Jahan Sadat, the wife of assassinated Egyptian dictator Anwar Sadat, calls for press and speech censorship by government in today’s New York Daily News.

Let me be perfectly clear: I am a Muslim, and I am offended by the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. I also am offended and deeply disturbed by the reaction these cartoons have evoked. Being offended by cartoons should never give rise to the destruction of property and the taking of another's life. There is enough violence and killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congo, Sudan and in hundreds of American and European cities where crimes occur every day. I have had enough of violence and hate.

Fine so far – though you know there is a “but” coming. Here it is.

The fact is, these cartoons came at the request of a culture editor for a Danish newspaper after he discovered that a writer could not find an illustrator for his book about the Prophet. From this little bit of knowledge, the editor decided, according to his explanation in Time magazine, that the author's problem constituted a violation of free speech and expression. Instead of trying to find out why the writer was having such a difficult time and taking the time to learn why physical renderings of the Prophet are rarely, if ever, found anywhere in the history of Islam (in mosques, in the Koran, or other books about Islam and the Prophet), he decided to launch a war against censorship by staging a contest of sorts among some of Denmark's cartoonists. The result was not open debate; the result was chaos.

Yes – chaos caused not by those who published the cartoons, but instead by the mob that demanded that their beliefs and customs be respected over the beliefs and customs of those who published the cartoons.

Is the publication of sacrilegious cartoons the foolish exercise of a poorly informed editor or a harsh, unwarranted attack against one of the world's three great monotheistic religions? Is the reproduction of these cartoons nearly six months after their original publication a stand for democracy or just another assault on Islam? Is this freedom of expression or expression without responsibility?

You left one out, Mrs. Sadat – is the uproar and violence one more attempt by a barbaric religion and backwards culture to fend of Western modernity and impose itself upon others?

I am not American, but I have been spending half of my time in the U.S. since 1985. I have a home and a career here. Like Americans, I believe in freedom and democracy. I also know that freedom does not come without responsibility. I know that one should not, and cannot, yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater just because one is free to do so. Even freedom has its parameters.

And those parameters relate to actual, substantive harm, not hurt feelings or offended sensibilities. The proper response to speech we hate is more speech, not violence or the heavy hand of government censorship, as practiced by your husband’s government upon the state-controlled Egyptian press.

There is no law that says cartoonists cannot draw caricatures. There is no law that says television commentators cannot equate terrorism with Islam. There is no law that says we should not defame the religions of others. But there should be! There should be a law that says reasonable, responsible people of any faith, or no faith for that matter, cannot attack others simply because of their beliefs. There should be a law that requires us to appreciate the cultures and beliefs of our fellow human beings. In fact, there is a law: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto to you. In Islam, we say, "Do for your brother what you want for yourself."

And you and your co-religionists have been doing unto Christians and Jews and the members of other religions in a violent, oppressive manner for centuries. There is no freedom of press, no freedom of speech, and no freedom of religion in most of the Muslim world. Such a system should be attacked, mocked, and ridiculed, as should the associated religion, upon which that system of slavery and oppression is built. For that matter, even your more secular husband kept Islam well enough to oppress the Copts, whose presence in Egypt predates the founding of Islam.

Whether we are in a war of civilization or a clash of culture is a question that cannot be answered, much less discussed, as long as emotions are high and reason is blind. But it is a question we cannot afford to ignore.

Actually, Mrs. Sadat, the answer became clear on 9/11, as Muslims danced in the streets and celebrated Osama bin Ladin and his minions as heroes of the Islamic faith. Furthermore, I would remind you that for there to be a war of civilizations, it takes two. What we have instead is civilization fending off the barbarian hordes as they approach the gates of the city, a cultured people seeking to fend off the coming darkness that civilization’s failure to defeat the barbarians has always brought. The laws you propose do nothing to help fight that battle. Rather, they are an appeasement of the barbarians, and a surrender to them.

I cannot help but note two otehr things that are important here. If the Islamohorde with whom Mrs. Sadat allies herself succeeds, she will soon find herself restricted in speech, dress, and action by the verysort of folks who murdered her husband.

Also, if insults to religious figures are to be banned, one of the first items to be prohibitted will be the Quran, for it is blasphemous in the eyes of Christians due to its rejection of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. As a result, one could argue that the very practice of Islam would becomeillegal in this country -- unless you are demanding special consideration to Muslim sensitivities alone.

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Jahan Sadat, the wife of assassinated Egyptian dictator Anwar Sadat, calls for press and speech censorship by government in todayÂ’s New York Daily News.

Let me be perfectly clear: I am a Muslim, and I am offended by the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. I also am offended and deeply disturbed by the reaction these cartoons have evoked. Being offended by cartoons should never give rise to the destruction of property and the taking of another's life. There is enough violence and killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Congo, Sudan and in hundreds of American and European cities where crimes occur every day. I have had enough of violence and hate.

Fine so far – though you know there is a “but” coming. Here it is.

The fact is, these cartoons came at the request of a culture editor for a Danish newspaper after he discovered that a writer could not find an illustrator for his book about the Prophet. From this little bit of knowledge, the editor decided, according to his explanation in Time magazine, that the author's problem constituted a violation of free speech and expression. Instead of trying to find out why the writer was having such a difficult time and taking the time to learn why physical renderings of the Prophet are rarely, if ever, found anywhere in the history of Islam (in mosques, in the Koran, or other books about Islam and the Prophet), he decided to launch a war against censorship by staging a contest of sorts among some of Denmark's cartoonists. The result was not open debate; the result was chaos.

Yes – chaos caused not by those who published the cartoons, but instead by the mob that demanded that their beliefs and customs be respected over the beliefs and customs of those who published the cartoons.

Is the publication of sacrilegious cartoons the foolish exercise of a poorly informed editor or a harsh, unwarranted attack against one of the world's three great monotheistic religions? Is the reproduction of these cartoons nearly six months after their original publication a stand for democracy or just another assault on Islam? Is this freedom of expression or expression without responsibility?

You left one out, Mrs. Sadat – is the uproar and violence one more attempt by a barbaric religion and backwards culture to fend of Western modernity and impose itself upon others?

I am not American, but I have been spending half of my time in the U.S. since 1985. I have a home and a career here. Like Americans, I believe in freedom and democracy. I also know that freedom does not come without responsibility. I know that one should not, and cannot, yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater just because one is free to do so. Even freedom has its parameters.

And those parameters relate to actual, substantive harm, not hurt feelings or offended sensibilities. The proper response to speech we hate is more speech, not violence or the heavy hand of government censorship, as practiced by your husbandÂ’s government upon the state-controlled Egyptian press.

There is no law that says cartoonists cannot draw caricatures. There is no law that says television commentators cannot equate terrorism with Islam. There is no law that says we should not defame the religions of others. But there should be! There should be a law that says reasonable, responsible people of any faith, or no faith for that matter, cannot attack others simply because of their beliefs. There should be a law that requires us to appreciate the cultures and beliefs of our fellow human beings. In fact, there is a law: Do unto others, as you would have them do unto to you. In Islam, we say, "Do for your brother what you want for yourself."

And you and your co-religionists have been doing unto Christians and Jews and the members of other religions in a violent, oppressive manner for centuries. There is no freedom of press, no freedom of speech, and no freedom of religion in most of the Muslim world. Such a system should be attacked, mocked, and ridiculed, as should the associated religion, upon which that system of slavery and oppression is built. For that matter, even your more secular husband kept Islam well enough to oppress the Copts, whose presence in Egypt predates the founding of Islam.

Whether we are in a war of civilization or a clash of culture is a question that cannot be answered, much less discussed, as long as emotions are high and reason is blind. But it is a question we cannot afford to ignore.

Actually, Mrs. Sadat, the answer became clear on 9/11, as Muslims danced in the streets and celebrated Osama bin Ladin and his minions as heroes of the Islamic faith. Furthermore, I would remind you that for there to be a war of civilizations, it takes two. What we have instead is civilization fending off the barbarian hordes as they approach the gates of the city, a cultured people seeking to fend off the coming darkness that civilizationÂ’s failure to defeat the barbarians has always brought. The laws you propose do nothing to help fight that battle. Rather, they are an appeasement of the barbarians, and a surrender to them.

I cannot help but note two otehr things that are important here. If the Islamohorde with whom Mrs. Sadat allies herself succeeds, she will soon find herself restricted in speech, dress, and action by the verysort of folks who murdered her husband.

Also, if insults to religious figures are to be banned, one of the first items to be prohibitted will be the Quran, for it is blasphemous in the eyes of Christians due to its rejection of the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. As a result, one could argue that the very practice of Islam would becomeillegal in this country -- unless you are demanding special consideration to Muslim sensitivities alone.

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Jeff Jacoby sums up well the point I was trying to make last week.

SUPPOSE THAT in 2005 unknown hoodlums had firebombed 10 gay bookstores and bars in San Francisco, reducing several of them to smoking rubble. It takes no effort to imagine the alarm that would have spread through the Bay Area's gay community or the manhunt that would have been launched to find the attackers. The blasts would have been described everywhere as ''hate crimes," editorial pages would have thundered with condemnation, and public officials would have vowed to crack down on crimes against gays with unprecedented severity.

Suppose that vandals last month had attacked 10 Detroit-area mosques and halal restaurants, leaving behind shattered windows, wrecked furniture, and walls defaced with graffiti. The violence would be national front-page news. On blogs and talk radio, the horrifying outbreak of anti-Muslim bigotry would be Topic No. 1. Bills would be introduced in Congress to increase the penalties for violent ''hate crimes" -- no one would hesitate to call them by that term -- and millions of Americans would rally in solidarity with Detroit's Islamic community.

Fortunately, those sickening scenarios are only hypothetical. Here is one that is not:

In the past two weeks, 10 Baptist churches have been burned in rural Alabama. Five churches in Bibb County -- Ashby Baptist, Rehobeth Baptist, Antioch Baptist, Old Union Baptist, and Pleasant Sabine -- were torched between midnight and 3 a.m. on Feb. 3. Four days later, arsonists destroyed or badly damaged Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Greene County, Dancy First Baptist Church in Pickens County, and two churches in Sumter County, Galilee Baptist and Spring Valley Baptist. On Saturday, Beaverton Freewill Baptist Church in northwest Alabama became the 10th house of worship to go up in flames.

Ten arson attacks against 10 churches -- all of them Baptist, all in small Alabama towns, all in the space of eight days: If anything is a hate crime, obviously this is.
Or is it? ''We're looking to make sure this is not a hate crime and that we do everything that we need to do," FBI Special Agent Charles Regan told reporters in Birmingham. Make sure this is not a hate crime? If 10 Brooklyn synagogues went up in flames in a little over a week, wouldn't investigators start from the assumption that the arson was motivated by hatred of Jews? If 10 Cuban-American shops and restaurants in Miami were deliberately burned to the ground, wouldn't the obvious presumption be that anti-Cuban animus was involved?

Apparently Baptist churches are different.

''I don't see any evidence that these fires are hate crimes," Mark Potok, a director of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center, told the Los Angeles Times. ''Anti-Christian crimes are exceedingly rare in the South."

But are anti-Christian crimes really that rare? Or are they simply less interesting to the left, which prefers to cast Christians as victimizers, not victims?

A search of the SPLC's website, for example, turns up no references to Jay Scott Ballinger, a self-described Satan worshiper deeply hostile to Christianity, who was sentenced to life in prison for burning 26 churches between 1994 and 1999. Yet if those weren't ''hate crimes," what were they?

Running through the coverage of the latest church burnings is an almost palpable yearning to cast the story in racial terms. ''Federal investigators are looking for two white men for questioning in connection with a string of church fires in central Alabama," began a National Public Radio story on Friday. ''Race may be a factor." In fact, race seems not to be a factor at all -- five of the churches had mostly white congregations, five were largely black. To a media ever ready to expose racism in American culture, the arsonists' lack of regard for skin color must be maddening.

In 1996, a spate of fires in the South was wildly and falsely trumpeted in the media as an eruption of racism. ''We are facing an epidemic of terror," said Deval Patrick, the Clinton administration's assistant attorney general for civil rights. But as it turned out, there was no racist conspiracy. More than a third of the arsonists arrested were black, and more than half the churches burned were white. So perhaps it is progress of a sort that, this time around, the media are keeping in check the urge to cry ''Racism!"

But real progress will come only when we abandon the whole misguided notion of ''hate crimes," which deems certain crimes more deserving of outrage and punishment not because of what the criminal did, but because of the group to which the victim belonged. The burning of a church is a hateful act regardless of the congregants' skin color. That some people bend over backward not to say so is a disgrace.

Thank you, Mr. Jacoby, for saying in much clearer terms the very things I wanted to communicate earlier.

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The editors of the Daily Illini who stood up for press freedom abroad have found out that it may not exist on their own campus

The editor in chief of a student-led newspaper serving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been suspended for printing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that, when published in Europe, enraged Muslims and led to violent protests in the Middle East and Asia.

Editor Acton Gorton and his opinions editor, Chuck Prochaska, were relieved of their duties at The Daily Illini on Tuesday while a task force investigates "the internal decision-making and communication" that led to the publishing of the cartoons, according to a statement by the newspaper's publisher and general manager, Mary Cory.

Gorton said he expects to be fired at the conclusion of the investigation, which is expected to take two weeks.

"I pretty much have an idea how this is going to run, and this is a thinly veiled attempt to remove me from my position," said Gorton, a U. of I. senior who took the newspaper's helm Jan. 1. "I am feeling very betrayed, and I feel like the people who I thought were my friends and supporters didn't back me up."

Looks to me like the Islamocensors may win this one, and the rights of Americans will be diminished.

More at Michelle Malkin, including DI contact information and this cache of the original page.

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I know nothing of the man's politics beyond what is in the story, but I do like this move by one Italian politician.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli has had T-shirts made emblazoned with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a move that could embarrass Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government.

Calderoli, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, told Ansa news agency on Tuesday that the West had to stand up against Islamist extremists and offered to hand out T-shirts to anyone who wanted them.

"I have had T-shirts made with the cartoons that have upset Islam and I will start wearing them today," Ansa quoted Calderoli as saying.

He said the T-shirts were not meant to be a provocation but added that he saw no point trying to appease extremists.

"We have to put an end to this story that we can talk to these people. They only want to humiliate people. Full stop. And what are we becoming? The civilization of melted butter?" Calderoli said.

I've said this all along -- while there is an argument to be made that the original decision to print the cartoons was wrong, the violence and threats of violence emanating from the barbaric segment of islam made it incumbant upon me and others to reprint them as a sign of support for free speech. That is the same mesage i hear Calderoli sending with the decision to print and distribute these shirts.

I wonder if they would send one to me in Texas?

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1 As I am also a member of "The Texas Connection" Blogroll, I decided to check you out. I've been meaning to check out all the bloggers on it, but haven't gotten around to all of them yet.

Good post. This guy does have a point, doesn't he?! I am truly very tired of hearing that all we need to do is "use diplomacy" on these extremist Muslims! If those who think so want to go over there and try it, well then, "good luck" is all I can say to them, except I hope they have settled their estates.

Posted by: Gayle at Tue Feb 14 06:41:01 2006 (tUcby)

2 Ya gotta admire a leader with BALLS...

Posted by: TexasFred at Tue Feb 14 06:48:22 2006 (qX3iX)

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This is most unfortunate, and I condemn it unambiguously and without reservation.

Copenhagen - Unknown assailants defiled the Muslim section of a cemetery near the Danish town of Esbjerg over the weekend, Radio DR reported on Sunday.

Some 25 grave sites were completely destroyed as the attackers smashed or overturned gravestones and trashed plants, DR reported.

Graves in the Christian part of the cemetery remained untouched.

Police said that there was no indication of the attackers' motives or where they came from.

Public life in Denmark has been dominated in recent weeks by the worldwide protests by Muslims over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that were originally published in the country's Jyllands Posten newspaper last September.

Whoever did this defiles the cause of freedom as practiced in the West -- by behaving in a barbaric manner no different than a member of the Religion of Barbarism.

UPDATEL Quotes from Danish PM at the Washington Post

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I'm offended, and my religious and cultural sensitivities are hurt by this act of intolerance. I think I'll go stone a mosque or burn down a diplomatic building!

Nearly two dozen black-veiled Muslim women stormed gift and stationery shops Friday in Kashmir, burning Valentine's Day cards and posters to protest a holiday they say imposes Western values on Muslim youth

No one was hurt in the half-dozen or so incidents, and police cordoned off the area to prevent the women from marching through Srinagar's main shopping district to continue their ransacking.

The women were from the Kashmiri Islamic group Dukhtaran-e-Millat, or Daughters of the Community, Kashmir's only women's separatist group, whose members are also known for their fiercely conservative social views.

"We will not let anyone sell these cards or celebrate Valentine's Day," said Asiya Andrabi, the group's leader, as she held a burning poster in her hand. "These Western gimmicks are corrupting our kids and taking them away from their roots."

She said that the raids were carried out "not to harm anyone but to make them realize that this is against Islam's teachings."

So what you are trying to say, you daughter of a pig, is that everyone must conform to your stilted narrow view of your religion. Failure to comply with your faith will result in acts of violence and vandalism.

Would you care to explain to me why I should have a single ounce of respect for you and your Religion of Violence?

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Maybe these boys will get to heaven and find out that they really get a 72-year-old virgin, not 72 virgins.

Indonesian Muslim hard-liners signed a pact saying they were ready to die in defence of the Prophet Muhammad, while others burned tyres in streets amid fresh protests in the world's most populous Muslim nation.

A weekly news magazine issued an apology after reprinting several of the 12 cartoons of the prophet that have triggered sometime violent protests across Indonesia and the rest of the Islamic world.

The cartoons were first published in a Danish paper in September, but have since appeared in papers around the world.

About 175 students at an Islamic boarding school in Surabaya city have signed a pledge saying they are "ready to die" to defend the honour of the prophet, said headmaster Yusuf Muhajir.

Such pledges are traditional in Indonesia, and are considered to be symbolic.

He said the students would demand an apology from any Danish citizens they met in Surabaya, the capital of east Java province, and jokingly said they would be "slapped" if they refused to do so.

Guys -- be offended all you want. Boycott whoever you feel you need to boycott. But violence against someone because of their nationality is unreasonable. Heck, if it were, then Americans would have been justified in acts of violence against random Muslims in the streed in the wake of 9/11. Instead, most of us went out of our way to show courtesy and respect to inocent Muslims. Were we wrong?

What is clear is that you and your co-religionists are certainly making the whole "Religion of Peace" thing look like an untruth.

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But instead, German authorities have brought a case against this German who engaged in a bit of speech against Islam.

BERLIN - A German businessman who printed the name of the Koran on toilet paper and offered the rolls for sale to mosques and media will face trial for disturbing the peace.

The man, identified only as Manfred van H., is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 23 at a court in Luedinghausen in western Germany, Jochen Dyhr, a spokesman for judicial authorities in nearby Muenster, said Thursday.

The businessman last summer printed sheets of toilet paper with the sentence "Koran, the Holy Qur'aen" and sent them to about 15 mosques, television stations and magazines.

In an accompanying letter, authorities say, he asserted that Islam's holy book is a "cookbook for terrorists" that calls for acts of violence.

He proposed that a "memorial to all victims of Islamic terror" be set up, financed by sales of the toilet paper - an offer that prosecutors say he also posted on the Internet.

The businessman's offer led to criminal complaints and telephone death threats against him.

Prosecutors argue that the man's actions overstepped the legally guaranteed freedom to criticize other religions. They say he has cited his right to freedom of opinion and artistic expression, and said his aim was to provoke rather than actually sell the toilet paper.

Offensive? Yeah, I suppose, but not to a degree that the full force of government’s jackboots should be brought down on this guy. And the mere fact that he may not have been serious about selling the toilet paper strikes me as irrelevant – in fact, it seems to me that the lack of commercial motivation makes what he did more worthy of protection. Should he have sent it to mosques? No -- but absent a threat, we are talking about an offense based upon expression of an idea.

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But instead, German authorities have brought a case against this German who engaged in a bit of speech against Islam.

BERLIN - A German businessman who printed the name of the Koran on toilet paper and offered the rolls for sale to mosques and media will face trial for disturbing the peace.

The man, identified only as Manfred van H., is scheduled to go on trial Feb. 23 at a court in Luedinghausen in western Germany, Jochen Dyhr, a spokesman for judicial authorities in nearby Muenster, said Thursday.

The businessman last summer printed sheets of toilet paper with the sentence "Koran, the Holy Qur'aen" and sent them to about 15 mosques, television stations and magazines.

In an accompanying letter, authorities say, he asserted that Islam's holy book is a "cookbook for terrorists" that calls for acts of violence.

He proposed that a "memorial to all victims of Islamic terror" be set up, financed by sales of the toilet paper - an offer that prosecutors say he also posted on the Internet.

The businessman's offer led to criminal complaints and telephone death threats against him.

Prosecutors argue that the man's actions overstepped the legally guaranteed freedom to criticize other religions. They say he has cited his right to freedom of opinion and artistic expression, and said his aim was to provoke rather than actually sell the toilet paper.

Offensive? Yeah, I suppose, but not to a degree that the full force of government’s jackboots should be brought down on this guy. And the mere fact that he may not have been serious about selling the toilet paper strikes me as irrelevant – in fact, it seems to me that the lack of commercial motivation makes what he did more worthy of protection. Should he have sent it to mosques? No -- but absent a threat, we are talking about an offense based upon expression of an idea.

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Bravo to the official student publication of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for standing up for press freedom around the world.

The University of Illinois student newspaper Thursday published six caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have sparked violent protests in the Middle East and Asia.

Nearly every major U.S. newspaper, including the Chicago Tribune, has not published the cartoons. They were first published in late September by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and they were reprinted in other European publications in recent weeks.

While UN Secretary General Kofi Annan chastised newspapers Thursday that continue to publish the cartoons, Daily Illini editor-in-chief Acton Gorton said he decided to print them so students could better understand the Muslim response.

"All across this nation, editors are gripped in fear of printing ... for fear of the reaction. As a journalist, this flies in the face of everything I hold dear. By refusing to print these editorial cartoons, we are preventing an important issue from being debated by the public," Gorton wrote in a column next to the drawings.

It is a shame that a once-great newspaper like the Tribune is now reduced to cowering in fear while student publications and the internet do its job instead. And it is also a shame that the University administration for this expression of disapproval.

In a letter to the Daily Illini to be published Friday, U. of I. Chancellor Richard Herman wrote that he is "saddened" that the newspaper decided to publish the cartoons. He suggested that the editors could have informed the public by giving readers a Web link to the cartoons instead.

"I believe that the DI could have engaged its readers in legitimate debate about the issues surrounding the cartoons' publication in Denmark without publishing them," he wrote. "It is possible, for instance, to editorialize about pornography without publishing pornographic pictures."

And here I thought the University was all about widening the horizons of students, exposing them to diverse ideas on a variety of topics, opening their eyes to multiple perspectives, as well as training adults to function in an open and democratic society. I guess that U of I no longer performs those functions, and instead is a therapeutic resource for mental, emotional, and intellectual cripples who need to be shielded from influences that might upset or offend them, rather than provoking thought and discussion. And that Chancellor Herman doesnÂ’t know the difference between pornography and social commentary is indicative of his lack of qualification for his position.

And then there is this gratuitous quote at the end.

U. of I. senior Ehav Yasin, a Muslim student from Carpentersville, said he was upset by the Daily Illini's decision.

So what? Who cares? Yasin’s emotional weakness is irrelevant to the decision of the Daily Illini to fully inform its readers about a major international story. It is clear that despite years of higher education, he really has learned nothing about the values that undergird the American republic. Hopefully he will mature during his senior year and become a functioning member of society – or, barring that, perhaps he will exercise his right to relocate to another country with values more in line with his own.

Here's a cache of the page.

UPFATE: Bravo to the Daily Tarheel at UNC for publishing its own cartoon.

Muslims opposed to the First Amendment are outraged.

The Muslim Students Association at the University of North Carolina on Friday asked the campus' student newspaper to apologize for publishing an original cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

"The intention of bigotry was clear," the association wrote in a letter to The Daily Tar Heel. "One must question the DTH's ethics in advancing a widely protested issue to cause a riot of their own. The MSA not only found this cartoon derogatory but is also shocked at the editor's allowance of its publication _ one that incites hate in the current political and social context."

Caricatures of Muhammad, including one that shows the prophet with a bomb-shaped turban, were published first in a Danish paper in September, then reprinted in European papers in recent weeks in the name of press freedom. Their publication has sparked violent protests in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Islam is interpreted to forbid any illustrations of Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.

The paper's editor strikes exactly the right position between sensitivity and journalistic integrity.

The cartoon published in The Daily Tar Heel Thursday was drawn by a cartoonist at the paper, Philip McFee. It shows Muhammad appearing to decry both Denmark's role in the controversy and the violence that has erupted since.

Daily Tar Heel editor Ryan Tuck said the newspaper wanted to challenge fellow students to think about the issue. He said while he has apologized personally to individuals who told him the cartoon offended, the newspaper will not apologize.

"The point of any cartoon in any newspaper is to challenge belief systems," Tuck said. "We knew it would offend, but that doesn't make it the explicit goal of the cartoon."

And as usual, a sensitivity fascist from the university administration has to criticize.

The Daily Tar Heel has a long history of journalistic independence, but university officials would hope that it would use restraint around a topic such as this one, which is hurtful and offensive to members of the campus community, said Margaret Jablonski, vice chancellor for student affairs at UNC-Chapel Hill.

"Many of our national media outlets chose not to publish the original pictures or cartoons and we believe our student paper should have used the same editorial judgement," Jablonski said.

I guess that the administration has forgotten that a university is a place to learn, to grow, and to have one's beliefs challenged. Isn't that what we conservaitives are always told?

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Let no one tell me that Iran has any claim to being part of the civilized world. This story is sufficient to dispel any and all illusions on that matter.

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

The facts were never really in dispute – they were simply irrelevant. After all, Islam teaches that sexual assault victims deserve it. Resistance can therefore never count as self-defense, and any injury done to the attacker is therefore seen as having been committed upon an innocent victim.

The strange thing to me, though, is that I don’t hear any of the feminists raising an outcry about the status of women in the Islamic world – especially in cases like this one. Could it be that these brutalized souls just don’t matter to them as much as the sacrament of abortion or Bush-bashing?

Posted by: Greg at 10:41 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Let no one tell me that Iran has any claim to being part of the civilized world. This story is sufficient to dispel any and all illusions on that matter.

Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece.

The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005.

Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girlsÂ’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless.

She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand.

As the girls tried to escape, the men once again attacked them, and at this point, Nazanin said, she stabbed one of the men in the chest. The teenage girl, however, broke down in tears in court as she explained that she had no intention of killing the man but was merely defending herself and her younger niece from rape, the report said.

The court, however, issued on Tuesday a sentence for Nazanin to be hanged to death.

The facts were never really in dispute – they were simply irrelevant. After all, Islam teaches that sexual assault victims deserve it. Resistance can therefore never count as self-defense, and any injury done to the attacker is therefore seen as having been committed upon an innocent victim.

The strange thing to me, though, is that I don’t hear any of the feminists raising an outcry about the status of women in the Islamic world – especially in cases like this one. Could it be that these brutalized souls just don’t matter to them as much as the sacrament of abortion or Bush-bashing?

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Are these folks completely clueless about the church fires in Alabama?

Four churches in Pickens, Greene and Sumter counties burned early Tuesday, two of which were destroyed. Five churches burned in Bibb County, about 60 miles from Tuesday's fires; three of them were destroyed.
Austin Banks of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency that investigates arson, said there were “a lot of common things involved in all the fires” that point to the suspects targeting religion, although he declined to go into detail about the evidence.

Residents and law enforcement officials confirmed that fires at some of the churches started at the pulpit. They also said church doors had been kicked in.
Banks did not say the suspects were targeting the Baptist faith, the predominant denomination in the region.

He said it does not look like there's a racial motivation in the burnings. The four churches that burned Tuesday have black congregations, but only one of the five Bibb County churches was predominantly black.

You don’t suppose it could be hatred of Christians, do you? After all, all the targets are Christian churches, and appear centered on the pulpit.

But drawing such a conclusion might require a conclusion that we have hate crimes here. Selwyn Duke has this to say on the matter.

Nine Baptist churches, with both black and white congregations, have been burned in a relatively small geographical area within a very narrow time-frame. Okay, the fact that they are all Baptist may not necessarily be significant since it’s the dominant denomination in that area. In other words, it would not require too great a statistical fluke to target nine churches in these counties and happen upon only Baptist ones. Although it should give one pause for thought.

However, to the best of my knowledge, even in the Bible Belt, churches constitute only a very small percentage of the buildings. I suspect that Alabamans have also built schools, stores of various kinds, municipal buildings, residences, offices, barns, warehouses, restaurants and lots of other types of structures. Thus, while I’m no mathematician, I think there are pretty long odds against randomly targeting nine buildings and happening upon only churches. If Morris Dees and company can’t grasp this, they surely didn’t amass their organization’s $120 million fortune through wagering. Save incense and decorative candles, you don’t burn things you like. This was a hateful act. So, SPLC, don’t pour gasoline down my back and tell me it’s rainin’.

Next, could you imagine the reaction if nine synagogues or mosques had been thus burned? The monolithic mainstream media would elevate the story to prominence and exhaust themselves pontificating about how dreadful these hate-crimes were. And the posturing by public officials, oh, the posturing, it would be intense enough to induce backache.

As for this story, there’s nothing for the media to glom on to. If only black churches were in the crosshairs, there would be the white bigotry angle. The media can’t get enough of that. But the fact that they’re all Christian? Please! Such concerns aren’t in their programming… in either sense of the word.

So forgive me for saying it, but the lack of interest in the bias-crime angle seems based upon the bias of law-enforcement and the media, who cannot fathom that Christians might be targeted by those who hate them – Muslims, Satanists, secularists, or socialists – and that those crimes are every bit as deserving of serious condemnation as those committed by cross-burning, sheet-wearing, mouth-breathing racists. And all that is needed for this to be recognized is a paradigm-shift on the part of our nation’s opinion leaders.

Posted by: Greg at 10:39 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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Are these folks completely clueless about the church fires in Alabama?

Four churches in Pickens, Greene and Sumter counties burned early Tuesday, two of which were destroyed. Five churches burned in Bibb County, about 60 miles from Tuesday's fires; three of them were destroyed.
Austin Banks of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency that investigates arson, said there were “a lot of common things involved in all the fires” that point to the suspects targeting religion, although he declined to go into detail about the evidence.

Residents and law enforcement officials confirmed that fires at some of the churches started at the pulpit. They also said church doors had been kicked in.
Banks did not say the suspects were targeting the Baptist faith, the predominant denomination in the region.

He said it does not look like there's a racial motivation in the burnings. The four churches that burned Tuesday have black congregations, but only one of the five Bibb County churches was predominantly black.

You donÂ’t suppose it could be hatred of Christians, do you? After all, all the targets are Christian churches, and appear centered on the pulpit.

But drawing such a conclusion might require a conclusion that we have hate crimes here. Selwyn Duke has this to say on the matter.

Nine Baptist churches, with both black and white congregations, have been burned in a relatively small geographical area within a very narrow time-frame. Okay, the fact that they are all Baptist may not necessarily be significant since itÂ’s the dominant denomination in that area. In other words, it would not require too great a statistical fluke to target nine churches in these counties and happen upon only Baptist ones. Although it should give one pause for thought.

However, to the best of my knowledge, even in the Bible Belt, churches constitute only a very small percentage of the buildings. I suspect that Alabamans have also built schools, stores of various kinds, municipal buildings, residences, offices, barns, warehouses, restaurants and lots of other types of structures. Thus, while IÂ’m no mathematician, I think there are pretty long odds against randomly targeting nine buildings and happening upon only churches. If Morris Dees and company canÂ’t grasp this, they surely didnÂ’t amass their organizationÂ’s $120 million fortune through wagering. Save incense and decorative candles, you donÂ’t burn things you like. This was a hateful act. So, SPLC, donÂ’t pour gasoline down my back and tell me itÂ’s raininÂ’.

Next, could you imagine the reaction if nine synagogues or mosques had been thus burned? The monolithic mainstream media would elevate the story to prominence and exhaust themselves pontificating about how dreadful these hate-crimes were. And the posturing by public officials, oh, the posturing, it would be intense enough to induce backache.

As for this story, thereÂ’s nothing for the media to glom on to. If only black churches were in the crosshairs, there would be the white bigotry angle. The media canÂ’t get enough of that. But the fact that theyÂ’re all Christian? Please! Such concerns arenÂ’t in their programmingÂ… in either sense of the word.

So forgive me for saying it, but the lack of interest in the bias-crime angle seems based upon the bias of law-enforcement and the media, who cannot fathom that Christians might be targeted by those who hate them – Muslims, Satanists, secularists, or socialists – and that those crimes are every bit as deserving of serious condemnation as those committed by cross-burning, sheet-wearing, mouth-breathing racists. And all that is needed for this to be recognized is a paradigm-shift on the part of our nation’s opinion leaders.

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I think this French cartoon, scheduled to appear tomorrow, may best sum up the current behavior of Muslims in relation to the Danish cartoon controversy. Fortunately, the French courts are allowing it to run.

A French court refused to order the confiscation of a magazine on Tuesday which local Muslim organisations tried to prevent from publishing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The satirical weekly Charlie-Hebdo was due to publish on Wednesday 12 cartoons originally printed by the Danish paper Jyllens-Posten which have caused outrage in the Muslim world.

"This is good news to us all," Charlie-Hebdo editor Philippe Val told reporters after the ruling.

"We are defending the principle of the right for caricature and satire."

The judges rejected demands by French Muslim organisations, including the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) and the Grand Mosques of Paris and Lyon, which had argued the paper was undermining the principle of the respect of faiths.

The court did not rule on the contents of the claim, but rejected it on a technicality, saying the plaintiffs had failed to follow several points of procedure in filing their suit.

Sources at Charlie-Hebdo said the weekly's offices and some staff had been placed under police protection ahead of Wednesday's publication, which will also feature a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad burying his face in his hands and saying: "It's hard to be loved by fools".

That really does say it all.

UPDATE -- 2/8/2006 -- Here it is!

The satirical French weekly Charlie-Hebdo also printed a new drawing under the headline "Muhammad Overwhelmed by the Fundamentalists" that showed the prophet with his head in his hands, remarking, "It's hard to be loved by idiots."

Posted by: Greg at 05:59 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It is easy to put the pastor on the pedestal, and to forget that he (or she) is a human being with interests beyond the church. Take a look at one young man who has melded that interest with ministry in an unexpected and delightful way.

WEST FRANKFORT - Students of St. John's School, their parents and other members of the parish rocked the night away last weekend at the Knights of Columbus Hall as a part of the celebration of Catholic Schools Week.

The occasion was the last in an annual national weeklong series of events kicked off locally with a children's Mass followed by a parish brunch on the last Sunday in January. Throughout the week, students broke up the ordinary school day routine with crazy hat and crazy hair day, and gathered with parents and siblings on Wednesday night for Family Reading Night.

Friday ended the school week with visits from motivational speakers and Friday night's party provided by the Parents Group, where the parish was entertained by their very own Father Trevor Murry and his band.

The band, Father Trevor and the Little Flowers, was a huge treat for the students who got the opportunity to see their parish priest in a different light and reacted as they might toward a celebrated rock star.

Most of the band members had traveled to the performance from Belleville, where Murry, a native of Pinckneyville, served as assistant before being named pastor at St. John's. His current duties also include serving as priest at Sacred Heart in Zeigler and St. Aloysius in Royalton.

"All the members of the band are parishioners at St. Teresa's Parish in Belleville, which is named for St. Teresa of the Little Flower," Murry said, explaining the unusual name for a band made up of adult men and women. "We started almost accidentally. We used to get together and practice music to be performed at church, and after practice, we'd stay around and start playing a lot of classic rock. We began playing at parish events like the parish picnic, and eventually we started playing at a jazz club once a month."

During my last year as a seminarian I met Trevor, a young man who was at the beginning of his path towards priesthood. We were different ages and at different stages of our lives as well as different seminaries, so I never really got to know him, though he seemed like he was a good guy.

It was therefore a pleasant surprise this morning when, doing a quick glance at the website for one of my old hometown newspapers, I ran into this article. It is sort of cute, and I just feel like indulging myself by putting it out for your consideration. Enjoy!

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Here – look at this picture of the Virgin Mary made from porno shots and surrounded by elephant shit instead.

Is this really the same newspaper that made this statement only one day ago?

The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.

The stench of such rank hypocrisy certainly transcends that of the materials used to create the “artwork” pictured – especially since the picture is also “so easy to describe in words.”

But then again, the editors of this once great newspaper feel reasonably certain that they are unlikely to face violence from offended Catholics or other Christians, so a different standard applies.

HAT TIP -- NRO's TKS

OPEN TRACKBACKING: Adam's Blog, Conservative Cat, bRight & Early, Bacon Bits, Stuck on Stupid, third world country, Don Surber, Jo's Cafe, Basil's Blog, Bloggin' Out Loud, Blue Star Chronicles.

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Here – look at this picture of the Virgin Mary made from porno shots and surrounded by elephant shit instead.

Is this really the same newspaper that made this statement only one day ago?

The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.

The stench of such rank hypocrisy certainly transcends that of the materials used to create the “artwork” pictured – especially since the picture is also “so easy to describe in words.”

But then again, the editors of this once great newspaper feel reasonably certain that they are unlikely to face violence from offended Catholics or other Christians, so a different standard applies.

HAT TIP -- NRO's TKS

OPEN TRACKBACKING: Adam's Blog, Conservative Cat, bRight & Early, Bacon Bits, Stuck on Stupid, third world country, Don Surber, Jo's Cafe, Basil's Blog, Bloggin' Out Loud, Blue Star Chronicles.

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Ed Lasky points out this little bit of NY Times hypocrisy surrounding the Danish cartoons of Muhammad.

The New York Times runs an editorial today objecting to newspapers publishing the cartoons that caricatured Mohammed. The Times feels that the cartoons were needlessly insensitive and pats itself on the back for refraining from running them.

Given the self-righteous moral preening of today’s editoral, it is strange that the Times did not have a problem accepting money from an anti-Israel group, running this anti-Semitic cartoon (scroll down to the bottom of the page) regarding Israel supporters in America.

The cartoon acceptable to the Times depicts a hairy gorilla holding an Israeli flag while sitting atop the US Capitol.

Double standards at work? Apparently, the Times will not run a caricature to inform its readers about the nature of the issue inflaming Muslims, but will gladly take money to run a cartoon that is laden with anti-Semitic motifs and imagery. Protect Muslim sensitivities, but propagate anti-Semitism.

The New York Times has a lot of questions to answer about its editorial “standards.”

Will it take a rioting mob of angry Jews – or a bombing run by the IAF – to get the NY Times to drop its double standard? Or will it finally come “clean” and admit that, despite its Jewish ownership, its editorial policy is fundamentally anti-Semitic, and that it is staffed with Islamophiles who don’t mind taking dirty money to run cartoons as reprehensible as those of Nazi Germany or the modern-day Arab press?

Posted by: Greg at 01:44 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ed Lasky points out this little bit of NY Times hypocrisy surrounding the Danish cartoons of Muhammad.

The New York Times runs an editorial today objecting to newspapers publishing the cartoons that caricatured Mohammed. The Times feels that the cartoons were needlessly insensitive and pats itself on the back for refraining from running them.

Given the self-righteous moral preening of todayÂ’s editoral, it is strange that the Times did not have a problem accepting money from an anti-Israel group, running this anti-Semitic cartoon (scroll down to the bottom of the page) regarding Israel supporters in America.

The cartoon acceptable to the Times depicts a hairy gorilla holding an Israeli flag while sitting atop the US Capitol.

Double standards at work? Apparently, the Times will not run a caricature to inform its readers about the nature of the issue inflaming Muslims, but will gladly take money to run a cartoon that is laden with anti-Semitic motifs and imagery. Protect Muslim sensitivities, but propagate anti-Semitism.

The New York Times has a lot of questions to answer about its editorial “standards.”

Will it take a rioting mob of angry Jews – or a bombing run by the IAF – to get the NY Times to drop its double standard? Or will it finally come “clean” and admit that, despite its Jewish ownership, its editorial policy is fundamentally anti-Semitic, and that it is staffed with Islamophiles who don’t mind taking dirty money to run cartoons as reprehensible as those of Nazi Germany or the modern-day Arab press?

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Surely there was a better way to deal with this.

The Rev. Jimmy McCants was delivering a sermon titled "Can We Mend a Broken Heart?" on Sunday morning when Chicago Police arrested the 54-year-old pastor on a misdemeanor trespassing charge, outraging some members of his congregation.

McCants, pastor of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church at 356 E. 109th, was freed in lieu of $1,000 bail at about 4:30 p.m., after spending about five hours in the Calumet District police station being processed for his arrest, which was captured by a church member's video camera.

"My church is the house of the Lord, and I had not committed a criminal act," McCants said. "We were in service. . . . We're going to see what the lawyers say. I intend to go back next Sunday."

The arrest stems from an internal dispute among members of the church, said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department.

The church's board of directors told police that McCants was fired Dec. 24, Bond said. On Jan. 6, a woman affiliated with the church signed a police complaint saying McCants had been trespassing on church grounds, Bond said.

"There were other witnesses [Sunday] who said he should not be there," Bond said.

The woman who filed the complaint against McCants could not be reached for comment.

"It happened because he was not supposed to be on the premises," said a board member, Willie Miller, who refused further comment.

The arrest was questioned by the head of a governing authority for Lutheran churches in the Chicago area.

Police apparently took the board's word that McCants was fired, said the Rev. William H. Ameiss, president of the Northern Illinois District of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod based in west suburban Hillside.

But Ameiss said he thinks the board removed McCants in violation of the Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church's constitution, which requires the board to go to the synod to resolve a dispute over a pastor.

Now I will grant that there are questions of church polity that I am not versed in – but under the circumstances, I would think it would have behooved the police to wait until the service was over to make any arrest. And I won't even get into the issue of of the unedifying, unChristian actions of those involved in having their pastor/ex-pastor hauled out of the church in cuffs during the service.

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I guess it is back to the dark ages in the Islamic world (if they ever left).

The Pakistan Medical Association has vowed not to prescribe medicines from firms based in some European countries where controversial cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammed were published, said Shahid Rao, the body's general secretary for Punjab province.

The association will boycott drugs from Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Germany and France to protest the 'blasphemous' drawings, Rao said.
'We have taken a unanimous decision and it will be immediately implemented in Pakistan,' Rao told AFP.

'Doctors in the country are very motivated on this issue,' he said. 'We would use alternate medicines in future till a public apology comes from these countries.'

Pharmacists have also vowed not to sell such medicines, Rao said.

The association is advising patients against using medicines from the offending countries if they are mistakenly prescribed by doctors, he added.

Because after all, better that many should die than a couple of cartoons appear in the press.

(Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin)

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Maybe there are a few Muslims with a lick of common sense out there. Rather than respond with violence, they decided to go after a European icon -- Holocaust victim Anne Frank

A Belgian-Dutch Islamic political organization posted anti-Jewish cartoons on its Web site in response to the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that appeared in Danish papers last year and offended many Muslims.

The cartoons were posted on the Arab European League's site on Saturday. It was not working Sunday morning because of exceeded bandwidth.

The cartoons depicting Mohammed wearing a turban-shaped bomb were first published in Denmark, and then in newspapers elsewhere in Europe in a show of solidarity with press freedoms.

The Islamic site carried a disclaimer saying the images were being shown as part of an exercise in free speech rather than to endorse their content - just as European newspapers have reprinted the Danish cartoons.

One of the AEL cartoons displayed an image of Dutch Holocaust victim Anne Frank in bed with Adolf Hitler, and another questioned whether the Holocaust actually occurred.

Dyab Abou Jahjah, the party's founder and best-known figure, defended the action on the Dutch television program Nova Saturday.

"Europe has its sacred cows, even if they're not religious sacred cows," he told the program.

I won't reproduce this vile cartoon on this site in all its glory, though I make it available for those who choose to click the thumbnail below.

Hey, at least these folks are behaving in something resembling a civilized fashion, even if it involves perpetuating the anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial common in the Arab press. Having Europe's best known Holocaust victim raped by Hitler just isn't that shocking, when considered in that context.

Besides -- the Hadith tells us that Muhammad raped a 9-year-old in addition to murdering Jews, so he makes Hitler look like an amateur.

MORE COMMENTARY AT: Western Resistance, Clarity & Resolve, Michelle Malkin, Noisy Room,

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A leading Canadian Muslim really puts a fine point on the matter.

“The protests in the Middle East have proven that the cartoonist was right,” said Tarek Fatah, a director of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

“It's falling straight into that trap of being depicted as a violent people and proving the point that, yes, we are.”

But then we already knew that -- at least in regards to a large segment of the Musim fraithful.

Which is not to condemn all Muslims. But when there is the sort of reaction to the Danish cartoons that we have seen, there can be no question that a large chunk of the Muslim population -- including those living in the West -- are decidedly uncivilized.

Offense is one thing. So is voicing outrage and demanding an apology.

A violent response is another.

And until that is recognized by Muhammad's followers, a deferential concern about giving offense is not only pointless, but is actually counterproductive.

(H/T HyScience and Lost Budgie)

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Follow this little piggie to market.

We must not let the followers of this guy win.

The Washington Post presents a good overview of the conflict.

Michelle Malkin points out that some in the American media are so "sensitive" that they won't even show the cartoons --effectively giving in to the Islamo-censors.

OTHER VOICES: Michelle Malkin, HyScience, Noisy Room, Dr. Sanity, Face of Muhammad, MVRWC, Secular Blasphemy, Belmont Club, Down With Absolutes, Common Folk, Small Town Veteran, Capital Region People, Kerfuffles, America...F*ck Yeah!, RightWingFascist, Woody's News, HiWired, aaron, A Tic In The Mind's Eye, Generation Why?, Palmetto Pundit, Magic Statistics, Right Thoughts, Right Side Of The Rainbow, Narcissistic Views

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin is doing yeoman's (yeowoman's?) work documenting the anti-freedom actions of the Islamo-censors.

Doesn't this one say it all?

And she is coordinating a blogburst of the "offensive" cartoons.

Posted by: Greg at 05:59 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Not after the State Department let this statement go out.

Washington on Friday condemned caricatures in European newspapers of the Prophet Mohammad, siding with Muslims who are outraged that the publications put press freedom over respect for religion.

“By inserting itself into a dispute that has become a lightning rod for anti-European sentiment across the Muslim world, the United States could help its own battered image among Muslims.

"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."

"We call for tolerance and respect for all communities for their religious beliefs and practices," he added.

Major U.S. publications have not republished the cartoons, which include depictions of Mohammad as a terrorist. That is in contrast to European media, which responded to the criticism against the original Danish newspaper that printed the caricatures by republishing the offensive images themselves.

Gee, the anti-Semitism and terrorism engaged in and supported by a huge part of the Muslim religion is a hell of a lot more offensive than a couple of cartoons. The out-of-proportion reaction of the Islamic world to the cartoons is significantly more troubling than a few cartoons that indicate that not everyone accepts or respects Islam – especially when that religion is the source of terror, violence, and oppression throughout the world. And that the American government – a government which subsidizes, not merely defends, speech and art which is blasphemous in the eyes of Christians and Jews – would dare to insist upon “responsibility” and “tolerance” is offensive in the extreme.

Maybe we Christians and Jews simply need to bomb, riot, take hostages, and behead innocents to get the same sort of tolerance and respect that the Bush Administration has called for in this infamous act of dhimmitude.

OTHER VOICES: Pink FlamingoBar & Gril, Dr. Sanity, Conservative Outpost, sisu, kaiser.com, NoisyRoom, News O'Rama, Michelle Malkin, TacJammer, Small Town Veteran, RightWinged, Jack of Clubs, Euphoric Reality, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Thieving Monkeys, Restless Mania, Irregular Times, My Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, All Things Beautiful

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Not after the State Department let this statement go out.

Washington on Friday condemned caricatures in European newspapers of the Prophet Mohammad, siding with Muslims who are outraged that the publications put press freedom over respect for religion.

“By inserting itself into a dispute that has become a lightning rod for anti-European sentiment across the Muslim world, the United States could help its own battered image among Muslims.

"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said in answer to a question. "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."

"We call for tolerance and respect for all communities for their religious beliefs and practices," he added.

Major U.S. publications have not republished the cartoons, which include depictions of Mohammad as a terrorist. That is in contrast to European media, which responded to the criticism against the original Danish newspaper that printed the caricatures by republishing the offensive images themselves.

Gee, the anti-Semitism and terrorism engaged in and supported by a huge part of the Muslim religion is a hell of a lot more offensive than a couple of cartoons. The out-of-proportion reaction of the Islamic world to the cartoons is significantly more troubling than a few cartoons that indicate that not everyone accepts or respects Islam – especially when that religion is the source of terror, violence, and oppression throughout the world. And that the American government – a government which subsidizes, not merely defends, speech and art which is blasphemous in the eyes of Christians and Jews – would dare to insist upon “responsibility” and “tolerance” is offensive in the extreme.

Maybe we Christians and Jews simply need to bomb, riot, take hostages, and behead innocents to get the same sort of tolerance and respect that the Bush Administration has called for in this infamous act of dhimmitude.

OTHER VOICES: Pink FlamingoBar & Gril, Dr. Sanity, Conservative Outpost, sisu, kaiser.com, NoisyRoom, News O'Rama, Michelle Malkin, TacJammer, Small Town Veteran, RightWinged, Jack of Clubs, Euphoric Reality, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Thieving Monkeys, Restless Mania, Irregular Times, My Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, All Things Beautiful

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It has happened again in Chicago. Accusations of abuse have resulted in the removal of priests from their parishes. Criminal charges have been filed in one case, for these are current charges.

But is an accused priest ever "innocent until proven guilty", or is he "guilty, and never permitted to be proven innocent"?

Due process does not apply to priests accused of molesting kids and it never has, according to both a priests advocacy group and critics of the Catholic church.

For different reasons, both priests and church critics say due process hasn't been observed when it comes to allegations against priests.

Priests say they're practically guilty upon accusation. Critics say the church for too long gave accused priests a pass and simply transferred them to other assignments without adequately investigating or addressing the problems.

Recent abuse allegations against Chicago clergymen show that in the court of public opinion, "innocent until proved guilty" stops at the church doorstep. "I don't know of any priest who is not afraid," the Rev. Robert Silva said.

Silva is president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, an advocacy group that represents 26,000 of America's 43,000 priests.

"Anyone can accuse them, and they'll have to step down," Silva said.

"How do you restore people's confidence? How do you restore your reputation if you get accused?"

And that is a question that needs to be asked. Are some charges -- perhaps even most -- true? Yes, beyond all question. But are some false? Undoubtedly, whether due to different interpretations of events or malicious falsehood.

But for the innocent, the stigma stays. Ask my old mentor, Father Dan, who was accused of misconduct in the mid 1980s. The charge was reported, investigated by both the church and the state, and found to be unfounded. Several years later, in the mid 1990s, when an unrelated scandal broke in the diocese, he was abruptly yanked from his parish and subjected to an extended investigation by the diocese and the local prosecutor under the theory that any old accusation needed to be reinvestigated as a matter of due diligence. Cleared a second time, he was suspended and reinvestigated again, after the nation's bishops adopted their sex abuse investigation standards nearly a decade later. He was cleared again -- but was targeted for a civil suit by a disgruntled parishioner who had a history of mental instability. I don't doubt that when he finally is called home to the Lord, the first paragraph of the local paper's obituary will highlight the false accusations, not his years of faithful service as a priest.

This reality bothers me, for as a teacher I am in another field where accusations are easy to make and hard to defend.

It offends me, because good men are destroyed by a process that often does not give them a reasonable chance to defend themselves.

And it worries me, because I know that false accusations happen.

And because this time, one of the priests suspended in Chicago is an old friend, another Father Dan, who was a year ahead of me during my time in the seminary. I don't know whether or not he is guilty, and I don't pretend to know. If the charges are true, I hope that justice is truly and righteously done. But if the charges are not true, if Father Dan is not guilty, I hope that justice is also truly and righteously done -- and that he can return to active ministry without being forever branded as "the priest who was accused".

The article raises that issue.

Today, in the public's mind, [Father Dan] McCormack already is guilty, many say: Even if he were acquitted, one priest said, McCormack could never return to St. Agatha.

He probably can't come back to Chicago. His name is now forever linked to crimes he is accused of committing.

When it comes to priests accused of sexual abuse, attorney Frederic Nessler said, "Ruining lives is not a priority issue, because I feel they've ruined so many children's lives."

Nessler has represented nearly 100 victims of clergy abuse.

"In my opinion, (offending priests) should be given very little quarter," he said.

While I agree that the guilty should be given no quarter, I think that Nessler and those like him need to rethink their position that because of the failings of the Church as an institution in the past, that concerns about ruining the lives of innocent priests should be given low priority. After all, while a diocese or archdiocese is an ongoing entity that can be held accountable over time for the actions of its leadership, justice is not done when individual priests are falsely accused and destroyed for crimes they did not commit on the theory that "they've ruined so many children's lives." That is the mentality of the lynch mob, not the honest searcher for justice.

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Just a reminder that Christians are attacked by many different groups.

Cardinal Ivan Dias condemned a "violent attack" suffered by a bishop and some priests of the Vasai Diocese on Sunday and called on the authorities to take action.

"We are deeply shocked to learn of the violent attack made yesterday by certain unruly elements on the Most Reverend Bishop Thomas Dabre of Vasai and the priests who were accompanying him on a very praiseworthy humanitarian mission," said the archbishop of Bombay in a statement.

The statement was published today by the bishops' conference of India.

The Vasai bishop and priests were attending the inauguration of a boarding school for tribal youth at Gosali in Mokhada Taluka, in the Thane district, in the state of Maharashtra.

Cardinal Dias said that Bishop Dabre and the priests were pelted with stones. One of the priests, Father Brendon Furtado, suffered an ear injury.

The incident took place when Bishop Dabre, 60, along with 10 priests, nuns and social workers, went to the village to inaugurate the Suryodaya Ashram, a boarding school for 60 tribal boys and girls, the SAR News reported.

Just before the inauguration ceremony, 40 to 50 suspected members of the Bajrang Dal and Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad, organizations of the fundamentalist Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, began to throw stones.

They were under the false impression that the Catholic bishop went there to convert students, SAR said. Other sources reported a much higher figure of attackers.

Fearful

A visibly shaken Bishop Dabre said: "It was the most horrible experience as stones were pelted in all directions in and around the building. There were about 200 parishioners within the building and outside, who had gathered for the inauguration of the ashram." They feared for their lives, he added.

"The fundamentalists who attacked us do not know that we have come to serve the poor tribals and we are opposed to forceful conversion," Bishop Dabre observed.

For his part, the archbishop of Bombay added in his statement: "Such a barbaric and unwarranted outburst of violence is indeed a disgrace to our Indian culture of respect and tolerance, and it sadly reveals a serious lack of a sense of civilized democracy in the politico-religious groups which instigated it.

"It is particularly painful that the incident occurred on the eve of the assassination anniversary of our beloved father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of 'ahimsa' [nonviolence], which was the weapon with which he fought and won independence for a secular India."

Archbishop Dias added: "I am confident that the authorities concerned will take prompt action against the perpetrators of the criminal deed and will adopt such corrective measures so as to dissuade the repetition of similar episodes which seriously endanger communal harmony and wreck the secular fabric of our dear motherland."

Shame!

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Pope John Paul the Great may be one step closer to beatification (and eventual canonization).

The Vatican may have found the "miracle" they need to put the late Pope John Paul one step closer to sainthood -- the medically inexplicable healing of a French nun with the same Parkinson's disease that afflicted him.

Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the Catholic Church official in charge of promoting the cause to declare the late Pope a saint of the Church, told Reuters on Monday that an investigation into the healing had cleared an initial probe by doctors.

Oder said the "relatively young" nun, whom he said he could not identify for now, was inexplicably cured of Parkinson's after praying to John Paul after his death last April 2.

"I was moved," Oder said in a telephone interview. "To think that this was the same illness that destroyed the Holy Father and it also kept this poor nun from carrying out her work."

John Paul suffered from Parkinson's Disease during the last decade of his life. His body trembled violently and he could not pronounce his words or control his facial muscles.

"To me, this is another sign of God's creativity," he said, adding that the nun worked with children.

He said Church investigators would now start a more formal and detailed probe of the suspected miracle cure.

Let us prayerfully wait and see what conclusions are drawn.

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Want a great example of dhimmitude in a supposedly secular country with a Muslim majority? Take a look at this piece from a Malaysian blogger.

The latest greatest document on Islamic treatment of non-Muslim minorities is a document published in AD 717 known as the Pact of Umar. Not surprisingly many Muslims (including your neighbours and colleagues) will find the occurences in today's Malaysia acceptable since this is where they get their guidelines on acceptable behaviour from.

First of all the Muslims term all the people who are kaffir as "dhimmis". This means they have to pay a jizya or a poll tax for protection. The local samseng back at school used to call this protection money. In the more refined Malaysia we give Muslims back tax dollars for monies paid to their religion. I once published a post or two on how Muslims are freeloaders because of this. I got condemned by a heavy hitting blogger but so far there has been no response from anyone as to why Muslims get their tax dollars back in equal amount for monies paid to the mosque and I don't get money back in equal amount paid to the church. Call it jizya, call it protection money or call it a mob shakedown. It's the first pillar of Islam in dealling with dhimmis. You pay more so that they can take more. Where I come from, that's called freeloading.

Let's see what else is in the Pact of Umar.

You'll have to go to Maobi to find out more about the Pact of Umar, and its de facto application in modern-day Malaysia.

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Could you imagine the outrage worldwide if a group of Christians did this to a group of Muslims trying to open a mosque?

At least 12 people were injured in clashes in Upper Egypt when a group of Muslims attempted to stop Christians converting a house into a church.

Security officials said the Muslims set fire to building materials for the building in Odaysat, near Luxor.

Several members of both communities were reported injured in the subsequent clashes, as well as two policemen.

It is the latest in a series of violent sectarian incidents in Egypt in the past few months.
A security source quoted by Reuters said the Christians did not have official permission to build the church.

Police arrested 10 young men and the owners of the house, reports say.
Correspondents say curbs on building churches have been one of the main grievances among Copts, although these restrictions have been eased recently by presidential decree.

The Coptic Christian community is believed to make up 10% percent of Egypt's population of about 70 million.

It doesnÂ’t say, but typical Egyptian practice would be to arrest only the Christians, whose right to assemble, worship, and open or repair churches remains sharply limited.

Maybe those of us in the civilized world should impose similar restrictions on Muslim freedom until the Muslim world grants basic human rights to Christians. After all, what would they do -- declare jihad and start a worldwide campaign of terrorism? Oh, that's right -- they already did that, despite having more freedom in our society than they have in their own.

MORE AT: Free Copts

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Of all the unmitigated gall! A Muslim group is attempting to make a Catholic school to operate according to Muslim principles.

AN ISLAMIC campaign group has called for a Catholic primary school to be based on the Muslim faith.

The Campaign for Muslim Schools said 90 per cent of pupils at St Albert's Primary, in the Pollokshields area of Glasgow, are Muslim, yet children are having to take part in Catholic rituals like saying the Lord's Prayer and attending mass.

Osama Saeed, co-ordinator of the alliance of Glasgow's main mosques and Muslim organisations, said he could see no reason why the main faith of the school should not change.

He said: "Clearly the parents of that area find a faith school, even if it is of another denomination, preferable to a secular one. But surely it should be possible for them to have one that is relevant to their own faith.

"To move towards this would be a fantastic example of good faith - in more ways than one - on the part of the Church."

The call came just days after Scotland's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, sparked controversy by stating that Scotland's core faith was Christianity and that other faiths should recognise they were "living in Scotland as a Christian country". A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland was not available for comment tonight.

Listen up, Osama -- it is a Catholic school. If you want a Muslim school, go out and start one of your own. Don't demand that some other religious body show you some "good faith" by apostasizing to your false religion. You are one arrogant bastard, and I suggest you remember that you ae in a predominantly Christian country where you have rights that no Christian would ever be allowed in a country dominated by Islam.

And to the bishops of Scotland, might I suggest that you get a herd of these and turn them loose in the school yard of every Catholic school in the country?

Then again, perhaps what Osama and the Campaign for Muslim Schools need are a visit from a few Scots like this one, voicing their opposition to dhimmitude of the type that Osama and the rest propose.

You know -- just to remind them that Christians, not Muslims, control Christian institutions.

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1 Couldn't have said it better myself. Wait a minute, I did http://jibtrim.blogspot.com/2006/01/islamic-group-wants-catholics-to-step.html

Posted by: Jibtrim at Sun Jan 15 17:43:35 2006 (CNjAm)

2 If non-Muslims, not JUST Christians, but ALL non-Muslims, keep giving in to this evil *sect*, we're not going to have a place left to hang our hats...

It's time for the Islamics to learn, it's OK to be Islamic, for them, I won't deny ANYONE their right to THEIR religion, but if they try to force it on ME, I'm gonna give them the opportunity to find out if that *72 virgins* BS is true or not...

Posted by: TexasFred at Sun Jan 15 21:53:26 2006 (qX3iX)

3 Thanks for post this fine example of what happens when state and religion intertwine. If you read carefully, you'll see that this is NOT a "Christian institution", it is a state institution. This is a good example of why I oppose school vouchers, too.

Posted by: Dan at Mon Jan 16 00:38:31 2006 (aSKj6)

4 Where the heck do you get that, Dan -- the article says nothing of the kind. I realize that you are not one to let the facts get in the way of your ideology, but making up stuff like that is pretty outrageous. It is a Catholic institution, not a state one.

And by the way, vouchers would be exactly the solution to this problem -- the Muslim community could go set up the Osama bin Laden Improvised Explosives Academy and the parents could choose -- or not choose -- to use the voucher there, based upon their decision on the values they seek to pass on to their kids.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Mon Jan 16 01:15:50 2006 (r/X6b)

5 This is absolutely disgusting. We don't care if they're Muslims, but I wish to heavens they would stop asking us to change who we are to fit their needs!

This is typical liberal caca! "I have a need so YOU have to fill it!"

Idiocy!

BTW - Dan...why do you care if parents use a voucher to send their child to a school that espouses the beliefs of the parents and the child? Does it somehow mean that YOU are forced to go to the school? Does it somehow mean that YOUR CHILDREN are forced to go to the school?

Oh...no...it doesn't?

Then get out of my face.

-Bart

Posted by: Bartleby at Mon Jan 16 02:04:34 2006 (r/FBF)

6 Dan: I read carefully. Where do you get that this is a state institution? Please show us.

Posted by: Hube at Mon Jan 16 02:32:37 2006 (JWx7R)

7 There are two ways to take over a nation. It appears that Islam intends to populate and then take over many nations.
If the Christians and Catholics don't wake up it will be too late to stop them....
This passive turn the other cheek is not going to work.

Posted by: Patty aka Redneck Granny at Mon Jan 16 04:05:49 2006 (RRgls)

8 I attempted to trackback to you but it doesn't show up.
What I said on my own blog is these Muslims talk about good faith and all they are doing is a good old-fashioned land grab with an eye toward desecration. they knew it was a Catholic school when they enrolled. If they don't like the religious training there, they are free to start their own school...period.

Posted by: J Rob at Mon Jan 16 05:24:41 2006 (Ftskz)

9 Here's an article that discusses the issue in the context of St. Albert's being a state-funded school: http://www.sovereignty./siteinfo/newsround/mozz.html
For some reason, the commenting will not allow me to post the link without deleting org dot uk which should follow the period after sovereignty.

Posted by: Dan at Mon Jan 16 07:57:36 2006 (aSKj6)

10 Islamification, bit by bit. The infiltration is insidious. As the number of Muslim immigrants grows, we'll see more of this kind of objecting on the part of Muslims.

And once a school is Muslim, does it tolerate Christianity? Have a look at Saudi.

Thanks, Greg. I hat-tipped you and posted this information at Infidel Bloggers Alliance.

Posted by: Always On Watch at Mon Jan 16 09:26:26 2006 (y6n8O)

11 In other words, it was not in the article I cited at all. You had to go out and find another article, ovr two years old, to cite. And that one doesn't even make the claim that you do -- rather it points out that religious schools can receive funding from the government.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Mon Jan 16 11:42:46 2006 (777OA)

12 RWR, don't go having a hissy fit. You didn't know that Scotland has publicly funded religious schools, but I did. That's okay - it doesn't mean I'm better than you or that I'm "cheating" by knowing more. But it's true.

Posted by: Dan at Mon Jan 16 13:23:07 2006 (aSKj6)

13 Actually, i did know -- but it was not relevant to the issue at hand.

And as i point out, there is nothing in my article that says what you claim it does.

The Church controls the school, but the government subsidizes the education of all children, not just those who attend a state-run school. Sounds much more respectful of freedom to me.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Mon Jan 16 15:21:39 2006 (4ITUG)

14 You're forgiven for posting a misleading and incomplete article. This time. But don't let it happen again.

Posted by: Dan at Mon Jan 16 16:28:34 2006 (aSKj6)

15 (Kidding, BTW. Of course.)

Posted by: Dan at Mon Jan 16 16:30:28 2006 (aSKj6)

16 Glad you came back with that -- i had a rather sharp response in mind.

Posted by: Rhymes With Right at Mon Jan 16 16:46:33 2006 (Ht3Iz)

17 It would have been richly deserved if I had meant it! If I get to the point where I think I can tell people what they can post on their blogs, feel free to track me down and swat me upside the head.

Posted by: Dan at Mon Jan 16 17:22:00 2006 (aSKj6)

18 On the subject of incomplete information, Dan forgot to mention Scotland's church tax. There is a Church of Scotland, over here we know it as Presbyterian. Revenues from the church tax go to the Church of Scotland. Same is true with England and the Church of England. In all likelihood, the subsidies Dan referred to are part of a leveling out of the playing field.In other words, schools that religious receive the subsidies are no more "state run" than the mom-and-pop farm over here who receives a farm subsidy are state farms. No more than Notre Dame is a government school because it admits students receiving federal aid or on the GI Bill.
I am sure the omission of that information was just an oversight.

Posted by: J Rob at Tue Jan 17 00:00:17 2006 (Ftskz)

19 J Rob -

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but, as I understand it, "church schools" in Scotland are funded by the government, and under the control of the local authorities, though they are allowed to select teachers based on religion, and are allowed to have religious services and unpaid religious instructors. I'll admit it's been a couple years since I've looked at this in any detail, but it's not at all like a family farm or Notre Dame, unless both were under the control of the state.

Posted by: Dan at Tue Jan 17 00:37:58 2006 (aSKj6)

20 That all depends. What you describe is government control, not "public funding". From what I have been able to find they provide funding but have limited control as Scotland has no national curriculum.
By the way, a number of MP's in the Labor Party have been calling for an end to that funding at least since 2004.
http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=27859
http://www.prospects.ac.uk/cms/ShowPage/Home_page/Industry_insights/Education/As_it_is/p!emklid

That said, I think my analogy is valid, or at least as valid as your claim that the Catholic schools are government controlled.

Posted by: J Rob at Tue Jan 17 16:03:19 2006 (Ftskz)

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The latest Justice Sunday was sharply criticized by the advocates of a strict separation of church and state on the American Left. They have sued over Intelligent Design, have demanded that the Ten Commandments come down and insisted that "under God" be stripped from the Pledge of Allegiance. They have demonized Falwell and Dobson, and have a history of going after any religious leader who dares to speak on political issues.

So why the silence on this intrusion of religious leaders into public policy issues? Could it be that their alleged "principles" don't extend to include religious leaders who urge LIBERAL positions.

Declaring that the United States was at a crossroads in Iraq, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops said Thursday the time had come to withdraw U.S. troops as fast as responsibly possible and to hand control of the country to Iraqis.

"Our nation's military forces should remain in Iraq only as long as it takes for a responsible transition, leaving sooner than later," said Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, Fla., speaking for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Wenski, chairman of the bishops Committee on International Policy, said recent statements by the Bush administration that troop levels would be reduced were not enough. He said the U.S. must send an unmistakable signal that the goal was not to occupy Iraq "for an indeterminate period," but to help Iraqis assume full control of their government.

The eight-page statement, in the works for months and delivered to the White House and members of Congress on Thursday, was candid in its assessment of the war, which U.S. bishops and the late pope, John Paul II, had opposed from the start.

Now I've checked the homepage for Americans United For Separation of Church and State and found nary a mention of this statement on Iraq. American Atheists is also silent, though they have plenty to say on Abramoff. I cannot find a mention at the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The ACLU trashes Judge Alito but not the bishops. Dito the anti-religion activists at People For the American Way. I wonder why they are all "silent as a church mouse" on the issue.

I think we all know what would have happened if, for example, the Southern Baptist leadership had issued a statement supporting the war. And we remember what happened when some bishops acted to stop the sacrilege of John Kerry receiving communion.

But since this statement coincides with the opinions of the Leftist elite, they'll let this one slide.

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Sometimes there needs to be a little common sense exercised when it comes to free exercise of religion. After all, that right is guaranteed under the First Amendment -- and is a basic human right.

That's why I am glad to see that Wayne State University is going to change its policies to protect the religious rights of Sikhs.

Wayne State University is reviewing its public safety policies after a Detroit judge ruled a Sikh student shouldn't have been arrested on campus for carrying a 10-inch knife, known as a kirpan.

Sukhpreet Singh Garcha, a 23-year-old senior and a baptized Sikh, was arrested in August by campus police for carrying the knife on his hip and another 5-inch knife concealed in his waistband. Garcha was charged with violating the city's knife ordinance, which prohibits carrying knives with blades longer than 3 inches.

Garcha said carrying the knife was necessary under Sikhism, a monotheistic religion founded in India. The smaller knife was worn in case the other had to be removed.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the religious group United Sikhs protested Garcha's arrest, saying the kirpan isn't a weapon, but rather an ornamental article of faith that baptized Sikhs must wear at all times.

Bravo to the ACLU for taking this case, and to Judge Rudy Serra of the 36th District Court for making the ruling that the city ordinance cannot restrict the wearing of this item of great religious significance.

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As I point out on a regular basis, such an attack on the religious symbols or display of another religious faith would bring the harshest response from community activists and the mavens of tolerance. Why do I suspect that there will be no such outcry in this case -- and probably even smug satisfaction on the part of those individuals, who are usually worshippers at the altar of "choice".

About 600 crosses memorializing aborted fetuses were pulled from ground at the Catholic Life Center and thrown into bushes and onto a parking lot overnight Sunday, church officials said.

Twenty of the crosses were broken, said Sgt. Don Kelly, a spokesman for the Baton Rouge Police Department. Kelly said police are investigating the incident.

Volunteers with the Knights of Columbus and Louisiana Right to Life put up about 800 crosses Saturday at the Catholic Life Center at 1800 S. Acadian Thruway in preparation for the BishopÂ’s Life Rally scheduled Jan. 15.

Each year the church puts up the display of crosses, said Julie Orr, Respect for Life coordinator for the Marriage and Family Department of the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge.

“We generally leave the crosses up all month as a reminder of the day, Jan. 22, 1973, that Roe v. Wade was enacted,” Orr said.

The BishopÂ’s Life Rally will be from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. Jan. 15.

Shame on the vandals. And when they are caught, throw the book at them, including maximum enhancement for committing a hate crime.

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I think this one speaks for itself.

An Egyptian cleric's controversial fatwa claiming that nudity during sexual intercourse invalidates a marriage has uncovered a rift among Islamic scholars.

According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Sharia (or Islamic law), "being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage".

UhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhÂ… yeah. One more reason not to join the Cult of Muhammad.

Not that everyone agrees on this one.

The religious decree sparked a hot debate on the private satellite network Dream's popular religious talk show and on the front page of today's Al-Masri Al-Yom, Egypt's leading independent daily newspaper.

Suad Saleh, who heads the women's department of Al-Azhar's Islamic studies faculty, pleaded for "anything that can bring spouses closer to each other" and rejected the claim that nudity during intercourse could invalidate a union.

During the live televised debate, Islamic scholar Abdel Muti dismissed the fatwa: "Nothing is prohibited during marital sex, except of course sodomy."

That is reserved for little boys, prisoners, goats, and camels.

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Or is atheism mental illness?

That is my question after reading a synopsis of a program being run by the taxpayer-funded BBC in England, hosted by "scientist" Richard Dawkins.

CONTROVERSIAL scientist Richard Dawkins will assert tomorrow evening that religion is a “virus” that amounts to child abuse.

The new two-part series, to be shown on Channel 4, will compare Moses to Hitler and claim that God is racist. It will also argue that religion is a “backward belief system” responsible for terrorism.

The controversial films, which were produced by IWC creative director Alan Clements and written by Dawkins, are a polemic against faith and a stout defence of science.

Entitled The Root Of All Evil, the series shows Dawkins visiting theological hot-spots in Lourdes, Colorado Springs, the al-Axa mosque and an English faith school. In each case the presenter, who is an atheist, attempts to show that religion is an “elephant in the room” trying to subvert reason.

In the first film, The God Delusion, Dawkins claims that Lourdes, a Catholic pilgrimage destination in France, symbolises a belief system based on “delusion”. “If you want to experience the mediaeval rituals of faith, the candle light, the incense, music, important-sounding dead languages, nobody does it better than the Catholics,” he says.

Dawkins then travels to the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where he hits out at the influence of “Christian fascism” and “an American Taliban”.

This is followed by an interview with Yousef al-Khattab, an American-born Jew turned fundamentalist Muslim, who clashes with Dawkins after saying he hates atheists.

So what we get here are hate-filled rhetoric, generalization from a handful of examples, and caustic ridicule of people who dare disagree with this so-called scientist who excludes the positive data about religion from his study and conclusion.

And then there is the second half of this atheistic "Mein Kampf".

In the second film, The Virus of Faith, Dawkins turns his attention to the effect he believes religion has on young people. “Innocent children are being saddled with demonstrable falsehoods,” he says.

More controversially, he states “sectarian religious schools” have been “deeply damaging” to generations of children. “It’s time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation ,” he says. “Isn’t it weird the way we automatically label a tiny child with its parents’ religion?”

Dawkins also questions the fundamental tenets of Christianity. On the idea of a spiritual creator, he says: “The God of the Old Testament has got to be the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous, and proud of it, petty, vindictive, unjust, unforgiving, racist.”

The author of The Selfish Gene then criticises Abraham, compares Moses to Hitler and Saddam Hussein, before calling the New Testament “St Paul’s nasty, sado-masochistic doctrine of atonement for original sin”.

Yeah, that sure sounds like an objective look at religion.

And yet somehow this man is taken seriously in the intelligent design/blind evolution debate. If his work here is any indication, he is clearly incapable of engaging in neutral, objective study of anything -- and is motivated by a blind, unreasoning faith that his ideology is correct.

It seems to me that passing this ideology along to children would be every bit as abusive as raising them a Nazi, Kluxer, or an Islamist. And it seems that Dawkins has a worldview that is pathological -- indeed, that is so xenophobic as to constitute a mental illness.

MORE AT: Boys Wear Pants, All Things Beautiful, The Paragraph Farmer

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Later this year, in Turkey.

The spiritual leader of the world's 200 million-plus Orthodox Christians said Thursday that he is eager to meet with Pope Benedict XVI sometime in the coming year in an effort to heal the long-standing rift between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Visiting this heavily Greek community northwest of Tampa for the annual Feast of the Epiphany celebration, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I told reporters that the pope plans an official visit sometime this year to his headquarters in Istanbul, Turkey.

"We are in very good relationships with the present pope, Benedict XVI, and I'm in the very happy position to announce to you that we are going to restart the dialogue on the international global level between the Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church," Bartholomew said in Greek through an interpreter, Archbishop Demetrios, who is primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America.

The last official talks between the two churches five years ago broke off without an agreement on theological issues that have divided them for almost 1,000 years.

Bartholomew had received a warm reception from the Vatican after inviting the pope to Turkey for the Feast of St. Andrew in November. But they were subtly rebuffed when the government of 99 percent Muslim Turkey, instead of approving the visit, issued its own invitation to Benedict for an unspecified date in 2006.

Because Benedict is also the head of state of the Vatican, any visit to Turkey would need to be coordinated with the Turkish government.

Bartholomew said Thursday that "within this year that has already begun, the new pope is going to visit officially the ecumenical patriarchy."

May this meeting heal the rift that divides the most ancient seats of the Christian faith.

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