In the wake of the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Egypt and
Libya, and especially the murders in Libya, will the Religious Left
defend free speech or align with demands that Islam’s critics be
silenced?
Some U.S. religionists seem angrier over the elusive
anti-Islamic film that supposedly provoked Islamist mobs into
mayhem and murder than over the attacks themselves. That Koran
burning Terry Jones, the bizarre pastor of a small Florida
congregation evidently touted the film, has also enraged Religious
Leftists, who have implied moral equivalence between insulting
Islam and murder.
Already fortified by two decades or more of multiculturalism,
9-11 only amplified the Religious Left’s zeal for accommodation of
every variant of Islam. Radical Islam, with its fierce intolerance
for the sexually liberated and free thinkers, not to mention
empowered women, should terrify liberal religionists in the West.
But the Religious left has fairly studiously avoided direct
critique even of Taliban-style theology, preferring more vaguely to
disparage religious extremism.
The implication is sometimes that zealous Christians in America
are as threatening as al Qaeda. In fact, the Religious Left always
has fired far more specific and frequent rhetorical salvos at
conservative Christians, evangelical and Catholic, who are deemed
the main obstacle to the Religious Left’s cultural and sexual
agenda. Never mind that ardent Muslims, with widespread support
even in moderate Muslim societies, favor capital punishment for
sexual malefactors and religious dissenters. The Religious Left,
despite its global rhetoric, was always more concerned about
domestic politics than human rights for anybody in Iran or Saudi
Arabia.
And it has always been a source of pride among liberal
religionists that they are supposedly more attuned to the
sensitivities of other religions, primarily Islam, than are more
provincial conservative Christians. The head of Southern Methodist
University’s seminary carefully explained the latest situation
yesterday.
“American Muslims understand that built into the fabric of their
religious convictions is the tenet that representing the Prophet
Muhammad in any way would be abhorrent,” said William Lawrence,
dean of United Methodism’s Perkins School of Theology in Dallas.
“Conversely, American Christians are very familiar and quite
comfortable with depictions of Jesus dying on the cross. But it’s
not the role of American Christians to tell others what the tenets
of their religion should be simply because they don’t recognize
them in their own religious traditions. So this should prompt an
important discussion about why such a tenet is significant in
Islam.”
Should Muslims be able to ban depictions of Muhammad through
civil law or intimidation? Lawrence didn’t say. Instead he
continued: “In our society we have a very high level of commitment
to freedom of speech, including the freedom to say something
utterly reprehensible. But in many other parts of the world, that
freedom isn’t constitutionally assured. In those societies, the
actions of the U.S. film producers (behind ‘Innocence of Muslims’)
just wouldn’t be tolerated.”
True enough, but does the United Methodist seminary dean have
any preference for either perspective, i.e. free speech versus
blasphemy laws? If so, he demurred.
Instead, Lawrence concluded in
neutral terms: “It has been interesting to see the U.S. Secretary
of State and President Obama — as well as political leaders in
Yemen, Egypt and Libya, whose political systems are still in
development — condemn the content of the film while at the same
time condemn the violence that has erupted over it. And it is
encouraging to see the leaders of those countries say that the
people of the United States aren’t to blame over the work of one
person.”
Should we be “encouraged” that majority Muslims societies still
generate rage, however contrived or exploited, over an obscure film
half a world away that may or may not exist? Lawrence evidently
discerns common ground between Muslim Arabs and Americans leaders
who equally denounce murder and the production of low quality
insulting pseudo films.
More specific than the United Methodist seminary dean was
liberal Baptist clergy Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance,
which was founded in the 1990s primarily to combat the Religious
Right.
Writing for the Washington Post, he surmised “how much
work is left to be done before we
fully eradicate the prejudice and heal from the wounds
inflicted 11 years ago.” The implication is that anti-Islam
sentiment in America since 9-11 is as much if not more the problem
than radical Islamic terror.
Noting “violence and hatred cannot be the basis for dialogue
between the U.S. and the Arab world (really??), Gaddy lamented that
“anti-Muslim bigotry that has become all too pervasive in the
United States.” The maker of the “hateful
anti-Muslim film knew full well that it would provoke anger”
among Muslims, he lamented. “We saw what hate brought on Sept. 11,
2001 and we saw what hate looked like when
Terry Jones threatened to burn a Koran last year,” he opined,
as though destroying a holy book were morally on par with
murder.
Gaddy explained that Libya has emerged from years of
dictatorship so Libyans would misunderstand that an American film
must have government approval. “We will do well to intensify our
efforts to promote respect for religious freedom and strive for
interreligious understanding every day, which will help create a
new context for the inevitable misstatement or offensive remark
that provides a framework within which the wrong quickly can be
resolved.”
But does “religious freedom” for Gaddy and others on the
Religious Left include the right, as guaranteed in America’s
Constitution, to attack Islam through film or publicity stunts? Of
course Americans have long endured a media and arts culture that
routinely mocks Christianity. Should only attacks on Islam merit
special regard and protection?
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
birthed by Eleanor Roosevelt, and once universally revered by
secular and religious liberals, unequivocally declares in Article
18: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or
belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and
in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in
teaching, practice, worship and observance.” And Article 19 says:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media
and regardless of frontiers.”
Should critics of Islam, whether thoughtful or stupid, have full
freedom of religion and freedom of expression? Enmeshed by radical
multiculturalism, and intimidated by violent overseas mobs as well
as by domestic political correctness, the Religious Left, among
others, seems increasingly ambivalent about these rights.
