In which I foretell the future

Wow. I think I know what Katie's going to take up this week. None other than our friend and infrequent Drinking Liberally attendee Professor PZ Myers, who has been causing quite a stir up there in Morris with his refusal to bow to a tidal wave of Catholic pressure regarding his comments about communion wafers.

He's been vilified in the Washington Times. He's received far more than his usual level of hate mail and death threats. He's apparently so angered Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights President Bill Donohue that Donahue has been issuing press releases in which he plays the Christian-as-victim card so transparently as to suggest that PZ will be responsible for any death threats against Donahue:

“Myers went on Houston radio station KPFT last night saying that Bill Donohue has ‘declared a fatwa’ against him. He should know better—I don’t need others to do the fighting for me. I’m quite good at it myself. But he’d better be careful what he says, because if I get any death threats, it won’t be hard to connect the dots.

Why, PZ is such a threat to Life As We Know It that at least one GOP doofus has called for further steps be taken to ensure that our RNC visitors in September can trek down to St. Stan's without fear of being hit by sniper fire from the top of Mancini's:

Thomas E. Foley is chairman of Virginia’s First Congressional District Republican Committee, a delegate to the Republican National Convention and one of two Republican at large nominees for Virginia’s Electoral College. His concern is for the safety of Catholics attending this year’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, Myers’ backyard. Accordingly, Foley has asked the top GOP brass to provide additional security while in the Twin Cities so that Catholics can worship without fear of violence. Given the vitriol we have experienced for simply exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, we support Foley’s request.

What, pray tell, has so angered the self-appointed bulldogs of American Catholicism? Donahue's initial condemnation of the good professor can be seen here. PZ's post that set this religious war in motion can be found here.

But now for the predicting the future part: We can fully expect that Katie's next column (or certainly one within a week or two) will (a) parrot the words of Bill Donahue; (b) express shock and outrage at this latest insult to that most downtrodden of religious sects, American Christians; (c) argue how awful it is that PZ has brought this upon himself; (d) never actually speak with PZ, but rather will include copious incendiary quotes from his blog; (e) wax poetic about the days the church could just haul off and burn guys like this at the stake; and (f) remind us that our tax dollars pay this man's salary.