A mini- storm has erupted, yet again, over a cartoon. This time it is an innocuous Jesus and Mo cartoon, worn on the T-shirts of 2 atheist studio guests debating religion on a BBC TV show. The BBC chose to censor the image of the T-shirts by pixillating them. Maajid Nawaz, also a guest on the show, an one-time islamic fundamentalist radical and now head of the Quilliam Foundation, was prompted to tweet that the image was innocuous and that God was greater than the outrage prompted by the image itself.
Cue hysterical muslim outrage, death threats - and a petition, organised by a muslim LibDem activist, to bar Nawaz from being the Lib-Dem PPC for Hampstead, which has, apparently, garnered 20,000 signatures, all presumably from outraged and offended UK muslims.
Then C4 get in the act, this time censoring the image of mohammed during their transmission.
Should we really be deferring to nonsensical religious sensibilities this way, by pro-actively censoring innocuous imagery that "might" cause offence to some?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/01/29/in-the-u-k-channel-4-news-program-covers-up-a-jesus-and-mo-drawing-with-a-black-blob-to-avoid-giving-offense/
For myself, I am irritated at the BBC and C4 for the self-censorship, and irritated at these activists lobbying against Nawaz.