Censorship or Cents-Ore-Chips?

I am not really someone who is concerned by "issues", but I find idiocy sometimes provokes me. To explain: Why is it that Helen Clarke ("Alpha" Prime Minister) and Lyndsay Freer (Catholics PR Spin Doctor) can't understand the satire that lies behind the controversial screening of the "Bloody Mary" Southpark episode.

Lets start with Helen who is offended as a woman but finds it hard to muster any defence for those whose religious sensibilities are offended. Is Helen really that dumb? Or is it rather that she cannot afford to understand the satire, because to do so would require her to defend a religious tolerance that she is systematically dismantling in New Zealand?

The satire is quite simply (being a simple man) aimed at Catholic religious practices regarding relics, in particular the "weeping" or "bleeding" statues examples. Southpark thinks they're fakes so its a good laugh. In this example, the Virgin Mary statue is bleeding. The Pope declares it is menstruation. And the statue bleeds even more in response including on the Pope.

Which makes me wonder why Lyndsay Freer is also playing dumb about what the satire really means. Shouldn't she identify the satire and claim it as religious intolerance? Hmmm. I've always thought it was "nice" that the Catholics spokesman is a sheila.

Perhaps, the real problem is this: the satire is not really about relics at all. Perhaps its about Catholicism's conservative views regarding women? Perhaps its about a papacy that denigrates women and in referring to menstruation is painted as reducing them to mere breeding stock (remember the no contraception rule) and couldn't possibly consider this statue to be the source of a miracle? Perhaps Mary is getting back at the Pope?

So that would make it profeminist...

Best not to try to understand these things.