The left has a long tradition of bowing down to dictators and others they fear. No, I am not talking about President Obama stooping to kings and other foreign leaders. That is just another example of a long tradition of silliness that is often seen from liberals. What I am talking about is how many on the left live in fear. They try to mask it as respect or cultural reverence but it is fear.
The latest example comes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It seems that these liberal defenders of the freedom of artistic expression, who would never listen to a conservative complaint about a display, have removed a number of depictions of Mohammad from the collection formerly known as the Islamic Galleries. The name “Islamic Galleries” has been changed “Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran Central Asia and Later South Asia.”
Man, that is a mouthful!
Why the changes at the Met? Simple, the people in charge know that Islamic Fundamentalists don’t fool around. If they ask you to remove a drawing of Mohammad because they find any depiction of the founder of their religion objectionable, you take it down or face a fatwa. Think I’m wrong? Ask your local Danish Cartoonist or Dutch filmmaker about artistic tolerance under Islam. The folks running the Met are attached to their heads and know how to take a hint. There will be no long court battle or Constitutional challenge raised.
This is not reverence for culture or religions. It is fear of reprisal by an Islamic extremist. Imagine the Met gets to display some Mapplethorpe photos or perhaps the infamous Piss Christ. I, as a right-wing conservative, ask them to consider my religious and cultural values and take the display down. I get laughed out of the office. Why? Because the guy giving the sermon down at St. Patrick’s isn’t going to try to get one of his more fervent followers to walk up 5th Avenue and cut your head off.