Now he gets it

Syed Soharwardy, the Calgary Imam who launched a human rights complaint against The Western Standard for publishing the Danish cartoons of Muhammed, has changed his tune considerably:

When I initiated my complaint against Mr. Levant, I saw human rights commissions as a non-violent means of resolving differences among Canadians.

I was not aware of the controversies between the commissions and Canada's faith communities. I am thinking specifically of my friend Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary.

[...]

In listening to the experiences of Bishop Henry and Pastor Boissoin, I realized how precious religious freedom is to our country and how easily freedom is lost. (via Blazing Cat Fur)

Henry and Boissoin got into trouble for their condemnations of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, with which I presume Soharwardy agrees. (I do not, though I do not support punishing them for expressing their views.) And it illustrates a point we "freespeechers" have been making from the start: those who try to censor speech they find offensive will eventually find their own speech censored. (Now, let's see if the Imam will stand up in defence of threatened speech which personally offends him.)

Related: Andrew Sullivan is taking some heat from his readers for condemning PZ Myers's proposed communion-wafer stunt. Personally, I think Myers is being obnoxious, and I think Catholics have every right to criticize him. (Similarly, I think Muslims have every right to criticize anyone who published articles and cartoons they found offensive.) It's when people threaten violence, or demand the state step in to protect their feelings, that I have a real problem.

Also related: Ezra, my friend, I'm on your side. But if you wanted to rally Canadians to the defence of human-rights commissions and hate-speech laws, you'd get the Americans to butt in.

Damian P.

Posted by damian at July 12, 2008 10:42 AM