Comedian Kathy Griffin Is Censored for Joking About Jesus

This post, written by Melissa McEwan, originally appeared on Shakesville

UPDATE Kathy Griffin talks about her experience being censored by the Emmys on Larry King Live, the video is here.

Kathy Griffin is being censored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences because she made a Jesus joke in her Emmy acceptance speech and my old friend Bill Donohue made a big stink about it.

Naturally, given that Griffin and I share a few things in common--we both hail from Chicago, we're both sassy feminist bitchez deeply in need of more melanin, we both love Teh Gayz and hate the fuck out of Ann Coulter, neither one of us has any idea how to do our own hair, we're both stuck on our own respective D-Lists, and we both have big fucking mouths--and given that I absolutely adore and admire Griffin, I'm rather amused and strangely proud to now see that she, too, is now a target of Donohue's ridiculous, bloviating ire.

My reaction to the decision generally, however--and to the Academy's reassurance that "Kathy Griffin's offensive remarks will not be part of the E! telecast on Saturday night"--is that it's an awesome load of ironic richness that they're putting a stop to a comedian being irreverent on television about the Christ child because it's so offensive. I just hope one of the puritanical prigs of the Academy can wrench his or her vapors-stricken ass from the fainting couch long enough to remind Griffin that if she's going to be offensive on television, she's got to make fun of women, gays, ethnic minorities, fat people, foreigners, the disabled, or the poor. Just stay away from Jesus.

(Not that she was really saying anything about Jesus, anyway--but poking fun at the exhaustingly familiar "thank God if we win; blame the quarterback if we lose" routine.)

And, once again, I'm amazed by the credibility conferred upon Donohue's diarrheic rantings by the mainstream press. The AP describes The Catholic League as "an anti-defamation group," which couldn't be more laughable. The Catholic League is not an anti-defamation group, but a one-man defamation show starring Donohue, who goes around accusing anyone who makes jokes about Jesus or has the unmitigated temerity to point out that there are some fascistic tendencies among the American Christian Right of being "anti-Catholic." He's nothing more than an opportunistic scumbag who raises money by pretending that bloggers and comedians (and sculptors) are a genuine threat to Catholics, never mind whether they've said anything at all about Catholics or Catholicism. And he laughs all the way to the bank every time the media unquestioningly laps up his putrid excretions. They never learn.