Thursday, January 18, 2007

Wingnuts: Make Up Your Mind On Being Offensive

As many are aware, Ezra Levant elevated himself to the level of political martyr for publishing several mediocre attempts at mocking Islam. He was joined by a number of other rightists in attempting to take on some Gandhi-esque stature for this sort of stunt. The supposed point of this sort of gesture is that Westerners should not be fearful of offending Muslims, rather we should stand up for free speech regardless of what the Muslims think.

Now today I read that another conservative, Dinesh D'Souza is telling the West that we'd better crack down on homosexuality and on porn lest we... wait for it... offend the Muslims!

So what's the moral here? Should we only stand up for free speech that offends others but not ourselves? Is it okay to mock the prophet of Islam but not the sexual mores of the Islamic world?