February 27, 2006

Double Standards on Religious Cartoons at the LA TIMES

From Dana Parsons, in the LA TIMES:

Do papers have the right to publish them, even if Muslims are offended? Of course.

But, try as I might, I can't muster anything near outrage that papers, including this one, have not. Other than just publishing them because we can, is it really crucial to the debate that we see someone's depiction of an Arab-looking man wearing a bomb-shaped turban?

Is it so difficult to imagine what that looks like? Is our grasp of the debate lessened by not seeing a cartoonist's depiction of Muhammad?

OK, you might well say, but why not show it, anyway? Why self-censor?

Simple: Out of respect to Muslims who are bent out of shape over it. It's not as though they're protesting the drawing of a building or an animal. Muhammad is their most sacred prophet and cornerstone of their religion. Is it that much of a concession, in this specific case, not to reproduce a cartoon that doesn't enlighten anyway? To me, it isn't. And I don't feel cowardly for taking the position.

Maybe I'm asleep at the switch, but I don't feel any less protective of the 1st Amendment because I willingly forfeit the chance to see Danish cartoonists' renderings of a man who lived 1,400 years ago.

Gideon Kanner, Prof. of Law Emeritus of Loyola Law School, has responded with the following letter to the LA TIMES. The letter was forwarded to this web site. A search for the author on the LA TIMES site appears to indicate that the LA TIMES has not yet published the letter at this time.

Dear Ms Parsons:

Forgive my candor, but what you have written is a pile of hypocritical, self-serving bull puckey. It was only a few years ago that I had a lengthy exchange with your then "reader representative," a woman named Narda Zacchino, if memory serves me, in which I took offense at some outrageous LA Times cartoons mocking and demeaning the Jewish faith. Ms. Zacchino's attitude was, yeah, it was bad (the LA Times removed the offending cartoon from the web, but said nothing in print). So what? was her attitude. I offered to come to Times Mirror Square and publicly apologize if you people ever run a cartoon (by Conrad or otherwise) similarly demeaning the Moslem faith or abusing its symbol of the crescent the way your cartoonists routinely treat the Star of David. So far, I haven't had to deliver, and certainly after reading your vaporings it looks like I never will.

Now, when members of the "the religion of peace" are likely to do something physical if you piss them off, journalistic courage that we never hear the end of, goes out the window, and you suddenly develop "religious sensitivity." In a pig's eye. Plain old self-serving cowardice is more like it.

Gideon Kanner

Professor of Law Emeritus

Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

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Categories: Counter-Terrorism, Mainstream Media

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