I’m late to the game, but I’d like to share some things I was thinking a couple weeks back, when everybody was talking about “Draw Muhammad Day” (is that the acceptable spelling this week? It’s hard to keep track). Chances are you’ve thought similar thoughts, but I haven’t seen the argument framed in exactly the terms I’d wish.

First of all, I’m all for civic courtesy. Going out and purposely insulting somebody’s religion (even if it’s Islam, which I consider a delusion of the devil) is bad taste, bad manners, and bad behavior as a neighbor. As a Christian, I consider it not only unloving but counterproductive for evangelism purposes. I would never do it, if all things were equal.

But there are events and statements that do make all things unequal. Like a planet dropped into a solar system, they change all the orbits and disrupt the orderly functioning of things.

Violence is the most radical of these. When violence is added to the mix, everything is altered.

When somebody declares that they intend to exercise a Murder Veto on the First Amendment, offending them ceases to be a faux pas. It becomes a kind of a duty for everyone who cares about freedom of expression. If you can’t insult the source of the threat yourself, you have to at least support those who will. Even if, under normal circumstances, those people are scuzzballs.

Because constitutional rights are more important than civility. Incivility will not destroy freedom. The threat of violence can.

The Murder Veto must not be tolerated, or we are lost.