JABbering Stooge

Bill,

We need to talk. Either that, or you need to seek professional help.

I know you’re busy conjuring up inquisitions against any who dare criticize either the Catholic Church or you personally, but quite frankly, you’ve crossed a line lately that no patriotic American can rightly ignore. When a University of Central Florida student smuggled a communion wafer out of a Catholic mass in protest of the university’s allocation of student fees to support religious functions, you called it “taking the Body of Christ hostage” and “beyond hate speech,” demanding no less than the expulsion of the student in question. When P.Z. Myers, a professor of biology at the University of Minnesota - Morris jumped into the fray, criticizing the hysteria over “a goddamn cracker,” you called for him to be fired.

I wouldn’t presume to speak for Dr. Myers, as he is quite capable of giving your wide load the tongue-lashing it so richly deserves. However, this latest incident speaks volumes about your character, or lack thereof. What sort of man would conscript a torch and pitchfork-bearing mob to march on the frozen tundra of western Minnesota? And for the crime of expressing opinions that you don’t like in his off-duty hours, no less. I thought you conservatives were all for academic freedom?

Where does it end, Bill? When there’s no freedom for Dr. Myers to express his opinions in a forum unrelated to his professorial duties, what message does that send to a freelance nuisance like me?

And to make matters worse, you seem to feel the need to lie about Dr. Myers in order to make your point. In declaring jihad against Myers, you said this: “The Myers blog can be accessed from the university’s website.” Not true. Myers’ blog, Pharyngula, is hosted at scienceblogs.com, a project of Seed Media, which has absolutely no connection to UMM. They sure as heck don’t base their server farms there.

It’s been a while since the last time you released your verbal flatulence in the elevator of American discourse. In April 2007, you threatened artist Cosimo Cavallaro with decapitation for his anatomically-correct chocolate sculpture of Jesus. In February 2007, you browbeat Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan into resigning their jobs as bloggers for the John Edwards campaign. In 2005, you demanded that homosexuals apologize for the crime of merely existing. In 2004, you used anti-Semitic rhetoric to bash Hollywood.

Cavallaro, Marcotte, McEwan and now Myers and the UCF student at the center of the controversy have received death threats for their thoughtcrimes, Bill. And on your orders, I might add. How does that sit with you? So, assuming that this isn’t just a cruel publicity stunt aimed at keeping your name in the headlines, one is forced to ask the following question: is there no depth to which you won’t stoop in order to jam theocracy down our throats?

Seriously, it’s like you’re a perpetual-motion outrage machine. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time than harassing obscure professors at tiny state colleges that don’t have anywhere near the resources they need to defend themselves from your constant fatwas? In fact, I can think of several more appropriate targets for your manufactured pique. You can start with the bishops and cardinals who spent the last thirty or so years playing a Pedophile Priest Shell Game with their parishioners.

Trust me, Bill. If anyone is “defaming” Catholics, it’s professional outrage mavens like yourself who are trying to snuff out anyone who dissents in the slightest from your extremist worldview. You may hate me for the crime of disagreeing with you, but this is still America. I have the right to say things that offend you, and you have the right to whine about my words. I’m fighting to keep it that way. If that offends you, then that’s your problem.