Against my better judgment ...

[Prism]

31. Mockery and ridicule are challenges to authority

Satire has a rich history of being a vehicle through which artists, activists, and ordinary people have taken on those in power. It punctures its sacredness and cries out against claims of the divine.

And make no mistake, religion exists as an authority structure and has used its power to push and keep down every minority it can in order to lift up its own tribe.

I'm not an atheist, and I have no interest in mocking or ridiculing religion. It is not my personal style. But this sudden demand for respect for some of the most homophobic and sexist institutions on earth is a curious thing. It is an illiberal thing that is more about feelings and self-righteous moral superiority rather than a studied examination of what the actual policy of leaving these religions unmolested would generate.

Religion ought to be weakened. This is an easily understood thing when we discuss Christian conservative fundamentalists. You and just about everyone in this thread has had no problems whatsoever assailing and mocking the Religious Right in this country when it suited your politics.

But because Islam is not oppressing you personally, you are able to give it a pass and through self-puffery declare you're just the better person here.

Which is a rather convenient and easily held position, requiring no effort, bravery, or personal price whatsoever.

Warm fuzzies about how tolerant you are is an easy play from the armchair. You are not being oppressed, you are not being denied your rights, and you are not suffering from a fundamentalist culture or system of law from within the cozy confines of Western civilization.

But crack open a history book. That civilization was built on writers, politicians, and philosophers who had plenty of "mean" things to say about religion and the authority the corrupt, the cruel, and the self-interested have derived from it over the centuries.