“Would you tell a joke mocking the Prophet Mohammed?”
Being a comedian who is Muslim, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked that question over the years. And in the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Paris, I am again being asked it over and over.
My answer before the attack was that I have never told jokes mocking the Prophet Mohammed, nor have I told jokes mocking Jesus, Moses or any other religious figures. And now after the attack, I’m certainly not going to go out of my way to write jokes about those subjects. I refuse to alter my freedom of expression because of terrorists.
Yet some — mostly on the right — have insisted to me, via social media, that I must now do jokes mocking the Prophet Mohammed. They frame it—bizarrely– as a litmus test for my patriotism to America or my support for freedom of expression.
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