What many 'gays' and Muslims have in common

Well, besides being utterly humorless, that is. William Kilpatrick, "What GLAAD and Muslim Extremists Have in Common" (Aleteia, January 20, 2014). Excerpts:

GLAAD is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation. The OIC is the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, a 56-state organization which constitutes the largest voting bloc in the UN. At first glance, the two groups would not seem to have much in common—particularly when one considers the general antipathy toward homosexuals in the Muslim world.

Upon further consideration, however, there are some interesting similarities between the two groups. For example, both are in the anti-defamation business....

... in British Columbia a stand-up comedian at a comedy club was fined $15,000 by the courts for making a joke at the expense of two drunken lesbian patrons who were heckling him. The owner of the club was made to pay a fine of $7,500. The consequences of making a joke about Islam are even more intimidating. Monty Python star Michael Palin recently admitted that he won’t parody Islam because “there are people out there without a sense of humor and they are heavily armed.” Molly Norris, a Seattle cartoonist, was a bit slower in grasping the new situation. When she tried to initiate an “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” contest a few years ago she was hit with a death fatwa issued from Yemen by the late Anwar al-Awlaki. On the advice of the FBI, Norris quit her newspaper job, changed her name, and went into hiding. Norris might have avoided her fate if only she had read what the Ayatollah Khomeini had to say about humor. To wit: “An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.”

And then, there's Hilaire Belloc:

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!'