The Tallahassee Democrat has become the center of a national controversy again and this time it doesn't involve football. Instead it is our cartoonist Doug Marlette who is drawing fire.
Doug did a cartoon depicting a man driving a rental truck loaded with explosives under the caption: "What would Mohammed Drive?" The Democrat has not printed the cartoon and won't in the future. But it was automatically posted to our Web site briefly until I ordered it removed.
First let me explain our relationship with Doug. He works for us and his cartoons carry the Tallahassee Democrat name. He is also a syndicated cartoonist and has a daily cartoon strip, Kudzu. We do not control or have rights to his outside work. He sends us his cartoons and we decide whether to print them or not. Other news organizations make their own independent decisions, too.
So we edit only the material we run. Unbeknownst to me, we had an automatic system that placed all of Doug's political cartoons on our Web site. When that happened with the bomb cartoon, we were flooded with thousands of e-mails and phone calls demanding an apology.
That's not going to happen. We did not publish the cartoon and we won't because I don't think it is particularly funny. And I frankly am uneasy about making fun of religious icons in the Democrat. We have run cartoons making funs of priests because of their actions in the abuse scandal - but not because of their religion. There were some cartoons that we did not run because we thought they crossed the line of good taste. Different editors draw that line in different places.
However, I defend Doug's right to ridicule anyone. This is an honored American tradition. Granted, good comedy like his often depends on exaggerations. But he does have some fair basis for satire in this case.
While the vast majority of Muslims are a peaceful people and preach a peaceful religion, there are some who have subverted the message of the prophet Mohammed for their own violent purposes.
There are Muslim clerics who encourage suicide bombers with promises of martyrdom for the slaughter of innocents. Other Muslim leaders believe they have the right to order a Fatwa, the sanctioned murder of someone like Salmon Rushdie, just because of his ideas. Lampooning fanatics who believe they have a religious basis for murder is fair game.
This is not to say that only Muslims have violent or intolerant adherents. Christians, Hindus, Jews - you name the religion - we all have stains like the Inquisition or brutal persecutions upon us. So to anyone who was offended by Doug's cartoon, I'm sorry. But I do not apologize for his right to make a point, even if it makes some people mad.
Yeah, so, Doug Marlette was making fun of radical Islamists because of their actions in murdering people worldwide, not because of their religion.
Well yeah but, that IS their religion.