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Monday, September 17, 2012

Blasphemy

It wasn't that many centuries ago that blasphemy was a criminal offense in the Christian world.  When I was young, it was still considered a pretty serious matter, and even television and movies would stay away from something that might be considered offensive to Christians.  Now, there is only one religion who seems to enjoy all this special sensitivity.  This September 14, 2012 Denver Post opinion piece captures the stinking hypocrisy of the left on this well:
Did you hear about the movie in which a Catholic woman masturbates with a crucifix?
You didn't? "Paradise: Faith" won a special jury prize at this year's Venice Film Festival.
Suffice it to say this movie about a "self-flagellating Roman Catholic woman married to a paraplegic Muslim," as The New York Times described it, may be as much of a provocation to some Catholics as the anti-Muhammad film by the mysterious "Sam Bacile" is to Muslims.
And in fact some Catholics have complained, including a group in Italy that accused the Austrian director of blasphemy.
Needless to say, however, they didn't riot, light street fires or storm the Austrian embassy. They didn't promise to hunt down the filmmakers and execute them. And not to belabor the obvious, but you can bet that when "Paradise: Faith" is released next year in the U.S., the reaction will be equally tame.
Read more: Carroll: A double standard on hurt religious feelings - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_21538143#ixzz26n5Upoxr
When Serrano's crucifix in urine generated upset from Christians, the left told us to get over it--free speech and all that.  No one was killed by angry Christian mobs.  As severe as the reaction became was...Christians argued that they shouldn't be required to subsidize art like this.

When The Last Temptation of Christ was made into a movie, there were boycotts, protests, upset letters, and some very hard words for the movie maker and the studio.  But no one was killed.  Nor would any person involved in the making of that film have to worry about his safety.  Nor would the government have asked anyone to consider making this film unavailable.  Or asked the maker to come in for questioning, as happened to the sleazy character behind this crime against film making that has upset the crowd with their turbans wound too tight.

There's a clear message here: if you want your religion taken seriously by the left...kill people if you are offended.

There's another clear message here: Islamists are behaving like spoiled children.  If you aren't prepared to live in the current age, you are invited to return to the seventh century.  And give up this century's technology while you are at it.  If we have to go back to fighting men on horseback with swords, I suspect that it will be a short battle of the civilizations.

The fact that the ACLU hasn't filed a suit against the Obama Administration for its actions with respect to YouTube and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs calling Terry Jones tells me that they are, as usual, just hypocrites.  They don't support free speech, of freedom of religion.  They are just the Anti-Christian Litigation Unit, and not a civil liberties union at all.

2 comments:

  1. The fact that the ACLU hasn't filed a suit against the Obama Administration for its actions with respect to YouTube and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs calling Terry Jones tells me that they are, as usual, just hypocrites. They don't support free speech, of freedom of religion. They are just the Anti-Christian Litigation Unit, and not a civil liberties union at all.

    I disagree with you about the ACLU. They typically get involved with some kind of ongoing 1st amendment violation, or at least a perceived violation. If Obama was telling Google that they were banned from military bases unless they blocked the video, ACLU would sue and ask that the government be prohibited from imposing those kind of content based restrictions. But, what remedy could they ask for if they sued the federal government because Obama requested that Google check and see if the video violates their terms of service? Even if some judge was foolish enough to issue an order prohibiting POTUS from contacting a private service like Google to make the request that they check if their terms of service were violated by some video, it would never hold up on appeal.

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  2. Does the phrase "chilling effect" ring any bells? The possibility that some student might be uncomfortable with Christian prayer before a football game seems to be enough to get the ACLU busy--but government officials contacting private companies and asking if they might want to see whether to pull a video does not seem to qualify as chilling effect.

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