by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n
Advancing a Free Society<\/em><\/p>\n One of Broadway\u2019s big hits this season is the musical\u00a0The Book of Mormon<\/em>, a creation of the scatological geniuses behind the cartoon\u00a0South Park<\/em>. As one would expect, the show is \u201cblasphemous, scurrilous and more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a blue streak,\u201d as the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0put it, satirizing every dimension of Mormonism from its obligatory missionary work to the planet Kolob God supposedly lived on or near. But despite this ridicule, theTimes<\/em>\u00a0reports, \u201cthere have been no pickets or boycotts, no outraged news releases by Mormon defenders and no lawsuits.\u201d In fact, \u201cThe Mormon Church itself . . . has signaled to members to turn the other cheek, while quietly preparing to make the best of the publicity.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the burning of a Koran on March 20 by a fringe Florida pastor sparked riots in Afghanistan. On Friday, ten foreigners, including two who may have been beheaded, and several Afghans were killed when a mob of thousands, chanting \u201cDeath to America\u201d and \u201cAllahu Akbar,\u201d attacked a UN compound in usually placid Mazar-e-Sharif in the north. The next day, nine Afghans died when riots broke out all over Kandahar, the spiritual homeland of the Taliban.<\/p>\n So a highly visible and critically praised Broadway play that will be seen by thousands is met by the insulted church with a shrug, while a solitary act by the leader of an obscure, 50-member, non-denominational congregation triggers lethal violence aimed at the same Western nations that are spending blood and treasure to give Afghans political freedom and liberation from bloody tyrants. What do we make of this contrast?<\/p>\n The obvious point is that such violence on the part of Muslims whenever they feel their religion has been insulted has been common for decades. The first major global outbreak of Muslim violence happened in February 1989 when Iran\u2019s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa \u2014 reaffirmed by Iran\u2019s Ayatollah Khamenei, by the way, in 2005 \u2014 that enjoined the murder of Indian writer Salman Rushdie for his novel\u00a0The Satanic Verses<\/em>. Over twenty people died in the subsequent worldwide rioting and attacks. Since then, a Dutch filmmaker was murdered on an Amsterdam street for insulting Islam, 139 people died over a Danish newspaper\u2019s publication of mildly satirical cartoons of Mohammed, and a priest and nun were murdered in retaliation for Pope Benedict\u2019s quotation of a medieval Byzantine emperor, to name just the more famous instances of such violence. Other critics of Islam such as Ibn Warraq, a former Muslim who wrote\u00a0Why I am Not a Muslim<\/em>, or Bat Ye\u2019or, who has chronicled the historical oppression of non-Muslims subjected to Muslim power, are forced to live incognito. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali woman who exposed Muslim misogyny and intolerance, has to live in hiding, and Dutch politician Geert Wilders requires police protection because he produced\u00a0Fitna<\/em><\/a>, a short film documenting the Koranic sanctions for Muslim violence against Islam\u2019s enemies.<\/p>\n More significant has been the response to this violent intolerance and disdain for free speech. Westerners who delight in attacking Christianity or Judaism suddenly develop exquisite sensibilities when it comes to Islam. For example, the same\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0that reproduced on its pages the notorious photograph \u201cPiss Christ,\u201d which depicted a crucifix in a beaker of the photographer\u2019s urine,\u00a0rationalized<\/a>\u00a0its decision not to print the Mohammed cartoons as \u201ca reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols.\u201d So too with popular culture, which attacks with relish Christianity, but makes an exception for Islam. Have you noticed these days that Muslim terrorists have disappeared from movies and television, despite the fact that the vast majority of terrorist attacks these days are perpetrated by Muslims? In the just-released movie\u00a0Source Code<\/em>, the plot of which turns on preventing a terrorist from detonating a dirty bomb in Chicago, the villain turns out to be a white guy who frequents \u201canti-government\u201d \u2014 lib-speak for Tea Party \u2014 web sites.<\/p>\n But we know \u2014 as do the jihadists attacking us \u2014 that this double standard has nothing to do with respect and tolerance, and everything to do with fear. At least director Roland Emmerich, whose\u00a02012<\/em>\u00a0delighted in depicting the destruction of St. Peter\u2019s in Rome and other Christian monuments,\u00a0confessed<\/a>that he didn\u2019t show Muslim holy sites being destroyed because he feared a \u201cfatwa.\u201d Our brave, hip media and purveyors of popular culture, who fancy themselves edgy dissidents for attacking hoary clich\u00e9d villains like fundamentalist Christians, oil company executives, and the CIA, lose their nerve when it comes to Islam. That\u2019s why, as Terry Teachout pointed out in hisreview<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0The Book of Mormon<\/em>, \u201cMaking fun of Mormons in front of a Broadway crowd is like shooting trout in a demitasse cup. And while we\u2019re on the subject of imitation courage, let it be duly noted that if the title of this show were \u2018The Quran,\u2019 it wouldn\u2019t have opened.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who indulge this double standard may pretend that they are displaying quintessential Western principles of tolerance for the \u201cother\u201d and sensitivity to the victims of Western oppression. But tolerance for intolerance and violence is not a virtue, but camouflage for weak beliefs, since those who stand for nothing will often stand for anything. Worse yet, our willingness to practice self-censorship or to censor others who criticize Islam bespeaks a betrayal of one of our most important rights, free speech. Nor is there any reward for such appeasement. Certainly the jihadists aren\u2019t moved by our protestations of respect and tolerance for what we fatuously call the \u201creligion of peace,\u201d a characterization contradicted by numerous Koranic verses, the history of Islam\u2019s conquests, and the speed with which Muslims worldwide will riot and kill in the name of Islam. Nor are the jihadists impressed by our willingness to betray our own ideals just to save our skin. Rather, they see our indifference to Christianity, the foundational faith of Western civilization, and our groveling hypersensitivity to Muslim feelings as another sign that we are spiritually corrupt hedonists, and that Islam is the superior religion worth killing and dying for, and thus in the end destined to triumph.<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society One of Broadway\u2019s big hits this season is the musical\u00a0The Book of Mormon, a creation of the scatological geniuses behind the cartoon\u00a0South Park. As one would expect, the show is \u201cblasphemous, scurrilous and more foul-mouthed than David Mamet on a blue streak,\u201d as the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0put it, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22,86],"tags":[1025,366,236,1017,431,30,58,298],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Se","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5393,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/epistle-to-the-muslims\/","url_meta":{"origin":3362,"position":0},"title":"Epistle to the Muslims","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 27, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Christian leaders abase themselves before Islam by Bruce S. Thornton City Journal On November 18, the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0ran a full-page ad entitled \u201cA Christian Response to\u00a0A Common Word Between Us and You.\u201d\u00a0A Common Word\u00a0is an October letter from 138 Muslim scholars and clerics \u201cto leaders of Christian churches, everywhere.\u201d It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6606,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bruce-thornton-on-secure-freedom-radio-with-frank-gaffney\/","url_meta":{"origin":3362,"position":1},"title":"Bruce Thornton on Secure Freedom Radio with Frank Gaffney","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Seth Jones, Bruce Thornton, Peter Pham, Diana West October 9th, 2013\u00a0\u00b7\u00a0Comments SETH JONES, Associate Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, joins guest host DAN BONGINO, to help explain the terror threat from and historical background of the terrorist organization al-Shabaab. BRUCE THORNTON, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":936,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/koran-burning-and-destructive-double-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":3362,"position":2},"title":"Koran Burning and Destructive Double Standards","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The riots and violence in Afghanistan over some accidentally burned Korans are following a script that by now is all too drearily familiar. As we have seen over the years with the riots over the Mohammed cartoons, Pope Benedict\u2019s comments about violence in Islam,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5524,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/holy-wisdom\/","url_meta":{"origin":3362,"position":3},"title":"Holy Wisdom","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Why the Pope should call for the return of the Hagia Sophia by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Many in the West are congratulating Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s recent trip to Turkey, where in the Blue Mosque he prayed facing Mecca and made other gestures meant to salve the wounds raised\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5248,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/suicidal-tendencies-in-the-west\/","url_meta":{"origin":3362,"position":4},"title":"Suicidal Tendencies in the West","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 18, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Tolerance unreciprocated leaves the West vulnerable. by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Last week riots broke out in Afghanistan and Pakistan over an unfounded rumor, irresponsibly published by\u00a0Newsweek\u00a0magazine, that an American interrogator had flushed a Koran down the toilet. In response, the administration has been anxiously assuring the Muslim world\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5380,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-moderates\/","url_meta":{"origin":3362,"position":5},"title":"Muslim “Moderates”","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What's in a word? by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers The war against Islamic jihad continues to be compromised in the West by the dominant narrative that supposedly makes sense of the conflict. In this scenario, the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful moderates, while the jihadists exploit a distortion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3363,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3362\/revisions\/3363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}