Satan will be so proud.
Seriously though, the Catholic Church needs some decent strategists. Hell, I could have told them for free that trying to play the "Respect our Religion" card like the Muslims did was doomed to failure.
Firstly there is a natural tendency for a lot of people to feel sorry for the underdog - New Zealand Muslims can pull that off (pop recorded 2001 census: 23,631); The Catholic Church (pop recorded 2001 census: 486,012) ... weeeell, they have a little more difficulty. That, and we're still bitter over covering up your priests abusing children. And that whole Spanish Inquistion thing. And nuns, oh man some us still have nightmares about the nuns. Fuck it, while we're here, the Crusades pissed us off too.
Secondly, New Zealanders are conditioned to believe that Muslims a slightly backward; medievil in outlook; prone to suddenly explode in crowded marketplaces. Yes, I know that's unfair. I don't make popular prejudice, I'm just letting you know. Even liberal people aren't immune; yeah, we might make encouraging noises about tolerance and respect, but those are the same noises we use to placate children. God save us from the liberals. So, because a lot of New Zealanders think of Muslims as the equivalent of children (it's just a phase, they'll grow out of it. We did worse things at their age) we forgive a lot more. Catholics, on the other hand, are the equivalent of crotchety old people in diapers who complain about how Asians are ruining the country and how things haven't been the same since Muldoon stopped being PM. We aren't sympathetic, we just want to put you in a home.
Thirdly, it's a different medium. Print something in a serious newspaper and people will take it seriously. Print in a filthy right-wing neo-nazi rag read by 15 skinheads and their gimp and no one gives a rats ass. A serious news TV show (god knows we have none of those in New Zealand) will get attention and maybe piss some people off. C4? C4 is a home for the refugees of Generation X and Y who never could bring themselves to grow up. We don't take anything seriously, although you'd never guess from the length and vehemence of our arguments. We know everything that's wrong with the world and we're not entirely sure we care enough to do anything about. South Park normally washes over us and then disappears with the tide. Only now you've piqued our interest. We're going to paddle around in this one a little more.
Fourth ... well, South Park is funny. Danes aren't.
If nothing else the Catholic Church needs to be a bit more discriminating in choosing it's followers. Like David Pond, who in the letters to the NZ Herald asserted that "Women are being degraded by this type of garbage". Uh, no David, statues are being degraded. But maybe all those years in the Church have meant you can't tell the difference?
Then there's Leon Schollum. Leon says "As a Catholic I am appalled that Canwest Chief Executive Rick Friesen plans to run this South Park episode which I understand portrays Mary, the Mother of Jesus Christ, menstruating. Catholics and most other Christians believe Mary is the mother of Jesus and that Christ is the Son of God. Therefore an insult aimed at Mary is an insult aimed at God." Right, lets stop right there. Let's gloss over the logical error (let's get this straight, if I insult you, I'm also insulting your parents? Well, maybe if I call you a son of a bitch, but otherwise ...) - portraying Mary, Mother of God menstrating constitutes an insult? Holy fuck. Something that a goodly proportion of the world's population do once a month is an insult? Then why in hell did God design women's bodies to do it in the first place?
Look, I'm sorry to break it to you but Mary menstruated. I know, I was shocked too. But you know what? Mary also shagged a bit too. Horror. Mary, Mother of God, made the beast with two backs. God forbid, she may even have enjoyed it (one can only hope they were civilised about it all and maybe placed a sheet between her and Joesph). But that's not the worst of it ...
... Jesus masturbated. Yes, it's not mentioned in the bible, but let's face it - according to Luke 3 Jesus was 30 when he had his Holy Spirit incident and went walkabout in the desert. Do you seriously believe that he went all that time without spilling his seed? For God's sake people, he would have had nads the size of baseballs. So you'd better believe the Son of God spanked the monkey. Jesus came.
And if you believe the Catholics, He will come again.
List of religions offended gratuitiously so far:
- Catholics
- Muslims
While We're on the Subject:
Are bears more likely to attack menstruating women?
On a different topic: No Right Turn talks about the sentencing to jail of holocaust denier David Irving here. I tend to agree with NRT: Irving may be a lying, cancerous polyp on the flaccid penis of humanity, but the Austrian law is outdated even if it ever was defensible.
The Lost Posts: I'm trying to clean our some of my old unfinished posts. Blogger, helpfully tags your old drafts with the date you started the post rather than when it actually gets published. So, in case you miss it, here is Normal Transmission.
Quick question: Does anyone else yearn for the days when police would investigate a package full of white powder and immediately suspect it was cocaine?
5 comments:
Who's stealing jokes now?
You can change the date of your post if you go down to the "Post and Comment options" at the bottom of the Edit page and click on it. It used to be really obvious, but then they hid it away and I thought you could't change them anymore - Idiot/Savant put me right.
Wasn't that an open-source jokes? I quite like the moniker so expect to see it again :)
I figure I'll leave it where it is. It fits into the continuity quite well. Nice to know it's possible though, ta.
Mary having her period is an insult because bleeding is dirty and filthy. The reason that God made women that way is to punish them for the sin of Eve.
And less badmouthing of Nuns, they're not scary.
Not at all.
Man I'd take a nun in a gas mask any day over and Irish Nun. You can understand what they're saying a hell of a lot better for one thing ...
I see Warren Ellis has put his oar in.
Best bit:
"The test of free speech always lays in that which is hardest to defend. It really would be nice if maggots like these didn’t make the rest of us work so hard."
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