Tom Hanks strikes back

Tom Hanks, star of the upcoming film, The Da Vinci Code, struck back against calls from the Catholic Church to boycott the film for its purported attack against Catholicism.

But Oscar-winner Hanks said objectors to The Da Vinci Code are taking the film too seriously, telling the Evening Standard: "We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown.

"But the story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense.

"If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake.

"It's a damn good story and a lot of fun... all it is is dialogue. That never hurts."

Hanks is absolutely correct that movies and speech never hurt anyone. I wonder if he thought the same way about the Mohammed cartoons? More telling though is Archbishop Angelo Amato's words against the film:

Amato described the novel as "stridently anti-Christian" and called for believers to "reject the lies and gratuitous defamation" in the book.

He added: "If such lies and errors had been directed at the Koran and Holocaust they would have justly provoked a world uprising.

"Instead, if they are directed against the church and Christians, they remain unpunished. I hope you will boycott the film."

Two things:

1) Doesn't Amato know that the only way to silence speech is to riot and kill people? Once the Catholics understand that, the liberals will knuckle under.

2) People need to see this movie if for nothing else but to send a message that speech should not be silenced by anyone. More likely, though, people will see it because it's just good fun.