Bill Donohue’s unusual employment standards

February 9, 2007

For his role in pushing John Edwards to fire Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen, the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue is receiving a heaping of scrutiny from the progressive side of the blogosphere for some fairly offensive things he’s said and done over the years.

For my money, Nico has found the most pertinent example. Deal Hudson was the Catholic outreach coordinator for Bush-Cheney ’04, right up until he was exposed as having been something of a sexual predator, including having taken advantage of a drunk, 18-year-old student while he was a professor.

According to documents obtained by [National Catholic Reporter], Hudson invited a vulnerable freshman undergraduate, Cara Poppas, to join a group of older students for a pre-Lenten “Fat Tuesday” night of partying at a Greenwich Village bar. The night concluded after midnight in Hudson’s Fordham office, where he and the drunken 18-year-old exchanged sexual favors. The fallout would force his resignation from a tenured position at the Jesuit school, cost him $30,000, and derail a promising academic career.

Hudson was forced to give up his Bush campaign position, his Jesuit school teaching job, and his role as publisher of Crisis magazine, a D.C.-based conservative Catholic publication. It was a sad, humiliating affair for everyone involved.

Donohue, however, rushed to Hudson’s defense, and said his sexual indiscretions should have no bearing on his employment.

In a press release, Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, minimized the charges against Hudson and attempted a joke at the Virgin Mary’s expense. “Effective today,” Donohue wrote, his organization had “a new requirement for all future employees: all candidates must show proof of being immaculately conceived, that is, they must demonstrate that they were conceived without sin.”

For all the ridiculous and offensive quotes we’ve heard the last few days, which characterize Donohue as a rather hateful blowhard, this may be the most apples-to-apples comparison I’ve seen. Presidential campaign to presidential campaign, employment decision to employment decision.

In Donohue’s worldview, some intemperate blog posts should cause you to lose your job, while sexual impropriety shouldn’t.

Good to know.

Donohue seems to me to be the perfect spokesman for the contemporary Roman Catholic Church in its damn-the-altar-boys, shuffle-the-priests, dupe-the-third-world avatar. A red-faced, puffy, angry drunken old Irishman who hates young women and yuck-yucks their male molesters.

I cannot imagine Jesus Christ or Francis of Assisi embracing him. Lepers, yes. The Pharisee Donohue, never.

  • Donohue should be thrown out of the Church. As a Catholic I bristle every time he is mentioned as some sort of “spokesman” for he faith. He ain’t.

    Donohue worships right wingism. He worships the earthly power that can be derived by invoking a higher source. And Bill, we have new requirement for you: before you start pointing out the sins of everyone else, you have to prove you’ve never sinned either.

  • People, people! Reign it in! You’re unsarcastic vitriol may one day make your future employer the target of a laughable smear campaign!

  • What is the Catholic leadership thinking, letting this shitbag stink up the airwaves on their behalf? As the old saying goes, “with friends like this, who needs enemies?” What the Church needs is a good dose of mea culpa, not some idiot who rushes to the defense of pedophiles and blames the victim, and who obviously takes his cues from other rabid right-wing hatemongers like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.

    Excuse me while I go vomit.

  • The fact that he’s still given airtime is just another proof of the national psychosis that the Reich Wing has inflicted on this country.

    In spite of their recent losses, they still control the airwaves and until that iron grip is broken we’ll continue to see sick perverts like Donohue given a free pass to spew their filth without restrictions or consequences.

    Isn’t anybody in Congress prepared to start anti-monopoly hearings on the media conglomerates yet? In that way, and that way only, lies our true salvation.

  • Bill Donohue: living proof that the old English slurs against the Irish had some basis in fact.

    Why couldn’t his ancestors have been on one of the boats that sank mid-Atlantic?

  • Wrapped in the cloak of moral certainty, people like Donohue can’t even begin to see, let alone recognize, the level of hypocracy and denial they spew when they share their world-view with the rest of us. -Kevo

  • Bill Donohue: living proof that the old English slurs against the Irish had some basis in fact.

    Why couldn’t his ancestors have been on one of the boats that sank mid-Atlantic?

    Too busy selling potatoes to the English?

  • “Donohue seems to me to be the perfect spokesman for the contemporary Roman Catholic Church in its damn-the-altar-boys, shuffle-the-priests, dupe-the-third-world avatar. A red-faced, puffy, angry drunken old Irishman who hates young women and yuck-yucks their male molesters.”

    Um DUDE!!

    I happen to be Irish Catholic and that statement was about as offensive as anything I’ve heard from that Whack Job Donohue. There are many DECENT Irish, Catholics, and Drunks in this world. We’re not all child molesters either.

  • Judge not the Catholic church by what it’s members do but by the standards of Jesus Christ. Jesus preached forgivness. Donohue and Jesus are on the same wave length, unless of course it’s a Democrat then the other side of Jesus appears, crucify him/her he cries.

    If you don’t take action you deserve everything you get. Religion is not the solution, it’s the problem. The three great faiths get their basis in fact to exist from a single historical event, Moses talking to a being that lives in fire. Time to jerk the rug out from under the three great faiths. The Bible is a proved hoax but there’s a simpler approach.

    Anyone can interpred scripture. http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul has was is not becoming known as interpretation 1501, (1500 before it). It explains Donohue and a lot or others as well.

  • As a follow-up to my earlier comment #7, Rupert Murdoch just announced that he’s forming a new Fox Business Channel that will be “more business friendly” than CNBC.

    The media octopus just grew another tentacle.

    And Phoenix Woman, I like your style! 🙂

  • “I happen to be Irish Catholic and that statement was about as offensive as anything I’ve heard from that Whack Job Donohue. There are many DECENT Irish, Catholics, and Drunks in this world. We’re not all child molesters either.”

    I’ll drink to that and I’m English.

  • What is the Catholic leadership thinking, letting this shitbag stink up the airwaves on their behalf?

    The Catholic League isn’t part of the church, it’s an independent group. Women’s Wear Daily(!) has a great article about the CL and Donohue. It’s straight “just the facts, ma’am” reporting, but damning nonetheless.

  • This example of Donohue’s dirty laundry is the best you can come up with? Did Deal Hudson exchange sexual favors with a (legal) (non-child) drunk 18-year-old? Yeah. Should he have? No. Should he have been fired for it? Probably. Did he RAPE her? NO.

    You hypocrites. I thought you were all for sexual freedom.

    But, you know what? This act of indiscretion is not what Deal Hudson does all day long.

    Amanda Marcotte is a nasty, foul, hateful screaming monkey in PUBLIC. And the Edwards campaign decided she would be a good blogger for them? What on earth?

    Donohue didn’t say, “Oh, kids will be kids!” He said, “Look. Nobody’s perfect.” Which is true. Nobody’s expecting Amanda Marcotte to be perfect either. But, John Edwards’ people should know better than to hire a poo-flinger as the Edwards campaign blogger.

  • John, she was drunk; she wasn’t able to give or with hold her consent. In most states, that makes it rape. You might want to check out whether your state is one of them before you go on your next date.

    There’s a big difference between coddling someone who commits a crime and hiring somebody who says stuff you don’t like. Big D not only sheltered a real criminal, he sneered at the victim. Bit of a diff.

    As for poo flingers, John McCain has hired Patrick Hynes, who says far worse things than Amanda, and I have yet to hear a peep out of the right wing about that.

  • The hypocrisy of William Donohue over at the Catholic League never ceases to amaze us. Based on his latest commentary on what is “anti Catholic” and what is not, Uncle Bill reveals his partisan agenda. Clearly the Catholic League is a front for the Republican party. A look through his vast archive of angry press releases will reveal a very inappropriate slant towards the Republican party – more so than any 501c3 should be allowed.
    http://eamon-matthew25.blogspot.com

  • My apologies to anyone who took my remarks (#1) as critical or disparaging of Catholics, the Irish or drunks. I’m more than half-Irish by descent. I drink a fair amount , though much less as I’ve become much older. I’m a recovering Roman Catholic with six years as a Latin-reciting altar boy, three years in a Franciscan seminarian in Santa Barbara, four years taking required Philosophy and Theology courses at USF (a Jesuit university). I don’t think the contemporary Roman Catholic Church, institutionalized amid the wealth of the Vatican and functioning as it has over recent decades in America, represents anything remotely close to the spirit of Jesus or Francis, nor does it respect the American Constitutional separation of church and state as it did when I was growing up.

  • Hamletta — Thanks for the tip on the article. There’s an appropriate quote ffrom it to share:

    “Rev. Mark Massa, a Jesuit priest and co-director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University, accused Donohue of being unable to differentiate between healthy debate and real religious bigotry. ‘Not everyone who criticizes the church is anti-Catholic,’ he said.”

  • That okay Ed – I just assumed you had been buggered by the local priest and decided you liked it.

  • No Problem Ed. It’s easy to let the emotions of all this crap get the better of any of us. Happens to me more than I like.

    Cheers

  • Mr. Donohue’s comments regarding anti Roman Catholic bias always criticizes democrats and left leaning critics. He neglects to criticize the anti Catholic comments by right wing fundamentalists who just happen to be his fellow Republicans.

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