Catholic League

News Release
April 26, 2006

JESUS DEFILED IN STUDENT NEWSPAPER

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League, wrote a letter today to
every member of the Oregon legislature, the governor, the state’s three
Catholic bishops, the president of the Northwest Commission on Colleges
and Universities, and the chancellor of the Oregon University System. The
subject was an attack on Christianity that was published in a student
newspaper at the University of Oregon. Here are his remarks:

“The March edition of the Insurgent, a University of Oregon student
newspaper, was one of the most obscene assaults on Christianity I have
ever seen. To make sure that the persons I wrote to understand how
vile this attack was, I sent a photocopy of the two most offensive graphics:
one was a depiction of a naked Jesus on the Cross with an erection; the
other, titled ‘Resurrection,’ showed a naked Jesus kissing another naked
man, both sporting erections.

“The pictures are only one small part of the March edition. Indeed, the
entire issue is replete with the most egregious examples of hate speech
targeted at Christians. For example, there are several cartoons of
Jesus—including Jesus crucified—that are so gratuitously offensive
that only the most depraved would defend them. Moreover, the two
opinion pieces against Catholicism are patently malicious. That all of
this appeared in a student newspaper, during Lent, on the campus of
a state institution, makes one wonder what is going on at the University
of Oregon.

“This explosion of hate speech was a response to a decision reached by
one of the Insurgent’s rivals, the Commentator, to publish the 12 Danish
cartoons that recently so inflamed the Muslim world. An Insurgent editorial
said that because the Commentator published depictions of Muhammad so
as to ‘provoke dialogue,’ they had a right to thrash Christians as a way of
provoking dialogue.

“The tepid response by the president of the university, Dave Frohnmayer,
to this outrageous incident is what necessitated my letter to state leaders.”

Contact Frohnmayer at pres@oregon.uoregon.edu.

http://www.catholicleague.org/06press_releases/quarter%202/060426_Jesus_defiled.htm

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The Catholic League
For Religious and Civil Rights
http://www.catholicleague.org/

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization.
It defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation
and discrimination.