Hip Religions vs. Christianity

Tom Cruise's handlers recommend that journos who want to interview him take a scientology crash course (read: prostelizing session) before meeting the increasingly weird actor. The result: A bevy of Scientology plugs in War of the Worlds coverage.

And now, a count-down of "hot" Hollywood couples that's playing in the background in our vacation room treated us to Ashton and Demi happily babbling about Kabbala, a religion that has attracted such mega-thinkers as Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. The narrator pitches in happily saying how popular the ancient religion is.

Can you imagine what would have happened if, say, Mel Gibson required reporters to attend Catechism before interviewing him? Or Robert Duval asking all reporters to sit down with him while he took them down the Roman Road, as the cost of an interview? Not a chance!

There was, of course, the case of Ashley Smith, who's reliance on The Purpose Driven Life made big news for Christianity when Brian Nichols burst into her apartment.

But what choice did they have? That story was too compelling to ignore, and the media, recently made aware of the morality vote, probably felt a need to at least try to make their publications interesting to "those people."

Sigh. It was never meant to be easy.