Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
On Wednesday evening, ABC aired two previews of it’s controversial new sitcom, The Real O’Neal’s, about a dysfunctional Catholic family that was riddled with so much blatant mockery and attacks on Catholic beliefs that Christians across the country are demanding it be taken off the air.
According to the Media Research Center (MRC), a media watchdog group, the show was written by one of America’s most celebrated gay activists and anti-Christian bigots, Dan Savage, and is said to be loosely based on the story of his life.
Just 52 seconds into the first episode, Jesus was attacked. The bizarre family is shown keeping a statue of the Virgin Mary above the toilet with devotion to Our Lady repeatedly portrayed as some kind of ridiculous superstition. The MRC counted 93 visual or verbal attempts to mock Catholics in the first two episodes.
Some of these were itemized in a blistering op-ed written by Catholic League president, Bill Donohue, such as the middle son in the family who “comes out” as gay and flushes his girlfriend’s unused condoms down the toilet “under the watchful eye of one of those Virgin Mary statues.”
The daughter in the family habitually steals the money she’s supposed to be collecting for charity and uses her Catholic school science project to deny the existence of God.
A parish priest who owns a Lexus is shown invoking his “vow of poverty” when asked to make a charitable donation and judgmental nuns are depicted as casting dirty looks at the O’Neals when the family’s many dysfunctions are revealed.
Meanwhile, another woman in the parish who is competing for standing with Mrs. O’Neal takes obvious delight in the downfall of the family’s reputation.
“In short, “The Real O’Neals” is an artistic and moral flop. Just like Dan Savage and the show’s writers,” Donohue concludes.
“If anyone made a show like this about Muslims, it would be considered hate speech,” the MRC states.
Apparently, Americans know hate speech when they see it. If ABC thought the new sitcom would open to rave reviews, they were painfully disappointed. Instead, it caused a backlash of outrage across the country. According to the MRC, which encouraged people to let ABC know what they thought of this vile show, the broadcaster received more than 500 calls in just a few hours.
“But we can’t let up! ABC was expecting rave reviews for their raunchy and disrespectful ‘comedy’, but instead they’re hearing a powerful backlash against this kind of anti-Christian trash,” the MRC wrote in an email to subscribers.
While asking that people be polite when the call, they are urging Christians to call the company and make their feelings known “loud and clear”.
Please call Hope Hartman, ABC’s Sr. Vice President of Communications at (855) 242-7422 and tell her ABC should cancel this show!
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