حفظ‎! (Saved!)

Okay so I have the perfect concept for a movie.  It stars a teenage Muslim girl, Afrah, who has a boyfriend recently struggling with coming to terms with his homosexuality.

The Muslim girl, realizing the repercussions of the sin of homosexuality within her religion, decides that she must do everything she can to "save" her boyfriend, even to the point of having sex with him.

The rest, of course, is predictable.  Afrah gets pregnant, and has to go through the struggles of the condemnation of her sins within her religion.  She is treated with disdain by her former friends, and ostracized by most within her religion.  Worst of all, she finds herself becoming close friends within the angsty Jewish girl at school who everyone hates because she was not like the rest of them, and the agnostic handicapped brother of her former best friend.  

The conclusion, of course, is that hard ridden fundamentalist belief in Islam misses the point of the religion.  It is a religion of faith and love, even to those with whom we do not agree.

Actually I just provided the exact synopsis of the movie "Saved!" - a movie designed to mock those in Christianity with such fundamentalist beliefs.  Who are you kidding, a movie like I described could never be made mocking Islam.  Well, not if you want to keep your head.  

The fact is mocking Christian fundamentalism is the easy target, despite the fact that Islam condemns all of the things above as well.

And let's face it, what are the Christians gonna do about it?

For every George Tillman of the world, there are hundreds of stories within Islam with far worse repercussions than being ostracized by your religion.  We're talking, of course, about a religion that routinely executes women for sex out of wedlock (apparently it takes one to tango) and executes homosexuals.  You needn't go further than Ahmedinejad's latest speech to realize some Muslim's views towards Judaism. Which movie would you rather star?

Or worse, which real life scenario would you prefer?

And where does this fear come from? Draw a cartoon of Mohammad day, South Park's 200 and 201st episodes, murder of Swedish cartoonists, death threats and riots. Remember when I asked what Christians do about it?  That's how fundamentalist Muslims react.  So why the discrepancy?

That's where the real Islamophobia comes from.  A country that prides itself on the ability to speak so freely is scared of the backlash from the religion of peace.  So we attack other targets with the same belief because the repercussions are far less severe.  Cause hey, mockery sells, it's just not worth losing your life over.