Much has been written about what it is like to be subjected to discrimination at work, on the street, within one\u2019s own family or even via so-called \u201cdocumentaries.\u201d But I\u2019d like to share what it\u2019s like to have a celebrity\u2014someone you have admired and been a fan of your\u00a0whole<\/i>\u00a0life\u2014suddenly and very publicly turn against you for no other reason than your religion.<\/p>\n Ever had the experience of stroking a cat you love and the cat is purring away when it suddenly and viciously turns on you and scratches or bites your hand for no reason?<\/p>\n Well, that\u2019s how it feels, only much worse.The idol in question is\u00a0Eric Idle<\/a>, one of the members of the\u00a0hugely popular and influential comedy group Monty Python<\/a>. I have very fond memories of listening to Monty Python records with a school friend back in 1976 when I was 16 years old which, coincidentally, was the same year I discovered Scientology. I remember literally rolling on the floor in hysterics from the sound effects in the hilarious \u201cAre You Embarrassed Easily?<\/a>\u201d sketch on the 1972 \u201cMonty Python\u2019s Previous Record.\u201d<\/p>\n Monty Python humor has often been compared to Marmite. Some people\u00a0love it and others hate it<\/a>. I think of it as a particular wavelength that not everyone can tune into. But I tuned into it immediately. I found it liberating. It was as if I had been given permission to laugh at formal, stiff, traditional things in life that I had never, up until then, even thought of questioning. Which is why, for me, it was much more than a silly TV show\u2014it was a different way of looking at the world and it helped me see the ridiculous side of life, and it taught me not to take life too seriously.<\/p>\n So for those, and many other reasons, Monty Python really is that important to me, which is why I decided, after my divorce in 2010, that\u00a0my next ideal partner would have to be someone as infatuated with it as I was<\/a>\u2014it would be a match made in heaven. Having gotten nowhere \u201changing around in bars,\u201d I decided to set up my own Monty Python dating site!<\/p>\n By that time, my Monty Python devotion was starting to get some media attention. In 2012, I won the\u00a0British Film Institute<\/a>\u2019s competition to find the biggest Monty Python fan. In my entry, I explained that I\u2019ve visited many Monty Python filming locations, gotten my name in the credits of an official Monty Python documentary (\u201cAlmost the Truth<\/a>\u201d); met and been photographed with all of the Pythons except Graham Chapman (who passed away in 1989); seen \u201cSpamalot<\/a>\u201d 19 times and saw \u201cMonty Python Live at the O2\u201d four times, and that I was actively seeking a Monty Python mate. This was interesting to the media, and even more so when I actually set up the dating site called Pythonesque Dating.\u00a0An article about it<\/a>\u00a0appeared in the UK national newspaper \u201cThe Sun.\u201d A young lady called Gemma Harris happened to see the article and joined the site, and in February of this year, I\u00a0proposed to her<\/a>\u00a0in front of\u00a0Terry Gilliam<\/a>and\u00a0Michael Palin<\/a>, two members of Monty Python. Gemma and I are currently planning our Monty-Python-themed wedding for October 5th, 2019\u2014Monty Python\u2019s 50th anniversary.<\/p>\n Over the course of all of this, I became the media\u2019s go-to Monty Python fan and was interviewed by six different BBC radio stations regarding the group\u2019s farewell show in London.<\/p>\n Now that you understand what a genuine die-hard fan I am, imagine my excitement when, a few years ago, Eric engaged with me on Twitter and, soon after, invited me to be the coordinator for an official Monty Python book that\u00a0I<\/i>\u00a0suggested! He told me to meet with the Python\u2019s publisher to discuss the project, which I did, and he told me to get Terry Gilliam to design the cover, while he would be the proofreader. By this time, we had progressed to emailing each other and later, we found ourselves both at the same London event (John Cleese<\/a>\u00a0was selling his art to finance his astronomical alimony). I was hoping to speak to Eric there but he was engaged in conversation with\u00a0Tim Rice<\/a>\u00a0and I didn\u2019t want to interrupt, even though Eric\u2019s wife kindly offered to introduce me. As it happens, I had met Eric previously at his \u201cNot the Messiah<\/a>\u201d show at the Royal Albert Hall. Anyway, the next day, Eric emailed me to say he was sorry we never met up at the event. In other words, all was well\u2014great, in fact\u2014between us.<\/p>\n That is, until Eric \u201cfound out\u201d I was a Scientologist. (I put that in quotation marks because I am one of the most visible online Scientologists in the world.)<\/p>\n It was at that point that he sent me a far-from-friendly email that read \u201c\u2026now I know what your beliefs are, I have the right to avoid you\u2026 This correspondence ceases here.\u201d<\/p>\n It was one of those moments that, for the rest of your life, you will never forget where you were when it happened. I was lying on my bed checking my phone when I got the message. I was devastated. How do you cope with being a lifelong, die-hard fan of somebody, then actually pulling off getting to\u00a0know\u00a0<\/i>them\u2026 only to have them suddenly turn on you like that? I don\u2019t mind telling you that for about three months, I was a bit shaken up by the experience. It was a confusing time because nothing could ever take away, for me, the magic of Monty Python sketches, albums, books and films, and yet one of the team now hated me on a personal level, purely for my religion (or what he thought it was). Man, that was a tough one.<\/p>\n Here are some of the tweets that then followed from Eric:<\/p>\n \u201cThe so-called Monty Python dating site is run by a Scientologist\u2026 You should beware.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cIf you are Scientologists you can f*** off.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWe do not like you, or support you. No fans of ours.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Eric is revered as a brilliantly clever writer, responsible for such masterpieces as his Monty Python monologues, the \u201cNudge, Nudge\u201d sketch and of course \u201cSpamalot.\u201d Sadly, in his tweets above, he appears to have descended into neo-Nazi hatespeak.<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t get my head around the fact that Eric was obviously a highly intelligent man, so why wasn\u2019t he able to look at Scientology in an intelligent way\u2014to separate the lies and rumors from actual fact? It\u2019s clear he\u2019s convinced that Scientology is something diametrically opposed to what it really is. But this is Eric Idle we\u2019re talking about\u2014the very person who taught me to question things and not take them at face value or just accept what everyone else says! To be different and not be a sheep. (The same thing Scientology teaches you, by the way.) Why couldn\u2019t he practice what he preached?<\/p>\n So I did the only thing I could: I decided to separate the man from the performer in my mind. That helped. I realized he has simply bought the bigotry, uninspected\u2014which I found so disappointing\u2014but I wasn\u2019t going to let that get in the way of my never-ending enjoyment of Monty Python itself.<\/p>\n Eric, without a doubt, Monty Python and Spamalot make people happy\u2014your message is even \u201calways look on the bright side of life.\u201d The relentless laughter throughout Spamalot every time I\u2019ve seen the show and the happy smiling faces of the audience as they leave the auditorium is testament to that. But the antipathy you have expressed toward me just because of what you\u00a0think<\/i>\u00a0Scientology is, is ugly and had quite the opposite effect on me and the many others who witnessed it. It breaks my heart.<\/p>\n I hoped you would be smarter and bigger than that.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fallout from media lies about Scientology: How Eric Idle dropped Scientologist John Wood as a lifelong Monty Python fan when he learned Wood was a Scientologist. Published courtesy of STAND, Scientologists Taking Action Against Discrimination Much has been written about what it is like to be subjected to discrimination at work, on the street, within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":219,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1265,1320,1374],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discrimination","category-scientologists","category-stand"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Eric](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/51\/2017\/11\/holy-grail-1024x683.jpg\")
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