Common Sense

Kathy Griffin managed to get the one reliably irate group to help spread her name around town: Christians.

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (AP) — Members of a Christian theater troupe are spreading the word that they’re irate about Kathy Griffin’s off-color speech in accepting a creative arts Emmy earlier this month.

The Miracle Theater in Pigeon Forge spent $90,440 on a full-page advertisement in USA Today that ran nationally Monday, proclaiming “enough is enough.”

In accepting the Emmy for her Bravo reality show, “My Life on the D-List,” Griffin said that “a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus.”

She went on to hold up her Emmy, make an off-color remark about Christ and proclaim, “This award is my god now!”

Do these people really not get that they just spent nearly $100,000 not to promote Jesus, but to promote Kathy Griffin?

“We at The Miracle Theater consider it an honor to stand for Jesus today,” the ad said. “We may never win a national award. We may never be household names. We may never be seen in Hollywood. Although others may choose to use their national platform to slander our God, we are honored as professional entertainers to stand for Christ.”

I guess not. Griffin did respond to the Catholic League’s (blecchhh, I can’t stand the Catholic League or that holier than thou jackass that runs it, and I’m Catholic) criticisms that she was “blasphemous.”

Griffin, whose standup comedy shows often focus on mocking and dishing on celebrities, issued a statement through her publicist in response to the Catholic League’s criticisms, indicating her statements were meant as a joke.

“Am I the only Catholic left with a sense of humor?” she said in the statement.

The Christian right has always been a punching bag for comedians and Kathy’s core demographics were never stay-at-home Christian moms. This really doesn’t hurt her because we’re not the only two Catholics that can’t stand the Catholic League. No, she’s coming out of this with more name recognition and no worse for wear.
More importantly, this isn’t the pathetic sort of thing Andy Dick would do: Wait for someone more famous than him to do something bad, then copy. Like when Andy called someone a nigger on stage after the whole Michael Richards incident. Of course, Andy had to apologize right away because his little ass was about to get kicked by that guy.

No, Kathy offended the right group to offend, got them to spend a huge amount of money on a full-page ad about her in USA Today for something that happened a month ago, and come out the other end looking pretty good.

Kudos to you Kathy, kudos.