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It would appear that the inmates really are in control of the asylum. I can accept that an elected official must abide by a code of conduct when blogging or tweeting in an official capacity, but surely most sane people would accept this for what it was – a mildy amusing comment reflecting a view that most people would empathise with. I very much doubt this would have even raised a ripple if it was in America, where freedom of expression is protected by the 1st Amendment. Regretably the UK is marching towards a much more ‘Orwellian’ society, where any opinion can be challenged in the courts. For those who may feel this is an unwarranted and unjustified criticsm of Scientology, a brief look at their theology:
75 million years ago a tyrant called Xenu ruled the Galactic Confederation, an alliance of 76 planets including Earth, which was then called ‘Teegeeak’. Xenu instructed his loyal officers to capture beings of all shapes and sizes from various planets, freeze them in glycol and fly them to Earth. Some of the beings were captured after being duped into showing up for a phoney tax investigation. If this all sounds pretty sensible to you, then best make your way to the closest Church of Scientology and join up! For me, I’ll just continue rocking backwards and forwards with a blank expression on my face.Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk
Councillor faces inquiry over tweet calling Church of Scientology ‘stupid’
A councillor is facing a disciplinary hearing after calling the Church of Scientology “stupid” on Twitter, it emerged today.
The Welsh public standards watchdog investigated Cardiff councillor John Dixon’s short message and decided it was “likely” to have breached the code of conduct for local authority members.
News of the ombudsman’s decision prompted a flood of messages of support on Twitter for Dixon, the council’s executive member for health, social care and wellbeing.
The case centres on a message posted by the Liberal Democrat councillor during a visit to London.
It said: “I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.”
The message was posted on an account called CllrJohnDixon. He has since set up a second account, JohnLDixon, for his “more personal musings”, in which he describes himself as a “microbiologist and web developer, into science, rugby and web geekery”.
By 3pm today, Dixon’s number of followers on Twitter had trebled.
One supporter said: “Instead of a disciplinary hearing, they should canvas all the electorate to see if they agree with you. I think they just might.”
The ombudsman has referred the case to Cardiff council’s standards and ethics committee, which will consider it in the autumn. It will have to decide if there has been a breach and, if it finds there has been, consider any sanctions.
A spokesman for the Church of Scientology said: “The complaint was made by an individual Scientologist who was personally offended by the comments.”
Dixon argued that the remarks were made in a personal capacity rather than as a councillor, and said his Twitter name was CllrJohnDixon only because JohnDixon had been taken.
Dixon said that even if he had been speaking in an official capacity – which he maintains he was not – he was surprised at the complaint going so far.
