As Professor Althouse observed, quite a few bloggers made the point that if Griffin had said "suck it Mohammad," a lot more would have taken umbrage. As Cassy Fiano over at Wizbang noted:
Let's just pretend for a second. Let's pretend we removed the name "Jesus" from her lovely little speech and let's insert the name "Mohammad".
Now let's imagine what the response would be. Griffin would be chastised as a bigot. CAIR would be calling for public apologies and tolerance seminars, and I'm sure we'd see Muslims rioting and calling for much more than a public apology.
Well, sure. And it's also true that many -- not all, but many -- of the liberal-minded folks who line up with Kathy Griffin now would be less tolerant of her comments if she had gone after Mohammed. This is partly because it's more physically dangerous to insult Muslims. Bill Donahue is an insufferable twit, but he is highly unlikely to actually kill anybody. But it is also also because much of the liberal self-image is about sticking up for victims, and many of our friends on the left stupidly people view Muslims as a victim group.
I am already on record as being in favor of Koran desecration. The freedom to criticize, ridicule, or even insult religion is absolutely central to both free speech and freedom of religion. We shouldn't give in to Christian Censorship Envy and start censoring anti-Christian speech more. Rather, we should all make a concerted effort to insult Mohammad on a regular basis and make Muslims accept it. The way to attack this disparity is by demanding tolerance for "suck it Mohammed" in addition to "suck it, Jesus."
The Griffin thing does serve a useful purpose in this project: it helps to educate Muslims that, while you can remonstrate with somebody who insults your religion, or express disagreement or condemnation, at the end of the day you don't get to kill them. So I applaud Griffin, and I encourage her to invite Mohammed to suck it after Jesus is done sucking.
Of course, not everybody feels the way I do. Some folks are just outraged by the whole thing. Here is my absolutely favorite outraged reaction, by blogger Aurvant. I don't think it's a parody, though of course I could be taken in:
I’m not sure but if it was possible for a person to carve out their own personal niche in Hell I’m pretty certain that Kathy Griffin just build herself a mansion of torment in that Dark Place where the Worn Never Dies and the Fire is Never Quenched.
Seriously, I couldn’t stand to hear it due to the skin crawling effect it sent down my spine. I’m hoping for some kind of divine retribution but her getting her spotlight stolen at the Emmy’s is a start.
Let me get this straight. This guy believes that God has his own personal torture chamber. Which is bad enough. In his torture chamber, God doesn't just torture the folks who really, really, really deserve it: the really evil people who killed millions like Hitler and Marx and Mao and Stalin and Pol Pot. Serial killers. Child molesters, Rapists. He also tortures people like Kathy Griffin, who do nothing other than tell Jesus to suck it. This blogger says he is "pretty certain" he is going to torture Griffin for all eternity for this. Not only that, he's actively "hoping" she gets this "divine retribution." He wants her to be tortured.
I previously blogged about Mother Teresa's fetish for suffering, but at least Mother T presumably thought that the people who were brought cloeser to God by dying wracked with pain would be free of the suffering in the afterlife. Sure, she wanted to increase human pain and misery here on Earth, but I see no reason she was the sort of sadist who relishes other people being tortured for all eternity. But this dude actually relishes the thought.
It is pretty hard to square the whole "God With a Torture Chamber" idea with the notion that this deity is kind and benevolent and loves us. Particularly if he casts people into the torture chamber for such trivial slights. I can imagine a deity who tortures people who insult him for all eternity, and I can see it might behoove one to worship such a powerful and sadistic entity. But such a being isn't an all-loving deity -- it's a supremely powerful deranged psychopath. You would worship such a God for the same reason you might obey an armed bank robber who just killed a guard: terror.
I will say this: any being who tortures Kathy Griffin for all eternity because she made an arguably-offensive comment isn't worthy of my worship. Or yours.
