In which I agree with Richard Dawkins on a thing

I am bemused by people who claim to love science and yet are hostile to the
creator of the physics and chemistry and arithmetic. With that said, I put
myself in the other guys' shoes, and happen to agree with Dawkins on this
point - passing along an internet joke shouldn't get you fired.

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/07/catholic-mischief-in.html

Catholic Mischief in
Glasgow<http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/07/catholic-mischief-in.html>

Richard Dawkins <http://www.boingboing.net/author/richard-dawkins/> at 11:07
AM Tuesday, Dec 7, 2010

Richard Dawkins <http://richarddawkins.net/>
(Twitter<http://twitter.com/RichardDawkins>)
is an evolutionary biologist and former Charles Simonyi Professor of the
Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. Among his books are *The
Greatest Show on
Earth<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416594787?ie=UTF8&tag=boingboing06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416594787>
*, *The Ancestor's
Tale<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/061861916X?ie=UTF8&tag=boingboing06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=061861916X>
,* *The Selfish
Gene,<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199291152?ie=UTF8&tag=boingboing06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0199291152>
* *The Blind Watchmaker,<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393315703?ie=UTF8&tag=boingboing06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0393315703>
* *Unweaving the
Rainbow<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618056734?ie=UTF8&tag=boingboing06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0618056734>
,* and *The God
Delusion.<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0618680004?ie=UTF8&tag=boingboing06-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0618680004>
*

[image: RD-from-EoR-300.jpg]

Even those who agree with the great Christopher
Hitchens<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens>that
religion poisons everything might be surprised to learn that the toxin
extends its reach even to football (soccer). Glasgow, Scotland's largest
city, has two major football teams - indeed they are Scotland's two top
teams - Glasgow Celtic and Glasgow Rangers.

By long tradition, the fans of these two teams break down by religion:
Celtic represents the Catholics and Rangers the Protestants. Historically,
the reason is the long association between this region of Scotland and
Northern Ireland. Belfast and Glasgow have more in common than their
depressed ship-building industries. The large Catholic population of Glasgow
is mostly of Irish origin, while Orange Parades such as this one through the
centre of Glasgow are all-but indistinguishable from their counterparts in
Belfast.

If, in a crucial match between Rangers and Celtic, a referee's decision is
unpopular, there is a high chance that he will be accused of sectarian
religious prejudice, something that, I imagine, is not often seen in
baseball or American football.

[image: _48245072_orangewalk466.jpg]
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10493551> *(photo
courtesy BBC News)*

This is the background to bitter storm that erupted recently, in which I
seem to have become embroiled although I am neither Scottish nor a soccer
fan. Hugh Dallas, czar of referees for the Scottish Football Association was
fired because he passed on, in an eMail, a joke about Roman Catholic child
rape. The pope is not, so far as we know, a pederast, but there is good
evidence that he was deeply involved in covering up the crime and
contributing to its repetition by priests moved to other dioceses and
parishes. Anyway, this was the subject of the joke that was sent to Hugh
Dallas, and he passed it on to somebody else.

The incident was brought to the attention of Peter Kearney, Director of the
Scottish Catholic Media Office, also based in Glasgow. Kearney demanded that
Dallas should be fired, and the Scottish Football Association, under its
Chief Executive Stewart Regan, did indeed fire him, together with two other
officials in his office.

When I read about this, alerted by a Scottish contributor to the discussion
forum on my website, I was outraged that a man should lose his job because
he passed on a joke. It seemed to me to be a classic example of our
society's craven kowtowing to the religious lobby. The rest of us, it seemed
to me, learn to take jokes on the chin. But the moment a religion is
'offended', we are all expected to tut-tut and grovel, and somebody gets
fired.

I was also outraged that the BBC website on which I read the story had
censored the punchline of the joke, again obviously to avoid giving
'offence'.

ffence'. I was angry, and I immediately published the details
here<http://richarddawkins.net/articles/555416-football-referee-sacked-for-pope-joke>including
a picture of the 'offensive' joke, with the punchline restored.

[image: caution-pope.jpg]

I also published the addresses of the Scottish Catholic Media Office and the
Scottish Football Association and encouraged my readers to flood both with
copies of this and other pope jokes. I also people to do what they could to
make the 'offensive' joke go viral.

The story was picked up by
Pharyngula<http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/11/god_hates_sports.php>and,
the following day, by the
* Daily Telegraph,* Britain's leading conservative newspaper, and the *
Scotsman*, Edinburgh's - and arguably Scotland's - most respected newspaper.
*The Telegraph,* under the headline, "Leading scientist Richard Dawkins
slams Scottish Football Association over sacking of Hugh Dallas", quoted my
original blog almost verbatim and offered no comment of its
own<http://richarddawkins.net/articles/556368-leading-scientist-richard-dawkins-slams-scottish-football-association-over-sacking-of-hugh-dallas>.
The* Scotsman'*s report was briefer. Its headline "'Weasel' attack on
Catholic spokesman in Hugh Dallas furore" is a reference to the fact that in
my original blog I had called Peter Kearney a nasty little weasel. Kearney
retaliated in the quote that he gave the Scotsman: "Dawkins demonstrates
again that his intolerance knows no bounds."

Readers of Boing Boing may judge for themselves.

Which is the more intolerant: getting a man fired for passing on a joke, or
calling somebody a nasty little weasel for doing so?

My only regret is the implied insult to weasels. Kearney cynically exploited
the sectarian tensions in Glasgow to engineer that a man lost his job.

Anybody wishing to pass on a joke or other pleasantry to Peter Kearney will
wish to know his address at the Scottish Catholic Media Office:
[email protected]

As one commenter on my website rightly said, the Catholic church in Scotland
is quick to squeal about sectarian discrimination, while doing everything to
maintain it in sectarian schools.

Comments on the various websites are mostly supportive of my position. The
main criticisms are

1. Hostile spamming is not a good tactic: an abuse of the power of the web,
some might say. I have sympathy for this criticism. I think the tactic is
defensible but only if the provocation is high. With hindsight I think that
what I called the cowardice of the Scottish Football Association was not so
reprehensible as the Catholic lobbying itself, and I think I should have
limited the campaign to the Scottish Catholic Media Office.

2. Calling Peter Kearney a nasty little weasel is the kind of thing that
gets me described as strident and shrill. It is better to stick to reasoned
argument, and indeed I usually try to do so. In mitigation, once again, I
plead the exceptional provocation offered by this nasty little weasel.

3. Many people wrote in from Scotland to say that I didn't appreciate the
complicated socialcontext of the long-running feud between Celtic and
Rangers, and the need for Scottish referees to bend over backwards to avoid
sectarian bias.

It is almost as though, if a Scottish referee makes a joke about the pope,
it is taken as evidence of pro-Rangers bias.

Oh please! Get your priorities right. There are more important things than
football. When cardinals and popes cover up the crime of child rape, those
of us who object are not being 'sectarian' or ' anti-Catholic' or
pro-Glasgow-Rangers. We are being human.

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

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