Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in their role as the Duke and Duchess of Rothesay, attend the Mey Highland Games at Queens Park on August 9, 2008 in Caithness, Scotland. HRH The Prince of Wales is the honoray chieftan of the Games carrying on the role of the late Queen Mother. By Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.
A young ethnic Uighur girl watches the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on a big screen in the main square in Xinjiang’s famed Silk Road city of Kashgar in China’s far northwestern, mainly Muslim Xinjiang region on August 8, 2008. Chinese authorities announced stepped up controls on religious figures and potential ‘trouble-makers’ in the Muslim city of Kashgar to guard against attacks on the Beijing Olympics. By Peter Parks/AFP/Getty.
A Chinese boy looks at his parents from the entrance of the Forbidden City one day before the opening of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 7, 2008 in Beijing, China. Ten thousand athletes have arrived in China for the Olympics along with hundreds of thousands of fans. By Paula Bronstein/Getty.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich scratches his face during a news conference in the U.S. Capitol August 6, 2008 in Washington, DC. Gingrich was in Washington to give support to House Republicans who are calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to reconvene the chamber and vote on the American Energy Act, a Republican bill designed to address America’s dependence on foreign oil. By Chip Somodevilla/Getty.
A newborn Giant panda cub in an incubator in the breeding room of the Panda Breeding Research Base at Chengdu on July 28, 2008 in Sichuan province, southwest China. Four Giant panda cubs, including a pair of female twins, were born within 14 hours in separate births at the panda breeding base from the evening of Saturday 26 July to the morning on Sunday July 27. The event is considered a rarity in panda breeding. Image by China Photo/Getty.
By Patrick Appel
A reader writes:
I feel that there is one point about the Myers affair which is not being made clearly and often enough: that is, Myers was not merely attempting to provoke the ire of Catholics. Out of context, what Myers did with the cracker – I am among those who believes that’s all it is – may seem strange, unnecessary, even hateful. Were he simply desecrating a religious symbol for the sake of desecrating a religious symbol, perhaps a case could be reasonably made that he was crossing a line. (Though, and I think you would agree, it would still not be reasonable to attempt to have him fired, to make threats against him, and make threats against his family – all of which Catholics have done in response.)
However, in context, Myers’ actions are entirely justified, and quite appropriate to the situation.
Remember, Myers did not simply wake up one day and decide that he wanted to provoke Catholics. Rather, he was reacting in an entirely reasonable way to an absurd situation. Poor Webster Cook, whose crime was nothing greater than failing to ingest his wafer, was put through hell for what he did. He received threats of violence and threats against his life, and he now faces censure, even expulsion from his university. And it is against the backdrop of this mindless bigotry and fanaticism that Myers decided he had to act. He was not acting out of bigotry, but in response to it. His point is one that needed to be made – simply put, that Catholics (and Muslims, and Jews, and Hindus, and any other faction, sect or group) do not have the right to impose their views on the rest of us, particularly those of us who find such views utterly irreconcilable with the facts of the world in which we live, and choose to say so. Had those Catholic fanatics simply left that poor kid alone, I guarantee you that it would never have even occurred to Myers to do what he did. But they didn’t leave him alone; they insisted on demonstrating just how little progress Catholicism has actually made – and Myers was happy to point this out. The simple fact that they tried to tell him he’s not allowed to do what he did is reason enough for him to do it. There’s a say, "Any book worth burning is a book worth reading." The same principle applies here: any speech that is banned is speech that must be said, and any expression (provided it’s non-violent) not permitted is an expression which must be made – simply to make the point that this is a free society, and such restrictions cannot be allowed to stand.
That bears repeating: this is not the middle east; this is not the middle ages. This is a free society. And in a free society, there exists no right to not be offended. If the Catholic church can get away with desecrating what others consider sacred (or, for those of us who have no concept of sacredness, at least special) – if they can call a loving union between two gay men or women an "abomination", if they can call the union into which I hope to enter someday a "perversion", then damn it, I reserve the right to desecrate what they consider sacred also. Respect is a two-way street – if they want my respect, they must give me theirs. If they want Myers to respect them, they must also respect him (and Mr. Cook for that matter). But this is something of which religion in general seems incapable – they always want respect, but reserve the right to give none in return.
Patients await dental care at the Remote Area Medical (RAM), clinic July 26, 2008 in Wise, Virginia. The free clinic, which lasts 2 1/2 days, is the largest of its kind in the nation, and organizers expected to treat more than 2,500 people over the weekend, mostly providing dental and vision services. Residents of the ‘coal counties’ of Appalachia are some of the most impoverished in the nation, and most are either underinsured or have no health insurance at all. For many, the RAM clinic is the only medical care they may receive each year. Healthcare for the nation’s disadvantaged has become one of the main issues in this year’s presidential race. Photo by John Moore/Getty.
An actress from Maoxian County puts on her make-up before a rehearsal of the Qiang ethnic traditional dancing ‘Qiangzu Tuigan’, literally Qiang ethnic’s pushing the poles, which is part of the performance of the Olympic Games opening ceremony on July 25, 2008 in Chengdu of Sichuan Province, China. The ‘Tuigan’ dancing are performed by 120 artists, most of whom are from the quake-struck Wenchuan and Maoxian Counties. Photo by China Photos/Getty.
A woman waits at a bus stop next to taco stand restaurant July 24, 2008 in the South Los Angeles area of Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles City Council committee has unanimously approved year-long moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a 32-square-mile area, mostly in South Los Angeles, pending approval by the full council and the signature of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to make it the law. South LA has the highest concentration of fast-food restaurants of the city, about 400, and only a few grocery stores. L.A. Councilwoman Jan Perry proposed the measure to try to reduce health problems associated with a diet high in fast-food, like obesity and diabetes, which plague many of the half-million people living there. Photo by David McNew/Getty.
An employee at a steel factory pauses while making steel rods out of cargo ship scrap metal on July 20, 2008 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. While the price of scrap metals has risen globally recently, workers at scrap factories in Bangladesh make an average under fifty cents and hour. According to a recent World Bank study, Bangladesh is among at least 33 countries that are at risk of serious political unrest if food and fuel prices keep rising. Bangladesh is currently one of the world’s poorest countries, where nearly 40 percent of the 144 million population survive on less than a dollar a day. By Spencer Platt/Getty.
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