CNSNews has an article on Islamic efforts to use the power of the UN to control speech about religion:

Critics of the OIC campaign say existing human rights instruments adequately protect individuals from incitement to violence based on religion, and they argue that a religion cannot be defamed.

They say the Islamic states promote the idea of religious defamation because international law recognizes that freedom of expression may be limited to protect reputations.

What the OIC actually is opposing is a range of social phenomena to which its objects.

According to a study drawn up by the U.N.’s new high commissioner for human rights ahead of the HRC session, these include “stereotyping and negative portrayal of religions, in particular Islam, [and] the association of Islam with violence and terrorism” after 9/11, as well as “ridicule,” “insults” and “Islamophobia.”

(Examples cited in OIC documents include newspaper cartoons caricaturing Mohammed, and a Dutch lawmaker’s documentary released earlier this year, linking the Koran to terrorism.)

Looking at this caused me to reflect on our American political battles just ended.   Mormons have been treated throughout this campaign, both primary and Veep, to any number of really ugly, insulting statements.  They have been subject to misrepresnetation and in some cases, accusations that almost rise to the level of liable.  As we have denounced those utterances on this blog time and time again, it has been tempting to want to control those statements along the lines that are here proposed concerning Islam.

As you read through the article, one cannot help but be struck by how Orwellian a society would be that actually did so.  As objectionable as much of what we have chronicled on this blog has been, it is important to remember that the fact that people can say such things without the fear of reprisal, argument perhaps, but  no reprisal, is part of what makes American great.

Suffering such insulting speech is difficult, but consider the alternative.
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