Blaming the Victims

Welcome to Outrageous Stupidityland, where a man attacked by an axe-wielding madman is responsible for his own victimization:

The Guardian has been a bastion of faitheism and mush-headed religous apologetics, the home of Madeleine Bunting, Andrew Brown, and now — the ultimate apologist — Nancy Graham Holm. In a piece published today, called “Prejudiced Danes provoke fanaticism,” Holm blames the recent Muslim attack on Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard on “prejudiced Danes” who “failed to respect religious belief.” (Westergaard is the cartoonist who depicted Muhamed wearing a bomb in his turban.)  The Danes shouldn’t have humiliated Muslims! The Danes brought this on themselves! If only they’d just shut up about religion!

Apparently, in Holm's world, attacking a man with an axe because he didn't flatter your faith is a perfectly reasonable response.

Jerry Coyne's arm got tired, so Ophelia Benson continued the spanking thusly:

So the real villains here are the cruel heartless Danes who are not charmed by religion. The guy with the axe is just an understandably upset victim of the horrible secular Danes, who don't share his tender erotic love for Islam.

Now the Danes won't back down and the few but fatally insane radical extremists will continue the fight...This time, Westergaard's attacker was caught – but someone else is out there waiting for an opportunity to strike again.

Because the Danes won't back down, which they ought to do, because these people with the axes are so reasonable and fair and modest in their demands. All the Danes have to do is apologize for something one newspaper did and promise never to do it again. A mere nothing! It's so simple - there are these maniacs saying 'we want to kill you and we're going to do it' and if only everyone apologizes to them, everything will be all right. Can't you see that?

Ophelia was of course being sarcastic, but I've heard far too many people state the case in all earnestness, in terms not far different.  And down this road, we will find such tourist traps as Her-Miniskirt-Made-Me-Rape-Her Ville and Genital-Maiming-is-Okay-Because-It's-Their-Culture Land.  Traveled it, got the t-shirt, suffered the Montezuma's Revenge, and I think we need a detour now.

Let me state this as clearly as possible: cartoons, no matter how offensive, are not a fucking death warrant.  Disdain for religion is not a license for devotees to kill.  What the fuck is so hard about this?  Would Ms. Holm accept the theory that because she and her ilk have denigrated religious critics, religious critics are therefore justified if they attempt to give her a haircut at the neckline?  I somehow don't think so, but there's not an atom's worth of difference.

How the stupid burns....