Yesterday, Catholic League president Bill Donohue sent a letter to the executive editors of the nation’s top newspapers, and to the deans of the nation’s top schools of journalism, drawing their attention to the decision by the Washington Post not to run an inoffensive cartoon by Wiley Miller in Sunday’s edition. Because the “Non Sequitur” cartoon printed the line “Where’s Muhammad?” at the bottom, it was considered taboo.
Now, thanks to James Rainey at the Los Angeles Times, we have learned that the cartoon was pulled from his own newspaper, as well as from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Dallas Morning News and many other papers.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responds as follows:
Every time Catholics complain about some Catholic-bashing artwork, movie, television show, play or cartoon, we are told that “art is in the eye of the beholder”; “it’s open to interpretation”; “it’s done to make people think”; “it’s complex”; and other dodges. But when it comes to Muslim sensibilities, it is sufficient to censor anything that might possibly tick them off, even if every person not housed in the asylum knows the work is innocuous.
Unfortunately, those who are not cowards in dealing with this issue are in the minority. A book can be published about the Danish cartoons, but the cartoons cannot be reproduced in the same volume. Matt Stone and Trey Parker at Comedy Central can rip Jesus on “South Park,” but can’t joke lightly about Muhammad. And now we have newspapers galore that would rather prostitute everything they stand for before ever making Muslims feel uneasy. Which means they no longer stand for anything.
