Tag Bill Donohue

BillDo Opines on the Reason Rally

Oh, goody! BillDo has written a piece about this Saturday’s Reason Rally on the National Mall (are you coming? If you’re an atheist, agnostic, freethinker, none, or anywhere in that general ballpark, you should totally come). Shall we see what nuggets of wisdom he might share with us from the depths of his pious bowels?

They stand for nothing, believe in nothing, and many are good for nothing.

Feel that Christian love! BillDo usually has his panties in a knot, but here he looks like a jamboree at Victoria’s Secret.

Most of the speakers are nobodies

I suppose that depends how you define “nobody”. It’s true that none of the major party candidates will be speaking, and no sitting presidents or senators. But I count two sitting Representatives (Tulsi Gabbard, D-HI and Rep. Bobby Scott, D-VA), as well as House candidate Jamie raskin (D-MD).

I also count a number of scientists and entertainers, including more Wu Tang Clan members than I realized (then again, I’m an old, and I don’t follow the hippity-hop).

But hark! Bill continues:

an exception being Penn Jillette: He is known for his obscene rants against Mother Teresa.

Actually, no: he’s known for being a stage magician. Pointing out that the Albanian worshiper of suffering may not be all she was cracked up to be is just a sideline.

Has Penn talked about her, since that one episode of Bullshit!? If so, I’m not aware of it. Maybe Bill is still butthurt 11 years after that show aired?

Besides bashing Christians, the speakers will discuss “climate change, LGBT rights, sex education, and social justice issues.” Exactly what the atheist perspective is on these issues is a mystery (if I may use that word).

Wait, seriously? Bill thinks there’s something provocative, edgy, or even clever about using the word “mystery” in a secular context? Does he think atheists don’t read murder mysteries?

What is really striking, however, is that the rally is showcasing how important the atheist vote is, thus suggesting that their group-think community is anything but a home for “freethinkers.”

So he just told us that he doesn’t know what atheists think about climate change, LGBT rights, etc, but he knows we all believe the same thing? Is that anything like saying, “I don’t understand the doctrine of the Trinity, but I believe it to be true”?

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is cashing in on the event by spending hundreds of millions on newspaper ads telling readers how unfair it is that their leader, Dan Barker, was denied a request to deliver an atheist address to Congress.

“[H]undreds of millions”? Please. A glance at the New York Times’s ad rates shows that a full-page color ad in the International section will set you back $107,075. The FFRF ad is running in three newspapers, so call it something close to half a million bucks. A good chunk of change, but still only half a percent of what Bill is claiming.

But anyway, go on:

David Silverman of American Atheists boasts that there are 40-50 million atheists in the U.S. He makes this figure up.

…says the man who just confused “million” and “thousand”.

Of course, it’s not hard to find other atheists criticizing Silverman for his estimate. But you wouldn’t know it because of all the groupthink.

BillDo Has A Totally Practical Solution to Zika

Looks like it’s time for another edition of Bill Donohue Is A Terrible Person.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights commented on the current Zika epidemic:

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said Friday, adding that laws and policies that restrict access to sexual and reproductive health services in contravention of international standards, must be repealed and concrete steps must be taken so that women have the information, support and services they require to exercise their rights to determine whether and when they become pregnant.

So if women get to decide when they get pregnant, there’ll be fewer pregnant women with Zika, and thus fewer kids with microcephaly. Does that sound pretty reasonable to you? Yes? Well, that’s because you’re not a frothing anti-contraception dogmatist like BillDo.

The way he sees it (emphasis emphatically added):

Zeid wants restrictive abortion laws repealed. More than that, he is fuming over the notion that women are in charge of their bodies. They are not. Moreover, he smirks at the advice that women should delay getting pregnant. According to the High Commissioner such advice “ignores the reality that many women and girls simply cannot exercise control over whether or when or under what circumstances they become pregnant, especially in an environment where sexual violence is so common.”

Okay, back up to that “They are not” for a moment. Is that poor phrasing, or did Bill just say that women are not in charge of their bodies? And if the latter, is it safe to assume he means something abstract and nebulous like “all our bodies ultimately belong to Baby Jesus, and we’re just caretakers”, rather than a more concrete bit of horribleness like “men get to decide whether women get and stay pregnant”? (I mean, we know he endorses the “stay” part of that, but I don’t know to what extent he’s willing to say so out loud.)

Be that as it may, he continues:

Here’s some advice for Zeid. Number one, girls should not be getting pregnant, and it is his job to say so.

Okay so far. I’m curious to know how BillDo proposes to enable them to make this choice.

Second, women are not the powerless wimps that he says they are: they can, in almost all circumstances, control when to have sex and with whom.

Yes. In almost all circumstances (let’s say over 95%), women decide when and whether to have sex. The other cases are called rape.

Third, he needs to man-up and name those Latin American nations (those were the ones he was addressing) where rape is commonplace.

Oh, Jesus Mary-fucking Christ on a consecrated cracker! Is this really that hard to look up in the age of Google and Wikipedia? Here’s a chart of rape rates in Latin America. And here’s Wikipedia’s section on rape in Brazil, one of the countries currently worst-hit by Zika.

Whichever way you slice it, we’re talking about tens or hundreds of thousands of women whom BillDo dismisses with a wave of his in-almost-all-circumstances, women far more alive and breathing than the virgin Mary, the only woman he seems willing to protect.

Fourth, killing innocent persons is never a morally acceptable remedy for any disease. Fifth, he ought to be policing the U.N. instead of lecturing us about the wonders of abortion

For some reason, BillDo doesn’t mention that the document he’s complaining about isn’t a paean to abortion, but rather talks in more general terms about letting women control their bodies, including sex ed, medical services, and contraception, as well as (and preferably before) abortion.

But I guess none of that matters, because when women use contraception instead of abstinence, it makes Baby Jesus cry.

Still, I’d like to end on a positive note by treating Bill better than he would half the human population, and allow him to choose for himself whether or not to choke on a barrel of contraceptive jelly.

Not Impressed By the “Power of Prayer”

This past week, Bill Donohue took a break from complaining about perceived slights to his religion of choice, and posted something more inspirational, entitled The Power of Hope and Prayer. He tells of a family whose newborn son had a heart disease, but who was cured thanks to hope, prayer, and the best medical care that a Fox News anchor’s salary can afford.

Here’s a sampling of what Donohue has to say about the power of prayer:

[…] Bret and Amy were not alone—they were one with the Lord. Bret’s prayer was quintessentially Catholic: he was not angry with God—he thanked the Lord for the gift of his son and asked for his help. But most of all, he did not despair. By praying for Paulie’s “recovery that will follow,” he evinced optimism and hope.

Jesus said at the Last Supper, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.” How can this be? […] New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan put it in a way that really drives home the essence of Jesus’ words. He explored what he called “the theological reasons for laughter.” Why are people of faith happy, he asked. “Here’s my reason for joy: the cross. You heard me right: the cross of Christ!” The death of Jesus was not the last word. His resurrection was. After Christ was crucified, Dolan says, it “seemed we could never smile again…But, then came the Sunday called Easter! The sun—S-U-N—came up, and the Son—S-O-N—came out as He rose from the dead. Guess who had the last word? God!” […] It is a theology grounded in hope, and hope is the natural antidote to despair.

When Pope John Paul II died, I happened to be at the studios of the Fox News Network in New York City. I knew he was dying, but I had no idea that I would be the first guest to go on the air when he passed away. When asked by Shepard Smith what my thoughts were, I answered, “On the one hand, great sorrow. On the other hand, great joy. Sorrow that he’s no longer with us. Joy that he’s with God, with his Lord.”

For those who skipped past that, he basically says that prayer makes people happy and gives them hope. Basically, pretty standard inspirational-chain-email stuff.

I can’t help noticing that he fails to mention any kind of medical benefit or, indeed, any benefit to the patient. All of the benefits he mentions could, it seems, be provided equally well by prayer to Krishna, or a sacrifice to Dionysus, or even by meditation.

People can get these benefits of Donohue’s religion even if they’re not true. It’s enough that people believe them. In other words, from everything Donohue has said, Jesus might as well be an imaginary friend.

If he’d left it at that, I wouldn’t have bothered writing this. But he had to throw in some digs at atheists:

The Baiers are practicing Catholics. What would they have done had they been atheists? It must be tough going it alone, and indeed the evidence shows exactly that.

Note that he doesn’t actually mention what any of this evidence might be.

And in case you were wondering about ellipses, above:

Jesus said at the Last Supper, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.” How can this be? It is not something atheists can grasp. It eludes the secular mind. New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan put it in a way that really drives home the essence of Jesus’ words. He explored what he called “the theological reasons for laughter.” Why are people of faith happy, he asked. “Here’s my reason for joy: the cross. You heard me right: the cross of Christ!” The death of Jesus was not the last word. His resurrection was. After Christ was crucified, Dolan says, it “seemed we could never smile again…But, then came the Sunday called Easter! The sun—S-U-N—came up, and the Son—S-O-N—came out as He rose from the dead. Guess who had the last word? God!” There is probably nothing more baffling to an atheist than this “theology of laughter.” It is a theology grounded in hope, and hope is the natural antidote to despair.

I know that Donohue has been around long enough, has spoken to enough atheists that this can’t be dismissed as simple ignorance. He’s going out of his way to insult a class of people with whom he doesn’t agree.

And coming from the guy who throws a fit every time someone dares point out some bad about his religion, that’s pretty rich.

“Cosmos” Misrepresents Why Man Was Set on Fire, Claims Inquisition Apologist

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Every Who down in Whoville liked Cosmos a lot…
But the BillDo, who lived just north of who-cares, did NOT!

The tireless defender of all things Catholic (unless it’s things like 99% of Catholics practicing birth control, or being okay with not stoning teh gays) has spoken out against Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s and Seth McFarlane’s reboot of that show where Carl Sagan showed my generation just how beautiful our universe is.

The first episode, aired a couple of days ago, includes a segment about how Giordano Bruno was thrown in prison and finally burned at the stake by the Catholic church for imagining that the universe was infinite, with many suns and planets.

Mr. Dorkemada complains about the portrayal of the Inquisition as some sort of repressive thought-control tool wielded by an authoritarian Catholic church, and fails to stress its important work of petting puppy dogs and helping old ladies across the street. Oh, and it wasn’t really part of the Catholic church, either (emphasis added):

The ignorance is appalling. “The Catholic Church as an institution had almost nothing to do with [the Inquisition],” writes Dayton historian Thomas Madden. “One of the most enduring myths of the Inquisition,” he says, “is that it was a tool of oppression imposed on unwilling Europeans by a power-hungry Church. Nothing could be more wrong.” Because the Inquisition brought order and justice where there was none, it actually “saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.” (His emphasis.)

Bill is quoting from, but as usual can’t be bothered to link to, this article, which takes pains to distinguish the Spanish Inquisition, which he says had practically nothing to do with the Catholic church, from the Roman Inquisition, which presumably was more closely tied to Rome. Which is all fine and dandy, or would be, except that it was the Roman Inquisition that tried and executed Bruno. Take it away, Wikipedia:

Luigi Firpo lists these charges made against Bruno by the Roman Inquisition:[22]

  • holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers;
  • holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation;
  • holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ;
  • holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus;
  • holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass;
  • claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;
  • believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes;
  • dealing in magics and divination.

So, mostly for holding opinions, then. But really naughty ones, apparently. So what did the nothing-to-do-with-the-Catholic-church Inquisition do?:

On January 20, 1600, Pope Clement VIII declared Bruno a heretic and the Inquisition issued a sentence of death.

Oh.

Set us straight, BillDo:

As for Bruno, he was a renegade monk who dabbled in astronomy; he was not a scientist. There is much dispute about what really happened to him. As sociologist Rodney Strong puts it, he got into trouble not for his “scientific” views, but because of his “heretical theology involving the existence of an infinite number of worlds—a work based entirely on imagination and speculation.”

In short, the science-fan show maligned the Catholic church by saying it set a man on fire for imagining the wrong things, whereas the truth is that it set a man on fire for imagining the wrong things. And they all lived happily ever after, except the ones who died in a fire.

Thank you, Catholic Crusader!

Ow

BillDo is butthurt over the existence of the art-house movie Paradise: Faith, about an ultra-religious woman who wants to not just love Jesus, but make love to him.

It is not certain whether the filmmaker, Ulrich Seidl, who is Austrian, is related to another Austrian, Mr. Adolf Hitler, though he could be. Like Hitler, Seidl is a vicious anti-Catholic ex-Catholic.

Godwin! Now that he’s conceded the argument, we can all go back to not giving a rat’s ass what BillDo thinks. But in case you’re curious how he finishes this paragraph:

When questioned why it was necessary to show the “devout” Catholic woman profaning a sacred symbol, he said, “it is right to show her masturbating using a cross, as she is making love to Jesus. Just because it might be a taboo doesn’t mean I won’t show it.” But it depends: he won’t show a “devout” Jew masturbating with the Star of David. That would be disrespectful. And NPR and the New York Times would never approve.

Um, no. I think the reason may have nothing to do with NPR’s approval, and more to do with the fact that stars of David are pointy, like shuriken. So ow. Ow ow ow. This is in contrast to crosses, which are roughly dildo-shaped, and especially crucifixes, which are Textured for Her Pleasure.

The Selectively-True Scotsman

BillDo has been on a tear lately against surveys, seeing as how a few of them have been released lately showing that as it turns out, the Catholic rank and file are nowhere near as reactionary as the funny-hatted hierarchy, or as he would like.

I suppose he could have just pointed out that the Catholic church is not a democracy so sit down, shut up, and let the higher-ups tell you what God wants, but I suppose even he realizes that won’t go over well in the 21st century. So instead, he points out the differences between people who attend church services regularly and those who don’t. I guess this is like saying swing voters are more favorable to immigration reform and gay rights than people who consistently vote straight-ticket Republican, and therefore the GOP needs to double down on its anti-gay plaform planks to remain relevant. Or, to put it another way, I don’t know what his reasoning is.

At any rate, it’s clear that he doesn’t care for self-identified Catholics who don’t go to church every Sunday:

Whether someone who “attends Mass a few times a year or never” can be considered Catholic is debatable

(from here)

This takes on added significance when we consider that 4 in 10 of the Catholics sampled do not practice their religion (28 percent go to church “a few times a year” and 11 percent say they “never” attend). That these nominal Catholics are precisely the biggest fans of gay marriage is a sure bet, though the poll fails to disclose the results.

(from here.)

So take note, Christmas-and-Easter Catholics: you’re not true Scotsmen Catholics.

But wait, what’s this?

Catholics make up anywhere between 70 and 78 million Americans

70-78 million out of a population of 315 million is 22-25%, well in line with other surveys of American religion that I’ve seen. But shouldn’t BillDo’s number be 40% lower than mainstream pollsters’, since he doesn’t consider infrequent mass-goers to be True Catholics™?

Surely this can’t mean that he’s happy to count mere “nominal Catholics” when he wants to show off the size of his tribe. We know this can’t be the case because hypocrisy makes Baby Jesus cry. So there must be some other explanation, like anti-Catholic bias among pollsters or something.

Update, Mar. 25, 2013: Carmelita Spats tells me how she tried, and failed, to be excommunicated from the Catholic church, on the grounds that a) she’s an atheist, and b) she had an abortion. But apparently even that’s not enough to be taken off the rolls.

Is Christianity Against Das Kapital?

Oh, BillDo! Will your histrionic antics never cease to amuse me? (Spoiler alert: no.)

Last week, Lawrence O’Donnell opined on Louie Giglio withdrawing from participating in Obama’s inauguration because of an outcry over a homophobic sermon he delivered in the 90s (and, to my knowledge, has so far failed to apologize for). That, and the irony of Barack Obama being sworn in on a book that contains so many horrific passages that he and every decent person on the planet disagree with. Watch it, because it’s quite good:

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/gJgNQsQDkqk

At 2:51, Giglio is quoted as saying,

if you look at the counsel of the word of God, Old Testament, New Testament, you come quickly to the conclusion that homosexuality is not an alternate lifestyle. Homosexuality is not gay, but homosexuality is a sin. It is sin in the eyes of God, and it is a sin according to the word of God.

Predictably, Bill Donohue thought O’Donnell’s editorial wasn’t quite cricket (emphasis added):

Pastor Giglio’s crime? He’s a Christian. Practicing Christians, along with observant Jews, Mormons, Muslims and millions of others, accept the biblical teachings on the sinfulness of homosexuality. In the 1990s, Giglio addressed this subject, citing Christian teachings, and that was enough to set off the alarms in gay quarters.

Over the past few decades, many homosexuals and theologians have tried to argue that the Bible’s passages condemning homosexuality should not be read as condemning homosexuality. In their postmodern mind, they say that interpretation is wrong. O’Donnell, to his credit, knows these savants are delusional. While he readily admits that the Bible condemns homosexuality, his level of cognitive development does not allow him to discern the difference between behavior and status, which is why he falsely claims the Bible condemns “gay people.”

Now, given that he’s just spent two spittle-flecked paragraphs explaining how Christianity is anti-gay, I wasn’t expecting his very next post to be entitled Is Christianity anti-gay?. I guess he enjoys making me do spit-takes.

To say that Giglio backed out because of his “previous anti-gay comments” is tantamount to saying Christianity is anti-gay because it sees homosexual behavior as sinful. It also sees adultery as sinful. Does that mean Christianity is bigoted against heterosexuals?

Right. BillDo’s flavor of Christianity places some restrictions on heterosexual behavior, like mandating marital fidelity; and it also places some restrictions on homosexual behavior, like not being allowed to have the kind of sex you enjoy, or being allowed to marry the person you love, or have your union recognized as legally equivalent to Kim Kardashian’s umpteenth marriage, or being portrayed in a favorable light in sitcoms, and if gays have to have the unmitigated gall to exist in the first place, could they at least have the decency to emigrate to a leper colony somewhere? Because the children or something.

With regard to homosexuality, the teachings found in Christianity were taken from Judaism. Moreover, Islam also sees homosexuality as sinful. Are we to believe that the adherents of all these world religions are “anti-gay”?

Why, yes. To the extent that they agree with BillDo’s anti-gay interpretation of their holy scripture of choice, yes, they are. That was easy.

What, am I supposed to believe that if a bigoted belief stops being bigoted if enough people accept it?

(Update: Oh, poo. I just realized I posted this without explaining the title: it’s a mashup of the titles of BillDo’s two posts: “Should Obama swear on Das Kapital?” and “Is Christianity anti-gay?”. I could fix the title, but that would break the permalink. So oh well.)

Bill Donohue Bathing in Privilege

The latest twist in Bill Donohue’s Gordian panties is the fact that he was barred from a gallery in New York City that was exhibiting Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ:

I then asked them if I could enter, and they said no, without explanation. At that point I turned to the crowd behind me explaining that my First Amendment rights were being censored by the same people who were proudly displaying Serrano’s crucifix in a jar of urine.

Now he’s posted a video of the incident:
http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Cd7h80UUNHg

At around 1:10, he says,

I was just officially denied the opportunity by these people— Censoring my freedom of speech, my First Amendment right. They took this art and they’re going to show it here. […] My problem is with the phonies who run the Edward Tyler Nahem art museum by trying to censor us.

Oh, Jesus tapdancing Christ in a jar of urine. I’ve seen BillDo throw some riduculous tantrums, but this is a contender for Privileged Whine of the Year.

The very fact that he’s airing his beefs on the Internet to anyone who gives a crap is proof that he’s not being censored. But that’s not good enough for him. He imagines that he has not only a right to speak, but a right to be listened to. He’s upset not because he can’t say what he wants, but because he can’t say it where and how he wants it. Apparently in BillDo’s head, it is the gallery’s responsibility to provide him with a platform to air his grievances. Because he’s getting offended on God’s behalf, apparently.

If there’s a more perfect examplar of religious privilege, I have yet to see it.

Religious People More Generous?

One item in the news today is a study in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where the main take-home message for a lot of people is that religious conservatives are generous to the needy, and liberal atheists are miserly Scrooges. In fact, teh BillDo has a picture of Scrooge next to his summary:

Liberals are the least likely to help the poor. That’s the inescapable conclusion of this new study: states where people participate in religion at a high rate are also the most generous; conversely, the least generous states are also the least religious. Importantly, nine of the ten least generous states voted for Obama in 2008.

Note that he says “help the poor”. The Chronicle of Philanthropy‘s writeup says something significantly different:

The study, based on the most recent available Internal Revenue Service records of Americans who itemized their deductions, examines taxpayers who earned $50,000 or more in 2008. They donated a median of 4.7 percent of their discretionary income to charitable causes.

There’s a difference between “the poor” and “organizations that the IRS considers charities”. For instance, Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Megachurch is a charitable organization for tax purposes. So if you donated to them, and some of your money went to pay for Joel Osteen’s mansion, that counts as a charitable donation (or, as BillDo put it, “help[ing] the poor”) for purposes of this study.

In other words, some portion of the sensational headline “Less-religious states give less to charity” is “Less-religious states give less to churches”. Like, duh.

In fact, what the Chronicle of Philanthropy says on the subject is:

Religion has a big influence on giving patterns. Regions of the country that are deeply religious are more generous than those that are not. Two of the top nine states—Utah and Idaho—have high numbers of Mormon residents, who have a tradition of tithing at least 10 percent of their income to the church. The remaining states in the top nine are all in the Bible Belt.

When religious giving isn’t counted, the geography of giving is very different. Some states in the Northeast jump into the top 10 when secular gifts alone are counted. New York would vault from No. 18 to No. 2, and Pennsylvania would climb from No. 40 to No. 4.

(emphasis added.)

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find the study’s data set, to see how removing donations to churches changes things. And even then, there would be the problem of subdividing religious donations into what can genuinely be considered charitable (e.g., providing meals for the homeless) from administrative costs (like clergy salaries) or proselytizing (like sending Bibles to Haiti). Of course, churches encourage the idea that tithing = charity and don’t publish their books the way other non-profits do, so we can see how much overhead they have.

Having said that, it’s entirely possible that atheists and agnostics genuinely give less to charity than more religious people; but that’s not apparent from what was published (in other words, BillDo’s “inescapable conclusion” is entirely escapable). After all, churches are already set up to accept donations, so it’s easy for them to raise money for, say, tsunami victims in Indonesia. And of course if you give a sermon on the importance of charity, you’ll probably raise more money when you pass the plate than if you don’t.

Being Anti-Gay Doesn’t Mean You’re Anti-Gay

Not too long ago — I remember it as though it were yesterday — the BillDo competed in the olympic 200-word blithering competition (emphasis added):

Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A, has said that we are “inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say, ‘We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage.’” How this unremarkable statement, which never mentions homosexuals, can be labeled anti-gay is astounding. But according to the editorial board of the New York Times, it can be. After quoting Cathy, the Times says, “Antigay remarks like these are offensive.”

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Except for the part about how, for I don’t know how many years now, “defending traditional marriage” has been code for preventing gays from marrying the people they love, for no rational reason I’ve been able to discern. So yeah, if you’ve been in a coma since the Clinton administration, you may not realize that “I support traditional marriage” means “I’m a homophobe” in the same way as “I support Separate But Equal” means “I’m a racist”.

Of course, reality isn’t BillDo’s strong suit. But still, you’d think that after writing the afore-quoted paragraph #1, and taking further offense in paragraph #2, that he wouldn’t write this as paragraph #3:

Nature, and Nature’s God, has ordained that marriage is the exclusive province of a man and a woman; they are the only two people capable of naturally creating a family. But now, all of a sudden, we are expected to believe that such a pedestrian view is wrongheaded. Worse, there is a growing segment of the population, overwhelmingly white and well-educated, who want to punish those who hold to the traditional view. This is madness laced with fascistic elements.

Shorter Bill: “Only one man and one woman should be allowed to be married; anything else is an offense to God. And don’t you dare call me a bigot, because I never mentioned gays! All I did was strongly suggest that those people shouldn’t have the same rights as I do.”