Bill Donohue

Bill Donohue

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“”Bill: I’m sorry you’re a pathetic, sad, bigoted, homophobic little man whose contribution to the world has been making it more unloving and less charitable.

—Hemant Mehta

William (Bill) A. Donohue (1947–) is the rabid, hate-filled president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. His rhetoric lies somewhere between Pat Robertson and Fred Phelps on the insanity-and-homophobia scale.

He also has said: "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity."

Bill Donohue is divorced. Presumably his direct line to God was instantly disconnected gave him a Get Out of Sin Free card where Matthew 19 is concerned.

His salary for spewing bile has been in the $300,000 to $475,000 range. The League has about $35 million in assets but probably a relatively small membership.

Child rape

Donohue opposed a bill that would have required clergy to report suspected child abuse. Instead, he wanted to see consensual sex between teenagers included as child abuse.^{[citation needed]} If you want to know his extremely logical^{Do You Believe That?} stance on child abuse, he attacked the New York Times for running a story about Pope Benedict's refusal to defrock sexual abusers. Donohue claimed that there is no "paedophilia crisis" in the Roman Catholic Church but that there are too many gay people in the priesthood, justifying this claim by saying that since most of the victims were male and "post-pubescent", the abusers were not pedophiles but instead were gay predators. He also tried to defend the Church using possibly the worst ever example of the not as bad as fallacy, claiming in 2018 that:

Most of the alleged victims were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word "rape" means. This is not a defense—it is meant to set the record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the offenders.

Donohue also played a part in scuppering a New York State bill that would have made it easier for victims of Catholic child abuse to get compensation. Donohue stated:

The bill was sold as justice for the victims of sexual abuse, when, in fact, it was a sham, [It was] a vindictive bill pushed by lawyers and activists out to rape the Catholic Church.

Church lobbying and Donohue's claim of victory, in reality, demonstrate the Church's guilt. It's a tacit admission that the child abuse problem and its potential cost to the Church are bigger than we know. It also shows despite promises to fix things, Pope Francis has no plans for justice or compensation for victims. PZ Myers states:

Oh, no. Really? You just called the prosecution of child rape an act of rape? It’s kind of clear that Donohue has no understanding of what constitutes a violent sexual crime. (...) Let’s not forget that Bill Donohue is just the easily visible painful boil on the face of a church that continues to protect child rapists.

Child deaths

Remains of babies and toddlers who died from neglect in an Irish mother and baby home run by nuns were found dumped in what appears to have been a sewerage system (somehow Catholics do not see this as gravely sinful). Donohue, who refuses to acknowledge that it happened, wrote:

It was a lie in 2014 and it is a lie in 2017. The hoax is now back again, and an obliging media are running with the story as if it were true. Any objective and independent reporter would be able to report what I am about to say, but, unfortunately, there are too many lazy and incompetent reporters prepared to swallow the latest moonshine about the Catholic Church. If there was a Pulitzer for fake news, the competition would be fierce. Mass graves. Sexually assaulted women. Children stolen. It is all a lie.

By contrast, Billy Connelly, councillor for the area where the remains were found, stated:

I can't see how he could make a statement like this. The evidence on what they found is pretty well solid. What's in that mass grave and talking to local people is unquestionable. That's the first time I have heard anyone come up with a conspiracy to this. The facts are there and it's very insulting.

Charlie Hebdo

In January, 2015, after an attack by Islamic extremists on the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo resulted in the deaths of 12 people, Bill Donohue engaged in his usual amounts of insanity and blamed the attack on the victims' supposed "provocation" of Muslims. In an article he published on the Catholic League's website, he engaged in character assassination of Charlie Hebdo's editors, effectively justifying the attack that killed them. So while Donohue condemned the attack itself, he essentially said that the Hebdo employees had it coming.

Church discrimination

Donohue not only believes that Catholic businesses should be allowed to discriminate against gay and lesbian employees but that such discrimination is deserved because the employees are purposely violating their contracts by working while gay. He also doesn't think that firing people for being in a same-sex marriage counts as discrimination, or that gay people in Arizona have ever been discriminated against.

See also

• Rick Santorum

External links

• Just a little negative rant
• Bill Donohue: Blasphemy Rights Day is Anti-Catholic (and Richard Dawkins is Like a KKK Wizard)