Catholic League's Head Gadfly Enjoys South Park Parody
The NY Times has an entertaining profile of William Donohue, the head of the Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights. Locally, you may remember him from his support of putting nativity scenes back in public schools, condemning the Jerry Springer opera and getting Opie & Anthony fired, but he's a fixture on TV talk shows blasting movie adaptations of Dan Brown books—in Angels & Demons, "They even have a scene where rats eat a bunch of cardinals. Can you imagine any other religion where this would not be viewed as rank religious bias?"—and slamming Notre Dame's president for inviting President Obama to receive an honorary degree—"Here is a Catholic priest, bestowing an honor on someone who supports selective infanticide." The divorced father of two wants to end anti-Catholic bias, but he's not above embracing South Park's withering parody of Donohue by way of The Da Vinci Code, The Easter Bunny, and The Matrix—Donohue has a still from the episode and seemingly brags to the Times, "In the episode, they have me overthrow the pope because the pope is a wimp, and then I take over the church and give it some guts."
