Catholic League president Bill Donohue called AIDS a “self-inflicted wound” and claimed that if homosexuals followed the teachings of the Church they would not “self-destruct.”
Donohue, who annually buys a full-page ad in the New York Times defending pedophile priests, made these statements while attacking artist David Wojnarowicz, whose work is featured in an art exhibit, “HIDE/SEEK” that was censored by the Smithsonian after Catholic protests, but now is about to appear at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (BMA).
Donohue is particularly angered by a video titled, “A Fire In My Belly.”
“The fact is that the artist who made the vile video died of self-inflicted wounds: he died of AIDS. The homosexual, David Wojnarowicz, hated the Catholic Church (had he lived by its teachings, he would not have self-destructed),” Donohue said in a statement released last week.
Donohue clearly missed the fact that HIV/AIDS is an equal opportunity disease, and does not solely belong to the LGBT community.
It also is not transmitted solely through sexual intercourse. Perhaps if Donohue were actually “Christian,” he would be spending more of his time where Jesus suggested: caring for an helping the poor, the sick, the needy, and he would be more aware of issues like HIV/AIDS, which, contrary to Donohue’s implication, is not a death sentence.
Donohue also misses a little thing called the First Amendment, which, ironically, he waves proudly as he attacks those who are protected by it also.
Right Wing Watch notes that the Right is attempting to censor the Brooklyn Museum, as they did the Smithsonian, by withdrawing all public funding from the institution.
Donahue, who earlier this year attacked Lada Gaga by suggesting she wanted to get raped, also in last week’s statement attacked Arnold Lehman, the director of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
“For Arnold Lehman, there is no such thing as anti-Catholic art,” Donohue wrote. “Catholics who disagree are apparently too stupid to appreciate the complexities of these masterpieces.
For example, in 1999 Lehman said it was not anti-Catholic for an artist to smear elephant dung and pornographic pictures on a portrait of Our Blessed Mother (he loved the “Sensation” exhibition). Now he says that a video featuring large ants crawling all over Jesus on the Cross is actually a statement about ‘human suffering and death.’ Guess us stupid Catholics missed that one, too.”
If there’s one thing you can count on with religious conservatives, it’s their inability to see how their perception of reality are clearly skewed, and how they make no attempt to mask their bigotry.
In an Orwellian twist, the Catholic League claims it is “the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization,” and ironically claims that “the degree of hostility exhibited against the Catholic Church is appalling.”
Anyone looking for reasons why “the Catholic Church” feels it is a victim or why some Catholics feel they experience “hostility” need look no further than the regular, hateful screeds that come from Bill Donohue.