Large portions of the German political left have announced that they will not attend Pope Benedict XVI’s upcoming speech in the Bundestag.
At least half of the Left Party delegates will boycott the visit as will over one quarter of the SPD politicians. The Greens will be protesting around the corner at the Brandenburg Gate during the speech.
“We have nothing against the Pope’s visit per se,” said one anonymous spokesman in clear and palpable angst hooded in black and lurking in the sinister darkness of one of the parliament building’s more eerie delegate seating areas late the other night, “It’s just that we don’t care for all those crosses and the prayer. And the number 7. And the garlic.”
“Er kommt ja nicht ungebeten, sondern alle Fraktionen haben zugestimmt.”
Observing Hermann 
“Sie halten den Auftritt mit der religiösen Neutralität des Staates für unvereinbar”
Really? Do they need to give equal time to a Sheikh, a Rabbi, a Bhuddist monk, and Shito priest, and a druid equal time to hear from the head of Europe’s only native religion that lives and that matters? Are they all suppposed to speak at teh same time so that no-one will have to have their conciences or moral foundation stimulated into thinking about anything new and different?
Then why all the usual bleating about wanting the Dalai Lama to hold court, and tacitly demanding “regime change” in China to “Free Tibet”?
These people really are a piece of work. If they “have nothing against him” why do they feel a need to pander to their constituents by having “non-protesting protest,” Not-against him?
What exactly are they “not-protesting”? His existence?
They really are little more than adolescents. The mere fact that they are part of a government of an actual nation of people is stunning. The irony is that it isn’t them that makes it a nation of any significance at all – it’s the civil society that has too much maturity to take the “protesting against the existence” of somebody seriously.