A Message from the Executive Director

Tom Flynn

You've probably heard of the craven attempt on the life of Danish editorial cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. He and his grandchild were attacked in his home by a Somali assailant who was shot by police and now faces criminal proceedings. Westergaard drew the best-known of the 2005 "Muhammad" cartoons that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and inflamed radical Muslim anger worldwide. You've seen it: it's the cartoon showing an angry-looking bearded Muslim man whose turban is a bomb with a lighted fuse. Is it Muhammad or just a representation of a generic jihadist? No one knows, and outraged Islamists don't care. They just condemn it as "blasphemy" and have launched several attempts to assassinate Mr. Westergaard over the years. (No, this was not the first.)
 

This event simply underscores the necessity for secular humanist activists and organizations to stand foursquare in defense of free expression...in defense of the right to criticize religion through argument and art...and even in defense of the right to blaspheme.
 
That's why the Council for Secular Humanism is sponsoring a Free Expression Cartoon Contest. We're doing it in cooperation with the Center for Inquiry's Campaign for Free Expression. For another week and a half, the Council invites professional and amateur artists to submit their sharpest, cleverest, and most ingenious creations touching on that most sensitive subject: religion. (Though secular humanism is not a religion, cartoons about secular humanists and other activists who live without religion are welcome, too.)