Chef gets served

The recent fallout over an episode of the cartoon "South Park" has Tom Cruise threatening to not promote his most recent movie and sparked Isaac Hayes, who voices one of the characters on the show, to resign from his role. \nThe episode, which originally aired last fall, has Stan, a foul-mouthed fourth-grader, scoring so high on a Scientology test that the church's believers think he is the next L. Ron Hubbard. Eventually, Cruise and John Travolta end up in a closet together, even though various characters beg them to "come out of the closet." \nThe silly thing here is that, primarily, no one is considering the source. It's "South Park." This is the cartoon that reminds us that Jews just aren't good at basketball and that Mormons are creepily happy all the time. One episode was devoted to proving that most Christian rock is pure crap. (I have a hard time disagreeing, most of the time. Would it be so hard for some of these bands to rock a little?) "South Park" is an equal opportunity offender, which is the basis of its popularity, and in turn, the basis of its genius. Naturally, "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have issued a correspondingly offensive response that only throws salt in the wounds. \nPersonally, about 70 percent of the time I like the show, and about 30 percent I'm offended. But even when it strays into the territory of Jesus-bashing and jokes about pedophilic priests, I usually can't help but laugh. That's largely because, ultimately, I'm a bad person, but part of truly having faith is being able to acknowledge the implausibility of religion. Isn't faith that much more strong when a believer can say, "Yep, it is kind of crazy, isn't it? If I didn't have faith, I wouldn't believe myself." \nWhich leads me to think, then, what are the bellowing Scientologists so upset about? From a public relations point of view, flipping out is usually the wrong thing to do, but only more so when the basis of the upset is religion. Think back to the uproar over the cartoons published in Denmark that showed the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. Sometimes the fallout of an insult to religion is Tom Cruise's refusal to promote another crappy movie, but sometimes it ends in fires in the streets. Followers of a faith who cannot handle adversity are only advertising the fragility of their own faith. \nI realize that most people, especially people who have a stronger devotion to religion than I do, take their faiths very seriously. And ultimately, the lack of Isaac Hayes on South Park won't have any serious impact on the world at large. (Aside to Mr. Hayes: What, you think you're the only deep voice out there?) But religious turmoil is nothing new, and it probably won't end anytime soon. But if we can't laugh over the things that divide us, will we ever be able to unite over anything?