On October 10, Catholic League president William Donohue, and the league’s director of communications, Rick Hinshaw, attended a showing of the Terrence McNally play, “Corpus Christi.” Here are Donohue’s remarks:
“The basic message of ‘Corpus Christi’ is this: Jesus was no more divine than the rest of us and the reason why he was crucified was because he approved of homosexuality. That is why he was branded, ‘King of the Queers.’
“The play provides a faithful rendition of the gay stereotype. For example, the script is replete with sexual and scatological comments, as well as behavior that is prototypically gay, e.g., crotch grabbing. There is a clear obsession with the male sex organ, and there are instances where this fixation finds expression in Joshua (the Christ figure) pretending to urinate in front of the audience; he is joined by three of the apostles, complete with piped-in sounds of male urination. No doubt this is considered creative.
“When Joshua turns to the apostles and proclaims them all to be divine, he says to them, ‘F— your mother, F— your father, F— God.’ Joshua, of course, has sex with a man (Philip) at his high school prom. Philip dutifully says to Joshua, ‘I hope you have rubbers.’ He then asks the Jesus figure to perform fellatio.
“The key scene in the play, which occurs near the end, is when Joshua condemns a priest for condemning homosexuality. After hearing the priest recite Biblical teachings on homosexuality, Joshua charges that ‘you have perverted my Father’s words.’ Joshua says he knows Scripture as well as anyone and that no one should take everything that he says literally. The Bible, he says, is about love. Joshua then presides over a ‘wedding’ between James and Bartholomew. Not finished damning the priest, Joshua says ‘I despise you,’ and then proceeds to hit him several times. Not surprisingly, the all white audience responded favorably to the violence.
“One final note: the recitation of the ‘Hail Mary’ and the references to priests, nuns and Boys Town, makes it clear that Catholics are the real target of McNally’s hate speech.”
