What is all the Hullabaloo?

2008-07-16T14:29:00.000-07:00

Why in the world is anyone singling out an obscure associate professor at a tiny regional state school in this manner? And why would anyone else participate?

Let me tell you.

Dr. P.Z. Myers is a professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. He also runs the blog Pharyngula. The popularity of his blog is much larger than the responsibilities of his position, mainly because he is a rather outspoken atheist. His frequent assaults on religion on his blog have made him popular with online atheists. A quick google search of his site is more than ample to uncover a shockingly large volume of slurs against Christians in general and Catholics in particular. This was just a few minutes of searching and only very recent stuff - they guy has a ton of anti-Christian hate speech on his site.

Yes, hate speech. Well, unless the definition has changed drastically.

Still, its a free country, right? Absolutely. Who cares if an associate professor at a tiny rural state university campus routinely insults people based upon their religious beliefs?

Well, Dr. Myers wasn't content with that. Recently he announced his intention to seek out and obtain a consecrated eucharist and purposefully, publicly use it to commit an act of sacrilege. Let me repeat that - with full knowledge of what Catholics, Lutherans, Orthodox, and Anglicans believe about the Eucharist, he stated he would use the Eucharist to commit sacrilege.

Dr. Myers then pretended to be shocked, SHOCKED! that Catholics got upset! He also used that surprise as an excuse to continue to insult and mischaracterize Catholics.

Now, even after he has received huge volumes of email and many people have contacted him telling him what he already knew - that his planned actions are deeply offensive and hurtful to a large number of people - his response is "...now I have to [commit scrilege]".

Interestingly enough, in an interview published on July 14th, almost a week after this began, Dr. Myers stated very clearly that he would never do anything similar with a Koran because that would be 'desecration'.

Very simply and very clearly - this guy is an anti-Christian bigot. And he has gone beyond words into actions.

Why get him fired?

Up until the Catholic League complained, Dr. Myers had a link to his hate-filled blog from the UMM website; the link has been removed. However, there are some serious concerns remaining. First, on his blog (which began as a teaching tool for his students) he often refers to his position as a professor; this is obviously to garner authority for his views from this association. Second, in the same post in which he denies inserting his political and areligious views into his classrooms, he implies that well, really, actually he does. Third, his very public statements and actions reflect upon a public institution, the University, in a very bad way. Finally, why should the State of Minnesota and the U.S. Government pay the salary of a guy who works so very hard to create and transmit hate speech aimed at a majority of the population?

In short, let him get a job in the private sector where no portion of his salary is based upon taxes paid by the "theists" he hates so much.

Sample Email

2008-07-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Here is a sample email. If you use this, make sure to make it your own - don't just cut and paste! If people get hundreds of simmilar emails, they will notice - if they hundreds of identical emails, they might ignore them.

"Sir [or madam],
I am prompted to contact you by a public plan to desecrate a consecrated Eucharist announced recently by University of Minnesota Morris faculty member Dr. P.Z. Myers. Dr. Myers announced this plan on his blog (link below) while referring to Catholics in a most crass manner. Dr. Myer often uses his blog to attack Christians with the harsh language of a bigot, but he defends himself by declaring he opposes all religion.

I would like to point out, however, that Dr. Myers stated in a press interview he would never desecrate a Koran because it would be 'like desecrating a graveyard'. This shows that Dr. Myers' antagonism is not toward religion in general (as he claims) but against Christianity in particular.

I hope that you realize that these statements by a member of the faculty and his actions cast UMM in a very poor light. Dr. Myers' blog is a public document that makes frequent reference to both his anti-Christian bigotry and his employment by the University of Minnesota. The University of Minnesota Morris linked directly to Dr. Myers' blog until the middle of July, 2008, giving it tacit endorsement. It is obvious that regardless of the stance of the University and its administrators Dr. Myers is using his position with the University to lend authority to his bigoted statements.

While the University cannot be responsible for the statements and actions of Dr. Myers, they are responsible for how they react to them. I hope you agree with me that there is no place for such bigotry in the UMM faculty. If so, please contact the President of UMM and express your concerns.

Sincerely

[use your real name]

Dr. Myers' statements can be found here;

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/its_a_goddamned_cracker.php

Fire Myers

What is all the Hullabaloo?

Sample Email