Everybody's a winner when Kathy Griffin makes Jesus jokes.

Every time I look at a cable news channel, I'm seeing this story about Kathy Griffin and her Jesus jokes.

Comic Kathy Griffin's "offensive" remarks about Jesus at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards will be cut from a pre-taped telecast of the show, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said on Tuesday.

Griffin made the provocative comment on Saturday night as she took the stage of the Shrine Auditorium to collect her Emmy for best reality program for her Bravo channel show "My Life on the D-List."

"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," an exultant Griffin said, holding up her statuette. "Suck it, Jesus. This award is my god now."

Asked about her speech backstage a short time later, an unrepentant Griffin added, "I hope I offended some people. I didn't want to win the Emmy for nothing."

The speech drew fire from a leading Roman Catholic group, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which condemned Griffin's remarks as "obscene and blasphemous."

"It is a sure bet that if Griffin had said, 'Suck it, Muhammad,' there would have been a very different reaction," Catholic league president Bill Donohue said in a statement posted on the group's Web site. He called on TV academy president Dick Askin to denounce Griffin's "hate speech" and on Griffin to apologize.

So the religious folk can get a lot of airtime railing about the blasphemy. The cable news shows have an easy-to-grasp controversy to do many segments about (always with the replay of the video -- like this). Anybody who has any chance of liking Kathy Griffin gets to see some funny material to laugh about -- and I mean both Griffin's routine and the fulminating religionists. And Griffin -- the biggest winner -- gets mega-publicity and a rich gold mine of material to use on her "D-List" show and in many future stand-up routines.

And sensible onlookers get the chance to make the sensible observation that Griffin was obviously making fun of the celebrities who are silly and self-absorbed enough to talk as if Jesus puts his energies into rigging the Hollywood awards.

ADDED: I forgot to mention all the bloggers and blog commenters who get to say she wouldn't dare say that about Muhammad, etc., etc. Which gives me the chance to say:

1. Hollywood celebrities never thank Muhammad when they win an award.

2. Christians should feel good that people think Jesus can take a joke.

(And I know "suck it" is rude, but it is exactly the opposite of "thank you.")