Toon Heads

Many "conservatives" are crowing over the sometimes violent protests over the Danish Mohammed cartoon, undoubtedly believing that the actions of a few thousand confirms their prejudices regarding over a billion people. I'm not going for the low hanging fruit of how a similiar inference can be drawn regarding abortion clinic bombers and the Christian faiths.

While I'm not cracked-up on the suppression of free speech aspect of this, I want to point out that at least these protesters are standing up for what they believe, even to the extent of using violence to correct what they perceive to be a great wrong. Let's contrast this to what happened when Serrano's "Piss Christ" was unveiled in 1987. Undoubtedly there was some of the obligatory complaining from "conservatives". I don't know if there was any protests as a result of this , but there certainly weren't any violent ones.

Undoubtedly some will argue that their Christian faction is more civilized than their Moslem counterparts. But how far does this hommage to civilization go? Does it demonstrate more civility to have offensive art such as the "Piss Christ" funded by the government? Or is it a testament to "conservative'ss" civility that the National Endowment for the Arts is still alive and kicking nearly 20 years later, when Republicans control the Legislative and Executive branches of the federal government? Or perhaps it is the rank-and-file's disdain of tax evaders, depite the fact that tax revenues often fund immoral practices?

It is high time for conservatives to quit turning a blind eye, and take a page from the Muslim's playbook.