Hypocrisy of the Left.

Just as I finished writing in the comments in the post below about the irony of the left insisting on tolerance for the Muslim religion when they have none for the Christian one here, I hop over to Protein Wisdom and Jeff says it much better than I could.

"I’m not the most religious person in the world, but even I recognize that, to many devout Christians, abortion, say, is an unpardonable sin—a social / physical act that though sanctioned by the laws of the state and therefore legal, is nevertheless irreconciliable with the basic foundational tenets of their fundamental Christian faith.

And yet somehow I can’t for a second imagine that Steve Gilliard would spend as much time explaining to “intolerant” feminists and “extremist” womens’ reproductive rights advocates why the deeply-held beliefs of fundamentalist Christians must be respected (read: obeyed)—even by those who don’t hold with them—as he does this morning explaining to intolerant westerners how the deeply-held religious beliefs of Muslims must be respected (read: obeyed), even by those who don’t hold with them—and even if doing so means that free speech is sacrificed is sacrificed in the process to the theocratic dictates of a minority tribalist religion whose demands require a rewriting of the social contract that gives them de facto control of the host country. Sorry, Gilliard seems to say, but the west started all this by letting Muslims in—so they’re just going to have to learn to deal with all this Otherness. Or else, y’know, rocks will be thrown, flags burned, embassies firebombed, etc., etc.

Now sure, in one example, the offense in question is cartooning(the critique of policy, ideology, or action via pointed satire)—while in the other instance, the offense is the termination of a life. But that’s really just nitpicking, isn’t it—because what remains constant is the call for a social “tolerance” that respects the doctrinal dictates of a particular religious group.

Or maybe Gilliard has decided that being intellectually consistent is secondary to the fact that he believes he’d look better in sandals and a flowing silken headscarf than he would in Amish highwaters and one of those big, buckle-heavy hats."