A Blasphemy Against Humanity

Although I am a non-believer in a higher entity, I have the deepest respect for those who exercise their right of faith in a higher power, so long as their faith is based on a personal meditation and consideration. I have no arguments with religion of quiet, personal faith.

It is events such as this that I cannot hold the same peace with organized, fudamentalist religion. Gillian Gibbons, a British teacher at a private school in the Sudan, has been arrested for allowing her students to name a toy bear Muhammed. The quasi-legal basis of her arrest lies in Sudanese Legal Code, which is based heavily on Islamic Sharia law. Apparently, allowing a toy bear to be named after the Islamic prophet is blasphemy. Coming from the society that riots and threatens murder when an artist a continent away depicts the Prophet in picture, this really isn't surprising. Now, of course, the Sudanese people have every right to believe that such depiction is blasphemy. But I cannot restrain myself to respect of a practice that subjects a person of a different ethnicity and belief to such base and barbarous punishment as is called for in Sharia Law. 40 lashes, imprisonment and a fine for the perceived blasphemy of a teddy bear? This theocratic departure from reason and logic to impose irrational beliefs upon an innocent person strains the patience and diplomacy of every nerve in my humanist body.

I don't usually get this ruffled over any issue, but this latest blatant infringement on the basics of human rights by a government notorious for blatant infringement of human rights cannot be answered with a silent acceptance. Thus, I join my American voice with the chorus of British outcry. Release Gillian Gibbons from the bonds of illogic and injustice. If British governmental intervention is not enough to step between a radical religion and its victim, a battle for the introduction of humanity into the Sudan will have been lost.

Perhaps a little over-dramatic in it's presentation, but reader, I hope you will understand my outrage and feel similarly provoked.