Beyond Opinion

It seems that freedom of speech is under attack under several fronts. Recently Danish newspapers repeated the cartoons showing, among other things, Mohammad as a bearded man wearing a bomb for a turban. Mullahs and others in Muslim nations, especially in radical corners, condemned the cartoons, burned Danish flags, and even threatened death on the people who publish them. We condemn what these Moslems do, because we feel the Danish freedom of speech has been attacked. There is talk all the time about radical Muslims. But how about radical Christians?

Proof came this week that they are in abundance in the United States. In the past two years, the cartoonists of the University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily have posted cartoons that have drawn irrational attacks from Christian groups. First, it was Christ on an xy coordinate plane. Big deal. Mathematics is on the minds of University of Virginia students a lot, because they are taking courses in the subject that are graded. So you can expect their cartoonists to put math into various situations. Then there was the one about immaculate conception sexually-transmitted disease. Last year, it was about a food fight among Ethiopians. That may very well be the case out in Africa.

This time it was cartoons on the comic strip PCB depicting God and the "virgin" Mary talking after they had sex, and another one was about Christ doing stand-up comedy on the cross. These two have received numerous objections from Christian groups and the National Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Now there are some that have said that these cartoons are in poor taste. Well, then, one does not have to look at them. These Christian groups do have a right to express their viewpoint. But to me, that right stops when they try to stop others from exercising their freedom of speech. These groups have clearly violated the cartoonists' rights, as they forced them to withdraw their cartoons.

Further, in my opinion, these cartoons highlight in their peculiar way problems with Christianity and the Catholic Church. God having sex with the virgin Mary? The doctrine of Virgin Birth is really absurd. The only way to produce a human child is to have an impregnation occur in the womb of a woman. Stand-up comedy on the Cross? The idea that somehow Christ rose from the dead, like some balloon floating in the air, and wound up with a father "God" somewhere way out there is incredulous as well. Maybe these cartoons are insensitive, but the Christian religion has clearly provoked them.

It seems to me that before Christians go and holler down the cartoon attempts of a few students at a university, they need to clean up their own act. Just this past week, Pope Benedict XVI was announcing three more "sins" that cause the sinner to roast in Hell. Wishing something like that on a person is itself a sin. In any case, the actions of student Christians and of the Catholic Church on these cartoonists are perhaps not as violent, but are in the same category as that of the Muslims who condemn the Danish cartoonists to death. There is no difference between them. Both groups want to abrogate people's right to freedom of speech. Those who want to take action against Muslim extremists may want to look at what their Christian analogues are doing.