Islam and eggshells

Since Feb. 4, demonstrations have erupted in Muslim nations from Lebanon to Indonesia regarding a handful of cartoon drawings of the Prophet Mohammed that ran in a Danish newspaper in September.\nProtesters burned Danish embassies in Damascus, Syria, and Tripoli, Libya. They murdered a Catholic priest in Turkey and several other people have died. Arab countries have recalled ambassadors to Denmark demanding that the Danish government punish the newspaper. Iranian newspapers are even sponsoring Holocaust cartoon contests.\nI've always supported the civil rights of Muslims and Arabs here in America and the political and human rights of Muslims abroad. But it's getting harder to explain away the actions of fundamentalists. When extremists sawed off Daniel Pearl's head, I moved on. When Muslims in France rioted and burned cars for several days last fall, I grew more uneasy. But this cartoon business is ridiculous.\nProtesters find the cartoons offensive partially because they depict Mohammed at all, which is forbidden in Islam, and partially because they depict him \nnegatively.\nThere's a reason these negative images exist. Fundamentalist Muslims themselves make Mohammed look bad, the same way Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson make Jesus look bad. And when fundamentalists hijack my religion, I don't make excuses for them; I call them on it.\nThe fact these extremists can't take a joke is what the Danish drawings were poking fun at to begin with. Even the craziest Christians didn't torch Martin Scorsese's house after "The Last Temptation of Christ." I get angry when people trash Christ and the cross, but I don't make a federal case of it. I figure my God is big enough to take care of Himself.\nWe walk on eggshells around Islam because it's the little brother who whines that the West loves Judaism more. But Jews don't fly planes into buildings. Jews don't kidnap civilians and cut their heads off on TV. Jews don't torch embassies when hate-mongering diplomats make anti-Semitic remarks at the United Nations. Jews are the most historically embattled minority on the planet, and even that doesn't make them blow up children on buses.\nAs a gay man, I could serve in the Israeli Army with honor. In Saudi Arabia, I could be beheaded in the public square.\nI'm tired of pretending radicals are rational people. I try to believe Islam is a peaceful religion, but all I see are fundamentalists carrying out violent protests, sadistic decapitations of kidnapping victims, and hatred. I've tried to believe President Bush is oversimplifying a complex problem when he says Islamists "hate our freedom," but I'm beginning to wonder.\nPeople who claim a monopoly on truth, who are willing to do anything to impose that truth on others, are always dangerous, whatever their religion. They shouldn't be accommodated or excused by a bunch of equivocating apologists.\nThe people protesting these cartoons with violence should be dealt with as what they are -- hateful, lunatic, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, homophobic thugs and criminals.