Ahh... wonderful hypocrisy from the Hollywood Left.
 

In case you missed it, Isaac Hayes, who plays Chef on South Park (among other things) quit the show after they aired an episode which mocked Scientology. The Stone brothers immediately responded by saying, in effect, that Hayes had no problem mocking Muslims, Mormons, Catholics, and everyone else.

Tom Cruise, a noted Scientologist and lunatic, then pressured Comedy Central to stop the re-airing of the Scientology episiode of South Park, by threatening to not promote Mission Impossible: 3. Viacom owns Paramount, which is producing MI:3, and Comedy Central. Gotta love media conglomeration. Viacom gave in, and the episode did not air as scheduled.

Now as we all know, many Hollywood liberals are Scientologists, and fond of criticizing the government for censorship. On this issue however, they've been silent.

if he was mormon johnny would you not be applauding him? (tom cruise that is, since isaac hayes has shown he is a hypocrite)

i doubt the ones offended view it as breaching something they hold sacred, and dear to their heart, should not tom be applauded for his courage in tackling this issue? as im sure youd do the same if our secrets, the ones in our temples, were made known to the world in cartoon...

and fyi, the scientology episode did air. they just wont re-air the show....

And in response to your first stupid statement: you're full of crap. Don't try to tell me what I think. South Park HAS aired an episode degenerating Mormons and I'm fine with it. You know why? Because they make fun of EVERYONE, and I'm not going to take that personally.

Anyone have anything intelligent to say about this? Fusnik just struck out, much like he does on every date he goes on*.

*fusnik has never been on a date

I heard clips from the show this morning on the radio. Chef died a horrible death after joining the "Super Adventure Club" (or something like that), i.e., a not-so-veiled reference to Scientology. From the audio clips they played, it sounded pretty funny.

Given this and Tom Cruise's public trashing of Brook Shields as a result of her taking medication to treat depression, I am not sure if Tom is a good ambassador for the faith. Then again, any publicity is probably good publicity in the long run.

You can actually download the entire show here if you want.

And you're right, the Super Adventure Club is a thinly veiled reference to Scientology... it's hammered pretty hard.

degenerating mormons? ha, ha, ha, ha, ha....

johnny, can a man stand up for his beliefs or not?

im not arguing what south park does, as they can do whatever the hell they want, im simply asking, can not the offended people voice their concerns?

can i say the church is a facist entity since they have issued statements against big love?

Did anybody else actually see last night's episode? HOLY CRAP, they were gunning for Scientology. I think we have an official feud on our hands.

"So, we shouldn't me mad at Chef for leaving us. We should be mad at his stupid fruity club that brainwashed him!"

have you seen the episdoe that caused the contention.....

basically what happens is this.....

stan investigates scientology.

tom cruise locks himself into cartmans closet, r. kelly tries to sing him out of the closet.....reference to r. kelly's song....

john travolta tries to get tom out of the closet and ends up joining him in the closet....

finally r joins him in the closet....

all the while stan pays his money to learn the secrets of scientology by paying money, and they outline in detail the beliefs of the religion....

that we were intelligences or something from another planet, we escaped the rule of a bad leader, we escaped to earth, and now things like prescription drugs impede our ability to see who we truly are. all the while on the bottom of the screen is flashing, this is really what scientologists believe.....

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Have YOU seen the episode?

fine you tell me what episode tom cruise didnt want aired.....

Episode 912, "Trapped in the Closet".

You were referring to the correct episode, but your details are wrong.

what a lame ass....

cant even admit you are wrong. have to throw in the, 'but your details are wrong.'

ha, ha, ha, ha...

again my question to you, can not a man stand up for his religious beliefs and make a moral stand as tom is doing?

You are one pathetic individual.

You'll notice I quoted a PART of your post. And then said you were wrong.

Which means that you were wrong about THOSE PARTICULAR DETAILS.

Sure can. Protest is fine. Tom can complain all he wants on Oprah or Ricki Lake. Using threats to obtain your ends is lame.

I must admit that I am going to side with Lingo on this one.

:oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:

Making a public announcement to denounce how your faith is portrayed in a cartoon is one thing (I could respect that). But applying extreme financial pressure behind the scenes to remove said cartoon from public ciruculation is a stupid move that I hope will blow up in Tom's face.

And this does not even compare to the manner in which the church expressed concern over Big Love.

I agree with homeboy and Johnny, though not his rhetoric, that the effort to exert financial pressure to remove the cartoon is not right. The cartoon, not one I have watched but once or twice, as far as I have read, has a history of lampooning everybody. I took it as a badge of honor that Mormons have risen high enough to be lampooned. Tom should take it as well.

Not cool, tom.

wowzers....

its crazy the right bitches about the left, and when a person from the 'left' bitches about the content of a cartoon and expresses his right to complain we call foul....

you all are missing the point. im sure mr cruise thinks his beliefs are just as sacred as the ones we hold. if somebody openly mocked our beliefs, and shared our secrets, im sure there would be public outcry among the lds community and subsequent boycotting of the perpetraitor....

thats essentially what he is doing. he is saying, i will not support an organization who distributes stuff against my sacred beliefs....

youd think the right would applaud the man since he is taking a 'moral' stand....

it is one thing to stand for one's beliefs, it's another thing to exert political and financial pressure.

Did we see any LDS exerting financial pressure because we were lampooned?

I totally disagree fus. And what's more, they have openly mocked our beliefs. They had Joseph Smith with a seerstone in a hat for goodness sake. I certainly don't feel the need to back Cruise on this at all.

mocked is the wrong word....and have you seen the joseph smith episode?

how about revealed....

scientologists guard their beliefs as much as we guard our rituals, practices in the temple. south park revealed to the audience exactly the secrets, scientologists labor to hide in secret.

if an organization were to do that would we not boycott their products? how do we feel about the stanford band and their portrayal of polygamy?

i believe south park has the right to do whatever they want. i also believe tom has the right to say, hey, this crossed boundaries, and im not comfortable with an organization who exploits my personal beliefs.

im sure if we were all tom and a south park episode aired showing our temple ceremonies and discussing what happened there we would have about the same reaction.....

I don't like scientology, and I don't care for Cruise, but I agree with Fus on this one. Freedom to express and act on your beliefs is one of the freedoms this country is all about. There is no reason one should be prevented from using all legal resources in a legal way on behalf of any issue in which you believe. Am I to understadn that many of you think it is ok to stand up and speak, but that you shouldn't use economic pressure? So, no boycotts are ever allowed, and we shouldn't choose what stores to patronise based upon any factors related to policitcal or personal or religious issues. Whether it is a good idea or not is different from whether it should be allowed. If we resent Cruise for standing up for his beliefs, then how can we support efforts to ban gay marriage, or attempt to lobby school boards with reepect to our childrens' instruciton, or oppose efforts to publicly ridicule our church? Look, I don't think Southpark is worth the effort, but apparentl Cruise did and I really can't criticize him, on that level, for ahving done so. Whether it was prudent is another issue.

Better perspective.

It seems he went overboard and imprudent, because he hit something that didn't need to be hit.

I generally do not favor economic boycotts, as I have not seen them work when it would matter. Who could boycott Time Magazine to have an effect? Almost nobody.

Southpark is no big player. Tom wasted capital when he might promote his beliefs positively, rather than negatively. I'm no big fan of whining and being a victim.

I guess you wouldn't feel the need to back David Whitmer, either:

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)"

the south park episode was pretty spot on with the way the lds church came to be. they even got the stone in the hat part right, which many lds faithful will say never happened....

josephs translation was much different than we think it was....

Not sure what your point is here AA. If it is to show me that the seerstone in the hat is true you're talking to the wrong guy. I'm well aware of it, and I'd hope that you'd know that about me by now. I'm simply making the point that South Park mocked many of our beliefs and our history. I didn't see us financially boycotting anything. We take it in stride and move on. I still don't feel sorry for cruise and I wasn't personally offended by any South Park episode.

i should have made mention that you would have been well aware of this fact as i know you would know....

the thing with the scientology episode, and the difference between the mormon episode and the scientology episode imo, is the information provided on the scientology belief system is their 'secret' beliefs. the first vision, the translation of the bom, is information that should be accessible by any person interested. if south park did a spoof on our temple practices i think many a mormon would not watch the show again....

Let me clarify my earlier stance a bit. First of all, let me say that while I have seen a few clips here and there from South Park, I have never watched a complete episode. Part of why I say it is a stupid move (the financial threat) is because I think it will backfire. It seems heavy-handed and it has been widely ridiculed in the press. And here we are discussing the episode. Finally, while I generally like Tom Cruise as an actor, his politics and his scientology turn me off, especially his scientology. His public trashing of Brook Shields and his ignorance regarding mental health were shocking. I have also read articles indicating that he leads a pretty insular life. Never reads newspapers and avoids computers and the internet. Not the kind of guy I want to root for.

He certainly has the right to do whatever he wants. But his actions are open to criticism.

You mean "denigrating," right?

Yes. Yes I did.

;)