Yes, The Pope Should Be Arrested, and I Donât Care Who Does It
By REBECCA WATSON - SKEPCHICK
Added: Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:00:00 UTC
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Yesterday morning the big news was an interesting article with a ridiculous headline: âRichard Dawkins: I will arrest Pope Benedict XVIâ.
I thought my Tweet summed up my feeling on the matter:
Richard Dawkins is going to personally arrest the pope. I hope itâs like the video for Sabotage but with old dudes http://is.gd/bo707
I was wrong to assume that people would read that and think, âYes, that is a completely ridiculous headline.â Iâm kicking myself for not being clearer, because when Dawkins posted a clarification to say that no, he did not say heâd be personally arresting the pope, a lot of my Twitter and Facebook followers happily declared that it was all a big hoax. A few others declared that it was all a big publicity stunt on Dawkinsâ part, and that it therefore hurt âthe skeptical movement.â
Bullshit.
Dawkinsâ clarification explained that while he was not going to swing into action Beastie Boys-style, he does support the actual effort currently underway to hold the Pope accountable for the systematic protection of child abusers. And that, to me, was the entire point: not that Dawkins is involved (though that is a funny image), but that the Pope may in fact answer for his crimes. So no, itâs not all a big, overblown hoax. It is a real and important story.
On to the second point, that this effort will apparently hurt the âskeptical movementâ: it wonât, and itâs completely absurd to suggest otherwise.
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