Double Standard?

I'm disturbed today. Something strange in the way our world reacts to things. So Rolling Stone puts Kanye West on the cover with a crown of thorns on his head accompanied by a story entitled "The Passion of Kanye West." The National Endowment for the Arts funds an art piece called "Piss Christ," which depicts a crucifix immersed in urine and another piece with a portrait of the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung. More? The now-cancelled series "The Book of Daniel," in which Jesus apparently (cause I never saw the show) appears as a bohemian-type self-esteem booster. All touted by the media as being courageous and bold. Any whimper of protest from Christians is shot down as a violation of freedom of speech.

So a Danish newspaper commissions some cartoons of the prophet Mohammed because a children's book wanted illustrations for a book (CORRECTION: because it wanted to test what editor-in-chief Carsten Juste described as "an article of self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world"). They publish the cartoons, other newspapers follow suit in support of freedom of speech, and pockets of the Muslim world erupt in protest condemning the newpaper, threatening violence and beheadings. Alternative media attempts to support freedom of speech (see Michelle Malkin's blog for a roundup). But mainstream media? Nope. CNN, NBC, ABC, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, etc all pass in an attempt to be sensitive to the Muslims out of respect for Islam, which doesn't allow images of Mohammed to be made (somewhere, could it be the Ten Commandments, I remember reading something about prohibitions about graven images of God also).

I don't know if there's complete equivalence of the situations. I don't know if I agree that the best way to support freedom of speech is to continue publishing the cartoons, which futher inflames the radical Muslims. But doesn't it seem strange that the same media that denigrates Christ, is so sensitive about Mohammed?

Clarice