Religion and politics. In one post.

I've been reading about Draw Mohammed Day. Apparently there's been a big flurry of activity on Facebook with people up in arms over a television cartoon show having been censored to remove what some other people saw as an offensive depiction of the Prophet Mohammed, or rather, other people were offended because Mohammed was depicted at all.  
So.
In response to this censorship some people concluded that the right to free speech in the United States was at risk, and in turn, decided to participate in the May 20 Draw Mohammed Day.
To show those lousy Muslims that we can say any damn thing we want in this country.


I know a guy who trucks cars for car dealers from auctions to the dealers' lots. A particular car dealer owed this guy's boss some money, wasn't paying . . . and the guy (who's American, born and raised) suggested to his boss that they put some stuff in one of the dealer's car's gas tanks. Something that would destroy the motor. Later.
The boss told him, "No. What he's doing to me isn't right, but that wouldn't be right either. And if you do it, I'll fire you."
The boss is named Ali and he's a Muslim.


Years ago I waited tables with a younger woman who was dating a Muslim, and eventually married him.  She had told me once that when she married her beloved, she would need to make peace with her family over issues that had existed since she was very young. I said, at the time, "Well, if you can, that's good..." And she said, urgently, "I have to." One day she and I had some words . . . I questioned her dedication to the job at hand, she told me the only thing to which she was committed was her art. (She was a cellist with the city's symphony orchestra, very artsy, kinda ditsy, but her heart was in the right place.) A couple of years after I last saw her I received a letter from her bringing me up to date on events in her life. The letter included no overt indication that she was making amends, but I wrote back and never heard from her again. I think she might have been converting to Islam at that time and was cleaning up the wreckage of burned bridges. 


I know a Yemeni named Abdul. He is one of the most charming and gracious people I have ever known. Simultaneously, he can be one of the most infuriating people I have ever known. His temper can go from zero to sixty in nothing flat, over things that seem, from my vantage point, to be insignificant. I yell back at him, tell him to Stop it! You're makin' me picture a bunch of guys on a beach in Yemen. Jumpin' up and down with daggers in their teeth. In Hammer pants !  ...and he laughs.  
It's a cultural thing: Yelling and laughing are what he does. 


Back to DMD.
I think that just because a person may lawfully do a thing is no justification for taking, and returning, offense. I think the people who want to "draw Mohammed" just because they have the right to do that are wrong. 
Not because I have sympathy for jihadis.
Not because I'm a Leftist; I don't think I am . . . at least not hardcore.
Not because I lack respect for my own country, or people in military uniform.
Here's why: Because people are people and people have a right not to be poked at with sticks over their religion or their ethnicity or any other thing. 
It's just bad manners.