Intellectual freedom in Canada: Everybody saw Mohammed, it seems

Blogger Blazing Cat Fur did something really edgy recently: He sponsored an Everybody Draw Mohammed contest, commemorating the Danish cartoon riots. Mark Steyn reflects on the contest:

Veronique, I initially had mixed feelings about Everybody Draws Mohammed Day. Provocation for its own sake is one of the dreariest features of contemporary culture, but that's not what this is about. Nick Gillespie's post reminds us that the three most offensive of the "Danish cartoons" — including the one showing Mohammed as a pig —were not by any Jyllands-Posten cartoonists but were actually faked by Scandinavian imams for the purposes of stirring up outrage among Muslims. As Mr Gillespie says:

It is nothing less than amazing that holy men decrying the desecration of their religion would create such foul images, but there you have it. It is as if the pope created “Piss Christ” and then passed it off as the work of critics of Catholicism.

So, if it really is a sin to depict Mohammed, then these imams will be roasting in hell.

Steyn goes on to point out that what Blazing is really doing is urging everyone to spread the risk.

Some might ask, well, how would I feel if people made fun of my religion? Actually, they do all the time. I prefer to live in a country where they can, and I am free to ignore them, and the civil service and freelance shakedown artists who want to interfere must seek other employment. Ah, if only, ...

And anyway, the extremist imams brought the battle to us. We did not bring it to them.

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