Kyle Sandilands’ Virgin Mary comments breached decency rules but didn’t incite hatred: ACMA

Kyle Sandilands’ comments that the Virgin Mary “lied” about falling pregnant to a “magical ghost” when “someone chock-a-blocked her behind the camel shed” attracted 180 complaints to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), and breached rules relating to standards of decency, the watchdog has ruled.

In the Kyle and Jackie O segment, broadcast a year ago, Sandilands also called Christians “dumb as dog shit”, but his comments did not reach the high threshold required to ‘incite hatred and severe ridicule’ on the basis of religion, according to ACMA.

“The ACMA notes that apart from the ‘dumb as dog-shit’ comment referred to by the complainant, the broadcast also included crude references to significant Christian religious figures, including Mary Magdalene (as ‘a prossie’ and ‘a whore’); the Virgin Mary (where ‘someone chock-a-blocked her behind the camel shed’ and ‘she lied’), God (as a ‘magical ghost’ and ‘a giant man in sandals’), Moses (‘some other bastard parted some ocean’) and Jesus (as ‘a magic man’ and ancient version of ‘Chris Angel’),” ACMA’s investigation report noted.