead man is beyond the pale.

Timothy Kincaid

January 9th, 2015

Matt and Timothy,

In response to my comment to Joseph, I think you’re conflating two different ideas: Christofacists and majorly-Christian nations.

Irrespective of how one views military action or history, we can agree that at this point in time Christofacists are much less likely to engage in mass slaughter than are Islamofacists. They simply aren’t comparable.

Timothy Kincaid

January 9th, 2015

Richard,

Sorry. I didn’t intend to imply that you favored limitations on free speech.

As for that abundance of rights – they are mostly IRS paperwork (and I believe he’s mistaken in one point – churches do have to file for non-profit status). Other non-profit groups enjoy tax-exempt status and can (and do) operate schools and hospital and hire lobbyists.

But I agree that religious groups should play by the same rules as non-religious non-profits.

Mark F.

January 9th, 2015

I find the CH newspaper is the sort of thing 13 year old boys might find funny. The Holy Trinity in a 3 way? Ha ha ha! The prophet bare assed naked? Hardy har har! It’s puerile and juvenile. I say this as an atheist.

Of course, I defend absolute freedom of speech. That doesn’t mean I think this newspaper offers much of value.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

Matt said “@Priya
Like murdering doctors and other workers in clinics that provide abortions? Including assassinating Dr. Tiller *IN* his church? Or a Christian extremist moron who killed Sikhs (thinking they we Muslims)? I think we have plenty of extremist acts here by “Christians.”.

Matt, those incidents are few and far between compared to the incidents of muslim extremists committing terrorist acts. I couldn’t agree more with Timothy’s comment “Christofacists are much less likely to engage in mass slaughter than are Islamofacists. They simply aren’t comparable.”

Matt said “Also, I suspect Timothy was referring to the businesses that are penalized (under public accommodations laws) for refusing services to gay couples.

Yes, I was well aware that he was referring to that and that’s why my previous comment addressed that issue. As I said, providing the same goods and services to gays as they do everyone else is no real burden or imposition on anti-gay business owners as they are not required to violate their religious beliefs or compromise their actions by engaging in gay sex themselves. To say anti-discrimination laws that include gays make such business owners hard done by is absurd.

Mark F. said “My argument is that gay people shouldn’t want to do business with anti-gay bigots. Unless maybe it’s some dire emergency where their life is a stake.”.

In a free and just society gays would never have to make that decision. Anti-gay business owners falsely claim freedom of religion means they have the right to discriminate against gays. In all societies individual freedoms inevitably conflict at some point in time and a balance must be struck. If society says its okay for individuals to deny goods and services to gays, that makes it okay for all businesses to deny goods and services to gays. If we were to take that alleged religious freedom to its logical conclusion it would be outrageously burdensome for gays to live, if not impossible. And let’s not pretend that it must always be trivial for gays to find a supportive merchant, recent history with blacks in the States shows that’s not true.

Whereas if we take the right of gays to purchase goods and services to its logical conclusion all christians seeking to do business would have to sell their goods and services to gays just like they do everyone else – no real problem, no real burden on those anti-gay business owners.

Anti-gay chrisitans would have us believe the apropriate balancing of rights is the alleged right to refuse goods and services to gays takes precidence over gays’ legitimate right to purchase goods and services everyone else is entitled to – that’s insane.

The only reason anti-gay business owners seek to discriminate against gays is that at some level they want to coerce gays into refraining from sex they disaprove of. Anti-gay business owners are asserting they have a right to try to make others live according to their religion – obviously not. Now some will argue that these bigots aren’t really trying to coerce gays to live according to their religion because its unlikely being refused service will result in any gay stopping being gay – that’s oviously not the case. If these bigotted business owners were unconcerned about trying to make others live according to their religious dictates there would be no point in refusing service to gays as serving gays doesn’t result in them violating their belief that it is immoral to engage in gay sex themselves. The entire purpose of claiming a false right to discriminate against gays is to establish the superiority of themselves over gays and to give them authority over gays. The entire purpose of claiming a false right to discriminate against gays is to make gays less than equal to anti-gay christians. The only reason anti-gay business owners seek to deny services to gays is that they want to impose their religion on society.

No one has a right to make another live according to their desires. We only have a right to live as we choose as long as we are not hurting others. Anti-gay business owners who wish to deny gays service do so out of a desire to make all of society live the way they do, a desire to stop or reduce gayness in others, not themselves. Gays seeking to buy goods and services at any public accomodation are merely seeking to live their lives just as everyone else has a right to do, they are not seeking to coerce anti-gay business owners to enter a same sex marriage or engage in sex the business owner disapproves of. Gays are not trying to make others live the same way they do. Gays seek to live as equals, anti-gay business owners seek to live as superior to gays, as having authority over gays. That can never stand in a just and free society.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

I would also add that I think its questionable as to whether or not the people who killed abortion doctors were motivated by their christianity. It could easily be that the motivation was solely a disaproval of abortion that has nothing to do with religion.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

And the christian who killed Sihks thinking they were muslim probably didn’t kill them because of religion but rather out of misguided revenge for real or perceived Muslim terrorism.

Sharon B

January 9th, 2015

Russia, Uganda, Ghana, …

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

Sharon, still not even a remote comparison with the slaughter of tens of thousands due to their religion by the Muslim group ISIS

Nathaniel

January 9th, 2015

Why are we arguing whether Christian extremists or Muslim extremists are worse? Extremism is wrong, and blaming its victims for their own fate is wrong. And extremism doesn’t have to be physically violent to be damaging (Ex: the archdiocese in Florida that has declared that any employee that offers the least little support for same-sex marriage in any venue will be fired). Lets call ‘evil’ what is evil and not waste time debating which is lesser (Don’t we ask Christianists to do the same thing when they spend a lot of time worrying about The Gay, but letting ‘lesser’ sins off the hook?).

For reference: http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/01/07/3608824/archbishop-of-miami-threatens-to-fire-employees-who-support-marriage-equality/

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

There’s no christian equivalent of Al Quaida or ISIS.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

“Why are we arguing whether Christian extremists or Muslim extremists are worse?”.

Who is responsible for terrorism and why is critical to fighting it.

MattNYC

January 9th, 2015

Priya,

How about KKK, Aryan Nation? While they may have broader hate, they wrap themselves in the bible to defend/promote their hatreds. RaHoWa = Racial HOLY War, “Holy” meant quite literally.

Their activities are down, although there are many lone-wolf type attacks incited by their various outlets. And they are kept in check largely due to FBI stings/surveillance and NGOs like SPLC, The Anti-Defamation League (when it finds time from its busy schedule of condemning any criticism of Israel/defense of Palestinian rights as “anti-Semitism”), and PFAW’s Right Wing Watch.

Were no one keeping an eye on them, I would be willing to bet we’d see much more domestic terrorism in this country, misusing religion as a basis, just as ISIS and AQ do.

MattNYC

January 9th, 2015

@Nathaniel,

Thanks for the link. Love this statement from Archbishop Wenski:

“Such a redefinition of marriage does nothing to safeguard a child’s right to a mother and father…

Yeah–and neither does NOT granting marriage equality. Waiting for his proposal for a law to strip all single parents (widows, widowers, too) of their children unless they marry within 6 months.

Of course the last part of his statement is extremely WELL served by granting ME:

“to safeguard a child’s right…to be raised in a stable family where his or her development and well-being is served to the greatest extent possible.”

MattNYC

January 9th, 2015

How much more :stable” a family can you have than one with full legal protections and survivor’s benefits.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

Matt, I’d say those groups are motivated more by racism than by christianity. But I’d agree with you, if it weren’t for the efforts to control them there’d be more domestic terrorism in the U.S. from those groups.

They are also still tiny players in terrorism compared to muslim groups like Al Quaida or ISIS, not to mention the dozens of other smaller muslim terrorist groups who probably still have far more members than groups like the KKK or Aryan nation.

Once again, I believe the difference comes down to the relative power and control of religion over the societies they predominate in. Christianity is relatively weak and powerless in christian societies compared to Islam in Islamic societies. As we can see in countries like Russia and Uganda, as the relative power of chrisitianity increases and theology dominates individuals there is more christian extremism. It is well documented that the least religious societies are the socially healthiest.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

I’m done with this discussion.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

Before I go, let me add that I think there’d be a lot more tolerance of the KKK and Aryan nation and terrorism by them in the name of christianity if the U.S. was a christian theocracy.

Priya Lynn

January 9th, 2015

Okay, one more. I’d say groups like the KKK, Aryan nation, and RaHoWa (racial holy war) mainly latch onto christianity in an attempt to give their racist movements a facade of legitimacy.

Now I’m done, lol.

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