There's a splendid rant curently on Kos' Rec list, titled Islamic Countries can Suck Jesus' Chocolate-covered C***.

Go read it. Come back when you're done.

Unsurprisingly, the title and content have sparked outrage. Thing is, once you strip off the hyperbole, there's some profoundly disturbing stuff, as detailed here on HuffPost.

Islamic countries pushed through a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday urging a global prohibition on the public defamation of religion - a response largely to the furor last year over caricatures published in a Danish newspaper of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad...

The resolution, which was opposed by a number of other non-Muslim countries, "expresses deep concern at attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

Yeah. How'd that happen?

The resolution was adopted by a 24-14 vote with nine abstentions. Canada, Japan and South Korea joined European countries in opposition, primarily citing its excessive focus on Islam and incompatibility with fundamental rights such as the freedoms of speech and thought...

There are 17 Muslim countries in the 47-nation human rights council. Their alliance with China, Cuba, Russia and most of the African members means they can almost always achieve a majority.

Human Rights Watch said the resolution could endanger the basic rights of individuals.

And of course, as Uygur notes, closer to home we have the wackjobs at the Catholic League going into conniptions over the exhibition, now canceled, of an anatomically correct Jesus made of chocolate in a private New York City art gallery. The jury's still out, I think, on whether the League's outrage was sparked by the chocolate ding-dong or the fact that chocolate is brown, which would have made this Jesus unacceptably non-Caucasian.

So what is a Dhimmi? Under Islamic law, a dhimmi is a non-Muslim subject of the Islamic state and Sharia law. The term carries connotations of legal inferiority; Our Lady of the Concentration Camps, Michelle Malkin, can't stop writing about it. I haven't checked, but no doubt she's in hysterics right now; the silly cow is always going on about stuff like this.

And that's too bad, because this deserves an actual Progressive response. There is a clear trend, crossing borders and cultures, of religious extremists imposing speech codes on the rest of us, believers and non-believers alike. Now, the United Nations Human Rights Council - most notable for issuing essentially a daily press release excoriating Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, but not one so far condemning genocide in Darfur or Saudi treatment of women or Chinese oppression in Tibet - has let it be known that its sensitive soul can't abide some heathens dissing Islam. Even when it's entirely appropriate to do so, such as when discussing the role of women or that jihad business or even fatwas against authors. Another thought: am I allowed to discuss that in times past, Arabic gave us words like sugar and algebra - it's true - but these days, well, jihad and fatwa?

In short, the U.N. has placed Islam and only Islam on a special, elevated rhetorical and legal plane. That's uncomfortably close to the dhimmi concept discussed above, brought to you courtesy of some third-world shitholes who happen to have votes at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza.

Thing is, here in the Free West, where we are at liberty to scoff at U.N. gasbags, the Catholic League, Michelle Malkin and some small-ding-donged Muslim clerics sequentially or concurrently, this little bit of religious special pleading should invite nothing but scorn. I'm not going to check my values - you know, stuff like equal rights for women, letting gays live, being appalled by honor killings, the list goes on - at the door because some people don't want their atavistic beliefs examined too closely.

Nor am I willing to be silent about the stuff the UNHRC is silent about - like the fact that some of the countries sponsoring this ridiculous bit of drool have the worst actual human rights records imaginable.

Cuba puts gays into concentration camps. Saudi Arabia makes our own Middle Ages look like a tea party in Windsor Great Park any day of the week. China? The world's biggest prison. Russia? Isn't that where they kill journalists? Morocco? Currently waging a war of occupation much like our own efforts in Iraq, except they've been doing it longer and with less TV coverage; and then again, it's not as if their people can do what we can, which is protest and vote. Djibouti? Fuck Djibouti.

Occasionally, spades need to be called spades. Today is one of the days when I thank my lucky stars for being born in a free country, where I can laugh at this kind of crap, Most of the world, outside of Europe and North America, laboring as it does under feudal despotism and governed by the venal, the cruel, and the corrupt, is not so lucky.