Muslim cartoon debate within my own family

I have cousins and uncles spread across the US and although I haven't seen many of them since I was a little girl, we all keep in contact with each other via e-mail. I have a cousin who is a good 20 years older than me, and he sent out a group email about his opinion of the recent Muslim cartoon controversy. He said in part:

Remember that article I sent you about Amsterdam going to open up more quality places to get dope for pain treatment and that maybe the American druggies would be going there. Well, Maybe those folks are already there and the ones that did these images were doped but good. Ha!

I read where the U.S. poll said that a lot of the folks here are on the Muslim side about this cartoon being wrong (Including Former President Clinton), well, I think they are wrong and I think a lot of Americans are wishing they had been the first to do it....

I don't think it is wrong, I think we ought to be publishing these pictures and publishing these cartoons on a grander scale. Why? You should ask, sense we are a country that believes in the freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of the press and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing the burning and desecration of the American Flag because it was freedom speaking. And sense we believe so strongly in those freedoms--Well, The U.S. represents FREEDOM.

So, We need to be printing and sending these pictures out to the world to see and tell the world what we really think of the Muslim Jihad, or something like that.

Wow, do we live in different worlds. I do think Americans have the freedom to publish anything we want, but be prepared for consequences. You cannot publish something that would ruin a person's reputation without the consequence of a libel suit, for example. At first my knee-jerk reaction was "They're just CARTOONS!!" Well, I learned more about the situation and my response to the email follows:

Dear Cousin and anyone else agreeing:

Then don't be offended when someone draws a cartoon ofJesus Christ as a child molester or the Virgin Mary as a whore. You know it works both ways.

At first I thought as you did. But then my Buddhist husband had told me about some occasions when imagesof the Lord Buddha had been expressed in a way that was horribly disrespectful and there were also protests. All religions should be respected. I do not think the violence in these protests of the offended Muslim people is right, though.

Showing the Prophet Muhommud is blaphmemous to ALL Muslims. Showing him with a bomb in his turban is saying that ALL Muslims are terrorists. It's a terrible untruth. Yes, the freedom do express ourselves should always be there but should we publish ANYTHING? Absolutely not.

Amy