From whence coomes the “makes the baby Jesus cry” statement come form? I hear it in many places now. Was it originally from that Simpsons episode (the one where HOmer becomes too friendly with Ned)?
I thought this was going to be a thread about how slow the SDMB is at peak hours. 
Sorry, can’t help you with your question.
hangs head in shame
This is why we have preview…
WAG would say The Church Lady on SNL?
I am fairly sure that Robertson Davies uses this metaphore in one of the books in The Cornish trilogy. Maybe in The Rebel Angels(1981), but more likely in The Lyre of Orpheus(1988).
Could this have been the origin?
When would the corresponding Simpsons episode have aired?
Isn’t it one of the ways that religon is thought to young children - if you do something bad, it makes baby Jesus cry.
When I was young, doing something bad made you responsible for breaking God’s love.
Does this precede “every time you X, God kills a kitten?”
Cool. This thread is almost 6 hours old and no definitive answers. I guess I’m not as far out of the loop as I thought I was! 
Not unless 1981 happened before 1970. I heard it in use that long ago.
Ahh, a firm date!
In what context did you hear it?
Any sources?
I heard it from my mother. She wasn’t prone to citing sources in ordinary conversation.
No cite, and a WAG here. Could be a reference to the line from “Away in the manger:” “The little lord Jesus no crying he makes.” Might be a starting point for searching.
This thread makes the baby Jesus cry.
The nuns in my wife’s convent school used this phrase in earnest in the 1970s.
They also told her if she wanted to sit on a boy’s lap, she needed to put a telephone directory on his lap first, or she’d get pregnant.
Yee Gods! These boys were obviously giants amoung men!
It’s the result of a typo. Prior to 1925, the rhyme was,
**Every time you tell a lie,
It makes the Baby Jesus gry!**
I got my cat to click “submit.” I’m already a block away. 
God, they were still telling us the same thing in the early 90s. They didn’t mention pregnancy, but still advised bringing a magazine in our handbags to parties, in case there were not enough chairs and we had to sit in a boys lap. Seems the interceeding 20 years had made them a little more hip to teenage interactions. They also advised us to bring cling-film to parties (in our handbag, with the magazine/phonebook) to put over our drink, so noone would “slip something into it”. Tragically enough, they meant like alcohol.
Hmm, did they even have vibrating ringers back then?