The Orange Order has urged all its members in Northern Ireland
to protest by whatever lawful means they can at what it called
the "outrageous decision" to televise "Jerry
Springer - the Opera" on BBC2 tomorrow night (8 January).
The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland called the decision, which
has already attracted more complaints than any other programme
in the BBC's history, as a "grossly obscene and blasphemous
abuse of the licence-fee".
Calling on Orangemen to make their feelings clear to the
Corporation and broadcasting regulators, a Grand Lodge spokesman
said: "This isn't clever or entertaining satire as the
BBC claims. 'Jerry Springer - the Opera' is just gutter television
pandering to morons. As a religious organisation, we are passionately
opposed to public money being used to fund a programme containing
little more than a stream of obscenities and deeply offensive
depictions of Jesus.
"If this programme had made jokes about Muslims or Sikhs,
the politically-correct so-called liberals who run the BBC
would never have screened it, and yet they think it perfectly
alright to trample on the feelings of both Protestants and
Roman Catholics. It's an outrage and we condemn it.
"We urge all Christians to vote with their feet or,
in this case, with their finger - switch it off."
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