After the NYT Refused to Run Muhammad Pics, They Run The Pic of the Virgin Mary in Elephant Dung

31 May, 2015 by Michael Schaus

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Remember how the New York Times refused to publish any pictures of the Muhammad cartoon from Charlie Hebdo? Ostensibly, such editorial discretion was taken because the sensitive and inclusive folks over at the Times deemed the cartoon to be particularly offensive to Muslims… But a picture of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung (with pornography in the background) somehow made the cut.

The New York Times’ hypocrisy regarding displays of “offensive” religious imagery runs unabated, as shown in a Scott Reyburn article in Friday’s Arts section on the sale of Chris Ofili’s controversial painting “The Holy Virgin Mary,” which shows the Virgin Mary clotted with elephant dung against a porn-collage background — and accompanied by a photograph of the offensive work.

Yet when the paper refused to reprint a cartoon of Muhammad that appeared in the Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that resulted in the January 2015 massacre of 12 magazine staffers, it offered this smug, cowardly justification:

“Under Times standards, we do not normally publish images or other material deliberately intended to offend religious sensibilities. After careful consideration, Times editors decided that describing the cartoons in question would give readers sufficient information to understand today’s story.”

Admittedly, there are a few obvious security risks associated with infuriating radical Islamic-terrorist-wannabes with a picture of Muhammad. After all, it’s unlikely that a group of Catholic nuns are going to decide to bomb the New York Times headquarters in New York over a disgusting picture of the Virgin Mary. (Suicide nuns? Sounds like a great band name.)

But, more importantly, the left seems to simply believe that offending Christians isn’t that big of a deal. At issue is the utter hypocrisy and cowardice of the leftist New York Times. Offending the religious sensibilities of some of their audience is evidently acceptable to the Times’ editorial team, but defending the very rights that allow them to operate in a free society, with a simple picture of Muhammad? Well… that’s going a bit too far for the spineless liberals who run the Gray Lady.