Bill Donohue explains how the Catholic League is responding to the bigotry and censorship of Hollywood elites:

On October 17, FX will air the first episode of the series, “American Horror Story: Asylum.” It depicts an evil Catholic home for the criminally insane where a promiscuous nun—in habit, of course—beats inmates; a Catholic doctor tortures them.

When I submitted a full-page ad [click here] to be run that is critical of the show, I was turned down by The Hollywood Reporter’s publisher, Lynne Segall: she said the ad “was not appropriate.” She did not say the show “was not appropriate.” I then submitted the ad to Variety where it met the same fate, this time because of the alleged “mudslinging” title, “FX Trashes Nuns.” No one at Variety said the show was guilty of “mudslinging.”

Today, two Los Angeles radio stations are carrying several 30-second taped statements by me condemning Hollywood’s latest assault on Catholicism: KFI is one of the biggest stations in California, and KTLK has a loyal liberal audience. To read the statement, click here.

The two radio stations stand in stark relief to the bigots at FX and the censors at The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Bill Donohue comments as follows:

When we learned about a TV show this fall that offers an incredibly vicious portrayal of nuns and employees at a Catholic home for the criminally insane, I decided to write a full-page ad for placement in The Hollywood Reporter; the first episode is Oct. 17. The FX show, “American Horror Story: Asylum,” was the subject of my ad. We were all set to go—our credit card info had been accepted—when we received an e-mail on Oct. 1 saying that the publisher, Lynne Segall, “has a concern with the artwork and the ad message and we were unable to run the ad.” Forget the fact that there was no artwork, the next sentence reads, “She felt that the message was not appropriate and has chosen to reserve the right not to print it.” The ad was to run in the Oct. 19 edition, hitting the studios on Oct. 10.

The next day, Oct. 2, we contacted Variety, and they said they would run the ad in both the daily (Oct. 10) and weekly (Oct. 8-14) editions; our credit card info was accepted. Then we received a phone call saying that the legal department had a problem with the title of the ad and that it would be rejected unless it was changed. The title reads, “FX Trashes Nuns.” We asked what legal problem there could possibly be and we were told in an e-mail that “we don’t allow Variety to be used as a forum for mud-slinging, and we feel that is the only part of the letter that crosses the line.” “Mudslinging”? Consider this: on Jan. 10, Variety ran an article about the film, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked,” titled, “David Cross Continues to Trash ‘Chipwrecked.’” I obviously refused to change the title, hence there will be no ad.

I have long argued that Hollywood hates Catholics. Need any further proof? A Hollywood-produced TV series portrays Catholics as sadists, and when a paid ad criticizing the show is offered to two prominent Hollywood publications, it is rejected for its “inappropriate” and “mudslinging” properties.

To read the e-mails, click here. To read the ad, click here.

Contact: thrnewsroom@thr.com; news@variety.com

Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke today regarding the controversy surrounding Kathy Griffin’s Emmy acceptance speech:

“When Griffin roared ‘Suck it, Jesus!’ in front of her Tinseltown peers, she ‘drew laughs,’ according to the Hollywood Reporter. Does this not prove the point the Catholic League has long made about Hollywood’s palpable hostility to Christians?

“New York magazine gave her ‘kudos’ for her ‘joyfully blasphemous rant,’ going so far as to gush, ‘thank God we can always count on Kathy Griffin to inject a little energy into a boring awards show.’ But the same tabloid found nothing joyful about a remark that got Imus fired, labeling it one of the ‘Great Moments in Bigoted Slurs.’ Different strokes for different folks?

“Others also shared New York’s brand of humor. The website of theArizona Daily Star called Griffin’s words ‘interesting’ and ‘refreshing,’ and a reporter for the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale Fox affiliate said her ‘raunchy’ quip was ‘kind of funny.’ More revealing was the creation of a website, SuckItJesus.com, that was launched by her fans: they want her ‘mild, and comedic’ speech to be aired on E!

“Perhaps the most defining response came from Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists. In a news release, Johnson called for a boycott of the Emmy awards. Distraught that the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, a private organization, is choosing not to offend 85% of Americans by broadcasting an anti-Christian rant, Johnson wailed, ‘this is something I’d expect in a nation like Saudi Arabia or Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.’ Someone needs to give her a copy of the First Amendment—it protects our right to protest objectionable speech.

“Finally, while we are pleased to learn that Griffin’s celebrity stock has plummeted as a result of her scripted speech, we also know that there are some very sick people out there who love it every time some bigot takes a shot at Christianity. To wit: the phone calls and messages we’ve received are proof positive of how visceral the hatred is, much of it aimed directly at the Catholic League. No matter, at the end of the day, Griffin lost and we won.”

On September 8, at the 59th Annual Creative Arts Emmy Awards, comedian Kathy Griffin won Outstanding Reality Program for her Bravo show, “My Life on the D-List.” In her acceptance speech, Griffin said, “Suck it, Jesus, this award is my God now.” Fox will televise the Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, September 16 from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded as follows:

“Mel Gibson. Michael Richards. Isaiah Washington. Imus. Jerry Lewis. Every time a celebrity offends a segment of the population, he pays a price, in one way or another. The question now is whether Kathy Griffin will pay a similar price for her outburst. And as we have learned, her verbal assault was calculated.

“In an interview with Houston’s gay magazine, OutSmart, Griffin described herself as a ‘complete militant atheist.’ Unfortunately, her kind of vulgar in-your-face brand of hate speech found a receptive audience on Saturday: The Hollywood Reporter says her foul remark ‘drew laughs.’

“It is incumbent upon Dick Askin, chairman and chief executive officer of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, to denounce Griffin’s obscene and blasphemous comment; a statement should also be read on Sunday. After all, it is his organization that is responsible for the Creative Arts Emmy event. Moreover, given the way the Hollywood crowd received Griffin’s remark, it falls to Askin to distance the Academy from this outrageous incident. We are contacting Griffin’s agent as well.

“It is sure bet that if Griffin had said, ‘Suck it, Muhammad,’ there would have been a very different reaction from the crowd and from the media who covered this event. To say nothing of the Muslim reaction.”

Contact Askin at dick.askin@emmyleader.org

Here’s a sample of what critics who previewed “The Da Vinci Code” yesterday had to say about the movie:

• “Dud”; Unwieldy”; “Plodding.”  (Reuters)
• “A Bloated Puzzle”; “The movie is so drenched in dialogue musing over arcane mythological and historical lore and scenes grow so static that even camera movement can’t disguise the dramatic inertia”; “No chemistry exists between the hero and the heroine.” (Hollywood Reporter)
• “Almost as bad as the book.” (Boston Globe)
• “High-minded lurid material sucked dry by a desperately solemn approach”; They’ve “drained all the fun out of the melodrama.” (Variety)
• When the movie “takes a brief wrong turn, and Howard momentarily loses control of his huge, streamlined vehicle, it’s hard to say where to put the blame.” (FoxNews.com)
• “Critics Crucify ‘Da Vinci Code.’” (Australian Associated Press)
• “Critics largely panned the cinematic version”; “The movie did receive some lukewarm praise, but the majority of the response was highly critical”; “One scene during the film, meant to be serious, elicited prolonged laughter from the audience.  There was no applause when the credits rolled; instead, a few catcalls and hisses broke the silence.” (CNN)
• “At one point, some of them responded in the auditorium with laughter to one of the developments in the plot—something director Ron Howard would not have anticipated.” (Press Association Newsfile)
• “Shrugs of indifference, some jeering laughter and a few derisive jabs”; “The Cannes audience clearly grew restless as the movie dragged on to two and a half hours and spun a long sequence of anticlimactic revelations”; “Some people walked out during the movie’s closing minutes…and there was none of the scattered applause even bad movies sometimes receive at Cannes.” (AP)

Bill Donohue said, “If Ron Howard is being laughed at by those predisposed to believe the worst about Catholicism, he’s an utter failure.”

It was reported today that CBS will not air this fall a controversial show about a Catholic priest.  Produced by Sylvester Stallone, “Father Lefty” did not make the midseason lineup either.  As recently as May 8, it was reported that Stallone was confident that CBS president Leslie Moonves would not let him down.  An AP story said Stallone believed that Moonves “would have been blunt if the show didn’t have a chance.”

The Catholic League has been monitoring this show for some time, as far back as when it was originally called “The Priest.”  And it let Mr. Moonves know of its concerns.  William Donohue, president of the league, commented on this today:

“Yo, Sly, what happened?  Has Moonves been playing rope-a-dope with the Italian Stallion?

“On November 2, 2001, I wrote a letter to Leslie Moonves stating that I had read in the Hollywood Reporter that CBS was planning on doing a show about ‘a nonconformist priest in a big city, who helps both homeless and rich people with their problems, while struggling with personal problems of his own, including fidelity.’

“Being a bit coy, I then asked Moonves the following: ‘Could you tell me if the show is about an Episcopal priest (that certainly would be virgin territory for TV) or a Roman Catholic one (ABC had a show about a nonconformist priest in ‘Nothing Sacred’ that was so loaded with propaganda that it motivated the Catholic League to conduct a boycott against the show’s sponsors; the boycott worked).’

“On December 17, 2001, a woman from his office called.  I spoke to her the next day.  She confirmed that the priest was indeed cast as a Roman Catholic.  To which I confessed my utter lack of astonishment.

“Yo, Sly, ever think about getting out of the ring once and for all?”

There is a report in today’s on-line edition of the Hollywood Reporter about Senator Joseph Lieberman’s “crusade to get Hollywood to clean up its act.”  In light of the Democratic fund-raiser scheduled for August 15 at the Playboy Mansion, it would be instructive to know how Senator Lieberman feels about the event.

Addressing this issue is Catholic League president William Donohue:

“Last December, when George W. Bush mentioned his reliance on Christ during a debate he had with other hopefuls for the Republican presidential nomination, he was the subject of much criticism.  But there is comparatively little criticism of Senator Lieberman’s embrace of God yesterday in Nashville.  The Catholic League defended Bush from his critics last December and now stands ready to defend Lieberman from his critics: both men are free to exercise their First Amendment right to freedom of speech and to recall Americans to their religious roots.   The problem here is not with either man, but with the selective indignation that many pundits exhibit.

“Regarding Senator Lieberman, however, we need to know whether his opposition to Hollywood ‘sewer’ fare (the senator gives out annual ‘Silver Sewer’ awards for offensive programming) translates into opposition to Vice President Al Gore’s decision to stand by idly and watch his appointed vice chairwoman of the DNC, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, organize a Democratic fund-raiser at the Playboy Mansion; it is scheduled for August 15, a holy day of obligation for Catholics (the Feast of the Assumption).  In short, does Senator Lieberman oppose the ‘Gorgy,’ or not?  I faxed a letter to him at his Washington office today asking him just that.”