Lulu of the Week: Who Ordered the Sacrificial Lamb with Red Wine Sauce?

There were many great (?) choices for this week's Lulu. But being technically still a Catholic -- since it's damn near impossible to get your name removed from the membership rolls -- I just had to go with this piece of pious whinging (article in italics, my comments in boldface):

Catholic Clergy Call for Reparation in Response to Communion Desecration

Contact: Rev. Fr. John Trigilio, Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, 717-957-2662, BALTIMORE, Maryland, July 29 /Christian Newswire/

The Confraternity of Catholic Clergy (a national association of 600 priests & deacons) respond to the sacrilegious and blasphemous desecration of the Holy Eucharist by asking for public reparation. We ask all Catholics of Minnesota and of the entire nation to join in a day of prayer and fasting that such offenses never happen again.

Right. 'Cause prayer always works.

We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech.

Um, it's called "free" speech because it HAS no limit, dumbass.

The same Bill of Rights which protect freedom of speech also protect freedom of religion. The Founding Fathers did not envision a freedom FROM religion, rather a freedom OF religion. In other words, our nation's constitution protects the rights of ALL religions, not one and not just a few. Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper.

Try this for size: "Telling a proud mother that her newborn is plug-ugly is not free speech." Oh, yes it is. Offensive, yes (and potentially unsafe if the babe's putative father is within earshot), but entirely legal. You don't have to like something for it to be legal. Just ask the anti-gay rights crowd if you need confirmation of this.

Lies and hate speech which incite contempt or violence are not protected under the law.

Lies are not protected under the law, that's true. But you must produce evidence that a lie was deliberately told. Prof. Myers said, "It's just a cracker." That's not a lie, it's an observation of fact.

As for "hate speech," that's a murkier area of law. At present, though, American law does not say that people who hate something must hold their tongues or go to jail.

It's grimly funny how you look to The Law for protection, when all your claims about how the mean ole perfesser desecrated the real meat and gristle of your imaginary friend's imaginary kid will amount to exactly nothing in any court of law.

Hence, inscribing Swastikas on Jewish synagogues or publicly burning copies of the Christian Bible or the Muslim Koran, especially by a faculty member of a public university, are just as heinous and just as unconstitutional. Individual freedoms are limited by the boundaries created by the inalienable rights of others. The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance.

See above. It is patently obvious that you have never actually read the Constitution.

The Chancellor of the University refused to reprimand or censure the teacher, who ironically is a Biology Professor. One fails to see the relevance of the desecration of a Catholic sacrament to the science of Biology. Were Myers a Professor of Theology, there would have been at least a presumption of competency to express religious opinions in a classroom. Yet, for a scientist to ridicule and show utter contempt for the most sacred and precious article of a major world religion, is inappropriate, unprofessional, unconstitutional and disingenuous.

Courtier's Reply. You ninnies haven't read nearly enough of Myers' blog. It's called "Pharyngula" which refers to an embryo at a stage of development roughly equivalent to your level of intelligence -- namely, tiny and mushy and ugly.

A biologist has no business 'dissing' any religion, rather, they should be busy teaching the scientific discipline they were hired to teach. Tolerating such behavior by university officials is equally repugnant as it lends credibility to the act of religious hatred. We also pray that Professor Myers contritely repent and apologize.

Yeah. That'll happen.