South Park's Chef takes his chocolate salty balls and goes home

Many media outlets including Reuters are reporting that Isaac Hayes, voice of Chef on the TV series South Park, has quit the show:

"In ten years and over 150 episodes of 'South Park,' Isaac never had a problem with the show making fun of Christians, Muslim, Mormons or Jews," Stone said in a statement issued by the Comedy Central network. "He got a sudden case of religious sensitivity when it was his religion featured on the show."

Hayes is a long-time Scientologist. He's quoted as saying "There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry toward religious beliefs ... begins."

It may appear on the surface that this is simply a principled, personal stand by the man beneath the hat, but there's likely more to it than that.

A Wikipedia article says "In a radio interview a week prior to the announcement on the XM Radio show Opie and Anthony, Hayes said he was not particularly offended by the episode because of the level of satire people have come to expect from the show." So why the sudden turn?

The "intolerance and bigotry" line echoes Scientology's treatment of its critics. A Church-related site called religiousfreedomwatch.com paints critics of the organization as anti-religious extremists, bigots, and dangerous terrorists. The Church teaches that anyone who'd oppose Scientology has hidden crimes, and is an anti-social personality.

Hayes' split from the South Park crew appears, on the surface, to be a direct implementation of Scientology's "PTS/SP" tech. It's taught as a system for managing the upsets in one's life, but it effectively isolates members from outside information and criticism of the organization, while keeping them within the fold under threat of expulsion, or worse.

PTS means "Potential Trouble Source" -- potential trouble for the organization, sure, but to the public, explained as potentially troublesome for oneself and those around one. Scientology teaches that "all illness in greater or lesser degree and all foul-ups stem directly and only from a PTS condition." So, if your life is going poorly, if you're sick, if you keep screwing up, if you're "roller-coastering" through troubles, it's only because you know an anti-social personality, called an SP.

SP is a Suppressive Person. In Isaac Hayes' case, the South Park guys. An SP has been defined as "one that actively seeks to suppress or damage Scientology with suppressive acts." Or, "a person who suppresses other people in his vicinity. A suppressive person will goof up or vilify any effort to help anybody and particularly knife with violence anything calculated to make human beings more powerful or more intelligent."

Scientology teaches that there is an infallible process for dealing with situations like Hayes faced: discover the source of suppression, then handle or disconnect. That is, make them change their minds, or cut off all contact. In Scientologists' lives, that tends to involve cutting off friendships, tearing up families, or quitting jobs -- eg. if someone you love criticizes the organization, they're actually out to harm you, stop you from getting better, and must be changed or removed from the picture. A very effective "us vs. them" setup to make members paranoid.

If a PTS member does not handle or disconnect from the SP, he or she could then be declared suppressive, and the consequences of that are dire. Regarding SPs, "As persons or groups that would do such a thing act out of self-interest only to the detriment of all others, they cannot be granted the rights ordinarily accorded to rational beings." (ref)

Given the rigidly dogmatic system in which he lives, Isaac Hayes really had no choice. He was working with people who were a threat to Scientology -- they're Suppressive Persons. That made him a Potential Trouble Source. If he wanted to remain a Scientologist, and keep his home, his status, his friends, his image, his support, his belief system and, in his mind, his only hope of spiritual salvation, he had to either change the South Park guys' minds, or cut off all contact with them. And given that Matt Stone and Trey Parker are dealing with facts and reality, and not the dictates of a science-fiction writer-turned-guru, it's doubtful that Chef could "handle" the situation. The line about the satirists being intolerant bigots was a PR line. He had to disconnect. There are times in life when that's all you can do, and it's most always terribly sad, but not so simple as following a book and an A-B-C procedure for shielding yourself from the evil people around you. In this case, it looked like Chef had a good thing going 'til dogma forced his hand.

The South Park guys will be on David Letterman's show Wednesday night.

More critique of the Suppressive Person Doctrine, plus some of the CoS' own information.