We are all Ayatollahs now

Fatwas against offensive speech are now issued daily, by the Western Twitterati as much as by Eastern religious tyrants. Intolerance of so-called blasphemy against Islam and Muhammad is now as pronounced in trendy Western circles as it is in Islamic imam circles. The stunningly arrogant belief that anyone who offends one's faith or ideology or identity deserves to be severely reprimanded - the belief that motored the Ayatollah's death sentence on Rushdie - is now the central belief of virtually every new political movement in Western academic and public life.

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