Bill Donohue is So Mad at The Daily Show May 22, 2012

Bill Donohue is So Mad at The Daily Show

By Jessica Bluemke
May 22, 2012

I am a massive fan of Jon Stewart‘s The Daily Show.  I try to catch every episode, and I think Stewart is consistently on point and relevant.   Shockingly, the Catholic League and I do not agree on this.

On April 16th, The Daily Show featured an amazing send-up of Fox News Channel’s protest of the term “War on Women”:

At the 4:50 mark, Stewart wondered if there was anything women could do to elicit the outrage over their bodily rights that Fox News correspondents typically reserve for, say, attacks on Christmas.  “Perhaps women could protect their reproductive organs from unwanted medical intrusions with Vagina Mangers.” Behind him, as he spoke, appeared an image of a woman with her legs spread and a manger scene covering her …mistletoe?  (Nutcracker? Holiest of Holes? Virgin Mary?  Secret Santa? Pick your favorite vagina euphemism.  Or come up with your own!  Fun for the whole family!)

Anyway, to the surprise of no one, Bill Donohue didn’t think this was funny.  At all.  In fact he called it “hate speech.”

With all of his muster, he called for advertisers of The Daily Show to pull their sponsorship.

For a quick reminder, when Rush Limbaugh defamed Sandra Fluke over a period of several days, the list of advertisers that pulled sponsorship looked like this:

  1. Service Magic home contractor
  2. Hadeed Carpets
  3. Accuquote Life Insurance
  4. Vitacost vitamin supplier
  5. Bonobos clothing company
  6. Sensa weight- loss program
  7. Thompson Creek Windows
  8. AOL
  9. Tax Resolution Services
  10. ProFlowers
  11. Legal Zoom online document creator
  12. Carbonite web security firm
  13. Citrix software maker
  14. Sleep Train Mattresses
  15. Sleep Number mattresses
  16. Quicken Loans
  17. Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington
  18. Cascades Dental
  19. Consolidated Credit Counseling Services
  20. Constant Contact email marketing firm
  21. Philadelphia Orchestra
  22. Reputation Rhino online reputation consulting firm
  23. St. Vincent’s Medical Center
  24. Cunningham Security
  25. Regal Assets precious medal investment group
  26. Freedom Debt Relief
  27. Norway Savings Bank
  28. Portland Ovations performing arts center
  29. Stamps.com

When Donohue and the Catholic League called for sponsors to abandon The Daily Show, the list read like this:

  1. Delta Airlines

Notably, when The Catholic League sent a complaint to Kellogg’s, a major sponsor of the show, they responded with this:

We understand that our customers come from a variety of backgrounds, experiences, lifestyles, and cultures and we respect their individual decisions to choose the television programs that they deem acceptable for themselves and their families. Consumers speak most loudly when they vote with their remote control and change the channel or turn off the TV if a program does not fit their personal criteria.

Well said, Kellogg’s!

Obviously, this was not well received by Donohue and his cohorts — they described the response as “telling Christians to shove it.”  He also said in an interview that “… just from what we can gather, thousands of people have been pounding Steve Albani at Comedy Central, and clearly Kelloggs,” and “We have evidence that people have really been pounding Kellogg’s”… presumably without a hint of irony.

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  • Obviously, this was not well received by Donohue and his cohorts — they described the response as “telling Christians to shove it.‘

    Maybe they aren’t as hopeless as I sometimes believe. It could very well be a case of people telling ‘christians’ to “SHOVE IT”.

  • Robert Blaskiewicz

    He’s such a twisted little beastie, a horrid little tick.

  • I’m going to boycott Delta Airlines 🙂

  • CoboWowbo

    Delta didn’t leave Daily Show because of Donohue.

  • TiltedHorizon

    “Stewart’s hate speech, and Kellogg’s cavalier reaction to it, deserve to
    be publicly condemned. There is nothing funny about Stewart’s stunt,
    and there is nothing commendable about Kellogg’s arrogance. But they
    didn’t get away scot-free: Their reputations will never be the same.”

    That explains the sour taste in this morning’s bowl of Special K and my sudden disdain for Flight attendants (Stewards, is phonetically similar to Stewart’s), all this time I’ve been blaming the expired milk and the piss poor hosting standards in coach.

  • “Pick your favorite vagina euphemism.  Or come up with your own!”

    In light of that last quote, I’ve got to go with ‘Kelloggs’.

  • TheAnalogKid

    Oh well, fuck Donohue, fuck Fox News. 

  • The most hilarious part of this is Stewart’s reaction.

  • Bill Donohue is angry. Uh, huh. In other breaking news, Eeyore is gloomy, Elmo is happy, Oscar is grouchy, Telly is nervous, Cookie Monster is hungry, George is curious, Mickey is optimistic, Donald is surly, and Wilie Coyote is determined.

    When is Donohue not angry?  It’s the only emotion he seems to have. He’s a children’s character we laugh at because we already know what is reaction will be. As an overweight 64-year-old who’s never, ever not pink-in-the-face pissed off about people telling embarrassing truths about the Catholic Church, he must have to take beta blockers in handfulls like M&M candy.

  • TimSPC

    Join the counter protest at http://www.facebook.com/SupportTheDailyShow

  • Thin-ice

    What state was that where Republican legislators repealed the “equal pay for women for equal work”?

    It actually is nearly impossible to believe that any thinking or informed American female would  or could vote Republican in the near future. Or be a Catholic. Why would a woman want to be associated with these drooling, knuckle-dragging, grunting neanderthals??? Somebody help me understand . . . 

  • Bubba

     Bill Donohue is not a Christian. He is an asshole.

  • Fsq

    No no…you know what hate speech is?

    The fucking Pope telling us that his club was not involved in the cover up of child rape, forced pregancy or that he was never icollusion with the nazi youth.

    That is hate speech. John Dtewarts speach was just funny.

    Fuck the catholics. Those scum sucking fucks are evil and horrid and deserve no countenance.

  • Fsq

    Dick!!!!

    Dude….that was damn funny and smart!

    Shocked, i am shocked to find gambling here…..

  • Bill Donahue will be on Sean Hannity today to talk all about it. 

  • Drew

    Why did you put “Christians” in quotes?

  • I_Claudia

    The day I see the headline “Bill Donahue defends right of group to disagree with Catholic Church” I’ll fall off my chair.

  • Adrian Forte

     They weren’t telling Christians to shove it. They were telling Bill Donohue to shove it. Bill, in his hubris likes to think that that’s the same thing. He would be wrong there.

  • Ida Know

     He’s not a Scotsman either.

  • And the Pope is Catholic!  (I’m sure Donahue is aware of that one).

  • Because I wanted to. Same reason I put “god”, “christ” “mohammed”, “buddah” and other fairytale beings in quotes: because a) I prefer to, b) they are just labels that some gullible people have attached to themselve (never mind they aren’t really following what was being preached by the “god(s)” they believe in), and c) see point a). And no… I’m not the only person who does so. 😉

    Oh, and one other reason: The “christians” in question who follow morons like this are probably not thought of as very “christian-like” by they fellow followers… or at least some percentage… kinda hard to do that whole “love your neighber” thing when you are being told “hate your neighbor”. The people being told to “shove it” aren’t your average marshmallow fluff variety, they are the Right-Wing fundamental sacks of ignorance that think they have a “god” given right to tell everyone in the world what to do with their genitals, and how to do it… all while doing the very things they call “sin”.

  • Beau Quilter

    I’m buying Kellogg’s Cornflakes – today!

  • Marco Conti

    I went to the Catholic League’s own article and I wrote to a 
    Mr. Charles at Kellog letting them know that I approve of their stance on the issue. Please do the same. The email is kris.charles@kellogg.com but use the link below for an additional laugh.

    Here is the CL article:

    http://www.catholicleague.org/jon-stewart-and-kelloggs/ 

    I wish there was a way to let the CL know we are using their link to approve of Kellogg’s stance. Alas, their comment system must have overloaded long ago.

  • No-one has done more to impugn the good name of the Catholic Church than Bill Donohue.

  • It’s pretty hard to identify that manger as a manger. You have to look really closely at the inset image. Jon Stewart was right there in the studio, and he had problems figuring out what it was. Bill Donohue must have looked really closely. I imagine he used a magnifying glass, or perhaps some zoom software to focus right on the, er, region of interest. He likely spent some time studying the offensive positioning. Probably added the image to a special folder on his computer where he keeps, you know, evidence.

  • ORAXX

    There are professional victims, and then there’s Bill Dohohue. 

  • I wish someone influential would tell christians to shove it. I’d be a fan for life.

  • just some other guy

    Hey, Bill: Shove it.

  • Glasofruix

     Christians can’t be assholes?

  • jdm8

    Several figures in the patriarchy of the RCC give him plenty of competition.

  • Kenneth Dunlap

    I foresee a long and happy relationship between your derriere and chair.

  • Ibis3

    Not so. There are hundreds of child rapist priests, those who covered up for them, not to mention all the inquisitors, witch burners, corrupt bishops and popes over the centuries….

    Oh, you said *good name*. Sorry, carry on.

  • Bill Donohue’s job is to be perpetually outraged at anything/anybody who doesn’t pander to Christianity. 

  • Eric D Red

    Actually, thousands of child rapists, even just counting the ones the American ones the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops knows about and admits to.

  • TimSPC

    Actually, Bill has called other people professional victims before: http://dailyshowunited.com/2012/05/09/delta-meet-bill-donohue-the-man-you-kowtowed-to/

  •  +1 for “sacks of ignorance”

  • Lhumble

    I want to know why they aren’t on tonight. Is it just my satellite company?  They weren’t on last night, either.  What’s happening?

  • Lhumble

    Where is the Daily show tonight?  Is it just our satellite company?  He or Colbert weren’t on our tv last night either.  But looks like the show is on the Internet.  What’s going on?

  • Both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report took a 2 weeks vacation. They’ll be back monday.

  • Corey

    WOW, Delta Airlines has no back bone, and lost all my support…ps and when does telling anyone to shove it a crime?

  • The Other Weirdo

    If my opinion is worth anything, then the child rapists within the ranks of the Catholic Church across the world aren’t the problem. Their superiors who block investigations, convince victims not to step forward, castrate boys for complaining to the police, shuffle priests around from parish to parish and just generally cover up the whole thing are the real problem.

  • The Other Weirdo

     That’s not hate speech. That’s just stupidity in action.

  • The Other Weirdo

     Not Christian enough for ya, eh?

  • BenofSoCal

    I am SO GLAD that Bill Donahue is SO MAD at what he saw on the Daily Show.  The only thing that would make me happier would be PERSONALLY making Bill Donahue so mad.  Really mad!  Steam out of his ears mad!  Clutch his chest and collapse in a heaving, massive, fatal heart attack mad!

  • T-Rex

    vacation again. Probably be back next week or the following. They take a lot of vacations.

  • T-Rex

    Don’t insult neanderthals like that.

  • RupertPupkin

    99% of the advertisers that “pulled” their programming from Limbaugh’s show never advertised on his show in the first place.