You know, over an offensive artistic insult to our religion?

An Italian museum on Thursday defied Pope Benedict and refused to remove a modern art sculpture portraying a crucified green frog holding a beer mug and an egg that the Vatican had condemned as blasphemous.

The board of the Museion museum in the northern city of Bolzano decided by a majority vote that the frog was a work of art and would stay in place for the remainder of an exhibition.

The wooden sculpture by the late German artist Martin Kippenberger depicts a frog about 1 metre 30 cm (4 feet) high nailed to brown cross and holding a beer mug in one outstretched hand and an egg in another.

Called "Zuerst die Fuesse," (Feet First), it wears a green loin cloth and is nailed through the hands and the feet in the manner of Jesus Christ. Its green tongue hangs out of its mouth.

I find the work to be both offensive and blasphemous. But I'm not going to embark on a campaign of senseless violence over it. neither are other followers of Christ.

After all, we are not Muslims.

I'm curious, though -- would the artist as readily depict Muhammad holding a beer and a bacon sandwich, perhaps while molesting his child-bride Aisha? If not, why not?

Would it be because they have greater respect for the faith of the false prophet?

Or just that they recognize that involvement with such an artistic project would significantly shorten their life expectancy?

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So deep is their respect for human rights that they will countenance this in the name of their religion.

A young girl in Saudi Arabia was brutally executed by her Muslim father this week after he learned his daughter had converted to Christianity.

Middle East business news website Zawya.com reported that the man, who is a prominent member of a "virtue committee," first cut out his daughter's tongue and held a one-sided religious debate with her. He then burned his daughter alive.

While the father is "in custody", the fact that there are no charges and the speedy Saudi "justice" system hasn't dealt with the case leads me to suspect that the "virtuous" Muslim father is going to walk. After all, he just followed the teachings of Islam's false prophet.

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(Posted by Hube)

The city has stuck to their guns and said "no" to a Muslim request for "private time" at a city pool:

A group of Somali women have asked Portland Parks and Recreation to accommodate their Muslim faith by allowing an after-hours, women-only swim time at a city pool to be staffed only by female lifeguards.

The cityÂ’s response?

No way. Anti-discrimination employment law wonÂ’t allow it, Deputy City Attorney Lory Kraut wrote in an 11-page memo to the parks bureau June 23.

Ah, but the executive director of the local Center for Intercultural Organizing says "Portland should be flexible" and that it will "exclude" the Muslim community if it doesn't accommodate it.

Y'know what? Too bad. The Muslim community has to be accommodating too -- to their (in this case) new adopted homeland (the women are Somali). And this means recognizing that public facilities have to be religiously neutral.

One of the Somali women suggested renting the pool after hours as an accommodation. (It isn't clear from the article if this was the initial suggestion -- renting the pool -- or not.) The city still has said "no;" however, I don't see a problem with this. Where I live, religious groups (usually Christian) routinely rent [public] school auditoriums for services and other events on weekends, which, like the Portland pool situation, is after normal operating hours (obviously).

For traditionally liberal enclaves like Portland, situations like this must really pose a conundrum. They're reflexively hostile to religion, but at the same time, they're ridiculously PC when it comes to religious (and other) minorities.

Stay tuned.

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