Tonight’s edition of God Interviews... is brought to you as a public service by your local television station.  God, rarely seen except for an occasional wisp, is seated in the chair to the left of your screen.  Tonight’s guest in the ‘hot seat’ to the right of your screen, and on the left hand of God, is Hutton Gibson, renowned Holocaust denier, rabid anti-Semite and father of motion picture actor and producer, Mel Gibson.

“And now your host – God.”

“God evening, ladies, gentlemen and youngsters.  Just a little bit of humor there before we get serious with Mr. Gibson. Didn’t think I had a sense of humor, did you Hutton?  I can call you Hutton...”

“Of course, uh, uh...”

“Just call me God.  No need to be formal.  After all, we’re not in church, are we?”

“No.  No.”

“Or in a mosque, for that matter?”

“Uh...”

“Or a synagogue...”

“Well, we’re certainly not in church, God.”

"You’re quite wrong, Hutton.  Everywhere I am is a church, mosque, synagogue, call it what you will.  Everywhere I am, and everywhere pretty much covers it, is sacred ground.” 

“Er, I don’t think I understand.”

“Exactly.  That’s why you’re in the ‘hot seat.’  You don’t understand.”

“I mean I don’t understand how you can define a church as a, uh, synagogue, when the only true church is a traditional Catholic church in which the service is in Latin.”

“Why Latin, Hutton?  Do a lot of people nowadays speak Latin?  You know much Latin, Hutton?”

“Some.  A phrase here and there.”

“Sort of like, ‘E pluribus unum.’”

“Yes.”

“Know what that means, do you?”

“Out of many, one.”

“Hutton, Hutton.  That’s good.  Now exactly what does that mean to you?  I mean Latin being the language of your traditional Catholic church, you should be able to define a rather simple phrase.”

“Are you testing me, God?”

“Bet your ass, boy!”

“Oh my god.”

“Spell it with a capital ‘G.’”

“Oh my God.”

“That’s better.”

"It means that out of all the people you created, there is only one true church.”

“Wrong!”

“Wrong?  I beg your pardon...”

“We’ll get around to that later.  Meanwhile, I’d like to suggest to you that maybe, perhaps it’s just possible that out of many diverse individuals – of beliefs, thoughts, hopes – we work toward one cohesive society, based on one pretty basic set of moral principles.  Out of many, one.  Me, for example.”

“With you and your son heading it all.”

“No Hutton.  I don’t think you get it.  Let me try this.  Do you think Jesus is my son?”

“Certainly, God.  Absolutely.”

“Good.  Now how about you?”

“Me?”

“Do you think you’re my son?”

“God no.”

“That’s with a lower case ‘g,’ Hutton.”

“god no.”

“You familiar with e.e. cummings?”

“No, not really.”

“Probably not your type.  Lower case kind of guy.”

“Gay?”

“Forget it, Hutton.  You are my son.  Everyone is part of my immediate family.  You’re all my sons and daughters.  I don’t believe in grandchildren.  Then you get involved with cousins and genealogy.  Probably a lot of fun, but a bit too confusing for me.  A person is a person, after all.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t.  Look here.  At me.”

"You’re a person.  A black person.  You’re a black person.  That’s impossible.”

“Watch.  And maybe learn.”

“You’re Chinese.”

“Korean actually, but close enough.”

“My god...”

“Careful.”

“My God.  You’re an Indian, no an uh, uh...”

“Try Eskimo.  Aleut specifically.  And every other person on this planet you call Earth, which is, incidentally, a mere pebble in the sky.  Hutton, you all right?  You look a little pale.  Have some water.  Here, I’ll pour a glass for you.”

“You don’t have to.  I mean you shouldn’t.  You’re God.”

“Your point?”

“You shouldn’t be pouring water for me.”

“Why not?  After all, you are my son.”

“I’m not...”

"Arguing with your father, are you.”

“No.  I mean...”

"Forget it.  Let’s go onto something else.  What say we talk about the Holocaust?”

“That exaggeration?”

“I wanted to ask you about that.  Did you really say, ‘It's all — maybe not all fiction — but most of it is’?"

"Yes.  Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body.  It takes one liter of petrol and twenty minutes.  Now, six million?"

"So Hutton, you don’t believe seven million of my sons and daughters, six million of them Jews, were exterminated by the Nazis?”

“No, not really.  Maybe a few thousand.”

“And that’s okay?”

“No, but it’s a far cry from six million, and the advantage the Jews have been taking of that canard ever since.”

“You think they made up Treblinka?”

"How many died there?  After all, there were 6.2 million Jews in Poland before the war, and after the war there were 200,000; therefore, Hitler must have killed six million of them?  Nonsense.  They simply got up and left. They were all over the Bronx and Brooklyn and Sydney and Los Angeles."

"What an interesting thought, Hutton.  You think the Jews made up Bergen-Belsen?  Dachau?  Auschwitz?  Buchenwald?”

“Perhaps those places existed, but not many people died there.  They were probably more like inns where the Jews stayed before they were sent elsewhere.  It wouldn’t have been possible.  Besides the Holocaust was a fabrication manufactured to hide an arrangement between Adolf Hitler and ’financiers’ to move Jews out of Germany to the Middle East to fight Arabs.”

“You really believe that?”

“Don’t you?”

“I believe that seven million of my children were exterminated by the Nazis.  You see, I can’t control my children any more than you can.  Oh, I can suggest.  I can warn.  I can mouth pieties and platitudes – much as you do, Hutton – but, in the end, we’re all responsible for our own actions.

“The Nazis murdered all those millions, Hutton.  You may deny it happened, but unless you’re incredibly stupid, you know where the truth lies – and where the lie lies.

“And, of course, I allowed it all to happen, because I am no more and no less than the sum of all my children.  So, in the final analysis, I’m responsible for allowing your denials to go unchallenged.  But they’re not unchallenged anymore, are they Hutton?”

"You haven’t convinced me, God.  I think you’re saying all this to appease the Jews, those who took your son’s life.”

“Ah Hutton, my intolerant son, let me try this.  You say you know a bit of Latin.  How about, ‘Suos cultores scientia coronat’?”

“I don’t believe I know that one.”

“It means, ‘Knowledge crowns those who seek her.’

“And Hutton, I’m afraid she hasn’t crowned you.”