Wednesday — February 11, 2004

Stupid stunts down here, up there

Commentary by Pat Murphy

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Show biz doesn’t have a monopoly on offensive behavior.

We now know American Airlines employs a captain whose stupidity surpasses the infantile breast-baring behavior of Justin and Janet during the Super Bowl half time show.

This senior pilot, flying the coveted Los Angeles-New York run, decided to foist religion on passengers held captive at 30,000-plus feet. Christians hold up your hands, he intoned on the p.a. Now, non-Christians (Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, et al) can spend your time usefully by chatting with them about their faith.

There’s some disagreement whether he humiliated non-Christians by calling them "crazy."

Passenger reaction was swift, predictable. Had a demented religious nut seized control of Flight 34? Was the pilot preparing for a suicidal crash dive in an act of 9/11-type religious zealotry?

Crazies aren’t confined to one religion, mind you.

Some passengers probably remembered Egypt Air flight 990 that plunged into the Atlantic after takeoff from JFK in October 1999, as the cockpit voice recorder taped the first officer mumbling "I rely on God" 11 times as he dove the Boeing 767 with 217 lives on board into the ocean.

Some alarmed passengers on AA Flight 34 grabbed cell phones and called home (as did panicked passengers on 9/11-hijacked United Airlines flight 93 before it crashed in Pennsylvania). Flight attendants on Flight 34 scurried up and down the aisle reassuring passengers they were safe despite the captain’s bizarre announcement.

While Janet Jackson’s momentary breast-baring did wonders for the pop culture’s music and show biz corporations, it infuriated decency legions and holier-than-thou politicians who want to hold hearings where they can feign proper shock.

But it would be no surprise if sentinels of decency who’re so wrathful about J & J’s bump-and-grind-and-bare-it stunt would be furious if the American Airlines pilot were disciplined for subjecting passengers to his religious ardor.

Evangelicals call his in-flight religious work "witnessing." Unlike street-corner evangelicals handing out tracts that passersby can avoid or reject, Flight 34’s passengers had no way to escape the uninvited, in-your-face religious chit-chat from the pilot while strapped in their seats.

But then, public evangelism these days finds itself in an inordinately hospitable environment—religion has achieved almost quasi-official blessing.

"Faith-based" religious and charitable groups have been designated for taxpayer funds. Israel’s often bloody behavior is largely immunized from U.S. official sanctions because of powerful "Christian Zionists," led by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who believe the Jewish state has a role in the world’s End Days.

Although the White House takes pains assuring Muslims that U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan aren’t religious crusades, the Pentagon condones Lt. Gen. William Boykin’s in-uniform church sermons that Muslims worship an inferior God and an "idol." Boykin shows ignorance on top of intolerance: Mosques don't have idols.

The irony is that President Bush’s administration is quick to condemn theocratic Islamic governments for allowing religion to influence people into bizarre, perhaps harmful behavior.

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