Catholic League president Bill Donohue discussed the league’s reaction to the upcoming movie, “The Golden Compass”:

“New Line Cinema and Scholastic Entertainment have paired to produce ‘The Golden Compass,’ a children’s fantasy that is based on the first book of a trilogy by militant English atheist Philip Pullman. The trilogy, His Dark Materials, was written to promote atheism and denigrate Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism. The target audience is children and adolescents. Each book becomes progressively more aggressive in its denigration of Christianity and promotion of atheism: The Subtle Knife is more provocative than The Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass is the most in-your-face assault on Christian sensibilities of the three volumes.

“Atheism for kids. That is what Philip Pullman sells. It is his hope that ‘The Golden Compass,’ which stars Nicole Kidman and opens December 7, will entice parents to buy his trilogy as a Christmas gift. It is our hope that the film fails to meet box office expectations and that his books attract few buyers. We are doing much more than hoping—we are conducting a nationwide two-month protest of Pullman’s work and the film. To that end, we have prepared a booklet, ‘The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked,’that tears the mask off the movie.

“It is not our position that the movie will strike Christian parents as troubling. Then why the protest? Even though the film is based on the least offensive of the three books, and even though it is clear that the producers are watering down the most despicable elements—so as to make money and not anger Christians—the fact remains that the movie is bait for the books. To be specific, if unsuspecting Christian parents take their children to see the movie, they may very well find it engaging and then buy Pullman’s books for Christmas. That’s the problem.

“We are fighting a deceitful stealth campaign on the part of the film’s producers. Our goal is to educate Christians so that they know exactly what the film’s pernicious agenda really is.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on yesterday’s episode of the ABC show, “The View”:

“Whoopi Goldberg began by saying that because of Rudy Giuliani’s position on abortion, St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke ‘cannot give him Communion.’ To our knowledge, Giuliani has never been refused Communion by any priest (though Burke could deny him if he wanted to). Moreover, it is not likely that Giuliani is going to be faced with this issue anyway: he knows that he is not supposed to present himself for Communion given the fact that his previous marriage was not annulled.

“Elisabeth Hasselbeck put her arrogance on display by exclaiming, ‘I always have an issue with a priest denying Communion.’ Again, denying someone Communion rarely occurs, but in any event, what business is it of someone who is no longer a Catholic to offer her two cents about Catholic teachings? Compounding her foolishness, she said that someone in her family who had gotten divorced was not allowed Communion until she received an annulment. This is ludicrous: a divorced Catholic who has not remarried is never denied Communion.

“Joy Behar and Hasselback then opined how annulments can be bought. This is one of the great smears that often goes unchallenged. If they had to enumerate them, they couldn’t. Certainly there are old allegations regarding a few prominent Catholics, but it is simply wrong to make sweeping generalizations. There is a modest administrative fee for annulments, but it can be waived if the cost is deemed prohibitive.

“Perhaps the most brilliant line was the one by Behar who announced that ‘Rudy Giuliani hasn’t necessarily had an abortion himself.’ We particularly like the qualifier, ‘necessarily.’ And, of course, they all chimed in about the scandal, thus dragging gays through the mud.”

Contact co-producer Bill Geddie at bill.geddie@abc.com and ask him to buy these ex-Catholics a copy of the Catechism.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on the latest developments regarding its dispute with the Miller Brewing Company:

“We have been informed by Miller Brewing that it is not prepared at this time to offer assurances that it will never again sponsor an anti-Christian event; it merely says that it is conducting an audit of its marketing policies. Accordingly, our response to Miller’s balk is as follows.

“Today, we are mailing pictures of the anti-Christian and sadomasochistic Folsom Street Fair that Miller so proudly sponsors to Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan and to the 211 Catholic parishes in the archdiocese. We want all Catholics in Milwaukee to know exactly what Miller stands for.

“The mailing to Catholics is just the first of many mailings we have planned. Every week we will announce a new segment of the Milwaukee community that will receive the photos. If Miller wants to be so bold as to throw Catholics and Protestants overboard for the sake of siding with the most morally depraved persons in our society—persons with whom no self-respecting heterosexual or homosexual would ever associate—then it must suffer the consequences. The boycott is on, and now the campaign to blanket religious and secular leaders in the Milwaukee community with the evidence of Miller’s complicity in this sordid affair has begun.”

Contact Miller Brewing Company CEO Tom Long:
3939 W Highland Blvd.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53208-2816

414-931-2000
1-800-MILLER 6
Fax: 414-931-3732

Email spokesman Julian Green at green.julian@mbco.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented today on the latest developments regarding the league’s boycott of Miller Brewing:

“Today’s San Francisco Chronicle reports that at yesterday’s Folsom Street Fair, ‘couples led each other up and down the street with dog collars and leashes, men in thong underwear played Twister….’ There was also a man who was flogged to such an extent that ‘red lash marks covered his back.’ Other gay men decided to ‘walk around naked’ in front of women and children. In addition to the homosexuals who dressed as nuns—ridiculing the women who have given selflessly of their lives in service to the dispossessed—there was a female stripper who was hoisted in a cage over a Roman Catholic church (on a Sunday when Masses were being said). The lead sponsor for the incredible spectacle is the Miller Brewing Company.

“The response from Miller has been encouraging, though incomplete. The Milwaukee brewer issued a news release on September 26 saying it took exception to the use of its logo on an offensive poster mocking the Last Supper. Today, it extended its original statement by apologizing for the misuse of its logo, ‘particularly [to] members of the Christian community who have contacted us to express their concern.’ It also said, ‘We are conducting an immediate audit of our procedures for approving local marketing and sales sponsorships to ensure that this does not happen again.’

“We called Miller today asking for clarification of this statement, and we are pleased to note that a full-scale review of all its promotional policies is underway. It is not certain at this time whether Miller plans to sponsor events like the Folsom Street Fair in the future. Accordingly, while we are not calling off the boycott, we are tabling a serious course of action that we were going to announce today. We expect that Miller will resolve this issue before too long.”