My Entry For “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”

20 May, 2010 by John Hawkins

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As a Christian, I find it extremely annoying when people make fun of my religion. Yet, when the people at the New York Times or Comedy Central show an image that offends my religious sensibilities, I don’t cut their heads off as an example to others. I also don’t threaten to murder people over cartoons that I find offensive. That’s how it goes in a free society. You have to be able to deal with free speech that you don’t agree with.

Unfortunately, a lot of radical Muslims don’t accept that and because of a combination of political correctness and cowardice, they’ve managed to intimidate the mainstream media:  from : showing images of Muhammad. They’ve also made utterly intolerable death threats towards people who’ve drawn images of Muhammad and unfortunately, for the most part, “moderate Muslims” haven’t been willing to speak up against that kind of behavior.

Since that’s the case, “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” was born,

What started out as a cartoonist’s call to action against censorship — an open invitation to submit caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad — has led to death threats, a court order to temporarily block parts of the website in Pakistan and a call for a boycott of Facebook to protest what Muslims believe is blasphemy.

“Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” began last month as the brainchild of a Seattle-based cartoonist named Molly Norris, who was appalled by Comedy Central’s decision to censor an episode of “South Park” that depicted Muhammad in a bear costume.

As a way to protest the network’s decision — which came after an Islamic extremist website warned of retaliation against the show’s creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker — Norris created a poster with likenesses of Muhammad as a domino, a teacup and a box of pasta.

She declared May 20 “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” — and her efforts quickly went viral, spawning several Facebook pages with thousands of followers dedicated to the event.

After thinking about it, I decided that the free speech aspect of this:  is more important than my desire not to unnecessarily offend members of another faith that, let’s face it, I think is a phony religion any:  way. So, with that in mind, here’s my hand-drawn entry for “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”: