Whatever you think of Scientology (and I don’t think that much of it, or of it that much), this is utterly absurd and totally objectionable: “Scientology cited for barring Cruise production.” I recall a few years ago arguing with people in Germany about the ban on scientology; the response of a Catholic Socialist, also given by the government minister who pushed through the ban, was that Scientology should not be allowed because, “The things they teach are not true.” Um, right.
(My own minimal involvement with Scientology was back in, hmmmm….1975, I think, when I organized some anti-tax protests in Los Angeles. The Scientologists were bitterly anti-IRS, which just might have been because of the agency’s refusal to certify them as a religion for tax purposes, and were willing to be supportive of any criticism of the agency. One of their local leaders was a man named Heber Jentzsch, who was helpful. He kept mentioning how I might benefit from Scientology. I made a simple deal: I paid $25 to attend a course, on the grounds that if I liked it, he’d have a convert, but if I didn’t, I never, ever wanted to hear about it again. I went to one evening, concluded that they were flakes (when I disagreed with some of the teachings that were offered, the instructor kept asking what word in the sentence by L. Ron Hubbard I didn’t understand, and at the end we were asked to touch each other, followed by the hippy-ish lady who was running the program surprising me by putting her index finger into my mouth! I told her to keep her fingers where they belong and left.). Jentzsch kept his word. (He is now president of the whole outfit.)
That’s a nice ending. Shutting down a religion because of their (non-violent) teachings and practices is abhorrent.
And it does sound like the people you met were true nutters, but at least the head of the church was true to his word and didn’t bother you thereafter.