Take a wild guess as to what happened when I pointed out that the fact that Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam—who was featured in Jon Stewarts “Rally to Restore Sanity”—supported murdering Salman Rushdie for blasphemy?
Any guesses?
Anyone?
Well, excuses were made for Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam supporting murdering Salman Rushdie for blasphemy and instead, I was besmirched.
What a time to be alive!
I had posted Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and to glorify death for blasphemy supporter Cat Stephens aka Yusuf Islam and on a website that I care not mention someone took me to task and not Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam.
Here is my basic response; the substance of the besmirchment will be evident:
[name withheld] may want to consider reading a story for what it says and ensure that his personal, political, social, etc. views are set aside for a moment. 
Note that not a single word is said in condemnation of Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam who supported the plans to murder Salman Rushdie. Instead, I am besmirched and then [name withheld] relies on his suppositions, inferences and guesses at what I may have meant in stating, “He tries to cast the singer’s views as violent, and therefore as representative of Islam.”
Yet, as any unbiased read can discern; my comments were specific to Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam—which is why I quoted him four times—and to read implications of application of his malicious views as being representative of Islam is to fall victim to the politically correct movement.
In fact, by stating that “when I was asked about, you know, the actual principle of blasphemy and capital punishment” and concluding that “yeah, its there in the Qur’an. I couldn’t deny that” it is Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam who cast his own views as violent and also made them representative of Islam.
Another instance of guess work passing as a review is this, “this guy just wants you to think” and “This guy just wants to scare his readers with the word ‘fatwa.’” Yet, again it was Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam who used the word in denying that he supported it (while he clearly did). The historical context of his statements were the fatwa and my pointing out that fact should not be condemned; the fatwa should be condemned.
Lastly, note [name withheld]’s ad hominems as he recommends putting “effort into figuring out who this guy is and why he writes what he writes”: again, attack the source while ignoring the malicious encouragement of murder for thought crimes. Also, “his loose concepts of grammar and punctuation”: must it be pointed out that facts are not overturned if they are presented via poor grammar. But note that the statement was “his loose concepts of grammar and punctuation give him away.” Does this mean that only certain people employ “loose concepts of grammar and punctuation”? Perhaps they are like me whose second language is English and who are dyslexics (and who, therefore, prefer empathy over ridicule).
Yet, the example of “loose concepts of grammar and punctuation” is a claim to a “misspelling of the word ‘man’ with too many A’s.” I do not know if Jon knows anything about the 1960’s era, when Cat Stevens was popular, but people used to pronounce the word “man” as “maaaaaan.”
Please re-read Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam’s own statements and see if you can find it within yourself to condemn them rather than excusing them. It is as shocking as it is revealing and embarrassing when someone’s views are so very twisted around the politically-correct-pop-culture-de-jour that they actually excuse supporting murdering Salman Rushdie for blasphemy and condemn the person pointing out the facts of the matter.
Long live the messenger!!!
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For more about the Salman Rushdie fracas, see:
A comparison between Dan Brown and “The Da Vinci Code” and Salman Rushdie and “The Satanic Verses”
Satanic Verses Versus Satanic Actions
Cat’s Got Your Tongue? No, But He Wishes He Did
And an addendum: Cat Stephens / Yusuf Islam