A Religion of Peace/Hate Speech

The President is fond of calling Islam a "religion of peace." Uh-huh. So we come across on a regular basis articles like this one, Nigeria clamps curfew on town after churches burnt. This news from late last week has only been picked up by Reuters in the MSM, but also by some religious news outlets, here and here.

Evidently, a Christian woman made some derogatory remarks concerning Muhammed during a debate in a marketplace. She was arrested for blasphemy, but then released. According the the articles, local Muslims demanded that she be stoned to death. Religious tolerance?

I wonder why this has not gotten much news coverage. Nothing from AP, or UPI, nor the BBC, nor ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN. Is it because this is politically incorrect to highlight Muslim violence against Christians? Or is it because this is so commonplace that it is hardly "news" when churches and shops are burned down because of one woman's comment(s) in the marketplace?

It is hard to determine what the woman actually said, and whether it was, indeed, blasphemous. However, speech seems to be only in the eyes of the beholder these days. An article earlier this year in the San Francisco Chronicle details how "hate speech" legislation is being interpretted and applied.

• Roman Catholic Robert Smith is fired from an appointment on the Washington Metro transit authority board by Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich for the crime of saying that he doesn't approve of homosexuality.


• Journalist and author Oriana Fallaci cannot visit her native country of Italy for fear of being thrown in prison because of a lawsuit brought against her by the Italian Muslim Union for the crime of "defaming Islam."


• British neo-Nazi David Irving is sentenced to three years in prison in Austria for a 1989 speech in which he committed the crime of Holocaust denial.


• College Republican Steve Hinkle is found guilty by California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo) for "disruption" for the crime of putting up a flyer advertising a black conservative speaker.

What do the above examples have in common? They are the logical outgrowth of a dangerous trend sweeping the Western world: the criminalization and censorship of speech.

It is frightening when differing opinions cannot be shared without fear of these bloody and violent reprisals. And we cannot say, "Hey, it's only Africa", because this sort of redefining of hate speech is happening in the West as well.