Ellen Johnson on the Golden Compass
The fine folks over that NoGodBlog put up an announcement about Ellen Johnson speaking on Headline News about The Golden Compass. Though I’ve been listening to the American Atheist’s podcast I haven’t actually seen her on TV, so I figured why the hell not? I taped the two hour show she was on (which included a story about a lion getting loose in Ohio…comedy gold!), and caught it this morning.
Bill Donahue from the Catholic League accuses Atheists of being bigots. Especially these days. The funny thing about it is that in his saying such he was showing how much of a Bigot he is. He also likes to dodge any serous questions, such as the accusation that the Bible promotes hatred toward gays by trying to talk about adultery. Pathetic, really.
Ellen Johnson earned a lot of respect in her retort to Bill Johnson’s comment: “Now, if there were a series of books out there promoting how horrible gays are and then they made a movie based off of it, is anybody in their right mind telling me that gays wouldn’t rightfully object?”
“Well, let me get back to what you just said, Bill. There is such a book, it’s called The Bible. It says that homosexuality an abomination and in Leviticus that gays should be put to death.”
Huzzah!
So far reading through the books I have found that if Pullman casts religion in a bad light he certainly isn’t saying anything that is untrue. Yeah, everything with the church isn’t rosy. We know this. While some people like Bill Donahue like to stick their heads in the sand about it, it isn’t going to make it go away. Yes the church has tortured and killed people, yes the church wants to take over the entire world, and yes the church has perpetrated acts of abduction, violence, mutilation, and rape against children. I find it funny that he says he is trying to protect children in the name of the organization that has, and still does, perpetrate such things against them - especially rape, which seems to be the modern hallmark of the Church in the United States. He may find a children’s book objectionable, but I find covering up the rape of children at the hands of priests objectionable.
I guess Bill Donahue is concerned that some Atheists are negative about the church, but so far I haven’t seen any reason why they shouldn’t be.