Tolerating criticism is part of freedom

My friend Doug wrote a letter to the editor and I think it is worth a read.

Tolerating criticism is part of freedom


I hope you'll allow one more letter regarding the pope's now infamous - and infamously hyped - speech, one sentence of which was used as yet another pretext for some Muslims' outrage. This sort of response is becoming commonplace.

Sameea Safi wrote a letter to the editor in which she expressed disappointment and offense at the pontiff's remarks. I'll leave aside the relative innocuousness of the speech, which mainly dealt with broad themes such as faith, reason, the nature of God, and the ridiculousness of forced "conversion" to any faith or no faith at all. Safi further stated that there is no theology in Islam that endorses forced conversions.

In short, the "true Muslims" to which Safi refers obviously haven't been able to convince the radical Islamist imperialists that conversion by the sword is un-Islamic.

Anyway, my issue is rather with Safi's offense at the pope's remarks. I fully understand her offense at these remarks. As a Christian I'm offended by many things: movies such as "Dogma;" the ACLU's unending campaign to stamp out all expressions of faith in the public square; snide remarks by entertainers and the media elite regarding evangelical Christians and so forth.

The simple fact that my wife and I have to work so hard to prevent our kids from becoming coarsened by a secularist/materialist society, and that so much of what passes for pop culture these days seems diametrically opposed to most of what we believe, is offensive.

Having said all that, here's the difference between my belief system and the beliefs of many (notice I did not say all) Muslims, both in Western countries and Islamic societies.

I'm willing to engage those with whom I disagree in debate and to attempt to change their points of view. Barring that, I'm free to seek entertainment elsewhere or to ignore offensive remarks, and therefore allow the power of the free market to influence the debate.

What I'm not willing to do is to engage in violence, threats of violence, and other coercive behaviors, all in an attempt to place my beliefs beyond the reach of discourse due to fears of retribution.

In free societies, one has every right to be offended. However, it doesn't place your beliefs beyond the reach of satire, criticism or parody. If Islam is to be above criticism or insult, then I would suggest all who feel this way need to move to a country that doesn't allow criticism of Islam.

Most Americans don't go out of their way to be offensive, but neither do we believe any person, group or belief system to be off-limits to offense. I will not (and I suspect a large majority of freedom-loving people feel the same way) allow anyone to alter my right to speak critically about any topic.