Tales From BushWorld, William Donohue Edition

by tristero

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, claims he speaks for Catholics, but he only speaks for himself and his fellow lunatics. Real Catholics should be ashamed he pretends to represent them.

In the PZ Affair, which gets more absurd by the day, Donohue has issued another utterly unhinged and dishonest communique. I’d like to remind you that unlike PZ, the man behind this press release has regular access to major national media. That should give you some sense of how genuinely weird our public life has become Check out this deliberately false statement, voiced like a two-bit gangster to his pals:

[PZ Myers] better be careful what he says, because if I get any death threats, it won’t be hard to connect the dots.]

But hold on. What Donohue’s actually saying is that in fact, he has received NO death threats. On the contrary, PZ Myers has received four. Donohue fails to mention that.

But Donohue’s bull dung on this is what one has comes to expect from him, merely the usual lying by omission and projection. Next, tho, we go into total woo-woo:

[Thomas E. Foley, chairman of Virginia’s First Congressional District Republican Committee] has asked the top GOP brass to provide additional security while in the Twin Cities so that Catholics can worship without fear of violence. Given the vitriol we have experienced for simply exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, we support Foley’s request.

1. No Catholic has been specifically threatened with violence over this incident. But PZ Myers has.

2. It is Dr. Myers’ freedom of speech that has been specifically threatened, not Donohue’s. By posting the email of Professor Myers’ university president, Donohue has targeted Dr. Myers’ job.

3. Earlier in the statement, Donohue calls Minneapolis “Myers’ backyard.” PZ Myers lives 150 miles away from Minneapolis, the site of the upcoming Republican convention.

4. Donohue explicitly, and outrageously, links Dr. Myers to violence, suggesting PZ would be responsible for death threats Donohue might receive and that Catholics 150 miles away from his home are in danger from Professor Myers. This is an utterly insane, disgraceful charge that is as infuriating as it is ludicrous.

Forgive me right now, for not taking the appropriately snarky tone for this farce. I just find it sickening that a thug as dishonest and loopy as Donohue has regular media access when so many more important, charismatic and sober commentators don’t (for Catholics, how about Ken Miller?) But probably tomorrow, I’ll be laughing about it. Assuming some nutjob claiming to defend the honor of the Body of Christ doesn’t go off the deep end.

Y’know, the truth is that there really is anti-Catholic discrimination in this country. I’ve seen it, and it’s really ugly (think psychopastor Hagee for one). That Donohue chooses to gin up false incidents into raging hysteria trivializes the genuine ones; it shows that Donohue either isn’t serious about fighting real bigotry or is too cowardly to go after Catholicism’s real opponents. It is he who should be fired, not PZ Myers, who via his teaching, research, and blog posts (particularly those on creationists and hard science), genuinely contributes much that is good to the public discourse.