Fox Attacks Maher & HBO for “Hate Speech”

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo! The poor Catholics are being unfairly maligned again by that wicked heathen Bill Maher. Naturally, the valiant culture warriors at Fox & Friends were all over this trumped up controversy earlier today like a fat kid on a butter tart. HBO has a leftist agenda! Liberals are religious bigots! And so on.

Just listen to vapid hack Steve Doocy (author of The Mr. and Mrs. Happy Handbook, I kid you not) wringing his hands over the fact that last week Bill Maher said the Pope “used to be a Nazi” (he also said he “wears funny hats”), referred to the Catholic Church as “a child-abusing religious cult” and linked the Church to “organized pedophilia.” Blustering with indignation, Doocy suggested that “Real Time” be pulled from the air and gripes, “HBO costs me $15 extra a month… I’m not going to pay for this junk!” Steve… it’s ONE program for chrissake. So don’t watch it. And another thing… all of the Maher’s remarks, while certainly delivered with biting sarcasm, happen to be true. As a young man the future pope did belong to the Hitler Youth; in the strictest sense of the word, the Catholic Church is a “cult” (i.e., “a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also: its body of adherents”) as is every church body for that matter; and finally, as to the charge of “organized pedophilia” the John Jay Report commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops found accusations of sexual abuse against 4,392 priests in the USA, about 4% of all priests.

The funniest retort though came from media critic and chairman of The Christian Film and Television Commission Ted Baehr who moans about Maher’s “hate speech” and “bigotry” and then promptly compares Maher to the Nazis. In attempting to be ironic, it seems the irony of his own observation was entirely lost on him.

For heaven’s sake… haven’t we had enough of these comparisons to Hitler and the Nazis (or Chamberlain) already? Almost without exception they always backfire (or misfire), so why do people persist with them... I really don’t get it. Does it stem from a lack of imagination perhaps?