Last week, Pamela Geller organized a “Draw Mohammed” contest that was unsuccessfully attacked by two terrorists. (Islamic State claimed responsibility.) A subsequent Washington Post headline declared: “Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas”—as if the intended victim of a terrorist attack should be required to apologize. Rich Lowry comments:
[I]t is no more legitimate to shoot someone for drawing Mohammed than it is to shoot a girl for going to school, or a Copt or a Shiite Muslim for his or her faith. Expecting apologies from these victims would be almost as perverse as expecting one from Pamela Geller.
Respectable opinion can’t bear the idea that she has become a symbol of free speech, which once upon a time was—and still is, when convenient—one of the highest values of the media and the left. If Geller were a groundbreaking pornographer like the loathsome Larry Flynt, someone would already be planning a celebratory biopic of her life. If she were a gadfly sticking it to a major Western religion rather than to Islam, she might be considered more socially acceptable. . . .
Scurrilous and even hateful speech and cartoons—sometimes involving religion—have been featured in Anglo-American history going back centuries. They are an inevitable part of a free society. In this context, a drawing of Mohammed is mild. The only reason it seems different is that some Muslim radicals are willing to kill over it. Which is exactly why Pamela Geller’s event wasn’t purposeless. The event was placing a stake in contested ground, in a way it wouldn’t have if it had offended Quakers or Roman Catholics, who don’t massacre people who insult them. It was a statement of defiance, of an unwillingness to abide by the rules of fanatics. . . .
For better or worse, we live in a society in which nothing is sacred. If we are to accept the assassin’s veto, the only exception (for now) will be depictions of Mohammed, which would be perverse. A free society can’t let the parameters of its speech be set by murderous extremists.
Read more on National Review: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418076/why-wont-pamela-geller-shut-rich-lowry