A coalition of religious and conservative leaders is trying to stop a proposed TV cartoon that puts Jesus Christ in a modern-day context.

The newly-formed Citizens Against Religious Bigotry said it believes the JC series would be offensive. They accuse the Comedy Central channel of a double standard in mocking Christian figures and beliefs while recently refusing to let South Park depict the Prophet Mohammed for fear of offending Muslims.

"You don't have to be a Christian to be offended by this," said Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Centre watchdog.

Comedy Central said last month that JC is one of two dozen series it has in development. The concept is to depict Christ as a "regular guy" who moves to New York to "escape his father's enormous shadow".

Network spokesman Tony Fox noted that JC is nothing more than an idea, without even a completed script. In television, only a minority of projects in development ever make it to air.

Mr Fox said the groups should save their energy for when a decision is made about whether the series will go ahead.

Aside from Mr Bozell's group, the coalition also includes the Catholic League, the Parents Television Council and talk show host Michael Medved. They said the coalition has written to 250 Comedy Central advertisers to alert them to the show and already has 93,000 petition signals against it.

Comedy Central was the target of an internet threat this spring from a Muslim group over a South Park episode that supposedly showed Mohammed in a bear costume.

Like other media organisations, it resists showing a depiction of Mohammed because many Muslims consider a physical description of the prophet to be blasphemous.

Such depictions of Mohammed in other media have resulted in death threats by fundamentalist Muslims against the purveyors.

"Does that indicate that Christians then are punished because they aren't crazy?" Mr Medved asked. "That they get punished because their religion does not encourage threats of violence?"