Thursday, August 07, 2008

None Dare Call it Islamofascism

But I don't know what else to call it when the threat of violence prevents a book from being published. Censorship in America, pure and simple. I can't really blame the publishers cowering, after all, I stay happily anonymous in my blog. But please, I can blame the Islamic "scholar" who started the fuss.

In an interview, Ms. Spellberg told me the novel is a "very ugly, stupid piece of work." The novel, for example, includes a scene on the night when Muhammad consummated his marriage with Aisha: "the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion's sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life." Says Ms. Spellberg: "I walked through a metal detector to see 'Last Temptation of Christ,'" the controversial 1980s film adaptation of a novel that depicted a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. "I don't have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography."

Excuse me, how is depicting the marital relationship that everyone agrees occured (and which I presume is in the Koran) playing with history, and depicting a relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalen which contradicts the Bible not playing with sacred history? Ms. Spellburg is willing to go through metal detectors to see any film which denigrates any religion EXCEPT her own.

I would probably never read this novel, but I believe it should be published, just like The Last Temptation of Christ, Lady Chatterly's Love, Huckleberry Finn and all the other banned books. This is a very chill wind that blows through American freedom of speech.