German Mardi Gras humour

From Lifesite News:

COLOGNE, March 2, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday and Pancake Tuesday are among the many names for the custom of keeping a festival on the last day before the beginning of the Christian penitential season of Lent. In most countries that have European roots, Mardi Gras has always included elements mocking Catholic ceremonies and customs.

But the tone has changed since the growth of what Christians are recognizing as a new militant secularism that specifically fosters hatred of Christianity. One skit planned for Cologne features the Pope and the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne as homosexual pop stars who end up in bed together. Last year, a float in the Dusseldorf parade showed Cardinal Meisner striking a match to a pregnant woman tied to the stake, the words "I had an abortion" written on her. The float's caption read, "Fostering Tradition."

My my. How very transgressive. Hit the above link to read whole article. As the rest of it indicates, the ridicule of Church leaders has nothing to do with the organizers having any real courage.

Bernd Jost, spokesman for the Dusseldorf carnival committee said that the religion the committee wants to exempt is Islam. "In view of the current debate, we will be keeping very clear of things related to Muslims," Jost said. "We don't want to fuel hatred," Jost said. But he admitted that the real motive is the need to keep parade spectators safe.

Last year's parade floats reflected a more egalitarian secularism and included one in which a Muslim Imam was crawling out of a hamburger.

"In view of the current debate?" At first that comment had me a tad confused. Then I realised they were speaking of the bold interaction now taking place wherein some Danish cartoonists draw some political cartoons with religious connotations and their religious interlocutors respond by:

- rioting in the millions;
- denouncing the entire culture of the West as perverted and Satanic;
- burning down a dozen or so churches;
- killing a score of their own people;
- murdering at least two Catholic priests and a score of Christians;
- calling for draconian laws to stifle free speech;
- trying to lay hate crime charges against magazine publishers; and
- threatening the cartoonists who began the interesting dialogue with beheading.

It's that debate.

Hmm. One can see why the organizers of the Düsseldorf carnival committee decommissioned that particular float. As recent explosions have revealed, Imams have an unfortunate propensity to turn those who ridicule their religion into ground meat. If you are an effete poseur, it's preferable to be ballsy with someone who won't cut them off when you unleash your biting sense of humour on them.

No, it's best to attack the Pope. It's been a long time since a pope launched a retaliatory crusade. The war plan parchments are no doubt still in the Vatican archives, but few potential crusaders can read Latin anymore and Google's translation program is notoriously uncertain. There is danger in that. The Pope's crusaders could end up sacking Munich instead of Düsseldorf and then what would the Germans do for Octoberfest?

Let the last word rest with Jacques Tilly.

Jacques Tilly, an organizer of Dusseldorf's parade said he thought the restriction was a compromise. Reflecting a more even-handed antipathy for religion, Tilly said, "Religion is in my eyes a delusion and hence should be mocked. The humour depicted on the floats simply needs to have some bite otherwise there is little point."

Ah hell, it's my blog and I'll have the last word if I want - and I want. If you are interested in reality, Mr. Tilly, then mock the followers of the "religion of peace." I assure you, you'll get a reality check from them.