Another Pronouncement on Papal Free Speech

We thank gentle reader MattC for forwarding to us a not-so-long-ago column by World's Smartest Person Christopher Hitchens, in which Hitch weighed in on the spineless response of Western governments, more specifically the Bush White House, to the violent response to the Danish cartoons. Response to the Pope has been, of course, no different, and underscores the need of the Islamists to keep their followers stirred up about something more or less constantly.

But to the sublime Hitchens. Here's a tasty morsel from the meal:

Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet who was only another male mammal is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent. This uneasy coexistence is only an interlude, he seems to say. For the moment, all I can do is claim to possess absolute truth and demand absolute immunity from criticism. But in the future, you will do what I say and you will do it on pain of death.

Hitch goes on to explain how, as a devotedly non-religious person, his principles derived from the Enlightenment still prevent him from reacting violently toward religious people.

We think that Hitch is unfair in lumping all religions together as sources of prejudice. Briefly we'll say that Christianity has at its core a message that critiques all human prejudices, including those harbored by Christianity's practitioners. But it would nevertheless be nice if religious people could extend the same treatment to nonadherents as Hitch does to adherents.