Catholic League Head Bashes ‘Narcissism’ of Artists

Catholic League President Bill Donohue doubled down on earlier comments he made criticizing the Charlie Hedbo and its publisher for “the role he played in his tragic death,” arguing that “self-censorship is the friend of liberty” and blasting the “narcissism of the artists in this country and abroad who say ‘the only right is my right to do whatever I want'” on Thursday’s “Kelly File” on the Fox News Channel.

Donohue began by rejecting assertions that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were brave, saying “I think, first of all, they’re pornographers described as satirists.”

He then argued “people have a legal right to insult my religion or somebody else’s, they don’t have a moral right to do so,” and “freedom of speech is not an end, it’s a means to an end.” Anchor Megyn Kelly disputed that claim, citing the US Supreme Court’s opinion in Hustler v. Falwell  that “[t]he freedom to speak one’s mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty – and thus a good unto itself – but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole.”

Donohue then declared “self-censorship is the friend of freedom,” and warned that a lack of self-censorship would lead to people interpreting their rights “in an extreme fashion” and “license.”

He then stated “the only people who are responsible here are the murderers, the Muslim barbarians, and they are a threat to liberty, there’s no question about it. I’m simply saying there’s another issue here. That is the necessity of restraint on the part of artists. And I am sick and tired of the narcissism of the artists in this country and abroad who say ‘the only right is my right to do whatever I want.'”

He concluded by wondering why news agencies wouldn’t publish the images Charlie Hedbo drew.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett