Join Travel Writer Mitchell Blatt in Korea
In August, China Travel Writer Mitchell Blatt is going to be visiting South Korea for 2 weeks to explore the culture and politics across the country. He will be traveling from north to south, from Seoul to Jeju Island to Busan, exploring the sites of historic revolutions, protests, and military crackdowns as well as modern pleasures like Kpop, baseball, and delicacies like bbq meats, bulgogi, and live squid.
Mitchell will chronicle the journey here at ChinaTravelWriter.com/blog. After Mitchell’s amazing journey is complete, he will write about it in a travelogue ebook–but only if he gets enough pre-orders.
Read about Korean revolution and modern culture in great detail; find out about the raw Korea the guidebooks don’t tell you about. Pre-order Travel Writer Mitchell Blatt’s Korea travelogue “Chicken, Beer, and Democracy” at Kickstarter, risk free.
Jan 09 1
On January 8, in an interview with Hugh Hewitt, Catholic League president Bill Donahue said, “People who are in the artistic business or in journalism, in the dissemination of ideas need to put brakes on themselves as well.”
Unfortunately, when Donahue was given a chance by Hewitt to follow up on his own advice by apologizing for blaming the Charlie Hebdo victims for the role he alleged that they played in their own deaths, he didn’t oblige.
Bill likes to think people are twisting his words. Okay, it is too bad he didn’t apologize for saying “he [Stephane Charbonnier, the publisher] didn’t understand the role he played in his tragic death.”
It should first be noted that Bill is wrong on the facts; people who publish social or political commentary that offends are not to blame for their deaths, nor is the commentary that was published so offensive as to warrant censorship or self-censorship or strong rebuke.
By his standards, Bill is simply saying that anything that offends or could offend a large group of people shouldn’t be said.
He also said people shouldn’t insult each other: “Muhammad isn’t sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him.”
Following are a list of statements that Bill “People Need to Put Brakes on Themselves” Donahue has made over the years:
“The refrain that child rape is a reality in the Church is twice wrong: let’s get it straight — they weren’t children and they weren’t raped.”
– Catholic League, New York Times full-page ad, 2011
More:
“Levy is also wrong to suggest that priestly sexual misconduct was done by pedophiles—almost all the guilty were homosexuals.”
– Catholic League.org, Jan./Feb. 2014
“Intelligent people usually do [believe there is an afterlife]. I don’t know how much intelligence you have to insult. … I know you stand for nothing, and I know you’re good for nothing, so we agree.”
– Bill Donahue in response to American Atheists president David Silverman, Fox News, 2011
“Unlike Christians who do not provoke, harass or otherwise mock atheists, Silverman [American Atheists president] and his ilk wanted nothing more than to stick it to Christians at Christmastime.”
– Bill Donahue in response to American Atheists publishing a Christmas billboard, Catholic League.org, Jan./Feb. 2013
“LARA FLYNN BOYLE ADMITS TO HER STUPIDITY … The Catholic Church does not regard the children born to a marriage that has been annulled as bastards, but the Church has no power over those who persist in labeling themselves as such. We suggest that Boyle seek out a member of the Marianist community (the Jesuits are obviously not a good choice) for remedial education.”
– Catholic League.org, March 2001
“So she [Heather Graham] now accepts film roles posing either as a slut or a porn star, reducing herself so low that she actually partook in a ‘butt licking’ scene with Robert Downey Jr. in ‘Two Girls and a Guy.’ …
“It is our hope that Heather soon gets a grip on her sexual hang-ups. She doesn’t need therapy, just some counseling by a priest.”
– Bill Donahue, Catholic League.org, March 2001
“There are a lot of loser artists. … These people are morally bankrupt, and my goal is to make them financially bankrupt.”
– Bill Donahue, Anderson Cooper, CNN, Apr. 2007
“Which is to say he [Jean Genet] was a pedophile, homosexual, sado-masochist, pervert and prostitute. He was also a convicted felon. When not engaging in buggery, he was known to practice burglary. … Not even when the author of the play is a pedophile, homosexual, sado-masochist, pervert, prostitute and thief. Those may be truly stellar qualifications in the literary world, but they are not persuasive enough to clear the bar at the Catholic League.”
– Bill Donahue, Catholic League.org, Sep. 2002
“If we hurry, these closeted Christians [atheists] can celebrate Christmas like the rest of us. As an added bonus, they will no longer be looked upon as people who “believe in nothing, stand for nothing and are good for nothing.””
– Bill Donahue, Catholic League.org, Dec. 2011
“If most of the damage was done by gay priests, it raises the question whether there would have been a scandal at all had homosexuals been barred from the priesthood. … Is this a plea to bar homosexuals from the priesthood? No.”
– Catholic League.org, Sep. 2010
UPDATE: I keep discovering more hate speech from Bill Donahue.
Here he is attacking the “Jews” who control Hollywood:
“Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.”
– Bill Donahue in 2004, helpfully cited again in his own book Secular Sabotage
“Hollywood is of course dominated by secular Jews, and it is demonstrably true that the movies made of Catholics over the past several decades evince an animus.”
– Bill Donahue in his book again, trying to defend his anti-Semitic statement
“Is it the Vietnamese who are making movies in Hollywood? Is it the Puerto Ricans who own Hollywood?” he asked. “Do you know that the Jewish Forward in its editorial said the exact same thing that I did?”
“I’m talking about secular Jews, who run the Hollywood studios, who make anti-Catholic movies!” Donohue exclaimed. “What is so absurd that?”
– Bill Donahue, CNN, Sep. 2013
Donahue attacks Letterman for supporting gay rights (or maybe even being gay, who knows?):
We have been tracking Letterman since 2008. Since that time we have recorded 28 monologues where he ridicules Catholicism, 16 of which involve homosexuality. This isn’t normal.
It’s time Letterman, or someone from CBS, came clean and told us more about his pathologies. We need to know more about what makes this troubled man tick.
– Catholic League.org, Jan. 6, 2015
—
Finally, see what happens when someone blames the murder of a gay man that the Catholic League didn’t commit on the Catholic League, blaming the League’s rhetoric for contributing to violence:
“Chris Quinn, director of something called the New York City Anti-Gay and Lesbian Violence Unit, went so far as to hold the Catholic League complicit in Shepard’s death. Why? Because the league was protesting the gay Jesus play, “Corpus Christi,” at a time when Shepard was killed.”
– Catholic League.org, Dec. 1998
Apparently they don’t think someone who didn’t pull the trigger should be blamed.