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A TIME WHEN SATIRE ENDS

Isaac Hayes has quit South Park, claiming the cartoon is intolerant and bigoted:

Outspoken Scientologist Isaac Hayes, an Oscar-winning singer heard by millions in recent years as the “Chef” character on “South Park,” has quit the cartoon four months after an episode spoofing Scientology.

“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,” the 63-year-old soul singer said in a statement.

“Religious beliefs are sacred to people, and at all times should be respected and honored,” he continued, never mentioning the Scientology episode, but citing the recent controversy over cartoon depictions of the prophet Muhammad. “As a civil-rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.”

In an interview with the Associated Press, “South Park” co-creator Matt Stone responded sharply, saying, “This is 100 percent having to do with his faith of Scientology. ... He has no problem – and he’s cashed plenty of checks – with our show making fun of Christians.”

He said he and co-creator Trey Parker “never heard a peep out of Isaac in any way until we did Scientology. He wants a different standard for religions other than his own, and to me, that is where intolerance and bigotry begin.”

Via Tom Pechinski. In other apparent intolerance news, the former editor of Britain’s Sunday Telegraph claims to have been removed over an allegedly Islamophobic article.

Posted by Tim B. on 03/14/2006 at 09:26 AM
  1. He’s a complicated man, but no one understands him like his…Hubbard?

    Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 14 at 10:14 AM • permalink

  2. Dammit Chef =/

    Posted by Dash on 2006 03 14 at 10:16 AM • permalink

  3. Hayes has shafted himself.

    An online dictionary I’ve just consulted defines bigoted as blindly and obstinately attached to some creed or opinion and intolerant toward others.  I could also add hypocritical, elitist and insincere to describe Hayes, but no need to go back to the dictionary for those words.

    Stone and Parker have a bit of backbone and a bit of arse.  I might go back to watching South Park.

    Posted by Stevo on 2006 03 14 at 10:18 AM • permalink

  4. You see that cat Hubbard’s a bad mother…

    Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 03 14 at 10:23 AM • permalink

  5. After four months?  Im hoping he’s just having a go at the Islamist that took 4 months to get angry about the Motoons.

    Posted by Melanie on 2006 03 14 at 10:24 AM • permalink

  6. Because the Scientologists were boosting his career outside South Park so well…  We really need to apply the German rule to those snake-oil salesmen.

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 14 at 10:34 AM • permalink

  7. Here’s someting about that episode ... I think ... nighty night ...

    Posted by Stevo on 2006 03 14 at 10:37 AM • permalink

  8. This is catastrophic - who is going to say “Hello children?”

    Posted by Latino on 2006 03 14 at 11:20 AM • permalink

  9. Latino — Yeah!  Where are we going to find another deep-voiced black man in Hollywood?

    And when he quit, did Hayes say, “Get thee behind me, Thetan!”?

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 14 at 11:21 AM • permalink

  10. Look for Isaac to start kidnapping, beheading, and burning embassies tomorrow.

    Posted by swassociates on 2006 03 14 at 11:28 AM • permalink

  11. Isaac Hayes’ profession is still soul singer these days? Coulda fooled me, I thought South Park was pretty much his only gig worth mentioning now.

    Posted by PW on 2006 03 14 at 11:56 AM • permalink

  12. Isaac Hayes is still alive?

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 03 14 at 12:12 PM • permalink

  13. Scientologist Chef can eat my chocolate salty balls.

    Posted by Some0Seppo on 2006 03 14 at 01:20 PM • permalink

  14. Hmmm.

    I guess it’s all fun and games until Scientology gets insulted.

    Posted by memomachine on 2006 03 14 at 01:53 PM • permalink

  15. Ving Rhames, your agent just called…

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 03 14 at 02:41 PM • permalink

  16. Who’s the cat that won’t cop out
    when there’s danger all about
    (Shaft!)
    Right on

    Time to mourn his passing, and to put the lyrics in the past tense.

    Posted by m on 2006 03 14 at 04:07 PM • permalink

  17. Scientology was mocked?

    Let the embassies burn!

    Posted by Mike Jericho on 2006 03 14 at 04:17 PM • permalink

  18. I hope they keep Chef, but just re-voice him.

    Ving Rhames and Michael Clarke Duncan sound like good bets.

    Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2006 03 14 at 04:25 PM • permalink

  19. I want Isaac’s job. I am working on the voice.

    Posted by Latino on 2006 03 14 at 05:31 PM • permalink

  20. My goodness what is happening at the london Daily Telegraph! A covert tske over by the BBC or the Muslim Council?
    The original scrubbed article dared to suggest that England would be split into no-go for the infidel areas, run by mullahs under sharia law.
    This is already happening in france.
    ‘In France, a public official met with an imam at the edge of Roubaix’s Muslim district out of respect for his declaration of the neighborhood as Islamic territory to which she had no right of access. In Britain, imams have pressed the government to officially designate certain areas of Bradford as being under Muslim, not British, law. In Denmark, Muslim leaders have sought the same kind of control over parts of Copenhagen. And in Belgium, Muslims living in the Brussels neighborhood of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek already view it not as part of Belgium but as an area under Islamic jurisdiction in which Belgians are not welcome’
    In Denmark, Muslims represent 5% of the population and recieve 40% of all government outlays.Social workers are beaten and intimidated because Muslims know that those tactics will bear fruit.
    In Australia , Centrelink is also overpaying certain muslims Much easier to withdraw payments to little old ladies on Zimmer frames than these bullies -right?
    Whilts leftist are happy to pay what is a Jizya tax on the infidel,(providing it comes from the imperialists taxes), they seem totally resistant to inform themselves on the realities of islam. Even to the extent of promoting the idea that simply quoting the Koran is a “racist” act, so they can cling on their own delusions.
    The Telegraph was ‘the canary in the mine’
    of the British press. ROP.

    Posted by davo on 2006 03 14 at 06:00 PM • permalink

  21. Here is the First part of the scrubbed article for which she was sacked
    ENGLAND: The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state

    By Alasdair Palmer
    The Telegraph Group
    February 19, 2006

    For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.

    “They think they have won the debate,” he says with a sigh. “They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.

    “The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that’s a clear victory.

    “It’s confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call ‘adverse consequences’ - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent.”

    Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that “in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.

    “It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue.”

    For someone with such strong and uncompromising views, Dr Sookhdeo is a surprisingly gentle and easy-going man. He speaks with authority on Islam, as it was his first faith: he was brought up as a Muslim in Guyana, the only English colony in South America, and attended a madrassa there.

    “But Islamic instruction was very different in the 1950s, when I was at school,” he says. “There was no talk of suicide bombing or indeed of violence of any kind. Islam was very peaceful.”

    Dr Sookhdeo’s family emigrated to England when he was 10. In his early twenties, when he was at university, he converted to Christianity. “I had simply seen it as the white man’s religion, the religion of the colonialists and the oppressors - in a very similar way, in fact, to the way that many Muslims see Christianity today.

    ” Leaving Islam was not easy. According to the literal interpretation of the Koran, the punishment for apostasy is death - and it actually is punished by death in some Middle Eastern states. “It wasn’t quite like that here,” he says, “although it was traumatic in some ways.”

    Dr Sookhdeo continued to study Islam, doing a PhD at London University on the religion. He is currently director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. He also advises the Army on security issues related to Islam.

    Several years ago, Dr Sookhdeo insisted that the next wave of radical Islam in Britain would involve suicide bombings in this country. His prediction was depressingly confirmed on 7/7 last year.

    So his claim that, in the next decade, the Muslim community in Britain will not be integrated into mainstream British society, but will isolate itself to a much greater extent, carries weight behind it. Dr Sookhdeo has proved his prescience.

    “The Government, and Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, are fundamentally deluded about the nature of Islam,” he insists. “Tony Blair unintentionally revealed his ignorance when he said, in an effort to conciliate Muslims, that he had ‘read through the Koran twice’ and that he kept it by his bedside.

    “He thought he was saying something which showed how seriously he took Islam. But most Muslims thought it was a joke, if not an insult. Because, of course, every Muslim knows that you cannot read the Koran through from cover to cover and understand it.

    The chapters are not written to be read in that way. Indeed, after the first chapter, the chapters of the Koran are ordered according to their length, not according to their content or chronology: the longest chapters are first, the shorter ones are at the end.

    Posted by davo on 2006 03 14 at 06:10 PM • permalink

  22. Ving Rhames and Michael Clarke Duncan sound like good bets.

    Ain’t they the same dude?

    Posted by Dave S. on 2006 03 14 at 08:08 PM • permalink

  23. Anyone who saw the episode and knew Hayes was a Scientologist, could see this coming a mile off.

    Unfortunately, the voice talent of cartoons is a lot more easily replaced than human actors. This is why the casts of Friends and Seinfeld could hold production companies to ransom in a manner the (voice) cast of The Simpsons could not.

    Eric Cartman’s voice would be hard to replace. Chef’s? Easy.

    Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 03 14 at 08:19 PM • permalink

  24. Has Scientology cleaned up its act, or can backsliders still be declared ‘fair game’ and subjected to a virtual fatwah?

    Posted by dee on 2006 03 14 at 08:51 PM • permalink

  25. Oh my God! Hayes has killed Chef!

    Posted by entropy on 2006 03 14 at 10:31 PM • permalink

  26. if sarah sands has been sacked as editor of the tele for allowing an alternative voice a space in her paper, it’s a sad day for the nation that stood alone against hitler

    Posted by KK on 2006 03 14 at 10:31 PM • permalink

  27. the scientologists set up an indoctrination centre a church in a house in north caulfield, & started bothering the neighbourhood with invitations to free personality testing. great idea just down the road from an evangelical nutbag speaking in tongues church, round the corner from a major mormon community, & likewise a very popular synagogue. after about 18 months the place burnt to the ground.  i like to think it was the wrath of god rather than faulty wiring or local vigilantes goaded past reason.  pity about hayes - he gave good chef

    Posted by KK on 2006 03 14 at 10:44 PM • permalink

  28. Chief White Halfoat, in Catch 22:

    Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian.  It really is.  It’s a terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a nigger, kike, wop or spic.

    Posted by rhhardin on 2006 03 14 at 11:38 PM • permalink

  29. Dave S — No, but they use the same tailor… some guy named Hindenburg…

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 15 at 12:17 AM • permalink

  30. Davo, why are you republishing practically all of a newspaper’s article on someone else’s blog?

    Did you get Tim’s or Andrea’s permission first? I’m thinking not.

    Posted by Mike Jericho on 2006 03 15 at 02:21 AM • permalink

  31. I don’t think they’ll replace chef per se. I’m sure stone and parker will dream up some bizarre reaon for his departure and some interesting new school chef. Either that or they’ll try to continue the character with a purposely inappropriate voice type.

    Either way, my recent sporadic viewing of south park hasn’t noticed much involvement by chef anyway. Has he had a new song recently?

    At least we’ll always be able to listen to Simultaneous Lovin on repeats.

    Posted by Francis H on 2006 03 15 at 03:41 AM • permalink

  32. No more salty chocklate balls!!!

    Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 03 15 at 05:13 AM • permalink

  33. Either that or they’ll try to continue the character with a purposely inappropriate voice type.

    I think they should get Cheech Marin to do the voice for a few episodes.

    Posted by No One of Consequence on 2006 03 15 at 10:33 AM • permalink

  34. Hayes said in a radio interview shortly after the episode initially aired that he didn’t mind Matt and Trey poking fun at Scientology.  It’s now been four months, so unless this is some sort of deliberate publicity ploy, my guess is that he’s been pressured by “church” leadership to quit the show.

    Posted by EmilyJones on 2006 03 15 at 11:48 AM • permalink

  35. Mike Jericho
    the ARTICLE has been pulled from the London Daily Telegraph website.
    the whole article is FOUR times longer.
    There is, as far as I know, no link to it.
      How an editor could be sacked over such and article seems to be of little interest to the lovers of press freedom on this site.
    Since you appear to take an interest in this extraordinary decision, i can mail you the whole thing if you wish.

    Posted by davo on 2006 03 15 at 06:04 PM • permalink

  36. They should have the old chef die from eating his own food then get a new one.  I recommend the Swedish Chef from the old Muppets series.

    Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 03 16 at 12:34 AM • permalink

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