Any image will offend

Letter writers, and the pope, who accede to the idea no image or words that some, indeed many, find offensive are wrong. Free speech needs to allow commentary, satire, even ridicule of beliefs, contrary opinions and doctrine.

While news media freely published images of “Piss Christ” and “Madonna with Dung” when these “works of art” were produced, the decision to publish was correct. Christians and many Catholic dioceses were outraged, protested, picketed and threatened boycotts. Notably, neither artist nor those who published the images were murdered or seriously threatened.

It seems OK to hold Scientology, Christianity and Judaism to satire and scurrilous attack, but Islam is beyond such commentary. Anti-Semitic cartoons and blood libel in Islamic press get a pass. Are we on the road to anti-blasphemy laws?

The Spokesman-Review was right to publish the cartoon it did. The more obscene ones were inappropriate for a general-circulation paper. However, the Danish cartoons from several years ago were not obscene and should have been shown. Any image of God, any prophet, saints and angels will offend some. That’s a price of freedom.

John McTear

Coeur d’Alene