Posted on 08/20/2002 1:31:03 PM PDT by ArcLight
Well, the two exhibitors lined up their broadcaster who followed them to St. Patrick's on a day (the Feast of the Assumption) when it was crowded with worshipers, and proceeded to fornication, the studio "comedian," as described, standing a few feet off providing running on-air commentary of the act. This was a high-act venture in coitus interruptus, because the cops swarmed in. The exhibitionists were arrested, charged with public lewdness, and released on $500 bail each, their lawyer insisting that her clients had never removed their clothes, so how could they have had sex?; the comic broadcaster, Paul Mercurio, was charged with acting in concert with public lewdness; and the whole thing quickly recedes from memory, with the encouragement of Lexis/Nexis. But it shouldn't be so. This was not an itinerant team of street artists.
The whole operation was a part of a regular program called Opie and Anthony, which has now been at least temporarily suspended. The radio station that gleefully reported on the scene through its broadcaster Mercurio wasn't a gypsy station. WNEW-FM is a part of the Infinity Radio network. The Infinity Radio network is not an arm of Playboy, Inc. It is an arm of Viacom. This is a giant corporation which owns not only New York radio stations that sponsor pornography in church, but also huge divisions of entertainment at large, including MTV and Blockbuster Video. The CEO of Viacom is one Sumner Redstone, who is most directly answerable for WNEW's exhibitionists, and the president is Mel Karmazin. Viacom has impressive board members. They include a former congressman and minister, William H. Gray III, who is head of the United Negro College Fund. Also Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon, and David McLaughlin, former president of Dartmouth and current chairman of the American Red Cross.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Catholic League president William Donohue today wrote to Sumner Redstone, Chairman and CEO of Viacom, asking him to do something about his company’s apparent disregard for Catholic sensibilities. Viacom owns Infinity Broadcasting and WNEW is an Infinity station: the “Opie and Anthony” show (WNEW) is currently the target of an FCC investigation, triggered by the Catholic League, over the show’s decision to broadcast a description of a live sex act in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on August 15.
To make matters worse for Redstone, the Catholic League has learned that Comedy Central (another Viacom holding) announced in May that it was spending $5 million on local and national radio, including the “Opie and Anthony” show. Comedy Central aired a particularly vicious attack on Catholicism on its July 3rd episode of “South Park.” Indeed, on August 14, the day that the offensive “South Park” episode was repeated, Comedy Central posted on the home page of its website the following quip: “The episode the Catholic League denounced. What other reason do you need to watch it?” This episode maligned all priests as pedophiles and was so bad that when Donohue appeared on the “Phil Donahue” show on August 7, Donahue showed a clip of it so that Donohue could comment on it.
Catholics should boycott Viacom, and let Sumner Redstone know why.
completely disgusting? not quite.
It sounds like the participants were punished.......
What can we do?
Take a good look around next time before mass......
(1) Pour cold water on them (and their attendant media droid), like the dogs they are,
(2) DON'T DON'T DON'T give them ANY publicity. Even THIS much is too much.
On the other hand, if they had done something like this in a mosque, they'd both be dead by now.
L
I don't care what you say, there's too many Donohues in that sentence. ;-)
SD
Their lawyer should have paid more attention at the Law School of the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople, where she evidently got her degree. They were not charged under 245.11, which prohibits public intercourse, they were charged under 245.00, which prohibits public lewdness:
§ 245.00 Public lewdness. A person is guilty of public lewdness when he intentionally exposes the private or intimate parts of his body in a lewd manner or commits any other lewd act (a) in a public place, or (b) in private premises under circumstances in which he may readily be observed from either a public place or from other private premises, and with intent that he be so observed. Public lewdness is a class B misdemeanor.
It will be up to the jury to determine if clothed simulated intercourse in front of a church full of people falls under "any other lewd act." I wouldn't bet against it.
Openly fornicating in someone's place of worship, on a holy day no less. Sorry, but that qualifies as something beyond completely disgusting to me.
I'm supposed to look around to see if people are copulating in my church prior to mass? You think that's the solution?
Now, now...the USND is a proud school with a great heritage, and the people of Hoople are the finest around. No need to get nasty about it.
Billionaire Sumner Redstone is taking another chance on love. Just three weeks ago, the Viacom chief ended his bitter divorce with his wife, Phyllis. Now, we've learned, he's slipped a honkin' big diamond ring on the finger of New York public school teacher Paula Fortunato.
A Viacom spokesman didn't know whether Redstone and Fortunato have set a date but confirmed, "They are engaged." The two have been seeing each other for about a year. Even Redstone's foes allow that Fortunato, an attractive brunette who teaches third grade, is a change of pace for the 79-year-old mogul. Since splitting with his wife of 50-plus years in 1999, he's been drawn to flashier ladies, who've included Christine Peters (ex-wife of former Sony exec Jon Peters) and Manuela Herzer.
Like the others, Fortunato is younger than Redstone - around 41, we hear. According to one report, Redstone paid Phyllis close to $1.5 billion. (He obviously has some change left over - he recently bought a Beverly Hills spread from Sly Stallone for close to $15 million.)
Phyllis' reaction to Sumner's romantic news?
"She's happy to be rid of him," says a friend of the former Mrs. Redstone, who charged him with adultery and mental cruelty. "I don't think she gives a flying [bleep] who he's marrying."
link.
The crime that the radio hosts committed is "criminal solicitation in the fifth degree":
Sec. 100.00 Criminal solicitation in the fifth degree.
A person is guilty of criminal solicitation in the fifth degree when, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a crime, he solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause such other person to engage in such conduct.
Criminal solicitation in the fifth degree is a violation.
The higher classes of criminal solicitation all pertain to various forms of felony.
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