February 14, 2006

The Tom and Jerry Show

I know you’re all wondering why Pickle Me This, the nation’s source for current events coverage, has not published the infamous cartoons. Now we’re firm believers in freedom of the press, but we do not believe in publishing material that is as intentionally distasteful as these cartoons are. The papers that published them originally and sparked the furor should not have published them at all, for the sake of common decency- though they definitely had the right to do so.

We are not publishing the the cartoons, not to placate the rioting masses, but rather because we consider it wrong to desecrate the beliefs of others in this way. This does not guarantee that we will not publish hilarious cartoons of Jesus in the future, because the image of Jesus is not revered in the Christian faith as Mohammed is to Islam. They are not equivalents. Perhaps the Iranians are right, and a good example of what we hold sacred in our culture is the Holocaust. We will not be publishing cartoons about that either.

One cannot think just in terms of polarity in this situation. Publishing an offensive cartoon does not make your press free- it makes you petty and a bit of a bigot.