Everybody Be Molly Norris Day

Update: Greetings, Naked Villains! Enjoy your visit!

The Seattle cartoonist who accidentally became the point woman for Everybody Draw Mohammed Day has gone into hiding, and has been forced to adopt a new identity.

Over at Quid Plura, Jeff Sypeck has a powerful response. Like him, I’m outraged, and I’m sickened by the fact that our society seems only too willing to shrug and say there’s nothing we can do, and that we can’t build multiculturalism without breaking a few cartoonists. While I appreciate the efforts of folks like Naif Al-Mutawa, there don’t seem to be enough of him.

“Islamophobia” is a term that gets bandied about these days, with the ever-popular rhetorical effort to define disagreement with the multicult as mental illness. However, Molly Norris isn’t being stalked by rogue Episcopalians or offended Baha’i. The fact is that she’s been forced to go to ground by deranged Muslims. Meanwhile, saying that we have to be careful not to offend the deranged is a cowardly way out — and it simply makes all of us hostage to whoever we perceive as being least rational.

I’m sorry, Molly — America has let you down, at least in part because we’d rather do that than admit that some people don’t deserve a place in the American experience. And I’m sorry because we’re all Molly Norris.