In defence of the Western Standard

Good commentary from the National Post: 

Canadian readers would find most of the cartoons -- which are widely available on the Web -- unremarkable. Even the ones that depict Muhammad unsympathetically are no worse than hundreds that have, over the decades, belittled Christ or the Virgin Mary. A couple are downright clever: One has Muhammad standing on a cloud waving his arms at arriving suicide bombers proclaiming, "Stop. Stop. We ran out of virgins." Another shows him assuaging furious palace guards with the words "Relax, folks. It's just a drawing made by a Dane in south-west Denmark."

But even if all 12 were flattering renditions, many doctrinaire Muslims would still be upset. And that is one of the Standard's points: It is dangerous to let a subset of society dictate what can and can't be published. As editor Kevin Libin wrote in the cartoon issue, "There are all kinds of thing in Islam that ... are considered offensive: homosexuality and women appearing in public with their legs uncovered." Are Westerners to submit to these beliefs, too?