OCR: In Defense of Chip Coffey

To recap: Chip Coffey exploits children on the A&E show Psychic Kids by telling them they have powers they don’t and that imaginary demons can attack him. Like many other quasi-New Age charlatans, he tries to couch his paranormal “abilities” in his Native American heritage, though his famous Cherokee shaman great-grandmother was neither famous nor a shaman. The only testimonial on his website that offers verifiable information turns out to be a demonstrable lie. And there’s no record of the master’s degree in counseling he brags about in his official bio. I’d call the man an asshole, but those can sometimes be pleasant.

What I won’t tolerate, however, is some of the ignorant bigotry being thrown Coffey’s way by several posters on skeptical message boards across the interwebs. The vast majority of the reaction against Coffey and Psychic Kids comes from a place of reasonable outrage and disgust, but there have also been some disturbingly homophobic remarks as well. There’s really no polite, delicate way to put this, but Coffey seems to be a gay man. Whether he is or isn’t shouldn’t matter to anyone at all. And the stupidest remarks have come from morons who equate homosexuality with pedophilia. Yes, reinforcing a child’s mental delusions without the supervision of a medical professional constitutes psychological abuse. But to imply anything further than that is not only baseless, it’s juvenile, brain-dead, and reprehensible. If you’re an ignorant homophobe, you have no place defending science and reason in any way.

For those of you who are rationally minded and want to do something about the televised horror that is Psychic Kids, try e-mailing the executives at A&E responsible for putting it on the air. The first season is finished, but there’s still time to make sure a second season never happens. In your letters, you might want to explain to these people the implicit logical problem with the disclaimer they run before each episode. In it, the network states that the views about the paranormal expressed in the show don’t necessarily reflect their own. But if this is the case, and the executives at A&E don’t believe in the pseudoscientific nonsense of mediumship, demons, and psychic powers, then how is this show not abusive to these children?

Write to:
Abbe Raven (CEO):
Abbe.Raven@aetn.com
Whitney Goit (Senior Executive Vice President):
whitney.goit@aetn.com
Robert DeBitetto (Executive Vice President):
robert.debitetto@aetn.com
Colleen Conway (Director, Non-Fiction Programming):
colleen.conway@aetn.com

Thanks to Brendy at the JREF forum for providing the links.

Now, I know I’m going to receive some criticism for speaking against ridiculing Chip Coffey’s sexuality while having previously ridiculed his physical appearance. There are many reasons why one is okay and the other isn’t—mostly having to do with fighting a widespread and irrational hatred toward an entire group of human beings—but I’ll leave you with a simple one: Chip’s sexuality does nothing to hurt these poor children, but those creepy googly eyes might just give them even more nightmares.