Bullying By Catholics

Suppose that you own a small business. You have a small store located in one of the millions of strip malls that have become the American landscape. One day, a couple of representatives from a local Catholic church come into your store and request a few minutes of your time. They show you a picture of large sign they want you to place in your store window so it will be visible from the street. The sign displays an image of Mother Teresa and is intended to honor her 100th birthday.

You politely decline the request, keeping your annoyance to yourself because upsetting potential customers is never wise. The Catholics thank you for your time and leave. You consider the matter closed and move on with your life.

The next week, your are visited by a small delegation representing all the Catholic churches in your community. They make the same request, but this time, they have something else to show you. It seems that they have collected several thousand signatures in the form of a petition asking you to display their sign. They suggest, ever so subtly, that you stand to lose some customers by not honoring their request.

Although you manage to refrain from yelling at them, you make it clear that you are not at all happy with their approach. You compare their tactics with the mafia and explain in no uncertain terms that you will not hang their religious propaganda in your store window. Again, they tell you that they appreciate your time and leave.

The protests start a few days later. Some people stop by to tell you that they will not do business with you until you agree to hang the sign. Others assemble to picket in front of your store. Your calls to local law enforcement do not go anywhere. They have the right to assemble as long as they are not physically blocking your entrance. Your business begins to suffer.

In case you missed it, this story is based on something happening right now in New York City on a much larger scale. Believe it or not, the Catholic church is demanding that the owner of the Empire State building, a privately owned building, light it to honor Mother Teresa. They do not care that the owner has a policy about not lighting the building for religious figures. They have collected over 40,000 signatures and taken out ads in the local papers. They intend to bully him into submission and are pulling out all the stops to do just that.

(Source)

Yeah, so as you might imagine, the Catholic League are involved. Bill Donohue shows typical fatwa envy in his insistence that Catholics need to expres their anger, but goodness me please let there not be violence!

"I think that too many Catholics have fallen asleep at the wheel. It's time for people, the rank and file to say enough is enough. I hope it's going to be nonviolent, I wouldn't encourage violence but I know there's a lot of anger."

Um... why were you expecting violence Bill? Sounds worryingly like wishful thinking *gulp*

There's an interesting response from the co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation where she notes that the date this is being requested is actually Women's Equality Day:

"Do not let Women's Equality Day be supplanted by cheerleaders for the Roman Catholic Church and its antiwomen, antigay, anti-stemcell research, antiprogress doctrines.

"Mother Teresa did not stand for women's rights — she was all about taking away women's rights: the fundamental decision of when or whether to become a mother. She used her podium relentlessly and globally to pound away at reproductive rights, including the right to contraception. She used virtually every public occasion to call for the recriminalization of abortion, and virulently opposed legalization of abortion, despite the fact that backstreet abortions are the leading cause of maternal deaths in countries outlawing abortion."

Gaylor suggested that in addition to being Women's Equality Day, August 26 can also be celebrated as the birthdate of strong feminists and nonbelievers Barbara Ehrenreich and Zona Gale. Ehrenreich is a contemporary author and columnist; Zona Gale was the first female playwright to win a Pulitzer Prize.

The Washington Post have an angry article noting that the Empire State Building has previously shown "communist colours" (ZOMG COMMUNIZM!) in honour of China, as well as displays supporting blue M&Ms and Mariah Carey.

"Empire State Building lights honored COMMUNIST CHINA'S COLORS (ZOMG EMPHASIS MINE!) (left) - and hyped Mariah Carey and blue M&Ms - but will snub Mother Teresa."

So is this a big fuss over nothing? Should they happily display Mother Teresa's image? Is she not really a religious figure at all? (Hey. Hang on, wasn't the common argument against criticisms of her underfunding her hospices and not providing clean needles precisely that we shouldn't judge her from a secular standpoint? Yet now we're conveniently supposed to treat her as a secular figure?) And is this falling on Women's Equality Day purely a coincidence or actively political?

Even if it is not political it's highly conceivable that it is being used for political ends. Below is an advert that is apparently intended to be used in the UK this Christmas and it's already been praised as an anti-choice image by the Christian right. And are we really supposed to believe that Bill Donohue isn't petty enough to promote Mother Teresa specifically to spite women's rights groups?:

"They have a halo round his head and you don't have a halo around the head of a blob of jelly or a cluster of cells." 
(Head of SPUC trying to be profound. SPUC stands for Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child BTW.)

(Cross-posted to atheism)