MUSLIM LAWYER SAYS HE LOVES HIS RELIGION — AND HIS “SOUTH PARK”

CNN’s website on Monday posted a commentary by Arsalan Iftikhar, whom it identified as an international human rights lawyer and founder of TheMuslimGuy.com, who wrote that he was both a Muslim and a fan of South Park. Iftikhar maintained that the thinly veiled threat against the lives of South Park‘s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, emanated from “two extremist buffoons” and that the attention they received from the mainstream media “ended up giving a national platform to these unknown knuckleheads, which only helped to tarnish the reputation of Muslims in America further.” He faulted the press for not giving equal attention to remarks like those of Ann Coulter, who has publicly advocated killing Muslim leaders or converting them to Christianity, and televangelist Pat Robertson, who has said that Muslims should not be allowed to serve as federal judges. Iftikhar concluded, “Sadly, instead of dealing with the real cases of racism, bigotry and xenophobia regularly injected into our public airwaves by some of our political leaders and opinion makers, we have instead allowed ourselves to get sucked into a faux controversy involving two no-name idiots with a radical website taking on four pre-pubescent, fictitious cartoon characters from South Park, Colorado.” (On the other hand, following the publication of the Danish cartoon of Muhammad in 2006, TV covered large-scale demonstrations throughout Europe, including one in London in which marching protesters held signs reading “Exterminate those who mock Islam.”)