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.