Religious supergroup forms to smite Comedy Central's Jesus Christ project

It's not on the air yet. It's not shot yet. There's no pilot yet. Hell, there might not even be a script yet.

But Comedy Central developing an animated project about Jesus Christ has the biggest names in the TV watchdog business forming a Super Best Friends protest super-group to preemptively smite the show.

Brent Bozell (president, Media Research Center), Tony Perkins (president, Family Research Council), Michael Medved (talk radio host), Bill Donohue (president, Catholic League), Rabbi Daniel Lapin (American Alliance of Jews and Christians) and, of course, Tim Winter (president, Parents Television Council) are joining forces to form the Citizens Against Religious Bigotry.

That's right -- CARB.

(If only it wasn't the Coalition of the Religious Against Bigotry because then it could be "CRAB").

Comedy Central's "JC" is currently in development, which means it's still a couple steps away from becoming a Go project. The show is about Jesus trying to live as a regular guy in New York City and wanting to escape the shadow of his "powerful but apathetic father" (more details here). With Comedy Central having recently censored frequent parenting group target "South Park" for trying to portray the Prophet Muhammad, some Christian leaders see the development of a Jesus cartoon as exhibiting an offensive double standard.

CARB will hold its first press conference on Thursday to urge advertisers not to support the project, should it ever hit the air (why, it's like some kind of network development slate contraception!).

"After we reveal the vile and  offensive nature of Comedy Central’s previous characterizations of Jesus Christ  and God the Father, we expect these advertisers to agree wholeheartedly to end  their advertising on Comedy Central and discontinue their support for unabashed, anti-Christian discrimination," Bozell said in a statement. "Why should they be supporting a business that makes a habit of attacking Christianity and yet has a formal policy to censor anything considered offensive to followers of Islam? This double standard is pure bigotry, one from which advertisers should quickly shy away."