Once In A While...Hitch Is Ridiculous

This Hitch column is as stupid as that George Will column railing on...jeans.

Sorry Hitch, Mel Gibson isn't Catholicism...he's Hollywood. He marketed a movie brilliantly to Catholics specifically and believers generally, that doesn't make him the embodiment of the faith, just a savvy Hollywood operator. Just like Fox News exploited that tiny niche consisting of half the population of America, Gibson exploited that little niche of tens of millions of folks that Hollywood had ignored. The cashiering of his wife, the mother of his many children, was the first clue. The well-publicized arrangement with a vagina for hire was, well, another clue. (A man secure in his faith and the role God has laid out for him doesn't do this kinda stuff.) The creepy, extra-canonical church he setup on his compound...a third clue. Why is it that atheists point to flawed humans beings claiming fealty to the church as evidence of the church's deficiencies rather than the human's deficiencies? The church welcomes all comers with open arms, so the nutters ain't a statement about us, just that God created nutters. Finally, what are we to make of secular paragons? If an atheist in good standing were to do something untoward, should we lament the growing tide of Godlessness and dismiss the arguments such as those made by Hitchens et al. by virtue of some rogue secularist? Roman Polanski? Are you prepared to pull this man to the bosom of unbelieving and have him define you the way you wish to push Gibson into our bosom and define us? Huh....?