When Words And Actions Decide To Compete

Okay, I think I am possibly the last blogger in existence not to comment on the Muhammad cartoons. Blame it on news fatigue, or the fact that it's the middle of the ACC season (incidentally, if anyone doesn't know this yet, Duke sucks.)

I've felt more torn than usual on this one. I have my own political code of sorts, and one of the central tenants of this is freedom of speech. It doesn't matter how much I personally detest something -- I respect the right of the person to say it. No matter how much trash comes out of Fred Phelps' mouth, he shouldn't be barred from funerals or churches in saying it. Kept at a distance, yes. But he should be heard. Growing up, the KKK and various white-supremacist groups marched through my hometown (which is one county over from the birthplace of the Klan.) No one tried to keep them from marching, but no one paid any attention to them. They usually marched through an empty square full of state troopers. Angry words feed hate, but silence quells it.

On the other hand, there is something else that I very strongly believe in -- respect, particularly for religion. People have their own assorted beliefs and Gods and traditions, and those need to take a priority in others' interactions with them. For instance, the Amish don't believe in having photographs taken of their faces, for various reasons. If you go to an Amish town, you'll find a lot of baby dolls dressed in black and dark blue and bonnets and hats. But they have no faces stitched on their cloth heads. Does this mean that people respect their wishes? No, because I've seen photo books about the Amish. However, those who understand and respect their beliefs often take rear-view pictures of them. And if you do take a picture of an Amish family head-on, they're not going to run after you and yank the film out of your camera or write nasty letters to the papers or anything. That's because they believe in peace above all else, and that's probably more effective for them than raising a ruckus.

I think that the caricaturists were making a point about Islamic radicals, and unfortunately their point was made even clearer by the violence that ensued. And no, Christians can't feel any better about themselves because they haven't burnt any buildings or killed any people who dared to offend them in the last, um, 150 years. Even if we haven't committed physical violence, we are spreading our hate and ignorance about other faiths and lifestyle through our words and deeds. But as people, we have to learn how to respect others before we respect ourselves. So if I defend the right of these journalists to have artistic and vocal freedom, I do not agree that being blasphemous to Muslims was a good ethical decision, and I'm not going to let my support of free speech override my objection to bad judgement. Sure, you think that a segment of their population is dangerous and hurtful. But does offending the whole group make that any better?

(I will also say, in case this is all very holier-than-thou, that I have not always practiced what I preach here. I've had my own experiences with certain segments of Christianity that lead me to disrespect them. And I know that's wrong and poisons myself as well as others, so it's something I'll keep working on, in my hippie-dippy, UU and Buddhist-exploring way.)