This really ticks me off. Quote:
"'On one level I think what Tom Cruise did was relatively minor considering the fact he wasn't endangering other people,' said Robert J. Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University."
Isn't he hurting people, though? He gives a hefty part of his money to an essentially insidious organization (Scientology) which kills people, attempts to destroy people's lives, and carried out the single biggest infiltration of the US government to date.
Make no mistake, Scientology has caused a lot of harm.
Spreading nonsense on TV, nonsense that may stop people from getting real medical care, is damaging. If even one mother refuses treatment for postpartum depression (a real medical condition) because of Cruise's words, and hurts her baby, then he's hurt someone. If someone is refused psychiatric care because of Scientology's zealous anti-intellectualism (like Gary Beals was, causing him to stab his mother to death), then these words do harm. What if people believe that AIDS is "a state of mind", as Jenna Elfman said in a magazine, opting for auditing instead of modern drugs? Isn't that harm?