Why Pamela Geller Is Hated

Pamela Geller -- the woman whose group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, organized the Muhammad cartoon drawing contest in Garland, Texas -- may be the most hated person in America right now. She is certainly the left's chief villain. And, sad to say, though few conservatives hate her, more than a few have condemned her.

The first and most important reason is a rule of life that I wrote about in a recent column explaining the left's hatred for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

This is a defining characteristic of the American left. That is why the left loathed President Ronald Reagan for labeling the Soviet Union an "evil empire:" He judged and confronted Communism, the greatest evil in the world after World War II.

Today, the world's greatest evil is Islamism (the movement to impose Islam and its Sharia on society). Just as the left loathed anti-Communists, it loathes anti-Islamists, chief among whom is Netanyahu, the prime minister of the country that the Islamists most hate, the country that most confronts violent Islam -- and not coincidentally the country the international left most hates.

But the left hates anti-Islamists generally, not just Netanyahu. They have successfully demonized anti-Islamists and even critics of Islam as "Islamophobes," meaning anti-Muslim "bigots" and "haters." Pamela Geller is now chief among them.

Geller and her group are widely labelled as "haters" and "Islamophobes" for caricaturing Muhammad. But the highly successful producers of the hit Broadway show that mocks Mormonism, "The Book of Mormon," are not labelled "haters," let alone "Mormon-phobes". Similarly, the "artist" who created "Piss Christ," the infamous photograph of a crucifix in a jar of his urine, is also not labeled a hater or a "Christiano-phobe."

Why is that? Because neither Christianity nor Mormonism produces evil that needs to be fought. The Muslim world, however, is producing tens of thousands of murderers and millions more sympathizers; and those who criticize Islam and confront Islamism are hated because those who don't fight evil hate those who do.

Another example of moral confusion is that Geller is accused of "provoking" Islamists to murder people. Even some conservatives have taken this position.

To best show this poorly reasoned logic, let's imagine that some Mormons murdered members of the audience and some of the actors at a performance of "The Book of Mormon." Who do you think The New York Times editorial page would have blamed -- the producers of the show that mocked Mormonism (for "provoking" the murderers) or the Mormon murderers? The murderers, of course. Again, imagine that some Christians had murdered museum curators at whose museums "Piss Christ" had been displayed. Would the Times editorial page have blamed the "artist," Andres Serrano, and the museum curators (for "provoking" the Christian murderers) or the Christian murderers?

America calls itself, in the final words of the National Anthem, "the land of the free and the home of the brave." This description no longer applies -- not only to the left-wing intellectual and media elite but also to the increasingly large segment of the American people that the left has influenced. Many Americans no longer cherish freedom as Americans always have and too many exhibit little courage.

Contrast American reactions to Pamela Geller with European reactions to Charlie Hebdo. After Islamists murdered 12 editors and writers of the Charlie Hebdo staff, millions of French citizens gathered to protest the murders and announce "Je suis Charlie." There were very few French voices blaming Charlie Hebdo for "provoking" the murderers, or for being "haters." And, it is worth noting, some of the caricatures of Muhammad published in the French magazine were truly obscene -- unlike the caricatures produced by Pamela Geller's contest which, so far as I've seen, were only caricatures and cartoons.

Likewise the month after the Charlie murders, courageous Danes organized a public event called "Art, blasphemy and the freedom of expression" to show support for Charlie Hebdo and for freedom of speech. That "provoked" an Islamist to murder two people and wound five police officers that day and the next. But Danes supported the organizers of the event.

And a German newspaper was firebombed after republishing some of the Charlie Hebdo Muhammad cartoons.

But in America, there were no comparable demonstrations on behalf of Pamela Geller. Instead, there were widespread condemnations. The New York Times editorial page even denied that her cartoon contest was done on behalf of freedom of speech. And hundreds of left-wing members of PEN, the worldwide writers' organization dedicated to freedom of speech, vehemently protested the decision of the American chapter of PEN to give its Freedom of Expression Courage Award to Charlie Hebdo.

This combination -- of the steep moral decline of the American left; the inability of too many Americans to reason morally; and the greater value increasingly placed on protecting (certain) people's feelings than on protecting freedom of speech -- is why a woman who did nothing more than organize a contest to draw cartoons of Muhammad may be the most reviled American alive.

I see my example as a purely political provocation. It doesn’t say anything about the Moslem religion or its adherents. You could even caption my generic Arab male figure as “Mohammed, 570-632 A.D.”

How is that mocking religion?

The good Muslims I know are barely Muslim. A holiday or two, and maybe a yearly appearance at the Mosque. The ideology itself is terrible. The less of it, the better.

Actually, the world loves it’s own. Satan is the Prince of this world. The world hates Jesus. Love, kindness, truth, conservative values.....are of Jesus, not the world. Idols like money, fame, power, lust....these are what the world values. We are what we love. Thus the basis for reactions to people come from what we love. Scary world, but Jesus won our victory.

Pamella Geller, Daniel Pipes, Mark Steyn...others too numerous to list, were among the first to warn the USA people who we were up against.

Some of us listened, but most did not, apparently.

So here we are in 2015.

A murderous thuggish death cult is gaining worldwide power, through violent terrorist tactics, while idiots “debate” their “religious credentials” and chastise others for a lack of “tolerance”.

To me, the specific content is important. A picture of Jesus (or any significant figure of my religion) doesn’t bother me. A cartoon doesn’t bother me, even if it’s frivolous, or if it’s intended as criticism. What bothers me is obscenity or obvious falsehood.

Therefore, on Golden Rule principles, if Ms. Geller’s contest excluded instances of obscenity or deliberate falsehood, then I think it’s acceptable. It’s not necessary to go beyond the simple facts to be extremely critical of Islam.

There definitely needs to be more open truth telling about Sharia and Muhammed. And I’d be open for some real creative attempts, say, but you have to start with something to reel people in, positively, and Geller could have been better.

Say, instead of a contest to draw Muhammed (the equivalent for other religions might be a bacon eating contest for Jews or a gay kissing contest for Christians — I.e. Offensive from the get out and provocative in a bad way), it would be Readings about the Prophet Muhammed and those readings would be the truths about what he said, believed, and did. That stands up because if you did the exact same about Jesus or Moses there would be nothing offensive to say. Do you see what I mean?? Basically we do agree.

One thing to remember is that “provocations” of other religions are already going on. Those who want to provoke Jews (Moslems and some old-fashioned anti-Semites) use guns, bombs, rocks, graffiti. We should also recall that Jews don’t (as far as I can tell) object to the consumption of pork, or cheeseburgers, by people of other religions.

Provocation of Christianity goes on all the time, including with homosexual behavior. It is not at all unusual for homosexual activists to invade Christian churches. Christians respond with prayer, sadness, letters to the editor, an occasional boycott or peaceful protest.

The key thing about pictures of Mohammed is that only Moslems (and not all Moslems) believe this is wrong, and they believe it is wrong for everyone, so wrong that they kill over it. No other religion acts like this.

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