On the February 12 edition of the “John and Ken Show,” a KFI radio program in Los Angeles, several bigoted remarks were made about Catholic priests. On February 14, the Catholic League called to verify the comments, but no one responded. We e-mailed KFI on February 19 asking for verification and were told that the following remarks (among others) were made on the February 12 show:
“Ten percent of priests are pedophiles and the other 90 percent are equally as guilty because they don’t do anything about it.”
“I have always heard that men have a calling to the priesthood. Now we know that the calling is in his pants.”
For several days after our verification check of February 19, the “John and Ken Show” hosts then lied about the Catholic League on the air. They said we defend pedophile priests and that we have threatened a boycott of the show’s sponsors. On February 20 and 21, several phone messages were left with various officials at KFI registering our complaint but none was returned. On February 22, William Donohue blasted the show in the following news release:
“The folks at KFI are bigots, liars and cowards. John and Ken would never condemn all gays because some are irresponsible. Ditto for every single demographic group in the country. But when it comes to priests, if some are guilty of sexual misconduct, all are. They compound matters by lying about the Catholic League. As a result of their lying, we have been inundated with the most virulently anti-Catholic phone messages (thanks for supplying the evidence, guys). This tells us something about the type of people who like to listen to KFI. Finally, they are cowards: they refuse to deal with our complaint in a professional manner. Anytime these guys want to debate me, I’m ready.”
They took Donohue up on his challenge and on February 25 the Catholic League president went on the air with John and Ken for one hour. It was mostly a waste of time. Ken was okay but John did nothing but scream. John lied profusely. He lied when he said they never accused us of defending pedophile priests. He lied when he said that they invited someone from the Catholic League to come on the show before our news release was sent out (it was after we blanketed the media that they extended the invitation). And he lied when he said we threatened a boycott of their sponsors.
When people resort to filibustering and lying it’s a sure sign they can’t deal squarely with the issue at hand. We will be sure to enter these guys in next year’s annual report on anti-Catholicism.
