Thou Shalt Not Kill... Unless Someone Insults Thy God

In eerily related stories this week, the United Nations approved a ban on "public defamation of religion" while across town in Manhattan the Lab Gallery announced they were removing the "nude, anatomically correct, chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ" from their Holy Week display at the Roger Smith Hotel.

In spite of the timing and proximity of the two events, whether they are related is unclear. In fact, the hotel housing the display made the decision to cancel it after influential Catholic clergy had threatened to boycott the hotel.

Nobody questions that there would be world-wide rioting with good and bad Muslims alike trampling each other in the streets while dirty bombs creep closer to US borders by the day if someone were to sculpt a naked chocolate Muhammed. But it's ok, because that won't happen since after nearly a year and a half of trying, Arab nations have managed to band together on an issue enough to pass an international law limiting freedom of speech.

The way it works is that governments of all 192 UN member countries are required to have and enforce laws restricting freedom of speech by banning "public defamation of religion." The resolution is not specific about what constitutes public defamation, and does not specify guidelines for acceptable laws or punishment for the offense. Sanctions would be appropriate for nations that fail to comply.

In the "I will know it when I see it" vain, it seems likely that the Danish cartoons uproar would be used as precedent. While some in the Muslim world called for death for the artist, and probably as many people related to the publishing as possible, other influential leaders denounced these calls.

Following the publication of the cartoons, a group of Danish Imams dissatisfied with the government's response, embarked on a tour of the Middle East to spread the inflammatory material and fire people up. To pad their case, they added three additional offensive images, including one depicting the Prophet Muhammed engaged in bestiality with a donkey, along with the original cartoons. The extras were said to have been sent anonymously to Muslims on the web with intent to intimidate, insult, and/or enrage.

Western nations who cast losing votes against the UN resolution complained that it excessively restricted the freedom of expression, and that it focused too heavily on Islam. One has to wonder if the Cardinal who complained about the chocolate Jesus had been aware of the passage of the international ban this week if he might have been able justify death threats against the hotel management instead of simple boycott.

However, the U.S. has had a surprisingly muted role in the spectacle. Even at the height of the controversy while the cartoons were top news, the only news outlets in the US that would print the cartoons were two University newspapers in Illinois, one of which resulted in at least one firing on campus. The US Congress has not proposed legislation opposing public defamation of religion, and the only free-speech case in the Supreme Court currently has more to do with education than religion.

The self-censoring in a country known for sensationalizing anything that gets ratings was not for fear of international sanctions. It probably was not for fear of violating any federal or state laws since the publication would most likely be protected under the first amendment. Defamation, however, is a recognized exception to the first amendment, although that has traditionally referred to false statements about individuals and has not yet been tested in terms of defamation of religion.

But do we really need an international law against defamation of religion? It seems like people in the US do a decent enough job of avoiding defamation of religion out of civility - if you don't have something nice to day, don't say anything at all. Or more realistically, the dominant force in our society known as capitalism, enforces a de facto ban on especially controversial positions because they can result in boycotts at best and vandalism, litigation, or acts of terrorism at worst.