In case you're not following the minor controversy over the season finale of South Park, let me fill you in. The South Park crew released an episode that is in very poor taste, astoundingly vulgar, and hilariously funny. Par for the course, I'd say.
In this case, however, they chose to make fun of the Catholic Church, an institution that I'd say is eminent deserving of the jest. The Catholic League responded by prevailing upon a Catholic member of Viacom's board of directors to remove the episode from re-runs. This is pretty underhanded, but society has a way of routing around that damage: you can now download the episode from the internet and enjoy the humor.
What is more disturbing is that the head of the Catholic League is quoted as saying, “Already, we are being deluged with hate mail that is as obscene as it is viciously anti-Catholic. All because we exercised our First Amendment right to request that Comedy Central not offend Catholics again! But we’re used to such things and will not be deterred.”
Now, lets look at this. There are two ways to read that statement, the first of which is that he apparently believes he has a First Amendment right not to have people poke fun at his religion. That's clearly ludicrous and I can't believe that he's that stupid. The second is that he believes that pressuring a board member of a media company to censor a television show is "freedom of speech." That's just as ridiculous. Are people in this country so ignorant of their basic freedoms that no one questions this statement?
In any case, thanks to BoingBoing for the link.
Posted by brent at 11:13