Sauce for the goose

Back when many in the Islamic world were going nuts over some Danish cartoons poking fun at Mohammed, a lot of Christians pooh-poohed such vitriol over what were, after all, cartoons.  Those Muslims are so thin-skinned, we heard, compared to “us.”

Well, some Christians have had an ox of their own gored, and the results aren’t much prettier — at least in Malaysia.

A Malaysian newspaper is facing calls to shut down after it published an image of Jesus holding a cigarette and what appeared to be a can of beer.

Malaysia’s Muslim-led government closed two publications last year for carrying controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Now some members of Malaysia’s minority religions say they want the same treatment over this latest incident.

Guys, guys, guys … while it’s perfectly fair (and ironic) to ask for equitable treatment, this doesn’t really help things.  It would be a much better “lesson” to show that Christian faith in Jesus isn’t affected by insults — and, indeed, in light of Christ’s teaching about turning the other cheek, it would be even more fitting.

Of course, there may be some other reasons besides religion behind the calls for the paper to be closed.

The paper has since issued an apology, explaining that a graphics editor had mistakenly taken the image from the internet. Most of Malaysia’s churches appear to have been appeased.

Not so though the Malaysian Indian Congress, an ethnic Tamil political party in the governing coalition, most of whose members are Hindu. A senior party official has demanded that Makkal Osai’s editor be sacked and the paper closed.

Interestingly, Makkal Osai has been very critical of the Malaysian Indian Congress, which owns a rival Tamil-language newspaper.

 Ah.  Cui bono indeed.