The Danish Imams who took the Jyllands-Posten article with 12 cartoons of Mohammed to governments in the Middle East after the appealed to the Danish government who refused to change anything in the free press also took three other cartoons which they said were symbols of how Denmark was attacking Islam. One of those photos, the black and white is the one shown by the Danish Imams and the color is the actual photo, was of a French man by the name of Jacques Barrot who won a pig squeeling contest held in France (via Neander News). There isn’t even a Danish connection to the contest nor the photo.

This is what appears to have helped the Danish Imams plead their case in the Middle East; fake photos completely unrelated to the Mohammed cartoons much less even Denmark.

We continue down the path of wanting to debate on whether it is proper to display images of religious icons, a debate which at its core is perfectly fine to have. That is if it includes all religions and all religious icons.

The New York Times apparently never got the memo that all religions should face equal protection or equal criticism. The NYT’s Michael Kimmelman writes that the 12 Danish cartoons were “callous and feeble cartoons, cooked up as a provocation by a conservative newspaper exploiting the general Muslim prohibition on images of the Prophet Muhammad to score cheap points about freedom of expression.” Included in the same article is a picture of the Virgin Mary made out of elephant dung (seen at right).

The NYT article is about controversial art and, as cited above, mentions the Danish Mohammed cartoons. You see, to the New York Times, pictures of Mohammed are “callous and feeble,” but pictures of the Virgin Mary are just fine and dandy. Why do different religions have a different set of criteria in which the media can poke fun of or strike out against, whichever the case may be?

Meanwhile the Danish Cartoon Jihad continues to grab headlines on network news. CNN showed the cartoons but pixelated the cartoons thus there was no point to the network showing them at all even though they are the center piece behind a big story. A NYT editorial written yesterday explained it thusly.

The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation’s news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.

Apparently the Arts section’s columnists don’t read the editorials. Then again, I’ve read that drivel so I don’t blame the Arts editor.

Now what’s humorous about this to me is that I don’t even see the Danish cartoons as an assault on Islam, in fact far from it. The cartoons were drawn as an appeal by the Jyllands-Posten to 25 cartoonists to draw Islam or Mohammed as they see the religion or prophet. Twelve cartoonists responded and we’ve all seen those images by now.

Included in the cartoons drawn was an article that described why the cartoons were created. They were created to satirize the West for our fear of criticizing Islam. That is not disrespect towards a religion but it is a bucking of the system, so to speak, concerning how the West as a whole has treated Islam far and away better than any other religion.

I extend a big tip o’ the hat to Gateway Pundit who is like white on rice, without the rice or white and in a strictly non-religious, non-racial, non-prejudicial, non-offensive way.