Bozell and Other Leaders Protest Vicious Anti-Catholic Huffington Post Article

As Fox News is reporting, MRC president Brent Bozell organized a group of socially conservative leaders to demand that Huffington Post publisher Arianna Huffington apologize for allowing a Catholic-bashing, Santorum-bashing column to be published on her website that begins: "Many of you will be shocked to learn what our possible future president believes, who he answers to, the bloody jihads his so-called church has carried on for centuries, and its current role as the tactical arm of the North American Man-Boy Love Association."

Writer Larry Doyle added, "Unlike Christians, Santorum and his fellow Roman Catholics participate in a barbaric ritual dating back two millennia, a 'mass' in which a black-robed cleric casts a spell over some bread and wine, transfiguring it into the actual living flesh and blood of their Christ. Followers then line up to eat the Jesus meat and drink his holy blood in a cannibalistic reverie not often seen outside Cinemax." Bozell and the others replied:

When you started the Huffington Post in 2005, you opened your new Internet venture with a pledge, as quoted by Newsweek: “If you’re looking for the usual flame-throwing, name-calling, and simplistic attack dog rhetoric....don’t bother coming to The Huffington Post.” But Larry Doyle’s recent anti-Catholic screed in the Huffington Post, The Jesus-Eating Cult of Rick Santorum, is bigoted and unacceptable, and a perfect example of “flame-throwing, name-calling, and simplistic attack dog rhetoric.” His column should be taken off your site, and you should issue an apology for ever publishing such trash.

As we stated in February of 2011, (“AOL News Has Lost Its Mind' with HuffPo Buyout”), AOL was foolish to buy the Huffpost, presuming that it would be anything less than a “hate-filled, vicious, radically left-wing rag.” Doyle’s column is the latest in a long line of such content.

In answer to online reader outrage over his distasteful column, Doyle responds that it was all a joke. Intelligent readers and the millions of faithful Catholics who come into contact with this piece don’t buy such equivocating nonsense for a minute. Bigots like Doyle think they can hurl the most contemptible insults towards Catholics ("Jesus eaters") and when called out, claim it was just a joke. What cowardice. What a double standard. If such an article was written concerning the Islamic or Jewish faith, the public outcry would be overwhelming, and rightly so. But anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable form of bigotry, and the Huffington Post is taking advantage of that bigotry for all it’s worth.

The Obama administration’s recent mandate forcing religious institutions to provide insurance which violates their most sacred teachings is the outgrowth of a media, including the HuffPost complicit in the persecution of religion. Timothy Cardinal Dolan has called this mandate an unprecedented attack on conscience.

You should be covering such attacks on religion in this country, not fomenting more persecution and bigotry.

The double standard is clear for all to see. Media outlets like the HuffPost are ignoring the attack on the religion, but promoting bigots like Doyle who despise Catholics and others who practice traditional Judeo Christian faiths. That makes you complicit in bigotry.

Withdraw Doyle’s piece from your site and issue an apology to all the millions of faithful Catholics you have deliberately offended in publishing this piece. If you choose not to, then your so called news outlet cannot be seen as anything but an anti-Catholic talking piece.

Sincerely,

L. Brent Bozell III
Founder and President
Media Research Center

Brian Brown
President
National Organization for Marriage

Brian Burch
President
Catholic Vote

Marjorie Dannenfelser
President
Susan B. Anthony List

Richard Viguerie
Chairman
ConservativeHQ.com

Tony Perkins
President
Family Research Council