Thansk for your comments. You’re not the only one who disagrees with me, and you’re not the only one who’s reading WAAAY more into what I’ve said and written than is there.

I haven’t imagined or implied or accused Webster Cook of doing anything “wild” (unless you consider talking in church and snickering “wild”), and I challenge you to find a single statement I’ve made that’s been charitable toward the Catholic zealots who are upset with Cook and PZ Myers. Let me state (yet again) that I think the Catholics are nuts and that their response to what Cook did was completely unacceptable. At the end of the day, however, it’s clear that Cook went into that church meeting with ulterior motive and with the intention of making off with a wafer, and he knew it would upset folks if they knew what he was up to.

Read what Webster was “ousted” for. I think you are bending over backwards to imagine him doing something “wild” and being more than charitable to the zealotry that followed.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/09/the_impeachment_of_webster_coo.php

I’m not being sarcastic in the slightest.

I’m sure we agree that the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is silly (to say the least); that it was wrong for the people at that mass to lay hands on Cook and his friend; that it was ridiculous for Catholic spokespeople to call what Cook did a “hate crime”; that it was evil for Catholics to send him death threats; and that it was contemptible for the Catholic League to waste their time trying to get some college kid thrown out of school.

That said, Webster Cook’s story has been both vague and variable from the start. If you listen to his interview on Freethought Radio, he more or less admits that he and his friend were commenting on the service DURING the service (one wonders if muttering and snickering were involved), and that he approached the priest to receive the Eucharist in bad faith (i.e. he had no intention of merely participating in the service, but instead to make off with a cracker on the sly).

Webster Cook knew before he started that what he was doing would be considered disruptive and that the Catholics in attendance would take umbrage. What he didn’t anticipate was the vehemence of their response. Their response was over the top, but there’s no question he was in attendance for reasons other than to be a quiet observer and/or to educate his friend about the details of mass.

In summary, if he objected to student fees being used to help fund religious services, that’s fine. What’s not fine is to initiate a disruptive situation. Since he holds a representative office on campus, he has been held to account for it. Would I have booted him off the student senate? Maybe, maybe not. Neither you nor I were present for this committee hearings (if you were, speak up and gimme details!). It’s hard to say what they heard, but either a) they heard enough to convince them to kick him out or b) the committee members were pro-Catholic bigots and therefore they kicked him out for no good reason.

Now, I also think that Cook ought to press charges against anyone who touched him uninvited at the mass, and law enforcement ought to get involved to ferret out who sent threatening messages or made threatening phone calls.

I’m not sure if I can be any clearer. There’s plenty of blame to go around. As ridiculous as the response was to him, Webster Cook was far from a victim, in my estimation. He thought he could go to mass, make furtive asides to his friend, walk out with a cracker, and all the Catholics would cringe and kvetch and when the dust cleared he’d have a souvenir he could keep in a jar or sell on eBay. What he got was nuclear blowback, which in the end (as I said in my post) simply served to show the stupidity of Catholic doctrine.

Since when is not letting people literally put their hands in your pockets and taking swipes at you “disrupting such meetings” ??

wtf