Kathy Griffin: "This Award Is My God Now!"

I've always found a bit hilarious and appalling the narcissistic way some people of faith will broadcast their gratitude to the Supreme Deity for directing His omnipotent energies to the task of ensuring that they, and not, say, their identically unremarkable next-door neighbor, managed to win the badminton match at the Sunday cook-out, or that their own "talented" traumatized moppet got to win the County-Fair Inappropriately Sexualized Preteen Beauty Pageant over the rest of those poor desperate hideously dolled-up four-year olds with mushroom cloud hair and Tammy Faye makeup on.

Thank you, Jeebus, they proclaim with ugly blank-eyed self-importance, for putting the spotlight on me, for smiting those who would oppose me, like, you know, Frank in Accounting who almost got that last doughnut before me, he was going right for it, I saw it, except for the way you sent Jenkens into his path to bend his ear over the Johnson account (I clearly have no idea what goes on in these mysterious office spaces, but you get the idea), thank you, thank you, Supreme One, for getting me to that choice parking space before that sweet helpful old lady in her Prius! How Evil she must really be, you know, deep down inside. I'm Number One!

If only the runners up at these events and in these curiously solipsistic morality plays would blame and castigate the Mighty God for their defeats and frustrations with equal enthusiasm, now, that might be a spectacle worth watching. The bronze medal? God, damn you! Shakes fist. At least this would introduce some consistency into the whole unseemly enterprise. Instead, we are treated to the perversity of people gratefully thanking the Lord for the nice News cameras for "sparing" them from some flood or fire or whatnot He apparently changed his mind about killing them over earlier the same day. And, I suppose, too bad about all those neighbors of yours He went ahead and killed anyway on this premise.

Be that as it may, it was a news story about the very funny Kathy Griffin's acceptance speech for an Emmy last week for her show My Life on the D-List (which Eric and I watch, er, religiously) that pushed this button for me. "[A] lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award," Griffin is reported to have said in her moving speech, "I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus." Yay, Kathy!

Flabbergastingly enough, according to a statement by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, "Kathy Griffin's offensive remarks will not be part of the E! telecast on Saturday night." (It's on Fox later, naturally.) The thrust of the story remains a bit ambiguous for me, since it isn't completely clear if Griffin's joke or "an off-color remark" which presumably accompanied it but was left unspecified (la-a-a-a-a-nd of the fre-e-e-e-e-e and the ho-ome of the br-a-a-a-a-ve!) is regarded as "offensive" in this context and will actually suffer the resulting censorship (la-a-a-a-a-nd of the fre-e-e-e-e-e and the ho-ome of the br-a-a-a-a-ve!).

My personal fave snippet from the article?

The comedian's remarks were condemned Monday by Catholic League President Bill Donohue, who called them a "vulgar, in-your-face brand of hate speech."

For examples of Bill Donohue's presumably more tasteful, less confrontational brand of love speech you might enjoy checking out this Greatest Hits compilations fom a few years' back (Including: "It [The Passion of the Christ] will bring people back to the church, and it will be a good thing for Catholics and Jews. And the people who are clamoring this -- this rhetoric, this cacophony against Mel Gibson, boy, are they going to have to pay for it when it's all over!" "Name for me a book publishing company in this country, particularly in New York, which would allow you to publish a book which would tell the truth about the gay death style." "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, okay? And I'm not afraid to say it. ... Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism.") as well as this more recent atrocity exhibition occasioned by the whole Chocolate Jesus non-controversy.

More irreverent generous courageous Kathy Griffin, please. Less dull-witted bullying bigoted Bill Donahue, please.