The Associated Press reported today (03/29/06) that the company that operates Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries a couple months ago. But I get it. They can pander to those customers who might not have appreciated the cartoons in context and it doesn’t hurt them in the balance sheet. However, censoring the magazine is going to create more of a scene than just letting it sit silently on the shelf collecting dust before being shipped back to the distributor. The move also brings fresh free publicity for CSH. Now if they decided not to stock Dr. Phil’s latest fake psychology book then all hell would break loose – or better what if they ban the Holy Bible – with its tales of incest, sex, violence, and tribulation.
Category: Media
While cruising the Internet the other day, I came across a post by Adam Graham on his blog titled “Why You Can’t Trust the Left on Religious Freedom”. In the post he talks about the recent case of a man in Afghanistan who is under threat of execution for converting to Christianity. Afghanistan, although free of the mega-zelots, the Taliban, still bases their laws on sharia, or Islamic law. Graham takes another blogger to task for complaining about some religious conservatives from the US who complained about the persecution of the man. At one point he makes the statement: “Wow, and like I said, that’s why you can’t trust the left with religious liberty. First of all, do I think Russ would ever do violence against religious people? No. But what it shows is that Russ takes a flippant attitude towards it.” I had to respond to the post.
I was one of two to guest for the hour. The other guest was Eddie Tabash. He is a constitutional lawyer, associated with the Council of Secular Humanism, American Atheists, and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. He is a well known person in the Humanist movement. So I had to ask myself – why am I even on the show? My first radio show didn’t start out on a perfect note. I nodded off waiting for the producer to call me 10 minutes before the show so I missed the call. I woke up at 5 minutes to show time and the producer’s third call. I’m sure he started to breathe again when I answered the phone.
I will be a guest on a radio show called “Interconnect” on Monday 3/6/06 from 9 AM to 10 AM eastern time. The show is hosted by WMUB at Miami University of Ohio in Oxford. Edward Tabash from CSH and Americans United will be the other guest. The topic is “Civil Rights for Atheists”
On 2/23, the ACLU reached an agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a case challenging federal funding of religious activities in a nationwide abstinence-only-until-marriage program, the Silver Ring Thing.
HHS agreed to stop funding the program which also proselytize to the teens.
And a recommended website that supports separation of church and state
If anyone wants to see what the US would look like if we don’t stop with the entanglement of religion and government need only look at what happened in Damascus, Syria on Saturday.
For the last week or so, Muslims around the world have been protesting the publishing of some cartoons depicting their prophet Muhammad. Some the images looked silly and some expressed a view of Muslims as terrorists by having Muhammad’s turban look like a bomb.
What does the violence in Syria over cartoons relate to the US. There have been times when the religious right in this country have gone past mere protest when their religious beliefs were offended.