right-wing extremism, average writing skills and susceptibility to snow jobs

Zealotry + denial = hypocrisy.
As usual, Aaryn's Citybeat column made my morning. But I think she's being too generous on the writing skills.

Nefarious claims
Can we all just finally agree that the Holocaust didn’t happen?
By Aaryn Belfer

“At JP Catholic we have an event called On Mission. The night consists of a guest speaker speaking about living out your Catholic faith in business or media, and after that there is confession and Eucharistic Adoration.”

So begins a Feb. 9 student blog post on the website of the unaccredited John Paul the Great Catholic University located in Scripps Ranch. Now, maybe you’re snickering about the “speaker speaking.” Or perhaps the mention of “Eucharistic Adoration” gives you a mysterious hankering for a Carr’s Water Cracker followed by a session of heavy petting.

But what’s notable in the post is not the redundancy in an opening paragraph by a kid who needs the guidance of a publicly validated learning institution. Nor is it a sudden, overwhelming hunger for crudités and kink. Rather, it’s the who who spoke, and what he said.

“Recently at JP Catholic,” the blogger continues, “Jim Holman, founder and editor of The San Diego Reader and a pro-life supporter, recently spoke to the students about the recent election cycle and Proposition 4 in California.” I think it’s fair to say our author effectively established that the speaking happened recently.

“He made an interesting comparison that rocked my world,” the blogger wrote of Holman, whose speech centered on his beloved-yet-failed parental-notification initiative last November. The conspicuous overlord of the gay-loathing, right-leaning, dressed-up-in-alt-weekly-clothing publication best used as an Ambien substitute—since it’s both sleep-inducing and non-addictive—inspired this student to “stand up vocally” on behalf of the unborn, by comparing abortion with the Holocaust.

Which raises the question: Didn’t Holman get the memo?

Pssst! Holman! The Holocaust never happened! And I’m not just making this up on a whim. This information is all over the news lately and is being spoken about quite matter-of-factly by a representative of the very church to which you and Blogger Boy belong.

The newly re-embraced Bishop Richard Williamson has stated repeatedly—and, it should be noted, recently—that roughly 200,000 to 300,000 Jews died in World War II and not the radical, yet widely accepted number of 6 million. It is tough to get one’s head around a number that big. It seems so entirely impossible that it must be. Williamson also has it on good authority that there was never any gassing. Auschwitz, mouschwitz.

Certainly, there are the conspiracy theorists falling over themselves to ostracize the bishop. These wild-eyed Holocaust historians seem to have him outnumbered; their outcry was so deafening that Williamson was removed from a seminary post last week in response to his unwavering comments.

But these folks are mere outliers in a giant fairytale, the nutty hook-line-and-sinkers demanding Williamson recant his denial of what purportedly took place at Auschwitz-Birkenau. And Belzec. And Chelmno and Majdanek and Sobibor and Treblinka. Who can pronounce those words, anyway? As if innocent human beings really died there: Men, women and children separated from family, huddled naked with strangers and dumped, still clinging to each other, into mass graves. It’s preposterous. Never happened.

Bishop Williamson is nothing if not open-minded. Though he doesn’t have any plans to stand with ghosts while touring the Auschwitz showers or contemplate his reflection in the ash pools there, he’s agreed to give the record another long-distance glance down his turned-up nose. The bishop would like historic evidence.

It’s not unreasonable for Williamson to demand proof. After all, this is a stance he’s maintained for more than three decades. Williamson is a proof-or-pudding kind of guy, not a show-me-a-miracle kind of guy. It’s not as if he bases his entire existence on something as flimsy and unreasoned as faith. For example, rather than relying on stories originating with Jews, I’m sure he has impervious proof of Jesus’ existence, more solid even than a crematorium, more permanent than tattooed registration numbers. The bishop must have in his possession a shroud. Or some DNA. Or at least a hair sample. Or a rusty nail with dried blood stains.

Speaking of blood stains, I disagree with the self-important Jim Holman when he equates the mass deaths of human beings to the removal of a clump of unviable cells from a uterus. In fact, not only do I support a woman’s right to choose every single time, but I’m in favor of retroactive abortion—an abortion time machine, if you will.

It could be made available to people like, say, Jeffrey Dahmer’s mother. Or Dick Cheney’s. Or Hitler’s. Then again, that last one may be unfair given the Holocaust fable. In reality, Adolf was probably little more than a misunderstood regular guy, looking for a girl to love him. Sure, it sounds like something straight out of Notting Hill, but the only thing more improbable than Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant falling in love has got to be the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and extermination of 84.5 Qualcomm Stadiums-full of Jews.

But it didn’t happen, and if the Holocaust didn’t happen and the Catholic leadership backs this notion, then comparing abortions with it at a Catholic “university” seems to be a self-defeating analogy. An educated person would be skeptical of, and offended by, such an argument. Unless that “educated” person holds a degree equivalent to one earned from Sally Struthers, in which case, it’s world-rocking material. Thanks to JP Catholic and its speaking speakers, we can be assured of a whole bunch of mini-Holmans flooding the business and media industries in the near future with their right-wing extremism, average writing skills and susceptibility to snow jobs.

Write to aaryn@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.