Fitting Punishment?

For anyone who doesn't know, let me recap a recent news story. There is an English woman who has been teaching school in Sudan. In an effort to teach the children in the class of seven year olds about the democratic voting process she had them vote on what to name the class teddy bear. One of the options was "Muhammad", which, in the end, is the name that won the vote. Seems perfectly innocent one would think, right? Well, one would be wrong. Apparently the Islamic Government of Sudan decided that this teacher had done this for the cause of insulting Islam, and she was arrested.

Initially there was talk of her receiving a sentence of 40 lashes and possibly years in prison. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and she was only sentenced to 15 days in prison. Obviously those cooler heads still weren't cool enough, because she didn't do anything to be punished for to begin with.

This 15 day prison sentence, while an outrageous miscarriage of justice to any rational person, is not good enough for some of the Muslim population of Sudan, masses of whom took to the streets demanding that she be put to death for insulting Islam. Can you imagine putting someone to death because they didn't realize that giving a teddy bear the same name as the founder of a religion (not to mention a VERY popular Muslim name) would be taken as offensive?

To their credit, in a rare display of common sense and courage, many Muslims from the UK and other various parts of the world have stepped up and condemned the Sudanese for, what they have termed, a gross over-reaction. Ali Alhadithi, the President of The Federation of Student Islamic Societies was quoted on Foxnews.com as saying, "We are deeply concerned that the verdict to jail a schoolteacher due to what's likely to be an innocent mistake is gravely disproportionate." Meanwhile, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams stated that the affair was, "an absurdly disproportionate response to what is at worst a cultural faux pas." I only use that quote because it puts it quite plainly as it is.

So, while this case is not something that speaks ill of all Muslims, as some of their actions in the past have done, it still shows you just how incredibly intolerant this religion is.

For years Christians have had to endure Blasphemy and disparaging remarks about our Very God, and His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Just a couple of examples include a play which portrayed Jesus as a homosexual, and a movie which portrayed him as a drunken whore monger, but, being that we know these things are not true, we quietly protest, which we are ridiculed for, and get on with our lives.

Could you imagine the outrage from... well, pretty much everyone, if James Dobson or the late Jerry Falwell had called for Dan Brown to be put to death for writing his trash book about Jesus leaving a physical bloodline? For one, they never would have done such a thing, but for two, if they had, we would still be getting beaten over the head with it at every turn.

Remember, Islam is a Religion of peace... and if you don't believe them, they'll kill you!