South Park Gets A Fatwa

South Park recently aired another episode which was, shall we say, not particularly kind to the alleged prophet Mohammed. The most recent version disguised him as a big bear, but that was not Trey Parker and Matt Stone's original version (see picture). Last week he was disguised as Santa Claus. The first time they blasphemed, the Mohammed character was not even in the final cut. He was a disembodied voice outside the door.

The original Mohammed episode was also censored by the Comedy Central execs, and the Santa Claus version wasn't originally intended to be that way, either. Parker and Stone are angry, but positively sweet compared to what the current original version produced from the jihadis. Having found the original version of the recent episode online, a Muslim organization made it very clear that Parker and Stone are now subject to death for insulting the prophet. Abu Talah Al-Amrikee wrote on revolutionmuslim.com that "We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably end up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them."

Regardless of the disclaimer, this was a threat pure and simple. Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered and nearly decapitated by Muslims who didn't like his tone when discussing Islam. What is any reasonable person supposed to think this was? Whether it is a threat that would qualify as criminal is a separate discussion. It is likely a "conditional threat," protected by centuries of English common law and 220 years of First Amendment guarantees. But a threat is a threat is a threat.

For the third time, the South Park producers caved in to the pressure. They have allowed truly offensive caricatures of Jesus Christ, the Scientologists, liberals, conservatives, and pretty much everything in-between. Only one group succeeds in getting them to censor Parker and Stone. And it isn't those darned Christians who are lurking everywhere prepared to do violence. Nor is it the Scientologists, threatening to sic Tom Cruise on them. It's not even Barbra Streisand threatening to sing "People Who Need People." Nope--it's the purveyors of the religion of peace. Only they threaten to behead those who show disrespect for their god or his prophet, and with some regularity carry out the threats.

OK, all sane people can agree that it was a threat, whether prosecutable or not. But nobody in his right mind says the mainstream media are sane. Ever since the controversy began, the usual suspects have been downplaying the seriousness of the threat. And who better to point to than the New York Times? Following the MSM mantra of "thou shalt never find anything reprehensible about the practitioners of Islam," columnist Dave Itzkoff at first simply wrote that the internet post about Parker, Stone, and the South Park producers "compared the show's creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, to Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who was killed in 2004 by a Muslim militant, CNN reported." No mention of the actual threat, let alone the fact the fact that many of these threats actually get carried out. It was just a "comparison."

When the ship really hit the sand over the self-censorship of the South Park producers, Itzkoff felt compelled to expand on his theme. "South Park, the Comedy Central series, is an animated show that tries its best to push buttons and the boundaries of free speech by mocking every high-profile target in sight, from Hollywood celebrities to religious figures." Never mind that in the same week, South Park, uncensored, showed Buddha snorting Coke and Jesus as a compulsive consumer of pornography. But somehow, those didn't offend those dangerous Buddhists and Christians enough to cause the producers to censor the episode as a result of threats.

Itzkoff manages to dance around the Muslim death-threat and defend the Muslim writer of the internet post as having merely stated a warning. "The next day, the South Park episode was criticized (emphasis added) by the group Revolution Islam in a post written by a member named Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee." Get it? It was one individual who was just criticizing the depiction of Mohammed. No threat there. Then, channeling the exact same words used by the Islamic extremist in his own defense, Itzkoff repeated the phrase from the post: "We have to warn Matt and Trey . . . ." Wasn't that nice of the jolly Muslim to warn Parker and Stone that they might, maybe, possibly, arouse some negative feelings.

Well, that's par for the course. The Times previously refused to actually print the Mohammed cartoons that brought on violence all over Europe and the Middle East, and criticized those who did. The Times is very sensitive about the feelings of religious folks, so long as they're Muslim. All others, particularly fundamentalist Christians and Catholics, are fair game. Just like the Obama administration, the Times believes in free speech, but only if it's the correct free speech. It's a combination of lack of respect for the true meaning of the First Amendment and pure cowardice. They can go after Christians and Jews, but if ever is heard a discouraging word about Islam, they know they could end up, as New Amsterdam governor Peter Stuyvesant once said, "a few inches shorter at the top."