This might be seen as my commentary on Tyler’s piece South Park + Free Speech = a Bad Day for Religion Part 3 – Islam on the silliness of religious bigotry on the freedom of expression

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How far can we throw the net of reason before it is overwhelmed by religious nonsense? Apparently not far enough. In the unending Saga of Stupid Fatwas, we have a new contender for the top of the chain: a fatwa issued for the death of Mickey Mouse.

After you have stopped laughing, start getting angry then continue reading.

It seems no one is out of range for the fundamentalist Muslim clerics and their sordid approaches to life. Not even a cartoon character, beloved by millions (well not me, really, but I can’t/wouldn’t issue ‘holy’ orders against him).

Sheikh Mohamed al-Munajid, a cleric who often appears on Saudi television and who is also a former Saudi diplomat in the United States, said last week that mice were “agents of Satan” and should be killed.

Wait, here comes the best/worst part. Al-Munajid said:

Sharia (Islamic law) calls for the extermination of all mice. That includes the rodents as well as ‘the famous cartoon mouse’.

That’s right: the famous Mickey Mouse. He is blaming Mickey for allowing people to develop emotional attachments – things called ‘feelings’, which I think he’d probably also issue a fatwa on, if he discovered them – toward mice and thus not killing them, as instructed by shari’ah law. Mickey Mouse is to blame. I’m surprised Mickey hasn’t been blamed for other societal ills. I’m hoping that another sexually repressed cleric will vent his insidious despotism in some anserine verdict of holiness.

This is a cleric who is frequently on the media. I do not know what sort of authority he has on anything, considering that even an editorial in the Middle Eastern Times thinks Al-Munajid is being hysterically stupid.

And Al-Munajidis is not just some overzealous faith-head. As the editorial for ME Times says: ”[he] was formerly attached to the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, where he served in the Islamic Affairs Department.”

We are also told that this same cleric had an earlier

rant of Aug. 10 when he took on the Beijing Summer Olympics. The sheikh decried the world’s major sporting event as the ‘Bikini Olympics’ and lashed out at the “immodest dress” worn by female athletes.

He is reported to have issued a fatwa banning women competing in the Olympics; an event he also labeled ’satanic.’

(Another cleric has stated that nakedness during sex undermines the marriage. My friend asked me: “Well what’s worse? Having sex naked or in a bikini?”)

Another article tells us that Sheikh “Unreason” al-Munajid: ”had called for a ban on football, because the shorts worn by the players ‘reveal nakedness’.”

Mickey Mouse, the Beijing Olympics, and football (presumably soccer to other people). My question is not why - I’ve stopped asking these folks – but rather, to my co-thinkers, “why not?”

Why shouldn’t a cleric decry shorts? Why shouldn’t he want the death of a cartoon mouse? Considering the position of superstitious, overzealous faith, my problem does not lie with incongruity. It actually makes sense for a believer in the unwavering dictum of a celestial dictatorship to issue fatwas against revealed human skin. This is not something we can argue with.

I make you aware of this nonsense yet again to raise our awareness to the inherent stupidity and disappointment with our fellow mammals. We can do better than this silly Sheikh. We are better than this. People like him are severely hampering efforts by, for example, King Abdullah from Jordan from fostering interreligious dialogue and moderation with Islam. Seeing satan in everything that moves – cartoon or real – does not help.

I can only end with a sharp note that I wish I had written, but comes from the editorial of the ME Times:

It would be safe to deduce that the only devil here is to be found in the deranged minds of such retarded thinking.

I couldn’t have said it better.