While Donohue was in college in New York, Virgil C. Blum, a Jesuit at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, founded the Catholic League to counter anti-Catholicism in American culture.
"[8] In 2000, an editorial in America, a Jesuit magazine, noted Donohue's bi-partisanship and willingness to break ranks with Republicans who aligned with him on most issues: "once he was cheered by Catholic neo-conservatives for attacking the media, the entertainment industry and pro-choice groups, now he was excommunicated as a loose cannon because he was shooting at their allies.
Muhammad isn't sacred to me, either, but it would never occur to me to deliberately insult Muslims by trashing him.In 2015, Donohue said on Fox News,[17] "Self censorship is the friend of freedom"[18] and that free speech should not permit "obscene portrayal of religious figures".
[19] However, author Timothy J. Gordon observed that "Donohue came prepared to defend his statement in a logical and genteel (at least initially) manner" while Hewitt sounded "beleaguered and clearly intellectually overmatched."
[21] In 2015, in response to Laudato si', Donohue described Pope Francis as "the ultimate maverick" on The Alan Colmes Show, saying "the left is going to like the fact that he has more of a socialist model in terms of his vision of the structure of the economy.
“Marriage has always been based, historically, on duty and on commitment.”[25] In 2009, after the release of the official report of the Ryan Commission, whose findings included multiple instances of rape and persuasive evidence of endemic sexual, emotional, and physical abuse throughout the Catholic School system in Ireland,[27] Donohue publicly denied these criminal charges[28] and characterized the media response to the Ryan Report as "hysterical".
[31] In August 2018, Donohue responded to a report by a Pennsylvania grand jury that revealed rampant sexual abuse of children by some 300 priests by stating that the victims weren't raped because they were only groped, not penetrated.
"[33] Donohue was so incensed by these attacks that he wrote a book arguing that by 2018, the Catholic Church had indeed posted the best record on handling cases of the sexual abuse of minors of any institution in the United States.
[35] For months in 1997 Donohue promoted a boycott of the advertisers of the television show Nothing Sacred, the story of "a sexy Catholic priest, Father Ray, who sometimes doubts his faith".
[37] One study of the show said that the television series The Simpsons presented Catholicism with humor that had an "undeniably hostile, sometimes gratuitous edge to it" for years.
During a discussion of the film on the television show Scarborough Country, Donohue said:[45] Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.
Absolutely.In November 2005, he criticized an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for promoting "a pro-abortion rights agenda by portraying those who are opposed to abortion as religious nuts not to be taken seriously".
Donohue said that the trilogy of books on which the screenplay was based, His Dark Materials, "denigrate Christianity, thrash the Catholic Church and sell the virtues of atheism".
[57] In 2010, Frank Rich said that when Donohue extended his criticism of an art exhibit from one work he considered anti-religious and complained that it included "pornographic images of gay men", he "was just using his 'religious' objections as a perfunctory cover for the homophobia actually driving his complaint".
It is hosted by Mercedes Schlapp and features interviews with Donohue, Tony Perkins, Ben Carson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Miranda Devine, Brent Bozell, David Horowitz, and Christian Toto.
[59][60] When the Los Angeles Dodgers planned their annual Pride Night in 2023, they invited the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a charity group of gay men who dress up as nuns to bring attention to sexual intolerance and gender.
[63] Bill Donohue has stated he played a critical role in triggering the FBI's investigation of Anthony Weiner's laptop resulting in the discovery of thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails.
Early in the 2000 presidential campaign, Donohue criticized President George W. Bush for appearing at Bob Jones University, whose head once called Catholicism "the religion of the Antichrist and a satanic system."
He welcomed Bush's letter of apology for failing to make his opposition to the school's anti-Catholicism clear, saying: "One of the great touchstones of Catholicism is forgiveness for the wrongdoer who admits that he or she is wrong, and there's nothing to be gained by beating this dead horse."
"[71] He raised a similar issue a few weeks later when the Republican leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives appointed a Protestant chaplain rather than the Catholic priest who received the greatest support from the bipartisan committee charged with the selection.
The ad showed the candidate seated in front of a stained glass window that displayed, in Donohue's view, an image of the cross while Huckabee described the importance of Christmas and family.
[77] In March 2009, he criticized President Obama's selection of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services calling her "one of the most extreme pro-abortion zealots in the nation".
[78] In June 2016, following the close of the New York State legislature without action on legislation designed to help survivors of childhood sexual abuse, Donohue wrote: "The bill was sold as justice for the victims of sexual abuse, when, in fact, it was a sham: the proposed legislation that failed to make it to the floor of the New York State legislature in the wee hours of Saturday ... was a vindictive bill pushed by lawyers and activists out to rape the Catholic Church.
They honored Mao Zedong and others for the 60th anniversary of the Communist Revolution here a few years ago, who took with him 77 million innocent Chinese men, women, and children".
[83] In 1999, Donohue called for people to picket the Brooklyn Museum of Art to protest its display of a painting by Chris Ofili titled The Holy Virgin Mary that, according to The New York Times, depicted "a black Madonna with a clump of elephant dung on one breast and cutouts of genitalia from pornographic magazines in the background".
[84] On November 30, 2010, Donohue denounced a piece of video art, A Fire in My Belly by David Wojnarowicz, that was included in an exhibition of gay and lesbian portraiture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery.
[86] Frank Rich described the work as consistent with the use of religious imagery in the Western tradition: "A crucifix is besieged by ants that evoke frantic souls scurrying in panic as a seemingly impassive God looked on.
One of the exhibit's curators said that Donohue represented an anti-Semitic hate group that viewed gays and lesbians as "raw meat" in the culture wars.
[88] In 2012, a Manhattan art gallery displayed "Immersion (Piss Christ)", a photograph by Andres Serrano that depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in the artist's urine.
In October 2015, a federal district court dismissed charges of defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress against Donohue.