Recently it was reported that “South Park” producers were under death threats from Muslim extremists for having taken satiric liberties in references to the Prophet Muhammad. The threats included a gruesome, graphic reminder of how Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered.
Upon reading this account, anyone else think this? Let’s see: Danish cartoons, a Dutch documentary, American animation. All took shots — societal and (more notably) sacrilegious — at Islam and the Prophet. And all provoked the ultimate response: a death sentence. One, indeed, has been carried out.
But why is it that we still don’t hear about comparable outrage in the Muslim “street”? As in irate crowds, menacing invective and, yes, physical threats — against those who continue to defame Islam by maiming and killing the innocent in the name of jihad?
Surely sectarian satire isn’t a worst offense than murder, including suicide bombings and videotaped throat slashings.
Surely.