It’s now official. Scientologist Isaac Hayes, the guy who voiced Chef on South Park, has chucked a wobbly and left the show, citing irreconcilable differences (maybe). The dummy spit was prompted by the famous scientology episode, where Matt and Trey ripped the crap out of that ‘religion' and called it a global scam, then effectively dared the scientologists to sue them.

Isaac said: ‘There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins.’

I heard Tom Cruise take a similar line of bullshit on Parkinson not long ago. Any criticism towards his beliefs and he brings out the B word as a safety blanket. This is typical of those of a religious bent, who think their beliefs should be universally immune to criticism, because, well, because they just believe it. Religious beliefs have not a single shred of evidence to back them up, and thus, should be the first to be criticised, especially when those beliefs are such a detriment to society. Mohammad cartoons lunatic convention, anyone?  It reminds me of a comment Michael Shermer (king sceptic, and all round nice guy) made not long ago. He said, roughly:

‘People tend to have no problem with scepticism, and even enjoy it, as long as it’s not their beliefs under the microscope.’

The same applies to freedom of speech. Everyone thinks it’s a great and noble idea until someone says something that deeply offends them. They soon change their tune to: ‘Well, of course there should be limits. You can’t say that about my imaginary friend.’ Man, people shit me.

Isaac then took an even more serious departure into complete irrelevance:

 ‘As a civil rights activist for the past forty years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.’

What? Beliefs and practices of civil rights activists? What the fuck do civil rights have to do with this? Nothing, he’s just trying to deflect attention from the fact that he’s a hypocritical asshole, as a quote from Matt Stone will now demonstrate:

"This has nothing to do with intolerance and bigotry and everything to do with the fact that Isaac Hayes is a Scientologist and that we recently featured Scientology in an episode of South Park. In 10 years and over 150 episodes, Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslims, Mormons and Jews. He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show. To bring the civil-rights struggle into this is just a non sequitur. Of course, we will release Isaac from his contract and we wish him well."

Rolled. Now give us back those chocolate salty balls, you whiny bitch.