Posted on 02/19/2006 7:18:04 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Opinions Are Like Belly Buttons (everybody has one) -- aka: Brown Picks Lint from His Navel.
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Odds are that you would not be offended by seeing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, seeing as how Muslims are a scant minority of this newspaper's readers.
But how would you feel about it if we ran a cartoon depicting Jesus Christ in a priest's garb sodomizing a choirboy to illustrate the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church?
I'll bet some of you would have a slightly different reaction to that.
Or what if that same cartoon depicted the choirboy as African-American, in light of the alleged abuse at St. Agatha's in North Lawndale?
Just reading the description probably causes the hair to stand up on the back of some of your necks, as I well appreciate.
Words can be powerful tools, pictures even more so. I considered substituting a milder description than sodomizing, just to tone it down. Self-censorship, you see.
But what if I took it even further, what if the cartoon's caption somehow incorporated Jesus using the "N" word? Or just to clarify that the point I'm trying to make is not based on race, let's make the choirboy a white girl and the caption with Jesus using the "C" word.
That's entirely different than the Muhammad cartoons, you may say.
The Muhammad cartoons are nowhere near as offensive as what I'm describing, you think.
Well, apparently they are to Muslims.
It's great to hear all the support that's being voiced around the country right now for the First Amendment in light of the Muhammad cartoon controversy -- all of it coming from people egging us on to print the cartoons.
Yes, we have the right to print the Danish newspaper's cartoons, just as we would have the right to print a cartoon such as the offensive ones I have imagined.
Having the freedom to print what we want carries some responsibility to consider how it will affect those on the receiving end, which is a balancing act we face every day.
Pushing people's buttons
I'll bet my imaginary Jesus Christ cartoon could get a few protesters outside the Sun-Times, and if we told the protesters to buzz off, citing freedom of the press, I'll bet we could get some death threats, too. Rioting in the streets? Probably not. Unless we kept it up.
Maybe you think I'm missing the point. The real issue, you think, is the violent rioting in the Muslim world and that Muslims need to understand that they can't kill people because they don't like what's in the newspaper.
How exactly does publishing the cartoons here serve that end? Or do you just feel the need to prove that we're not afraid of any Muslim protesters?
One thing I've learned since I started writing this column is how easy it is to push people's buttons, and I'm not even the most skilled in-house practitioner of the art.
I didn't see #6 behind the bars in the foreground.
The Koraniacs are a bunch of sissies. They and Europe deserve each other.
Something tells me Mark Brown *is* a receiver. ;)
He lost me with his "Prophet Mohammed" stuff.
"Oddly enough, there might be violent protests from Muslims over mockery of Jesus."
Yeah, the mohammedans took to the streets when their 'revered' 'prophet' Jesus's followers were blown to bits, beheaded and pillaged non-stop on nearly every continent the last few decades and centuries. /sarc
A liberal friend almost stated uncategorically that she would have Muslims knocking dowm her door, rather than the US continue to fight this "phony war on terror.
Unfricken believable. She's Jewish too...
The Lord even forgave those who killed Him.
"Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."
And do you ever notice the MSM always uses the term "the prohet Muhammed" but never the "Lord Jesus Christ?"
That was too - too FUNNY !!!!!!
Lets not encourage him.
He might wind up getting federal funding to do so.
Well .. Jesus was beat up, spit on, vilified, kicked, nailed to a cross.
Hmmmm?? I don't recall anybody taking to the streets to protest and killing people and burning down churches and businesses.
And .. I agree with you .. you cannot equate the SON OF GOD with the "prophet" Mohammed.
This is a good time to note something I've wanted to point out. It's probably not gone unnoticed here, but I've yet to hear it mentioned in the old media.
It's funny how these riots start on friday and become murderous and violent, but then they tail off all week and blaze up again the following friday. Obviously it is the moolas and ima'ams in certain mosques that are inflaming their sheeple.
We should shut down any mosque that preaches hatred, and turn it into a McDonalds.
Observation:
The name of Jesus is used on the web, more than twice as much as Muhammad. The cases when Jesus is referred to as lord or Lord Jesus Christ is about 11% of the time. While Muhammad is refereed to as "prophet Muhammad" about 16% of the time. Not much different for the added title for either in common usage on the web which pretty much reflects equal respect for both religions in western culture.
However compare washingtonpost.com, Associated Press Reuters combined for the last 60 days; Jesus and Muhammad appear in about the same number of articles, which is understandable with Christian and the cartoon controversy as news stories, yet consider that Jesus has been referred to as lord or Lord Jesus Christ only 1% of the time, while Muhammad is refereed to as "prophet Mohammed" 69 % of the of the time.
If the press reporting isn't blatantly anti Christian, then what is? And why are the cartoon Nazis protesting when their prophet is not only respected in Western media , but the media is going out of their way to trivialize Christan's while paying great tribute to a prophet who has yet to prove he really is a prophet which literally means somebody who brings the news of well being to mankind?
google results :
41,500,000 for "Muhammad"
6,980,000 for "Prophet Muhammad"
109,000,000 for Jesus
5,210,000 for "Lord Jesus Christ"
7,150,000 for "Lord Jesus"
washingtonpost.com Associated Press Reuters combined for the last 60 days
"Muhammad" returned 299 results.
"Prophet Muhammad" returned 206 results.
Jesus returned 233 results.
"Lord Jesus" returned 2 results.
"Lord Jesus Christ" returned 1 results.
Controversy, Crap & Confusion -- Alan Simpson
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