Student Star Chamber Convenes on Public U. Campus to Punish Catholic Protester
(Crossposted at Cocking a Snook!)
Pick a frame, any frame. What is a public university all about, really? Higher Education? Bwahahahahah.
And which is really the right frame for news like this to be understood and perhaps acted upon?
Status of the case
UCF announced Wednesday that it had dismissed the complaint Cook filed against the Catholic Campus Ministry, which sponsors a weekly service in the Student Union. Cook had alleged personal abuse, hazing and alcohol-policy violations, claiming he was grabbed and that the sacramental wine offered during the service should not have been allowed. School officials didn't find enough evidence to pursue his complaint.
Furbush said the Senate will have a special hearing to consider Cook's impeachment.
Apparently this story is now so major that Tom Foley wants the Republican National Convention all the way up in Minnesota to pay for extra security muscle to protect any Catholic delegates from -- um, not sure what -- but if you're not a public university or cable news watcher and you don't read the PZ Myers' science blog Pharyngula, maybe you haven't been following this news?
Haven't heard the battle cry, "It's a Frackin' Cracker!" yet?
Okay then, here's the basic plot so far, but check out some links too; this story's got literally onion-like layers, and you may find most of them test your powers of belief:
UCF Senate acts to impeach student over Mass incidentLuis Zaragoza | Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
July 17, 2008The University of Central Florida student who grabbed media attention after taking off from a Mass on campus with a sacred Communion wafer -- a move that outraged Roman Catholics across the country -- is in trouble with his colleagues in the student Senate.
A Senate panel voted 5-2 Wednesday to start the impeachment process against Webster Cook for allegedly violating ethics rules during a confrontation with the service's organizers.
Cook did not speak during a Senate committee hearing Wednesday and would not comment afterward.
But his friend and fellow senator, Benjamin Collard, said Cook thinks he hasn't done anything wrong.
"He feels he's not being treated fairly," said Collard, who voted against starting the impeachment process.
Anthony Furbush, the senator calling for Cook's impeachment, said publicity from the incident is disrupting student-government business. He hopes Cook will "just resign to save us time. But I don't think he will."
Once upon a time, not so long ago in the sunny state of Florida, Catholic governor Jeb Bush was cheered and officially supported up to the US Congress rather than impeached, for using his secular state agency powers to interfere with the rule of law, up to and including his nearly-executed plan to literally kidnap Terri Schiavo and hold her life hostage in the name of religion.
(This is a scary story parents, don't tell it to the kids at bedtime!)
The rationale was that his religion deemed her physically "alive" which trumped her own civil rights to her own body and her husband's court-approved role as her Decider, thus all the usual secular constraints of state, federal and Constitutional law against such religious overreach, must be bent to serve the Governor's Catholic-coached convictions.
The letter of the law was of no concern. Law enforcement typically loyal to its chain of command, obeyed the authority currently giving the orders, thus death threats to Michael Schiavo and to at least one judge upholding the Schiavos' privacy rights, didn't arouse much official concern.
And never mind the personal torment of all the innocent individuals with dying family members at that hospice with Schiavo, unable to be with them in peace due to the unconscionable, overtly political disruptions being orchestrated for the news cameras that spring. Their faith and family privacy rights weren't worthy of the slightest note by either Church or State.
. . .the power of story that never-never leaves my own mind, is the cultural ravaging of Terri Schiavo, that eerily media-perfect symbol of helpless, infantalized girl-womanhood. [Catholic] men — her father and husband and some exceedingly creepy spokesmonk in a rope-belted robe and sandals — fought publicly and pretty coarsely against each other and the paternalistic courts (and Governor) to control her very life and death. . .
In the next chapter though, when the plot shifts to spiriting a wafer believed to be flesh OUT of church control, rather than kidnapping an unarguably flesh-and-blood person with full civil rights to get her INTO church control, the Church calls only the former a hate crime, and calls on secular government mechanisms to serve up a legalistic blood sacrifice or two.
All because there was a brief scene among Catholics in a church (really the public university's student union, but they clapped their hands and BELIEVED really hard, and it transmuted once a week!) where the letter of Church Law wasn't quite followed and they chose to make a big honkin' showdown out of it. Downright medieval? You decide.
Intimidation, hazing, politics, religion, minority rights, money, student conduct violations, hate crimes, tyranny? And who's the victim, who's the villain, who's the governing authority, and if there were any actual crimes committed here (hate or otherwise) can you make the case without making it worse in the process?
What would be justice, what would be a miscarriage, what would be a dangerous precedent? Is higher education still on the students' side at least, or would that be bad business, now that even public universities are jockeying for money, clout, reputation and growth any way they can get it?
See more Snooking around on this case here and here.]
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Education Politics | Ben Stein | Bill Donohue | Congress | Constitution | Florida | It's a Frackin' Cracker! | Jeb Bush | Minnesota | Pharyngula | PZ Myers | RNC | Terri Schiavo | The Catholic League | Tom Foley | UCF | Webster Cook
What is the REAL issue here?
Submitted by Jamoke (not verified) on 31 July 2008 - 12:07pm.
"All because there was a brief scene among Catholics in a church (really the public university's student union, but they clapped their hands and BELIEVED really hard, and it transmuted once a week!) where the letter of Church Law wasn't quite followed and they chose to make a big honkin' showdown out of it. Downright medieval? You decide."
What the hell does the Schiavo case have to do with Cook? Other than another opportunity for insane people, incapable of defining the real issue here, to wing a few more cheap shots at a religion they despise? The only thing that makes any sense in your account is confirmation of ignorance of not only Catholicism, but more importantly state and federal (ie, secular) law.
It doesn't matter a damn that you clearly dislike the Catholic Church, ridicule its beliefs, its participants, or that Mass, out of clear (and growing) demand, has been celebrated on this campus for years, as well as on hundreds of public universities, all over the country: this is a federal and state protected right.
You can confine your insults to your 'blog', and share your insights with legions of like-minded people.
Once you, or people like Webster Cook, feel they are going to get a few kicks by intentionally interfering with a Mass, improperly accepting/handling something considered sacred, by those present, you've crossed a line. And this isn't a 'Church' line, its a degree of respect that every adult citizen of this country owes others.
The freedom of religious expression, by this Catholic campus group, is what is at issue here. The freedom not to have their Mass turned into a circus by some idiot, interested in a little Eucharistic 'show and tell', is the issue here.
Cook claims he's 'Catholic'. Any Catholic who has read eye-witness accounts, and read his statements, knows immediately that the motives for his actions were clear: no 'Catholic' would even think of doing what he did. His admission of some 'Catholic' background makes his actions that much more culpable, since it presuposes a basic understanding of the importance of what was going on.
Reading your fine analysis and interpretation of events, you can't help but reveal your contempt for Catholicism, so its understandable that you disapprove of what Cook's peers decided was inappropriate behavior, but the 'Church' didn't have a damn thing to say on this matter that influenced this decision.
You Must Be Outta Touch?
Submitted by JJ Ross on 31 July 2008 - 3:24pm.
Surprising to see this comment was only posted today, July 31. The story has developed. I think CK's edit function is currently enabled for your own comments even if you're not registered at the site (right, Liza/Michael/Mole?)so you can make yourself look less lunatic by tempering your clueless Catholic rant, after you read some of the following:
“Respect the Jeez-Its” Is Sorry Sign of Our Educational Times
Six Stages of Moral Development, From Piaget to Kohlberg
UCF Student Webster Cook Speaks Out on Radio
Connected Catholics “Cook Up” Month of Prayer for PZ Myers
Crackergate, Big Donors and the UCF Medical Enterprise
Or not, whatever. I've seen a lot of um, unrepented distemper over this disturbing public education case.
Btw, one big thing Schiavo and Cook apparently had in common was having been raised Catholic yet choosing as young adults, to live and die under the same secular jurisdiction I do, in Florida -- annoying The Church no end. (Air yew heer too, er jess one a' them damn outside agi-tater types?)
Just Logic
Submitted by Jamoke (not verified) on 31 July 2008 - 3:59pm.
Exactly what the hell is an 'outside agitator', someone who doesn't live in Florida?
Aren't you inviting educated debate of your fine summary of events by posting your 'blog' on this site?
Is registration a requirement for this?
Kinda strange.
I found this, for what it's worth, by searching for further info on Cook.
There are a few direct, eye-witness accounts of his actions that day, which are important because they have been used by you, PZ Myers etc, purportedly 'outraged' at his treatment.
Words like: 'forceably-detained', 'man-handled', assaulted', even 'Inquisition', etc are freely thrown about in portraying this college student as someone subjected to Ecclesiastical opression, when nothing could be further from what actually happened.
Based on your response and links above, I'm getting a better picture of what you really believe: in your questioning of what constitutes a 'church' ('the room was magically transubstantiated'), you seem to be approaching a conclusion, but just don't have the stones to say it simply and straightforwardly; so allow me.
It's your conviction that because religious services (like a Catholic Mass) are held on public property (namely a University), that anything goes: that anyone can do whatever the hell he wants: he's not required to adhere to any modicum of respect and decorum, because its state, not Church property.
Is this what you think?
Catholics (and Jews and Muslims) can, and have been, holding their services on state colleges for decades.
Penn State, for example, has their largest classroom building (the Forum) filled to capacity with Catholic Masses on Sundays.
Is your assertion that any support that is received by these groups, at state Universities, illegal?
Actually, I already laid out
Submitted by JJ Ross on 1 August 2008 - 9:23am.
Actually, I already laid out a bunch of much more interesting questions, basically as the purpose of the post. Not as talking points or for argument's sake, but trying to figure things out.
Intimidation, hazing, politics, religion, minority rights, money, student conduct violations, hate crimes, tyranny? And who's the victim, who's the villain, who's the governing authority, and if there were any actual crimes committed here (hate or otherwise) can you make the case without making it worse in the process?
What would be justice, what would be a miscarriage, what would be a dangerous precedent? Is higher education still on the students' side at least, or would that be bad business, now that even public universities are jockeying for money, clout, reputation and growth any way they can get it?
Maybe puzzling over complex questions of culture is not your style. You do seem to be a fighter, not a thinker.
But yes, I was indeed inviting "educated debate" -- on those questions that particularly interest me, not inviting some Billo and Hannity up-against-the-wall interrogation instead. (They're both Catholic too, right? Billo once said the majority of SCOTUS is too, true? Add two Jews, one fancy Catholic -- Episcopalian -- and one nondescript Protestant in a pear tree, and whose religion is being persecuted by secular authority again? Hmmm, so many questions!)
But thanks for playing. . . [buzzer sounds, trap door opens]
Fostering Intolerance and Calling It "Freedom"
Submitted by JJ Ross on 1 August 2008 - 8:57am.
Gotta love Culture Kitchen's quote bank, thanks guys! In comments at the link, I offer evidence from Bill Donohue himself that real religious freedom can't be trusted to religious organizations, any more than real education freedom can be trusted to education organizations.
Matthew 12:25 can be interpreted Donohue's way, where the whole kingdom must become Catholic so it won't be "divided against itself" with all power justified to that end.
Or my way, where the human kingdom stands indivisible for respecting every human's free heart, mind and spirit against any tyranny. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? I think I read that somewhere too. . .
If You're Not Here to Play Catholic Gladiator . . .
Submitted by JJ Ross on 31 July 2008 - 6:30pm.
then you might be engaged by the larger public policy issues in such news, which aren't religious but secular and civil:
Silly me, I always thought the law was on the side of kids entrusted to the school for education’s sake. But the kids and their education are barely an afterthought in such stories.
The gun-seeking teacher story seems to have gotten precious little attention as an education story — maybe we’re all too busy thinking about school police tasering that mouthy UF student, for felony abuse of a campus microphone?
(See "School's Out of Control" for more.)The University of Florida student tasered by a six-pack of university police at John Kerry's campus speech last year, was [like Webster Cook] singled out as "disruptive" by another student (the student in authority for that particular event.)
That student's cue was the entire basis for the police to move in on the young man at the mike, not John Kerry himself being upset.
After the fact, the same self-centered justifications were given by the student in authority at UF, that we hear about Cook -- the tasered student had been disrespectful, looking for trouble and trying to provoke a disruption, thus got no more than he deserved. And good riddance!
So a troubling (secular) question I'm seeing is: do we think it's good public policy to empower one student to freely abuse authority over others, to sic university police on a student breaking no rules or laws but merely annoying them by daring to challenge that very authority to control them?
It Ain't Necessarily So!
Thanks to Air America and America Freethought, you can hear a radio interview with Webster Cook and discussion of related public prayer funding issues here,