Bill Donohue vs. Penn & Teller

Fascism’s best friend Bill Donohue is up to his old tricks again. Donohue is the head of the Catholic Legion of Doom–err, I mean the Catholic League. The man’s tried to censor more art and media than most people consume in a lifetime. Now Donohue’s targeting Penn & Teller for an upcoming episode of their skeptical Showtime series Bullshit, which Donohue informs us criticizing Catholicism.

Donohue also wants you to know that this episode airs on August 27, because it’s important that you know exactly what day it’s on so that you can, I guess, not watch it. And while advertising the show, he’s also calling for Showtime to cancel the show and fire the Penn & Teller. Good luck with that one, Bill.

And of course, Bill trots out his favorite lame-ass argument he always uses:  You wouldn’t pick on Islam because it’s only become acceptable to offend Catholicism. Never mind the fact that this argument has yet to ever prove true. PZ Myers was more than willing to desecrate a Koran right alongside Donohue’s Nabisco-produced god. And really, is there anyone who honestly thinks Penn & Teller would hesitate to offend Islam?

On August 27, Showtime, owned by CBS, will feature a vicious assault on Catholics. In the season finale of Penn & Teller’s show, they “take on the secretive inner world of The Vatican, the holy city of Catholicism and home of the Pope.” How do we know it will defame Catholics? Because on the show’s website, it says so: There is a Showtime Advisory for “Graphic Language, Adult Content.”

If Showtime posted that warning about a show on Islam, Muslims would brace for the worst (and so might CBS). But Muslims need not worry: it’s not all religions that Showtime likes to trash–just Catholicism. Indeed, Showtime is currently working on a show, “Revelation,” that promises to be at least somewhat respectful of Protestantism.

What will the upcoming show be like? On his Twitter page, Penn Jillette brags how he rips a Catholic encyclical on sexuality: “I’m dressed as Darth with a condom c–k light saber.” He even boasts that the show is “hardcore,” admitting that “we attack the Vatican.” From trashing The Last Supper to mocking Catholic prayers, anti-Catholic bigots who feed on this kind of stuff will have a stomach full.

This is not the first time Showtime has featured a vile Penn & Teller show. In 2005, Mother Teresa was called “Mother F—ing Teresa,” and her order of nuns were branded “f—ing c–ts.” The year after, Jillette said on his CBS radio show that Mother Teresa “got her [sexual] kicks watching people suffer and die.”

Just recently, Jillette took after me again in his usual foul way. That doesn’t matter, but what matters greatly is his pathological obsession with bashing Catholics and their religion. There is no legitimate place for this kind of frontal assault on any demographic group.

CBS/Showtime needs to send Penn & Teller a message and let them know that they have crossed the line for the last time. This should be their final season. We know that they’ve been told before to drop the Catholic bashing, and yet they persist. By doing so, Penn & Teller have effectively stuck their middle finger right in the eye of CBS.

You gotta laugh at his classic super-villain, “. . .they have crossed the line for the last time.” Can’t you just picture him pounding a mechanical fist against his desk and startling his evil cat as he says that? And again, really? After 7 seasons of criticizing just about everything under the sun from New Age Medicine to bottled water to 12-step programs, it’s only NOW that they’ve “crossed the line?”

You gotta hand it to Donohue though. The man passionately defended habitual child rapists but a chocolate Jesus sculpture and a  silly TV show mocking that parody Donohue calls a religion is “crossing the line.” Way to prioritize your values there, Bill.

Truly no non-persecuted individual is better at crying persecuation than this guy. He’s even got a book coming where he exercises his Constitutionally protected free speech to talk about how persecuted he and his cult brethren are, Secular Sabotage: How Liberals are Destroying Religion and Culture in America. According to the “review” of the book by the sicophantic L. Brent Bozell:

“Secular Sabotage” is serious business. Donohue insists the United States should be considered unequivocally a Christian country. Eight out of ten Americans consider themselves as such. Indeed – and I didn’t realize this – the United States is the most Christian country, in quantitative terms, in the world. “In fact,” states the author, “the U.S. is more Christian than Israel is Jewish.” And yet if this is so, why can’t we celebrate Christmas? Why can’t our children pray in school? How did we just elect a president who insisted the United States ought not to be considered a Christian nation?

The man uses hyperbole like it’s going out of style. Am I missing the part in that paragraph that explains how Christians are margionalized or persecuted? Donohue really felt it was necessary to write a book arguing over literal semantics. Donohue, you can call this country whatever the fuck you want. You can call it a Zoroastrian nation for all I care. That doesn’t change the facts that the U.S. is full of non-Christians, and that  the U.S. legally cannot, and should not, respect the establishment of religion, any religion. Plus there’s a decent chance this nation will be majority Muslim in 50 years, so do you really want to declare whichever religion can claim the most citizens the official religion of the land, especially considering that the majority religion in this nation is Protestant, not Catholicism.