Just a few minutes ago I wrote on plans by Christian censor goons to shove their narrow religious sensibilities down every American’s throat by mandating that not one person may choose to watch a video of Madonna canoodling with a Cross.
There’s an aspect to the story beyond the immediate substantive issue that bears attention.
Catholic League President Bill Donahue is throwing the weight of his religious organization behind the effort to ban messages that offend Christian sensibilities. Here’s the reasoning Donahue laid out in his letter to NBC News:
Last February, NBC “Nightly News” decided it would not offend Muslim sensibilities by showing the controversial Danish cartoon of Muhammad in full. Allison Gollust, a spokeswoman for NBC, said, “We felt that in order to convey the essence of the story, it was not necessary to show the entire cartoon.”
Accordingly, the same ethical principles which drove this decision should apply to Christians. Therefore, in deference to Christian sensibilities, NBC should not air the entire Madonna concert. If it does air the ‘Mock Crucifixion,’ it will send a message to the 85 percent of the American population that is Christian that their sensibilities count less than Muslims. And that is not a decision that any responsible person or company can afford to make.
If you stifle free speech in one place, the stifling effect only grows. Earlier this year, it was right-wing Christians defending the right of newspapers to publish cartoons of Mohammed, and slamming the papers that wouldn’t. Here at Irregular Times we were oddly aligned with those right-wing Christians for a time because of our support for freedom in religious and other expression. When that battle was lost as newspapers and TV outlets largely censored themselves, asserting as principle that they were loath to offend Muslim religious sensibilities. Now that the Christian theocrats have media outlets on the record with that stifling principle, they are using it to full effect and to the detriment of the liberty they insincerely championed so months ago. The papers and television outlets that censored Mohammed cartoons have no consistent response to offer except capitulation.
The lesson: if you ever expect to speak out in criticism of another person, movement, religion or idea, you must support the right of others to criticize persons, movements, religions and ideas you hold close to your heart. A failure to support free speech in one instance leads to the failure of free speech in others.
