On Thursday, August 28^th, Webster Cook was formally impeached and removed from his position as Senator. This represents the culmination of many weeks of arduous legal battles and emotional turmoil for Webster and his family, and Webster is left with a permanent stain on his record after an impeachment hearing that was nonobjective and patently farcical.

Those unfamiliar with the situation should learn more here.

During the week between summer classes and Fall semester, the Speaker of the Senate, President Pro Tempore and Legislative, Judicial, & Rules Committee(LJR) chairman met privately with key witnesses to question them about the incident. These conversations were transcribed and presented during the Thursday hearing as evidence. The witnesses were not under oath at the time, and later analysis found that there were numerous discrepancies between the transcriptions and the conversations themselves.

According to the Impeachment Statutes here at UCF, the defendant is explicitly guaranteed the right to cross-examine witnesses. Webster was not granted this opportunity. He wasn’t even informed that the conversations were going to be used in his hearing until the night before, giving him no time to review the evidence or examine the witnesses himself.

The Impeachment Statutes also guarantee the defendant the right to refute the charges presented against him or her, but Webster was blatantly denied this as well. The hearing was scheduled to end at 11:00 PM, and at 10:53 a senator made a motion to table debate and immediately move into voting procedures. Robert’s Rules of Order gave this motion precedence. When Webster protested, he was flatly denied the opportunity to refute the charges, being curtly informed that “we don’t have time for that.”

It seemed as though all of the senators there had an agenda. Those who were not actively attempting to destroy him appeared more interested in getting an early start on Labor Day weekend.

Webster now stands stripped of his title, picking up the pieces after a minor incident was inflated and sensationalized onto the national stage. The impeachment proceedings reeked of both indifference to Webster’s human dignity and biased intent to sacrifice his future to placate a public hungry for his blood after the ridiculous spectacle surrounding his incident.

Regrettably, such incidences of questionable integrity within college student government associations are anything but rare. In high school, student political proceedings are at least superficially monitored by responsible adults whose job it is to ensure that the rules are followed and that things stay clean. Once college rolls around, the political corruption starts; those who aren’t just in it for graduate school application padding quickly find that they can deviously pursue their own ends with impunity. There are a dedicated few, though, a few who seek to challenge the norm and facilitate progress towards a greater good.

These few are quickly punished. Webster has long been a passionate, outspoken critic of giving public money to dogmatic organizations, both religiously affiliated and not.

Here’s a quick primer:

Each UCF student pays an “Activity and Services Fee,” to the tune of $12 per credit hour. This money then goes to student government for allocation.

Explicitly religious student groups received $75,000 of public money last year alone.

Few raise an eyebrow at this, if they even care to know about it. Many senators at UCF spend their meetings batting balls of paper around, doodling, whispering casual conversation to one another, and generally being ineffective, one senator (not Webster) tells me. During one financial allocation hearing, one awe-inspiringly brilliant senator expressed credulity at the legitimacy of allowing a group of 40 people to decide things for the entire student population.

Isn’t that the very nature of the Senate?

This general level of incompetence was certainly reflected in Webster’s impeachment hearing; “it was like they were making it up as they went along,” Webster later told me. Webster’s father was also there, powerlessly left to watch as the committee flagrantly disregarded the rules. The senators didn’t even officially debate the issue, instead just dutifully following the recommendation of the LJR committee.

Interestingly, the LJR committee is comprised of just seven people, four of whom are Catholics. It is up to each individual to recuse themselves from a potential conflict of interest. Not surprisingly, none did.

Webster had a thoughtfully written statement prepared to refute the charges, but as already mentioned, he was denied this right. The three who arranged the clandestine meeting with the witnesses did so by completely disregarding the direction of the Impeachment Statutes. Webster was not allowed to cross-examine these witnesses prior to the hearing. Such are but a few examples of the mockery of justice that was Webster’s hearing.

Now, Webster is doing everything in his power to fight for his rights and do what he can to clean up this situation.

Those wishing to help Webster out are more than welcome to contact our SGA Chief Justice Jordan Axelrod at 407-823-4721 or at sga_cjus@mail.ucf.edu

Editors Note: For the back story to Crackergate, please consult the following articles:

• Orlando Sentinel Article
• PZ Myer’s Take

]]> http://factonista.org/2008/08/30/webster-cook-impeached-without-due-process/feed/ 8 http://factonista.org/2008/08/27/kids-in-quebec-to-be-confused-by-religious-choices/ http://factonista.org/2008/08/27/kids-in-quebec-to-be-confused-by-religious-choices/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 04:45:02 +0000 Ian Bushfield http://theedger.org/?p=826 The province of Quebec (in Canada) has begun requiring all grade 1 through 11 students to take classes that teach various ethical and religious systems.

Some traditional Catholic parents have tried to keep their kids out but the school boards have turned down their requests.

Marc-André Richard said the school board has just started a war with parents like himself.

He said he is worried that if his kids learn about other religions on top of Catholicism, they will become confused by too many choices. [emphasis added]

M. Richard is going to keep his kids home for these classes even if it means they fail.

As much as I want to respect the rights of parents to raise their children how they want, this crosses a line.   To say “I don’t want my son/daughter knowing that some people think differently than us” is utterly absurd! If your religion is logically coherent, or at least ingrained enough in your child’s head, then the child should be able to survive a provincial religious education course.

I don’t normally read or write on articles from sources like the “National Catholic Register” but one got shared to me, so I was inclined to read it. The article is entitled “Face of the New Atheism” and documents an interview by Jeff Gardener with Dr. PZ Myers.

I had some good hopes for this article, after a fairly neutral introduction, however, on second reading I notice the bias slip in:

He moved from semi-celebrity among atheists and evolutionists to widespread notoriety when he blogged a tirade about the University of Central Florida student Webster Cook, who stole the Blessed Sacrament and held it hostage. [Emphasis added]

First misconception: Webster Cook was given the cracker in church, there was no sign on the wall saying “Thou shalt eat the cracker and removing uneaten crackers is theft.” He chose to hold it in his mouth and walk out in protest of being assaulted by a member of the church. There was no theft involved.

The heavy bias becomes very obvious with this gem of a paragraph:

That Myers has the equivalent of a junior high school education in religion is glaring. He understands little about the history and function of the Catholic Church and even less about the place of the Eucharist in the lives of Catholics. When I told him that many have laid their lives on the line to protect the Blessed Sacrament, he recoiled in disbelief, saying, “Really? People really do that!?”

Myers likely understood the Eucharist and ceremony surrounding Communion prior to Cook’s ordeal in Florida, it was the fact that people took the ceremony seriously enough to utter death threats against Cook that caught him by surprise. It seems ridiculous to think that people actually still believe that when a priest waves his hands over a cracker it becomes the flesh of a person who supposedly died nearly 2,000 years ago.

Gardener continues:

What, I asked, about the Church’s role in founding the first Western hospitals, universities, banks and even many breakthroughs in science? He interrupted me, irate and incredulous:

“No, people made those contributions to Western Civilization.”

That the Church was involved in the very foundations of our Western culture is, according to Myers, irrelevant. [Emphasis added]

The Church was involved in the same way that the feudal system was involved, it didn’t necessarily promote the growth of knowledge, but existed at the same time as knowledge began to grow. We should question why, if the Church was so vital to Western culture, did the Church attack and defame many of the great thinkers from Galileo to Spinoza?

Gardener becomes confused that someone could not see the church as being a beacon of light and hope through European history:

As I talked with Myers I was struck by an irony: For a scientist whose job it is to observe cause and effect, he has a poor understanding of the cause, Catholicism, and its effects on world culture. He does not see Christianity as an elevating force in the world, but rather as a strange superstition — akin to banging a pot to scare away the moon.

Is Gardener suggesting that the belief that eating a cracker as form of cannibalism is wholly different than “banging a pot to scare away the moon”? Because I see more similarities than differences.

Gardener moves from the defensive to the offensive, attempting to paint a picture of the dark and scary atheist.

When discussing religious leaders like the Holy Father, Myers is insulting, dismissive and even bigoted — though he insists the demeaning ways he describes the Holy Father are legitimate criticism.

Myers seems to be tormented by a number of perceived persecutors. Mark Mathis and Bill Donohue rank high on the list.
…
He has undertaken a private crusade to torment Mathis at public gatherings, even calling on his followers to inundate radio stations with phone calls when Mathis is on.

I don’t know of one instance where Myers has “tormented” Mathis in public, and Myers has people call in to Mathis’ radio appearances to counter false claims.

But as much as he opposes Mathis, Myers has an even more intense dislike of Donohue.
…
For his part, Donohue called Myers “part egotist, part bigot — his behavior is clearly designed to insult, hurt and intimidate Catholics.

Next, Gardener ends with quotes suggesting Myers has a troubled past (unlikely, more he just can’t stand ignorance):

Father Loya also pointed out that in desecrating the Eucharist, Myers’ real target might be the Church — “like a little girl trying to hurt another little girl by pulling the head off her doll.”

“His ‘contempt’ for religion reveals some wound, some hurt,” suggested Father Loya. “Is it evil? Yes. But having said that, know that he is acting out of anger, some hurt.”

And finally, Gardener gives a positive view of how after all the Catholics have been through in this ordeal, it has only made Jesus stronger.

Noting that the Eucharist, as a sacrament, is a visible sign of the invisible reality of our unity with Christ, Father Loya said Myers has performed “his own sacrament in reverse,” by making the invisible reality in his life — his anger — visible.

“But even in this inverted action, don’t you see what Christ is doing? He is, once again, going to the cross so that we may draw nearer to him,” said the priest. “Rather than coming down on us with fire, as we might deserve, he is loving us through his humiliation and suffering, turning us back to him.”

I don’t even think I can try to figure out how the logic of the last two paragraphs there work. Remind me never to do interviews for the National Catholic Register.