Say What?

OK, fair is fair. A while back I posted about a guy who appeared on Hamas TV and said for all the world to hear that Jews have the power to bring about artificial earthquakes. Just so no one can say that I only pick on Palestinians, and ignore it when Israelis say bizarre or foolish things, take a gander at this from News.com in Australia:

Shlomo Benizri of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party said the only way to prevent the earthquakes was for parliament to stop liberalising laws concerning homosexuals, AP reported.

“Why do earthquakes happen? One of the reasons is the things to which the Knesset (parliament) gives legitimacy, to sodomy,” Mr Benizri said.

Mr Benizri said earthquake damage could be avoided if the parliament stopped “passing legislation on how to encourage homosexual activity in the state of Israel, which anyway brings about earthquakes”.

Two earthquakes originating in Lebanon have shaken Israel in the past week. The first occurred two days after the Israeli attorney-general ruled that same-sex couples could adopt children.

In recent years, Israeli courts have ruled that the government must recognise sex-sex marriages performed abroad and grant gay couples inheritance rights.

Please, no one tell Mr. Benizri that he’s channeling the spirit of Jerry Falwell. His heart couldn’t take it, I’m sure.

Your Yellow Stripe Is Showing

The Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, has followed in Kofi Annan’s footsteps, abandoning the defense of a fundamental freedom in favor of the “heckler’s veto,” according to Reuters:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reaffirmed his predecessor’s line on cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday, saying free speech should respect religious sensitivities.

“The Secretary-General strongly believes that freedom of expression should be exercised responsibly and in a way that respects all religious beliefs,” his spokeswoman Marie Okabe told reporters.

The cartoon issue has returned to prominence after Denmark’s five major daily newspapers last week republished one of 12 drawings of the Prophet that angered Muslims around the world in 2006.

They did so as a protest against a plot to murder one of the cartoonists who originally published the drawings in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

I checked the daily press briefings from which this report was taken (found here and here), and there’s no indication that Ban or his spokesperson had anything to say about the threats to the Jyllands-Posten cartoonist. There are at least two words that I can think of for a public official who takes this approach: “enabler” and “coward.”

By the way, in case anyone wonders, I would also defend the freedom of such characters as Andres Serrano (of “Piss Christ” fame), Terrence McNally (playwright whose works include one about a gay Jesus), and others who insult Christians and mock Christ to do so. I can then call them whatever I would care to, anything from blasphemers to tasteless Neanderthals to cowards who have no problem being “transgressive” when they assume their targets won’t try to kill them. That’s what freedom of speech is all about. Given that I value mine, I’m obligated to protect that of people who say things I don’t like, and to stand against those who would use the “heckler’s veto” to drown out all voices but their own. That’s why I oppose college speech codes, the various Canadian Human Rights Commissions, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, political correctness, and hyper-sensitive Christians who would think that anyone who insults them should lose their job.