SubGenius Member Loses Son
Alright, I can't verify whether any of this is true, but it's too odd not to mention. Quick background: Jeff is the father, trying to get custody or other rights with respect to his son, Kohl. The estranged mother is Rachel. Here's what Rachel says happened (apparently, Rachel wrote in the third person):Â
On February 3, 2006, Judge Punch heard testimony in the case. Jeff entered into evidence 16 exhibits taken from the Internet, 12 of which are photographs of the SubGenius event, X-Day. Kohl has never attended X-Day and is not in any of the pictures. Rachel is depicted in many of these photos, often wearing skimpy costumes or completely nude, while participating in X-Day and Detroit Devival events.  Â
The judge, allegedly a very strict Catholic, became outraged at the photos of the X-Day parody of Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ – especially the photo where Jesus [Steve Bevilacqua–Rachel's fiance] is wearing clown makeup and carrying a crucifix with a pool-noodle dollar sign on it while being beaten by a crowd of SubGenii, including a topless woman with a “dildo”.    ”¦Judge Punch lost his temper completely, and began to shout abuse at Rachel, calling her a “pervert,” “mentally ill,” “lying,” and a participant in “sex orgies.” The judge ordered that Rachel is to have absolutely no contact with her son, not even in writing, because he felt the pictures of X-Day performance art were evidence enough to suspect “severe mental illness””¦Â Â
The secularists, of course, are outraged. They think it's the judge imposing his Catholic morality on a case.A couple of points. First, no judge can turn off his sense of morality and justice when he's on the bench. If a judge could do his job in such a vacuum, we could just program computers to do the job. Second, if dancing around naked at a group function while mocking a suffering individual (whether it's God Incarnate or not), isn't a sign of mental illness, what is? Third, can't membership in certain groups be deemed a sign of instability? If I belong to a group dedicated to sexually assaulting man hole covers and smearing excrement on small animals, might a judge legitimately question my stability? Fourth, this is the Church of the Sub-Genius, membership in which should be prima facie evidence of mental instability. From Wikipedia: Â
Since its inception in 1980, the [Church of the SubGenius] prophesied that an army of extraterrestrial alien invaders would land on the planet Earth and destroy the world of "normals" and "glorps," while the members of the Church of the SubGenius would be rescued by the aliens and taken away into space. When July 5th, 1998 arrived and no alien fleet appeared in the sky, members of the Church began citing a large number of conspiracy theories to explain why the predicted end of the world did not take place. The ddate program claims that the Church "declared that it had got the year upside down" and that X-Day will actually take place in 8661. The most popular explanation for the failure of the prophecy in the Church is usually summarized with the statement, "the calendar is wrong and July 5th, 1998 has not really arrived yet." Because of this, the Church has held annual gatherings around July 5th of each year since 1998 to celebrate X-day and greet the arrival of the anticipated alien "Sex Goddesses." No flying saucers rendezvous has been confirmed as of 2005, but members of the Church have been undaunted.  Â
