It’s an interesting state our society is in when we can criticise and discriminate against someone we have never met and our only version of him is what the tabloids have told us or we have seen on a play act – in a movie.

Because someone fervently believes in something, such as Tom Cruise and Scientology, Maddona and the Kabbala, Richard Gere and Buddhism etc., many of us because we are such ‘experts’ on their lives and what is right and wrong, can sit on the sidelines and pull them apart.

Shame.

Most western cultures or countries have constitutions and rights that line up well with the UN Declaration of Human Rights. How about this -

2. Don’t discriminate. These rights belong to everyone whatever their differences.

12. The right to privacy. Nobody should try to harm our good name. Nobody has the right to come into our home, open our letters, or bother us or our family without a valid reason. (If a person leads a public life, it doesn’t include his private life as part of that. We are willing to have the benefit of his talent but not willing to give the benefit of his private life to him. mmm?)

19. Freedom of expression.We all have the right to make up our own minds, to think what we like, to say what we think, and to share our ideas with other people. (Lest anyone think that gives the right to unfair, biased and unverified criticism or downright hate speech, it doesn’t. Know your rights and you will see this is excluded from freedom of expression.)

28. A fair and free world. (Go figure! How would you like to receive the treatment just metted out to Cruise and family when your intention has been to help or you are communicating your dedication on something you believe in?)

30. No one can take away your human rights. (Seems we are bent on taking them away from Tom Cruise, his family and Scientology).

I guess many of those who blog live in countries with bills of rights or constitutions protecting their rights.

Many of us belong to many different religions and ‘don’t anyone criticize mine.’ After all it is the one true religion – whatever it is. Am I correct?

So why is it OK to criticise and ridicule Tom Cruise, or anyone else for that matter? Why is it OK for certain of us to violate the very rights we expect to be respected for us?

Why is it OK for Scientology to get the rough end? Don’t most countries protect religious rights? You wouldn’t like your religion scorned. No-one says that anyone has to believe Scientology, whatever you think of it and its teachings. No-one says you have to believe Christianity and the immaculate conception or Jesus rising from the dead after three days. Yet, this is a matter of faith and in Christianity, there is no question of this being a miracle of God.

Each religion has their tenets, many have some strange beliefs when you apply logic to them. So? It’s theirs and they have a right to it.

We agreed to follow our countries constitutions and bills of rights. So lets do so and stop this absolute nonsense of ridiculing a man who has brought pleasure on the big screen to millions and through his other works, improvement in life to many millions more.

Human rights are for all, if we respect others, others will respect us more. The attention on Tom Cruise and Scientology right now is merely an example of the intolerance levels our society has dropped too.

Lets just imagine for one instance: Whatever you do and believe is fully respected by everyone you meet whether they agree or not. How’d you feel? Now do that to others.

That’s human rights.