[The following is taken from a Monday press release of the Catholic League, originally titled "Bill Maher Offends Yet Again." MRC president Brent Bozell is a member of the board of advisors for the Catholic League.]
When serial anti-Catholic bigots Bill Maher and Seth MacFarlane get together, it is a sure fire recipe for new lows in tastelessness. And that's what we got on HBO last Friday night, as MacFarlane appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher. [video below; warning: profanity]
"…[Y]ou're so lucky that you do cartoons," Maher told the creator of Fox's Family Guy, 'because the things you get away with in cartoons—I'm so jealous of …"
The example he chose, predictably, was the repugnant Dec. 7, 2014 episode of Family Guy. Titled, "The 2000-Year-Old-Virgin," it defiled Jesus. "I saw your show, it was a repeat, I know," Maher recounted. "Jesus was f**king Peter's wife, but it was a scam. He was f**king a lot of people's wives—and this was your Christmas show." Maher, MacFarlane and the Real Time audience then shared a good laugh.
MacFarlane has offended Catholics numerous times before, from repeatedly mocking the Eucharist, to slandering gay priests, to promoting dishonest myths about the Inquisition. And Maher's constant anti-Catholic rantings would of course fill pages—as they do in our annual reports. Yet HBO and its parent company, Time Warner, continue to proudly feature his show, making them fully culpable in his bigotry and that of his guests.
